human endowment

People often talk about trying to hold back their tears, but as human beings, we should take pride in our capacity to be sad and happy. We mustn't ignore the preciousness of our human birth or take it for granted. It is extremely precious and very powerful. We cannot ignore our basic human endowment. — ctr

a couple distractions

» shmoop shmoop shmoop-a-doop
» house gymnastics (thanks to jdr)
» barcode yourself (go on, label yerself)
» see all the pictures from mardi gras
includes all krewes and lots of shots of the crowd — maybe you're in there!

mardi gras


marianne leading the krewe down the street

it was raining. it had been raining for a few days straight. the forecast was for more rain. and on the day of the parade? the weatherman promised buckets of rain. (insert forrest gump voice over: sideways rain...). our costumes were feathers. big, beautiful, bright crazy all over the place feathers. las vegas show girl feathers.

feathers and rain, not a great mix.


before the parade we traveled to the staging area on the float in our plastic parkas

but the parade was scheduled to go on, rain or shine. so we bought plastic parkas ($1 at the dollar store) and minimized the feathers, jumped on the huge float, drove it downtown and braved our staging area for more than an hour (with sprints to firestone's for much needed tequila shots) with the constant drizzle and occasional shower.

we were the last entry and the royal krewe.


queen amanda at the top of the float

i can tell you everything about waiting for the parade, but when the parade started... the adrenelin kicked in, the raincoats came off and it became a loud, cheering, shouting, shaking-our-groove-things blur (except i do remember getting flashed a breast by a former co-worker who didn't realize who i was until after the flash; i threw her two beads). our music blared, but the crowd was louder. big screaming crowd. i loved them.


jeff on stilts

i loved the krewe more. an hour of dancing, shouting, throwing, shimmying, hooting, hollering. shimmy shimmy shimmy, gimme gimme gimme. who wants my beads?! it was awesome and loud and can't-stop-smiling.


that's me (without my tail or headpiece, due to rain)

and the rain? it stopped the minute it was our turn to head down the parade route and didn't start again until we threw our last beads. amazing serendipity. god loves mardi gras.


throwing beads from the float


gabi and margie in the crowd

god does not love rioters. saturday night, the day before the parade, there was a riot in slo town. for what? for why? i don't know how it started. i don't know how it escalated. all i know is that there are a demograph of college kids, mostly guys, who will ruin things for everybody because they are stupid and drunk, unimaginative and obnoxious, and full of themselves. what losers. it's sad that guys get suckered into thinking stupidity — harrassing people, not respecting the rights of others, drinking to oblivion and hassling cops — is what equals a good time. i just shake my head. could they get a clue or some type of creative thought in their head? it's so boring and predictable. it's just boring and predictable.

bits and quips
from an email...

Trungpa Rinpoche defines compassion as "unconditional love" and the "key to the open way, or mahayana path." In Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, he writes:

"The main theme of the open way is ...to abandon the basic struggle of ego. To be completely open, to have that kind of absolute trust in yourself is the real meaning of compassion and love. There have been so many speeches about love....But how do we really bring love into being.... How do we do it? How are we going to radiate our love to the whole of humanity, to the whole world? .... Many people get very romantic about love, in fact get high on it at the very word. But then there will be a gap, a period when we are not high on love. Something else takes place which is embarrassing, a private matter. We tend to seal it off; it is "private parts," shameful, not part of our divinity. Let's not think about that. Let's simply ignite another love explosion and on and on we go, trying to ignore those parts of our being we reject, trying to be virtuous, loving, kind.

Perhaps this will put off a lot of people, but I am afraid love is not really the experience of beauty and romantic joy alone. Love is associated with ugliness and pain and aggression, as well as with the beauty of the world; it is not the recreation of heaven. Love, or compassion, the open path, is associated with "what is." In order to develop love...one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. One must open oneself to life, communicate with it."

He goes on to describe this openness as "absolute trust and self-confidence" and its traditional metaphor, "the moon shining on one hundred bowls of water."

see you again on march 21

well my friends, the time has come to take a little break from the blog. i'm going to focus the next month on some personal projects and i find my site too distracting (how appropriate). come back and check on me on march 21 and i'm sure i'll have lots to update you on (primarily how big the cats are). (oh and btw, how pathetic: i have infinitely more pics of my cats online than dooce does of her baby. in my own defense, kristin, who will eventually be the proud owner of one of these babies is on vacation and i have tried to keep her in the loop and in love with the critters. but still).




so, what am i going to be doing in my month? immediate focus goes to mardi gras. and then it is going to maui to watch my sister marry her wonderful fiance, albert. working on my career. once and for all conquering my master procrastination habits. yoga. working out. eating right. and being true to myself. and that might sound a little ridiculous, but it's true. that's what i'm going to do. i might even cook something good and tasty and traipse through the farmer's market every saturday morning. take pictures. shout hallelujah to the wind.

meanwhile, there are a few fun links to the right that should provide daily distractions for all y'all. and if you need to get a hold of me you can do so at my email address which you can find at the top right of this page. or you can listen to this american life, the writer's almanac, and morning becomes eclectic. OR you can turn off your computer, too and reach for something higher. something greater. something that really gets your heart pumping and excited to just be you.

tony levin

i love tony levin. case in point, my post 13 months ago. meanwhile, here is the mustachioed wonder, sans the stache. ye-ow.

the daily distraction



send your valentine the message that's on your candy heart. the heartmaker and acme labs does just that. so now you can personalize both your sweet tooth and your sweet heart.

» get your heart on

how to be unhip

sometimes i wish my blog was called blatantlyearnest or unapologeticallyselfimproving. there are some things i would like to talk about, but the medium is wrong. and let's face it, in today's rampant clinging to of all things ironic and/or sarcastic, there isn't really any room for the enthusiastically sincere.

the daily distraction

a day in the life invites a photographer — anywhere in the world — to shoot one picture a day that illustrates their normal, daily life. arty pics are discouraged. this site is more interested in your mundane that becomes exotic to others. the page opens on the current gallery, but you can easily click around to see past entrants and their weeks in the day in the life.

» git your day on

random-lamdom-ding-dong

» what the kitties have
» omigod omigod omigod
» v. good about page
» janet jackson cupcakes
» ernie's chinese new year

turning P.U. into phee-yew
aka praise the almighty anti-parasite medicine!

what a difference five-plus days make, one hundred and twenty-four little hours...

cats slowly showing improvements!

can i get a collective phew?

forbes best photo blog

catherine jamieson has been nominated as best photoblog by forbes. long time readers know i lurve catherine jamieson, aka seajay on ye old world which is dave. so, if you are so inclined, support catherine and vote for her blog

» vote now

the daily distraction

think yer pretty smart, donchya? :) think you know when people are pulling the wool over your eyes, lying, or just being polite? :) think you can spot a real smile compared to a fake one? :| you do? well, it's time to put your money where your up-turned mouth is and take the bbc test to see if you really as smart as you say you are. :)

test takes less than ten minutes. shout out to marcus for the link.

i only got 12 out of 20. ;) i started getting confused about halfway through it, thinking that everybody was smiling at me. i did have a glass of wine, though. which is typical right? have a little drink and think that you are doing *great* with everyone on the web site? i was on, i tell you. it was beautiful.

» real vs. fake smile test

el shmoop & los gatos
aka dan, hypnotising yogi of the siamese kittens

the shitty kitties



it's funny how my life has kind of mirrored dooce's in the last week. she got a baby on 2/3/4; i got kitties on 2/3/4. she's got pooping stories; i've got pooping stories. she's had a life-altering, very meaningful experience; i've had ... well... shoot. maybe it hasn't been a mirror, but a parallel frontage road. she's on the highway and i'm just skimming the neighborhood.

so this morning i opened the bathroom door with a little trepidation. you don't understand, i've been spending an hour three times a day cleaning my previously pristine loo. washing floors, walls, sweeping up, changing litter, not to mention, checking and cleaning cat feet and fur. i have no idea why it takes so long, but it has left me slightly exhausted and a little more than irritated. and twitchy.

i realized that there was no way i could go on like this. that's not true: i could. i knew i could. but i also knew i didn't want to. and so we brought in the big guns: industrial paper used to cover bathroom walls and floors during construction, tape, scouring pads, extra gloves, more clorox, shop rags, and a new broom to replace the one used in the bathroom of the devil-bowelled kittens.

but this morning things seem to be better. maybe the medicine is kicking in.

heartfelt thanks: friends from far and wide calling and emailing with notes of encouragement and tips and tricks (especially scott and pat); tom for accompanying me on (and sponsoring!) late night trips to home depot for the big guns; kristin for giving me the use of her bathroom.

the daily distraction



making fiends. hat tip to jeffy d for sending in this cool animation site. bring yourself back to the joys of childhood and neverending optimism. ;) these seem to be a couple minutes long.

» make your fiends now

the daily distraction



let's hear it for the embolded stick figures, braving the difficult human terrain of hope and fear. and having one's heart torn out. and drunken revelry. i'm not sure if the animation was made specifically for the song... and man does this band remind you of the church or beck, or what? a combination of the two?

» get your doorsteps animation on

pathetic

you know how when you hang out with people from, say, arkansas or some other accent place like scotland or something you inadvertantly start talking with their accent? or you know how when you begin to hang out with some one who you think is really really cool and next thing you know you can sense you are making the exact same facial expression that they always do, but you cannnot help yourself?

i'm doing that with the cats. twice now i have caught myself pulling a charlotte.

i would like to add here that charlotte is not the one with kitty diarhea. so please do not think that that is the thing i am imitating.

saving grace

god knows i miss kristin. especially now as i am living my own special kitten hell (and heaven and that would be when chapin is all mellow and not pooping and acting like a Normal Cat) and could go with some comiserating and/or cobraggerating. however, her being away is also this big blessing.

my bathroom is currently kitten quarantine (just until things, um, shape up a bit more) and so i have fully moved into kb's bathroom. thank god she lives next door. this way i don't have disinfect and mop up and wipe down walls for an hour just to pee or take a shower.

i'm sure you are all very happy about the level of detail lately in emdot.

hey birdy

kate du nord lives in saskatchawan. i think. she lives in one of those places in canada that is so frickin' cold you always say "really?!" when you find out people live there. cold, i tell you. but her heart is warm. i bet she thaws out everything she comes into contact with. she's got some online action going on, and the specific action i'm talking about today is her sweetheart of a blog that talks of life as a mother of two and lover of one out in the canadian hinterlands found at the intersection of bumeffingfreezing and itstherealdeal.

she has a very cool birdfeeder that attaches to a window and is clear so that you can actually watch the birds feeding from the comfort of your snuggly little saskatchewan home with pictures to boot. and so, trying to balance out the minute-by-minute cat reports, i offer a different type of post: the birds of the canadian winter landscape.

all i know is that their feathers must be a might tight down.

» kate's bird feeder

sunday, sunday

meanwhile, today was filled with alternating activities. those activities being clean the bathroom walls (how does kitty diarhea actually get on the walls is what i wanna know; that is some kinda powerful squirty action is what i'm thinking and/or painting by cats is a real phenomena) and working on top secret mardi gras krewe action.

i have the coolest krewe. and i wish my life was more in order so that i could be participating more. but life intervenes, as it always seems to do in my life: it doesn't throw me a curve ball so much as a full frontal sommersault head butt, without fail. and so i give as much time as possible and have great fantasies about how much better i'll be at this next year.

you weap what you grow





so, this morning i buckled and it was back to the vet. on top of everything else, i think the cats just sent me over the edge. don't get me wrong: i love them. lurve them. luff them. but the peeing on the furniture and the spreading of the kitty litter all over the house... really, there is only so much i can take. in four days i have gone through a plurality of sponges and an entire roll of paper towels, washed my comforter cover and the bathroom mat, several times, and have found a whole new way to be indebted to chlorox bleach.

protozoan parasites. the little buggers have little buggers. and while it is embarrassing to make multiple trips to the vet in one week (and hard on the pocketbook), it was a good thing. the kitties have lots of medicine and got their little nails trimmed at the same time (i'm covered in scratches, i moaned to the vet tech).

but meanwhile, man, i was a stress case. really interesting as truly i have not been stressed at all since leaving my heart-palpatation-creation job. no muscle tension. no waking up in the middle of the night (okay, it's happened a couple of times, but nothing like when i was working at dub-ay). no tension. none. zilch.

and it was beautiful. until this morning when i realized i was in a full-blown anxiety attack. ahhh, life as a mamacat.

but i can't blame the kittens. i think it was a multitude of things. isn't it always? my mom and sister stopped by (becca is getting married in maui in just one month) and they were great support. but as the hours ticked by i could feel it coming back again. i don't know what i need: a lot of action (meaning getting things done; pull thy head out of the gutter people) or a lot of rest.

i'm thinking a fine mixture of the two.

read, weap

bean gives good link. neighbors down the street. not sure if she actually knows them or how she found them. but more than worth the read.

okay. these cats. they are cute. cute, i'm telling you, cute as a friggin' button. as a friggin' drawerful of buttons. that is not the problem. the litter box is the problem and the concern that something ain't quite right. and a nasty ass smell. and i don't want to be one of those people — you know, new, type-A-ish moms — who call the doctor at every small thing and we already did go to the vet and they've only been here for four days. but i am seriously grossing myself out thinking about invisible cat fecal matter maybe being polkadotted casually around my house by little kitten feet.

some things you just shouldn't share on a blog. read the cool brooklyn kid site instead and pretend i didn't say anything.

meanwhile, the shmoop's out of town; kb and bret are taking their sweet ass time driving up the pacific coast line; shane's in paso tending to money (his own newby kitty who is 4.5 pounds to my shit-spreading duo's combined weight of 5.3); and tom is working late hopefully on something that benefits mankind. and i blew today. blew it. blew it. got nothing done. and am grossing out about the cats. and shoot. shoot. can i have a do-over. or should i just grab a beer and call it a wash?

and speeking of wash, how many times can you clean your bathroom where the litterbox lives in one day without needing to go on OCD meds? and, if you were me would you take every piece of furniture out of the house and just steam clean the whole effing place? like asap? or should i just take a chill pill?

you know my mother is cracking herself up right now.

parts of life... they just ain't fair.

day four: mama's boy





so little timid chapin is shaping up to be one helluva mama's boy. he won't leave my lap. i put him down, he climbs back up. while ferocious charlotte goes out unto the apartment to conquer the evils which may lay in her path (the mirror cat, the rollerball pen, the sheets, the space underneath doorways), chapin is more than content to stay a spectator in his newly appointed box seat (no pun intended).

so chapin spends his time on top of the aeron (or rather on top of me) and charlotte spends her time being both lewis and clark all wrapped up in one fur coat. (so, note, cat lodged between seat of chair and hydrolics of chair is not chapin, but amelia catheart, herself, miss charlotte york-goldenblatt of the tabby-point-siamese york-goldenblatts).



overheard

mar: they are tabby point siamese.
tom: what's that, another name for mutt?

» pics of tabby-point siamese

dooce's super pooper

congratulations are out for the utah-living armstrong family as they welcome their new baby girl into the world. dooce's baby has the coolest birthday on the block (2/3/4) and looks like a little angel, despite what her mother may say about her froggish appearance. :) we don't know the utah-living armstrong family, but have grown kinda fond of them via dooce's witty repartee, not to mention the excellent photo galleries. plus, who can resist a blog that directly tells you exactly how to annoy the author?

» view the frog baby

kitten update for sweetdogk




day one: 02.03.04




day two: 02.04.04


day three: 02.05.04


So the cats are slowly acclimating to the central coast. And while posts on pets make a lot of people roll their eyes and click on by, Kristin, my cohort in kitten keeping, left for a month-long trip only hours after the kittens got here. Lord knows we don't want to cheat anyone out of their god-given All Kitten All the Time experience, I'm going to do my best in the next month to keep La Sweet Dog K up-to-date on the little devils and their progress into early feline adolescence.

These friggin' cats are a handful and when I express this predictament to my mother on the phone she is propelled into a mother-retribution-for-adolescent-hell maniacal laughter. I'm serious, the more I tell her the harder she laughs.

He's hiding again and won't come out, I say and she starts to twitter.
They're tearing my house apart, I say and she giggles.
She's eating my plants, I say and she har hars.
I had to clean the bathroom three times in one day, I say and she snorts.
He peed on my comforter, I say and she begins to guffaw.
Three times!! I say and she can't even talk as the laughter has her doubled over.

Tom thinks these kittens are about babies, and I rest him assured, they are not. I mean, as far as I know they aren't. I wanted to rescue an older pound cat. That was the goal. And I'd been to the pound several times in the last few months looking for a Cat to Call My Own. To no avail, the pound left me overwhelmed and sad and confused. How can you choose only one in a room full of 140 eyes of desperation and mewly sadness?

So, when Marcus said he had kittens, siamese kittens no less, I expressed interest. But, he lives in Houston, so it's not like I took it seriously. Or thought he would take me seriously. But he did. And he did all the footwork to get the kits out here. They went from Texas Critters to Calicats in one little day.

Charlotte (- York Goldenblatt as we are thinking of naming her in honor of you know what; we don't care if this makes us look ridiculous or silly) is definitely the adventuress of the two. If I were to guess which of these cats would go on to a great career climbing the Himalayas or starring on female versions of Jackass, Charlotte would be the sure thing. She's friendly and inquisitive and bold and unwavering. And kind and generous as she can spend hours licking the inside of her brothers ears.

Chapin (named after what Shawn Colvin calls Mary Chapin Carpenter — I saw them in concert and loved the nickname) is way more reclusive if not down-right scared out of the seat of his furry white-striped kitten pants. He likes to be hidden away, say in the back of a refrigerator or in the comfy coziness that is the spot between the wall and the sofa. Better to commune with the spiders and dust bunnies, I think. Lucky for him cobwebs are in and make a great fashion statement when hung oh-so-sexily from the whiskers.

Chapin is going to be the tough one. I refuse to have timid, scaredycat, twitching cats living under my roof. And as the more obvious siamese of the two, Chapin's got Wizard's legacy to uphold and this includes loving to hang upside down while the humans scratch your belly. Or at the very least, being the House Ambassador, eager to greet all who enter the Kingdom of the Apartment Dwellers. So my tactic is soothing voice to gain the trust and as much lap time as he can handle.

So lap time it is. Both have barely left my lap all afternoon. In fact, I suspect that I am the new Kitten Tree. I'm their favorite place to snooze and play and groom. Which is pretty dang darn cute, if I do say so myself. And since they are gaining a quarter of a pound a week who knows how long dual lap cat time will last?

Not long if I keep treating them with the special extra-rich cat food the vet so graciously donated to us. And given Charlotte's propensity to stink up a room quicker than a linebacker in a locker room after the team chili and beer bash, the special extra-rich cat food might become a rare commodity and maybe their babiness will extend just a little longer.

the daily distraction

deborah burge is an artist living on the central coast of california. while parts of her site are still "under construction," the site itself is very nice to look at and her art basically kicks ass. so take a minute to stroll through her gallery.

» the art of deborah burge

overheard

mar: my kitties are so fucking cute.
steve: they are too cute. drown them. no, really, anything that cute has to be the spawn of satan.

amen sister

i like the bean for so many reasons. and i love as time goes on how i just get more and more reasons. or maybe it is that i get glimpses of things that were already there, i just didn't know. bean sums up what i think about howard dean, but she does so in a culturally astute way. as she is prone to do. not that she is ever prone. this girl is an up-and-at-'em firecracker of truthfulness and belief. belief in what, i'm not sure. maybe it varies. or maybe it is a belief of self and all; that heart beats paper, rock, and scissors. read her thoughts.

the first day



meet the kittles. i don't know how to get rid of red eye. yet. kittens have a doctor's appointment today. chapin — the more siamese looking male — is sneezing and has very watery eyes, and i want to nip that in the bud asap if possible. charlotte is a hellcat set here on earth to rule your world and or eat your toes, whichever comes first.

i'm getting ready for a meeting and can't write much. so in the meantime, enjoy earth from the air. i posted that site in 2002, but the photos are worth a second visit.

» a look from the top down

snort

the white one just found her reflection in the tall mirror. she is frozen with her back arched and fur flexed. you know that ain't comfortable. she's been there now for over five minutes, flinching at herself. she's thinking, damn, this ferocious cat just won't back down. ha. now she is stalking herself, doing the sidways charge. mwroar. except is more like maah.

why can't she just be like a dog and sniff butts and be done with it. meanwhile, her brother is downstairs mewing and mewing. you know the one in the mirror is so torn: stay here and defend against the mirror cat or run downstairs and comfort the little brother.

kitten caboodle

so, long drive up (2.5 hours) covered in sheets of rain. kinda fun. i am bad law breaker as i listen to my ipod a la earbuds whilst driving. bad girl.

picked the kitts up at the cargo holding station. they.are.so.small. pinter. 2.5 pounds each. and they were scooched as far back as the container would let them scooch, huddled on top of themselves. they pretty much stayed that way for the entire drive as well. the only sound or motion i heard was from white ears (she's the middle on in the dw pic marcus posted a while back). she is by far the rambunctious explorer.

(i hear tinkling; they have already discovered the chimes hanging from my staircase).

they are unfolding as the minutes go by. dark ears wouldn't come out of the crate for fifteen minutes. white ears had already eaten and used the makeshift litterbox (as opposed to the makeshit litterbox). but she is coaxing him more and more out of his shell. we'll make him a ferocious tom yet.

next stop: scratching post and squirt guns.

a big day

a couple of milestones happen today. kristin and bret are leaving their long-time jobs, trusting their collective guts and hearts to move on to the Big Ol' Sumthin Else. congratulations are out — their friends are behind them and support them 100%.

the kittens are coming today. continental flight 267. mewroaor. pictures of the kittens, their mama and pops up at compleat iconoclast. kitties are flying from houston to san jose. send them your good-kitten-in-the-sky good juju.

overheard

mar: i don't mean to be corny....
steve b.: i know. like a scorpion doesn't mean to sting.

mar: i'm not sure if i own procrastination or if it owns me.
ts: sounds more like you are a participant in the grand nationals of procrastination, sponsored by charter digital cable.

the i.m. summary

Stephen: Sounds good. What have you been up to? Free time?
emdot1: boy.
emdot1: krewe.
emdot1: just got back from az.
emdot1: blogging.
emdot1: playing music with bret.
emdot1: reality tv.
emdot1: poker.
emdot1: oh yeah, and work.

my take on reality tv and tv in general

who knew, but i think tv is hip again. yes, the beast that we've all denied so cooly to our friends as a creature that we don't play well with, is making the parlour rounds as a medium to share with your friends and loved ones on the weeknight. and reality tv, what's up with that? i think it's our latest thing to feel smug about. by not participating we can kind of scoff and watch. watch and scoff. inside we think

1. how much better we would have done
   
2. how glad that's not us up there making a fool of ourselves
   
3. we could have won more money
   
4. coulda seen the twist coming a mile away
   
5. we woulda bailed out and said adios mf's a looong time before the rest of those shmoes.

plus it's a fun reason to drink g&t's and play poker on a monday night.

where did it go?

the weekend is already a blur. what happened? thursday: downtown farmer's with dan and corinna. beers at mccarthy's. hanging with ts. friday: gram's 82 birthday. hanging with ts. saturday: yardsale-ing with dan. s&tc with kristin. late lunch with ts. afternoon housewarming at todd and rachel's. crashed early. sunday: late breakfast with ts. mardi-gras prepping with the krewe. stopping by shane's. superbowl with ts and dad/gf. s&tc with kb, bret, ts. (this was all more for my memory than for storytelling).

but the stories i do have to tell... todd and rachel's party was one of those easy, laugh-saturated parties that are so rare that you pinch yourself when they happen. i didn't know most of the people, yet felt an instant rapport with all of them, especially the women. what i love about these women: they are hearty, out loud, belly laughers. rachel is one of the funniest people on the planet. the party was her stage and she had all of us doubled over, holding our guts. and no topic is off limits. she goes for the cultural jugular. the big subject saturday was the snowy plovers and the los osos snails and how both need to BE. STOPPED.

but that's not the story to tell. the story to tell was the excessive dog humping at the parallel guest's dog-party. and while i'm not going to go into the disgusting yet hilarious details (i leave such inspiration and talent to dooce) it had us all disgusted and crying with laughter for the entire party. and the next day as we recounted stories having to do with the 18-month-old trying to get into the conga line action as well. what is the word for abject horror and can't-help-yourself laughter?

emdot trivia: you will never ever ever ever ever in a million years see me in a conga line. ever.

ever.

and speaking of dogs. one of the dogs at the party was barley (barley was not in on the dog action mentioned above because she is good and decent). barley is one of the cutest creatures to ever grace god's great earth. kristin's got a picture of barley and barley's owner's sig-oth up at sweetdogk. also — i don't think we've ever talked about it, but kb summed up all my conflictions about picture taking as well.

finally, the dearest legume on the planet has great posts up. what i like about these is that they are a little more personal, a little more raw than our normally web-safe bean queen. i love the little glimpses of inner workings.

the daily distraction

question: cats in heat howling or angel-like soprano? i mean angel-of-death-like soprano. i mean ohmigod why are the dogs baying? i mean ohmigod what is that racket? i mean ohmigod.

» queen of the night aria

something quieter. sockpuppet magic. ILOVETHIS. the gallery of the sockpuppet emotions, in oils no less.

» get your tubesock on