Passionate Conservatives

2006? So no reports on whether a snow machine was parked outside the La Jolla house?

Washed up 80’s rock star – that “Rock of Love” dude?

@redmanlaw: And it said they were getting hot-and-bothered at a Moody Blues concert. The Moody Fucking Blues? Are you shitting me?

Looks like they got a woman with bad extensions and a man who looks like the dad on “7th Heaven,” posed them accordingly, and managed to snap a photo that’s grainy even by National Enquirer standards. Let’s wait and see on this one.

Cue flute solo from “Nights in White Satin”.

Hasselhoff must be hard up for cash.

Acknowledge my avatar! Is it there yet? Can you seem me now? Can you see me now?

@mellbell: I’d guess it’s true – there was lots of ink spilled saying they didn’t even live together. And the NE was right about John Edwards ….

@Prommie: Yes, Prommie. Btwn my perfervid toggling back and forth between Stinque and W, I checked out your blog. Very nice!

Now W’ette has linked to a story about Paulson “shifting focus of bailout.” from NYT 18 minutes ago. Well, I guess not one single one of us is going to be surprised. Can’t use govt cash to help poor people, that’s not the American way.

@Prommie:

Yup. Is that a doggie?

This is about as disgusting as David Gest and Liza Minelli making out.

Hinder’s Homecoming Queen

It’s been five days since I’ve seen her face
She’s popping pills without a trace
And now were left with the what ifs
It’s been twenty seven years since she left for McCain
She’s a rich girl with a pulled back face
And it seems to me
She’s a casualty of all the spotlight
That news put on her
And now she’s trolling for peen
It’s such a shame shame shame
That the Arizona queen
Had a lot to prove and so many to please
She’s just some bootlegger’s daughter
Just looking for somebody to plow her

@mellbell: @blogenfreude: Post-Carol Burnett, the Enquirer has had to be very careful about the dirt. But although I’m not current with libel law, I think you have more flexibility to slime political figures than celebrities. Close call, but it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: You must be referring to my old avatar, which is still showing, not a doggie, he is a stuffed cat named Ray. He likes to wear a thong and drink martinis and is addicted to the Food Network, loves to cook.

@rptrcub:

And only slightly less revolting than thinking of Clay Aiken making out with, oh, anyone at all.

The Enquirer must have been in the tank for McCain to have held off on this until after the election. Figures that they’d favor Republicans. Also figures that they wouldn’t miss a chance to make money off this after the election. I wonder what they’d have done if McC had won. Try for a payoff from Mrs. McC?

A Zomfied Blond
No smiles or tears
Hungry for schlong
Her man’s dead in bed

Eyes meet in a crowd
Tongues and eyebrows wave
Her heals to the sky
She begins to rave

Pestork meeeee!
Oh, yes, pestork me!
Ooo, oooh, pestooooooork me!

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Hey, he’s one of us now. Be nice. Or not.

@Prommie:

Have I seen that before? What week is this?

Eeesh, turning 41 is hard on a person.

@rptrcub:

I’m saving my nice for when David Archuleta comes out.

Their cries pierce the night
The grass stains her back
To Psychogeezer
She’s not going back

A crowd starts to form
He’s getting up steam
She claws at his face
She’s a social disgrace

Pestork heeeeer!
Oh, yes, pestork her!
Ooo, oooh, pestooooooork her!

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: This week is Wednesday. I am going to be 47 in less than 2 weeks. Is that still “mid 40s,” or does that mark the line of “late 40s?”

@Prommie: I cleared my cache twice and I still get a dog mixing drinks, which I have a soft spot for. I ask my dog to make me a drink, or even get me a cup of coffee, and he just looks at me.

My money’s on Michael Bolton.

@redmanlaw: Click onn “Prommie” next to the dog, its a link to my blog, the new avatar is the first thing you see.

@redmanlaw: I am getting an ad with a picture of Angelina Jolie fixed up with a pair of lips that would allow her to suck off the Washington Monument.

@FlyingChainSaw: That is disturbing.

@Prommie: What? Jolie’s lips?

@FlyingChainSaw: Those, and our economy’s implosion. This time next year, its gonna be like Road Warrior.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Agreed. Also: when I recruit Todd Palin to the dark side (yes, I’m a bad bad bad libtard).

@Prommie: Tough call. I’ve laid claim to “early 20s” until my next birthday, but the flipside of that would be progressing to “late 20s” upon turning 26. It’s a dilemma.

@Prommie: If we get crop failure following climactic disturbances, it may very well end up like that. I’ve had to live for extended periods on oatmeal and fish and shellfish. You can go for a long long while without roughage (I wasn’t going to eat ferns) and with an extremely limited diet but not permanently and kids and elders will be exposed to opportunistic diseases that take advantage of weakened immune systems. If the rest of the world rejects the US as a pariah state and abandons the dollar as worthless – and the economy permanently flatlines, there will be years of civil war and devolution to a cannibal anarchy before the surviving youngsters can organize hunter-gatherer and local agricultural communities. How successful they would be with no culture and traditions in the arts is anyone’s guess.

@mellbell: My dad’s been 39 for decades. I’m ten years older than him now, and my brother’s just caught up.

By the way, we’re a chatty bunch — 10,476 comments already? The old joint only had 25K when the database keeled over.

@FlyingChainSaw: “Keep the Arts in the Reeducation Camps!” I see a new facebook group starting up . . .

@nojo: Let’s hope we don’t make the new one asplode.

@Prommie:

Dude, I am still in my late thirties if anyone asks. I’ll hit my forties in about 5 years when I become 46.

Ergo, you are in your early forties. Congratulations.

@FlyingChainSaw: I am a little concerned now about short term.

Did Paulson perhaps consider the effect on public opinion of his comments today?

Could he have justy triggered the worst crash the markets have ever seen?

Cause you know, it just hit me. Back in September, there was a “liquidity crisis” that was affecting “the financial sector” and he was just completely and totally sure that there was this thing he could do to make it better, and he was sure, he had the cure, he was gonna do this one thing, that he told us was absolutely the thing to do, it was the only thing that could save us, but we just had to give him a trillion dollars, and psychgeezer flew into town like a fighter jock and Paulson got on his knees and begged Pelosi, and we had to do it, it was The Answer.

And now he comes back to give a progress report, and essentially, he says, “well, I didn’t do that thing I said would be The Answer because I was totally wrong, it was not the thing to do, it would not have worked to save us, I was wrong, its not the thing to do.

But I did give $3 trillion of your money to the financial industry which has exploded and ruined everything, and the boys are all gonna give themselves million dollar christmas bonuses, so they won’t get demoralized. Must not have Goldman Sachs boys getting demoralized.

As for the rest of you, I don’t know what the fuck to do. Nope. Not a clue. Sorry. Fuck off and die, maybe? Does that work for you? Cause we got ours, and frankly, thats all that matters.

@Promm and Tommm: If 60 is the new 40, divide 60 into 40, multiply 47 by .666 (heh) and Prom is only 31.302.

“May we see your ID, sir? And welcome to The Tiki Club’s Thursday College Night.”

@FlyingChainSaw: Hey, we’ll preserve the arts, even during the cannibal anarchy phase, I can see necklaces made from teeth, drinking goblets made from skulls, very gothic, sorta.

Better go join some large club or organization, they are gonna have a leg up on us in the cannibal warfare to come. Obviously the NRA will be powerful, but think what an advantage it would be to be just an Elk or a Moose or something so you can band together for some sort of safety in numbers.

Ah, lets face it, neurotic, smart loners like myself will be the first to go.

I would have made a GREAT Robinson Crusoe, strand me somewhere alone, oh, I would welcome it.

But this, devolution to a state of overpopulated savagery, where every indidual is competing against every other for what few resources will exist? I’ll be one of the first to go.

@rptrcub: No worries there. I back it up every night, and we’re not sharing it with thousands of other sites.

OMFG! The Limeys did something right!!!11!

Check it out! [ But one Limey can’t manage his comment links… ]

I’m so proud of my people even if it is a Tory rag.

@redmanlaw: So long as we have fart jokes civilization is safe.

@redmanlaw: I like the way you think!

@redmanlaw:

You are a genius, sir.

TJ/

I don’t want to get anyones’ hopes up but
could it be?

As much as I would love, love, love for this to be true … her hair is much too fine to look that voluminous in a ponytail.

And I seriously doubt Ms. Bud wears flannel like that.

@nojo: I handled a libel case once, and it would be more difficult for Cindy regardless of whether she was a politician or a celebrity: (from Wikipedia):

Special rules apply in the case of statements made in the press concerning public figures, which can be used as a defense. A series of court rulings led by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) established that for a public official (or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case, the statement must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard to its truth, (also known as actual malice).[13]

Under United States law, libel generally requires five key elements. The plaintiff must prove that the information was published, the plaintiff was directly or indirectly identified, the remarks were defamatory towards the plaintiff’s reputation, the published information is false, and that the defendant is at fault.

@Jamie Sommers: Who says it’s her hair?

@blogenfreude: I think Carol Burnett nailed the Enquirer on reckless disregard.

@nojo: a high standard, but you can go there.
@Prommie: it’s been pointed out elsewhere, and we all know it’s true – they call it a liquidity crisis, but it’s a solvency crisis. If everyone admits what everything’s really worth, nearly everybody is technically bankrupt.

@blogenfreude: So I guess Cindy-Lou-Hoo loses on the “it was defamatory towards the Plaintiff’s reputation” prong, eh?

I say that somewhat seriously, as after reading the series of articles detailing her painful marriage, her reputation improves and is not defamed if she’s stepping out on PsychoGeezer. What’s good enough for the goose, etc.

@nojo: Yes, it was untrue and completely untested, and the latter, when it came out in court, is what cost them. The journalists first job is like the scientist’s – jump up and down on the thesis and see if it can take the stress. A good editor will appreciate a reporter has done a good job of proving himself wrong as much as one who has proven himself right.

@SanFranLefty:

heheheh…you said “prong”.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: I has Hope (TM) that it is not a fluke, but the thing that worries me is that gene therapy is tres expensive. Which means very difficult ethical, moral and financial questions about our obligation to provide a cure to everyone, including very poor people in Africa and Asia. Same thing with the deal over patents over HAART meds.

Also, TJ: Some very, very touching notes from Mormons who are resigning from the LDS over Prop 8. Get out the tissues.

Resigning from the Mormon church is not just like deciding not to go to the First Western Reformed Branch of Presbylutheranism (thank you Rev. Lovejoy) Church anymore; it’s apparently much, much deeper.

@Prommie: Hey, I tried your couscous risotto recipe tonight, except instead of couscous I used leftover rice and added celery to the mix and instead of the picante seasoning I used some saffron-based stuff from the same folks. Kids didn’t like it so much (“eww, raisins”) but the missus and I did.

Of course, the last time I cooked anything with pine nuts was, well, never. As with FlyingChainSaw I’ve spent more time stringing together whatever staples were impervious to the elements than actually “cooking”. “One Pot Nabisco” they used to call me.

@rptrcub: Resigning from the Mormon church is HUGE. You run the risk of losing your career, you will certainly be shunned by family, friends and neighbors, your kids will be shunned, you will lose your social group if you live in the Morridor. It’s a big deal.

ADD: Cubbie, mention to the soon-to-be ex-Mormons that there is a community that will support them at exmormon.org. It’s an old skool bulletin board I used to post at (being an ex-fundie is similar in many ways to being an ex-Mormon, and they supported me through the love bombing and crazy shit I went through).

TJ/
Bunnie offers to help Black Eagle but also, um, is concerned about teh socialists, admits to being a “has-been”.

@nabisco:

Sara Palin makes me instantly stabby.

@JNOV:

You got love-bombed? What the hell is that? It sounds unhealthy.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Full bore press of a cult church. All hands on deck. Every member expected to approach, praise and connect deeply with the subject – most often a new recruit candidate. Example. Church congregation finds out you like softball and are in a community league. Suddenly the whole congregation appears at the next game and wows at every play you’re involved in. Then takes you out for sodas afterward and raves about your stellar performance.

@JNOV: You also have to turn in the magic underpants when you leave the Mormon Church.

I keed, I keed. Srsly, I know it is a big deal. I know several excommunicated Mormons (excommunicated due to being gay/lesbian, natch), and a fair number of the homeless gutter-punk kids in SF that you find in Golden Gate Park and the Haight (who are not the poseurs from the ‘burbs) are LGBTQ kids from families in Utah, Idaho, and eastern Oregon who are fleeing Mormon families/communities. Too many of them end up on drugs due to self-medicating and/or in jail due to petty theft and survival prostitution. Sad stuff.

@nabisco: God, you don’t know the pressure I felt when you said you tried a recipe, I was dying, hoping it turned out OK. Glad it did! Cooking is easy, thats the message I try to spread, its okay to substitute all over, go for it.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Heh. Love bombing is when (esp for Mormons) people show up unannounced at your house with food (usually baked goods), they call all the time, they tell you they miss you at church, they tell their kids to tell your kids how much they miss them. They use ostensible kindness as a manipulative tool. And once they realize it’s not going to work, they shun you. If you deny the holy spirit by becoming an ex-Mormon, you are considered a Son or Daughter of Perdition, and you’re treated like you’re infected. And you go to the Mormon version of hell. Oh, and if you never were exposed to the Mormon tenets, you get a chance to become Mormon after you die. That’s why they do all of those rites for the dead, like baptisms and sealings. That’s why they’re big into genealogy. If you convert, you want to do all the rites for your ancestors. And there are three levels of heaven — the highest, the celestial kingdom requires you do all sorts of stuff AND tithe 10% pre-tax. You buy your way onto your own planet where you have a perfect human body and have sex and children that need people on your version of Earth (I guess you technically have two planets), the people on your version of Earth give these Spirit Children bodies. And God actually had sex with Mary to create Jesus. Yep.

@FlyingChainSaw: Exactly.

@SanFranLefty: Yes, it is very hard to be a gay Mormon.

@blogenfreude: You mean, like, a corporation simply cannot possibly be worth 100 times its net profit? But, but, but, thats what our stock market is based on, that a sane person would buy a company for 100 times its annual profit so he can make 1% on his investment. Or less, or far less.

I am just a poor country lawyer, I represented people buying small businesses, and they were expecting to pay maybe 1, 3, or at most, if its a sure thing, 3 times its annual gross, or maybe 5 to 15 times its net profit. 10 times net was a good starting point, it meant the business produced enough profit to finance borrowing its aquisition cost, and if you bought it outright, you’d actually get 10% return on a risky small business investment.

Thats the comparison between the real world and the stock market. The market just isn’t real. Its a fantasy held up by the same forces that make people get drawn into a drama, the willing suspension of disbelief.

The Snarky Indian Lawyer Girl Club here had a lot of fun with the Cindy Smooching Some Strange thing.

@JNOV: My favorite story of Mormonism is this one. Back in the mid 1800s, travelling carnivals would sometimes have an egyptian mummy among the oddities on display, rich people would have them in their houses, too. And Joseph Smith bought one from a passing carnival, and unwrapped it, and among the wrappings, as is always the case, was a papyrus, written in hieroglyphs, of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. And Smith claimed he could translate it, and that what it really was was a lost book of the bible written by Abraham, not only that, but that it was a manuscript, actually written by abraham. And his “translation” is one of the books in the Book of Mormon. And there is a facsimile of the document, in the book of mormon, and its obviously the well-known and well documented Book of the Dead which was always wrapped in with the wrapping of mummies. And for 100 years BYU university had a department of Egyptology which tried perpetually to prove that Smith’s translation was right.

Stop me from laughing, someone.

@Prommie: I’ve been 47 since February. Our President-elect is 47. 1961 was obviously a good year for babies as well as Bordeaux (one of the best vintages of the 20th century). However, I have to tell you that you are middle aged, unless you plan to live to be 110. Man up and deal with it.
@mellbell: You’re young. Enjoy it, and no whining about age!

@Mistress Cynica: The maths say otherwise.

@Promnight: Sort of — it’s not actually in the Book of Mormon. It’s the Book of Abraham, a different book. The Kinderhook Plates were fake plates made by someone trying to fool Joe; they looked like what the golden plates supposedly looked like. The Kinderhook plates were later revealed to be a scam. The golden plates were written in what Smith called Reformed Egyptian, and he translated them by putting a rock in a hat and then by putting his face in the hat. He dictated the translation to Martin Harris. Harris’ wife Lucy took the first 1oo-something pages and either hid them or destroyed them saying that if Joe really was translating these golden plates he found under a rock, then he should be able to replicate the results. Joe was pissed when he found out the pages were gone, so he told Martin that god was punishing Joe for letting Martin have the pages, so the translation would now be different.

@redmanlaw: Oh, maths are always lying. Ignore them.

@redmanlaw: The arts I meant were agriculture, hunting, fishing and digging for edible roots and shell fish. Good idea, though.

Cindy was hooking up with Fabio.

Shit, I don’t know if PedoNator or I will be able to survive the intrusive Unicorn campaign screening to be the First Puppy’s Dog Walker/Sitter.

No wonder Hillbot told Black Eagle she only would go through the Veep screening if he guaranteed her the spot.

They want to know of “all blog posts and aliases/handles ever used on blogs.”
Errrr. Ummm. Guess I’ll be staying here in SF and not have to worry about enduring DC winters.

@JNOV: I thought the guy looked like John Edwards.

@SanFranLefty: That’s who I thought it was at first!

@JNOV, Lefty: Cindy: Bipartisan curious.

@Mistress Cynica: Well, it was definitely a good year, then.

But the thing is, I am not middle aged. I am 17. Completely and totally 17.

The thing is, I wasn’t a typical 17 year old. I was semi-responsible, I specialized in careful, safe irresponsibility. I did all the same bad things the really bad kids did, but I did them carefully and in a well-thought way, and never got caught, never let my vices interfere with doing all the things expected of me from school and parents. I struck a great balance. It worked great.

But I think as a result, I never bought into the adult world as being real. I have always thought it a game, that one gives lip service to, in order to gain the credibility to allow one to pursue a quiet rebellion.

As I got older, nothing I ever saw or experienced was something that could convince me to abandon what I was at 17. I went into law school as a way to keep playing in academia for 3 more years, I tossed words around, the right words, I was really really good at it, and never ever believed in what I was saying, though I enjoyed the illicit joy of knowing I thought it was all complete bullshit, and yet still I could do it better than most anyone, and enjoyed the recognition and respect that brought, though I knew even that was bullshit. Inside I was “I know your game, its bullshit, and I can still do it better than you.”

Then I went into the practice of law, and was horrified to find that real people, with real lives, were having their lives turned upside down and fucked over, by this total bullshit.

It was too much for me. I could not participate in a bullshit game when it was affecting real peoples lives in emormous ways. It was great fun to go into moot court and kick ass, to ace a test, noone was getting hurt by that, but I kept thinking, when I had to walk into court and argue a case that was everything to the people involved, why should the truth of this case be decided by whether I am a clever talker? Or whether the other bullshit artist was cleverer?

Overall, I think the system works for the best, its better than no system of justice, its probably among the best, but for me, that thought could never give me enough faith in it to be able to trust someone else’s life in one individual case to the bullshit.

Those who can do it are good people and their work is good and necessary, but I think too much. I think bigger than what the judge said. I didn’t like winning when I knew my client was wrong, and didn’t like losing when my client was right.

And fundamentally, I live somewhere more transcendental than that, in my soul. What is true and right is mostly un-knowable.

Everyone is a sinner, and everyone is a saint, I think, in the long run, and I just didn’t like getting involved in a bullshit system which tries to create comforting certainty in a world that will always be all grey.

I just want to cook good food and watch people’s faces as they enjoy it, because I believe appreciating, deeply, spiritually, thankfully, appreciating the beauty of every small gift in life is the highest worship. I want to help people appreciate one small gift of the universe. Artists try to capture the beauty they see and communicate it to others, thats what I want to do. Love is the soul’s response to beauty, and there is beauty in everything, if you are mindful enough to see it. And if you can see the beauty in everything, you will love everything, and be grateful for everything, and that is heaven.

@FlyingChainSaw: At first the most valuable arts will be in extracting sustenance from the ruins of the existing sytem. Thats the Mad Max phase. After that, the most valuable arts will be the ability to engage in sustainable agriculture, at first using the dwindling material resources left behind, then on a more pure, sustainable, primitive way.

The big question will be whether those whose survival strategy is to prey on others will destroy all those who try to create some sustainable system for substinence. The armed, human-hunting Mad Max gangs will prey on the people like us, who try to take to the countryside in groups and establish some kind of subsistence agriculture system.

I think we would have a better chance than you might think. Food will become the ultimate value early, and noone can live without it for long. I think the mad max predator lifestyle will quickly become unsustainable, as resources become more scarce, they will not be able to survive even short periods od scarcity. A nice commune in a remote area could develope to a position of strength sufficient to withstand a roving band of desperate predators in a short time.

During the early period, the man-hunters will concentrate on the urban areas, where remaining pre-collapse resources will be what they are looking for.

Groups that seek out a remote place and establish some kind of food production system may be relatively unmolested for a time, for long enough that when the predators are forced to try to seek them out, they will be so weak, with the dregs of the remaining resources so depleted, that they simply won’t be able to travel and fight by that time.

We could do it, I know we could.

@Promnight: See, I was born to be a woman of a certain age, with a cocktail in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a “bitch, please” look on my face. Far more becoming at 47 than at 5.

@Mistress Cynica: Elope with me.

Anyone seen these yet?

http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/blogimage_225pxjuliemyerslg.jpg_thumbs_600x749_thumbs_200x250

@Mistress Cynica: No, no, Miss Cynica, elope with me! I was born with the “Bitch, please” expression on my face. Many an elementary school photo has that expression on my face. My mother always said “Keep making that face and it’ll freeze on you.” My response: “What face?”

I never took to smoking cigarettes, thankfully as I am still playing soccer and other sports, though it’s harder to assume the “Bitch please” pose with a martini in one hand, and a tie-dyed purple one-hitter in the other hand.

@SanFranLefty, Prom, Cyn: Sounds like “One Big Happy Family Values”

@SanFranLefty: Don’t pretend to be a hardass, SFL, you are a good kind soul, you are no whatsername, that algonquin round table we all of us, men and women, gay and straight, wish we were, what was her name? You know, she wrote “gentleman prefer blondes” and loved Benchley to her death. Thats the way I used to answer exams in english classes, I never could remember names, I would give the person’s entire biography, but I could never come up with their name.

But then, I only saw you for one lunch, and you may be as cynical as that, all I know is, we all belong on the bench where the smartasses sit and heckle the world as it goes by.

Dorothy Parker, don’t we all really wish we were Dorothy Parker?

@SanFranLefty: I actually just smoke for the accessories (30’s silver cig case, monogrammed; silver lighter) and the posing opportunities. Very Mad Men.

@Promnight: A reporter described my high school crowd as “the smart delinquents”.

@Mistress Cynica: You know where I can get an FDR style cigarrette holder? Wouldn’t that be so cool, holding a martini and smoking a cigarrete with one of those long, elegant cigarrete holders in your mouth?

@Promnight: “Bitch please” is more my boredom with the idiocy around me than being a hardass. If you ever go to NYC, stay at the Algonquin Hotel. It’s anticlimatic but the rooms are wallpapered with old New Yorker cartoons. I spent a night in Manhattan giggling at my walls and couldn’t even be accused of being kooky.

@Mistress Cynica: I tried to smoke in H.S. for the retro accessories. I am too much of a spaz to pull it off.

@redmanlaw: That would be me and my friends in high school. It vexed my sister to no end that she always got busted by my parents but I was too smart to get caught.

@Promnight: Ebay has everything. Including FDR-style cigarette holders.

@SanFranLefty: How many dead stuffed armadillos did you run for student body president? Also, sold a yearbook ad to a headshop.

@redmanlaw: Were you one of those smart delinquents? I have gone on at length at the problem I have had accepting adult life, I am the perpetual Holden Caulfield, or to be more honest, I never read Catcher in the Rye when I was young, I seriously am Yossarian, what happened with you? You are so fucking cool, RML, your life as you describe it is such a perfect balance between a reasonable commitment to work, an awareness and commitment to heritage and community, and a spiritual and constantly fed worshipful love of nature and landscape and the earth itself. How did you get beyond smart delinquent?

I am always sarcastic, RML, and I have long feared that when I get sincere and start telling you that I really do admire you and envy your, what would I call it, your comfort and ease with the world and where you are in it, I have always feared you think I am being sarcastic. I am not now and have, well, not never, but rarely ever been sarcastic in my admiration of you. I honestly wish I could go hiking and fishing with you, because I honestly believe you might be able to teach me some deep truths. I am real good at being still, silent, and worshipful, in the face of nature and beauty, but I came to that with no prior tradition or heritage with any teachings on the subject, my dad was a city kid and I found nature on my own. It has become my religion, but its simplistic, I have said it before, deep appreciation of the beauty of nature is to me thankfulness and love for whatever force it is that created it.

Hell, I forgot what it was I started out to say.

RML, just don’t ever take any kidding I may throw out there, any disagreement about music, as anything disrespectful of you. You have my respect, more than that, envy. My life, I feel, is not as as succesfully balanced, as yours, and I wish it were.

@FlyingChainSaw: Aaa! I actually just yelped and jumped back from my monitor. I had to google her, she was homeland security? Somebody decided the Joker would make our country safer?

@Promnight: The illusion of balance is created by periodic reports filed while careening from one thing to another, trying to fit it all in, meet obligations, try to have some fun, not be an asshole, and not raise an asshole. It catches up to me and I periodically crash for up to three weeks at a stretch. I’m trying to make up for lost time and with an eye on the sands of time that will eventually limit my level of activity in the mountains. I like my job, but work pays the bills so I can live my life.

I am still very much the smart delinquent. I took great pride today in making a friend laugh with a email on Cindy and her guy that made her blow water out of her nose and had everyone else in her firm looking at her wondering WTF?

You’re alright Prom, and so are the rest of you goofs around here.

@redmanlaw: I didn’t do yearbook, because that was the purview of the Mormon students at my H.S. (I shit thee not). I was instead a (a) nerd (b) theatre geek who (c) played soccer, so I was suspect in all three spheres – luckily groups (a) and (b) overlapped to a decent amount (any nerd who wasn’t in band was a theatre geek). The soccer team liked me because I would tutor/do their homework for them, and so that helped in the global universe of high school because all the jocks wanted me to help them with homework. I was a walking Venn Diagram at my public high school.

While I did not run a stuffed ‘dillo for student council president, I did instead lead a posse of nerds known as the Grammar Police and our self-appointed mission was to visibly and obnoxiously correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors in the graffiti of our school bathrooms. The gang bangers thought we weren’t worth beating up, thank FSM.

Oh, and my senior year was infamous for having more National Merit Scholars ever at one school in my school district since it was founded (which was saying something because my school was the “bad” school of our district, full of black and brown kids and the district dates from the early ’50s), but of course it was a bigger deal my senior year that we won the 5-A regional finals for football. Lost in the Texas state semis, though.

@drinkyclown: Okay, fixed!

@drinkyclown: Teh cra-zee eyes give her x-ray vision, for super TSA-screenings.

Play Pick the Cabinet!

@redmanlaw:
re: we goofs are alright.
i am the most private and reclusive person one can be, spilling my guts the way i do here is based on a trust that…. you goofs are alright.
miraculous really. i read everything, but you stinques are the only people i talk to. really talk to, ‘cept for a very few 3 D people. and i NEVER posted anywhere else publicaly til i got to know you, which took a year.

@Mistress Cynica: @SanFranLefty:
one reason for my fearless babbling is i was also born with a smirk and a cig on my big mouth. “bitch, please” indeed.
found you all, and thought, ‘oh, there you are!’ (like minds).

@SanFranLefty: Copy editing grafitti is hard core nerd. I salute you.

Also did theater (tech side) and major band geek. Your scholarship story reminded me of a party girl in my glass named “Cach” (short for “Cha Cha”). Apparently she was smart as hell, and good with the maths. She went on to do classified work in reducing the noise signatures of submarines for the Navy.