Caution

*Supposed to be posting daily for the month of March.  Whoops.

*Supposed to be on Weight Watchers, but fucked off all this weekend.  Dammit.

*Should be passed out right now, what with the bottle of wine I just drank.

*I broke something just now.  It felt good.  

That fucking thing was asking to be broken.

I should have broken it MONTHS ago.

I am unhappy.

I lie in bed and think, where did my life go?  

Why am I so stuck and so poised on the edge of unhappiness all the time?

How did I get so stuck?

What I want to do is QUIT.

I want to SELL.

I want safeguard my three dear kitties with someone who will love them.

I want to throw all my possessions into a large body of water, take a baseball bat to some, and then join the Peace Corps.  Or the circus.  Or something that matters more to me than this fucking empty rat-fucking-race of life.

Is there any way to get unstuck?  

Or do you find yourself in your thirties, do you just find yourself there and then, there is where you are?  

I hate this.

I'm going to bed.

I have to.  

I must remember that I need to get up in the morning, to go to that place I hate and do that job I despise, for people I no longer respect.  

I'm Bringing Sexy Back

This was before I joined Weight Watchers (last Tuesday) and quit smoking (also last Tuesday).  A full week on both.  And boy, am I grumpy!

And when I use a cute little term like "grumpy," rest assured that what I really mean is that I could deforest Alaska with my mood.

I should have posted this picture months ago, so I could see the low I had fallen to. When you pass out reading "King Leopold's Ghost" after eating 1/2 a box of Mike & Ike's, it is time for an intervention.

No, I think what did it for me, finally, was waking up and feeling like I'd inhaled knives overnight, and then getting winded just looking at the skin between my chin and where air should be.

In other news, we're probably going to list our house for sale soon.

In hopeful news, we'll pull some equity out because we got a steal, and since we bought so safely and STILL have enough money to eat out every night (see lack of graceful neck..above) we are going to throw some more of our money into a home where perhaps our next door neighbor doesn't blast an oldies rock station every weekend day, all day long.

In fact, as a tangent, I believe he recorded 10 solid hours of the radio one day and plays that constantly instead.  I could practically TELL you that Paint It Black is going to come right after Tom Sawyer.  Bet me if you think I'll be wrong.

It doesn't matter that we can't hear ourselves think in our tiny and spider-infested house, no, the music has to be loud enough for him to hear over his riding mower.  Yes, he plays music loud enough so he can hear it over the sound of a lawnmower.  And it has been two years without an assault from me, so generally, I think I've mellowed.  

But perhaps that would be okay, if not for the family that moved in during the nights last week and proceeded to throw two parties on both days of the weekend, where 8 cars came screaming down our lane and they burned meat for several hours straight, having conveniently placed their hibachi so that great plumes of charred meat smoke billowed past the back windows of our house.  

Cross your fingers and wish us luck.

Movie Star

I was once in a movie.
College Film.

I came across the link today, idly Googling everyone I've ever met, including myself.

Go HERE to see it. Download it, it may take a bit. It is a trailer for the film.

I make myself cringe.

And We're Off!

Going to California this weekend, to see our families.

Couldn't be better timing.

Nieces

Mothers

Fathers

GRANDMOTHERS!

Oh, the joy.

I had an appointment with a placement service this morning.

They said I'm overqualified for their standard level placements.

The guy said, and I QUOTE "You are going to be snapped up very quickly in the open market."

That felt nice.

Loved One

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you:  CLP

(unless she asks me to remove this picture)

And trust me, she is not the attendant in a ladies bathroom, as much as the tux and row of sinks may mislead you:

I post this to show you one of the people on my personal top 5 most beautiful people list.

Stuck Pig

I'm not as much now, but was spiraling.

Making myself indispensable now so that I really screw 'em when I go.

You will miss me when I'm gone.

Perma-smile.

My face aches.  My heart leaps and screams, several times a day.

Lunges against the bars of its cage, yelling and spitting.

You will miss me when I'm gone.

Or you won't, and you know what?  Fuck you.

There are millions of people that would miss me when I'm gone.

There are at least five.

So now, not spiraling, but still.  Exhausted.

Look at job postings and know I could do it, but do I want to?

I was never meant to be in business.  

I am arrogant.   Saw stupid people above me, doing things I could do.

So I did them.  So I stood in front of those who needed and said, you need ME.  

I can do this.

But what I always wanted to do was be whacked out, writing.

Writing from the very lining of my soul, writing when my mind left me and all I had was talent that came from nowhere and shocked me, words that thrilled me and a narrative voice that satisfied the very wild and dangerous soul of me.

I did all this, almost as if on a dare.

Never wanted to.  Never set out to. 

Just had the ability and so flexed it.  

So here I am, crossroads between should and want.

I want to choose a life that rewards me.  One that nourishes my soul and my fiercely competitive nature.  But means something in this world of financial statements and profit margins, things which I've never cared much about.  Take your FFO and ssssssmoke it.

It is about the purpose.

It used to be about the art.

I was a wondering, docile baby.

I was an awkward, curious kid.

I was a voracious reader, quiet, lost in my books, never spoke, never had friends.

I was an angry, stifled teenager.

I was a wild and recklessly daring young adult.  

I wanted.  I wanted.

I frightened people with it.   

I have been an intensely irritable adult.  

I missed something.

I listened when I should have ignored, I followed when I should have struck out alone.

If there is ever a time to make amends, this is it.

I finally listened to my heart and married the embodiment of my desires.

Now I have a man who lives like I've always wanted to, and yet I try to mold us both into a perception of what SHOULD BE.  Where we should be, what we should have.

I repeat to myself:  Choose life, take a chance, do it do it do it do it.

I drive to and from the thing I detest and I think:  Choose life, decide to be happy.  

Someone doesn't yield and I honk briefly, then forget about it.  

Stop being afraid.  Walk away from the money that comes with being unhappy and choose your own life.  

Do it.

Do it do it do it do it do it.

Waiting Game

I'm not a good chess player.

I don't strategize.

I've never been good at thinking ahead, making plans and setting players into precise locations, to be available for the next worst thing.

What I do well is react.

I am a strong personality, I land on my feet, usually.

If for some reason my landing is unsteady, I am quick study and very very soon acclimate to new climates and experiences.

Despite what many of you may think, either from my posts or from knowing me personally, I can withstand a lot.  I may seem overly testy, but I can bide time and make the best of matters with the best of them.

Better than the rest, actually.  My last eight years have proved that without a shadow of a doubt.

But now, it is time to leave.

And I'm terrified, and I'm discouraged, and I'm down.

And yet, I'm hopeful, confident, assertive and fairly pissed.

This last one struck down to the very iron of my being.

And to withstand and submit now would be impossible.

Full disclosure, I promise.  Soon.   I made a vow not to write about work, and I'll honor that, unless in the most oblique terms possible.

But hear ye this.  I'm done. 

I've flexed all I am capable of flexing.  I've had all I can stands.

I can't stands no more.

I am not your fall guy.  I will never be your fall guy again.

Salome's Mix

A few of you have asked for the names of the artists and songs on my mix tape. I purposefully didn't include these, so that you would be forced to listen to all of the songs, without prejudice.

So here they are, in order, but first!
A couple of shout-outs:

Julie! I hope you are recovering from your car accident and come back to us. Maybe Mars is in Venus? Or stuck dead-on into my heart, because the world is throwing curve balls at the moment. Get well soon.

Alex and Carlo - big congrats on the wedding date: 8808. Verra Nice.

Jonathon! Congrats on your new family, I'm delighted for you both, and for me as well, because your personal blog posts are even more rich and entertaining.
Here are the song titles:

1. Clumsy - Fergie
2. Umbrella - Rihanna
3. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
4. Over and Over - Hot Chip
5. The Con - Tegan & Sara
6. Polythene Pam - The Beatles
7. Stronger than Me - Amy Winehouse
8. This is Everything - Tegan & Sara
9. Fidelity - Regina Spektor
10. Where Does the Good Go - Tegan & Sara
11. Myriad Harbour - The New Pornographers
12. Notice - Gomez
13. Between Love & Hate - The Strokes
14. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
15. Dark Come Soon - Tegan and Sara
16. A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay
17. Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard
18. Think Too Much(B) - Paul Simon
19. 9 Crimes - Damien Rice
20. Breathe Me - Sia

I'm back!

Hello, I'm back.

Did you miss me?

I went to Scotland for a week, and some of it was lovely, while most of it was awful.

No fault of the gorgeous Scottish countryside and folk, though.  

No, it was my folk that made it miserable.

I cried a bit, on the plane home, after lowering my defenses with many, too many glasses of wine.

Why did I cry?

Because that is the last time I'll see Scotland for a long time, unless I travel there myself.

More later, and full disclosure of what is going on will come in probably a few months.

Warning: The Water is Filthy with Tangents

As you can probably tell by my most recent posts, I am in need of some serenity.
Serenity isn't something that comes naturally to me, unless I am here, like this, right now, writing everything down, but couching it, making it some type of story. Quantifying it, wrestling it to the ground, attributing it to something else, writing a letter to someone that bothered me, or generally, to someTHING that has annoyed me.

Or touched me, moved me, but those are rarer.

I have always been an angry person. Several therapists have tried to determine from whence this rage comes, all have failed. I have failed, myself, to articulate it to anyone.

I don't know where it comes from. I know I place high expectations on myself, I place them on others, I am an impossible friend, I am a frighteningly intense wife.

I am only being the person I know how to be.
But there are things that I do not say, there are things that get overshadowed by the aggression, that get flattened in the hurricane-force winds of my purpose and drive.

And I'm forgetting how to feel them and it is scaring me to death.

....and, truth be told, making me pretty angry.

Breaking the Waves

No sleep last night, and that's a first for me.
Typically I toss and turn until about an hour before my alarm goes off, and then I fall into a dead slumber, where hordes of (herds of?) elephants can come thundering over me and I won't wake up. Not at all, until I've overslept far too late to pass it off as traffic, a bridge or needing gas.

There are some times you wake up so late that you have to go into work and say, OHMIGOD I just totally overslept! I guess I didn't set my alarm (lie)! or my personal favorite, My husband must have hit my alarm by mistake (TOTAL lie). But I can do exasperated and comically frazzled like a pro, and I typically leave 'em laughing when I'm through.

So, hey, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted and I just got done working a 9 hour day.
By the time I was done, I was so focused on what I was doing that I was practically drooling.

But I had a couple of cool, brain-wiggy thoughts today and I'm going to share them.

1. When it is really cold outside, really really cold, you can tell, just by looking out the window. That blows me away. Like the whole world and everything in it just hunches in on itself, to withstand.

2. I think a pair of crows on my street are dating. They were just strolling down the street, screeching amicably to each other. It was cute for a second and then I remembered that the crow is like the pigeon's drug-addict thug older brother. And so I honked at them.

And now a couple of letters gathered from over the weekend.

Dear Lady Who Freaked Out on Saturday When I Parked Too Close To Her Car,

Let's establish a few things. ONE: I am not the lady you EVER want to piss off, by being a snivelly and coddling little puss about her Audi. Listen bitch, if I had wanted or tried to hit your car, you'd be driving a Matchbox right now. I have that kind of anger. As it was, you picked a really shitty time to confront me. I've got rage upon rage boiling here, and nowhere to unleash it. I'm hurt, and I'm pissed, and I feel used and hosed and like no one has any idea what I've gone through so that EVERYTHING is perfect for them. And I mean the world, and I mean my cats and I mean my hair and I mean EVERY GODDAMN THING IN MY LIFE IS ASKING TOO MUCH RIGHT NOW AND I JUST NEED A FUCKING HUG OR A THANK YOU OR SOME GODDAMN THING. So when you moaned about your car and berated me for getting too close, when you knelt down and caressed and nearly cried over your untarnished grille, I snapped.
I shouted you up the street, I screamed at you to STOP FREAKING OUT, all the time losing my shit in a manner I am pretty sure you are unaccustomed to.

Which leads me to TWO: I didn't hit your car. I parked too close (an inch between) and moved it out of courtesy. I can't even look at this in retrospect and calm down about it, I am THAT grateful for the outlet to scream and strain my elbow flipping you off and making threatening motions like I was going to run after you and kick your ass. Don't take it personally, you just had the wrong lady, on the wrong day of the wrong year of the wrong life.

My inevitable bail fund can be found at: Shedeservedit.com,
Salome

Dear Tiny-Sized Ladies Who REPEATEDLY put your hot little numbers in my XXL racks,

I swear to god, the next time I see one of you do this I'm going to grab the slinky little size 4 number and beat you to death with it on on the escalator landing of Macy's downtown. Or I might run screaming all the way to Arby's and order one of everything they have.

Or just break down and cry,
Salome

Insomnia

I lie awake.
Doubling up on sleep-aids, I am impervious to their effects.

I like awake, thinking.
Fretting, worrying, remembering.

I need to sleep, I know.
I worry. I never get enough sleep during the week, because I lie awake, stressing about lying awake.

Aesthetically Pleasing

Greetings!

The First-Annual
CARCHARODONNA
All-Time Favorite and 2007 Greatest Hits Album

Has Arrived!

Email me at carcharodonna@mac.com to request a copy!
Include your mailing address
because
while not omnipotent, I am known to be testy.

Do Not Expect Fancy Packaging Or a Label
Because I Could Not Get the !@&$*&@! Thing To Work

One interesting thing I learned last Friday:
A twenty foot great white shark is typically EIGHT FEET WIDE and SIX FEET DEEP.

That is a monstrous thing of beauty.

Postscript

Second Notice:

Dear Pet Products Store Catered to Soft Hearts Like Me,

You have not replied to my recent letter.

I find this troubling on many levels, not the least of which is that I have bought so many useless things from you and your horrid, spawning retail chains that I probably financed the new store in Frozen'roid, North Dakota.  

I am compelled to send you another urgent missive.  I am quite upset and find you guilty as about to be charged.

When you charge $42** for the pheromone things YOU NEED TO PUT A DIRECTIONAL ON THEM SO THAT I DON'T PLUG THEM IN UPSIDE DOWN AND THEN ALLOW THE OIL TO DRIP THROUGH THE APPARENTLY GOLD-FUCKING PLATED INNARDS AND CAUSE THE HOUSE TO SMELL LIKE BURNING PLASTIC WHICH MAKES ME REMOVE THEM SO THAT THEY DON'T SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE WHEN I'M AT WORK AND BURN MY PSYCHOTIC CATS TO DEATH.

Which doesn't sound all that bad, come to think of it.

It was expensive and they are ruined and it is all because I'm an idiot and wasn't thinking and to be honest with you, THAT NEEDS TO BE SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT this time.

Kindly respond and tell me who I can scream at,

Salome

**EACH!! 

Deliberately Cryptic, in Other Words FLY

;) CLP is the only one who that title may resonate with.

CLP, you called me! I did not answer because

WELCOME TO
SALOME'S RUINED WEEKEND
OF EMOTIONAL TORMENT.

I can't talk about it.

My time, she is a-biding.

Sometimes when the worst thing happens

the world just opens up

like the throat of an opera singer

then the hope pours out

So here's to hope

and here's to the fat lady

sharpening her teeth.

Correspondence File: 1/11/08

Dear Coat Manufacturers (Everywhere):

For the love of Pete, will you please make coats with well-sewn buttons? I mean, honestly.
Listen, I know you can't possibly imagine how many times a person can get out of their car and actually HOOK the button on the inside of the driver's door, nor could you anticipate when someone (such as myself) might buy a coat that just(barely)fits and wear the goddamn thing anyway, because you feel funky and cool in it, even though the simple act of taking a sip of coffee some morning might snap the back buttoned thing off in its tracks, but fergodsake, I am a repellent to buttons over here, and if the 2 year old in your sweatshop can't sew a button tightly you should imprison her whole family.

Because I never remember where I put them for safekeeping,
Salome

p.s. When I die, I will be remembered as the lady that had "many random buttons in schizophrenic proliferation among personal belongings." And it will be all your fault. Please call Larry King and explain my life.

Dear Unfathomable Multi-Locale Breakout,

We've already been through this. Listen, sebum glands. I've had it. If you freak the fuck out three days before an important meeting ONE MORE TIME.....I'm going to plunge my face into a bath of pure glycol. I KNOW it is an important meeting. I was up until 3am last night, wasn't I? I'm well aware of the general all-purpose FREAKOUT going on in my brain. I would expect YOU of all body processes to give me some support. You must be friends with the Sudden-Unexplained-Alarming-Bloat. I hope you're proud of yourself. Big Important Meeting meets Fat Teenager with Lack of Sleep Twitch. Nice.

Alarmingly Using The CAPS LOCK,
Salome

Dear Pet Products Store Catered to Soft Hearts Like Me,

Do you really have to be so expensive? Listen, I'm not so infatuated that I don't know that all the products I buy are because I think a domesticated animal is a human family member. But listen, they are, she is, and I CARE. If they need me, I AM HERE. Even though I have the most pampered and coddled cats since Egypt, I still look for ways to liquidate my savings. But $42 EACH for the pheromone thing that MIGHT make Lucy stop stalking everything in the house and Leo stop peeing on my dirty laundry? That is outrageous. The new brush I bought because their old brush is, well, old? Highway Robbery. $10 a month per cat for the Prozac that will allow these freakazoids to just FUCKING CHILL FOR A MOMENT WITH ALL THE DRAMA, COULD WE PLEASE? Unbelievable. You are sucking me dry.

When I Die, I Want to Come Back As My Cat,
Salome

Dear Finny,

My dear. My darling boy. You are still gone. I know you're not coming back. And I can just about type this without breaking open like the fury and pain of the sea when it hits the shore with intent to kill and spatters into mist. Just about. I am profound with the lack of you. I was at Petco tonight, honey. At the place where the cats who need homes are, my heart raced and my spirits soared, if only just to find you. If only just to see you now, seven long and heartbreaking months, and scoop you up and say FINALLY. Finally, honey you're home, and everything that happened we will laugh about, at night when you and I curl up in bed and we are mom and boy. Today I gave your favorite toy to the stray that my heart wouldn't let me hold out on. She liked it, but not like you did. She won't bring me the felt lightning bolt with the bell I painstakingly sewed on it, drop it in my lap to say, "Here. Throw this, I feel like playing. I feel like chasing this and bringing it back to you so you can throw it again and then we'll be having fun together." I cried about you on New Year's Eve. I had cold medicine and then tequila and then champagne and all of a sudden I was all red-face and snot, crying to Lakshmi about you. You are just a cat, I know, but I am just a human, and you brought my life so much light. When you left, or died, or were taken, joy just stopped for me. I am trying to coax it back, but this house is filthy with memories of you. I can't go in the garden, it breaks my heart. I can't stop stopping in my tracks when something reminds me of you, and it is like you just went missing. I can't let you go, little man, my heart won't let me.

Be Safe and Please Don't Ever Forget That I Love You, That I Always Did and Always Will,
Mom

Cacaphony

While getting older isn't the worst thing that has ever happened to a person, I quite like the tiny wrinkles around my eyes when I smile, I am increasingly annoyed at my stomach's decision to form a second set of cleavage just under my boobs.

I am devastated at my body's inability to recover from drinking three or four too many. What used to take hours to get over now takes days. Days that I remember the next time. Who ever thought I'd be wary or cautious?

What is cool, at the moment, are the cracks that my body is doing. I'm sure they're a harbinger of some serious arthritis medication in my future, but for now I'll revel in them.

Elbow crack - so satisfying when I do the sweeping circular arm-movement to elicit them.
Ankle cracks - loud pops that feel so good.
Knee cracks, or wait, kind of more like grinding, which is really not an appealing sound.

Neck cracks that sound like they MEAN something.

I'm going to take this old thing one day at a time. And right now I'm just going to shut up and listen to the symphony.

oooh, a music Meme!

Thanks to Jonathan:

Rules...
1. Put your iTunes on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer
3. You must write down that song name no matter what

Results...

Q. What would best describe your personality?
A. ONE - U2
Wow. A favorite. A favored, favored, heart favorite. I have always been enthralled with the vulnerability, self-doubt and strength in this song. At least that's what I've always heard in it.

Q. If someone says it's okay you say:
A. Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
Hmm. There's a bunch of songs on here from these DVDs a friends was passing around full of pirated music. This isn't a song I put on my iTunes because I loved it. But I do like Norah Jones. I would say that this could be relevant because if someone tells me it's okay and it clearly isn't....I would help them anyway I could. I can't stand to see someone hurt or hurting. I have to try and help.

Q. What do you like in a (girl) GUY? (I had to change gender to be relevant to me)
A. Rewind - Paolo Nutini
Something that sparks me. I like the flames, I like the flood, I like the passion. He sings, why can't we just rewind, why can't we just rewind, why can't we just rewind? And I know what he means. I always want it to be like it first was....I always want the fire. I like a guy that keeps that alive for me. Thank you, Pope. You're the only one that ever has.

Q. How do you feel today?
A. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - White Stripes
HOW PERFECT IS THAT? Rock on. I have an achy sinus thing going on, but a lot to do and that frenetic energy that comes when you are at the last countdown of a deadline. I'll be working all weekend, and I'm prepared for it. I expect some greatness. Unless I develop a full blown cold, which is seeming ever more likely. I'm doped to the gills on cold medicine, though.

Q. What is your life's purpose? (Dude. This is pretty heavy stuff for my music collection.)
A. I Know I Know I Know - Tegan & Sara
To write like these women, sisters from Canada. I'm floored, I'm flattened into the cracks of the earth when I hear them. I want to write things that resonate instantly with people, like their words do to me.

Q. What is your motto?
A. King of Pain - The Police
Woah. It is my destiny to be the King of Pain. So interesting. I saw The Police in concert in Seattle from box seats (in one of the luckiest episodes of my young life). I was breathlessly waiting for this song, which is my favorite, has been since I was a little kid. When I was a teenager I would make up words to this melody and make my cousins laugh. I would definitely say I carry a lot of pain, and choose to inflict it upon myself if my well runs dry. I'm more comfortable in a realm of hurt than of health. Makes no sense, and I should probably go to therapy, but there you have it.
-What am I saying, Probably go to Therapy? You all read my blog, you KNOW I need therapy.
(p.s. I have been to anger management and it was totally bullshit.)

Q. What do your friends think of you?
A. Coconut Skins - Damien Rice
Boy I have no idea on this one. I love Damien Rice, but this album (9) has not caught me. This is probably only the 2nd time I've heard this song.

Q. What do you think of your friends?
A. In Da Club - 50 Cent
Erm, yeah. I guess, you know, you guys can find me in the club. Judging from this, I am an arrogant sonofabitch with an EXQUISITE hook. I can't help but feel like a badass when I sing this song alone in my affluent white woman car. I also love to dance to it, completely without rhythm, in da club, when I'm hammered.

Q. What do you think of your parents?
A. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
I can't even begin to describe the complex emotions that thinking about this question and then hearing this song come on has evoked. You can't put me in your penthouse, my future lies beyond the yellow brick road....I feel like I've accomplished a lot, and mostly to show them that I could. I'm not as happy with all of these things as I thought I would be. I was happier doing a lot of writing, wearing thrift clothes and LIVING more.

Q. What do your parents think of you?
A. Screenwriters Blues - Soul Coughing
Whatever they think of me it has never sounded like this.
This song points out the soulless nature of Los Angeles, and I guess maybe that fits. They never held much esteem for the things I wanted to do with my life. They still don't, but tolerate me talking about it now, because I did everything they wanted me to. First.

Q. What do you think about very often?
A. Doin' Time - Sublime
Hahaha. This is a fun meme. Sublime makes me happy, makes me move and makes me think. Right now I think about work very often. Does not relate to this song. I think about Finny a lot. Thinking about the Pope happens everytime a synapse fires. I think about everything all the time. Which is why I can't sleep, smoke, drink too much (though not at the moment) and generally explains almost everything that you read here.

Q. What do you think of your best friends?
A. Freakshow - Ani DiFranco
Don't be offended. Listen: "Life in the circus ain't easy. But the folks on the outside don't know. The tent goes up and the tent comes down and all that they see is the show --Life under the big top is about freedom, is about faking, there's an art to the laughter there's a SCIENCE. And there's a lot of love and compliance -- we can make something bigger than any one of us alone." Perfect song.

Q. What do you think of the person you love?
A. Hype - Tegan & Sara
This song at once encapsulates knowledge, guts, power, faith, sensitivity and strength.
Excellent way to describe what I think the Pope is capable of.

Q. What is your life story?
A. Common People - Pulp
Okay, forget the lyrics on this one. Listen to the music. Go along with it, be drawn by it and when the music swells to the crescendo, go there too. Be at the zenith of how that makes you feel, do everything you can do to feel that way - to think like this, to live a life that rises up and swells like a soundtrack, like an ocean around you. THAT is my life story.

Q. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. What Goes Around.... - Justin Timberlake
Hmmm. So I want to be a cheater, or the talented recipient of same? Not applicable.
So I'll just tell you. I want to be a working actor or a writer. Or I want to own a pub. I want to water my many plants, laugh with my many children and have wrinkles from smiling. I want to be free and I want to be happy and I want to be at peace. (and I'd like to be thin with naturally curly hair and big boobs, while I'm at it.)

Q. What do you think when you see the person you love?
A. Lola - The Kinks
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The pope is undeniably a real man, over 6' tall and handsome. But the sight of him makes me weak in the knees and has since the first time I met him.

Q. What is your hobby/interest?
A. By Your Side - Sade
Well.....maybe not so much.

Q. What will they play at your funeral?
A. Puttin' on the Ritz - Taco
FANTASTIC! I'll make a note to have everyone wear white gloves.

Q. What is your biggest secret?
A. Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner
Hmmm. Which part, though? Cleaning the plates or popping the tang?
On a cross-country drive, alone, with broken A/C in mid-summer, I BECAME Tina Turner, singing this song at the top of my lungs, over and over, through Nebraska going 90mph. That was fucking awesome.

And we're done.

A Photo Montage of Joy

My niece Lolobird.

My mother-in-law. She's as awesome as she looks.

Lolobird and Littlebird. Nieces.

Happy New Year!

Well, in grand Salome fashion, I rang in the new year with good friends, good food and a really awesome firework, all of which I viewed through a blur, as I quickly got way too drunk to be understood, and finished the night crying to Lakshmi about Finny.

I miss Finny, still.  You can read about him here, here and here.

(Many thanks to Lakshmi, who sat up and patiently listened to my incoherent weeping.)

We woke up at 1:30pm, with burgeoning colds and ravishing hangovers.

I am up off the couch, where I've been laying prone for many hours, watching a marathon of the Intervention TV show I'm so fond of.

I got up for one very important reason:  to post hello and go to bed.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Especially ALEX!

Congrats and my sincerest wishes for happiness.

(and the obligatory, "It's about time!!")