You Make YourSELF Look Bad

I just got yelled at by an old, fat, red-faced white man in a gigantic SUV (god I love it when the Bob Hope comes to town because, really, there are just not enough rich people in this valley already!) about my Obama bumper sticker. He rolls down - or should I say lifted a finger to push the button down - and yells "How's that hope and change working out for ya?" several times, because I did not respond, until he got his green left arrow and then did his best evil laugh as he drove off. Why are conservatives so mean spirited?

I suppose the best I can hope for is that it bothers him all day that I said nothing. I am being called a stupid twat over a martini right now I imagine.

Possible retorts I thought of after:

"I suppose you're a banker?"

"Watch Fox News much?"

"Guess you got yours!"

"Do you speak Russian?" (I actually almost said this, only to confuse and annoy him all day long, trying to figure out if I was actually Russian or if I was making some commentary)

"How's that SUV working out for you?"

"Why are you talking to me? I am one of the little people you so despise."

I dunno... others? Ideas anyone?

Playwrights, come out, come out wherever you are!

We have just opened for submissions to our Play Reading Series at Dezart Performs.

What is cooler than having your play read in an hip art gallery!!

If you have friends, fellows, countrymen, relatives who are playwrights send 'em our way.

Dezart Performs 2nd Annual Play Reading Series – Call for Entries

Dezart Performs call for 2 – 4 person original plays for its 2nd Annual Play Reading Series. Plays may be one act or full length, no more than 4 characters, and have not been read or performed in front of an audience in the Coachella Valley. Accepting entries from December 15, 2009 through January 15, 2010 (postmarked no later than 1/15/10 please). Six to 10 plays will be selected to be read in the Play Reading Series in April 2010. The Audience Favorite will be performed as the first production of Dezart Performs Season 3 in October 2010.

Please send 2 paper copies to:

Attn: Daniela Ryan
68444 Perez Rd., Suite O
Cathedral City, CA 92234
For further info contact: Daniela@DezartPerforms.com

Dezart Performs is the performing arts arm of Dezart One Gallery, one of the hippest galleries in Palm Springs, committed to bringing cutting edge professional theatrical performance to the Coachella Valley.

What the hell!!?

I mean, I know the economy is bad but come on!

So in December I get pulled over - me and the kids just going home from the grocery store, in the minivan. I know there is not a lot of crime in my town but pla-leese! I think it might have even been a Friday night... anyway, I get a fix-it ticket for an expired (in November) registration. That has never ever happened to me before three months, seriously. You?

Then incidentally the following week I see three minivan's pulled over by cops... Is there some gang that uses minivans? Are soccer moms suspected of some sort of illegal shenanigans?

So I go get the smog check I missed on my registration renewal and then the sticker comes and later the instructions to send in the original ticket signed off that the fix was actually completed as it says "By any local law enforcement office". I go to my town's sheriff department and the tell me "You're in luck, it's not the normal hours that he does this but he happens to be here" Apparently no one can be bothered to look at and verify a registration except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30 pm. What!!??

"And that will be $15 please. We only accept cash or check"

Wait, I have to pay $25 to the county court just for them to process the ticket now I also have to pay the officer to sign off on it! So, let's try another local police department.

"Is that our ticket, ma'am? I said is that our ticket, don't you have the original ticket?" Why does it matter I ask (why oh why oh why did I ask a question?) and she scowls at me. She was cranky.

"We need to know if it's our ticket. That's $20 to sign off on it"

What!? Because it's not their ticket it's more, of course....

I know every city is hurting for revenue but really? Seriously?

Voice Lost

I think I made a New Year's resolution last year to "talk less and listen more" but I can't find it anywhere, on blog or otherwise in print. If the universe speaks to one it is talking to me. Over the last few days I have contracted yet another flu/cold thing. Starting the day before Christmas a sore throat began to manifest but I was cooking this year so giving in to illness was not an option. S.O.v.2, the baby gal, had already been to the doc on Tuesday for pink eye but she too was not mending but getting worse. Christmas day I just concentrated on cooking dinner and getting everything out on time and warm - the constant challange! I was sort of oblivious to the family goings on - the kids opening presents, the kids throwing all the sandbox toys over the fence into the neighbor's yard, the toy explosion they detonated.

Dinner complete, everyone fed and a kaluha and coffee in hand and it really hit - I felt awful and had the worst sore throat I'd had since childhood. So, Friday morning, egged on by my mommasita (ironically enough I recall a Christmas dinner two years ago at her house where she was too sick to even come down the stairs so I cooked, she resisted all insistence that she get her butt to an urgent care) and S.O. I hiked mine and S.O.v.2's big and little (respectively) butts off to the urgent care. Two hours later and prescriptions dropped off at the Rite Aid I was beat and didn't emerge till late in the afternoon only to find my family heading off to their hotel.

Oh, did I mention that when I woke up on Friday morning I had no voice? And it has not surfaced yet, two days with no voice. So, yes, universe, I hear you. Talk less, listen more, that is my new year's resolution. Whether I like it or not.

A Pretty Perfect Day

I say a pretty perfect day begins with art and ends with art.

This morning I began my newest job (yes, I have a few of these) as a Teaching Artist with the McCallum Theatre Institute. Well, technically speaking I have already started but hadn't been in a classroom. This morning I joined a fellow Teaching Artist to sit in on her first session in a unit studying flamenco with 5th graders from a local elementary school. I love kids because they aren't particularly charming or adorable or fascination or whatever the many adjective people lob onto them. They are just real, which is frankly, damned refreshing. They aren't particularly trying to 'be' anything or 'do' anything or 'accomplish' anything, they are so busy learning and being and absorbing that they can't help but be real.

Then as I was driving home I heard a thunkety thunk and thunk to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound good, better look at that when I get to my destination" Well some kind citizen honked at me to tell me my tire was flat. So I filled it up but that piece of rubber was having none of it. It blew before I was two blocks from the gas station. So I called S.O. told him the situation, called Triple A. All of this could have pissed me off but I was in such a great mood that it just seemed like the next thing to do. I did worry slightly that I would be late picking up S.O.v.1 from school but I was sure I could flirt the tow truck driver into swinging by the school, so I wasn't really worried about it. BUT the amazing thing was, when I was on the phone with Triple A (I had pulled over next to a vacant lot with a bunch of date palms in Rancho Mirage) I notices a squirrel running across the lot. My eyes followed him and then I noticed a red tailed hawk swoop out of a tree, follow him around and then land on him, grab him, hold him down till he was dead and then eat him. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Yella, weren't you appalled? Where was your compassion for the squirrel" and my answer to you would be "No. It seemed perfectly natural" and it did. It was fascinating. It was, frankly, just life and/or nature (whichever you prefer) in action and so it seemed kind of great that I was there watching it.

Then I had some minutes - uninterrupted!!! - to read over the notes from the session of that morning. Then the tow truck driver - who was a lovely human being - arrived and took my car to the tire repair shop. Whilst there the shop owner recognized my truck and remembered S.O. who had had a tire repaired there just a few weeks earlier. Apparently S.O. made an impression....

Then the tow truck driver dropped me off close to my neighborhood! Nice! I mean, I was well within walking distance anyway, but he just saved my bunions a little bit of wear and tear. I just had to tell him it was good karma.

So, got home, drove S.O. to work, went and returned an unneeded cork board and left with seldom seen cash right next door to a Coffee Bean. Had 45 min. till time to pick up S.O.v.1 so sat and had a coffee and !!!!45 min. of UNINTERRUPTED time to brainstorm some story ideas!!!

Picked up S.O.v.1, went to return my brand new glasses with the antireflective coating melted on and manager apologized profusely. HAD two quarters to get S.O.v.1 a treat from the candy machine, came home, did his homework, picked up S.O.v.2 from school, shopped for dinner, ate and then....

Went to see a Flamenco dance group from Spain at the McCallum theatre with S.O.vs1&2. The look on S.O.v.2's face alone was worth the imminent fuss that comes along with starting an extracurricular activity AT bedtime! She was just beside herself happy within the first two minutes of the dance. And during the second act I noticed S.O.v.1 doing flamenco hands in the air while watching riveted! For an artist there is just nothing better.

They were just amazing. Muscular, passionate (I do not use that word often), sinuey, emotional, raw and human. Compania Flamenco Jose Porcel. If they ever happen to your town, I wag my finger at any who miss it.

And then we went to pick up the S.O. at work. Yes, at 10:20pm there was indeed fuss but I would do the day all over again, exactly the same way. I don't even miss the nap I desperately needed all day after being sick with a cold for the past three days... sometimes joy just wins out over ill.

The Cynic Will See You Now

I sit here this morning happily eating crow for my cynicism over the election. I must say, you surprised me America. I was not convinced you had it in you. Perhaps it is because I live in a primarily conservative area where even the working class are Republicans (oxymoron perhaps?). Perhaps I was just so hurt by 2000 and 2004 that it was my defense mechanism. Or perhaps I am just more of a negative sad sac than I ever realized.

No matter. I was wrong. Today I happily admit that I didn't think you had it in you to elect the smartest candidate America, but you did it. Congratulations. How does this shade of egg look on me?

Will They Ever Stop Patting!

It's bad enough that The Greatest Generation, boosted by their lobbyist Tom Brokaw, does it constantly "We saved the world!" But now the Baby Boomer Generation has started in on it (and they are different from their parents how again?), "We changed the world!".

http://www.usaweekend.com/08_issues/081026/081026health-forever-young.html

Well grand, congratulations you Boomers, you all must be so proud... all that protesting and burning of draft cards worked out just grand. So now groups can't really protest anymore - note both political conventions this year: sure protest is 'allowed' (those are strong air quotes) but was so shoved to the fringes as to be irrelevant. And what about all the protest over the Iraq war? Millions of people marched, made signs, wrote letters, yelled pleaded and what happened? (What generation was George Bush born in again?) Now government just ignores protest and does what it wants anyway. They're mavericks!

And we no longer have a draft. Now we just have stop loss. But that volunteer army feels so relieved that there's no draft. "Phew! Wouldn't want that common rabel with us here for three, four tours... oooo pinch me, come on tour five!" The Boomer parents must be so proud of their kids and grandkids in Iraq and Afganistan.

As you can see from the attached article the Boomers are lauding themselves for changing medicine (thanks for all that Vioxx and Viagra), changing the way we eat (that high fructose corn syrup was a GREAT idea), the way we exercise (OK, I'll give you that one) and communicate (except with their own kids who they just keep saying "Good job!" to but keep forgetting to remind them that they will actually have to work hard and have integrity on the job").

And you know, I wonder, what generation Alan Greenspan belongs to? And all those other guys, Senators who decided to forego regulations, or CEO's who created fancy financial 'products' (I would really like to pop the person who coined that phrase one, it's not a cookie for christ's sake!), real estate folks who pushed the second home market and said "We can list your home for $15,000 more than it's worth and probably get even more on top of that!" that indeed have changed the world. Even before the 'financial crisis' the Greatest Generation had left their grandchildren and the Boomers their children in a position where they were NOT better off than their parents. But a shrug of shoulders and a shout of "Charge it" and they looked the other way - for all the many years the economy moved away from industry and manufacturing, to service now to... what, consumming.

Where were the hippie values when food became industrialized? Where were they when cars and car culture grew from necessity to insanity? Where were those values, that angry protest when our government stopped calling us citizens and started referring to us as consummers? What's next? Maybe someone would like to just be honest and start calling us cogs.

Yes, they saved their own world the Greatest Generation, just not for us. And yes they changed the world, for the better, then for the worse, and now disaster (the ultimate flip-floppers). They say all parents want their children to be better off than they were. But they also say actions speak louder than words. I guess the Boomers were just so mad at mommy and daddy that they didn't care if they scorched the earth for their own kids, and grandkids... and maybe their kids too....

Keep patting yourselves on the back.

McCain's new slogan "If Elected I Will Save You Money!"

That's right, if elected a female Republican Vice President will be cheaper to pay! Since Republicans do not adhere to the equal pay for equal work doctrine (oops, sorry threw a confusing word in there, doctrine another word for 'plan') then that means we, the country will be able to pay Sarah Palin less!

Best figures I could find:
Cheney salary $208,100 per year
Palin will save us over $40,000 a year (Cindy can buy a new pair of shoes on that!) at a frugal $160,237 a year.

Wow, pretty and a bargain! Why didn't we think of it sooner! Who says McCain doesn't care about the budget!

Reasons Why Sarah Palin WILL Get McCain Elected

"She's so pretty" - She almost reminds me of the high school cheerleaders who were pretty, popular, snide, poking fun at 'different' or nerdy kids was their platform.

"Voters don't vote on VP because it's not really the VP who runs the country" we liberals like to think. But don't tell that to Dick Cheney, come on now, people, see look, you made him cry. Everyone knows Cheney has been working diligently all these years on his own on our behalf, destroying shoring up the country for us. Of course he runs things. Who do you think sneaks quietly into the White House quarters and slips a drunken finger off the button each night?

"Well, at least their ticket is all white!" (See post "Who's Your Daddy" February 13, 2008) - or I could be wrong and we hate women even more than we fear black men... well, not if they're pretty. "If they're pretty and we make then VP will the sleep with us?"

"Sarah Palin, bet she drinks beer huh?"

"McCain is gonna pertek the wealthy. I'm gonna be wealthy one day. I just know it. I been prayin' on it."

Everyone likes to think they have 'small town' values - even if they didn't grow up in a town all that small. And we all KNOW Palin has small town values just from growin' up in one... hmmm, wonder where her daughter grew up? (Shotgun weddin's invented in small towns?) How those values workin' out for you, Bristol? Yeah, she looks pretty happy. Of course, everyone knows the 'rules' per se are for them. All of those people who can't realy handle themselves.

Palin will remind voters that not only does she have small town values - but McCain has them too - because his own homes and staff make up a small town, not to mention Cindy's jewelry collection - the yearly budget... of a small town! See!

'Cause them religious people only mind when you neglect the baby in utero...

Riches First!

In The Making

Maybe there is something good about living here in the desert (at this time of year I am grumpy because I am hot and have to drive a car sans aircon to work, so I find it difficult to be grateful, oh between late June and early Sept., the time the rest of the country is frolicking and basking - plus I haven't had a vacation in about 3 years... that doesn't help). I mean, yes, it is pretty and most of the year is lovely weather and all that... but it is distinctly devoid of creative stimulation. I have been seeking and have found many people - but most of us seem to be on permanent seek mode here with little find.

In any case, this lack of stimulation leaves a lot of time on one's hands. Time, which, if I were in LA I probably would not be availing myself of. Because LA is so stimulating. Just going to the Coffee Bean down the street was full of interest and curiosity - enough that I did not get a lot of writing done. Short bursts of creativity sure, but volume-wise I have done more while living here.

Granted most of you have not read or may ever read any of my work... but something happens here that never happened to me in LA. I have just finished my first novel. I wrote and performed my first solo performance, I've written several short stories and articles for a local magazine (Dune Magazine - dunemag.net for those of you who are interested), several screenplays including one for the production company I work for and written a couple episodes of a web series I am working on with a partner. So I have been busy, and working, and productive... but now that all of these projects are completed and/or on summer hiatus and/or in holding pattern I have nothing to work on.

And with nothing to work on comes an odd sort of restlessness, sleeplessness, a creeping panic even. And when this happens no manner of creative desert community could help. The only thing I can do is write - something, anything... even writing a letter helps.

Now if I were in LA just driving around town I would be confronted with a thousand bits of stimulus that would suggest a story, a scene, some dramatic activity I could get involved in. I would be continuing acting class and auditioning, looking for a play to be in or a new job or working on a show with friends. I'd be supressing the panic with lots of things and people and projects. But here it is just me and my computer. There is not the same sense of urgency in creativity here too, that there is in LA, that urgency to create, which I suspect, drove many to LA. But here it is all about the beauty and the pleasantness and the 'lifestyle' (my new unfavorite word - worse than 'moist' way way worse) and the just being happy to live in such a beautiful place! Oooooooo pinch me!

It is that Bay Area dark side, the cynical, that was branded on me from birth by my extremely sardonic family (I didn't really even understand any other kind of humor for years) that creeps out and won't be shoved back - no matter how good the weather and no matter how many chapters of The Power of Now I have read. No, deep down I just don't buy it - that all is well in paradise - and it makes me just want to &(&#^*%*&#@ write something! That is how I show my ingratitude for living in such beauty and magnificence, I write something subversive... well, subversive for ME, which being a 'nice' girl is only so raw...

I've been thinking about this short story where two neighbors kill their spouses on the same night and then have to cover for each other... maybe that's next...

Sacrifice

For some reason I had been thinking about things and this thought popped into my head - probably because I just finished my novel and now that it's done my mind is seeking new stories - this thought, that I had thunk before but never quite in these words. And when I did I thought, "Ah, that's so true".

This thought was as follows:

Women sacrifice their self for love.
Men sacrifice love for their self.

Now before you gross generalization fiends start ringing off your bells, I know, I know, it's gross, it's generalized, it's a platitude which makes it not true for some people and maybe even many. We are 'liberated' after all (if you call being able to have a job and be paid less and then be able to go home and do the house work too liberated I suppose) and shouldn't be sacrificing anything for anybody.

But the fact is we do. Women, in general, sacrifice. We sort of... can't help it, I suppose. But that doesn't make it feel any better. And the reason I say I think we can't help it is because we sort of don't realize we've done it until it's already been done, till it's too late and to rectify would be so much worse.

And, dare I suppose that there might even be something... genetic about it? Now, settle down y'all. Men can be gentle and giving and very generous - they have the capacity if they choose to use it, this is true. But back them into a corner where you are asking them to do something that would force them to lose their sense of themselves and you have a fight. Again I am generalizing people.

But women will inevitably... do the right thing. Whatever consequences that right thing brings upon us. You can make all the "Sex and the City" movies and TV shows you want but women will always do what they see best for their kids (and they are looking mind you), try to make everyone else comfortable even if they themselves don't feel so, make sure everyone is fed and thanked and isn't offended... and then after the party is through try to figure out what is right for themselves.

Meanwhile, your hopes and dreams for your liberated self are slipping through the cracks in the floor boards just as you are sweeping. Your sacrificial self is bolstered and supported and help up by everyone around you as admirable and worthy. And then if you try to 'take' time away from the kids, from the housecleaning, from the spouse you either really do or are expected to feel guilty. Like they can't make a grilled cheese without you (well, in my case that actually may be true)

Harumf! Maaaaaaaaan, being liberated is hard.

Add to the Annals of Less for More

Ah modern life. They myriad conveniences that we enjoy... prepackaged food our subject matter today.

Andy Rooney famously skewered the "less than a pound of coffee in a can for the same price" years ago. Since then almost all packaged coffees pose as a pound while minutely announcing - in the smallest possible font - on the farthest nether regions of their package that they are indeed 13oz or 12oz or the, basically insulting, 11oz. Now we can add to that pasta. Pasta used to be sold by the pound per package. Easy, measurable, a bargain calculable... no more. I have just noticed (and maybe I haven't been paying attention) that pasta is now in the "Let me charge you the same price for more!" category of 12oz.

That should be the new motto of all grocery stores "Now Bringing You Less for More! - Prepackaged for your convenience" or maybe "New! Improved! Less!" "We Know What You Need and are Bringing it to you, now in smaller packaging and you only pay exactly what you used to pay!"

Please add to this list at will.

Maybe I'm missing something

Do you ever get these emails that offer some nice thought or words of wisdom and then at the end they threaten you to "forward this email to as many people as possible!!" Because if you don't bad things will happen. But if you do good things will happen.

At 5 people you will find a penny in the street
At 10 people you will find a dollar and someone will smile at you
At 20 people you will find that missing 20 dollar bill you thought you lost and your spouse will want to have sex with you
At 50 you will get a new job! a new car! and your in-laws will stop bothering you!

Or whatever the hell they say... anyway, it all sounds a little punitive to me. That is exactly what does not attract me to religion. The whole specificity of do this and good things happen, do that bad things happen, burn in hell, etc. just never appealed and seemed, frankly unrealistic given the kinds of things that go on in the world. Certainly millions of Iraqis are not bad people, certainly millions of Chinese are not bad people!

Anyway, I don't generally forward these emails on. I spit in the face of these emails basically if they threaten me at the end. (I don't mean that literally by the way) I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the nice sentiments as much as anyone, only why does it have to go and get spoiled at the end.

And then I got to thinking... well I'm not finding that many pennies on the street... so maybe the Universe IS punishing me because I'm not forwarding them on! Oh my! Watch out all my email contacts! Here come the smarmy/threatening emails winging your way!

Random Thoughts About The Race

OK, so why are we so exercised about Hillary Clinton staying in or dropping out? Isn't this the way an election campaign is supposed to work? Can you imagine two white male candidates coming this close to a decision at the Convention?

They are both good candidates and both would make a great President - we hope. So the question for those Americans left to vote is whether they are more misogynist or more racist? Didn't we have, a mere 8 years ago, a 'lesser of two evils' campaign? Isn't that what the media was overwrought about then? "They're both the same" they said, "There is really no difference at this point between Republicans and Democrats" they said. Can we all stop listening to the media please? See how right they were then? What makes us worry now?

Can we look at the evidence:

Bush: One ill-concieved war, millions dead

Gore: One Academy Award, one Nobel Prize

No difference my ass!

Three-Year Oldisms v.2

So we are standing in Trader Joes line. We had just dropped of S.O.v.1 at school... S.O.v.2 loves being a pseudo only child. We had lunch and apart from our friend visiting from Australia momentarily traumatizing S.O.v.2 - because she had tried (for her daddy) to snatch the check for lunch back, which he snatched back, insisting on paying... and apart from the hiding under the chair for a moment while said friend went to pay the check... she was having a swell time, cheered up pretty fast once we went into Trader Joes and the promise of a colorful balloon loomed large.

After wandering around, pondering healthy snacks and blueberry soda we decided to check out. While the adults talked behind her S.O.v.2 looked around as toddler's do observing her world. As she came to the senior gentleman in line in front of us she made her way down to his footwear.

Suddenly S.O.v.2 says (loud enough for him and us to hear):

"Socks with flipflops! That's just crazy!"

The older gentleman did not acknowledge this comment - we hope he was in as much loss of hearing denial as S.O. Because when I repeated to S.O. and his friend what she had said we had a hard time not busting up.

Who thought they gave badges for the Fashion Patrol to three year olds!

Must Hear

For anyone skeptical about the motives of the Administration you must listen to this...

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1236

CLEM

I've been thinking about starting a new blog... but of course no one reads the one I already have... how do people find blogs anyway? I keep wanting to post until I realize I have almost nothing to say. Well, I mean, I do have things to say but they are dreadful and boring.

CLEM. Well if you've recieved an email from my 'home' email recently then you've seen my quote - as we, so many of us do now, I never really did until I got really frustrated with this obsession with stuff and bigger stuff and newer stuff and more stuff and then storage space... I always HA-TED paying for a storage space when we first moved here to the beautiful prison that is the Coachella Valley. But surprisingly enough our Hollywood apartment was bigger than our identical rent Palm Desert condo, and so things had to go in the brink. Then when we moved into our house - my own beautiful cell (and getting prettier, we painted our kitchen last weekend!) in the beautiful prison I decided that if we couldn't keep it somewhere, neatly stored in our own house then damnit IT GOES! Thus we got rid of about 24 boxes of books - hate to see them go, but somehow they seem to keep coming back, in paperback form. I fear my Significant Other was somewhat traumatized by the enormous piles of not only books but small pieces of furniture and stuff, just stuff, stuff, where the hell did all the stuff come from and what did I buy it for anyway!? And S.O. was also traumatized by my willingness to, without even looking at things for but a moment, chuck it. The garage (the typical man's purview) is still cluttered with stuff he can't seem to figure out where it should live.

Not that I dislike the action of procuring the stuff. It is always fun, I get that. I've had my fun too. But I am now obliged to seek restraint. Financial instability (bigger mortgage than rent bill, less income, you know how it is) will force one to think hard about what really is the meaning of that new thing and do I really want to forego not having to cook on a Friday night and ordering pizza? My answer is usually 'no'.

So, as a reminder to myself and others, and probably to some extent to seem more Gore-like, I added a quote, which is not so much a quote as a... an... uh... well, I thought it up but assuradley was not the first in history to ever say it. Consume Less Eat More. No wait, what am I saying! That wouldn't make sense, no no no, it's Consume Less Enjoy More. Sort of my motto, my credo, my own way or aim of a way to live... and I have tried... oh Lordy lord knows I have tried and still continue to... but 'tis hard. Ah man, wish I were better at it... but sometimes Easter comes and you just can't decide between robbins eggs or chocolate eggs so you get both... or one bag of plastic eggs at 79 cents a bag or two... I mean, it's only 79 cents... THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Then you just hide more candy for your two children and they find it and sneak about 12 pieces each before you notice they haven't handed it all in and then in about a week and a half you feel like you need to send your toddlers to sugar detox! Thank God Betty Ford is just a few minutes away.

So anyway, consume less, enjoy more. I thought, since I am expert apparently at nothing else, except... well me, and even there only nominal knowledge... I'd give it a shot... so here goes.

http://consumelessenjoymore.blogspot.com/

Testing, testing, one two three

I've got no idea whether this will work... but all three of you should be listening to this weekly audiopodcast!

" "

Things I've Been Thinking

Arrogance is always followed by incompetance.

Some men collect women like some women collect shoes.

When will we stop consumming each other?

Why don't we care that we are all under surveillance?

Everytime I try to do less I get busier.

When I sense to myself "I know who I am" I don't have a laundry list of items that make up me, but I am satisfied that that is the answer.

When I realize the aliveness of me is when I feel most happy.