Who knew!

I guess it's the week for noticing people in line at breakfast. Today it was in line for one of those little street carts. You know the ones, with the little foreign man inside, usually with odd facial hair issues, selling coffee, bear claws, and pre-buttered bagels. The woman in line in front of me, who was about 102 (but didn't look a day over 65) and just a little bit too small for her straw-colored mop of a wig, looked up at him and rasped, "Can I have a Sanka?" Who knew they even made that anymore!?!

Nutmeat

Nutmeat. That one's still going through my head. *giggle* *giggle* nutmeat... hee hee...

And In Her Honor...

At lunchtime, I walked right by the stupid-looking healthy eating place on 23rd Street with the sign outside that says, "Try our Nori Wrap and Nutmeat Salad." I walked right by there, went to McDonald's, and ordered a #3 Extra Value Meal with Dr. Pepper. Then of course, I had to have a twist cone with chocolate dip from Mr. Softee. Eggwhites, indeed.

***SMACK!!!***

A woman in line behind me at the deli counter this morning ordered, "May I have two egg whites with one slice of cheese on 7-grain bread -- dry? And please put the bread through the toaster twice." She deserves to be slapped silly about the head and shoulders until she begs for a piece of fried ham with a slab of butter. Seriously, woman! Live a little! For crying out loud!

A Wonderful Quote!

From my coworker Chris:

"People are exhausting."

WHAT A FALL! WHAT A TREAT!

New Neil Gaiman AND New Gregory Maguire! What a double-packed book season it will be! When am I ever going to get to the new Augusten Burroughs manuscript that's on the floor of my office?

Interesting..

According to the AOL "Blog Trends Survey," nearly 50% of bloggers say they do it because it serves as self-therapy, and one-third of bloggers who responded say they write frequently about self-help and self-esteem topics. The survey also revealed that when it comes to relieving real-life pressures or dealing with personal issues or tragedies, six times as many respondents prefer to write in their blog or read blogs written by others suffering from similar problems rather than to seek counseling from a professional.

Um, well, since all creative outflow is therapeutic, this really doesn't mean anything now, does it?

For all Science Geeks

I met the most fascinating woman yesterday. Her name is Lori Andrews. Her first novel, Sequence, comes out next year, and I'm reading it now. It's a really good thriller about forensic investigations using gene and DNA research. I bet it will become one of the more popular mystery series. But in her real-life, she's in the world of the Human Genome Project and research and the law, etc. Check out this website she runs. It's so full of intriguing stuff, you'll get totally bogged down reading stuff on it:

www.thehumanfuture.org

Still Lame

Yep, Thursdays are still lame. They're so lame, I actually blog. Sheesh, now that's a day with nothing to do! I'm happy with the continuing flow of tinies making their way in. I think we'll have a good pool to review.

I was browsing shelves in the B&N on Union Square yesterday, and I discovered a book I'd never heard of before, so I had to buy it. The Dark Chamber, by Leonard Cline. Published in the 1920s, recently reprinted by Cold Spring Press. Not like I'll get it read any time soon, but it's now very lonely and sad on my bookshelf with all my other unread books, waiting like deathrow inmates. If anyone has ever read it, please post a comment and let me know if it's any good.

Yesterday, I was chatting with my good friend Laurie. She had just gotten over to her town library and signed up for a card. I commented that every time I move to a new town, after a few months, I make the pilgrimage and sign up for my library card, then never use it ever. I don't feel guilty about it. I think it's important to have one, but I'm different. If I want a book, I beg one off a friend if it's from a company I know, or if I really want it, I buy the darn thing. I've donated more books to libraries than I have borrowed. The thing about most libraries is, all the books seem to have been purchased in the 1950s. Hey! What the heck did I BUY The Dark Chamber for? My local library probably had a copy... probably from the original printing, actually, that hasn't been borrowed in 40 years.

Torture

I hate, in no particular order:

Meetings
Boring speakers
Bad coffee
Krispy Kreme donuts
Biographies of Benjamin Disraeli

Oh Look, It's Thursday Again!

Yeah, Andre!
Yeah, Martina!

Everything old is new again!

I'm still in my 20s, right?

Thursdays

Saturday and Sundays, well, those are a given.
Friday is T.G.I.F!
Monday is the blue day, the first day, the 'I don't like Monday' day, back to work, back to school, let's face it, it's sad day, but hey, that's something.
Wednesday is Hump Day, Hurdle Day, the middle of the week. Wednesday is Sundae if you're from the Northeast.
Tuesday, well, Tuesday's a lost cause. Let's not dwell on it.
Then there is Thursday.

Thursday. It's not quite the weekend. There's nothing special about it. It really needs a good publicist. Seriously. Thursday -- nothing good will ever come of it. Nothing extraordinary ever happens on a Thursday. What can you do with it? You're not in college anymore, so you can't go out on a whirlwind bar-hop. You still have to get up early tomorrow. It's not the first day, it's not the last day, it's not much of anything. Thursday needs a cause. It needs to separate itself from that loser Tuesday and establish itself as something to be considered, something not to be taken lightly.

I don't know -- maybe I'll make popcorn tonight.

TINY STORIES --- GOING STRONG

Just a note to keep the project on the top of my blog. We're linking more people to the submission and keeping the word out. Keep your stories coming in. Keep your juices flowing. Hey, it's a Saturday morning. What better way to spend a few hours than working on your 100-word short story? I'm finding the challenge is comparable to these annoying sudoku puzzles but more creative.

So keep them coming, keep writing, keep creating!

And welcome to all who found us through the CBLDF link!

The original post can be found at:
http://fagblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/tiny-stories-call-for-submissions.html
And remember the new deadline is October 10!

WARNING! NEW GLOBAL THREAT!

There is a serious threat to your welfare out there in the world. Don't get caught like I just did! It insidious, pervasive, persuasive, and threatens your personal freedoms, peace of mind, and weekends. It will suck your life away faster than The Machine in The Pit of Despair. This newest of evils is... sudoku. Do NOT get lured in by its promise of working your brain and making you think! It will suck away your time, your evening, your free-time. You'll have one on your desk next to your computer all day, working away at it. You'll discuss the 'levels of logic' and 'difficulty' of the solution steps. You'll see 9x9 grids in your eyelids when you close your eyes. Numbers will fly at you. You'll dream of the legendary 27x27 solvable variety. Leave it be. Do not touch it. Let it go the way of every trend before it, Rubik's Cube, Pac-Man, Pokemon, ponchos. I'm already lost, but save yourself. I warned you.

Corporations from Daddy's Point of View

Dear old Dad had a great way of looking at corporations and the crazy stratifications of personnel within. How promotions took place, etc. He worked for some companies that were notorious for this sort of thing: he said that basically, within a large corporation, you will find that people are promoted to their level of incompetency. How does that work? If you do a good job, you are promoted. You continue to get promoted as long as you do a good job until... you reach a job in which you are not totally competent. Then you are left there. So the higher you look in a corporation, the more incompetency you will find. So yes, upper management is where you will find the greatest level of incompetency. So if you're wondering why you work for such a moron, the answer is easy: it's built into the system.

Anatomy Lesson

I never knew. Almost any of it. As I have alluded to a few times in long ago posts, I'm currently in a program to become a certified massage therapist. It's just something I've always wanted to learn how to do. The idea that you can spend an hour with someone, and afterward, they feel better physical and mentally and even emotionally, it's just an amazing thing.

So far, the anatomy and physiology lessons have been incredibly eye-opening. As someone who works out (sometimes too much, sometimes not in weeks), I knew a little bit about muscles -- pecs and abs, biceps and triceps. But wow, it's amazing once you started learning it all for real. To think that almost everyone walks around, sits and bends, throws and stands, and for the most part, nobody knows their own body. Now, even with the little bit I've learned so far, when my neck is sore, I'm busy concentrating on it to figure out of it's levator scapulae or scalenes, suboccipitals or just trapezius. Rotator cuff muscles? Oh let's not even start!

The human body is absolutely incredible. And who knew that old song is actually wrong!!! The ankle bone's connected to the shin bone... Now everyone please have a great weekend. Work on your tinies (you know there are a lot of tiny things inside the human body you could write about!)... I need to go study up on Lateral Humeral Epicondylitis.

Rusty!

Here's a link to a great story. I thought this was absolutely hysterical. Kudos to the author!

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/rusty/rusty.html

Tiny Things

Ideas.

A germ, virus.
A splinter.
A bug.
A palimpsest.
A wink.
A wart.
A tack.
A bead.
A drop of liquid.

tiny: adj., [-nier, -niest] extremely small * n., a very young child (plural, -nies). [Late 16th C., tine]

TINY STORIES -- HUNDRED WORDS

Hello all,

I never stop reminding, do I? Keep on writing your tinies. Keep sending them in. We're talking up the project, and we really hope to do something with it once we're all compiled. With writers from around the world, all of us newbies, it's a special kind of project. I've had folks tell me they've never written anything before. I've had people tell me they can never get inspired to sit down and finish anything (heck, that's me, too!). Keep talking about it. Keep posting on your own blogs. Tell your friends. I recently saw on a blog tracking system that we made "hundred words" the ~1,700th most used phrase in blogging. That's pretty cool. Let's get it to the top 1,000! :)

B

p.s. I have a *gasp* date tonight. I'll let you all know how it goes. I hope I don't spill marinara sauce on my shirt.

Conductor

The conductor on the morning train is an extremely annoying woman who grates on everyone's nerves on a regular basis. Every now and then, someone tries to be nice to her. This morning, the woman behind me asked her if she's taken a vacation yet this summer. And she effusively belted, "Oh, well now, no I haven't, but thank you so much for asking. It reminds me that I put in for a week off at the end of August. I have to put in an extra prayer to Jesus that I get it." Now, I'm sure train conductors are important, but having their vacation time approved by Jesus? That's a bit of an overkill, isn't it?