asked and answered

The other day, Live Emotionally was talking about refrains, those things you say to yourself when you don't know what to say. Hers were It could’ve been worse and I still have Lily.

There's a comfort in repetition and, said often enough, any phrase becomes both mantra and penance. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Words without end. Amen.

When I'm reminded of what I've lost, I think: I'm better off without them.

When I wish I were dead, I tell myself: You will be. You will be.

What's your refrain?

bad trip

This morning I got this email, seemingly from a friend of mine (spelling, punctuation and capitalization as in original).

from [xxxxxx]
date Mon, May 24, 2010 at 11:17 PM
subject Dilema!

How you doing? We made a trip to London (United Kingdom) unannounced some days back, Unfortunately we got mugged at gun point last night! All cash, Credit cards and phone were stolen, we got messed up in another country, stranded in London, fortunately passport was back in my hotel room. It was a bitter experience and i was hurt on my right hand, but would be fine. I am sending you this message cos i don't want anyone to panic, we want you to keep it that way for now!

I have been to the police and embassy here, but they aren't helping issues,I have limited means of getting out of here, we canceled our cards already and made a police report, I won’t get a new card number till I get back home! So I really need your help. I Need you to loan me $2,500 You could wire whatever you can spare to my name and Location via Western Union, below is all you need:

Receiver's Name -[xxxxx]

Location - 272, Coriander Avenue, Docklands, E14 2AA , London United Kingdom I still have my passport so I can use it as identification,email me the transfer details and the confirmation # would def refund it to you once we arrive hopefully tomorrow.

I guess this is a very common Facebook/gmail scam, though one I've never been the recipient of before. But it strikes me as just about the weakest attempt ever.

Wire $2,500? Like, what's in it for me? Couldn't they at least offer a 20% share of the proceeds from the under-the-table sale of South African diamonds inherited from an "honored and deeply Christain" aunt or a fee for allowing "over-invoiced funds" embezzled by goverment officials from the Central Bank of Nigeria to be laundered through my bank account?

Who's been scamming you?

righting

It was more a mistake than a milestone, but, the other day, Ruby rolled over for the very first time.

She was next to the coffee table, tummy to floor, when her forearms unfolded, her back arced and the weight of her head toppled her with the force of an undertow. She stared at the ceiling. She started to cry.

Nothing was certain, but this much was clear: something had gone wrong, someone had blundered. Somewhere above her, the lights glared and dazzled. Nothing would ever be the same again.

natural history

I realize that just about the least interesting thing to read about is how tired someone else is.  But, honestly?  I'm tired.  Very, very tired. 

So tired, in fact, that when I try to read, the words spontaneously generate their own anagrams, like barnacle geese, born of driftwood, or crocodiles spawned from the mud of the Nile

And how (or how many hours) did you sleep?

and so on

Fascinating discussion going on in the comments to that last post. Kind of a SAHM v. WOHM inferno cage match to the death!

I've closed comments, but, due to popular demand,* I'm thinking we'll have another round on a different topic next month. Stay tuned.


*yes, I realize that there's probably a certain amount of popular demand going the other way. But what's that saying about fooling pleasing all of the people all of the time?

first friday

photo is for Calliope's Photo Friday whose desk theme conveniently matches the theme of this post.

I know, I know I said I was going to give up my first Friday confession thing. But I kind of miss it, plus I have my own confession ready to go right up front.

I'm going back to work on Monday. And (here's the confession part) I'm really, really happy about it. My job has the usual quotient of annoying stuff and people connected with it, but mostly it's fun and challenging and makes me feel that, in my own way, I'm saving a tiny little corner of the world.

And it's not that staying at home is actually unpleasant -- it's more that I don't see it as the best thing for anyone involved. I have certain strengths as a parent, including a reasonably large vocabulary, an even temper and a preternatural tolerance for repetition.

But, more to the point, there are a number of lacunae in my skill set, the most gaping of which is my pathologically shy and (let's face it) antisocial nature. If I want my kids to be able to deal with other people, well, let's just say, that's not something that they're likely to learn from me.

So, in summation: TGI(almost)M

Add your confessions (anonymously, unless you don't feel like it) in the comments. For example, tell us why you love/hate working/staying home and why everyone who doesn't feel exactly the same way is, at best, sadly misguided.

If there are enough confessions, I'll add a few more of my own. See if you can guess which ones they are.

tag: yet another of niobe's deep, deep thoughts

No matter how many cooks you have, it's pretty hard to spoil broth.

Generate your very own profound insight with (what else?) one of these profound insight generators.

Share your newly-acquired wisdom in the comments, if you're so inclined.

eta: Clicking on either "one of these" or "generators" will bring you to one of two (similar, but subtly different) random insight generators. If you don't like the insight you get from one, try the other.