If it makes you happy, it CAN be that bad **Updated**

I've been a bad, bad girl. Against my better judgment. In the face of conventional wisdom. With the blindess of self-absorbed youth and its accompanying denial of mortality.

And I don't care.

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
Tanned skin is sexy.

Specifically, my skin, tanned, makes me feel sexy. Gasp! I know. I should be full of shame. I feel a *little* dirty - literally, as my skin is peeling and the small flaking bits are in excess of my normal shed rate.

Updated - From Tony Carillo's F Minus.

My paleness was not in question. Years since my last beach vacation, I prepared my skin carefully to avoid burn shock. Occasional 30-minute exposures in the late afternoon Atlanta sun delivered - don't cringe! - tan lines. Weak ones, but present. Not a lot of colah gained, but a light base that took me out of the vampire league.

I earned the peel innocently enough. Seventy-five minutes of pool play in the St. George Island sun with two 3-year olds, a 14-month old, and their mommies. The plan was an hour of weak sunning from the overcast, mid-afternoon sky.

There were warning signs that I patently ignored. The mommies had sunglasses on. The mommies were wearing rash guards with 8000 SPF. The urchins had hats on and had their 3000 SPF sunscreen re-applied. Twice. But my splash frolicking was insouciantly careless of such measures.

Realizing more exposure than desired as I showered before dinner, a liberal application of aloe cooled the heat. But the colah kept coming. Simmering for hours as it darkened on my arms, shoulders, chest, and back, all exposed to the sun's passionate heat while my lower half was protected in the forgiveness of chlorinated water.

Alas, it wasn't a crisping. It should have been. Had the burns of my Cocoa Beach youth been invoked - eyes puffy, lips swollen, chills, bright pink flesh in sharp relief against white ghost skin safely unscathed - I'd have likely banished my body into the sheltering confines of shade and denied the sun any further purchase on my person.

But I'd been bitten. My dalliance with the sun continued. Skin was pruned smooth for better receiving. Chastened by the burn, prophylactic sunscreen was applied. Carefully. Slowly. With attention to detail. Massaged until absorption. Applied whilst nekkid for thorough, complete canvassing without the distraction of sand as a chafing exfoliant. Beach housemates took pity on the hard to reach back bits. These cautionary ministrations not well disguised as the ritualistic ablutions for guilty pleasure.

The beach mates weren't seduced. They fished, played with urchins, and built sand castles while fiercely armored against the sun's advancing assault. They rested under the 10 x 20 shade tent erected for the week, a safe distance from the tide.

Away from the tent, my toted chair was firmly planted in full view of my lover's gaze. Its pregnant heat laid a blanket warmly on my skin, lulling me into sluggish languor. Bikini top unhaltered to better accommodate my lover's mark. Awkwardly turned onto my stomach for even attention, trying not to flash my beach mates. The day's heat had found them too, even under the tent, and their nodding heads implied my modesty was intact.

Snoozing. Waking partially to the sounds of play. Sweat in thick evidence between chest and towel. Securing my top, I stood, lightheaded, and moseyed into the clear Gulf water to renew and refresh. Traipsed past minnows and through dense small shell beds chopped by the surf. Dipped under into a blue green embrace of liquid as warm as the air.

Afternoon's advance and cold Sweetwater refreshment at hand. Doh! as we realize they aren't twist offs, I'm off to the happy gaggle of beach goers just west of us on the sand for the kind borrow of an opener. One of the gagglers was a cautionary tale against my pleasure, her skin leathered and wizened far beyond her years. But nothing could stop my sungasm that day.

The beach now a happy memory, I've no assurances that my rediscovered bad habit will be sustained. But I'm not going to apologize for enjoying it. It felt too damn good.

**Updated**
Scott Adam's 4th of July post on Sunshine is apt - excerpt here:

This is the time of year I have to make difficult choices about my sun exposure. I figure I have three choices.

1. Enjoy an attractive and natural tan until my face begins to resemble Honus Wagner’s baseball glove. Then die from skin cancer.

2. Avoid the sun and look like a cross between uncooked tofu and whoever is attacking Harry Potter lately. Live a long life shunned by the sighted.

3. Apply an artificial tanning lotion and look like I got gang raped by giant carrots who watch too many Peter North movies.

If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad

Will soon get pediblinged for the holiday. What holiday, say you? Yankee Doodle Damn Dandy day, natch! Won't be with FloridaDad as I was last year. Bummer.

But my last toe bling will be sad to give up. Noonday bluish toes with pretty flowers. Not very sophisticated, but I'm not the sophisticated type. I'm more of the southern broad, literati chick type. On a good day.

But my blue toes make me happy. I think they'll be back soon.

Ska it up, babee!

So last night at band practice, we went over tunes with our new bass player to get stuff set before we play on Thursday. A recent addition to the set list is "Two of Us" by The Beatles. Callified and I both very much groove on the I Am Sam soundtrack and particularly dig Aimee Mann and Michael Penn's version (did ya know they were married?). Caught Michael Penn at The Five Spot last year with Kimplicated - great show.

As we started on the song, I heard something in my head and said, "Callified, you should ska-up the rhythm bit." She did. And l'il drummer boy morphed the beat to match. And day-um! It was cool.

The Police. Mighty Mighty Bosstones. No Doubt. Sublime. Just a few of the bands whose incorporation of ska doesn't suck. This Save Ferris cover below of "Come On Eileen" puts an awesome ska spin on the classic Dexys Midnight Runners' tune. Spanks for that CD years back, Pid. Definitely an unsuck listen!



Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
- Girls singing about girls is sexy. I wonder if Jill Sobule knew her song would be so popular?
- Surprise is sexy.

Good At That

From Stephan Pastis' Pearls Before Swine

whitenoise wrote: ". . . although I'm good at what I do, and the imposed discipline has probably been good for me, it wasn't a good career choice.

I have a random, creative, anti-authoritative streak and I've always felt like a square peg jammed into a round hole. I should have been an architect, cardiologist or even a dentist.

Oh well, should count my blessings, I suppose - coulda been a lot worse."

In response I offer this song by Eddie From Ohio from their album Looking Out The Fishbowl. Run, don't walk, and buy the song from iTunes. It's an unsuck listen.

Good At That

Could have been a writer, should have been a novelist
Could have been something, anything other than this
Turn light on now, turn the light on
Room so dark without, room so dark without love

Should have been a healer and gone to Africa
Magic medicine that’ll clear it all up
Put away the hunger now, put away the hunger
World so dark without, world so dark without love

But night comes quiet as a cat
I lay awake considering, I consider ‘til my mind grows fat
Don’t know much about the weight of the world
But the weight on my brain’s sure intact
And maybe I’m good at that

Could have been a pundit, could have been an Uncle Sam
Shoulda been holy, a political holy man
Shift the gears now, turn the wheels of change
Land so dark without, land so dark without love
But that’s another kind of healer

Night comes quiet as a cat
I lay awake considering, I consider ‘til my mind grows fat
Don’t know much about the weight of the world
But the weight on my brain’s sure intact
And maybe I’m good at that

Now I’ll never be an Olympic star
I’m not that strong, I can’t run that far
And I’ll never die on the silver screen
I’m not that brave
Not much hero in me

Could have been a thinker, could have been a philosopher
More like a tinkerer, philosophical amateur
Turn the light on now, turn the light on
World so dark without, world so dark
World so dark without, world so dark
World so dark without, world so dark.

Pick Up Lines

From Partially Clips. This one *so* took me back to Sailor Boy from Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates.

From xkcd.

Randall *so* should have put the hover over text into the strip:
"That shirt looks good on you, but it would look even better stuffed into the neck of a vodka bottle and flung burning through our office building's window. Let's fucking do it and never look back."

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
- A man making his house a home.
- Coming on strong is sexy. Fading fast, not so much.

My blag is a horse's ass. Or, Best Stories.

(Apologies to savvy blagger types, as this post is a wee bit “Wankosphere 101”-like to ‘splain our bent to non-blaggers.)

People seem to have a black and white reaction to Scott Adams' blag. They love him or hate him. Haters seem to fail to see that he's a contrarion, witty shit stirrer with a wicked sense of humor. They take him literally. They suck.

His posts of late have been about unfunny things, wittily written. He's recently returned to funny posts peppered with the occasional personal one. This personal, Best Story post last week was awesome.

Hmmm. Best stories. Haven't "made it" yet with my passions (singing and writing). Joining the band could lead to good storytelling, but it’s nascent and simmering n’ stuff. I bidness wrote an article for an industry "white paper" a while back. A trade rag where vendors pay to place 2000 words of (typically) thinly disguised marketing dreck as "vendor neutral, educational" points of view on a topic. After its publication, a college professor in the midwest reached out, saying he'd read the piece and presented it in his bidness class for IT majors as good stuff on customer needs and business reasons for technology use.

That was the bee's effing knees. A lapsed English major with former dreams of teaching, I’d let writing go in the rush to career and paycheck advancement in the tech sector. Segueing from a tech role to a marketing one in ’99, my writing kung fu was slowly reawakened.

I am continually, gut-wrenchingly, knickers-in-a-twist disgusted at the inability of the below average person in bidness today to fail so utterly at writing a complete sentence. That such folk call my bidness writing superlative is not exactly a compliment, based on the source.

But that professor? Saying it was all relevant n’ stuff? That rocked. And it rocked for Sheena, too, as part of my piece included work she’d done. Both of us would happily languish in university obscurity if it didn’t pay so effing poorly.

But still. Bidness writing doesn’t satisfy the creative urge. Any clever wordplay or Cheek-isms were usually beaten out (sorry, Sheena, “edited”) before publication. But Sheena offered another path, and became my blagmother just over a year ago.

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

I’m still in Hugh’s 2005 stage of blag herstory. Posts slacked the last couple of weeks before vacation and catch up ensued last week. Typical Cheek light fare - things observed, things that resonate. Such was the "What Women Want - What Is Sexy" post, with a Gaping Void cartoon for eye candy.

Blaggers vary widely on the eNarcissicist-O-Meter. We use tools to track how often folks look at our blags, how they land there, how much time they spent, what they click to, etc. My "traffic" kung fu is weak - I'm not writing for a popularity contest. But I'm a vigilant sourcer, and Hugh has a creative commons license.

Happened to check traffic last night at the end of the work day, and the hits were high. Curiously strong high. From far off lands. The referrals were coming in from Twitter. Specifically, Hugh's Gaping Void Twitter page. For those of you un-Web 2.0 types, Twitter is MySpace on crack, the ultimate forum for minutiae addicts anonymous to let the wankosphere know what they're doing at every second. Hugh, fortunately, is not a card-carrying MAA member, but instead uses Twitter for the *interesting* tidbits and "random links" that aren't the stuff of "substantive posts".

Hugh must have done a Technorati-like search to feel the love and fell upon my last post with his cartoon. Hugh “random link” mentioned the post on his Twitter page as a “nice article on what is sexy from a woman’s POV”. Day-um if I didn’t have a Sally Field moment.


Hugh, that was indeed good for me. I’m not a religious type, but “Oh My God!” burst from my mouth a dozen times before I stopped squealing, realizing anyone walking by would think I was having one hell of an orgasm. The blogasm buzz is still in me today. That was the best happy blog anniversary present I could have never imagined receiving. Spanks. And it’s one of my best stories.

More Boxes and Nets

James, by Mark Tonra.

No Net Below lyrics, by Jonatha Brooke

It's that I leap and then I look
At all the chances that I took
Feel the air, miss the catch
Then I have to swing back
My timing's all wrong
And the ladder is gone
And all I can do, is
Swing 'til it's all net below
All I can do, is
Swing 'til it's all net below

And I can let go
I am not faint of heart
But I get weak in the knees
I am tired for the world
For the wind in the trees
But we'll still find the song
Though the ladder is gone
It's all we can do, is
Swing 'til it's all net below
Swing 'til it's all net below

And we can let go
And I'll still look you in the eye
It's the longest goodbye
I'll feel the air, make the catch
But I won't swing back
My timing is clear
And I'll never fear
I'll swing 'til there's no net below
Yeah, I'll swing 'til there's no net below

Going Home?

Going Home?

North on 85 from Georgia
      where Flannery O’Connor’s mother is still alive
      and a blank space in the family plot
      patiently waits for her
I leave the city and head north into the deeper south
I sweep through Greenville
      and roam on as night falls
      the windshield littered in small winged deaths
I leave the wipers off
      let the bugs rest in peace

I stop in North Carolina for my mother
      relocated to the pace from her childhood
Where men meet every night at the county airport
      to gossip and chew ‘bacca
      argue the success of the Burpee or Rocky Ford
      cantaloupes and lament they still
      can’t beat a Turberville melon

My mother’s husband was born here
The locals call him R.L.
      but she forgets and calls him Bob
      and then hastily corrects herself
Bob’s best friend is Snoot
      whose father worked for Bob’s
But when he calls on the phone
      he is William

My mother and I drive on to Poquoson
      to Little Florida Avenue to visit another generation
Their speech is that of the old and toothless
      even though they have them
Instantly
      unconsciously
      my speech alters
      its cadence slows
      enunciation softens
      reversing the years’ effects since moving
      to Northern Virginia in the middle of fifth grade
      when I purged my drawl
      to quell teasing's talons
I fool no one
      least of all myself
      that I belong here

We drive downtown before leaving and find
      the waterfront altered from my mother’s memory
Not remembering it myself
      I agree with her
      and am struck by the memory of riding in the car with her
      accusing her of running red lights when she made left-hand turns

We are here to ride the carousel from the
      Buckroe Beach Amusement Park
Its original home a ghost long demolished
      replaced by condominiums
      blocking the view to the water
We used to walk to the park
      from my father’s mother’s house on Second Avenue
      steps from the beach
My feet prickle and cramp from the echoes
      of outdoor twilight showers to banish the sand
      gumball landmines unavoidable in the mad dash
      to warm towels from the dryer on the back porch

At the ride’s entrance I pay my fifty cents
The middle-aged woman reminisces with me as she
      hands me my ticket and I select my horse with care
The carousel spins and boisterously croons
      the stallions prance
I cannot remember this from before
      I should
Leaving
      holding my mother's hand
      I keep turning back
      not wanting to go
      or to let go
This feeling
      I remember

We say goodbye to our family
Elder cousins Charlotte
      Freeman and Roma
      Papa and Aunt Jeanette
We stand reluctantly to leave
      their warm
      soft embraces lingering
      beckoning us back and not so long between visits

I return my mother and wend myself back
      to Atlanta and then to school in Tallahassee
I cannot call these places home
      anymore than where I was born

Home is a place I’ve yet to discover

Written in December 1991 with minor updates today.

Letting Go

James, by Mark Tonra.

CountryMouse wrote today on the trials of letting go, as a mother.

I just spent the week at the beach with friends whose 14 month daughter is now boldly walking. Two weeks ago she'd only gingerly step while holding onto a room's perimeter furniture, looking at the big people constantly to validate that a step was safe. No dragons be there.

In a blink of an eye, she shows so fear. She climbs the dishwasher like it's a rock daring her for the challenge. She negotiates steps down with focused determination. She squats to empty shells from a bucket draped on her arm like the latest Prada must-have bag, collects them back into the bucket, and steps ahead to repeat the fun again.

Her mom remarked that she wasn't sure how she was going to adjust to letting her daughter find her own way and not get hurt. What with us childproof-unaware adults leaving our laptops and cords laying around, unzipped beach bags gaping open and inviting curious hands, open bedroom and bathroom doors with dragons lurking a'plenty.

She slipped on the tile at the beach house and did a nose plant, hard, surfacing with that quiet, vortex intake of breath before letting out *the* wail. The one that brings all the adults running. Her nose bloodied, her mom red faced in guilt, not being able to get to her daughter in time and pre-empt the injury. But her mom was realistic in knowing this was but the beginning of her daughter learning her limits, testing her boundaries, and finding her own way in the world. Her bumps, bruises, and scars - internal, external - will become a beautiful, proud legacy of where she's been while serving as a compass to find the path ahead.

CountryMouse, you've been navigating your letting go path for some time. Beautiful's compass is well made, even if it's only hanging around her neck and not in hand as she swings on that trapeze under life's big top. She sees and feels you cheering her on, your heart in your throat at her willingness to release and catch so high above with no seeming net below. But *you* are the net. It's wrapped around her in an invisible, philotic web of protection. It's elastic. It bends and gives, for both of you.

Trust the net you've built. Trust the compass she's made. Breathe. And climb up the ladder and jump with her - you might like the view!

What Women Want - What is Sexy?

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

No. I don't need what Hugh suggests. Rick posted recently on What Women Want. I employ the fabulosity of Jill Connor Browne's elements on the 5 Men You Must Have In Your Life, as outlined in the Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love:

1. a man who can fix things
2. a man you can dance with
3. a man you can talk to
4. a man to have great sex with
5. a man who can pay for things

I'm self-reliant for #5 and don't happen to require it. I’d trade it for “a man who can cook”. But the others – those are good ‘uns. Jill advises that if you can find a man that does all 5, that’s a keeper. Else, just make sure there’s a man on call for each of these activities and you’re set. Guess if I found one with all 5, I wouldn’t have to use the power of the promise!

Erin O'Brien recently posted on "what is sexy". Her druthers don't suck. Mine include:

- Confidence is sexy. Not cockiness. Not hubris. Confidence.

- Common courtesy is sexy – and often altogether missing in these here times. Opening the door, carrying the heavy suitcase, holding the elevator, putting the toilet seat down, stopping your car to let someone cross in a parking lot.

- Making eye contact to acknowledge a shared reference in the midst of other happenings is sexy.

- Making eye contact, smiling slowly, and keeping eye contact is sexy.

- Making eye contact and keeping it while talking is sexy. Looking around at everyone and everything but me says you’d rather be elsewhere – go on with your bad self and be elsewhere.

- Being comfortable to be a dork / goof / geek / dweeb / dufus around me is sexy. Accepting my dufusness in reciprocal measure – also sexy. As CountryMouse put it: "a man who isn't afraid to be foolish to make me laugh" is sexy. (Read more here.)

- Groomed facial hair is sexy. Unkempt growth is not.

- Direct, frank communication is sexy. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

- Vulnerability is sexy.

- Added Monday 25-Jun-2007: Cerebral technology marketeer artist type whose work I digg muchly giving an unsolicited Twitter shout - now *that* is sexy as fuck all and has me wet with legs shaking. Spanks, Hugh! Erin, you've got commentgasm competition! Er, Twittergasm? Blogasm? Whatever. I'm 'gasm-ing and can't think straight. I need a cold shower.

Sheena's additions, promoted from comments:

Humour is the sexiest of all. Witty evil verbally adroit humour with a heavy dose of the double entendre makes Sheena wet beyond any thing else.

Other stuff:

- Ability to remember the humble roots from whence one has come.
- Never ending curiosity.
- A strong sense of play.
- Willingness to put money where one's mouth is.
- Willingness to slip the can of tuna as needed to show a girl he cares.

And from CountryMouse:

. . . a guy who truly loves women is sexy. I don't mean a philanderer or a genuine pig--I mean a guy who gets what women are about and loves all the different packages we come in. Oooooh--sexy!

Cancer Horrorscope

Sheena, FloridaDad, Erin Nougat, Kimplicated, and Boone are all horse's asses this month. Hooray! And Parker's arrival as the wee-est Cancer peep is imminent. The next generation Otter-Pop awaits expectantly - or is that Otter-Poppy?

Green

From today's Dilbert.

From Toothpaste Before Dinner.

For Sheena.

No Weakends Here: Part 3 - CAKE

(We resume tales of two weekends past. Have been busy with work wrapping up before vacation, the latter now blissfully affording blog catch up time.)

Post Summerfest Saturday afternoon, headed chez Cheek to clean up and collect Slomack to head down to the 99x Big Day Out affair at HiFi Buys Amphitheater to catch Cake. Cake is the reason Slomack was in Atlanta. Cake is Slomack’s reason for being. Cake, and Chuck Norris. He paid for the tickets just to have a concert consort – good thing he doesn’t read my blog or my mooching jig would be up.

Their set was great, albeit a brief fi’ty minutes:

1. Italian Leather Sofa
2. Meanwhile, Rick James
3. Stickshifts and Safetybelts
4. Arco Arena
5. Frank Sinatra
6. Love You Madly
7. Wheels
8. Never There
9. Short Skirt / Long Jacket



Kimplicated lent me a couple of Cake CDs for familiarization. Was bummed that they didn’t play my new favorite song,
“Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”. The magic of YouTube yields this for your listening and guffawing pleasure:


George Takei would be thrilled. Wasn't he AWESOME as Hiro's father? But I digress. As is my wont to do.

The band signed autographs post-show. A drunk a**hole endeavored inappropriate queue insertion. We and our queue mates begged to gently differ, but his rejoinder was in the vein of "I gotta do what I gotta do." Well, miss young thang behind us went seeking staff and got the a**hole ousted. Girl gumption rocks!

Staying only for Cake's set, we departed, only to be rear-ended leaving the parking lot. Minor damage from bad driver chick's headlight nipples into Slomack's bumper.

Nickiemoto's was the Cake-head's dining druther. Funny. With his metrosexual hair I'd have thunk him a bit less sensitive to being in the thick of the gay rich men's Midtown, but to his credit, he gracefully wished our waiter the best of luck in departing the Atlanta ballet to seek out success in NYC.

Sunday morning breakfast sought at La Madeleine. Walked to dinner at Chicago's, where I recommend the Tilapia Mediterranean Style. Pub crawled to Charlie Mopps Public House.

Crawled further and slightly inside the Perimeter to 5 Seasons Brewing, where the Glenkevin "Wee Heavy" Scotch Ale was easily quaffed. Slomack was again thwarted by alternate lifestyle choices, as our beer maven was HOT but not of his persuasion. The long mosey back to chez Cheek was interrupted by a fall. Mine. Grace is not my middle name. A black asphalt driveway had the brazen audacity to be unlevel. Right knee planted, left hand braced the fall, right wrist bruised upon landing, left ankle same. Knee scrape wasn't bad, but the bruise is only now starting to fade, 2 weeks later.


Slomack is welcome back for more music, knoshing, and sloshing, but I'll need a designated walker with a flashlight. Those who know me well know that intoxication is not the factor here - it's rather one of genetics.

Blogging About a Blog

From Natalie Dee.

B.Y.S.K.A.: "Frequently Disappointed by Mice"

I've shouted out about the Dilbert Blog before, I've even linked to it. Seeing as Scott Adams stopped having his archives permanently available, I'm going to include this post in its entirely so that it's not lost in the wankosphere.

Adams pisses a lot of people off. He's a contrarion, positing impossible situations and inviting debate, then stepping back to watch the fray. People get their knickers in *such* a twist over him, and typically fail to see that he's just inviting thought, conjecture, and yes, disagreement. He shuns extremist opinions not based in fact, smelling them for the shite that they are. I respect that.

But.

Today, he's the bee's effing knees. Because he went back to his roots as a humorist and gave us a jewel that does. not. suck. It's posts like these that make me *lurve* him. Enjoy.

******************************************

Frequently Disappointed by Mice, from the Dilbert Blog

Mice keep yanking my chain. Today was a perfect example. The headline said scientists produced mouse stem cells from mouse skin cells. This could be a huge breakthrough, both ethically and medically. The only problem is that the method used on the mice would cause cancer in humans. Fuck you, mice. Give me something I can use!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19067616/

My disappointment could have been worse. It’s not clear I’ll ever need that particular medical breakthrough anyway. The stories that really chafe my nuggets are the ones that sound like this:

“Researchers announced a breakthrough in gene therapy. This new technique gave mice an IQ of 700, grew hair in bald patches, doubled the size of their peckers, and made them immortal. The mice also showed signs of telekinesis, unlimited male orgasms, and x-ray vision. In lab tests, the mice beat leopards in paw-to-paw combat.”

This makes me all excited because I think “I could use a few of those things.” Then I read the rest of the story and it says something like “The researchers cautioned that this sort of gene therapy in humans would make their eyes turn into vaginas.”

It’s bad enough that I live in a country that ranks 37th in health care. The thing that really pisses me off is that I have worse health care than mice. If I were a mouse, I would start smoking, drinking, overeating and having unsafe sex, because those tiny bastards can be cured of anything with a goddamned aspirin and a shot of their own skin cells.

It makes me wonder if mice are easily cured because of the placebo effect. Mice don’t know anything about science, so they think whatever the scientist is doing must be helping. For example, if a lab mouse sees the janitor beating off in a test tube, the mouse thinks “Hey, my tumor is shrinking!” And then it does. You can’t underestimate the power of positive mouse thinking.

Just once I would like to see a headline that said, “SCIENTISTS DISCOVER A CURE FOR HUMAN DIABETES,” followed by details that say, “Scientists caution that this treatment in mice would give them inverted erections and make them hump themselves to death.”

Well, I can dream.

******************************************

Sigh. I laughed so hard, I cried. I'm replete. I'm giddy. And yes, the obvious connection to Douglas Adams and that mice are in fact effing with us is galactically relevant. Which is why there are 42 asterisks, not one more, not one less.

Electromagnetic Spectrum

A break in the weakend accounting for this incredibly righteous offering, brought to you by xkcd. Click to see it made large.

No Weakends Here: Part 2 - Virginia Highlands Summerfest

Owning a bed and breakfast exists somewhere in the Cheek time continuum. I groove so muchly on having company come to stay a spell. My house gets clean, as my slackass isn’t motivated to be all Becky-Homecky on a daily basis. And I cook – well, breakfast anyway. Got my happy ass up early Saturday, made bacon, sliced strawberries, and baked cinnamon rolls to fuel my morning and leave for the guest, and headed to the Virginia Highlands Summerfest to recruit volunteers for the aquarium.

Second time volunteering thusly and alongside Marin’s Mommy. Fantastic people watching, and good music listening as our booth was near the stage at the Inman Middle School. Susan, the lovely owner of the home behind our booth location, graciously offered her facilities in lieu of festival Port-o-lets. Her hydrangeas were amazing – check ‘em out if you’re walking east on Virginia from Greencove, a couple doors down on the left.

(Port-o-lets? The only good memory I have of ‘em involves Sheena and the Molson Indy. When will the Beer Garden Queens reunite?)

Festival serendipity yielded in Shandi Berl’s Creative Works. Relieved her of a few magnetic bud vases (seen below on the fridge, left, awaiting buds - can you tell which is my fridge fave?)

and a beautiful wine stopper, but was *really* blown away by her knobs. You must see Shandi’s knobs! An order will be placed for the end tables to be painted white and distressed to show the cherry underneath, a craft activity forthcoming with ‘struction by SmartAsh.

Also lurved Trasea’s Glassworks that Marin’s Mommy drew my attention to. Wisely limiting the cash she brought to limit impulse purchases, we used Cheek’s plastic instead.


Lastly scored a nifty tropical bowl that now lives on my mantle.

No Weakends Here: Part 1

Serendipity. One of Cheek’s favorite words and favorite things to experience. Had no expectation it would strike this past weekend, but strike it did, all spanks to a blue moon and an errant houseguest and friend of a friend, Slomack.

In town on bidness, he was compelled to stay the weekend to catch his all time favorite band, Cake, on Saturday. Providing bed & breakfast in exchange for a concert ticket seemed fair.

Would not be the first time we’d been concert consorts, as Sheena facilitated that dubious honor in schlepping us along with Pid to see the Legendary Shack Shakers on Tennessee Street in Tallahassee, Spring 2005. Pre-Sheena blog (most relevant post here but perhaps she’ll be inspired to post on it 2+ years later?) But I digress. As is my wont to do.

The weekend began with a Scooby snack chez Cheek: red pepper hummus (addiction thanks to FloridaDad) with Montepulciano quaffage. Then we moseyed down to the Georgia Aquarium to check out the Jazz Journeys action – live jazz, cash bar, light eats, and much aquatic eye candy. Was Slomack’s first visit, facilitated free with volunteer ticket action.

First serendipitious strike: seeing the two new whale sharks, Yushan and Taroko, on their day of arrival. You can check ‘em out as they occasionally swim by the Ocean Voyager web cam. Ran into the PR Director in Tropical Diver, bleary-eyed from being on site at 3:30 AM for the new arrivals but still conscious to accompany wife and visiting family. The giant grouper was Slomack's wow, but that night I was struck by the leafy seadragons in Cold Water Quest.

Next stop: late knoshing at Meehan’s, where the selected fare was Ahi Tuna Tostadas and fancified Grilled Chicken Nachos (yes, it’s true, CarolinaMom – I eat black beans and pico de gallo now. For real! At the big kids' table and everything!). Have never had poor fare at Meehan's. Looking forward to gigging there with the band in early August.

Spied the waning blue moon as I turned in - no snaps, but BioAsh did it justice.

R.T.L.B.: Don't be an asshole

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

This Rule to Live By (R.T.L.B.) is actually Erin's Commandment, boiled down from the original 10.

This resonates. There's no cheek factor in using sexually derogatory words - asshole is an equal opportunity offender. Like the other rules, it's impossible not to break this one upon occasion. I can be sorely tempted to return assholiness with assholiness, but I don't like assholes. I try to shut that mess down on the quickfast, as I'm not into self-loathing as a sport.


Now a classhole, I could stand behind. They're often the life of the party.

From xkcd.com.