Quotable Quotes

I discovered G.K. Chesterton yesterday, and now I really want to read a biography or something of it. He's the one with such gems as:

"My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober."

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."

My favorite, "You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."

I'm really glad I found the Chesterton quotes. Without going into too many tedious details, I became very, very, very angry at the worship of mooshy-headed thinking and the need to "validate" others, no matter what crap they're spewing, on my local Pagan mailing list yesterday.

I simply do not understand, since we have been given hearts and minds and spirits, how some people can be so content to sleepwalk through life and why they reject intellectual or emotional rigor.

If you don't care about facts or honesty or genuine seeking after knowledge, how can you live with yourself? What sort of excuse for a human being are you?

Market Analysis of the Pyramid Collection Catalog

Everyone needs a hobby, and one of mine is browsing through catalogs and analyzing market trends. I especially enjoy doing this with Pagan catalogs, because they are ridiculously subject to the latest fad.

Now, for anyone not familiar with it, the Pyramid Collection is THE Newage/Pagan glossy catalog of my region. It's one of those catalogs serious-minded Pagans love to hate, very light on the books, very heavy on gaudy trinkets.

The front cover of the Summer 2003 print catalog showcases two fairy ornaments, a nice pair of "funky" women's overalls, a bellydancing video, two Claddaugh rings, one cryptic glass suncatcher and one mother/child fairy print.

Text says: Look inside for Dragons, Castles & Fairy Lore, Wicca, Celtic Jewelry, Goddess, Crystals and Much More!

Most popular items, based on the number of times they appear:

Fairies -- 27 products

Dragons -- 21 products

Celestial -- 14 products

Pentacles -- 12 products

Angels and Irish/Celtic/Gaelic - each 11 products

What's in and out?

Out or heading out: Feng shui, wolves, runes, Goth, gargoyles, Egyptian, Buddhism, medieval-style clothing, mermaids.

In: Fairies, angels, dragons, Celtic lite, Wicca/witchcraft, New Age empowerment items. Lots of blue stones and blue colors in jewelry and clothes.

Trends to watch:

Crafty Pagan (including Pagan cookbooks)
Non-religious New Age (more "empowerment", less spirituality)
"Occult" Witchcraft as opposed to Wicca
"Gypsy"

(I would note that these four groups suggest that there's a general trend towards being less abstractly "spiritual", and more "occult" or "hands on".)

Other trends to watch include,

Asian or East Asian but NOT feng shui or Buddhism
mystical geometry (representations of the elements in geometric form)
Adult novelties (these are big in occult stores of this region, very oriented towards the heterosexual female audience.)

Things from the catalog I covet irrationally include the Pixy Floormats and the Indigo Patchwork overalls.

Yay! Got "A" on test

Perhaps I'm too old for this sort of thing, but not only am I happy about my grade, but it's also given me a much needed boost of self-confidence.

I have consistently had serious problems with coming up with plans (for example, studying Accounting) then getting bogged down in the actual work, and not being able to follow through. To the point where any time I have to rely on steady, consistent effort to achieve a certain goal, I experience real panic, and often do all sorts of things to sabotage myself, either consciously or unconsciously.

Actually needing to work on something with steady consistent effort and not botching it up has really made me very, very happy.

On a lighter note, I finally saw Frida last night and loved it!

Browsing around for Frida Kahlo information, I found the Frida Kahlo paperdolls and the World of Frida Kahlo.

Feeling better

Okay, I took my test and think I did okay on it. I can feel my back unknotting so strongly it hurts. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Inventor of Zoltan arcade machine dead at 82

I remember being in awe of these things, I can't believe the man who helped create them is dead. The full article is here. And, I can't believe the guy was right here in Massachusetts. Actually, I'm lying, I do believe it. Massachusetts is full of all sorts of weirdness, the guy who invented pink flamingos is here also.

Oh, for a picture of a Zoltan machine, go here or here.

Mad Projects

Every once in awhile my creativity runs amok, and I think up really odd projects.

I was reading my latest copy of Bell Armoire (which I haven't been overwhelmed by, but that's another story) and specifically reading through their article on decorating a pair of Doc Martins. I didn't really care for the particular set of Docs they pictured. Despite the description of the project involving rather a lot of effort, the overall effect was rather generic sparkle 'n stars. It made me think of a TV executive's idea of how a sweet teenage girl decorates her notebooks. A sweet teenage girl from the eighties. You can practically smell the Love's Baby Soft mingled with hair products. If I'm going to decorate my Docs, I don't want it to look like something a girl-next-door model wore in Seventeen Magazine in 1984.

One of the more bizarre mingled with cute art projects I've seen has to be the Tattoo Baby Dolls.

I find Sailor Feebee especially notable, I really like the way the artist went with the classic American sailor tattoos.Inspiration! I'll paint my Docs flesh color, and cover them with traditional sailor tattoos!

This led me to doing a lot of looking up and reading about Sailor Jerry, which was actually rather cool. After giving it some thought, I don't think I want to alter a perfect good pair of Docs (at least not unless I buy a new pair), but the idea of decorating something with Sailor Jerry tattos is really intriguing to me. I wonder how it would look if you embroidered the cuffs on a pair of jeans with the motifs? Perhaps a bit like this?

Current music: Everything but the Girl - Amplified Heart, Barcelona - Zero One Infinity.

"Haunted by the ghost of Patty..."

Being unproductive

I am a bad worker, a bad student and a bad friend. I cannot stop thinking and posting on political message boards. I really need to rein it in, do my work, study for my test, and respond to friends' email.

That is all.

Current music: Luscious Jackson - Fever In Fever Out, Everything but the Girl - Amplified Heart.

Cool site!

Wordspy tracks new words and phrases as they appear in printed material.I think my favorite words found so far are post-mortem divorce, anus envy and hasbian.

Tonight's music

Oh excellent! The Barcelona music CD came!

I love electonic eighties-style pop, although this CD was conceived as more of a gift for the spousal unit. (Spousal unit is a big soccer fan, and one of the songs plays tribute to Kasey Keller and DC United.) But I was surprised by how profoundly nostalgic I became while listening to the CD. It evoked for me both the pop of the eighties and the recent love affair with technology, now departed with the burst of the technology bubble.

Can you really be nostalgic for events of a few years ago?

Not content with a simple rant, I'm going to go for a full-fledged rant about Lee Greenwood's God Bless the U.S.A. Let's look at this glurge masquerading as music,

Lee Greenwood
God Bless the U.S.A.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife,
I'd thank my lucky stars
to be living here today,

(Well then Lee, you’re a moron. If everything I’d worked for all my life was mysteriously taken away, it’s because I’m very stupid, or have had a run of serious bad luck. Either way, I wouldn't be thanking my lucky stars. Oh, and I’d prefer to deal with it living in a country with more liberal social programs than the United States.)

'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can't take that away.

(What is he babbling about? Who’s this “they”? I think the last time someone chuckled gleefully over taking the flag away was in “Red Dawn”.)

I'm proud to be an American
where at least I know I'm free,
And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,

(That’s right, only men who died gave that right to you. No one else in the entire history of the nation counts.)

And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,

(Don’t people always glamorize fighting when they’ve never done any themselves? You'd never see a Veteran singing pap like this.)

'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

(This is like listening to a middle school boy go on about a crush. No one cares, including the crush object. )

From the lakes of Minnesota
to the hills of Tennessee,
Across the plains of Texas
from sea to shining sea.
From Detroit down to Houston
and New York to L.A.,

(Guess a major portion of the eastern United States is just screwed. He does realize that “New England” is part of the States and the South was re-absorbed after the Civil War?)

There's pride in every American heart
and it's time we stand and say:

(You do what you want. Keep your nose out of my business and don’t tell me what to say Lee.)

I'm proud to be an American
where at least I know I'm free,

(That’s right. You’re very very speshul because you’re an American. No one else can know what it means to be your precious self. Everyone else in an democracy who thinks they understand freedom is deluded.)

And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

Eeesh. Good thing I skipped lunch today.

War talk

I'm sick of listening to idiots babble about politics. It really pisses me off when people who couldn't hold an intelligent opinion if it smacked them in the face feel compelled to flap their gums.

I'm not talking pro- or anti-. All I'm asking for is that if you must yatter on about politics, that you show some actual glimmer of awareness of geo-political events, and some understanding that not everyone sees things quite the way you do. Sheesh.

Ewwww....I'm listening to the radio, preserve me from Lee Greenwood's nauseating. "Proud to be an American"? Yo Lee! How about proud not to sing schmaltz? Proud not to be associated with that reeking piece of ca-ca purporting to be music?

Kin Beneath the Skin

It was so fine and mild that the spousal unit and I went to the beach yesterday for a walk. The sky and air were splendid, but the end of our visit was sad as we happened upon a mostly decomposed seal carcass.

There was still some flesh, especially on the lower half of the body, but the upper half was nothing but greying bones in the sun. We like seals and this discovery was upsetting, but we were also struck by the appearance of the partially revealed skeleton. The ribcage was eerily human-looking, and taken as a whole (human looking upper body, fishy looking lower body), it looked like the body of a mermaid. It's no surprise that seals and other like creatures fueled stories of mermaids, selkies, and other half-human/half-marine beings.

True to form, the spousal unit made jokes about the Fiji Mermaid, and calling the police and saying, "C'mon out here quick! There's a dead mermaid on the beach!" But later begged me not to talk about it any further, saying it was too sad.

We're both of us are that mix of irreverence and tender-heartedness, it means we tend to not get along well with a lot of people. The tender-hearted get angry at the irreverence, and the irreverent types get mad at the tender-heartedness. But, we get along pretty well with each other.

Trading Spaces

I must have been tired last night. I fell asleep, not once, but twice during the last fifteen minutes of Trading Spaces. (Episode was Scottsdale: Windrose Drive, designers were Doug and Frank).

Now that I'm watching it again, I think there was WAY too much time spent between Frank and one of the male homeowners learning how to sew. Bo-ring. Also, the homeowners are pleasant and likable, but the wacky hijinks seemed exceptionally forced this time around.

I might be easy to please, but I really liked both rooms. Frank's room looked a tad disjointed to me, but I assume that once they're actually living in the room, the Homeowners will tweak it and make changes.

I really liked the new task lighting in Doug's room, and the way the tulip paintings are now integrated with the overall look. Before, it looked to me like someone bought a nice piece of art and just stuck it someplace, now it's part of the room.

My big thumbs down are for,

The fake drama over the wall. C'mon, Paige confiding in Frank that Ty isn't taking her seriously? Please. Also, given that they make a big deal about the wall of separation between what's going on in the two houses, it didn't just seem fake, but also inappropriate.

The ENDLESS exchange between Frank and his male HO about sewing and stuffing cushions. That whole bit felt like it went on for hours, nay, centuries, and it's not like we haven't seen it before.

Wacky Ty hijinks. The guitar-playing, the pulling up of the pants, the football helmet, the hopping on top of the homeowners and Doug at the end.

(For the last one, I'm not adverse to a little implied visual slash, but at that point, it was like, okay, Ty's a wacky guy. WE ALL GET IT.)

Current music: Patsy Cline - The Patsy Cline Story, India Arie - Acoustic Soul, Everything but the Girl - Amplified Heart.

Home Improvement and Studying

That pretty much describes my day. I scraped down paint in the bathroom and decided I needed to buy more stuff before oping any further. Next will be a more aggressive abrasive, and after that will be working with spackle and drywall tape. If the walls look more or less happy after that, I'm going to prime, then paint. If all goes well, I might be priming next weekend.

Shit, but it takes forever and a day to clear up paint chips. I left white footprints when I walked out of the bathroom.

Then I studied closing entries for accounting class. The test is over a week from today. I can do this, really I can.

I'm drinking a hard-earned whiskey sour, and am toying with nagging the spousal unit to make me dinner. I feel like doing beadwork and watching Lord of the Rings again, so perhaps I will do that.

Creativity

I've recently discovered that if I don't take my creative stuff seriously, no one will. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't. I always retreated into my, "oh, here's this little thing I do for fun" space, and had a lot of envy directed at the more talented folks who just seemed to "effortlessly" turn out work.

The spousal unit has always admired and valued my work, but for some reason, I couldn't admire it and value it for myself. Until recently. I'm now starting to see the possibilities of living a wonderful, integrated, creative life.

Going back to school triggered a lot of this. I've always had a lot of weird issues surrounding time management, and getting things done, and fretting about projects. I'm taking a class where I have to do work regularly, not necessarily every day, but pretty close. I have to go to class, even if I'm tired or cranky. I have to go to class because it counts for part of my grade, and anyway, I'd quickly fall behind if I didn't.

Usually I find that once I sit down and start doing my work, it's not as bad as I made it out in my own mind to be. And, I really think that attitude is spilling over into my creative stuff as well. I do a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit...and whadya know, I'm done, and I have a pretty thing to admire and life is good.

I'm not going to sit and agonize if a project isn't going well, stick it on the coffee table and have it glare at me for weeks. No, it's either getting put on hold (and put away), it's getting dissassembled, or I'm going to take a break and try again in a short while.

It's not just school. The Flylady website has helped a lot too. Other organizational stuff has never helped me, but the emphasis on developing good habits and the personal coaching did.

Feeling grumpy.

I don't feel so hot. My back is flaring up, and only stops when I lie down and ingest ibuprofen.

I'm really trying to visualize that having my period means that my body is getting rid of toxins (and I think this actually is the case) but I really feel low-energy and like I need first a steak, then a multivitamin. Also, my body is shedding water and I need to pee all the time. I want a different job. This is so pathetic because people would love to have it as good as me, and I learn good stuff but there's a lot of tedium intermixed with craziness and I want a different job.

I'm being neurotic but I'm still fretting about my Accounting Class. I'm really afraid I'm going to do the sort of stupid self-destructive thing that I do and not study, agonize about not studying, do poorly, and in short, screw myself over through my own neurosis and self-esteem crap.

I really won't do this because I KNOW BETTER THESE DAYS. Really! I do. Still, it doesn't help the fear of doing so.

P.S. I want to seduce my spouse and do that warm fuzzy connect through sex and improve my mood (and my spouse's mood) thing, but I'm in such an agitated mood that I don't think I can do it. Grrrr. I have all this anxiety and neediness and "me!me!me!" that mixes in and no doubt makes my seduction technique about as exciting as being accosted by one of those people collecting money for charity in stopped traffic.

Adventures in home improvement

Wish me luck. I bought the materials and got advice from the Mid-Cape Home Center on how to address the awful paint and drywall in our bathroom. Next week, I'll be sanding and patching away. Eeek.

Music, music, music...

The easy listening station on Cape Cod radio is filled with songs that sound like the sountrack to *Bedazzled. All lite seventies stuff. Bah.

On the upside, I've gotten this new appreciation for old Elvis (really!), back when he was young and a sensation. I never really saw it before, being overshadowed by images of him in the white jump suit. But, I love the point where blues shades into early rock and roll, and that's just where he's at.

I also wish the station would play more Frank Sinatra. Yum. And Patsy Cline.

I still have NO idea what I'm going to take for classes this summer. Grumble.

*The real Bedazzled, with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Not that modern crap movie with what's-her-face as the Devil.

Ack, busy busy busy all week!

Indecision

As I've mentioned before, I'm taking an Accounting 101 class. My next class in this discipline is Accounting 201, but it's not offered in the summer.

I can't decide whether to take a oral communications class (because I'm shy, and think a class on effective speech would be helpful for when I deal with people), a statistics class (because really, who doesn't look favorably at a statistics class?), or just blow it all off and have the summer off.

Also, I'm still fretting about homework and studying, even though I did well in my first test. I've hit the chapters on depreciation and closing and wow, but it's involved. It makes me nervous. It makes me feel like a big ole fraud that is laughably unable to deal with this shit.

Warm fuzzies

We had my parents over for dinner last night, and I got to hear stories of when I was a little hippie child in a commune. (smile)

My parents are so wonderfully gentle and humanistic, we may have clashed plenty while I was growing up, but I'm glad they're my parents. They always wanted me to be whatever I wanted them to be. Guess I should tell them that? I'm too chicken, emotional stuff is really hard for me to share. Guess I need to work on that.