Weblog 265
March 13, 2011~ 12:00 am
This is the day we have one hour stolen from us, and I always resent it. It doesn't matter to me that we also gain an extra hour in the fall, this TIME-THEFT each March is very disorienting.
It's as though clocks look like that all of a sudden. What I do (and have already done) is turn them ahead in the early evening so that when bedtime rolls around, I'm already used to the idea. I don't much care for that sudden snatching-away of an hour at 2:00 am, so I make a pre-emptive strike and lop it off on my own.
I suppose this loss of an hour couldn't come at a better time..... I gave myself and extended weekend, having stayed home on Friday after hearing weather reports of '2 to 8 inches of snow.' (That did not happen. We barely had an inch) - so I'm sure to take some ribbing when I return on Monday. What I expected to be a blizzard, turned into this....
(but at least it helps soften the absconded hour this weekend.) I read......and napped..... and snacked.... and napped some more......I hibernated on Friday-
like that little dormouse there, curled into himself and snoozing. It's good to have that kind of 'throw-away' day now and then.
I've been reading a charming book that makes me laugh. I'm just barreling through it, turning pages with big grins on my face. It's light reading that reminds me of the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', but this is about an Italian unmarried woman, who wants to carry on her family's custom 'wedding shoe' business, and lives with her grandmother above the shop. The novel starts off with the nuptuals of her youngest sister, and honestly, those opening scenes made me laugh out loud. It's a boisterous, funny group....typical 'Italian-American' style. If you want to laugh, you may want to pick up "Very Valentine".
('Valentine' or 'Valentina' is the main character's name.)
It was a loaner from work, and I'm so pleased I had it this weekend. (I'd just finished 'Whip Smart', which is an autobiographical story about a professional dominatrix-- a beautiful, bright college student with an addiction problem, who earned her college money through inflicting paid-for pain.) I'd heard the author interviewed a couple of years ago on Fresh Air and I was intrigued at that time, but I have to say having read the book, it's a truly ugly and depressing account. There is no way to make those pathetic scenes with 'johns' read anything other than sleazy and nasty. The worst of it is its self-conceited tone, which constantly grated on my nerves. I've never read a first person account by anyone so stuck on herself, and I'm willing to bet the author hasn't a clue she comes across that way. It's as though she set out to shock the reader, and was having a smug old time of it too. Having just finished that one, the self-deprecating humor found in the Valentine book was a breath of fresh air.
My nightstand is PILED with books- most are gifts from Wayne from Christmas. I still have a VERY THICK Stephen King novel waiting, and a biographical account of two famous New York brothers who were legendary hoarders, and a Patricia Cornwell lined up, so I'm set for a while.
This week's weather looks like it's going to be MUCH MILDER.....so maybe, maybe......spring is actually on the way. I hope we burst GLORIOUSLY into bloom soon. I'm tired of all this brown and gray. It's time for color. Living color. (Short-changed of an hour or not, it's worth it. LOL!)
I found an absolutely fascinating artist who appears to have a fixation on women in water (or drowning) ... and her hyperrealistic style of painting is both breathtaking and frightening.
This obsession with depicting women partially submerged is astoundingly real, astonishingly sensual, and deeply disturbing. At times I'm seeing panic, anger... even surrender in these remarkable paintings, but one thing is for sure, Alyssa Monks is a genius. My Oh My, yes..
March 14, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Today I'm 'twitchy' as all get out. Even though the sun is shining, I feel restless and anxious. I attribute this not only to 'typical Monday mood' stuff, but watching small flash videos at work of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. How does one feel anything but helpless and horrified by images like that? My God.......those poor people!
Then driving home from work, the 40 minutes or so that I usually 'depressurize' by listening to Fresh Air on NPR, today's topic was a first person account of a son turning state's evidence against his father in bringing down a huge crime ring in Chicago. Frank Calabrese Jr. turned over information on his father, Calabrese Sr., by offering to wear a wire while they were both incarcerated. His book just came out, called "Operation Family Secrets". The fella was so mesmerizing (and yes, HORRIFYING in the stuff he told in the interview) I did something I normally would not do.....I came in the house at half past the hour, dialed up the station and listened to the rest of the show. Then I was curious about what these men looked like with their typical mafioso nicknames such as 'the ant', and 'the chin' and 'no nose', etc.
These past couple of hours I've spent reading right off the Chicago Department of Justice site's exhibits from the trial-- with taped conversations, photos of the crime scenes (they were convicted of 18 murders) --and it chilled me to the bone... and DANG! doesn't an early picture of Frank Sr. just put you in mind of Tony Soprano?
Look at those dead eyes. Man! That's Gandolfini doing his 'gonna kill ya' look. None of that has been good for my already weird mood. Then I paid a visit to the Kirkus Review site. Zeroed right in on a book due to come out they've given high praise to: 'Tiger, Tiger'... a memoir of one girl's 15 years of involvement with a pedophile who finally kills himself... how's that for more a more 'upbeat' focus. LOL!!! I'm getting off this damn computer now and curling up with a decidely 'calmer' book.... hoping to shrug off these layers of heaviness and disquiet. (Why do I pick and pick, making a jangled mood worse?) I need to disappear for a bit. I need to fashion an imaginary bed of lavender and plop right down in it, pull the fragrance up --and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
March 17, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Ok.......NOW I'M ANGRY....
Everyone.......listen: if you patronize the online digital version of the NEW YORK TIMES, after March 28th only 20 *ARTICLES (read *cookies) will be allowed PER MONTH without paying 15.00 bucks every thirty days! You know what I say to that? SHOVE IT!!!
I've already removed my 'allow cookies' for the site and taken it off my favorites list. Join me in saying 'NO!' to clicking the Times....(as though that site isn't already overly-laden with ads and flash and crap of every kind... by which that BEHEMOTH organization collects REVENUE. Do they think the public is that stupid?) Yah..... I'd just like to see GOOGLE start charging after so many searches. They KNOW better. They get their money from 'ads, ads, ads' splashed everywhere--- just as the Times does. (First they lead us astray about WMD back before the start of the Iraq invasion with sloppy reporting, and now they crawl right in bed with the God of the 'Rich Right': Money.)
As Wayne said when I emailed him that scoop: "They can kiss my Hungarian ass!" We're BOTH dumping the greedy bastards.
Here's two TERRIFIC alternatives....BOOKMARK THEM. Neither demands you accept cookies of any kind, and BOTH are excellent sources of current events. (The MYWAY site has NO ADS WHATSOEVER....EVER.)
News/MyWay
BBC News
DO NOT PATRONIZE THE NEW YORK TIMES. (You know, Andrew Carnegie was a rich, union-busting pri*k, but he did one thing right. He set up free libraries.) DO NOT visit the Times. We'll see how long it takes them to figure out their ads really DID bring in the cash after all. Being greedy will do nothing but SINK an online enterprise. Let's SHOW them. JOIN US IN 'JUST SAY *NO* TO THE NEW YORK TIMES'.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
This is the day we have one hour stolen from us, and I always resent it. It doesn't matter to me that we also gain an extra hour in the fall, this TIME-THEFT each March is very disorienting.
It's as though clocks look like that all of a sudden. What I do (and have already done) is turn them ahead in the early evening so that when bedtime rolls around, I'm already used to the idea. I don't much care for that sudden snatching-away of an hour at 2:00 am, so I make a pre-emptive strike and lop it off on my own.
I suppose this loss of an hour couldn't come at a better time..... I gave myself and extended weekend, having stayed home on Friday after hearing weather reports of '2 to 8 inches of snow.' (That did not happen. We barely had an inch) - so I'm sure to take some ribbing when I return on Monday. What I expected to be a blizzard, turned into this....
(but at least it helps soften the absconded hour this weekend.) I read......and napped..... and snacked.... and napped some more......I hibernated on Friday-
like that little dormouse there, curled into himself and snoozing. It's good to have that kind of 'throw-away' day now and then.
I've been reading a charming book that makes me laugh. I'm just barreling through it, turning pages with big grins on my face. It's light reading that reminds me of the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', but this is about an Italian unmarried woman, who wants to carry on her family's custom 'wedding shoe' business, and lives with her grandmother above the shop. The novel starts off with the nuptuals of her youngest sister, and honestly, those opening scenes made me laugh out loud. It's a boisterous, funny group....typical 'Italian-American' style. If you want to laugh, you may want to pick up "Very Valentine".
('Valentine' or 'Valentina' is the main character's name.)
It was a loaner from work, and I'm so pleased I had it this weekend. (I'd just finished 'Whip Smart', which is an autobiographical story about a professional dominatrix-- a beautiful, bright college student with an addiction problem, who earned her college money through inflicting paid-for pain.) I'd heard the author interviewed a couple of years ago on Fresh Air and I was intrigued at that time, but I have to say having read the book, it's a truly ugly and depressing account. There is no way to make those pathetic scenes with 'johns' read anything other than sleazy and nasty. The worst of it is its self-conceited tone, which constantly grated on my nerves. I've never read a first person account by anyone so stuck on herself, and I'm willing to bet the author hasn't a clue she comes across that way. It's as though she set out to shock the reader, and was having a smug old time of it too. Having just finished that one, the self-deprecating humor found in the Valentine book was a breath of fresh air.
My nightstand is PILED with books- most are gifts from Wayne from Christmas. I still have a VERY THICK Stephen King novel waiting, and a biographical account of two famous New York brothers who were legendary hoarders, and a Patricia Cornwell lined up, so I'm set for a while.
This week's weather looks like it's going to be MUCH MILDER.....so maybe, maybe......spring is actually on the way. I hope we burst GLORIOUSLY into bloom soon. I'm tired of all this brown and gray. It's time for color. Living color. (Short-changed of an hour or not, it's worth it. LOL!)
I found an absolutely fascinating artist who appears to have a fixation on women in water (or drowning) ... and her hyperrealistic style of painting is both breathtaking and frightening.
This obsession with depicting women partially submerged is astoundingly real, astonishingly sensual, and deeply disturbing. At times I'm seeing panic, anger... even surrender in these remarkable paintings, but one thing is for sure, Alyssa Monks is a genius. My Oh My, yes..
March 14, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Today I'm 'twitchy' as all get out. Even though the sun is shining, I feel restless and anxious. I attribute this not only to 'typical Monday mood' stuff, but watching small flash videos at work of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. How does one feel anything but helpless and horrified by images like that? My God.......those poor people!
Then driving home from work, the 40 minutes or so that I usually 'depressurize' by listening to Fresh Air on NPR, today's topic was a first person account of a son turning state's evidence against his father in bringing down a huge crime ring in Chicago. Frank Calabrese Jr. turned over information on his father, Calabrese Sr., by offering to wear a wire while they were both incarcerated. His book just came out, called "Operation Family Secrets". The fella was so mesmerizing (and yes, HORRIFYING in the stuff he told in the interview) I did something I normally would not do.....I came in the house at half past the hour, dialed up the station and listened to the rest of the show. Then I was curious about what these men looked like with their typical mafioso nicknames such as 'the ant', and 'the chin' and 'no nose', etc.
These past couple of hours I've spent reading right off the Chicago Department of Justice site's exhibits from the trial-- with taped conversations, photos of the crime scenes (they were convicted of 18 murders) --and it chilled me to the bone... and DANG! doesn't an early picture of Frank Sr. just put you in mind of Tony Soprano?
Look at those dead eyes. Man! That's Gandolfini doing his 'gonna kill ya' look. None of that has been good for my already weird mood. Then I paid a visit to the Kirkus Review site. Zeroed right in on a book due to come out they've given high praise to: 'Tiger, Tiger'... a memoir of one girl's 15 years of involvement with a pedophile who finally kills himself... how's that for more a more 'upbeat' focus. LOL!!! I'm getting off this damn computer now and curling up with a decidely 'calmer' book.... hoping to shrug off these layers of heaviness and disquiet. (Why do I pick and pick, making a jangled mood worse?) I need to disappear for a bit. I need to fashion an imaginary bed of lavender and plop right down in it, pull the fragrance up --and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
March 17, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Ok.......NOW I'M ANGRY....
Everyone.......listen: if you patronize the online digital version of the NEW YORK TIMES, after March 28th only 20 *ARTICLES (read *cookies) will be allowed PER MONTH without paying 15.00 bucks every thirty days! You know what I say to that? SHOVE IT!!!
I've already removed my 'allow cookies' for the site and taken it off my favorites list. Join me in saying 'NO!' to clicking the Times....(as though that site isn't already overly-laden with ads and flash and crap of every kind... by which that BEHEMOTH organization collects REVENUE. Do they think the public is that stupid?) Yah..... I'd just like to see GOOGLE start charging after so many searches. They KNOW better. They get their money from 'ads, ads, ads' splashed everywhere--- just as the Times does. (First they lead us astray about WMD back before the start of the Iraq invasion with sloppy reporting, and now they crawl right in bed with the God of the 'Rich Right': Money.)
As Wayne said when I emailed him that scoop: "They can kiss my Hungarian ass!" We're BOTH dumping the greedy bastards.
Here's two TERRIFIC alternatives....BOOKMARK THEM. Neither demands you accept cookies of any kind, and BOTH are excellent sources of current events. (The MYWAY site has NO ADS WHATSOEVER....EVER.)
BBC News
DO NOT PATRONIZE THE NEW YORK TIMES. (You know, Andrew Carnegie was a rich, union-busting pri*k, but he did one thing right. He set up free libraries.) DO NOT visit the Times. We'll see how long it takes them to figure out their ads really DID bring in the cash after all. Being greedy will do nothing but SINK an online enterprise. Let's SHOW them. JOIN US IN 'JUST SAY *NO* TO THE NEW YORK TIMES'.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Labels: ads and crap not enough for New York Times, boycott the New York Times: NO PAY NO WAY, New York Times Gets Greedy
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