is that my monitor or a hole in the ground?

[click image, if you want the status on wars and torture]

.

I took off both pairs of glasses so you could see the great improvement in my eye situation today. I had to keep them on to find the button to push to snap the shot, hold it right there and take off the glasses with my other hand.

I put on my farmin' and plantin' and drivin' Hispanic men into gales of unrequited lust groans... well and not just Hispanic men... overalls. For some reason my overalls—covered with tao symbols and peace symbols and any number of cool silk patches of things like eyes and flowers and stains and material worn to mush from decades of use—turn on yer basic generic male of the lascivious stripe; to wit: nearly all of them. It's goofy because I originally bought them for the precise reason that they would discourage lascivious thoughts in all comers. They were my uniform in Central America, being huge and loose and covered in the good kind of pockets for cash and passport, everything that needed to stay on my person at all times, and deflect attention from a lone woman traveler. They were a smashing success for practical purposes, but an abysmal failure in the deflecting attention department. I was wearing them while finally receiving the dispositive instruction in the TRUE amount of agua pura required to ward off heat stroke at Tikal from a group of German experts. All Germans abroad are experts in everything. When in doubt, FIND A GERMAN. Anyway, I'd been certain three gallons a day would be more than enough, but they illustrated vividly to me that I'd stop panting and puffing and reeling my way around the ruins if I'd simply drink two more gallons of water. A revelation. Who'd've thunk it.

I put my overalls on today so I can grope my way down the street in search of a sighted wealthy socialist gentleman to buy me a new pair of EYES.

.
love, 99
.

i stared and stared and stared and stared

[click image]

.

Why does this gorgeous guy look so damn familiar to me? I was tossing everything piled in my attic in my effort to identify this guy. I mean, he is seeeeeriously familiar to me. Must be a movie star. That mouth. All of it. I know this fellow and if I know him, I can find him and ascertain if he is a wealthy socialist who just wears a ring on his wedding finger to throw women off the scent.

Well, after I finally just gave it up as a completely silly exercise, it hit me: He's rx's well-groomed twin brother.

Too much to hope, I suppose, that he could possibly be as smart....

.

You can't possibly know how badly I want to fly back in time and prevent those murders, the ache that seems to come from everywhere and continue into infinity from my burning nostrils. No way to say it impeccably enough to give you the hem of that garment. I can hear my teacher's voice disparaging my save-the-world urges. I will never get it done until I drop them. I'm pretty sure of that.

.

i am the arbiter of your future

[click image]

.

I have been searching everywhere for these glasses for so many months that I think it has stretched into a few years. Looky what Jil Sander just came out with. You do NOT know how many times this has happened to me in my life! I have bellowed to people that I need to become a fashion designer so I can at last have what I want when I want it! I still want these damn glasses but I bet they want a few gagillion simoleons for them. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

.

i'm dying here

[click image, video playlist, hour and a half]

.
For my wealthy socialist gentleman to ride me off into the sunset....
.

did she already do the big lie, or is that later tonight?

[click image]

.
I am going to listen to this interview instead. We KNOW McVeigh did not act alone, and in fact may have been the patsy, and believe you me I am way unhappy about Rachel doing this, even as I am already way unhappy with her. I do NOT like watching any of those we've thought were on our side so long showing how seriously not-on-our-side they will be.

But you can just ignore me if you want. I'm just back from getting a new battery for Goldie. The old new one tanked, and she is not dead after all, but I have been a basket case for about 48 hours now anyway, and have progressed to the phase where I can not feel relief because I don't trust that this is the fix. They said it was the fix the last time, when in fact it was a new alternator that was the fix, and now that I have a new battery it may only take a few days to be dead in the water again.... At least it was not the carburetors. Those cannot be replaced or rebuilt.

Everyone between Brookings and Crescent City is uncomfortably aware of my need for a wealthy socialist gentleman.

Again.

So I'm going to cook myself the really fine steak I got on monster sale a few weeks ago and was saving for a rainy day, and I'm EVEN going to make some brandy sauce for it... sauté an onion... have a huge glass of milk and a hot logger martini for dessert. I'm opening all the windows and doors and smoking at my desk.

My Zen will arrive later this evening.

I don't know if you will be able to tell.
.

we interrupt this program to announce -- updated

[click image]

... that 99 is in the middle of doing all kine heavy duty troubleshooting on her SECOND brand new iMac with a computer genius somewhere in Canada. So image manipulating capabilities and scores of other things are not happening until we get this figured out.

I have to spend most of my time trying to make the lockup-and-honking-at-me thing happen in "vanilla mode" and so who the heck knows WHAT will happen... or when....

While I'm away, or limping along, or flipping out... please alert the entire internet about my need for a wealthy socialist gentleman. This is not a drill.

XOXOXOX

[And, heck, give Robert Plant a listen on this one... since we're here anyway....]

===============================================

8:30pm -- By some miracle, I guess, it did not take me long to reproduce the problem in vanilla and got to talk to my tech genius again before he got off shift. They are sending me a bigger, faster, more gigs of RAM replacement... AND my tech genius will walk me through porting all my settings from this machine to that one... assuming, of course, it lives that long.

So. If I suddenly go silent for longer than usual, I'm dead in the water and waiting for my white knight.

I think, actually, that my hair has turned white today. I'm afraid to look. Anyway, now I have to run around and bump into walls and the post office and store and stuff before I completely lose track of everything.

are you antiwar?

[click image]

I find myself going to Antiwar.com first every day because they do such a good job of rounding up all the most important news about our multifarious adventures in murderation out there. Jason Ditz does an astonishingly good job with that, and Scott Horton's interviews on Antiwar Radio are almost never less than riveting. I'm not so big on Justin Raimondo's stuff, though there's a lot good in it, but, hell, that site is just brimming with really important information.

Seems they've decided to go with the fund drive model this time instead of the massive emergency freakout they hit a couple months ago. So, well, I thought I'd mention it here since I'm already at the point where I can't forgo anymore food or video rentals to squeeze out some of my legendarily no money for good causes.

Right now I'm convinced that Antiwar.com and Peter B. Collins are the absolute best possible uses of your philanthropic intertubes change. Both provide just astoundingly good content and would be getting some paltry sum from me every month right now if I weren't on the dying in the ditch kind of poor right now from my computer replacement and speeding ticket. Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post is one to watch for consideration too.

Of course, there is always the failsafe method of casting about for my wealthy socialist gentleman and then I might be able to take orders for your pet most-urgent-to-support lists and my own. I tell you, I'm NOT a gold digger! I am just too poor to do enough good to suit my saving sentient beings thing....

jean-luc showed up in support of gore's latest book

[click image]

...which completely upstages anything Gore had to say, for sure... and no contest on whose picture graces this post either.

For any of you out there seriously looking for my wealthy socialist gentleman for me, THIS is my man. I want him to be Jean-Luc Picard. Perhaps even Patrick Stewart would find he didn't mind just living out this role with me....

Sigh.

maybe a wealthy greek or portuguese gentleman?

[click image]

Socialists trounce conservatives in Greek election
By ELENA BECATOROS (AP) – 3 hours ago

ATHENS, Greece — Greece's opposition Socialists won an early election by a landslide Sunday, initial results indicated, with voters angered by scandals and a faltering economy ousting conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

Official results from 39.66 percent of votes counted showed former foreign minister George Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK, ahead with 43.66 percent, compared to 35.29 percent for Karamanlis' New Democracy party. If the figures remain unchanged, the result gives PASOK a comfortable majority of about 158 seats in the 300-member parliament, bringing the party back to power after five years of conservative governance.

Papandreou, 57, now follows in the footsteps of his father, party founder Andreas Papandreou, and grandfather and namesake George Papandreou, both of whom served several terms as prime ministers.

PASOK's victory, along with a recent election win by socialists in Portugal, bucks a European trend that has seen a conservative surge in the continent's powerhouse economies, including most recently in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel won re-election last week.

"This is a historic victory for PASOK, which means great responsibility for us," senior party official and former minister Evangelos Venizelos said outside party headquarters, surrounded by jubilant supporters lighting flares and waving PASOK flags depicting the party's symbol of a green rising sun.

Thousands of cheering supporters mobbed a smiling Papandreou as he arrived at the central Athens headquarters as the results trickled in, while others drove through the city honking their horns.

Karamanlis telephoned Papandreou to congratulate his rival on his victory, New Democracy said in an announcement.

Final projections by the company carrying out the vote counting indicated PASOK would win with as much as 43.8 percent, with Karamanlis' New Democracy trailing at 33.9 percent — which would be the conservatives' worst electoral performance ever.

The conservatives made "a poor showing," New Democracy lawmaker and former minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis admitted. "It is obvious that PASOK has won a clear victory."

Karamanlis, 53, called the election just halfway through his second four-year term in a risky gamble that ultimately failed, saying he needed a strong new mandate to tackle Greece's economic woes. He had already been trailing in opinion polls when he called the election in early September, sparking criticism from within his own party.

Karamanlis stormed to power in 2004 to become the youngest prime minister in modern Greek history after more than a decade of socialist rule. He was re-elected in 2007, but quickly saw his popularity eroded by several financial scandals, including a land-swap deal with a Greek Orthodox monastery that cost the state more than euro100 million ($145 million) and forced two of Karamanlis' close aides to resign.

Authorities' failure to contain widespread riots sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager in Athens in December also undermined the conservatives' position, which the global financial crisis finished off.

Many conservative voters were angered by rising crime and the riots, when anarchists rampaged through Greek cities, smashing shops and banks with little police intervention.

A small bomb exploded in Athens on Friday, without causing injury, two blocks from the site of Karamanlis' final campaign speech. A far-left group, Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, claimed responsibility for the bombing, which caused no injuries.

"What I believe is happening today is that Karamanlis is paying for his past mistakes, for the financial situation," voter Alexandros Panagiotakopoulos said outside New Democracy's headquarters watching the results on a giant outdoor screen.

Now, it will be Papandreou who will have to deal with his country's faltering economy, which is expected to contract in 2009 after years of strong growth, while the budget deficit will probably exceed 6 percent of economic output.

In contrast to Karamanlis, who advocated an austerity program of freezing state salaries, pensions and hiring, Papandreou has promised to inject up to euro3 billion to jump-start the economy. However, his government will likely have to borrow heavily just to service the ballooning debt — set to exceed 100 percent of GDP this year — and keep paying public sector wages and pensions. Papandreou has pledged to limit borrowing by reducing government waste and going after tax dodgers.

The Greek Communist Party, far right-wing LAOS and the small Left Coalition are expected to retain their representation in Parliament, while the Ecologist-Greens were hovering on the fringe of the 3 percent threshold for entry.

"Mr. Karamanlis brought PASOK into power," said LAOS leader Giorgos Karatzaferis.

christ

[click image for a not exhaustive at all list]

I caught Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe on the jacket of a DVD... so... naturally... I grabbed it.

ANOTHER holocaust movie. "Adam Resurrected"....

This one was strangely riveting. Goldblum gets to be a mad and charismatic protagonist and, despite how over the top just about everything in the movie is, he does a great job with it.

What am I wailing about my wealthy socialist gentleman for? I could write a blockbuster holocaust screenplay and be wealthy myself. This is just beyond the pale out of hand.

i'm thinking a blend of greenwald, scahill and walken...

[click image]

... wealthy and socialist and single....

[Horton interviewing Scahill....]

it was the last part on earth not working correctly

[click image]

So I've got Goldie back, unfixed, but still able to limp around until maybe, and only distantly maybe, they can get me some used carbs from a wrecking yard and have them rebuilt by the only guys who do it, who also may not even be in business anymore.

I'm not kidding about needing that wealthy socialist gentleman! This is not good. But at least I can get out from underfoot here for the moment and make my way back, or part way back, or....

Possibly the buddhas of the ten directions will intervene as they deem appropriate. They showed great mercy at the lab after that frickin' traffic jam yesterday. That was definitely the not-subject/not-blind koan gig rewarding me for not going postal, not picking the thread of selfhood with which to strangle all sentient beings. I'm not doing a good enough job, but not 100% backslid into the glue pit either....

This car thing is terrifying. You can't even contemplate how devastating the no wheels thing is in my situation.

I think, though, that I'm going to have nothing but time to contemplate it....

I don't know why I don't give a damn about the news today, but maybe I will have a burst of enthusiasm for it later, or I may be trying to get back home, or get somewhere.... So if it goes completely quiet here, I'm traveling and will get back to you as soon as I am able.

maybe the image should have been a lightbulb

[click image]

My hair actually looks almost exactly like this just now. I'd succumbed to the urge to lop a bunch more of it off. It had grown very long again behind my back, while I was ignoring it utterly except for when tripping over the pounds of it that hit the floor. When I lost forty pounds, I decided to do something about my hair at last. First I had about five inches cut off in a very chic long million length cut. Then I had had another three cut off in an equally chic way. And just the other day I had yet another three cut off, to leave it just long enough to pull into a ponytail with but an inch or two to spare. It was a shitty cut, because the chic place was closed when I wanted it off, and so it is good to just pull it into that ponytail until next month or so when it can be made chic again. Doesn't matter. I'd sprayed it up and blown it to see if I couldn't make something wild and wooly enough for me out of it, but there's still too much hair for that, and so it just went back into the ponytail until further notice.

A few minutes ago I took it out of the band holding it into the ponytail all these days so I could brush it thoroughly before showering. My hair is sticking up almost exactly like this right this very now. The outright amazing part is that hardly any hair broke off when I brushed it. Usually handfuls of it need pulling from my brush when I'm done. Scaring the pee out of me every time, making me run to a mirror to check how close to bald I must be every time, but mysteriously finding I still have hair on my head every time. It did finally occur to me that the problem wasn't with the growing of the hair -- it grows outrageously fast -- and it can't be that it's falling out so much as it is just breaking off. Otherwise, for sure I'd have been all scalp and no locks long since.

My hair had been up in that ponytail for four days, and just four or five short strands came off on the brush and one or two hit the floor. This has not been the case for almost 20 years. I may finally have cut off all the hair that has been breaking off and tripping me for so long due to my severe lack of vitamin D. I might now be down to the hair that's grown since my vitamin D level has finally gone back up into the healthy zone.

My teeth have stopped breaking and I can no longer move them with a little finger pressure. My skin looks way better. My hair may finally have stopped threatening the integrity of all vacuum cleaners. Damn. This might turn out okay.

Oh!

Yes, I do look goofy as hell, but I don't care. I feel SO much better.

-----------------------------------

7pm Update: Well, there was still too much hair in the comb after shampooing... so... it's better anyway.

My shower seemed to decide the left index finger I cut so badly last night to start bleeding like mad again, and so I had to spend a lot of time rinsing it again with hydrogen peroxide and wrapping that back up in a wad of antibiotic ointment and gauze so I could go out into the world without bleeding all over everything... but the tip of that finger is now asleep.

Heavy sigh.

I forgot to freak about Goldie, and she started right up -- AND HELD HER IDLE JUST FINE -- not even rattling too terrifyingly this trip. Thank the buddhas of the ten directions. Thank you very much indeed.

Notwithstanding WalmartGreens calling me to come get my prescription, the pharmacy was closed due to the holiday. Somebody forgot to tell the computer when to nut up about this stuff. So I just bought a daaark chocolate bar and stopped for some sale tomatoes on the way home. I'm having albacore and tomato and scallion salad for dinner.

Like a vaguely hip paragon of virtue healthy old baggy maniac.

[That was a braino. Dammit! I won't set foot in a Walmart, let alone spend money in one. But I keep getting Walgreens mixed up in my mouth with Walmart. I use the new Walgreens because they have the very least inefficient bozos behind the pharmacy counter. It is a plague of the north coast that even heavily staffed pharmacies are nothing but abortive attempts, misfiled prescriptions and malfunctioning computers. I've tried every single one up here, and the one independent one that wasn't any better but wasn't corporate went out of business. So. Walgreens. Sheesh.]

wealthy socialist gentleman, wherever you are, please take note

[click image]

like flipping a switch i just went extravagant as heck

[click image]

On my way to the beach for my walk yesterday, I saw that the spa I'd heard was coming was finally open. Infinity. They call it Infinity. Suddenly, in the middle of depressing myself utterly with the videos of the history of Zionist activities, and stark naked, ready to get in that part of a tub we call my bathtub, to soak parts of me at a time, I found myself blathering to a Verizon recording asking what city and state, and then what name, and I'm sorry what name was that again? And Laurie was there on the other end of the phone. She said, getcher ass down here and we'll fix you right up. My haircut is now ten times more chic than it was just a couple hours ago.

I'm svelt, and virtuous, and chic, I tell you.

Hurry up and save me from my country!

The witless and docile hordes....

about marrying the old hippie in praque

[click image]

Even if he didn't mean it, I need to call the realtor tomorrow because I'm allergic to my home. This isn't going to be any fun at all, if we go by Brenda's experience:

Invited a realtor up to look at the money pit on Sunday. "Just to see what our options are," my husband said. Hah! In his dreams. Options. I remember ancient times (like seven months ago) when people whined about too many options. Anyway, the woman shows up at noon on the dot. Badly dyed, oily, red hair pulled back in a tight rubber band, baggy clothes, mid fifties. She looks like the matron at a high security prison or a death camp.

Wasting no time getting down to business, she grabs a seat at the dining room table. "I've been in real estate thirty years," she says. "I owned my company till I got bought out. But I haven't sold a house since June. Never seen it this bad. Nope, never. We've got 220 houses for sale right now. And it's the Stimula package that's really gonna kill us. Because everyone who's taken their homes off the market will be putting them back on again."

I can see my husband turning into the incredible shrinking man as she bullets ahead. "Oh, and you can forget renting," she adds, gleefully, sliding a sheet of paper towards me. "Just take a look at that list." I glance at it, reluctantly, and stop counting at around forty. "Let me tell you a little story. I had this guy and his family. It was back in August. Another corporate transfer. We used to get alot of those. He was custom building his own mini Mac (small McMansion) and needed a place to live till it was finished. I told him to show up down at the Bee (the local paper) at 5 in the morning. So he could be the first person to check out the Classifieds. That's how FEW rentals there were." She's cackling. I swear to God the woman is fucking cackling.

My shoulders are shaking. I can feel the beginnings of crazy, nervous laughter. "But these people," she says, stabbing at the list. "These people are desperate. They went in with 90, 95% financing. Then at the closing, they took another hundred thou for renovating. Now their husbands are out of work. Contracting has totally dried up. Shut down. So has the plumbing business. There's no work for electricians or carpenters, either."

I am offering this woman biscuits, cake, coffee. Anything to make it stop; to shut her mouth. But the bad news just keeps coming, even when she's climbing the stairs. "Wow! I LOVE color, she enthuses.I smile. "You must be a decorator." We're in the room I call Prince. My pride and joy. Deep purple walls, sizzling orange satin bedspread and polka dot pillows. "This is FABULOUS!" she says, stepping into the blue and white striped walled room with fire engine red trimmed windows. I elbow my husband as if to say, "See. It's not so bad, after all. She loves it."

Then the axe drops. "But you'll have to paint the whole place eggshell white or beige," she says. "Maybe sage green." I grimace."This is a classic Cape. People expect traditional. Whew." She's practically wiping her brow. "The husbands would have a heart attack in here."

The irony is, I appreciate her honesty. I do. There's no bullshit. Of course, people can affford to be honest when they have nothing to lose. "But listen," she says, patting my arm as we head downstairs. "It could be worse. You could be trying to sell a place in Westport or New Canaan."

Tomorrow... how we cut her into tiny pieces and buried her in the backyard and other nightmares on Main St..

The good part is property hasn't really lost value here on the coast. The bad part is property hasn't really lost value here on the coast. I wonder if I should email him and ask after the toxicity situation in Prague....

Do you think I can really trick him into believing that was a real proposal? What are the chances he's a solvent socialist gentleman and a hippie? Are you not scouring the planet and your mindscapes for the perfect resolution to this big problem?

99-look-alike lands wealthy capitalist gentleman at last

[click image]

So, there's hope for me, no? :-P

honestly, just a jug of cetirizine is all it would take

[click image]

...to turn him perfect....

[A couple more lectures....]

oh... man...

[click image]

At first, I got all fired up. This guy has got to rock. Just one look at that short video and you have to admit he's perfect for me. It seemed Slavoj Žižek was going to be the answer to my main dilemma... but....

Here he is lecturing on politeness and civility for nearly two hours.

Or an hour and fifteen on the same book tour... essentially the same lecture.

Maybe she's left him already... he needs training pretty badly. Someone let me know if he stops wiping his nose with his fingers and then wiping his fingers on his t-shirt the whole time he's talking. I can't look anymore... but I do still want to listen.

I mean... maybe we really do just need a different chicken....

Maybe he had a cold. Maybe it is a horrible sinus condition an antihistamine would cure....

man, oh, man, did i ever score!

[click image]

Had to go drop off a prescription at Walgreen's... since it is the only pharmacy that has not yet pissed me off so thoroughly I can't bring myself to go back... and I also needed to get more flaxseed oil for my daily regimen of healthy things. Last time I got a $16 tub of it for $13, but this time I got two tubs of it for $16. I so scored. Dudes. This is major.

Plus, I found an 85% cocoa, extra-dark chocolate bar, which has so little sugar in it I can have some without ruining my diet. I have lost 25 pounds and fit back into jeans I forgot I owned.

So, now, if I could just get the attention of my wealthy socialist gentleman, I could get out of this place that is causing such havoc in my respiratory system... resume my codger babetude in at atmosphere of positive energy... live in the town of "Perfect".