Blargh

Drizzly today and chilly-ish. The sort of day that's perfect for napping and reading and lounging with coffee. I at least have coffee. On the up-side, I get to use a pressure washer later today. My inner butch is singing.

~*~

I've been revising and rethinking old and newer poems like crazy since I got back from LA...well once the jet lag and exhaustion lifted. It's been a much different process...for the first time in years revising has been as pleasurable as writing the first draft of something. Plus I've started a few new drafts.

The Body

Just before my senior year of college I had to have an emergency appendectomy. All told it was a horrible experience. I had to have a drain, a small length of the stitches got infected, I dropped weight like crazy, the surgeon didn't believe in anything beyond minimal pain management. I was never one of those people who felt like my body was infallible, that I had boundless energy, but that whole year (August to August) was just punishing.

I developed (and still have, though to a lesser degree) an obsession with surgical photography and anatomical art/studies. I had a copy of Max Aguilera-Hellweg's The Sacred Heart for about a month during grad school (tucked out of the way lest friends got too skeeved out.)

A few weeks ago, Peter posted about the Medical Venus and I was entranced by that confluence of religious iconography, the fine arts and anatomical study.

Sometime after that (it's been such a blur the last couple of weeks, I can't remember where or when), I found a link to The Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls, painted by Yasukazu Minagaki. They're gruesome but more fascinating to me because of how they incorporate Eastern aesthetics with anatomy. Trust me...they're not really for the squeamish. But I've meant to blog about them for a while so I thought I'd toss this out.

Pile O' Pressies...Stack O' Stuff Edition

The caption contest is over. Last week was intense--a flurry of writing, rewriting, rejecting and anxiously checking vote totals. Congratulations to Shanna for the fierce final round. Special thanks to CDY and Jacob for the sponsorship. And a bigger especial thanks to those who voted during the whole smackdown.

A quick moment just for Brian who said: "So you are the Jeffrey, not the Santino of Project: Caption."

~*~

The other day my mom wanted to talk about politics--usually not something she does. I'm obviously not always sympathetic to the GOP, and finally neither is my mother. She's a classic old-school conservative: minmal government invasion, low taxes, fiscal responsibility, yadda yadda. She has to vote in the GOP Primary here and is wondering how. But come the general she's definitely voting Democrat. Anyways--we're talking and she says "I'm really drawn to Joe Biden. I don't know why, but I am." Now I don't know if this means she likes his policy positions...or there's some other thing going on. Frankly, I don't want to think of my mom having the hots for him.

~*~

Some time last week I'd started a post going on about how I hadn't gone all crazy for Christmas this year just because I hadn't gone hog wild decorating and turning into the more feminine, less felonious Martha Stewart (that's for you Tommy.)

When I broke it down I realize that yes, yes indeed I had gone a little nuts, again, for Christmas (with my mother's help, we broke up the duties and each tackled specific things.) A quick breakdown of the final goody production:

19 dozen cookies baked
6 lbs of candy
2 quarts of spiced mixed nuts

And 5 stockings made from scratch. We decided to do a Secret Santa this year, but each gift was supposed to be hand-made. I drew Eric, but since I was overcome with holidizzy, I made one for Tommy and Ashley and a couple of others as well (just in case I needed a last minute pressy for someone.)

Eric's Stocking


Ashley's Stocking


Tommy's Stocking

Sex & Candy

A couple of choice snippets from today's Savage Love column from the Onion's AV Club.

"The percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since," wrote the Washington Post. "Experts are unsure of the reasons for the change, but [point to] the possibility that some irreducible portion of the teenage population can never be dissuaded from having sex."

**

I'm a 27-year-old lesbian, and my girlfriend of two years broke up with me. When I moved out, I left the sex toys I knew were hers and took the rest. The first night she was back after I left, she texted me to ask for specific toys back! I made some insensitive comments about how I took the toys because I thought I might find someone who actually wanted to have sex with me, and she got angry. I ended up giving her all the toys back because I didn't want them any more after the argument.

What should the etiquette be around sex toys when two women break up, especially when strong feelings are involved?

Babe In Toyless Land

Have two women ever broken up without strong feelings being involved?

The etiquette around the division of sex toys after a breakup is the same that applies to the division of any property post-breakup, BITL. The splitting couple has a tense discussion about divvying up their shared property; if an agreement can't be reached, they sue the shit out of each other. It would be foolish to sue an ex over a dusty collection of strap-ons and vibrators, of course, as replacing the average sex-toy collection would be less expensive than a lawsuit. But exes have taken each other to court over dumber shit—custody of dogs, cats, kids, etc.

~*~

The AV Club also has an interview with the inimitable Mink Stole.

~*~

A friend of my mother's gave me more than 75 1.5 oz. boxes of Jelly Belly Sours. That's almost 9 lbs of jelly beans! What the hell? My pancreas is shutting down preemptively.

~*~

Tomorrow I brave the WV DMV to renew my license. If this is anything like the experience I had 5 years ago, I will have one helluva rant tomorrow evening.

~*~

I discovered 4 perfectly white hairs in my beard yesterday. Not blonde, not gray...white. It's time to shave. Daily. Until I die.

In related news: 21 shopping days remain until my birthday.

Junk Drawer

Last night I woke up about 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Flipped through channels trying to find anything that might be watchable. VH-1 Classic had a Siouxsie and the Banshees video. I enjoyed it, but it seemed to unsettle the cats. Click. Switched to the menu function to see if there was anything that caught my eye. FMC was showing The Gay Deception. That almost seemed promising...but instead it's some movie from 1935 about a woman who comes into a lot of money; not about Ted Haggard or others like him. No Star Trek or any National Geographic or History Channel documentaries that I wanted to watch. So I ended up on MSNBC watching Alexandra Pelosi's (daughter of "San Francisco Liberal Values" Speaker of the House Nancy (who happens to have a street near the Inner Harbor in Baltimore named for her)) Journeys With George, her documentary about travelling with W. during the 2000 election. It was startling in a lot of ways. I reccomend it, though sometimes I found myself getting pissy and flipping back to music videos.

I finally saw the Beyonce & Shakira video. Amazing how effortless it seems for Shakira to be sexy and in control of her own body. Beyonce just worked so hard. Even with a wind machine blowing her to hell and back she didn't pull it off. If she screws like she dances I pity Jay Z--especially if that's her "sexy" face. I need the Shakira album.

At some point I fell asleep. Dreamed (twice !) about being at a prom-like function. I wasn't in formal wear but a blazer, a baggy madras plaid shirt, slacks and (big gay inhale) sandals! I kept running into the daughter of a former coworker and said the same thing each time: "I haven't seen you in ages." She had on too much eyeliner (which only accentuates her lazy eye) and a fuschia sequined gown with assymetrical shoulders. The left shoulder was a mass of dyed-to-match maribou and feathers. It resembled nothing so much as tumorous cotton candy.

~*~

My thighs hurt like hell. It's deceptively sunny out. Chilly. This is just not cricket. Sunny means warm, dammit.

~*~

Poems have been coming but then stalling out about 8 lines in. I'm leaving them in the cannibal file and hoping that I can go back and work with them. They feel promising when I'm drafting but aside from the initial flash, there's nothing. Distressing.