If it’s Friday, it must mean leftovers . . .

Marshawn Lynch at NFL Super Bowl Press Conference

---

Friday afternoon. Drizzle and cold, 47 degrees.

Corey arrived home safely yesterday. No word on when he will be called back. I never thought I would wish for oil prices to skyrocket . . .

Bad night last night—too wired to sleep, and the dogs were feeding off that anxiety by announcing a need to go out pretty much once an hour. In between, I was seized with a vicious migraine, and then the ensuing body-itching from the pain medication. Today I plan to do a whole lot of nothing after spending two days cleaning a house that wasn’t really dirty, which didn’t stop me from taking the bottom of the vacuum apart to pull strings from the roller (love that my Dyson doesn’t have any belts). That’s just how I get once I go into overdrive.

Ah, the sweet, sweet joys of my life . . .

More later. Peace.

This week’s headline:

“I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” ~ Marshawn Lynch’s Super Bowl Press Conference

As Jon Stewart pointed out, Lynch was threatened with a ridiculous $500k fine if he didn’t show and a possible other fine for wearing the wrong hat, yet the NFL does little to nothing when it comes to the serious infractions, you know, like domestic violence:

“How is it that this guy is facing international drug cartel penalty money, but the owners and commissioner of the league have no obligation to address stadium financing shenanigans or concussions or domestic violence policies?” ~ Jon Stewart, “The Daily Show” (29 January 2015)

Shakespeare’s tragedies by body count:

Diagramming my life:

Dr. James Barry was a woman:

James Miranda Stuart Barry was a military surgeon in the British Army. After graduation from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, Barry served in India and Cape Town, South Africa. By the end of his career, he had risen to the rank of Inspector General in charge of military hospitals. Although Barry lived his adult life as a man, he was born a female and was named Margaret Ann Bulkley. In his travels he not only improved conditions for wounded soldiers, but also the conditions of the native inhabitants. Among his accomplishments was the first caesarean section in Africa by a British surgeon in which both the mother and child survived the operation.

Well, how could I not include this?

See this? This is not how my dogs would help:

They would either sit on the extended part of the tape measure or take the whole thing and run away . . .

Too perfect . . .

And oh how I wish so many times that I would have been able to say and do something like this:

See—I freaking told you . . .

Things that can happen at Wal-Mart:

Advertisement

Friday leftovers

This week’s headline:

“To any local Florida officials who refuse to perform these ceremonies: You live in a giant cockroach choking-hazard infested, Hooters-dining, reptile-abusing Everglades-draining, election-ruining, stripper-motorboating, ball-sweat scented, genitalia-shaped, 24-hour-mugshot factory.” ~ Jon Stewart on some Florida counties’ decision not to perform courthouse marriages, “The Daily Show” (15 January 2015)

Um . . . come again?

I don’t think this was what Big Brother had in mind:

Needs no explanation . . .

How cool is this?

Marie Curie: One of the baddest of the original BAMF:

Wasabi is a miracle food as far as I’m concerned. Nothing opens my sinuses faster, and after a good crying jag, wasabi allows me to breathe . . . just saying . . .

                    

Music by The Neighborhood, “Let it Go” (no, not that one)

“What I sometimes mistake for ecstasy is simply the absence of grief.” ~ Sarah Kane, from Crave

“Mignon” (1900, photogravure)
by Robert Demachy

---

 

Friday leftovers, sort of . . .

Friday afternoon. Cloudy and a bit warmer, 53 degrees.

Today is my father’s birthday.

I feel a bit better today, but Bailey seems to be ill with the throwups. Anyway . . .

“Figure Tragique” (1899, photogravure)
by Robert Demachy

In this particular dream, everyone makes an appearance. I have gone to stay with a friend, someone who is much richer than I am, and I believe I have overstayed my welcome. The mother, so kind at first, is now snippy and bitter. And I have run out of formula for the baby with me. Finally, my parents come to retrieve me. The mother acts snooty, saying something to my father like, “Oh, senator. I’m so glad to meet you. I’ve heard wonderful things about you.” And my father just looks confused, and I say, “That’s not a senator. That’s my father. My. Father.” And the mother just gives me one of those creepy smiles to show that she knows perfectly well that my father isn’t a senator, but then my dad surprises me and begins to play along. Skip to another room. My dad sits down next to me and tell me that I am never, ever to associate with these people again. I pretend to comply, but he knows that I am hedging, so he repeats himself. I am so startled that I tell him, yes, of course. The daughter with whom I am supposedly friends comes into the room and asks why her bedroom door is gone, and the mother tells her that she doesn’t need a door. The father in the family sits next to me and whispers that he is so sorry for how things have turned out, and I wonder why he is even bothering. At this point, other people appear, including the Hunt brothers from my youth (Chris and Dave), and they are wearing tacky tuxedos, and I could just kiss them for their brazenness. I can tell that their appearance is really offensive to the mother, so I stop everything to introduce them to her. The mother begins to clean around us, but I refuse to let her get the best of me. I begin to wrap some books to leave for my friend, and the mother comes over and tells me that I have made a mess, when I clearly haven’t. I just smile at her, one of her own smiles back at her, and I keep wrapping. Then I tell my parents that we have to stop and get formula for the baby, who at different points in the dream switches back and forth from a dog to a baby.

I wake up to Bailey throwing up on the bed.

No plethora of leftovers this week. Only a Jon Stewart clip because it is so awesome:

and as an added bonus, this one featuring a new addition to the show, priceless:

More later. Peace.

Music by Tame Impala, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” (love this video)

                   

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

~  Marge Piercy