I’ve had a few comments recently from people I don’t actually “know,” – people who aren’t RL friends or long-time net friends, or bloggers I’ve been reading for ages, and I have to say that each of these comments has been a wonderful gift.

A trackback ping from Liz led me to her blog, and I’ve discovered a woman who has a lot of the qualities I’d like to enhance when I’m a bit older. (Just a bit, because age is becoming less and less important as I inch toward 35 and 40).

And Jexia left a response in my livejournal that made me giddy for over an hour, just because it was so delightful, as well as her comment here.

They are not the only two, of course, just the two who are most prominent in my mind at this minute. In fact, every comment is a gift, of sorts, even the ones that are just a smilie, or a virtual hug. It’s not so much validation, as a sense that we bloggers are a sort of community.

And that’s really cool.

::Goodie Two Shoes::

Onesome: Goodie– What is your your favorite “goodie” you treat yourself to when you’ve finished a project or maybe even just survived a long day? Ice cream? …a long bath? …a good book?

Books aren’t a goodie, they’re a requirement. New pens, I guess, or new music.

Twosome: Two– Quick! Two things that make you smile! No thinking, just write!
Fuzzy
My dogs

Threesome: Shoes– …and how about your favorite pair of shoes? You know, the ones you look for an occasion to wear! (Yes, guys that ratty pair of tennis shoes does count…)
I recently bought a pair of rubber thongs with really thick soles, and a bit of a wedge shape. They’re ugly as sin, really, and were a whopping $7 at Target, but I love them. They’re so comfortable, and they make my feet look damned sexy.

Questions from The Back Porch

The problem with caring about a cause, an issue, a concept, is that at some point your caring, your committment, are bound to be tested.

I knew, when I joined Curves, that the owner of the parent company was a fundamentalist Christian. I read on the CurvesForum, the night before my first session, that there are some franchises that play Christian workout music, and while I respect the right of anyone to worship in any way they want, I made up my mind that if confronted by such music, I’d ask them to change it. Admittedly, in the privacy of my own home, I also joked about the concept of Christian workout music. Even Fuzzy, who grew up Baptist, found humor in this. As he said, “It brings a whole new dimension to ‘Jesus, Lift Thy Cross’.”

Then, as did many people, I read in various places about how the Gary Heavin, the founder of Curves, donates a portion of the profits to anti-choice organizations. And this…this troubles me. In fact it’s made me heartsick.

While my time at Curves has been brief, I’ve never been to a gym that felt comfortable, and non-judgemental. I get a kick out of the old Chinese woman who challenges you to jogging races on the recovery boards, and am vicariously proud of the highschool student who comes in alone after school, and quietly goes about her workout. I even enjoy the cheesy “hooked on oldies” workout music. It’s hard to dread the next machine when “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” is chorusing in your brain.

And at the same time, the thought of going back in there, now that I have this knowledge, is giving me the same, “Lightning shall strike me down” feeling that I had while sitting through an extremely anti-semitic Christmas sermon, the first time I visited Fuzzy.

I could stop going, but there’s no other gym in my neighborhood that is female-only, inexpensive, and offers drop in circuit training. If I had the money, I’d open my own franchise, but alas, I don’t. I could donate an amount equal to what I spend to a pro-choice organization, but that wouldn’t really be more than a band-aid on my conscious.

And so I’m torn, and I’m tired. The two are not related. I’m burnt out by work, by life, by the last few days of heat. I’m just…tired. Stressed. And what I want more than anything is to retreat from the world and sleep for a week, because right now I’m not sleeping. Or, I am, but it’s fitful and unsatisfying.

I wonder if my sleep is disturbed because I’m so stuck on this whole Curves issue.

I say…and you think?

1. Elastic:: band
2. Intervention:: crisis
3. Risk:: adventure
4. Junk food:: junkie
5. Arrogance:: confidence
6. Responsibility:: adulthood
7. X:: marks the spot.
8. Marshall:: Thurgood
9. Kill:: No.
10. Brother:: Cadfael

I’ve recently become enamoured with the combination of unsweetened iced tea mixed with cranberry juice and lime. It’s like…Snapple for grownups.

I’d planned to cook a roast tonight, but it was still rock solid when I got home, so we went with plan b – pasta primavera. I forgot to add the salt and pepper, but other than that it was good. Asparagus, mushrooms, zucchini, onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes, a little cream, a little cheese, and some herbs. (As I was sittng here recounting this I realized I also forgot the peas and carrots. Oh, well.)

We used spinach fettucini, and the vibrant veggies on the green pasta were tranquil and springy, healthy, and delicious, aided by the cool evening breeze and lovely conversation.

Roasts aren’t so important.
And there’s always tomorrow.

Sleep

1. Side of the bed: Left or Right?
Slightly left of center. Fuzzy jokes that I allow him only 1/8th of the bed. I respond that he gets 7/8 of the covers.

2. Sleep with or without covers?
I like covers, I like the weight of them. If there were a way, in summer, to have the weight of blankets without the heat, I’d do it. I always start the night under some kind of covers, but I sleep best with one foot exposed to the air.

3. Sleep with or without night light?
No light, just white noise. And moving air. Even in winter.

4. Deep or light sleeper?
Light when I’m falling asleep, deep once I’m finally there.

5. More annoying to be awoken by: alarm or phone call?
Phone calls, absolutely. The alarm is expected, and therefore less annoying.

Questions from The Tuesday Twosome.

It’s hot, unseasonably so, and I can’t resist looking at weather.com to see what it is in Denver. This afternoon, when Jeremy and I looked, it was 62, and I commented that such a temperature was at least appropriate for April. Last week was cool and rainy and refreshing, and after only two days of this sunny hot weather, I feel parched and prickly.

I’m sitting hear nibbling on a salad and felt the urge to write but I’ve couched it as fiction. You can read it here. No, it’s not another formal blog, it’s just a place to post stuff that isn’t quite what I want here. No need to blogroll it, links will be offered on the rare occasions when content changes.

I think I’m allergic to summer.
My allergies were undercontrol til the heat hit 90.
I want to move.
I want a house with air conditioning and three more rooms, and a gourmet kitchen.

God, I’m whiny tonight.
I blame the weather.

The new Strawberries & Cream frappacinos at $tarbuck$ are quite tasty, lighter and frothier than an actual strawberry milkshake, with more strawberry flavor.

But if you order it with a pump of mocha, it tastes just like Neapolitan ice cream.

Yay summery beverages!

Fuzzy and I have developed the routine of spending Saturday evenings curled up on the couch watching bad movies on the SciFi channel. I call them modern b movies, because, really, that’s what they are. And since they’re on cable, and we’re not paying for tickets or rental fees, we don’t even have to feel guilty about them.

I have a special fondness for bad monster movies and horror movies, one that was only encouraged by a friend and bus-mate (we were both the last stop for the special magnet bus) from high school, whom I’ll call Camille, because she’d like that.

Camille and I were always good acquaintences, but never really friends until senior year, when we realized we both liked mocking the magnet slut, who also rode our bus, and when we hung out together we’d keep up running commentary on everything.

One of our jokes was that we both wanted to be graduates of “The Linnea Quigley Film School” where we’d learn how to issue bloodcurdling horror-flick screams, and create secret recipes for stage blood. (You have to add a little bit of green food coloring, which cuts the vibrance of the red, and makes it look that much more visceral.)

And of course, we came up with stupid movie titles, either to mock people whose hair was sprayed into that late-eighties thing with the bangs standing almost straight and then curled backwards. We called it the Space Monkey Swirl, I think. The best title we ever came up with was Psycho Sluts of Satan II, which, we said, wasn’t a sequel, but had a number to make it sound cooler.

Tonight, Fuzzy and I watched (and I cannot believe I’m committing this admission to a blog entry) DinoCroc. It was a truly bad, poorly written, horribly acted *thing* that was sort of Jurassic Park meets The Crocodile Hunter meets Jaws. In fact, other than the addition of Linnea Quigley to the cast, the only thing that could have made it cheesier is any cast member uttering the line, “I think we need a bigger jeep.”

I was telling a net-friend about this, resisting as long as possible because I knew I’d be mocked, when memories of wandering around San Francisco in the middle of the night with Camille, telling people we were siamese twins who’d been separated at the elbow, popped into my head., making me emit random giggles.

Fuzzy is perplexed; I am still giggling.