Blonde Moment


Like many women I've got a peculiar relationship with My hair, specifically its color.  All of us have a friend who changes hair color on a whim.  If you're like Me you don't totally understand that friend, but you envy her more than a little bit.

I'm in a comfort zone with My own nearly black locks.  Over time one's hair becomes one's personality, one's self, really, in a non-superficial way that men will never understand.  So I like who I am and I'm OK with My hair.

But I think about those who play with their hair color -- and how I often wish I could just change on a whim like that.  If My hair now "is" Me, then, changing it significantly makes Me . . . Someone else?

What if I were to (gasp) go blonde?  Who would I become then?  Would I "have more fun?" [Studies show that women with blonde hair do get more attention, socially/sexually.  I'm still young enough to think that's not a terrible thing.]  I know My IQ wouldn't suddenly drop 20 points;  that's just an unfortunate cliche . . . ummm . . . what was I saying?

Who am I kidding?  I'm simply not Suddenly Go Blonde For The Hell Of It Girl.  

But I know her, very well.  And I know she stole my boyfriend in the 10th grade.   


Everybody Is A Star (Ummmm, Actually . . . )

"Look into my eyes, what do you see? 
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
Ive been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I'm the cult of personality"

--Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"


A visitor to the channel the other night said something along the lines that he was "glad I was paying attention to the blog again."  Well, hold yer horses there, Pilgrim . . . a few posts does not "attention" make, but thank you . . . and I do hope to keep this up.

But paying attention to the blog isn't all fun and games.  When I was ignoring this blog, I was able to also ignore the fact that I have like, nine readers, three of whom are collared to Me and kinda have to read it. Paying attention means being reminded that some girl posts a photo of her cellulite for Half Naked Thursday Afternoon or whatever it's called and it gets 24 comments.   Or a post about random promiscuity will garner readership and comments like crazy (extra points for bareback).

OK, I get it.  I really do.  This might not be a sex blog, but it's "competing" in that marketplace.  And a sex blog has got to have some sex in it.  Or embarrassing personal details and revelations.  My dry little insights are clearly not cutting it in this hyper-exposed hyper-sexualized circus that blogging has become.  If you want to be a blog star you have to give the people what they want!

I just have to find My voice . . . perhaps something like . . . 

"I was trying for the eleventh time to fix My panty wedgie, and getting wet thinking about the grocery bagger at SavMart, when I realized something very important about the nature of Dominance and submission . .. "

Hrmph.  Clearly this isn't going to be easy. 

Burdens

"Now I don't know but I been told
it's hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I heard it said
it's just as hard with the weight of lead"

from "New Speedway Boogie," The Grateful Dead


I'm always saying that lessons come at the oddest times from the most mundane things. I say it and think it so often that sometimes I wonder if it's really true or I've just convinced Myself of it and can no longer differentiate lessons from well, random stuff.

Then something happens like what happened tonight. I was driving home and the voices on the radio were hurting My ears in that odd, hard to put words to way that sometimes happens. So I switched to the CD.

Song lyrics stick in Me, or wash over Me, or take Me back to somewhere, or shove Me forward, or, like tonight, just give Me a perfect little jewel of a lesson. I just have to be in the right place at the right time.

And tonight was apparently that right place right time . . . traffic came to a stop at just the right time, and those lyrics above could really seep inside Me.

So what's the wonderful perfect lesson?

More of a reminder than a lesson, really: Burdens are burdens. They all entrap and enervate us, despite how beautiful they might seem on the surface. It's folly to carry them around with us. Likewise, the ugly packages are no more worth lugging around, either. The beautiful ones make us feel important and proud when we carry them; the ugly ones make us feel noble and strong. Both are illusions. Let go.

Let go.

Inaugural Thoughts

I actually heard a good chunk of President Obama's speech today.

He's a good speaker . . . he has just enough of the gospel preacher thing without going over the top (and that's not easy to do), he's thorough without being long-winded, inspiring without sounding hokey.

I think he said all the right things . . . and it's kind of hard not to, really, in January 2009. America's current problems make an Inaugural Address kind of a slam dunk for anyone with any intelligence and soul at all. But still, to mix My sports metaphors, fastballs right down the middle get fouled off all the time -- if Obama didn't knock his out of the park today, at the very least he hit a one-hop liner off the wall in a clutch situation.

I do wonder if any of this historic change in American politics portends any real change in America, though. I don't mean on any of the "big" issues . . . the economy will get fixed, partially, and fix itself, partially, We will figure out a way to gracefully exit Iraq and Afghanistan. Etc.

The change I wonder about and keep waiting for (foolishly, perhaps), is the fundamental shift wherein we reverse the places of sex and violence in our society. Corny, perhaps, to point this out for the 1,393,884th time, but a movie can show the most sickening acts of violence and cruelty and be rated PG-13, while a slang word for the procreative act or a bared breast is an automatic "R." The unsuccessful Culture War the Right waged for years didn't just acknowledge the ass-backwards places of sex and violence in this country, it embraced that perversion (and cynically relied on it). That they failed was less because the great mass of people rejected it but more because people didn't care all that much to embrace change of any kind.

Apathy -- America's single greatest weapon!

So I'm hopeful today, on many levels . . . but not particularly sanguine about the prospect that our twisted and tragic view of sex and violence will get straightened out any time soon.

The Prospect of Housecleaning


When I decided to pay attention to the blog again, I wasn't thinking about one unpleasant chore.

I refer to the link list over there to your right. It's been close to a year since I've really looked at it. I must have loads of dozens of dead or stale links.


I see that saratoga is going strong. The thoughtful and considerate swan commented on yesterday's post, so she's around, obviously . . . I look forward to going over there and catching up. What's become of nina? Geisha, if you're out there, send Me a message on yahoo.

I am going to go through the link list . . . doing so is not only good blog management and good manners, but going through it after a long hiatus isn't unlike dumping out a shoebox full of snapshots on the floor and touching on the memories and emotions, recalling what inspired Me in the first place to add that link.


Time to start the cleanup . . . I'm dressed for it!

Serves Me Right (No Pun Intended)

I, of all people, should've known better.

Should've known better than to title My last post "Back."

If you look, you'll see that post dates from August 2008. So clearly, I wasn't "back."

And I really should know that while the road to hell might not really be paved with good intentions, it's at the very least littered with them.

It reinforces for Me how important it is to battle the seduction of intentions, and trust only the reality of actions.

The cart goes before the horse, always. Actions lead to what we seek when we talk about "change"; intentions lull us into thinking we are changing.

So ridiculously simple, despite the surface nonsensical sound, but so insidiously difficult to apply.

I am not "back" until I am.

One step, here.