Next steps

Miss A (for anthropy) challenged me to write a book about the toys I make as a marketing technique and I admit that I have not until very recently made any headway.  The break was in part due to trying to find pictures to fill the echoingly empty walls of my office which led me back to James C. Christensen and his College of Magical Knowledge. 

So, I am going to combine my love of houses and buildings with my Windmill Tilting idea and populate the premises with dangling dragons, odd faces and parts thereof, octopi, starfish, mutant undersea air breathing things and just let go the scope of my imaginative life in a story book world.  I can’t imagine how someone is going to illustrate this to my standards, but there you go.

As a side note, in looking for the name of my school, I looked up “college” in my Roget’s thesaurus and the only synonym it had was “jail.”  Hmm.

Several cephalopods

Blogger dot com sucks when it comes to my spelling needs.  Couldn't find cephalopod at all.  Mind you, I had it very misspelled to start, but once I corrected it, this spell check insisted that I wanted sloped or scalloped or scalped.  Is scalped really a more popular concept than octopi and squid?  I suppose it is the scalping of tickets and not the forcible removal of the forelock with a tomahawk.

The liquor store that revels in having fun sayings on its sign as you drive north on 28 had its usual "Holidays mean family, we sell liquor" sign up until a few days ago when they replaced it with "and now without the octopus."  I don't know what it means and I didn't notice until I walked out so I could ask (and yes I would have) but it reminded me that I have a new design idea for the Octopus Obsession and possibly the Magical Starfish.  Also that I am without the squid that took up residence below my belly button.  Maybe it was the swimming?  Maybe I am not ready to relinquish swimming to the Big Bad and the Bumble Beans between them?

I should really get on with the next step of my toymaking career, but I think I need to rest a little first.

And possibly clean the house.  It needs it and so do I.

Happines IS a choice

I got this book (Happiness is a choice) as a side effect of ordering some other books and I though t it might be useful for the Big Bad Bean.  I started reading it last night and found it...not poorly written, but not incisively written either... kind of fluffy in fact.  However, i was thinking about all day and decided to try the first short cut to happiness and found the day more fun, the Bumble Bean more fun, me more fun.

And that was a good thing because it has been A DAY.  I had a really hard time waking up this morning.  I probably should have tried harder (as in 4-5 cups of coffee.)  I burned my bacon.  I got my vitamin adhered to the side of my esophagus.  I boiled over my noxious tea (after Berg the dumbest cat ever, had chewed a hole in the package that I didn't notice before I shook it...all over my feet.  Ding was very offended and stalked around my dripping, reeking feet with her head turned aside.)  Then, the Bumble Bean and I went on our adventure.

He refused to have his diaper changed when we got to the T station, but my happiness pulled us through gracefully.  I did however decide that I would rather not bring my purse as well as his bag, so I took out everything that I thought I would need and tucked the rest beneath the seat.

We had a very fun adventure at the aquarium.  In fact we were in the gift store before I realized I didn't know where my keys were.  They should have been in my pocket.  Happiness on hold for a moment, I passed backward through all my actions in a panic, and realized... I had not lost my keys.  I had decided when going through my purse that I had no need of them while on the trip so I tucked them away in their own little pocket in my purse.  And indeed it was true that I wouldn't need them on our adventure.  I did not think far enough ahead to realize I would need them to get back in the car and eventually back into the house.

No one would be home.  I had left the phone at home and I wouldn't be able to call anyone anyway since i haven't put anyone's number in the phone.  Also, the only other person who has a key is the A Bean (maybe...assuming she can find it) and I was pretty sure she was in NY or PA.  So, we took the bus home and attempted to break in through the window into the basement next to the back door which i was pretty sure I had removed the lock from.  It is a very small window.  I got it open and was trying to convince myself that I would be able to fit through it and all its accumulated grime, but the Bumble Bean would have no part of it.  He was very firm in refusing to let me try to go through or going through himself.  So what next.

I knew that our door jam was in shaky shape, so I broke in by prying away all the wood that held in the latch and opening the door once it was completely insecure.  Happiness still going strong but feeling in need of a Martini even though I gave up drinking last week.  Out of Vermouth.  Hmmm.  Happiness.  Drambuie.

I still have a birthday party to get through, my car to retrieve, milk to pick up, and I was hoping to finish the dragons tonight.  I will continue to choose happiness because the only other option today is to hide under the couch which doesn't have room for me.  A little boy at the bus stop asked me why the Bumble Bean was so happy and I replied, "Why not?  He has to be something and better to be happy than miserable."  The kid didn't look convinced, but I felt better and still do.

Healing Traditions

This evening was an evening when I was off Bumble Bean duty, but I'm such a sucker that when he asked I stayed with him until he fell asleep...it's hard to feel bad about that.  But, I had decided that once he fell asleep, I would do a variety of things on my ridiculously long to-do list for this 3 day weekend, then watch The Rock (the movie not the ex-wrestler) and take a shower before bed. 

Usually when I make plans like this they founder on the to-do list, either because I get caught up in the to-do's or because I become overwhelmed and just play sudoku until I pass out, accomplishing nothing.

This time I got through two and a half items on my to-do list, fast-forwarded through The Rock and just as it was time to take a shower, I decided that tonight would be the night that I oiled myself all over.  Two people have now recommended this to me for health and nice skin, so with no more knowledge than sesame oil and a hot shower (no soap) I took my bottle of cold pressed oil into the bathroom, routed the cat and proceeded to oil myself all over.  This was a rather shocking experience, first because I rarely actually see my body anymore and when I do I'm in a hurry, showering, steam, no glasses, etc... The second reason it was shocking is simply because of what I found upon examination.  I will not go into details since I know the Long Bean occasionally reads this and I don't want to embarrass him.  It was however quite dis-heartening.

I quickly realized that I should perhaps have gone to the website that was recommended to me about this since I found I didn't know how much oil I was supposed to be using... Should I be slick or just glowing?  I went for slick since I figured I was at an oil deficit and my hands were at this point to oily to go use the computer.  I then took my oily self into the shower having decided to not oil my face or my hair since I didn't remember any guidance on those systems.

Upon entry into the shower, two things that I have always known came to the forefront of my mind.  First, that I use my hands to wipe the water from my eyes and push the hair back so I can breathe, and, second, with hot watter, oil becomes impossible to contain.  So with a greasy face and hair, smelling like nothing so much as a tin of tahini, I rubbed and rubbed at my healthily oiled body and came to yet another gap in my knowledge.  Namely, how much of this stuff was I supposed to be trying to remove?  I rubbed and rubbed at the body that I had come to be a stranger in and abruptly came against yet another truth that I know but had forgotten.  Bath tubs are slippery when wet.  They are ever more slippery when oiled and wet. 

I have, in a healthy glowing way, strained one of my groin muscles.  I don't actually know if it is a groin muscle since the only time I am ever aware of it is when the Big Bad Bean feels compelled to do this horrible hip-type set which feels remarkably like I've just been kicked in the groin... or, as it turns out, like I slipped in an oily bathtub.

Ah, well.  I am out.  I am clean-ish.  My skin feels nice and not covered in an oily scum (noticeably unlike the bathtub) and the pain in my thigh has subsided to the point that I think I will be able to sleep.

Perhaps I am a Racontuer

I sit here doing incredibly boring things and find myself ranting in my head:

"Stupid, fucking thieves and home invaders!"

"Autistic spectrum, my lily-white ass!"

"Gamers (role playing) and people who engage in make believe S&M are still playing house with their friends and after about age 12 that's just boring and a little sick."

"First my hammock and now B&E you stupid f*^$ing, f%$&ers!"

I recently spent some time with a man who claimed to be the most offensive person he knew.  So, in the interest of offending the greatest number of people I know (most of whom don't read this blog, but I don't care,) I have decided to rant about:

"Modern child-rearing theory and practice is a conspiracy to promote mindless consumerism"

And now I don't care about it so perhaps more later or perhaps not.

Life has been too full to blog

and I haven't felt inclined.  There has been a lot of life that seems like it could inspire a post but it doesn't inspire me to actually sit down and do it.

Six months descending into a pit of despair, hoping, trying to have faith- it worked.  Everything is looking up.  Except teaching law students.  And various and sundry other parts of my job.

Tonight I attended my second in a series of public meetings concerning the Green Line Extension Project in Somerville.  I'm actually really excited/intrigued/stimulated to be investigating my local government.  I recently read that despite this country's foundational principal of rule by law, not many Americans believe much in law or government, inherently distrusting it.  Hear, hear!  I wonder if I could change that in my town?

More boxer-ed butt...

this time right outside my window.  Never saw the guy's face, don't know anything about height (he was on a ladder), weight, skin color, hair, etc...  I'm guessing he was still fairly young since he did have a fairly nicely formed bottom and most middle aged male bottoms tend to migrate to the front to form a gut... sometimes the crack moves to the front as well which is rather horrifying.