2003-02-04 - 11:45 a.m.
From now on I think I'll coordinate my web site background color to reflect the U.S. terror alert level. Enjoy the orange.Colors
New story coming soon.
Instead of posting half-finished items, such as the "Johnny Guilty" pair (someday, oh someday, they will receive a plot), I am going to finish this next story coming up, which is about sewing. Well, maybe it will be 75% done. See, I'm never totally happy with anything I write, so it's very hard for me to let go. Just ask my boss. It drives him nuts when I turn in a feature and then, after it's edited, come up with all of these changes that he patiently � though grumblingly � permits. Sorry, M. (For new or unfamiliar readers: Rumor has it that I'm a reporter by profession.)
Just so you know, I often return to old entries to fix and switch around things that make me wince, or to add details to incomplete thoughts. What you've read before is probably not the same. This habit of open-ended editing can be productive at times, because it helps me turn mediocre or awful writing into less mediocre or awful writing, but it would cause disaster if applied to other lines of work � for instance, city planning. If you lived in my city, you would always be angry and frustrated with me, because you would never be sure if your route to work or home was the same. I would surely wake up in the middle of the night and proclaim to the pillows, "no, no! The traffic on that frontage road does not flow! Man the jackhammers, we're going out there to do a little re-routing."
Anyway, the sewing story is not finished yet because I've been sewing in real life. Gonna start a little fashion business as soon as I have some finished product. Yesterday was the opening day for my private sweatshop, located in a dark apartment in a residential neighborhood of Austin. (No need to call INS: I got my papers right here.) First item available: Jackets.
Advice
Do you bring out the worst in the best people? Perhaps you should stop.Porn Movie for Lexicographers
"Hard Consonants, Firm Vowels."
A Word About Courtney Love
Why the boob shirts? And where does she buy them? She seems to have a collection of the same shirt design: Not a V-neck, but a low neckline with several inches of space between ... what would you call them? ... breast panels? So that the fabric flirts with the nipples and toys with your imagination.It's funny that in his journal, Kurt Cobain rambled on and on like a frustrated little high school junior about insipid prom queens and football stars, and here he went and married a woman who runs around London without her clothes.Food Minute
Don't waste your time with ordinary bananas. Get the organic ones. So much more flavorful. A little more expensive, but you can definitely tell the difference.On the bus from Madrid to Salamanca, I saw from my windowseat the "Hollywood American Restaurant," which could be a chain. Could someone please tell me what culinary delights Hollywood has given the world? Thank you.
New idea for a combined dessert/exercise franchise: "I Can't Believe It's Not Yoga!"
Seeking Input
Do you do clumsy things that make you say, "Geez, I wish I could stop doing this RIGHT NOW, before I break or ruin this [bone/piece of furniture/appliance]?"
I, for one, can't seem to stop spilling coffee all over the carpet around my work chair. Tonight, I actually spilled a bunch of coffee on the chair, without even being near it or the coffee. I simply entered the room with my bicycle, put the bicycle between the chair and the wall (a space about three feet wide), and walked to the kitchen. While I was in the kitchen Mr. Bike slipped and fell into the table, on which sat a coffee cup full of grounds that flew all over the chair and the carpet � creating very dirty and disgusting-looking brown splotchy patterns all over both. After several of these incidents, the floor resembles a caffeinated Jackson Pollock painting made of shitty-tasting coffee and beige carpet, perpetrated by my foot. It looks like hell, really, but for some reason my feet are just drawn to whatever cup of coffee is resting on the floor. Like my toes have eyes that see cups of liquid and think, "must spill." Every few months, it seems that clumsiness morphs into a new mode of pain-inducing expression. Sometimes it's "hit the elbow on the wood surface." At others, it's "smack the head on the bedpost." There's also been "ride the bike into the low-hanging tree branch," "slam the index finger into the fridge door," and "trip over the dog." One of the longest-running series in Lappleland is "smash the bare toes on the object," with the object ranging from beds to couches to walls. This last routine is truly the worst, not only because of its lengthy duration, but because of the pain factor involved.So, dear reader, do you suffer from any of these unintended habits? Are you wishing to get rid of them? Please share your stories and I'll ... uh ... post them. (The Official Prize Department at this web site remains theoretical. Sorry).
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Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. � Lily Tomlin |
