Just surfing around...

And came upon this.

The gal who does these is actually a good friend of mine--she's practically my cousin.

Anyway, those beads on her site? She actually makes them. Local celebrities, like one bay area news lady that I know of, buy her beads. She teaches classes all over the world. She studied glasswork under Dale Chihuly, who was named one of the top ten modern artists in Art for Dummies.

When we were kids she was always drawing and always had markers or pencils with her. Her eyes seemed to seek out color wherever she could find it. My mother has always been a very colorfully dressed woman and it was interesting watching her eyes dance over my mom's outfits.

In more recent times, I was able to see her workspace in the garage of her home, with all of her glass rods and her flamethrower and her gas masks--it seems like a very dangerous undertaking, but I'm sure she wouldn't be doing anything else with her life. I've looked at the way she has grown up into a very professional artist--one who is actually able to make a living (yes, Wirewoman, it can be done!) doing art.

It's something that has inspired me, when I think of writing, or illustrating or anything like that.

Cool Interest List idea:

I don't know why I never thought of this before: how about using your blog interest list (or interests you have ganked from others) for two different things:

As a writing/journaling prompt generator--write each interest down on its own 3 x 5 card.

• If it is an object, use it in a story
• If it is a person, pretend to be Larry King and interview the person
• If it is a band, pretend to be a member and write from their perspective
• If it is an author, try to write an entry in their style
• If it is a concept, write an essay paragraph about it

As an oracle deck. Shuffle your cards, ask a question, or not, and see what you get.

• If it is a person, try to channel them and ask questions
• If it is a band, listen to some of their music while you meditate and see what happens
• If it is an author, open one of their books and read the text under your finger

Swinburne Fun

When you see this, post a poem in your blog:

The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith , on the whole, is not doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barly and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God : now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Meme: Fifteen Fun Friendly Facts about Hermgirl

Be lookin' at your friendslist. Notice that friend stonemirror
has tagged you for a meme on twenty random facts, which he has done a lovely, complete job on (no wonder he's a great captain of industry!)

Think about it for a while. Wind up with only fifteen, and then tag fifteen friends who seem like they don't have anything better to do <;P.

Blame The President.

1. I sometimes feel like a woman without a country, I don't seem to fit into neat categorizations. You know, those things where some kind of "expert" says, "If you do a, you fit into this category, b, you belong to this category, c, this category," etc. I'm always going, "Yeah, but what about people like me?" Not that this makes me feel inferior in any way, on the contrary, it tells me that those kind of tests are bullshit.
2. I am fairly antisocial. Not because I hate anyone, but because I am often very disappointed in people. Often, my radar goes off, and I have to drop people like a bad habit. I generally keep things to my family, a few family friends, and you wonderful online people. Even the people that I am friends with at work or whatever, I don't see very often, and I like to keep it that way.
3. This is probably because I prefer books to people. I have not counted my books, but I probably have four or five thousand. All jammed into my little bedroom.
4. On June 13th of next year (the same birthday as W.B. Yeats, I like to tell people,) I will be a REAL "Forty Year Old Virgin". I don't need a silly movie, I am living it, buddies! This is not because I am unattractive and can't get a man, but because I have made a commitment to celibacy. I would rather be alone than with the wrong person, and I also feel that my time and energy are better spent on other things. Also, I feel that magickwise, your sexual energy is a powerful thing that should be directed purposefully.
5. Having said that, I am actually very pro-sex. I sometimes (make that, somewhat often) enjoy seeing good looking men get naked. I also enjoy what I like to call, "comic book porn", of the type done by artists from Heavy Metal magazine, such as Guido Crepax, whose version of de Sade's "Justine", and Réage's "Story of O" is on my shelves somewhere.
6. I stay up into the wee hours way too often (this item written at 3:50 in the morning.) I attribute this to having had jobs where I had to work all manner of goofy hours. The clock workings have finally sprung into a mass of debris. But then you knew I was a little "off" didn't you, buddies?
7. Like a lot of eccentric pack-rat types, I'm extremely messy.
8. In my head, there really is a place called Hermworld, it's one of those sci-fi utopia/dystopia type places, like Dune or something. It was discovered by me with the help of an otherwise incompetent therapist I went to when I was 23. I remember a guided visualization thing he led me through, and there it was, real as the table I'm sitting at. I remember telling the therapist, "It looks like an old junk shop."
9. I'm aware that this is kind of a narcissistic exercise, in which I share things that make me seem more interesting than I really am. To the contrary, I am actually kind of a boring person and I sort of like it that way. I enjoy the fact that I'm turning into a boring old fart. Because not getting older would be sort of a bummer.
10. Having said that, Neil Young once said hi to me (and my brother-in-law has been to old Shakey's farm on a couple of occassions.)
11. I once pissed off Todd Rungren during a show, and if enough people are interested, I will dig up the story from an old journal somewhere and post it here if I can find it.
12. Once, when I was at a Counting Crows show(a group I've seen nine times), Adam Duritz (one of the great loves of my life--and I'll brook no comments from the peanut gallery) got so pissed off and told me (and nobody else--seriously!)to zip it. I had had a little too much to drink and was being disruptive.
13. To round off my stories of brushes with rock star greatness, I was at a radio station seeing the great Alex Bennett perform radio magic. It was the asscrack of dawn, and in waltzes Art from Everclear. They were touring with an English band called Kulashaker, who also showed up. About a year later I was at a Kulashaker show and got to talk to Paul the drummer and told him, "Now, I hope you guys are gonna keep making those great records and keep coming over here and touring." He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well, we'll do our best." Three weeks later, the group had broken up. You betrayed me, Paul Winterheart.
14. I'm an extreme procrastinator.
15. I also sometimes leave things unfinished, as in a list of twenty things that somehow turns into only fifteen.

Bob Larson and the Devil in New Orleans, and Gettining Paid vs. Dogwalking

It has come to my attention, via the fine folks at "A Current Affair", that evangelist Bob Larson is at it again. This time he isn't just trotting out his old bag of cheap exorcism tricks, he has stated that he is going to go to New Orleans to cast himself out a bunch 'o devils down there.

If you've never heard of the Good Mr. Larson, you've actually missed quite a laughfest. His radio show, "Talkback", ran during the late '80s and early '90s. This guy was actually kind of entertaining, conducting exorcisms via telephone! And he would bait people, choosing a different group every day to pick on, "You people with multiple body piercings, call in and tell me why you do this to yourself!", etc. So he would get punks, goths, straight ahead metalheads, occultists, polyamorous, and what have you to call in, and eventually he would get one that needed an exorcism.

I recall one guy, a musician in a death metal band, talking to him in a goofy accent, claiming to be possessed by a demon that called itself something that sounded like, "Chicken Gita". I remember thinking, "Now, who is pulling whose leg here? Or are they both working together on this?" And of course, Larson went to commercial break, commanding, "I want someone to call in with a thousand dollars for Bobby the possessed death-metal guy!" The balls!!! It was high-larious.

* * * * *

And in the Suck My Ass, You Heartless Gibrones Department: Well, last week they had me working at the bookstore, and then they put me on a call in basis, and this morning I was told that they were making cuts, and one of the things they were cutting was me.

(Sigh)Well, at least I made a few bucks to cover my school expenses. So I picked myself up off the floor, dusted myself off, and waltzed on over to my neighbors and asked for my old dog-walking job back. One of whom so far has taken me up on it, so I will at least have monthly travel $$$.

Things are not as black as they could get. Last week as well, the psycho I was working for before actually paid me the money she owed me. There is something to be said for a mother who has friends she can talk to so she can call the person on the phone and say, "Now you know, if you don't pay her, that you're in violation of state law number XYZ? And we will be seeing you in court."

I found out on Friday that the bookstore hired one of my friends from Book Market. If they don't treat her right, I'm just going to go postal on them.

Doing the dance of the happy book people!!!

I have just gotten the job at my local bookstore!!!

I will be working full time, and taking classes on bookeeping and accounting software on Saturdays in the late fall.

I am still only seasonal Xmas help, but I can probably get my option picked up at the end of the year by being a wonderful employee. And if that doesn't work out, the class I take will help me to get some kind of office job. So the rest of my year is set.

Yes, I WILL play the blame game!

Current Mood: Aggravated

This could have been prevented. (Warning: You might have to cry when you see this.)

While That Little Honey was playing his guitar, and his mother is making cute little remarks about how wonderful things are for the evacuees, people are going through heartbreaking terrible things. Well, if it doesn't break somebody's heart, I don't know what to tell you.

I can't see how anyone can sit on the fence, clinging to political correctness after this. You can't appoint unqualified people to run things as important as FEMA, just because they're your friends.

Bush is a robber baron who made his money (not that he made a lot of $$ without help from Daddy, or that he was the most tremendous businessman,) in Texas by stealing land from people, and I guess he's going to do it again.

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.

--From SFGate.com

It seems to be following me...

And now for a pause in the coverage, to acknowledge a bizarre recurring theme...

Thanks for the comic relief, 14theditch.

Bush Buddy Michael Chertoff's idea of "Homeland Security"...

Pat Robertson? Really? You thought that was a good idea?

More evidence of President Tweedledum's incompetence:

Link.
He needs to be sat down in a playpen away from the sharp objects, like authority to appoint judges...

In the Court of the Crimson King...

Current mood: I don't know...

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known:
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
King Crimson: Epitaph

Today I went into a record store, thinking, "I should get a King Crimson cd."

I kid you not, when I went in, what was playing but "In the Court of the Crimson King"? Not something people just pull out and listen to these days. Seriously, that's the way it happened.

But that's not all. Check out what I tossed last night for The I Ching of Mi-Lo:

"51--The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)
Blitzkrieg! Neighbors are blown to smithereens.
If you can walk, you may get to safety.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Nonstop shocks! It's irritating, but you don't really get hurt. (!!!--Me)
Stuck in the mud. Nothing to fight. Nowhere to go.
Wow! That was a wakeup call! Change your ways and don't get caught snoozing again.
A shocking loss. It's terrible. There's nothing to do now but write it off (you'll get it back.)
Oh, man! That nearly scared me to death.
Haha. Thought you had me there, didn't you?"

I have been spending most of my time the past few days just reading blogs and surfing the net. I wish I could think of something pithy and wise to say, but words fail me. I'll bet Dubya is sorry they diverted those funds to repair the levee last year over to the war.

One of the people on my f-list had some very well-thought-out thinkin' that I thought I'd share with you.

To Phoebe, the Totally in Charge of Herself Bunny I Took Care of Last Weekend

Because I can.

Over the weekend I petsat, a rabbit and a cockatiel. The owner had told me to let the rabbit out and go ahead and let the bird out of the cage too if I felt like it.

The rabbit was kind of an independent lady. She would come if you rattled her box of treats, but other than that, she was aloof. The cockatiel, named Rocky, was of course a prisoner in a cage. I saw no reason to let him out, what was he gonna do that was interesting? Birds don't excite me that much. What I really don't understand is people that insist on providing birdseed to the wild ones in their backyards. So you're saying you want a festival of white poo all over? Whatever floats your boat, Chachi.

On the last day they were both quite animated, pets tend to know when their owners are coming home. But Rocky was absolutely going nuts, so I figured letting him out would be a good idea, let him fly around the place and work some of that off. He very happily flew around, pooed on things a couple of times, and lighted on my shoulder then flew away again several times. Even the rabbit got into the act, jumping on the couch and crawling on my lap.

What can I tell ya? I got animal magnetism.