question:

(and this is not a joke, this is an honest question.)

What whappens when a cemetery is full?

Honestly, what do the people who own the place do when all the plots are sold, and full?

Anyone who can give me a good answer gets... um, I don't know, I'll think of a prize.

free enterprise

there was one day I was talking with my old boss (back when I was Utility and had the time/excuse to stand around and chat with him) and he brought up a point that I still think about.
Stay with me, I'm not sure how well I can express this thought set.

1) Assume that prostitution is legal.
2) Wouldn't this then open the way for a new set of small, woman-owned businesses -- since the woman would no longer need a pimp or any kind of go-between, other than advertising; and is now, in herself, a business?
3) Would this mean that a woman could then apply for a small-business loan, to set up said business?
4) Why shouldn't a woman be able to provide sexual services in exchange for money -- a woman's body is her own; shouldn't she be able to use it as she sees fit?


etc, etc, etc...

you get the point.

Think about this for a while.

Why is prostitution illegal?

Why should it not be legal?

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves. I'm sure I'll bring this up again.

save/continue?

despite the apparent lack of interest from the public, I return, and I post. I know you people are out there, and you at least look in. So there -- you've been caught peeking, you might as well say hello.
Not that I am famous for commenting on other weblogs, mind you. I am reminded of a piece of wisdom that says : the things we dislike the most about other people are the things we see in ourselves.
Or something very similar.
This bit of information lives in the top of my mind, more often than I care to admit. And I find it to be true: the things that piss me off about other people the most are also things that I am ashamed to find in myself.
Mostly.
There are things that are exceptions to this rule, of course -- I don't spend free time stuffing firecrackers into the orifi of canines, and I don't make a habit of knocking over old ladies for their purses, that sort of thing.
But I'm not perfect.
Far from it.
But with this in mind, I do try to cut other people slack.
Sometimes it doesn't work.
Some people are just damn stupid.
Some are simply mean.
I try to leave these people to their own sad little existences as often as possible. I have enough crap to deal with in my own life. I don't need their bad mood or inability to perform simple tasks cluttering up my day. I do enough of that on my own.
So.
I suppose that the point of this particular waste of your time is: Give other people the benefit of the doubt. Give them a smile, see if they smile back. Be nice.
And leave me some comments.

poetry and rage

Life is just a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
-- anonymous quote from someone else's blog.

but I like it.




"Loneliness is worse"
was once said by a friend.
I agreed, but now I find
it is inapplicable.

Being alone is not
the same as loneliness.

Solitude is solidity,
and my life stands on its own.

again, I like it.
this person is 17, I think, and I am already jealous of her life. But I am jealous of a great many people, so it loses intensity and meaning after a while.


But I have to tell you this story:
I used to be jealous of Brittany Spears, in a horrible way.
Now I just hate her.
when I heard that song she wrote about "she's so pretty, she's a star, but she cries cries cries all the time..." blah blah blah "then why do these tears come at night?"
when I heard that, my jealousy transformed into white hot seething rage of molten steel. I almost wrecked my car when I realized what those lyrics were.
because all I can think is :bitch, if it sucks so fucking bad to be the hottest thing since i don't know who and make more money than trump right now and have half of the male population drool over you and 95% of the teenageish female population idolize you then FUCKING QUIT.

I have to go now before I melt the computer with my mind.

I've been gone, but now I'm back -- and this post makes up for the absence.

ok. I know it's been a while since I posted anything. But sometimes life is just like that.

Brian talked about the weather, recently. I can't believe he beat me to it, but that's what happens when you take time off...
He's right, you know. It is fucking August, and the temperature as I write this is 81 degrees. At 5:30 in the afternoon, in Oklahoma. It should be fucking 101 or so, with 95% humidity if we are lucky, resulting in a heat index of "furnace of hell" or some equally applicable tagline. But instead, it is just pleasantly warm. I think I may even take my easel outside and work on a few things.

--->tangent:
I think about taking the easel outside a lot. I like the idea of painting outside at night, under a streetlight. I'm not sure why I haven't yet. But someday I will.
/tangent


Sera talked about things that make (made) her cry.
I am going to admit, the first time I ever cried at a movie, I was watching... (deep breath, are you ready?) the first Pokemon movie.

I'll let you all laugh and clean your monitors for a moment.

Ready?

Now that you are done, allow me to explain myself.
I had been watching the cartoon in the mornings, mostly because it was on at the time I was getting up, and it was the beginning of the Poke-insanity, before it got totally out of control. So I had the whole background, from the first episode on. I had watched the evolution of the relationship between the characters of Ash and Pikachu. And in the end of the movie, when Ash gets caught in the crossfire and turned into stone, and Pikachu tries so very desperately -- and I mean with all of it's little honest self -- to shock him back into life, refusing to believe that it won't work -- oh, man, I just came undone.
I had never cried at a movie before - ever. But it had to happen sometime, I guess.

The one that got me most recently was Spiderman 2. (everyone has seen this, right? If not, you might want to skip to the next section.) It was that scene where he had gotten the train stopped. When he leaned forward, and the people reached out throught the broken windows and the hands gently held him, I started to tear up. When they crowd-surfed him back through the train, and laid him carefully on the floor, my eyes were brim-full. When they all stood there, silent, and watched him as he came to, and they spoke to him,saying don't worry, you belong to us, and the little kids gave him back his mask saying don't worry, we won't tell; I cried. When Doc Oc showed up and they stood in his way, saying you have to go through us to get him, I cried more.
I'm tearing up now, writing this.

The sense of community is vital to me. And to see Spiderman, who was almost without community, being claimed, cared for, and defended by these people; these people who are essentially the nameless faceless crowd, the ones he risks everything for, all the time;
to see them all acting together in the sake of rescuing the hero the paper vilifies, daily; to see them seeing him and accepting him as the young man, frail and human, instead of the masked superhero, who is ageless and without other identity;
oh, my friends, I wept. Shamelessly, and without inhibition. Luigi, being the wonderful and nearly perfect boyfriend that he is, had napkins ready for me, and just held my hand and petted my head when I leaned on him. He knows I leak, sometimes. And he lets me wipe my eyes (and sometimes my nose) on him, if I need to.

******************************************

ok. I think that perhaps that is enough of that.
on to something else.

Sera also talked about baby elephants. Baby elephants are some of the coolest things ever.

Did you know:

• elephants live in matriarchal communities: the older females teach all the young ones what they need to know about life; they also drive out the males when they reach a certain age, for the protection of the rest of the herd.
• elephants cry.
• if they run across the bones of another elephant, they will drag them to a mud hole, and push them in -- they bury them, folks. Think about that one for a while.
• elephants can make sounds so deep we can't hear them, but that can travel for miles. They can communicate this way. We don't know what they talk about, but we know they talk.
• there are elephants that paint -- they choose the colors, and they hold the brush. And the art they make is better than some stuff I've seen sell.

ok. What next?
OH OH OH ! I can't believe I forgot to tell you!

Pretzel and Goat are getting MARRIED!!

Have I ever told you about how wonderful they are, separately or together? Have I ever told you the story about how they got together? No? get a drink of water, this might take a minute...

They both insisted (separately) that they would never get married -- Pretzel has been married/divorced, she was horrible to him. Goat has seen some hard times and love has not been kind to her either. So when they started hanging out together, we all thought that was great. Nothing serious, they said, we just like each other, think the other is cool. We just nodded, and smiled behind our hands.
Then they decided that they really liked each other, which resulted in those friend conversations with the rest of us about "I really like him/her; does he/she like me; I just don't want to do anything to screw this up;" etc, you all know what I'm talking about. (You've all been on both ends of this conversation, at least once. )
Then, oh my, they decided to date. Gasp. And again, we all just grinned and looked at each other. We all knew that they were falling for each other, completely, and that it was not only ok, it was great.
And then, they decided to move in together. They kept saying, it's nothing really serious, we can just live together, but we all knew how crazy they each were for the other.
When Luigi and I were driving back from Dallas, Goat called us, wanting to know when we would be in town. She said she had something to tell us -- the cat was fine, the apartment was fine , the computer was fine, she just had someting to tell us. We gave her our estimate, and when Luigi hung up, I said, "what's up?" And he said, "they're getting married. " (Have I mentioned how cool my guy is? If I can only get him to guess some lottery numbers like this...)
I said, "what?? " And he said, "that's what she wants to tell us." And I said, "how do you know?" And he said,"Betcha $10 I'm right."
He wanted to call her back and call her on it, but I convinced him to let her tell us in person.
And sure enough, that was it.
They sat on the floor of their apartment with us, glowing, grinning, totally in love, and for that minute, the whole world was set right.
If I was ever going to pick a moment that would prove the chaos theory, and fix everything that was wrong in the world; it would be the moment they looked at each other and they both knew, this is the other half of my heart, my soul, my life. this is the part of me that God made and then sent from me, to grow into another person. this is the person that will make everything, no matter how bad, terrifying or evil, something I can survive. this is the person that I love, above and beyond everything else in the world.
I can only smile, with my whole self, and wish desperately that the rest of us find something near to what they have.

Guilty

Danger Cat is locked in the bathroom, because she decided to pee in the corner of the room we were in. Again. We don't know if she is protesting, or if she's just establishing her dominance and control of her domain, or if she's having a problem, or what her damn problem is.

So I feel like a bad cat momma, because she is crying and scratching and generally being pathetic. But we just can't have this behavior.

So she's stuck in the bathroom, which is where her food dish and water cup (yes, I said cup) live, as well as her litter box, and she does have toys in there. But it means that she is confined against her will, without access to our proximity at her whim.

But I still feel like a bad cat momma. And I guess that technically I am, because she was bad.
Why do people have to feel guilt so strongly?
Does it really serve some function in the evolutionary process, or is this just supposed to be part of what "separates man from beast" or some such?

Because I, for one, have had quite enough of it in my life to date to last the rest of what I plan to live. And then some.

Tra la, tra la

Maybe today won't suck as much. It is possible that the world is not out to get me, but just because they are out to get you doesn't mean they are not after me, too. It seems as if everyone is experiencing technical difficulties lately; here's hoping we get our collective shit together, separately.

Deep breaths, everyone, and think good thoughts.

re: Blogger: kiss my ass

ok, so after I send a note to Blogger support about the problem, I think, "well, I'll just go to the home page and try one more time."
Hey presto! it sends me to the Dashboard page.
So what the hell? Why all the run-around?
Maybe it's my computer.
Maybe it's them.
Either way, it's damn annoying.



In other news:
I just got links put up. If I missed you, comment and remind me, and I'll add you.
And be sure to go see Luigi!

I may someday put up a list of links that are not blogs. But don't expect this anytime soon.
It should be a clue that I gave up and went back to a default premade template. I get frustrated, and pissed off, and just have to do something that works.

I have this idea for an art show (provided, of course, that I 1) make enough relevant pieces to have said show and 2) talk Steve at Living Arts into letting me have a show ) that I would call "The Story of My Life" in which each piece would be an illustration of the recurring themes in my life. I could title them things like "The Story Of My Life: Love" and "The Story Of My Life: Learning" etc...
I think it would be cool. I've got several ideas, already, and a few sketch type things in progress.
So maybe in like 5 years, if I work hard, I could have the show.
And that, too, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my life.

Blogger: kiss my ass

for some reason, the only way I can post today is through the Blog this! button. Blogger has been giving me shit lately, not letting me in to the site, etc. I don't know if I have done something to piss Blogger off, or if this is a problem on their end, or if this is just more of the shit that is piling on top of me, endlessly. I don't understand why it will let me post like this, which requires me to sign in, and not let me sign in on the regular page.


On a much better note, Luigi has started his own blog!
He is knew to this, but he's feeling interested. Please visit him as well!

Back, post hiatus.

ok. So we're home from Dallas, and have been for almost a week now. I've been having issues with logging in, and life does not always allow for computer time. The comments are now not working, despite my best efforts otherwise, and I can't get the counter back up right now. So the blog is still a bit gimpified, and someday, maybe, it will be what I want it to be. And maybe, someday, I will also be what I want to be. Just as soon as I figure out what that is.

Luigi is giving some serious thought to starting his own blog. So I think we will be working on that...
more, later.

IN DALLAS

Here I am, in Dallas.
We made it, and we have had a good time.

Of course, we didn't get here until almost dawn on Saturday. But Ninsi still let us in. So we went to bed, and got up early (for us) the next day (or really saturday afternoon. But it really isn't tomorrow until after sleep, so...) and we went out. We went to 1st and ten for (breakfast) food, and I had the barbecue sandwich, which was good. Then we drove around in the amazing Dallas traffic, and I was oh-so-very glad that I was not the person driving. We went to "Condom Sense" because, how could I not go? It was interesting, to be short. Then we went to "Condoms to go" because it was near, and again, how could I not?

there is more, but really, I'm still here. So I'll fill you in later.