Winkers and Wankers

I do some of my best work when people piss me off on internet dating sites. I'd feel sad about sinking to the level of replying to some of these ding-bats, but hell, they "winked." What is a wink, you ask? A little message available to people who haven't coughed up the cash to actually join a site - but are able to post a profile and send canned messages like, "I think you're beautiful" or "I could be the one for you." If you email them (as a paying member) they can reply. They just can't initiate email.

Last night, a man in Britain winked. He said, in his profile, that he wasn't actually looking - just amusing himself. OK, fine. Then, he offered a joke that went:
"I got a sweater for Christmas but what I wanted was a screamer or moaner." He wanted to know if the winkees got the joke and found it funny. He suggested he enjoyed getting erotic email from strangers.

And then, I used a valuable two minutes of my life replying:

"The sweater vs moaner/screamer joke? Mildly funny. I have a hard time with puns. There was a traumatic pun incident in my youth involving an uncle who also wore plaid pants on Sundays. I'm sure you understand.

You are not looking for someone. Admirable. At least you admit it.

I don't write erotic emails - so we have a minus score there. I prefer to be erotic in person. This is not to say I can't write erotic emails. I'm very good at them - but I think some company like Hallmark should be paying me for them. I could be "Say it with Smut - a little tiny division of Hallmark."Or I should have my own 1-900 number. (You may not get the references here - unless you are cursed by Hallmark cards in Britain.)

I am looking for somebody. I actually - I WAS looking for somebody but have given it up. Now I'm looking for another cat and perhaps a goldfish.

What exactly is the purpose of the "wink?" I suspect it's a way of saying, "Hello there. You don't know me, but I'd like to see you naked." The reason I'm asking is because I've bothered to actually write letters (See! I'm doing it again) to winkers (try not to think about how close that is to another word)...and find that they reply with a sullen or distant few words and then disappear into cyber space, never to be heard from again. Or they express regret that I am so far away. Light years, if they only knew. And besides, the number of miles is clearly indicated on the profile.

But you're just amusing yourself and so I feel it's fair enough for me to amuse myself back with yet another letter saying anything I please. You did say that fairness was a quality you value, didn't you? Cheers, Linda"

It was a therapeutic two minutes. Even though it's like feeling pride in being able to hit the broad side of a barn door with a volleyball. And at least I wrote something.

The Planet, Saturn? Or as Mark calls it, "The Flaming Shitbrick"

“Once Saturn enters the twelfth house a subtle change occurs within the psyche…the time of dissolution.”

I’m cliff climbing up that rock face, sleeping or waking these days. Struggling to write something witty or even slightly, minimally upbeat. Sorting through my bag of spiritual answers and handy little mantras and folks, I’m coming up empty. Coming up dissolved you might say. I thank you from my heart for your patience – but I don’t see any immediate possibility of a change in weather patterns.

“There are many times the client has said ‘I don’t know who I am’, when Saturn is deep into the twelfth house. This is not to say that other people do not think that they know who one is.”

Which could explain the disorienting sensation that people are talking to someone who is not me. Someone who is occupying my exact location in space.

“The boundless deep of the unconscious is filled with primordial images that arise spontaneously, both while awake and while asleep. Images and sensations creep in, occupying what used to be superfunctional space in the consciousness.”

Well. There we go. Then everything is unfolding as it should. Do not adjust your monitor, there is merely a leak in superfunctional space. A sense of “terror and anxiety” is to be expected.

You see? This is also why, when friends ask me to look at their current transits, I know that they are likely twisting on any one of a hundred hooks like this. And I am plumb out of soothing phrases like "transitional period" and "opportunity for growth." It's the equivalent of telling a woman pregnant with huge triplets that she "will experience some discomfort" during delivery.

I am apt to use phrases like "Flaming Shitbrick" - and really, it's not very professional to do that.

...Once my friend KD dreamed she was sitting in a boat with an angel who was standing, (looming, I assume) at the front. She was trying to shoot it. And she was missing. “At close range,” she told me, in a tone of disgust...

I think I know the feeling.

(Quotes from Saturn in Transit – Erin Sullivan)

Surrender

I've been staring at the screen for a long time. Words refuse to type themselves and thoughts refuse to shape.

Last night I dreamed I passed through spider's webs and I was bound. Stung until it was a matter of death or immunity.

I woke to purrs and little paws walking over me. Sticky with threads, I pulled myself to consciousness like someone climbing a sheer rock face with no hand or toe holds.

Disconnect

The future fumbles
blank and blind
while tidal waves of memory
cover me.
Flotsam and jetsam.

Tide in, tide out.
Swallowing the ground
underneath my feet.

No one here but me.

A little shy,
I gave you music
I bought for you
on a rain-soaked lunch hour
and you smiled.

You said:
I’ll have to pay you back.
I’ll call you next week.

You meant to favor me
with your presence?

Alms for the past?

I swallowed shock.
I couldn’t reply:
A gift is a gift.
Not a trade.
I’m not cashing in
the chips of our history.

I didn’t tell you.
I can’t explain the obvious.
I never could.
Not that you wanted
very often
to know.

In the spirit of the writer's strike

An LOE rerun. I was reading back recently and decided that this was one of the entries I personally liked. I'd been uninspired for weeks and Mark finally wrote to say, "Just fucking write something."

So I did.

http://lifeonearthand.blogspot.com/2006/10/just-f-ing-write-something.html

Maybe my friends should swear at me more often.

All that you have

This is what I'm listening to tonight.
And specially for Sister Teri of the beautiful voice.



Blessings all.

Post-Noel. Anyone care for a dried apricot?

Well. That was underwhelming.

Hurricane Juan hits us as easily as a Harlem Globetrotter lobbing a basketball into a flock of sleeping pigeons. We count on it subsiding into the nice kind of tropical storm we’re used to but no.

So this time, as Noel scuds up the Atlantic coast all whirling hell and red center on the radar pictures, nobody is asleep. The pigeons are wide awake indeed. They are moving patio furniture, slicing off dead tree branches. They have water, batteries, flashlights, first aid kits. And…

It’s no small deal to have 170,000 people lose power – especially if you’re one of them and it’s two days later. Crews are in from New Brunswick and Maine helping out and everyone should be back to our precarious “normal” soon. Until the next one, anyway.

When we’ll all be effectively reminded that Mother (Nature, that is), at any moment, can fling us back two centuries.

The winds were fierce. Up to 180K in Newfoundland. It rained in sheets for hours.

Personally, I woke up Sunday morning to flashing digital clocks – and the sudden understanding that dried apricots and almonds (I just had to have a few) are about as effective as peanuts and prunes.

But really, nothing to see here, folks. And hence, no material.

Perhaps I should try another date if I’m seeking disaster material.

Joyeux Noel

Dried Apricots & apples.
Almonds and sunflower seeds.
Beans.
Tuna.
Bread.
Cheese.
Grapes.
Applesauce in individually sealed packages.
Water.
Milk.
Candles.
Batteries.
Flashlight.

Here we go again. Post-tropical storm Noel is due to arrive sometime tonight, packing hurricane strength winds and bringing with it what meteorologists are calling "a solid wall of rain."

This time, I won't be suffering the cheap, scented dollar store candles - the only ones left in stock by the time the stores finally opened after Hurricane Juan. Since Juan, I never have less than 500 tea lights (safe candles) and two dozen votive candles on hand. And a flashlight.

This time, I won't be stuck, if the power goes for days and days, eating the only dried fruit and nuts I could find days after the hurricane: peanuts and prunes. Usually when I tell people that's what I bought (because dried fruit and nuts are nutritious and don't spoil), they start laughing. I might as well have taken up a steady diet of Ex-lax. I was unwashed, my sinuses were suffering near terminal damage from inhaling cheap candle perfume, but I was, by god, regular.

Waiting for the bus this morning, the sky is heavy and sullen. The air is wet and cold - but the temperature will climb considerably today - and then plummet again after the hurricane passes through. Flocks of birds wheel wildly in the sky. When the wind begins, my cat will start to tear through the house, unable to contain the energy he feels from the change of atmosphere.
As for me? I'll haul out the duvet and hope that the power isn't gone for long. It will be 8C the day after Noel. That's around 45 F. Brrrr.

Wish us luck, folks?