You'd better not read any further than the title if you're not okay with discussions of barf.

I have the stomach of a god. You can't tell by looking at it (unless perhaps the god you're referencing happens to be Baccchus), but I do. Yea, I have walked through the valley of stomach flu, and have needed no bucket. Thirty one barf free years - that's including the year of the dreaded vodka and tang experiment - and still counting, baby yeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

Maybe some day I'll even build back enough confidence to eat something. That's right, I'd rather starve than barf. It's not so much the incredible discomfort. It's not just the horrifying feeling of suffocation. It's not necessarily even the terror of not being able to stop due to the self propagating nature of barf (it's one of the principal laws of nature that you have to barf when you're facing a pile of barf, and since nature also dictates that you face a pile of barf while you're the process of making a pile of barf it's a miracle we ever get anything else done at all, really).

It's the betrayal. The horrible, horrible betrayal.

My body gets hungry. It tells me it needs food. It does this in a variety of ways:

It commandeers my attention. I'll see only the coupon for 25 cents off a side of fries, not the stack of large bills with a "Free money! Help yourself!" sign it's laying on or the beautiful naked man professing his love for me holding it.

It embarrasses me. "I'm really looking forward to showing you these expensive options for your lavishly budgeted event, but first an entertaining selection of noises from my intestinal region."

If not attended to promptly enough, it will even very happily resort to pain. And how do I respond to this blatant manipulation?

I give in! I feed it! I give it everything it wants! And what do I ask in return?

Digestion. That's it. We have entered into a solemn pact, and I have already kept up my end of the deal. All I ask is that my body does with the food I worked hard to afford and prepare for it what it indicated that it was going to use the food for when it was demanding it.

I do not take kindly at all to having it literally thrown back in my face.

So I simply do not allow it. Nope. Not coming back this way. You know where the exit is. Use it. Go ahead! Make me drool, groan, pray for release from the horror that is unending nausea. You're not getting your way.

Darn skippy I'll take the pain on principle. Sure I suffer needlessly for an exponentially longer time than I would if I just gave in and opened the front door for the pestilence instead, but at least I suffer with the knowledge that I win.

Yay me!

Maybe?

Well, not write-a-decent-title smart. I'm still on my own there.

I arrived home from London two days late thanks to the volcano in Iceland. Just in time to panic about closing on the house this coming Wednesday. Not a lot of time to tie up loose ends what with a long weekend thrown in the mix. Tomorrow's my first day back at work after three weeks gone and the office looks like a tornado - or perhaps a crazed, sleep deprived woman looking for a passport that was already in her purse - hit it. So is my sitting down in the middle of it all to write a blog entry not compelling evidence of my devotion to the written word?

No, it is not. It's compelling evidence that the cat in my lap is just to damn cute to disturb. She's right, though. I need to not move faster than my brain can think. I need to sit. I need to slow. I need to not do. At least for as long as it takes to write a blog entry. Maybe even for as much time as it takes to write a blog entry and have a sip of this coffee I poured myself before it gets cold.

Only it's already cold. I thought I'd just poured it. Further proof that I'm out of step with the dance of life. Further proof that the cat is smarter than I am.

The most compelling proof is in my face every morning when I wake up, though. Before the brain has a chance to warm up and wind itself around every little anxiety and deadline piercing into my consciousness she reminds me, with a stretch and a purr and an affectionate sniff of my nose, that right now we're comfy and that is what requires my immediate attention. Nothing else. And she's right. Because she's smarter than I am.

Too bad the dog's in charge. Well, at least his bathtub sized bladder is, as he's been reminding me for the majority of the time I've been writing this. Guess I am getting up after all.

Come to think of it, that's usually what eventually gets me out of bed in the mornings too.

This is the authentic, original title.

Queen's just a few minutes' walk up the road. I'd drop in, but she's a bit busy what with the prime minister just resigning and the leader of the opposition dropping by and everything.

Nothing even remotely this historic ever happens in my neck of Canada. At least nothing that doesn't involve hockey. Oddly enough, though, we're the ones more likely to riot. I'm thinking that people in England have enough experience with real civil unrest not to see the appeal of enjoying it recreationally on civic holidays.

Yes, in Edmonton Alberta people riot over the sheer outrage of a paid day off. Either that or maybe it was all the red from the Canada Day decorations that set them off. That doesn't seem as likely, though. Canadians aren't big decorators. Canadians are the mom that buys a bag of balloons and a box of candles and calls it a birthday party of civic celebration.

Also the toilets are different here. In England. Sorry, could have segued better there. Sociological comparison just became overwhelmingly boring to me very suddenly. The toilets here, on the other hand, have held my fascination since I arrived a week ago. They use less water and they work better, and there's no splash back. Just what's with the flushable swimming pools we feel the need to cannon ball our offerings into in North America, anyway? Knowing these alternatives exist, I'm amazed they're even still legal.

Also I've seen some of the greatest works of art on the face of the earth. I dare say that was even more interesting than the toilets here.

More coherent posts about more interesting topics will be forthcoming. I just like that even when I travel half the world away my cyber home sweet home is right where it always is, and I can always get here right away for a little comfort and companionship.

It would be cool if this was my forty second title, but it's not.

So I'm watching this old Art: 21 dvd featuring Josiah Mc Elheny and his reflective sculptures and he's talking about narcissism, right? And okay that's fine. I have my quota of anti-narcissism conditioning. I know it's wrong and bad and being humble is a virtue and all that stuff. I don't know if I believe it, but I know it. Well c'mon, how many humble people you know drive a nicer car than Kanye?

Anyway I'm thinking about the basic concept of narcissism, and that think winds up thrown on the same thought pile as all that crap I keep over thinking about who are we and why are we all here and what's the meaning of life and all that because boy oh boy, I figure that out I'll probably get a book deal at least, maybe even an action figure. No, it's not something I want to spend a lot of time thinking about, but I do, because brains don't like dead ends. They just keep backing up, flooring it, and plowing back into them. Sometimes for funsies they'll circle the block and bounce off the back side a few times, but deep down inside they know it's the same wall.

So by this point science and theology tend to agree more often than not that everything is everything. Ain't no end to me, ain't no beginning to you. It's all energy, and it all runs on intelligence, and it's all the same intelligence, and we can't find the beginnings or ends of that intelligence. It's everywhere we look, it always has been, and we can't think of anywhere else it might possibly go. Whether that means your god or gods have made you in his her or their image/s or you take a just the facts ma'am approach, most people are saying basically the same thing there, and wondering how it could possibly be that they're an intrinsic, indivisible part of so many people who drive like such freakin' idiots and don't even have the brains to signal.

So out of this bubbling puddle of everything all at once comes the idea that consciousness is the everything that is everything's method of becoming self aware. So if we're not narcissistic, maybe we fail at being the universe. Maybe if we didn't spend our lifetimes obsessing over ourselves, we would completely defeat the purpose of our even existing.

And that is why it's okay that I just spent fifty dollars on eye shadow.

Thank you and goodnight.

I'm going to title this entry "Title". Yeah I am messing with you!

I am obsessed with chicken tractors now, and it's all Vicki Lane's fault. Mentioning the things on a public blog where anyone - even impressionable trailer park residents - can read it. Really! She actually did that!

You hear that, Vicki? That low roar of anguish and sorrow? Those are the legions of people feeling sorry for me right now. Those beeps you hear are call waiting. The legions of people feeling slightly perturbed on my behalf are on the other line. That's nothing to do with you, though - that's just because I made the damn fool mistake of downloading Napster. Yeah yeah yeah, you can tell me how stupid I was after the Better Business Bureau gets me my refund, okay?

Have a cookie everybody, because unfortunately sympathy's not going to help get me a chicken tractor, either. Even if they did allow chicken tractors in the trailer park, now would not be a good time to get one. Three cats and two dogs will be quite enough to get moved and resettled into city life. I don't need to be urbanizing poultry too. No, I don't have the option of having a chicken tractor.

That's why it's compulsory for my boyfriend to have one. He's my surrogate farmer. The other day we had twin calves! My boyfriend bought the cow and the bull and fed and pastured them and gave them water and all the necessary medical attentions and complied with all the necessary legal registrations and whatnot, and I named them. Well, I will name them. I don't want to rush it. I take my share of the responsibility for our calves very seriously. I'm wondering if perhaps it might be most helpful if I were to pick out the chicken names now, so that when my boyfriend realizes that he intends to buy some they'll be ready to go.

It all started with Potato Day, aka The Holiday That Wasn't.

The poor man worked his little heart out on his garden last year. Planted all kinds of wonders and delights. Nurtured it like a little orphaned kitten. An exceptionally cute one, even. Like, a pink one with thick black eyelashes or something. I know, a heart shaped kitten with pink fur and long black eyelashes! Wait, no. I'm scaring myself now. Anyway, you get the idea. The man poured his heart and soul into growing strong, healthy plants.

I hope the grasshoppers enjoyed them.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than pestilence is an optimist, though, and that's how a seed potato found itself wintering indoors in a lovely big pot under a grow light. It was a happy potato. It was an enthusiastic potato. Day after day the little potato reached higher and higher until it was several feet tall. It was proclaimed that a day would be chosen to honor the potato - assuming that potatoes consider being eaten an honor, and I admit that I make that assumption. This day would be in February, and it would be a delicious day.

Then one day in January - although we know not which day - the little potato began to slowly collapse it's proud stalk down to the earth of it's pot. By February it lay fully prone in a perfect spiral. By Potato Day it's last green flush of life had faded to a sepia memory. There would be no potato day, for there was no potato.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than an optimist is a frustrated optimist. Planning for the chicken moat commenced.

I'm pretty sure I'd suggested it last year too, but two potato failures in a row have won my idea new respect. The idea is to put a fence around the garden to keep the chickens out, and then put chickens inside a fence around the fence around the garden to keep the grasshoppers out. I call it the chicken moat, and apparently a full year with an unsatisfied craving for garden fresh potato makes it a very compelling idea. There's a very real chance this might happen, and from there the chicken tractor's as good as up and running.

Once that's in place I'm going to need a few coyotes to drop by, though. Apparently I still need to work on garnering support for my Ostrich Patrol Corps idea.

Anyway anyway anyway that's a job for another day. I have decidedly more important priorities just at present, thank you very much!

So is She-Ra as good name for a chicken as I think it is or what?

Oh boy! And I get to think up a new title too!

Hey, know what I want to do? Like really, really, really want to do? I want to write a blog post! I used to do it all the time. Well, regularly. Okay less sporadically.

I've done it more than once, anyway.

Yes, I've been letting life get in the way. Some big stuff - I did mention that I bought a house, right? Some work stuff - insane shows to produce this weekend, and the owner's out of town so they're completely my babies, and some just day to day stuff - when you have dogs, the thawing of the lawn is not your favorite part of spring. That's the way life is, though, and none of that is good reason not to make doing something I love - blogging - a priority. That's why I decided that I needed to just grab a cup of hot coffee, sit down in front of the computer, and focus 110% on...

...crap. Forgot the coffee. Hang on.

Haha! Good for me! I had all this paperwork on the dining table, and I see it and I think you know what? If I just sit down and do that all right now, then I'll be able to just sit down and focus on writing my blog without worrying about that in the back of my mind. And now it's done, and that is one less thing on my mind, and now I can focus on this and...

...I got up to get more coffee, didn't I? Shoot - I forgot my cup in the kitchen. Back in a sec.

Oh man, stone cold. Okay, just gonna make a fresh pot and then we'll take this whole blog writing thing from the top again!

Okay got the hot coffee. Already stale - you know how you get to doing the dishes while you wait for it to brew and by the time you remember you were thirsty you've mopped the whole floor and rearranged the towel drawer - but it's going to have to do. No more distractions! Time to sit down and

oh hell now the dog needs out. Okay, back in One! Minute!

We have not had rain in, like, over a week, and most of that blew away before it even touched down. Where, can anybody please tell me, did the infernal beast find mud for heaven's sake? And of course you can never just bath a dog, oh no. The dog takes a bath then you need one, but not until you've scraped mud and muck off the walls, ceiling and foolishly placed cat first.

Well fine. We can work with this. After all, there's not a lot I can do dripping wet and wrapped up in a bathrobe. This is the perfect opportunity to just sit dow

Oh thank god oh thank god oh thank god oh thank you blogger for saving my draft oh thank you thank you thank you stupid computer stupid computer stupid computer! You know, I just realized that I haven't eaten anything in over eight hours. There's no way I can focus on this if I don't eat something first. Or at least while I'm doing it. Yeah - I'm just going to grab something and then I'll snack as I type. A lesson in efficiency for the modern blogger!

I really need to keep more snack food in the house. I didn't even want a whole casserole, but you can't exactly eat pasta raw and that's all I had. Yeah, okay, guess I was hungrier than I thought too. Anyway! You know what? The phone's ringing but I'm not even going to no wait I'm expecting that call!

Aw. He remembered. My sweetie.

Um. Look guys. I'm kinda beat. You know what? Best plan? A good night's sleep and then fresh and ready to focus tomorrow on the best darn blog post ever written!

Yes. Got a plan. It's as good as done.

Night!

Well you got as far as the title, that's something anyway.

This entry is entirely inappropriate. Too spontaneous, poorly thought out, rushed, and just generally not a good idea. I don't recommend reading it at all.

For all those who stopped reading after the first paragraph and aren't seeing this, thank you. It's nice to see my opinion afforded some merit.

For all those still reading, thank you. It's nice to know people with enough backbone to decide for themselves what is or isn't worth their time to pursue. Ignore what I told those other guys. I totally like you best.

It's been a disjointed, unorganized, chaotic and strange week, all culminating in my becoming the proud parent of an 80 year old dependent today. It's ten thousand dollars worth of non-refundable official now - I bought a house. No takesies backsies. If I don't want it, I'm going to have to find someone to unload it on.

I'm going to have a busy summer. Need an entirely new roof, ventilation and insulation in the attic, new gutters, new plumbing, a new furnace with upgraded duct work, a new shed, and I definitely gotta have a fence set up before I can bring the dogs over.

So far I've picked out a color to paint the kitchen cabinets. No, it's not my highest priority, but - and this is very important - it will go well with the vintage curtains I'm thinking of hanging in there. It's no small job, either. Have you ever picked out paint chips in heels? The floors in those home reno places are concrete, people. Very unforgiving on the ball of the foot.

Okay, I'm needing to go to bed now. I just wanted to write something because... um... well okay because I'm starting to miss you guys and stuff. Satisfied?

Don't let it go to your heads, now. I'm not totally dependent on you. I can always fall back on all those people who couldn't be bothered to read this.