Gone Fishing

Gone on vacation up to Maine and Acadia National Park.

Be back Tuesday. With pictures.

Nothing to blog about

Sometimes, when I'm really bored, I like to entertain myself and others by pretending to be aquaruim creatures. I will put my face right up againt a glass window or wall, make bug eyes, flex my neck, and wiggle my tongue. Sometimes I do wierd things with my eyebrows.

I've been fish, suckers, snakes, gekos, and a toad.

Next time, I might branch out a bit and be a baboon.

Or a gibbon, those are some funky monkeys. I should probably tell you about the time we went to the zoo and saw the baby gibbon scare its mather half to death.

But I've got a praying mantis that needs to come out, so I'll tell y'all about that next time.

How appropriate: blue is my favorite color.

Not only is blue my favorite color, all the things listed to describe my personality below are pretty accurate.

Only thing wrong with the list is the jobs: Im too honest to be a psychic, too introverted to be an Peace Corp Volunteer, and too deaf to be a counselor.

Your Aura is Blue

Spiritual and calm, you tend to live a quiet but enriching life. You are very giving of yourself. And it's hard for you to let go of relationships. The purpose of your life: showing love to other people Famous blues include: Angelina Jolie, the Dali Lama, Oprah Careers for you to try: Psychic, Peace Corps Volunteer, Counselor

What Color Is Your Aura?

A Clean Room?

ISO 9001: a Haiku.

Even though we wear
White smocks, hairnets, and booties,
Floor is still dirty.

All I have is a thousand words.

The doctor's office is a corner suite with two large bay windows. One overlooks a major highway, with millions of vehicles whizzing past, drivers preoccupied with their myriad cares. The other overlooks a small copse of woody birches and oaks rising high over bushy shrubs and flowering crabapple trees.

It is this window that captures my attention, for on the outside, in the center as if framed, is the ethereal imprint of a bird. Pale dust makes a gestural painting of outstreched wings. A faithful redering of individual feathers layering the breastbone. A wispy indication of a head, beak agape.

For some reason, I am struck by the image of this ghostly bird's headlong flight into certain death. I am filled with feelings of awe and sorrow. I am touched by the random beauty I see in the finer details of the feathers; fine lines of pale brown dust and ash.

I feel compelled to immemorialize what I see, to share what I feel. But technology fails me. The glare of the setting sun is all my camera can capture. Even though a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words is better than nothing at all. And so I write this post, knowing that all my words fail to show you just how amazing this is, where life and death, instants and infinities come together into a singlularity that imprints itself in my mind just as it imprinted itself onto a glass windowpane.

The Bucket List

My friend Rockstar (yes, that really is her nickname! Even though she is not technically a rockstar, she is one to everyone who knows her) just turned 40. Hoo-rah. We went to dinner to celebrate last week, and over a platter of ginormous greasy cheeseburgers and fries, we started discussing our Bucket Lists: the things we wish to do before we die.

Among the things Rockstar listed (white water rafting, beating up her soon-to-be-former Brother-in-Law), at number one was this:

Swimming with the Sharks in South Africa.

The woman is deathly afraid of spiders and bears (even the little babies!), and she wants to swim with sharks. "I've always loved sharks! They are so cool!"

"You flee screaming at the sight of a cute little fuzzy baby bear, and yet will cuddle with a mindless predatory fish?"

"Where there's a baby bear, there's a Mama Bear!" She shudders.

"You're insane."

She retorts by asking me about my bucket list. I confess I had never really thought much about it. Its not that I don't think about my impending mortality (I do), or that death is inconsequential (it is), but rather that I don't feel a need to fill my life with activity and excitement. For the most part, I am a boring person with a boring life, and for some reason, I'm content to be that way.

Having said that, there are a few things I do wish to accomplish in my life, some experiences I do wish to experience. None are remarkable or exciting, save this one thing, which is what I ultimately shared with Rockstar.

"I'd like to go hang-gliding someday."

Her eyebrows lift.

"Yeah. I've always wondered what it would be like to fly. To just strap on some wings, hop off a mountian, and let the wind carry me down."

A Sartorial Rant

Dear Clothing Designers;

I cannot in good conscience call you "fashion designers" because the garments you have created for this season's lineup are anything but fashionable! What is this loathsome, vomitous garbage? What the fuck is wrong with you people? What in hell possessed you to think that these shapeless, gaudy, tacky, pieces of shit were fashion-worthy?

I cannot possibly wear these hideous things. Unlike your models, I am not an anorexic stick. I am a plump woman with big boobs, a tiny waist, a big ass, and thunder thighs. Do you have any idea what these clothes do to a woman like me? It makes us look shapeless and FAT, people!

And even if I did have a stick-thin, flat-chested body like your models, I still wouldn't wear these abominable sacks! These patterns! Those fabrics! What possessed you?!

You know what your problem is? You're no longer designing clothes for the market--you're designing clothes for your models. You have one body type in the entire fashion industry and you design all your clothes around that one body type. Your industry revolves around the models, not you! How stupid is that? Wouldn't it make more sense to design clothes for a variety of differently-shaped women and then hire a variety of differently-shaped models to fit those designs? Imagine the versatility! Imagine the exploding market! Imagine the money!


Y'all better shape up for Winter, or gawd help me, I'll make my own fucking clothes.

With much ire,
Rachel

*********** *************

Dear Dudes;

Step away from the baggy clothes, guys.

They don't look good on you. They don't look good on anyone--not the fat ones, nor the tall ones, the short ones. the beefy ones, or the average ones. Neither do they look good on the Black ones, the White ones, or the Hispanics, Asians, or the Indians. Bottom line, they don't look good on anyone and especially not on you.

If you've got an athletic, muscular, fit body, why would you hide it under baggy tees and bulky jeans? If you are a big fellow, with a large paunch or flabby man-boobs, why would you make yourself look BIGGER wearing clothes ten times the size of your body?

Furthermore, my dear dudes, for the love of GAWD, please stop belting your pants under your buttcheeks! Showing off your boxers, layered over your tighty-whiteys, and tucking the back of your shirt(s) into those boxers makes you look like a stupid clown. It's a ridiculous look, and I assure you, is completely unattractive. It makes your butt look like a plaid bubble. Combine that with your oversized clothes that hide your form like a male burka--it quite literally makes you look like an ass.

An ass with a head.

Don't get me wrong, men, I'm not telling you to wear tight or clingy clothes, I'm asking you to please wear clothes that fit. That are properly cut to show off your assets and hide your flaws. A man's good looks rests in his broad shoulders and arms, his narrow hips, and firm legs. I'm begging you, wear clothes that fit you in these areas, that make you look like a man, not a shapeless mass of fabric.

Dudes, do your penises a favor. Stop dressing like ass-clowns and start dressing like men.

Disgustedly,
Rachel



**note: all images found via Google image search.