So many thoughts on so many subjects.

Item the first: Something has been bothering me about ANTM since Wednesday night. Jaslene didn’t pass the psych test last season, and that’s why she wasn’t on, but she went to therapy and tried out again. Uh, maybe I read Sun Tzu, Musashi and Machievelli too many times* but if you’re giving these hamsters psych tests, then you (meaning the producers et al) have a pretty good idea how they are going to decompensate during the series. This means that they ARE casting for the psycho bitch (NeNe Vibrato), the crying girl (Brittney), the gently bewildered (Natasha and Kathleen) and all the other stereotypes we know, love and have come to expect. Creepy or no?

Item the second: I keep having dreams about my old college chum Pati. I went so far as to look her up on various people-finders and she may or may not be living a couple miles down the road. The last I’d heard, she was living in Georgia with her parents.

Pati was bi-polar, and never diagnosed, until later in life, like when we were in our mid-twenties and by then, she was happy with being bi-polar and didn’t want to/simply didn’t take her meds. I loved being around her when she was manic, but she got vicious when she was depressed. We quit being friends when I was going through my divorce and she was in a down cycle and it didn’t work too well, friendshipwise.

I’d love to see her again, but I’m afraid to call. Yes or no?

Item the third: I’ve come to realize that I am a tad borderline bi-polar myownself. Maybe not. Maybe I’m just prone to severe mood swings. You know, like suicidal downs and Top of the World, Ma ups.

I’ve been on Prozac for years, and while it shaves the peaks and valleys, the ups and downs are still there. I just don’t crawl in the closet, turn off the lights and curl up in the fetal position anymore.

But. I don’t know quite how to express this, the ups are still hard to manage. I am currently in the middle of one that, were I not on meds, would be dangerous. I am so full of creative energy, and have so many ideas that I want to pursue, that I don’t know where to begin.

Because I’m on the drugs, I can almost prioritize and get things done, but in my bones, I feel the fire and the spin. This would be a very bad cycle, were I not damped down.

Pati hated the damping down, and that’s why she wouldn’t take her meds. Because I’m in this part of the cycle, I think that’s why I want to make contact with her again. But that would be bad, maybe. Fuel to the fire, maybe. Or she might just hang up on me, still pissed off or whatever.

I don’t know. I’m writing. I’m designing t-shirts. I’m entering photos in contests. I’ve got a pile of fabric on my sewing table, and another pile of patterns and a project list that I want to finish by tomorrow night.

The energy blast is good, but I know that there will be a crash after. Maybe this is the bounce back from the depression I was in for two months prior to this, though. Maybe I need to up my meds. Maybe I just need a vacation.

In any event, I have work that I set for myself today, so you’ll excuse me if I leave you now.

*OK, I only read “The Prince” once, and maybe not even all the way through, but I got the gist of it.

 

It's my birthday! Yeah! Presents! Adoration! Tiaras! Whoo-hoo! I'm officially older than dirt, and have lived more than half of my expected life. I can still drink young punks under the table, and shake my bootie till the wee small hours. I can't actually get up the next morning, but by the middle of the afternoon, I'm fine. It's the small victories, people. The RLA was the first with the presents this morning. He gave me a beautiful Spanish fan... for the hot flashes. On the one hand, I think this is lovely, and dear and sweet. On the other hand, I'm ready to shove the thing up his ass for reminding me about them. He insisted that I bring it to the office, to have it always at the ready. I was too polite to remind him that my office keeps its thermostat at the requisite Florida setting of Meat Locker, and that I keep a heater under my desk to keep from getting frostbitten toes. I don't think he reads my blog often enough to read this, either. My second present was from RJ, who sent me a birthday e-card that had a downloadable tiara. I'm wearing it. I have absolutely no shame. Or pride. One or the other. In an hour we'll have our company holiday lunch, which means... more presents!! And food!! And wine!! Life is good. Or at least a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Please note the fabulous red Swingline stapler in the background among all the crap on my desk and surrounding areas.

I can't afford to buy out my brother's share of the parental units' home. The insurance company no longer wants to insure it. If I put the insurance in my name, I lose the homestead exemption on the house, and the only policy I can get would be state pool insurance, which would also mean that I couldn't afford it anyway. If we put the house on the market, it is a dead market and we'll be looking at who knows how long until we see a sale. If we put the house on the market, it would need to be completely emptied, a job which would take a couple of very hard weeks of labor. I don't have any more vacation time, and I can't ask my brother to do it, because it would be very, very bad. So. What the fuck do I do now? I'm going around in circles like Conan on the wheel of pain. I can't see any way out of this, except to sell the house (unwillingly) and take two weeks (at least) of unpaid leave to get the house ready. This is not the scenario my parents planned for. There must be another option. What it is, I have no idea. On the upside, however, this seems to finally be the stress level at which I stop eating. I should be down to a size 4 by the end of the year. A suicidal, anorexic, miserable and probably chain-smoking, two-fisted drinking size 4, but a size 4 nonetheless. Wish me luck.

Tequilla should come with a warning other than the one about not drinking if you are pregnant. Like, maybe, don't drink in the sun or don't consume if you wish to remain conscious for longer than it takes to consume three of these. But then, where would the fun or challenge be in that. Star drank me under the beach chair yesterday and she claims that she wasn't even trying. Of course she says that now, but the last clear memory I have is of a story wherein she told a co-worker that she could drink him under the table and he didn't believe her, but the bartender did and told the kid if he wanted to see the morning through clear eyes, he wouldn't try to prove Star wrong. Brrrrrrrr. At least I passed out in the cool dark of my room and not the beach, which means only that I slept for 15 straight hours and not that I have the sort of sunburn one associates with German tourists and French Canadians. Limetree was as good as their word, and did, in fact get a wireless network up and running. The best part of it is that the only place to get a good connection is out here on the lanaii, overlooking the Gulf. "Tough life," says Star, from her chair next to me. Those are my feet, and that is the adorable little tote that the equally adorable Jade brought as gifts when she came up to meet us. Jade is just a stitch, and if she lived in Miami, she would be one of the regulars at the Casita de Zapatos, that's for sure. She's already mentioned this multi-tasking monstrosity, but sweeties, words (and even pictures) cannot do it justice (?). This dress... this dress... is a sweet little faux-wrap in the most hideous of shiny, slippery, synthetic knit fabric that you know will be cursed with static cling every nanosecond of its miserable life. It will stick to you and crawl around on you no matter what you try to make it stop. And then there is the print. It is a photo-real print of crocheted granny squares in some of the most unfortunate colors since they showed up in kitchens in the 50s. Star says that if you made this dress in real granny squares it would be unwearable, because it would be heavy and it wouldn't drape correctly. I say: your point is? Because if it wouldn't be wearable if it were real, then why would anyone think that it would be wearable as a simulacrum? I present the dress. That's Jade's arm.

Hurricane season is barely two weeks old and we have the first storm of the year. Hurricane Alberto. To which I can only say: Oh, bite me. Back at Jackson (We Treat Everyone Like Crap) I always tried to get the hurricane information live on line June 1st. The PR department (It Doesn't Have To Be Done Right, It Only Has To Be Done) felt that nobody pays any attention until August, so the web site didn't have to be updated til then and the special edition of the company newsletter that dealt with hurricane preparedness was never distributed (oh, hell, who are we kidding... was never even sent to press) before mid- to late August. Here at my new job, we've been having drills and meetings and consciousness-raising since May. The storms of last year did the work of G-d's own weed whacker on my trees, so this year I have no mangos to lose. Or to eat. Nor avocados. Nor royal poincianna flowers. The mulberry tree managed to put out berries, but the spring was so hot and dry that for the first year since I've been in the house, they were too small and tart to be worth eating. I finished another quilt top this weekend, except for two borders that would have been done, had I cut them correctly. It's turquoise and brown, and a lap-sized beauty. I love the colors so much that I already have another one worked out in my head using the same two fabrics that were in this one, with additional fabrics filling out a large palette of browns and turquoises. It'll be much larger than this one, as well. By the time I head over to the Gulf for my annual week of laying around doing nothing but drinking and laying around on the beach chair (will break for naps and food) I should have four to six tops heading off to my sistergirl's place for quilting. Being a secretary has been the greatest boon to my creative energy ever. Why did I waste so many years working as a commercial artist when all it did was sap my creativity? Oh, yeah. I remember. It filled my coffers with filthy lucre and enabled me to have health insurance.

And I'm not talking about the kind from Star Trek, that got into Ensign Chekov's head, or any of the other varieties that are always popping up in horror movies. No, I'm talking about the song that gets in there and attaches itself to your synapses and won't let go. Thanks to Reecie, damn her, this is now stuck in my head and on a permanent loop on the i-pod. Play at your own risk.

I went to Fairchild yesterday and shot another hundred frames or so. Then I came home and tried to download all the images. But. My laptop wouldn't boot up. Nor could I reinstall the system software. When I took it to the Apple store this morning, the even badder news was that booting off a peripheral harddrive didn't help. Nothing can see my internal drive. It is dead. Fried. Screwed, blewed, tattooed. Here's hoping that it's only a fried bus cable and the data can be retrieved. Otherwise? I'm looking at suicide. Well, it's like I always tell other people. Back up your shit, because there are only two kinds of computers in the world. Those which have just crashed, and those which are about to. Just to be clear: I did not back up my shit. My computer crashed and burned. I am looking at a loss of all my data, my websites, my novel, my Girl's Guide, my 1500 photos, my recipes, my patterns, my e-mail, my music, my freaking life, people. My freaking life. The only bright spot in all of this is that I own all of my software, so I can reinstall it.

So, why does everybody get so freaking stupid over St. Patrick's Day? It's not like we all need another excuse to drink. Christ, I never need an excuse, I just need a bottle. And, maybe, a glass. Maybe not. I mean, really. Cubans who, all year long, vie to out-Cubanisimo each other, show up on March 17 wearing green and "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons. People who don't know the difference between single malt and chocolate malt wear shamrocks and call out for over-cooked cabbage. Where were these people earlier this week when it was Purim? Nobody offered me a cookie. Nobody wore costumes to work. Nobody got shit-faced drunk in public, even though that is a tradition of Purim, just as much as it is of St. Paddy's day. Me? I just grouse and complain and quote Christopher Moltisanti: "Hell is an Irish bar where it's always St. Patrick's Day."* *With apologies to RJ and MJ, who make wonderful Irish food, and throw great St. Patrick's Day parties, and I'd gladly go to another one. But then, RJ refuses to dye food green, and that, as we all know, is a Very Good Thing.

OK. Item the first. Many thanks to RJ for stepping in to be my emergency backup during my surgery. I was rescheduled (without my knowledge) for 3 hours earlier than I had planned, so the RLA was supposed to be in class, and couldn't get a substitute. If you ever have to sit around and wait for surgery, RJ is your girl. We were having quite the yocks before they came in to sedate me. After? Maybe we continued to have the yocks, but you can't prove it by me. My reaction to sedation is this: Oh! I think I feel it startizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Part of the cocktail they gave me was sodium pentathol, known to all movie watchers as "truth serum". What truths did I reveal under the influence of this powerful drug? That I wanted to go out for sushi. This actually came as quite a shock to me, because I quit eating the raw stuff after my housekeeper's son developed brain worms as a result of sushi. Now, I'd like to think, in my effete snobish way, that we eat at different sushi bars, but a brain worm is a brain worm is a brain worm (take THAT Gertrude Stein) and so I quit. Cold tuna, if you will. Another thing that RJ and I found infinitly amusing was that in addition to drawing a big blue circle on my tushie where he thought the lump would be found, the surgeon felt it necessary to also write "YES" in big indelible letters next to said circle. I believe that this is testament to the fineness of my white ass, but RJ says that it's just an extra precaution against cutting the wrong side. Like they all kept saying to each other "not the tatoo side" but I suppose that YES and a big blue circle help. Still, it's my fine white ass, and it's indelible ink, and so who is to debate with me about why the YES is there. Item the second is for my readers in California. Larry Cafiero, a fellow traveler from my salad days is running for office in your state. Here is his website. Vote for him. He's really a fine fellow, loves children and cats, and has more common sense in his little finger than most politicians have in their entire bodies. This, of course, bodes badly for his career in politics. Item the third. Are they fucking kidding me? Item the last in this list. Tonight is the reunion show for Project Runway. Oh, the blissful bitchiness of the dishing. Can my heart take it?

Things are going to hell in a handbasket around here. I took a header down the stairs leaving work yesterday and just smashed the crap out of my left knee and right shin. Finally made it home, whimpering and whining, started dinner for the RLA and promptly sliced my left pinky finger to the bone with a chef's knife that was sharpened as a birthday present. So. Five stitches and a tetanus shot later, we ate leftovers for our Valentine's day dinner. Still, the nurse said not to worry, this wouldn't prevent my having surgery on Monday to remove the lipoma from my right tushie dimple. Of course, I can't use any sort of pain killers between now and then, and my typing is compromised by the huge bundle of bandages on my pinky.... PS: just got up to make myself some tea, and slopped scalding water over my left hand... the one with the stitches. Maybe I should just go home and stay in bed until my surgery?

True. Because I: a) bought a sweat suit b) confronted my brother about his misbehavior and he admitted wrongdoing c) did not have a martini Saturday or Sunday, although there was one waiting in the freezer d) all of the above And the answer is d. But, just for the record, I bought the sweat suit because both pieces (hoodie and pants) were the same price as just a hoodie or just a pair of gym sweats. It's a lovely shade of teal. I also told the RLA that if I wore both parts at the same time anywhere other than to the gym, he had my full permission to divorce me, and I wouldn't contest it. I'm wearing the hoodie now. I wore the sweat pants all day yesterday. I did change into my jeans for the grocery store run. And another thing: the folks at Television Without Pity seem to have felt that my separated at birth: Osama and Santino — was somehow inappropriate and took down my post. This on a subject where not only did someone else say he was SAB from Rasputin, but linked to a photo of Rasputin's, uh... naughty bits in a jar of formaldehyde. And I hope that was a doctored photo. Or it was a horse named Rasputin. Ick. Hmmph. No. A quick Google, and there it is, along with a story that seems to come from the Russian version of News of the Weird. Stick a fork in me. I am done.

So, I'm at the gym this morning, worked out with Nic Cage, then climbed on the old Precor and while I was working up a sweat, watching the "news" on Fox, I had a sudden epiphany. That's where he's hiding! Right under our noses. But think on this a moment: they exhibit the same sort of megalomaniacal, supremely arrogant behavior; you just know Santino reeks of patchouli and onions, just like Osama. You've never seen them in the same place at the same time... Coincidence, or something more sinister?

This is going to be a clusterfuck of a year, I can just feel it in my bones. The RLA got a spider bite last week, and with diligence and a course of antibiotics has kept the necrotizing whatever at bay. He only has a small swelling and a little crimson spot on his drawing hand. But it was a nail biter. My mother is drifting deeper and deeper into the waters of Lethe. Now and then she pulls a name or a complete sentence out of the ether and that makes it even worse. Yesterday she blurted out the real name of my brother, Biggus Dickus. I have a confession to make. I am completely unable to focus today. I know that there is a pile of work in front of me, and yet, I cannot make myself attend to it. I've been looking at Today's Kitten, reading the recap of Project Runway (and don't get me started about Nicky Hilton and Santino—a perfect match of stupidity and arrogance if ever there was one), idly filing papers, and rummaging in the break room for bacon. Not as random as it would seem, the rummaging for bacon thing. There is a week-long training session going on next door, and the breakfast leftovers have made their appearance in the break room. There were sticky pecan rolls, too, if you must know, but I was able to muster enough self-control not to eat those. Bacon, on the other hand, is a primal force against which I am no match.

Yesterday, or maybe the day before, the Miami Herald ran a big ass story about "The December Dillema". That dillema, apparently, is what to do about Christmas and Chanukkah in mixed families. I'm not going to touch that issue with your ten foot pole, but I am going to address their solution. First of all, matzoh is not associated with Channukah in any way, shape or form. Second of all, it doesn't look like a happy Bavarian cottage, it looks like a freakin' graveyard. Third of all, what the fuck is wrong with just being Jewish, and having Jewish traditions, like Channukah gelt, and spinning the stupid dreidle, and lighting the menorah? And eating fried food? Huh? What is so wrong with that, that we have to coopt the traditions of another religion that coopted their traditions from the pagans who went before (i.e.: the Christmas tree)? I accept that in mixed faith families, there may be some issues, but, hey. A tree is for Christmas, and not for Channukah. There is NO SUCH FUCKING THING as a Channukah bush, OK? Calling it that makes it no less a Christmas tree. And a Christmas tree, no matter how much my girlfriends try to convince me otherwise, is a symbol of Christmas and of Christ's birth, and not just a house-sized air freshener. And you know what? I'm OK with that. I respect that. I honor that. I may feel like a stranger in a strange land this time of year, with most of my neighbors decorating the outside of their homes with lights, and the non-stop Christmas music in public places, and the never-ending barrage of all things Christmas, but. But I am a minority. Not in the minority, as in, most people enjoy this and I do not, but A minority. I am a Jew, and this season is not about me or my beliefs, it is a holiday, no matter how secularized it has become, of major significance to Christians. I may even go so far as to say that my recognition of Christmas is more religious than most of my Christian friends. As an outsider, it is easier for me to focus on the meaning of the holiday than of its commercialism. The RLA grew up in a Jewish ghetto, and has no appreciation for Christmas. He is even, dare I say, a teensy bit offended when invited to share the holiday with our Christian friends. I, on the other hand, having grown up as the only Jew in a one-Jew town, understand that this is an offer of love. Christians, by and large, feel as though their Jewish friends are missing out on something special by not "having Christmas", and so throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I have been invited to tree-trimming parties, to Christmas dinners, and Christmas morning breakfasts. (As an aside, there is nothing I love better than a slice of fried ham with red-eye gravy on Christmas morning, made from the left overs of the Christmas Eve ham. Oh, I am such a bad Jew.) What the RLA doesn't see is the love that those invitations hold. It is a manifestation of peace on earth, goodwill to men. It isn't a subtle, or not-so-subtle attempt to convert us. It is an acceptance of who we are, and an offer to share with us, what is so special to them. And that, my friends, is true love. But I digress. I was bitching about a Matzohbread house. That, dear readers, is a cop out. That is not embracing the differences and the "true meaning" of either holiday. That is a piece of shit and not to be tolerated by Christian or Jew. I don't want my Christian friends making potato latkes and calling it hay in the manger cakes, or lighting a menorah and saying that it represents the Christ child, the three Magi, Joseph and Mary and however many goats, horses and sheep are required to make up the number 8. I want Christians to be Christians, and Jews to be Jews, and Muslims to be Muslims, and Hindis to be Hindis. I am all for a belief in something bigger than us in the universe, but I don't think that a mishmash of pantheism is good for anybody. Separate, but equal. Share the holiday, but don't force it. I'll invite you to my house for potato latkes and applesauce and chocolate gelt, if you'll make me a slice of fried ham with red-eye gravy. I'll teach you the dreidle song, and you can skip the Twelve Days of Christmas because I already know it. I'm happy to wish you a Merry Christmas, and not a generic Happy Holiday, because it isn't a threat to who I am or what I believe to acknowledge and honor your beliefs. And, that, in the end, is what this season is all about. Merry Christmas. Happy Channukah. Blessed Kwanzaa. Whatever the hell you say about Tet.

Look, I know I have a problem with internet surfing in that I do way, way, way too much of it. I follow random link to random link all over the information superhighway, and usually end up on some one-lane dirt road to nowhere because I took an off ramp after seeing an interesting billboard... Very often I bookmark those lost little dead ends. Sometimes I link to them. Sometimes they go to the mental graveyard that such detritus deserves. And then, once in a while, I find something truly wonderful. And that is why I need your help, dear readers. Because I found a truly wonderful site and didn't bookmark it. Although I have a shoe addiction, when it comes to purses, I tend to schlep the same one ratty leather bag around until even I realize that it is a disgrace. And the site I stumbled over was a purse designer. More acurately, it was a pair of purse designers. I think they were English. I think that they both had names that started with an H and that their company and thus their site was both of their names. They had reasonably priced goods that were stylish and trendy. There was a hobo bag in particular that made my shriveled little heart go pitterpat. I think it was in a metallic burgundy leather. Now, I can write a search string like nobody, and I found a 1983 article on AIDS from Rolling Stone and a source for a copy and the author's name and another article citing the first one, all within five minutes of my boss requesting it thus: "Sometime in the early 80s there was a story about AIDS in Rolling Stone. It may have been a cover story. I think they used the phrase gay plague." Yet, no matter how I search, no matter what string I put together, I cannot find this website again. I have searched for photos of metallic leather hobo purses. I have ransacked the lists of British designers. I have gone through Google like Sherman through Georgia. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Goose eggs. I'm asking for help* here. Please? * I erase my histories and caches with obsessive regularity, so don't suggest that. Plus, I stumbled across this a month ago or more. I've checked all the links on Manolo's Shoe Blog, and the purse blogs. I'm just stumped.