E-Z bake posting

Instructions:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

“Reprise”
Just like the warbling sound of an Oriole twittering beyond the flowers,
each step she takes makes me tingle:
a waist just made for dancing, lovely and lithe,
a thousand kinds of alluring charms,
myriad kinds of graceful motions,
just like a weeping willow before the evening breeze.

Wang Shifu
The Story Of The Western Kings

The Longman Anthology Of World Literature Vol. B
waiting just below my left hand as I read these elsewhere

I’m not crabby, I’m pensive

Earworm Radio: Polovetsian Dances

I suppose the reasoning behind the mood swinger behavior is the blood sugar freakout. I have new drugs blah, blah, blah. And I see someone tipped off the Dad who is now on my case about it. My feeling is that it will get back under control once the weather is better for walking.

And that is the whole real deal, that spring is here. I walked out of music class on Thursday and I distinctly smelled the spring thaw smell. I walked by the snowdrop house and the snowdrops were up and showing just the teensiest bit of colour (white technically).

And I’ve had the urge to clean all weekend. Deep cleaning type stuff. I cleaned out, organized and polished the huge music central cabinet. Then I took on my closet/ art room and other than needing to organize the beading supplies and go back through the paper supplies it’s done. Bedrooms next. And I suppose, sigh, all the paperwork I’m behind on.

I keep looking at the windows and wanting to do them. Well OK, technically I don’t want to do them, but I want them done.

You would think that being off school I would be writing more but as it turns out I’m not. I think I write more when I’m already writing more. There’s logic for ya.
But I have to go in for three math tests today so I just want to get that over and done with. And it’s snowing. But that’s just part of the last hurrah of winter. right?

That damn cat!

She gave me a freaking heart attack again yesterday after she puked up something so completely freakish that I assumed her next move would be to keel over and die.
Frantic phone call to the vet. Who kept saying,
“it’s something she ate”
I told her we positively hadn’t fed her anything, the sheer volume was insane and she couldn’t have gotten into anything, as I was standing in the kitchen and definitely nothing was disturbed.
As I was pacing around, I suddenly spied in the dining room, (drum roll please) a neatly opened bag of Eukanuba dog food hidden under a chair.
We are talking about a factory sealed bag which she just casually opened as if she had opposable digits. Then wolfed down a cup of without chewing.

There is a story where my neighbor once called me and said
”Stella, why is there a picked clean chicken carcass in the middle of my dining room floor that used to be in my garbage?”
I replied “ Wuh, wuh, why are ya askin’ me?”
“Because of your cat”
My feeble protest “But she’s right here with me, wait, hang on, I’m coming over”
So I walk next door, the suspect walking out with me.

Next door I am faced with a perfect little carcass, just as he said.
So I attempt to explain that while the evidence does seemingly indicate some critter of some kind, I just couldn’t possibly see how my little Hosha could have been the culprit.
When all of a sudden, she casually trips on down his stairs, all fa la la, walks over, jumps on the counter and looks down into the trash bin.

Turns out she had climbed onto his second story roof, cat burgled the bathroom screen and let herself in and then out, without leaving any other traces other than the obvious.

Gladnesses

I am officially on break as of 2:00pm today. It’s not quite as great as it sounds though, as I have so much schoolwork to do. If I want to get ahead of the game I should write my psych paper while on break. As well as my piano teacher sprang a paper on us on Tuesday that will be due upon returning.

Then there is the 3 math tests I have to complete as well as 2 sets of math homework. Good thing I have a math mistress now. Beat me, whip me, make solve slope and intersect equations.

I thought it was hard to stay at school yesterday, well it’s really hard to get motivated to go today.

Ok this turned out to be tinged with melancholy after all.

Sadnesses

My good dog friend Memphis is dead. It’s sad. She was so ill though, it’s the way it had to be. So I visited Ro and hung out with him for an hour or so, as she was his dog pack. He was nervous and wanted a lot of love.
People seem to like this picture I took of her last summer, so I reprint it.

I was awoken with leg cramps this am. I am old. I remember my Father going through the same thing starting at about my age. I guess it’s time to start eating a banana a day.

Health issues arose with a fury yesterday, in the space of one (I thought) casual Dr. appt. I was put on 2 new medications, scheduled into the sleep clinic and required to test twice a day for 2 weeks at which time I am to see the Doc again. Which reminds me I’ve forgotten already this am. I absolutely hate testing. We had had a deal where I didn’t have to if I got my a1c checked regularly. So much for that.

The makeup meal

For only twice the money, $13.00, and twice the effort, (which wasn't all that much) we had the great meal we should have had yesterday.
Roast pork tenderloin medallions in a mustard/garlic/caramelized onion sauce.
Lightly steamed and buttered asparagus and green beans.
Toasted pinenut couscous.

And you know what does taste good out of a box? Couscous, that’s what.
And there is enough veggies and couscous left for a lunch. So there.

What I did realize getting the couscous from the cupboard is that there is another box of the same brand soup mix, this one being Creamy White Asparagus.
I’m frightened Auntie Em.

I’ve got an evil secret.

Because I’m an evil wench.
But the last time I divulged more than I meant to, having been challenged by some random reader, they never came back to hear the divulgmentizing anyway.
So don’t bother to challenge, but I am just terrible at secrets and had to release some of the pressure somehow. Yes I know, it’s at your expense, sorry.

Cranky pants

Earworm Radio - Soft to Touch - The Bottom 99

I am examining a phenomena in my head here - After falling asleep at the computer, in front of the TV, I was awoken by Oliver who was saying he’s still hungry. And I was cranky as hell.
Now how does this happen? I had been ok, not happy about the cheese soup debacle but certainly not devastated, and half an hour later I was considering ripping some heads off.

I even yelled at the cat who, ever since being in recovery from her terrible illness has developed a few character flaws. For one, mewing constantly and piteously whenever humans are in the downstairs area with her.

Was it some toxic chemical from the soup? Was it the being beamed by the cathode devil? Was it off gassing from the computer?

Why does one suddenly become the wicked witch? And trust me, I’ve never been particularly subject to the hormonal thing so that is not the easy answer.....

Welcome to Turtle Island

Sometimes even a decent cook like me needs to just not have to deal with it.
So after getting home from my music lesson at 5:30 I didn’t feel like cooking the pork tenderloin and yet we were dead hungry.
So I looked in the cupboard and instead of going for the known quantity of the Progresso Clam Chowder, I decided to try the Turtle Island Just For Joy Cheddar Beer Soup (in a box). Guaranteeing just a 15 minute cook time.

You add it to water, add beer and it cooks all up into a gooey orange plethora of tastin’ like cardboard. It even comes with a little foil packet of Genuwine Tabasco and they jovially encourage you to jazz it up with such.
Well here’s the deal, it’s a really good idea to, because after all, spicy cardboard is ever so much better than plain cardboard.

I just paid 6 bucks for something I could have pulled out of the recycling bin for free.
Remember awhile ago how I said that I did not trust blue food and I DID trust orange food? I’m rethinking that even as we speak.

Rift in the time space continuum

Once, when I was a wrung out, strung out, addled 25 year old, I had a strange conversation with my Mom.
She was notorious for not liking music so much, which is very tough in a music oriented family. Her refuge was Folk music and she really started getting in to it. She was all about Pete Seeger, Josh White Jr., Odetta, all of that.

So, one day I was around and I said offhandedly,
“You know Mom, there's this new album out that I think you might really like, it’s Paul Simon’s new one”
She sucked in her breath and her face lit up.
“Graceland?”
I looked up, startled.
“Yeah Graceland.”
In unison-
“I LOVE that album!!”
The universe imploded, we were thrown into a reverse negatronic void, and that’s the likeliest explanation of how it all started spinning out of contr, resulting in how G.W. didn’t get elected.

Eraworm Radio: Sweet Nothing - The Bottom 99

Pillow Blog

We are reading excerpts from Sei Shonagon’s Pillowbook.
I finally had to comment that I felt that if she had been writing now, she would definitely be a blogger.

She lists. Things like hateful things, depressing things, things that have lost their power etc. And under rare things she lists:

A silver tweezers that is good at plucking out the hair.

I find it really, really strange that 1300 years ago a woman found it as important to celebrate a decent pair of tweezers as when I today, am in love with my good tweezers and watch them jealously from wandering away.

What does this mean? That people are the same, the same, across all time and space?
Or that she and I are spoiled? That the items that she treasured as a fabulously wealthy courtesan, are treasures that are easily accessible to me (though a good tweezers is still rare) as technically a low income person in 21st century America?

Edit: I changed it from 1600 to 1300, it's that damn math again.

Oh boy, time for another diatribe

I am informed via Maproom Systems and subsequently Ypsidixit, that Ypsilanti is seriously considering phasing out public bus service. This sucks. As if our little neck of the woods wasn’t already heading down the tubes at an insane rate.

I have always thought that keeping an eye on the relationship between Ypsi and Ann Arbor was likely to be a good indicator of the realities of socioeconomic status.

Well, it’s like watching your siblings family get the economic shaft, knowing their kids are starving, and discussing what a shame that is around your own groaning board, while little Muffy comes bouncing in from her tennis lesson.

The dependancy on bus service is, I suspect much more intense in Ypsi. Not for buzzing downtown and avoiding parking while you shop. But for school, work, and medicine. For many, there is not any alternative available. Not like here, where for most people you’re merely being gently urged not to drive one of your three or four family cars.

You’all know I take the bus everyday. This is because I don’t and won’t drive. I have a car, I leave it here for Oliver to use. I don’t want to drive it, especially out to school everyday and have it sit in the really crowded lot, and have him stuck at home with all his appointments and crap to get to which until some future devastation are harder to get to on AATA than me going virtually straight to school and back on “the ride”.

I see hundreds of students from Ypsi relying on the bus everyday to go to school to try to change their socioeconomic status. I also have this plan to transfer to EMU. That would be fucked with no bus service.

So the upshot is there is a online petition, presented with the idea that cutting bus service in Ypsi will only serve to further devastate their fraying infrastructure by negatively affecting the rate of new home buyers, by destroying the livelihoods and the ability of a large chunk of the most vulnerable population to shop, take their children to daycare, and get medical attention other than ER etc.
The petition is here-
http://www.ypsidixit.com/blog/
As you know, I can’t hyper link despite the good intentions of NigelPatel and MakeTeaNot War in attempting to teach me how. But really, is it that hard to cut and paste in order to help your sisters and brothers not lose their essential services? It’s easier than pulling out your wallet or going down to the shelter to volunteer. Or bringing them to your table.

It’s official

I’m trying a new math tutor. The old one was a total wash. So I’ve got a 17 year old Tibetan woman on the line to step in. It does feel a little odd to be being tutored by teenagers but this is the way of my world, just suck it up and get humble.
I wrote to my previous instructor to arrange to complete the incomplete, which sounds poetic to me. I told him that I almost had the A-ha moment during the graphing explanation, but it slipped out of my grasp and left me with a case of brain freeze instead.

What is this graphing of non-linear equations on the intercepts crap anyway? I really have to insist that I have been living in the real world for about 30 years now and I don’t need to know this is in my life.
Now, I do keep getting these tickles of Hermetic laws and such, and that is interesting, I think the history of the development of these concepts would be more up my alley though.

TMI about IBS

Math literally makes me sick. Everytime it gets really bad and I’m really stressed about it, I get IBS. I have spent a good portion of this am in the bathroom. I’m going in anyway, after having sent email to the instructor explaining why I think that I am not as stupid as I appear to be in class.

Duh

Yesterdays earworm radio: Laying in the Tall Grass - Quatro Veda

I admit I started thinking this way due to an old post by Dan Tobin, but -
The one who hits reply all on emails, is the same one who pulls the stop request cord on the bus when we’re pulling in to the transfer station.

Secret order of Kramden II

I now think the crossing guards are in on it too.

VD conversation:

Him: etc. etc..... valentines day is coming up.
Me: (nervous due to not having planned for anything, as usual) Yeah, but we don’t do that, right?
Him: Yeah, right, but if I ever had money I might get you some flowers or sumpin.
Me: That right there, just covered you forever.

Lima, Peru

it’s you

Someone

is about to be lucky 2000

Sun-Kist-Kuan-yin

Yawn

Earworm Radio:
Bell Bottom Blues - Derek & The Dominoes

I’m keeping a sleep journal now as well. There's some question as to whether I have a sleep disorder. I can tell you one thing, it appears I wake up an average of four times a night. Perhaps that’s a good place to start looking.

My mission, should I choose to accept it

Earworm Radio:
Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies

I’ve noticed so many people taking “blogging” breaks or just disappearing altogether. It makes me wonder what happens to burn them out?

It could be that job and/or social pressures are too much.

It could be that they are not getting the recognition they deserve or feel they deserve.

It could be that they feel dried up or something.

My attitude is this:
OK, yes, I’m somewhat in it for the false sense of fame. But I do try to keep some perspective. This is for writing. I’ve always tried to keep journals and was terrible at it. Yet I seem to be able to sustain my interest this way far longer than I’ve ever been able to previously. As long as I’m entertained it should be good enough.

That’s all that I can write for anyway, since I have absolutely no ability to have any perspective on my writing - I go only by the measure of “am I entertaining myself?” and so far the answer is generally yes.

One of the best compliments I’ve ever received is - “it doesn’t make me cringe”.
I’m not being facetious, that was a top notch compliment to me, because there is so much that makes me cringe also.

One of my acquaintances (who obviously must be nameless) has won awards and kudos, and yet every time I read their work I just grit my teeth and don’t say what I really think. I’m pretty sure it’s not good. But I have to suppose that if it’s entertaining them, then it has good in it. It does have some good for me, because I think “ if they can do that, then I most certainly can”.

I started to get bummed out because my readership has gone from infinitesimal to almost non existent, but then I just reminded myself that this is just another facet of the great experiment:
A) Can I maintain a steady schedule of writing?
B) Can I continue to practice? Using the writing of papers, writing the songs and poetry, and writing here, to do what I’m told a writer is supposed to do, spending quite a bit of time writing, and also editing myself.
C) Can I capture some of my crazy, crazy memories and get them written down and collected?

And the pictures, they are meant to have a purpose also.

Why do the fotos suck lately?

Because with the stupid cell phone, the necessary glasses and the required TI-83 graphing calculator, taking up SO much room in my bag, I haven’t been carrying my camera everywhere I go, nearly as much.

I also think I’m a little staled on it right now, as what am I gonna show you? Here's some snow, here's some gray shit, here's some more snow.

Benign neglect, the story of my life

Have I neglected to mention The Bottom 99 link over there lately? I fear I have.

The first song to play is Orion, a bouncy little number which is actually a sad, sad, song. Then you should check out Full Still which is a quirky, funky rocker.

All recorded here in the music room of Chateau Cerise by Oliver who is teaching himself the mysteries of the Pro tools as fast as he can (which if you have any knowledge of it, you know the learning curve is quite steep).

We have ten new songs in the works and will throw up some new content when we can get some copyright stuff dealt with.

The Secret Order of Kramden

We have 2 major bus systems here, the AATA city bus and the University Bus Service. Since the #3 to school drives through both Central and North Campus, we see tons of busses during the 1/2 hour drive time.

After watching for months I’ve determined that it would appear that ALL bus drivers, upon encountering each other, give a high sign.

Is this a secret society?

If so, is there a Secret Order of Norton?

What's really going on down there?

Freaky Deaky

Earworm Radio Today:
Groove Is In The Heart - Dee- Lite
Yesterday:
Bike - Pink Floyd

Yesterday was a really weird day. Due to my usual procrastination, I had to get up at 5:00 am to finish my big presentation for Classical Piano Class on music through the twentieth century. I got it done and printed at like 9:45, I leave for the bus at 10:00.

After that it was a patch of relatively smooth sailing, Lit class and then on to music. The presentation went really well and now yet another teacher is saying I should become a teacher. I did not however, tell her what I told T.B. English teacher which is that I kind of hate stupid people, and would want to wring necks and clunk heads on a regular basis. So probably it’s best that I leave that alone.

On getting home I took my, one hour, don’t bug me I’m watching Dr. Phil break, then had to shop for the twice yearly, compulsory offering ceremony I had to do last night. The idea being that the rest of the evening would be spent napping, cleaning the meditation room and setting up the altar and such, before doing the actual ceremony.

I had finally gotten motivated and was polishing and dusting around 9:00 pm when the doorbell pealed like mad. I’ve got one of those old-fashioned crank doorbells and from the way it was being ground on I was sure it was an unexpected visit from Oshan who is an extreme doorbell ringer.

Nope, not at all, instead it was some poor jamoke who had been clubbed down and robbed in the street outside my house. Needless to say, there was an hour and a half interruption to the routine.

It was interesting to note that:

a) I had like two seconds to make a decision whether he was for real or a psycho killer, and I was able to make that decision correctly and fast.

b) That whole Chris Titus thing, about how people from dysfunctional families are great to have around in an emergency? It’s really true. I had the cops on the phone, the kettle on the stove and was giving him a friendly hug and telling him it would be OK within 15 seconds. It just doesn’t faze me anymore.

As I was telling Oliver,
Once you’ve seen your best friend get shot 6 times, (he lived), have jumped out of a moving car, watched your drunk neighbor potentially bleeding his life out on your porch (he lived), or had to hit some guy in the head with an iron and jump out a window after being abducted and gang-raped, etc. etc. etc. it all just turns into, immediately create and implement a mental to-do list, when something freaky happens. I was far more comfortable dealing with this, than giving my presentation, where I was shaking and my mouth was all dry.

Nitro-

I just thought you'd get a kick out of the fact that I show you logged on at 11:34am for 34 seconds today

The thing about the crows.

Earworm Radio today:
Sunrise - The Bottom 99

Last night I was sitting here with the curtains still open around dusk. I noticed that the crows were back and watched what I thought was the smaller, offshoot, murder wheel around in a seemingly desultory fashion for quite awhile.
Then Oliver looked out the front and commented that “There’s so many of them that some of the trees look fully leafed”.
I got up to see, and once I could see a bigger chunk of sky, I realized that we had the whole 400 to 500 of them trying to roost across the street. I jumped up and grabbed one of the zillion sweaters laying around and went out to the porch.

It was purely nuts. There were crows everywhere. Four trees were covered, with hundreds still in the sky. Then a good portion moved to the other side of the street and started settling in, when I heard my neighbor come yelling and banging out of his back door and the whole dang flock took wing at once. The noise was spectacular. The sight was amazing, a little creepy, but mostly very awe inspiring.

There is a neat book called “Bird Brains” by Candace somebody (Wallace maybe?) that I read when I was working at the tattoo studio, primarily about corvids and how interesting they are. Subsequently, even though birds kind of freak me out, I think corvids are really, very cool.

Glasses

PRO’s:
I can see.
I actually like the way they look.
They were not bank breaking.
I do think some fatigue is lessening. So, less eyestrain.

CON’s:
More crap to carry around.
I’ve started forgetting them.
I cannot bear it when they’re dirty.
There’s all this weird shiny stuff and refraction's everywhere now.

Her weapons were her crystal eyes

I was fascinated by Bullfinches Mythology as a kid. Long before I learned to read I would look at the pictures for hours. I especially adored Botocelli’s Venus On The Half Shell. I’m pretty sure that was when I became a Goddess worshipper.

I mention this because on this weeks Coronation Street they showed a room which had a Venus On The Half Shell bead curtain. Not painted but beaded. I know it’s like the tackiest, weirdest, thing ever but I totally love it. I want one so bad for the closet in the meditation room.

I wonder where the hell one would look for such a thing as they saw as a prop on a British TV soap opera?

blogspot craziness

This was to be the picture for the last post - But- Blogspot seems to be having some real issues at the moment. So if you're able to get here right now, lechiem to you.

Auggh! Cats!

Ear worm radio: Sunrise - Alice Cooper

Solitary crow
Flips dawns cloud pufs from it's wings
it's mission secret

I got up and the cat wanted out. I opened the door for her and heard the crows.
We have this huge flock (I think they’ve estimated 4 to 5 hundred) that lives on John street. In the morning the flock breaks into several murders and they take off foraging all over town. You can hear them all over. I think carking is the best way to describe their calls. It really has a dog like quality in the sound.

So there I stood on the freezing porch, in my bare feet and underwear, and I had to pee so bad, like one only does first thing on waking, but I just wanted to listen to and possibly see, the crows.

It was really foggy, but the air was so crisp the fog made sparkles, and felt shiny instead of wooly. If fog is like a sweater, then this was a glittery, steppin' out fancy, kind of sweater. Which, if it actually was a sweater you know just by looking at it, is bound to be itchy.

Anyway, a murder showed up and wheeled three or four times carking like mad, before heading back over into downtown. The cat came back from her little expotition, (she only takes very short ones nowadays).
I went back inside, took care of a few things and here I sit with lap full of cat and computer.

It’s a strange week, I skipped a math class and two classes were canceled due to teacher illness, I’ve had Indian food 4 times and that can only be good. There’s big doin’s at the temple, one of the twice yearly retreats is occurring and I’m actually participating for 2 of the 10 days. Which in itself is weird, I never go to retreats anymore. The time and money involved is really more than I can handle.
And it was very odd to not know 70% of the people anymore. I suspect that if I was to go to some of the regular teachings the ratio would become even larger.

It was odd, the same phenomena occurred there that I’ve been experiencing in many of my classes, I end up sitting as an island of myself. I don’t stink (other than cigarettes), I just think I put off this isolationist vibe. I am definitely less open than I have been at many junctures of my life.

Due to kitten on the keyboard issues, having had to go back and turn off caps lock twice, delete a string of tildas and spaces, and getting the dew claw treatment on my hand trying to enforce boundaries, I’m leaving off now.

What? Where?

• Why ear worm radio?
I think it’s far more interesting what people are choosing subconsciously as opposed to consciously.

• Rumour Control
Where does the rumour, that Red Rose Tea is red because it has dried beef blood in it, come from? It can’t possibly be true can it? There is nothing about beef on the ingredient list........

• Stella proverbs
It’s never any thing, it’s your relationship to it.
or
It’s not the stuff, it’s where you’re stuck.
or
Samsara, you’re soaking in it.

• On anglicized spellings
I’m not stuck up or an anglophile. I just think they look prettier. Except tyre and gaol.

• They are calling yesterday “The day civil rights died”

• Writing songs is my NY Times crossword

• I wish I was just plain funny, like Nitro. As opposed to occluded, convoluted and weird funny, like me.

• T. Casey Brennan, one of the writers for Vampirella, has been around this area for quite awhile, he used to crash at EvilPete’s alot. He used to walk by my house every day, going into town in the AM and coming back at night. Now he’s all over the message boards where I hang out. He’s promoting his new punk band. I think he’s about a hundred, he says he shot JFK.

• Have I mentioned how much I hate math? Non-Linear equations now. I have begun praying to the Gods of Math, Hermes, Thoth, Chronos and Manjushri.

Ear worm radio today: I Want You Back - The Jackson 5