A whole lot of nothing!

Once again, I don’t have any big issues on my mind, just a lot of little ones. Next week, I’ll be a better blog friend, and probably be more prolific, too. It’s amazing what a relatively busy week combined with dry eyes and wicked cramps can do to dampen your online social life.

Right now, I’m thinking about…

…American Idol. I never watch the middle, but I got sucked in this week, at least for the guys. Good Gaia, Taylor Hicks is cute, and he can sing, too! He needs to work on his stage moves, but still! I’ve seen plenty of guys on AI who I’d have liked when I was 14, but Taylor can come to Mama *now*…um, if Mama were single, that is. And Chris Daughtry is totally deserving, BFL.

…TV shows as social events. Survivor used to be it for me—I was among a group of bi Orlando women who’d meet at Frances’ house. We’d play Liar’s Poker, discuss our castaway crushes and what we would do to them, eat, and talk about life. The show was good, but it was really an excuse to have fun with friends. Now I watch Survivor alone, and NASCAR fills that void for me. It’s a different vibe—mixed-gender, mixed-orientation, several couples in the group—so I can’t go into as much detail about what I would do to Tony Stewart given the chance as I would have at Frances’ house. Then again, a lot of things are different now. And there’s no NASCAR Nextel Cup next week, either.

…how territorial people can be. I think that accounts for why, twice this week, I found furniture that I could refinish just getting thrown away, and when I tried to take it, the throwers-away screamed at me and tried charging me for what was their trash! I thought the “typewriter” scene in Foxfire was all fiction! I let my down-the-street neighbor’s baker’s rack go, but my BossLady fought hard for my right to take a junior executive desk from another company in our building. Why? Because she wanted their shelves, and wanted me to refinish them for her, and anyway, “since there’s no race this weekend, you need something to keep you out of trouble.” Seriously, I think people hate to admit they’ve thrown away anything of value. Maybe that’s why sometimes, the ex looks real good after s/he’s found someone else.

…zebras and horses. My grandpa used to tell us that when we see hoofprints, think horses, not zebras. Meaning, don’t get worked up about exotic and arcane stuff. I’m thinking about this after listening to some friends and acquaintances talk about their partners’ dangerous hobbies. L’Ailee and I have balance there, I think, because we each have what can be considered a dangerous hobby, and we each know what adrenaline feels like, and we know that age will take them away from us soon enough, so why rush it? But people fear skydiving and surfing accidents, not heart attacks or car accidents. I think most people live with a light layer of denial, just enough to make everything more tolerable. If we didn’t, none of us would do anything.

…I bet some people will look at the above and think, “That’s why Bush and his administration are still around!” ;-)

…the evil marketing geniuses Pizza Hut hired! Nobody’s told me this, but I swear it was their intention to create a nauseatingly bad commercial that would get people talking, both about how many layers of gross it is and how short Jessica Simpson’s skirt was. All just in time for the Super Bowl, when companies get their commercials discussed and discussed some more. Then when people were ready to throw things at the TV and pick up a good book, they parodied *their own commercial* before anyone else could! They got everyone’s good will by making us laugh, after setting the joke up themselves! Brilliant! We’ll be remembering the Cheesy Bites pizza long after it’s discontinued, even if we haven’t actually eaten one. (I love-love cheese, personally, but if I’m jonesing that much for it, I just eat some string cheese.) And my mom thinks my marketing degree’s going to waste!

…revolutionizing this year’s gingerbread people with the Cookie Sutra, which a co-worker was kind enough to give me. Thanks!!!

…new scarves and patterns from Vera Bradley, and how a certain wife of mine just might grab one to wrap around her cute little head without bothering to ask me for permission. I still can’t believe the fight we launched over my Lilly Pulitzer scarf and her right to it earlier this week. I guess that’s my territorial-ness. I deny L’Ailee nothing, but I do need to be *asked*. I was like that with my brother growing up, too.

...the passing of two good ones. Octavia Butler, a genius science fiction writer who revolutionized the genre by focusing on people rather than machines and battles, and Betty Berzon, a lesbian psychologist whose work with same-gender relationships and the ways addiction affects LGBT people broke ground and helped a lot of people. Two of those people were me and L’Ailee, when we were looking for “old ladies who’ve been together forever” to help us out. In their own ways, they each visualized a new future and helped create it, just by being forcefully themselves.

May y’all do something to create the future you want!!!