A Miss Ann Elk

Someone handed me a pamphlet for Books Through Bars, which despite its name is not an organization determined to make drunks read. No, this group of people delivers books to prisons, a worthy pursuit. If you're interested in checking them out, try www.booksthroughbars.org. On a somewhat personal note, I send books to the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Facility all the time. One of my friends said the library over at the workhouse really blew, and a weekend in stir felt like forever.

The news this week is that David Berkowitz - Son of Sam to you serial killer fans - got religion. Focus on the Bamily, on of those Christian groups that can make a free-thinking gal crazy, is selling copies of radio broadcasts describing his prison conversion. Focus on the Family might take issue with the word "selling" because there's a suggested donation involved, but money's changing hands all the same. I can't really decide if I have an opinion on the matter, except I *am* sure I'd rather spend my pocket change on visits to dinosaur bones.

It's a Doll Revolution

"Tear Off Your Own Head" is the song in my head this morning. Yesterday, I felt like a giant cloud full of lightning flashes and random moments of cool. Today, I managed to get to work, and horoscopically speaking, I'm supposed to be the Voice of Reason. I always look forward to the situations in which I am the SANE person.

Paulie comes home tonight. Hopefully he can work some magic on my car. Like, get it to drive around to my local destinations without puffing smoke, though I'd settle at this point for driving at all.

Larry's not eating enough. My world is small and slow enough that I know how much the cat eats.

Casting the First Stone

Ugh. Once again, we have in our midst a soul-stealer. This seems to happen to my tough social circle about once every year or two. We welcome them in and next thing you know, we can't agree on what happened, only that that person's got to go. Unfortunately, the friend to whom that villain's attached doesn't seem to realize the girl's a bully and only in it to do harm. Well, the girl made a move on one of our children. Everything turned out all right, but nobody gets a second chance at that maneuver. For my part, I'm perfectly clear on how when I see her again, she better keep her distance.

I say 'when' and not 'if' because the girl's coming back until her friend among our friends hasn't gotten the picture and will continue to bring her around.

All this seems like an IQ test I flunk on an annual basis. I'm too tired for crap like this.

Cathy to Heathcliff: Your Number's Next in the Deli Line of Death

Don't like the title? So sue me. Last night, I pulled up Blogger on the home mac and promptly abandoned my - excuse the pun - post. After I went to bed, Larry, a small black cat bent on stealing your soul, walked all over me in a particularly vigorous attempt to get me to play with him. From across the room came a bright light: the screensaver went WHOOSH! and up came the bright, empty Blogger screen. Alas, I failed to keep the appointment and the ghostly light served as an untimely taunt.

This morning, we send off a pile of interesting books to the Middlesex County Adult Correctional Facility, including the Brothers Karamazov and a few LeCarre novels. If nothing else, the shipment should inspire paranoia and gadgety ways to deal with it.

I have no car. Life is so punk rock when you're cabbing it around New Brunswick.

Kurds and Whey

...as in, eat cottage cheese and read CNN.com, the modern pink collar worker's lunch regimen.

I wrote an anecdote about choosing mother-of-the-bride-wear but made the mistake of attempting to italicize. Au revoir, little story! So, this blogging thing has its pitfalls.

Tonight, I can finally launder and read comicbooks. Joy! Actually, I mean that. I'm t-i-i-i-red, and I want to curl up on an April-fresh couch with "100 Bullets" - No.6.

Aiding and abetting parlor

Last night, Trout and I emptied one of her closets. Then we threw stuff away. I love throwing stuff away. Out, out it goes! Joy!

I didn't hear from Paulie yesterday, and something funny's happening with my cell phone, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that all's well and Paulie's dropped face-first in the haggis.

Last week, I cleaned out drawers of my desk. At the bottom, a color copy of one of my favorite Hub City Spoke Repair photographs. James is lying on our luggage, smiling. Marc, crouching, flashes the peace sign. I'm sitting on a suitcase, tipping my hat to the camera. In the background, my car's being towed away. We were driving like Jehu to the NACB convention when the transmission gave up the ghost and the car glided gracefully into a Rhode Island rest stop. Sean took the picture.

Mild manners, wild heart

Over the weekend, one of our former presidents died. Yesterday, I watched a memorial service that humanized the whole family in such a way as to render black and white assessments a little grayer. That stinks. In this bizarre moment when history is being shockingly re-written, I would like to stand firm on who's evil and who's just the mouthpiece for evil.

Such is life. The poor may rise up and declare the oppressor beloved. I should've seen that coming.

Keeping my mouth shut and my silence respectful is taking a great deal of effort. I need a nap.

Sleepy Sunday Equals Manic Monday

Song in my head this morning: the Plimsouls' "A Million Miles Away" which is so eighties and so completely from that dark moment of my life when I moved in with my grandmother and infant daughter that I recall clearly feeling young and lost and as if time passed me by. Startling how little changes with the passage of twenty years.

Paulie's gone to the bank. The sky's gray and over the city hangs a stillness even a slight breeze does not disturb. Larry sleeps on a bag of Paulie's snakeskin swatches he's using to reupholster his car. The bag is large and Larry has declared himself king of it. Paulie returns and collects scraps from the floor. Yesterday, when he got up I was watching a National Geographic channel show about an AeroPeru plane crash. Later, I watched a new show about the state of Titanic's structural integrity. I can't resist the forensic examination of a human disaster. Or sharks. I can't resist sharks. They're bitey.

And speaking of bitey, the dryer buzzer went off. Must fold, must fold.

Cold coffee, hot tamale

Clean laundry hangs from every hook, niche and doorknob in the joint. Paulie's flight for Scotland leaves tomorrow, dinnertime. For Heaven's sake, it's time to buy enough Ricky Ricardo shirts to last longer than a week. Sometimes it looks like a black velvet painting exploded in our living room.

Right now, the sky could open again at any moment, so he's outside bolting his carburator to the engine. I think. I'm sorry to say I don't know a blessed thing about cars. For all I know, you bolt carburators to cup holders so your soda stays bubbly. This is not a knowledge deficit one ought to crow from the treetops. Instead, I think I should issue guarded apologies to automotive engineers throughout the ages. It's on my To Do list.

Winging It and Winding Down

Friday afternoon. I can't express my love of Friday afternoons. I plan to try by driving home and staying there.

Paulie's plane leaves for Glasgow on Sunday, I think. What sort of gifts does one demand from a visitor to Scotland? Anything but haggis. I love haggis, but I've pictured a horrific scene with bomb-sniffing airport dogs and a bag of meat.

Milk and cookies and milk

I have eaten a cookie.

See, the words don't do it justice. I don't eat cookies, and I generally stick to small portions of food, and have been on a diet since 1977, essentially. So when I say I have eaten a cookie, it should be read with the same announcer voice in which one hears ads for monster truck rallies:

WEDNESDAY! WEDNESDAY! WEDNESDAY! I HAVE EATEN...A COOKIE!

Fortunately, it was a delicious oatmeal cookie with raisins and a light cinnamon flavor and quite moist and I hardly even regret it very much, though I wish I hadn't drunk the SlimFast first.