"AS I LIVE AND BREATHE"

I'm alive! Woohoo! Here's the thing. I have decided that maybe I need to spend a moment in a tanning bed from time to time. Not for tanning! I feel so lethargic in winter and feeling lethargic makes work go slow which makes me feel easily overwhelmed which makes me stress which makes me succeptible to colds which makes me catch colds which then makes colds linger forever. So, if I got a little sunlight all over, maybe I'd feel young and spry. Because I eat well, I exercise, I take care of myself and the only thing different is sunshine. So, maybe I will go talk a tanning salon into letting me into a tanning bed for 5 minutes every couple of weeks. I've been in one before (I wasn't going to show up in the Yuccatan this pale. Hello?) and it takes more like twelve minutes for me to get any color, so, eh, maybe just a shot of UV would be enough to perk me up. It's like season affective disorder, only physically not emotionally. (Shrugs)

I Zicam'd it and Vitamin C'd it and ate lots of spinach and drank lots of green tea and water and fought my way through, though. I got really desperate and took a cold & sinus pill yesterday and pulled the hives/swelling throat/spike in body temperature routine on myself. Oops. Dumbass. I never have done well with Tylenol anything. But, I feel good today. Fucking finally.

But, I thrive. Amy Guth is always okay. I read a lot and painted. My two new canvasses are primed and on my kitchen walls so I can stare at them and figure out what the paint on them. I did laundry. I watched the Pesidential address two nights ago and now worry about the possibility of my friend, ArmyGrrl, being deployed.

For those keeping score: He said "terror" or "terrorist" (pronounced "tear" and "tearist") only ten times. "Sectarian" seven times. "Nuke-u-lawr" only once. "Nine-Eleven" only once. "Al Kite-uh" eight times. But, he said "Merica" a whopping twenty-two times.

How have all of you been? I feel like I'm out of the bloggy loop.

"PAINT A VULGAR PICTURE"

I felt like shit for Shabbes, so I stayed in and did nothing.

I went to Der Rosenkavalier last night at the opera, though, as I had gotten the tickets as a Chanukah gift. It was lovely in every sense of the word. My only real complaint, though, was that Der Rosenkavalier is looooooooong. If a person, such as myself, who really likes going to operas complains that an opera is too long, it's fucking long. Maybe it just felt long. Maybe I wore uncomfortable shoes. Whatever. I saw a beautiful woman in the restroom-- maybe she was polynesian?-- with caramel stripes in her hair, two bras-- a white one and a black and red one, a sleeveless sheer black shirt, knee-boots over fishnets and a freaky orange geometric miniskirt. I stood in line to pee and watched her put on chapstick and readjust her wrist cuffs. In the sea of sensible, understated evening wear, I felt like we should have joined forces.

Beforehand, I made a stop for a glass of pinot grigio and vegetarian tapas, which is good living, if you ask me. At the restaurant, I fell in love with this painting, which hung over my table. What do I have to do to have it? It was a melancholy child with wild black hair, standing inside of an old gothic iron fence with freaky greenish-blueish fog all around. In the background, there was a tree with a pink dress and a yellow dress hanging off of coat hangers hung on brances. It reminded me of the Penny Dreadful drawings a bit and I can't stop thinking about it.

Walking home after my lovely evening, I saw head-in-progress in a parked car. Oh little blonde head, bob like the wind! Stay gold pony girl, you'll get your meaningless diamond ring from your unappreciative fratboy! (splat.)

Am I the only one, right now, that could give a rat's ass about the upcoming David Mamet Festival? Everyone I know, more or less, is weak in the knees and making arrangements and blah, blah, blah. "Didja get the fuckin' thing? What thing? You know, the fucking thing, I-- C'mon, this thing's important." Bluh. Don't care. David Mamet is one of those people who isn't to blame for having the fans that he does. He's simply just famous enough that annoying faux-intelligent people attach themselves to his work like leeches and think they are underground, indie sub-genre slickdicks for knowing who he is. Some people do it with Mamet, some people own one Bach CD and call themselves classical music fans. Whatever. There's nothing wrong or unintelligent about enjoying Mamet, or Bach or any of the others, but just keep digging in the genre. Or other genres. It's the resting on false laurels that bugs me.

Today, I'm feeling a cleaning spree. I'm still in the weird nesting mode. I can't shake the feeling that I need to mix everything up, clean every object, reexamine very thought, every idea and reorganize everything, tossing out the mental/spiritual/physical clutter that I don't feel connected to anymore. But first, breakfast. A woman cannot conquer anything on an empty stomach.

Before I dash away, here's a fun little activity that I can't seem to stop doing. Recite Smith's lyrics while doing the voice of George W. Bush. This is especially hilarious if talking through the lyrics to Shoplifters...