Shemhazai

There was a dead fish on the kitchen counter, red and blue; a goldfish, a cartoon fish. It had to belong to one of the kids.

I took it into their room in a plastic baggie. Both of them had their sets on, zoned out, lost in whatever reality they were playing around in today. It took some time for me to get their attention.

"Is this yours?" I asked the girl. She was 15 and possessed of a vast contempt of the real world and everything in it. She looked, looked away, and didn't bother to reply.

The boy, younger--about 11--piped up that yes, looked like this fish was from some other reality.

I hated the way they would vanish like this. I was too old, I didn't "get it", this wierd virtual mind world that all kids seemed to be living in today.

I asked whether the fish would be dead now, in its other world, since it was dead here. It depends on the world, the boy said. Some worlds, if enough people interact with you or watch your reruns, you're never dead. Others are very strict--dead is dead, wherever it happens. Some realities, you can't die inside. Others don't count altereality death as death in their reality.

It drove me nuts, not knowing. Nuts enough that I went and had an earplant installed. It hurt like a hundred roaring jets splintering my brain, but then it was in. I was frightened--would I turn into a junkie, like these kids? Was I too old? Would it turn my brain into mush?

So I plugged in, and ended up in Venice. My kids were there, laughing at my stupidity and the way I bumbled about. The set me up for all sorts of reality pratfalls. For a long time I couldn't distinguish bodily reality from what I was experiencing. Eventually, I realized there wasn't really anything to distinguish.

Went down to Turkey Run State Park this weekend, for laurellyn22's birthday party.

What an amazing park! This being Indiana and all, I wasn't expecting much in the way of dramatic landscapery. But all of the cliffs, winding streambeds, waterfalls and grottoes made for breathtaking beauty.

Lots of steps were involved. And ladders, in some places, and scrambling over boulders and hopping over streams. Only 2 hours of hiking left us all muddy and drenched with sweat (some more than others). It was a really hot and humid day, even under the trees, but the Icebox had the most amazing blast of cool, almost air-conditioned air coming out from cracks in the rock that helped cool us down at the end of the trail. Finally we staggered back to the parking lot, changed clothes and settled down for a lovely birthday picnic meal of Bombay salad, hummus, pita, fruit and veggies. All in all, the healthiest birthday I've ever been to.

Which we then negated by stopping by the Gobbler's Knob country store for ice cream. Yummy, rich, homemade ice cream. I got a root beer float. I also saw an antique huge ironing board (which I didn't get), a double-basined washtub (which I didn't get) and a sturdy straw basket with handles actually short enough to hook over your arm and hold onto the basket...again, which I didn't get. Ph33r my astounding fortitude of will.

And the small size of the car we all drove in.

Replete with ice cream and exhausted legs, all of us but the driver dozed off on the way back to Indy.

Once back at laurellyn22's place, we sat down and watched the Big Lebowski, drank white russians and assorted other drinks (note to self: Raspberry Chambord + Godiva chocolate liqueur + vodka= powerfully scrumdillyicious kick in the pants). Then we dragged out the Wii fit and all had fun watching eachothers gyrations as we tried to keep imaginary hula hoops from falling down our legs. The Wii Fit is fabulous! Especially the balance exercises. My balance sucks, and the ski slalom, soccer and other stuff works the ankles. A lot.

Eventually, Kathi & Elliot crawled off to bed and the two of us crashed as well. Sunday I made it back home fairly early, but somehow, my very solid plan to clean up and go for a nice long bike ride evaporated as soon as I'd taken a bath and sat down on the couch. It metamorphosed into an equally solid plan of sitting around, watching the movie Flawless, and making Amish Friendship Bread while encouraging stanci in her efforts to make a regency dress for the upcoming New Boston Faire.

Which is next weekend! I can't wait! I'll be going in civvies saturday with shopping bags for shopping purposes, and on Sunday, will be swanning about in my red quilted petticoat & red & blue print caraco jacket. It is, happily, someone less tight than it was last year. Need to get pictures.

It's about time to get my shopping list written up. Apparently, now that Burnley & Trowbridge no longer comes to New Boston (alas), William Booth Draper is planning to show up next year. YAY! I hope Wooded Hamlet shows up this year too... and the Silly Sisters...

I want it to be November, already.

I've spent much of the day plugging particular sites I want to see in Florence, Munich & Nurnberg during my upcoming trip into maps, brushing up on my obscure 16th century italian costume terms, and writing introductory letters to museum curators to start the ball rolling on getting access to juicy 16th c. garments in their collections.

But today, my friend Kate reminded me of another side of Germany: Freaky Fetish Stuff.

It's obvious once you think of it...Germans. The ur-kinksters. Doris Kloster. Latex. Shiny boots and Rubber. You name it, Germans have probably done first. A cursory search for kinky stores in Munich and Nurnberg brought up an easy dozen stores catering to particular markets, including one specializing in Medical Paraphernalia. And "Beate Uhse", which has been called "The Ikea of sex stores" and has a catalog the size of my town's phone book.

Unfortunately, fun and notorious venues like the KittyKatClub aren't really hopping on Tuesday nights...and, weighing the entertainment of clubbing against the extra weight of corset & boots in the luggage (and the need to drag myself out of bed first thing the next morning to go research german 16th c. account books at the State Archives), I think I'll pass. After all, there's COPE coming up in September in Columbus, and Pheerfest in October in Cinci.

In other news, my parents have been on my mind a lot. I really miss my family: And I won't be seeing them again for at least a year. My little niece is talking now. Neither my mom or dad are very healthy, and every day I don't see them is one day I may never get back. Don't know why this has been bugging me so much lately, but it has.

Work's been a pain lately.

We hired some TFS Consultants to convert all of our Visual Sourcesafe Projects (That'd be the 500+ projects we work with on a daily basis) to Microsoft's Team Foundation Server.

This wouldn't be so bad if our source code was organized in any logical manner. But we're still a startup, in most ways, so our source code organizational structure is very...organic.

The last two days have been spent in meetings to try and figure 1) WTF with all of our projects, and even more amusing, 2) how to restructure all of the projects and folders to make more sense.

Here's a typical excerpt:

Steve: CCSDev? I don't know what that is. Doug? Was it for Simplex?

Doug: I don't know what that is. Isn't it something Matthew wrote?

Matthew: I never touched it. I think it was something Ching wrote before he left.

Steve: Huh? Oh, yeah. That. It was a test harness for the standard census verification for the proof of concept Ching put together two years ago for DFRLS. I don't think we're using that.

Me: But it's referenced by these three projects.

Matthew: no, that's the other CCSDev. the Pipeline version.

So tonight I get to combine 8 hours of meeting decisions into a single, thousand-line spreadsheet that we'll be closeted with most of the day tomorrow.

Plus, we have high-level estimates for huge chunks of pie-in-the-sky enhancements due. Thursday. Plus, the current dev cycle ends Wednesday, and all QA needs to be complete.

Though, This is the first time I've had to work late in several months, so I really shouldn't complain.

Went bike riding today. 40 miles, to Xenia and back. Gah. My hamstrings are contemplating a revolt, or would be if they could move. But! The ride was interspersed with fresh fruit smoothies and a cute dress for my baby niece that I bought in Yellow Springs, plus a stop by K&G Bike Store to get my odometer working, so it was worth it. Even the long hill on the way back into Springfield.

My dad called while I was on the bike path, and I called him back once I got home. Good to catch up.

Yesterday I went to a pig roast at my co-worker Matt's house. He and his wife are a couple I could see myself actually getting to be friends with, even outside of work. They have a big chunk of land, an old brick farmhouse, a barn, a pond and ducks, and huge, genteel trees everywhere.

Matt brews beer for a hobby. I had trouble not salivating over the big 6-foot-long tub he got from the Tractor supply company (perfect for indigo dyeing!), or the 15-foot-wide metal sink he bought from an old brewery (rinsing table! Yay!)

I met Matt's sister, a petite and sun-weathered blonde who wrangles elephants for Barnum and Bailey's down in Florida. And his stepmother, and about 20 other people whose names I will never remember.

When we got back home, I finally buckled down and figured out my detailed itinerary for Europe and the corresponding cost of the whole 10-day jaunt. I tried to be economical. Aside from a nice little pensione in Florence, I'm going the hostel route in München & Nürnberg.

But you know, I'd probably stay in hostels anyway. I have always had a irrational fondness for hostels...I revel in their rough starched sheets, their dormitory plywood beds, their institutional showers and 70s-era lounges. I guess staying in hostels makes me feel young again. There's a smell to a hostel that brings back memories of my backpack-wearing collegiate travels through Germany, Italy, Hungary, Turkey...It's odd, meeting people in a hostel that you know you'll never see again. It makes you more free and open, in a way. No need for the usual defenses and small-talk. Even the introverts, like me, get tired of their solitary travels and open up more easily.

I met a woman in a pensione in Florence, once. It was spring break, and I was fleeing the foggy gloom of Ireland and a catastrophic breakup for...well, for anywhere south of England where a sunny day wasn't rare enough that the majority of the student population cut class for it. I wandered randomly through Europe, ending up at my old haunt, the "Pensione Pope Leo the Tenth" on the Oltrarno side of Florence.

We were strangers who happened to both be sharing a double room. I was bone tired after a long train ride down from Austria an an oddly melancholy visit to Melk, Austria, where I'd lived for a year in high school. I wanted nothing more but to sack out on my economically narrow bed; she felt the same, I could tell. But we started talking, and just couldn't stop. We clicked, somehow. Two hours later we gave up our attempts to get some sleep and went out to see the city, chatting and laughing like long-lost friends. We ended up traveling all the way to Istanbul together.

Florence is a strangely overgenerous city; It bestows unlooked-for gifts on me every time I visit. I can't wait to find out what's there this time...

I dreamt I was back at Hogwarts. Apprenticed to the cook, because I was really hopeless...always screwing up, always messing up my spells and charms and incantations.

There was a scullery maid in the kitchen, who was quite remarkably plain. But then I learned her secret: She was part swan and part rabbit. I chanced to see the swam arrive in the pantry one morning and walk up to her and melt into her, feathers soaking into her skin, and suddenly--voila!--she was strikingly elegant.

Later the rabbit joined her, and she metamorphosed into pure beauty.

Both animals fled when she was afraid, or wanted to be alone or unnoticed. At one point, when being sexually assaulted, both animals fled...and her attacker stopped, suddenly, wondering why he'd bothered.

Of course there were adventures galore. Dumbledore was killed by Talus Black, who took over as the new headmaster and promptly handled the most effective instructors by sending them away. Talus was an old lover of Dumbledore's, apparently. There was much secret spying and fleeing and magical skullduggery, and we triumphed over Talus at the end, and I turned out to be better at magic than I'd thought; the details of it all are now vague, as I didn't take the trouble to write it down when I woke up. But what really stays in my mind is the scullery maid, and the swan.

A few nights ago I had a dream about being back in assassin's school and having to spend the whole dream sharpening and polishing my sword, which was never quite sharp enough or clean enough for the teachers' inspection. Hm. Sensing a trend here.

The wedding gown...is now! Com! Plete!

And finally, after several > 1 am nights, I can rejoin the land of the living.

I'm really happy with it. The gown is a halter-top 50s style, based on This Picture that my sister sent me. It's made out of cream-colored silk taffeta, with an underlayer of embroidered and beaded organza showing at the bust & bottom of the skirt.

Funny, this is the first time I've made a modern dress in a while. And, even with all of the hand-hemming & basting & hand-stitching & tacking, it still took ages less than a renaissance /elizabethan outfit.

I bought my sister some cream-colored silk stockings to wear with the dress, and finally got it boxed up today. WHEW.

Working with silk taffeta, in quantity, is amazing. With a $20/yd price tag I tend to buy just enough to make what I need and no more; and I tend to make smaller things with it. Corsets. Jackets.

But having ten yards of luscious, glowing, susuresscent ivory silk rustling across my sewing table and sitting in my lap comes close to a sexual religious experience.

It's been hanging over me for a long time...the fabric was backordered, and I finally canceled the order and got it from another place. It arrived last week, and my deadline for sending it off was June 1st. (My sister's getting married on June 23rd.)

I really didn't think I'd make it. But I did! And now, I think I'll not sew for a little while.

Um. Well, actually, I did want to finish my green and white Marilyn sundress to wear to the wedding. And maybe make a couple of other pretty dresses to wear.

It's interesting, the effect that concerted and prolonged weight lifting has had on my attitude towards clothing. Now that I can bench 130, I am much more eager to actually show off my arms and shoulders than I used to be.

And Jenn, on our bike ride down to Yellow springs and back, paid me the nicest compliment: "Your butt doesn't look as big as it did the last time I saw you on that bike. :)

Yes, Jenn has a bike! And not just any bike, but a fabulously wonderful new Electra Amsterdam. We stopped by the bike store in Springfield today--I'd never been there--and she saw it, and we left, and she thought about it, and finally went back and bought it.

It was a great day for a nice long bike ride...wind rushing through the trees, the smell of honeysuckle and locust everywhere, and smoothies waiting for us at the end. Though as usual, much achey buttockness by the time we got home.

We stopped by a shop in Yellow Springs that always has really cool and obscenely expensive stuff. Pieces by Steel Pony, Zuza Bart, others. I found a couple of things I liked--one mottled green linen and silk frock coat in particular--but didn't have a cool $300 to drop on anything.

Well, time for a nice hot epsom salt bath, and so to bed.

I'm playing the hammered dulcimer at a friend's wedding tomorrow.

The music gig is fun, and an excellent way to weasel out of having to buy, make and/or wear a bridesmaid's dress. It's worked for the last three friends that got married.

But for the first time, I'm in a bit of a quandary: I couldn't find anything to wear.

I only had a couple of trusty "fancy" dresses to begin with. And I've dropped 20 lbs over the last year, which means that two of them landed at goodwill. I took the third in, a gauzy red a-line shirt, and thought it looked Ok; but Jenn pointed out that short gauzy dresses that come to mid-thigh don't go over well at conservative catholic weddings, especially when one is in the wedding party. (Sortof).

So I went up to the attic and looked through all of the fancy stuff I had: one hand-painted, lime green/fuchscia/yellow/red silk painted caftan; one coral and olive embroidered silk & gauze caftan; another "art fabric" wrap; a water lilies-monet print caftan; and a red shibori-pleated tunic.

I really don't have much in the way of normal fancy dress-up dresses. That don't involve corsets, leather or lots of cleavage. I need to buckle down and make a couple.

So I settled on my trusty black sundress with the red shibori-pleated tunic over it. This ensemble had the added benefit of going splendidly with my large red silk hat, the one with black feathers and red gauze rosettes, that looks like it belongs at an Edwardian tea party. I adore this hat, and never get a chance to wear it; and Jenn reassured me I didn't look like an idiot in it.

Heck, I'm a musician. I can dress any way I want and get away with it.

I came across these two t-shirts the other day, and we must haves them, yeeeeeesssss....



and even more fabulous:

This was the funnest day I've had in a long time!

I was up at 7 and on the road at 8--on my bike. This is the first sunny weekend we've had so far this spring, and I intended to make the most of it. I biked along the rural bike path down to Glen Helen, where a wildflower hike was scheduled at 9. I just made it.

The wildflower women were fascinating. Not a one was under 60, and between them they had an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants that staggers the imagination. I could point to any plant, any plant at all, and learn the english name, the latin name, different varieties of the plant and how to tell them apart... and then listen to an extended debate over whether a particular plant was nodding onion or eastern camus...it was fabulous! I learned to identify wood betony, four varieties of buttercup, dwarf larkspur, native honeysuckle, euonymous (sp?), sessile and nodding trillium, waterleaf, mayapple, watercress, wild ginger, bloodroot, spring cress, miterwort, cranesbill, ragwort, garlic mustard...the list goes on and on. It was wonderful. Usually I spend five minutes flipping through a book to identify just one of the plants that these women rattled off.

We saw a water snake, too. And forded two streams.

Two hours later, after a quick stop in Yellow Springs for an iced latte and cranberry scone, I was back on the bike and headed home. It was a beautiful day. Honeysuckle and privet lined the bike path for miles, perfuming the air, and birds were everywhere...I must have spotted at least 20 cardinals along the way. And a hawk, too.

I got home and /finally/ installed the attachments on my bike to hold my bike lock, patch kit and pump, and then had an omelet while contemplating what flowers to get for the big bed by the driveway, which is currently the location of a pitched battle between the stonecrop and johnny jump-up. Only one forlorn pink plant and pyrethrum plant had managed to survive the onslaught of the last year's neglect.

I'd done a yellow/orange/red scheme in the bed a few years back, but that didn't really work out so well. so I decided to go for a pink/purple/red scheme, with accents of white and blue.

I drove to Meadowview garden center, list in hand, driving down Route 40 past yard sales, fields of alfalfa and sweating retirees riding their brand new lawn mowers, with the car window down and "Sweet Home Alabama" blaring from my speakers. This is summer.

Meadowview is like crack for gardeners, because they are huge and have absolutely everything you could imagine wanting for your garden. It's like G Street Fabrics, or Trader Joe's. Unless you go there with a list, you are doomed.

Well, I had a list, but was doomed anyway, because there were so many pretty plants, all of which I wanted. I bought pink and white cosmos, some purple and blue and white delphiniums, white garden phlox, bunches of bright pink and red stock, some pinks (red, pink and variagated), tons of alyssum (because, one can never have too much alyssum), lobelia, lovely purple columbine, blue and pink verbena, white shasta daisies, red rocket, blue buttonflowers, a couple of bleeding hearts, some cranesbill, two hollyhocks, and bunches of bright snapdragons.

I did not buy the herb pot, any of the seductive hanging plant arrangements, the leaf-shaped copper birdbath, the windchimes, the green shiny flowerpot, the gardener's skin lotion, or any of the many, many tempting things they had there to gaze at while waiting in the endless line for the register.

And then I went home, ripped everything out of the various flowerbeds, and planted everything. And fertilized, mulched, watered, etc.

As usual my eyes were bigger than my square footage, so flowers are planted closer than they should be. Oh well. It will be fun to watch them duke it out for supremacy. I ended up giving four extra plants to my neighbor and wandering about the garden planting alyssum anywhere and everywhere there was room. Because, you really can have too much alyssum.

I put a bleeding heart under our pine tree, beside the sweet woodruff and the coral bells.

I put another bleeding heart beneath the back cedar tree, after cleaning out the ivy and detestible bindweed, and weeding around the beautiful, blue-flowering alkanet beside it.

I put two supports up for the hollyhocks and planted the columbine in front. The front of the house is hard to plant for. We're on such a high hill above the street that passers-by can't see anything under 3 feet tall. And it gets precious little sun, and less rain than it should...so I don't have high hopes for the bright, flowering plants. but we'll see.

I fertilized and treated the tuscany and apothecary roses in the corner of the house, piled armful after armful of weeds into a garbage can, watered everything, cut back some of the irises which take over everything--I've already replanted them in three places, and it's only two years between "one iris plant" and "oh god please take some of these off my hands"--and finally sat back to appreciate it all. I'm just about done...tomorrow I just have to prune, weed & mulch my final rose bed, and get a ladder and cut back the pine tree branches at the front of my house to give the plants there a fighting chance at survival. And trim up the cedar tree in the back.

The sun was starting to set, so I walked down to the coffee shop, got an iced latte, chatted with Zach the Hippy (who is moving in across the street from us--cool!) And listened to some live guitar music for a while.

Then I came back and made some pseudo Tom Kha Gai--chicken and sliced mushrooms simmered in coconut milk and lime juice, with lemongrass (toldja Meadowview had everything), coriander, fish sauce and a bay leaf thrown in for good measure.

And now? I'm on the couch, wondering if I can move my legs. Two hours of bike riding, two hours of hiking, and six straight hours of perpetual squatting and bending and hauling...I am so going to regret this tomorrow.

And, despite slathering myself with 50 spf waterproof sports sunscreen, I am a bit red. All hail the nordic heritage.

So that's it. What a great day. I don't think I spent more than an hour of daylight inside. I have to do this again!

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, though...so I may end up buckling down and getting my inside chores done tomorrow. Scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen, cleaning my sewing room, and getting caught up on email.

I love summer.

Ow.

Friday, the Man and I went for a nice, easy, 2 mile jog down at Clark State. It was so slow that I didn't even feel anything afterwards...I was a little winded, but that's all.

Yesterday was garden-o-rama day. I got the kitchen herb bed weeded and trimmed back, planted with new kitchen herbs and mulched and fertilized; did the same with the basil patch and my lemon pot; weeded & cleaned up the shade flowers under the trees, including schooling the damned sweet woodruff that will take over everything; trimmed back the ivy from where it was getting into the irises and weeded/cleaned the iris patch; then I pruned back the three roses, weeded, the rose bed, cut back the old lavender bushes, planted some alyssum and marigolds in the bed for color until the roses & lavender get started, put some alaskan fish fertilizer down, and dug a new edge trench before mulching. I went through 10 bags of mulch.

Again, I felt pleasantly tired at the end of the day, and a bit sore in the quads from so much squatting, but that's it.

But today? OW. OW OW OW. My legs are so wobbly that only my kneecaps are keeping them from collapsing.

Just dropped the man off at the airport. he's back down to Anniston again, for another class in terrorism. Terrrorism and agriculture, something like that. I persuaded him to download Cows with Guns to bring with him.

So I'm awake at 9 am on a sunday, and am not sure what to do today. I really want to go bikeriding. Yet friend Annie is having a barbecue/horseriding get together today...and horseriding's likely to be easier on my quads. And Glen Helen is a beautiful hike this time of year, with all of the spring wildflowers and flowering trees bursting out into bloom.

Yet I still need to get the back area weeded & planted, and the big rock garden & iris bed by the driveway. And make some fresh rye bread.

dreamed that I was on a spaceship. It was humans and one Altairan, the pilot, a leonine biped that, apparently, was fantastic in bed. (sex was the main pastime on the ship; everyone slept with everyone else).

At one point, the Altairan & I were going at it, when the emergency alarm sprang to life. He rushed to the bridge, me following along, and between the two of us we managed to get the ship...moved elsewhere. I can't describe it. the Altairan showed me how to do it: I attached a cable to myself, and then I got every part of the ship situated in my brain...every room and wall and item. I had to keep it all in my head. It was ferociously hard. And then I...folded everything, and folded it again, and folded and twisted it until it was a different shape, and then the altairan transmitted it, and we were somewhere else.

According to the Altairan, it was virtually unheard of for a human to be able to do this. He told me to go to the embassy when we got into port and ask for a ring. So I did. The Altairan embassy was crowded with a whole line of people, but when I told them I was there for a ring, they all stopped and looked at me. I was led back into the maze of private rooms.

The ring wasn't just a prize, it turns out; it was the mark of a pilot. I was asked if I wanted to undergo testing and training as a spaceship pilot, and of course I said yes. It was intriguing. I saw diagrams and animations of how folding spacetime worked...it tickled the edge of my eyes and was hypnotic and beautiful. I had to test for pattern recognition by putting together jigsaws. I had to weave a twill-woven textile that had twill widths all in primes: 1,2,3,5,7.

I saw a woman in the airport who stood out from the crowd like a dark gap in the starry night sky.

She was a plain woman, acne-studded and plump, with hair smoothed perfectly back into a perfect bun. My gaze kept returning to her hair, so tightly pulled back, so unnaturally restrained. Even the bun was wrapped in a small hairnet, so that no wayward tendrils could escape. Her hair looked inhumanly clean and orderly, the result of hours of concerted effort.

Her dress was plain, too: a shapeless grey vest and skirt that had the awkward swing and pucker of the homemade garment, worn with a white blouse of perfectly pressed cotton.

She was smooth in a way that isn't seen nowadays: the shining helmet of her hair and utterly simple clothing all wrapped around her, without a single snag for the eye to catch on. She wore no shiny buttons, no jewelry, no flash of color at the neck or waist.

I imagine her preparing for her journey. She stands in front of the mirror, smoothing her hair back and back again, dabbing a bit of pomade on it, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress and the cares from her face, ironing her blouse inch by perfect inch, pulling her stockings tight, making herself a pearl for the Lord: flawless, shining, impervious to the world.

It was her armor, this sleek invulnerability. A strict discipline, a restraint rare in today's world. Not even her eyes allowed entry: they were directed as her lap, and the book she held in her milk-pale hands.

She sat beside me in seat 23E, her book still in her hands. We made brief obligatory conversation, and I learned that she was a teacher for her church school.
Even her conversation was reserved, held back, guarded. She offered nothing.

But halfway through the flight, my eyes closed against the flourescent hum of the cabin, I heard a thin thread of song wind towards me. The girl was singing, high and light and soft like a small child. I couldn't make out the words, but the sound was sweet. It had that beautiful edge of simplicity and plainness, a sound one would expect to hear in a small wooden house, doors thrown open to the smell of cut hay and the buzz of cicadas. It was a sound utterly unexpected in a metal and plastic cylinder hurtling thirty thousand feet above a darkened earth.

Oh my sweet lord in heaven...

Julius: Your pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
Brett: What?
Julius: What country dost thou hail from?
Brett: What?
Julius: Thou sayest thou dost hail from distant What!
I know but naught of thy strange country What.
What language speak they in the land of What?
Brett: What?
Julius: English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
Brett: Aye!
Julius: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
Brett: What?
(JULIUS presses his knife to BRETT's throat)
Julius: Speak 'What' again! Thou cur, cry 'What' again!
I dare thee utter 'What' again but once!
I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
If thou hast any in thy head but 'What',
Of Marsellus Wallace!
Brett: He is dark.
Julius: Aye, and what more?
Brett: His head is shaven bald.
Julius: Hath he the semblance of a harlot?
Brett: What?
(JULIUS strikes with his blade and BRETT cries out)
Julius: Hath he the semblance of a harlot?
Brett: Nay!
Julius: Then why didst thou attempt to bed him thus?
Brett: I did not!
Julius: Aye, thou didst! O, aye, thou didst!
Thou sought to rape him like a chattel whore!
And sooth, Lord Wallace is displeased to bed
With aught but Lady Wallace, whom he wed.


Find more at http://pulpbard.wikispaces.com/

(Me, I'm waiting for "Reservoir Curs"...)

Head colds. Hate 'em. haven't had one for over a year.

I went out west, flew back, and the morning after the flight woke up sounding like a frog.

Three days of frogness, and my voice started coming back. I thought it was over, but no...the virus migrated up into my sinuses, and for the past four days I've been popping sudafeds like candy and blowing my brains out with kleenex and not being able to taste a damned thing.

Ick. *SNURF*

Had a Fabulous fairy tale dream last night. Might have to do with being sick and fevered, staying home from work, and sleeping in.


( Queens, Hell's Nightclub and the fountain of life )

Dad lives in a house on a hill in the cascades, outside of Cottage Grove, Oregon. I do love my father, although his peculiar sense of humor caused great embarassment when I was younger.

I had a chance to stop by his place for a couple of hours friday, on the way to a conference in Eugene. We sat on the porch, had some cider and caught up. And dad told me about his new friend, Bob from Bombay.

Bob sells satellite dishes. He called one day several weeks ago, and asked, "Is Eric Leed there"?

"Naw," my dad said. "He's out b'ar huntin'".

Silence on the other end of the line. And then: "Excuse me?"

"He's out b'ar huntin'. He'll be back in two or three days, less'n a b'ar eats him."

And this, more or less, ended the conversation.

But the man with the indian accent called back a few days later. "Is Eric Leed there?" He said again.

"Naw," My dad replied. "He's outside takin' a shit."

Once again, a long pause. "He is what?"

"Takin' a shit. He'll be a while, he took the whole catalog with him."

And thus ended my father's second encounter with Bob from Bombay.

Bob called back, again, a couple of days later. And this time, he struck pay dirt: Eric Leed was home, and on the phone, and Bob asked if my father was interested in buying a satellite dish.

"How kin you eat off'n a satellite?" My father asked bob.

No, Bob clarified. Satellite dish. For the television.

"What's a television?" My father asked.

A prolonged, deep and profound silence greeted this question. Clearly, the idea of an American who didn't know what a television was was completely outside Bob's experience.

"Is that one of them boxes with pictures?" My dad went on. "I've heard of them".

Bob never did manage to sell my father a satellite dish. But he did continue to call. He would call once every few days, and chat with my father about life, television, bears and the other lesser known aspects of american life in the back woods that had been missed in Bob's cultural orientation classes.

Dad came to the talks I gave this weekend--at least, to the first one, which meant a lot to me. He said I really impressed him. Coming from a history professor of his caliber, that means a lot.

First sucky thing: Waking up on a glorious spring Saturday, the first spring Saturday warm enough to make a nice, long bike ride even feasible, and having to spend the entire day on the couch writing a lecture and slide show on 16th century dress.

Second sucky thing: At 7 pm, accidentally overwriting the last four hours of work.

Third sucky thing: Being obstinate enough not to go to bed until the goddamned thing is finished.

Final and most sucky thing: Realizing you will have to spend tomorrow, which is supposed to be even more glorious and sunny and warm, doing the same thing.

I love my hobby. Really, I do.

Just a brief note to y'all: I have 8 days to finalize a two-day seminar on elizabethan costume I'm giving out in Oregon, and also 8 days to finish the initial toile for my sister's wedding gown.Plus, extra-long days at work.

Ergo, recent and continuing radio silence.

Though, before I dive back into preparations for my Oregon trip,let me dish you up a fresh serving of internet crack:

Coilhouse. It will suck your brain into the dadaistic underbelly of the web, where The Deadly Dangers of Psychiatry rubs shoulders with The Palace of Depression, Super-sexy gender bending commercials and Deer Butt Alien Head Art. And my new all-time favorite comic strip, Garfield. Without Garfield.

It's also chock full of stunning art by Madeline von Foerster, Margot Quan Knight, Viona and Colette Calascione.

I know there's a common theme to the artists that really strike me. I'm not sure what it is though. Their works tend toward the formal and the erotic. They are lush and sensual, quixotic, and all unsettling in one way or another. Beatifully perverse.

OK, back into the kiddy pool for me. Ta!

And can I just say: Chocolate cures everything.

Especially super-froody thick hot chocolate, made from melted gourmet chocolate pieces mixed with milk. My amygdala just hums with pure contentment at the thought. It is impossible to feel stressed out with a mug of warm, sweet chocolate in my hands.

I've come up with a great recipe, based on a 17th c. original with a few things added: You start with the hot chocolate of your choice, and then add a dash of cinnamon, a smidgen of allspice and clove, a couple of drops of anise extract, some orange peel, and a pinch of cayenne.

Oh yeah. Come to mama.

mmmmm