Mike is back! And back with a vengeance. His first “real” post back is about his trip to the scrapbook store, which he calls the Temple of Doom.
Then I walked in. At least 20 curious eyes turned to me and the store fell to a hush. The music stopped… It was like the old west, when the outlaw walks into the saloon.
[…]
As I’m checking out the counter lady smiled as my predicament once again. This time she happily stopped cat blogging to return to torturing me. “Do you think your wife would be interested in any of our classes or crops?” she asked. A sick smile settled over her face as waited for confusion and panic over the word “crop” to set in. But oh no, not this time you frumpy mistress of pain…. ShishSha! I know that word. Thanks to the sweatpants wearing queen of all things scrapbooky (…) I have a scrapbooking vocabulary not even a guy with a Queer Eye could match. That’s right evil cat blogging scrap nazi…your dragon style kung fu is mighty, but my tiger style is even mightier.
And with that, I’m off to edit my template. Can’t let a quote like THAT get by without adding it, can I?
A Severed Head
by Iris Murdoch
I HATED this book. I hated the pretentious, shallow, self-absorbed characters. I hated the melodramatic, trite, stupid plot. I hated that no one learned anything, and no one seemed to care. I hated that the book tried to rely on shock value (without anything being very shocking) without developing either characters, setting, or plot with three dimensions. The only thing I liked about this book was that I didn’t have to pay for it.
I’ve been doing a lot of mini-albums lately. I tried for awhile to sell them on eBay, but I’m not willing to sell as low as you have to before you build a following, and I’m not willing to stick it out long enough to BUILD a following. The pay just isn’t worth it. So instead, I’m making them as gifts. It’s tough to photograph them well, though, I’m finding.
Tonight I also did a layout for one of the mailing lists I’m on. I love the way it turned out! It’s pretty simple, but I still love it. Picture in the extended entry.
An IM conversation I had tonight with a friend:
Steve: Latest gun law
silliness here: same guy that authored the .50 BMG ban wants to require
semi-auto handguns to have the means to microstamp the gun serial
number and other info on the bullet each time one is fired.
Dana: Oh for fuck’s sake
Dana: Are you serious?
Steve: Yup.
Steve: It’s no wonder I keep buying guns. Buy ‘em before I can’t anymore.
Dana: Indeed
Dana: That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard
Dana: (re the microstamping)
Dana: Has he ever actually SEEN a gun?
Steve: Or, has he ever heard of a file?
Steve: Though I imagine the law isn’t about helping
police to identify handguns. I think it’s more about whittling away gun
rights. Create too many hoops for people or gun manufacturers to jump
through.
Dana: Yup
Dana: And these are the same people who jump through their own asshole to prevent doctors from advising
13-year-old girls that they’re about to inflict pain on a fetus before
they perform an abortion on them without their parents’ consent.
It’s a “spread the love” kinda day here at Note-It Posts. In addition to a most wonderful husband, I also have a terrific bunch of friends, who offer me alternately (according to my needs) a kiss on the cheek, a pat on the back, or a kick in the ass. They also lend me love and support in far more abundance than I deserve. There are several (and you know who you are), but I wanted to especially thank Margi and Mike.
Mike (who is not SexyHusband, but who is, in his own right, sexy) endures countless hours of instant message conversations with me about a range of topics from parenting to programming to scrapbooking to sex, and never fails to offer me his honest assessment of the situation, even when it may not be what I want to hear. He is critical (in the best sense of the word) without being judgmental (in the worst sense of the word), and I can always count on him to be there for me. Thank you for being you.
Margi is the funny, smart, sweet, lovable, ironic SisterFriend I always hoped to have, and now do. She babysits my kids without any complaint at all while I go off and gallavant around town, stopping only short of nursing the baby (Go ‘head, girlfriend! I won’t mind!) and offering them love, kindness, encouragement, direction, and cookies as appropriate. She lends me an ear any time I ask, and has (on at least one occasion) kept me from running after SexyHusband with a gun in hand. Thank you for all you do.
I love you guys.
Let it be hereby known that I have the most amazing husband in the whole, wide world. No offense intended to any of my married male readers, but SexyHusband is just TheShit™. He keeps me loved, happy, healthy, and cared for in every way, and he is - hands down - the greatest father who ever lived.
I know I come across as a cynical, complaining bitch much of the time (but only because I am), so I don’t want to let the good times go by unremarked. I have a friend going through a very, very rough time right now, and her misery has helped bring home to me just how blessed I am.
Mike, I love you.
I’m so very NOT surprised. (shamelessly scammed off of Margi
You’re a fortune sim, you greedy bastard you.
You’re obsessed with doing well with your work
and making as much money as simly possible.
Good for you…you allow capitalism to succeed.
What Sim aspiration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Fradnabba!
I was driving around town the other day, and I noticed a bumper sticker on the back of some little Hippie-Mobile. It was a goofy little half-assed attempt at pithy wisdom that read, “War Is Terrorism.” Trés original, no? Anywho, it got me thinking, and hubby and I started playing a little game where we came up with other equally.. uhhh… “englightened” pithy slogans. Here are some of the ones we came up with:
Liberalism Is Fascism
Communism Is Slavery
Pacifism Is War
Education Is Ignorance
Religion Is Science
Order Is Chaos
Hope Is Despair
Health Is Sickness
So what do you think? Have some of your own? Leave them in the comments. :)
I’m getting ready to go to an overnight crop at a friend’s house in town. I was just packing the stuff to take, and SexyHusband came by to look.
SH: So, did you decide which rubber stamp you’re not going to take?
Me: Ha-ha.
SH: Want me to sit on it so you can fit a little more in?
Me: No, I think I got it. See, the problem is I need to take this whole drawer full of stuff.
SH: (chuckling) You’re so cute.
Me: What? What’s cute? It’s not that much.
SH: Uh-huh.
Me: Really! I just need to take this and this, that, that, and that, and that stuff on the bed.
SH: (eyeing the thises and thats, amounting to about six carrying loads
of stuff) Is this an all weekend crop or an all week crop?
Me: (sheepishly) Um. It’s an overnight crop.
SH: I see. (wisely goes back to his desk)
I’ve been doing some more scrapbooking the last few days. Pictures in the extended entry.
First is a page kit of the month from the scrapbooking store in Tekoa, Scrapper’s Getaway.
Next is a two-page layout called Puppy Love. I hadn’t done the journaling when I took the picture, but it IS done now. :)
Finally, a one-page layout about my friend, who’s undergoing cancer treatment.
A friend of mine emailed me tonight, and reminded me that I never talk about quilting or scrapbooking now that my sites aren’t daily journals anymore. This is really quite ludicrous, since at least a third of my waking hours are probably spent scrapbooking. Quilting, sadly, has fallen by the wayside, though I still intend to finish my niece’s double wedding ring quilt this year. So, I thought I’d start posting some of the layouts I do here on the site.
One project I’m working on now is called a “Book of Me” - a scrapbook all about ME. There’s a trend in scrapbooking to do ABC books - “A is for ambitious, B is for brave, etc.” - so I decided to combine the two: an ABC Book of Me!! My goal is to do at least one page every two weeks, so I should finish this project in a year or less. I’ve done A, B, and C so far. Pictures are in the extended entry, for the bandwidth-conscious.
Happy 40th to Dame Margi. I hope you have a fantastic day, girlfriend. Wish I could be there! Love you!
I was driving through town today, when I noticed a funeral procession. There was the hearse, followed by a motley string of cars and trucks with their lights on. Once I realized what it was, I pulled over to the side of the road because - of course - that’s what you do! I watched the cars pass by, and turned the radio down. I shushed my daughter, trying to convey to her by my actions the appropriate sense of sobriety and respect. Then I realized - I was the ONLY one who pulled over. Other cars - on both sides of the road - continued to drive along normally. Some passed the procession, and some (sacrilege!) actually turned in and out of the grocery store parking lot during gaps BETWEEN procession cars.
Now, I’ll admit - before moving to the Great White Northwest, I lived my entire life in Dallas and environs, so I’m not exactly the most well-traveled person on the Internet. But I’ve NEVER seen a funeral procession pass by where the majority of cars didn’t pull over out of respect and reverence. Sure, there are usually a couple of jackasses who pay no heed, but those few are always sneered at by the rest.
I mean, this is that deceased person’s last pass through the land of the living, before being planted for all eternity in a cemetery. Do we not owe them at least the courtesy of an unimpeded journey?
That got me thinking - is this another one of those regional things? Is pulling over for a funeral procession a southern thing? A Texan thing? An urban thing? What’s the custom where you live?
If you don’t like cussin, and you don’t like bitchin, just move along.
I’m SO FUCKING SICK of the lack of bandwidth here where we live. I love living in the country - fresh air, no traffic, friendly people - but the shitty connectivity is driving me to distraction. You KNOW it’s bad when I can’t even upload a goddamn 97KB image file without the son of a bitch corrupting TWELVE DIFFERENT TIMES before it finally decides to fucking play nice. I swear to God, the fact that I haven’t taken my gun out and unloaded the bastard into my monitor is proof positive that I have the patience of Job. But it’s WEARING THIN.
Thomas has by far the most annoying cry of any of my children, ever.
Oh, and guess who’s teething.
Just thought you’d like to know.
A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife, state media reported.
Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet chat room, the official Petra news agency said.
[…]
Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: “You are divorced, divorced, divorced” – the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.
People who fall in love on the Internet are weird.
“It may be relevant here to add that I hold no religious beliefs whatever. Roughly, I cannot imagine any omnipotent sentient being sufficiently cruel to create the world we inhabit.” - A Severed Head, by Iris Murdoch
I haven’t really felt that well today. I’ve been catching the baby’s cold, so he’s been clingy and needy at the same time I’ve been grouchy and wanting space to myself. In that climate, this conversation ensued.
SexyHusband: Kids are all asleep, dear.
Me: (shoots a “don’t even think about it” look) Yeah, they are.
SH: Wanna nap?
Me: Heh! It’s almost time to go drool on Morimoto.
SH: Heh. Yep. Battle asparagus.
Me: You’re so indulgent of me!
SH: I am?
Me: Yep. You put up with shit from me that I’d never put up with from you.
SH: You don’t give me anything to put up with.
Me: If you drooled over Takata-san the way I drool over Morimoto, I’d give you a ration of shit.
SH: Pffft. I’d never drool over her. There’s not enough meat on her bones.
And that, friends and neighbors, is why I LOVE that man.
Last night I co-hostessed a meeting of my town’s women’s civic group, BETA (Bettering Endicott Through Action - isn’t that cute?) but in hindsight, this wasn’t a grand idea. Since I’m remodeling, having people at my house was a non-starter. I had originally planned on holding the meeting at “The Depot” (an old train depot, now partly grain storage, and the closest thing my town has to a community hall), but their furnace wasn’t working and someone had stolen the tables, so that idea was scrapped. Enter the co-hostess. The deal was people would meet at her (newly-remodeled) house, and I would furnish refreshments.
Now, I like this person very much. She’s considerate and nice, and she has a beautiful home. The downside is that she takes a much more laissez-faire approach to party-planning than I do. When I called to talk to her about logistics (when to arrive, where to set up, etc.) she was very, “Oh, just show up 10 minutes - if that - before we start, and it’ll be fine.” I do nothing by halves, not even hostessing a half-dozen people for cake and punch. I like to check - and double-check, and triple-check - every possible detail. I like to DECORATE and PLAN and FESTIVATE. But since it was at her house, I was limited in what I could do. I made a great cake, had decent punch, and a good time was had by all, but it was a lot less “ornate” than I would’ve liked. Live and learn.
Adam and I were at Subway on Monday, having lunch. He noticed the Men’s restroom and read the “Men” sign. The Women’s restroom was around a corner, so he hadn’t seen it. The following conversation ensued:
Adam: Mommy, that says “Men.”
Me: Yep, it sure does.
Adam: Are there men in there?
Me: I don’t think there’s anyone in there right now. That’s where men and boys go to potty.
Adam: (careful thought) Boys can go potty in there?
Me: Yes.
Adam: (more careful thought) Girls can stand outside the door.
How can such a sexy voice reside in such a dorky body?
Here comes the part where I bore you with an explanation of why I left, why I’m back, and what to expect in the future. Think of it as public mental masturbation.
Why I left:
Blogging wasn’t fun. It was too much work, for too little return, and I
felt like I wasn’t doing very well at it. I had stopped reading blogs,
and I felt guilty about that. I woke up one morning to over 200 spam
comments, and they didn’t stop until I disabled comments on each and
every post. (Why, oh, why, can’t WordPress automatically delete
comments with the words “poker” or “cialis"?) That wasn’t exactly the
reason, but it did clinch the decision.
Why I’m back:
I missed sharing things here that I thought were funny, or noteworthy,
or cute, or absurd, or some combination of those things. I missed my
platform. I thought too often, “I could post about that!” only to
realize that I had taken a leave of absence.
What to expect in the future:
My blogging has changed over the last several months. It’s less “linky”
and more “journally.” I had started to feel bad about that, as if I
were shortchanging my readers. Then I realized - dooce rarely links to other blogs, and everybody reads her. (You do
read dooce, right?) So I wondered: why do I read Heather? What is it I
like about her blog? What do I want to emulate in her blogging? And I
realized it’s this: truth. She tells the truth, as she sees it. Even
though I don’t always agree with her take on things, I’m always
delighted to read it.
And that got me thinking: maybe that’s why people read me. Maybe people want to see what I have to say about little things I encounter in my life: conversations with my kids; laments about housekeeping; snide, bitchy observations about celebrities. Maybe every post I make doesn’t have to be a treatise on the shortcomings of the Democratic party. Maybe I should quit trying to entertain my readers, and instead write for myself.
The comment spam will continue to plague the blogging community as long as we allow others to contribute content (even in the form of comments and trackbacks). We can plug holes, but the spammers are diligent, and they will always find new holes. There’s not much I can do about this, without disabling comments altogether. I don’t want to do that, since I like hearing from my readers. So instead, I will periodically turn all comments off on previous posts. I hate having to do that, but it’s the reality of the situation.
It seems most bloggers come back to the self-gratifying aspect of blogging at some point or other, and this is mine. I’m glad if what I write strikes a chord, but from this point forward, that’s not my main goal. I’m not going to promise regular posts. I’m not going to promise “serious” posts. I’m not going to promise to read other bloggers regularly, because frankly I lack the time. It would be great if I could regularly read everyone on my blogroll, but that simply isn’t in the cards. At least, not right now.
So, I welcome your readership. I welcome your comments. I hope you find something here that holds your attention, though I’m going to quit making that my primary aim.
There’s a special kind of hell for people who write children’s software with insipid instructions on a 15-second loop.
Oh, and I’m back.