She Walked Away

Hey Vox, How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?

As I was scarfing down a GI-NOR-MOUS salad for lunch (yes, I eat lunch at 11:00 am, sometimes even earlier), I realized I hadn't been over to the Vox 'hood in a while. I guess I could have more accurately entitled this post, "Vox! I Hardly Recognized You!"

I lamented to a friend the other day that I was increasingly disappointed that none of my friends had made themselves available to me socially on my 2.5 hours off each week. Poor me! I need some interaction with real people. While I enjoy the somewhat obtuse random comments from one of my professors, and I enjoy the company of friends who are in my classes, I really just want to have a beer [snob] drinking conversation. Back when I was nowhere nearly as busy as I am now, I was the Queen of Changing Plans. Now that I have no discretionary time at all, I have a bit of a meltdown if someone dishes out that very medicine, let alone miscommunication about going out to brunch or something. And please help the poor bastard who calls me during my Sunday Morning Political Television and Coffee Klatsch! For God's sake, bring over bagels and watch them with me, but don't even think I'll be chatting on the phone with you about anything! Someone had better be bleeding or have a limb missing - that's all I'm sayin'.

This Sunday I have pre-planned a hike with a friend and with Olive. Poor Olive really needs some Spring! It should be a great excursion to break up my painting time.

Exhaustion, back pain and insomnia continue. I was up self-chiropractoring myself yesterday morning and I caught TV's Craig Ferguson going on about Starbucks. I found it hilarious, but then again I was punch-drunk from exhaustion and over-the-counter painkillers. This clip leaves out his comparsion of Starbucks coffee to pudding, but successfully leaves in a reference to Kenny G just for cheekymonkey!

 

The Late Late Show - Monologue, 2.26

 

Life QotD: Smile of the Day

What is the last thing that made you smile?

 

It was about 1:00 this morning. TV's Craig Ferguson, everybody. So Fargin Adorable.

Weekend Weary

It's time I faced up to reality.

I am now a woman of a 'certain age' who cannot, among other things, stay up going full throttle for 24 hours.

This weekend was busy. The skeleton emerged from the back of the closet, as scheduled, when I returned home from work on Saturday. He had just travelled by big ol' jet airliner from California and we quickly got in the car and headed to Louisville, Kentucky to see Tim Finn! Like I said before, lucky, lucky me!

 Yes, his hair is delicious.

The show was really lovely and I enjoyed the company of my dear old skeleton. We ventured back to my house after the show, but desperately needed to stop for sustenance before we called it a night. Our only option at 1:00 in the morning??

 I know. Eww.

After a desperate attempt to find a tattoo parlor open without success, we headed home to visit more and to play with Olive. Olive was none too sure about this skeleton, see, and that just made things more interesting.

One cheap bottle of wine later and after a visit from my house ghost, who was obviously not too thrilled with a gentleman caller in the house, my guest headed back to the airport for his trip home at a highly unreasonable hour.

I am so happy to have gone to the show, but also very impressed that someone would go to so much trouble just to give me a ride.

 

 

Boston, Obama, and Back off my Tunes!

I love Boston. It's one of those bands I like to listen to very loud. VERY loud. Other bands have songs I like to have on high volume, but I like ALL Boston music really loud. What? You think I am a nerd? I think not.

Another reason to love Boston? This. From founding bandmember Tom Scholz, referring to Mike Huckabee:

"Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for,” wrote Scholz, adding that he is supporting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. “By using my song, and my band’s name Boston, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!”

I particularly love the us of 'in other words' in this statement. It's so George W. Bush! 

In Progress Self Portrait

In Progress Self Portrait
Originally uploaded by notreallylois

More progress coming soon.

Otto is Ghetto Fabulous!!

I don't kid myself into thinking that this is interesting to anyone but me, but here goes.

Monday night's drive home from work (after school and work) was relatively uneventful. I did notice that my car (Otto) was handling a little wonky. Did I stop to check things out? Naw! It was something like 10 degrees with a -15 windchill, so I just kept driving!

I rounded the corner to home and knew I had a flat tire! I parked and looked and, yes, flat, flat flat.

After letting Olive out (poor baby, in the house all day), I quickly started unloading the 'trunk' to get to the spare. Armed with the excuse "I'm an artist" in case anyone saw the mess surrounding my car as I jacked it up to put on the space saver, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I was able to take care of things. If anyone did see me, perhaps they deduced on their own from my shock of pink hair that I was an artist, but then again they might have thought I was just nuts. In either case, the temperature was very effective in accelerating the task at hand.

As I was nearly done with putting the spare on, sleet started falling on my head. Sorry, BJ Thomas, but there isn't a song to come out of that predicament. I finished up and went inside to warm up my fingers. I toyed with the possibility of switching the spare to the rear and putting the full-size wheel in the front, but then considered the temperature, the lack of daylight, and the fact that I only had one jack. The weather forecast called for a winter storm with 6 - 8 inches of snow, so I just hunkered down and decided to be Scarlett O'Hara and "think about it tomorrow."

The prediction for snow turned out to be a false alarm in my immediate area, but there was freezing rain and sleet and snow falling when I ventered out to see what I could do.

Did I mention I have a full set of stock wheels with good tires on them in my garage? I do, but my garage has barn doors (and a stall for a horse, if you must know) that will not swing open when the ground is frozen and swollen like it usually is all winter. Perfectly suitable wheels and tires, I just can't get to them.

At the local tire dealer, the solution was to buy a set of used custom wheels with new tires. These custom wheels are even more ghetto fabulous than my last ones were. They're a bit scraped up, so I figure their previous owner must have hit the guard rail on the highway when they were attempting to outrun the DEA. The appearance of the wheels aside, the new tires are fabulous, period. Otto drives like a new car! Even in the rather unfavorable conditions of the harsh winter. I will refrain from posting a photo of my new wheels, as a precautionary measure suggested by the Witness Protection Program.

So. Before anyone asks me what I plan to do with my [up to] $600 economy-stimulating tax rebate, let me just tell you it's spent. Spent and then some. I had SO hoped to save it, just to frustrate the Bush administration by my refusal to participate in economy stimulation, but at least part of my purchase was post-consumer.

The really good news now that Otto is buttoned up and on the road is the results of the Potomac Primaries yesterday. While I continue to wait to have my say in the democratic process of primary elections, I am so pleased with how things are going so far.

 

 

 

Whirlwind

Following last week's tornadic activity in and near where I live, the weekend also proved to be a bit of a whirlwind.

I worked all day Saturday, as it was the first day of my school's community learning semester. It never fails to surprise me how I can be completely exhausted, yet still find energy for doing the things that I love to be doing - even when they fall under the umbrella of 'work.'

I should have taken the opportunity to run my errands after work on Saturday, when the temperature was a heavenly 45 degrees (or thereabouts). Instead, I succumbed to a headache - likely due to poor hydration - and fell asleep early.

My Sunday routine involves coffee and political television. I must say that this Sunday was a boost to my spirit, especially after Senator Obama's strong wins in Saturday's primaries and caucus. I think it was one caucus - hard to keep track, really.

I then ventured out in the nearly -20 wind chill temperature to run those errands. I also visited a friend to see her new interior house paint. It was warm and cheerful in her house, at least. Actually, even with the frigid temperature, the day was absolutely beautiful, so it was well worth the inconvenience of needing to be out.

This morning, I awoke to the news that Obama had not only prevailed in Maine's caucus Sunday, but he picked up a Grammy to boot! Got Progress? Yeah, baby! We have Progress!!

 

Obama SF

 

 

Dream a Little Dream

Hell to the yes!

 

Clinton-Obama / Obama-Clinton: Dream Ticket?