*taps microphone gently* Boy have I got bullet points for you.

[constance]

• I had a dream last night that featured cows with no heads; instead of heads, there were capped-off nozzles, kind of like the way a capped gas line in an old house looks. That is really all I remember about the dream, and I do not know what to make of it.



• A Conversation:
  J: Cammy, are you wearing white hose? With sandals?
  Me: What? No, of course not.
  J: *peers closely* No, I guess not. Jesus, your legs are pale.
  Me: Don't I know it.



• My dog is trying to kill my daisies. He needn't bother, because I will kill them myself, given time, and I keep trying to tell him this, but he keeps knocking the pots over anyway, displaying, perhaps, an unbecoming tendency to alpha-dog it over me.
  
  I bet you did not know that alpha-dog was a verb. But it is.



• I have finally broken down and bought new underwear. I am a little embarrassed to say how long it has been since the buying of the last underwear to enter the house under my aegis, but at least now if I am in an accident, I will be able to hold my head high on the gurney as they wheel me into the hospital.



• This particular manifestation of our company's twice-yearly (semi-annual, as we say in The Business) barbecue is no barbecue at all. It is instead a chicken-fry. We will be having fried chicken (with a little baked for the no-fried-foods people), beans and corn and slaw and potato salad and brownies and pecan pies. (quick question : pe-CAHN or PEE-can?) We will be giving out door prizes and cash awards and talking about job safety and health insurance, and of course you are invited. You will be coming, right? Because really, who does not want to listen to tales of other people's PPOs while eating?



• I am currently having a ridiculous mock flamewar in which one of our superintendents has questioned everything I hold most sacred: the TOTAL UNQUESTIONABLE OMNISCIENCE of snopes.com. Here's what happened: he sent me an email of an enormous dog; the attached text claims that it's the world's biggest dog. I sent him a snopes link saying that the dog may or may not be as big as he is in the photo he sent, but the text about the world's biggest dog refers to a different dog altogether. And HE DOES NOT BELIEVE THE WORD OF SNOPES.COM. I cannot believe this. Never in my life has anyone questioned the word of snopes, which I wield the way some Christians wield the Bible to prove that homosexuality and the eating of pork are WRONG (what, has no one ever lectured you on the profanity of pork consumption?). My faith in the universe has been shaken, and as I respond to his emails in which he accuses snopes of being an enormous hoax perpetrated by our company's compulsive liar, I am thinking, God, what if he's right? What if snopes has been lying to me all along?
  
  I think I will need some time to recover from this. And also, remind me to tell you someday the story of the Internet Porn, which involves this same superintendent but is not a part of the current bullet-point narrative.



• Confidential: Yeah, me too. For whatever that's worth.



• Have I told you about the way I cope with stress? I draw house plans. Big houses, little ones. I copy them out of historic plan books and modify them for modern life. I make up my own. I look at them and imagine fitting my life into them, where the furniture would go, where I'd hide the litterbox, what they'd be made out of. Where I would put the electrical outlets.
  
  I guess I've mentioned that I do this, but not why, exactly -- mostly because I've never really connected stress with this habit before now (I always connected it with a desire for a house of my own, but now I've got not only a house of my own but also the house of my dreams, and I'm still doing it, which has forced me to reassess my motives, because I know you were interested in hearing about that particular process) -- but anyway, I have been drawing a lot of houses lately.
  
  Sorry for being gone. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to do better. I've got posts planned. Reading schedules. Bookmarks. Et cetera.

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

• Welcome back! I missed you!
  
  
• I would love to go to a chicken fry. (Not as much as I would love to go to a proper pig roast, but still.) Our annual office BBQ is always hot dogs and burgers made by the company cafeteria and served in a tent on the lawn with a bad cover band playing light-FM hits. The big attraction is ice cream bars. There is always some lame theme with weird souvenirs. Last year it was 'circus' and there were horrifying bags of pre-packaged cotton candy on each table. *shudder*
  
  
• Snopes! Snopes is absolutely sacred and much more useful than the Gnostic Gospels, not to mention Leviticus. (I always ask the gay bashers what they did last sabbath, just to get the ball rolling.) I've converted my mother to the Gospel of Snopes and she wields it madly against the tide of glurge she receives from other ladies of a certain age.
  
  
• I haven't actually drawn house plans in years, but I also love to think about how to use spaces differently. It's one of my best distractions. In childhood I furnished my orthodontist's warren of examining rooms into an endless variety of apartments and suites while he tortured my teeth for six years.
  
  I also used the fantasy house plan to get over a bad breakup some years ago. Whenever I'd have a quiet moment where I wanted to brood about the ex, I'd force myself to return to specifics about just how the French doors should lead from the living room to the back garden or which wall would be best for the hutch in the dining room. I think I started it after reading something about how a POW kept his sanity by imagining he was building a house one brick at a time. I just had better china patterns. I still go back to that house sometimes when I need to stop brooding. I think my favorite part lately has been the crafts studio with the big skylight that is over the detached garage.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

I love both of your house habits. ^ Snopes IS God. I want fried chicken, now. Plant your daisies this weekend and sprinkle pre-emergent weed killing grade corn gluten around them. Stops weeds and promotes environmental sanity! New underwear is always, should you pardon the expression, a crap shoot. I've got six new pairs right now that I unfortunately don't like. :P

the story of the Internet Porn, which involves this same superintendent but is not a part of the current bullet-point narrative

I also want this story. :)

[thalia]

And HE DOES NOT BELIEVE THE WORD OF SNOPES.COM.

Heresy! Shouldn't he be burned at the stake or something?

And it's pe-CAHN. But I'm a yankee, so my vote might not count. I'll go anywhere for pecan pie.

[proteinscollide.livejournal.com]

*hugs* House drawing as stress-relief sounds like a good way of dealing to me. It doesn't hurt anyone, it's creative, and it sounds darling.

For what it's worth (from an Aussie) it's "PEE-can" to me.

And on Snopes, I only have a recent xkcd strip (http://xkcd.com/c250.html) in mind. =)

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

pe-CAHN. PEE-can is something different entirely.

I love you, by the way.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Underwear-buying really IS a crap shoot, isn't it? If only there were some kind of swap meet for women to be able to exchange their stack o' unwanted undies for someone else's, which might be a better match.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

How I've missed you! I'm so delighted to see such a substantial bullet-pointed post!

I'd really like to see a picture of cows with capped-off heads now. As drawn by Dali, perhaps. Or maybe by me.

Alpha-dog is TOTALLY a verb. These days, we're using it and many other words gleaned from dog training books and dog websites to communicate with each other. I told Brooke last night that if she didn't get ready for bed I was going to totally "alpha roll" her. She bared her fangs at me, but went. Damn good thing, too. :D

TOTAL UNQUESTIONABLE OMNISCIENCE is how I view snopes, too. I don't think I could cope with a mock flamewar that would cast any doubt upon it!

I absolutely love that you draw house plans when you're stressed out. I'm sorry to hear that you've been dealing with enough stress to draw a lot of them lately, but I think it rocks as a coping strategy. Do you ever design them with other people in mind as occupants, or are they all for you? And do you imagine different surroundings/states/countries for them, or do you not get further than the actual blueprint of the house itself? Is there furniture involved, or simply walls-n-windows? (See, you can tell from my ignorant questions that architectural stuff is as foreign to me as Greek) And do you design thrifty houses, lavish houses, or a little bit of everything? Have you ever designed a treehouse? Sorry to pepper you with questions. You can ignore me, but see, if I lived next door to you as nature intended, this is the sort of stuff I'd pester you about because it's so darned fascinating and wonderful.

Oh, dear. And now I'm out of order, bullet-point wise. But! I just wanted to throw in that I'd a thousand times rather have fried chicken than a barbecue any day of the week. I'll definitely be coming. Should I bring a side dish of some sort? All that's missing from the above menu is some nice pralines. I've never made them, but I could give it a shot. Also, I always say peCAHN if I'm talking about the nut, but PEE-cahn is it's pie. Dunno why.

And finally, all hail the paper-white leg. My sister and I have discovered some unwelcome signs that we didn't get the "good skin forever" gene, and have deemed this "The summer of the SPF 1000". Seeing as how we're generally dark as a walnut dinette set by August, this'll be quite a change.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I've converted my mother to the Gospel of Snopes and she wields it madly against the tide of glurge she receives from other ladies of a certain age.

Hahahahahahahahahaha! That's fantastic. I use it sometimes the same way against the glut of "Underarm Deodorant Will Kill You!!11!" e-mails my aunt forwards me. Now if there were only a Snopes-esque way of stopping her from sending those "Sisterhood is Gold- pass this on to five women you think a lot of" chain letters, I'd die happy.

Also, I had the best dream about you last night! You brought your scarves to show me, and stayed around to help me critique several grocery sacks full of modeling clay dogs sculpted by my erstwhile elementary art students. You were ruthlessly hilarious with the bad ones, but very fairly pointed out structural/artistic strong points with the good ones. And then we broke for cake and coffee. :D

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

OK, I can take a hint. I need to take the scarf pix. Sunday night!

And I keep breaking the chain on those "Celebrate Your Wonderful Womanhood" things but I keep getting the anyway. Maybe that is actually the bad luck that I've attracted to myself. They always make me think that somebody is about to try to lure me into the Red Hat Society, for which I will actually be eligible in two more years. Eek! (Last night's Simpsons rerun included a hilarious spoof when Marge joined the Cheery Red Tomatoes who turned out to be funding their charitable efforts via burglary.)

But I really do want that dream to come true. Model animals! Cake and coffee!

Totally OT, but of interest: There was a death threat against Knut the Cute last week! Exclamation points!

[coco-palmolive.livejournal.com]

I know I owe you the next e-mail, which I haven't written because it will mostly be another 1500 variations on my mom is crazy/work is crazy/I have paid off $50 of my principal, wow that sucks, but you have been quiet long enough that I was starting to worry. I am glad to see you here today.

Incidentally, we've been having a conversation at work all week about various girls' pale legs, including my own. Ballsy L.M. has been christened "Casper Sticks." One presumes I am "Casper Trunks." We are convinced we look awesome. You should join us.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

cordelia_v makes very luscious pralines. I'm sure she would teach you. Her mother is from Texas, and Cordelia uses this as an excuse to put peCAHNs in just about everything.

I'll bring some macaroni salad!

[friendly.livejournal.com]

It's amazing to hear how quickly these forwards work their way around the globe. I got the big dog one this week, too. And naturally doubted its accuracy. :))

I would love to see some of your stress houses.

ISN'T NEW UNDERWEAR GREAT.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I missed you too! *beams at you*

I have a mortifying-yet-deeply-felt love for carnival food of all sorts, but even I draw the line at cotton candy in plastic bags! And yes, I'm looking forward to the chicken-fry. I'll save you a seat next to me so we can gossip and talk crafty things.

Ha! That is pretty much what I use Snopes for, too. I only wish my mother had taken to The Gospel as passionately as yours has.

Mmmm, I never had to redecorate my orthodontist's offices, because he had the most awesome offices ever -- they were made up to look like a spaceship, complete with white plastic instrument panels and gigantic wall-sized NASA murals on the walls. But I do that with public spaces I like -- There's one study room in the LSU library, for example, and this old tin-ceilinged multi-tiered bar, and a bookstore, and, well, you get the point.

I am so astounded and thrilled that there is another person on my friendslist who shares my hobby! You cannot even imagine! Or maybe, you know, you can! :D:D:D:D:D

I should have said, when talking about Christians in my original post, that only some of them wield the Bible as a weapon. I'm dreadfully sorry that I didn't. I hope I didn't offend you.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Do take scarf pics!

I keep breaking the chain on those "Celebrate Your Wonderful Womanhood" things but I keep getting the anyway. Maybe that is actually the bad luck that I've attracted to myself

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THUMBS UP TO THAT.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I am thinking that I will indeed have to plant the daisies in the ground to protect them from the none-too-tender auspices of me and Leory, but I haven't found an especially good place to put them yet. Must make a concerted effort this weekend, and I'll definitely take your advice about the corn gluten. Can you spread it around all bedding plants?

And YES to the underwear dilemma. One of the reasons, actually, that I've put off buying new ones for so long is I've got a batch of old but barely-worn underpants that I can't stand to wear because they just don't work for me. Every time I've thought, must get new ones, I've put off the purchase because I feel I should force myself to at least wear those others a little. Last week, though, I admitted to myself as I shuffled through the nice ones to get to the faded, threadbare ones: this just isn't going to happen.

One day soon I will tell the story of the Internet Porn, and I will dedicate it to you. >:D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good idea! My problem is that I don't know quite what to do with the nice undies I've bought that don't fit me well. They're pretty enough that I don't want to throw them away, and I feel really weird about donating underwear to a charity, though I know some thrift shops do sell them. This is a great middle ground, I think!

So far, so good, though. I'm on Pair 3/8, and nary a bind or a ride-up (or slide-down) in sight!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Yes, peCAHN all the way, man! Louisianians say it that way, too. I thought all Southerners did, in fact, until I moved here and was dismayed to find that not to be the case at all. O_o

He should totally be burned at the stake: He also weighs the same as a duck.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Okay, I will forgive you the PEEcan because. I have just spent an afternoon when I should have been working sneaking peeks at xkcd and falling more deeply in love with each strip. He is just the sort of romantic science+math geek who drives me absolutely crazy with swimmy lust.

I've seen an occasional linked strip, but somehow never gotten around to reading all of them as a group, until today. And it's all thanks to you. *_*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I TOTALLY AGREE.

And man, I've been reading your entries and loving them in an ooh-I-never-thought-about-it-that-way-before-but-I-totally-agree way, and thinking, oh man is she going to regret friending me.

But you love me! And so I feel it is all going to be okay. I will love you and you will love me and we will be happy together despite the frivolity of me. :D

Why do we not live closer together, why???

[tofty.livejournal.com]

If you please, draw me a nozzle-headed cow! Please! I would take your version over Dali's any day of the week.

I was thinking the other night, as I repotted daisies for like the third or fourth time since I got them, that I need to ship Brooke over here as a consultant. She can observe me with Leory and tell me when I go wrong and point me gently yet firmly in the right direction. I can't pay her in money -- but I bet rescue puppies (like seats in movie theaters) are easier to acquire here than in San Jose, so maybe we can still work something out.

I am very uneasy over D's lack of faith in snopes. I am fond of thinking of myself as a general nonbeliever sort. But it seems clear that I do, in fact, believe in something, and D IS TRAMPLING ON IT. (You may think that is a joke, and it mostly is, but really it is almost sort of not.)

Oh, Laurel, because I don't think you really know what you have unleashed in asking all those questions, I am going to go easy on you and not talk all starry-eyed for hours in fifteen comment posts about domestic architecture. :D Instead I will keep to the substance of your questions! I am kind that way!

As a matter of fact, I do design them with other people in mind! I've designed them for friends who've asked me to, for example. I drew up an ideal customized RV for my parents. And I've designed dozens of houses for fictional characters: Grimmauld Place (that one you've seen!) and Spinner's End and the house in Godric's Hollow, for example. (Also a pre-OOTP Ministry of Magic based loosely on the John Soane museum in London.) Houses for the Peanuts characters. Houses for Sandman characters. New Moon. Kellynch Hall. Houses for Mapp and Lucia and Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. A dream-ship for Hornblower. Fairy-brughs (invisible-walled and hidden in the trees) for the characters in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And yes, thrifty houses and extravagant ones and tiny-space-saving luxury ones. I could go on.

Actually, that is what the Sims is so excellent for! I don't have as much interest in playing the characters, these days, as I do in planning out where and how they're going to live. I think we talked about this once, didn't we? That we had at least as much fun designing the houses as with playing around with them.

:O LAUREL I HAVE JUST HAD A REVELATION RIGHT WHEN I WAS TYPING THIS TO YOU. You know what I'd like to be known as? More than a fanfiction writer? I'd like to be a fanarchitect, that's what.

Time to get started on my new career, I think. And now I'll shut up, except that I read these (http://xkcd.com/c167.html) two (http://xkcd.com/c212.html) comics this afternoon, and apart from being totally in love with the artist, I feel that these two comics alone pretty much voice my entire life, and while I'm a little embarrassed to be summed up so easily, well, really, there are worse ways to be.

I salute your SPF summer! I myself am an SPF 1000 girl, so I welcome you to my pasty-legged club with great fanfare and joy -- and I hope your signs are nothing too serious.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking that since my last letter to you consisted mostly of the words thank you that it is in fact my turn, and have spent the last couple of weeks watching the time tick by and feeling guiltier every day I let go by without writing, because I've been thinking of you and wanting to hug you tight and ask about how you are doing without wanting to pressure you into talking about the same things over and over, and generally paralyzing myself.

I do love you, and worry in return. I hope you are okay.

:::

You are even paler than I am! I will introduce you to J one day, and make sure to point out your Casper Limbs with my near-Victorian delicacy and circumspection. In the meantime, I will join your ranks proudly. :*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I have just announced to laurelwood my intention of becoming a fanarchitect. So you may look for some of my designs in future, I think.

New underwear is AWESOME. I've been walking around for the past few days thinking to myself that it is kind of a shame one can't mention one's new underwear to the world at large. But thank fuck for livejournal, where one may talk underpants all night long!

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

Can you spread it around all bedding plants?

Yes. It only affects seeds that might sprout. I think it's best if you leave the soil that you've put it on undisturbed. You might have to go to a real garden center to find it, though. Home Depot doesn't have any.

One day soon I will tell the story of the Internet Porn, and I will dedicate it to you. >:D

I take it that's the Emoticon Of The Evil Laugh. :)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, the evil grin, anyway.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

Can we hold hands and skip?? :D

Speaking of the frivolous, any idea why Gmail offered me this:

Oboe & English Horn Reeds
Totally Guaranteed-Gorgeous Sound Professional and Student Reeds
www.reedmaker.com

as the sponsored ad accompanying your email? I do, in fact, play the oboe, but I'm not quite sure how Gmail might have known that.

[miraminx.livejournal.com]

J: Cammy, are you wearing white hose? With sandals?
Me: What? No, of course not.
J: *peers closely* No, I guess not. Jesus, your legs are pale.
Me: Don't I know it.

Me: *peering at friend's legs* Well, they're not exactly chalk-white.
Friend: Yeah. My legs, a sheet of typing paper, know the difference.

You just have to think of yourself as an Austen heroine with milk-white skin and it's all good.

pe-CAHN, definitely. But then, I also say ColoRAWdo (not ColorAHdo) and NevAWda (not NevAHda), so I could just be a Northern freak.

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

I have indeed been lectured on the profanity of eating pork. ;)

I say pe-CAHN, but whenever people are using a lame fake Southern accent they seem to say PEE-can.

[sunkentreasure.livejournal.com]

I say it rarely, but when I do, I alternate between the two. Either way though, it's more of a p'CAHN or a p'CAN than a pe-CAHN or PEE-can.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I am not in the least offended by your disparagement of Bible thumpers. They offend me more than you ever could.

And my ortho was a very old man whose very old office was a strange warren of tiny chambers in a building from about 1915, I'd say. Hoorah for the redecorators!

Re: Fanarchitect

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

You have reminded me that there is a book I saw once where somebody made blueprints of a whole bunch of houses from TV -- the Brady house, Leave it to Beaver's house, and the like. I am completely blanking on the title, which was some sort of clever pun. If I can think of it, I will post. They were fab, and you can surely go beyond.

It drives me crazy when I am watching a movie and I can't arrange the rooms of a house set in my mind. I'll have it all organized in my mind, and then suddenly somebody walks from the kitchen to the den and completely blows it. Grrrr.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

P.S. Thank you for the gardening advice!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Clearly gmail has been reading and memorizing all your email instead of just my comment notifications! Why hello there, Big Brother Advertising.

Re: Fanarchitect

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel the same way about movie spaces I can't navigate -- houses and neighborhoods, now that I think about it. That used to drive me crazy about films set in NO -- you'd turn the corner and suddenly be in front of a grocery store twenty blocks away. (I'm sure they do the same with films set in New York, but I only really know one city well enough to be bothered by those spatial leaps.)

Please do post the book, if you think of it!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I am possibly a hybrid -- ColorAHdo and NevAHda, definitely, but peCAHN too. I am still being surprised by all the people who say peCAHN, actually; after three years in Georgia, it was feeling as though everyone not in my immediate family said PEEcan.

Good to know, though.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

By a Christian, though? I mean, under the Jewish umbrella, things are a little different, since people who keep kosher do not, in fact, eat the stuff.

Am still shocked that the rest of the south outside of Louisiana does say PEEcan. Next pronunciation poll: PRAHline or PRAYline?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

yeah, I mean, if I were using proper liguistic symbology, I'd have stuck a schwa into that first syllable of peCAHN, because most of the people I know who pronounce it that way do contract it.

I find it interesting that there are two people on my friendslist who alternate. Before this weekend, I'd've said, if you asked me, that it would probably be one or the other without any overlap at all. :?

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

Clearly it's been reading and memorizing all my email in different clients, too, since I don't remember having emailed anyone about the oboe from this account. Frightening.

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, just by Jews.

PRAHline!

Re: Fanarchitect

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Aha! I remembered the pun, not terribly clever after all: TV Sets (http://www.amazon.com/TV-Sets-Fantasy-Blueprints-Classic/dp/1579121071/) by Mark Bennett. Looks like it is out of print. How come I don't remember seeing the Addams Family house in there?

My Amazon noodling also turned up Sitcom Style (http://www.amazon.com/Sitcom-Style-Inside-Americas-Favorite/dp/1400051789/), which is more about the sets themselves, but also looks rather appealing. I wonder if she ever explains the vast spaces in the apartment on Mad About You. At least Friends had some sort of cover story about how they afforded that huge place.

Re: Fanarchitect

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, damn. I went looking for it when I got the comment at work, and found a couple of copies for cheap at alibris, but now they are gone! Tell me you got one of them, and I will at least feel a little better.

I did put it on my wishlist, though. So maybe another inexpensive copy will pop up. It sounds fabulous!

Re: Fanarchitect

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Not I. I'm in kind of a book-buying moratorium right now. Hope you find it soon!