- I just finished Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. It took me a ridicuous amount of time to read this because my boyfriend and I were reading it at the same time and he would take it to work with him at night, which is generally the time I really have to sit down and read. And...I've just been slackin. Anyway, I really liked it. But I can't stop shaking my head and saying, "These human ruins..." Or shrugging and saying, "What would Jesus NOT do?" I wouldn't call it annoying, but that is the first word that comes to mind.
See also: Broken Record

- I always feel foolish checking out or buying those "Blah Blah For Dummies" or "The Idiots Guide To Yadda Yadda" books. The thing is, they tend to be really good books. They truly are very user friendly. I've been carrying one around in my bag for weeks now. That was hard enough to admit. I'm certainly not going to say what it is about.

- I just finished and sent off my column for the #82 issue of Slug & Lettuce today. I have been on hiatus for a few issues now...I'm not really sure how many. I realized I still have issues of #81 left and tried to create a PayPal "buy it now" button so I could list it in my little store, but something is funky and it is not working. So...if you are interested in getting a copy of that just let me know. Newspaper format. This issue includes columns about the rapes that occurred at Pointless Fest in Philly, hiking in the Northern Rockies, teenage pregnancy and abortion, the band Amebix, economic emancipation, bad ass comic art by Fly and more, more, more. Also includes the usual zine, music and book reviews, free classified ads, and a pull out poster of band photos taken by the editor. This zine is FREE. You only need to pay the postage, which is 60 cents. I will gladly accept stamps if you are ordering by mail.

- Which reminds me. I want to get a book about web publishing. And body language. Recently I read somewhere about how there are seventy something body signals that indicate a person is lying. I know a few of them, but I want to know them all. And then I started thinking about how that could be sort of like possessing a super power. Not a fancy one, but still. And then I though, "Man, that is some messed up thinking, Candy. Super power? Phhht." Which got me to thinking about how a lot of wackos have probably thought the exact same thing. I decided to look up body language books using the online library catalog. There are three such books listed for my branch, two of which have been filed "lost". My suspicions were confirmed. Unstable people forget to return their library books.

- At this very moment I am felting a sample swatch so that I can knit this hat.

- Question of the day: "Mom, if a person could fly, do you think he'd get snatched by the government?" Maybe super powers do run in the family.

- Last night I had a dream that my boyfriend had lost one of his arms. He came walking up to me, beaming, and told me that he had it replaced with a wooden arm. I groaned, "Oh, honey, no!" Because what good is a wooden arm? Especially when there are so many better options, you know? But then he rolled up his sleeve and showed me his wooden arm and he had my picture and my name carved into it and then I was all, "Awww, baby!" The thing about this dream is that it is totally something he would do! If you know James then you know what I mean.

Random bits:

- I can't find a copy of Details magazine anywhere. What is up with that?

- There is a big glossy magazine called GolfPunk. Golf for the rest of us, you see. With a model on the cover, little skirt and tiny shirt, "Golf Punk" scrawled across her stomach with a Sharpie, all Riot Grrrl style.

- On new year's day the local paper had a review of the funniest stories of 2004 on the front page. The incident involving the guy that talked shit about my band and got a beat down for it was #3 on the list.

- On Christmas Day our family dog passed away in his sleep. He was 17 years and 3 months old. R.I.P. J.J.

- I REALLY want a stripper pole now. That looks like a lot of fun.

Happy New Year.

So...we pretty much skipped out on Christmas and went on vacation to New Orleans instead.

The trip was fantastic. We did lots of goofy touristy things because it was a family vacation, afterall. Goofy tourist stuff includes: Staying at the Historic French Market Inn (we had a good room that overlooked Decatur and the river), visiting the Aquarium of the Americas + I-Max, riding the free ferry, visiting the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum, St. Louis No. 1 (cemetery where the VooDoo Queen is buried), the VooDoo Museum, the wax museum, riding the St. Charles streetcar, riding the riverfront streetcar, eating big fucking muffalettas, lots of walking and shopping and street performer watching, cafe au lait and beignets at the Cafe du Monde, and probably some stuff I am forgetting. Oh yeah, like smoking a hookah at the Hookah Lounge! My boyfriend and I had planned on going to a burlesque show at One Eyed Jack's, but turns out it has been discontinued. So we went to the strip clubs on Bourbon instead. The drag queens and the dancing dwarf girl were the best. We also snuck off for a walk by the river and did the nasty in a little nook while people walked by. Heh.

I took ten rolls of film, so I'll be posting some pictures when we get those developed.

We were back home in time for New Year's Eve, but by then we were all peopled out and just wanted to relax. James made me some pretty Cosmopolitans to drink and we rang in the new year by watching fireworks from our front porch...the ballpark across the road was putting on a show and it was so close I thought the burning debris was going to catch out house on fire. There are spent fireworks casings in my yard right now. It was pretty to watch, though. Then we put on some porn and did it. Heh.