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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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 Yeah...that would have been a good leading entry for the Follow the leader contest.  Every morning I have a yogurt and some granola and Midnight comes running. She sits like a vulture in the middle of my dining room table until I share. Sometimes I give her a little bowl with a dollop of yogurt and then some little bits of granola and sometimes I just drop a few pieces of granola on a placemat and let her munch. She's a funny cat. She also knows the distinctive crinkle of a granola bar wrapper and will come running up when I open one, begging for her bit of one of those, too. I have to break off a corner and share. Weird little kitty. |
Response to "Invalid Entry"  by Ghostranch  :When I opened my Writing.com account back in August 2005, I went blank when I was asked to come up with a user name and then a pen name. Like my friend Nada , I was blank. (Yes, her handle really means zip, zero, nada, nothing, as in, she came up blank. ) I was looking around the room for an idea when I saw my cat, Chewie.Chewie was a manx that we got as a kitten from my parents. Our (at the time) year old Australian/Lab mix Bear picked her out of the litter. Or, I guess I could say they picked each other out. Bear walked over and tried to sniff the kittens, Chewie was the only one curious enough to sniff back. The rest meowed and cried and tried to scratch Bear before running away. Bear licked Chewie from head to toe and lay down beside her so Chewie could climb all over Bear. Chewie's fur stuck up in odd places with dog slobber, but she was a valiant little Bear climber. Her real name wasn't Chewie, but Bear's Chew Toy. We just called her Chewie. Bear was forever licking and loving on her. As they got older together, it was Chewie who would lick on Bear. She would bat at Bear's face and get Bear to hold still so Chewie could wash Bear's head all over. And if Bear moved or protested, Chewie would just start over.  Bear learned to patiently wait out bath time.I don't know if you've ever been around them, but manx cats can sometimes be a little nuts. Chewie was a funny cat. She liked certain people, but would scratch and bite others for no reason whatsoever. She usually liked men, but not women. Except me and Monilad. She tolerated Monilad, because Monilad fed her. She adored me. She would follow me around the house like a dog. If I left a room, she would follow behind me and then want to sit in my lap and love on me. Every night she slept on my chest, all night. (Sometimes if I was too restless, she'd stick her claws in me as if to say, "Be still, Mom!") When Bear would go outside, Chewie would sit in the window and cry to be let out to play, too. It broke her heart that I wouldn't let her out. Finally, I relented and started letting her out a little at a time. At first it was supervised. I would put her on a leash and let her out. But she would cry and whine and carry on about that, so, sadly, I gave in and started letting her out more and more by herself. When we moved to Montana, I stopped letting her out again, but she started with the crying once more. So, when we got Sofie, our daschund, Hubby got us a pet door that let the pets in and out in response to an ultrasonic signal from a device on their collar. Excellent! Now I didn't have to worry, she could come and go and I didn't have to worry about her being locked out. Unfortunately, I should have worried. In November of 2007, Hubby called me in Maine while I was visiting my sister and told me that Chewie had been hit by a car and killed. I was devastated. Chewie was my baby. I thought I'd never be able to get another cat, but I have. In the summer of 2008, I got Midnight as a kitten and then in January of this year, we got Bonnie at a year old as a rescue from the shelter. I love them both very much, but I still miss Chewie. Both take turns sleeping with me, although Bonnie sleeps with Hubby mostly, she's bonded pretty tightly with him. Both are indoor kitties and we've disabled the door so neither can escape. The dogs are just let in and out manually now. Hubby laughs at me and asks if I'm going to turn into a crazy old cat lady if something happens to him. I tell him no, I know my limits and four pets is it. After all...I'm allergic to them in the first place. |
Response to "Invalid Item" by Dark Lady  :My writing outside this blog has all but come to a screeching halt. It's one of the reasons I was so excited for this contest. Because my writing INSIDE this blog had almost come to a screeching halt. I tell myself it's because I'm so busy, yada, yada, blah, blah. But, I think I've just stopped trying. My priorities have shifted. When I was a little kid and all my life, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you, "I want to be a writer." And I was. A writer, I mean. I wrote all the time. Poetry, short stories, even lyrics. I wrote constantly. When I tell people who really know me what my major is, they look at me blankly and ask, "Wait, not English, not Literature?" Well...no. There's a reason for that. I don't need a college degree to be a writer. I'm already a writer. I need a college degree to be a geologist. See how that works? If I get a degree to be a geologist, I can be both. I can still write. At least that's what I tell myself. But, see, I'm not. Writing that is. Oh, I go over to the Daily Flash Fiction Contest periodically and see what the prompt is. If I can immediately make a story out of it, I'll pop one out. Otherwise, I'll skip it. Lately all I do is skip it. Sometimes I'll swing by The Writer's Cramp, if I'm feeling particularly ambitious and I'll hammer something out for that. It's never great. It's never up to any kind of potential. It's what both of those contests are for...to get the juices flowing. And, here's the part that drives me super bonkers. When I'm done with the story? Once the judging is over? I abandon the story. It's dead to me. I never go back and revise, expand or anything. I just abandon it. Why do I do that? Riddle me that, Batman.  I tell myself all the time I need to write more, I need to revise more, I need to clean up my old stuff and submit more. But....alas I don't. Maybe I'll figure it out soon. I hope I do. I'd like to go back to being a writer. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Lorien : Thursdays are my short days at school. I only have two classes and no labs. Then it's off to work. Yea, work. (Not enough enthusiam? )I don't like my morning class, it's pre-calculus. Boo hiss, calculus. Not a fan of the maths. I mean, I KNOW I need them for my career later in life, I truly get that, but...gah...it's so....incomprehensible. And I hate the practice of having TA's teach the class and then having the prof write the tests. He doesn't know what we've covered in classs so we wind up being tested on material we haven't covered or only covered sketchily. Which with the inept TA I have most of it is only covered sketchily. The prof's answer to that? We should learn to READ math from the text and learn the material ourselves. The textbook is perfectly comprehesible. Sure, buddy. Oh, did I mention? The old bastard WROTE the text book. As far as I'm concerned it's gibberish. And I paid $1500+ this semester for this class. ~sigh~ But my second class, I like. It's in my major. Geomorphology. (Translation--the study of Earth's processes.) In a way it's like learning a foreign language. We are studing the processes that shape the landforms around us. Like any profession, there is a lexicon that accompanies it. Words for glacial formations, fluvial (river) formations, aeolian (wind) formations. Words for terrain shapes, for folded landscapes. Anticlines, synclines, monoclines. Strike and dip. Some terrain is hummocky or has closed depressions. There are mudflows, landslides, slumps, rockslides, avalanches, lahars. It feels like secret code I need to learn in order to belong to an elite club. (I know it's not, but that's how I feel. ) I'm excited every time I go to class. I think, "This...THIS is what I'm going to college for. THIS is what I will be taking out into the real world with me. What I learn in this hour and a half." I mean, sure, learning the chemical symbol for americium is sort of interesting (Am), but I can't project its use for me out in the future. But knowing about pyroclastic flows from volcanos....THAT I can use. So I take my little notes and I visit the map room down in the basement of the Earth Sciences building on campus. I'm always alone. I don't think any of my classmates come there to look at the maps he recommends for us to look at. But then, I guess they haven't had twenty years of being out in the real world doing work they don't want to be doing firing them up at the prospect of finally, finally being able to be what they want to be when they grow up. Twenty years of wanting and waiting makes for a good prod. Or, maybe they already know how to do what he's asking of us and I'm just behind the curve. Oh, well. I'm a tortise. I'll keep plodding along, but I will finish this race. I want to belong to the secret club. |
Response "The Dinosaur in my front yard" by Prosperous Snow celebrating  :Prosperous Snow celebrating is writing about an abandoned Winnebago in her front yard, but I don't have one. I have neighbors with them, though. Even though it CLEARLY says in the covenants not to park them anywhere but on the extreme side of your house. You absolutely aren't supposed to park them in the very narrow streets, but we get that, too. Moving on. (I kinda have a stick up my ass about my neighbors and the covenants.) Positive, right? OK...how about what I do have in my yard? I have some beautiful shrubs that are turning colors already. Reds, oranges and golds. I also have aspen in my front yard. No colors on them yet, but I have a feeling that this week is the week for them. My sunflowers that I plant in my rock ditch are almost spent. The birds are enjoying the last of the seeds off of them. I think probably Hubby will insist on having them down by October 1st at the latest. I might have actual dinosaur bones in my front yard. This is Montana after all. But, probably not. If I do, they are not in the Tertiary basin fill that covers the Gallatin Valley. Perhaps deeper in the underlying layers, but that would be pretty deep. (I certainly wouldn't want to dig that deep!) In my backyard, I have some new trees we planted last year about this time that are starting to lose their leaves. One is a crabapple. It is still small and only has a few little crabapples on it, but I really love crabapple trees. In the spring they are pink or white and cheerful with tons of tiny little blossoms, bursting out early in the season. In the fall they are heavy with fruit for the birds. On campus between the Chem building and the rest of campus, there is a long slope. (The Chem building is downhill, kind of off by itself.) Halfway up the slope, there is a crabapple that arcs over the sidewalk. The last two weeks when it was really hot I would stop on my walk up the hill under the shade of that tree and close my eyes and just inhale. The air under that crabapple was so intoxicating and soothing, it's indescribable. The soft, light scent of crabapples in summer heat just lingered there under those cool boughs. I would rest and then walk on with such a feeling of joy in my heart. I can't wait until my crabapple is large enough to provide both shade and a heavenly scent like that. So...no dinosaurs here. Just autumn on its way tomorrow. |
Response to "Grow up already!" by spidey  :~sigh~ Age. The age old question for women. To age or not to age. I've chosen to fight aging tooth and toenail.  That's right. I'm twenty-nine. I'll turn twenty-nine again next year. It will be my 10th anniversary of turning 29! I don't know why growing older bothers me so much. It just does. Hubby makes fun of my "lotions and potions." I don't wear alot of makeup daily, but I never miss a skin treatment day or night to stop the effects of aging. Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Vitamin A. My skin gets more vitamins than I take in pill form. I wear sunglasses religiously to keep from squinting. (Don't want crow's feet!) I use sunscreen to fight the affects of sun damage. (I'm a fair skinned red head!) Speaking of which, I started going gray when I was about 25.  Maybe that's why I have such a hard-on about getting older. I started the process too early. That and a hysterectomy at 29 which sent me into menopause. It's like I skipped to the end of being a female!I color my hair every couple of months now. Oh, it's the color it was when I was younger. It's just to blend away the gray. I'm just too young to look old, I think. I had a haridresser tell me she thought it was my real color once. (Whether she was being kind or soaping me up, I'm not sure. Maybe she meant it. A lot of people can't tell I color.) I know it's bad for me to absorb those chemicals and I know it's bad for the environment to wash them down the drain into the leech field, but....I can't help it!! I'm a grown up for all intents and purposes. I'm married with a kid. I own a house and pay taxes every year on time. We own multiple vehicles outright. I go to work and pay my bills on time. I'm back in school full time. I'm an adult, but I don't always feel grown up. Maybe that's why I don't want to feel old. So for me, I've chosen to go down kicking and screaming. See you at my 29th birthday. If you miss next year's, I'll catch you the year after. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Kay : Excellent song reference. I love Annie Lennox. And not just her Eurythmic days, I like her new stuff, too. I did an entry about sleeping, so I'm going to go off the reservation a bit on this one. It's kind of related, but I want to expand. I hate to chew the same meat again. I am reading Dan Brown's newest book, "The Lost Symbol." Not my favorite book of his, that would be "Angels and Demons," but in the book, he talks about a field of research that I have always found fascinating. It's called Noetics. It's a real branch of scientific study although as in any branch, you will find your fringe groups. Noetics, in a nutshell, is the study of the human mind's ability to affect the world around it. Ok. I know that with that sentence I got a lot of, "Pfft. Whatever." 's. Think if you will of ALL those miracle stories about people being healed through the power of prayer. That's noetics. Not a prayer type of person? Ok, think if you will of plain old physics. Specifically the law in physics that states that the act of observing affects the outcome of the experiment. That's right, good old Schroedinger and his cat. (Sorry...not sure where to get the nifty little dots for his name. ) Particle physicists will tell you that the act of observing particles affects the outcome of the experiment. It's a law in physics. Look it up if you don't believe me. (Surely you didn't sell that physics book back from your college days.  )The act of observing brings with it the conscious will. The power of the mind. Noetics. The scientists WANT the particles to react, so they do. Mystics the world over have understood this concept for years. Scientific tests have proven the QUALITY of thoughts affect the outcome of experiments as well. They take water and freeze it. As it freezes an observer thinks at it. One observer will think positive thoughts at his/her water; the other will think negative thoughts at his/her's. The outcome? The ice that has positive thoughts sent to it produces beautiful symetrical ice crystals. The negative? Uneven cracked shards. This has been reproduced time and time again. Same experiment has been done with plants as well. Happy thought plants live and thrive; sad, negative thought plants wither and die. What is all this leading to? It's like those positive thought people have been telling us for years. You have power over your life. Even if you can't change your job or current situation, just by thinking more positive thoughts, you can bring about more positive changes in your life. Same concept works with children. Are you angry and horrible to your children using ugly words and voice tones to speak to them? Think about it. You could literally be making them sick with your voice and mind. Here's some more good news, though. Studies have shown that people can actually increase their ability to affect their world and the world around them over time by increasing and "exercising" their "intent." By focusing your positive thoughts you can have a bigger effect, by having a bigger effect, you can increase the positive influence around you, etc, etc. It's a positive feedback loop, you feed it, it grows. But, the reverse is true, too. You feed the negative, it grows as well. Now...am I saying you need to walk around with a crack-smoking Pollyanna smile pasted on your face all the time? No. Just watch your self talk. Is it positive? Watch the way you talk to others. Is it positive and helpful? Watch the way you think about your life. It is positive and upbeat? Or are you always concentrating on what's wrong in your world. Always dwelling about how unhappy you are? What you think about, you bring about. Literally.Think about it. Meditate about it. Pray about it, if that's your gig. Just don't keep on doing the same thing and expect the new results. That's the definition of stupidity. Live, learn, grow. Once again, this public service announcement was brought to you by Chewie Kittie . |
| Response to "Mother Sex Bone" by katwoman45 : I don't make use of my GC content rating very often, but I'm going to here...so if you are timid, you might want to back away quietly now. I'll wait for the shy and prude to leave. Or maybe you should stay...you might learn something good. Ready? N'k. I am a sexual being. I love sex. If if wouldn't kill Hubby we would have sex two or three times a day. Yeah, yeah...call it making love or whatever you want. I don't care. I like to fuck. Not saying I don't love my husband and the act of intercourse with him isn't an expression of love, because it is...I'm just saying...Hot DAMN I like that it feels great, too. You know? I'm not one of those people who didn't like sex until I was a middle age woman either. I've loved sex from the get go. I may, in fact, be a nymphomanic. Hmmm....that could be fun. I'm no boring missionary postion girl either. I think with someone you trust, sex can be an expression of every fantasy you both want. Seriously...go for the gold, people. Women who complain about not reaching orgasm when they have sex with their husbands get no sympathy from me. Why? Because obviously you aren't expressing your needs to him, honey. Sex between equal partners who love one another mean everybody is getting what they need. If you aren't being fulfilled the way y'all are going about it...find some new ways. Another thing that I want to discuss here is women's bodies. Women are being systematically brainwashed by advertising and Hollywood that you aren't beautiful if you don't fit some impossible runway model figure. Hello? Those runway models? They are all 12 and 13 year old girls who are starved so that they look like that. Hollywood and print ads? They are all AIRBRUSHED to comic book proportions. No one looks like that! I get up and look at myself in the mirror and I tell myself every day how sexy I am. No, I'm not kidding. I say, "Good morning, you sexy beast," to myself in the bathroom mirror. I'm not being facetious either. I really think I'm a sexy beast. Now, on a healthy scale, I am aware that I'm about 30 lbs overweight. But, that doesn't mean I'm not sexy. I tell myself I'm sexy to remind myself to carry myself and present myself like the sexy beast that I am. It's a confidence builder. I'm not ashamed of my body. You shouldn't be ashamed of yours.My sixteen year old daughter is an artist and a couple of weeks ago, I bought her a book of pin-up models from the 20s through the 50s. Classic pin-up girls that GI's used to paint on their planes and hang in their lockers. It's like the forerunner to the men's magazines we find today. In the book there are over 1000 different pictures of models in classic poses. All clothed. (Albeit, sometimes scantily. ) She and I found the book to be a celebration of the female figure. Since I knew she loved doing sketches of people, I thought it might be good material for her to work from. She has loved working out of it. And then school rolled around....There has been what you might call a mixed response. For the most part, the teachers find her work to be what it is, an artistic expression of a legitimate art form. The kids however...many say nasty things to her about her drawing porn. Or even call her "dike" or "lesbian" because she is drawing women. Some of the boys want to "look through your dirty book." Honestly, you see more in modern swim suits than you do in these pictures. She can't seem to get any of her classmates to understand that the female form is to be celebrated not just leered at. Or shunned. When men and women alike understand that the human form is good and natural and that sex is a wonderful thing when performed without the stigma and shame society and oftentimes religion has brought to it...then I think maybe our kids can get it, too. Until then...I'll be doing my part.  |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Erika : Every time I read the word "basically" in Erika 's entry, I cringed. I almost couldn't get the gist of her entry. I have developed an unhealthy aversion to the word "basically" since the start of school. If it were up to me, we'd ban its use in everyday conversation. "Basically," here's why :I deal with three different TA's during the week. I have a TA who teaches me Precalculus M,T, Th and F. I have a TA who oversees my lab for Chemistry on Wed, and I have a TA who helps in my lab on Tues for Geomorphology. Every other word out the the math TA's mouth is "basically." "Basically, all you do is...." "Then you just basically...." I find myself zoning out on the content of what she's saying and I start counting the number of times she uses the word "basically." On Tuesday, she used it 21 times in a thirty minute timespan. No, I'm not exaggerating. I can show you the little tic marks I made in my notebook every time she said it. Now ask me what we covered in class that day. I have no freaking idea. Something about calculator graphing. I couldn't follow the class for all the fucking "basically's." Later Tuesday, I guess I was still sensitized to the word, because I noticed that my Geomorphology TA used it 15 times while we were out on our field trip. I found that more annoying than the sunburn I got because I forgot my sunscreen. Today, I was trying to follow what my Chem TA was saying before we began the lab, but he said "basically" three times in five sentences and I totally lost the thread of the instructions. I rolled my eyes and read the manual instead. It's maddening. It's like they send them to TA school and tell them to only use the word "basically" when teaching us because otherwise we'll think the explaination isn't...I don't know...basic enough. I get that it's a habit of speech and an easy one to fall into, but for fuck's sake...police yourselves people. Especially if you are going to stand up and address a group. It's as bad as the teacher last year I had who I couldn't follow the lectures because I sat and counted the number of times he said, "Uh, um," during the lectures. (The record during a one hour lecture was 45 times. It was a good thing he had awesome power points or I never would have passed that class!)Honestly...I'm paying $1500+ per class a semester for THIS?! |
| I read others blogs on this site (especially during this contest) and sometimes I feel inadequate because those authors tackle hard hitting topics, or they are super introspective, delving deep into their own psyche. The title of my blog is “Random Slices of Life.” That’s why I started my blog. I didn’t want to delve deep into my soul; I go to therapy for that. I didn’t want to talk politics (I’ve made my position on that perfectly clear I think ). My blog is what it is: Random little vignettes of my daily life. No one reading my blog understands my life completely. It’s not a blow by blow of my life. It’s the edited for public display version. Large events happen in my life that I don’t report in my blog. My life is an open book, but it’s a redacted book. I’ve decided to stop feeling inferior about that or my writing style. I know that I write in short, choppy little sentences. I write exactly the way I speak. I write in the style of Ernest Hemingway or Emily Dickinson. Short, sweet, to the point. I am no Kipling, no Thoreau; to describe in haunting, evocative sentences; to paint scenes with my words. I write my blog the way I would speak to you if we were sitting across from one another drinking coffee at my kitchen table. We are friends. I have no need to impress you with my vocabulary or with earnest and flowery phrasing. You take me as I am, or you drink your coffee and you leave. (I’m not so horrid as to turn anyone away without allowing them to finish their coffee!) I’m no philosopher to endlessly debate with you. I’m a scientist. I report facts. I tell you anecdotes from my day. Things I think will interest you. Things I found funny, sad, silly, or outrageous during my day. You are my friend, my companion, my confidant. I don’t write to any one of you. I write to myself. I write to you all. I write to no one. I ask myself, “Will they think this is as funny as I thought it was?” Friday on my way to work, I got behind a driver who had a large print bumper sticker. It read: ARE YOU DRIVING AN AUTOMOBILE OR A PHONEBOOTH? I guess he was driving a phonebooth, because the whole time I was behind him, he was on his cell phone. Things like that tickle me. I like to share them. I use a lot of emoticons. I  them. I  my way through blog entries. Some people hate them in writing. They think they are childish and that one’s writing should stand alone. I have heard them called “laugh tracks” by more than one person onsite.When I use them, I am not asking you or telling you when to laugh. I’m showing you my expressions. I’m laughing with you. It’s a shared experience. Should my writing stand alone, should I be such an incredible communicator that you are able to understand my meaning without them? Maybe. But I like to smile and laugh. If you knew me in person, you’d know that I am always smiling and laughing. I’m laughing when I tell you about falling up the stairs at home last week. (I never hurt myself very badly when I do it. And I do it all the time.) I’m chagrined when I tell you that I signed up for a new government website at work on Monday and unbeknownst to me there was a place to go uncheck a box so that we wouldn’t receive every offering posted on that site daily. So on Tuesday, the email inbox I share with two coworkers was jammed FULL with two hundred emails from FedBid.com. My coworkers were not amused.  Ooops. My bad. The funny thing is, until I went to the site late Tuesday afternoon when I got to work, hunted around and found the box to uncheck, we continued to get the emails ALL DAY LONG. I’m crying when I tell you Bear, our Aussie/Lab mix, turned ten on Sept. 11. She is a year and a half off of chemotherapy. She had lymphoma and we think the cancer is back. We can’t bring ourselves to take her back to the vet to get it checked because we already promised each other we won’t put her through the indignity of chemo again. Two more years with her is a bounty we thought we wouldn’t get. She goes to the vet for her yearly checkup in November, so we’ll know for sure then. Until then, we palpate her neck and chest, feeling the knots, asking each other, “What do you think?” “I don’t know.” “Maybe, it’s not.” Deep down, both of us knowing it is.  And in my blog, I share all that with you. Not because it’s earth shattering, life changing, or grand. Not because your life is enriched for knowing any of it. But because it’s random slices of my day. That’s all. Just little pieces of me. |
| Respose to "Invalid Entry" by Susannah Deschain : Sundays are our Road Trip day. Hubby and I will load up the car and head off to some preselected destination and I will look at rocks and mountains and he will look at….hmmm, I guess the flora, fauna and majestic views. I’ve never really asked him what he looks at. He always says he enjoys our trips, though.Two weeks ago we drove from Bozeman over to Red Lodge, MT, and from Red Lodge down across the into Yellowstone National Park and then back up out the Mammoth entrance up through the Paradise Valley into Livingstone back to Bozeman. (You can look at the route on Google Earth if you want.) There is some incredible geology along in there. The pass between Red Lodge and Cooke City is breathtaking. It’s under construction right now, so part of the road is dirt. The basement rock of the Beartooth Plateau has some excellent outcroppings you can rock hop on in the turnout areas. The 360 degree views up top are indescribable. The road out through the top of Yellowstone is fabulous. A lot of evidence of glaciation there. Erratics the size of Volvos just sitting out in open meadows. Of course with the bison roaming the area, you can’t get out and go look for the striations on the rocks, but….I just know there would be excellent ones. Moraine valleys. Just some really beautiful landscapes there. This past Sunday, we had to do our jaunting a little closer to home as it was Opening Weekend for the NFL. Hey, I was lucky he went with me at all. I have a book that shows local hikes….length, difficulty, elevation, starting points, etc. So we thought we’d do an easy one, Fairy Lake. It was quite a ways up Bridger Canyon east of Bozeman….21 miles up the canyon…but, it was a quick hike. We thought 20 minutes there, 30 minutes to hike, 20 minutes back. Right? NOT! We both failed to read the line that said, quite clearly, “Once you turn off Bridger Canyon, there are six miles of unpaved and poorly maintained road to Fairy Lake.” Translate that into, “Hey, Dumbass, don’t drive your 14 year old Contour up this goat track!” It took an extra half-hour each way to travel the dirt road. There were huge rocks sticking out of the road. I feared for my oil pan on several occasions. Hubby is a good driver, though and we made it without incident.The hike itself was beautiful. The water a Caribbean blue. But oh, so cold. It is right under the back side of the peak of one of the Bridger Mountains, so it is definitly glacier and snow melt fed. The trail around it was really well maintained, though. We did the hike in twenty minutes and we did lots of stopping and picture taking. Tons of looky-looing. It was a special place, though. We are going to remember it for next summer for when we want to go camping. (I have to start practice camping for my Field Studies my Senior year.) We haven’t been camping in years. I suppose one doesn’t forget HOW to camp…it will be more in the line of a dry run for the equipment. It’s getting a little late in the season for hiking and exploring. Soon, Yellowstone will close for the season. We really should go another time. I suppose we’ll have to pick a Saturday and go, though. Sundays are for football now. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Acme : Acme wrote a very stirring entry. Full of patriotic themes and calls to arms. So I won’t redo her entry. What I’m going to focus on is a phrase she uses about ¾ of the way through her piece. “Pursuit of Happiness.”Have any of you seen the movie “Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith? I love it. I also love Will Smith. He’s one of my favorite actors. In the movie, Will Smith plays the lead character and also narrates the movie. As the movie progresses, he breaks it up into chapters saying things like, “This part of my life I call happiness.” That’s what he says near the end as you reach the happy ending. That is the part of my life I am in. The “Happiness” part. I know that often times, those of you reading my blog wonder what kind of rose-colored world I live in. I talk about inanities and silly little things like they hold the greatest importance in the world. In my life, they do. I’ve come from the other side. I’ve been to the bottom. I know how far down is. Right now? It’s the happiness part.I’m married to a wonderful man who loves me and doesn’t beat me or abuse me, he treats me well. He provides for me and spoils me. I have a good, smart daughter who doesn’t do drugs or drink. She and I have our problems, but for the most part we bump along. We live in a nice house, we live in a great neighborhood; we live where we want to be right now. Hubby’s job isn’t the one he wants and that part kind of sucks, but we bump along. I’m back in school learning to be what I want to be when I grow up. I love to learn. One thing life has taught me is that the happiness part won’t last. So, while it’s here, I’m going to wear my rose colored glasses and revel in the happiness, so later I can’t say, “Oh, if only I had known how good I had it.” I know how good I have it. So…it seems like I ignore things like terrorism in the world. It seems like I ignore things like corrupt politicians and the state of the world economy. I don’t. I’m aware of them. But only peripherally; because, right now I’m pursuing my happiness. It says I can, right in the Bill of Rights. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by c.t.moon: I think I've talked about one of my centering techniques in this blog before. Hang on...I'll go find the entry and link it. It's "Invalid Entry" . When I read c.t.moon's entry, all I could think about was the infinite size of the universe and my place in it. Then I remembered some stats from my Geography class last fall. I had to google it to refresh my memory on the numbers, but here they are:There are, as of this writing, according to the US Census Bureau, approx.6.7 billion humans on this planet. In excess of six billion seven hundred million people sharing this big blue ball hanging in space with us. Can you do the mental exercises that help you envision this many people? Here are some things to help you: 41,000+ people can fit into Wrigley Field; 62,000+ can fit into the Houston Astrodome; 19,000+ watch the Lakers play at the Staples Center. (according to each of their official websites.) Here is some math for you: The largest number of humans, 60% of the 6.7 billion, live in Asia, the largest continent, not surprising since both India and China are part of the continent. China has roughly 1.3 billion citizens and India has 1.1 billion. Respectively, number one and two in the population ticker for Earth. Here's some perspective, Montana's population, by comparison is 967,000. Yes, that's thousand. They think that by 2010 we will top one million souls in our giant state. Percentage-wise, Montana has .00014% of the world's population. (I think I got the math right, there. Anyone wanna check me?) So, say I knew EVERY person in Montana, every single one....that would mean that 99.99985567% of the world is out there living lives I know nothing about. 6.7 billion lives being played out. People being born, dying, marrying, working....all of it, just like me, and I lead my egocentric little life in quiet oblivion to it all. I think we all have to be egocentric. We are wired to be egocentric. There is simply too much "out there" out there for us to be able to wrap our little minds around it all. We'd go stark raving mad if we could encompass it. Our minds would simply burst. So, does that mean there is no such thing as truth? No...I think that IS the truth. We've seen the truth, and we can't handle it. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Jenn : I don't usually write politically slanted blogs. I'm not a political animal. I don't watch news on the television, I don't read the newspaper. The only news I see is when Hubby calls me to the TV to watch some little short piece he thinks I should see. Something he knows I'll be interested in. I get "headline" news everytime I open my personal computer or my work computer. Both are set to Fox News. I don't trust or believe CNN, MSN or any of the other big three affiliates. I don't always trust Fox. Paranoid much? Maybe...probably. I think I'm just burned out. I think if they'll be honest with themselves most of America is burned out. Overloaded on 24 hour must have "headline" news. All the news we are entitled to have at our fingertips, forced down our throats all day, everyday. Nothing news worthy? That's ok, they'll manufacture some and then get you hyped up about it. Take swine flu for instance. But that rant is for another entry....this entry is about enough being enough. I agree. Enough is enough. Today I am going to do a very rare political blog entry. As you remember from the entry a couple of days ago, I'm not a debater, so today's topic isn't one I'm going to debate with anyone about. If you have something to say to me, leave a comment. I'm not going to argue with anyone. I also won't stand for anything hateful or rude, just say your piece and agree to disagree with me if you must. Back in the day, unions were our friends. In the 19th and 20th century, the world and America had a real need for unions. Working conditions were appalling, worker's rights were non-existent and wages were criminal. American unions helped bring about much needed changes in these and other key areas. But, like many ideas, unions have outlived their usefulness. As Lord Acton put it, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Modern unions have a kind of absolute power. There are many professions where you cannot work unless you belong to a union. Teachers, autoworkers, postalworkers, steelworkers. There are more. These are just off the top of my head. You are actually forced to join a union and pay yearly dues in order to work at your chosen profession. Just like that, you get no choice. It's a kind of tax. What happens with that hard earned money you so generously fork over? It is supposed to go to things like pension funds. It really goes to buy votes in Washington. But, you say, in return for those hard earned union dues, my union is looking out for me. They make sure I get good health care benefits, regular raises, and an ensured pension. Really? Like the UAW? Large portions of the money that was set aside for the auto bailout went to continue to pay autoworkers somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 an hour. $70 an hour?!? Who the hell are they kidding? ROBOTS can make cars. Parts of the money also went to pay the pensions of people who no longer work, but are still being paid at that wage. Wait a freaking minute. Our tax dollars are being sucked out by the BILLIONS of dollars to pay a pension that should have been in a waiting fund that the UNION should have had there, but no, suddenly WE have to pay the pension?! How does that work? I'll tell you how it works. Fred is a union lobbyist. He lines his pockets with part of your union dues that you faithfully pay him each month. Then he takes most of the rest with him to Washington and lines the pockets of his friends in public office. Then when the economy fails because Fred helped artificially inflate the price of automobiles by insisting you needed to make $70 an hour to "keep up with the economy" even though the minimum wage is down at $5.50 an hour and America went broke trying to pay for things like artificially inflated housing, automobiles, etc, Fred talks to his friends in public office and they take the tax dollars of those same people (like me) who have been overpaying for your automobiles for all these years and they pass bills to give you someone else's money. Note if you will who really makes money and loses money in this scenerio. Fred, the union lobbyist makes money. He took it from you. The politician makes money. He took it from you. You make money, you took it from me and I damn sure wasn't making $70 an hour. I'm left holding the fucking bag. Thanks, neighbor!  Way to go unions.So the point in my entry is this..... Enough IS enough. Unions, lobbyists and politicians have broken this country. Others have contributed, but by and large the main offenders are the those three. Wanna know why I'm a card carrying Republican? The Dems are in bed with the Unions. I know that some Republicans are, too, but not to the same degree. I could link crap and cite stuff, but I'm not going to, google it yourself. Do your own homework. I promise, if you look in the right places, it will be eye opening for you. Maybe I haven't changed your mind. Maybe you think I'm full of crap. Good on you. You believe what you believe. I'll believe what I believe. What do I believe? They are trying to fuck us over the same way with the health care crap. Socialism doesn't work. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by Satuawany : When I was eight, my Daddy took me out past the barn and taught me to shoot a twenty gauge shotgun. The first couple of times I shot it, I wasn't set very well and it knocked me on my ass. When I got older, Daddy taught me how to shoot a pistol using an old long barrel .22 his grandfather had given him years and years ago. As I mentioned in a previous blog, dinner at our house meant meat. Usually beef, but every fall, Daddy went elk hunting in Colorado and if we were lucky, he shot an elk. Have you ever had chicken fried elk steaks cooked in just a little bit of butter and then served with fresh mashed potatoes and cream gravy? I'm salivating thinking about it. Daddy and my brothers usually went white-tail deer hunting in the fall, too. When I was in school, it was standard school curriculum to get hunter's safety in the sixth grade. The science teacher taught it as part of the normal course. (I never understood what it had to do with science, but, hey...I got certified. ) After that, my brothers would take me down and get me a deer license every year and then hunt off my tag. I don't mind the benefits of the kill, but getting up at o'dark thirty and then sitting in a blind all day bores the CRAP out of me. I never minded going if I could read, but they always expected me to pay attention to every freaking squirrel and robin that wandered by. I've got better things to do with my time, usually sleep!Every Thanksgiving, the morning of Thanksgiving, while the women cook the meal, the men all go out and deer hunt. Usually they go to a deer lease that someone has, but one year my brothers couldn't get a lease, so they were doing a little road hunting (FYI, that's illegal in most states ). So the two of them and a friend were driving around in the younger brother's brand new pickup (he'd owned it a week). They spotted a deer out in some guy's wheat field and quick, pulled over to the side of the dirt road. The oldest brother leaned across the other two from the passenger seat (Note:kids...don't try this at home!!), took aim at the deer through the driver's window and shot his rifle. Glass flew EVERYWHERE. The dumbass had just shot the sideview mirror off of his brother's brand new pickup from INSIDE the cab! Meanwhile, the deer just stood there continuing to graze. (Would you be threatened?) The brother whose pickup it was, took his fist and knocked the mirror down out of the way and said, "Quick! You've still got the shot!" The friend was laughing so hard he was crying. He couldn't believe he was party to this. In the end, they got the deer...and the mirror.When I got married to my current husband, my Daddy gave me the twenty gauge I learned to shoot with as a wedding present. He also gave me the .22 his grandfather gave him. My father-in-law, a lifetime NRA member, was in 7th heaven. A daughter-in-law who came with her own firearms! Since then, I've become an NRA member myself. Hubby and I go shooting sometimes. I'm best with a handgun, but smaller is better. Because of my carpal tunnel, my hands tire quickly holding a larger gun. The repetitive motion of firing one aggravates it to the point of after a box of shells my hands are numb. (Not a good thing when holding a weapon!)The gun club/range nearest us gives classes all the time, and I have been meaning to go in and get my concealed carry permit. Not out of any real NEED per se to carry a concealed weapon, but more out of a need to know that should the need arise, I can simply carry it legally. No muss, no fuss. Hubby says the class is an easy day long class and no big deal. I think I'll make myself a note right now to check into that this week. Axes? Well that's a different story. I'd just be a danger to myself and others with an axe. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" by objurgate: This morning as I was leaving for school, I saw a "V" of geese flying south. They were flying low, right over my neighbor's house, honking in sad voices. They seemed to be mourning the fleeting summer. Later this afternoon, as I was walking to Chemistry, I noticed that several trees on campus have already started turning. Some have already begun losing leaves. I've noticed the nights have been colder and the mornings have a definite crispness to them; a certain cool smell that signals autumn is here and winter will soon follow. Time marches on. Now that I'm in school, I really don't have time to kill. I always have something that needs doing. If I have a spare moment, I absolutely will NOT be spending it thinking about Paris Hilton or her latest exploits. I carry a book with me at all times and while I might while away hours I can't really spare reading a good book, I won't stoop to randomly surfing the net for videos of cats burping. (Or whatever it is people with time to kill surf the internet for. )I actually hate the phrase "killing time" because time moves so quickly as it is. Rather than killing it, I need to manufacture some. Not a day, not a week, goes by that I couldn't use more time. More time to spend studying; more time to spend working and making money for my family; more time to spend on my writing; more time to clean my house; more time to spend on my crafts and hobbies; more time to spend with my husband who works 60 to 80 hours a week right now; more time to spend with my daughter who is growing up way to fast to suit me; more time to sleep. I've often thought that one of the most clever devices ever written about in modern fiction was J.K. Rowling's Time-Turner. Wouldn't that be fabulous? A way to fit more hours into the day! Need to go to college AND work? Use the Time-Turner! Ah, if only. |
| Response to "shmeeves" by mood indigo : Shmeeves seem to be personal pet peeves. I've never heard the word, but it does seem to fit. So what are some of my shmeeves? I have a million. Sometimes they directly conflict with one another. It depends on the day. Today's are... People who shout at me from another room. If you want to talk to me, get your happy ass up, march it into the room I'm in and speak in a normal voice to me. Don't shout whatever you want me to know or, worse, shout for me to come to you. I also get upset with people who want to talk politics with me. I hate politics. They make me hostile. I don't listen to or read the news for a reason. I don't want to know about politics. Politics confuse and irritate me. I know what I believe, and quite frankly I don't give a damn about what you believe. I also assume that you think I am as ignorant and imbecilic as I think you are when we disagree about those beliefs. I don't mind agreements to disagree, but people who want to persuade me to their way of thinking just piss me off. I don't believe what you do. Get it through your thick fucking skull and just shut the hell up about it already. Even if I agree with you, I just kinda get pissed if politics is all you want to talk about. Do you not have any other interests? Don't be so one dimensional! I get angry, too, with people who tell me they haven't ever tried something or done something, but they know they don't like it. Like foods or activities. Take liver. I hate liver. Mom used to make it when we were kids. I've tried it tons of times. I know I hate it. I can say with some authority I hate it. But if it were prepared diferently for me (not sauced in onions or fried) I would try it. Because, hey, who knows, I might like it. But to just announce you don't like asparagus, even though you've never tried it is just small minded. And small minded people piss me off. What I really hate, though, is that often I have trouble participating in normal conversation in real life. I get too manic, or too bipolar to follow the normal give and take of everyday conversation. I feel (and probably sound like Rainman. It gets worse the more people are in the conversation. I'm not sure what the short circuit in my brain is, but I stop being able to follow what is going on. I listen but everyone starts sounding like the adults in those Charlie Brown specials, "wah, wah, wah." I wind up either only talking when directly addressed (which is awkward in meeting settings because I can't follow the action) or I randomly interject non sequiturs into the conversation which either gets me funny looks or laughs. The sad bit is, I'm usually not going for the laugh tracks, I'm just trying to cover the fact that I can't follow what the rest of them are talking about. I also hate that I'm not a good debater. I'm a hell of an arguer, but a piss poor debater. As stated above, I hate when people don't agree with me. I'm makes me angry. I feel like it's a personal attack on me when people don't agree with my point of view. I know...I realize how horrible that sounds. I'm not proud of it. I have my opinion, I don't like having to defend it. I feel the way I feel. I believe the things I believe. I have good reasons for them, but many of my reasons are things I can't articulate when cornered due to the reasons I discussed above. I especially get flustered and scattered when someone raises their voice at me and I either shut down or get angry and shout at the person while making personal attacks on them. But...hey....that's just me. |
| In response to "Invalid Entry" by grim : For large portions of my life, I have had problems sleeping. In some of the earliest entries of this blog, you'll find me bitching about not being able to sleep. I have even had problems with sleeping pill addiction. Hey...when I have a problem, I don't go half measures. When I close my eyes, sometimes usually I have trouble getting my hamster off the wheel. He just runs like a maniac, wheel squeaking, thoughts racing, images flipping randomly like my husband with the remote. Since sleeping pills aren't an option for me anymore, I started researching alternative solutions. I've read dozens of books on the subject and almost universally, the solution is this: learn to meditate. Learning to meditate teaches your mind the control to kick the hamster off the wheel whenever you want. It basically gives your mind the tools to reorganize itself so that instead of random image "flipping," you teach it a better retreival system. You can focus longer and deeper on what you want. I've tried over the years to learn to meditate (before I learned that in order to sleep I needed to learn to meditate) and every time I've tried it, I've sucked abysmally at it. I'm talking major suckage. So, I did more research. There had to be a way to teach myself to meditate! One day I was reading a fiction book, that spoke of the character meditating. But in it, he wasn't sitting quietly contemplating his navel lint. He was building a memory house. Aha!! I had a book on improving your memory and it discussed this technique. So, I dug it out and refreshed my memory about the process. (No comments. ) The upshot is, by combining several different techniques and traditions I have hammered out a way to get to sleep nine out of ten nights. The first thing I do is make sure I'm completely comfortable in bed. No restricting clothing. I make sure there aren't any annoying lights shining in my eyes. I make sure the tempurature in the room is nice. I have clean sheet day at least once a week, because sleeping in a made bed on fresh clean sheets is almost nirvanic. I also quiet any noise in the house that I can. Then I use the standard meditation practice of stilling the body through yoga breathing. After I have my body as calm and still as I can possibly get it, I go inside my mind. Here is where I go off the reservation. There is a standard technique in meditation called visualization. You visualize something and hold that image in your mind while you meditate. For Buddhist practitioners, you might visualize the Buddha. For Christian practioners, you might visualize Jesus. To improve your memory, one technique called for is to envision your home and to place items you need to remember in it as you walk around. For example, items for a shopping list: for a lemon you might place a bowl of lemons on a chair in the foyer of your mental home. For my visualizations, I combined the two techniques. When I can't sleep, I build my perfect house. I start at the front door, visualizing the exact door I want. Not moving on until I can keep the door I want in my mind without it flickering to something else; the number of windows in it, the color, which way it opens. Then I see myself placing my hand on the knob and opening it into my foyer. I repeat the exercise with that room. And on through the house. Soon, I fall asleep. The next night, I do it again. Starting at the door once again. Once you get really good at it, you can call up your house perfectly in an instant. Then you can move on to redecorating it. I once read about a Vietnam POW who used visualization techniques like this to escape his harsh jungle surroundings. If house building isn't your thing, try what he did. Imagine yourself playing golf. But, here's the hard part. Don't just imagine hitting the ball and then skipping in your mind to the next part where you hit the ball again. Imagine ALL of it. It should take the same amount of time in your imagination as it does in real life. Visualize getting dressed at the club, walking out the door, walking or driving in the cart to the first tee. Visualize setting up the tee and the ball. Visualize the perfect swing. Now, the entire walk or drive to your ball. You get the idea. Remember to put in all the details, smells, sounds, etc. Fresh mown grass, birds chirping, and so on. If you know your local or favorite course, try to follow it in your mind. If not, make up your own course. Don't forget to keep score! Now I like golf as much as the next woman, but the point of this exercise is to try to get some sleep, so MY favorite thing to imagine-besides building my house- is getting a massage. Again this should be real time. When I'm feeling whimsical, I also get my hair done (I love having my hair washed by someone else!),or I get a mani/pedi. Remember, the sky's the limit. Visualize sitting under a warm springs waterfall with nubile young men/women to wash your hair in the spray. Visualize warm mud massages given by hot Paraguayan/Swedish/Austrailian (insert your country of choice) men/women. That's how I fell asleep last night. It also cuts down on the number of real life massages I feel like I need! |
| I'm taking part in mood indigo 's Follow the Leader Journalling Contest again. I encourage my readers to read the listed entry each day the title is marked "Response." This will help you better understand the day's entry and also maybe you'll find some nifty new bloggers to read, there are lots of great ones in the contest! In response to "What's Cookin'?" by Cappucine  :I currently live in Montana, but I was born and raised in North Texas. Here's a funny little tidbit--my home town is the official "Short Grass Capital of the World." It's on little billboards that welcome you into town. The upshot of that is, 9/10ths of the meals in my childhood home were based around beef. Big cattle country down there. My daddy hated chicken. Hated it. He was one of ten children in a very poor farm family and every Sunday, the Baptist preacher came and had Sunday dinner with them. And every Sunday, they had fried chicken. Unfortunately, my grandmother was a wretched cook. I mean really, really awful. Her problem was she had to feed twelve people quickly three times a day, so she took unfortunate shortcuts. For her fried chicken, she wouldn't wait for the lard (in later years, the shortening) to get hot before she started cooking. She would add the floured chicken as the lard melted, so she basically wound up boiling the chicken in oil.  The resulting mess would be tough, stringy meat that was still a little bloody near the bone and tasted of mushy flour on the outside. If that wasn't bad enough, Daddy was the youngest boy, so it always fell to him to go kill lunch. He would have to go hunt up the squawking chickens, give chase and wring the necks of three or four of them. Then he would have to rough pluck the larger feathers off of them before his sisters finished dressing them. Every Sunday he did this, for years. Do you blame him to developing a horrible aversion to chicken? He used to say the mere mention of chicken for dinner made him feel queasy. I was one of four children and we were forever carting friends home for dinner or lunch...usually unannounced. We'd waltz in the door and shout, "Hey, Mom, R is with me, can he/she stay for dinner?" Mom never said no. The staple meals around our house were tacos, burgers and spaghetti. Mom could make it in large enough quantities that no matter how many extra mouths she had to feed on any given night, she had enough food to go around.When I was in high school, we had what we started calling "Friday Lunch." We lived about six blocks from the school and had open campus. I have a brother who was a Senior my Freshman year and he and I would round up four or five friends apiece (sometimes more!) and caravan home. Mom would have lunch ready buffett style and we'd all stuff ourselves and then race back to school. Sometimes my Dad would be there and he'd bring people home from work for it, too. Or, he'd show up and grill us burgers, hot dogs or fajitas. Friday Lunch continued sporadically throughout my high school years. My mom was a freaking saint. We didn't eat out at restaurants much, because feeding six people at a restaurant is expensive. I can probably count on both hands the number of times we went out to fancy "sit down" restaurants before I got into high school. I never minded, though, because I usually didn't like the food served in restaurants anyway. My mom is an incredible cook, I'd rather eat her cooking almost any day. Even now, and I'm thirty~mumble~ years old! I like eating out at restaurants now, though, because often the alternative is doing the cooking myself since Mom lives 650 miles from me. One staple at our house when I was growing up was red beans. Red beans were served in a variety of ways. At the time I didn't understand, but being a homemaker and the family budgeter now, I do. The pinto bean is one of the cheapest foods you can buy. You can put them on to soak overnight and then toss them in the crockpot. Voila', six to twenty four hours later (depending on your elevation) you have dinner. And they are a very versatile meal, you can serve them with rice, sausage, hamburger meat, cornbread, collard greens, etc.; the list is almost endless. When we were growing up, we had red beans at least once a week. I make my Mom's recipes now, her spaghetti, her tacos, her beans; but somehow they never recapture the tastes from my childhood. Even if I ask her to make one of them when she visits, she makes them all differently now. (Too much Food Network is my diagnosis!) Sometimes I start craving those tastes so badly it makes me want to cry. I guess that's just a funny form of homesickness. |
| At lunch today, I sat in the large open cafeteria area at MSU and had a quick salad. The tables were crowded because I caught it right at noon. People are basically nice, though and if you ask, will let you join them. I always look for someone caught up in a book, on their laptop or otherwise engaged. They usually don't mind budging up and sharing a table. Today, I shared with a nice 25ish year old girl who was putzing about on her netbook. She and I kept getting tickled at the dork at the next table over, though. He was mid to late 20's and very studious looking. She looked over to me and in a stage whisper asked, "Masters?" Nodding her head at Mr. Studious. I looked over at him to see what she meant. He had an oversized paperback copy of Plato held up prominently in front of his face as though he were reading in a movie. I expected him to look over the top of it for his suspect to walk past him out of the hotel lobby. He would put it down periodically and look around to see who was watching him read Plato. The reason I knew it was Plato was because the cover had PLATO written in GIANT letters on it. I whispered back.., "Nah...taking himself WAY to seriously. Gotta be a Philosophy Undergrad." What kind of self important dork reads Plato in public on a college campus and then looks to see who's watching him read it?! Who cares?! I ask you, when has reading Plato in public ever gotten anyone laid? Besides, who wants to read Plato unless it's required reading? It's like reading PBS! |
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