Inquiring Minds Want To Know

Amy Chozick poses the question in The Wall Street Journal this brilliant and completely relevant question--Is Barack Obama too skinny to be President? Hard to Believe Some People thought the Wall Street Journal Would Go To Hell After Rupert Murdock Bought It.

While We're On the Subject of Writing

This was sent to me by my beloved friend and administrator, Phillip. It's perfect for so many reasons.

Giles Coren, to his editors at The Times (London) for removing the word “a” from the closing sentence of his review

Times subeditors reply to Giles Coren

Jane, you ignorant slut

The first time Peggy referred to me in her blog as "my Administrator", I said to her, with my voice to her ears, "That sounds a little cold and impersonal to me. I wish you wouldn't do that. It's not like you need to protect my identity."

She said, "You are my Administrator because I'm dumb and you take care of everything for me ...."

OK Peggy. Just like assholes, right?

Administrating is something I get paid to do, helping friends is not.

It's all like that. Makes me ....

Sad, really. I'll help anybody who deserves it; anybody I think is doing something worthwhile but doesn't know much about the technicalities. I do it a lot. I live doing it. I can get to a problem more quickly than a fucking problem. Spare me the cadence; milliseconds add up. Be kind, rewind. Simple as that. Are we clear sailor?

Online group therapy might be a wonderful thing but it's not on the list of things I am interested in, nor on the list of things I think publishers are interested in. I think it de-values Utah Savage. I think Peggy just got a bad case of the jitters and, sadly, retreated down the path of familiarity. Here's how it goes Peggy: we might get 5 minutes on the novel. If we're lucky, a couple minutes on the rest. Make it a money shot. She was a lot closer than she is letting on. But you'll have to ask her about that.

Lapdogs are great. They build confidence. Peggy likes you because you are more than that. (I think). Do with that what you will.

You are welcome to shoot slings and arrows my way. Be the first. I'm all over the place. You can figure it out.

I'm Thinking I Need A Shotgun

Utah is one of those groovy states where anyone can carry a gun. And you can get a great bargain at a pawnshop. Isn't that nice? I've had a little ladylike Browning automatic. It was a sweet little gun. I only used it once to get rid of an unwanted suitor. I didn't even have to shoot him. I just pointed it at his face and told him to get lost. He damn near crapped his pants. And I loved the fact that he was the guy who talked me into buying it, because he thought I needed protection. Yeah, protection from him.

I've fired almost every kind of gun that was around when I was growing up. I used to hunt rats at the dump when I was a little girl. The gun I learned to handle was a Luger. My father brought it back for my mother when he came home from soldiering in WWII. He was also the kind of man a woman needed protection from. When we ran, she took her gun. So when I was eight my new daddy took me to the dump in Willimina, Oregon to shoot rats. He thought a well rounded child should be able to handle a gun. I was a good shot. No fancy two handed bullshit for this little gunslinger. I stood square shouldered, left arm lose and relaxed, right arm extended, head turned to sight down the outstretched right arm and bam. Dead rat. I should have swung it that quarter arc and killed the rat leaning against the station wagon, puffing on his Camel and holding his beer bottle in his right hand. But I missed that opportunity.

I hunted all through my childhood and into my teens with my dad and grandfather. We hunted doves, and pheasant. We went to the gun club and shot skeet. We hunted porcupines at night at my grandfather's cabin, finding the game with a flashlight and then shooting them out of trees or as they waddled across a trail. It was another opportunity I missed to kill those two bastards.

I never bragged about my experience with guns. But when I started dating, guys always wanted to impress me with their macho shooting skill. I might pretend they needed to show me how to hold a rifle. I might miss the first couple of cans or bottles, and they would show me how good they were, how easy it was. Then I would take the rifle and wait while the young man so intent on teaching me his game, would set up the targets again, and when he got back out of range and almost to my side, I would take out every target before he could turn around and look. It was a jaw dropping experience for the young man who seldom asked me to go shooting with him again. I hunted rabbits alone. I was a right little savage.

Once I started taking acid and smoking pot I lost my taste for guns. I mellowed out. I was a fashion model and traveled where ever I wanted, staying long enough in one fashion capital or another to get an agent and make some money and then I was off again. It was an easy life. A young beauty is welcome anywhere. And oddly men always wanted to protect me. That is until I started marrying them. Strange how quickly a man who professes to love you can turn into an abusive prick once he thinks he owns you. I finally gave up on men who claimed to love me, and decided I preferred the occasional friend and a solitary life.

Today my old friend came over to bring me his home made corn bread. I peeled a chilled cantaloupe and sliced it and we shared a lovely lunch. We talked about politics like we always do, and the subject of the Supreme Court came up. We both hate that prick Antonin Gregory Scolia, the gangster of the current court. I also loathe Clarence Thomas, but he is merely an angry, vengeful man--not very smart and not terribly dangerous. But Scolia is a Cheney type gansta. It got us talking about the new ruling concerning gun laws, and got me to thinking I've always wanted a shotgun. It's the only gun I'd really want these days. I think there is nothing more chilling than the sound of a pump on a shotgun. That sound of someone getting ready to do some real damage. And I would imagine a woman with a shotgun could scare the crap out of any intruder. It's everyone's right to own and carry a gun in Utah. And I'm nothing if not a good citizen. And who knows when some asshole might decide to ignore the beware of dog signs and intrude on my privacy.

I'm Sorry

I'm not sleeping well and woke up inexplicably at 3 AM and decided to read a blog or two looking for inspiration. I read Liberality's post from yesterday and was amazed and delighted. I started scrolling backwards reading what she's been up to and was further amazed. Other people have real lives. Fancy that. I know Dcup has a huge real life and I've never been able to figure out how she does it. Not only do you guys have spouses, and kids, and jobs (and in Libs case, school) and write, you actually vacuum. Then you go visiting and say funny, smart things, like the perfect party guest. I've almost always been the wallflower at the party. So I'm in awe. The only party I've been throwing lately has been the most disgusting of all parties--the pity party. Well, I'm finally disgusted enough with myself to give it up. I'm calling my shrink today and telling her this latest drug change isn't working. I'd rather be fat than dull. Hell, I rather be dead than dull.

I owe my administrator a huge apology. No one has done more to help me master a few of the fundamentals of computing. His patience is astounding. He has been generous and for the most part very kind. Besides all of that I really like him. He's given me the world, and I've acted like a petulant child at a tiny bit of criticism. Yes, I am ashamed of myself. He has asked me to leave him out of my card game. And I will, once I state publicly what an ass I've been. I'm thin skinned beyond belief. I hate whiners and I'm a huge whiner. This leads to self-loathing. Duh. Circular and stupid. I'm climbing out of the hamster wheel and will attempt to peer out the window now and then.

Yesterday I got a lot of very good advise from the women who know when someone needs an intervention.

I've Lost My Mojo

Things are getting me down. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it's depressing. It's probably a combination of things, but prior to my antidepressant change I was, despite all the other problems, enthusiastic and energetic. The final nail in my creative coffin was the email from my administrator, and I thought friend, who said, in essence, that I'm a bad writer. This is not an incentive to write. I spent my adult life either married to men or living with men who defined me as a bitch, and never lived with a man who took me seriously in any way except as a sexual object.

I grew up in a family that defined me as the problem, and all my family's ill treatment of me was deserved. I was the scapegoat in my family, and it took forty years of therapy to begin to turn the corner on that. I was told over and over to take responsibility for myself, even when I was a child. I was told that the terrible things done to me were my problem. So part of the reason I accept another's assessment of me as bad or childish or without talent is part of that legacy. My only value when I was younger was as an object to be used--either a good accessory or a piece of crap. So the bipolar roller coaster and the recent change of meds, the bad teeth, the bad ticker, the neurotic dog, are getting me down. I don't need anybody to feel sorry for me. I don't need pity or sympathy. But a gut kick isn't particularly helpful either. At my best I might be a bit of a drama queen. At my worst, I'm a limp rag, unable to think, or bathe, or feed myself. I nowhere my worst yet, but I could get there.

But I don't want to give this up. I want to get better at it. Bear with me. It may take awhile. And when I have the energy to write, I'll be trying to finish my last damn edit on the novel.

To Randal, Dcup, Diva, Liberality, DK Read, Enigma, Anita, and Unconventional Conventionist, and the rest of you, I'll be around, lurking and sulky for awhile. But once things settle down health wise, I'll be back wisecracking, and acting like a citizen who gives a shit again.

Dcup Understands Me

Well, this about sums up everything I love about jazz and a great torch singer. It doesn't hurt that the lyrics suite me perfectly. I'm a lucky woman to have a friend like you. And just for the record how did you find this perfect piece?

From My Administrator

I thought that this was a bit harsh. But the bad writing bit cuts very deep. Sends me back to the drawing board. Makes me deeply ashamed of myself. And I know I deserve the exhortation to write well. Bad writing should offend us all. My administrator sent this to me after reading, or trying to read a bit of the novel, and then asking me to fix something in the first chapter. My lack of editorial skill is shameful. But, it is my belief that a writer needs an editor--someone not so close to the story. Yes, this is a poor justification for sloppy writing. Yes, I'm often childish--I'd say I'm about twelve. A pissed off twelve year old.

From my Administrator to me in response to a couple of childish emails I sent to him.


"Peggy, darling, you know this is a piss poor message. It insults me, makes me think that you think I'm interested in, motivated by, childishness. I'm not. Maybe other people in your life are, or have been. Maybe it works on them. Do you respect them? Swearing doesn't make you tough. You can't continue to pretend that only prudishness would find this offensive. It's bad writing, simple as that. Bad writing offends me.

It's not a special case. It's a clear one. Anger, frustration ... oooh golly, the swear words make it so. Are you kidding me?

It's childish dumb and weak. It's not an "over use of the expletive."

And you can quote me on that.

I went to the Giants game tonight."

On Jul 26, 2008, at 7:50 PM, U.Savage wrote:

I could probably do some damage trying to fix this fucking problem. I want only Jabber available as an Ichat option. What is the Aim bullshit I can't get rid of.

For Non, Je Ne Regrettes Riene

Ne Me Quitte Pas, by Nina Simone

Stolen from Unconventional Conventionist

All it takes is one

Churlish in the Dog Days

I'm tired and pissed off and sad. And My Administrator is fed up with me. I have been experiencing these cardiac events, as my E Cardio heart monitor techs call them when I have to unload the days happenings into the phone. I don't notice the events, I just feel churlish, tired, and incapable of doing the simplest things--as if I left the house that is my brain, and some moron has inhabited it in my absence. And the weather isn't helping.

Over the past few days it's been 105 in the shade of the gazebo. And then out of nowhere a single cloud forms and then one crack of lightening and my house gets a surge that knocks out everything. Yes my friends, I did not own a surge protector. No, I just "forgot" to put it on my shopping list. No I'm not a complete moron, just a moron in some areas. Those parts of my brain not engaged in foraging for food and the fistfull of pills I take each day and finding a place that isn't out of my smokes, is about the limit of what I feel I can do at this particular point in my rush toward the grim reaper. I'm wired up like frankenstein, with a monitor hanging from my neck that's like wearing an especially ugly neckless that weighs too much--the wires dangle, and it's too hot to wear anything that would make this unsightly mess less visible, so I go around with wires hanging, and my monitor swinging jauntily from my tired neck. I'm fed up and very tired and really cranky.

After the second or third surge, my Administrator told me to "GET A GOOD SURGE PROTECTOR OR YOU WILL KILL YOUR COMPUTER, and in his tone was the last bit, but not exactly said, YOU MORON. I am grateful to my Administrator, and I'm obedient like a five year old to his shouted orders. So I got the most expensive surge protector I could find. I unplugged the tangle of cords, and reinstalled the important ones, and then BAM, another surge. Well, thank god, I was "protected." None of this makes me less cranky or surly or irritable. Part of this irritably is the result of the antidepressant change, and the heat isn't helping, and the heart going haywire several times a day for no fucking reason, and the extreme fatigue of it all. Could this be the big ennui that is old age and the approach of the sweetly smiling grim reaper creeping up on me? It's probably all of the above. But then, in response to a too desperate email and a couple of whiny emails I sent my Administrator followed by a day of silence from him, I got a very pissed off email back. I don't doubt that I deserved his scorn and impatience, but it hurt my feelings. And since I feel like one ragged exposed and overused nerve, I shut down my computer and took to bed.

And a damn good thing it was. A storm blew in and knocked the power out in the whole neighborhood. So, no fan, no swamp cooler, no TV, no lights, one candle, and fortunately one flashlight that worked. So after a night of too much time to think, and a restless sweaty sleep-- I'm in no better mood, but I will not yet give up the blogging, and I will continue to swear like a drunken sailor, and I will, eventually, slowly edit my fiction again.

PS . So to console myself, I made a luscious fresh peach cobbler because it's peach season, and I'm finally tired of cornbread.

Oh, and I almost forgot--the three molars on the lower right side of my jaw have become abscessed, and need to be pulled, cut out, whatever. But because of the heart thing and the big dose of blood thinners, I can't have this little painful problem dealt with. I can't afford it anyway. So I stay on antibiotics to keep the pain to a low simmer. Did I say I can't afford it? Medicare does not cover dental emergencies. But even if they did, I still couldn't get this last indignity taken care of.

The Look of Love

More of the luscious voice of Diana Krall

S'Wonderful

Diana Krall, S'Wonderful

Live in Paris

Peel Me A Grape

I said I was a fan of jazz since I was very young. I love the late greats and the newcomers, but this is my favorite female vocalist, pianist, and songwriter. Her name is Diana Krall and she is married to the very lucky Elvis Costello, or was last time I heard.

These great photos of Ms. Krall are a little eye candy for us all. So Randal, feast your eyes and please your ears. And yes, we want a lot, don't we?

So, peel me a grape. And I just might give you my cornbread recipe.

My Early Rock and Roll Pantheon of Greats

I went looking for each of these old rockers one by one and much to my delight found them all together on this gem--sounds like it was performed in Italy from the intro and early commentary as the stars take the stage. Let this old puppy load and the sit back and enjoy the early history of Rock and Roll--too bad Buddy Holly isn't in the mix, but alas, he was gone for good. Check out the mics that don't work, the cast of "minor" players and the crowd of white folks having a very good time. Here you have: BB King, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Ike and Tina Turner and the Ikettes

This is the first Rock performance up close and personal I ever saw. I was walking through the Union building at the University of Utah. I was a student and cutting through the hall behind the ballroom (which is a pretty overblown name for the small space--probably seating for a couple of hundred people and this is what I heard and saw. I know this performance isn't the one I saw, but it comes damn close. I stopped dead in my tracks and listened for a moment and then moved in closer. I saw Tina singing and Tina dancing that was a jaw dropping, spellbinding experience. They were doing Proud Mary and it looked like this only more vivid and sweat flying and those amazing legs of hers pumping, strutting across the stage with the lovely Ikettes behind her.

Glade, This One's For You

In taking Randal's challenge to chronicle my tastes in Rock Music, which was not ever really my taste in music, and to wish well a secret friend of mine, I give you Queen--who my rocker friend says is the most talented group of musicians in all of Rock History. Well, Glade, I have to admit, the guy can sing, and the rest of the band's not bad either. But I still love Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and BB King better than I do the virtuoso white boys. Remember the saying, America, once you go black, you never go back.

A Challenge From Randal

A challenge from Randal Graves. Well, I'm willin', but I'm old and creaky and don't have your linky skills so this will take some time. However you do know my fondness for Little Feat and here they give you "Willin'"

And wait, wait, for Don't Bogart That Joint at the end. Nothing to do but listen. No video, so crank it up and go about your business. Unless you're at work, of course. Like you Randal. Me, I'll be vaporized and watching "news."

Barack in Berlin

The audacity of hope is alive and well in Berlin. A crowd of over 200,000, waving america flags and cheering, stands in stark contrast to the angry demonstrations on Bush's last visits to EU Capitols. Merkel looked so happy to shake the hand and speak to the possible next President of the United States, and know he won't molest her as Bush did in his last visit.

(I had to increase that number of cheering Germans from 100,000 to 200,000)

The About to Be Homeless

"The Stock Market got drunk, and now it has a hangover" George W. Bush said at a fundraiser in Texas.

And thousands wait for relief from Congress to forstal forclosures on their homes.

Thursday, July 24, 2008; Page A01

The homeowners started lining up at 4 a.m. yesterday, some, like Patricia Ephraim, coming for a second or third day.

This Story

• Huge Housing Bill Set to Become Law
• HIGHLIGHTS
• Thousands Flock for a Chance at Loan Relief
• Mortgage Owners Praise Event

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