This cold snap?

It's really getting on my last nerve.

At least, that's what my numb feet keep telling me. Yikes. I can see them, but the feeling? Not so much.

This is why I need a dog. Cats are good, but they don't like when you prop your frozen feet on their furnace-like bodies. Strangely, Steve also doesn't like that. But all the dogs I ever had just lurve it. Dogs? Is dum.

So has anyone noticed...

That presidential candidate Mike Huckabee looks like President Charles Logan of "24"?

Weaselly President Logan or traitorous President Logan? You be the judge.

This is groovy

Plug your favorite word in here. Just how popular is it?

My beloved "palimpsest" is 59262.

I decided to move house

I was going to hie over to Wordpress, dragging this whole kit and caboodle along, but it turns out that the new Blogger can't be imported into Wordpress.

I'm always a day later and a dollar short.

Scavella, stop laughing. It's impolite.

I'm glad it wasn't about college

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Like this is a surprise

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) You have a very hard time focusing, and you find it difficult to stay on task without your mind wandering. You probably zone in and out of conversations and tend to miss out on directions because you cannot focus
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
Manic Depressive
Paranoia
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
What mental disorder do you have?

No news would have been better news

Well, the last gasp of hope for Orson's condition has been... breathed? Chronic renal failure it is. A slow decline has commenced--whether mine or his is hard to determine.

I don't get so attached to fish. Or cars. I should keep cars as pets.

An Ors is an Ors, of course, of course

It appears that our Giant Kitty, Orson, has kidney disease.

The last time we stuffed him into the crate, his readings were elevated. We hoped it was because he had an infection, but it appears that wasn't the case.

We lost another cat to a combination of kidney disease and diabetes. That was horrible.

Orson is my current snuggler. He wants to snuggle and snooze. He steals my pillow when he can, and mopes when he can't.

My life would be easier, so much easier, if I didn't love things that die so young. Emptier, but easier. And much less linty.

I have a face made for radio!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
The West
The Northeast
Philadelphia
Boston
The South
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Okay, a voice. Still.

I never get to be people I like

I am: Ursula K. LeGuin Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

I'm not saying LeGuin is The Beast or anything, but I'm not a fan. Someday, I'll get answers in a quiz that make me giddy.

The dawning of a hatred for Dawn

Not the dish soap. The character on Buffy.

When we watched the DVDs a couple of years ago, I didn't like Dawn. But now that I'm watching an episode a day while I treadmill, I want to take the character and crush her into a little ball and then shoot her from a cannon. Twice.

I used to be against abortion, and then I grew up

Today is Blog for Choice Day, and the topic is supposed to be why I am pro-choice. The answer is really simple: I don't own much, but I do own my body.

Is an embryo a person? I don't care. No person or non-person has more of a right to my body than I do.

When I was a goody-two-shoes teen, I thought that women who got pregnant had only themselves to blame. And then I grew up. Then I started to realize just exactly what I was condemning people to with my self-righteousness. I was yanking control of their bodies away from them, saying they weren't allowed to be unlucky, or to make mistakes, without losing their most fundamental individuality.

In a way, I think we pro-choicers overstate the threat to our rights. The right wingers make so little attempt to outlaw abortion that I truly believe they don't really want to. Oh, they talk about how it's murder, but then they sit on their asses and keep voting in the same people who have done nothing.

Still, we should be vigilant. Nothing is more important than our rights. And as we've seen, people who think nothing of abortion rights seem to think nothing of all those pesky rights like speech, or religion, or search and seizure.

Let's defend all of our rights all the time.

Tomorrow is Blog For Choice Day

Please join in and make your voice heard.

Who designed this system?

So I joined Frugal Reader so I could list books to send to those who like books with heaving bosoms. And I discover that their search engine returns lists alphabetically by the author's first name.

That's the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Well, among the silliest things I've ever heard that weren't uttered by politicians.

A late New Year's Resolution

I'm getting rid of some of these damned books. Not good ones. Trashy ones. Ones that other people have given me but I'm not about to read. Ones with heaving bosoms.

And then I'll have room in my house to buy things. Like new pairs of socks.

Why haven't I ditched Blogger?

Every time I've tried to log in to Blogger in the past couple of days I've been unable. Granted, I'm not very diligent about it, and I'm sure I missed tons of times when it would have been possible. Still, I want it when I want it.

Stupid site. Bah.

Cluster!

Dammit dammit dammit. The cluster headaches are back.

Send soothing vibes. And don't forget to feed Larry while I'm hiding in my bedroom moaning.

And I didn't even send money

Someone I didn't bribe said one of my poems was his "favorite sonnet of all time."

Hearing that should be head puffing. It should. Instead, I'm so humbled by it, as if I am truly part of poetry, instead of a bystander.

Give a welcome to Larry the Llama

I adore llamas. I once had an alpaca, which isn't a llama but close enough, follow me around for hours beeping at me. It was love.

If you click on the "more" button, you can give him hay. Or something that looks like hay. Larry apparently likes hay and will eat it. If you pet him, he makes a noise that I am unable to describe. See? Isn't that fun? Fun with ungulates!

That popping sound

It's the sound of my bubble being burst. I was told The Woman in Black by Susan Hill was a ghost story that would scare the non-plaid pants off me. Instead, I found it entertaining but nary a goosebump.

I think I don't have the subtlety to appreciate a good ghost story. They're too delicate. I need punched in the face (we're speaking figuratively, Rocky).

At the same time, I can't stand blood and gore. So, unsubtle but no actual violence.

*pop* *pop* *pop*

Uneasy lies the torso that wears the plaid

Ever since my childhood when I spent many long, lonely hours at the golf course my parents owned, plaid has been a bit of a sore subject.

An incredibly hairy 350-pound man in plaid shorts and golf shoes is not a sight you forget. Ever.

Still, I'm wearing, if my memory serves, the same plaid. It's a sweater. My fear is that I'm burning the same sort of indelible memory into someone's brain.

In the mail

I got a recall notice for my Jeep and it says, "Safety recall F23--Lower Ball Joints."

You gotta believe me. If I knew how to lower 'em, I would.

Have I moved on to greener pastures? Not so much

The continued absence of Chain Reading has led me to try substitutes. Right now, I'm experimenting with a very similar site called Shelfari. I've added a link to my reading list in the sidebar. It's cute. I find the user interface a bit wonky, I'll admit, and they don't seem to have a bookmarklet so that if I see a book on Amazon I can just click a button and have it added to my "to be read" pile.

I'm also looking again at LibraryThing which does have a bookmarklet, but I really don't like the interface there. They also charge for power use. And despite them having checkboxes that say, "Don't ask me again" they always do ask me again. About everything. It makes me want to bite.

So I'm still mourning the loss of my list from Chain Reading, and mourning the interface there. Chain Reading, you're the one that I want (you are the one I want)!

Now in the Carter household, John Travolta!

There's a new reality show coming on soonish that has to do with casting a Broadway revival of Grease.

We saw an ad a few days ago, and I have been singing "You're the one that I want" steadily since then. It would be bad enough if I were singing like Olivia Newton-John, but it seems I find it necessary to sing like John Travolta instead.

If I disappear suddenly, Steve has smothered me with a sofa cushion and dumped me in the neighbor's pool.

The comments that time forgot

Okay, time didn't forget them. I did.

How often have you left a comment on someone's blog and then never went back to find out how the conversation went after that? I can't even remember half of the comments I make, which is probably excellent evidence that I make twice as many as I need?

If the comments will not come to Julie, Julie must go to the comments.

There is hope!

So I wanly clicked on Chain Reading, and LOOK!

Site down to the deeds of Evil Men. Happy Festivus
Coming Back Soon.

I swoon.

It is winter...

... and I am wearing silver lamé sneakers.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "How can I be as neat as Julie?" Ah, but you can't. It's a gift.

My toes are freezing anyway. It ain't all it's cracked up to be.

I think I need a break

Not from blogging (though I took an inadvertent break over the holidays), but from poetry. I'm burnt out. I've come to the realization, again, that poetry and I are like chalk and cheese. And we all know the cheese stands alone.

I keep trying to force myself into a role I don't fit. I should stop.