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I'm having one of those days that just make your eyes glaze over at the end.

All catastrophes have so far been avoided. At least that is sure. [So far.]

Rehearsal is progressing. Other things are progressing. I'm feeling driven and assertive and tired.

I've replaced the original Friday Five word of the day (hobby) with another word I find less icky sounding. In case anyone was wondering.

1. What are your avocations?

Theatre. Rabble-rousing. Throwing lavish if poorly attended parties. Web design. Bad photography (not to be confused with bat photography) [I hope someone gets my pathetic Mac Wellman joke. If you get it, you'll win something of some sort.].

2. Do you collect anything? If so, what?

No. When I was a kid, I collected porcelain dolls and glass animals (itty bitty painted animal figurines). But I don't collect anything now.

3. Is there an avocation you're interested in, but just don't have the time/money to do?

Music. Painting. These are things I know how to do but rarely have time for. I play the harp (badly) and would like to get back in practice at least enough that I can remember how to tune the blasted thing. But there are too many other, more important, things to be done. My harp playing has little chance of improving the world.

4. Have you ever turned an avocation into a moneymaking opportunity?

You could call the web design thing moneymaking, I suppose. Though it costs me much more in time than I ever make from it, I've at least used it to generate money for good causes.

5. Besides web-related stuff, what clubs do you belong to?

Do people still belong to clubs? Really? I had no idea. I belong to the Green Party and the Project Management Institute. They're not exactly clubs, though.

It's been awhile since I took a silly bloggish quiz. So here: the Lego woman.

I'm also appalled by the stereotypes associated with same. To quote:

You are a rare find indeed! You are sassy, brilliant, and not to mention lookin' good! You are none other than the sexy lego woman! We can find you strolling the lego town shopping for all the latest lego fashions and then coming home to a low-fat dinner and a bubble bath.

Appalled. And, I admit, rather amused.

I realized something about revolution the other night.

I was sitting in this funky space, in a funky chair, next to the most movie-esqe butch/femme lesbian couple I've ever seen [Have you seen Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love? Remember the older woman the white girl was dating at the beginning? They were that woman and the white girl, except the one wasn't old. Perfectly costumed and everything. They were so movie, it was amazing.]. And people were cheering the idea of shutting down Paris by blocking a key alley way at rush hour.

This is when I realized:

I feel obliged to keep promises to my parents more now than I did when I lived with and depended upon them. Go figure.

I thought about this as I carefully squished my schedule for this weekend to accomodate both a promise to the parents and a desirable social engagement (party! featuring friends not seen in years!).

I think I'm a better kid now. Than when I was a kid. I hope I am, at least.

The boy is fixated on the teaching and raising of children (we have none; I want none) and has me reading books by John Holt. These books seem very outdated. I read them mostly because I am very, very afraid of children and I want to know why.

And I encountered, while browsing today, this zine: raising hell. It made me think of some friends of mine who are such unbelieveably good parents.

I'm working (mostly mentally) on the "your mom" issue of the zine. So I'm not exactly preoccupied with parenting, but I am noting my passing thoughts on the subject more than usual.

In just a day, there have been a number of moving/inspiring responses to this week's We Have Brains topic.

I'm very, very pleased.

So far this week, I've incited other feminists to action, encouraged two people to embrace fat acceptance, continued my progressive web volunteerism, worked with an all-female group (even if their agenda isn't feminist), and let my crazy hips dance.

And here's what I'm going to do about it (feminism, that is) in the next year:

The nicest thing about the internet is how you can meet all these heroes.

Not heroes in a famous people sense, though sometimes you can (especially if your idea of heroes involves the cast of any Star Trek series). But, you know, real live amazing people. I meet them all the time. People who leave their fascinating insides out for the world to read like that. And just amazing people.

I was just thinking about that. Also, I passed a rather important test related to my job today. There was math. It wasn't pretty. Lots of people don't pass.

Not to say I'm not good at math. I'm actually pretty balanced between mathematical and verbal skills, but that still doesn't mean I want to take math tests on my Monday morning.

I've seen many people linking to this accomplishments by age blank thing. Essentially, you input an age (presumably your own), and it coughs back a list of other people and things they accomplished at that age.

The links all look the same. "I've wasted my life". "I'm five years behind". I'm not as good as the people on that list, but I don't intend to do anything about it. I've thought things like that before. The people I'm getting to know and the authors I'm reading sometimes seem so captivating that I think my life has been wasted by not trying to be more like them.

So I had to know. What was this site? Why did someone create something the sole purpose of which seems to be to depress other people by trivializing their lives and accomplishments?

And the answer: someone in China memorized fifteen thousand telephone numbers while Napoleon conquered Italy. I have no interest in memorizing phone numbers or conquering countries. That is to say: the accomplishments of any given year of a life can only be measured in context. Your life is your context.

By the way, the museumofconceptualart site isn't bad overall; it just has that one tragically overlinked page.

I think I'm going to be ill.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but this "art fights back" site makes me physically ill. I'm not kidding about that. It's not a hyperbole, even. I think it's that I expected something much different than it is.

This is a bit belated, but I just have to say:

SUZAN-LORI PARKS WON A PULITZER!

Not only is she the first black woman to win the drama prize [hey, where's Adrienne Kennedy's Pulitzer? I bet SLP wants to know as much as I do], but it's a great play. All of her plays are great plays. White folk that we are, my itty theatre company has nevertheless done a couple of SLP's plays.

They're just damn fine plays, they are.

Not to say that philosophies, beliefs or logic are silly. But rather that the structure by which we pursue philosophical study seems to have been developed by men who were like the little boys who were always trying to catch you in a lie or trick you into seeming stupid with a technicality.

Sorry, you don't even know what I'm talking about yet. I'm talking about the philosophical health check, which highlights the following opinions as contradictory...

While we were driving, we passed so many cows even I was bored with them. I usually tend to scream "cows" everytime I pass them. And so with pretty much any animal.

It's dorky, I know. But I'm a city girl.

Anyhow, I saw all these cows. They're dirty. Their hair sticks all up and they're just sort of ugly. We saw pigs, too, but the pigs were cute. And huge, I had no idea pigs were so big.

I have this thing with chicken; I can't eat it because, most of the time, looking at chicken makes me think of how tortured chickens are in industrial farms. I know they're desperately stupid birds, but I just can't eat while I'm thinking about their tiny cages. Ironically, I can't stand the gaminess of free-range chicken. So I just generally avoid it.

Now every time I eat beef, I think about how ugly cows are. And if I eat pork, I'm reminded of the cute, giant pigs I saw.

So I'm practically a vegetarian now. This isn't a moral issue, by the way. I mean, yes, I think industrial chicken farms could use more humane methods, but otherwise it's just a gross-out thing. Of course, by the time images of cows and pigs have left my mind, I may be used to eating like this. Who knows; I never ate much meat to begin with. My friend would call me a fishetarian.

We saw an ostrich farm, too. That really didn't affect my diet, but it did make me laugh. I wonder what all the other farmers in town say to the guy who started the ostrich farm?

I started a blog a little while ago that was meant to keep me exercising like I should. And I suppose it motivated me somewhat, but it was mostly boring.

I've been thinking about converting it into some sort of group blog for happy fat people to talk about health and life and all that. I tend to wander around thinking my experiences are unique to me, and I'm not so sure that's true. In other words, I think we fat people need to band together. We need things to remind us that being fat doesn't equal being miserable, because there are way too many things telling us the opposite.

So I searched on google for things about happy fat people, and all I found were diet journals of people who aren't happy (and often aren't even fat). Until I found the Big Fat Blog and catay.com. They're not journals per se, but both are gloriously full of interesting news bits and stories.

In other body-related news, my dress for the party has arrived. It's strangely a bit too big, despite being made to my measurements. It works with the black hair, too.

Remember when I said I was going to Kentucky? You don't?

Well, I did. And not only did I go on vacation, but I went on vacation from the internet. I didn't even open the laptop all week. Which was, honestly, quite unexpected.

I'll tell you about it later. I have something in the neighborhood of one hundred fifty emails to read (and that's minus the completely useless and/or spam emails I got. I never realised I got that much mail. Almost makes me feel loved. You sweet things.

First, though, I'm going to sleep. Back to work in the morning!

Happy National Call Someone, Say "T S Eliot" and Hang Up Day!

Amuse your friends and confound your enemies by calling them to say "T S Eliot" today. Trust me, it's as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Which brings up an important question: Is a barrel of monkeys fun? Justhow fun?