Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a contrarian for the fun of it. After all, there are a lot of things considered "normal" that I don't agree with, and I've been that way a long long time. But I'm grateful to every conflict, because it makes me question my beliefs and convictions, and when I can look at what I hold dear and know that I am happy with my life, and not because someone else tells me what I need or how I should feel, that's gratitude.
I don't eat meat, I don't follow any religion, I'm no longer on the good side with pumpkin pie, but none of that was ever what this holiday was about to me. It was about my family, and I was always grateful for my family, and am still grateful for the family I'm blessed with. I consider my cats and dog part of my family without question, and include those who have gone before, and even those who don't know I exist.
I'm grateful for what's left of my mind, grateful to my limits, grateful for the will to keep going, grateful to the original caretakers of this land I live in, grateful for the leader we have now, and grateful to nature itself for teaching me how to forgive.
I'm grateful for the new people I met this year, and grateful to my old friends. If you're reading this I'm grateful, and I wish you things to be grateful for in your life for.
The subject line is thanks in Cherokee. I'm grateful for the drop or two of Cherokee blood in my veins, and strive to be worthy of it and all the bloodlines that have combined to make me. It's the least I can do to show my gratitude.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wa Do
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Happy 4th!
(This was part of a Facebook meme and I thought...why deprive you all of what I did today?)
Turns out if you chant, "I do believe in Cubees," three times while doing community service you get a very special visitor indeed.
Happy 4th everyone! (And you can't get out of it by pulling the international card, I only said Happy 4th. HAHA GOT YOU, YOU MUST HAVE FUN!)
The Cubeecraft Obama & more can be found here.
Songs of My Misspent Youth: America
America by Neil Diamond may be the only song of my misspent youth that has evidence of the misspent time posted on one of my old websites. One night in @rassm, I brought up a drawing I did based on The Jazz Singer, a movie I watched (say it with me) while out of commission with a migraine. Jade, wise leader of The Porkinites, suggested I put my drawing online with musical backing and call it The Neil Diamond Experience. I still consider it one of the greatest uses of webspace ever. Go ahead, look at that and see how much better I draw now.
The drawing of course was based on this:
For the non-U.S. readers, today is the 233rd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which was a pretty bad-ass leap of faith for its time. To this day even people from states that weren't represented by the original thirteen states blow stuff up and have cookouts to celebrate the firing of King George III for acting all crazy by a bunch of dudes who did a way better job running the country on what would now be considered a shoestring budget. I just like to re-read the Declaration each year and marvel at how a relatively small group of people got things done back then.
I realize the song I chose is sort of more or less a wacky '80s pop tune about immigrants, but one of the problems the signers of the Declaration of Independence had with the old rule was that he was preventing immigration and I'm descended from loads of immigrants, and I love sequins, so it's perfectly logical that I would pick this song for today, really.
I could have gone with Miss America by David Byrne, a song I loved from the first time I heard it in the summer of 1997, during the time when I had to give up the idea of ever getting back to finish my degree because the roof needed to be replaced and carpenter ants were eating the laundry room and the water heater was gassing us and the mulberry tree had to be cut down and my mum was sick as hell but just had to sleep it off because she was uninsured and I spent a lot of time gardening and fixing computers because that's what girls like me do to turn a buck legally while staying really close to home where they're needed but that's all kinda depressing and I don't have a crazy drawing associated with that time, only the beginnings of a blog, but the color scheme was horrendous. Perhaps one day I'll doodle David Byrne in his kilt and link to this very post so it doesn't seem completely random and unwarranted.
I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be afraid to go off on your own if it means you ultimately get a standing ovation from your parents, but remember embrace your heritage, kids. It's probably got some weird history and maybe some parts you aren't entirely happy about, but it's all yours, so celebrate the good times. Don't lose any parts with the firecrackers tonight. Unless you're a hater, then feel free to blow off your reproductive parts in a spectacular fashion.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
What Time Is It? It's Still Frikkin' Christmas Time!
Even though every FM radio station in New York ceased playing Christmas music--and The Hanukkah Song--at the stroke of midnight Thursday, it's still Christmas for like, 9 more days. And that is the story I'm sticking to in order to show you my lovely collection of musical holiday time pieces.
I've mentioned my Christmas Tree Watch that plays the Lambada before, if you know me it's legendary, even...but only now, thanks to the glory of technology, can I share the magic with you. (And yeah, I know the timekeeping part has ceased to function, that's not what I wear it for. It's right twice a day, anyway.)
Festive, yes? For actual timekeeping, however, we turn to our musical snowman clock, which was marketed as playing a different Christmas carol every hour on the hour for as long as the lights stayed on. The idea of that bothered me, as you might imagine it would if you were positioned directly underneath something that spontaneously burst into music regardless of how those beneath might feel.
I ENDED UP LOVING THIS CLOCK. Here's why:
Every hour on the hour, baby. SPROING!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
And That Was The Week That Was
It snowed last weekend. A lot. It wasn't fluffy nice snow you can scoop up and eat, either, it was the sharp killer ice that likes to make you stick to it if you go outside nekkid. Not that I know anything about that as I have special snow pants which I totally got on sale for like $10 in Modell's back in 2001 and that was the greatest deal ever in all my life because those pants deter the coldest of cold. Shame I don't have a similar article of clothing for my face. Not that it matters, because the pain of frostbitten nostrils is insignificant next to the horror that is SHOVELER'S HERNIA. Not that I'm complaining, I actually did really good for a long time before my innards all gave up and went wherever they wanted.
It was the holiday season, and Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of not only my first obscene phone call, but the 20th anniversary of the horrendous death of the daughter of the nurse of the surgeon who happened to be removing a tumor from my boobie that very day. Lockerbie, kids, never forget it. I'm not kidding. I didn't know any of this as I was alternately unconcious and sharing my Jell-O with my Uncle Gene, but he knew, and he told my mum. It was, in my lifetime, one of those days I'll never be able to fully comprehend, possibly because of the Valium, but most likely because it goes beyond storytelling.
Nan found a movie called Subterano about a bunch of Australians trapped in a car park with a crazy killer toy, and then she found The Curse Of El Charro, which is about a bunch of girls trapped in Mexico with a crazy ghost. Lemmy from Motorhead is in the movie, so you Lemmy completeists get on this, but skip it if endings where the hero gets a crappy hand dealt to them pisses you off. One the one hand, we saw a movie with video game characters skipping out of a carpark into a sun-shiny day with mountains and oceans and happiness, and on the other hand we have one of those HERE'S YOUR REALITY endings that pisses me off. Dammit, if I ever defeat the bogeyman don't be locking me up in the nuthouse--at least don't forget my headphones.
We ate scrambled eggs, oatmeal and soup to prepare for the insanely large meal we were about to eat on Boxing Day, and this resulted in lower blood pressure for the two-thirds of us with high blood pressure and helped get rid of my totalbodyheadcramp. Not satisfied, I spent Christmas day running amok with a vacuum, traumatizing the Puppy and gathering every wayward dustbunny and also a little pink felt ear from one of the toy mice. It was like an offering to appease the vacuum god Euroreckhoover. Must have worked, because writing this last bit of this last week in review for 2008, I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out. I started this month terrified of the future, spent the first weeks trying to change what I could, and now I got to introduce my cats and dog to my aunt, uncle and cousin, and my mum and Nan cooked a meal like the olden days of army dinners and the oven didn't cut off and gas us, and of course my hernia tried to complain but eff it. This week was good.
I can't believe the year's down to four days. Countdown time begins in 48-ish hours!
Next week I'm going to be doing something different on Saturdays, something I think is going to be more amusing. To me, anyway.
Friday, December 26, 2008
'Twas The Night After Christmas....
If you're actually reading my blog on the day after Christmas, I owe you more than a video or a pissy diatribe about how cruel time can be. Unless of course you got the RSS feed going and it's February 2010 when you read this, then I have no idea how to feel. I'm happy, I hope you're happy too.
At this moment I'm probably having a grand old time catching up with family I haven't seen in ages, and if I'm lucky I'm not coming off like Nell to them. I've eaten a lot of cookies, though, you never know what the sugar will do to me.
Icey the groovy snow DJ, however, is having trouble finding a place to spin her ice platters. You know about Icey, don't you? The good little children of the village got together one weekend and smoked some mistletoe, and when one decided to hang his headphones on the snowperson he was relieving himself on, Icey sprang to life, knocking the unsuspecting hipsters to the ground with a blast of chill music.
The children laughed and followed Icey across town, mainly because the headphones were those ludicrously priced noise-cancelling headphones--but they were enchanted! Magic noise-cancelling headphones, once worn by Chris Botti himself on a flight over Ibiza! Icey made out with a traffic cop and unfortunately ended up melting on the Manhattan streets because that steam is a bitch on the icicles. As she dripped down the street her little charcoal briquette mouth called, "I'll be back again someday, donate my carrot nose to the hungry!"
No one knows if the ex-investment banker who ate Icey's carrot nose knew the adventure his food had, but the owner of the headphones vowed never to pee on snowpeople ever again.
Keep that in mind when the mistletoe is being passed around, kids.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
My Special Holiday Message
I'll spare you my emo moping today and show you a picture I drew for everyone to have a Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Solstice, Merry Christmas, God Jul, Cool Yule, Happy Al-Hijira, Great Festivus for the rest of us, Happy Kwanzaa, and enjoy the rest of the year, have a good time doing whatever you do, and don't get burnt. ♥
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Ho Ho Holy Is It The Weekend Already?
I taped Stephen King's Desperation off the Sci-Fi channel for us to watch, and man am I sorry. No, it was okay in a not-as-good-as-The-Mist-but-better-than-Rose-Red way, but I had forgotten King's got it in for animals and holy hell there is some imagery right off the bat that even horrified one of the characters. Then it gets worse (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether I mean the scare factor or the story, because even I'm not sure). But you know, it's King so even a not-great King TV movie is better than some other movies I can't think of right now.
One incredible bit of lost continuity that made Desperation worth watching for me had to be the first person to get shot onscreen is shot near another dead body, and throughout the rest of the movie there's only one body in that area and the character who gets shot onscreen is never seen again. O_O At first I thought it meant impending heroics, then I thought something grosser happened, but then...he was just never seen again. Things like that in movies fascinate me.
It was really windy the next day, which is why I got to write two whole paragraphs about a movie we saw. I also used the indoor time to decorate the tree, and I call it a tree because I observe more than one holiday, so it's got birds and angels and Santas and Snoopy and pictures of my cats and dogs and unicorns and I sometimes like to piss off sticklers who think it's important that one holiday wins (being nice to people wins). It's a tree. I decorated it. I had PMS at the time but the 12-minute Salsoul orchestra Christmas medley was playing on the radio as the cats chased each other around so it all balanced out and it looks quite lovely.
Then we watched School of Rock, and THAT...THAT was a fantastic movie. OMG, how did we go so long not seeing that? Fun frikkin' movie and even the kids were great, and I can be bad when confronted with a movie full of kids, but these were like, actual kids. Amazing!
The Last Mimzy also had kids, and a cute bunny, and Roger Waters singing an amazing frikkin' song. I always suspected cute little bunnies would have a hand in saving the world, and this movie ends happier than Watership Down.
I could leave much of the rest out, but I wrote it when I was really tired and that's when I get honest, so here goes. My current reason for being rather bitchy (as you may have picked up) is not merely the holidays, as it's never just the holidays, but family stuff. Health stuff. From all angles. This week The Fluffy One gave us no choice but to take him to the vet who saved The Puppy's walking parts in the hopes of saving his eating parts. My head has pretty much been on backwards for a few weeks about this and my uncle's kidney stones and Thursday will come to be known as Tauruian poking day, during which hunk men born in April have to deal with undeserved crap. I hope the day does not catch on and become any kind of tradition.
This week I also learned that butter is not the correct response to cat seizures. No, really! Who knew? I mean, I kinda knew, but it's like that line from Mr. Mom about whatever it takes. This week that ended up for me being covered in pancake-smelling hairball medicine and for The Fluffy One being full of barium to light up the sexy intestines. It was worth it, of course, because my cats are worth being a crazy cat lady for. There was a happy ending to the freakout this week. Of course everyone who ever wanted to see me get my come uppance for picking on how many treats the cats get had a good laugh, but then the diagnosis was possible food allergies SO THERE.
I honestly got little else done because I went into the same sort of fight-or-flight freakout mindset that my last blog back couldn't overcome when my little flannel-loving man widowed my left arm five years ago and I wouldn't be talking about it at all except that it's the truest part of my life and it wouldn't be fair to not be honest about it, even if it seems like I'm talking in code (I'm not). Hi, my name is Lynda and I'm a crazy cat lady.
You know what else is a pretty good movie? The Dark Knight. That was one of the movies we most wanted to see when this year began, and not to get all serious but after all this year has brought and taken away, getting to see the movie with my favorite people around me in our house was sort of fantastic. Now I get to say I talk like Batman when my hernia acts up. HAHA
Saturday, December 06, 2008
It's Begining To Sound A Lot Like I Want To Stick My Head In A Bag.
Oh, hello.
For every odd beastiality movie Nan finds, Mum can find crazy '60s, '70s and porno movies. Like In The Year 2889, Suspiria, and Spider-Babe. So last weekend when she found God's Gun, a western about a priest who comes to avenge his brother. Both characters are played by Lee Van Cleef. When he shows up, voices go, "BAAAAAA!" and if that doesn't sell you, here's the trailer courtesy of YouTube:
More and more Christmassy things started popping up, like the marathon of Peter Falk as an angel movies, A Town Without Christmas, Finding John Christmas, and When Angels Come to Town.
My fifth weekly post went up at Type Your Culture, and if you think I haven't mentioned that blog before it's because I was waiting until I was able to update my blogroll to include it. However I haven't been able to update my blogroll because Blogrolling.com is still doing some sort of secret tweaking that includes not allowing access to blogrolls.
I've been posting to a blog called Type Your Culture, and I realize I'm the last person to define a culture, but there I am on Wednesdays, the girly white New Yorker who can read Spanish but obviously still can't write it (aspiro, for instance, either means I aspire to do that someday or I suck for not keeping those synapses alive). The blog is just starting out and its goal is to get views from all cultures, so spread the word.
Then I guess I got sick. Or something. I don't know. It wasn't enjoyable. Two symptoms are rambling incoherently.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Streets Will Run With The Gravy Of The Non Pie-Eaters
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! Having digestive disorders has taught me holidays aren't about food, they're about sappy warm fuzzy loving of your loved ones, so have a good time however you do it where you are, and as always thanks for reading my blog, it really keeps me going. Seriously.
Of course after you read my chilling tale of horror you may rethink encouraging me. *ahem*
On a chilly November morning, one shot rang out in warning
The ones who could fly took to the sky
Carrying the signal that justice was dawning.
From coast to coast many humans played host
To travellers hungry for flesh.
Restaurants and food banks all shared the same boast
That their turkeys had just arrived fresh.
From ovens and freezers, the vigilantes rose
Taking up weapons their slaughterers chose
"Pardon me!" the headless turkeys said
Pulling out muskets to shoot the chefs dead.
The sun set on houses engulfed in flames
Grinders ground down the meat-eaters' remains
A message was left in the ransacked malls
Smeared ten feet high in blood on the walls
A simple wish meant for you and I
EAT PIE OR DIE.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Getting Along Through Papercuts!
Hey kids, while your parents are off cooking and stuff, why not leave them alone and play with sharp instruments! YAY!
With the Papercraft Thanksgiving you can create as friendly or as bloody a festival as your heart desires!
Keep in mind that once the papercraft turkey has been beheaded and plucked, he looks awfully square and tastes really dry.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Hey, Veterans!
Thank you.
I'll let Stan Ridgway, Billy Joel, and Tom Waits handle the music tonight with Camouflage, Goodnight Saigon, and Day After Tomorrow and leave the cartoons to those who draw way better:
...and to the veterans being made every day, get home safe.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Happy Frikkin' New Year!
Are you tired of hearing and seeing that? I'm not, mainly because I keep my head nicely cocooned and thought it was still 1986.
I have plans for this year. I have plans for every year, but I think I need to accept that beating Mindshadow probably isn't going to happen.
Most of my little plans hinge on the big plan of getting something published, therefore making enough money to maybe buy some windows or a faucet for my house, as well as having that guy come and see why it rains in my kitchen from time to time.
Those are not the kind of plans that interest anyone who has not ever had a cup of coffee that rusty rainwater has dripped into, so I'll just switch to what I'm looking forward to this year.
That thing that happens on that Tuesday in November. I have looked forward to other Tuesdays in November, but none had me as impatient as this one.
Before that, though, there are a load of movies I can't wait to see. Indy IV, Speed Racer, Wanted, The Mummy 3, The Dark Knight, the new X-Files, and--god have mercy--Mamma Mia!
Closer to the present, I'm looking forward to Mum getting Medicare, and those couple of 50° days we're getting this week. The fuzzes are looking forward to those days too, they're acting out The Shining down by the furnace room. Our forsythia must be looking forward to it as well, because it bloomed already, a week after the winter solstice.
I'm looking forward to new music and new crazy Internet fads, denying I'll watch American Idol this year until it comes on and then I'll just want to see the bad auditions and the next thing I'll be picking the winner and bitching that the second place finalist didn't win, mowing the lawn, getting heatstroke, more migraines and hay fever, more weird aches and more things only a handful of people admit to ever having experienced. Like getting the feeling I've warped into another dimension while brushing my teeth, what the hell is that? Is it an inner ear thing, am I in a video game, was it a glitch in the Matrix? I'm looking forward to more questions than answers, and more catnip-and-squeaky-toy-fueled orgies.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Happy whatever you celebrate.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
My Theory on Seasonal Affective Disorder
It is difficult to write out holiday cards that should have wishes of joy and cheery declarations of love when all I want to do is put a hammer through my head.
The weather has turned frigid and I haven't seen the sun in two days. There is sad-sounding Celtic music wafting in from another room, and as a result I've turned my headphone radio up so loud I can heard Bruce Springsteen breathing down my neck. I like Celtic music, I really do, but outside of I Am Stretched On Your Grave, I don't dig the ones involving death and separation very much, because they get it more accurately than I care to notice when I see that I only have a handful of family cards to send out--which, btw, I'd love to do the card exchange thing, but believe me, you're better getting the thing I will post here...whatever that will be--and I can't keep anyone's name straight, especially my own, because honestly, I wrote it once, why do I have to keep writing it down? My mind does not know. Much like when I took piano lessons. You play one G major chord, you don't need to play it again in the same song, right?
I hope my meltdown is being entertaining, kids. I try. I really try.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
How to tell what day it is.
Tate is on vacation, so one of the few things I looked forward to in December is...well, done in one frame.
Not to fear, there is a less-cute, but just as handy tool for people who just aren't sure if it's Christmas yet: IsItChristmas.com. It even has an RSS feed.
As for me, I shall try to write something here every day, because I have been neglecting my blog duties almost as much as my own sanity. However, I think you'll agree that it's much better I spend my hour freezing in my yard not writing posts. The double letters are a bbi to backspace over.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I Watch Shrek For The Wrong Reasons.
I like Puss, the little Antonio Banderas cat, and I'm guessing a lot of people do, because ABC used Puss to bribe me into watching Shrek The Halls, some odd holiday fart joke that was on TV tonight.
I realize they only had about 19 minutes to work with, and so they focused on the one winter holiday that has a costume, so everybody could dress up and Puss could become mesmerized my the jingly pom-pom on the end of his hat and.... My feelings for Puss In Boots are special ones. I have to clean up the drool now.
I just...I just thought there'd be one character in all of Shrek's friends who celebrated something else. You know, so Disney could market a plush Donkey with a dreidel, Fiona with a sun gong, or Puss with Kwanzaa books. But no, we get another meaning of Christmas story that's like, don't kick your friends out in the snow, because apparently they have no place else to go.
If only Puss was in the Chrismahanukwanzakah ad, then I could just watch that and be happy.
(For as long as it stays up, YouTube has the best part of Shrek The Halls, Puss telling his tale of Christmas. Enjoy. I know I did. I've...made a mess again.)