dangerously fucking cute

My friend emailed this to me - there are few things as cute as otters anyway. :P

gasp - ack.

My family has a website on myfamily.com, and recently I've been adding some posts and even pictures. I decided to stir the pot a bit by adding a picture named "Testing my New Scanner." I put up a picture of my ACLU membership card. Ok, I thought it was funny and I like poking my weird conservatard family members with a stick now and then to see the craziness come out. So here's what I got:

islam as a religion isn't the problem, there is an islamic movement happening world wide, you could call it a revolution. The majority of muslims in our country are here because they didn't want to live under that kind of tyranny. Unfortunately, it is here now. You can lump them all together because the majority refuse to condemn the minority. They may say "that terrorist attack was terrible" but they always follow it with a "but". I am not slamming the ACLU, there are legitimate cases where they do some good. The problem is some of the people and groups they want to help. We have a good opportunity to see our own future, Europe is falling to Islam. The Imams living there have openly stated thier contempt for the west. Western birthrates are crashing, while thiers is on the rise. Once they get the majority (10 years in some countries) you will see a muslim take-over of a western nation. (followed by the suspension of their constitution and the installation of sharia law) These are the people our own country is kissing ass to. They make demands, we cave in. Organizations like the ACLU only help along thier cause

I didn't edit that or change it. That's my stupid asshole brother. Yes, I'm related to paranoid fucks, apparently. I want to state here that I'm not like him. He's always popping off about Libertarian issues until I want to kneecap him. Yes, he's contributed to the gene pool with a son, but he's not raising little whatever his name is so maybe the kids got a chance.

I thought I was overstating things but I re-read that post of my stupid asshole brother and I thought: no. I'm really not. That thing speaks for itself. Damn. Paranoid much? Ack. I am ashamed to share blood with that person.

don't say I didn't warn you.

I happened across this link on Slate. The ugliest MySpace page EVAR.

for awaiting

The little striped butt,
climbing up to see who's in her window spot:

oh fuck.

She'd meow but for the effort it would take.
He's there! He's there! She says...
oh fuck.

Run away! Faster in case he was looking!
But you know, casually - to save her feline dignity.
Tripped over the floor.
oh fuck.

But maybe, she thinks...
maybe if she mounts the cat tree from the left side or right...?
Cause he was only in the middle the last time.
oh fuck.

What oh what is a cat with a little striped butt supposed to do?
Where is she to turn for her window comfort?
She'll run back! He left, she knows it!
Up, up up to the tree and her window!
oh fuck.

grateful

I'm not sure of what or who
but I'm grateful.
I'm sippin my drink and thinking of days before
when I just didn't have a sense of me
and I wonder what would have happened
if I didn't have that sense of me.

Too many times I struggled to see the future
when I should have been looking back
and too many times I searched the past
when all along it was in front of me.
It was me.

If I forget to notice how far I've come
I hope I get a reminder -
because it's far too easy to wander in the present
and think this is all there is.

Any little thing should do it, dear ones.
Any nudge in my direction that gets me back will suffice.
And when I think on it,
when I think of how good things are,
then I'll be grateful to you.

I remember.

I recall a flight that I took in January of 2000. It had been a rough 1999. My mother had passed away that June, and a few months after that I was diagnosed with the same heart condition that killed her. I was given a large, very visible, ugly red scar on my chest and a pacemaker.

1999 ended, finally, and in January of 2000 I decided I had had enough already, dammit. I was going to join my friends out in Lake Tahoe and learn to ski. I was through being a patient and it was time to get on with being the hot chick who had fun times with good friends.

I went to the airport in Minneapolis to catch my 6am flight. There had been a terrible ice storm the day before, and it was now 25 below zero and the airport was filled with people who'd been delayed. I was in line behind a woman who was loaded down with sweaters, and she looked terribly uncomfortable. She had short, wavy black hair, big silver earrings, lots of lipstick, tons of rings, heavy rimmed eyeglasses, and motorcycle boots. Yeah, I really didn't know what to think, but at least she was interesting!

After a long wait in line, she took off a sweater. As she pulled it over her head she let out an exasperated sigh and said to me: "Pardon me while I strip." I looked at her and replied, "Wait, I think I have some dollar bills." We laughed, and started talking. She was about as unhappy as a person could be. She was attending Hamline Law in St. Paul, and it was so conservative that she was going nuts. We were sitting together in the waiting area for the flight, and she looked at me at one point and said: "I just have to make sure that you know I'm gay." I laughed and said I didn't know if it was the biker boots or giant rainbow gay pride earrings and rainbow gay pride necklace, but I was pretty sure she was gay as soon as I saw her. She laughed and said that yes, that might have been a clue. Pretty good for a lawyer.

This woman was unhappy because she didn't have any gay friends in town. I told her that I wasn't going to be an improvement there because I'm straight. However, I worked in social services so that meant I probably could help her out. It's well known that social services has more than its share of gay folk. I told her that I knew all "teh gay" hotspots in town and would hook her up.

I was worried about becoming friends with her because she seemed really fucking negative. She wanted my email address and I almost hesitated because I just wasn't sure if she was a downer or just having a rough patch.

We got up to board the plane and it ended up that we were headed to Denver instead of San Francisco. We were just too talkative to pay attention to the announcements. Woops! We hurt ourselves laughing over that one, and went back to wait for our real flight.

The flight to San Francisco was pretty empty, and we were able to sit together. She handed out the Darvon and I ordered the screwdrivers. We were sky high before the plane took off, and we partied all the way to California. When we left the plane together we were already best friends.

After our respective trips to California we returned to Minnesota and started hanging out. She did indeed go to "teh gay" bars with me all over town, and dated a couple of my friends. It turns out that she wore glasses because she had been recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and her vision was blurry. About a month after that she started using a cane, because she lost her sense of balance. She had a piano in her snazzed-out downtown apartment that she never played, because she lost the feeling her fingers.

So let me tell you about Trish. She'd been classically trained as a concert pianist. She hated losing the ability to play, and on top of being talented she was a perfectionist. I can't imagine the agony of losing that, and having the piano as a constant reminder of what you can't do.

Trish was a professional student. She'd gone to school forever and had a few different master's degrees as well as the juris doctorate she was working on at Hamline. Smart really doesn't cover Trish. Amazingly brilliant, perhaps. I helped her study for her law degree, and learned more about tortes than I ever wanted to, but it was still a blast doing it.

Trish would sit and smoke these really awful multicolored cigarettes, one after another, while she drank coffee or tea by the gallon, then she'd cook up some fantastic Cuban meal that her Sicilian grandmother Paola, who'd emigrated to Florida, used to make. Trish's paella with yellow saffron rice, filled with big chunks of pork, shrimp and chicken would bring anyone to her knees. The ropa vieja was just as good, and the smells coming from that apartment were out of this world.

We were inseparable until I had the bad grace to move away to Madison. One day I got a call that she had collapsed. I didn't think, but made the arrangements get to Minnesota as quickly as I could. She died before I could leave the house. She was only 34, and my best friend in the world. A few years ago she died this week, and I remember. I remember her.

beware the ideas!

Yes, today is the 15th of March, immortalized forever by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar as the day they decided to stab the dear emperor in the back. What an idea to be wary of!
Other ideas I'm not too fond of include banning wire hangers. I use those! I was on vacation in Denmark years ago and my friend needed to hang a mirror. I said that he ought to just use a wire hanger and that would lower it enough and later he could grab a kit and do it properly. Well, he had never heard of a wire hanger! Apparently they only have plastic or wooden ones. I happened to have one in my luggage and dammit, Jim, I got the job done! So, no wire hangers? Bad Idea!
Also, cat food cans without tabs. My cat would starve if I didn't have an opener. Who thought of that? Bad idea!

What are some ideas you are wary of? Don't be shy!

...what? the ides? beware the ides??? It's not ideas? Shit. Nevermind.