I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

I was forced to leave work early, and, as soon as I'm done writing this, I'll be lying down. I'm quite ill. Feel on the verge of collapse, and a wee scared, but I very literally cannot afford to stay out of work--and anyone whom doesn't understand that, is blessed for the ignorance of poverty and the unjust American health care system, and equally unjust rules for part-time workers.

I'm excessively weak, blurred vision, light-headed. I have a brused indentation in my left leg that's not going away, and basically...i feel like rubbish all over. And, my bad foot hurts horredously...I had to take my shoe off once I got in the apartment building, as I could barely walk with it on.

So, off of a lie down. My farm lady friend has said that she'd just been diagnosed as diabetic, and is on the same meds as me...she's already whinging about the side-effects, oh yes. They're lovely. She's not looking forward to having to poke herself in the finger, either. I can't say how much I hate that, myself. I am such a wuss when it comes to sticking myself with sharp objects. I don't even like getting slivers in my hand (and yes, actually, I have a sliver of wood in my hand, as I write this...thankfully it doesn't hurt.)

Well, that's my whinge for tonight. Hope you all have a good night, yourselves.

I was woken up an hour early by an intense cramp in my entire right leg. Ouch. Now I'm trembly and weak. I actually have tremmors in my hand, and my fingertips and toes on both sides are numb.

I looked out the window, and noted that no one in my building had bothered to take out the rubbish bins today....so I did ours...but none of the others are out, so I reckon the other neighbour's bins will be a bit bursting at the seams, next Wednesday. I hope the garbage truck hasn't been here yet, or I shall have wasted the effort to wheel the enormous thing out to our kerb.

We don't have any bin rules here where I live, thankfully. So we won't be penalized for having extra bags lying around the kerb. They'd only just switched our pick up day two weeks ago. It's been Fridays for years--until recently, there was a dumpster in the rear car park--now we have wheelie bins and pick up is on Wednesday....the new owners didn't tell us though, until Tuesday that week, of the change.

The Aussie that owns our building isn't getting his money's worth out of the bulding manager. She's got her fingers in too many pies, but also is arrogant and ignorant, as well.

Let's face it: she may have a 4 year college degree, but she's got 0 empathy and common sense. I mean, come on! She was shocked to learn I had three cats? I mean, every time they came into my apartment, I wasn't exactly hiding them...tho' Bootsy often hid behind the fridge or in the cupboards--he's terrified of people...still, they'd never asked, but I just assumed they knew.

They put in the lease a no-pets clause for new tenants, but one of the new tenants--the adolecent ex-marine with the boom-box stereo, has a cat and, a dog...a large dog, a black lab mix. So, what happened there?

The new building manager makes and breaks rules, makes and breaks promises, all at the drop of a hat--is it no wonder no one here really respects them?

Well, as soon as I'm feeling better, I've got to have some lunch. I'm going to make a stab at hoovering the living room carpet today. I can do that sitting down, and also giving the bath a quick once-over, if I'm feeling better. I've been dealing with a mild case of the stomach virus that's going around our office and around this city, in the last few weeks. I'm not nearly as ill as some have been, thankfully, but it's not been much fun, let me tell you.

I used to belong to this website, where one could anonymously tell stories about yourself and your life. Even tho' I've not used the website in ages--you couldn't delete unwanted comments, and sometimes some of them were vicsiously mean and thoughtless...which happens when there's no controls and no rules.

Unfortunately, often knowing they can do whatever they want, brings out the darkest and worst sides of humanity. No rules means no responsibility, no obligation to be a proper human being. Nature has rules: and any animal or plant that doesn't obey...dies.

Western civilization wants to remove rules...rules regarding interaction with other human beings, rules regarding personal behavior, rules pertaining to personal responsibility. And, when we go overboard, when we decide to be lazy to the point of inertia, when we break too many of these rules of interraction and behaviour---civilization begins to feed on itself slowly dies out.

Too many rules can be bad--constraining people from growing and developing...but no contraints are far worse, having no contraints is the direct road to degradation of humanity.

I think, perhaps, that we are largely to blame for all of this. We've passively allowed ourselves to be degraded. We sit there and let shop clerks be rude to us, or ignore us. We sit there on the telephone, on hold, pushing buttons. We allow waitresses to ignore us.

We don't stand up for ourselves. We don't write, talk or protest big business when it treats us like cattle, by not granting us timely access to a live human being, when it dictates to us--the people who make its profits, what we should do. We don't tell the restuarant manager that we're leaving because we're being ignorned, and obviously doesn't need our trade. We are discordant souls, who don't deserve to be treated like raw meat, but whom aren't strong enough to break out of our transparent isolation bubble we've put ourselves in, to speak up and give voice to our anger.

So, anyway, that's my take on things.

I still get comments on my stories from that old website--the one I've not been on in some 2 years or more.

Today, I had a long lecture by someone, who admitted to me, that he or she had never been in my shoes, and couldn't imagine ever being in my situation (this is when mum hadn't been dead five months, and I was completely alone and dealing with the loss of my car, and going hungry while working 7 days a week, and just...well, I was an emotional mess, as well--tho' I don't think I knew just how badly.

This person was telling me how they could understand how I felt (Riiight. Didn't he or she just write that they'd never been in my situation....????)

Next thing I know, there's three long paragraphs about how I should turn to God, that Jesus will save me, halelujah and pass the ammunition, blah-blah-blah.

Mind you, they never asked if I believe in God or Jesus. I am semi-athiest since last year (still some doubts I guess), but I could just as well be Jewish, or Hindu, or even a Wicken.
Has to be an American commenter. Americans have this stupid one-track mindset...like a race horse wearing blinders so it can only see what's in front of it. Americans cannot grasp the simple concept that there's other human beings out there, that aren't like themselves. Americans simply seem incapable from understanding that other Americans might not believe in God and/or Jesus! They don't want to understand that. That would mean they'd have to get up off of their lazy American bottoms from the sofa and car, and actually look around them and think about stuff. God--erm, I mean, Earth forbid.

I'm giving up meme's for a while. I've been on meme overload, and probably everyone is bored with them, and stopped reading them.

So, I got sent this wee meme tonight...last call, closing time in meme land.

This is the "top ten" meme

1. Top ten of your favourite DVD's that you own:

(not in any order of preference)

Dr Who Series 4 box set
Doris Day/Rock Hudson collection
Vicar of Dibley season 1
Anatomy of a Murder
To Wong Foo, Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar
Casino Royale
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (orig. w/Gary Cooper)
Dr Who: Lost in Time
The Magnificent Seven

2. Top ten songs on you i-pod:

I don't own an i-pod and would have no clue how to even use one...so I'll list ten songs out of the 200 on my Playlist player--again, not in any sort of order.

Letter from America--The Proclamers
Sweet City Woman--The Stampeders
Gasoline---Enter the Haggis
Monday, Monday--The Mama's and the Papa's
Ruby--Kaiser Chiefs
Stars--The Cranberries
Henrietta--The Fratellis
The Life of Riley--The Lightning Seeds
Subterreanean Homesick Blues--Bob Dylan
Earth Angel--The Penquins

3. Top ten books you own or have read as an adult:

Ancient Rome (Time-Life books) (N-F)
The Walking Drum (historical fiction)
To Tame A Land (western)
A Murder on the Appian Way (historical mystery)
Wuthering Heights
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (non-fic)
Walden (non-fic)
The Writer's Tale (non-fic)
Man on Horseback (non-fic)
Cannery Row (fiction)

4. Top ten favourite books you read as a child:
(from about age 10 to 14)

Afraid to Ride
King of the Wind
The Blue Roan
Dark Sunshine
The Medicine Hat Stallion
The Black Stallion
Thunderhead (sequel to My Friend Flicka)
Robin Hood
King Arthur and His Knights
Treasure Island

5. Top ten favourite foods:

Pizza
steak or prime rib
BBQ ribs
roast pork
butter chicken curry
turkey club sandwich, or an open-face hot turkey/gravy sandwich
shepherd's pie
Zatarain's black beans and rice, with sliced smoked sausage and sweet corn mixed in
spaghetti bolognase
Arby's or Mr. B's, Roast beef and cheddar melt sandwich

6. Top ten favourite television programmes of all time:

I don't get any TV reception and can't afford both internet and cable, where I live now, as some of you know, so I don't watch TV except in hospitals and laundromats and bars. But, I have fav shows:

Dr Who
Remember WENN (1990's A & E cable network orig. comedy/drama series)
Law and Order
Queer Eye (usa version)
West Wing
Vicar of Dibley
Are you Being Served?
Keeping Up Appearences
Frazier
Lovejoy

7. Top ten films:

Arsenic and Old Lace
Pillow Talk
True Grit
Anatomy of a Murder
Robin Hood (errol Flynn vers.)
Nine to Five
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everying, Julie Newmar
Live and Let Die (James Bond)
Lillies of the Field
Orig. (1st) Star Wars

8. Top ten favourite sports to watch or participate in:

(I'm very much not into sports as a rule, but here's my list)

Western pleasure horsemanship/western reining (participate)
Horse shoe pitching (participate)
show jumping (go to shows or watch on TV)
crazy golf (participate)
golf (TV)
harness racing (watching live)
pool/billiards (I couldn't get a ball in the pocket to save my life, but I think it's fun anyway--as long as no one is standing there making fun of me, that is)
polo (watch live or on TV)
ten pin bowling (play or watch on TV)
boating (I suck at sailing, but I can row OK)

9. Top ten favourite shops:

I don't really have any "favourite" shops, but there are some I prefer to others--most of which I no longer have any access to:

Borders Books and Music
Tractor Supply Co.
TJ Max
Peter Harris Clothing
Walker's Farm Home and Tack
Bargain Box Consignments
Carl Durfee's Store
Kohl's
Walden's Books
Impressions of Saratoga

10. Top ten school or university classes:

Acting I & II
playwriting
Directing
Introduction to archaeology
International studies seminar on water (USA/Netherlands)
Western horsemanship
State and Local Government
Public Relations
News writing and reporting
Broadcast writing

I was talking to a lady tonight, and she was telling me, that one of the bulls on their farm likes to stand in the water trough and stare at his reflection...they he starts bellering, like he's saying, "Who are you! Get outta' my water trough!"

He-he, that's like my ginger and white cat, Boots, sitting in front of the screen of my unpluged tele sitting on the living room floor--he sits there and admires the reflection of that ever-so-handsome cat. Boots is very possibly gay. I'm kidding...I think. Anyway, Boots is such a gentle giant of a cat. And vain, he's a bit vain about his appearence. Males are usually less clean that female cats...Boots is quite fasdidious about his appearence. Yet, he takes little interest in Flamey, when she's in heat (unlike Charlie who quite hasn't figured out that he's neutered)...Boots much rather hang by himself, or with his brother Charlie. Flamey, who's half his size, actually intimidates the hell out of Bootsy.

Cripes, Americans coast to coast were massively bonkers tonight--when they weren't behaving like a mob of undereducated, poorly raised boors.

One woman started ranting and foaming at the mouth, literally screaming at me for daring to call her, because her husband was in Mexico City---whether he was ill, or just unable to leave Mexico, I haven't a clue. "How DARE you call me, when my husband is in Mexico City!" are pretty much her exact words...she was so loud and incohereant, I literally couldn't understand her.

Do these mad people not understand that total strangers calling them, so do NOT have an effing crystal ball??? I am not Sophie the stinking physic!

I tried to be sympathetic, I really, really tried. I was a carer for over 10 years, I've had family emergencies, I do very much understand....but the freaked out witch wasn't having any, and my saying to her, "I'm sorry, I'm so very, very sorry..." And, I meant it, too! But, that only served to freak freaky lady out of control even more, and she cranked up the volume and began ranting about telemarketers calling her during....well, I don't like to, but I just hung up. You can reason with completely unreasoning people.

Apparently she's one of those sheltered living in a bubble people, who have never had anything bad happen to them, and/or have always had someone there to clean up the mess for them.

And, I had several women and a couple of men, just hang up the phone on me in mid-conversation--a normal conversation! In most cases, I wasn't even selling, I was telling them about a website that they'd already paid to access! Ass. Holes. Rude people are rude, because they lack the brains, depth and character to be anything else.

I rang up some woman in Georgia, and her kid was so nice. I mean, most wee kids answering the phone these days, have crap for manners...really, manners of poo. "Who's this!" That is NOT the way a human being answers the phone. That's what a dumb thing that doesn't know right from wrong, does. These parents are not raising kids, they are not parents. They are very much zookeepers.

Anyway, that's my rant about lazy rotten parents...so, nice, nice kid answered the phone--so nice, I even complemented his mum...who...yup, hung up on me in mid-conversation, without so much as a goodbye.

Americans are morons...they are so lazy, they can't even say "good-bye" during a conversation now! Freaks.

America has becme such a madhouse cesspool of humanity, it's...boggling.

I hopped a bus downtown, to walk around (I could have walked by my bad foot is acting up)...so I walked around, and saw a new little boutique of some sort. Went in, and this trendy looking woman--the type with the bobbed hair, conservative clothing, etc.--this woman began following me around...mind you, it's a small enough shop that she could have just stood there by the till and watched me.

Anyway, I thought she was merely anxious to make a sale, or had unusually good service...but then, I noted that for some reason, that trendy woman kept looking over her shoulder, at the ceiling behind the till counter. I thought that was rather odd...did she have a wasp or something in the room?

That's when I noticed the security camera. This woman thought I was a shoplifter, 'cos I wasn't dressed all that nice--today I wasn't feeling great, and went more hillbilly than metrosexual, this afternoon. (Though I'll have to dress nice for the office tonight, of course).

Jeez! I was just LOOKING, it's never occured to me in my life, to shoplift, seriously, it hasn't! It's not the first time.

Yet, celebrities and other posh, well-to-do people have been known to have light fingers, and no one would dream of following them around, 'cos hey, look at them, they dress posh.

Just as many people--too many--equate poverty with lack of intelligence, so do people equate poverty or even low self-esteem, with crimianl behaviour.

Well, we're all guilty of it, at some time or another.

Just the other day, I was riding on the bus, and sitting across from me was this really tough looking young guy, a tattooed slovely dressed skinhead type. I eyed him and wondered if he was a gang member or something. Then, he went to get off the bus. He was carrying a skateboard and it bumbed into my arm. He looked down and said, very nicely, "Oh, sorry about that, you OK?" Then, he got off...followed by three young boys, aged roughly 5 to 10 years old. Holding the 5 year old by the hand, all carrying skateboards under their arms, the three of them crossed the street to Crandall Park.

And I felt like a complete idiot. I, whom try so hard not to judge people by their looks--even tredny yuppie bitches, ha-ha, well, now I got caught out doing just that. DOH--call it human nature, I suppose. Lesson learned, moving on.

My neighbour's sister was sitting on the outside stoop when I was taking out the rubbish bag to our bin. She asked me what I was doing, I said just tidying up a bit, and she asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her. Had nothing pressing on, it's a sunny summer-like day--another abnormally hot day in the 80's F, so I shrugged and tagged along.

Turns out she was going to the Salvation Army on the next street over. Well, she was going to get free day-old bakery items and some clothing. Apparently there's a free clothing room there. Well, I am poverty level, tho' on the high-end of the poverty scale for a single person, thankfully (I have actually been on the very low end of the scale...not a pleasant way to live, that).

The volunteer at the desk asked if I was on benefits. I said yes, and without another word, she handed me slip of paper, and we trundled off to the basement to the clothing room. Cool.

Long story short, I don't have to worry about summer or winter wear, any longer. I've got something for every occasion, from western wear to posh evening attire, from pretty jumpers to a spiderman tee, from trendy trouser suits to flannel shirts. Wow.

At the Sally Army, there's a 20 item limit, and I walked away with 12 items--short sleeve blouses, a tee shirt, some genuinely lovely jumpers, a skirt, a pair of slacks, a long sleeve silk blouse, a posh top, and some socks...oh, and two pairs of nice trainers and a pair of dress shoes. The woman kept trying to get me to take more, but I'm a bit old-fashioned and think there's a time when enough is enough. Not that I don't get tempted, and never have been tempted, but, I have never been comfortable being a greedy-guts, truth to tell.

Still, I've now got a very...eclectic, wardrobe! I don't have any skirts any longer--lost so much weight that they looked more like tents from Omar than skirts-- so I was rather chuffed to find nice burgundy and navy blue tartan one--with posh belt attatched. I'm not a huge skirt wearer, preferring dresses or trouser suits, but it's always nice to have at least one or two in the wardrobe.

So, this old maid is now a bit of a female hillybilly/metrosexual, ha-ha.

Holy cats, I've suddenly got more clothing now, than I've very, very, very, literally ever had in my whole entire life! How cool is that?

Wow. I got a junk e-mail: "Find prison records on anyone, online."

Now, not sure why I'd ever want to do that, but I am sometimes insatiably curious...this morning is one of those days, and I thought, 'why not, I'll have a look."

Whoa. This website claims that you can sign up to look for ANYONE'S: prison record, marriage/death record, bankruptcy, credit rating...well, everything but the size of the underpants they buy...and I wouldn't put it past them.

The testimonials on the site, are the REALLY scary things, though: (and these are direct quotes, I'm NOT making any of this up!)

"My hobby is looking up prison data online. I never told anyone this before! But now you have made it so easy for me to do it I can spend even more time finding the information I want quickly, easily and affordably.”--Susan J, Providence , RI

I always had a strange feeling about my neighbor, something about him made me suspicious. As soon as I ran a criminal records search using _____ I saw my instincts were right and called the cops. Thank you _____ for making my neighborhood safer. “---Michelle Springs, Boise, ID

"I was scheduled to meet with a new business partner tomorrow and sign important papers. I was a bit nervous, so I thought I would do a little checking up first. I really didn’t think I would find much, but WOW! I found out information about her that really saved me a lot of heartache. Thanks so much!"---Pam T, Syracuse , NY

Yep, kiss your privacy goodbye, people, courtesey of the World Wide Web.

The girl who e-mailed me that strange David Tennant meme a few days ago, sent it to me again, for some reason. OK, yeah, if my nights get any duller, I'm going to atrophy into a pillar of salt, but I'm not THAT desperate! Seriously...no.

She also sent along yet another meme (she sent the one I did this morning). I have no life, and this proves it:

A. Someone is coming to visit the place where you live. What attractions would you tell them to visit?

Majorca, this city is the pits.

B. Honestly: how do you feel about gays and lesbians?

Am I supposed to feel anything in particular? They're people, just like everyone else. What do I care what sex they prefer to love? I've had straight friends, gay friends...even was acquatted with what my sister rather rudely referred to a as a he/she...a bloke who'd just had a sex change operation..."her" name was May, and I liked her very much, tho' I never saw her often enought to actually become friends. I never saw May as anyone but herself. I really don't care about gender...a nice person is a nice person, and a wanker is a wanker...and most of us are slotted somewhere in between. Period. End of this discussion.

C. Do you think there could be a TV movie based on your life?

Erm--let's see: Fat ugly woman who walks with a limp, telemarkets for a living, lives with three cats, never has visitors and rarely goes more than 2 miles from home? A woman whom has never had sex, or been kissed by a boy, has not dated in 12 years and has no intention of ever having sexual relations with anyone, a woman who is often grumpy and depressed, and spend half her day either blogging or writing Dr Who stories or watching Dr Who or listening to the 200 songs on her playlist player? A woman with bi-polar who has an income at the high end of the US poverty level? A woman who doesn't drink and has never done drugs or partied?

No sex, wealth, drugs/drink, or violence?

Erm--that would be a big "no" then....unless some idiot decides to do a documentary on ugly dull old maids?

D. Last time you ate pizza?

A while back I had a small BBQ chicken pizza delivered from East End Eatery...nom-nom!

E. Describe your current location:

Living room in a dingy little apartment on my city's main street. There's traffic going by intermittently. It's hot in here, but a cool breeze wafting though my balcony window is making it more comfy. The room's a bit more cluttered than I'd like--I went from a 72 foot long 14 foot wide caravan home, to a 2 bedroom flat, to a two room apartment....gets a bit cramped trying to fit everything in, even tho' I don't actually have all that much furniture by normal standards. The building is plain brick and compared to all the stately old Victorian-era homes on the main street, it looks like it should be condemned...most people would pass it by without ever noticing it.

F. Have you ever met an Elvis impersonator?

Strangely enough, yes I have. I had to interview a mob of Elvis's at the local Elvis Festival on it's opening year back in 2004, for my college's newspaper.

G. Do you punch a time clock or use a time card at work?

Sadly yes. I miss my stable hand job--I started when I started around 7am and finished whenever I finished--might be 2pm, or might be 6pm or later, depending on the time of year, weather, etc.... and my boss would make note of when I left, and I'd be paid accordingly. If the boss wasn't around, I'd just tell her the next day, what time I left--it was basically done on the honor system, and it never occured to me to cheat. (I adored my job, why would I?)

H. How do you feel right now?

My throat is burning, I'm hot, achey, tired and mildly depressed.

I. Favorite decade?

70's.

J. Would you want to know what you will look like, ten years from now?

I don't care, it's not important to me...I may not even be around, by then.

K. If you were given a million dollars, and told that the first time you spend it, some ordinary person, just like you, will die, as a direct result of you buying that first item. Tell the truth: would you do it anyway?

I know a few people that probably would, but no, I seriously wouldn't be able to live with the guilt.

L. Ever watched a living thing die up close?

Sadly yes, both animals and a person. Not something I like to discuss.

M. Ever looked up your family tree?

That was mum's hobby for over 25 years. I helped sometimes, and mum used to talk about it a lot, but I only looked stuff up on microfiche, computer, etc. to assist mum.

N. Favorite thing to order in a Chinese resturant?

Usually sweet and sour chicken with plain lo mein and egg roll, or boneless BBQ ribs and fries...Main Moon makes awesome french fries.

O. Favorite brand of chewing gum?

I rarely chew gum, but sometimes Big Red, Chicklets or Clark's teaberry.

P. Strangest flavour chewing gum you'd ever tried?

Well, once I had some spruce gum--made from spruce sap. That was...different. Adam's clove gum, Blackjack licorice gum, I've also tried cola gum, and apple flavor (bleh).

Q. Heaviest item you lift regularly?

I'd love to say my wallet, but alas, it's probably a full large laundry bag, or maybe a shopping back full of cat food tins and soda bottles.

R. Last song you listened to?

What Katie Did by the Libertines.

S. How many books do you own?

I haven't counted lately, but probably around 150, give or take a few.

T. What types of books do you have on your shelves?

All sorts: Westerns, sci-fi/fantasy, mysteries, standard and a few modern classics, some misc. fiction, assorted non-fiction: plays, poetry, horse books, nature books, bigoraphies, history, religions, the arts, textbooks, writing books, ancient (Greek-Roman-Egyptian) literature, Shakespeare, politics, misc. fiction.

U. How many CD's do you own?

With the two my friend posted to me, I now own about 7 or 8 CD's I think. I've never owned a CD player (tho' I do own a record player), and CD's usually for my budget, are outrageiously expensive, so I've rarely bothered with them.

V. Type of music you listen to?

Indie, pop, rock, folk, oldies/disco, classical, jazz, blues, western swing, big band, new age.

W. Do you hurt anywhere right now?

Yes, I "Popped" my bad foot--the ligament--yesterday, and now it's swollen and red and basically is very uncofortable. Also have a mild burning throat, don't know what that's about, maybe it's just dry, from the heat.

W. Weekend plans?

I'll be weekending at my farm lady friend's place. On Sunday, after helping milk the cows, she and I are going to a BBQ cookout in the afternoon.

X. Plans for the next big holiday weekend?

I requested Memorial Day weekend off, a month in advance--hopefully they'll give it to me...it means working extra hours to make up the loss, though, but three days off will seem like paradise...and, if things work out, I'll be going to put flowers on mum's grave, and also going to Ted's Fish Fry...and maybe bring a sliced sausage pizza home from Papa's Corner Resturant (5182733270--haven't ordered from them in 25 years, but I still remember their phone number, ha-ha).

Y. Last meal you ate?

I WAS supposed to have one of my fav dinners: butter chicken curry with cauliflower and rice pilaf...but, wasn't a bit hungry, so because I have to eat something in order to take my Metformin, I settled for nuking a couple of hot dogs in the microwave.

Z. Have you ever lost the use of some part of your body, either temporarily or permanently?

Sure, when I mess up my foot, I couldn't walk for a good many weeks...hurt my back and could barely moved for months, almost ended up in a wheelchair. I'm very slightly deaf in my right ear, and am gradually losing my eyesight in one eye.

It's hot. I've barely eaten a thing all day...had a sandwich a 1pm, and now it's half-past 10pm, and I've still not had any dinner... and I'm tired as hell...but, could be worse, I suppose.

I swear-to-god, normally, with my training, I can edit and/or partially re-write a story, essay, feature article or whatever, in a reasonable amount of time and have done with it.

But, this story I've been editing, Rain of Terror---it's cursed. I swear, it's like someone's placed some kind of mysterious Dr Who curse on it!

At every turn, this story does not seem to want to be edited and re-published. OK, it's a crap story, but still...wow. It's getting bizzare. First, the auto-save started going mad, and freezing my screen up every few seconds while it supposedly saved my work (more on that in a moment), then, copy/paste went wonky, and wouldn't work right--several times causing me to lose a few hour's worth of work.

Now tonight, as I finished editing Rain of Terror (hoo-ray, I thought--ha!), I posted it, hit "publish" and....got kicked off the blog! Did the aforementioned bizzarely behaving autosave, actually save my work before Wordpress gave me the boot? NO, it didn't.

In the words of TV character Gomer Pyle, USMC: "Sir-prize, sir-prize, sir-prize!"

I know the story is crap, other people know the story is crap--or else why is it one of the least-read stories on my blog? So, not sure why I am bothering with this.

I'm going to ditch my wordpress blog though. Not delete it right off, but set up a new blog on some other site (can't do it here, I don't have a pro account and can only do group blogs), where I can edit and post without all these stinking bugs!

Does Russell T. Davies or Steven Moffatt or Gareth Roberts have to put up with this crap? Probably not. They can afford proper word processors and writing software...and have a proper venue for their work. They don't have to blog their writing, like average slobs like me...they have talent and experience, they don't don't have to put up with this rubbish.

Wow. My country isn't perfect. We have genocide, slavery, torture, poltical imprisonment and other crimes on hands for the past 200+ years.

From the deliberate and accidental genocide and mass murder of Native Americans by the tens of thousands, to condoning slavery for over 100 years, to torture of slaves and, more recently, prisoners of war (some robotic droolers will downplay reality, and call them "enemy combatants", but they're still POW's no matter what half-baked name the propaganda vomiters slap on them)--the very illegal imprisonment of criminally innocent political dissenters and pro-union supporters in the lead up to WW I, the internment of legally born Japanese Americans during WWII, to the communist trials of the McCarthy era...America doesn't exactly always have a magnificent past.

So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I read psuedo-Americans threatening to harm the US president, when a national talk show host publicly wishes the new president--and therefore, the ENTIRE COUNTRY--to fail.

When everyday American citizens who happen to also be gun owners, start threatening to shoot anti-gun/anti-crime supporters and environmentalists.

When so-called American "Christians," threaten the lives of gays and people who support abortions. God of love? Bullshit! Prove it! Start loving your enemies, instead of trying to kill them, yeah?

When citizens threaten to stop paying taxes or want to eliminate taxes---thereby, blithely endanering the lives of BILLIONS of Americans--even their own selves, because it's their effing TAXES that pay for ambulances, fire trucks, policemen and fireman's salaries, medical care for the elderly and disabled and poor CHILDREN, and natural disaster relief, as well. It's their TAXES that pay the soldier's salaries, and pay for the equipment to help those stay alive and defend America and other nations.

When so-called ordinary people, turn into sniveling completely irrational cowards, and honestly believe that it's OK to hurt, stalk, berate or harrass innocent people, people they don't personally know--just because that person either doesn't agree with their beliefs, or called their house on a wrong number, or simply dared to walk across the street when they were in their car and in a hurry to get to Joe's Bar, or McDonald's or Wal-mart or wherever.

NO, it's not OK, and it's NOT normal, to stalk, or to injure or to harrass someone. In the civilized world, that is most emphatically NOT acceptible behavior.

But, Americans are proving themselves to be weakings at every turn...just like they did when slavery was legal--took nearly 150 years to abolish it, that's not being strong. They were weak when they allowed torture and genocide and all the other bad stuff.

And, they are weak now, some of them. A weakness brewing for the last 20 years of too easy living and constant right-wing propaganda....and, like so many bad things in America's past...I don't see this changing very soon. Americans have gotten so they like the easy way of life--it's easy to lash out irrationally. It's not easy to have a civilized discussion...even harder to pause, to hold your tongue, and stop to think and reflect and search for answers and other viewpoints. That takes patience and courage.

Americans are the laziest people on earth. They are mentally lazy--impatient, prefering reacting to thinking, because reacting is the path of least resistance. They prefer to lash out and verbally or even physically assult someone, becuse...it's easy.

Again. Caring and thinking take courage, reacting and hurting, take zero effort. It's far easier to be a zero than a hero, and calling names and being sarcastic and screaming and hitting and shooting and bombing---that's the past of least reisistane...the way of the lazy. Cowards are, by nature, the laziest thinking and feeling people on the planet.

What might have been, in my own personal opinion, one of the greatest race horses of the 21 century, is being honoured at Churhill Downs in Kentucky, the racetrack hosting America's most famous and well-known horse race: The Kentucky Derby.

I only saw this horse a few times in photographs, and only saw him once before his famous race in the 2006 Kentucky Derby. But, based on a newspaper photo alone, I bet on him...and won.

Barbaro had that rare look, that only comes along in a horse once or twice in a lifetime: "The look of eagles."

That's what old-time horseman here, have called the expressions of other famous horses: Man O' War, Gallant Fox, Exterminator, Secretariat, and all the rest of the truly noble, gallant and brave horses of a century.

I cried so hard, the day Barbaro went down, during his running of the second leg of the Tripe Crown of horse racing here, the Preakness Stakes. Oh, how I cried. I will probably never watch the Triple Crown again. I don't want to. I broke my heart that day.

Barbaro fought a good fight, but in the end, disease took him. He is being honoured by having a broze statue unveiled at Churchill Downs, in time for Kentucky Derby Week, this coming May. And, well deserved it is, too.

THE LOOK OF EAGLES: BARBARO

I love you, Barbaro, I'll never forget you, as long as I live. Rest in Peace.

Well, I'm up, and since I'm a bit rubbish today, I have time.

. Where were you one hour ago?

Just waking up.

2. Who will be your next kiss?

Nobody. Unlike the utterly rubbish gossip by dull tossers, which I'm reading about in the online papers, about Susan Boyle's old maid status, I'm the real deal and really haven't ever been kissed.

3. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Erm...the warning labels on my prescription bottles are pink, for some reason.

4. When is the last time you went to the mall?

About a month ago?

5. Are you wearing socks right now? What color are they?

Yup, they're grey.

6. When was the last time you went out of town?

I went to Saratoga Springs 15 miles away, about 11 months ago...and it's not really out of town..they're both only about 7 miles away, but I've gone to my friend's partner's dairy farm in Fort Edward/Argyle a couple of times over this winter..January and February, and also to Lake George by trolley last summer, a few times.

7. Have you been to see a movie in the last 5 days?

No, not been to a movie since late 2005, when I went to the Glen drive-in to see a double feature.

8. What was the last thing you had to drink?

Diet caffine free Pepsi last night.

9. What are you wearing right now?

grey socks, Rider blue jeans, plain black ladies tee shirt

10. Have you been in a car wash?

Of course, but not in a long while, as I haven't had a car since August 2006.

11. Last food you ate?

Braised beef short ribs, baby carrots, mashed potatoes last night.

12. Where were you last week on Saturday?

Working at the office like I always do, then checking out an apartment that was for rent, spending a few minutes at the new public library downtown, then later, going to the supermarekt to finish my weekly grocery shopping.

13. Have you bought any clothes in the last week? Describe?

I won a $25 gift card to Tractor Supply Co. in a charity raffle, so I bought a tee shirt, and used the rest of the cash on the card to put a layaway plan down payment on another tee and a short-sleeve.

The stuff I bought/put on payments: I bought a brown tee with a drawing of a pink tractor, that says "A tractor of a different color." The other two are a powder blue tee with a drawing of a cowgirl barrel racer on a horse, racing round a barrel, that says, "Turn and burn." The blouse is pink and white and has a print of wee flowers and horseshoes on it.

I also bought two tee shirts at the Everything for One Dollar shop, next to Tractor Supply, since they were only a $1 each. I got one plain Haines laides tee in magenta (dark pink), and one in black (which I'm wearing now).

14. When was the last time you ran?

Since I eessentially shredded the ligament in the top of my foot to hell and gone in 2007, I am no longer capable of running--it's more like a really gimpy skip-hop, ha-ha.

15. What’s the last sporting event you watched? Would you want to be one of the players?

Probably night harness racing. When I worked at the casino/race track in Saratoga Spings in 2006, I used to sit and watch the horse races during my tea breaks.

I used to day dream in my youth, of sitting in a racing sulky behind a trotter or pacer, sure. I'd love to learn to drive a horse, tho' I'd be rubbish at racing, probably. It's not as easy as it may look to spectators!

16. What is/was your favorite class?

Wow, that's hard. I had a lot of classes I loved. I guess that would have been either any one of my theater classes--particulary playwriting and acting, or my journalism class, my broadcast writing class, then there was my international studies seminar on water in the US/Netherlands in 2001 which was brilliant and life changing, my state and local politics class, or maybe my phys ed class in western horsemanship, or the archeology classes...oh god, I'm afraid I can't just choose one, sorry.

17. Your dream vacation?

I really don't know. Something different--I'm so not the lay around on the beach, type! I want to relax, sure, but I also want to get out and have adventures and discover and explore, as well..and shop, shopping is nice.

Maybe a train trip, or a boating trip, horse drawn wagon trip--not the usual go to the beach, get a tan trip thank you very much! If a relaxing holiday, I think riding along on a canal boat or on a scenic train trip would be brilliant.

Or, I might go for a holiday with some variety. For example, like in Iceland, I could go horse riding, whale watching, go to museums, concerts, maybe go on a snowmobiling tour to the top of a real glacier, or take a cruise on a glacial lagoon, see natural wonders, take a plane trip to Greenland, take a very relaxing long soak in the hot springs at The Blue Lagoon...that sort of trip would be my idea of a grand holiday, I reckon.

18. Last 3 peoples houses you were in?

My neighbour's flat across the hall, my farm lady friend's home, a few months ago...and that's it, I'm afraid.

19. How old are your parents?

Both desceased, dad in 2004, mum in 2005. Dad had just turned 80 and died of lung cancer/heart disease. Mum was 79, died died from complications from long-term kidney failure.

20. Who would you like to be with?

My friends, Dr Who fans, horsey people, farmers, writers, other liberals, theater people, people with interesting jobs or hobbies...and well...nice people in general? Note I didn't say family. I love them dearly, but...we're just not very close--never have been, and sis and I are just so completely opposite in our outlook on life, to ever be close, unfortunately.

21. Do you miss anyone?

Oh god yes, I miss my mum, sometimes my dad, my cat Red, my dog Shamrock, my ne'er do well nephew Josh whom I've not seen or spoken to since Nov. of 2005, my sister too--even tho' she's a pain in the ass emotionally, to have to deal with.

22. Last play you saw?

The Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy at the Wood theater downtown, back in Sept. of 2008.

23. What are your plans for today?

Well, my health has caused them to change, so I really don't know. I have to work tonight, so there's that.

24. Who was the last person that commented on your page?

Seasideman, I think.

25. Ever go to camp?

Sort of. I went to Girl Scout camp once when I was around 9, and to a camp in the Adirondacks with my 7th grade class, for an outdoor weekend. I had a grand time hiking and swiming and all that, but came home with bronchitis.

26. Were you an honor roll student in school?

Not as a child/teen. I barely graduated from 8th grade, and was pretty much at the bottom of a class of 500 students (453 out of 500) in high school. However, in 2002 at my community college I was a member of the National Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa, and cum laude.

27. What do you want to know about the future?

Absolutely nothing. Possibly the weather and water problems will worsen. More dieases will spread, and, possibly, and more wars and violence will break out. If America avoids a civil war with ultra-right wing conservatives and gun lovers vs. everyone else, it will be only because of things I cannot forsee at this time. I do know I will still be poor very probably...but no, I cannot predict the future, so why waste time trying?

28.Are you wearing any perfume or cologne?

No. Can't really afford that sort of luxury right now...I'm not purposely this way, but I seem to have expense tastes in perfume, and don't like buying that smelly imitation stuff from Family Dollar or Walmarts.

29. Where are your best friends located?

England, Scotland, USA, Croatia.

30. Do you have a tan?

Nope, after nearly 6 months of winter, I'm a bit walli-peely, I'm afraid. Back when I worked and played outdoors all the time, I generally used to be one of those people that tanned naturally.

31. How old do you want to be when you have kids?

I'm past it for that, and I wasn't ever meant to have a partner or hubby, so I don't think kids are ever going to be a possiblity...and I would have to adopt, because I can't..well..forget it.

32. Do you collect anything?

Model horses, horse-related antiques, Dr Who books. I have most of my late mum's cat knick-knack collection as well, tho' I don't collect cats myself.

33. Last time you got stopped by a cop or pulled over?

2004.

34. Have you ever drank a soda from a straw?

Well, of course!

35. How do you like your drinks?

Ice cold..unless we're talking coffee or cocoa, of course.

36. Do you like hot sauce?

Not crazy about it, no.

37. Last time you took a shower?

About an hour or so ago.

38. Who do you have a crush on?

Definately not David Tennant...maybe Pierce Brosnan?

39. What is your mood?

Bit depressed, discouraged.

40. Are you someones best friend?

You know, I honestly don't know. Am I? No one's ever told me that, lately, that I know of, so I don't think so.

41. Are you rich?

No, I'm just the opposite. I can feed myself (usually) and keep the roof over my head, and soemtimes buy little things for myself, like some nice shampoo or socks or tee shirts or a pizza, but no, very much not rich.

It's going for 10am here. I feel like rubbish, unfortunately. It seems, this morning, that I've contracted a stomach bug of some sort. I hope things get better before I have to leave for work tonight. Working 6 days a week didn't used to bother me in the least, but right now, it's a drag. The physican's assistant wanted me to take two week's off to rest---yeah, well, HE may get sick pay if he's out of work, but I don't, so that's so not going to happen--unless I get sacked, I suppose. Hope I'm well by this weekend, as I'd hate to miss going to the farm and then to the BBQ cookout. I've not socialized with a group since I'd left college, in 2005, so it will be nice to get out and be with people, for a bit.

I managed to walk to the lanndromat and back yesterday, without keeling over, so I guess I'll survive.

It's to be an almost unnaturally baking hot day here, nearly 90 F! The leaves aren't even completely out on the trees yet--the buds only just came out on them, last week. The grass has only just started growing again, and there's still quite a few brown spots left over from winter.

I read where Dr Who didn't get any BAFTA's this year. How rubbish is that? Well, I'm sure the winners deserved their awards, though.

Well, think I'll go back to bed for a while. It's not what I'd planned on doing this morning. I'd planned on going to the laundromat again, but with a dodgy stomach and feeling as weak as I am, don't think that would be entirely wise. I was having chest pains and dizzy spells last night. I don't want to coddle myself, but then again, I don't want to end up in hospital again, either.

I'll do something productive today. Maybe hoover the lounge carpet, later. I can sit and do that, and go out on on my tiny little balcony and sweep all the winter's dirt away.

Have a good day, all.

Argh--not sure what the hell I just did, but I just errased an entire post!

I need a new keyboard..this one was giving to me, used, and it's nearing the end of it's shelf life, I fear--the keys stick, or simply don't type a letter, it does weird stuff all the time...like errasing text I just wrote. I have no clue what I just did, really.

I'm under the weather tonight. Having chest pains again, and feel light-headed. Maybe overdid it today, walking to the laundromat and back with 2 day's laundry.

I heard a nice music track tonight, called "Amplify the Circle". Now, I am so not a metal fan. There's a few metal songs that I will listen to, but I've never been terribly fond of loud discordant music, or "shout/scream" singing...I grew up in a very dysfuctional family, I really don't like shouting and screaming, ha-ha. But this tune, by On A Pale Horse, was more of a folk-rock tune--a total deviation to what they normally do, and it's great! Little bit country, a little bit rock and roll--and with some excellent banjo playing thrown in. Sort of reminds me of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Anyway, spent the night trying to move Evil Water's forward. That's this daft Dr Who story I've been working on since December. I'm thinking of deleting it. It's not necessarily boring me, so much as it's not really grabbing me. That's not good. If a story's not grabbing the writer, what's the poor reader going to think? Normally, I have a blast writing Who-fics...but, my concentration and enthusiasm aren't with this one. My mind isn't fuctioning as well as it could be, of late, and between difficulty concentrating and my wonky eyesight, it's a real chore these days, writing and editing things--I have to be extra careful and re-read stuff twice as often as I used to have to do.

Evil Waters just...sucks. So, I might just dump it and forget it. I don't know. I get so few visitors on my wordpress blog--most of them looking for Who-porn, probably..which I don't do.

Though...maybe...? Can a very genuine old maid who really hasn't ever been kissed, write convincing porn fiction? Not that I'm being serious, but....ya' gotta' wonder.

I was thinking also, tonight, about the 2009 specials..how many loose ends will Davie's wrap up?

Will Donna remember the Doctor? Will she ever find her lover from The Library? Will the vashna nerada come back? Or the creature from the space bus? Will the series 5 companion be introduced in epidsode..what? 18? Who else besides the Nobles and the Master, will Davies' be bringing back? And, just how will Tennant do his "death" scene?

So many questions...I love questions, don't you? I may have lost a lot of things these past few years, but two things I hope I never lose: my sense of humour, and my sense of curiosity.

I'm not going to be online much, next weekend. I will be going to my friend's farm after work to visit and help with the cows and other farm chores. Sunday, the two of us have been invited by a co-work to a VFW BBQ cookout. My late dad was post commander of our village Veterans of Foreign Wars post, back in the 70's, and actually, that's how I got my first actual job, waitressing for dinners, weddings and banquets, back when I was 14 years old.

Well, I've lost weight again...not on purpose. A few days ago, I'd gained a pound, now I've lost two in the last day or so...ha-ha, maybe my body is bi-polar too.

Well, for everything you lose, supposedly you gain something. I lost most of my family, my future (college education), my home, pets, 2 jobs, car, personal possessions, and my health, in the last 3 years. What have I gained?

Well, I survived trial after trial, without committing suicide or becoming homeless...I'm sitting here in my apartment and I have a job, and still have 3 cats. I'm getting out a bit more, and living a slightly more normal life, tho' I'm still suffering from bouts of depression.

After mum passed on in 05, I spent the next 6 to 8 months totally alone and utterly friendless. I saw my sister twice in 2006, only for an hour or two, each time, no one else. No. One.

Then, I found a few friends...then some more friends--beautiful, wonderful, funny, compassionate, interesting, lovely, lovely friends---more friends than I've ever had at any one time in my life--most of whom I'd never met.

At the beginning of the 21st century, I had it all: my own home, a car, possessions, family, was working my way towards a better and brighter future by going back to school full-time...for everything you gain, you lose something as well. Well, I guess that's true. Almost everything I started this decade with, is now gone. But, I have friends...and maybe that's all I really need?

Dang. My abscess opened and started bleeding again...and dribbled on a brand new tee shirt I only just wore for the first time today! Dang! It's one I bought last autumn but never wore before, because right after I bought it, the weather turned to cold too wear it--so, I shoved it in a wardrobe shelf...and only just remembered today that I had it! I thought, "weather's brilliant, let's wear the new tee!" It's a royal blue tie-dye tee with an advert for a local business on the front...and now, two spots of blood....right on the chest area where they will surely be noticable.

I don't have any spot remover in my flat, and my late mum's old book, "Household Hints from Heloise" has long been lost....any ideas how I can save this tee?

Another deliciously gorgeous day, dropping in our laps where I live. I was offline most of the day, due to an outage with my ISP. Must have been a big one, 'cos when I rang up Time Warner, all I got was a recording saying they couldn't handle the volume of calls, and they weren't answering their phones any longer.

Now there's good customer service during a recession, ey?

Flame was sick last night--she threw up rather badly, and seemed a bit wobbly, but she ate a bit this morning, and seems hungry enough now.

Poor wee mite. She panics easily...she was such a sick kitten for a long time--messed up her eyesight, and she doesn't take any sort of upset--physcial or emotional--very well. She was quite upset over the loss of mum, took her ages to adjust...just like it took Charlie ages to adjust to the loss of Redcat, my 18 year old.

Charlie was the only cat out of the other six cats, that Red would allow near him...Red wasn't mean, just the opposite, Red was incredibly devoted and loving, but, when it came to his feline "space," Red really didn't like any other cats being too near him. He preferred to sleep alone--but a young Charlie was persistant, and finally, my old buddy Red accepted Charlie, and they became best mates.

After I had to put Red down, Charlie withdrew into himself and would allow me or any other cat near him...now, he's OK, in fact, he's gotten a bit clingy of late, and wants to be around me a lot, and sleeps with me sometimes, purring contentedly and even sharing my pillow (except for those rare times he has fleas).

I have to walk over to the laundromat in a bit. Going to fry up a cheeseburger for a quick lunch, first. Have a good night all, Cheers.

I am so hopelessly Whovian.

I had several Dr Who moments this week.

Tuesday night, I phoned a man named Mr. Dalek...not joking. A couple of weeks ago, I had a Mrs. Bogdalek...and Friday night, I phoned....a Mrs. KALED (the name of the Dalek home world). I'm serious!

I mean, my wonky brain of late, being what it is, I didn't connect them all, until now.

On another front, I went to the library Saturday afternoon, after work. I still owe for those lost books mum took out on my card when I was away overseas, and never told me about--oh, and by the way, did you know that you can actually "rent" books online now? Like take them out for a whole summer or something...like you can rent a cottage or a horse or a boat for the summer, now you can also rent a book, too?

Anyway I digress, sorry. As I was saying, I drifted over to the library to browse, it's true I can't check anything out, but...I can sit and read, which I do once in a very rare while. Sitting in the public library, over the past couple of years, I've read A Walk in Ancient Rome--which was great, a biography of early aviator Noel Wien, called Pioneer Bush Pilot, an old Dr Who Target paperback, a couple of mysteries, a western, two Horiatio Hornblower books and most of the mildly humourous golfing novel "A Muligan for Bobby Jobe"--(which I'd love to finish, but someone checked it out and didn't return it, alas).

Well, as some of you know, I'm not in the best of health of late.

I had a quick chore to do downtown, and after the walk down there from the office--it's only a few minutes, but I really have been a bit under the weather of late...my heart was beating like a Keith Moon drum solo, and I needed a short rest, so I grabbed a few magazines and thumbed through them, while I re-charged my batteries. I didn't stay long...truthfully, I was dreading the fifteen or twenty minute walk home...my foot's not doing so hot of late, either...anyway, I was just walking out the door, and looking north rather forlornly, feeling slightly sorry for myself, and debating whether to take a cab home or not.

Long story short, I heard someone call my name, and turned to see a co-worker coming from the cashpoint machine at the bank next door to the library. She asked me if I wanted a ride up Glen Street....oh yes!

And, totally unbidden at that moment, the thought snapped into my head, "Nancy G___ has left the library. Nancy G___ has been saved."

**(reference to Silence in the Library episode.)

Oh, and while in the library, there, sitting on the table among some other books, was a book titled, "Voyage of the Damned." Only, this was a much more sober book--it was about Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, by boat..according to the dust jacket.

Hey, it's a daft post, I know, but give me a break..it's half-past three in the morning and I'm too hot to sleep.

I just got a totally stupid comment--again. Third one I've had to ignore/delete in the last couple of days...they are getting weirder and weirder, these idiot Americans.

This one, totally illogically appeard in the David Tennant meme...OK, I know that there's a few...overly enthusiastic...DT fans out there, but this was just...well..stupid and bizzare.

Well, like the last illogical, raving right-wing freak coment, this one, I didn't even bother to read past the first few words...this mentally unbalanced--and extremely babyish--note, was involving a lot of talk about pigs and snorting, asking why I don't write back or some such palaver...I don't know what he or she was on about...and...who cares?

The writer---probably another nutter from Minnesota--what the hell is with Minnestoans this year??? I mean, they always were a bit tightly wound, but lately, the right-wing freaks are coming out of the woodwork--I wouldn't be surprised if the next act of domestic terrorism came from someone in Minnesota. Cripes...the writer can't even discuss anything without sounding like a tempermental 2 year old not getting his or her bottle fast enough.

In other word's this particular nutter's door was open, but nobody's home, apparently. The toys are missing from the nursery. The fuse box is there, but the fuses have all blown. pig person's is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, his chippy's missing the chips. Oh, this is fun, I could do this all night, ha-ha.

Anyway, I have to monitor my blog now, cos' I dont' want to give these weanies a platform to vomit on. Ignore/delte...the ultimate power! Mrawhahaha! Democrats rule, republicans drool!

So, I wound up editing tonight, afterall. I put my Playlist Player on, and worked on a couple of chapters. Not the most exciting way to spend a Saturday evening alone, but it does make the time go by quickly.

Changing this: (except from the end of Chapter 11)

The Dalek moved closer. “Questions are not necessary. Are you one who travels with the Doc-tor?” Donna stood her ground, and said nothing. To her dismay, she soon realized that she would have to answer, when the Dalek said, “If you do not answer, you will be exterminated.” Hanging her head, she muttered. “Yeah, that’s me.” The Dalek’s eyestalk swiveled to look at a monitor on a nearby table. On the monitor was the image of the Doctor, surrounded by the slaves. Without looking at Donna, the Dalek said, “I have need of the Doc-tor’s Tardis, but I do not know its location. You will tell me where it is. If you do not, you will die.”

The Dalek somehow manipulated the screen to bring a map up on it. Systematically, it went through the map, until it found what it was looking for, a little green square. “The Gelina said they felt the death of one of their offspring. According to my data, it was in this place that is designated to be what you humans call a park. You shall take me there.” Donna was afraid, now. “What for?” She asked, even though she had a good guess. The Dalek trained it’s eyestalk on her. “You will open the Tardis for me, and then I shall travel into the past and bring back the millions of Daleks that the Doctor has destroyed. I will find the emperor, and rebuild the empire. We shall make this planet our new home.” Raising its gun arm triumphantly, it shouted, “Once again the Dalek race will rule the cosmos! Daleks are supreme!”

To this:

The Dalek moved closer. “Questions are not necessary. Are you one who travels with the Doc-tor?”

Raising its gun arm triumphantly, it shouted, “Once again the Dalek race will rule the cosmos! Daleks are supreme!”

The original story as it appeared as a first draft, appears at the bottom of the Dr Who page of "Movie fan fic chains.com" The edited version (so far) appears in my "Perfect 10 Dr Who stories" blog on Wordpress.

It was very unseasonably warm today...more like summer than spring. We are only just getting green buds on the trees and a few flowers--like tulips and daffodils--coming up...only just. The tulips aren't even in bloom, yet...there's still snow on the ski slopes of West Mountain, outside the city. It snow flurried in the mountains less than ten miles from here, last week.

New York hit record highs today:

Albany--the capital 50 miles south of here: 88 F (Previous record: 86 in 1915)

Glens Falls: 89 F (Previous record: 78 in 1982)

WOW! I knew it was hot, but it has been very windy, and so the heat wasn't felt as much.

It's even got to 90 F, fifty miles north from New York City!
We are usually a several degrees cooler than Albany, being only a tiny city of 15,000 souls just a couple of miles from the mountains, but today we were actually hotter.

It was a one-hit wonder though, and a cold-front coming through even as I speak, bringing showers and a few minor storms, will bring temps back down to normal, from the upper 50's F to mid 70's F, for the rest of the week...but oh, it was a glorius day! I was all ready to throw on my swimsuit and hit the lake, ha-ha.

Someone named "davidslady" said she got my e-mail from some forum...probably an older one, 'cos this came in my old throwaway e-mail address I normall reserve for junk and unimportant stuff.

I was going to delete it--as you know, I'm a fan, not a fan-girl, but I'm bored tonight. For the first time since August, it's 81 F in here, and it's too hot to sit and watch a film, or write or edit or much of anything else.

1. How long have you been a fan of David?

I guess within the first few episodes I saw of him in Dr Who...by late July or early August of 2006, I started to become enamored with his performances. He really blew me away with the range of his acting, his energy, and his obvious committment to both the role and to his craft.

2. What other roles have you seen David in?

Not a lot. I saw him in that one where he was a driving instructor. And, though I didn't know of him then, I remembered last year, seeing him in L.A. Without a Map, which was shown in one of my classes at college six or seven years ago, I think...but I had no clue who he was, back then. I've seen a couple of his short films, and Casenova. I've probably seen several snippets of him in other things, from what people have sent me, or what appeared as part of interviews or something..but I don't recall. I don't get BBC America or anything--don't get television reception any more. So, other than youtube or someone actually sending me stuff, or pure chance, I have no way to see Mr. Tennant's other work.

3. Did you get to see Hamlet or Love's Labour's Lost?

Ha! Right. Not every American is rich, sunshine. No, I couldn't even afford to to take a cab the 6 miles to Fort Edward tonight, for the "The Bard Meets Broadway" show put on by a local amateur theater group...I'll likely never be able to go abroad again in my lifetime, and unless my life changes in ways I don't foresee (for the positive, I mean), I doubt I will even be able to get a Hamlet DVD if one is ever released, someday.

4. How badly do you want to kiss David?

I hope this won't shock you, but I really have never once thought about kissing David Tennant--other than when someone brings it up in a meme question, ha-ha. If the gent is of a mind to hug me, that'd be OK, I suppose...but only if he really wanted to. I'd settle for a handshake, probably.

5. What do you think David is really like?

Oh, I wouldn't know! I can only give you a bare impression, formed mainly from DWC and talk show interviews and such:

He's had a good upbringing, and is very courteous and respectful. Seems genuinely compassionate. He strikes me as a bit of an obsessive neat-freak, someone who thrives on tidyness and order...he doesn't seem comfortable around animals, and doesn't look like the type that would ever be OK roughing it for long. I think perhaps the man's career is everything to him. It's his whole life. A workaholic? Yes, I think the man lives to be busy. I think it's possible he's a bit of an impatient man, at times...and certainly he's a bit hyper...not ADD hyper, just very type A personality hyper. And, perhaps he's somewhat rigid in his priciples and beliefs? Kind of closet perfectionist?

I think he's extremely competitive--he seems the type that hates to lose..but wouldn't begrude the winner(s), a bit immature yet at times--none of which I'm saying is a bad thing. I think he loves music and that he seems extremely thoughtful and intelligent. I think he's got a nice sense of humour, is self-aware and has an excellent sense of perception.

Wow, did I just write all that, about someone I don't even know? That seems a bit strange to me. Jeez, I sound like I've been analyzing the bloke! Now I'm embarrassed. For someone who's not a fan-girl, I just realized I have some strong opinions about Tennant! Wow, that's honestly a bit of a shock for me.

6. What kind of a lover do you think he is?

Gee, that's a deeply personal question, and I'm not sure if I should even weigh in on this...truthfully, I really don't care! It's none of my business..however, since I just made an arse of myself with the previous question, with some reluctence, I'll answer this--just be aware that I can only give my barest of impressions of the man:

I have sometimes wondered if he's a closet ladies' man, but the gentleman seems very discreet and protective of his lady friends...almost to the point of being chivilrous. But, as I wrote above, he strikes me as an mildly impatient man, at times, and I think he may have very specific ideas regarding long-term relationships. He seems to me to be the type that might not have the patience for a long-distance relationship. His career may be such an all-consuming obsession that interferes with his personal life at times...or, he just may have very exacting standards, based on his upbringing in his own home? Perhaps just the opposite is true: maybe he wants someone that can be there all the time for him, but won't mind Tennant not being around all the time?

Well--hell, I honestly don't know, and it's really not for me to say. Sorry Mr. Tennant, wherever you are. I probably shouldn't have answered these two questions...I feel like a real mook, now. Never do a meme when you are tired and bored.

7. What do you think David would be like in bed?

OK--just stop, yeah?

8. Have you ever seen David naked?

I mean, really...just stop already!

.....Although, I will say, with all the people doing Google searches for pictures of the man naked, from Washington DC to Sydney, to Guiana to Poland, to Cairo, to Vietnam--seriously, apparently there's people in almost every country on the planet who want to see the man nude---he's make a blinking FORTUNE as a porn film star!

OK, I'll spill: Personally, someone a year or two ago, did send me a full-frontal pic of him once, and I almost went blind in the other eye, from looking at his walli-peeli skin...I mean, no disrepct to Tennant or to the church, but--honestly, DT naked...put a loin cloth and beard on him, and call him Jesus.

And erm..the nickname? It's just a nickname, and I'm going to shut up now, thank you very much.

9. Do you think you and David could ever be friends?

Oh thank god, no more sex questions. Anyway...no, I rather doubt that--well, there's the whole thing about us being 3000+ miles apart, coming from two totally different worlds, two different income, educational, cultural and social levels, our bodies and personalities are utterly different...he's trim, nice-looking, fit and hyper...I'm fat, ugly, gimpy and naturally a bit slow.

Also, I doubt we'd have a hell of a lot in common...no, guys like Tennant, aren't friends with women like me...get real!

Cripes...I REALLY have too much time on my hands tonight. I don't/can't drink (don't especially like alcoholic beverages--and can't drink anyway, taking Metformin), but maybe I should stroll downtown...my bad foot is killing me, but what the hell...I'm actually giving detailed answered to a David Tennant meme---maybe I do need a drink!

10. Have you ever stalked David? Would you? Would you wait for hours for a chance to meet him?

No. Absolutely no. And, probably not.

If you found £100,000 in the street?

I'd call the cops...if no one claims it, I might be entitled to a share, by law, but I'd rather not get rich that way, from someone's lost money...there's def something not right about that.

If you had the chance of a makeover, hair, eyes or teeth?

My teeth are shot, my eyes are going, (no decent dental or optical insurance) and my hair's a lost cause, so I reckon any of the above would be an improvment...I'm not really the makeover type, but that said, I might give it a go.

If you could have a meal in either Gordon Ramsay's or Heston Blumenthal's restaurant?

I have heard of Ramsay-only that he swears like a chav lorry driver in the kitchen...sooo--not impressed. I can go to any of the low dives on South Street and hear that kind of language. Blu--whatshisname? No, don't know him at all. I am not posh. I can cook gourmet, I've eaten gourmet...but I can't stand pretentiousness. I want to enjoy my food, but I don't need it to be a work of art...give me old fashioned comfort food any day: steak and baked potato, meatloaf and mashed, turkey and stuffing, stew, spag bol, lasanga, chicken curry and pilaf, shepherd's pie, chicken pot pie, fried chicken etc. Good enough for me.

Appear on "Who wants to be a millionaire" or "Big Brother"?

I've heard of these shows, but never seen them. I don't really care for most reality TV, it bores me to death. I'd rather read a good book, or watch a James Bond film, old movie, Dr Who, or...pretty much anything else, actually. As for appearing on the shows...nah. I'd probably be more interested in what's going on, backstage.

Humiliate yourself on "Britain's Got Talent" for 5 minutes of fame?

I've already had my 5 min. of fame, thanks...and humiliation.

I have, in the course of this afternoon, missed no less than three public transit buses...so, I'm giving up the ghost, shelling out the $6.50 to just take a damn cab to some other supermarket than the one I'd wanted to go to. Not having a car totally, absolutely sucks! You are truly held prisoner to other people's time schedules and agendas, and no way around it...especailly when you have a lame sore foot, and can't flippin' even walk very far!

At one point, I was waiting for the bloomin' bus, and this woman walks up to me, and asks if I know when the bus is coming. I told her we both just missed it. So, she decides to wait for it to come back round (only one bus per route, and it has to do the whole three miles up, and extra quarter mile downtown, before it gets back to you--a good 30 to 40 minute interval, on a busy Saturday. So, this woman decides to catch the bus on it's return run, ride it south and then back up north as it makes it's return loop.

And so, she's waiting across the street--and decides to have a conversation with me. Standing on the opposite side of the street. Total stranger, rambling on at me about basically her life story, and her daughter's life story, and her grandson's life story...all yelled at me over the passing two lanes of traffic moving between us.

My neighbour's sister, who just got the new motorbike--I'm not sure if it's a large motor scooter or a small motorcycle...she's been continually polishing the thing ever since she got it...mind you, it literally just came out of the showroom a few days ago, and doesn't need polishing. She's also walking around in 75 F weather, wearing snow boots...she calls them her "motorcycle boots"...but they are just the same boots she wore in the snow all winter...why she needs knee-high boots to ride a scooter or whatever, is anyone's guess.

Yesterday, when I went down to get my post from the box downstairs, I noticed that their apartment door was completely off its hinges, and was just leaning there, tilting in the doorway, possibly propped up by a board or something...I heard a loud bang during the night, but didn't know what it was...know I do...whether it was just old and ready to break...this building is definately a dump, or someone was drunk or they were fighting again, I've no clue.

Well, I'm off. Hope everyone's had a good day. Cheers.

Now, under normal circumstances, I can overlook little wobblies in continuity in Dr Who--it's been around for over 45 years, had dozens of different writers, hundreds of stories...it's television, not the bible or a technical manual on Linux. It's going to wobble a smigeon, sooner or later. Like the fact that in Turn Left, the Titanic only decimated London, but in Voyage of the Damned the Doctor said it would destroy the entire planet. OK, it gave me pause...for about 30 seconds, then I shrugged and moved on.

But, Planet of the Dead--which I loved, so this didn't hurt my enjoyment of if--but...one wonders, if UNIT is a secret government organization...has been since its creation back in the early 70's (am I right about that? I used to know this stuff, but my illness has totally effed up my memory these days).

Anyway, here's a secret govenment organization, and this police inspector from Cardiff, not only knows about it--but he can tell some flunky to "Get UNIT on the phone."

Erm--????

Did Mr. Davies write this at the last minute? Was it simply that no one noticed this? Will the inspector's knowledge of UNIT be explained later--maybe in a Torchwood eppy? Or, did they notice, and just not care?

The storm's still a few miles away yet, but that lightning is SHARP! It's so sharp it's startling me at evey turn. I can barely hear the thunder, but the lightning looks like it's right on top of me...so, better get off the computer, this isn't a severe storm, according to the National Weather Service, but it's ain't no spring shower, neither.

The very hotly contested race for New York representative for the US Congress, to replace the outgoing Kirsten Hilibrand, whom was choosen by the state governor to take Hilary Clinton's vacated US Sentate seat, has been finally decided, more than two week's after voting had concluded.

Democrat Scott Murphy's opponent, whom served over 20 years as a NY state legislator (and whom I find extremely pompous and arrogant), republican Jim Tedisco, was so certain of victory--even tho' he only led by less than 100 votes, at one point-- that he resigned from his legislative seat in the capital, less than a week after the election, and more than a week before all the votes were tallied!

Whoops, Jim-bo, looks like you're not only out of one job, you're out of TWO jobs. Gee, what a shame.

Murphy's victory signals a stark turning point for northern New York counties, such as Saratoga and Warren counties, which have for decades, harboured--and still are, largely, extremely right-wing conservative voters.

Liberals 2, conservatives nil. Yeeeeee-haaaaa! Hoo-ray for us! Ha-ha, we win. Now shut up and go clean your guns, republicans.

I can't sleep! I desperately want to, but I feel...weird. And, seem to have pulled a muscle in my back, in my kidney area, and that's not helping things overmuch...and, thunder is waking me. A fast-moving thunderstorm is coming in.....we've been in the 40's and 50's F for weeks, often dropping to the 20's F at night, and there was even some snow flurries in the mountains, last week....now, it's going to be in the mid-70's to low 80's F, this weekend! Blimey!

Just this morning, I couldn't stay out on the balcony, cos' it was extremely chilly. By 4pm, it was quite warm, and this weekend it's supposed to be blistering hot!

That's just..strange. Snow last week, 80 F degree summer weather this week? Man, is mother nature one messed up babe.

Good news first: I won another gift certificate to Tractor Supply Company!!! Yeee--haaaa! And, also good news-- the Bit and Bridle brand tee shirts were on SALE for 25% off.

I won a $25 gift card for the ususal charity raffle I stick a dollar into once a week or month, whenever the girl comes 'round, and I have the $1 to spare--it's for a homeless teen programme, which I very much support, as it's done some fantasic work, locally...and of course, having been homeless briefly 14 years ago, and nearly homeless several times in the last several years, how could I not support the programme?

So, I used the card to buy a tee shirt for $9, and put two more tees and a pretty wrangler's ladies short-sleeve western blouse on 60 day layaway, and used the remainder of the card as the down payment--so, every time I go in, I will put a two or three dollars down on my purchase--I only owe $18 after using the gift card...and, in a few week's or month's or two month's time, I'll have three more tops to add to my summer wardrobe...which is a good thing, 'cos the stinking moth's got into my "summer" wear closet, and did some real damage to some of the tees and one of my blouses.

And, my office has switched to casual dress all the time, instead of just on the weekend shifts, so now my usual posh attire that I've worn for the past 2 years is out, and jeans and tees are in. Which sucked, because I didn't own many feminine or dressy tee shirts. Most of my tees are...or rather were, either five or more years old, or less attractive mens or unisex tees...and some have little stains or moth holes, too. I didn't fuss over tees before, because I rarely wore one in the office, only on Saturdays. Now I have some nicer, neater looking tees, good for any day of the week, so that solves my dilema!

Bad news:

My health is not good. Really not good. I'm afraid to go to the doctor's. The last thing I need right now, is to be ordered off work--or worse, sent into hospital. I can't make it on just my disability benefits--the math won't work. My monthly cheque would cover the rent, and 80% of my electric/gas...but would leave me literally pennyless, for the next 30 days...and cause me to have my electric and gas shut off, for non-payment...I HAVE to pay the full amount owned on the 'budget' payment plan, by the exact date specified each month--not even 10 seconds late-- or I will be shut off. Seriously! I paid a bill less than five minutes after midnight past the due date once, and National Grid cancelled my budget plan agreement!

But, my heart's racing, I'm weak, light-headed, my muscles are crampy--I just feel really rubbish...maybe it's just menopause, or maybe I'm getting that cold that's going around. I hope so...I mean, I hope it's something inconsequencal...god, my mind is getting so muddled, I can't remember to spell words I never used to think twice about spelling, just a few years ago.

Next week I hope to get some B12 and iron pills, and maybe that will help me feel better, eventually. I had to work tonight, and was just too damn tired to go all the way to Walmarts--and it's such a huge store, I think I might have needed one of those motorized carts, I was that knackered tonight. My bad foot was hurting all day, too, more than normal.

So, off to bed for me.

Stone Soul Picnic

Can you surry, can you picnic?
Can you surry, can you picnic?
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine
Red yellow honey
Sassafras and moonshine (moonshine)
Stoned soul, stoned soul
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Rain and sun come in akin
And from the sky come the Lord and the lightning
And from the sky come
The Lord and the lightning
Stoned soul, stoned soul
Surry on soul
Surry, Surry, Surry, Surry
There'll be trains of blossoms (there'll be trains of blossoms)
There'll be trains of music (there'll be music)
There'll be trains of trust, trains of golden dust
Come along and surry on sweet trains of thought
Surry on down
Can you surry, can you surry
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine
Red yellow honey
Sassafras and moonshine (moonshine)
Stoned soul, stoned soul
Stoned soul yeah
Surry on soul
Surry

As a bit of musical trivia, there is an actual debate as to what "surry" actually meant. Some say it was just a made up word that the songwriter used 'cos she liked it, and that it was just short for "ease on down."

Others--and this is probably the correct answer, say that the word 'surry' is simply older urban slang, that's seldom used now, (like groovy and far-out aren't much in use any longer) and means "to move with an expectation of having a good time."

Another faction weigh in with the most improbable explaination. These lot think that the picnic in the park refers to Central Park in Manhattan, and that you'd get there by one a horse-drawn vehicle. However, speaking as a horse person, who has taken a Central Park carriage a couple of times in the distant past, and who has a cousin who professionally restores horse-drawn vehicles, I doubt that! And, unless the songwriter was too stoned to spell correctly, 'cos the horse-drawn vehicle, like the town in England, is spelled with an "e." Not to mention, that they've never actually used surrey's in Central Park, but only proper carriages...and a New Yorker would not call them surrey's.

HIT PAUSE ON PLAYER ABOVE, TO LISTEN TO THIS VIDEO.

1. Do you believe in Life On Other Planets?

I don't disbelieve it, but...I don't know, I guess we won't know for sure until we see it for ourselves. I think it's always a possiblity, but maybe not in our own galaxy.

2. If you met an ET, how would you feel?

OK, as long as ET didn't try to zap or kidnap me or something.

3. Do you believe that Mankind belongs among the stars?

Mankind should spend their billions in space money taking care of their own planet, before going out and messing up a bunch of others.

4. Do you think we will colonise another planet in your lifetime?

Likely not, but I suppose anything's possible. In my mum's lifetime, they went from silent black and white films to personal computers, and from Model T Fords to space shuttles, so who knows?

5. Would you be prepared to accept the challenge of being a colonist on another planet, with all the possible hardships involved?

Not really. Much as I love to travel and see new places, I'm still pretty much a homebody, I reckon.

I was cleaning under my bed early this morning (got the allergies to prove it), and found, of all things. a Chinese egg roll fortune. Now, I've no idea how that got under my bed...no, I don't eat lunch or dinner in bed, NMS (not my style), but, it had six "lucky" numbers on it...maybe I should buy a Lotto ticket tomorrow?

The "lucky" numbers:

53, 11, 9, 18, 55, 35

Yeah...think not. I'll save my dollar and buy a "baby" size soft ice cream cone. Much better expeniture of the money, ha-ha.

I've be effing trying to post a story to my blog--tried it from bcuk Road Apples blog. Tried it from Wordpress. Tried it from my effing word processor.

BCUK SUCKS!

It shows the stinking text in the post...but when I hit save, it makes the text VANISH!!! Now, it will allow me to post 2 or 3 chapters...but anything beyond that, BCUK makes disappear, the minute I hit "SAVE."

I have NO ISSUES with this on any other website, blog, etc. My copy/paste fuction works 100%.

But, BCUK keeps INSISTING that it's my computer....riiight. And fish are jumping and the cotton is high and it don't ever rain in Britain.

My next door neighbours must have come into a hell of a lot of cash, all of the sudden. For the past several months, they've been going hungry, unable to pay the rent or utilities on time--now, in the space of a week, they've got new clothing, a big-screen TV, a new motorcycle and a new car (the car on payments of only $148 a month...I never had a car payment that low)....they both only work part time, and are not on benefits.

I work part-time, am on benefits, and I can't keep up with expenses. When I got my tax refund, most of my cash went towards bills. The biggest purchase I made was new curtains for one kitchen window and my lounge window, which I purchased on sale at a deep discount at the factory outlet shop. As I recall, I also bought a 10 dollar slow cooker, a pair of jeans and a couple of blouses--again, on sale at a deep discount.

A co-worker who was always fooling around in the office like a teenager, ignoring the office's dress code and slacking off at every chance--she got a job offer for a job that pays 20 thousand a year!

What the hell am I doing wrong??? I'm a loser, there's no denying it, I can run away from it, and I can't hide from the truth. People like this get ahead, and I just get treated like rubbish and always behind--even when I get money and try to make good with it and not be a total deadbeat financially, it still just falls through my fingers. Loser, that's me, in a nutshell.

Well, just now, I felt my chair rocking and my desk was moving...but checked the earthquake center's stats and the last quake recorded here was a 2.2 about 60 or 75 miles to our north, in the heart of the mountains near the Au Sable Forks fault line, roughly a week ago. There was a slightly larger tremmor yesterday, apparently, near Harrisburg or Pittsburg, or some "burg" in Pennsylvania.

Someone must have been doing something. If we ever do have a big quake, we're as good as dead. This building probably should be condemned, it's literally falling apart--there's big cracks in the brick masonry and the floor in my lounge is actually slightly convex.

I guess they had a moderate 4.0 tremmor in L.A., yesterday, but California has quakes and temmors all the time, so they're likely used to that. I've lived through two moderate quakes, and can't say I enjoyed it. Didn't freak me out--no time for that, it happens so very fast, there's really barely time for you to register there's a quake, let alone be scared about it...worried, shocked, startled, yes, but until things start crashing about or caving in or whatever, there's really not a lot to be scared of. In my both my cases, it was over within a minute or two.

When I was in high school, the school's theatr group was putting on Oklahoma, and borrowed my 2 cowboy hats, my cowboy bandana, spurs and boots for costuming--and my saddle as a prop for "Curly." Well, after the show was finished, I had to lug that stuff home. Monday I took home the stuff used for costumes, but the prop room was locked, and I couldn't get my western saddle. No worries, I'd just take in home on Tuesday.

Well, that would've been OK...except for reasons I can't remember now, I missed the school bus. I lived 45 minutes drive away. Going home normally meant taking my village's school bus from the high school (usually late of course) on a trip down a long country road (B road), to a NY Route 20 (A road), to Washington Ave. Extention motorway, to the I-90 motor way, to the I-87 motorway, to our village's exit. Then, we were the last ones (naturally! cos' we were among the first to be picked up at 6:30 am) to be let off, so we had to take a bus tour of our village every bloomin' day.

I missed the bus that Tuesday. Don't recall why some 32 years later. I probably phoned mum, and told her I'd take a local bus (the bus for the local high school students) to the Albany (New York's capital city) line, and then spend 40 cents for a bus downtown to the city centre, and transfer to a bus that went through our village's main street, then take the long walk up the hill and across the rail tracks or motorway to my street.

Simple enough, if a bit time-consuming--what took 45 minutes direct route by village school bus, used to take 2 hours and three buses if I missed our bus...or, meant hanging around a near-empty school while one of my rather cross parent's left work early to pick me up--they let me take the 2 hour journey, mostly.

So, there I was, lugging a 20 pound western saddle (which I adored, by the way...to me, it was the next-best thing to owning a horse, having my own saddle...which I needed, 'cos the stable where I took lessons was a hunter-jumper barn and didn't have western saddles-though the instructor also taught western stock seat horsemanship). Yeah, picture a dorky looking fat girl, lugging 'round a cowboy saddle on a metro city bus, getting off at what amounts over here to the high street, walking down a major city street with said saddle, and then waiting on a street corner with it, waiting to transfer buses. To this day, I remember the looks I got!

Like I flippin' had three heads...or, the "mundanes" deliberatly avoided my eyes--that's the usual reaction of your average upstate New Yorker to something completely incongruious. Pretend it's not there. An alien would have no problems in this city. Daleks? What Daleks? I didnt see anyone getting zapped. I'm just minding my own business.

The Doctor could park his Tardis in the middle of of the State Street hill, just below the captial building, and people would just, at best, cast a odd glance at it...mostly they'd pretend they didn't actually see a big blue box marked "Police" in the centre of the road.

STATE STREET HILL, LOOKING TOWARDS EAST SIDE OF CAPITAL BUILDING

My saddle was just an old dude ranch saddle, basketweave design tooling work as decoration, but wasn't anything posh, in fact, most of the wool lining on the underside of the saddle was gone.

But, that saddle got me interested in old saddles. You know, there's more than one kind of western saddle? There's: an Assocation saddle (referring to the Rodeo Cowboys association), a wade saddle, a hornless bronc saddle, roping saddles, trail saddles, cutting (cutting cows from the herd) saddle, reining (western version of dressage) saddles, balanced or center ride saddles, trick riding saddles...and more. There's reproduction saddles, as well. The basic design of western saddles is relatively unchanged, but, so have cars...cars still are essentially nothing more than boxes on wheels...like cars, Saddles have changed and evolved over time, just the same.

This is sort of what my first saddle looked like, but not nearly as posh--mine was about 25 years old and heavily used, by the time I got it. my stirrups weren't so wide, and were wood covered with aluminum.

I won't bore anyone with details, no one cares..and that's fine. But, even tho' I can't ride (mostly money reasons--hurting or sore/stiff joints never stopped me from riding...much)...anyway, I still dream of owning the "perfect" saddle. I saddle can make the difference between a heavenly ride and a horse back ride from hell. A good saddle makes you more in balance with the horse's movements, and makes you more comfy...a badly made, badly fitting saddle, well, even if you have a smooth-gaited horse, a ill-fitted or poorly crafted saddle can make your life a misery.

I see saddles a working pieces of art--the work going into making one is extensive...especially if one is hand tooling or carving decorations on the leather. Here's some pics of saddles, most of which (except for a couple the really posh big bulky show saddles) I'd not object to owning:

I had a crap night at work. Crap. That's the best word, out of all the tens of thousands, perhaps millions of words in the entire English language, that's the only word I can think of, to describe my evening...and to describe the uncivilized boorish people I have to deal with.

I'm sick of crap Americans. People who read magazines and websites written at the 6th or 7th year student's level, (if they actually read, and don't just skim a few sentences here and there, while scratching their bottoms and looking at the pictures) and believe they are actually knowlegeable about something.

Americans are the laziest people on the planet. They don't like to walk any more than they half to (tho' ironically, some Americans will walk for excercise, and then get aggressive trying for a parking space nearest the front door of the supermarket, or drive 2 blocks to the shops, rather than walk). Americans are mentally lazy, becasue they like their news in small, easy-to-read or 20 or 30 second long doses. They don't question, questions scare them. That's why Fox News is popular, and the Los Angles Times and Boston Globe are going out of business.

I'm tired tho'. I mean, inside my spirit and soul, bone-achingly tired, of small-minded mean people using me for target practice, just because their petty little lives aren't going the way they planned, or for no other reason than I rang them up on the telephone. Miserable worms, the lot of them--that means you, history buff Mrs. McGee, and you nutjob hunter Mr Bright (aka stupid) in New Mexico, and all the rest of you lazy American slobs. Sod off! I don't care if I upset you because I dialed your home. Too damn bad. I'm just stinking doing my job--you morons whinge when people go on welfare, but when the poor get a job, you abuse them too.

It is NOT an American right to verbally assult and abuse people. It is NOT a right to be mean to total stranger. You FAIL as civilized human beings, the lot of you.

Tonight, I ALMOST comtemplated suicide, because quite honestly, I'd rather be dead than live in this mean, low, rotten, unthinking, unfeeling country of total scumbags, any more. I'd rather be dead, than have to put up with these pigs. I mean that.

I won't, of course. But I've been getting treated like crap by total strangers since the day I walked into a school classroom at the tender age of 4, and I am SICK of it. I am tired of being abused. You want to know why everyone is killing each other in America? Because no one knows how to act like civlized, caring, thinking, feeling, HUMAN effing BEINGS any longer, that's why?

No rules, no manners, no repect for others, simply and literally spells the end of proper civilization.

God bless America? Not unless he's the god of hate, he doesn't. Cattle and human beings have 80% of their genes in common--well, I don't need scientific research to prove that, all I have to do is telephone some ill-mannered disrepectful American slob, I'll have all the proof I need!

Now, the USA has more than its share of nutjobs...probably more mad people per square people than any other nation on the planet...and some states seem to breed more bonkers people than others: Maine, Utah, Minnesota--that's where my conservative loser blog stalker (Jane, Joy, Marie, whichever--she continually LIES about her identity) is from, also included are the states of Montana, Texas, Oklahoma--some old fart from Oklahoma literally foamed at the mouth like a mad dog and treatened to "cut me" for dialing his number wrong.

But, of all the "crazy" American states, Kentucky takes the biscuit, I think.

Now, southern women can be lovely. Really, they can be incredibly respectful, courtesous, thoughtful and ladylike--which is the noblest form of womanhood, if not of humanity.

But, southern women have a dark side. When they are pissed off at you, they turn into...SATAN.

An angry southern woman is a force to be reckoned with. They are snarky, biting, snarling, mad balls of fire. They are Satan incarnate. And women from Kentucky, are the epitomy of these two types. They hit the top of the negativity scale, meaner than the proverbial junk yard dog.

As proof of this, I offer this example:

A co-worker called a woman in Kentucky, asking for someone, and the woman on the other end of the line barked at her, "She ain't here. You want her, dial '666'!" And slammed down the phone.

Oooh, scary stuff. Who says telemarketing is dull?

1. When showering, do you start the water and then get in, or get in then start the water?

Well, if I waited to start the water, I'd be taking an icy cold shower--been there, done that, and don't care to got there again, if I don't have to, thanks.

2. Do you read the labels on your shampoo bottle?

Only so far to see if it's right for my type of hair...my hair's not dry so I don't need moisturizing shampoos.

3. Do you moan in the shower like the people on the Herbal Essences commercial?

Oh, I really turn on the neighbours...not. No, tho' I sometimes sigh in bliss, when the hot spray hits a sore spot.

4. Have you ever showered with someone of the opposite sex?

Nope.

5. Have you ever been forced to shower with one of your siblings?

No, thank god. Tho' as tots of course, mum used to sit us in the bath together.

6. Have you ever brushed your teeth in the shower?

No, that's just...silly.

7. Have you ever dropped your soap on your foot?

Sure, but a full shampoo bottle hurts a lot more.

8. How old do you look?

Someone commented recently, that they thought I was in my late 30's or early 40's...but I don't really care.

9. How old do you act?

My own stinking age, I should hope! I worked hard to get to be 48 and a adult, and I can't see the point of being in denial about it! OK, sometimes I act childish, but to quote the 4th Doctor, "what's the point of being grown up, if you can't act childish?"

10. What's the last song you sang?

Shout Shout by The Proclaimers

11. Have you recently become a member of anything?

No, not that I can think of.

12. What are your plans for the weekend?

Beats me. Probably the same as every other weekend: work Saturday, do dull stuff like household chores on Sunday, in-between reading, writing and listening to music.

13. Do you kiss with your eyes open or closed?

Unlike the controversay currently surrounding Susan Boyle, I really have never once in my life, been kissed by a boy/man (who wasn't my dad)...not even a peck on the cheek.

14. Whats the sexiest thing about Condoleeza Rice?

Her leaving office. That was a real turn-on.

15. Does anything on your body itch right now?

Nope.

16. Who's the sexiest famous woman alive?

Dawn French

17. Who's the sexiest famous man alive?

Pierce Brosnan? I have no idea, I'm not into that sort of rubbish. I very honestly, simply don't see people that way, very often.

18. Does every family have a crazy uncle?

No, mine had a crazy aunt.

19. Have you ever smuggled something into your home country?

Yeah...well, I don't know if it's smuggled, but I brought home a bottle of Friesian pear wine from the Netherland's once, which I later donated to a charity auction.

20. Does playing the guitar make a girl/guy more attractive?

Oh for pity's sake. It's a guitar, not a bloomin' thong!

21. Do you live in a city with a good sports team?

Meh-I don't know. I don't go in for sports very much. We have the Lumberjacks collegiate baseball team, and the Ice Hawks semi-pro hockey team, but I've no clue if they're any good or not.

22. Have you ever finished off the popcorn and ate the junk from the bottom of the bag?

No. But my cat Flame has had a go, once or twice

23. Have you ever had sex in a tent?

I've not had sex in a tent, I've not had sex to pay the rent, I've not had sex while reading spam, I've not had sex eating green eggs and ham.

24. What about in a boat?

I've not had sex inside a boat, I've not had sex in a moat, I've not had sex with a man named Sam, I've not had sex eating green eggs and ham.

25. Have you ever dated a Goth?

No, too young for my tastes. I never dated anyone less than 10 years younger than me...not out of predjudice, but for conversational purposes.

26. Can you fix your own car?

I don't have a car. That said, I've changed tyres and the oil filter, and when I had my old 3-speed Dodge Adventurer pick up truck, when the gears stuck, I'd open the bonnet, take a hammer and a big ol' flathead screw driver, and bang the gears to un-stick them. Also, on other pick up trucks, I've wired the tail gate on a few times, with either a wire coat hanger or some bailing wire. That's...about it.

27. Are you a beach person or a snowy mountain person?

Snowy mountain. I find beaches incredibly dull, 8 times out of 10. I mean, what's to see? Sand and waves. And often a lot people lolling about like beached walruses. Oh. That's exciting (yawn).

28. If money were not a problem, where would you like to live?

Well, I'm of two minds on this. In the states, I'd like a little place in Washington County NY or somewhere rural, anyway, with trees and maybe a nice view...or, perhaps near water (stream, lake, river). Or, if I could go to Europe, maybe a little flat or cottage or whatever, in a small town, or even the city, if the area wasn't too mangy or raucous.

29. Soft bed or firm?

Soft. (tho' firm is better for my back)

30. Last thing received in the mail?

My internet bill from Time-Warner.

I thought this was pretty cool:

Scientists have discovered a chemical in the heart of our galaxy, that is found on earth. It's called ethyl formate, and is what gives raspberries their taste, and also smells of rum.

So, in other words, the Milky Way is drunk and giving us the raspberry?

I was reading two news articles yesterday, both dealing with the fact that Condeleeza Rice was not only acutely aware of the torture of prisoners, she actually was one of the one's who'd helped to initiate the practice.

The online newspapers in question, were from Minnesota and Texas, respectively.

The articles were good, non-biased writing--neither reflecting a bias for or against rice or the the torture, merely reporting the facts as they stand.

It was the comments of my fellow Americans, though, that once again absolutely made me sick to my stomach. The venom vomited by so-called "normal" Americans...it really does make me want to get the hell out of my country.

How could I possibly love a country, whose very culture breeds massive amounts of this sub-human trash?

All of the responses were lengthy tirades against terrorism and for torture and killing.

Well, let me make a point here: 9/11 was one of the darker days in the history of America..just like the domestic terror bombing of the Murrow building by two Americans in Oklahoma City, and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. And I'm not saying we shouldn't be vigilant and go after terrorists. Terrorists are total scumbags!

But at no point, does 9/11 or the actions of a handful of terrorists, jusify mass killings of innocent people. Yet, two wrongs are what seems to make America's violence-loving right thrive, sadly.

Here are some excepts of some of the quotes that I've copied and pasted:

One of the conservative cowards said that "bombing a whole village to get at one terrorist, is worth it."

Another commenter said, "we should continue to torture anyone who threatens our security..."

Yet another said, "Who cares how many of these people dies, as long as we wipe every last sheet-wearing anti-American terrorist off the planet."

These overfed, comfort-loving, safe, violence-loving, mentally and morally lazy Americans seem to be awfully cavilier about putting their fellow human beings in harm's way!

Hey, arseholes, let's get some perspective here, yeah?

First of all, if we are OK with torturing prisoners, that means we can no longer protest the torture of our own soldiers! If we torture, then that sends the signal to both our allies and enemies alike, that torture is acceptable, and our caputred troops can now be tortured at will, because NO ONE will take our protests seriously now. We no longer set the example of civilized human decency. We're no better than the terrorists are!

Also:

Death toll in the USA from 9/11: 2,752

Death toll from the 7-year long Iraq War:

Approx. 75 American soldiers and around 99,861 INNOCENT CIVILIANS--this includes babies, children, women, grans, grandads, teenagers, etc. Human beings whom had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do, with sadaam or 9/11.

Many of those who have died, WERE NOT EVEN BORN when 9/11 happened...how can this cowardly American conservative men, even begin to justify the deaths of those not even born when the terrorists were plotting, and still call themselves "men?" Or even human, for that matter?

How can any right-wing conservative still consider themselves a good person, when they are ok with the slaughter of hundreds, even thousands of innocent human beings, that are NOT terrorists and don't even know anything about America?

Why do I want out of America? Not because of what it stands for now...but what it NO LONGER stands for! America is no longer the shining example of decency and the best of humanity. It's become a cesspool, a sewer of totally lazy people, doing nothing but mindlessly spewing hate and bigotry and taking the easy route the time, but prefering to become deliberately dumbed down, than to stop and reason, or to feel compassion.

Americans? Heroes? Not any more. Zeroes, that's what they are. They've blindly chosen the easy path of hate and violence--even towards their own people (liberals, gays, envionmentalists, etc.).

A true hero doesn't blindly put other human beings in harm's way, a true hero has a conscious!

The Taliban has suceeded far beyond 9/11--they've turned so-called normal American men, into sniveling, paranoid, hateful cowards---basically, the Taliban has turned many conservative Americans, into a reflection of the Taliban itself! The Taliban doesn't care how many people they kill, and neithr do violence-advocating American conservatives. What makes Aemricans worse than the Taliban though, is that Americans have had ten times the education, and much more rights, privilege and luxury than most members of the Taliban--so technically, Americans should know better...but the fact that their minds are on the same level of the Taliban's...that's just....pathetic.

Conservative Americans: FAIL.

I generally don't eat much seafood--I can count on less than the fingers of one hand, how many times we had fresh seafood for dinner in my home, growing up. And, for some reason in y part of the world, fresh seafood is much more expensive than beef, pork or fish...sometimes hugely expensive.

But, I've been thinking of making a somewhat cheap recipe of late. Mind you, I'd have to cut this recipe down by at least half, if not a quarter, for just myself. But, it does sound pretty yummy...well, to me, anyway. This is the meal I was thinking of having, sometime in the next few months:

Shrimp Creole with Cheddar rice

In a large saucepan or small pot, add water, butter, salt and rice. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. Reduce heat to simmer. Stir in remaining ingredients, until well blended.

I'd serve it with either tossed salad greens, or...this:

Creamy Pea and Bacon Salad

Bring the water to a boil in a pot. Boil the peas 1 minute, until just tender, and drain. Cool peas under cold running water. In a bowl, toss together bacon, peas, onion, dressing, and Cheddar cheese. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until chilled before serving.

And, for dessert....

Nancy's Easy-Peasy Strawberry Shortcake

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface, and gently knead the dough 15 to 20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large biscuit cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

**(I believe that in the UK, Crisco shortening can be purchased for under 5 pounds from americansoda.co.uk and also can be found, along with other US food products, at http://psfoods.co.uk/general.html )

It's Earth Day, today. I normally would do my part, on my own, and just go out and pick up litter from the roadsides and/or hiking trails. Alas, my new thermometer says I've a fever today, and certainly, I'm not feeling my best, of late, so, as much as it goes against my grain, I am opting to do the wise thing, and stay home--and blog about Earth Day.

Now, there are small ways you can make a difference--if not today, then perhaps over the weekend, or whenever you have some free time. You can do as I do, and put on a pair of gloves, take a bin bag, and pick up rubbish--well, I did draw the line once, at the vibrator I found in a ditch alongside the road...but empty bottles, cigarette packets, etc., it all helps.

Pick up discarded cigarette buts/ends. Cigarette ends cause pollution. They don't biodegrade easily--staying in the ground for a good many years, and contain arsenic and other dangerous chemicals, which leech into the ground over a long period of time.

Planning a vegetable or flower garden, or planting trees from seed/seedlings? Collect your discarded toilet paper rolls, and cut them in half and fill with soil for instant seedling "pots". As they are bottomless and will decompose once planted, they are the perfect starter pot for seedlings.

Speaking of toilet paper, in America, more and more companies are manufacturing TP from recycled materials, rather than directly from the pulp gotten from virgin trees. The following brands are environmentally friendly: April Soft, Pert, Amibance, Best Value, Earth First, Green Forest, Marcal, Planet and Fiesta. "Unfriendly" brands to avoid include: Charmin, Kleenex and Cottonelle.

There is now a company that sells toys powered by the sun. The solar powered toys eliminate the need for batteries, and can be found at: http://www.mrlight.com

To save paper, here in the states you can now opt out of having phone books delivered. Some areas now can have as many as 2 or 3 local public and private phone directories delivered to them, and many of these often do not end up in the recycle bin. Often you get books delivered--like I do, even if you don't own a land line.

Call these numbers:

AT&T/YellowPages (formerly SBC and Bell South):
1.800.792.2665

Verizon:
1.800.888.8448

Dex:
1.877.243.8339

Yellow Book/Transwestern Publishing:
1.800.373.3280 or 1.800.373.2324

If buying a new mobile/cell phone, recycle your old one, sell it, or, in the USA, donate it to charity or troops overseas.

Always unplug your phone after charging it, or, use a power strip, then turn it off, so you don't use any "phantom" energy.

If you don't already do so, use re-usable shopping bags when you go shopping, instead of plastic or paper. Here in the states, some supermarket chains will deduct a few cents off your grocery bill, for each bag you bring in.

When seasons and shopping budgets allow, buy food locally. "Localvores" help not only the environment, by reducing the carbon footprint used to harvest and transport meat, vegetables and produce to your location--they're helping the local economy, and farmers in their region, as well.

Don't cook more food than you need, unless you are planning to have more than one meal from it (like I often do). Or, if holding a large function, you can send home guests with leftovers, or donate large amounts of leftovers to charities, if you have a soup kitchen or hostel in your city. This reduces waste in the bins and landfills.

If you're traveling for business or on holiday, you now can travel more environmentally friendly, by purchasing carbon credits online, at Carbon Planet to offset your portion of the carbon dioxide emissions generated by your flight.

Speaking of carbon emmissions, the best way to help, is to simply plant a tree! Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming. By planting one tree, in one year, that tree will absorb roughly 26 pounds of carbon dioxide and return enough oxygen to supply a family of four. For more information, Google Plant A Tree Foundation.

You can also keep your thermostat down, buying energy saving light bulbs and appliences, and lowering the temperature slightly on your fridge/freezer. Oh, and don't sit and idle your car's engine any more than you have to, and if possible, try to find alternative modes of transport--such as walking, cycling, horse riding/driving, car pooling, cabs or public transit...bascially anything that will help to reduce the amount of private cars on the roadways.

Every lightbulb in my living room and bedroom, is now an energy-saving bulb. Not only have I reduced carbon emissions, I've also lowered my electric bill!

Here in the US--mostly on the West coast, rather than here in the east--the moon will cover up Venus, and the sight is being billed as spectactular.

Unfortunately, I won't see it, as not only will it be daylight here, but...there just a few trees and buildings in my way. I do like seeing Venus, at night, it's really cool.

When I lived in my caravan in the mountains, there were no street lamps right nearby, so on a crisp clear night, the sky could be so filled with stars, you couldn't even begin to count them all.

More than a few times, on a chilly autumn night, with my breath hanging in the air, I'd look up, and just want to reach out and grab a handful of twinkling, glittering stars. You could even see the Milky Way, sometimes--looking like white wispy clouds, way, way up, beyond the stars, in the black velvet sky.

So, it's made the news, apparently.

Get this daft headline: "Crescent Moon covers up Venus."

Sounds like some religious conservative bloke with a daft name, is upset to see some girl's naked knockers (yeah, like that would happen in real life), and has thrown a sheet over her.

If you look at the photo, I think you'll see it's too late for that, matey's!!!

It's interesting though, you know, to think that there's actually a star in the sky, named after some topless broad.

Look at the mooks in this picture--I mean, really, is there a man anywhere, that would sincerely like to cover up some lovely bit of...well, you know.

Everytime this blog goes down for changes or maintenance, I have problems with it the next day. I just spent---or rather wasted, TWO HOURS, copying and pasting stuff, and BCUK will, apparently, no longer allow me to copy and paste words from one blog, to another.

I am so angry right now, at having wasted an ENTIRE evening, I could just about chew nails.

Argh!! What the HELL is with Rain of Terror....it's like it's got a curse attacted to it or something! Bugs on Wordpress, bugs on Roadapples and Aint Afraid of No Daleks. I just plain feel like putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger right now.

Fu_k. I'm going to bed. This is so not worth it, any more. It's a miserable hobby. Why the hell do I even do it? I need to quit writing, it's not worth this, it's really not. Not when I'm not stinking getting paid--and never will get paid for writing, and no one is reading these crap "Who's" stories anyway.

I have to quit writing. I must quit writing. I can't take this. This story is really effing cursed, it has to be. it was never effing meant to be. My favourite doctor who story to write and it's continually being effed up!!! I quit!!! (Until tomorrow morning, anyway...I hate quitting.)

I just lost a post cos' bcuk has a bug in it--no, I don't use the new editor.

I came home early from work. I'm sick. Chest pains, wheezing, short of breath, weak and tired. I've been taking my meds...well, not much I can do about it, except try to ride it out.

Now I have to work 3 hours on my normal day off, to make it up. That sucks.

Well, at least my appetite is back. I had an early dinner at 2pm, 'cos I work nights, and it's easier to make dinner before work, than after. Sometimes I'm to knackered at the end of the night, to bother with it, quite frankly.

I'm famished, though I had a very nice lunch of a small steak, sweet corn and roasted potatoes. Wish I had some money to order a pizza or burger or something...tho' I don't guess that would be very good for me. Guess I can scramble some eggs.

Someone's trundling a shopping trolley loaded down with bags, down the middle of the street. Well, guess that's easier than carrying it all. Lot of people out walking on the sidewalks with bags of used clothing and food. Must be coming from the Salvation Army, one street over from me. I'm told there's three times as many people in need now, than there was 6 months ago, and I can well believe it. come to think on it, Tuesdays is when Sally Army has their free dinner--usually spaghetti or stew or something of that nature.

I tried to inquire about volunteering there, once--about a bit over a year ago, but the woman I spoke with wasn't very nice...very terse, actually, like, why was I bothering her. Screw that. I enjoy helping people, and I don't need a thank you, but I do need to be treated with some modicum of courtesy, I'm a bit stubborn-minded about things like that. People can be pretty obnoxious in upstate New York, even people that should know better.

So, I lay down for a bit over an hour, after coming home from work early, and feel somewhat better, but still very weak. I'm going to lay down a bit more, I guess. I suppose I should eat something, if I'm hungry, but the only choices at the moment are bad frozen pizza or worse tinned spaghetti. Not very appealling. To cut down on costs, I decided to focus more of my food stamps and cash spent at the supermarket, on breakfast and dinner items this month, and less on lunch-time meals. So I went cheap on that, opting for $1 tins of spaghetti, and 89 cent boxes of little frozen (cardboard crust) pizzas. Bleh, but, it did save me a bit of cash, rather than going for the more expensive deli cold cuts, and soup and all that.

Anyway, that's my thing tonight. Whinge, whinge, whinge, that's me. Sorry.

I keep leaving notes for the UPS driver to knock loudly and wait. I walk with a limp and I don't move very fast--and if I'm in the living room, it means to get to my front door, I have to go through the bed room, kitchen and into the vestibule, to answer the door--which can take as much as 30 seconds to a full minute.

The bastard NEVER knocks loud, and NEVER waits! It's just a quick tap and then he takes off.

WHY is it, that when anyone else--and I mean, really EVERYONE ELSE, knocks on my door, I can hear it? Because the effing UPS guy is a MORON.

I mean, twice now, I've posted notices, even sent them an e-mail, instructing their delivery people to knock loudly and wait a decent time--and they STILL are stinking ignoring that!

Now, I've wasted, once again, and entire morning, getting up and waiting around for a delivery. And, UPS is paranoid, and their warehouse has an UNLISTED number--that's right. I couldn't contact them personally, even if I wanted to. Even the local UPS package shop won't give out the warehouse's phone number or contact information. I was directed to the general website...which has NEVER answered me back!

What good is sending UPS an e-mail, when they dont' even acknowledge you sent it?

UPS sucks. You would think in a recession, that businesses would be trying harder to keep consumers happy, but UPS proves that big corporations don't give a shite and just carry on, business as usual.

I'm sorry people are losing job, very sorry indeed. But, you know? Some businesses DESERVE to go under, if they don't get that profit isn't as important as keeping consumers happy. Morons.

My neighbours across the hall, were just saying they've had to pay the rent late a few times, lately. Yet...an enormous tractor trailer truck (lorry), just pulled up outside and hooted. The neighbour's sister and shiftless nephew met the truck (hey, I was curious why a big tractor-trailer rig, that's normally used for commercial hauling, would be parked on our kerb making a delivery). I assumed it would be for the lawyer's offices across the street, or even for the real estate agent's office on the other corner...no.

My "I can't pay the rent on time" neighbour's, just bought a humongous big screen television set. I mean, so enormous, it had to come by 18-wheeler lorry.

Blimey! It's a Tiny two-room apartment, with, at the moment, three people, two cats and a dog, two beds, a kitchen table, stove, fridge, etc.

They have a big old recliner lounger that someone just gave them, and it's sitting in our hallway, cos' they have no room for it in their apartment. Where the hell are they going to put this giganormous tele???

Well, none of my business, certainly, but...I just had to share this, these people are so....hard to wrap my head around, sometimes.

Just read yesterday, that tho' David Tennant will be done filming his final stint as the Doctor in a few week's time, his character will live on, come summer.

It's been announced that there's to be a one-off comic featuring the 10th Doctor, coming out possibly in July. It's called (I think) "Room With Dejavu." The story will be unusual, in that it will start backwards and go forwards, unlike the usual Dr Who fare on screen and in novels and radio.

...that I can wake up famished, AND have a serious stomach ache, all at the same time???

I haven't had an appetite for food, for over a week--I've been eating, but without much enthusiasm--and suddenly, I'm famished, and can't get enough to eat? My body has certainly gone wonky, in its late 40's. I had a bowl of honey-nut Cheerio's before bedtime last night, ate lunch and dinner yesterday, so shouldn't be famished...what gives??? And gawd, my stomach is all crampy, this morning. Maybe it's the meds or the curry last night, or both, I don't know, but it is strange to be starvin', while also having a miserable tummy.

Ah well, at least the cats have eaten. I'll make a stab at eating some eggs later on, perhaps.

I was watching a youtube clip of Planet of the dead, where the pensioners were saying how they were going to go home and have chops with gravy...now, despite me having a rather lovely early supper of Chicken tikka marsala, I'm sitting here longing for...you guessed it, a nice pork chop with some gravy on it. Dang, thanks a lot, RTD.

What AM I good for???

What can I do?

Not a hell of a lot. I can name all the parts of a western saddle:

saddle tree, horn, fork/pomnel, gullet, seat, cantle, jockeys, rope strap, strap/latigo holder, skirt, fenderss, stirrup leathers, stiruup leather keeper, stirrups, sheild or lacing, wool skin lining, cinch rings, cinch/girth, latigo(s), poss. flank cinch and flank cinch connector strap.

And what possible use is this information? Absolutely none.

I am an average American writer, neither good nor bad..well, not too awfully bad, any way, or I'd have wasted five years of my life and some 30 grand in student loans.

I can cook...again, just average, neither good nor bad.

I know lots of stuff about Dr Who--well, I used to. My mind's not what it once was.

I can answer the phone really well, and am told I have a "pleasant" voice. Big deal, so do a zillion other women out there.

I can read...whoop-de-doo, so can a zillion other people out there.

I'm curious and am fairly competent at research, used to be good at finding things...yeah, not going to get me far, that.

Got an award once for academic acheviement in theater--for my enthusiasm, not for talent, trust me on this.

I know how to arrange silk flowers.

I know (or used to know) how to operate a bucket loader and a backhoe.

I can sort of ride a horse.

I can pitch horse shoes...and sometimes even make a "ringer."

I know how to identify antique bottles.

I have only one 2 year basic degree in liberal arts, and...nothing.

No wonder I'm a nobody....what else is there to be...this is depressing. I'm going to stop writing and just go get ready for work.

OK, I'm sorry. I can write stuff today, but none of it would be terribly interesting..yet. I may think of something interesting later, who knows? I wasn't even going to bother blogging today, but last time I stayed offline for a whole day, I got a frantic (well, more like just anxious) e-mail from a blog friend, who was worried about me.

So, hello, here I am, I'm...OK.

And, just to prove it, here's a meme:

_________________________________________________

A. What are your current obsessions?

Dr Who--that's a gimme' I supppose.

Editing Rain of Terror. At every turn, thanks to various bugs on two different blogs, this dumb little Doctor/Donna story has seemingly thrawted my desire to simply edit and slightly re-write it, at every turn....frustrating me to the point where I was almost ready to throw in the towel and give up writing forever--which is very bad, indeed. I was up past midnight editing a couple of chapters, and this morning doing chapter 6, so a tad obsessed with that, I'd say.

And... summer wear. I'm not sure that clothing really qualifies as an obsession with me, but I was a bit frowny last month, going through my summer wardrobe...some of my older tee shirts are getting a bit...mangy...and even moth holey. Not that I need more clothes! I have about half a dozen short sleeve blouses and about as many tees that are perfectly nice, so I'm hardly in dire straights. But I admit that if I have the cash to spare, and I see any more $3 or $5 bargains, I might be tempted.

B. What’s for dinner tonight? What was for dinner last night, and what will you have tomorrow?

Chicken cutlets w/ Tikka Marsala curry sauce, Punjab eggplant and lemon-spinach couscous. Seriously, that's what I'm having. We don't have curry resturants in my part of the world, so ya' gotta' buy the stuff from the market and make it yourself.

Yesterday I made an early supper of baked ziti pasta with a tossed salad.

Not sure about tomorrow. I'm thinking pan-grilled steak, with maybe Harvard beets or sweet corn, and roasted potatoes.

C. What are you listening to?

Voices...the voices, they are telling me to shoot wolves, wear a tin foil hat, hate gays and vote republican, Oh my lord, make them stop!!!

Really, I'm listening to a a Neko Case CD a friend posted to me.

D. What are your favorite vacation/holiday spots? Where will you go for your next holiday?

I adored Iceland...no, really, I had a ball there, even tho' I was only there for 2 days. I felt very relaxed and at home in Friesland, in the Netherlands. And, I enjoyed living (if not working) in Yellowstone Natl. Park when I was 19, I like the Adirondacks (but not so much Glens Falls, alas) and Saratoga Spings....Vermont is pleasant, as well. I've not actually had many bonified holidays...maybe five in 48 1/2 years, and only 2 that were more than a few days long.

I don't envision me ever getting another holiday again. I think 2004 was the last for me.

E. Have you ever been camping?

Oh yes, but not in about 35 years. I'm not sure my body would take well to sleeping on the ground, any longer.

F. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear the most?

A tie between my red soft chammy Chico blouse with the print of comical fat Chinese guys, and my old soft denim blouse with floral embroidery on it.

G. First spring thing?

American Robin's singing and chirrping away. They actually used to wake me, if my window was open, at 4am in the morning, in late May, or June.

H. Do you nap a lot?

A whole lot more than I ever used to...just push me into my bath chair, and call me an old fart.

J. What is your favorite weather?

Crisp, humidity-free days--not chilly, in the mid-60's to mid 70's F. Or, a gentle rain, I like that, as well.

K. What’s on your bedside table?

old 70's clock radio, wee stained glass lamp w/hummingbird motif, pic of my late mum, and my late mum's wee music box she was fond of.

L. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?

Scotland, Wales, England, Washington County, NY, Vermont or the Netherlands, I suppose.

M. What would you like to have in your hands right now?

A winning lotto jackpot ticket, or an offer of employment for a good paying job, ha-ha.

O. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

Cardiff! I could go see the Dr Who exhibit! How cool would that be? Yeah, I know, I'm hopelessly Whovian.

P. What is your alter-ego?

Ey? Not sure how to respond to that. I guess I'm a wanna'be cowgirl, tho' I'm too uncoordinated (DCD) and overweight, to really qualify. Western Americans don't like overweight women (although, in true hypocritical fashion, it's perfectly OK for the men to be a bit hefty)--just try and buy plus size western wear, if you don't believe me!

Q. What's a word that rhymes with "DOOR"?

POOR.

R. If you're alone in a room with two beds, which one do you sleep on?

The softest one--or, if it's the dead of winter, the one closest to the radiator.

S. Last furry thing you touched?

Charlie--he's curled up asleep alongside my chair.

T. What made you laugh, last?

Again, Charlie. Out of the blue this morning, he came loping into the living room, and leapt up onto the storage trunk by the window, and sat there as if amazed at his own sudden burst of energy. Charlie is so incredibly rotund, it's a bit like watching a cow gallop...you see, Charlie doesn't like to move any more than he has to, so anytime he actually decides to run, it's a bit of an eyebrow raiser...for both of us. Anyway, his antics made me giggle.

U. What is your current desktop picture?

The Tardis shooting from the vortex into normal space.

V. If the last person you spoke to was getting shot at, would you jump in front of the bullet?

I don't know, I might if a child, important leader, or someone helpless was involved. More likely scenerio, is that I'd try to push them out of the way, that woudl be more logical--but this is kind of a silly question, because unless we're trained for it, who can say what we'll do? I may do anything--even run away, how would I know?

W. What is the closest object to your left foot?

It's propped up on the bookshelf of my computer desk, at present.

X. Do you melt when you see a baby animal?

Yeah, actually, I do.

Y. If someone paid you a thousand pounds/dollars, would you get dreadlocks?

Erm--no. I always need money, but never that badly, I would hope--well, unless it meant getting some bit part or even a walk by extra, on Dr Who...yeah, I'd do that--just call me Nancy Ratsnest in the credits, ha-ha.

Z. Are you sore or in pain anywhere right now?

I've a tiny cut on the side of my heel that's a tad tender, and my slightly abscessed jaw is always a bit sore, and of course my bad foot hurts 24/7, but for once I can say that I've not big aches or pains today, knock wood.

There's hope for us old maids, then! Especially us less than perfect looking old maids...tho' I think Miss Boyle looks lovely, personally speaking. She's prettier than me, at any rate....and ten times more talented. I just watched her performance on Youtube....wow. That's all. Wow.

I'll always be an ugly old maid. I've no talent to be recognized, will never be appluded for anything, not ever...and that's perfectly fine. I am who I am, and if people don't accept me, that's THEIR hang up, not mine.

So, to me, Miss Boyle's triumph is my triumph: proof to the world that looks really aren't everything, and that we may not be perfect looking, or popular, or lead perfect little lives, we may have to live a life filled with pain and isolation and loneliness sometimes-- but...we still have a heart and a spirit and a soul.

Old maids: We are who we are, and the only reason people do not see the real "us", is they are too lazy or afraid to look beyond the surface.

A nation that's elected it's first black president, and is near the time when a statue of an African-American civil right's leader (Dr Martain Luther King) will be promenently displayed on Washington's National Mall for the first time, the USA is boycotting the UN's conference on racism.

The excuse given is they are afraid to offend their old pals Israel, whom, along with the Chinese and a few other countries, practically owns the USA, lock, stock and barrel. They are one of our biggest arms customers, and have a mountain of money invested in America.

What has President Obama and the rest of our nation's fearless leaders, quaking in their boots, is the fear that some un-named Islamic nation will insist that America denouce Israel, and ban anyone from criticism of Islam. There has been no threats of this make publicly in the papers--at least, none of the paper's I've read, so I'm not sure this is fact, or some fiction the CIA or someone has dreamed up, to put us on good footing with USA.2 Israel.

I'm so ashamed of my country. They make me sick to my stomach with their phoney rhetoric sometimes. All the guns and bombs on the planet, won't make us brave men and women--it's going forth even amid our fears, to do justice, that marks the brave from the cowardly.

Again not sleeping well, but not knackered today, which isn't a bad thing. Had an early lunch of baked ziti...which will likely also be my dinner, as I made rather more of it than I'd originally intended. Haven't made baked ziti--in this case, it's just glorified spag bol with ziti instead of spaghetti, and shredded mozzerella cheese added--since before mum died.

It's a lovely spring day, despite the rainy weather predicted for most of the week, partly sunny, and warm enough for me to have a window partly open...though it's starting to cloud up a bit, now. The type of day I miss having a car to go out to the lake side or mountains, walking. Stuck here, alas. No buses on Sundays--and the local Trailways coach doesn't run often...don't fancy spending 8 or 9 hours in Lake George utterly alone, with little or no money on me.

Oh, I'd love to be out and about today, but there's really no where to go here, the museums (two of them) are really rather lame. I've been to the Hyde Collection several times already, and the local history museum is a real snoozer--this from someone who likes museums, mind you. I suppose I could go for a walk, but it's pretty boring to see the same old things you've seen for the last 2+ years--very little around here changes...I'm neither fit nor well enough any longer, to hike up Prospect Mountain, alas, and I've not got the cash to go horse riding--roughly $25 or $30 for round trip cab fare plus another $25 hire for the horse for 2 hours....not gonna' happen in my life time, ha-ha. Blimey! When I was a teenager, for $50, you could buy a whole month's worth of weekly riding lessons!

Wow, I'm a bit taken aback today. I was bored and checked my widget to see who was surfing my blogs---a couple of people actually Googled the "lyrics" of the David Tenant Rap that I made up in the wee hours of Saturday morning...a stupid rhyme that took me all of (mostly) 5 minutes to write, and people are Googling it? Seriously??? That seems really bizzare. I didn't really give it much thought, and almost didn't post it, 'cos tho' I enjoyed messing about with it, I think it's daft and lame, really.

Someone sent me an "interview" meme. Not sure what that is--but, I need a break from shifting between cleaning my bedroom and editing a story, so here's a good excuse for that break:

________________________________________________________________________________

1. Have you ever purchased novelty underwear?

Erm--that would be a firm NO.

2. Do you get claustrophobic?

No, not really. Not crazy about crowds or confined spaces, but it's never made me uncomfortable to the point where was anxious or had to leave.

3. Scared of the dark?

No...well, I've an eye disease, so when I go from bright light into a dim space, I temporarily quite literally lose my eyesight for a few seconds, so while it doesn't necessarily scare me per se, it sometimes can make me a bit nervious, 'cos I'm worried that I may hurt myself falling over something.

4. What are your initials?

NBG

5. Coffee, tea or energy drink?

Coffee, please...or tea...no to the energy drink, I think those taste like cow piss--well, what I imagine cow piss would taste like, if you added some carbonation and caffine to it.

6. Favourite clothing brand?

Don't really have one--whatever is cheap and looks nice on me. That said, I do lean towards a few brands, if I can find them at the consignment shop, put them on 2 month layaway plan, or find them for 50% or more off, at Label Shopper: Chico, Coldwater Creek, Victoria Jones, Morgan Creek, Bit and Bridle, Lee Riders (for women), Evan Picone.

7. Would you fall in love, knowing the person might leave you?

I've never been in love, and I'm not easily trusting (for good reason) when it comes to intimacy, so I really can't answer that.

8. Are you a David Tennant fan? And if yes, have you ever sent him anything (besides a fan letter)?

Am I a DT fan? Well, I guess I am, in the way that I think he's a marvelous actor. I'm not a fan-girl though, and seriously don't care about his sex-appeal, hair, clothing tastes, sextual orientation or size of his woo-hoo.

Have I ever sent him anything besides a letter? Yeah, I hate to confess this, because it was totally daft--well, downright stupid...but I once sent him an ugly brown rock and roll music-sets-you-free motif (winged microphones, guitars, amps, etc.) tee shirt from Walmart's once, as a birthday gift...at a time when I was hurting for money and could ill afford it. It was quite possibly the dumbest thing I've done in years--the man probably just tossed it in the bin or gave it to one of his flunkys...call it temporary insanity. I'll never do it again. Why waste money on some celebrity, when I've got real friend's with birthdays?

Jeez, that sounds bitter...I'm not bitter that my birthday gift didn't get acknowleged...I'm mad at myself for allowing my B-p disorder to get the better of me, and me doing something so utterly daft. I've spent too much time on this question. Next:

9. First Job?

Waitressing/busing tables for wedding banquets and dinners for the local Vetern's of Foreign Wars post in my village, when I was 14 years old.

10. Ever had surgery? When? What for?

Three times in my life: Tonsils in 1967, knee arthoscopy around 1998, emergency surgery in 2007 (I was so out of it, I still am not sure what was done to me.)

11. When's your birthday? How old will you be? How do you plan to celebrate? What do you want for your birthday this year?

Not till' the end of October. I'll be 49, I don't bother celebrating my birthday, there's no one to celebrate with and it's just another day to me now.

As for what I'd want--just an uneventful day/week would be nice--On the morning of my 2008 birthday, I got a rent increase notice in the post, and that week was the one where Tennant announced his departure from Who..in 2007, I got a notice around my birthday that my wages (my only income at the time) would be garnished by my student lender. In 2006 I got an eviction notice, in 2005, I got a notice that my college finanical had been cut, and that week found out my mum might not live to see Christmas.

You can take your birthdays and shove them where the sun doesn't shine, as far as I'm concerned.

12. Mashed potaotes or baked beans?

Mashed, please. Not that I dislkke baked beans, but I grew up in a meat and potatoes home.

13. What's the fastest you've traveled in a car?

I'd driven 90+mph in a 1983 Chevy Citation, down the Mass turnpike to Boston, once--without getting caught for speeding, I may add. Did Albany, NY to Boston in just under 3 hours, back in 1986, when I was 25 years old. I was chuffed.

14. Last thing you drank?

Diet Orange Crush soda

15. Last thing you did before doing this blog post?

Editing a story called Rain of Terror on my Road Apples blog.

16. Last person you talked to on the phone?

I left a message in the office voicemail yesterday, telling them I'd be in two hours late, 'cos I was too ill to walk to work just then.

17. Last song you listened to?

Henrietta by The Fratellis

18. Favourite resturants in your town?

Most resturants within the city limits of Glens Falls aren't within my means, but there is New Way Lunch, the hot dog joint on South Street, and East End Eatery is pretty affordable and has decent pizza and burgers, and Main Moon Chinese isn't half bad...Luis's Mexican Cafe is extremely good has some burritos and salads that are sort of budget friendly, too. I like Talk of the Town Tavern, which has fab pizza, spaghetti and sandwiches, but their prices have gotten incredibly outrageous, and I can't even buy a Coke at the bar there, any longer.

19. Last thing you bought from E-bay?

I've not bought anything from E-bay in at lest five or six years. I think the last thing was either an antique saddle, or my Jon Pertwee Dr Who tee shirt, I can't remember.

20. Besides, obviously, keys, what's on your keychain?

I have two keychains with my apartment keys on them, and each has two fobs.

Set one has a metal medallion of my Vermont college's offical seal and name, and a advert fob from the now defunct Saratoga Equine Sports Center, that a nice lady in the harness race track's business office kindly gave me, when I was working there as a cleaner.

Set two has a red phone box sent to me from my friend in Glasgow, and a wee metal replica of a Coldstream Guard, which says it came from Herrod's, that I got at a local consignment shop for 25 cents.

Well, I'm not into spoilers...much, but I have my own ideas about the end of Ten.

I didn't sit glued to it, 'cos youtube is rubbish and I'd rather wait for the DVD, but the Whovian in me was positiviely salvating to see Planet of the Dead--which was indeed briliant, and I just couldn't resist the temtation, I'm afraid.

So, now I know. The ending of PotD, not anything (much) about the rest of the specials.

And here lies my views on what may be in store for the poor wee Doc:

Am I wrong, or did I catch a bit of the Midnight theme in the special? And, there was the "knock four times" clue--then there was the knocking on the space bus, and something else, something which struck a chord in me--something about the bus...which, unfortunately, my post-TIA brain doesn't seem to want to grasp at the moment. Oh well, forget that, then...oh, and the Doctor made the quip about "people on buses, always blaming me."

But, I wonder if there's a tie-in with Midnight? Or is this just good old coincidence?

It may be, who knows? I'm not very smart, and I couldn't even begin to outguess Mr. Davies' genius, so I'll just enjoy thinking about the possiilities--god, the man has left us wide open to a busload of them, ey? (Pun intended.)

Got out of work at four pm, and wouldn't you flippin' know it! Walked out the front door of the office building--and the bus went by across the street. Dang! This may seem a minor inconvenience to some people, but...this means I have to wait upwards of 45 to 50 minutes before I can catch another bus to do the last of my shopping for the week.

I only need 3 items...dman it! And then, after picking up my four items--bin bags, furniture polish, and a personal care item, I have to stand around on my lame foot, on a damp, windy, chilly kerb (they have a tiny piece of total crap bus shelter, which doesn't keep the wind or blowing rain/snow off pedestrians and has no seating--our govt. taxes well spent..not) But, yeahy, I'd have to stand around for another 20 to 45 mintues, doing absolutely nothing but wait for another bus home...and yes, I STILL feel like rubbish...chest hurting me again today.

Life sucks and then you die. Maybe I can do without some things, and borrow some bin bags off my neighbour across the hall. Have I mentioned that I hate my life?

...the next best thing???

*(I had sort of enjoyed messing about with this last night, and, felt like posting it on both blogs. Obviously I have no future as a songwriter or a poet. It's not really great or anything. Sorry if some of you are seeing this twice. playwrite27)

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Today on a surprise guest appearence on BBC's Breakfast, David Tennant revealed his songwriting abilities, with this rap tune;

"I don't want to see a rat,
I'd much rather sit and chat,
To a girl with big titties,
Who thinks I'm very pretty,
I am just a guy from Glasgow,
I'm just a gigolo,
On tele I play the Doc,
The fan-girl's think I rock
And for a mere fiver,
I'll show them my screwdriver..."

Well, it may get me sacked, but I rang up work that I'd be two hours late. I feel too rubbish this morning to fuction. My heart is beating like a brass band's drum section doing the Macarena, and I'm so knackered, I can barely stand, no exaggeration.

I don't want to be sacked, but if I try to walk to work this morning, I'd likely end up in the back of an ambulance, or falling down on the floor. I figure in a few hours I'll be better, and if not, well, too bad for me.

Flame is still in heat and howling away like a banshee. Fan-friggin'-tastic.

It's cloudy here, and I suspect it's going to rain. I was told by a cabbie yesterday, that it's supposed to be cool and showery most of this coming week, and not even getting to 60 F, for the most part. We seem to be stuck in cold weather this year. I wonder if it's going to be another rainy summer, like back in 2006? Last summer was rather hot, humid and dry, which is good for the tourists, bad for me and others, who aren't blessed to have air conditioning.

I did a tiny bit of writing before bed last night, but haven't posted it to my Wordpress blog yet. I'll get around to it when I get around to it, I suppose. I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about anything today, I'm afraid. Sometimes writing is a blast, and I really enjoy it, and sometimes it just feels like work--something I'm doing out of habit or boredom...guess I'll never rate as some talented writing genuis--and so what? I mean that. Meh-I'm average, according to a couple of my old English profs, and that's good enough for my purposes. Better to be your average American writer, than some remedial hack, I suppose.

Back to bed for me, for a bit. I was going to make myself a nice fry up for breakfast, but reckon it can wait. Maybe I'll settle later, for some honey-nut Cherrios, instead.

Hope you all have, or are having, a pleasant Saturday.

Actually, it's night, now....going for 7.00pm here. Midnight in the UK..where does the time fly, ey? It's nearly Saturday for you lot!

So, when I picked up my med refills from the drug store, I checked my BP and weight on their machine. Well, the weight's good. I was 212 a month ago, now I'm 208.5 (pounds, not stone, we don't do stone over here). I've only sort of been watching my intake of the carbs and sugars, sodium and all that palaver, and was surprised by the loss, even tho' it was slight--but then, my appetite's been wonky for the last few weeks, so that might have something to do with it, as well.

However, the other things I tested, weren't so hot. My BP was 187/110, which I guess isn't great, and my pulse was 98. I'm in "severe stage three" whatever the hell that means.

Oh well, I've got my meds now, so maybe it'll be better. There's no BP machine near where I live, so I have to wait till I go somewhere that has one---which isn't very often. This isn't New York City--which is 180 miles away-- I don't exactly live in the hub of a thriving metropolis, here ya' know. We've been known to have moose and bear and deer wandering around, only a mile or two or three from the city limits.

Well, doesn't matter. I am knackered. I need to buy some stuff, but am too tired to slog down to the bus stop, quite frankly. I am out of bin bags and shower soap...but, I guess I can manage for one day, and go tomorrow after work, when the buses are running better--the buses don't run much after 6pm here. There's a bus at 6:15, and then you have to wait 'till 7.30 for the next one, then 9pm for one after that...bummer. When they run at nights at all, some weeks of the year, there's no night buses, and they never run buses on Sundays, except in tourist season for for special events--

--the local transit company falls all over itself to accomodate the tourists, but basically spits on the locals whom use their buses all year round. Again, it's a purely republican town, and republicans are not exactly known for their caring and common sense--better to blow things up and vomit hateful propaganda, life is so much easier that way, ha-ha.

Well, I've the groceries to put away. Sun's going down. Looks like we might get some rain tomorrow--I've not seen a forecast lately--but, it's clouding up a bit and there's a dampness to the air.

I've the balcony window open, and my twee windchimes are lightly tinkling away--it's been a rather breezy day here, wind blowing off the mountains to the west, and from off the Hudson River. But nice though--no jacket today for me, just a tee shirt under an open denim shirt. Feels weird not wearing a jacket, truth to tell, everytime I went to fetch my keys or mobile, I kept wanting to put my hand in a jacket pocket--but that particular denim shirt I was wearing, didn't happen to have any pockets. Not that I'm complaining. It really was nice to get out, and tho' it tired me something awful, I waled a few blocks to get some exercise and fresh air. I miss walking. That's the worst thing about that lame foot of mine, it took something away that I greatly valued--but always took for granted.

I really do have to stop taking anything and everything for granted! If nothing else I should have learned by now, is that you cannot depend on anything in this life--excepting death and taxes and red tape, of course.

...am I here? I have no idea. Seems I've lost the point, somewhere along the way.

I don't want to believe in religion any longer. All the people with normal lives...doesn't matter if they're religious or not. Take yuppie bitch, she's not religious, and she's got a perfect little life--nice car, nice home, happy hubby.

From what I've read and been told, you have to be a near-perfect human being to get into heaven--if there is a heaven, and I'm a long drink of water from that. You have to have blind faith, and I'm a liberal and a naturally curious person, so there goes that objective. So, even if I decided to be a card-carrying Presbyterian again, what's the point? I'm going to rot in hell anyway, no matter what I do...God don't bless losers, in case you've not noticed.

Well, I'm off for a bit...cash my paycheck, pay a bill, do a bit of shopping. for what it's worth: cheers.

Arrgh! My landlady is such a...._____!!!

She called me, whinging about me complaining...and suggested I move...just like she suggestedto my neighbour acrss the hall move out, too, they tell me. Some manager she is...me and my neighbour are, at present, two of her longest tenants--he's been here 5 years, me for some 2 1/2 years, and she is suggesting we move out...she's really looking out for that Aussie building owner's interests, isn't she? Yuppie bitch.

In the ensuing conversation, I mentioned that finding a place that takes 3 cats and is close to my job--me not having a car, is not easy. She's like, "you have THREE cats?!?'

Jay-sus! First of all, they've been in my apartment half a dozen times in the last year and a half. I moved in with three cats....she didn't know that? She's one of these prissy little neat-freaks that like everything in their life to be orderly and perfect--meaning she hates animals, by the way. I told her that's why I paid three month's rent in advance when I moved in. That sort of shut her up. Bitch.

1. Did they really go to the moon or was it all filmed at the BBC studios in Shepherds Bush?

Actually, I believe I read in some secret US govt. file, that they actually showed some unused footage from a Dr Who episode--which they added their own SFX to, of course.

2. Just how you would feel wearing an astronauts suit and have to wee down a tube?

Honey, once you've had to use a hospital bedpan, it's all uphill from there.

3. What would you miss most while floating about on the Space Station for a month?

Gravity.

4. Would you pay to be one of the first space tourists?

Only if they take immaginary money...really though, I'm waiting to go by Tardis, lol.

5. Have you seen a rocket launch for real? How awesome was it??

I launched a few bottle rockets in my teens, does that count?

Well, this isn't exactly a topping day, so far.

But, I did get a nice little prezzie in the post, and also in the post, a coupon for East End Eatery, and tho' I can't really afford it, I used the coupon to order delivery of one of their yummy cheeseburgers and fries.

I tried out my new ketchup on the fries--quite good. It's Heinz's new "One Carb" reduced sugar tomato ketchup--75% less sugar, it says. Not bad, I actually rather like it...can't taste much of a difference between that and regular catsup. Only thing I didn't like about it, was getting the blasted thing open--it had a "safety seal" over the top, which I couldn't pry off for the life of me...finally had to poke the cover with a pen..hard. Dang. It's flippin' ketchup...why do they need a safety seal for flippin' ketcup???

I'm sure that's the first thing some terrorist thinks of in the morning, "Hey, Abdoul, why don't we go to America and poison some Heinz ketchup today?" Riiight.

I'm so tired right now, I can barely see straight. I kept waking up all night long, in pain, and finally got to sleep sometime between 4 and 5am. I was in a deep sleep when I was wakened by the jerk downstairs...damn. I was going to get my BP checked today, when I went to druggist's for my atenolol and metformin refills. Guess I'd better not, ey? I wanted to have my abscess on my jaw looked at--it's better but keeps bleeding every day and won't heal properly...but, also in the post today, I got a notice from my health insurer that my co-pays will be increasing. Lovely. The government giveth, the government taketh away. God, America is really rubbish, sometimes.

I'm not in the best of moods today, am I? I won't ever harm myself, I promised someone, and I wouldn't hurt a friend for world's. But...you know, I really don't want to grow old. I have a good guess of what my future's going to be, and it's not something---Jesus CHRIST!

The asshole downstairs just came to my door, whinging about me complaining about his stereo--"is there any time of the day you aren't home, when I CAN turn it up?" Fucking prat. I tried talking to him---oh christ, I'm having chest pains, now---anyway, it was basically like talking to a brick wall.

What an ASSHOLE! This guy was a marine??? God, no wonder we can't win a war! I mean, I told him he woke up the lady across the hall, too, and he said, "I don't care about her, I'm talking about you." F_ck. What a jerk!!!!

I told him he had a sick person living over him, and he just shrugged and said, "Well I can't help that."

I told him its a small apratment down there, and there was no reason he needed to play his music so loud, and he says, "Well, actually, it isn't that small an apartment..."

I told him I was woken up at 1:30 in the morning, last week, and of couse I'm getting pissed off, "that was my ex-girlfriend (the one that got arrested) and I've moved out of that apartment, into a different one." And....that means you can't keep your music down, then???

Rather than saying he was sorry and would try to keep it down, all this moron kept doing was making excuse after excuse after excuse--and, trying to put all the blame on me! He started saying that he heard that I've called the cops on the kids upstairs all the time, inferring that I was a trouble maker---yeah. Right. I've called the cops on the kids upstairs 3 times in two years--that doesn't constitute "all the time." And, the cops were only called when the noise was excessive, long-term and into the wee hours of the morning.

God, my chest hurts. I am not going to the doctor's. Let the effing chest hurt. I don't care anymore. I just don't want to. I, and this life I'm stuck in, just isn't worth it, any more. I'm not saying I'm bettr than anyone else, but this the life I've tried to avoid leading for 30 years...and now, I'm stuck here forever...no, I will consider myself blessed to have a flippin' heart attack...or a stroke. I fear being institutionalized, but maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing.

Now that I'm (unfortunately) awake-as is the rest of the building (my neighbour's sister across the way works 3rd shift, and she got woken up, too)...I was reading a local weekly newspaper, The Chronicle.

Every year, without fail, on April Fool's Day week, The Chronicle posts fake news stories all over its front page. Everyone (assumably) knows this, it's been a running gag for years. One year, during Clinton's presidency, they said the state was building a bridge across 27 mile long Lake George--which is surrounded on three sides by loads of tree covered mountains--and the president was going to come and dedicate it. This year, they said that Beckham was coming to the wee rural Adirondack town of Fort Ann--which has cows, some homes, two antique shops, a bank, a convenient store, a petrol station, a small motel, a funeral home and a hair dressers--, and the paper boasted that Beck specially choose this jerkwater little town in northeastern New York, to host a big soccer (football) camp for youngsters. (Fort Ann has an annual soccer camp, apparently.)

This came with a fake weather forecast about temps soaring into the 90's (it actually snowed that week), and other gags, including a story alongside the Beckham joke, saying that the liberal Congressional candidate was endorsing the conservative, and that the conservative candidate (Murphy/Tedisco) was endorcing the liberal. Erm--those weren't a hint, then?

Well, some woman wrote in, foaming at the mouth and declairing that she'd never read The Chronicle again, because she got all excited over the prospect of Beckham coming here, and told all her friends...only to be told it was a joke. ERm--the story about temps being in the 90's and other gags, weren't a clue then?

Since tomorrow is my day off, I was going to stay up till the wee hours and write, but can't rid myself of a splitting headache, so reckon I'm going to call it a night. It's half-past 11pm over here.

I've only just finished dinner. But, it was worth the wait: A pan grilled turkey breast fillet, basted with Kansas City style molassas BBQ sauce, some Birdseye sweet corn and some Zatarain's Carribean rice that's flavoured with coconut and pineapple....nom-nom. Very worth the wait. Don't ususally like to eat this late, but I wasn't hungry most of the day and didn't eat any lunch, so I was famished when I got home from work at 9pm.

I hadn't posted my anti-conservative post even 2 minutes, and I got an irate comment--which I instantly deleted, of course-- by a republican, telling me to get out of America if I didn't like it.

OK. If he wants to toss ten grand my way, and throw in the cost of applying for citizenship in another country, I'm fine with that.

Jeez--that response so justified my post! I mean, he didn't give a single reason why he was mad at my post, he didn't question my facts or figures, nothing--just "if you don't like it, get out." I couldn't have illustrated my point about the republican reactionary mantra and propaganda, than this gent just did for me. Wow, they do your head in, American conservatives...they didn't use to be this way, ya'know...this has been steadily escalating since the Reagan era.

Anyway, watched some Dr Who during dinner, listened to some music and played a bit of cribbage online--for once, I kept beating the computer, hoo-rah. Cant' rid myself of this headache, tho' I'm blessed that I rarely have them, so I can hardly complain, but it makes it even harder to concentrate on writing than usual, so I'm afraid my ideas for chapter 9 of Evil Waters will just have to wait until morning.

I'm trying to edit a 10/Donna story called Rain of Terror, but Wordpress has quite of few bugs of late---it keeps freezing every time the autosave option trips..which is getting to be around every 20 or 30 seconds, it seems like...very frustrating when one is trying to write or edit anything and you have to sit there twiddling your thumbs when the screen freezes while it's auto-saving, damn, it's more than slightly aggravating.

What else? Oh yeah....also, editing Rain of Terror in the editor page, the story keeps insisting in being centred insted of being left-justified...even tho' it appears left-justified when you read it on the blog--how weird is that? And, also, today, while editing Rain of Terror, I was replacing some text to make the grammar a bit better---when it changed font on me! I swear, I did not change the font, it did it on it's own. Weird!!

I never minded editing other people's work, but I am rather bad about editing my own. It's one of my foilbles, I'm afraid--I am perfectly OK editing stuff written by other people, but seriously drag my heels horribly over doing mine....you should see the furrows from my skid marks, rival the Grand Canyon, ha-ha. I mean, you want to talk about procrastination? I've got stories--like Grave Danger and The Perspex Prison--that have been waiting 2+ years to be edited! I'm a terrible writer. Just as well I don't write professionally, or have a publisher or an agent, I'd likely make them go bald tearing their hair out! Oh, I'm fine with deadlines--never missed a deadline yet....much....but correcting my own work? Meh--not so much.

So, I'm off to bed, hope everyone has a happy Friday, cheers!

Time, I think, for this liberal to do a little conservative bashing, ha-ha.

There's been a mass protest, mainly by conservative republicans, against taxes afoot in America, with people across the land staging re-enactments of the Boston Tea Party (when, Bostonians, shortly before the Revolution, used the new tea tax as an excuse to punish the British government).

Ironically--very ironically, these people, who were yelling for years that we have to support the troops, the firemen, police, education, etc., are doing away with the one thing, that PAYS the troops, fireman's, policemen's and teacher's salaries!

Some advocate for a partial elimination of taxes, while others--with no plan in place as to where the funds will come from to make up the loss of revenue--want taxes to be eliminated altogether..which is totally unpatriotic, even treasonous, as then the whole of the USA will completely collaspe and million's of American's lives will be endangered. Tens of thousands would die, for lack of basic health care and fire/police protection.

How do they think the equipment that helps to save the soldier's lives, is purchased? Where do they think the money came from, that supplied the equiment and training the firemen who responded to 9/11 used?

In related news, since November, hundreds of American gun owners and hunters have hurled racial slurs and threats at President Obama and other "liberals" who want to curb gun violence, with some control over guns....let's face it: in a realtively peaceful country, NO ONE needs dozens of guns! No one. Guns only do one thing: kill.

Less than 5% of the American population are hunters--three quarters of them white males.
Yet polls show that two out of five Americans have guns in their home--with an emphasis on the plural rather than the singular!

So while 4.7 percent of Americans use guns for hunting--40% own guns....with no other intent in mind, than using those guns to kill another human being. Scary stuff, ey?

Many conservative Americans still hate their fellow Americans (aka: liberals--basically any American who doesn't agree with republican propaganda and psuedo-patriotism and rhetoric...well, listening to the rabid dog foaming at the mouth vomited from republican lips and pens, one gets the definate idea that America's conservatives hate "liberal" Americans every bit as much as the Taliban members who crashed planes into buildings in 2001, hates America! How rubbish is that? Why is it OK for these loud mouth cowardly bullies, hiding behind their penises with bullets to hate liberal Americans, but not anyone from Islam?

I find these psuedo-patriotic mooks have no qualms with advocating putting soldiers and other human beings lives in harms way...while they sit safely at home, cleaning their guns, and dreaming of the glory of death and destruction....that would likely make the marjority of them wet themselves if they ever had to face it for real.

Repubicans react, liberals think....and thinking can be very scary, and...it takes effort, as well.

The just man (or woman), is the one who isn't afraid to pause for doubt.

Well, the solicitor from Absolute (formally Virgin) radio rang me up today, and now I know what they wanted and mystery solved.

I've been asked if I want to fly over there, and appear on the radio with Chris O'Connell and David Tennant, as the two of them announce their engagment over the airwaves.

NOT!

Nahh--nothing so interesting. Actually, it was for something much more everyday and mundane--which, even tho' I wasn't asked to, I won't tell you about, because of personal ethics. Even in her grave, my mum's old fashioned upbringing is coming back to haunt me, ha-ha.

Seriously, it's nothing all that much. Mystery solved, moving on.

Got a letter from Social Security today--of course expecting the worst...but, no, it's good news, for a change. Because I'm on benefits, instead of getting a break on the govt.'s deductions from my pay packet each week, I'm getting a one-time stimulus checque of $250--roughly the equivilent to 120 pounds give or take a pound or two.

I was planning on going down to put flowers on mum's grave this month, but the cheque won't arrive 'till end of May--so, a belated Mother's Day trip to the Albany Rural Cemetery will be in order, I reckon. It'll be nicer then, anyway. I ramble around the Moordenaerskill creek and visit the wee waterfall at Time Flies and some of the family plots, once again view some of the quite good 19th century morturary art, and, I can pack a sandwich and a Coke and have myself a lovely picnic lunch at the pond--in memory and in honour of the picnics mum used to take us on there, when I was a child.

Then later, before heading back into Albany's city centre for the Trailways coach home...oh yes, a genuine treat--catch a transit bus north a short ways into Waterviliet, to Ted's Fish Fry later in the day, for THE best fish n' chips dinner in all of upstate New York, and one of their yummy coffee flavour milk shakes. Nom-nom!

It makes me a wee sad though, knowing I'd have to take a transit bus to Ted's. Only because there was a time, I'd think nothing of walking a mile or two to get a Ted's fish fry--heck, I used to walk everywhere, before I got my driver's license, and even afterwards, when I wasn't cycling. Shank's mare used to be my main mode of transport...now, I'm so gimpy (and wimpy) I have to take the bloomin' bus, even a half a mile! That's just a little depressing, I have to tell you...very. I do feel quite aged, sometimes.

"THE HILLS OF HOME"

I just posted this in the wrong blog. Not exactly wide-awake today, am I?

God, my right hand is freezing cold...what's with that??? It's 70 F degrees in here, no clue why my right hand should feel like it's been stuck in a block of ice.

Anyhow...
The city's department of public works recently posted a notice that they'd be picking up leaves, dead branches, etc. left at the kerbs this morning. And...they did. Brought in a little bobcat loader and a big old bucket loader, and scraped the dead leaves and winter detrus from the pavement.

So...what does the maintenance guy from the apartment house across the street from me, do? The city equipment hadn't done it's job and gone 'round the corner more than 5 min., when the guy across the street gets out his rake and leaf blower--and yup, blows the crap onto the now-clean kerb! What the...???

What can I say, this is typical for Glens Falls--they're all redneck, flag-waving, gun-loving liberal-hating republicans, ya'know. Bush won the county back in the November elections by some 300 votes. So, the fact that someone puts out his brush on the kerb, 5 min. after it was picked up...isn't all that surprising, really...it's business as usual

I know not a one of them will ever see this, but I just have to gush away, and thank Russell T. Davies, David Tennant, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson, and--damn it, EVERYBODY, at Dr Who/BBC Wales for making the come back of the world's greatest television programme, so special and spectactular.

Thank you for making my life just a little more bearable, by bringing a smile to my face during what was the absolute darkest days, months and years of my life. In a way, just like your fictional Doctor, you all literally helped save a person's life, whether you know it or not.

May all your future endevours be happy and successful, you deserve it. Cheers.

Well, after today, no more disco downstairs. The people with the hugely loud boom-box stereo downstairs are now gone.

There'd been some police roaming around outside our building, Friday night--and, I guess they were there to arrest the partner of the guy downstairs, as my landlady put it, "he's an ex-marine and she's training to be a nurse and they are a very nice couple." I'm told the police were there to very much arrest the young woman, and that she's going to be in jail for a while. Anyway, they were told to get out, and so, as of tonight, apartment 3 is vacant again.

Easy come, easy go. God, my landlady is sooo-shallow. She's hot to evict the long-term tennant, 'cos she just plain doesn't like him, 'cos well..he is a bit of a redneck idjit, and that's a fact...but he's never been arrested--well, at least, not since I've been here. Since I've been here, the police have arrested two people now--one for drug dealing, the other for assault, and an investigator from Homeland Security was sniffing around, looking for another person who'd scarpered before I'd moved in.

Jeez, there's only 7 apartments... Really classy building I live in.

I wrote earlier, some local news stories, one about a car full of teens crashing into a river that runs near the NY/Vermont border--the paper today said it was the Metowee River, but now they say it was the Indian River, so I don't know which it was, not that it matters much...well there was a follow up story here, and it's impressive:

GRANVILLE, NY -- Vincent Garolli thought he was swimming.

Boisclair, Garolli, Lewis and passenger Charlette Gonsalves, 17, of Granville, were all thrown from the vehicle as it tumbled. Manell said she was the only person in the car wearing a seat belt. (appearing in the Glens Falls Post-Star)

local paper is a fountain of intresting news again today--not.

The ususal plethora of domestic abuse-parents, kids, spouses. Seems to get worse as the economy worsens.

Police broke up an underage drinking party--apparently someone hired by a holiday-maker to care for a pet, passed the key to the person's home on to some teenager, and about 16 of them broke in and started to party...the police came before any of the four cases of beer were opened, and only charged one kid, the one with the key.

Also, couple of people arrested for drink driving, over the weekend.

Couple of drug arrests, as well.

A 17 year old boy in the mountain town of Lake Luzerne was chaged with sexually molesting a 10 year old girl. Charming.

A 70 year old--that's not a typo, folks--was arrested for spraying graffitti. The man was found by county sherriffs to be spray painting the world "rowlow" on a hiking trail pedestrian bridge on a road near Prospect Mountain. When asked by police why he did it and what the word was supposed to mean, the man apparently merely shrugged and said the word, "intriqued" him and he just felt like doing (spaying) it.

A car filled with five teenagers broke through some guardrails on the road alongside the Mettawee River, and plunged into the water, injuring the five kids with leg and back injuries. All but one occupant was able to exit the vehicle on their own, though. Alcohol or drugs were not believed to be involved, but the possiblity of high speed or a distracted driver are being investigated.

Across the state line, in Vermont, the hometown of the Captain of the Alabama were celebrating his release from the pirates.

Locally and nationally, survivialists (and their families) are stockpiling weapons, food and other survivial items, in anticipation of a civil war in this country, or a terrorist attack. Most of the survivialists are against Obama and call liberals socialists. They expect there to be some sort of coup, apparently, by the more right-wing members of the republican party, or a war with North Korea or Islam, depending on who you talk to. Some of these survivalists align themselves with either the KKK or the Nazi's. Other's are just completely bonkers and paranoid. There's an estimated 10 million of these nutjobs, ranging from Maine to Alaska...including some here in New YOrk's Adirondacks.

Welcome to MY America. Do you wonder why I want the hell out of here?

I looked out my front windows and saw the rubbish bins out front by the road. That threw me for a loop! Bin pick up day is Friday, and I thought it was Thursday and I'd missed a whole day again! I woke up thinking it was Wednesday--which it is--and saw the bins out front, and thought, OMG! did I miss a whole day from my life again (that happened to me one summer weekend not that long ago, where I thought Friday was Saturday and Saturday was Sunday--actually that's very terrifying to me to realize that somewhere along the way, I'd missed a whole day of my life--as I've written, my independance is all I have left in this life worth holding on to (well, that an my love of Dr Who, and to lose it would be a terrible thing).

So, apparently the other tenants just put the bins out a day early, for some reason. Mind you, half the time they don't put them away...for days the empty bins will sit at the kerb (we don't have bin police here). Actually, I have to do it. Men. Straight men. All the gays I've known in my life have never been that lazy. Which reminds me that I have to take out my bin bags tonight. I almost forgot last week. Wound up taking my bags out at 2 in the morning!

Well, it's going for 10am. Mostly sunny morning over here, actually starting to look like spring, my maple tree out front has little red buds on it! At last! Hoo-ray. And, I saw some crocuses in bloom, yesterday as I walked to work. How cool is that? First flowers of spring! Yeeee-ha! Bring it on!

Four or six weeks from now, we'll be ready to go swimming in the lakes, ha-ha. Well, they don't open the beaches officially, until mid or late June, so a bit longer than that, unless one sneaks in...which I've been known to do. Cold water never bothered me. Quick plunge and it's all good. We spent the winter here, whinging about the couple of feet of snow on the ground for months on end, and the long weeeks of -22 C or colder temps, now we'll likely spend the summer months, whinging about the heat and humidity, ha-ha.

I don't know why, but my e-mail is suddenly becoming flooded with college degree offers--no less than seven this morning. Yeah, there's a dream flushed down the loo. Afraid my dreams are shattered to dust, and I'm stuck forever being drudge labour. I had my chance and failed, simple as that. Truth-to-tell, I've no more chance of finishing my BA communications (it was supposed to be Theater Management, but I could never get into the required classes, so was forced to change major) Well, as I was saying, I've no more chance of getting my degree now, than I have of winning the NY state lotto drawing tonight. Still looking for those six winning numbers, by the way, if anyone has them and wants to share?

Speaking of getting e-mails...well, in this case, a PM, I got a rather irate and illogical response from that flippin' nutjob DT fan-girl. Oh. Pardon me. David flippin' Tennant. I'm not allowed to call him by his first name--or his initials, apparently. Whatever.

Anyway, she went off at me, only because I replied to her irate PM of yesterday, by pointing out that I am 48 years old, and have been up the creek, over the mountain and down the loo, and I may not be blessed to have had the wonderful life Mr. Tennant has had, but I do have a life, and am older than he is (especially in the way I dress, apparently), and if Tennant has an issue with me or my Roasting David blog, he can have his people e-mail me with their objections, and I will address them. Tho', he seems to be having his own issues of late, judging by the way he's looked at times. Hope he's OK...not that it's any of my business, but he seems like a nice enough sort of fella', and hate to see him troubled.

DT fan-girl didn't apprarently like my answer--wow, that was a long PM...didn't even bother reading it all...lot of the "f" word. Wow, my mum would have skinned me alive if I talked like that to an adult! Guess parents today don't have the same strict standards of public conduct--or the time for their kids--that my generation's parents, did. Well, I won't go into the repsonse, other than to say it was just your usual badly parented teenage spoiled brat rant. Too bad. I will just ignore her from now on.

Gotta a long day ahead again...and a long night. I'd wanted to sleep to 10am, but the landlord's handyman is downstairs pounding something, and the new tenants down below me are blasting their boom-box stereo again. So much for plans. Oh well, I can use the extra time this morning to edit Rain of Terror...if my wonky brain will cooperate. It looks now, like I definately may have had a TIA, alas. And probably early dementia, if the way my brain is acting these days, is any indication. I'm stuck on Evil Waters...trying to decide how I want the Doctor to defeat the alien. Poor Doc, he's going to just have to cool his heels in Chapter 8 while I try to figure out what I want to do with chapter 9. Hope he's a patient bloke.

I got the Carpenter's on telling me that love's put them on top of the world, and America singing about Sister Goldenhair, the Bay City Rollers telling me about Saturday Night and the Proclaimers singing about Sean.

I still haven't heard from Absolute radio. How rubbish is that? They ask me for my phone number, refuse to give me any details as to what this is all about, then...never call me. Well, I guess it wasn't anything all that important then, and I'm just going to forget about it. I've got better things to do than hang around waiting for phone calls that never come. Actually, I've not had a phone call in two weeks--Virgin sent me an automated call telling me my minutes were getting low.

I've gone a whole month without a single phone call, believe it or not...well, wrong numbers and con artist telemarketers aside. Absolutte said I could call them--yeah, on my low income? Like that's going to happen! I can barely afford the $20 for a phone card once a month at the moment, calling flippin' overseas? Not gonna' happen. I need every minute I can spare, to ring up the cabs and health center and work and such.

Time to feed the cats--and me. Actually hungry this morning, which isn't a bad thing. My appetite is so iffy these days, that some days I have to actually force myself to eat so I can take my meds, one of which needs o be taken with food.

Hope you all are having a good day so far. Cheers.

When Martian's (Big Mac) Attack! See, even aliens deserve a break today....Martians-they're lovin' it! (OK, I'll stop now.)

I deleted my Twitter blog. Decided it was useless rubbish--for my purposes. I'm sure many people find it useful. I will say that it was a challenge, trying to actually say something in 140 words/punctuation/spaces. That brought back memories of me tearing my hair out, trying to write a good and interesting broadcast news story in 30 seconds for one of my college writing classes. For a "wordy" like me, that was a bit of a wake up call. Think it made my writing a lot tighter than it had been, despite the mutttering and cursing.

However, I found it slightly absurd that Twitter includes the SPACES between the words in it's word count...punctuation, I sort of can understand--but since when is a blank space a word??? The internet, unfortunately sometimes, can become a breeding ground for sheer idiocy.

Long night at work, calls were slower than maple syrup in January, coming in. Got stuck with the chav girls...wow, not a good place to be for an prudish old maid! Oh, the girl's I was sat with were nice enough, it was the conversation tho'...whoa. A bit out of my depth.

There was the line, "...and he asked me if I liked to take it up the butthole..." Okaaay then. TMI. Well, talking sex to a literal old maid, is a bit like talking about guy sex to a lesbian. Well, the lesbian might be a lot less prudish about it, then I would. Oh, not that I won't hear about it, or that i never have thought about it...but, it's really, being me, not exactly high on my list of interesting conversational topics. Sex is only slightly more interesting to someone like me, as reading the sports page in the papers. Meh.

And, later in the girly chit-chat, there was this casual reference, "Oh, I don't know what she was worried about, it's not like we were going to gang up on her in the elevator (lift), if we wanted to beat her up, we would have done at the bar on South Street Saturday night." Charming girls. Well, they did talk about recipes, and one girl asked me if I knew how to write a cursive "G."

I do, but I can't cos' of the crooked fingers, or perhaps it was the mild DCD/dyspaxia, as that's about the time I was being tested, I think. My cursive lessons were cut well short in elementary school 'cos of my problems holding a pen properly--still can't, either.

What the hell is going on, on the other side of my wall? I. Don't. Want. To. Know. There's this repeated moaning, "Oooooohhh." I have no idea. It's brother and sister, for God's sake. I really, really, really don't want to know. I'm hoping he's just crooning to his sick old dog or something.

I just read a Dr Who rumour that it will be filming in Vegas. That would be interesting, but I haven't read anything official, or even in the tabloids, that would back that assertion up. So, we'll see what we shall see, I suppose. I wrote a 10th DW fan fic that partially takes place in Vegas, called The Pyramid Project, back in Dec. of 07. It involved goat people, deadly android Elvis impersonators and killer robot clowns. OK, I got a bit carried away.

I know a lot of people whinge that Shakespeare is boring, and hard to understand and yadda-yadda-yadda...well, here's my take on it:

I was never blessed to be able to study the bard, until the tender age of 43, when I took a make up course at my Vermont college one summer--two week's to read and absorb Hamlet...and I loved it!

Being a Yank, the only exposure I received to Shakespeare, in 14 years of public (state) education as I grew up, was one viewing of Romeo and Juliet in, I think, 1976, with a mob of other students, in a crowded cinema, with absolutely no introduction...they put us on the buses, we queued up and paid for our tickets, sat in the cinema seats, and then we had to sit throught several minutes of hearing the loud giggles and twitters of oversexed teens (or was that undersexed), as the opening shots were of close-ups of the men's codpieces. We were bused home at the end, and the next day gven a book called Falisafe to read. The end.

So why, five years later, did I find myself sitting in my downtime at work, reading Twelfth Night? Why at the tender age of 23, pass up a western by Louis L'amour, and buy a copy of Hamlet, instead?

Was I trying to show the world how trendy or intellectual I was? Nope. I hope someone shoots me dead, if I ever try to be trendy, and if someone ever thinks me an intellectual, they don't know me very well. I help my friend milk cows, and go to Walmart to people watch--hardly intellectural pursuits, ey?

No, it wasn't me trying to be something I'm not. What drew me to Shakespeare wasn't the stories. It wasn't even curiosity, really. It was the words. Oh my god, what beautiful words! The flow and rhyme and sound of them, tripping over my lips as i sat under a pine tree and read out loud to my dog.

And partly, it was the stories, too. I mean, the history may be gone, but what the characters feel, the essence of the characters themselves--they are still around today, those feelings, those human frailites and foilbles and courage.

I had a real hard time figuring out Hamlet--and, seriously, it really did take me 20 years to read the whole thing through. In the mid-80's, at a used book stall, I found an old paperback called The Age of Kings, that was based on some television programmes of Shakespeare's plays, put on by the BBC in the early 60's, I think. It had a wonderful introduction, which explained what the story ws about in clear modern English, therefore enabling me to plunge into the story of Richard the II, without too many pauses to figure out what the hell the characters were nattering on about in their Elisabethan tounges.

I loved Richard II, partly because I'd lost my beloved childhood home, and could well relate to the feelings of exile Bolingbroke-I recall that when reading that, I actually wept...and I seldom weep over a book or film or anything like that, so I had to be greatly moved.

So, maybe it's not so much that you find it boring, but that some of you are jaded by it, or blinded by the easy life of the instant gratification of the modern world, and you don't like having to work at enjoying yoruselves....or maybe, you really do find it boring--just as I find most reality television, news about Obama's dog, conservative rhetoric, sunbathing and celebrity gossip extremely tedious and dull, quite frankly.

There is this blindness in America that democracy is a one-sided affair: do as I say, not as I do.

For decades, America de-cried the use of torture in Communist countries and dictatorships--including Sadaam's regime in Iraq....leading to America supporting international judgements against the torturers.

Now, the wheel has come full circle, and it is America's turn to face an international court for acts of torture committed at Gitanimo, Cuba. Six Bush officials may be brought to trial (albeit, probably in absentia, as they probably lack the balls and chest hair, to be responsible members of society--and humanity) and be held accountable for their actions by a court in Spain.

Let's face it; torturers and those who support torture--for ANY reason, are not exactly model human beings.

I was never more ashamed of my country, when some former POW's, sided with Bush on the torture, because they thought it would be "unpatriotic" to go against their president's wishes.

Hello! No, it's unpatriotic to blindly go along with your goventment without thinking or questioning. That's the whole point of democracy: Being able to stand up and say, "No! I don't agree! I think that's wrong!"

That's THE most precious right in a democracy--not voting, not waving a flag, not owning a gun or worshipping (or choosing not to worship) a god...it's the right to say "no" to your government and fellow man, the right to protest, the ability to point out---and redress--a wrong.

To think that something like that, would be unpatriotic, is to reveal yourself to be completely obtuse as to the true nature of democracy.

Now is the true test for the American people. Will they allow this judgment to go without massive protest, or will they turn all those the protests over the decades, over other countries' torture of its citizens, into a bald-faced hypocritical farce? Will America face the true test of its own democracy, or will it run away and hide from the ugly truth of it's democratic hypocracy?

Will those six republicans prove that there really is "truth and justice" for all? Or, will we show the international community that America has become a nation of weak-kneed, unthinking, lying hypocrits?

I have to comment on sad people, who seem to desperately need to "collect" friends like human beings are some sort of living knick-knacks.

Thanks, but I'm too independent to allow myself to be dehumanized by people collectors.

That's what people who blindly go out and collect other human beings for no other reason than to have a long "friends list" or "followers" list are doing: dehumanizing you.

They are prostituting friendship.

Yes, I do mean prostitution... in the exact same way a street walker, one-night-stand gigalo, rapist or pedophile dehumanizes the intimate act of making love. Turning something that should be deeply moving and personal, into a selfish hobby, a cruel and indifferent act of self gratification, or a completely meaningless act of materialistic greed.

Harsh assessment?

Yes.

True? That's up to you to decide. I just call it as I see it, but personally playwrite27 isn't happy with someone trying to turn me into something Im not: a human bit of bric-a-brac.

I've been alone, totally isolated from other human beings on a personal level...for months. It's more than just painful--it's agonizing...to the point where death seems a blessing as an escape from the pain and lonliness.

So, I don't just value friendship, I consider it something more precious to me, than any amount of money in the bank, any amount of possessions. I hate to see friendship cheapened by pointless people who have not the depth, character or intelligence, to be sincere in regards to human relationships.

I won't cling to friends--I let them go their own ways, but, I never ever take them for granted, and never will de-value them by having a friend merely for "braging rights."

That's all "friends" collectors are: freinds prostitutes.

If you don't truly mean it, don't ask me to be on your friend's list, or follow me on a social networking site or messaging site, whatever. Just. Don't.

Well, I'm ready for bed--should've gone an hour ago, but the boys upstairs where moving the furniture around, banging away on my ceilings...or having really wild sex, whichever.

Yup, my nose has turned into a two-nostril Niagara Falls...and I can't stop sneezing...and people all around me were sneezing like crazy today, as well...so maybe it's just an alergey I've never had before, or there's one hell of a virulent cold going 'round Glens Falls this week. Not prone to many allergies, so...??? Anyway, the heart's not good, so I will have to get my BP and sugar and blood level's checked tomorrow. Bother. They're going to have to bill me, as I just paid the rest of the National Grid bill and spent $20 on the laundry, and am tapped out. I think I've got about 8 dollars left, and it will run me $6 just to go to the health centre. Yikes.

I had a small (one scoop) ice cream sundae tonight. I was tired and stressed and needed to relax. I've been watching my sugars and carbs this week, so reckoned one "baby" sundae wouldn't hurt. I got stuck with some teenage girls in the booth behind me...some homophobic teenage girls. One apparently didn't approve of my slightly butch ladies' country attire: Rider jeans, blue/brown/white plaid shirt, and a men's insulted burgundy plaid flannel shirt-hoodie combo...oh, and my cowgirl's baseball cap. Meh--I was knackered and just wanted to relax, and wasn't feeling up to dolling myself up, just to go for a wee ice cream.

I'd brought a Dr Who book with me to read, so I mostly ignored them--which apparently didn't deter the brats, 'cos they just talked louder...one girl going on and on about this woman she didn't like 'cos she was a lesbian, and then went on about some guy who likes to dress as a woman, insulting the bloke to her friends--then she decided she didn't like older people, 'cos then this little insecure rugrat is dissing some older woman she apparently had to work with, saying the older woman didn't work very fast...yeah, and neither will you when you get older, bimbo. I call these twits "bubble girls" and "barbies" cos' they are so far removed from the real world, that they might as well be toy dollies or living in a perspex bubble.

Such a shame. I sat there, not being angry with her for disrupting my "time out," but feeling genuinely sorry for her. I mean, it's such a huge world out there, so full of new things, constantly changing, all sorts of interesting people and places and things--and she cuts herself off from all of it, with her own insecurities, fears and predjudices. She'll never be anything but what she is, she'll never know anything but her own tiny little world--how genuinely sad!

Yeah, I sometimes am a bit bitter about my "wasted" education that netted me only debt and no future whatsover, as I'd hoped it would. But...OK, yeah. It did gift me with expanded horizons--from going to another country, to overcoming shyness through acting exercises, to learing to think abstractly, to ask questions, to embrace new experiences and change. I still am not sure that was worth going into a literal lifetime of debt, but...it did change my life, on so many levels...though none of it will help me get a better futre, it has helped me open doors that I never knew were there.

I done went and got me a head cowld, blast it all. Life just ain't fair, is it?

Our tourist season is from the last weekend of May to the first weekend of Sept...with a bit of overlap, especially during the colourful fall foliage season, which draws visitors to New York's Adirondack Mountains, and our neighbour, the state of Vermont, from all over the USA and even other nations.

Summer activities in the region include:

swimming, boating, lake, river and canal cruises, parasailing, fishing, kayaking/canoeing, whitewater rafting, river tubing (floating in a tyre innertube), sunbathing, tennis, golf, cycling/mountain biking, horseback riding, carriage rides, weekly rodeos, dude ranch holidays, hiking, rock climbing, seaplane tours, hot air balloon tours, weekly fireworks on Lake George, amusement arcades, crazy golf, theme parks (Magic Forest & Santa's Workshop), water parks, Six Flags/Great Escape amusement park and outdoor/indoor water parks, 2 historic forts (Fort William Henry/Fort Ticonderoga) and re-enactments of battles and encampments from both Queen Anne's and Revolutionary Wars, museums, galleries, comedy clubs, night clubs/discos, dinner theater, opera, symphony, also chamber music, blues, rock, country music, jazz and bluegrass festivals, Elvis Festival (June), Americade Motorcycle Rally--20,000 motorcycles (June), Hot Rod Nationals car show, parades, 1/2 mile of famous name brand factory outlet shops, arts and crafts festivals, Adirondack Theater Festival, town-wide garage (boot) sales, country fairs.

______________________________________________________________________

15 miles south, in Saratoga Springs/Saratoga County:

World class polo, internationally famous Saratoga Race meet (end of July to end of August) featuring the Traver's Stakes America's only summer derby-portions of the films Seabiscuit and Billy Bathgate were filmed here, show jumping and dressage, Harness horse racing, health spas, slots (fruit machine) casino, off-track betting (casino), two national museums (thoroughbred racing/dance) and several historical musuems, nightclubs, comedy clubs, local concerts, art galleries, trendy cafes, quaint shops, pristine Victorian era park with historic casino and enclosed operating antique carousel, National golf course, state park with golf, cycling paths, picnic areas, indoor and outdoor swiming pools, walking paths, mineral baths and fountains, and a couple of geysers,

A big area draw from late May to early September, is the Saratoga Performing Arts Center---this year, beginning in May, concerts and other attractions will feature: Coldplay, Def Leopard/Poison/Cheap Trick, Dave Mathews Band, Nickelback, Jackson Browne, Motley Crue, Marvin Hamlish, yo-ya ma, Philadelphia Orchestra--with actor Alec Baldwin doing a recitation for the opening, Swan Lake ballet, Herbie Hancock and patti LaBelle are feautred artists for the annual Jazz Festival, and the Paul Taylor modern dance troupe.

There are attractions outside the city of Saratoga Springs, including Saratoga National Battlefield and monument, canal cruises, Rowing events on Saratoga Lake, historic homes, antqiue shops, festivals, in Ballston Spa there are museums, antique shops, a weekly rodeo and real western store, quaint small town shops, cafes and diners, and for one week in July, the Saratoga County Fair.

SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)

So, I'm finally giving in, and taking a couple of people's advice and changing the way I write fiction. At least, my current story, and perhaps one or two of my others--what a bunch of palaver to have to go through, though! It's taking forever to completely change how the story appears on the page, and I cannot say I'm enjoying doing this....why the hell didn't my professors tell me this in college? I tried to give myself as many diverse writing classes I could, but it all came to naught, in the end, at least where fiction writing goes. What a waste of thousands of dollars--tens of thousands...should of skipped going back to college and stayed on benefits, would have been better off being ignorant.

God, I'm knackered! Went to the laundromat, but before I did, I've discovered that I've abruptly either picked up a head cold or a some unknown alergy. Fan-friggin'-tastic. Then, hauled two laundry bags and a basket downstairs, got in the cab, and the chest pains started again. Gonna' have to watch what i do, I guess. So much for feeling better.

So, I have to finish hauling up the laundry--literally ran out of strength to get it upstairs when I got home, then shower and change into my office duds, and go into work...come home, force myself to eat something..and likely go to bed. I used to thrive on being active, now, I do the laundry and I feel like I've just jogged 10 miles. Not a happy existance for me. The more incapacitated I become, the more isolated I feel...and likely am, really.

I was looking at an online article, showing off some funky high-fashion hairstyles--which of course, looked ridiculous rather than attractive. Then, there was a display of haute couture fashions, shown off by some very miserable looking, butch postured, anorexic females....I've seen merchant marines that looked more perkier and ladylike, quite frankly...as for the so-called fashions, they looked preposterous rather than flattering.

Now, I'm all for being different...if it's for real. I mean, zillions of kids out there, tattoo and pierce themsleves, thinking that's being different, but if there's huge groups of them, that's hardly different, is it? It's immitation, not different.

But if someone wears something, most of his or her peers aren't wering, yeah, that's different...yet, if someone does that, only because they want to show off their wealth, again, not real, just a very expensive ego-boost. They'd be better off giving their money to a shrink. It's a fine line, but a line, nonetheless.

For instance, there's several young people in my office, whom dye their hair funky colours. That's not truly being different, because there's several of them doing it, so it's a group thing among peers. However, I once had a 50-something professor, who died her hair funky colours, and SHE was truly different...for real, the genuine article. The only 50-something I've ever met, who had the courage to do that.

Being different is about silent courage. It's about not being afraid to just be yourself, no matter what the consequences...and that's the thing about it. It's not ususally deliberate, it's an unconscious choice, it's you being you, who you really are, it's you choosing not to be led around by the nose by society and/or your peers, choosing to make your own path to follow, rather than stay on the beaten circle to nowhere.

At least, that's my opinion.

Well, up at 6am, for no reason other than I couldn't get back to sleep. So, got up and noshed on some cold cereal, made my bed, read the online papers a bit, and...here I am.

It's chilly today but not a single cloud in the sky. I won't say I'm totally better, but I am feeling somewhat more rested that I'd been. Haven't had any chest pains since Saturday morning, so perhaps I'm a bit on the mend. Busy day today though. Wish I had it off, but no such luck. Flame's in heat and cat-yodeling. Ugh.

It's a quiet day out there so far, but then the morning commute has barely begun. We don't get loads of tailbacks around here though, except when a festival is letting out, or during road construction, or when there's been an accident causing lane closure(s) on the local interstate 87 motorway, and they route people onto what amounts to the A road here, Route 9.

My next door neighbour's allowing his wayward nephew to sneak in and stay with them again. This is the professional deadbeat on the dole lad, who deals drugs and beats his manic-depressive girlfriend and abuses her kids...my neighbour tells me the guy will rent a flat, pay the first month, then not pay another cent...so he basically lives in a flat for free for 30 to 120 days, depending how agressive the landlord is with eviction. The young man, apparently, simply goes from flat to flat to flat, doing this, and no one has caught him out, yet. The county social workers don't seem to care about the situtaion, as no one has taken the kids away from the pair of them yet, apparently. They have a cat, too, and my neighbours have to take the cat whenever they get to sleeping rough, until they find a new place. They keep their stolen shopping trolley that they use to haul their stuff around the city streets, in our downstairs hall, along with some of the kid's toys. I once asked the prig why he hasn't been able to get a job, and he bragged that he doesn't need one, as he makes enough "selling weed." Charming fellow. Must have him over for tea, sometime...not.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Cheers.

The number one reason I stopped posting fan-fiction to internet websties, and went to my own blog, is that I got fed up with the "too hard to read" whinge of internet readers.

I got a nice comment about a story I wrote. But, got the too hard to read line again. You see, I was trained to write essays, reserch papers, memos, instructional booklets, news broadcasts and articles, and play scripts--and not fiction! I don't have a clue how to write fiction!!!

But, as some of you know, I simply cannot abide this typing one or two sentences to a paragraph...to me, that's too hard to read and it takes forever...tho' internet readers seem to love it. To me, it's like children's writing, not proper paragraphs...but, what do I know?? I'm baffled, dazed and confused. I have absolutely no idea if I should change the format of my stories from now on, or not.

But, internet readers seem to strongly differ.

I don't know now, whether I'm right or wrong. I'm an essayist, primarily. I'm not a real wrtiter at all, in reality. I've never studied writing stories, really. I'm totally confused about fiction writing. Am I supposed to write each person's dialog seperately?

For instance, this is a typical paragraph from the first chapter of the current Dr Who story I'm working on--some paragraphs are smaller, but this is more or less about the "normal" size:

Suddenly, Harry felt his line jerk. His eyes popped open with surprise. “Well dear,” he told his wife with a happy grin, “looks like we might be havin’ some fish with our tea, after all.” Suddenly, Harry was almost yanked off his feet, as the line dipped deep below the surface of the water. Then, Bert looked on in amazement, as the surface of the water began to bubble and roil. Harry pulled back on his line with all his might, leaning way back, as the pole bent almost double. “’ere now, help me woman!” He gasped. “Don’t wanna’ lose ‘im, do we?” But, just as Bert went to reach for the pole, Harry cried out, and was abruptly dragged into the canal.

Is that up above, really supposed to be more like this????

Suddenly, Harry felt his line jerk. His eyes popped open with surprise.

But, just as Bert went to reach for the pole, Harry cried out, and was abruptly dragged into the canal.

Which is more correct for fiction writing? Anyone with genuine knowledge on the subject, who has actually studied fiction writing at the college level, or is a professional (magazine/book/fiction) writer themselves, I'd welcome an opinion from, thanks.

1. What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?

Oh gosh, so long ago...I think it was when mum bought us one of those Kenner toys "easy-bake" oven's for Christmas one year, and I made a wee cake, which was quite bad, as I recall.

2. When you go out to eat, what kind of dressing to you ask for with your salad? What about at home?

Usually Russian or bleu cheese, at a resturant, or the "house" dressing--which is usually homemade Italian, if they have one. At home, I prefer the same, but also like raspberry vinegarette, sweet creamy onion, Greek and maple-poppyseed dressings, or more rarely, bacon-ranch.

3. What size clothing do you wear?

Ey? Not sure why this question, I mean, who the heck cares what flippin' size I take? Well, I'm not self-concious like so many women seem to be, so I'll 'fess up: in US sizes, I take anywhere from an 18 to a 2x--with about a 1x (20-22) the average, and the stinking fashion industry has gone mad and phobic since the Bush-era began, and can't seem to agree on sizes any longer...with some sizes smaller than they were a few years ago, and some still the proper size. I really dislike the bigoted weight nazi's in the fashion industry, and wish they'd all go get some therapy--or go soak their heads, so us less than perfect-bodied REAL human beings can find our ruddy sizes again!

4. Do you collect anything at the moment?

Model horses, and I'm starting to get a nice collection of Dr Who books, now. Got around a dozen or so on my shelf. I still have some eqestrian antiques, but sold all my antique saddles and spurs...but I'd still collect them, had I the means to do so.

5. What would you eat every day, if you could?

I dunno', pizza maybe? I'm a bit of a pizza head, I suppose. Or, maybe ice cream.

6. What would you never be caught dead wearing?

A bikini top, I imagine that would be very, very scary.

8. Favourite team?

Haven't got one. Though, a good many years ago, I was a Boston Celtics basketball fan.

9. How do you vote?

Democrat or independant, as I'm very much a liberal. I once voted Green, though, and I think I went once in a state-wide election, with the Working person's party or some such palaver, as I liked their platform.

10. What is your heritage?

On mum's side, I am English, Irish, German, Dutch and Scot. On dad's side, I'm Polish-Austrian.

10a. Family names (other than your own, if you don't want to reveal your last name on your blog)?

Eliminated my last name, then:

Dad's: Trella and G____. My last name was Americanized, and should be spelled with a Z at the end, instead of its current spelling.

Mum: There's dozens of names, and these are just the one's I remember:

Featherly/Fetterly/Vedderly, Cole, Bouck, Cooper, Weaver, McLeod, Clackner/Clickner, Bellinger, Claus, Bessler/Beecher, Borst, Allen, Stanton, Evans, Hughes...few more, but I can't remember them all.

10b. Related to anyone famous or infamous?

Directly or distantly: James Fennimore Cooper (Last of the Mohicans author), Thomas Cole (artist), NY Gov. William C. Bouck, Possibly also distantly related to: Harriet Beecher-Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), and Elisabeth Cady Stanton (famous sufferagette), someone on the Mayflower, a shipwrecked sailor whom died and was canabalized by his shipmates, and a settler at Jamestown.

11. Someone's baking you a birthday cake, what kind of cake do you want?

Either yellow cake with chocolate icing, or, yellow cake with whipped cream frosting...but easy on the sugar, cos' of my blood sugar.

12. How far are you from a major metro city area? (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Sydney, Paris, New York?)

I had to look this up on Google. I'm exactly 146 miles northwest of Boston, Mass., 289 miles east of Toronto, Ontario, 183 miles directly north of New York City, and 151 miles directly south of Montreal, Quebec.

13. Favourite holiday?

Holidays are kind of meaningless, when you're on your own, but that said, I still sort of celebrate Christmas...if nothing else, to have a change of decor in the apartment.

14. Best party you've ever been to?

No one ever asks me to parties, so I don't have much to compare it with. I sort of liked the party on the dinner boat in Cairo, Egypt...and I went to a nice party once, when I was 20. Really, I can count on the fingers of one hand, how many parties I've ever been invited to, in the last 30 years. I find parties really awkward and uncomfortable, 'cos I don't drink and I seldom know people at the parties, too.

15. Favourite supermarket?

Don't have one...go to Price Chopper, Hannaford, Price-Rite, Walmart, or, much more rarely Aldi's or the locally owned Sorreno's or Sokol's Markets--but they are way out of the way.

16. Your life: Drama or sit-com?

Oh, definately a sit-com...black comedy though.

17. Last song you listened to?

Ruby by the Kaiser Cheifs

18. Ever left the cinema before a movie was over?

Yeah, last time I ever went to the Glen Drive-in, the second feature was 40 Year Old Virgin and it was just soooo-bad, I couldn't take it any longer, so I started up the car and went home.

19. Are your parents married or divorced?

They are both deceased, but they were divorced in '83, after 32 years of marriage.

20. Do you drive an automatic or a shift?

I don't have a car any longer. I can drive automatic, 3 speed or 5 speed, doesn't matter...tho' I'm a bit out of pra