WOULDN'T IT BE FUN.......if McCain's campaign theme song was "A Whiter Shade of Pale"?
oh......come on...it Would be fun!

There are certain words that evoke such images!that i can hardly move on past the word.......Like....."cahoots". Such a great word!.....or....."frolic". Who doesn't wish they could actually FROLIC?! or....."gambol".....now, for some reason, this word only seems to make sense if you picture sheep/lambs. in a meadow.
"Meadow".....such a better word than "field". It just seems greener. Or...."ambivalence".....why! it fairly wavers on the written page! And "righteous"......i literally can SEE Pat Robertson.....sitting on....the right. "Blatant" practically pushes one away from the sentence.....
Vocabulary is neat. cool. nifty. and way better than syntax.

Okay, THIS IS RIDICULOUS! All day i've been dreading tonight's "debate". i DON'T want to watch. There is nothing that can be said that will change my thoughts, or my vote. i have accepted, and am expecting, the rhetoric that will be used and the wrangling that will ensue. So.....WHY do i feel this necessity to watch??? i keep thinking about this, and just a minute ago, as i was feeding my cat and pondering my own dinner prospects, i realized i have the answer.
I AM GOING TO WATCH THE DEBATE BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE THE NEXT SNL FUNNIER IF I HAVE SEEN THE ORIGINAL VERSION.
PERIOD.
So.....call me an ignoramus.....but.....the truth works for me.

So. Today i am thinking about.....well, lots of stuff. But primarily about "beauty". There were many years in my shallow life when i pretty much recognized/saw beauty in face, physiques.....But now, and maybe it is just a result/happenstance of my own aging, but i find beauty in....accomplishment/talent/genius/ability/effort. and it's a whole different thing.
i listen to Pavarotti, Carreras, Domingo, Netrebko, Villazon; i watch a Mariss Jansons, a Zubin Mehta, a Marco Armiliato; i feast on the sight of Guerin, or Sizova, or Bujones......and i feel so much. and it uplifts me and simultaneously humbles me. The gifts of humans are inspiring, overwhelming and.....beyond my understanding. Such joy they give, such inspiration they impart...
and then...i begin wondering at the......impermanence of it all. And all the old, centuries' ages-old questions come right back into "play".......WHY WHY WHY? and i am left with just.....
"What's it all about, Alfie?"

i do not understand the concept of "reality" tv. Whose reality? i mean, there are cameras and crewpeople and pre-planned destinations and.....already viewed "seasons" of the so-called "reality shows". so.....what is REAL about it? NO ONE is "real" on camera. Or on stage. Trust me.....i know these things. People opened a curtain and suddenly i was a SWAN! for heavens sake! or a VILLAGE VIRGIN! come on.....who buys into this shit? but.....that's just me thinking about it on a boring Thursday afternoon when i'm all stressed out over the prospect of watching a debate between a former-almost-beauty queen and a white-haired pretty guy......so, excuse me if i don't understand "reality".

It occured to me this morning that there may be a logical reason for the lack of any debris removal here in my neighborhood. It's been more than two weeks since Ike passed through, and most nearby areas have been cleared for over a week. We are still piled high the length of the streets with broken tree limbs, roof shingles, etc. "Why?" i asked myself.
Well, maybe we don't have a high enough tax base to merit clean-up. But, that seems unlikely. WHAT I THINK is this: the "powers-that-be", ie...the trashguys.....haven't NOTICED anything out of the ordinary! i mean, this is an area that proudly displays plastic flowers in fake-railroad-ties-bordered flowerbeds, broken fountains missing the requisite penises on assorted cherubs, delapidated lawn chairs with Igloo "tables", left-over garbagebag "pumpkins" from last Halloween, and pithy yard signs proudly declaring things like "BAND MEMBER LIVES HERE" or "MY KID IS AN AGGIE".
So....perhaps the six-foot piles of debris have been deemed just another peculiarity of suburban decor.....just another bit of neighborhood individuality.
Which i guess is okay, except pretty soon, one of the charming punkers from the local junior high bus route is going to toss a cigarette onto the.....decor.....and we're gonna have one helluva bonfire.
So i am hoarding marshmallows and weenies.

i have had many "timepieces" in my lifetime. My first was a Cinderella watch, circa 1950s, that came in a glass slipper and had the Disney pic of her in the standard ballgown and the always lovely yellow hair. i wore it daily for a long time (by kid standards) until i lost it or....whatever happened that always happens to childhood stuff. Next was a series of cheapo Timexes.....and i have absolutely no recollection of what happened to them. In the early 80s i had a fake Rolex, complete with fake diamonds, which i wore proudly with my fancy "go to work clothes". Then, i moved up to a Raymond Weil.....it had a brown alligator band and no numbers on it....just dots. After that, it was Tags.....two consecutive men's gold bigass "diving watches" that lit up so bright in the dark, i had to sleep with my wrist under the pillow to avoid the glare. Then the ultimate.....a work-of-art gold, diamond encrusted evening watch, guaranteed to make all present feel envious and awe-struck. Next.....when i was "downsizing" due to financial havoc, i ordered an enormous pink watch off some tv shopping show.....
Now, what all of these had in common was.....they did not EVER show the correct time. And the Tags kept getting water in them, despite guarantees that that was "impossible". The pink watch worked for a short while and then the battery died,and according to every jeweler i saw,there existed no suitable batteries to replace the old one.
i now have that particular watch sitting on a bookshelf to hide a burn mark underneath it. The "evening watch" is useless in my life now.....it doesn't look good with my daily wardrobe of pjs.
So.....a few years ago, i bought a huge, monstrous, really quite ugly Grandfather clock....expensive and .....well, just expensive.
It does't work. Because i can't stand hearing the fucking chimes every fifteen minutes tolling out the passage of......TIME! So i turned them off, which means the weighted hangy-down things don't balance right, so the clock is always at least fifteen minutes or more fast. Which at my age, is not a positive thing.
i cannot even begin to calculate the dollar amount i have spent in my lifetime on.....timepieces. And now, at 61, i realize that "TIME" is just a made-up thing that we humans have used for......what? It's all irrelevant. NOW IS WHAT WE'VE GOT......MAKE IT COUNT.

Just some morningthoughts......
Despite all my efforts, i still think kung fu is way better than tofu.
Being on FaceBook is a lot of pressure.
Putting a bathrobe "sash" into the washer with a big load of laundry is ALWAYS a mistake.......unless you enjoy untying knots.
and
i still love the thought of "gorilla warfare" and "cereal killers".
just stuff i've pondered while floating in circles in the pool.