"CBGB's" by Syd Straw

Hey remember me, we met ten years ago
at CBGB's, on New Year's Eve
back when you were tending bar
you had a band of your own called The Revlons
and I liked your songs, I don't know how
I must have lost my head an abandonment like that,
was easier then and I don't know why we never met again
but I still think of you sometimes every now and then,
Hey remember when you took me to the movies
to see Soylent Green
I can't believe it was such a long time ago,
So much has happened, I hear you had twins,
Are you doing what you wanna do,
Did you follow your intentions, all the dreams you had,
Has even a single one of them come true?
I ask myself as I'm asking you, hey, I'm just asking
You were the one most likely to succeed without
ever really trying, You had so much to live up to
I was married for awhile, it ended in tragedy,
oh well, enough about me,
Are you doing what you wanted to,
Did you follow those intentions through, and
All the dreams you had, Have any or all of them come true,
If they haven't yet I hope they do

Blatant rip-off by me:

Hey remember me? We met twenty-four years ago.
We had our first date on New Year's Eve.
You gave me my first kiss, then ran off because your sister was watching from the car.
Three years later and you ran off again,
you made me so happy, I couldn't believe.
I lost my head, your abandonment like that.
But it was easier than admitting the truth, and I forgive, but I don't know why we never met again.
I still think of you sometimes, every now and then.
Hey remember when you asked me to sit on your skateboard
but I was too shy to sit next to you?
I can't believe it was such a long time ago,
So much has happened, I hear you're in Europe and in love.
Did you follow your intentions, all the dreams you had,
has even a single one of them come true?
I ask myself as I'm asking you.

Hey remember me? We met twenty-two years ago
at a birthday party for the boy who would be my husband.
You had a girlfriend, but still we looked
only to shy away again.
I don't know how we were all so naive.
I lost my mind, the way we hurt each other like that.
Still it got easier, and I don't know why we never met again,
but I still think of you sometimes now and then.
Hey remember when we went to Denny's so I could teach you Magic,
but they stopped us before we got very far?
We should have known it would always be like that.
I can't believe it was such a long time ago,
So much has happened, I hear you're a father, married, and happily too.
Did you follow your intentions, all the dreams you had,
has even a single one of them come true?
I ask myself as I'm asking you.

Hey remember me? We met 10 years ago
at first online and then that kiss in your bathroom,
back when you were married and unhappy.
You pushed me away, we were both angry and mean.
I don't know what happened, how we let things repeat.
I lost my heart, with your silence like that.
Was it easier? I still don't know why we never met again.
Hey remember when we tried on those cat ears?
It was Halloween time.
I can't believe it was such a long time ago,
So much has happened, I hear you're truly in love.
Did you follow your intentions, all the dreams you had,
has even a single one of them come true?
I ask myself as I'm asking you.

Hey remember me? We met seven years ago
at the Metro theater, for an animation festival.
You liked my shoes, I liked your skirt,
we cried together later, upstairs in the ladies.
I don't know how I lost my morals like that,
broke everyones hearts, stabbed you in the back.
Still I wonder, why we never met again,
but I still think of you sometimes now and then.
Hey remember when I called home for permission,
and then we giggled and kissed and you smelled like amber?
I can't believe it was such a long time ago,
So much has happened, I hear you're still around, somewhere in the city.
Did you follow your intentions, all the dreams you had,
has even a single one of them come true?
I ask myself as I'm asking you.

Hey remember me? We met twenty-two years ago,
in the backseat of your mother's car,
you had big blue eyes and bigger gold glasses.
While you planned your party, our feet played under the table,
and then after the cake, there was a little palm tree,
dancing and singing to me.
I did lose my mind, my heart, my morals,
all in less than a week, that's the effect you had.
And then I lost my head, an abandonment like that,
Was it easier? Not until we met again
and fell in love,
so now I think of you always, now, and then.
Hey remember when the raft flipped over
and underneath we shared our first kiss?
Or how about Jamaica or Hawaii or Florence?
Do you remember the beaches, the movies, the drives, the games?
Did we follow our intentions, all the dreams we had?
I know at least a few have come true.
I ask myself as I'm asking you,
so we don't forget anything
when everything is changing.
Babies just take their own time.

The blog Single Dad Laughing had a post so thought provoking, it took me days to formulate a proper response. And once I had it, there was no way it was all going to fit in a comment box. Here's to hoping Dan comes over to read what I had to say, because I think he's started a truly fascinating conversation.

Women are ugly.
Women are fat.
Women are bad mothers. Women are bad wives. Women are bad daughters.
Women are lousy cooks. Women don't keep their houses clean enough.
Women have too much cellulite in their thighs. Their abdomens are too flabby. Their under-arms are too Jell-oesque.
Women are terrible singers. They are terrible dancers. They are terrible public speakers.
Women are stupid. Women are scatter-brained.
Women are weak. They are powerless. They are defenseless.
Women don't dress well enough. They don't have clear enough complexions. They have too many freckles.
Women don't have full enough lips. They don't have skin that is soft enough.
Women are too dominant. Women are too passive.
Women are too mean. Women are too nice. Women are nothing but doormats.
Women aren't good enough. Women will never be good enough.
Women are, simply put, worthless.

Yes, they are all these things. If, that is, I am to believe the very words that are constantly being spoken by women themselves (which I don't). These are their words. And I've heard them declared again. And again. And again. To me, to other men, to other women, and for all I know to their pets and their plants.

Worthless. What a concept. To hold no value. To be less desirable than a can of dirt. Are you freaking kidding me? Every single statement on this list, including the worthless comment, was a declaration that at least one woman has made to me, for whatever reason. I bet there isn't a statement above that we all haven't heard at least once; most likely hundreds or thousands of times. Why would any of these horrible, degrading beliefs spill across the lips of any woman?

What hurts me the most is that most of these things have been said to me by more women than I would care to count.

Get real for a moment, ladies. How many of these statements have you yourself said or thought? Be honest. Go through the list, one by one, and admit to the number. I'm genuinely curious. I'm genuinely sick about it. How many of them have you said or thought just since you got out of bed this morning?

I did. And I was startled.

I am ugly. I am fat. I will be a bad mother. I am a bad wife. I am a bad daughter.

Why on earth is it ok for me to say things like this about myself, but if someone said it to me, or about another woman, I would be livid? I recently blogged about my negativity, and how in the past I've simply felt that I am honest with myself. But seriously. Saying all of that? Again and again? Believing it? Shit, what am I doing to myself?

My new therapy group has very quickly shown me just how powerful my mind can be, but the Law of Attraction theory has been just a little too much for me to swallow. Wishing I had a pony doesn't instantly make one pop into existence, and not calling myself fat isn't going to make me stop thinking I'm fat. However, if I really want that pony, keeping it in my mind is the best way to get myself to put things into action to get myself a pony. On the flip side, not allowing myself to call myself fat puts a little less pressure on my self-esteem, makes a little extra space for me to think positively about myself, and that is great motivation to start down the path of self-love and healthy living.

I understand the reason you constantly let slip these damaging statements. I understand the reason why you actually believe these things. I understand the real reason you feel this way. And the real reason breaks my heart. (...)

Guys... It is our fault. The blame lies with us.

Whoa! You're about to say a whole bunch of interesting things that I kind of agree with, but let's pause here before you martyr yourself. Men do not own this problem, they didn't create it, not alone. Yes, men influence women. But you don't make us. We are the sum of all of our experiences, filtered through our own thought processes.

We have destroyed the very beauty that women are.

We've replaced that beauty with a standard that is, and always will be, impossible for them to hit. We've decided what the perfect legs are. We've decided what the perfect body is. We've decided what the perfect breasts are to be shaped like. We've decided what the perfect face, skin, butt, and neck should be. And we've made no hesitations to boldly let it be known.

We declare it, and we do so with little care for the tender women standing beside us.

This is some really good insight on your part, so thank you. But the we here isn't men, it is society as a whole - including women themselves. Your concern for "tender women" is appreciated, but again you've made this a problem that men have to solve for women. Please, don't treat us kindly because you've treated us badly in the past. Treat us with respect because we deserve it as equals. Be kind because that's how you should always act towards everyone.

Now, you may be naively sitting there thinking, I don't declare that. I tell women they are amazing. That they are beautiful. That there is nothing wrong with them.

Do you not understand? It doesn't take opening your mouth to propound these things. It doesn't take flapping your lips to make a statement. It doesn't take verbal anything to spread this vicious ideology.

All it takes is you and me, stopping and looking.(...)

And that simple, repeated act is how we constantly, and never-endingly declare to women that they are not good enough, and will never be good enough.(...)

And they remember it. They store it. They program their minds to say, "what he is looking at is obviously what men want, and I must have that or men won't want me".

Thank you. Thank you so much for realizing that thoughts and actions, however silent, make an impact. This is such a simple truth, and yet so many people just don't seem to get it. Our collective preferences and actions have shaped our culture into one that worships perfection. This is reflected back to us in media and entertainment, further reinforcing and skewing our ideals to extremes.

This reminds me of trying to explain the concept of "institutional racism", which simply put is the entrenched cultural racism that still affects us today through the policies and opinions of yesterday. The Ghost of Racism Past, so much like the Ghost of Patriarchy Past - hard to define or put a finger on it exactly, but harder still to eradicate it.

A woman can tell herself that those images are fake until the sun goes down, but at the end of the day, her self-talk will barely matter. Not when men think that they're real. Not when she knows that men want what is shamelessly being touted from those photos. Not when she knows that men think of those photos as real.

Yes, let's talk about men. Let's talk about women ogling men, about Playgirl magazine, about paper towel commercials depicting "the perfect man", about statements like "Men can go to hell" - all socially acceptable for women. Ask yourself the next time you see a movie scene where a woman grabs a random man's ass and giggle with her cohorts, "What if that had been a man grabbing a woman?" When perturbed, women "smack" men on the shoulder or punch his gut: remember Elaine always escalating her "Get Out!" shoving of men on Seinfeld?

Women are just as guilty as men of being uncouth, insensitive, and down right mean. Men are afraid to call women on it because, apparently, women have earned the privilege to be assholes to men through historic suffering at the hands of men. This is part of our culture, being reinforced by the media, as well as the actions of men and women.

We must stop stopping. We must stop looking. We must stop fooling ourselves that such fantasies exist. We must stop wanting our women to live up to impossible ideals. We must stop seeking out images of scantily clad and naked women. We must stop filling our mind with all this fiction. We must stop.(...)

My dear brothers, can we not start loving everything about our "real" women? Can we not start ogling our "real" women instead of those fictitious fantasies in the check-out line? Can we not send a message to the world that we are no longer interested in anything that is less (or more) than "real"? That we are no longer interested in setting our standard of beauty based on images that some artist found some way to create with a damn computer? Can we not declare that we're only interested in the very "real" women standing beside us and around us?

This is a lofty, noble idea. But not very realistic. Because women and men are physically attracted to each other because of physical appearance. You can convince yourself to love someone, you can convince yourself to sleep with someone you don't really desire, but you can't talk yourself into finding someone attractive. A world where "hotties" get with "plain janes" can make a woman salivate, but what about the man?

This is where I start to make the connection with Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. If we strive so hard to force equality, we stamp out individualism. Shall we all wear potato sacks to pretty people don't have an advantage over the not-so-much crowd? That wouldn't really do it, now would it? Golf has a handicap, and Bergeron's society has its own version: making pretty people uglier, smarter people dumber. Forcing equality isn't the way to go. Embracing each person's inherent worth, and determining that worth without physical requirements, is what's necessary.

I can't believe I am going to say what I am about to say. I can't believe I actually do want what I am about to ask. But I do. Desperately. So, I'm going to throw it out there. I think we need women to wear clothing that shows a little less instead of a little more. We need women to wear pants that are a little looser instead of a little tighter. We need women to put their boobs back inside of their shirts. I feel crazy even saying it (I'm a single guy for crying out loud), but maybe if women gave everybody a little less to compare, this whole thing would be a little easier for us all, no matter what our chromosomal make-up.

Don't get me wrong. None of this is to say that men should or can stop appreciating beauty. That would be unnatural. That would be impossible. It is not to say that women shouldn't make themselves as attractive as they can be. It is not to say that we shouldn't appreciate cleanliness and comeliness. No, it is not to say any of those things. It is only to plead with each of you. Let's bring this world back to reality. Let's make sure that the people we are attracted to are "real" people. Let's make sure that the women we stop and look at are "real" women.

And here, my friend, is where you have me truly scratching my head. On the surface, this may sound nice to you and to women: I'll stop looking if you stop tempting me. But not only is it wrong, but it won't work.

Covering women invokes the specter of the burqa and the prairie dress. When a woman wears a burqa, is she considered or treated as an equal to men? No. Do men stop wanting beautiful women? No. You suggest a woman covering up a little more, but you forget the lesson of culture skewing things to the extreme. The more women start covering up, the more they will start to be expected to cover up, expectation leads to mandates and laws. What started so innocently, if implemented, would lead to more and more parts being covered, and harsher and harsher penalties for not going with the flow.

Covering or hiding something creates taboo associations, creates both shame and the desire of the forbidden. Once something is covered, it is worth less, and worth more. A society that covers a woman doesn't treat her as an equal, but instead covets her to the point of being an object to be owned.

In the end, I have to say congratulations for gaining such insight, and bravo for writing something so honest and thought provoking. And too bad you haven't figured it all out yet. Not to worry though, no one else has beat you to the punch!

I am pissed off. And bitter. And I am pissed off that I'm pissed off and bitter. I don't like the feeling, I don't like what it does to my emotions, I don't like how it makes me treat other people.

I just can't seem to end it. Because OTHER PEOPLE are pissing me off. I'm not pissy about traffic, TV programming, Republicans... I'm pissed off at individual people. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of the people doing this are people I know and care about, and they're not even aware of what they're doing. I'm pissy, but I'm afraid to say anything about it because I don't want everyone else to get pissy at me!

This has been brewing for a few months now. Obama turning traitor, the anti-gay marriage crap, the holidays approaching adding stress. But the past 2-3 weeks have gotten me to the point where I don't want to be around people because I'm afraid the next word out of their mouth will make me EXPLODE.

I want to say it right now: I am pissed off with the concepts of Christian "bias" and righteousness.

1. Yep, some non-Christians started to complain that "Merry Christmas" was annoying them. Some higher-ups tried to be more accommodating and/or inclusive, putting up some Menorahs - Yay! Some higher ups went to the point of changing their professional phrasing to eliminate mentioning Christmas - erm, not really necessary in most cases! Others went just plain bananas, allowing every voice to be heard (even the crackpots) or shutting down all religious holiday speech at all. WTF?

Yep, it's gotten annoying. I'm an atheist and I find much of it ridiculous. But I would really appreciate it if when someone says the phrase "Happy Holidays" you refrain from sneering, judging, or proclaiming bias. No one told YOU to stop saying Merry Christmas. You keep on with that - you and the MAJORITY of Christian Americans can keep on wishing each other good tidings and cheer, yay! But a VAST minority not saying it is not bias, not a conspiracy, not anti-Christian, nor anti-American. The even SMALLER minority who are annoyed with Christians wishing them well for religious holidays they don't celebrate, well they're just ungracious. But them voicing their opinions is not bias.

2. Ever heard of institutional racism? Here's the definition I learned in college: The term "institutional racism" describes societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity. The example used that finally made me "get it" was something like this:

A white man with a 4.0 GPA and a black man with a 3.5 GPA apply to the same college. White man is accepted based on merit. If affirmative action steps in, maybe so does the black man, or just maybe he gets in and the white man doesn't because the school is now full. Affirmative Action sounds ridiculous in the context, right? Well let's go back a few years: white man born to middle-class family with steady jobs, lives in the same house all his life, goes to a school with adequate funding. The black man born to a lower-class family living in an inner-city, father was shot in a random drive-by, mother loses her job trying to manage family on her own, family forced to move to a tiny apartment in a worse neighborhood, no longer can they afford new school clothes each year, the address change put the boy in the worst school district in the state. Now compare the two: white boy with advantages got perfect grades, black boy too busy babysitting siblings to do homework somehow manages to get a 3.5GPA despite this. What if the black man had been born in the white man's neighborhood? Surely someone with his intelligence and without dangerous distractions could achieve a 4.0GPA in that situation. This is the RESULT that Affirmative Action tries to correct. Institutional Racism is the fact that black man's family live in that neighborhood because a generation ago the grandparents didn't have anywhere else to live on their salaries because they were born to a previous generation who couldn't get a fair wage because of their skin color, because a generation before that the family were ex-slaves living in a shack. Slavery has been outlawed, but the ramifications are still there. The entire government is set up in such a way to favor well-off people, who tend to be white because they tend to come from more stable homes and neighborhoods. But it's the non-white populations that need the most help.

Boot-strap it is the answer from Rush and others. An entire racial population is born to a system that works against them, and it's up to them to crawl out of the hole? We have no duty to fill the hole, put everyone on level playing ground?

I think Affirmative Action often does too much, at the expense of too many. But I believe it is the right thing to do to try.

3. Now, change the story a little bit: imagine a Christian and a Muslim. Imagine a government built to favor Christians, but you are born a Muslim. Imagine Christian money, Christian flag pledging, Christian holidays where everything closes, swearing on a Christian bible to prove you are truthful. The Christian guy loves his life and his religion - it is reaffirmed everyday in a million little ways. The Muslim is annoyed that his money only has white faces on it and praises a god he does not believe in, he is singled-out when he is the only one who doesn't pledge allegiance because it is too much like worshipping a false-idol, imagine having to cram your Ramadan traditions into one afternoon because it's a school night but later everyone at school gets 2 weeks off to celebrate the birth of a god you don't believe in, imagine being seen as untruthful because you won't swear by a book you don't have faith in. Now imagine Christmas sales and television programming and neighborhood decorations popping up everywhere the day after Thanksgiving and continuing until the end of the year. Imagine co-workers asking you to recommend a good place to buy a Christmas tree. Imagine office parties where everyone exchanges gifts because they all worship the same god that you don't believe in. Imagine your mosque's newsletter being stamped with "Merry Christmas" by the Post Office. Imagine every store you walk into, every restaurant hostess, every bank teller, every customer service representative wishing you a nice time celebrating their holiday that you won't actually celebrate. Imagine the President going on national television to send Christian blessings for a Merry Christmas to his citizens, assuming they are all Christians who will be celebrating, with not even a shout-out to all the Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. who voted for him but won't be having Christmas dinner.

I'm thinking Institutional Religionism sucks ass right about now. I'm not getting a single paid holiday off to celebrate my god, so is it really any wonder that I'm going to be grumpy? Maybe grumble a little? Maybe write a letter to the newspaper? Asking your local representative for equal acknowledgement of your religious holidays? I'm not in a movement to take your religion away from you, nor am I biased against you. I'm sick of the Christian favoritism, which in its very nature is bias against me!

When I wish you Happy Holidays, I'm not disrespecting you, I'm being nice!

3. You have every right to publicly rejoice in your god, just as I have every right to point out how ridiculous I think you are for doing so. When you tell me two men shouldn't be allowed to marry because homosexuality is a sin, I'm going to mention the fact that marriage has nothing to do with what your god thinks is sinful or not - it was here before your religion even started! When you claim the answer to youth violence is prayer in school, I'm going to point out that I didn't pray in school, I'm an atheist, and I'm not a gang-banger either. When you claim that the only thing keeping humanity in check is god's law, I'm going to point out that I don't believe in god or any laws you think he wrote, and I haven't become a serial killer or pedophile. When you decide it's fun to play devil's advocate by retorting that you question my definition of morality, it's really just singling me out in need of correction if you don't also retort to your other friends' religious exclamations by posting witty anti-god arguments in response.

4. Until horns grow out of his head and he opens the doorway to allow fiery hell to consume the planet, calling the President the Anti-Christ is a bit alarmist. Urgently forwarding an email claiming proof that the president is evil, without even looking up some sort of confirmation elsewhere, is hysterical - and I don't mean funny. I have a problem with the word hysterical, because the Greeks liked to use it to describe menstruating women as psychologically ill, so I don't use it very often. But stumbling upon one nugget of information and then foaming at the mouth while screaming to the world that you now have proof of supernatural evil is irresponsible, unconscionable, and, yep, hysterical.

5. People who refuse to acknowledge scientific facts because of religion or politics are out of their minds. Just because Al Gore says it's so, doesn't make it true. Ditto Glenn Beck. Move beyond the headlines, the manipulated numbers, the accusations, and read the scientific results. And keep in mind that new facts that don't support the old facts 100% is not proof of anything. Doing the same test 10 times with 9 positive results and 1 negative result does not automatically invalidate the test or the positive results.

6. I a seriously questioning just how much Christmas tradition I want to keep in my life and involve my future children with. I thought I had decided this years ago: tradition - yes, religion - no. But both religion and tradition are so overshadowed by commercialism. And I'm not just talking about Christmas sales before Thanksgiving.

Why do we give presents to each other to celebrate the birth of god? Why do we go out of our way, our budgets, and our minds making sure everyone we love knows that they're loved because your bought them the perfect gift on someone else's birthday? Why is it that one present isn't enough? Just how many presents, how many dollars spent, how many decorations hung, how many deals gotten does it take to show our love for each other is genuine?

Humans seem to really like gifts. Often, both giving and receiving. We like to celebrate. It is in our nature to shower gifts on newborns and have a celebration, almost as ingrained as the innate need to love and protect anything with a small face and big eyes. So we keep giving them gifts, because we keep gushing over them and those eyes and our need to bend over backwards for them. It becomes habit. Tradition. Ritual. Once something hits ritual stage, it's too big for its britches - a giant convoluted mess that overshadows everything that was originally celebrated.

Don't let the ritual of shopping and materialism and one-upmanship make you lose sight of your holiday, your loved ones, your budget, your sanity.

In closing, this seems long, but for the points I've hit, I could swear I've missed some stuff. But other than being a little bleary eyed from staring at the monitor, I feel a million times better!

ps: Christmas is not the reason for the season. In our part of the world, December brings the season of winter, which is brought about by the earth rotating away from the sun. Winter is in July in Australia. I'm pretty sure Australia doesn't celebrate Christmas in July. All together now: Christmas is a holiday, not a season. Now birthdays on the other hand, now there's a misnomer. The phrase should really be birthweek. An entire week of celebrations and feasts and honors and presents! Celebrating birthmonth might be nice, but even I think that would be a little excessive, especially if 1/12th of the population sat around and did nothing every month except waiting to be adored and showered with gifts.

pps: but can there really be too much excess for birthdays??! I'll have to ponder this one.

ppps: yep, I'm a materialistic shopaholic. I can't quite believe it myself that I'm complaining about the overspending at Christmas. Who'da thunk it?!

I'm trying to learn to live in the light, stop embracing my darkness and hiding out until the rain returns. I love the darkness, I love the rain. But there's only so much misery and self-pity and loneliness I can take. I promised myself last year that everything would be changing, and I meant it. I just haven't done that great of a job so far. It's so damn easy to slip into old patterns.

I want to write more often, even if it's just in this silly blog, so I searched high and low for an acceptable layout that would be bright and inviting and representative of who I've been and who I'm trying to become.

I want to create more in general. This has been a better year for that than previous, but I'm still only working in spurts, letting the laziness suck me in. Having no regular reason to leave the house is an invitation to disaster. I've discovered that I like to be alone, that I can often be more productive in solitude. But staying at home, it's so damn easy to turn on the TV and forget to turn it off. I really need to police my TV time.

So today I drove into town to pick up a copy of my brand new City of Seattle Business License! I am now officially a sole proprietorship, a small business owner, an entrepreneur! Of course, I've been operating without a license for awhile - I never really stopped after dissolving my previous partnership. But it's nice to be all official-like. Plus, it's required for the event I'm going to be applying to.

If I have my way, this November I will be having my first public event in about two years. I don't want to say anymore right now - don't want to jinx it! But thanks, Michelle, for putting it in my head. :)

So this weekend is going to be all about creating. I'm putting the finishing touches on a piece tonight. Then tomorrow I'm going to be working with this amazing chalcedony dyed a vibrant purple. Absolutely nothing comes close to matching it in color, so finding accents to go with them has been a challenge. Then, hopefully, I will create at least 2 more pieces by the end of the weekend. And preferably have it all photographed by then as well. That will leave Monday to put together the application packet.

Coming up with designs is just amazing. Implementing them is challenging. Photographing the results can drive me nuts, but in the end it's very rewarding. Putting together an application packet for an arts & crafts show is hell. No matter how much you think you know your way around photoshop, no matter how stocked on ink and paper you think you are, the process always takes at least twice as long as you set-aside. Because you DON'T know photoshop to do this one simple thing that you can't understand why the program wasn't made to do at the press of a button. And your printer hates you. I'm pretty sure that as soon as you open Photoshop, your printer catches on and begins binge-drinking your ink in the hopes that your project will totally bomb and it can laugh at you.

But right now I need to catch some Zzzzzzs so I'm off like a prom dress. 'night.

The storm has been moving slowly today, causing me to look up every few minutes to make sure the rain had not started without me. Then, with impeccable timing, a downpour - just enough to to run up the stairs and grab a perch to watch the rain and wind for a few scant moments before it became too dark to watch. It's times like this that I wonder how, after so many bad experiences as a child, the little things can still bring me so much joy. As a girl in Hawaii, I relished the afternoon rains by sitting on the back steps - as close to the bottom I could get without being drenched - with a cat in my arms. Nikka did follow me up here for company, but only tolerated being held for about 45 seconds before it was time for her to go off on her own.

I always open the windows to try and listen as I watch, but up here on the second story all I can hear is the wind when it rains. I miss our tin roof in Hawaii. Here, the only room in the house that allows you to hear the rain is the living room with its skylights. The skylights don't provide the right view to watch the rain, so I am always torn between staying down there to listen, or coming up here to watch. Maybe later I'll go back downstairs and lay under the skylights with my eyes closed and just listen.