pjthompson | Entries tagged with tv

Random quote of the day:

“[Television] is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.

—T.S. Eliott, New York Post, September 22, 1963

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“When the media investigates a phenomenon like psi, or for that matter privatizing Social Security or forming a public health care system, they reach out to sources with diametrically opposed positions. That makes for higher drama, more colorful quotes, and, so the thinking goes, better radio or television. What it doesn’t bring us any closer to is the truth.”

—Steve Volk, Fringe-ology

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.”

—Rita Mae Brown, Starting From Scratch

I would say to my pagan friends the same thing I would say to my friends of any religion: beware thinking your way is the One True Faith. There are many paths back to the Source, but judgement and rigidity are not amongst them.
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I'd start calling him President Cthulhu but that's an insult to Cthulhu.
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You know, I've supported Nancy Pelosi all this time but mostly kept quiet because I didn't want to fight with people, often people I liked and admired. I'm a little ashamed of that, but oh well. I knew, you see, that Pelosi is one of the canniest and most experienced politicians in Washington and I knew she was holding fire for a good reason. Last week that reason became eminently clear: she was waiting for a smoking gun. One that these cretins couldn't wiggle out of, one that the general American public could readily understand. It may be argued that the Mueller report was a smoking gun, but even Mueller himself obfuscated and demurred so much that it wasn't something that could be easily conveyed to the larger public. But everybody understands the kind of brutish and heavy-handed strong-arming Trump attempted with Ukraine. It was schoolyard bully stuff and illegal and immoral as hell. It's enough to start changing minds--except for his rabid believers, of course. Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and no one would hold him responsible. What he was too stupid or arrogant to realize was that when he did give Nancy Pelosi an easy-to-hold gun of her own, she would have no hesitation in pulling the trigger. Good work, Madame Speaker. I'm sorry I didn't defend you.
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You know that overworked and ridiculous phrase in writing: "She (he) released a breath she didn't know she was holding"? I've always loathed it in a work of fiction, but when the Ukraine news broke and with all the revelations that came out... I released a breath I didn't know I was holding.
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I used this deck quite a lot at one point in my life. Can you tell?

Fortunately, the cards don't look as disreputable as the box. And after literally decades of using this deck, I just discovered that I had two Knights of Swords. I'm not sure what that means. I would probably have never known if they both hadn't come up in the same reading. Reversed. And yes, I guess the day of that reading had been about being, "indiscreet, extravagant, and foolish." I've been through the entire deck now and there are no other duplications and no missing cards. But I guess I'd better pay attention to that Knight, hadn't I?
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I was born in the last six hours of Virgo, just seven hours shy of the Autumn Equinox (West Coast time), so I have a hella amount of Libra in my chart. I was really feeling the effects of the new moon in Libra at the end of September. I tried to use that energy well. Balance and rectification. Throwing off the shackles of old bad habits that are holding me back.
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One of the best parts of living alone is that when I'm not feeling well I can sit around and groan and not worry about driving anyone crazy with my drama queen ways.
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I was watching one of those ghost shows on TV and the house owner was talking about how a ghost threw her cat across the kitchen. And there's the cat sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with its leg up cleaning its nether regions. He seemed very unconcerned in general. She took the ghost hunters into the bedroom to talk about what happened in there and here comes the cat to sprawl on the bed. "I ain't afraid a no ghosts." In fact, I kind of regard cats as a reverse ghost monitor. If they are there and not concerned they ain't no ghost there.
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Every time I watch the science channel I wonder if the people who came up with the SciGo acronym realized how close it sounds to "psycho."
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When the estimable Dr. Lucy Jones, eminent geologist, says that she fears climate change more than earthquakes one should really pay attention. I saw her state just that in a recent interview.
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I may have finished writing something that seemed very much like the denouement of my current novel. Only the coda left, and that's already half written. But it’s been a couple of weeks now and I still haven’t finished it. I can’t help wondering if this resistance is a way of preventing myself from moving on. Or knowing that once I finish that coda, I'm done with this world for the foreseeable future. I can't see writing any more Dos Lunas stories any time soon--and I've lived there on and off for so long (since 2000), I may be reluctant to let go.
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I've come to the conclusion that I like having mindless tasks to do, things that most people would never have the patience for. I suspect it's a Virgo thing.
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Oh yeah, that probably explains a lot about the last few months. I forgot until just last week that I have summer SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Somehow I manage to forget that every freaking year.

So I've finally fallen under the spell of Mindhunter on Netflix. Riveting. I binged most of season one last weekend, finished the last three episodes yesterday and started on episode one of season two. I'm trying to stretch it out. Besides, for some weird reason I only seem to be in serial killer mode on the weekends.

Oh man, such good acting and writing and directing. It's just great stuff. And the casting is amazing. So much attention to detail and visuals and the way the characters are blocked into a scene. I also like how they imply incredible violence but they don't glorify it and they don't exploit it—something that is not true of every show about murder.
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The ants are on the move. It's hot and dry so they've come inside looking for water and other things. I spray their ant trails with Clorox which kills them but they're back on a new space the next day. The ants will be here long after I am gone, going about their antly duty.
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My outrage quota varies from day to day, but each day I hit the limit and I'm forced to shut down because I feel my soul leaking out of my ears.
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To me, one of the ultimate sins of the world is to throw away books. There are so many places that need books. Even when the rats got to some of my library and destroyed books (sometimes in disgusting ways) it tore me up to throw them away—even though they really had to go. Other books had suffered minimal damage (i.e., thoroughly chewed covers but otherwise fine) and I couldn't bring myself to toss them. I still have a few of those. Others—and this is cowardice, I know—I put into recycling bags. I was fairly certain the places I donated them to would throw them away. But the sin would not be on my head, you see?

And the books that I have loved to death by reading and re-reading? I still have all those. I can't bear to throw them out. I keep thinking I can use them to make sculptures or something. And yet they sit in my shelves, sacrosanct. Because, I admit, that every time I see a picture of someone who has gone down to the thrift store and picked up a bunch of old books to turn them into a piece of furniture, my first instinctive reaction is "You asshole!"

Extreme reverence for books may be a sin, but when throwing out books it's not just tossing an object, it's an entire world full of people and stories and feelings. I'm not demon enough to do that.
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Trump/Putin/Helsinki/2018: There are several photos in this sequence that look much the same. This was taken right after their secret meeting where Trump would not allow the translator to take notes. Putin looks like the cat who got into the cream. Meanwhile, Trump displays the face of a man who's just been told by Putin, "Do everything I say from now on or I'll call in all those massive loans I gave your and release the peepee tape." Can anyone reasonably doubt that Trump is a Russian asset?

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One of the reasons I'm having such a hard time with the current part of the current novel (writing anything is like pulling teeth) is that I already know everything that happens. I've never been one who wrote well from an outline. Still, I'm close to 89k in and I'm not giving up.
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I still miss my tiny best friend more than I can say. Min, aged 19:

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My Cat's Death Broke My Brain.
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Both of these men (Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper) are a gift, and an antidote to the times we are currently living through:

You said "what punishment of gods are not gifts. Do you really believe that?" @andersoncooper, choking back tears, asks Stephen Colbert, as they discuss grief.

"Yes," replies the comedian. "It's a gift to exist and with existence comes suffering. There's no escaping that." pic.twitter.com/p5rUUhZKxq
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) August 16, 2019

I agree with Mr. Colbert because of my own past traumatic experiences. I reached a point in my life where I realized that if I like who I am and I'm grateful for my life then even the bad stuff went into making me who I am. Once I got to that place it brought me great peace. It's an individual choice, and not something anyone has to do, but that's where I ended up and I'm very glad for it. I accept with gratitude all of my life as part of who I am, good and bad.
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It amazes me that some of the same people who decry racism and misogyny the loudest think ageism is just fine. Ageism is bullshit, no matter what direction: boomer against millennial, millennial against boomer, Gen X against Gen Z. I call bullshit.
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I absolutely believe that universal healthcare is a fundamental human right. However, I think you should know that Medicare is not a perfect plan and costs me a lot of money. I sincerely believe we can do better than Medicare for everyone.

TV Show pitch: This Old Crone
Like the PBS seres, This Old House (the original remodeling show), but featuring the transformation of an old crone rather than an old home. It should be hosted by the person who really knows how to do the work rather than the half-assed dilettante hosebag. In this series, instead of covering up the flaws in the crone, we shine a bright spotlight on them so that anyone, including the crone, can learn from them. And the eccentricities of construction will be celebrated rather than trying to turn them into something sleek and modern. Repair work will be done, of course, but with the knowledge that decrepitude is inevitable and the only sure and certain principle ruling the Universe is entropy. Rather than mourning this, the show will encourage us to accept it with as much grace and dignity as possible and learn from it, as well. But we must also remember that if entropy rules the Universe, irony is its only begotten daughter.

Everyone's path is their own. No path is superior. Everyone has to find their own way. The path of quiet contemplation is as valid as the full-throated war cry. Anyone who judges your path isn't as secure in their own as they think they are. One person has trouble crossing a room without pain; another climbs mountains. In the end, it doesn't matter. All that matters is the flame in your heart. If it dies, you've failed. If it's still burning, you're still burning, and you're where you need to be.

One of my ancestors is named Mary Polly Armor and I always want to read that as Mary Polyamory. #BecauseThatsJustTheSortOfBrainIHave

What’s the first major news event you remember in your lifetime? I was going to say the assassination of JFK but it’s really the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember those drills, our young teacher herding us little bitty kids into the cloakroom to shelter. I remember her crying each time and I didn’t figure out until later that it was because she never knew if we were hiding out because it was real and the bombs were on the way or if it was just another drill. I was terrified and didn't really know why.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion that paranormal activity is caused by places being built on Indian burial grounds. It’s quite prevalent in paranormal research and I’ve also fallen prey to the thought of vengeful native spirits. Lately, I’ve reconsidered this. It’s as essentially racist as the Ancient Aliens/Van Daniken notion that primitive (read “people of color”) societies could not possibly have invented the wonders they did—it had to be gifted to them from Space Overlords. The Indian burial ground notion has even pervaded popular horror movie culture. The one exception to this that I can think of in popular culture (rather than supposedly legit research) is the movie Poltergeist. The dead folks in that movie were just vengeful dead folks, not vengeful natives. I can't think of such an exception in paranormal research. It makes me feel guilty that I even considered the Indian burial ground scenario. Although I'm not sure my white guilt is any more helpful than white appropriation or white nullification of culture. Mostly I realize it's not about me except for when I can work for positive change.

Here near LAX we got a gentle rolling from the July 5th 7.1 earthquake (downgraded to only 6.9), but it did go on for a very long time. Sometimes they are gentle at first then the big whammy hits, so until things stop there's always the fear it will get bigger. One of my neighbors was standing out in her front yard screaming, however, which I thought kind of extreme but it takes everybody different. I did feel seasick afterwards, though.

The only thing I know is that whatever negative thing you are when you're young, you will still be that negative thing when you're old, only more so. Unless you do a s*** ton of work on yourself between youth and age, if you're a young rage monkey he'll be in old age monkey; if you're a judgmental young twat you'll be a judgmental old twat. The good news is, if you're a thoughtful, considerate person when you're young you'll most likely still be a thoughtful, considerate old person. The seeds of who our selves are planted at the moment of our birth.

I think the dictation on my Word program must be Scottish. It never wants to capitalize the name Ken.

I lived a block from the Sidewalk Cafe in the 80s. We often ate there in the day time, but knew to stay off the Boardwalk at night: too wild & dangerous for girls on their own. It sounds like things have changed—and not changed: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/08/a-night-with-a-bouncer/#.XRlOldiNsgk.twitter

I have to confess that as much as I loathe Ancient Aliens, it's a good show to have on for background noise when I'm not feeling very well. I can read Twitter while it's playing and look up every once in a while to yell very rude things at the screen. #NeverSaidIWasntWeird

I don't feed the crows every day. But every time I do feed them, the day after one of them will perch on the rail near my open front door and yell at me to feed them again. #LoveThemCrows

The Detectorists – a lovely, gentle, funny show. One of my favorites.

Watch on YouTube

I have a terrible confession to make. I hope you'll still be my friends once you hear it: I like the lumps in cream of wheat.

Last night I re-watched My Dinner with Andre for the first time in a very long time. At least 20 years, maybe longer. I've seen it many times. There was a time when my friend and I would go to see it every time it played at the Nuart cinema in West L.A., an “art house” theater which still exists (though it’s part of the Landmark chain now). Every time I saw Andre I felt as if the conversation had somehow magically changed, that new things, new concepts had been added. My sympathy would swing back and forth between the two people talking, I'd laugh at one and then the other, cry with one and then the other. The ending always made me appreciate the mystery and the wonder of life, from the ordinary details of a cold cup of coffee, to the mystical wonders of Findhorn, to living life consciously, and living life in a dream. And it still works. It still works.

In some ways it works better in today’s society than it did in 1981. The themes of living consciously rather than floating along; the themes of how distracted we all are and how difficult that makes it to live meaningfully.

"A baby holds your hand and then suddenly there's this huge man lifting you off the ground. And then he's gone. Where's that son?"

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And speaking of watching, I just finished season 3 of The Detectorists. What a lovely, lovely show. Low key, gentle humor, sweet spirit. One of my very favorites.

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Click on the Twitter link to watch a starling movie (hover over movie for sound icon in lower righthand corner):

God noise musicians are so hot pic.twitter.com/NIiUFtVjqM
— Patrick Steadman (@ptsteadman) October 4, 2018

Click on the link to watch Mom and her starling, Baby (hover over movie for sound icon in lower righthand corner):

pic.twitter.com/cM7opjoc5i— PJ I Can't Even Thompson (

pj_thompson) June 8, 2019

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Butterflies are such beautiful creatures. Which is why I can’t understand the urge to collect them, kill them, and use them as art objects, preventing them from living out their life cycle and reproducing so that we will continue to have beautiful butterflies.

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My mother grew up right in the middle of Uintah Co., UT, a place well known in paranormal circles and home to the infamous Skinwalker Ranch. It was a little farming community called Willow Creek, not to be confused with the current day town of Willow Creek which is some ways northwest of where Mom grew up. Mom’s community doesn’t exist any more, as it became part of the Ute reservation. I had to locate the Creek it was named after to get an approximate location on Google maps (below).

I've often wondered if Mom’s nervousness regarding "weird shit," as she called it, was because she grew up in a place where it was common.

Having said that, one of the shows she really liked to watch in the last years of her life was Finding Bigfoot. It was one of the few "weird" shows she could tolerate. Every time we'd watch she'd be fascinated and almost every single time she’d say afterwards, "There has to be something to this." Not sure why she found it so convincing. But maybe Uintah County had something to do with it.

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Speaking of weird (as I do so love to), I was reading a thread on Twitter about the superstitions of health care workers. One of the most frequently mentioned was that health care workers would open a door or a window when someone died so the soul could find its way outside. (This is a very old folkloric belief.) While reading this I remembered that when my mother, who was in hospice here at home, passed away, the very lovely hospice nurse (a lady from Africa—and I’m sorry, sweet nurse, I no longer remember which country you said) took care of business and then went to open the front door.

I don’t think I even asked her why (I was in grief shock) but there must have been something in my expression because she hurried to say, “That’s so the funeral home knows what house it is.” I accepted it at the time but in retrospect, that makes no sense at all. It makes more sense after reading that thread on Twitter.

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It's so difficult to overcome the "I want I want I want" mentality so many of us have been raised with in this society and replace it with the "We are we are we are" mentality. But necessary deprogramming.

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I’m a rather half-assed pagan. I do witchy things but I respect and honor witches too much to call myself one unless I feel I've earned it. I think I'm on a parallel but different path, anyway. I have a kind of spiritual practice that I’m getting back in touch with after many years of distraction and tamping it down to deal with this world. Any spiritual practice that’s worth its salt, I think, has to deal with both the mystical and the mundane or it’s just escapism. (Yes, I know, some would say all spiritual practice is escapism, but that’s their problem. I have no patience with them.)

In recent times, I have meditated and put out calls of—how to phrase it? Belonging? Certain deities respond and when they do I honor them on my mantelpiece. Others are just "the spirit of the rock" or "the spirit of the tree." I am sure there is a spirit of the house, this house, but it's unnamed. My mother, as I’ve mentioned, was not comfortable with discussion of anything spiritual. But I think she had some talents. She said the first time she walked into this house it opened its arms to her and said welcome. And I still feel that.

Everyone on the mantelpiece seems okay with everyone else, but I always ask before I place a representation there if everyone welcomes the addition. On rare occasions they say no and I honor that, but most times they’re accepting. And not just spiritual things go on the mantle. It's a kind of cornucopia of silly and sacred and artwork, but it seems to work for everybody.

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What’s something about myself that I once wanted to change to fit in but am now happy with? My weirdness. I never saw things the way most people did. I now realize that’s not my affliction but my treasure.

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"It's not a swastika it's some kind of Tibetan symbol," said the guy in the Nazi war helmet when asked why he put a concrete swastika in his front yard. "I don't think he's a Neo-Nazi," said his neighbor, adding sheepishly, "But he may be racist." #TalesFromTheLocalNews

Random quote of the day:

“Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn’t change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house.”

—Alfred Hitchcock, New York Journal-American, 25 August 1965

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery—it recharges by running.”

—Bill Watterson, “Some Thoughts On the Real World By One Who Glimpsed It and Fled,” Kenyon College Commencement, May 20, 1990

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

30 Oct
Get out your hankies. The 20 year old toddler: http://yhoo.it/16mrLa8

31 Oct
SHAME: We got home from the doctor late and I’m so exhausted I’m sitting in the house with the lights out hiding from the trick or treating kids. I usually love having them but it’s been a very stressful few weeks.

1 Nov
The Sears robot is still calling to say I need to reschedule the repair appointment for the dishwasher. I’ve called the Repair Desk several times. After complaining again to them that I don’t need repair I got yet another call from the repair scheduling robot and a tweet from SearsCares. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that SearsCares breaks down to Sear Scares. It’s been my experience with them lately.

2 Nov
Compassion fatigue.

3 Nov
The Amazon Prime goodie bag went into the dumpster along with a box of other clutter. The need to purge the Room of Doom is strong.

3 Nov
Having posted about my virtuous purging of junk I then opened a box of crap I ordered from American Science & Surplus: http://www.sciplus.com/ They’re sort of a depository for unwanted but interesting junk. Kind of like my house. Left hand, right hand.

6 Nov
Color outside the lines, but read between them.

6 Nov
I shall rename myself The Great Phlegmingo. I’d really like to stop coughing now, weeks after getting the cold.

11 Nov
Another epic starring Bird, this time whistling Blue Danube and imitating my mother and I coughing: http://bit.ly/1buZWwd

11 Nov
Every once in awhile, after not reading one of your novels for a long time, you surprise yourself with how much you like it. Mostly it’s cringing, though.

16 Nov
Why do people adopt children only to abuse them or “give them back” when things get challenging? It sickens me.

17 Nov
The only thing worse than watching jury orientation online is watching it at the court house.

17 Nov
Sears now claims they never got the plumbing invoices I sent October 29. I think sarcasm is in order, don’t you?

18 Nov
I postponed jury duty because my legs are not up to the hilly walking conditions in downtown L.A.

18 Nov
In other science news: You are what you eat may not be just another outmoded hippy slogan: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bacteria-might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds …

19 Nov
You know what I don’t need? Someone who doesn’t know a thing about the day to day of my life giving me advice about what I “should” do.

19 Nov
I stayed home from work today because my knee was in such bad shape I needed to sit with ice on it for as many hours as I could stand. It’s somewhat better.

20 Nov
Some days Mom is victorious over the microwave. Other days it is beyond her and I get these phone calls asking me to diagnose over the phone. On those days, I wish to be shot in the head. But not really, Universe! I’ve got too much to do.

20 Nov
I just bought a mystery solely because the detective is named Pamela Thompson.

21 Nov
Well, I’ve had my Christmas miracle. My mother apologized to me.

21 Nov
The only thing certain in this world are death, taxes, and Kardashians.

22 Nov
Dear PJ: you cannot hide the similes by using “as if” instead of “like.” We can still see them.

23 Nov
Apparently I needed to be punished more. My knee was just starting to get better and I fell at Ralphs and wrenched it worse.

26 Nov
Mom went back in the hospital this morning. She either has an infection or a persistent virus. Either way she’s spending the night for tests and evaluation. Thanksgiving seems cursed as something happens every year. But she seemed better tonight. I hope that direction continues. (She came home November 27 and has been strong and doing well since.)

28 Nov
Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was great. Carl cooked the entire meal and brought it over. Delish–and a wonderful surprise. I have the best friends in the world.

29 Nov
Mom remembers her dad going for supplies by horse and buckboard wagon to Watson UT when she was a kid. It’s now a ghost town.

30 Nov
My fantasy of buying a small smart TV lasted all of 24 hours before I got real. Too much other important stuff to spend the money on and we don’t need fripperies. Got caught up in Black Friday madness without even shopping. But sometimes being a responsible grown up sucks.

2 Dec
The guy in the Pinocchio suit stares into the abyss of his existence and despairs. Disneyland, 1961: pic.twitter.com/yPVGRvSkH0

2 Dec
This article encapsulates the caregiver situation quite well: http://bit.ly/1avcAck

The loneliness of the long distance carer. May I just add, **** you Amy F. Grant and Katie F. Couric, and anyone else who talks about the “privilege” without understanding the facts of working class people having to deal with this.

4 Dec
RIP Willis Ware, brilliant engineer and lovely, lovely man.

5 Dec
The resolution to a plot point that has been hanging unsolved for years finally came to me in the shower this morning. Unfortunately, I was in the shower, couldn’t write it down, and I was so busy after the shower I forgot, and now I can’t remember what it was or even which novel.

5 Dec
Adorably awesome! Lea Salonga and Darren Criss sang A Whole New World together at a bar: http://bit.ly/1kfEmiB

6 Dec
RIP Irreplaceable Nelson Mandela.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nelson-mandela-becomes-first-politician-to-be-miss,34755/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Default:1:Default …

6 Dec
I put on an episode of Finding Bigfoot last night. Mom fell asleep just after it started and woke just as it finished.

Mom: What happened?
Me: They didn’t find him.
Mom: Oh, okay then.

8 Dec
I keep buying books I haven’t got time to read.

8 Dec
And after two years of living as if this is a temporary situation it’s finally setting in that this is probably a long haul. I’m okay with that, but it’s a necessary shift in perspective that may allow me to handle things better.

8 Dec
“It’s not the Calvary coming to save us, ” said the sportscaster. Which is a whole different save than Kobe returning to the Lakers.

8 Dec
I read so slowly these days that I can go from comfort read to comfort read. No more waiting for release days. *sigh*

9 Dec
People and ghosts in rooms talking. *sigh*

11 Dec
Hurray for heated mattress pads!! My poor mom has been freezing, but she’s snug now.

11 Dec
Is the big reveal ever worth playing the reader? Does that answer ever have a yes? Why is there air?

12 Dec
Baby Pygmy Marmosets pic.twitter.com/eODml0ov3H

And now for something completely different… The Marmoset Song: http://youtu.be/4oiLfTnrC40

12 Dec
When Mom gets really down she threatens to stop dialysis and I have to josh her out of it. Today would be one of those days.

13 Dec
I love it when people driving Smart cars make a really big dick traffic maneuvers. I originally said “really idiotic traffic maneuvers” but VRS decided to go with big dick and I left it that way.

13 Dec
Dear Sir: Most sentences should not be a paragraph long. Less is more. A tortured use of punctuation does not remedy this problem.

15 Dec
RIP to the great Peter O’ Toole.

16 Dec
Sears finally kept their promise. They’ve sent me a check to cover my plumbing costs for the Abominable Dishwasher Incident. Thanks, Sears.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

14 Jul
Life: it’s kind of like being nibbled at by ants.

15 Jul
Huh. Because I’m a member of Amazon Prime I just received a tote of free samples from Amazon Fresh, including a one cup coffee maker.

16 Jul
I ain’t greedy. A half a mill would do me nicely.

17 Jul
I love you, Jennifer Crusie, with great heaping <3 <3 <3 ‘s: http://www.arghink.com/2013/07/17/carpe-sharknado/ … …

22 Jul
I bet making love to the Geico Made of Money guy would be kind of scratchy.

23 Jul
Medicare is planning to cut coverage to dialysis patients. Help protect access to dialysis. Tell Congress to stop Medicare cuts before they start. We need your help: http://bit.ly/DaVitaAdvocacy

This disproportionately affects poor, sick people. Through no fault of her own my mother has kidney failure. She did everything right: ate healthy, kept active, took all her BP meds, but they could never control her high BP and eventually it destroyed her kidneys. Diabetes can do it, a severe e-coli infection can do it, many diseases can do it. This is not about people abusing their bodies. This is often just about bad luck, and the cost of the treatment is staggeringly high.

August 1 Addendum: This is basically a dispute between the drug manufacturer who charges exorbitant rates for anti-anemia drugs, the dialysis centers who make money off of kidney patients, and Medicare. My mother’s kidney doctor says she does not need the drug that they are fighting over at this point. So that’s good news for us personally, but still potentially devastating news for other old, poor sick people. It makes me ashamed to be an American, frankly.

25 Jul
Worry and guilt are useless emotions. You have to learn to let them go. Fear is sometimes a life saver, but you’ve got to let that go, too.

26 Jul
The world is an illusion that we have to take very, very seriously.

28 Jul
The kind of day where I’m too tired to even get up for aspirin for a headache. Mom, cat and I dozing in our chairs watching the Dodgers. Bottom of the 9th and a 0-0 score.

29 Jul
Whenever I run into a really fussy person I want to tell them, “You haven’t got time for that. Whatever you do, you’re still going to die.”

29 Jul
Middle Class Problems: I hate it when the foliage is at the apex of its summer glory and the gardener decides to trim it back to a stub.

29 Jul
The Universe is so strange. Help comes from the most unexpected places.

31 Jul
Protip: When someone is frustrated and angry, don’t laugh at them. You won’t josh them out of it you’ll just make them more pissed. My glasses are held together with a paper clip. Hilarious this morning. Last night at the end of a trying evening, not so much.

31 Jul
There seems to be an unpleasant theme in anagrams of my name from the anagram server: Aha Moments Plop, Shaman Melt Poop, Anal Moppet Mosh, Ample Phat Moons. Hmmm. I had to stop reading after awhile. Aha Moments Plop is a lot how my creative process happens, so I have a certain fondness for it. The anagram server found zero anagrams for PJ Thompson so I had to use my Real Girl Name.

1 Aug
Hilarious and horrifying—one star reviews on Amazon of classic novels: http://bit.ly/15yoRxn

2 Aug
CBS and Time Warner are both corporate Aholes for holding their customers hostage in their negotiations. Get off the dime, jerks

4 Aug
Channel 9 carries some of the Dodger games here in L.A. They are owned by CBS. They are blacked out. You know what’s really fun? Explaining to a 92-year-old with short term memory problems why she can’t watch her Dodgers (ad nauseam).

6 Aug
The Onion: I’m Only Really Happy When I’m Writing… http://onion.com/1b9ruYs

8 Aug
Who needs bifocals?

bifocals photo smallishbifocals_zpsdf01c6c8.jpg

14 Aug
My latest Etsy admired whimsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Mindielee

16 Aug
It’s amazing how busy some peoples’ desks suddenly get when there’s shitwork to be done.

It is done, and I am not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

17 Aug
I just spent $180 at the pet store. Not all of it was bird seed but a big chunk was. This is part of my expensive trip to the pet store. http://twitpic.com/d8w98j

In my defense, I waited until it was 20% off. Min had a great time with it and can once again look out a favored window.

19 Aug
I want a house the color of orange sherbet with white trim: a Creamsicle house. I’ve been obsessing about it for weeks now. A neighbor down the block has burnt orange with mustard trim. Not as horrible as you’d imagine. Alas, my dreams of color will not be realized soon. No money and a “roommate” who does not appreciate…beauty.

23 Aug
I’ve decided, all things considered, that I am not going to knuckle under to blackmail. Do your worst, sir. I will persevere. Ultimatums are really not a way to persuade anyone to do what you want them to.

23 Aug
Seems like morning show hosts are irritating nerds all around the world.   The Russian Army Choir doing Adele’s “Skyfall” on a Moscow morning show: http://avc.lu/16WvFbm

23 Aug
Middle Class Problems: The cleaning woman threw out a brand new unopened large container of cottage cheese with a pull date in October.

26 Aug
A nice summer evening gathering around the fire pit last night. We had enough food for 25 people. Five were in attendance. I wanted to be sure no one left hungry. They’ll probably be dining on the leftovers for days. I know we will.

28 Aug
The irritating neighbor just turned scary. If you don’t hear from me for a week, assume the worst. My mother did the one unforgivable thing, apparently. She told the truth as she sees it. He couldn’t handle the truth. Why is it that bigots never recognize that they are bigots? Or maybe they do, they just don’t want to be called out on it. I shall be providing my mother’s transportation to and from dialysis from now on.

29 Aug
omg I must still be a writer. I just got a gobsmacking idea for my next novel. That I have neither time nor energy to write. I guess I’ll let it simmer for an ice age or two. I’m wondering if you can still be a writer without a consistent or predictable time to do your writing.

30 Aug
I’ve got so much to do today: reading, sitting on my butt, dictating into the phone and seeing what VOS comes up with. Oh wait, I meant VRS. Or as VRS wrote, “to be our ass.” (Don’t ask me.)

30 Aug
Mom: “How do I tell if WiFi is on?”
Me: “I’ve told you 100 times.”
Mom: “But I can’t remember the other 99 times.”

30 Aug
Watching an H2 mockumentary on the zombie apocalypse and Mom is all “Wuh?”

31 Aug
It’s too hot for lap time so Min is making do with pillow and towel. http://twitpic.com/dbbhle She has such a tough life.

31 Aug
Only 1.8 days left on my initial backup to a cloud service. Damn, I’ve got a lot of junk on my Mac. My internet service is decent most times but not for stuff like this—and there’s a lot of junk on my harddrive. This is a one time upload, though.

2 Sep
Backup complete at 78262 files, 21.6 GB.

2 Sep
Min had a pretty good day yesterday: people tuna for dinner, fresh catnip on her carpeted kitty stairs, steak for table scraps, lots of lap time…All in honor of her 12th birthday. Live long and prosper, baby girl.

All is right with the world. http://twitpic.com/dbonfg

3 Sep
The news was not all bad at the doctor’s office. In fact, there’s a glimmer of hope. I may be able to have knee surgery after, all but there are too many variables yet to be determined.

6 Sep
My hair’s been on fire all week at work, and I’ve also been dealing with Los Angeles County Department of Social Services. OMG. So ready for the weekend.

But Putting It Out There works in mysterious and unexpected ways. I end the week in more hope then I began it. Praise the Universe!

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“There is plenty of justice on television, but not so much in the real world. Maybe that’s why so many of us like television so much.”

—Charlaine Harris, Grave Secret

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“There is plenty of justice on television, but not so much in the real world. Maybe that’s why so many of us like television so much.”

—Charlaine Harris, Grave Secret

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first give TV.”

—Arthur C. Clarke, Voices from the Sky

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first give TV.”

—Arthur C. Clarke, Voices from the Sky

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Feb 15
And then there’s my shredded Achilles tendon…People grimace when they see me limping down the hall.

Feb 15
“Seek simplicity and distrust it.” —Alfred North Whitehead said. Simplicity is sounding real good right about now. Mom’s escalating pain issues have led to a rush MRI this afternoon, maybe a bone scan.

Feb 15
New favorite indie bookstore name: Libros Schmibros

Feb 16
Back in the ER with Mom. I think I’ll start bonking my head now.

Feb 16
They admitted her. Not life threatening, I don’t think.

Feb 17
Is life anything more than a series of disappointed hopes?

Feb 17
I turn on the TV to distract myself and the first thing I hear is Sally Kirkland saying, “She died at 97.” The opening to Paper Hearts.  

Feb 18
Medicare not seizing our asset vibes would be nice, too. I’d rather not be homeless.

(Note: I got this wrong. It’s MediCal/Medicaid that seizes your assets.)

Feb 19
Mom is going back to the rehab today, perhaps permanently. They finally found that her terrible pain is from severe spinal stenosis. They may try to do an epidural nerve block if nothing else helps. Her spirit is good, her fighting spirit undiminished, so we’ll see how things go.

Feb 21
I’ve been sitting here all afternoon saying “Oh my God” over and over to myself. Rollercoasters suck.

(Note: I learned that my house might be protected after all.)

Feb 24
It may be a measure of my worry that I was seriously listening to Joel Osteen this morning. Not any crazier than my previous money making scheme: buying Lotto tickets. Both Lotto and Osteen require unfettered faith, something I sometimes have in microbursts.

Feb 25
No matter how bad it gets, my life is not as bad as Fantine’s…or millions of other people around the world. Everything is relative.

Feb 28
Heard Jimmy Cliff driving to work so “The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all” is the theme of the day.

Feb 28
There’s a difference between taking off your shirt while running to show off your manly chestal pulchritude and taking off your shirt while running and having manly chestal pulchritude. We can tell the difference, guys. And not just cynical old broads like me.

Mar 1
I am so tired of grown up stuff. Can I run away now?

Mar 2
At home nursing a strained back. Life is good.

Mar 2
Why is it in movies and on TV when a scientist sees something unbelievable he removes his glasses? It’s become a total visual cliché.

Mar 3
The strain has progressed to spasms. I’m at urgent care.

Mar 3
Back still very unhappy and so am I. Two muscle relaxers at least make things bearable.

Mar 4
Back doing better but I’m still spending the day with my heating pad and my drugs. What part of driving with a strained back is not good did I not get? Pass more muscle relaxers.

Mar 5
I’m beginning to think the main job requirement for weather “girls” is “Must wear at least a C cup and adore tight clothing.”

I’m definitely watching too much TV since the back injury.

5 Mar
OMG the political phone calls the last week! Once or twice an hour sometimes on two phones and me a couch prisoner! Just got another an hour before the polls close. Argh! Very hotly contested mayoral campaign.

8 Mar
Since hurting my back and unable to reach the floor without pain I’ve turned into a ham-handed bumbler constantly dropping things on the floor.

11 Mar
*sigh* I’m sitting at my desk at work with a pillow and a heating pad tucked behind my still-spasming back.

12 Mar
My new favorite bumper sticker: “What would Scooby do?”

12 Mar
I don’t want to be a grown up anymore. Can I crawl into a hole instead?

13 Mar
White smoke… Bring on the papas and beer. Always thought it amusing that in Spanish and Italian pope/potatoes are the same, with only the article differentiating. Las papas de El Papa.

13 Mar
The Queen of Clueless Privilege strikes again: http://bit.ly/WnGOex Yes, Amy F. Grant and Katie F. Couric are also queens of clueless privilege, but Gwyneth Paltrow is the original Clueless F. Queen.

14 Mar
Mom called twice this morning to check the time of her doctor’s appointment and once for me to tell her how to fold boxes from paper. Both equally important.

15 Mar
They found the violin that Wallace Hartley played as the Titanic sank: http://yhoo.it/10XBK4u

15 Mar
Some good news yesterday: Mom is responding so well to therapy she won’t need an epidural and may be coming home soon.

Also, my back is slowly getting unstrained. Driving still remains a painful challenge, but I can sit at my desk with only occasional spasms.

With all the drugs I’ve been taking for the back my Achilles tendon isn’t hurting at all anymore.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

1. I finally got around to watching the taped season finale of Castle and the fourth season premiere. This is what I hate about episodic TV and why I stopped watching it: every season, no matter how dramatic or world-changing the finale, by the end of the premiere episode everything has been reset to square one. There’s no regard for character growth, the hard left turns in the script give you whiplash, but everything goes back to the way things have always been. Even on Castle, which is a better written show than most episodic TV. Yeah, there are hints that things will continue in a slightly altered vein, but the premiere really had to do some unlikely contortions to achieve their reset.

2. We’ve got summer weather this October, as often happens in L.A. in October. I wore short sleeves today, forgetting the fall/stress rash on my forearm which is now on display for all to see. Oh well. It had mostly simmered down so it isn’t too humiliating. Driving back from taking Mom to the clinic, everything was sunny and bright until I got to Santa Monica. Then the fog seeped down the highway and I wished that I’d brought my sweater.

3. Driving to the clinic, my mother and I discussed the weird perception of waking up and not knowing where you are, thinking maybe you’re in some place you lived in two or three moves ago, or whatever. These days that sensation has gone a step further for Mom: she wakes up and although she knows where everything is and everything looks the same, the neighborhood is familiar, she feels as if the house isn’t where it’s supposed to be. Somehow it’s moved, she knows not where. I said, “Maybe we’ve slipped into an alternate reality and you’re the only one who realizes it.” She laughed. “Maybe so.”

4. I sometimes have moments of hope these days—and that scares me. So much is beyond my control. I can concentrate only on the here and now. I have to let go of the rest. Whenever I get caught up in anger or frustration or trying to will my will in situations where my will has no effect, I tell myself, “You haven’t got time for this. Let it go. Save your energy for fights you can win.” This is a very difficult lesson to learn, not just for me, but it’s one the Universe has been trying to teach me for many long years: live this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and this . . .

5. My creative life is stretching taut over my bones, but it’s swimming in my blood. I thought it was dead for a time, but it isn’t dead. It is not dead.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

1. I accidentally locked Min out of the house last night. For two hours! And after dark! She was scared and pretty glad to get back inside. I felt terrible. She probably thought she’d been abandoned/lost again. I’ll be extra careful from now on.

2. I finally finished Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris. I liked it okay, but you can sure tell the series is winding down. And this one seemed to peeter out just like the last one. I love Ms. Harris dearly but she can’t write action scenes worth beans. I’ve had a pathetic reading year this year. I think I’ve only managed to finished 17 books.

3. We’ve started calling the hummingbirds who frequent our yard “Nazi Buzz Bombs.” They are quite insistent when you’ve let their feeders go dry. They buzz around in the kitchen window giving out malevolent stares until they’re filled, and buzz your head when you go outside.

4. I still love reading Post Secrets, even when it makes me cry.

5. I actually find myself liking Pan Am. It’s not the T&A show I feared it would be. It’s actually about the nascent “New Woman” of the early sixties who rejected the idea that marriage and 2.5 kids were the only options for a woman’s life. There were painfully few career options for women back then: nurse, teacher, homemaker, dental hygienist, secretary/clerk, stewardess. The stewardesses were always considered the more adventurous women.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

1. Can anyone tell me why I wake up in the middle of the night with old TV show themes running through my head? Last night it was Who’s the Boss? I can sort of understand why that might be lurking in my subconscious. Late last week I heard a story on NPR regarding Tony Danza’s new reality show, Teach. At the end of the story they played a snippet of the Who’s the Boss? theme. But why did it wait a week to trigger? Last week, when it would have been more natural to trigger, I woke up with the theme song to The Brady Bunch. I guess I can sort of understand that because Florence Henderson has been on Dancing with the Stars and, well, it never seems to take much to trigger The Brady Bunch theme. But this is not a new pattern. I have woken up in the middle night with other old TV show themes—and even some commercials—playing through the head, though I am never dreaming about these shows or commercials when this happens. Clearly, something quite sinister is going on in my subconscious.

2. This morning as I was driving to work I stopped at a light about a block away from the Canal Club in Venice. Five skinny, tragically hip young men were standing around in front of the club on Pacific. A couple of them had pieces of paper in their hands. I thought, “Are they applying for a job as the club band? And however did the management get five musicians out of bed and on the sidewalk by 8:45?” As the light changed and I drove forward I saw the answer: on the side street beside the club (North Venice Blvd.) sat all the accoutrements of a film shoot with the lights and reflectors, et al., grouped around the actual entrance to the place. The five young bravos on Pacific were waiting for their cue to shoot a scene—probably to walk around the corner and enter. As I passed them, I couldn’t help noticing that besides being skinny and tragically hip, they were all rather short. The tallest of them was barely average height. I concluded he must be the star of the show and the others were probably hired to make him look less short. Oh, and for their talent, I’m sure. Hollywood is big on talent. A short actor acquaintance of mine—who really is talented—has often been hired for his talent of being shorter than the star of the TV show/movie.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

So I said to my boss this morning: “You’re a pill, you know that? But I mean it with the utmost respect.”

As punishment for my insubordination, he started singing the theme to The Beverly Hillbillies, thus lodging a hateful earworm in my brain. I thought the punishment far too severe for the crime and I told him so.

“Oh? You want me to cure you of that earworm? I can do that.” He then proceeded to sing the theme from Green Acres.

He was right. It dislodged The Beverly Hillbillies, but in this case I think the cure worse than the original affliction.

Later, he asked me, “Do you think anyone’s done a Gilligan’s Island/Lost crossover yet?

“I don’t know,” I told him, “but I ain’t looking.”

But I couldn’t help myself. I did. And they had.

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Echoes in a Hollow Space

I'm here because I'm here because I'm here

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