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valentina

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  1. valentina

    More photos

    By valentina,

    A few other photos -- not as intriguing as the photos from Will Call!
     
    The first one is of Mugzy, staring down a squirrel; it's in the shadows, but he's standing next to a weeping mulberry tree that he loves to use as a back-scratcher.
     

     
    And here's Ella Bean, wending her way through an path between the major garden area and a small garden pond, which has a lilac bush and day lillies planted around it. A brisk southern wind was blowing those Basset ears around!
     

     
    I like to plant Mexican sunflowers every year because they're great butterfly magnets. I hope this little guy has headed south, because snow showers are forecast for tomorrow night. Yech!

  2. valentina
    I made moussaka for dinner tonight and it was yummy. I can't eat lamb unless it's ground up and heavily spiced (I don't like the way it smells), so normally if lamb is served at my house, it's because I'm cooking Greek or Indian. For a white woman in Nebraska, I tend to do better at ethnic than whitebread meat-n-taters-midwestern.
     
    I am re-testing La Petit Mort and I have determined that myrrh is my nemesis. It goes powdery on me every time, damnit! I am also going to try something that has ylang-ylang in a different combination. I've always assumed that I didn't like it, but I'm beginning to think in another blend, it might work. This last order of mine -- 13 and an imp pack -- wasn't one of my greater success stories. I'm glad that I ordered imps and not bottles! But BPAL, when it works, really works. I went to Omaha yesterday to buy some Arcana soap at Magical Omaha, and I picked up some of their scents for a friend. The owner gave me a bunch of Arcana samples, and they don't work on my picky body chemistry. None of them. But like I said, when a BPAL works on me, it's beyond glorious, and I'll take that any day.
     
    I think that men are somewhat predictable creatures, especially the ones in my general age range, probably because I've simply been dealing with them for so long. But younger guys, I don't get them. There's the young guy at work (25 or 26) who very earnestly flirts with me, although we all know he's just a little poonhound. The senator he works for isn't much better, so my friend Ron and I call the young staffer "little dog" and his boss "big dog." Little dog has been emailing me lately, just being friendly and chatty, but his notes read like he's using a thesaurus for every other word. He's trying really hard, it is kind of sweet and I'll give him credit -- he's a bright guy, and I think he likes having a conversation about something more than drinking beer and watching football. I'm good practice for him, because some day he's going to meet a smart woman in his age range who can have conversations about things he talks about when he visits with me. I think he's afraid to show younger women his more intellectual and artistic side, and that's sad.
     
    Then there's a guy who works at the health club I go to; he's the weekend front desk person. I think he's a grad student, so he's early 20-ish. His parents are professors, he's really smart, kind of chunky-but-cute, very friendly. Or, I should say, he was very friendly -- he spent a ton of time talking to me a few weeks ago and was trying to get me to take tai chi at the club. He already does tai chi, but wanted to try a different instructor, since he'd never taken from the guy who teaches at the club. I'd taken a session with this instructor, and while the guy knows his stuff and is very nice, he is almost incomprehensible as a teacher. Anyway, the front desk guy and I got into a big discussion about eastern disciplines and I gave him the name of my yoga teacher and told him to call her if he ever wanted to drop in on one of her classes. I told him I just didn't have time to add a tai chi class to my schedule. All was fine until about two weeks ago -- now he won't look at me, just types in my member number when I give it to him, halfway rolls his eyes at me when I walk through, and acts like it's a relief to see me leave. I want to say, "Pardon me sweetie, but WTF?" All I've ever done was be polite to him and chat with him a little bit. Christ, I'm old enough to be his mother, maybe he figured that out, but there's no need to act so strangely.
     
    But you know, maybe he's nuts, or maybe he now has a girlfriend, so he's rather immaturely blowing off everyone that he used to get attention. It's really sad -- sometimes I think my intentions can be misinterpreted simply because I try to treat people as actual human beings. I work around the legislature and I'm fairly immune to being treated as a cog in the machine, as a means to an end, but there are times when a thank-you would have been nice, and then there are the times when a thank-you or a simple acknowledgement meant everything in the world. So I try to be genuinely cordial and polite to people; that's all. Everyone deserves that much, and it is a goal of every day of my life, although I forget about it entirely too often.
     
    I was telling a friend the other day, I read things that I wrote when I was much younger and think they are alarmingly rational, considering what an interpersonal pinhead I used to be. It would be OK to be physically younger and cuter again, but hell, it's true -- I'd never go back to being younger because never again do I want to be that much of an emotional retard. Nor would I want to return to dealing with younger guys who were even bigger 'tards than me. Not that as people age, they necessarily mature emotionally, but a few do, and damn, they come as a relief.
     
    All of you who are young and self-aware, you're pretty amazing. There's quite a few of you on the forum, showing you are smart about more things than how to smell really, really good.
  3. valentina

    Muck

    By valentina,

    This morning I set the alarm for 7:45 (way, way early for me on a Sunday) and went out to my back yard and bailed out all the old water in my two small garden ponds. They're pre-shaped plastic liners and a once-a-year emptying and refilling is a nice idea. So I was bailing out all the stinky old water and sludge and slime and it made me thing of the LJ wank. Generally, I consider that sort of behavior to be stinky and slimy.
     
    While we relish our freedom of speech, the institutions that help give us freedom of speech (unless the current administration gets its way), like legislative bodies and courts, have very structured rules of debate. The procedures are there for a reason -- if it's a free-for-all, discussions can drop to the lowest common denominator and nothing constructive occurs. I consider the anonymous wank to be a free-for-all and the resulting discussion is generally worthless. While there may be nuggets of a legitimate discussion here and there, the presentation does not lend itself to anything but discord.
     
    And that's all I'm going to say about this topic, because I think the more we just ignore the behavior and refuse to give the wankers the attention that they want, the sooner they will pick up their toys and move to another playground or simply go home and pout.
     
    But damn it, I do adore that asshattery word. And I did know who Ron Jeremy was, pervy old bag that I am!
     
    Oh yeah, for those of you who are old enough, do you remember an INXS song where he's reciting words, like appreciate, dedicate, ect? They should have had satiate in that song!
  4. valentina

    Mullet haikus

    By valentina,

    It is too hot outside for me to entertain the notion of writing or even thinking rationally; however, in an odd, Jungian-like bit of synchronicity, I discovered a web page of "mullet haikus." Now I will have something mysterious and Zen-like to say to my mulleted buddy who greets me outside of Meadowlark Coffee when I make my morning coffee runs. So for all the mulleted samauris out there, and for everyone who encounters them, here are few choice mullet haiku offerings:
     
    This super cool hair
    and a bucket of chicken:
    What more could I want?
     
    I liked that foreign
    legion movie so much, I
    grew me one them hats
     
    O! SQUIRREL brother,
    Your tail, my hair We are one
    Yet I must eat you
     
    Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t
    win no spelling bees Who cares?
    They rock the trailer
     
    Metallica is
    for first graders Nothing rocks
    harder than Winger
     
    Dogs urinate where
    they so choose And so do I
    Red and blue lights flash
  5. valentina

    Musings

    By valentina,

    Tonight I'm going to my home town (a small town an hour and half away) to put in my appearance at a post-Mother's Day mother-daughter dinner at the care center where my mother lives. My mother has Alzheimer's disease and while she's still coherent enough, she typically thinks she's still a teacher in a school, only this one is a boarding school. Hey, whatever works.
     
    I'm the youngest of three kids -- my brother is 12 years old and my sister is 10 years older. My brother used to call me Boo-Boo when I was a little kid, probably derived from the Yogi Bear cartoons, but also a pretty apt descriptor of my appearance on the scene. Somewhere in between the birth of my siblings and my birth, my mother really, really changed. My memories of my mother are more akin to my nieces (the oldest being 12 years younger than me) than my brother's or sister's. And they're not especially pleasant. When my mother started showing signs of dementia, I thought she was getting abruptly nicer; my brother and sister thought she was getting meaner.
     
    So when I tell people that my mother has Alzheimer's and they say they're sorry, I tell them thank you, but it's OK. It's a tragedy for my mother, of course, and for my siblings. For me, it's watching someone who never especially liked me leave and be replaced by someone who doesn't mind my existence. Of course, it would have been so much better for her to have retained her brain functions, and simply have come to terms with the demons that I represented. But it didn't work out that way.
     
    I think a lot of her anger towards me was due to my "Boo-Boo" status and the fact that I had the audacity to represent the gene pool on my father's side of the family.
    I was also very close to my maternal grandmother when she was alive, and I think there was also a certain jealousy there -- my mother didn't want to share her mother with anyone, much less me. My paternal grandmother died when I was about 3 or 4, and I barely remember her. No one really talked about her that much, even my father. But with my mother's loss of short-term memory, she talks a lot about the things still stored in her brain. I've found out a lot about my paternal grandmother's personality as a result of those little memory fragments, and my internal reaction is typically: "Oh, that's where that came from..." Meaning, those elements in my personality that seem rather foreign when taken in context to my siblings.
     
    Ah, so I looked like my father's rogue uncles (that's another story), I was her mother's favorite grandchild and she had to watch her mother-in-law's personality bubble up out of me. It was probably too much for her to take. Not that it excuses how she treated me, but obviously she was too angry about too many things that I embodied.
     
    I'll never know her reasons for being so angry -- part of the rules of my family were to not talk about feelings or ugly behaviors. Disassociation rules the day, and I've learned that it's a waste of breath to try to force issues. And over the years, and with a lot of help, I've developed equanimity around the matter. It was my only choice, really, in order to break the cycle of anger and lashing out.
     
    As a friend of mine once said, we all need family, but they need not be our relatives.
     
    It will be a nice day for a quiet drive, a little visit, and then a drive home. My mother won't remember yesterday was Mother's Day, but she will be happy to see me, happy to get attention, happy to get the teddy bear that I'll give her (for that is the level she's at), and happy to see me leave. And I'll feel the same way, although in so many ways, I left the family a long time ago.
  6. valentina
    My signature line is a favorite Dorothy Parker quote, one of the finest declarations regarding lingerie that I've ever read. Dorothy was a writer, and of course an amazing wit with an acid tongue. Suicidal and alcoholic too, but also funny and smart and ahead of her time. Here's more Dorothy Parker quotes:
     
    There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
     
    He and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.
     
    I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
     
    His voice was intimate as the rustle of sheets.
     
    Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
     
    It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.
     
    All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.
     
    You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
     
    I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.
     
    She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
     
    I like to have a martini,
    Two at the very most.
    After three I'm under the table,
    after four I'm under my host.
     
    (In answer to what she'd like for breakfast) Just something light and easy to fix. How about a dear little whiskey sour?
     
  7. valentina
    Hey there everyone... Given the somewhat decadent image I tend to craft for myself on the forum, I really do more than check my manicure and pedicure, fuss with my hair and peruse shoe departments and Victoria's Secret catalogs. (Although those are some of my favorite things to do.)
     
    I also go up to the gym and ride cardio machines and I lift weights. I've become fond of doing lunges holding a 12-lb. medicine ball all the way around the indoor track. That would be approximately a block long. It's good for the legs and the bum, and at my age, I need all the help that I can get to keep the bum suspended somewhere above the back of my knees.
     
    And I take vitamins, mainly out of habit, because when I was going into high school, I'd apparently had a bit of a rapid growth spurt that caused me to become really anemic. I had to take slugs of vitamins until that was remedied, and then I just kept up the habit.
     
    I drink, but it seems that I've always tended to either get full (if drinking beer) or fall asleep before I get really drunk. I also had a formative experience on my 20th birthday that perhaps altered any tendency to drink a lot. I was living in a resort town for the summer and some girlfriends took me to a bar for birthday drinks. Various tourists hanging in bar kept sending me drinks. The notion of the lascivious geezers who were sending my innocent 20-year-old self tequila makes my current self shudder and thank the powers of the universe that I had several friends who didn't ditch me. Anyway, my friends deposited me on the front door of where I was staying, I crawled in and made my way to the shower. My roomie and her boyfriend kept waiting for me to scream and I didn't. I happily showered for about 15 minutes, puked and fell into bed. It seems the hot water heater had died and I took an ice-cold shower without knowing it. The hell that I felt the next day is something I still remember.
     
    And I don't smoke, and I never have. I tried, but was hopelessly incompetent at it. I guess that was my good luck. And now I'm going to sound like a harpy old lady, but if you smoke, do think about quitting sooner rather than later. A guy who worked in my office up until a year ago, when he took a different job in the same building, was diagnosed with lung cancer about 2 months after he started his new job. He'd stopped smoking a year earlier. But he smoked entirely too long and didn't quit soon enough. I don't think he's going to make it. This sucks. He used to have a gorgeous head of thick wavy hair and now he's bald from chemo and he's holding onto the walls to keep his balance when he walks down the hall. When he stopped working in my office last year, I took a photo of him, copied it a number of times and "Andy Warhol-ized" it by coloring over it with pastels. I modified his hair, put glasses on him, turned him into all sorts of things. He loved it and took it with him to put away as a keepsake. I really don't want to see it hanging up on one of the memory posterboards that you see at a funeral, but shit, I think that may be what's going to happen.
     
    Weird thing is, this guy was the king of kvetchers when he was well. If his lips were moving, he was probably bitching, albeit in a likable, often funny sort of way. After his diagnosis, he developed a shockingly good attitude. It's amazing. He's tried to work and stay social and even go on his powerwalks when he had the energy. And he never complains about being sick or losing his hair, and he flat adored his hair. It makes me really sad.
     
    And my blog has recently sounded like the old lady in the retirement center with her endless stories of people dying, and seriously guys, this has been an unusual stretch. Lest you think I'm not myself, let me tell you this: I went down to my ailing former coworker's current office to say hi to him one day in late August. I wanted to give him a hard time about something or other, because he loves to be harassed and treated like nothing is the matter. I had on one of my summery wrap dresses that can dip kind of low in the front. Normally I'm pretty careful to keep the foundation garments out of the public eye, so I'd frequently check what the neckline was doing. So I was sitting there talking to him, and I knew my bra was showing a little, and I just let it. I know he noticed because he called a mutual friend and told him all about it. And I didn't care. So there. Vaguely naughty is a good, good thing.
  8. valentina

    My turn to tell a story

    By valentina,

    Since Dawndie has written about this, and now Filgree Shadow has told her story, I guess I'm brave enough to tell my own paranormal story. If anything, they make good reading!
     
    My maternal grandfather died when I was 3.5 years old. My mother had helped my grandmother take care of him until he became too ill to stay at home, and she used to take me along. Just as an aside, this was not a good move, but my mother was of the opinion that little kids didn't "get it." She tends to think very small children simply don't have the ability to understand what's going on. But my first memories are of running through a room where he was in bed and I was utterly terrified of him, because cancer had moved to his brain and he was in a state of delirium. Today I have a galloping case of hypochondria, and the seed was no doubt planted at that early age.
     
    But I was his youngest grandchild by about 8 years, and word has it that when he was well enough to live relatively normally, he doted upon me. Based upon photos from what my mother always pronounced in melodramatic tones to be: "That. last. Christmas," this was, in fact, true. I also remember his funeral and my brother working very hard to keep me quiet, because I was rather giddy. My grandfather was dead, and he wasn't going to be around to scare the crap out of me anymore. And my beloved grandma might eventually stop crying. She always felt a lot of anxiety about me seeing him so sick, and my reaction to it. Then I felt bad about making grandma feel worse. Is it any wonder than I'm angsty?
     
    What I recall is that sometime after he died, I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office with my mom. I wasn't sick -- I was getting some sort of immunization. The door of the waiting room opened and my grandpa walked in, dressed exactly as he was when he was well. He sat down across from us and was looking at a newspaper. I leaned forward and stared at him. I looked at my mom, who hadn't glanced up from her magazine. Because my mother has always been an inveterate people-gawker and normally seizes the opportunity to engage a captive audience in a conversation, this wasn't normal. And it was her dead father that she was ignoring! Dood, he's back, at least say hi! I kept staring at him then looking up her. He kept glancing up and saw me staring at him. He looked a little chagrined and wouldn't look directly at me. He acted like someone who was trying to not be seen. I leaned forward even closer, thinking he'd at least say hello. He laid down the newspaper and walked out. My mother kept flipping through the magazine like no one was there. I remember looking at her like she was insane. I can see this entire event in my mind so clearly, it's like it happened this morning.
     
    I always attributed this event to the notion that I was, in fact, sick, and my feverish little brain was working overtime. I never told my family about it. Then about 5 years ago, my mother told me a story about sitting with me in the waiting room of the doctor's office, less than a month after my grandfather had died. She couldn't remember why we were there, but she remembered that I wasn't sick. She said I became extremely, extremely quiet, and then turned, looked at her very seriously and very distinctly said: "I think if you look around here, you'll find grandpa."
     
    I never told her what I remembered, she wouldn't have accepted that as anything but my wild imagination.
     
    I've often read that little children can see and hear things that adults can't, and that the social maturation process shuts off that corner of our mind. I tend to agree with that. Also, never take a toddler along to do hospice care. Not a good idea at all.
  9. valentina

    Name That Blend!

    By valentina,

    I have this tendency to layer my BPAL scents, and then name the blend, as in Smut-O-Rama. I also mixed Lovitar and Smut one night. I'm still surprised that I didn't explode -- that's mixing two incendiary substances! And it's a bit of a BDSM mix that wouldn't be for public consumption, and would naturally need to worn with leather underwear. It was dubbed Joe Perry Bait. (And of course, thanks again to the Diva of Icons, minilux, for providing me with the customized beauties!)
     
    I really do try out these blends because I get curious, or more often than not, I want to juice things up a bit. Every time I get something a bit low-key, I decide to toss in some heat. (I'm a Leo.) So tonight, I decided to see what would happen if I put down a nice layer of Coyote and then dabbed a bit o' Smut on top. It's nice. I went out to get some iced tea and read at a coffee house, and the girls working there were leaning over the counter inhaling me, because they liked it that much. Of course, they now have the Lab's web site address and are officially enabled.
     
    But that blend... do I call it Coyote Smut or Smut E. Coyote?
  10. valentina

    No Coast

    By valentina,

    I just love this -- there's a roller derby club in the town that I live in called the No Coast Derby Girls. The name alone is priceless. There's two teams -- Gang Green (team color green, obviously) and the Mary Kay Mafia (wearing pink, of course). There's a match in early July and I hope to attend. Several of the girls on the teams go to my favorite coffeehouse, and come limping in, sporting large bruises, all that jazz. They are just wild maniacs, and I do so appreciate that.
     
    And speaking of being in No Coast land, if there's a beach near you, please go to it for me. I have a good friend in Tampa and I'm always asking her to at least drive by the beach and honk at it for me. For those of you who live near very large lakes with quasi-beaches, that works too.
     
    I must share a bit of kitsch from my home state that is probably more evidence that since there's no beach or large body of water or mountains, we fixate on phallic symbols. (You need look no further than me for evidence of that. ) I believe it was in the 1930's that someone decided to create a lake and a faux beach between Lincoln and Omaha near the Platte River. It's called Linoma Beach (heh, heh, Lincoln and Omaha, get it?)
     
    And below is a photo of Linoma beach, and yes, that is a light house. It's often said there have been no shipwrecks there, so it must be doing its job. That may be because the lake is so shallow and it's so dry in this state that only an inner tube can make its way out onto the water. I think I'll have to go there at least once this summer, if only for the amusement value.
     

  11. valentina
    I am so much older than most people around here, so please excuse the ancient person song subreference, but there's a Joni Mitchell song called "Coyote" that starts out with Joni speaking, more than singing, the words "No regrets, Coyote..." THAT SONG HAS BECOME A BRAIN WORM! I got a bottle of Coyote in the mail yesterday, thanks to the lovely and generous GypsyRoseRed, who went to Will Call to make purchases for the non-L.A. dwellers. This no-coast girl owes her a serious debt of gratitude. Of course, I tried out Coyote right away, and after getting a sinking feeling because the grass-woods element of the scent bloomed so strongly at first, it mellowed into an outdoorsy amber-musk smell. And I can't stop "No regrets, Coyote...we just come from different sets of circumstances..." from playing in my head. That song, BTW, is from the album "Hejira."
     
    And in a confluence of random mutant thoughts, darkitysnark's latest entry about the yin and yang of her personal style -- either femme or what I could call cute earth mother (because who can't look at the tree photo in her hair travelogue and not say "that's just cute!") -- reminds me of a line in "Song for Sharon," which is also on "Hejira." It's a song about about growing up as a romantic at heart, while still being a little wild and rough-and-tumble, and the line is "mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans."
     
    Since I was a kid who used to ride my bicycle up and down gravel roads while wearing my mother's old dresses, with lipstick no doubt applied clownishly on my face, I do understand that song a lot. I never was a normal farmer's daughter -- and that was probably one part disposition and one part environment. My father's mother had to run the farm and raise 4 children because her husband was chronically ill and was unable to work for long periods of time. She looked 60 by the time she was 30, and my father wasn't going to make any daughter of his work that hard. There are snapshots of her where she literally looks like a man -- weather-beaten, stringy-skinny, in work clothing, not a smile to be seen.
     
    My mother has since told me that my grandmother didn't even want to live on a farm that badly, much less run one -- but through a series of circumstances, my grandfather took over the farm instead of his two older brothers. I'm sure when my grandmother and grandfather married, she thought they'd eventually move to a town or a city. But instead, she accepted the hand that she was dealt and became not just a farmer's wife, but a farmer herself.
     
    Damn, and I think I have things to bitch about. I get to bathe with Villainess soaps, anoint myself with BPAL, pay absurd amounts of money to get my hair done, make my skin soft with oils and lotions, run about to the gym and to yoga class, and generally be a bit of a vain diva who likes to throw in touches of androgyny in the midst of her girlyness.
     
    My life is pretty good, and no regrets, Coyote!
  12. valentina

    Non sequiturs

    By valentina,

    Because I was writing about Lucinda Williams yesterday, I was reminded of her concert from almost a year ago. A guy there with his girlfriend was an obviously huge Lucinda fan. He was so freaking drunk, and he was a loud, snacked-out fellow. Very, very jovial, except he kept bellowing "MINNEAPOLIS" at the top of his lungs in between songs. It was apparently his favorite Lucinda song, and it was his quaint way of making a request to her. Thing is, that song is one of the most wrist-slashingly depressing songs that she's written in some time. Lucinda ignored his entreaties.
     
    But this guy was so damn drunk that he couldn't really enjoy the concert; I think he and his girlfriend left well before it was over because he just couldn't stand up anymore. That was a shame for him, because Lu was in a good mood that night and kept playing and playing and playing. I was happy the guy left, because I didn't have to listen to his screaming and he had somehow decided it was good sport to take an occasional whap at my ass and comment on its firmness. His girlfriend was so toasted that she didn't care. My DH thought it was funny that some tubby drunk guy was alternating yelling "MINNEAPOLIS" at Lucinda and whapping my ass. Towards the end of the show I went down right in front to watch Lucinda and the band up close because everyone down there was very focused on her music.
     
    Anyway, you have to wonder about these funny, fat class-clown sort of fellows. I think their dark side is darker than anything most of us could dream up.
     
    In a complete non sequitur, there's a new "CSI" (Las Vegas version) on tonight. There's some teaser/buzz going around that Grissom and Sarah are going to get into bed before the season is over. Anyone else heard that? A couple of seasons ago, that would have irritated me, but at this point in the show, I think they should just do the horizontal bop and get it over with. Although I also have a theory that they may both end up in bed, but each with a different person. Why do I get so caught up in that stupid TV show? Oh, I remember why... William Peterson is hot.
  13. valentina

    Non sequiturs

    By valentina,

    Today's non sequiturs begin with the fact that the Reverend Jim guy that I mentioned in my prior entry is, in fact, employed. I went into Meadowlark Coffee yesterday and he was sitting outside, wearing a shirt normally worn by U-Stop convenience store employees. I asked Debbie, the morning barrista, if he was actually a U-Stop employee and she said yes, she was rather certain that he was. I commented that I'd always thought that he was a client at the county mental health center. And Debbie said yes, she was rather sure he was.
     
    I was watching "Austin City Limits" on PBS last Saturday, and I know it was a rerun, but I was deeply amused at the contrasts presented by the two featured performers. I like both of them, but who decided to put Lyle Lovett and Jamie Cullum on the same show? Lyle is tall, skinny, taciturn Texan who smiles only on one side of his face, is so rigid when he performs that one suspects he might break in half if he made a sudden move, and is entrancingly weird-looking. I figured out that part of what makes him so very odd-looking is that his eyebrows are almost nonexistent. He has all that hair on the top of his head (which styling products have really tamed in recent years) and absolutely no eyebrows. But don't get me wrong, I like his voice and a lot of his music, although I don't listen to him that often.
     

     
    Did he burn his eyebrows off as a kid and they never grew back?
     
    Jamie Cullum is a hyperanimated little sparkplug from England who runs and jumps all over as he is singing and playing the piano. He's so little that I kind of want to call him "Frodo," but he's also quite adorable. Maybe the Austin City Limits crowd for his show was the same group who showed up to see Lyle perform, and they just didn't get what Jamie was all about. They were as lifeless as the day is long, and I've never seen a group of such unrhymtic-looking people in my life. What was the matter with those white people? Get up and move! At least sway a bit! Granted, I love Jamie's music and his style, but I felt sorry for him, having to perform on TV before an alleged "live" audience.
     

     
    Just. Plain. Cute.
     
    I bought three bottles from the update -- two from Wanderlust and one from Carnaval Diabolique. Specifically, Cockaige and Lyonesse from Wanderlust and Midnight on the Midway. What is life without at least one or two pending BPAL orders? About as boring as a Lyle Lovett crowd at a Jamie Cullum concert!
  14. valentina
    I have been reading through the blog and forum comments about how people react to the new update scents. I really enjoy that, it's fun to read. Seriously, we're all so attuned to scents and body chemistry and blends of aromas, it's pretty amazing. Compared to the rest of the world, it's astonishing. A lot of you have really sophisticated noses. I would guess that many of you are the type of person who sniffs their food. I could get a latte with flavoring in it, but not know what the flavor is, and I'm not always able to discern the flavor by only the taste. But if I smell it, I can almost always get the flavor category.
     
    Many of us tend to get on ourselves about our BPAL addiction, and I'm certainly on that bandwagon. I showed a small amount of restraint this last update, although when you read what I did, you may not think so, but one person's restraint is another person's abandon, right? I got into a decant circle (eviltemptressd's!) so I can try out 6 or 7 of the Yule scents before I order. The new 13 sounded intriguing, so I did get a bottle. And as much as I wanted to buy bottles of Love Lies Bleeding, Mania and Horreur Sympathique, I ordered them in an imp package, because I've always wanted to try out Nosferatu, Miskatonic U and La Petite Mort. This will be fun, so much to sample!
     
    I think BPAL is wonderful because it challenges us to use the wiring that's there in our brains to distinguish certain smells. This is something that the human brain can do (obviously, because even my brain can do it!), but it's not frequently needed for survival in the modern world. So rather than letting it sit and molder, we use it for our pleasure. So there's a very Gil Grissom-like rationalization for buying the shit out of BPAL. And as Ani DiFranco said, fuck guilt!
     
    I haven't written a lot in the blog lately because I was rather -- oh, what should I say? -- spent. Last week was one of those weeks when everyone was interested in confessing things to me, wanting me to be their therapist or plugging into my energy. Whatever you want to call it, people were there, almost like zombies. I did have a relatively beneficial and mutual conversation with the guy at the coffee house (Mr. "Wandering Gypsy") about how he writes lyrics to his songs. He said something very similar to interviews that I've read with other singer/songwriters, who say that it's just channeled to them. They can't explain it any other way. They sit and write endless crap and then, standing at the refrigerator, something amazing downloads in their brain and they run over, find a piece of paper and write the lyrics to an entire song. I read an interview with Greg Brown, who said he had an entire album come to him as he was driving home in the dark; it was like he had the radio on, listening to new music, but he didn't -- it was in his head.
     
    The psychology folks say that's just the left brain letting go and the right brain taking over, but my friend (and a lot of other songwriters) don't think it's that simple and/or simply biological. I read a book where a number of neurologists and researchers said that when one riddle of the brain is solved, it also leads them to discover that there's 10 more things that they don't understand. I don't think we'll ever figure it out, and why should we? Maybe the mystery isn't ours to understand.
     
    And I'll get off that kick and close by saying that I tried my imp of Has No Hanna last Wednesday night when I thought a little boost would help. And if what happened afterwards was any indication, I can't explain it, nor do I want to, but it worked...
  15. valentina
    Do you like bubble baths? I luuuurve bubble baths. And I am a damn picky bitch about my bubble bath. I used to like the Kiss My Face Peaceful Patchouli bubble bath, but they changed the formula and the bubbles leave much to be desired. I went to Victoria's Secret last week (big shock there...) and got some of their bubble bath, and it's not bad. I got the Strawberries and Champagne scent, which is rather unlike me, but that scent combo has prurient associations (in my head only, not based on any actual experience) and I couldn't resist.
     
    I actually enjoy the V'Tae bath salts in the Sacred Fire scent. That is a really, really sexy scent that is also very comforting. Their verbiage on the package always gets me -- "Anoint. Intoxicate. Enchant. Goddess. Ritual. Magic." Ah, it evokes a web-spinner to me. I just wish they made it in a bubble bath.
     
    And I am a bit of a web-spinner. I don't mind spiders one little bit. I don't pick them up and play with them, but I tend to give them their space and I never want to hurt them. I once got rather upset with a secretary in my office who recounted screaming and running around her kitchen at the sight of a spider before beating it to death with a broom so hard that her kids couldn't even find the carcass when she was finished. The story kind of gave me a pain through the heart. I know we all have our phobias, but holy crap, show some restraint.
     
    Now how the hell did I get here from where I started, on bubble baths? Well let me tell you, if there's a spider in my tub and I want to take a bath, I get a magazine and respectfully move it to a secluded corner of the bathroom. They aren't stupid -- they'll stay away from hot water and bubbles.
     
    Off to my ritual and magic in bubbleland...
  16. valentina
    I've been really busy at work. I'm tired. I go to bed late, because I'm such a damn night owl, but lately I've been waking up at 3 in the morning and don't get back to sleep for an hour. Then at 5:30 the cat comes meowing his little cat butt off, asking to be fed. I put him on the bed and then he stands on me, kneading his paws on my chest. Oh, how relaxing. Then I got to work and run on pure adrenaline for 8+ hours. No wonder I can always lose weight in the legislative session.
     
    So it was such a rush when I came home yesterday and found my Lab order. I ordered another bottle of teh Smut, Chintamani-Dhupa, Swadinapatika, Vasakasajja and Bakeneko. Filgree Shadow already has my bottle of Vasa heading her way, because my body blew up the orchid in that one and 'gree is a vasa junkie! And bless her, she swapped me for the Bakeneko, because I ADORE that scent. Holy crap, I've never had a lunacy that I liked, much less loved. Swadinapatika is nice, it gets nicer after I wear it for an hour, even better after two hours. I think I should wear it on days that the little asshole wakes me up at 5:30, because if I put it on really early in the morning, it would be to its gorgeous mellow level by the time I got to work. I have Chintamani-Dhupa on my sales thread right now, but if no one buys it tonight, I'm taking it down. I don't adore it, but I don't dislike it. And Smut, I love teh Smut. Needed another bottle, but I don't wear Smut in the winter. The pure holy musk can be a bit much for me right now.
     
    My yoga teacher always says this, and it's very true, the brain needs to be scrambled and stimulated every now and then to keep on top of its game. When I meditated last night, I was as quiet as I'd been in a long time. Lately, my brain has been whirling a lot when I meditate, because work can be an obsession this time of year. I can't let it drop. But I swear, what stilled me last night was that I'd spent all evening sniffing and testing BPAL. For the people to test BPAL a lot, you know it's a very sensual and analytical process, all at the same time. You're kicking your senses into overdrive, but your brain is trying to decipher what you're smelling. Last night, it was what the doctor ordered, because it kicked my brain out of those old thought patterns and into something entirely new. How fabulous.
     
    So I'm off to meditate and to then attempt to get ready for bed and to find slumber early (ha!) and to dream sweet-smelling dreams. And if the damn cat wakes me up at 5:30 again, you know I'll be wearing Svadhinaopatika tomorrow!
  17. valentina
    Today was a quieter day than yesterday, but then, how could it help but not be? I did have some other character at Meadowlark come over and bug me at noon. This guy is an attorney, about 60, has the worst effing teeth I have ever seen. They look like Keith Richards in his pre-veneers days. This guy was telling me he has a 10-year-old son, and I'm thinking, "who would have sex with you?"
     
    Now don't get me wrong, my taste in men is about 50 years wide and transcends ethnic and socio-economic boundaries. In fact, last night I was at the gym and listening to music, but I was semi-watching CNN. Who's the guy who does the mid-evening talk show, sort of politics, sort of entertainment? Is his name Glenn Beck? Is that right? Anyway, he was talking to a guy about space travel, and why this country had such a boner about going to the moon, then just shut it off. The man he was talking to was older, maybe in his mid-late 60's, but I thought damn it, that old guy is hot!
     
    I was getting worried about myself; in fact, I was almost ready to toss myself off a tall building, but then I figured out (because I unplugged my music and plugged the headphones in to listen to TV) that the older man in question is a former Apollo and maybe early Space Shuttle mission astronaut. He's been to the moon! And back! Who gets to say that and have it be literally true? While the media and NASA portrayed these guys as squeaky clean aw-shucks American-as-apple-pie guys, anyone who's read or watched "The Right Stuff" knows these were manly men, macho as hell, and some of them probably were rather white-hot stud muffins behind the scenes. (Or at least I like to think so.) And really, that was some wild-ass shit those guys were doing; the technology in the late 60's and 70's was pretty damn rough compared to today. It's a wonder they all made it back from the moon safely. Their balls were either brass or so big that they had to ride shotgun in sports cars.
     
    This one is still exuding testosterone, to such an extent that I could sense it over TV. All I could say was, hot damn!
  18. valentina
    I came up with a descriptive line today that I felt was one of my better ones -- I was talking to a friend about how I'd been in an insanely bad mood a couple of weeks ago. In hindsight, I realize that it was because I was coming down with a bad summer cold, but at the time, all I knew was that I was not a happy camper. I characterized my mood in this manner:
     
    "I wanted to shove kerosene-soaked tampons up everyone's butt and walk around with a flame-thrower."
     
     
    Maybe TMI, or maybe a visual you'll enjoy. It probably depends upon your mood.
  19. valentina
    I stumbled onto the computer to find a PM from the esteemed minilux, notifying me of the Monster Bait: Underpants LE arrival. When I finished rolling around on the floor with glee, I picked myself up and immediately ordered two bottles. I also ordered a bottle of Beltane, because Scotland and gardens and spring just gets my sap flowing. And laying on a bed wearing lovely panties with flower petals strewn all around you is a lovely thought, no?
     
    My ofrenda today is set to honor Beth, high priestess of panty lovers, and to the lovely mods, who invoked the priestess to develop her panty potion. For without question, only friendly monsters should enter our gorgeous panties!
     
    I this place.
  20. valentina
    Whee!
     
    I came home from grocery shopping, something I don't especially enjoy doing, but particularly on a day when the grocery store has decided to do some goofy "Wizard of Oz" promo/extravaganza. Whatever festivities they'd been carrying on had long ended, but the unfortunate staff were still in costume and they were playing songs from the movie. The munchkin music gets wearisome rather rapidly, and I don't know why they just couldn't have played Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." For those of us who would have understood the subreference, it would have been so damn funny.
     
    So I got home feeling a little frazzled, and there was my BPAL order! It was only CnS'd on Thursday... for once, the USPS rocked and rolled and got it here in a hurry. Woot!
     
    And my order was Monster Bait: Underpants (two bottles) and a bottle of Beltane. Beltane is nice on me, and it reminds me a lot of grassier-smelling Night's Pavillion. I wonder if there's frankincense in Beltane -- to evoke the fires on the heath. I'm speculating about that because I know it's in Night's Pavilion, and that may be the similarity.
     
    But the Panty Monster... OMFG! It started out a bit like Beaver Moon, all vanilla, but then it morphed into a sweet, saffrony, sandalwoody thing. I love Khajurajo, and certain sandalwood blends are simply pure love on me. I associate saffron and sandalwood with India and a Kama Sutra vibe... add to it the western elements of vanilla and rum, and holy crap. It's a winner. I actually think that this scent could be dangerous.
     
    (Minor reverie: Like most people, I associate rum with Cuba, and I heard Andy Garcia interviewed on NPR this morning. Mmmmmm... he's awfully, awfully fine.)
     
    Thank you Beth, for mixing the panty ofrenda potion in such a marvelous way!!!

  21. valentina

    Peculiar pinup art

    By valentina,

    As someone who loves vintage pinup girl art and underwear, this homage to the peculiar illustrations of Art Frahm never fails to draw a titter:
     
    http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/art1.html
     
    "The Shakedown" is my favorite. The illustration alone is absurdly Freudian, and the description of it as being from Frahm's "Edward Hopper period" are spot on, although Hopper is probably rolling in his grave.
     
    OK, I just channel-surfed past the Home Shopping Network or QVC, or one of those channels, and they were selling some skank-ho trashy platform sandals that had a peculiar "Carmen Miranda goes to Africa" vibe to them. And they were $150. You know 50ish fat ladies will be tottering around in them, their tubby little toes with toenails pained orange (and always long toenails, because they're too fat to trim them properly) spread wide from the tonnage inflicted upon them from being placed at such an odd angle. Christ, these shoes wouldn't be cute on you adorable young things with really cute feet and skinny little legs. You'd look like you were wearing cement blocks on your feet that were painted in a black-and-white tribal design.
     
    Wouldn't it be great to have a goth home shopping network? Or just to have a few good goth merchants show up on QVC? Beth and Puddin' could do a BPAL and BPTP segment. I would pay good money to see it and of course would spend money like a drunken sailor.
  22. valentina

    Perhaps to maunder

    By valentina,

    Maunder:
    1. [v] speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly
    2. [v] talk indistinctly; usually in a low voice
    3. [v] wander aimlessly
     
     
    I so do need to thump myself in the head and give myself an attitude adjustment. Except that's probably not the gentlest way to look at it... Let's see... I need to remind myself not to whack out in my predictable old ways.
     
    But I'm so good at whacking out, since it's my Own Private Madness and at worst I seem a bit distracted. Inside, I am a teeming malestrom of whackedness and then I get more pissed off at myself because I know I'm doing it to myself. I went out for a walk to try to clear my head and actually did something to make it worse. Oh, it's a long story.
     
    And for hell's sake, I have no basis to bitch. None whatsoever. My pissiness is based upon the fact that I want what I want when I want it, even when it makes no sense and my brain knows better.
     
    Part of my attitude problem is, I'm sure, due to lack of sleep. I went to bed about 11:30, woke up at about 1 a.m. feeling like shit and I didn't get back to sleep until about 3:30. Then a thunderstorm rolled in at 5:30 am and woke me up.
     
    And lack of sleep often produces a heightened princess "wah!" effect in my psyche. I need to chill out tonight and meditate for about an hour to get my turmoil under control. And I need to do it early, because if I try it too late at night, I will keep nodding off because I'm tired. That may happen anyway.
     
    I'm not going to get into what's upsetting me, but trust me, most of you would categorize it as an amusing, madcap, abudance of riches "problem" of the sort that would be whined about by Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City." Yuppers. The reason that I watched "Sex" was to watch that bitch openly whine about such things and have girlfriends patiently listen and not yell at her at the top of their lungs "SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU SPOILED ASSHOLE BITCH! JESUS CHRIST! PEOPLE WOULD DIE FOR THESE 'PROBLEMS!'" And I also find Chris Noth (Mr. Big) to be hot.
     
    I'll stop maundering now. Anyone who read all the way to this point, you are a saint or you want to be like Carrie's long-suffering girlfriends in "Sex." Or for whatever reason, thank you.
  23. valentina

    Pet peeve!

    By valentina,

    OK, this is a hang-up of mine, a silly pet peeve, and if any of you do this and your man-things or woman-things think it's hot and sexy, good for you and good for them. It's just something I'm not going to do, ever.
     
    I have a hang-up about women who grow their toenails long and paint them in a French manicure. As in long, I mean that the nails may reach or surpass the toe-tip, depending upon the shape of their nails and their toes. It makes their feet look like little paws. And then the French manicure -- I think that looks just plain goofy. French manicures on the fingers are rather pretty and I can appreciate it. Especially because my fingernails never get long enough to do that. But on the feet, I don't think so.
     
    I think my hang-up stems from the fact that prior to this recent trend, the only people with long toenails tended towards being unkempt. There were usually other hideously disgusting things going on with their toenails or feet that I won't even bother to mention.
     
    I have a foot fetish, I will admit, and I like to see nice feet. But when I see toenails that look like they could leave a swipe across your skin like a cat's claw, I just cringe. Toes should be able to move all around the body without accidentally drawing blood, you know.
  24. valentina

    Phantom of the...

    By valentina,

    There's a thread in Randomness about what you'd like to pick as a member title when you get enough points. It occurs to me that some day I may have enough points and I can choose my own member title. So I began to consider options.
     
    I cracked myself up with this one, and it would be simply odd to most people, who would probably assume I was a perverted little goth who was overly identified with a certain part of the male anatomy. (This may in fact be true.) But let me explain -- I work in this building:
     

     
    It's nicknamed the "penis of the plains," although I prefer calling it the "prairie phallus." And I think a BPAL forum member name like "Phantom of the Phallus" would be good for a giggle as an inside joke. Besides, if a group of malcontents decided to get all prudish on Live Journal, it would take pressure off of Andrabelle and her Ron Jeremy joke icons. "Who is that valentina who calls herself the "phantom of the phallus?" What is she talking about? Eeeew, gross!"
     
    P.S. Spellcheck keeps suggesting "Phyllis" as a correction for "phallus."
  25. valentina

    Pie hole

    By valentina,

    Calling someone's mouth their "pie hole" has always amused me considerably. As in: "Shut your pie hole." It's even better when said with a Andy Griffith/Mayberry accent, as in: "Shuhut yer pah hawl, Barney. Ima thankin' 'bout sumthin.'"
     
    I work with someone who is apparently a monument to oral fixations. If she isn't talking at a very high volume, she's eating at a high volume. This person likes to hear herself smack, schlurp and snort as she eats. She is a professional person, but she is a grotesque eater. She also makes little murmuring and yummy sounds as she eats. And she feeds her pie hole all the time. Often she has food smeared on her face when she's eating because she virtually sticks her face in it and slops like a hog. Astonishing. Disgusting table manners are truly one of my pet peeves. If she had french manicured toenails, I would probably lose my mind.
     
    And have a look at this, I pull this site up and play it every now and then. It's good for a titter.
     
    http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/piehole.php
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