My joy list

In response to my long-lost female doppelganger, way prettier and three month older twin sister edder's joy list, I share my own.

• The scent of rain
• The way puppies smell
• Cotton blankets
• Irish linen
• Pajama pants
• Vodka martinis at brunch
  
• Driving
• Cooking with gleeful abandon
• Entertaining friends
• Laughing
• Telling stories
• Line-dried laundry
• Classic films
• Rereading great stories
• Classic female jazz vocalists
• Flowers that smell only at night
• The secret language - both spoken and unspoken - that Brian and I have
• Rushing home to see each other - even 19 years later.
  
  And some that I share with edder (from her list):
  
  
• when the people I love accept me just as I am, especially when I fuck up
  
• instantly connecting with new people and wondering "why haven't we met before?"
• that first sip of coffee
• a comment from one of my bloggy friends or a newcomer

Just so you know

2Xist soy briefs with wicking properties are only good as a one-way kind of thing.

Don't get caught in a thunderstorm - that's all I'm saying.

I feel like Swamp Thing.

Knowledge is power.

Made me laugh

Best letter to the editor response EVER in a local newspaper:

"For the first time, a Palin actually decides to pull out early."

Classic.

Oh, Hell no!

Check out the debut of Chicago's new Sears Tower viewing "ledges."

On one visit as a teenager, I remember exiting the 103-floor express elevator and being amazed at the updraft blowing out between the floor and the elevator cab. It blew up skirts and shopping bags, and bounced baby carriages a couples inches off the ground.

This would be another good reason not to wear a skirt to the Sears Tower.

I'm so afraid of heights, I only barely kept my morning toast down looking at these images.

Finally! A death I care about!

The celebrity body count continues to rise - Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Karl Malden, Gale Storm, Fred Travaleno - but only one death this past week really socked me in the gut.

Mollie Sugden - most well known for playing the unbelievably "colorful" Mrs. Slocombe in the Brit Com "Are you being served?" - has died at the age of 86.

I can remember discovering this show on PBS as a teenager and howling my ass off. And Mollie's foil, a Mr. Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries , was probably the first gay man I ever saw on television.

I own most of the series on DVD now and I watch it when I am cleaning, ironing or just need some mindless laughs.

Mollie was a consummate comedienne and we are all better for having known her. She entertained generations.

Godspeed, Mollie.


A tribute


Grace and Favour: "Rotten bitch"
("Are you being served again" in US)

Is a puzzlement

Something has been sticking in my craw for a couple months now and I am curious to get the opinions and experiences of others to help determine if I am being:

a. intolerant
b. righteously indignant
c. just a whiny little bitch
d. barking mad

One of the few blogs I used to read daily was removed from my blog roll recently. The reason? The blog owner had a couple meltdowns (one major) over finances and - in my opinion - held the blog for ransom unless the readers of that blog started funding the blog.

Now - again, in my humble opinion, if you choose to write and host and manage a blog to the exclusion of having any other means of employment or money-making, doesn't it seem rude to ask the folks who read your blog to give you money to keep your blog afloat? And if you have a large enough blog community who could contribute writing and other services in your stead, doesn't it make sense to leverage that instead ?

I have to confess, I felt really bad for walking away. I enjoyed the community and had begun to participate regularly. But when we were suddenly treated to regular prods and entreaties (contribute or we''ll shut down!) to contribute to keep things afloat, I had to stop participating.

I read a number of blogs where the main blogger/owner also works at a job and has a community of folks who post information and help manage the site. Pam's House Blend is a stellar example. Pam's site offers a variety of contributing voices and focuses on important issues - all without material support from readers. Or if there is material support from readers, it's being provided quietly and not marketed out to the rest of the community.

So - I'm curious. Are any of the blogs you read important enough to pay for?

Have you ever walked away from a blog you enjoyed for a similar reason?

If you choose to create a topical and non-commercial blog and it becomes a successful blog with a huge audience - would you feel comfortable asking for money to keep it going?

I welcome all thoughts and opinions.

Oh sweet Jebus...

(tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Ed, Farrah and Michael weren't enough....

Now you had to take Billy Mays from us!!!

Billy changed TV advertising forever - he was a pitchman GOD!!!

His commercials will live on! He was not a joke! He was a STAR!

One day, your grandchildren will ask you "Where were you when you heard that Billy Mays died, Grandpa?"

And you will reply...

" I was beating Vince - the ShamWow! guy - to death with a VHS tape of 'Thriller' while he choked on a DVD of Season One of 'Charlie's Angels,' - All while ramming a monster fake check up Vince's backside while asking him how he likes to smack a hooker now, eh? How about NOW, Vince!!?!"

Damn. At least Billy was cute - loud, but cute.

Reality check

I'm feeling a tug of something - something uncomfortable - something annoying.

What is it?

Oh - yes - it's my total lack of patience with humanity in general! Yay!

This morning, I ran across a statement that I had fully expected see that, much to my surprise, had not appeared sooner. The inevitable question -

"do you remember where you were when Michael Jackson died?"

Jesus Christ on a zamboni, of course I do - it was Thursday!!!! Two days ago!!!!!!!

I mean - come on. Let's get some perspective here.

I remember where I was when some truly major events took place. When man first stepped on the moon, when Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, when the Iranian hostage crisis occurred, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, and when the Berlin Wall fell.

A hundred more things that happened in my lifetime, I remember vividly.

And two weeks, a year, a decade later - the date and time of the overdose of a talented yet terribly tortured musician who lived in a cocoon of self-indulgence and fantasy will not be among them.

I'm truly sorry that Michael died. And Farrah. And Ed McMahon.

And maybe a hundred thousand other people on the planet earth who didn't have a TV show or a hit record. I'm sorry for them as well.

Simply my opinion, of course. But there it is. Fire away.