This was yesterday's Savage Chicken cartoon.



I love me a bad pun.

A Very Long Time ago, when I was young enough to be president of the Dade County Young Democrats I went on a radio talk show to debate the president of the Dade County Young Republicans about a woman's right to choose. (That's abortion rights to you). He was sincere in his beliefs that women should have the right to consult with men who could make the decision for her. I was and am sincere in my belief that it ain't nobody's business but my own. (And by my, I mean each woman and her own conscience and her own body.)

The POTDCYR postulated thus: "What if you and I met at a party and went home together and made love and you got pregnant? Wouldn't I have some say in what happens next?" To which I replied, quicker than it took him to get through Part B of his sentence:

"Inconceivable."

The host cracked up. I cracked myself up, and the poor Republican tool spent the rest of the hour trying to convince me that it was not totally out of the realms of possibility that I could ever find him attractive enough to go to bed with him.

Lost cause, even if he hadn't been a dweeb. I NEVER (knowingly) slept with a Republican.

Hurricane season is barely two weeks old and we have the first storm of the year. Hurricane Alberto. To which I can only say: Oh, bite me.

Back at Jackson (We Treat Everyone Like Crap) I always tried to get the hurricane information live on line June 1st. The PR department (It Doesn't Have To Be Done Right, It Only Has To Be Done) felt that nobody pays any attention until August, so the web site didn't have to be updated til then and the special edition of the company newsletter that dealt with hurricane preparedness was never distributed (oh, hell, who are we kidding... was never even sent to press) before mid- to late August.

Here at my new job, we've been having drills and meetings and consciousness-raising since May.

The storms of last year did the work of G-d's own weed whacker on my trees, so this year I have no mangos to lose. Or to eat. Nor avocados. Nor royal poincianna flowers. The mulberry tree managed to put out berries, but the spring was so hot and dry that for the first year since I've been in the house, they were too small and tart to be worth eating.

I finished another quilt top this weekend, except for two borders that would have been done, had I cut them correctly. It's turquoise and brown, and a lap-sized beauty. I love the colors so much that I already have another one worked out in my head using the same two fabrics that were in this one, with additional fabrics filling out a large palette of browns and turquoises. It'll be much larger than this one, as well.

By the time I head over to the Gulf for my annual week of laying around doing nothing but drinking and laying around on the beach chair (will break for naps and food) I should have four to six tops heading off to my sistergirl's place for quilting.

Being a secretary has been the greatest boon to my creative energy ever. Why did I waste so many years working as a commercial artist when all it did was sap my creativity?

Oh, yeah. I remember. It filled my coffers with filthy lucre and enabled me to have health insurance.

And I'm not talking about the kind from Star Trek, that got into Ensign Chekov's head, or any of the other varieties that are always popping up in horror movies. No, I'm talking about the song that gets in there and attaches itself to your synapses and won't let go.

Thanks to Reecie, damn her,
this is now stuck in my head and on a permanent loop on the i-pod.

Play at your own risk.

I spent the entire weekend in my pyjamas. Eeyore ones, in lavender, if you must know. I slept late, took naps, finished one quilt top and got a third of the way through another. I made a pan of brownies, roasted a turkey breast, had a couple of tangerine martinis, made a big bowl of tabouli, and a dinner of angel hair pasta with steamed rabe, sauced simply with the best olive oil and a little red wine vinegar and a handful of shaved parmesan cheese.

I watched another several episodes of Firefly (and how did I ever miss that when it was on?) and a couple of movies and the season finale of the Sopranos.

I did not answer the phone, or read my e-mail or work on my blog or my very overdue podcasts. I did not leave the house, not once, not even to get the mail or walk the dogs.

And you know what? It was fucking divine.

Here are some of the random thoughts that came to me over the past two days:
1. In a battle between fingernails and fabric, fabric will always win. Especially if it's silk.

2. I first saw my little house in the rain, and it is still at its best in the rain. It's snug, and the rain mists down through the screen over the pool, and seems like it's in the living room. I love this house in the rain.

3. I am the biggest dilletante I know. About pretty much everything.

4. The New York Times Sunday crossword is best done in bed, with a cup of coffee on a tray.

5. Just because you sleep in till 10 a.m., that doesn't preclude an afternoon nap, especially if there is a thunderstorm.

That is all.

Every time I fill my prescriptions, the pharmacist asks me if I have any questions about my medications, and every time I reply "Yes. Why don't we put Prozac in the water like Flouride?"

I'm thinking that it might be time to double up on the meds, though, at least today, when Microsoft Word and I are having a major battle of wills about formatting and how auto-format prints. I don't think it needs to be highlighted, and Word does. This is new on Word's part, since it has never highlighted things like printer's quotes and elipses before.
I've done all the usual things: closed and reopened my program, rebooted my computer, deleted and recreated text, turn auto-formatting off (in any number of locations and permutations) and still... three periods converts to an elipsis and the elipsis prints with a highlight.

All of this is on a POS Dell running POS Windoze. Of course. This shit never happens on a Mac.

This is on top of any number of other aggrevations I am dealing with today: I have had to tell the IT/Web Guy for at least the fifth time that he needs to unlock AND unprotect all the files I send him in order to copy and paste text. But, no. He gets a file and rather than type in the password (7 letters), he sends me an e-mail to complain that even though he put in the password, he still is locked out. DUDE!

Open with password. Unprotect file with password. Done and fucking done. Or, open with password. Open e-mail. Type a whiny complaint to me. Wait for me to respond (same way I always do, "No. I am not going to unlock the file for you and resend it, unlock it your own lazy-ass self.). Rinse and repeat.

Next aggrevation: searching for all the zip codes for every county in every state where the company does business. I can only do 50 searches a day before the server kicks me off and asks me to pay big money for the use of the search engine. Then, I have to cross reference the zip codes because zip codes can cross county lines. Then I have to cross reference the zip codes to the individual offices because catchment areas can overlap. Then I have to go home and drink.

As my people are known to ask: Why is this night different?

I have spent the entire evening sorting through six or more years of zip disks. I have found duplicates and triplicates of fonts. I have found memos from the bad years at Jackson, and that dates back ten years. I have found the shards and crockery of my career as a graphic designer in a burial mound of out-dated media.

I have also found my (unfinished) novel, which, upon review, is better than I remembered.

I have found photos I thought were lost, and some of them are, since no current application can read them.

I have found about two square feet of floor space in my studio. Whether or not the usuable space was worth the pain of the exercise is another question, entirely.