MUSINGS AND WANDERINGS ...

Well, glory be, she's ba-a-a-a-a-ack! Suppress the groans, thank you.

My head is filled with Puccini after last nite's Met performance (taped) of Madame Butterfly. Thanks to my bestest buddy, I got to see it. Wow. Just ... wow. Now I need to go to NY and see the real thing. It's on my Bucket List.


I just watched "Tapeheads" with Tim Robbins and John Cusak. From 1988. It's like The Blues Brothers Meet The Monkees or something. If you haven't seen it, you have to. And the music is just wonderful, and there are lots of cameo appearances, and it rocks. And if you're 25 or under, forget it. You wouldn't understand it anyway.

Did any of you catch any news video of Edward Liddy, He Of AIG? Reading his hate e-mail to the Senate committee (like he and his family ought to be strangled with piano wire, so, the problem is?) and getting redder and redder by the second. I thought he'd blow up like an old MTV video, one of the early punk ones. A friend of mine has been grumbling ... heads on stakes, heads on stakes ... for weeks, and by damned if I don't agree with her. And did you see, they ARE out in the street just like I've been saying they ought to be. The media loves it. And so does the military, takes the heat off them while they go about the business of chasing ghosts and killing children ... sometimes as remotely as thousands of miles away from target. The. Button. The one we feared as children of the '50s, duck-'n-cover kids, more excited at first than frightened, but finally, frightened of everything. Except for the bullies. They rose to the top of whatever dung heap they were occupying at any given time. Running Wall Street with their male offspring waiting in the wings. A great deal of us finally said, yo, it's not happening, and even if it does, we can't control it, so don't bogart that weed, Slick, and don't the Doobies play wicked good and we became, in our great outing of truth, afraid of nothing. Fearless. Amazingly stupidly fearless. And lived to tell about it, at least until we are at the end of our tether, an IV hung tantalizing away from our reach, leading to a button that does nothing. THAT's The Button. The real Button. The only one that counts, after all. Phew. I hate when that happens.

That's what fucking Cusack and Robbins always do to me, even when they're funny (which they always are in some horrible black way).

This new quilt is consuming me. Every once in awhile I get inspiration that takes over my life for weeks. I've had just a terrible time getting the colors to come together, and went through lots of throw-away combinations. But I finally got it. I wish I'd get my goddamn camera (that I got cheap on eBay) so I can actually take pictures of it. It's still basic enough to do a story board of it for a proposed magazine article that I plan to submit. What they hell, they like old ladies. They think of us as ... "quaint".

And I'd kill for a Perc for my right arm and shoulder. Applique, applique, make me a cripple.

I'm starting a part-time job in a couple of weeks. Sit down. Yes. Now. I'm going to be a Cave Tour Guide at a local cave. I hadn't planned on going underground quite this soon, but the tips are apparently really good, and I can sling bullshit to tourists with the best of them. You know, when in doubt, lie. They never know. Hey, I learned that from our past President (and many of the current Congress). Anyway, it will keep me out of the house a couple of days a week, and I'm actually really anxious to start.

It will look great on my resume, doncha think? Topless Dancer. Truck Driver. Quilt Artist. Cave Guide. References on Request.

Blessed be. Especially all you priests in the topless bars. Yeah, you were so busted.