Transition and Rebirth

Being by nature a dreamer, it's sad that I felt I had to suppress that part of me over recent years. I always had lofty dreams--they're what kept me going when I was younger as I struggled to keep body and mind together through a lifelong onslaught of domino-like traumas.

If my dreams didn't suffer being strangled at birth and were actually able to keep their footing, they were cruelly run over by hit-and-run circumstances and people. Eventually, it was just easier on my delicate nervous system to let them be stillborn, or to abort them altogether.

A shrink once told me this was called "fear of success", but I don't think that's true in my case. I think it was a survival technique. The real problem was that all these unborn, stillborn, and murdered dreams took my creativity with it when they disappeared.

But over the past year I began to get my creativity back. It wasn't something that just happened though. I had to work damned hard for every atom of it. It still feels like I'm running on beach sand, or as RW so wisely said, "shoveling sludge". I've gotten a lot accomplish this year--not in terms of completed projects or of ticking off a mental checklist, but in terms of personal progress as an artist. Opening up like that can be exhausting, especially when the doors and windows have been boarded up and their sills painted over a few hundred times. But I did it, or I should say, I'm doing it. It's a daily exercise; it doesn't come as naturally or as effortlessly as it used to when I was young and was full of piss and vinegar.

The ability to dream still sleeps in the womb waiting to be reborn. I'm feeling it stir though, getting itself into position to be delivered. My dreams aren't dead, nor have they grown old--they've merely been gestating. Sometimes all we can do is curl up in a foetal position and sing ourselves a song. This is mine:

Same Time Last Year

I'm hoping against hope that we'll get a white Christmas again this year. Last year we got a blizzard on Christmas Eve and it was wonderful! It just seems to me that all this cold, ugly, leafless, brown landscape is pointless without snow.

See that bay window on the left of the porch? That's where I am whenever I'm on the web, or am writing.

November 29, 2001

It just doesn't seem possible that nine years have passed since George Harrison slipped away so quietly and gracefully. I miss him, but because we share similar spiritual beliefs I have confidence that he is not so far away.

Pants!

Sometimes, things strike me as very odd. Sometimes, I just stop and think about things that the rest of the world (or most of it anyway) seems to take for granted. Like laughing.

Sometimes, I'll be sitting in a room with my friends and we'll all be laughing and having a good time, and it suddenly occurs to me how weird laughing is.

Or the fact that every single person in the world goes to the toilet and has to use TP. I think of this especially when someone thinks they're really something special and other people worship them. Like celebrities and politicians. Yeah, they all have to use that roll of paper.

But everyone thinks about that stuff anyway, don't they? And this entry is supposed to be about pants.

Sometimes, I wonder why blue jeans have become like part of a uniform all over the world. People wear them day in and day out and they don't even give it a thought. They put them on and head outside where nearly everyone else on the street is wearing them. If everyone all over the world was wearing the same tee shirt, we'd really think about the conformity going on. What makes pants different? And why jeans? They're really not all that comfortable, are they?

Why have I worn jeans since I got my first pair at the age of six? They were those kind with the red plaid flannel lining and the elastic waistband. Do you remember those? I bought my first pair of Levis 501s, which would become my basic signature pants for the next 40 years, for $8.00 in 1966. During the 1970s I wore flares and during the 80s I wore boot-cut, then in the 1990s and early 2000s I went back to the straight leg.

Eventually, the 501s began to get less comfortable for me (probably old age or something) and I moved over to whatever stretch denim low-rise jeans were on sale. Thankfully, modern stretch denim is nothing like that ugly crap they made in the 60s. Those were awful--with side zips. (Of course, they weren't as sexy as those in the picture because they weren't tight, and we wore white Keds, not stiletto ankle boots!) I mean, really, what's the point of a side zipper? Well, I can imagine... Probably a sexual deterrent since back then only teenagers wore blue jeans.

In the 1970s I also wore OPs (Ocean Pacifics): corduroy pants with long, deep front pockets and flared legs. I'd still wear those if they made them. Then, in the early 1980s, I wore Weeds. Remember them? They were sort of the precursor to Dockers, but were  much more comfortable because they hand an elasticized waistband. They also had a completely pointless drawstring. I loved those. Dockers were comfortable, but although they looked great on anyone who was tall and slim, they made everyone else's butt look huge and their legs short and stumpy. And the front pleats didn't do anyone any favors. Front pleats? What were they thinking?

Nowadays I wear sweats at home, and lounge pants. You know the kind. The kind with the Three Stooges, rubber duckies, or Corona labels on them. If I go out I wear my jeans. I've just never found anything I like better. I intend to be buried in my jeans, hopefully Levis 501s--if I can afford them again by then.

When the Women's Holiday Begins

Traditionally, it has been the women who work their asses off on Thanksgiving. It's a little better these days as men who enjoy cooking, or men who have wives that don't cook, have tied on the apron of honor and plunged themselves into the maelstrom of preparing a feast meal for the family. But generally, it's women who don't really get a holiday.

It reminds me of my working mother who, whenever my dad said he wanted to take the family camping on vacation, would say, "That's no vacation. While you and the kids are out fishing and swimming I'm doing everything I do at home, only the hard way!"

Don't misunderstand me, I love cooking for my family, and Nettl and I have become a pretty good holiday team. While she makes the pies, mashed potatoes, yams, and turkey and dressing, I handle the veggies, bread, small sides, and all the pre-holiday housecleaning. Our family is one of the good ones where after-dinner washing up is concerned: everyone helps, or at least offers to help, but the kitchen is only so big.

When I was a kid, the women didn't want the men in the kitchen during the cleanup; they sent them into the living room to fall into snoring stupors. Even we kids weren't allowed in that sacred temple after the Thanksgiving or Christmas feast because after the the dishes and pots and pans had been washed and put away (these was pre-dishwasher days) the women sat down at the little table and played cards while finishing off the bottles of wine or spiking their coffee with other fun stuff. It always seemed like more fun to me than being bored to death by snoring men and uninteresting TV.

Anyway, as you give thanks today, remember to mention the women who have spent two full days shopping, cleaning, cooking, and most likely cleaning up afterward. Their holiday doesn't really begin until after the aprons come off.

Lowrider's Keep

Our cat, whom I like to call "Lowrider" because I can't bring myself to call any animal "Sweetie" (and she has that belly flab that hangs nearly to the ground), has a clear case of OCD. Yeah, I know. All cats have it, but I've known a lot of cats in my lifetime and this one is seriously more cat than all of those cats put together.

One of Lowrider's quirks is that every Monday she starts a new routine, which includes when she goes in and out of the house, what times she eats, and where she sleeps. A few weeks ago she found a spot near the pedals on the piano. The next week it was in front of one of the stereo speakers. Last week she chose to sleep behind Nettl's knees (damned uncomfortable, I know, because she claimed that spot on me a few months ago). Other places have included the chair in the kitchen, on top of the porch light column, under the table, on Joel's bed, and behind the Morning Glories in the front flower bed. Today she claimed the bird bath in the front yard. When I opened the blinds I saw that the top had been knocked off and was lying upside-down on the grass. Crafty cat. I went out and put it back, but I didn't fill it. Later, I looked outside again and saw the her.

When you think of it, this isn't such a crazy idea. Talk about cat bliss. Up off the ground where she can keep an eye on her domain, and lying in a terra cotta bowl. Natural solar heat. I can guarantee you that's where she'll be until next Monday when she'll find another place.

Balancing Act

"Tight rope walkers live by a few rules. Never look down. Hold your arms out for balance. Do not wait for the rope to stop wobbling before you take another step. And then there is this one; Practice standing at first. When you are able to do so without wobbling too much, take a step, stand again, take a step, stand again, until you reach the end of the rope." (Found on The Red Bench)

I imagine fledgling tightrope walkers must have very sore feet for a while. I remember the one and only time I went ice skating. I did really well; took to it like a natural and never fell even once, but the next day the soles of my feet hurt like hell. I joked that it was due to my feet hanging onto the blades so hard. I'm kind of feeling that way right now, only not in my actual, physical feet. It's more in whatever it is in me that keeps me grounded. My tenacity, perhaps. Balance.

I always dread this time of year. I start feeling the cloud drifting in right around my birthday in late September and it doesn't lift until January 1st. And every year I promise myself that next year will be better, that we will have gotten through this decade-long crisis and we'll be able to exhale and enjoy a little peace.

It's a white-knuckling time of year for far too many people these days and I know there are thousands of people who have it worse than we do. This really isn't about money though. It's about the pressure I feel to keep everyone's spirits up. Like a crazed cheerleader, I smile and laugh and try not to show how terrified I am and how guilty I feel. I have a deep-seated fear that if I go down, I'll take everyone with me. No one puts this on me but me. I'm working on it.

Finding balance is never easy, but as a Libra (the sign of the scales) I have an innate understanding that it takes moving forward one step at a time and not looking down, despite the fact that it feels like someone's back there kicking the rope that never seems to stop wobbling.

Stoned Again

Do you remember last July when I posted some pictures of the Rolling Stones? In that post I told you about a band I posed with, but I couldn't remember their name. Well, I found it, as well as some pictures of them and a video of them performing back in 1965.

Click here to read more (scroll down to the bottom of the entry).

My Kind of Film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

"Maestro Terry Gilliam has made a sublime film. Wonderfully enchanting and beautiful, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a uniquely ingenious, captivating creation; by turns wild, thrilling and hilarious in all its crazed, dilapidated majesty. Pure Gilliam magic!

"It was an honor to represent Heath. He was the only player out there breathing heavy down the back of every established actor's neck with a thundering and ungovernable talent that came up on you quick, hissing rather mischievously with that cheeky grin, "hey... get on out of my way, boys, I'm coming through..." and does he ever!!!

"Heath Ledger is a marvel, Christopher Plummer beyond anything he's ever done, Tom Waits as the Devil is a God, Lily Cole and Andrew Garfield, the very foundation, are spectacular, Verne Troyer simply kicks ass and as for my other cohorts, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, they most certainly did Master Ledger very proud, I salute them. Though the circumstances of my involvement are extremely heart-rending and unbelievably sad, I feel privileged to have been asked aboard to stand in on behalf of dear Heath." - Johnny Depp

No one could have said it any better. I just watched this film on Netflix InstantPlay and I loved it. Because we don't have cable and don't watch telly I hadn't heard of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. If you haven't seen it, do.

Knee Deep in Beautiful Dudu

I don’t usually make blog entries like this one, but through the research I continue to perform for my Sixties trilogy, I sometimes come across things that I either forgot about or never had a name for, and I want to share it. Photos enlarge when clicked.

In the late Sixties, while we in America wore flowers in our hair and frayed and bleached our Levis to look like gypsy glad rags, our counterparts in England had headed in an entirely opposite direction. While we went back to the earth in our natural fibers and our unkempt countrified look, they flashed back on the opulence and extravagance of better times.

Their Sixties era was different from ours, you see. They’d grown up with food rationing, and those who survived Hitler’s Blitzkrieg attacks lived with bombed out neighborhoods, streets pockmarked with bomb craters, and the trauma of war waged on their front step. All we American kids had to cope with was the gray flannel boredom of the Fifties. Even “duck and cover” hardly stacks up against having your home leveled while you're huddled with your mother and siblings in the cupboard beneath the stairs. It’s no wonder then that the Boomers in England looked to eras past when they finally were able to invent themselves and their post-war culture.

The Beatles had taken the look of German existential bohemianism with their bowl cut hairstyles, black turtlenecks, black leather pants, and flamenco boots. After that, it was the Mod look, with its clean geometric lines and Pop Art innocence. Sandwiched between these looks and Peter Max's and The Fool's rainbow silks and painted velvets of the late Sixties blossomed what was called the Dudu look.

The Dudu look was created by Barbara Hulanicki, a brilliant Polish immigrant artist and fashion designer who had started out with a mail order business through which she sold a few garments at prices that teens could afford. Her first creation, a simple gingham shift, sold so well that she opened a boutique called Biba in Kensington in 1964. Her next smash creation was a simple striped, jersey dress that sold out quicker than she could turn out new ones.

The Biba boutique was unique in many ways, not the least of which was its blacked out windows and Art Deco décor. The furnishings were black and gold with cut glass counters and, instead of garments hung on racks, they were draped on coat and hat racks. The shop moved to a couple of other locations, but my purpose is not to lay down its history. What I want to talk about is The Look.

Hulanicki created a fashion trend made of what she called “auntie colors” of plums, black, deep blues, and earth tones. She brought about a softer, more feminine and mysterious look, borrowing from the fashion trends of the 1920s and '30s. It was made of ostrich feathers, silks, floppy brimmed hats, veils, and sequins.

She also created a cosmetics line of corresponding colors and even had drawn instructions on how to achieve the Dudu look, creating smoky, smudged eye colors rather than the harshness and garishness of the earlier Mod look.

It was Hulanicki’s theory that the reason young girls of London were so thin was because they’d been deprived of nourishing protein as post-war babies, which resulted in thin bones.

Designer Ossie Clark described model Pattie Boyd as the girl with the “glass ankles” that looked as if they could shatter at any moment.










“Biba girls are fresh little foals with long legs, bright faces, and round dolly eyes.” - Barbara Hulanicki









Big Biba, the boutique’s final location at Tom & Derry’s department store, became more than a place to buy exquisite clothes, it became a hangout for London’s young celebrities such as The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithful, David Bowie, Twiggy, and Pattie Boyd.

Unfortunately, the Biba label failed to keep up with the times and, in 1975, it closed its doors. Efforts to revive the fashion trend in the Nineties failed, but it seems to be making a comeback, although it's no longer designed by Hulanicki. Still, the garments and accessories are really beautiful and remain true to the original.

The dream lives on, but I confess, I still don't know where the word "Dudu" comes from.

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

That's the way it seems sometimes. Like I sweep up more glass on this blog than I actually write. Especially lately. Where once I posted once and sometimes twice a day, I now post only about three or four times a week.

Are we winding down? I mean those of us who've been at this for years now?

I adopted the old "no post, no guilt" blogging style long ago, so I'm well over feeling badly if I miss a day or two. The thing is, I wish I blogged like I used to. I miss brimming with ideas and of stopping mid-activity to think, "Hey, this would be a great blog entry!" Nowadays, I'm more apt to stop and think, "Wow, this would be cool in my book!"

What I need is a transfusion. Or to find a new way of being on the internet. I think it's just about time that something new is invented. Kind of like how back in the 70s people were looking for the next Beatles. God, we're a fickle lot.

I'm tired of reading opinions on the state of the world. Okay, it's bad. Move on. How many times can we complain about it?

I'm also tired of reading a great blog entry and clicking the comment button only to find the usual stack of pithy, not-so-funny comments in which each visitor vies with the other to be the most unimpressed, the most nonplussed, the most blasè. I leave few comments these days because of this very thing.

On certain blogs, I imagine what the same old visitors have said before I actually click the comments button, and I'm right more times than is healthy. This one says she feels exactly the same way, but she loves the blogger anyway (ha ha) and that one leaves a sarcastic snort that is a compliment meant to sound like a put-down, or vice-versa (yawn).

All this is somehow related to my thing about loving humor but hating comedy. Be spontaneously funny, don't throw out a one-liner. Nothing is less funny than someone trying to be funny. It kind of reminds me of this video:

You just know Walken wakes up every damned morning dreading all the douche bags who are going put him through the cowbell routine that day.

I guess what I want to read, both in blog entries and their comments, is genuineness. What keeps me coming back to your blog is how you let me into your private world. If politics are part of that world, then cool, but I'd rather hear about you, your ideas, your thoughts. And that's what I enjoy writing as well.

To each, our own.

Why Writers Should Be Avoided At All Costs

Sometimes when I'm up late, not feeling creative enough to write and I want to knock myself out so that I can sleep, I go to StumbleUpon and site hop. I always find something worth saving; last night I came across the following. It started out as a little meme about why you might want to hang out with or date a writer. Then someone else posted it, adding their own two cents why you would not want to do such a thing. I thought it was funny so here it is for you. I pared it down a little.

Writers will romance you with words.
We probably won’t. We write for ourselves, or for money, and by the time we’re done we’re sick of it. If we have to write you something, there’s a good chance it’ll take us two days and we’ll be really snippy and grumpy about the process.

Writers will write about you.
You don’t want this. Trust me.

Writers will take you to interesting events.
No. We will not. We are busy writing. Leave us alone about these “interesting events.” I know one person who dates a terrific writer. He goes out alone. She is busy writing.

Writers will acknowledge you and dedicate things to you.
A better way to ensure this would be to become an agent. That way you’d actually make money off of talking people through their neuroses.

Writers will offer you an interesting perspective on things.
Yes. Constantly. While you’re trying to watch TV, or take a shower. You will have to listen to observations all day long, in addition to being asked to read the observations we wrote about when you were at work and unavailable for bothering. It will be almost as annoying as dating a stand-up comedian, except if you don’t find these observations scintillating, we will think you’re dumb, instead of uptight.

Writers are smart.
The moment you realize this is not true, your relationship with a writer will develop a significant problem.

Writers are really passionate.
About writing. Not necessarily about you.

Writers can think through their feelings.
So don’t start an argument unless you’re ready for a very, very lengthy explication of our position, our feelings about your position, and what scenes from our recent fiction the whole thing is reminding us of.

Writers enjoy their solitude.
So get lost, will you?

Writers wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Serious advice: if you meet a writer who’s actually demonstrative, be careful.

Writers will teach you cool new words.
This is possibly true! We may also expect you to remember them, correct your grammar, and look pained after reading mundane notes you’ve left for us.

Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for you.
Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for writing. Get in line, then.

Writers can find 1000 ways to tell you why they like you.
By the 108th you’ll be pretty sure we’re just making them up for fun.

Writers communicate in a bunch of different ways.
But mostly writing. Hope you don’t like talking on the phone—that shit is rough.

Writers are surrounded by interesting people.
Every last one of whom is imaginary.

Writers are sexy.
No argument. Some people think this about heroin addicts, too.

Meet the Cliche Family

WTF Am I Doing?

This evening Nettl and I are driving down to Shawnee (only about an hour away) to spend the night. It's her alma mater's centennial reunion this weekend. That's Oklahoma Baptist University. Yes, I said Oklahoma. Baptist. University. Oklahoma... Baptist...

Yikes.

It's not as bad as it sounds though, because all the cool kids she hung out with and partied with back then are still cool, partying people. We got a block of rooms together at a hotel, where we'll be tippling a bit while the Tea Baggers other students are mentally dissing each other and bragging about their missionary kids. And when the cool kids go to events they understandably don't want to miss, I'll hide in the closet in our room.

There are some people I'm really looking forward to meeting. We've become friends in Facebook and they're my kind of people. These are the kids who were into Led Zeppelin and Blondie back then, and most, no, I think all of them were either music or theater majors.

I think we're going to have a great time! Think I'll bring a copy of Anne Frank to read.

My Brain Hurts!

Well, not really, but these questions, which RW posted to his blog yesterday, made me think a little left-of-center. I assume I can tell you to answer them as well,if you feel so inclined. He's called it, "What Would You Do?"

1. The couple right upstairs was always very loud and unrestrained in their frequent lovemaking sessions.
I lived next door to them once. Fortunately, they were very young and the noisiest part only lasted about a minute.

2. You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection. Plus the killing jar.
I'd wonder why I didn't know of it before, especially since I'm the one who cleans his room. I'd then explain why living butterflies are much better, and take him somewhere to see some.

3. You were the only one on your block who never had a fingerbox.
I don't even know what a fingerbox is, so I guess I never had one. I survived. I seldom got the cool stuff the other kids got anyway, so it's no big deal.

4. You got a windfall of $100,000.
I'd bank it, pay off some debts, then stock the fridge and pantry, get the car running again, and buy a 12-string, as well as a new sofa. The rest would sit in the bank to be used very frugally.

5. The police had a warrant and confiscated your computer.
No big deal, although I'd contact my lawyer to find out why. I save everything externally on a regular basis so I wouldn't really lose anything. I don't have anything on it that's comporomising anyway. And we have another laptop and desktop that I could use.

6. At a bar, a person of the same sex you swear you never met before knows everything about you.
The chances that anyone knows everything about me are really small since I hold a certain amount of myself in reserve. Besides, what does it matter what gender the person is? It would weird, regardless.

7. On your way to the art gallery you see yourself walking the other way with a wrapped painting under your arm.
I'd wonder where THAT bank account is hidden.

8. You had it wrong all along.
I'd educate myself, just like I did when I was wrong a hundred times before. I'm used to having it all wrong. If marriage teaches you anything, it's that you're wrong. Always.

9. The search engine tells you exactly the best brand name product to use for that problem but when you search for the brand name product no search engine you use can find it.
I'd ask a friend for the name of their favorite brand. I don't trust the opinions of a product's manufacturer.

10. Kenneth actually told you the frequency.
Who's Kenneth? Is he the guy who didn't give me a fingerbox when I was a kid?

A Little Perspective

Here's an interesting and eye-opening piece about food consumption around the world.

Have a great Thursday!

Time Flies When You're Living

Sometimes I'm temped to believe some of those New Agers who say that the superior intellects they think run our universe like to muck about with time as we know it, speeding it up to help us evolve faster and slowing it down to allow us time to grown and learn. Now, I'm not going to get into all that Star Seed stuff, or even what the hell time is to begin with. I'll leave that to the visionaries and quantum physicists. My point is much simpler: Time is passing much too quickly for my liking.

When I was a kid time dragged. A term of school and waiting for Christmas each year took forever. In my twenties and early thirties, the passage of time seemed about right. I had enough of it ahead of me that I could party and still have enough of it left over to hold down a job and provide for my family. Then something happened. How quickly I got from 33 to 59 makes no sense at all, and how my body continues to age while the person inside--I--can remain at about 33 baffles me.

Something in my head keeps thinking that this is all just a really weird acid trip and that eventually I'll come down and I'll be 33 again. I'll be the wiser for the experience and I'll go on to make better choices. Then I have my first coffee of the day and I remember that this is just life.

I can't help it. In some ways I feel like life is starting to wind down for me now and that's why I've gone back to meditating. We of western civilization tend to think of time as a commodity that we must spend, rather than allow to pass. The former is the sign of a productive, contributing citizen after all, and the later is the sign of a slacker. But looking down the gun barrel of life, I reflect on what I've done with my brief run on this planet. I've raised children, I've worked, I've been a good parent and friend, I've put out a huge body of creative work, and I've probed the mysteries of life and am all the more spiritual for it. These aren't bragging points, they're reasons why I feel a little down time is due me.

So how the heck did I get to this age without recognizing what was looking back at me in the mirror? I'm fortunate that wrinkles don't run in our family. True, I have the Wolcotts' excess eyelid skin and the Wallers' ever-growing, already too-prominent proboscis, but other than those things, I really don't look any the worse for wear despite my fragile health. But finding myself at 60 (why bother with 59, which is just a semi-colon in the life sentence?) has taken me completely by surprise.

The good thing is that I'm finally learning how to live in the present. This doesn't mean that I don't still dream or set goals for myself, and it certainly doesn't mean that I've attained some level of enlightenment. It simply means that I'm too tired of chasing down goals to want to bother. To use an analogy. My life is like a park: I spent my youth running through it, my young adulthood jogging through it, and my mature adulthood walking through it. Now I'm sitting on a bench feeding the squirrels and enjoying the view. I watch the children in the playground and I watch, amused, at everyone else rushing by, too busy to notice what's going on around them.

It's a nice place to be. I just wish our stay here was longer or that the sensation of time didn't speed up the older we get. But maybe it will slow down for me now. Maybe living in the present is the key. Maybe we come full-circle and our so-called second childhood really is that: an opportunity to slow the clock down and live for each day again.

I'll let you know in about twenty years.

Ooh, Baby!

Alright... I can't keep still on this crap anymore.

Why, in the name of all that's somewhat sane, do people feel the need to make baby dolls out of grown men of power or talent, and why do grown women feel the desire to buy them? Several years ago I was introduced to Cabbage Patch Mozart. Now we have Baby Doll Obama.

People, I don't care what your politics are, this strikes me as just a wee bit sick. These are grown men with genitals. They've fathered children. In Mozart's case, six children. These are men of ideas, creativity, talent, and a gift to articulate their deepest cerebral ideals through their work and, in Obama's case, is the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world. Why this need to castrate them and render them voiceless--just drooling, cooing, pissing, shitting, ultimately dependent, impotent babies?

Who's next? The Wetting Einstein? The Mama-Mama Martin Luther King Jr. Doll? The Drooling Dalai Lama? Can you imagine if they'd made The Boo-Boo G.W. Bush Doll, or The Crawling Dick Cheney Doll? And what about in 2012? I can see it now: The Pee-Pee Sarah Palin Doll! Sheesh!

To tell you the truth, I really don't get dolls anyway. For kids, sure, but middle-aged women collecting and dressing them? I'm not judging, mind you, I just don't get it. To my mind, it's on a par with having your late pet freeze-dried so that it can lay there by the hearth looking like it's only asleep instead of having gone to meet it maker. To each his own, I guess.

Wow. I feel much better. Thanks for letting me vent.

Om Mani Poochie Hum

I just thought this picture was funny, and I had to share it.