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“I have to do something,” Hadjare muttered to herself. The cold wind tugged at her scarf and blew through the button gaps in her coat. She shoved her hands deeper in her pocket and focused walking over snow covered ice without taking a second spill. That morning while navigating between two parked SUV’s she had suddenly found herself on the ground wondering what happened. The whole of the pavement was covered in black ice and getting up again required the assistance of two side mirrors.

Work has passed rather quickly that morning with a steady steam of clerical duties. Between photocopying 32 double-sided, three page handouts on buff paper and faxing an advertisement for an upcoming seminar she felt a faint flutter to the left side of her mind. It had been a long time since that larvae last disturbed any dust in her brain. She pushed it aside and concentrated on sneaking peeks at other people’s electronically published lives.

By the time her key turned the golden lock on her front door the larvae had graduated into a full blown moth of discontent. It batted madly around the small confine and knocked loose buds of creativity. Visions of a grand apocalyptic epic, complete with a annotated guide book on How to Survive the End of the World to writing a fairly obscure author swirled around one another. “I can’t do both,” Hadjare reasoned and watched her two dogs eat a high-quality lunch. “Only one could reasonably be completed in one afternoon.”

The battle royal tired her and she decided to take a short afternoon nap. She awoke an hour later to a barking dog five feet from the bed. “What the hell is going on?” she hollered and fumbled to put her glasses on. As her vision cleared a black dog ran out of the room and a smug white dog turned her attention to a pile of high-quality vomit, jazzed up with small curd cottage cheese lying in a forlorn pile at the side of the bed. “Oh no you don’t,” she menaced and kicked the dog out with small slam of the bedroom door. Luckily, a roll of paper towels was at hand from the last time a dog as expelled something. Ripping apart four sheets she laid it over the steaming pile and scooped it up one fell sweep.

“That’s it,” she said to the garbage. “I’m going to write China Mieville a post card he will probably never get.”

Yesterday I was unspeakably naughty.

Today is going okay. Again this winter can be done. I want out…I want spring. I am glad that today’s Friday because that means the weekend goes by quick and then all of a sudden it’s Monday (which is generally a blur) and then BAM it’s March. With March in session I can actually FEEL how close spring is…today I am just wishing that it was unseasonably warm. Wouldn’t that be nice?

So yeah. Marvels — I liked it, but it wasn’t something that I had never seen before. The format and style of the stories is a lot like Astrocity…which was written by Kurt Busiek and a some of the artwork is from Alex Ross. In fact I thought “Hey this isn’t a totally new concept at all–the human quality of superheros — their problems, laymans perspectives, etc” until I realized that Marvels came BEFORE Astrocity. Hmm…how about that? I guess I really like the … realistic panels…it takes me a lot longer to go through them because I enjoy looking at the pictures so much. And who doesn’t like looking at superhero’s/freaks in a new way. I do think I might have enjoyed it a lot more if I knew the whole comic book history of all the characters…I had to constantly reference Tim to get the full scoop on what really happened — for example with Galactus.

And no I haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s 1602 — that has just entered my recommendation list right after Iron Council.

As for Hellraiser…you know it the was first time that Tim and I watched it through. I had always seen bits and pieces of it on TV — so I knew the general idea of what happened. OF course they edited the naughty bits on TV… I also watched it while making breakfast and doing dishes — as with any horror movie you don’t need to put your FULL attention on it. I guess it was okay. It could totally be done a play. I was thinking lately that I would be interested in becoming a teacher if I could lead the drama club in their choices of plays and direct them — I would do Dawn of the Dead for sure…I should keep a running list of movies that could easily be plays. Speaking of which I get to watch the new remake this weekend, as well as I Robot, and Napolean Dynamite (which I haven’t seen). Tim said it’s about nerds…and that it’s probably going to be painful more than funny. I guess for him…I most certainly never considered myself a nerd.

Video games include replaying Champions of Norath on harder levels — there is a new one out but we have been unable to find it used yet. Ghost Recon — working through new levels…and Tim just bought another one used yesterday called…I forget. Something about the old west and he plays a bounty hunter…again. The last game he played Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath was oldwesty and he was a bounty hunter. I expect we will just play more of that…

I managed to get on the ball and write a few more letters…although as soon as I send one out I get some. Not that I am complaining…just makes catching up a tad bit more challenging. I just think it’s probably because some people hadn’t heard from me in like two months…so writing back was easy and interesting.

Battlestar is on tonight — ahh…
I am addicted to Lost too.
ER finally started over on TNT primetime in the day time…once shows start over I lose interest in them…even if I haven’t seen all the episodes. I thought it was interesting to see how fuzzy and soap opery it was in the beginning and how young George Cloony is before I switched the station to catch Mr Brightside by the Killers on VH1…and swooned only slightly.

There isn’t much for me to eat when I get home. I guess maybe I will buy something downtown and leave a tad bit early to do that. After all it is Friday and I have things I want to work on when I get home. I guess I will just have to go to Chipotle…oh the horror!

I am SO sick of looking Village/Township/City of -address ON the little places that actually have a website. I can’t tell you how many times I go to a website only to see that they tell me their longitude and lattitude, or how many miles they are away from some other place, or give a street address with no zip code…or phone numbers with no area code….or no address at all. Because apparently everybody knows it.

What the hell…how could you forget that information…it seems like it would one of the easiet most important ones to include. So I started to complain on the sites with anonymous forms. That makes me feel only a tiny bit better. More later…

Friday – Walked dogs, went to Barnes and Nobles to buy the Dark Knight Returns (for Andrew) and Marvels (for myself and Tim — half way through it and it’s brilliant!) and a Battlemech? Tech? book for Tim. Stopped at Preplayed to look around and found nothing. Got subway – went home and watched Scifi Friday.

Saturday – Went to Geneva to walk dogs. Did alot of dog walking but it was a day of bloody tails. We ended up taking two dogs to the Vet, and kept one to take back to Madison for someone else to foster. Napped. Ate dinner, watched Hellraiser and Shaun of the Dead, drank wine and read.

Sunday – Watched cable movies, worked on cross stitch, poncho and letters, made a pot roast dinner, walked our own dogs in the early morning snow and did lots of reading.

Monday – sitting here at work faxing crap all over the state of wisconsin and ‘researching’ cities, villages and townships. Woo. Big fun. Planning on some laundry when I get home. My favorite fleece jammies went down the shoot last night and they can’t stay down the basement long — they get lonely for me.

Thanks ta Jen fo` this site but real niggaz don’t give a fuck. I jiznust couldn’t resist giv’n you a friznesh look at mah entry fo` today. You can do it yoself at Gizoogle.com IT’s just that much fun in tha mutha fuckin club.

Already I am on mah second cup of joe — wizzell wizzle I say already I D-to-tha-izzont’ really mizzy tizzy it was THAT bad, it is almost 11:00 fo` heaven’s sake and yo momma. SuperBoss brought in some kind of bread tizzy her Mom baked motha fucka. It has coconut in it n it’s sweet, but SuperBoss thinks thizzay it is zuchinni bread anyway. Maybe it is…zuchini is like pear juice in tizzle it can go in almost anyth’n . Im crazy, you can’t phase me.

James, is you sure Timbuktu isn’t a real place? Is tizzy what you weed-smokin’ coz tha names thizzay Hilary mentioned ARE real. I have been ta Kalamazoo (which wasn’t Tizzy mizzle fun — contrary ta whizzat they mizzight believe) . Slap your mutha fuckin self. But seriously, Timbuktu? I did a quick search n came up wit a hotel/rizzles — whizzich is generally a good indication tizzy you M-to-tha-izzight be right . Fo’-fo’ desert eagle to your motherfuckin’ dome.

Anyway. Noth’n snoopa messin’ planned fo` this weekend fo shizzle. The Little is back (there was a family death) so we should probably do sum-m sum-m whizzay him. Speak of rizzle life shawty gangsta I haven’t gotten anyth’n fo` Andrew yet with my hoes on my side, and my strap on my back. We is going ta do it today with the gangsta shit that keeps ya hangin. Maybe Cat’s Mizzle wizzle deign ta be open. We is going ta tha mizzy ta git tha book at Barnes n Nobel n some funky ass coffee…I decided going ta Hot Topic on a Friday night is just a wanna be gangsta wait’n ta happen . Holla!.

I finally gots around ta Fram’n shot calla in law’s (French Greg)’s artwork tizzy I gots bizzle in Pimp . Chill as I take you on a trip. You see I had gotten it…then put it away until I found some cheap good frames…which I did find a few months baller — but by tizzy I had forgotten tha safe place where I had put his artwork n shit. It’s T-H-to-tha-izzat how it goes?

IT’s up now n look’n pretty good. I am think’n of hustla art we can do n thought of saggin’ Hilary some canvas or sum-m sum-m so tizzle she could paint sum-m sum-m up. I could buy you a paint brizzay or sum-m sum-m too if tizzy helps? Wizzy say you?

I just found out that Shangri La is not real.
I don’t believe it.

Thanks to those who gave suggestions for fabric. I think I will rip up some old pants…I know have a pair or two of those that there is no hope for ever wearing again. ANd I think I could use the denim as a liner (cos it’s ugly) and put the calico on the outside. Yeah..something like that.

Dangit, I went to Cat’s Meow today — and missing my bus by moments because I did…only to see that it was closed. wtf. I make the effort and they are closed. That is one thing I hate about small businesses…they get to set their own hours and therefore are always unreliable. So instead, I am going to the mall this evening to get a graphic novel and a ‘cool’ t-shirt from Hot Topic for my little brother’s birthday. It’s actually tomorrow and this stuff will never arrive in time — but it’s close enough. What’ better than getting a surprise package in the mail. And since I never consistently remember his birthday — it’s going to be a double whammy.

I think I am going to make him some brownies and send them too. Yeah, good idea.

So I ended up taking the number 5 bus because it said it would eventually end up at the east transfer point. This is the third random bus I have taken that kind of gets me close to where I live. I will master the bus routes for the east side of Madison before the year is out. After I got deposited at the East Tranfer point I walked over to Woodman’s and bought some fruit, cottage cheese, beef liver, Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper (dude, with three flavors fighting each other …. it’s hard to really say HOW it tastes — it tastes like Diet Dr. Pepper to me), brownie mix, pita pockets and trail mix. Maybe I will make chicken salad tonight (whatever tonight’s dinner is is always tomorrow’s lunch). Or maybe chicken egg salad…that sounds good too.

I went to the mall yesterday too and was totally uninspired to buy anything. I think it’s because I was having a bad fashion day … and I had forgotten my brother’s birthday….

Tonight is … mall, dinner, Sky Captain, popcorn and just generally spending some quality time with my number one darling.

Oh yeah, today is Pluto’s birthday (so the tats in his ears tell us) which is what reminded me of Andrew….Pluto is now five and Andrew will be 13!!!! Holy cow.

Lounge weekend! Absolutley no obligations and it was it was awesome. Our “Little” from Big Brothers Big Sisters is MIA … no phone, full answering machine — we even stopped by to see if anyone was home. Perhaps there was a family emergency. In any case, it opened up our weekend to do nothing.

Well that isn’t entirely true. I finally got off my butt and delivered some stuff to Hilary (one of which includes my old sewing machine which was given to me by a friend a few years before in response to me going on about how I was sure I would be an awesome seamstress/tailor/whatever, if only I had my own sewing machine.) Ha ha ha. I used it … oh say three times? Once for making Pluto’s dog coat, curtains, and … uhh….oh I am sure there was something else. In any case, I heard the age old plea and this time, I realized, I was the one to pass on the means.

So…I can’t wait to see what fantastic items she is going to sew.

Myself, I want to make a new tote bag…but I don’t have any good material at home. I thought of using a towel…and lining it or something…but that would kind of suck. All I have is craploads of calico stuff…and some heavy black material I wanted to save and use for my traditional ho chunk outfit (if I ever get around to it…cos the material came from my grandmother). So I guess I could use that…except it’s light cotton and not heavy at all. I even found some unused needles for heavier material I could use without having to buy more. I suppose I could buy something and cut it up…but it isn’t the same as being super thrifty and finding stuff around the house.

Yeah so… really the rest of the weekend was eating out at Pizza Hut on Saturday. And then on Sunday we weren’t hungry enough for a fancy brunch like we orginally planned so instead we went to Dairyland for breakfast. That’s pretty much all we ate too…I did make a cookie dinner last night though. ;P

I finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell….it picked up and also I was motivated to finish it so I could move onto Iron Council (Mieville) that Dave lent us and Tim said was really really good. As for Strange and Norrell…it was good. I guess I don’t want to talk about it until someone else has read it. One great thing about having a reading weekend is how much better it made me feel. It restored a part of my old self. Reading inspires me and reminds me that I could be writer too if I just finished something and eliminated those wretched feelings of self-doubt.

Has anyone else noticed the English fantasy Renaissance? Look at what different works are coming out of the UK…the likes of Gaiman, Mieville and Clark (to name a few). I am feeling like I need to have some kind of pilgrimage to the old land to pay my respect and breathe the air, drink the water and have some bangers n mash — in other words have some of that mojo rub off on me.

Well, I guess George RR Martin isn’t english (although he kind of looks like a hairy english dude) …but he hasn’t exactly been able to get his latest book out either. I am going to have to actually go back and read the first three in order to get ready for it. Usually I never reread books (why waste that time when there are so many other books out there to read), but in this case I will have to make an exception.

So there is a coffee pot here at work and there is some mysterious nice gentleman that in charge of it. I’ve been offered to be introduced but have declined. He collects 3 or 4 dollars a month from all the coffee drinkers and that supplies the coffee, sugar, cream and cups. Well, I haven’t paid anything in the form of bills because I like the idea of paying by the cup 25 cents. To be a little more accurate, it’s more like ….two cups for 25 cents…although somedays I just clunk in odd amounts of change. One day I put in 16 cents. Anyway, so I haven’t seen this guy to date, and to date he doesn’t know me. Yet every day when I get my first cup and put in some change …. by the time I am ready for my second cup I sneak in there and VOILA! Change is gone. Sometimes there will be a fresh new pot too…I like it when that happens.

The two ladies here tell me that I can just pay the few bucks…but to be honest I rather like this cat and mouse actually paying 25 cents once in a while? Man, I would check it all the time if I knew there might be money in there.

I also use an old McDonald’s coffee cup despite the three mugs I have scattered around my desk. What can I say? I like the lid and the stryrofoam — keeps it toasty a lot longer.

I can’t tell you what mi Madre sent me in the mai…no I’ll have to take a photo. But seeing as I am work right now, that photo won’t come for awhile. j

I went to TKD last night and all we did was cover foot sweeps and skipping kicks + combinations. Not too much of a work out — more of an instructional class. Good thing I some DDR in earlier in the day. I had a feeling that would happen.

Last night I tried to make asian lettuce rolls….apparently they have a different kind of lettuce though so it turned into more of a salad. But it was still good, I never would have thought of radishs, red pepper, carrots and a green onion combo…drizzled with a soy/ginger/lemon/garlic sauce. Good stuff.

Oh my, I watched The Magdalene Sisters. I was not expecting to see what I saw. I was expecting some heartwarming story about three scrappy girlfriends who band together to survive an awful circumstance. The only thing I had right was the awful circumstance. I just don’t understand the catholics — they were so SO corrupt (and this happened in the 1960’s! and the last laundry didn’t close until 1996). How can these people feel that they were justified in their cruelty? How can these Men and Women of God believe that they were good and worthy enough to enter heaven? How can you take the mercy of the New Testament and combine it with the harshness of the old testament — to make up your own cons and scams … and have so many people believe it? I know I have some catholic friends, but judging from history I can’t say I understand why so many choose to belong to or identify with a group of such corrupt, hateful, greedy, cruel, murdering fiends. Oh sure, there are some bad seeds (witch hunts, asylums, sex and that little thing called the inquisition — oh not to mention the perpetrators of cultural extinction worldwide) but… just LOOK at how bad they are! And then to see all these sexual assault cases come out and people act like they are shocked. Maybe what they are really shocked at, is that this isn’t acceptable behavior anymore. Acceptable as in talked about. There answer is repress it, try to forget it happened and shuffle the godly man off to be someone else’s problem. Again, that isn’t very charitable.

I guess I just haven’t seen a movie that made me so disgusted with mankind in quite a while. Everything humans touch eventually becomes twisted, diseased, rotten or destroyed. One of the reasons I like science fiction so much is that it acknowledges mankind’s overwhelming fallacies and at the same time tries to focus on the endurance of the human spirit. The little bits of starlight in a black endless sky that try to justify our mean pitiful little existence. I have hope that we will move past these problems and become something better — but then again, I also hope daily that the end of the world or an apocalypse will happen in the next five minutes so we can get onto that next phase right now.

Oh, and check out my friend’s The Martins (also a link on your left). They just moved from Madison to New York or something…I met Richard back when he showed up on my doorstep wanting a place to sleep. I made him spaghetti that night without meat. Okay okay, it was at the Indian house so that kind of stuff wasn’t THAT uncommon. My reputuation isn’t THAT tarnished. Richard is Menomoniee.