scrawls
still cheaper than therapy*


so i can be girly and play with paper dolls, too. it's okay, because it's my blog and i say it's okay. once upon a time, liz grew up in new york. she was allergic to cats, and so immediately became a dog person. it was found that she had hippie leanings. then she went to college in wisconsin, where it was very cold.

when she graduated, she got a real job. but she moved to texas, where she has been for entirely too long now, and never has a chance to wear her fancy clothes. People (mostly C) do, however, convince her to go to the ren faire once in a while, and sometimes she goes canoeing. She is getting married but doesn't like wedding dresses (the hippieness is coming out, again).


through it all she has kept her impeccable sense of style.

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hyote, the latest hyena-coyote cross; or, a fox with an endocrine disorder; or, it looks oddly like dog #2. i think the germans think it's a werewolf. Another perfect pet for the parents.

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i think the mom is desperate for attention all by herself in FL. she adopted a baby snake that was swimming / lost in the swimming pool. what do you feed a baby snake? how weird is that, anyway? i keep telling her, get another dog, already. A dog will love you. a snake, well, probably not so much. but still.

awwwww, how cute or ohh or that one or this one might be my favorite. So it's not like they don't have options.

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and Bad(der) Santa was ... ahh ... funny. :)

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also, to clarify the extent of the poison iviness. Excuse misspellings, bad ..um.. commas and stuff, misplaced dots. Glasses got foggy. So. Can't see what i'm typing entirely. In any case. M came home with it after the canoe race (though he maintains that i came home with it and infected him, but in fact he had it before arriving in B/CS. So.) and maybe we both got it seperately, but in any case, it started inside my elbow (after it started on his ankle) and i scratched it for two days, give or take, without really noticing anything was particularly amiss. And then i looked at my elbow and thought i was getting dry skin or something - and then m went to the doctor (because there were some fishermen nearby that cought a flesh-eating bacterium) and the doc said it was poison ivy and gave him steroid pills. And mine spread. And his didn't really itch. And mine itched like mad. So eventually it was Monday and mine itched like mad and was spreading, and so on Tuesday i made an appt with the other doc (who i was very excited to have back on my insurance - work had switched our insurance and he wasn't on the new one, but another doc in his office was, so i went to this other guy, only he was so young! and not really ... he didn't have the sort of bedside gravitas. Though that might have been the sinus infection. But my doc is egyptian and fuzzy and very homeopathic (did i spell that right? i can't quite see - good heavens, this is a second set of parenthesis, isn't it?) - so if there is a cheapo herbal cure he'll mention it and then go on and give me some prescription or other. So.) and this doc, my doc, he gives me a steroid shot (i think he was expecting me to be scared of needles, so he offered me the shot, and i said Okay! and he said Anything at this point, right? and i said Yeah, pretty much) and a bag full of Allegra samples and tells me to get Pepcid because it blocks a different kind of histamine and to bathe / rinse my itchy parts in vinegar. Let me list my itchy parts. i'm good below the waist. Thank .. whatever. But.

So the inside of my arm, inside my elbow, is the absolute worst. And then all over my arms, and on my neck, and somehow in my fucking cleavage. How the fuck it got there i don't know. And on my belly. Both arms. Wrists, a little on one shoulder. So it itches like mad. And the rinsing itchy parts in vinegar? There is nothing that hurts like this. That scene in Dune sort of approximates it - where his hand is in the awful-box and he can feel the flesh crisping up and getting all barbecued and dropping off his bones - that's what rinsing poison ivy in vinegar is like. What's in the box? Pain. Pain is in the box. That's what it's like. I'm assuming. And i have to do this to my entire upper body ('cuz i forgot, it's on my back too).

Why do i suddenly feel like Mr. Pink?

Anyway.

Being itchy makes me grouchy. Probably being grouchy makes me wordy and elaborate. Maybe it's entertaining. Maybe it's a cautionary tale. So i rinse myself in vinegar and rinse off and take oatmeal baths and put Calomine all over myself until my skin is so dry, in my elbow, that it hurts to bend my arm, at which point i stop with the vinegar and Calomine and put extra-extra-sensitive-face-moisturizers and extra-extra-sensitive Aloe on it. A good idea, i think. So i'm grouchy. And completely unable to concentrate on anything except how fucking itchy i am.

I've been sleeping with socks on my hands.

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almost done with the empty-room - just needs a tweency bit of touchup paint and a dresser (which will have to be bought). And to hang pretty things on the walls. so. looking at furniture. why is it that i absolutely love the Ethan Allen commercials for that - what is it - the british classics line. With the little crawly lizard and the pretty lady and the bright blue walls and the butterfly. But the furniture is ...awful... lol only ethan allen could charge $180 for a fucking bulletin board. zowie... yeah... i think i just like ikea better. Lucky me.

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this comes in white.
this also comes in white.
annika's nicole miller is available in Plano. which offers very pretty things, but is 200 miles away.
watters is somewhere in houston. i think a couple of different places in houston actually. nice bridesmaid-line with many maids dresses available in white/ivory/champagne. how cute - the fall line is out. :) hmm. but - holy fuck, there's one in bryan:
Blissful Wishes // 4415 S. Texas Ave. // Bryan, TX 77802 // 979.691.2551

don't think i have the body type for a pure strapless, somehow. Fuckin' A.

must learn the diff btw. whites.

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poison ivy sucks.

further bulletins as events warrant.

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well, that's like hypnotizing chickens
i like it when nice things happen without my putting any effort into them. i'm that lazy. examples:Mmmmm. Happiness is a cheap little vaguely-deco end-table that i haven't quite decided if i want to paint black, or dark brown, or not paint yet.

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*sigh* i don't want to see Fahrenheit 911. i don't particularly like michael moore, and i think that's plenty of reason to not see his movie already. i'm sure it raises pertinent issues. i'm sure it makes points that i could argue about afterwards. i'm sure it heightens the national consciousness of ... stuff.

i sort of doubt i'm ever going to see anything mel gibson makes, ever again. signs was pure crap, after all. and it's not like they can make a Braveheart 2.

but. i don't think michael moore is going to change any minds; all he's going to do is polarize people further, which really nobody fucking needs. politics shouldn't be about who can make themselves a bigger asshole. the people who watch the film will already have their minds made up - there will be people who want to retire W, who will believe the entire thing, and people who love W, who will think it's all crap, but will see it anyway for the same reason i read the student newspaper at a&m*, and who will then think the entire left is represented by one louse-y gun-toting crackpot. the people who don't watch the film will be either (like me) disgusted with the entire affair or (less like me) uninterested in the first place. but i already know the lines he's drawing. i already know the associations. i don't need to go just to get pissed off again. and if he's going to go to the trouble of making a movie it ought to leave people with ...something. With an idea of where to go from here, of how we could fix all this, or how we could have prevented "it," other than by having not elected W. there's no attempt on moore's part to be even remotely fair (or balanced) - and i won't watch that moronic news channel - and i won't watch that movie.

*friends close, enemies closer

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you know you've been in texas too long when...
...it's 85° and feels so nice and light and cool.

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jason bourne is keyser soze for the spook crowd. spooks will be telling their children, don't embezzle from uncle sam - bourne will come get you. Didn't mind paying $7 or whatever for it. Not as good as the first, though - don't know if we'll end up buying this one or not. All the car chases were the same, anyway. i couldn't tell if i liked all the fights or not - sitting in the third row kind of skews things. Maybe they'll make more. when is the matrix no.3 coming out? when is the return of the motherfucking king? none of this non-extended-edition crap. or this full-screen, failing-to-be-director's-cut, not-enough-of-Sam horseshit.

*sound of kevin spacey blowing a kiss

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joined Austinbloggers. in which i sort of belong, as i'm only a little bit of a drive from austin (okay, maybe more than a little bit, but not too much when you take into account fucking Texas) and anyway i like austin and if i had chose where in texas we were going to be it would have far more likely have been austin (or san antonio, which certainly seemed like fun, however disappointing the alamo was) than where we actually are, here, in the tragic and desolate epicenter of atavistic bible-belt neo-puritan conservatism.

That was fun.

i like finding Other Normal People in Texas. Austinbloggers has some. i like reading tx women who make a bigger deal about feminism and issues and things than i do. 'cuz i don't really talk about .. stuff. much. i am very often all but content-free. which is fine. but ... i like having links to people with content. and maybe they'll be an influence and maybe they won't. So there.

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so yesterday i made a new blog, still living in sin, in which i can organize my wedding thoughts. Because i'm a geek and because i'm a big GIRLY geek. (Please note that no, those aren't real wedding colors, those are website colors - now i have one orangey-pink, one yellowish green, and one vaguely purple.) but. so i don't have to bore everybody with further details here. But i have one last question ... if we got married in texas (we wouldn't make people come down in midsummer, i promise) next fall or so (very approximate date - still under discussion - we're deciding on Area of the Country first - probably not earlier, though) would people be able to make it? Veryyy important that people respond to this question. 'cuz texas is ...kinda far. even when you get into texas, texas is kinda far. so. um. 'cuz it'd be massively easier to plan it for being nearby. i'll post message-things on the wedding-site for carpools, hotels, et c. and links to everything that might come in handy (once we pick a location, for example, and where (if) we're registered, et c. i think we have to register because otherwise everyone over 40, i.e. my entire family and his entire family, plus all those assorted People Parents Might Want to Invite, assuming we let the Parents invite Anybody, which may not Happen, though we may take Suggestions, will give us crystal, which is way, way less than desirable) and ... other stupid girly stuff :)

But i figure, if the group of people that reads this says they can probably make it, then so can everybody else, and we'll send out invites (or those silly Save-the-Date things at least) maybe 3-4-5 months in advance instead of the 6 weeks?!? you're supposed to in the wedding-books (how does that give anybody time to get fucking airfare?!?) and i can choose Area of the Country: Near Us and go on to select Vague Date.

yeah, we're still taking it slow.

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i don't like any wedding dresses.

i mean, any.

i don't like the big ballgown ones with the too-much-skirt. i don't like the slinky (slimy?) sophisticated looking too-fussy ones. i don't like the high-maintenance jeweled-sheer-neckline-bridezilla ones. i don't like the ones with trains ('cuz really, what do you do with a fucking train, other than get grass stains all over it?) i, um, don't like the ones that reach the floor. i don't like the ones that don't show enough skin on top. i don't like the slutty ones with a bunch of holes cut out. i don't like the ones with beading. i don't like the ones with little jackets. i don't like the empire-waisted-i'm-already-pregnant ones. i don't like the ones with little flowers. i don't like the ones with huge accent flowers. i don't like the too-ethnic ones. i don't like the ones that don't allow for support garments. i don't like the ones with slits up to here. i don't like the ones with big flowy sleeves that would only get caught in the soup. i don't like the ones with droopy (what is that called, swag? drape? ridiculously untailored? cowl, that's it.) necklines. i don't like the ones with weird extra colors in them. i don't like the ones that are Really White. i don't like the ones that only look good on skinny people. i don't like anything at all that david's bridal has to offer. i don't like the ones with handpainted embellishments. i don't like the ones with feathers (who would put feathers on a wedding gown? really?). i don't like the saggy skirt-suit fourth-wedding-and-i'm-fifty mother-of-three-other-brides ones. i don't like the ultra-modern way-too-freaky-shiny ones. i don't like the asymmetrical ones. i don't like the 'period' ones (yeah, there's a reason that style went out in the 30s). i don't like the expensive ones, for obvious reasons, though at the same time, maybe i like them a little bit ;). i don't like the ones with bustles or pinned-up trains (why would i want my butt to look bigger?). i don't like the ones that are too corsety. i don't like the ones with fur. i don't like the ones with crochet.

now, this - well.

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<trolling for comments>
does anyone else think i use too many adjectives?
how about adverbs?
sometimes i read what i just wrote and i start to think...
</trolling for comments>

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i did watch tv last night, though. i watched - sort of - the grid, that thing on whatever channel that is with that guy from that lawyer show and the nurse from e.r. so many years ago. Whoever they are. The nurse plays a real bitch. but. they have a Good Muslim character - and he reminds me of the gay characters they used to have on tv (and, really, still have) - unipolar and stereotyped and with a real message to send (i.e., i'm still okay, and i'm just like you) that's a good message to send to all the people watching, sure, but that is completely separated from ... well ... from whatever it is that they are. they're completely ... blank. the gay characters always used to be utterly sexless. i didn't notice the muslim praying. and, yeah, there are other muslim characters that - i think - we saw praying. i wasn't really paying that much attention. but. the rest in the show so far are all Bad Muslims anyway. and there were these totally contrived conversations between Real Bitch Ex-Nurse and Good Muslim, and sure it's something that's going to be done by some crackhead network executive and it could have been a lot worse but it was still awfully heavy-handedly orchestrated. Way too obvious - but i can't really hope for subtlety on cable tv, can i? no. no, i can't. i just hope Good Muslim isn't as ... doomed as all the gay characters used to be. you know? 'cuz he's kinda cute. like they were. So probably.

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so m's canoe race is done. finally. and he's coming home. finally. the dogs do this cute thing when he's gone - they sit quietly and stare at the front door. it's very cute. and one dog will get bored and tug on the other one's ear and the other one will snap at it (rrrshutthehellupi'mwaitingfordaddyrrr) and (possibly after beatingtheshitoutofit) go back to staring at the door. This goes on for a day or two every time m has to go somewhere.

also i didn't finish hedge trimming. maybe in the weekend when i get m to mow the lawn. it's raining entirely too much.

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i have to say, if i was on fear factor, which i wasn't actually watching but which was sort of making background noise while i was painting that one wall green, here's who i wouldn't be: i wouldn't be the person giving advice. it's a game show, idiot. "ooh, they're going up your nose - breathe out, like this. okay, great, you're doing fine." i would be the bastard psyching everyone else out. "ooh, they're going up his nose - and that's a fat one, too, do you think they bite? i think i remember they have really big mandibles. what if it died in there? awwwggghh, i bet they smell bad. i mean, centipedes. don't they eat shit? or live in it, or something? so isn't that like having shit actually crawl up your fucking nose? awww, that's gross! man, i don't know if one chance in six at not even that much dough is really worth this."

(gee-ross, for those in the know.)

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so i'm absolutely sure i've said this before - i've explained it to m in greater detail than i really think he wished for - but i'm not sure i've blogged it. So. I am the Queen of Spackle. i have claimed this title for quite a while now. i think i could build a house out of spackle if i had enough little jars of it. And maybe some duct tape. but that would just be for decoration. The empty room is on its way to becoming green. And yellow. So far it's just yellow and spackle-colored. (i'm also the queen of Taking Dumbass Previous Homeowner Nails Out of the Wall After they've been Painted Over Four Times.)

.....it's very spackle-colored.

also stuff is Being Hung on the Walls in the Computer-room, and i think the Hedge will be Trimmed Tomorrow.

Weird things happen to the house when m goes away. so in this case i don't think i'm going to have actively finished the empty room or the computer room but the stupid hedge will be done tomorrow. And significant progress will have been made on the empty room. And i didn't start anything (except our room) before i finished the bathroom. Which is entirely purple. i thought about buying candles for it but couldn't find any candle-tray-things that were acceptable. so i didn't. but it's done. maybe i'll take a shower in it tomorrow.

probably not. i'm always sleepy in the morning ... gee, why is that? ... so i'd forget. And hop in the other shower and say, where's my shampoo? (where is my wife and family? who'll be my role model?) okay, i'm sleepy and hyper.

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texan foibles
so at m's crazy canoe race there's lots of time in between doing things. so in one of these in-between times, we're having a beer, and t is having a pipe. (yes, a tobacco pipe. t is very law-abiding.) only we're not supposed to be "displaying alcoholic beverages" so we've put our little folding-camping-chairs behind t's massive truck where the park ranger can't see us and if he does it'll be from a funny angle and maybe he'll be so busy he'll assume we've got off-brand Coke, or something. So there's a dad and a couple of kids with fishing-poles walking past in a wandering sort of way, and the elder kid, who is, oh four feet tall, maybe, i don't know what that makes him, looks at t and says, with disbelief, is that man smoking? and there is a pause, during which i assumed his dad (who was hiding on the other side of the truck so we couldn't see him) said yes, he's having a pipe, just like sherlock holmes, do you know who that was? or something to that effect, and then the kid says, very, very seriously, he's probably going to have to go to the hospital.

also all those people on the canoe race are crazy.

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i think we NEED a voice, we NEED input - and it really, really sucks to vote between the lesser of two evils - but if the R's win again, not only did the dem's fuck up, we're all fucked over. kerry is against gay marriage, but W wants to ban gay civil unions. kerry is married to massive corporations, but W is too, and he lies about it.

i don't know what to do. but i wish i could get AirAmerica on a normal radio.

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so ---ooh, blogger has changed its layout. don't really like it. oh well. fuck. anyway.

Party at the parents' place, august - ahhhh - 14. saturday. anyone in the northeast-area of the country is welcome (parents appreciate prior notice). so. parents have reasons for a party: family-dad is coming. family-mom is coming. local-friends are coming.

So a party. and they're apparently going all out and getting a tent and stuff. nice that i knew this was all going on for before i'm actually there visiting home. so m gets to meet the other half of my family, i.e., family-dad. i mentioned probably the only times he'd see them, other than this particular gathering, are at our wedding, and if my one remaining single cousin gets married and if we happen to go. or i suppose funerals. i like my one remaining single cousin. but i can't really picture her having a massive, all-out wedding, somehow. i don't know. and - haven't seen her since ... since ... since ... when did grandma die? six years? maybe? no, seven. yeah. so they're not so big on the family-junk.

Bet m's family would like the family-dad, though. and my aunt K and m's aunt C are the same, same person.

still, nice to know in advance.

mmmm, hungry. lunch-time. Only m&m's at work. and some bastard is making hungry-smelly-food in the microwave. hmmm, let's see: something with cream of mushroom soup in it? broccoli? or is that asparagus? i bet it's fettucini alfredo from a frozen-box. probably lite, too. ugh.

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i'm being ambitious. i'm reading ulysses again.

i'm doing well (or i was) - i actually was keeping track of what was going on - but i'm not sure that i'm supposed to, or that that's the point. it sort of lends itself to meta-analysis. but i'm reading ulysses again. and my bookmark is a little bit of the way into the book, by now. i can only read ...not very many pages at a time. there was a breakfast. Dark bedroom. going out to get the kidney. Eeuww, faint tang of urine? every time i get to that part. Not burned too badly, though. there was a rocky beach. a couple. somebody's aunt. dogsbody. Dogsbody. Yeah. i figure, if i can remember what a dogsbody is, i'll be fine. This time around.

maybe i'll get to a third of the way in or so. wish me luck.

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sleepy-sleepy. language-not-s-o-good. Fucking computers. if i had other things to do (i.e. not stare at a computer screen all day at work) i might be ... more inclined to ... stare at a computer screen for fun. Think i'll take a nap on the deck after work. Think i'll leave at five on the fucking dot. Hour and a half. ok.

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deep thoughts, by jack handey
i love the UPS package-tracking website when it's working, (Jul 12, 2004 6:56:00 AM BRYAN TX US OUT FOR DELIVERY woot!) but when it's not, (Jul 09, 2004 06:49:00 PM MESQUITE TX US UNLOAD SCAN) it's not so exciting.

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found a tick on the dog yesterday. Forgot to call mom again. She'll live. tired - it was a long weekend. fucking work. but next weekend is m's real canoe race. finally. and i get to go on saturday at least (though i think i'll have to be back at work probably on sunday afternoon or so. but i can go down fri. night and drive around with all the other captains, or since i'm not really a captain, drive around with all the captains and other assorted hangers-on, all day saturday, and see all the silly people go over the dam and all the cray-zay big-ass boats go half-over the dam and all the slightly saner people (who are still bonkers enough to do a 263 mile canoe race) go around. and i can hang out and drive around saturday nite, too.) but ... people wonder why i hate my job. Fuck 'em.

also if i have to be at work while m is canoeing, i can't be home repainting rooms while he's gone. but i *can* borrow his birthday-present. the one i'm interested in anyway. ah, that reminds me - need to borrow a glue stick from work. and hit hobby lobby again. For two different reasons. Related, sort of (they both have red in them), but different. should have realized i'd need decent glue.

take note: this is the first actual destruction of an old t-shirt of m's. And sanctioned, at that. others, i've just hidden. and even then he finds them sometimes. (i hide them in between the other 60 t-shirts he has but never wears, and i could try harder, but then i'd be psycho.) and the t-shirt destruction is for a good cause - the same one as the glue stick, as it happens. Though i'm thinking that spray-adhesive stuff they always use on Trading Spaces might really be better. maybe if they have it at hobby lobby i'll get some. Bet they do.

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saturday. At work. Crummy. Gorgeous day, gorgeous, and the window in my cube is fucking taunting me. there are birds. And big zoomy bugs. i have a nice little sticker of dilbert squashed like a very dumb bug on the window. Also taunting me. my car is sitting there looking like it wants to be driven. pleading, more, really. across the way there are students on their little apartment balconies. m is off on the river. r and m and, i believe, l are going shopping. Free Panties Day at VS, don't'cha know. the dogs are sitting outside taking naps in the sun, i'm sure, because it's all they do. i should be so lucky.

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well, today is just going to suck.

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new natural citrus listerine is less intense?? Lies. Feel the burn!

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it's always a very, very risky thing to tell one's boss that he smells.

but it's extra-funny to do it in a place where other people (especially other gossipy people) can actually hear you do it. And to do it after the boss has been particularly smelly that day and all sorts of people have been mentioning to you how thoroughly awful it all is.

but then the next day the air is so much more breathable.

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so no canoe race. But tubing. and garage-cleaning. and viewing of spiderman 2. which (was better than i originally thought it might be) / (proved that rottentomatoes.com actually knows what it's talking about) / (lived up to the critics) / (wasn't so bad, actually) / (was a movie that didn't make me entirely resent paying $7 to see it).

Only the theatre shut down in the middle, bastards, right before doc ock's sun explodes, and everybody got free passes and we went back and saw it in the midst of garage-cleaning monday afternoon. Or so.

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as far as i am concerned anyway.

Bastards.

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some people think they were cleopatra in a past life. or someone else famous or someone's great aunt or some particular cute fuzzy thing. Far too many people honestly think they were cleopatra in a past life - because, really, there can be only one, right?

i don't think i've got any competition. Or anyway not as much.

"leave the gun, take the cannoli" - that was all me. with the spaghetti - sauce - making and the very matter - of - fact teaching - michael - to - shoot - cops and the general intimidation factor and besides, i like eating, too, and ...yep. i used to be Clemenza.

this occurred to me in the middle of making a very wine - dark spaghetti sauce.

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