Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Success all round

Waffles = success.

Stationery trip = success.

Band audition = success.

Leftovers = success.

Priceless moments with our furry housemates = success.

Laundry = success.

Walking in the brilliant, glorious, dazzling, heart-drenching sunshine for 40 minutes while carrying a mandolin = success.

This line deleted on advice of counsel, but trust me, it was delectable and loathsome, like a verbal confection of the Marquis de Sade translated by Patrick O’Brian and interpreted by Hunter S. Thompson, and afterwards rolled in a dusting of H.P. Lovecraft.  Still with me?  I guarantee it equalled success.

Watching Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Woods in The Wrestler = success. Evan Rachel Woods supposedly getting back together with Marilyn Manson = you must be kidding = hope he’s quit drinking.

Having transcribed some of Dennis’ interview already = success.

A brief descent into vers libre, big kisses to the one reader of this blog who will actually appreciate this….

the what I do the thinking with, o

it makes a buzz

just like a beehive

teenaged boys have whacked.  So much

to think about . life echoes in continuance . life dancing

through doorways . life unfurling its logic . life burgeoning .

life expiring on its own pyre .

life continues

to have that golden glow

Tonight in the fey

the fading moonlight

I am an avatar of the Parking Goddess

soon this divinity will drop

into the day / day

into whispers . into a rush of sea-borne sound . into the pale

and steady light of winter .

Just a backhanded comment

Young men are all very well, but I prefer women my own age for conversation.  Needless to say, my dinner with Katherine poured balm on my wounded soul.  Since it was all informational gossip (as opposed to judgemental gossip, and yes, there is a distinct and important difference) about third parties, none of it can leach out onto the blog, but, wow, yeah.  Fade into inarticulate gratitude.

And for visuals, this time lapse tour of the alps.

sunburn in December

about noon, when I’m feeling very sorry for myself, the phone rings, and Mike says, “Guess where I am?” and I say, “the beach” because that’s what I always say, and he says, “Nope, next best thing, get over here.”  SO I WAS SUNBATHING on his balcony and drinking Winter Ale on December 1, and it re-set my little brain clock. That killed a few hours.  Mike loved the new chill tune, so I played him the tune it was extracted from.  I loves me that Kaossilator.

Home again around 5, called Katie, made her a nourishing dinner of pot roast, yams and broccoli with gravy, and then we went to the Roxy for Red City Breakout, as she has a planet sized crush on the entirely charming lead singer.  Got home around midnight.

Complete with my sunburn.  Me happy!

A more than satisfactory day.

In the morning, started a pot roast.  Puttered for the rest of the morning.  In the afternoon shopped (a big, necessary shop) with Jeff and put everything away, which is a pain when you’re buying bulky stuff.  Then went to interview Dennis.  That was absolutely wonderful and I enjoyed every minute of it, and I did appreciate the chance to catch up with Mary as well.  I think she’s looking very well, but she said she was feeling a bit off colour.  I recorded the interview and am looking forward to the transcription.  Because I am clinically insane, obviously.

Then I got up to the old office and talked to Mohammad.  He’s all happy because his wife’s sister came last week after they hadn’t seen each other in aeons, like, 30 years, so there must have been a rapturous family reunion.

And then I came home, watched a really strange Simpson’s episode, a good chunk of Monday Night Football (New England in New Orleans, and the New England guys font dur ce soir, b’en sur.)

Everything I had on my list today I got done, including mailing a thank you card to my grandmother (finally). And I got some sun on my face, always a blessing at the bag end of the year.

Now, sleepy byes.  All I’m missing is someone to snuggle with and life would be a Maxfield Parrish dream, except I’d have something softer than all those damned rocks to snuggle up on.

Gender ender fender bender

Not much connection between the post title and the post.  Not really.  But what is going on with male fertility?  Is every sperm sacred?

Consider the following article on Herbivore Men from Japan.

And this article about bisphenol A.

And this one from 2006 in Japan.

And this one from Madsci.org from the last century.

And this one from India, which says sure there may be an identifiable decline in male fertility but there are issues with the sampling.

Here’s the wikipedia article, which contains the gem “testicular or penile insults” which is referring to physical damage, not “You d!ck, you n~tsack.”

The point I am trying to get to is that I believe it is possible that there is something up with estrogen like compounds and male fertility and hormonally driven changes in male behaviour, but I can’t prove it and I don’t know how I would.

Holy ^%$! Batman

Debbie forwards this gem from the nation’s capital.  There’s more than enough **** to go around in this story.  Calling something a blowback makes it sound like a rough breeze, not feces at high pressure.

I had an amazing morning with Katie here, doing tech support and getting out of her way so she could work on her song. The tech support was trying to find cabling and making sure the inputs were set to record properly in Garageband.  Later in the day, my date, alas, was overcome by weariness from his exertions feasting a friend the previous night at a birthday bash, and cried off… this after texting me at 8:10 this morning that he was just going to sleep.   People nowadays have no idea how to pace themselves (this of course will cause Patricia to burst out laughing when she sees it, since she knows what an utter lightweight I am when it comes to weekend excesses.)  I sang “The Weekend’s Over” to myself, which cheered me immensely, and then worked my way through “Freedom”, “Wish it was Mine” (how I love that song, and the mad crush that prompted it), and about half a dozen other songs.  Seeing Katie with my guitar in her hands this morning nearly made me hyperventilate with excitement and glee.   I got her to visit this site for strummable guitar chords (which makes songwriting so much easier)  After she left (her dad walked her home), I sat down with the piles of sound equipment I got out for her this morning (the USB midi input cable for the Casio keyboard, the mucho expensivo mic which Katie found since I had no clue where the damned thing was, the second best set of headphones, the Kaossilator and associated cables, the laptop of course) and made gamenoise1, and that’s only a fraction of the extremely cool music I composed today. Getting more callouses on my fingers, seeing both my kids and writing tunes have put me in a very happy mood… and I didn’t cook dinner, I ordered pizza and then made Jeff pay for it.  Tra la la.  Oh, and I watched the boys kill zombies, because of course, Elferd Ito is in the house.  (L4D2, Left for dead 2, bad pun.)