A good idea who's time has come (screaming)?

A shoutout to the godless dildo loving fans of cephalopods everywhere?

An image to make you despair that visual memory has no delete key?

My vote is that if you pack it in your jacket pocket, your Londo Mollari costume will totally kick ass.



honestly, if that intro didn't highlight the link as likely not safe for work, I just haven't been posting enough lately to keep you on your toes--sorry about that.

Kerne, I think this is the one you mean:


But in the same cache I also found these moldy oldies, which I'm putting here to upload back into the rotation later:

hossgal asked me, almost a year ago, "Pick a thing, any thing, that you're doing now - the writing, the job, the monkey, anything - and tell me, honest, if you thought it was going to be like this, ten years ago."



Honestly, the hardest part of this question has been delineating what my expectations have been in the past. For a very long time, the particular broken twist of my mental landscape has been to ruthlessly exise such expectations and, I guess, figure out how to live without them and then let the universe decide if I get them. I remember staying up late as a small child, just old enough to write, and composing a note to my parents along the lines of knowing that they didn't really love me. Something I feared, and so convinced myself was true. At my fingertips is the acute sorrow of committing it to paper, crying as silently as I could manage, dithering about letting them see it, and finally putting it someplace it could be found while I was asleep. I remember the reassuring aftermath much less clearly--and I now suspect the guilt and horror they likely felt about the whole thing--the salient point for me at the time was the personal acknowledgement of how very deeply their rejection could hurt me.

There is much confusion in my mind between wanting, needing, hoping, losing and grieving. As a result I waffle between driven determination and apathetic nihilism. The sensitivity of my circadian rhythms to sunlight and season are the frame these tensions are strung on. I actively expect the worst. At my best I defy it, at my worst I greet it with my belly in the air. I'm getting better at sustaining moderate effort with punctuated rest, instead of pushing to exhaustion while the sun shines and not giving two shits when it doesn't--with the new Daylight Savings rules I used my light seven months out of the last twelve, but the smarter I am about using it, the less my desperation for either winter nihilism or summer accomplishment.

The benefit of being in one's thirties is that one begins to benefit from all the individual mind- life- and body-hacks one had to learn the hard way.

Expectations for my thirties: in my teens I figured I would have a child or two, hopefully with a partner, after I had established a career. It was exactly that vague. On the ground, I found my love at 21 and we set about building enough daily maturity and financial security to bring helpless young into the picture. It took awhile, mainly for the latter to come up to our admittedly materialistic middle-class standards. I grew up working poor, and I wanted my kids to never worry about groceries or foreclosure, or deal with the utilities being shut off. Shit happens, it happened to my folks despite their best efforts and we all survived, but it starts you off at a deficit that can accumulate over generations. And as I remarked earlier this week, I'm the fourth generation in this country and we've each done our share of boot-strapping. Mine was a college degree and a white-collar resume (and maybe a profession, if I can swing it).

With a safety net in place we finally tackled expanding our family--at a certain point you realize it isn't precaution stopping you, it's fear. Mr. F made that call, and he was right. He's the emotionally sentient one, after all. So the Cmonkey makes three, and being this family is what we do in life. Work is that annoying thing that keeps us warm and fed. I'll eventually get to be what I want to be when I grow up, vocation wise. It's a banked fire that crackles uneasily sometimes, but will wait. I'm learning patience in the same chronic manner that I'm learning optimism and learning how to fit myself back into the cracks of the daily grind.

Thing is, there is tremendous work and emotion and sacrifice and bone-weary diligence that goes into tending a seedling into a little unfolding person. But there's also, subtle and terrifying and beautiful, an awesome grace in the privilege. This family of mine is closer to me than my own bones, they are my home and my life, my love made manifest as something the very opposite of grief.

I'm not accustomed to knowing the contents of my heart, so it's raw and astonishing to see them before me, out in the world for me to touch, and care for, and be seen by, and loved.

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything [within reason] : latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal if you are so inclined.

I might even include pictures.

I'm terribly behind in a lot of correspondence--for those of you waiting, I haven't forgotten you, I truly adore the notes and gifts you've sent. I'm just a loser during the winter months and I'm still firguring work-arounds for that failing. Some of it involves not letting guilt be an obstacle or an excuse. Which is both very hard to do and very effective.

Like exercise, like writing, like personal growth of any flavor.

So as a promissory note towards the emails, real-mails and packages that are also in the works (and unlike previous winters neither hanging like swords nor shamefully abandoned, just on-hold without self-judgement), here's an update of sorts.

Fannishly: Do repeated watchings of "Sense & Sensibility" and "Serenity" count for fannishness? I have no real thoughts except the first is a new aquisition and the second so chewy and pretty despite the flaw of Mr. Universe. Like the "Your traitorous father is dead--oh, hey! We're landing in Rio!" moment in "Notorious", it's forgivable if only to provide contrast with the excellence of the rest of the ride.

I saw the first episode of "Dexter", which Mr. F rented on thassalia's rec. Intriguing, except for one thing. ( speculations--please do not spoil past episode 1 of Dexter )

My adventures in health and fitness continue sporadically. Mr. F does not have TB, but likely bronchitis or asthma. Cmonkey has a cold. Toodles for now!

Despite living in a greater metro area lousy with drugstores, I've
just ordered toothpaste online. Why? Because we've been gifted with
an 18 month old who clamors to brush her teeth and I refuse to corrupt
that impulse with sparkly candy crapola. She doesn't need to be
tricked--she's quite happy to brush along with us, even if her
technique needs a great deal of work. She certainly doesn't need to
associate bubblegum flavor with cleanliness. She needs something
basic sans fluoride and sans fucking sparkles--sparkles are for the
bath, not eating. Something, in short, that doesn't piss me
off.

Bad enough that it took me a month to find a wee toothbrush
without marketing (and every time she stops to ponder the happy
generic duckies on the handle I feel vindicated on that score)--we're
fast running out of the tiny tube of discontinued Burt's Bees
children's toothpaste she uses.

I've tried to find Tom's of Maine stuff locally, but the selection is
either fluoridated or fennel-flavored. She's an adventurous eater,
but I can't stand the smell of licorice or fennel. So I found the
good stuff online: non-fluoride "silly strawberry" for her and an
intriguing tube of fluoridated "cinnamon clove" for me.

I made peace with the idea of fruit and spice flavors, after all, mint
is an herb. Bubblegum is still way beyond the pale, however. Is this
generational, or cultural? Am I the only one who finds candy-flavored
dentifrice for children disturbingly counterproductive? It strikes me
as akin to Funyun-scented soap for teens. If I'm odd I'll cop to it*,
I just want to take the cultural temp here.

*After all, Mr. F and I spent fifteen minutes in Yankee Candle
this weekend picking out a handful of votives for the bathroom that,
in theory, would still smell okay with the addition of poop (by
experience we know that all 'baked goods' scents are straight
out).

Things that are restorative:

a nap
three naps in a row
a brief but complete rest from 1.5 years of constant vigilance and burning concerns


Things that are surprisingly restorative after the fact:

stomach flu with mild dehydration
caffeine withdrawal edging into migraine, but skirting back at the last moment
menstruation
furious destruction


Things that are surprising:

team-playing and concern from one's co-workers
that adolescent resentment of one's mother can still be sparked when the tinder is dry enough
the curative properties of playing in the bath

So I'm haunting Craigslist for cheap exercise equipment and I come
across half a page of ads for riding stuff; bits, English saddles,
boots, jodhpurs, you name it. Apparently I'm not the only one
intrigued, as the last ad is
for this:

*******WHERE'S THE HORSE?*******


Just wondering.

Speaking of horses, or in this case draft pony physiques and my
chronic engagement with the topic of fitness, I'm totally looking to
cash in on other people's misguided New Year's resolutions. I got a
Nordic Track for $30 at an estate sale this summer and I'd like to
outfit the rest of a kickass gym for Casa de Feld for similar chump
change. Hopefully I answered soon enough on those weights for $65
(Olympic bar and standard set of plates, normally $300). In the
meantime, I snagged a jump rope and a small weight bar from Target for
twenty bucks.

Things I've learned from Craigslist:

1. Do not set up your exercise equipment in the basement. Even if you
have a finished basement, they just don't build them tall or airy
enough to want to spend time down there doing anything but laundry,
especially in the winter. Laundry is different because I think it
reminds us of freshening the nest, all those piles and baskets of warm
clothing. All those camera phone pics of exercise gear infesting dank
basement corners is depressing.

So the Casa gym is going to be in a spare bedroom until spring, and
then in the garage during warm months. I'm also thinking about
decoration and inspiration; paint, photos, art, and speakers for
music.

2. Don't buy anything that implies it will do the work for you, or
that it's relaxing or easy. There are a ton of squat machines, ab
loungers, mats, chairs and bullshit available and it goes
really cheap (if it sells at all) even if you keep all the DVDs
and extras it comes with. If you can't tell from the picture how it
works, people aren't going to buy it because they don't see the
Bowflex music video of oiled and sheened curves that made you buy it
in the first place. Some of the names alone are creepy and a lot of
them look like Farscape chairs.

3. Dude. No one wants your jumble of curl bars and unmatched plates.
What the hell am I going to do with one 45 pound plate, keep my
papers tidy during a tornado? Brain the next dumbfuck who blows their
snow out into the street? Use it as a pizza stone? Give it up
already. Sell it for scrap iron and stop posting it every damned day.
Or at least take a picture of the mess where it doesn't look like I'd
need a tetanus booster just to touch it.

In other news, I've been experimenting with whimsical produce
shopping: I wander through the market, pick out the things that look
pretty or yummy, and then figure out how to eat them when I get home.
I'm 35 years old and I just had my first persimmon. Of course, now
I've had quite a few persimmons, for lo they are delicious and one can
eat everything but the little calyx on top and the occasional huge
seed. The crotchity old coot eyeing me snidely as we picked them out
was right to be so territorial.

This weekend I made fried plantains (they were so emerald! and the
inexplicable band of strapping tape around each one looked so
naughty!) and baba ghannouj (aubergine! the official fruit of
Scullyfic!). The fried plantains are mild but starchy, next time I'll
cut them thinner. Baba ghannouj, on the other hand, is one of those
things that rewards the effort of making it at home, even if you're
too lazy to dig out the processor and just mash it ineffectively with
a knife and fork.

After several weeks of job stress, bronchitis, and holding things
together with gum, twine and cussed stubborness, I glimpsed behind the
curtain of the great and powerful wizard known as Mr. F. I drove his
car. It cannot be described, even though I spent far too much time
crawling around in it this morning to make the car seat safe for
Cmonkey transport, as the harness was supertight and yet the seat
barely attached to the car. The highlights:

* total absence of leg room for the passenger, due to garbage
overflowing onto the seat
* which is dusted with powdered sugar
* which hopefully explains the stickiness of the ice scraper I
retrieved from the effluence
* which I used to clear the back window for the first time in days

Once I dropped off the Cmonkey, incredibly late, I got over my
seething rage at the condition of the car seat. Yes, there's no
telling how long it's been a suffocating deathtrap, but take the
freebie, you know? I turned off the heater, which was too busy slow
roasting the midden riding shotgun to get to my frozen toes. I kept
letting it go every time I picked it back up; grace is an amazing gift
because it's damned hard to pull off.

Then a jewelry store commercial entreated me to "Go where love takes you."

I realized, in my case, that would be the dumpster.

It's a feeling like deja vu, when flist content invades real life
(though it's actually a case of the latter):
Forbes.com
on the SUP/LJ deal: Choking the Russian Voice