Weblog 76

July 22, 2007~ 1:15am
Browsing the web tonight, I had one of two things to share here: the first was the 'pizza delivery bomb' guy from Erie, Pennsylvania-- a story that's been making the news again with further developments in one of the strangest cases ever, but it's also a story I find extremely upsetting and I didn't want to get into that-- so what'd I do? I began to browse through vintage dolls, and in particular, Barbie dolls. Fascinating. "Did you know more than one billion Barbie dolls and their family members and friends have been sold since 1959, and placed head-to-toe, the dolls would circle the earth more than seven times? Or that Barbie dolls sell at the rate of two dolls every second, and if Barbie was 5 foot 6 instead of 11 1/2 inches tall, her measurements would be 39-21-33. An academic expert once calculated that a woman's likelihood of being shaped like Barbie was less than 1 in 100,000"- yet we clamored for them, unreasonable measurements or not. They're sold in 150 different countries, adopting the local dress and color. Here's one from India, one of the prettiest Barbie's I've ever seen....



She's really sumpthin, isn't she?-- and she's sitting on a dais of red silk trimmed in golden threads. Makes me realize what a raw deal I had back in 1963 when I got my own--- at 12 years old. LOL!! (Yes, my mother was against it. Told me I was too old - I was- and that I'd lose interest soon- I did.) I got a Ken doll as well that Christmas, and was very disappointed too that he had no penis. (This at an age when I had no idea in the world what he was supposed to do with one- there were such times for 12 year olds, I promise you- I only knew that he should have had one. I mean, wtf??) Look at the lovely lady above here--- and now look at what my 1963 "Bubblecut" Barbie looked like. ('Bubblecut' because of the hairdo, which was 'poofed' and short.) I would have preferred a ponytailed one, but the poof was in season then.



The inventor of the doll said, "I thought it was important for little girls' self-esteem to play with dolls that had breasts." Personally, I think it would have helped to have played with a doll with a NOSE of normal size, with a waist that couldn't fit through a keyhole and legs 10 ft long, but hey- that's just me. It was fun to dress her up for the couple of months I was interested in her- before Mother Nature made a 'woman' out of me and I had other things to think about not nearly as pleasant. When I think of Barbie, I think of the last quarter-crescent moon of my childhood, the one I tried to hang onto almost inappropriately past its time.

But from 1959, when the Barbie doll first came out, till '63 when I got my own, I wanted one. By the time I got her, it was nearly too late, but it was a wonderful Christmas- I do remember that. I finally "fit in" with all my friends-- I had a Barbie too, and tonight, where did I go when I didn't want to think about that poor man with a bomb around his neck? It was Barbie to the rescue once again...

She's always represented someplace 'else'- some glamorous place where all the accessories match, and the shoes too, and there are pinks galore-- pink clouds, softer than any surface you can imagine.

What a broad.




July 23, 2007~ 4:45pm
For the last week or so, I feel 'not here'. My thoughts are the only real things in the world- and the world itself is an indecipherable 'other'- without harness or comprehension: wholly intrusive, and totally to be avoided. I haven't the means to take myself off to an island, so I'm making my own.

As you know- if you've been reading this thing- I've done away with television altogether. I don't want to know current events or trends. Ninety-nine percent of it, you can do absolutely nothing about, and 85 percent is garbage anyway, so why bother? It's upsetting. Needlessly.

I've figured out that I can do just fine -and live much more peacefully, with a book to read, a job to go to where you keep your head down and work diligently all day, so that when quitting time comes, you turn your back on it completely for another 12 hours, then have the rest of the time to your thoughts.

I have, literally, no friends in the real world, only a few online, a scattering- so there are no commitments there. I see the grandkids and daughter once a week, my mother, the same- my fella, for two dinners on very abbreviated evenings per week- and that's it. The rest is sleep, think, write and read. If you were to draw me, I'd look pretty much like this-




-- a walking, green and thriving, self-contained biosphere. LOL!! Of course, there's the cats---that was a mistake made, many, many moons ago, but I'm training them to leave me alone-- and be as mute as possible. No more rubbing, meowing, howling, chirruping, braiding their paths under my feet. I keep a bottle of water with me at all times and spritz them if they do any of the above. (After a week of this, it's working little by little.) I realize I've allowed them to become more and more demanding with the years, and I've just 'gone along' with it, until finally I resent them completely. So if they are to co-exist with me, they must learn to be practically invisible or face the spray bottle and my extreme displeasure- which translates into more ignoring of them- less treats, less passive détente between us, and more open hostility.

(Beethoven, the 18 yr. old male, just got it in the face for an annoying habit of sitting on my printer and staring me down, then setting the damn thing in off by figgeting on the keys with his rump.) Little habits like that, that I've allowed to accumulate over the years, have made for very spoiled animals. Well, no longer....

If I can't change the world, I can damn sure change my own- and it is possible-- by inches- every day, a bit more walled, a little more insulated- a few puffs in the biosphere to keep it afloat and tightly sealed, no phones- they're turned 'off-ringer'- no TV- more space- more personal, breathable air.




July 24, 2007~ 8:00pm
Well, NPR did it again-- interviewed somebody I fell in love with...and how could you not love a singer/songwriter who wrote "The Beast In Me"- recorded by Johnny Cash?? Yup...today's interview was with Nick Lowe- 58 years old and still kickin'. He has a great road-weary sound to his voice, which is all sincerity and maturity- and something else, that makes it very easy to trust. Listening to him sing today made me feel good, so I just finished up with Amazon DOT com and ordered my very own CD of "At My Age".




And there he be: long, lanky- and white-haired as a judge. LOL! There's a man wears his age the way it should be worn- proudly- not caked over in stage make-up and hair dye. A song called, "I Trained Her To Love Me" just tickled me to death. He said women get the irony and humor when he performs it- and some men get upset- but some as*holes begin to raise their arms to punch the air and yell', "Yes!" Well I have no lyrics for that to post here, but I did find lyrics to 'All Men Are Liars'. Same sentiments. Same groin kick....

All men, all Men are liars. Their words
ain’t worth no more than worn out tires.
Hey Girls, bring rusty pliers to pull this tooth.
All men are liars, and that’s the truth.

Do you remember Rick Astley?
He had a big fat hit that was ghastly.
He said 'I’m never gonna give you up or let you down'-
Well I’m here to tell ya, that Dick’s a clown.
Though he was just a boy when he made that vow,
I’d bet it all, that he knows by now.

(Chorus)

Among god’s creatures, man must be
the most slimy and slippery now.
There stands the naked ape in a monkey suit
behind a little mustache he grew, the shifty brute.
All the ones not choking on the words they ate, are
Sweating on getting their stories straight.


The feller tells it like he sees it. He just became a daddy 2 1/2 years ago for the first time, and he certainly seems happy in that down deep inside happy some people have when they've made good decisions finally- and feel their life is adding up to something they truly like. Click if you want to get 'snippets' of the songs from "At My Age". Just let it buffer, and it'll start playing all on it's own, but ya gotta have javascript enabled. Yep, I really love this guy, and can't wait to start playing the whole shebang in the car, and singing along, no doubt. It takes small things to march my mood right up the road toward 'alright'- and this did it for me today. And hey....who wouldn't like a guy has a blue guitar?




Only Picasso could have made that a somber image-- bent over the damn thing like some sort of tortured paralytic-- but the color BLUE has spunk. You bet. And oh magosh, so does Nick Lowe.




July 25, 2007~ 10:15pm
Each day, I like to keep some record here of what I've been thinking about, or what I've been doing. Today, I have ROCKS IN MY HEAD. Man-o-man, it started because a lovely lady at work gave me a Petoskey Stone. Never heard of it? Well, I hadn't. Apparently it's the state stone of Michigan, which is the only place these intriguing things can be found, and only there. Petoskey Stones

Yep. They were here about 100 million years BEFORE the dinosaurs, and the wonderful trick to these things, is that without being submerged in water, they look like a regular old, grayish stone. Soak them, and there are HEXAGONS everywhere! I just love mine. I got really excited at work, thinking that I had a whole JAR of Lake Michigan stones at home to test- (I'd picked them up as souvenirs 5 years ago on a trip to Michigan to see my first grandson, when my son got back from being stationed in Italy). I couldn't wait to see if I'd snagged one.

After emptying out the whole glass vase-ful, nuthin'-- not a Petoskey in the bunch, but then I started to study them. They're ALL pretty- all unique- and that's why I brought them back with me to begin with-- I just plain LOVE ROCKS. Here's what my vase looks like. You can see some of the wonderful banding and detail- reall beauties.




And then I remembered a rock I'd bought about 20 years ago. Couldn't remember the damn name of the thing, but I remembered it had water trapped inside it. It took me many fascinating hours tonight online to rediscover the name. It's an 'ENHYDRO'- a geode, usually agate, (which mine is)- that still has water and small fossils trapped inside it. Here's mine-- with some of my favorite stones from that Michigan trip. What fascinates me is how nearly perfectly ROUND some of them are- and the large tan one- nearly perfect in circumference. I really should make a pendant out of it....




From this center of interest today, it was a short leap into the 'crystals and New Age stuff', and now I want to visit a place only 2 1/2 hours from my home called 'The Four Quarters'- which is a nature 'sanctuary (slash) monastery'- and it hooked me just by poking around on the site. LOL!!! I may be howling at the moon, beating a drum sometime this fall, who knows?-- but it's sure been a pleasant evening-- everything else just disappeared. (And I wasn't looking forward to reading tonight. I bought a real 'dog' of a book.....'women's reading'....blech!) I'd hoped it was something a bit deeper, but it's not. Oh well. I ought to stick to my detective stories and historical themes. Can't win em' all...but when it comes to reading, damn near. Damn near- this one was a surprise.

NOTE HERE: My fella just read this entry. Thinks my jar of stones looks like MEAT! LOL lol.




July 26, 2007~ 7:00am
Ha! Another reason why cats are creepy. They're damn crapehangers!.......and here's the culprit himself~

~OSCAR!





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