New prompts have been posted at Cafe Writing. Have at it.

CenterFire at LiveJournal gets the credit for introducing me to this, and even though my only knowledge of WoW comes from friends who play, I still found it hilarious:

To compare, the original Ma Na Ma Na is also offered. Because sometimes the classics are good, too.

I don’t know yet if there will be any Mustang events at the auto show in Fort Worth next weekend, but I do know that muscle cars are now on my horizon when they never were before because of the job I’ve been doing for the last year, but also because my cousin S. is talking about having NASCAR fantasies again.

I have to confess, I’ve never been able to sit through more than a lap or two of any auto race, but when we lived in Colorado when I was a kid, I did enjoy my one visit to the auto rallies on the ice of the Georgetown reservoir. My impressions of the day are choppy: cold weather, revving engines, cars that looked impossibly fast and impossibly flimsy, at once. I suppose there was also beer, but as a seven-year-old that wouldn’t have caught my attention.

Still, I smile at the memory I do have. And when I see old muscle cars for sale, like the mustang I wrote about several weeks ago, that was a tempting buy, if completely impractical, I get kind of wistful, and wonder if maybe I’m channeling S. Because I don’t like cars. No really, I don’t.

At any rate, Fuzzy and I are going to the auto show. I suspect he’s only agreeing because it will mean yet another weekend in which he will not have to paint the kitchen, and because I told him that the Humane Society will be there. “Cute puppies and cool cars,” I IM’d him, in my pitch. I have a hair appointment that Saturday, so I guess we’ll go on Sunday. The last day of the show. Oh well. It’ll still be fun.

…that I’m out of my house before eight in the morning any more. Hell, it’s not often that I’m out of BED before eight any more, but today is the Texas primary, and since we slept through early voting (Texas has this thing where you can do early voting for about two weeks before the actual election, but the number of polling places is reduced.) We had to be up. Technically, because Texas is weird, we’re supposed to RETURN to a polling place after the polls are closed to participate in caucus, but I doubt that will happen, because of our schedules, though I kind of think it would be fun. Just as voting on the actual day is more fun.

In any case, there is some irony (and it shows you how relatively new our neighborhood is) in the fact that the Democratic primary was at Ronald Reagan Middle School. It seems a lovely school, though granted, we only saw the outside and the gym. (Fuzzy lives on Planet SoDak where apparently strange adults can walk through schools during classes to get to places like the gym, and seemed much put out when we had to move the car once we found out where we were supposed to go.) I mentioned to the election volunteers that having a sign that was larger and more prominent than the lawn signs for Obama, Clinton, and “Stretch” might be a wise idea, since the lawn signs were on BOTH sides of the driveway, not just on the driveway that leads to the gym. (The Republican primary was at a different school in the neighborhood – one that hosted the election in 2004 –

While we were there, the morning announcements, including the pledge, were broadcast over the PA system. (Apparently no one thought to turn it off in the gym), making it my first experience at hearing the entire Texas pledge, which really does boil down to “Fuck All Y’all.” (Actually, that’s kind of a joke, the entire text is “Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.” Just as “under God” was added to the US pledge after the fact, so too was it added after the fact to the Texas pledge – last year, to be exact.) Still during the US pledge there was a gym-ful of adults looking around for a flag to salute – habits are so ingrained – which was comical in one respect, and somehow appropriate in another.

The voting was with pen and ScanTron sheets (Fuzzy complained about the size of the bubbles – they were huge bubbles), and then we fed the sheets into the scanner which fed into a locked box.

And so I have my sticker and it’s 9:26, and I have an article due today, but I don’t want to write. I want to sip coffee and read the paper.

Guess that means I should actually make some coffee.

I haven’t had any in ten days.

Be afraid.

It was a day of cold grayness, but since I’m feeling better, persistent cough notwithstanding, and since the furnace is working, I worked in the living room and watched Cleo watching bunnies scamper across the front yard, and every so often I joined her at the window to see if it had started snowing yet. Sadly, the rain didn’t turn into fluffy white stuff until after sunset, but we have about half an inch on our deck, which, for Texas in March, is more than enough.

I found myself thinking about making a fire (but never got to it) and humming S-N-O-W from White Christmas, because really, what is inclement weather without a cheesy musical adding to the fun?

I spend a good hour researching computer mice, because both my laptops are having mouse issues. No, that’s not true. My PinkBook is fine, I just don’t like the faux right-click that I’ve had to embrace, and while I did buy a cute external mouse for that machine, the rolltop desk downstairs really has zero mousespace whatsoever.

My Vaio, on the other hand, is approaching the two year point, and I know the mouse issues are because I let it overheat one too many times, and most of the time it’s fine, but even my cute ring mouse is beginning to fade, when I remember that I have it and plug it in at all.

And on that note, I need to get some sleep, as we have an early day tomorrow.

Finally, I need to replace the trackball on my desktop machine, which currently has one of Fuzzy’s old mice attached to it. I’m not a fan of mice that require movement – the trackball and I got along so much better – but I killed my last trackball during a period when money was excruciatingly tight and never got around to replacing it, and now I’m at the point where I really have no idea what I want.

Suggestions are welcome.

In other news, tomorrow is the Texas primary, and since we were tucked up sick in bed during the entire week of early voting, we actually are doing our thing on the actual day. I learned tonight that the democratic and republican primaries in our precinct are in separate locations.

Texas confused me when we moved here four years ago because I’d never encountered voter registration that didn’t require you to declare a party before; here you don’t declare when you register, but your vote in the first election of any year determines what you’re listed at for the rest of the year. Or at least, your vote in the primary does.

I have my humidifier turned off and the windows open, because rain finally arrived a few hours ago, after promising to arrive all day, like a good friend who is never on time, and I want to hear the wind and the chimes, and the choppy water in the pool.

I find the sound of storms to be both restful and inspiring. Yes, the two should be somewhat contradictory. Somehow, however, they are not.

I’ve spent the vast majority of the last two days, and indeed, as much of the past week as possible, asleep. There were vivid dreams and fever dreams, and some were the same, but not all. There was also a desperate wish for a breeze, but it was unusually warm, and when there was wind it was blowing across the window rather than in.

Tonight it is blowing in, and while I should be closing the blinds against the too-early morning arrival of the Pool Guy (the pool is just outside our bedroom window), I cannot bear to seal myself off from moist air.

I watched Becoming Jane earlier, and quite liked it.
I am watching Dedication now, but I do not understand, have never understood, why people think it’s arty to live in bleak surroundings. I find the sets depressing, and am having a difficult time moving past them to the actual story.

I want to spend a week writing in a lighthouse.

I should go to bed now.

I say… And you think…?

1. Chemical :: imbalance
2. Poker :: face
3. Federal :: investigator
4. Mattress :: money
5. Who am I? :: Who are you?
6. Investigation :: underway
7. In good hands :: AllState
8. 8:30 :: in the morning
9. Creditors ::vendors
10. Resource :: materials

Like this meme? Play along at Subliminal.Lunanina.Com

The March-April issue is LIVE, and y’all should go check it out at AllThingsGirl.com. (Remember that submissions are open for upcoming issues as well. Write stuff!)

Well, five days later, my temperature is still spiking and dipping, though not as extremely as it was on Monday, and both Fuzzy and I still have uncontrollable coughing. I have zero voice. He can speak but refuses to, because that’s what makes him cough. He keeps gesturing and expecting me to understand when he doesn’t use conventional mime gestures, and while I understand ASL reasonably well, he doesn’t know any.

“Fuzzy,” I’ve said more than once over the last few days, “you suck at mime.”

If nothing else, neither of us is so ill that we’re loathe to bathe without using one of those shower chairs, but I’ll admit that on Monday evening, when I woke up blistering hot and dizzy four hours after going to bed in fleece and socks, I’d have killed for one.

In other news, we celebrate our thirteenth year of marriage at the end of this month.
And yes, we’re renewing the contract.

Okay, so, I just received in the mail from Sara the most amazing bag that she made, because she’s amazingly talented. And I just realized that I never posted MY part of the PiF meme, so I’m doing it now.

To borrow from her:

It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on.

So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise!

I’m adding the caveat here that something handmade from me MAY end up being a short story or other piece of original writing, because I’m better at words than crafts. Then again, I do have some talents y’all don’t know about.

Oh, and for purposes of this meme, responses MUST be at the blog, NOT on LiveJournal.

The hope being, then, that YOU will pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.