Delphiniums & Dual Exhaust

It is time for Book Blurb Friday. Here is my fictitious fiction, based on the photo prompt below!

"Brandi McQueen seemingly had it all--a custom muscle car, killer blue eyes, and a smile that could melt a girl at twenty paces. Then she met Connie, an Aussie expat and the wife of local business big wheel Dick Hedd. Connie seemed to belong to a different world, but was, as Brandi found out, a classic spaghetti girl--straight until wet. The woman sent out more mixed signals than a Mexican tv station.

Driven mad by the teasing, Brandi accidentally crashes her car into a tree, suffering a broken acrylic nail. Connie hurries to Nicole's Nail Palace, where she keeps vigil at Brandi's side. Will Brandi recover? Can Connie come to terms with her passionate new feelings? Can Dick Hedd figure out how to work the washing machine?  Read "Delphiniums & Dual Exhaust" to find out!"

(137 words)

Note: the prompt picture isn't a delphinium. The picture below is delphiniums. They look pretty much like small triffids. But, as this is a (non-existent) lesbian romance novel, the (again, imaginary) publisher went with a rose, or something, for the cover art.

_______

Cottage

There was a full moon.

I was a child.

The room where I slept seemed made of windows,

With only the narrowest strips to support them

Like my bones

Tethering me to the world.



There were no curtains,

No shutters.

Just the moon as bright as madness

Over the tops of the trees.



When I was a child,

I had a recurring dream.

It was a malaria of the imagination.

There was a dark car,

A rainy city street at night,

A man and a woman, dressed to go out.

There was only the narrowest curb

Tethering me to the night.

They said,

"Get in our car.

Come with us."

I always did,

Sick and heavy with knowing

That I would never see my home again.



There was a full moon.

I was a child.

I had a gift.

I could feel drownings, death, spirits.

My father and brothers stayed,

But my mother had to take me home on the bus.

Her scorn could not be stowed with our bags--

It was too large.

"Afraid of the moon!" she would still exclaim, years later.

Yes.

I was.



I remember that cottage,

The moon,

The green and silver bus we went home on,

And the slow-acting acid of my failure.

I remember coming awake in that strange bed and being asked, in the weird silver light,

"Why did you scream?"

I didn't know.

That is the one thing, then and now,

Which has remained utterly

And mercifully

Blank.

_______

all of this is true.

_______

Michigan Love Story

You are cold, I said,

But so beautiful that the darkness hovers near you with all of her stars--

Returning always, helpless with desire.



I am a rocky shore, you said.

Receive me, moon-drawn and rhythmic like a pulse--

I will turn your certainties to sand.



If I am a rocky shore, I said,

Then I offer you surrender smooth as an angel's thigh--

Marbled with devotion and hopelessness.



Come, you said, kiss me for the high,

A little less each time--

Until, finally, I close over you and take you into my blue, barely-beating depths

To be un-born,

Forever,

As my lover.

__________

for One Shot Wednesday

Art Critique

She is not that beautiful,

Many agree.

Not as much as

Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Nor as several of the bricks

In the masonry.



Her hair is lank,

Her fingers fat.

I quite prefer

The landlady's cat.

Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Says she is a tiresome example

Of the bourgeoisie.



What has she ever done that was noteworthy?

Or good?

She is too pale and passive, it seems to me,

And should be made to wash the floors

And the upholstery.



Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Does not like artists

Particularly.

To create such a hag

With such lashless eyes

Is completely indefensible,

Morally reprehensible.



A moonbat from hell*

Is what Melody sees,

And makes her pronouncement

With which I agree.

Melody and I

Are smart, hip, and gorgeous,

And bear a distant

But telling

And very cool

Relation

To both the Roosevelts

And Borgias.

________

*thank you, Hedgewitch

for Magpie 59

I actually do claim a slight familial connection to the Hyde Park Roosevelts. Or maybe it was Fala.

________

Missionary Stew

"Don't you believe

In the literal word of God?"

Said they.



Let me think.

Let me see.

Let me consult my heads on sticks

With their eyes so pretty stitched

So wise.

So gay.



They say no.

No, we don't.



Besides, we find it surpassing odd

That you believe in one single lonesome God

Watching "House" on Hulu...

Such a strange drooping deity

Will never do.



I believe in

My neighbor's thighs,

And

The sun and stars.

Things that aren't,

And things that are.



"Would you like to discuss these things with me?

Stay for tea?"

Said me.



They say no.

No, they wouldn't.



All one can do,

(I say to the heads)

Is offer the truth.

They nod,

Painted and beautiful in the evening breeze,

They hang.

They agree.

________

photo from Beetlejuice


________

Moonlight

If she were a seaside whore,

She would be the best who ever worked the coast.

Men would dock their toothpick fishing boats between her splayed fingers, set gently into the bay to receive them.

Unknown to their wives,

She would close her hand and lift them up,

Their minds melting from the altitude,

Like hanged men.

Now her fingers become a sieve, and the marks leave their pearls and gold coins before being flung,

Dizzy,

To the tides or the tranquil sand.



If she were a seaside whore,

She would never work Sundays.

These would be spent with her tiger-striped cat and her blind flunkee Jim,

One in her arms and

The other wearing white linen and dark glasses, floating by like a puffy cloud, serving tea.

On the third sabbath of each month,

It would rain,

The black umbrellas pouring from the church steps like raisins from a scoop.

Monday comes soon enough,

So she arranges her perfumes in rows like kept birds lined on a perch,

And says to the sea air outside her window,

"I, too, am a fisher of men;

I, too, offer solace and comforting nonsense."



Flunkee Jim lowers his glasses when she says these things and laughs,

Deep, like fermented well water.

His blank eyes are white--

They are moons,

Refracting like confetti

Across the surface of the easy waves.

________

photograph: Penelope Cruz

One Shoot Sunday

Zoom

Young me hit the road in the early morning

three days before the 4th of July,

left turn car didn't let me cross--

took to the air, then

hit the road in the

early morning

stopped

hurt

scre

am

in

g.



o

ne

time

around with

the wheels these many

years later, then it all comes back

and I'm feeling my body, my heart, my life,

tearing around that turn in the breeze and coasting,

back on the road again, just waiting for young me to catch up, flying.

______

If You Love A Tiger

If you love a tiger,

Accept her temper as you do her pleasure--

Learn her body with your own, by night and day the same.



If you adore a tiger,

Though you long to kiss her claws, resist the urge--

Warm her through like afternoon, keep her wet with evening rain.



There is always some witless goatherd--

Feed his poisons to his ugly wife,

Switch his bullets out for bindis.



There are always other tigers out to find her--

Change the seasons to confuse them,

Paint the moon with oil of linseed.



If your dreams are full of tiger,

Be the mangroves for her shelter--

Memorize her yellow eyes, forget the way you came.

________

Warm Fingers

Dough loves the girl with warm fingers--

It turns as brown as a kangaroo,

Baking just by being held in her hands.



The girl with warm fingers

Can steam the pool just by catching crawdads.

She can warm you, too, Miss Lonely,

Just by...

Just by...

By and by, just see if she can't.



Her coffee is the happiest coffee--

It never goes cold,

And the girl with warm fingers

Turns seeds into vines

All the time.



I want to live in the outback

With Miss Remarkable, Miss Sweeter Heater.

I want to live inside a coffee bean.

I want to forget I ever knew what winter was.

I want...

I want...

I want her to come down by the green-leaf waterside and snap me

Out of my shell like the first day of summer.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday

photo by Metin Demiralay (thanks, Hedgewitch!)
____________

Biker Chick!

Lambs, get out your old folkie guitars and shed a silv'ry tear for my old car. It died, poor thing.

No, this wasn't it, but close. It was a teenager, and simply decided to stop doing as I asked it to do. It's going to the big junkheap in the sky! *sniff*

So, I needed new wheels. They seem to want money for them, something I haven't got. Or good credit. LOL. But I got new wheels anyway. Here they are!

Actually, the picture is of a man's bike and mine is a woman's bike, but except for that, it is the very same model and color. 

Now I am eco-friendly and can save the baby kumquats and such! No insurance. No gas. No roof!



__________  

Miss America's Breakdown

Miss America

Perfect blonde beauty it seems;

Disturbed and disarranged

By dark insistent dreams.



Wandering in the prairie grass

With a good sharp knife at her hip;

A pebble tied behind her ear

And her favorite brand of gloss upon her lip.



What do you think of the venue, the stage?

I want to burn them.

What do you think of settlers and sage?

I want to burn them.



Miss America

Dreams of dogs following her like stars;

Then rides to the hotel

With three other girls in a rented car.



The emcee asks, tell us, dear,

What would you like to say to these lovely people here?

But Miss America says nothing at all,

Just swiftly, silently, cuts off his ear.



What do you think of the rolling plains?

I want to walk there and hear the wind sigh.

What do you think of the sun, the snows, the rains?

I want them to kiss and cover me;

Kiss and cover me when I die.

_________

An Edifying Fable

When Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer wakes,

The sun itself reaches in through the yellow, tobacco-choked blinds

Trying to touch the hem of his garment.



Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer knows

That he is a larger man than his circumstances have allowed him to express--

He is a colossus on a postage stamp stage!

A universe seen by sliver through a keyhole at midnight by a blind beggar!



Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer is already exhausted.

He turns off the tiny, ridiculous black-and-white portable television on the floor,

Which has spent the night stunting Benifacio's dreams with offers of:

Stackable storage containers,

Extendable grabbers for high shelves,

And

Zebra-striped snuggies.

"Today," he promises himself, using his fingernails to scratch a shoulder on which several wild black hairs have taken root,

"Today I bloom."



Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer places last night's (entire) mushroom pizza on his head,

The air filter from his 1979 Renault around his throat,

(He once sang Verdi at the Met!

Yes, it was closed, he had slumped to the rainy sidewalk outside, obliterated on tequila,

But art may appear at any hour! Beauty may claim any venue as her own, just like that!)

His filthy gray bed sheets around his body as if he were a mighty Roman senator,

And goes out the door,

Down the seven flights of stairs,

And into the streets, his canvas, like a three hundred pound, bearded tube of paint.



Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer is in love with loveliness!

He is a poet,

A magician,

A Minstrel,

And a mystic!

Why is his name not on every pair of lips?

Why is he not celebrated, feted, festooned with gifts and gew gaws from donut waitresses and heads of state?

Why do his feet itch?

Why has he no girlfriend, no boyfriend, no pet?



Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer stops at a news kiosk.

Everything is about some minor sitcom celebrity who claims to be a warlock, but looks like some sort of self-important but very ill buzzard who lives at a landfill and mates with old discarded automobile tires.

"This?" he squeaks.

"This is what people want?"

Benifacio De La Cruz Felix Von Straubhauer immediately turns to stone.

The world should weep,

But the vendor says, simply, "Hey, not in front of my stand, man!" He throws up his hands. "Fucking shithead!"

A policeman arrives and, after debating whether to call for a tow truck or a crane, arranges for Sanitation to come and remove this new unauthorized statuary.

Before they can appear, though, a white bird floats down, seemingly from Heaven itself.

Could it be,

The very Messenger of God, a divinely entrusted living symbol of everlasting care and mercy?

It craps on Ben's head,

So probably not, Hopeful Cherubs,

Probably not.

_________

for One Shoot Sunday

photograph by James Rainsford

_________

Descent

see the madwoman in front of her cottage--

see her cats nearby,

like crows around a reddening sun,

as it burns against

banishment by degrees, in futility.



she hates the smooth sky

with its sycophant stars on their way.

see her woodish hands

held in fists at her sides.

speak her name,

watch her crumble.

_______

a fifty-five for the G Man

Award From Stuperhero Extraordinaire!

Darlings, I am awash in blog awards these days. However, this one is from Raven, and was delivered personally by Sully Erna, who confessed to me that he just wanted to touch something that had been in her possession. Hey, I'm just relaying information, here!

There are rules. *wails piteously*

I am instructed to list three things I like about myself, and then post a picture I like. Okay.

1. I like my long hair. It pleases me. 

2. I like that I can make people laugh. There are exceptions. I think I have only made my mother laugh once, and I immediately went silent with amazement. 

3. I like that I am an informal sort of person. Except when I write. Then I want every word to be exactly the right one.

Now the required picture, which I made myself just for you, my readers!

Amen!
_____     

And Now, The Fabtabulous Truth (and one lie) Revealed!!!

Petlets, it's time to reveal the truth (and one lie) about Fireblossom! You'll recall that in my post Fete Me Baby I listed five statements about myself as part of Sioux's Memetastic Meme. Four were true and one was a big whopping doozy of a lie. Did you guess which one was not true?

1. I said I sleep with a night light. True. I didn't until about the age of thirty. Then I started having trouble with something called night terrors, which differ from nightmares. They usually happen to children (I always have to be different, as my mother has been known to bitterly complain), and they usually happen within an hour of falling asleep. They don't have a storyline...just a shadow or some other vague threatening presence takes the mortal terror from zero to 90 in about three seconds. They involve physical thrashing and screaming and all sorts of neat stuff like that. Anyway, I discovered that a little bit of light where I sleep prevents them. So, let there be light. A night light.

2. I said I can't sleep in a silent environment, either. True. I use a white noise machine. I prefer the "waterfall" setting. I lurv my little white noise machine! It's either that or run the dryer all night every night. The noise machine is cheaper! As a child, my parents took me with them to the Great Smoky Mountains one year. We stayed at a place in Gatlinburg that was right on a rocky stream. I never slept better in my life. All night long, it seemed to go shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I need something like that to stop my brain from thinking and keeping me awake.

3. I claimed that I lived in San Antonio, Texas, for six years and never owned a car. True. I used public transportation. I was your friendly neighborhood stone-broke artistic type. I spent most of my twenties doing two things...drinking and studying, though never at the same time. I self-educated. I worked part time to keep body and soul together, and used all that extra time to read everything I felt a young wannabe writer should read. I read Kerouac, Brautigan, Burroughs, Dreiser, Hardy, Lawrence, Amy Lowell, Christina Rossetti, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Kesey, Vonnegut, everything I thought I might learn something from. And guess what? I couldn't have spent my time in a better way. I learned how the masterful use words, how the brilliant think about things, and how the greatest hearts express themselves. And I learned a great honking wealth of wildly diverse trivia. 

4. I said that, the summer I was eleven, my middle brother got married. True. And that the best man stayed at our house. Also true. I said that I didn't like the girl my brother was marrying. True true true. I went on to say that I hid the best man's shoes, thinking that then the ceremony would have to be postponed. Did you pick that out as the lie? Because, if you did, you were right.  I never hid his shoes.

5. And finally, I said 

I don't care if I'm stange, I ain't gonna change

And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation!

True!

_________    

Wait

I don't like to wait.

Hurry up with that,

Hand it over;

If I get bored,

I might torch this dump

Because

I don't like to wait.



They say the earth is shifting on its axis.

I think I'll get down on all fours,

And shimmy baby.

I could just go about my life

And bide my time til the planet cracks,

But I already told you,

I don't like to wait.



It's been ten minutes

Since I last scratched an itch.

If it ever goes eleven,

I'll turn into such a...

Itch

Itch

Itch

Itch



One day I will rot quietly

In my scooter chair

In the hallway.

One day my heart will give it up.

One day I'll find that big love,

But it will only be God;

Then I'll be safe,

Then I'll be straight,

But til then I'm gonna bang the gong

And keep burning on

Because, it's like I told you,

I can't stand the wait.

Fete Me, Baby!

Hello Darlings! Wow, let me catch my breath! I've been feted twice. Once by Sioux and once by Lolamouse! And you all thought I was just a bookworm with kitschy eyeglasses on a little chain, scouring the basement of the public library for my lost Dewey Decimal card catologs. See how wrong you were? Uh huh. How ya like me now?

First, let me shine the 15 watt bulb of my mighty intellect on Lolamouse's Versatile Blogger Award. *gum pop* There are rules. *throws up hands protectively* I am to list seven things about myself. First I have to weed out those things which, if revealed, could compromise national security. *sound of stuff being tossed in trash cans* Okay. I'm ready! 

1. I never had Velveeta until I was about ten or twelve, at a neighbor's house. Loved the stuff. So, I bought some recently, to see if I still liked it. Hell no. It sucks! It's like play-doh or soft plastic or yellow caulk or something. What was I thinking?

2. I have never watched Freddie or Jason or any of those movies. Can't deal. I did see "The Silence Of The Lambs" and wished for years after that I hadn't. Too disturbing.

3. I tried Mister Clean magic erasers, to see if they really work as well as advertised. They're boring looking. But lo and behold, they really do clean like crazy. "I recommend them!" says Shay.

4. I'm good with old people. I like them.

5. I'm not above playing the Helpless Female card. "Can you help me?" Shay asks sweetly. Lots of times, it's not a ploy. I really AM kind of a clutz.

6. My Secret Wish And Fantasy is of having someone who would change my oil for me. I always wait too long and they always lecture me and besides, I hate those places. There's grease. 

7. When I was young, I was this skinny, knobby kneed kid. But I could hit a softball a mile. I used to hit it over everybody's head. Nobody could believe it. And I did it a bunch of times. I'm still kinda proud of that. Um...not a lot has happened since. *whistles*

Oh, whoa there, Trigger! We aren't done! Now comes the Memetastic award from Sioux. My instructions, here on the back of the award, are to state five things; four of them true and one a big fat lie. Then you get to guess which one is the honking fib. Oh just do it! Or I shoot you with the trank dart.

1. I can't sleep in a completely dark room. I use a night light. Oh, bite me. 

2.  I also can't sleep in a completely quiet room. I use a white noise machine.

3. I lived in San Antonio, Texas, for six years and never owned a car the entire time.

4. The summer I was eleven, my middle brother got married. The best man stayed at our house. I didn't like the girl my brother was marrying and so I hid the best man's shoes on the morning of the wedding, figuring he had the rings and it would all have to be canceled.

5. And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation! :-)

     

Interstate Aubade

I'm sick of the back door--

That's no way for a lady to make a proper entrance.

Thanks for the short-handled fire axe...

It's easier for me to grip;

And ever since you brought it, wrapped in a pink bow, to bury in my living room wall,

I've been mulling other uses for it.



I can be the tenderest of lovers, you'll see--

I will wrap my arms and legs around you weightlessly,

My lips at your throat,

Like a grinning locust on a stalk.

Then,

When I wrist-flip your skull down the hard wooden stairs,

You'll hear me at last

And see seven of everything.



Don't let's end this way--

Let me write you one last love poem on a lamp shade,

So that my leaving will light up the room every time you think of me;

And when,

After I've kicked off my shoes and run to the middle of the pedestrian bridge above the freeway,

I'll be careful about the cars...

I know they always make you sad, and I am not heartless.

The link mesh is like a protective angel--

It lets the breeze in, but prevents me from dropping things into the lanes below.



Still, you always liked me clever,

And so I crawl up and hang upside down from the inside arch,

And that is enough

To distract and bring fire and doom

To travelers I can't get close enough to touch;

Lunatic moth, that's me,

As I make my way at last

Down the parallax to the other side,

And away from us.

_______

Angel Sweet

ANOTHER MIDDLE-AGED PERV GOES MISSING
Suddenly subtracted
Name redacted

One, then two, then three go missing
But before it hits four
It's rained ten more

Nobody thinks to blame Angel Sweet
The mumbling schizo
Of Sycamore Street.

Another perv emerges from night
Hung by his junk
From the traffic light

SAVE OUR PERVS! is heard the call
But their nieces and neighbors
Say nothing at all

Nobody snitches on Angel Sweet
The mumbling schizo
Of Sycamore Street.

_______

for One Shoot Sunday

Tennessee Bird Walk

You know me, darlings, always raising the culture bar here at Word Garden. I hope you will enjoy this fine musical entertainment with art created by kids!

Ghost moon

She came up
From the water
Came up
Like a ghost moon
And I
Stood ankle deep
In black mud
Like a lunatic
Drawn by that odd light to bury myself.

Her shoulders
Were bare
Such shoulders
So pale
And she
Rose from the water
Which ran down in beads
Falling
Like birds
Dropping
Dying
Sent back to the underworld with a shiver.

I kissed her
So eager
And she twisted my hair
Red
Curled
And long
In her fingers until I surrendered.

I said
"I am dying of you"
She was silent
But kissed me
Harder
Leeching the love from my bones
Shrugging
Laughing
To see me perish in the freeze of our union.

I came up
From dreams
Shaking
And swearing
To give up sleeping naked
And alone.
I gathered
My blankets
Rolling over and away
From the moon filled window
To see
There
In the darkness
Your wet skin
And dark eyes
Boldly staring back
At me.

________

A ghost story for Thursday Think Tank

Dr. Midnight

Dr. Midnight, I know,

I know that you're the one--

Because when you look at me

Your lenses seem

To reflect and become a bright double sun.

Shine on me,

Dr. Midnight

Shine.



Those other girls

Those calculating cats will grow snappish and fat--

You don't need them,

They don't know you,

Come, let me show you my repeatable data

One at a time

Dr. Midnight

Divine.



See, darling?

In your office, I will place angels in every drawer--

Your waiting room will fill with more feebs

Than you could possibly see in a lifetime

Infirm and on time,

Dr. Midnight

*sigh*



Those other girls

Those gold-digging bitches just want your prescriptions--

But what do they know?

Tell them to go

And leave us to our bliss and insurable procedures

Punking the reaper,

Dr. Midnight

Mine.

______

Request

I filled a wedding dress with bones--

My bones.

My...



Well all right, so I stole the dress.



I wanted to be a sweet confection,

So that you would want to wrap me in fluted paper

And place me in the perfect box of delicate pale cardboard

As if I had been born into the palm of your hand

To stand there and be

Witheringly beautiful.



But, darling, my whiteness is that of punishing northers, cracked ice and frostbite--

Not sugar frosting...

Not purity...

Unless, naturally, you mean the purity of my disappointment at your revealed ordinariness.



Sir,

I have fleshed myself with everything sharp I could find.

Don't look so pale, as if you'd seen a ghost!

Invite me to dance, and if your hair falls out from the roots, or your heart stops, then it does.

Come, risk something.

I'm just a girl,

What could happen?

It's the least you could do for your bride.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday #36

Nightwing

On the shores of little Krakatoa
Nightwing promised the Morning Queen
Ashy love songs
From the molten stone heart of the sea.

On the banks of the stony Tunguska
Nightwing promised the Morning Queen
Reindeer eyes
From the short summer heart of Siberian skies.

She sent her garlic cloves
From the antipodes
And clementines from the smouldering mines of Centralia.

All through the year without a summer
Nightwing courted the Morning Queen and wooed her
With a dark love slowly floating,
Turning...
Like a locust lit on fire in desperation,
Burning.

_______

for magpie 56

Inconstancy

The kitten Giuseppe Verdi is smaller than nearly everything

Except mice.

Woe betide the cheeser who does not understand this.



Dreams are smaller than the night they are born to,

And yet,

As the Succubus can tell you, they contain the soul.

Doom awaits the sleeper who denies this.



It is not the light which makes the morning,

But the presence or absence of this or that face,

Felt the more keenly

The fresher the change.



The kitten Giuseppe Verdi worries about none of this.

He has no mother,

But he has a waitress

And a panther to play with.



Mrs. Langtry's talent was smaller than Bernhardt's or Terry's,

But her loveliness brought roses and proposals from the fine gentlemen in the front row.

Theater is illusion,

And the Jersey Lily knew how to work it.



The play ran for one hundred and eleven weeks--

No one now living was there to see it.

The theater has disappeared, replaced by a coffee shop.

The kitten pounces.

The Succubus waits.

A waitress laughs.

The Dark-Haired Chick sits in one of the booths, dressed entirely in black,

With a panther stretched out at her boots

Like a thrown rose.

_______

for One Shoot Sunday

photograph: Lily Langtry

________

Ballad Of A Runaway Horse

My poems will be back soon...I can feel them coming. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this song, written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Emmylou Harris.

PS--I start my new mail route today. Wish me luck!

Love & Hate In The Word Garden

Oh, I LOVE that! Gawd, I HATE that! What, you ask? These!

I LOVE Breyer's ice cream. Especially the chocolate.

I HATE hummus. Yes, I've tried it. It sucks!

I LOVE Mayhem on the Allstate commercials. He seems to enjoy causing trouble. I like his smirk. And how he wears a suit but always has band-aids and stuff on his face.

I HATE the Progressive Insurance cashier chick. I didn't mind her at first, but now I hate her. If you're going to make us look at that pasty face and wear all white, lose the bright red lipstick. I don't hate her as much as I hate the Geico gecko though. Everything about the gecko is irritating. Newsflash: blinking every 2.1 seconds does not make you cute.

I LOVE my new cable channels. I could watch nothing but Investigation Discovery and Bio and be very happy.

I HATE my old favorites, A&E, TLC and regular Discovery Channel, because they have been taken over by stupid reality shows. You couldn't pay me to watch Gene Simmons, or pawn shop shows, or midgets.

I LOVE women's athletics! Bring on the NCAA tournament!

I HATE how, if the men's team is called the Snipes, the women's team will be called the Lady Snipes. It makes it sound like they will be shooting with one hand and sipping tea with their pinkies out with the other. They're there to compete and win, just like the men. Nobody calls the men the "Gentlemen Snipes." 

I LOVE getting older cos I know so much more about so many things than I did when I was young. I know who I am, and what pleases me. I know so much more about what matters, and what doesn't.

I HATE getting older cos my body gets bigger, slower and tireder.

I LOVE little gatherings

I HATE big mob scenes.

I LOVE humor, irreverence, reverence, patience and enthusiasm.

I HATE pretension, ego, fake boredom, real boredom and dogma.

I LOVE dogs.

And I LOVE my readers. :-) What do you love or hate?

_________

Mean Kitty

This video is 3 years old, but still a big favorite of mine. I haven't got any new poems, so maybe you'll enjoy Sparta instead. :-)