I'm goofing around today, trying to find things to occupy my mind and hands before I go in for surgery tomorrow. I want to play in my sewing studio, but I'm afraid to handle needles and sharp objects like my sewing shears. I think the safest thing for me today is knitting and reading.

It is such a tourist-bureau-perfect day in Miami that I'm debating about going to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit, or make a run to an outdoor market. If the RLA drives, that should be safe, huh?

PS: I've nicknamed the offended digit "Frankenpinkie" and it must be said in the best, Gene Wilder "Young Frankenstein" accent, thusly:

FRRRAHNK-uhn-peenkie.

Things are going to hell in a handbasket around here. I took a header down the stairs leaving work yesterday and just smashed the crap out of my left knee and right shin. Finally made it home, whimpering and whining, started dinner for the RLA and promptly sliced my left pinky finger to the bone with a chef's knife that was sharpened as a birthday present. So. Five stitches and a tetanus shot later, we ate leftovers for our Valentine's day dinner. Still, the nurse said not to worry, this wouldn't prevent my having surgery on Monday to remove the lipoma from my right tushie dimple. Of course, I can't use any sort of pain killers between now and then, and my typing is compromised by the huge bundle of bandages on my pinky....

PS: just got up to make myself some tea, and slopped scalding water over my left hand... the one with the stitches. Maybe I should just go home and stay in bed until my surgery?

I bought this the other day on i-tunes.

I know that I bore you all to tears with these stories, but. I have talked about that tour for thirty years. I had always been a rocker, and I saw a lot of acts — top acts during my college years, but that September night in 1975 changed my life. It was held at the Miami Jai Alai Fronton. It was no where near sold out. They made us wait for a long time before they finally opened the gates and let the audience in.

No. Really. Not hyperbole. It. Changed. My. Life.

And this show is from that tour, just a month or so later. It's the same set list that I've remembered for the last thirty years. The opening number was "Thunder Road." There was a single blue spotlight on this skinny guy in a black touque and a denim jacket. He had his back to the audience. He started to play the harmonica and turned around. He was wearing a black wife beater under the denim jacket. He was hairy and scraggly and that harmonica cut straight into my soul.

By the third number ("Spirits in the Night") my camera was stowed under my seat, and I was standing on the arms the seat, dancing. At one point in the song (I think it was when he sang the lyrics about Crazy Davy being really hurt and crawling into the lake in just his socks and his shirt), he threw himself flat on the stage (still singing) and crawled off the edge and into the crowd. I never took a shot that night, although somewhere in my storage unit is a photo that my boyfriend took.

This CD captures all of that. I can seen the blue spot. When the first strains of the harmonica play, it still cuts straight through my soul.

This is why, people. This is why he was and is the Boss. This is why I haven't missed a tour in 31 years (except the Devils and Dust tour, and it was at the Hard Rock Cafe, and it was a solo show, and I know what those are like. He lectures the crowd and gets really, really, SERIOUS. I love you, Bruce, but not enough for that.)

Years later, I met Bruce at the wedding of The Coolest Person In The World TM, and I told him that I had moved to New York City after that show. That my boyfriend wanted me to stay in Miami and live with him, but I'd said (and I apologize to you, my readers, for this; I apologized to Bruce when I told him; but remember, I was only 20 years old when it happened) "I can't. Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run." I told Bruce that I'd never forgotten that show, and that despite the tiny venue and even tinier audience, it was as good as any sell-out show I'd seen him do at the Garden.

Bruce said that he remembered that show, too, because so few tickets were sold they almost cancelled it. They had a hard time getting Danny's piano up on the stage. He said thank you. I said, no, THANK YOU. I never would have come to New York. I never would have met The Coolest Person In The World TM.

Buy this CD, and try to remember what the world was like when Bruce first took the stage, but before he changed the world of rock and roll.

I have a few things I'd like to rant about today, if you don't mind, and I know you don't.

1. Why the FUCK is Santino-the-Spawn-of-Satan STILL on Project Runway? Is he THAT good for ratings? He can't possibly be. I loathe him. The other designers loathe him. Tim fucking Gunn loathes him (and disses the producers in his blog cast this week, saying about the Evil One that he's only there because his "angels" come in and protect him every week).
But no. His greasy, assface is still torturing my tv. He made a catsuit that made a long, lean woman look short and lumpy. The sleeve fell off on the runway, people!! OFF!!! And still he's in the top four.

The highlight of the night, for me at least, was seeing the preview of next week's show where that overly-egotistical fathead Jay tells him "I hope you're canned."

Amen and hand to sky, sister. And not soon enough. They got rid of lovey Uncle Nick, the sweetiepie. (Who, although he was auf'ed wearing pink, was not auf'ed wearing a bead-dazzled hot pink leotard, like poor Emmett.)

2. Why should I believe that the US really foiled a plot by terrorists to fly an airplane into the tallest building in LA, when that story is being told by the biggest liar ever to sit in power? Huh? And, oh yeah, that happened four years ago. Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Right. Whatever. Didn't think to mention it earlier, did you?

3. Scooter Libby is saying that "higher ups" in the White House told him to leak classified materials to the press. Is that why we are hearing the story about the Day the White House Saved LA? To make it above the fold, and leave poor Scooter and his dirty plea bargaining buried in the back pages?

4. Of course, there is the little matter of our poor female reporter, sending out her pitiful little pleas to be saved by those same ass-hats. But, what the fuck, huh? You takes the job, you takes your chances. Ask old Bob Woodward, right?

5. There is no excuse for this. None. If it's so cold that you need to wear socks, then wear a pair of shoes. Period. Real shoes, not flipflops. How hard is that? And, PS, a cardigan sweater is designed to button up the front, not hang open in the back, and it would keep you warmer that way, too.

I have written a book, people.

It is a self-help book for young women going off to college.

It is titled "The Girls Guide to College That Your Parents Won't Want You To Read." Yes. It is exactly what you think it would be like.

I need a publisher. Or an agent who can get me a publisher.

Blahblahblahblah TERROR blahblahblahblah TERROR blahblahblahblah 9-11 blahblahblah TERROR blahblahblahblah COMPASSION blahblahblahblahblah TERROR blahblahblahblah RESISTANCE IS FUTILE blahblahblahblah YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED blahblahblahblah TERROR blahblahblahblah AGREE WITH ME OR DIE blahblahblahblahblah TERROR