And so it goes

It's the middle of the night and I'm sitting here unable to breathe through my nose. Yes, in actuality right now all it's doing is holding up my glasses. My computer glasses. I don't know what compels me to blog now after an entire day of opportunity, but so it goes.

Today, I submitted my very first design to a magazine. I made a hat for Vlad the Impaler. It was a genius idea, I have lots of those, but this time I brought it out of the realm of speculation and into the real world. Does it look like I thought it would? No. But I think that's because I lack the ability to actually picture in my mind a thing that has not existed yet. That little personal design flaw is what makes me bad at chess and other strategy games, and utterly fearless when it comes to making it up as I go along. I know it's a wildly original idea and nobody on earth would have ever even thought of it but me, but it's not perfectly constructed. The pictures, however, are excellent, trust me. I can't share them, that wouldn't be fair, but oh how I hope that my brand of lunacy is just what the Zabet ordered. It requires multiple techniques, all of them really basic though. The first skill needed is drinking beer. Always a good start.

#2 son is about to turn 23, and that's a huge milestone in his life. It's the first birthday he's had in a while that he may face sober, for one thing. His birthday last year brought on my desire to throw him a little kid party, since I didn't actually know him when he was a little kid. He invited all his friends for a barbecue, and I did a Spiderman theme in plates, masks, blowing horn things, cake design and a number of other crazy things. It was the greatest party, I was still awake around 4 supervising the extinguishing of the bonfire while the last die-hards were playing beer pong. the ensuing disaster didn't happen until the next morning, but by noon #2 son was out of here in handcuffs. long story. It took a year to get everything straightened out, and the last year in our lives has been more or less hell for all concerned. Now it's over, but we are all drowning financially. Seriously, hunger is right around the corner. Thought we might move, but we can't afford it, even to move to a smaller place, maybe with utilities included. we'd lose the yard and the garden and maybe even our pets, and maybe we couldn't all live together anymore, but I did not know what else to do. But now we know we can't do that. So now it all falls on me. And, truthfully, I don't know if I can stand up under this.

I've been coughing and sniffling for a couple of days now. I punched the kid for giving me this cold. At my age, I've had most of the rhinoviruses (rhinoviri?) in the world and hadn't been sick for a number of years, but this one got me good. Couldn't have come at a worse time. Well, maybe it could have, the way things have been going, worse is just an unanticipated event that comes next.

okay, that's my quota of whine, whine, whine---

On a lighter note, my friends over at Anticraft keep me laughing with our new mutual fetish of men in kilts. It seems like every topic in every category dissolves into lusty remarks and graphic speculation about hot men in kilts and what they might or might not wear underneath. And whether or not it is blue ribbon worthy:http://theanticraft.com/forum/index.php?topic=458.15
All of this lunacy was inadvertantly started with this:http://beckybooblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/pattern-for-beholder.html
my apologies to Becky and whoever that guy is if they happen to see this and not like being drooled on by women from their teens to their fifties. verbally. ad nauseum. And apologies also to the moderators of the various boards who finally had to sort out all this drivel and put it in a board of it's own called y'all're naughty. And then somebody mentioned lumberjacks----