My favorite (or, rather, only) online game to play is gone! I am so sad. It was an online version of Scrabble that you could play for free with your friends on Facebook.
It was really good quantity time.
I hope they start it up again. Soon!
Little Edie Beale
I've developed a small obsession with Little Edie Beale lately. If any readers of this blog (especially female and/or drag queen readers) have not yet seen Grey Gardens, you really should. Make sure it is the 1975 documentary, and nothing else! They're now making a film with Drew Barrymore. There is no way this film will be better than the original documentary!
I'm not sure if I can describe what the documentary is about. Superficially, it's about this mother and daughter wasting away in a decrepit mansion in East Hampton, but what makes it special is that they are these completely unique individuals. They were originally famous mostly because they were closely related to Jackie Kennedy, and also because they were so filthy rich and then later so penniless. I guess we all like to watch the mighty fall, just a little bit. But Little Edie Beale, she falls with such style! And no apologies.
Ludicrous to be Alive, isn't it?
We have this great, big raspberry bush in the backyard, which is full of raspberries this time of year. It's nice to have, because I love raspberries, but also a little difficult to pick them, because there are mosquitos, the bushes are prickly, and there isn't much room to walk around between them. Also, there are beetles who love to eat the leaves and fruit of the raspberries.
Today, I was out there picking them in this little spaghetti strap tank top, and right as I was bending over to pick one, a mosquito landed on my arm. As I went to swat the mosquito, I brushed against some leaves which apparently had a couple of beetles crawling on them, who then fell off into my shirt, so that as I was swatting the mosquito on my arm, I felt this horrible scratching on my right breast, and I screamed! and looked in my shirt, saw two beetles there on my breast, gnawing on me, and I (as anyone would) started flailing my hands at them, flinging my breast out of my shirt, slapping at myself all the while, screaming.... and then they were off of me and I was quite calm. Slipping my shirt back on, I thought, well, at least no one saw that.
Then I looked over, next door, and saw Neighbor John ducking into his back door.
Well.
I was going to save the raspberries, and share them, because Tim from Texas is visiting and all, but I just ate them.
Them was good raspberries.
flower power
I think this picture is on Brian's blog, too. I just wanted to point out that they actually mowed a trail through the wildflowers, there were so many.
In Praise of Quantity Time
I don't believe in "quality time." Time is just time. I think the phrase came about in the eighties, when it became hip for yuppies to ignore their puppies and work a lot, then spend a little bit of "quality time" with the kids, and call it good. If you don't spend a lot of time with someone, and especially if you feel a bit guilty about that, things can quickly descend into the "we're having fun, damnit," frame of mind, and we all know that ain't good. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this.
When you dis "quality time," though, I think it's time to praise, "quantity time." Quantity time is when you spend so much time with someone, you know you can be your true self. Quantity time is keeping it real. Quantity time is getting bored and exploring that feeling, and then getting more bored, and watching tv or eating burritos or working or drinking or playing music or roller skating... whatever. Just time. Time. Time. Time. Time.
There's nothing wrong with making your children sick of you, your relatives, your lovers, or even your friends. That's what friends are for, right? (Some of you are now thanking God, Buddha, Gaia, Allah or the Grand Zombiegod now that I moved out to distant Wisconsin, aren't you?) Anyone I ever cared about, now or before, we spent a lot of quantity time together. A lot. And anyone I went out with a few times and had a great time doing that wonderful quality time stuff, I don't remember their names. I just remember the cool thing with old what's-her-face. But if I have seen a few thousand Star Trek, Star Trek the Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and whatever the next one is called Star Trek episodes with my immediate family, in spite of honestly not being that into it, well, you know, we had that quantity time. Good, wholesome, quantity time. Like it should be.
But isn't it funny how, when you take time to get bored with someone, something always happens. Eventually.
Such is life. Life is just a heap of quantity time. You can't waste it. Time can't be wasted, just spent, however and with whomever you choose. It never stops.
Until...
the...
end.
When you dis "quality time," though, I think it's time to praise, "quantity time." Quantity time is when you spend so much time with someone, you know you can be your true self. Quantity time is keeping it real. Quantity time is getting bored and exploring that feeling, and then getting more bored, and watching tv or eating burritos or working or drinking or playing music or roller skating... whatever. Just time. Time. Time. Time. Time.
There's nothing wrong with making your children sick of you, your relatives, your lovers, or even your friends. That's what friends are for, right? (Some of you are now thanking God, Buddha, Gaia, Allah or the Grand Zombiegod now that I moved out to distant Wisconsin, aren't you?) Anyone I ever cared about, now or before, we spent a lot of quantity time together. A lot. And anyone I went out with a few times and had a great time doing that wonderful quality time stuff, I don't remember their names. I just remember the cool thing with old what's-her-face. But if I have seen a few thousand Star Trek, Star Trek the Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and whatever the next one is called Star Trek episodes with my immediate family, in spite of honestly not being that into it, well, you know, we had that quantity time. Good, wholesome, quantity time. Like it should be.
But isn't it funny how, when you take time to get bored with someone, something always happens. Eventually.
Such is life. Life is just a heap of quantity time. You can't waste it. Time can't be wasted, just spent, however and with whomever you choose. It never stops.
Until...
the...
end.
Haircut
This is a big laundry tub, which we actually use as a bathtub for the baby. I cut off a lot of hair.
I like to cut my own hair. I usually do it in the Richard Nixon Memorial Bathroom, downstairs, but this time I did it in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Bathroom, upstairs. If you look closely, you can see Ronny shaking some schmuck's hand in a framed photograph behind me.
Midwestern Work Ethic
We had another big storm a few days ago, and it knocked a tree down directly over the road, just around the corner from our house. As it was thundering and raining buckets, winds howling, Brian was riding his motorcycle home from work. When he came up to the tree across his path, he road around it on the sidewalk.
He made it home, soaking wet. Phew!
We ate dinner, the storm stopped, and we walked outside to take a look at this tree over the road. We came upon people already cleaning it up:
You gotta love that Midwestern work ethic! The storm wasn't over an hour, and there were a bunch of guys outside with chain saws, hacking away.
I guess we're not very good Midwesterners! I just took a picture of them.
In our defense, we do live a good five houses down from the fallen tree, and it looked like all of those people were from the actual houses in front of the tree.
I often wonder what the aftermath of Katrina would have been like, had it hit here. I can just imagine the short haired, tennis-shoed Midwestern women, "Ya, I got me a sump pump and an ax. We'd better get to it! Not long before winter will be settin' in..." I can almost hear the hammers tapping on the rooftops and the faint sound of an accordion playing the polka... the duck boat giving tours... Ah, Wisconsin.
He made it home, soaking wet. Phew!
We ate dinner, the storm stopped, and we walked outside to take a look at this tree over the road. We came upon people already cleaning it up:
You gotta love that Midwestern work ethic! The storm wasn't over an hour, and there were a bunch of guys outside with chain saws, hacking away.
I guess we're not very good Midwesterners! I just took a picture of them.
In our defense, we do live a good five houses down from the fallen tree, and it looked like all of those people were from the actual houses in front of the tree.
I often wonder what the aftermath of Katrina would have been like, had it hit here. I can just imagine the short haired, tennis-shoed Midwestern women, "Ya, I got me a sump pump and an ax. We'd better get to it! Not long before winter will be settin' in..." I can almost hear the hammers tapping on the rooftops and the faint sound of an accordion playing the polka... the duck boat giving tours... Ah, Wisconsin.
Me and My Broccoli Raab
Broccoli Raab is also known as rapini. This beautiful bunch is from our CSA. I love belonging to the community supported agriculture and all, but this one veggie is a little bizarre. I cooked it like spinach, and it tasted awful. Does anyone know how you're supposed to eat this thing? We still have a bunch left!
Plastic Covered Furniture: Urban Legend?
Has anyone ever met anyone with actual plastic covered furniture? The idea of covering your furniture in plastic has been made fun of a lot in movies (Little Shop of Horrors, Fido, etc.) but I don't recall ever actually seeing it in real life. [This image I uploaded, though, is strangely reminiscent of a certain trailer in Hermosa...] I know that, when I was a little kid in San Francisco, lots of old people- including my grandparents- had plastic lamp shade covers. That was common. That's not what I mean, though. I mean, have you ever seen an actual couch, love seat, easy chair, or other living-room like furniture actually in a lived-in home, actually covered in a fitted plastic cover for the sake of style and/or cleanliness possibilities? Anyone? I anxiously await your comments.
People envy happiness. Dogs, though, sense courage, knowing jubilation means better ass-ets.
Press conference for Tom Waits' "Glitter and Doom" tour.
I enjoyed the visual aids.
Another Great Bird Faces Extinction
Apparently, they are going to stop making lawn ornament pink flamingos! Next, they'll be coming for my "Have a Happy Day" smiley faced clock...
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