Greetings from Orange County (FL)

We're getting ready for Hallowe'en - Matticia is cleaning up, Jeremy is painting himself gold, and I'm waiting for my chance in the bathroom. I have my costume all laid out, and fortunately, writhing into the tights and leotards are the only difficult elements of dressing.

Two nights in a row that we were up past 3:00, and then awake again about 9:00. Eating has been erratic. As a result, I'm just wiped out.

The party was interesting; of course, we didn't know anyone. Everyone was very friendly, and I really liked some of Matticia's friends.

Tomorrow, I've been talking to everyone about going to the Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City - the way I'm feeling now, I'd rather sleep in and have something very low impact. Today, we spent five hours running around trying to find costume pieces. I was starting to think that perhaps people anymore are more and more ill behaved, after having been knocked around while standing in the check-out line, and watching Jeremy bleed through his t-shirt after being pushed into the sharp metal corner of a rack in Wal-Mart.

Hump Day (actual)

Sneezy. Oh, my. Last night's Rainbow/HRC thing went pretty well - I finally gave away most of my pens that I bought four years ago when I was working on W. Gray. I've toted those silly things around for a while, and now there are only three left.

My new desk furniture is 74" from edge to rear corner - the office is 74" from corner to door jamb. The desk itself is also 72" wide - to go in my office which is 109" wide. I should increase my work area by at least double, increase my storage space, improve my ergonomics and .. something else, I'm sure.

Tuesday, which is hump day (this week)

My new office furniture has been delivered!!! WHOOPIE! It looks AWESOME (in a "please sand and re-seal me sort of a way.) It's going to fill up this office, but now I'm visualizing dark navy leather club chairs or something. It's going to be soo cool.

Friday night....

I was trying to think of a song title for Friday night, and I couldn't come up with anything but S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT by the Bay City Rollers, so I just went with what it is.

I've just picked Jeremy up; he goes back at the crack of dawn again tomorrow morning and works all day. Holy shyte.

It's nearly midnight, and Matticia is in the air on her way here from FAT by way of PHX. She's very disappointed that she got CRJs the whole way here and I say "You're the one who picked US Air."

My computer is suddenly slowed. I'm running a spyware check on it now, then other tools to find the culprit for its gooeyness.

I suppose I should consider hitting the sack; tomorrow is another day - just without radishes.

Proposed Constitutional amendments

Ideas for a New Constitutional Convention

by Hunter
Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 11:00:22 AM PDT

Many thanks to Larry Sabato for publishing his series looking at the options for a new Constitutional Convention. I admit to being wary of the idea at first, but the more I consider the possibilities, the better I like it. There are whole rafts of Constitutional adjustments that I think should be forthcoming, and which I believe better reflect modern American needs -- may I suggest a few?

Amendment 28: The House of Representatives shall be abolished. At this point, it is clear that there is no hope of finding a full 435 Americans who are intelligent enough to run a country. The Senate has less people, and is therefore proportionally less crazy. Also, Senators are also generally older, which doesn't necessarily mean that they say less crazy crap, but it at least takes them longer to say it.

If we cannot abolish the House, then there are still other things we can do. We can make it like Survivor, and vote the two most obnoxious House members out of office every week of the session. If it's good enough a system for television, surely it's good enough for the government of a country obsessed with television.

Amendment 29: We institutionalize the Thunderdome. Any American or foreigner who wants to can enter the Thunderdome and beat the crap out of anyone else there. Waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation, butchering people with advanced weaponry, whatever you like -- no laws, anything goes. The only catch is that anyone else in the Thunderdome can do the same to you.

The advantage of this plan is that it is one of the few strategies for planetary depopulation that self-selects for both violence and stupidity.

Amendment 30: From now on, "pro-life" has to mean what any reasonable person thinks it means, or you don't get to call yourself that, upon penalty of being beaten senseless with seafood. If you spend your time blustering about how we're going to kick some Iraqi ass, or which cities or religious hubs need to be bombed into a "sheet of glass", or explaining how children don't really need healthcare, if their parents had the blinding audacity to get jobs someplace that refuses to offer it, you forfeit the term.

Similar punishments will be meted out for abuse of the terms "compassionate", "patriotic", and "news".

Amendment 31: All members of Congress will be drug tested three times a day, every day. Anyone who thinks this is an invasion of their privacy will be assumed to be guilty and fired. All conservative foreign policy think tanks will also be drug tested, because there just ain't no freakin' way these people drew up the "plans" for Iraq without being wasted on something.

Amendment 32: From now on, all wars and police actions will be authorized not by Congress but by direct vote of the population. The results will be binding, but any required draftees will be taken from the pool of voters who voted "aye".

Amendment 33: All wars will require calling up the aforementioned draftees. You don't have to go fight, but you at least have to sit in an Army base cleaning tank treads for the people who do.

Amendment 34: For national census purposes, Rush Limbaugh will henceforth count as three-fifths of a person.

Amendment 35: Each network in America shall devote at least one hour a night to discussing whether Lou Dobbs is attempting to retake America's desert southwest via an intensive self-breeding program.

Amendment 36: Canada shall be annexed. If they're going to send all their goddamned wingnuts down here to opine to us about the horrors of immigration, then they can damn well give us some of that oil and timber while they're at it.


Hey, couldn't hurt. Except the Thunderdome thing, which certainly would. But I think the pay-per-view revenues on that one would more than pay for national health care, a carbon-neutral energy program, and resculpting the moon into a perfect replica of Al Gore's shiny new Nobel Prize. We'd be fools not to do it.

How I spent (part) of my birthday

Why are liberals liberal?

Could it be that their brains function better? Certainly, to be flexible and to consider other choices, weigh outcomes, one must be more adept at adapt.

I'm going to let others speak to the nature of liberalism, and to the neocon-ic pattern of outright lies, aggressively and vehemently repeated.

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007)

A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment.

Willis Player

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Samuel Johnson

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

Bertrand Russell

Hump day's got me high centered

So much so that I had to think about the phrase "High-centered." Took me a few minutes.

There's an OutSmart advertiser party in an hour that I'm committed to going to. They're giving "awards" for "reader's choices.

90 categories. 31 "ties" and 59 unique winners. That means that there are more "ties" than unique winners (62 compared to 59.) That's just silly.

I feel like I haven't gotten anything done today, but I know that I have. I'm just wiped out. Part of that is food intake, I'm sure - someone catered in Jason's Deli today, and I .. have felt sick ever since. I think I'm pulling back up and out. I have to give myself an injection before we leave for the event, so hopefully that will help.

Been working on my presentation for next Tuesday evening, hopefully have a few things lined up. I really want another exhibitor. Hm.

Saturday with the windows open

So, yesterday I went through this townhouse that we're going to start marketing. It was a model home, and it was beautifully decorated.

I had avowed earlier that I was going to spend time today cleaning up around here; now, I feel more like pitching everything out. Substantially everything I have in here looks old, broken, cheesy and cheap. Yurg.

I've been throwing out stuff today that is just plain broken. Keeping picture frames for years that you intend to get re-glazed is a good way to drive yourself nuts.

Been getting stuff up off the floors, getting it tucked away (electrical cords, mostly) and such. Waiting for the sun to move past the roof of the house to go out front and weed/rake.

Tuesday turmoil

So, last night I'm reading (gingerly, because they're savage over on this site) on the VW Vortex forum about .. well, Phaetons, of course. And there's an article online that says VWoA is going to start importing the 2008 Phaeton (now that VW is no longer under VW management, the Porsche people are thinking big, it seems.)

In the to-ing and fro-ing of "will they or won't they" I find a picture of a Phaeton (two, really) in Papillon Silver Heliochrome .. which I dutifully reproduce for you here.



It's silver, it's gold, it's coppery, it's ... a color shifter! And I love it.

Had a glorious conversation with a woman from GM Executive today.

First, she has invited me to take my car to a different Pontiac dealer at my own expense for evaluation and repair, and if it is found by the new dealer that the old dealer failed to complete warranty repairs properly, then they'll consider reimbursing me. But they won't tell the new dealer that this is a failed warranty repair; they seem to thing that would be "wrong."

She kept saying "well, you have to cooperate for us to do anything to help you."
I kept saying "you're not offering to help me at all"

Never again with the GM. Never ever.

Links Links Links

Paul Krugman article about the GOP and how they've been angling for putting government in a vise for 47 years.

Article about the fallacy of our inflation numbers.

I'm off of here in just another twenty minutes to go pick up Jackie.

Have we gotten to a place where

If someone's a privileged, wealthy, conservative evangelist, we can count on their hands in the cookie jar, sex outside the norm and/or political perfidy?

At Oral Roberts University, we have all three.

It's okay, though, God told Richard Roberts that everything was o-kay.

Back from the Birthday

Back from hanging out in Dallas for the weekend. The drive home was amazing in its smoothness and speed. We left the gas station (according to the receipt) at 2:45, and arrived in the garage at 6:30. On the ride home, the average recorded fuel economy exceeded 19 for the first time, then 20. I took a picture.



I have a bunch of stuff to upload, pictures of all of the stuff we did - nothing earth shattering. Just relaxing. Today, we went to the Texas State Fair, and looked at the car show. Had fun with the Jeep product specialist:

Jeep is advertising their new TDI in the Grand Cherokee; using a picture of the previous generation vehicle. The Jeep product specialist came over and asked if I had any questions. So I asked him why they were doing this. He was truly derailed. I said "You asked if I had any questions." He says "about the vehicles on the floor." It was fun watching his train thunder off into the weeds.

Dallas is quite the city.

I've tonight read the BEST discussion of "Atlas Shrugged," an oppressively long intellectual masturbation that I read about eight years ago and, upon finishing, remarked "what crap."

We watched "Casino Royale" last night. WHOA. What a movie.

Now, I have a new car that I want. It's SO COOL.

I have lots more to commit here to posterity, but I must to bed. I'm tired.

My commuting music

Only "T" member of HRC board resigns

Perfidy. Worthy of Fox News.

Here's her statement:

Community. Integrity. Leadership. Vision. These are the foundational pillars of Equality. These are the values that draw many of us into advocacy roles. Those tenets provide a clear roadmap when things like politics, expediency, agenda, and power cloud the picture as they so often do. They pave the way to the moral high-ground, and those who follow them with trust and patience will ultimately find their efforts rewarded.

My name is Donna Rose, and I am the first and only openly transgender member of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign. I am the national co-chair for Diversity. I am the co-chair appointee-elect for the Business Council. I have spoken at events around the country on behalf of the organization, and I am a respected advocate for the transgender community.

My participation on the HRC Board has been a heavy burden. The relationship between HRC and the transgender community is one scarred by betrayal, distrust, and anger. I have become a focal point for much of that frustration and I accepted that responsibility with the hope that I could help to change it. In some very real ways I think I have been able to do that, or at least to help make that happen, and am tremendously proud of all we have achieved.

HRC has done some wonderful work to support the transgender community. Workplaces around the country are recognizing the unique challenges faced by transgender employees and are moving in record numbers to protect them as valued members of an inclusive workforce. Educational tools to help demystify our lives and to provide a human perspective have paved to way to a better understanding of who we are and our challenges. We have set high standards and we have held others accountable to them. The question at hand is whether we, as an organization, hold ourselves accountable to those same high expectations.

Transgender is not simply the 'T' in GLBT. It is people who, for one reason or another, may not express their gender in ways that conform to traditional gender norms or expectations. That covers everyone from transsexuals, to queer youth, to feminine acting men, to masculine appearing women. It is a broad label that cannot be confined to a specific silo of people. It is anyone who chooses to live authentically. To think that the work that we are doing on behalf of the entire GLBT community simply benefits or protects part of us is to choose a simplistic view of a complex community. In a very real way, the T is anyone who expresses themselves differently. To some it is about gender. To me, it is about freedom.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is a core piece of legislation. It would guarantee that GLBT people will not get fired from their jobs because of discrimination and prejudice. It makes a strong statement that discrimination of any kind is unacceptable, and it recognizes the critical role of employment and career as something more than simply a paycheck. It is a source of pride, of achievement, of belonging, of security, and in a very real way it is a validation of person-hood.

Unemployment and under-employment is the single most significant issue facing transgender people today. The high-profile case of Susan Stanton, city manager from Largo, FL who was fired early this year after an exemplary 17-year career there simply because she was outed as being transgender, demonstrates the continuing experience that many of us continue to face each and every day in workplaces around this country. Although workplaces have made tremendous strides in enacting supportive policy, bad things still happen and the overall message being sent is that we're somehow expendable. In years past these things happened quietly, going unnoticed. Those days are numbered.

That's why ENDA is so important. It is more than simply a statement that it's not ok to fire GLBT people for reasons unrelated to work performance. It's a statement that we are a community. It's recognition of people who may not express their gender in traditional ways does not affect a person's ability to contribute as simply another part of a diverse workforce. It's a validation of those foundational pillars that line the moral high ground. And, it's recognition that each of us has value, and none of us will be left behind.

The current situation regarding ENDA is nothing short of a politically misguided tragedy. A tool that could and should be a unifying beacon on the heels of the historic passage of fully inclusive Hate Crime legislation has been split. Transgender brothers and sisters again find themselves separated, isolated, and disempowered. People in positions of power have decided that their personal legacy and the promise of political expediency are more important than protecting our entire beautiful community. The time is here to make a strong statement to demonstrate to them that they are wrong.

In 2004 the HRC Board voted to support only fully-inclusive Federal legislation. That decision paved the way to my participation with the organization, and was a significant step in the healing process. Since that time we have worked together tirelessly towards a goal of Equality for all. Less than a month ago HRC President Joe Solmonese stood before almost 900 transgender people at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta to pledge ongoing support and solidarity. In his keynote address he indicated that not only would HRC support only a fully inclusive ENDA, but that it would actively oppose anything less. That single pledge changed hearts and minds that day, and the ripple affect throughout the transgender community was that we finally were one single GLBT community working together. Sadly, recent events indicate that those promises were hollow.

An impressive coalition of local and national organizations has lined up to actively oppose the divisive strategy that would leave some of our brothers and sisters without workplace protections. This effort has galvanized community spirit and commitment in ways few could have imagined, and it has demonstrated to those who would divide us that anything less than full inclusion is unacceptable Organization after organization has seized the moral high ground knowing that this is a historic opportunity that cannot be squandered, and that it is our moral obligation to ourselves and to generations that will follow to make a loud, clear, unmistakable statement that we are a community and we will not be divided. There is a single significant organization glaringly missing from that list. The Human Rights Campaign has chosen not to be there.

It is impossible to remove passion and emotion from what has happened. Indeed, those are the fuels that propel us. That being said please know that this entire situation has affected me deeply and profoundly. Still, I will not sling mud at the organization to who I have given my heart, my energies, and my trust. I will not give in to my frustration and disappointment that Joe's words of less than a month ago have proven to be hollow promises. This unfortunate turn of events has forced me to make some very difficult personal decisions about integrity, character, community, and leadership. Although I can find any number of logical and personal reasons to continue in my capacity as a board member, I cannot escape the moral implications of the decision before me. Using that as my guide, as difficult as it is for me to make, the decision is an obvious one.

I hereby submit my resignation from my post on the Board of the Human Rights Campaign effective Monday Oct. 8, 2007. I call on other like-minded board members, steering committee leaders, donors, corporate sponsors, and volunteers to think long and hard about whether this organization still stands for your values and to take decisive action as well. More than simply a question of organization policy, this is a test of principle and integrity and although it pains me greatly to see what has happened it is clear to me that there can only be one path. Character is not for compromise. I cannot align myself with an organization that I can't trust to stand-up for all of us. More than that, I cannot give half-hearted support to an organization that has now chosen to forsake the tenets that have guided my efforts from day one.

I align myself and my energies with the groundswell of community sentiment that has universally stood to oppose this divisive strategy. I wish my friends and colleagues from the Human Rights Campaign the best, and I expect that time will prove their decision to take a neutral stance and to fracture our community to be short-sighted and misguided. I accept the notion that we all want the same thing. It's just that I couldn't disagree more with this destructive strategy to get there. I urge the board and the leadership to reconsider their position and the join a unified community that supports a single all-inclusive bill.

History teaches painful lessons. Any celebration of rights gained at the expense of others is not a celebration. It is a failure of effective leadership. It is to offer the promise of a tomorrow that you know in your heart will never come. It is to choose to turn your back on those who need you most, who do not have the voice or the stature to speak for themselves.

The time is here for leaders to lead, for those who say they stand for community to act forcefully and with purpose. Anything less is to forsake the pillars of Equality for the empty promise of something less. The word that we have for that in our language is "Courage". It's the kind of courage it takes for GLBT people to show up for work each and every day, living authentically, wondering if that will be their last day. I call on my brothers and sisters at the Human Rights Campaign, for Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Frank, and for equality-minded leaders everywhere to lead by example and to do the right thing.

In Solidarity for Equality,

Donna Rose

Interestingly, HRC today sent out a pretty, slick email telling everyone that they were "leading the fight for T rights." They are "We are profoundly disappointed by this move, and [they] want to explain our position and ask you to write your congress member today."

Uh, really? Weren't you the two-timing bastards that TOLD the Democratic leadership that it was A-OK to dump "T" protection from ENDA? EVERY. OTHER. GLBT. ORGANIZATION. SAID. NO.

Throw another big, pretty party and invite the glittery fags who wish they were heterosexual, Republican, McMansion living normal people. We'll get back to work.

Hump Day windshield replacement

Nothing like starting out your day spending $500 on a new windshield. I found the place very easily, and they've told me that they have a good success rate at saving the registration and inspection stickers. WHOO HOOO!

After this, I really need to go get my driver license renewed. And, a doctor's follow up at noon thirty. And work to get done.

Talking a lot to Bram about what we're doing going forward. I think we have a workable game plan. Hopefully, that game plan will actually work.

The desk furniture guy has been no bueno on setting up another time to come look. Bleh.

I need a new tuxedo. And a new tuxedo shirt. And where the hell are my tuxedo shoes? Is this going to be like the mystery of the missing Pyrex measuring cup that wasn't resolved for nearly a year (until a confession took place in a back door manner?) I mean, I was delighted (who cares about a Pyrex measuring cup, after all,) but these were brand new tuxedo shoes only worn once.

WHERE ARE THEY?! Maybe they're in the Christmas boxes. I should go look.

More whining

Monday, October 01, 2007

Robert A. Lutz, Vice-Chairman Personal and confidential
Global Product Development
General Motors Corporation
Detroit MI 48202

Pontiac Customer Assistance Center
P.O. Box 33172
Detroit, MI 48232-5172

Mr. David W. Taylor, Jr., President Personal and confidential
David Taylor Cadillac Company, Inc.
PO Box 36428
Houston TX 77236

Mr. Phil Meyers, Service Manager
David Taylor Cadillac/Buick/Pontiac/GMC
9120 Southwest Freeway
Houston TX 77074

Gentlemen:

As you are aware, I have repeatedly had my 2005 Pontiac Bonneville into David Taylor for warranty repair work, VIN 1G2HZ54Y85U199292.

My complaint about under-hood exhaust noise cannot be found by your service department; riders in my car are impressed with my imagination – it being so vivid that it has sound effects. After a few minutes of driving, the underhood rattle is consistent at stop lights.

In my test drive with your shop foreman, he asserted that my sunroof cannot be satisfactorily adjusted – it’s as good as they can get it. The sunroof is quieter on the freeway when vented than when closed, but your service advisor states that I’m only hearing normal wind noise. When I’ve driven a CTS loaner provided by your store, the sunroof made no wind noise. This weekend, looking at new Cadillacs at Stewart, each and every factory installed sunroof is perfectly flush to the roof surface – my sunroof is millimeters below the roof surface across the entire factory opening for the roof.

In its last visit to your shop, again your technicians saw fit to put new settings into my seat and mirror memory – that is the second time this has been done. Wrench sockets were left in my car, rattling against the seat tracks. This is the care your shop gives to the owner of a $39,000 car; their own preferences are superior to my own, and an attention to detail that would allow for causing short circuits and leaving tools behind in my car for later discovery.

My experiences in your service department have been unsatisfactory in the extreme since Eric Rice left the drive. I am very displeased with the out and out fabrications told me by the service advisor who has been handling my vehicle – when you replaced the sunroof and disabled the interior courtesy lamps, he told me I had a blown fuse – taking responsibility away from David Taylor’s employees. When driving the car with the shop foreman hours laterI was told that the technician had pinched a wire, causing a short and disabling the lamps.

What is the purpose in deflecting blame away from David Taylor in this manner? What customer service goal is served by telling a GM customer representative that my sunroof does not make inappropriate wind noise when your shop foreman has told me directly that it does? How can I be expected to accept anything that I hear from your service drive personnel at face value?

The man who has made these statements has also stated that my windshield, which cracked badly while at David Taylor, was damaged on my watch and then later claimed that he had seen this damage when the car was brought in, and that he made note of it in a report – none of which notations are available for review.

Why should these statements be believable? The balance of the care my vehicle has received while in your shop has been so careless as to warrant reasonable consideration as to whether a technician dropped a tool or other object on my windshield while in your possession – in fact, the totality of the circumstances surrounding my handling at David Taylor would tend to suggest that someone at your shop DID cause the damage, and then your institutional behaviors naturally began to distract, avoid and defend against such a reasonable explanation.

The efforts of Pontiac to support its customers have been less than pathetic, and have hardly acted in any manner to advocate or negotiate a solution to what is utterly disreputable customer care and discharge of contractual warranty obligations. Having a shiny-faced twenty-three year old parrot back the fabrications of the dealer’s service personnel is hardly providing any customer service at all.

Mr. Meyers, I decline your offer to come yet again to the service drive, and be placated with promises that you all will do your best. I decline your offer to come and have nothing done, and my car returned to me with a fairly high probability of further damage. I decline your offer to go for a test drive to prove whether I am making complaints out of my imagination. I have invested far too much time already.

I decline further contact from Pontiac’s “Customer Assistance Center.” I have no need to be told in the most chipper of tones that I have been well treated.

It matters not how beautiful, exciting or unique GM products are when a customer with a 29 year consistent purchase history cannot have his car repaired and be treated as a valued client. It matters not that you install sophisticated electronics, two-toned leathers or hybrid power trains. Even more people will turn away from the dealer experience which brings only frustration and a deeping lack of confidence in the vehicle that one had previously been so excited about.

Each day that I look at my damaged car, listen to the badly repaired sunroof and the ignored engine compartment rattle, my confidence in it is diminished. The car becomes less and less appealing and each time I turn the key I wonder what will go wrong next.

Is that the product you intend to sell? Are those the experiences you want your customers to share with their friends and business associates?
That is the experience you are delivering in the marketplace. Every time I see a new DTS, look at the colors, the wheels, and think about having one in my garage I must stop and consider that at some point it will be in YOUR garage. That is enough to inhibit me from further entertaining the notion.

Sincerely yours,

Monday, Monday ver 1134.11

I'm sweating like the proverbial gay Republican senator in a public bathroom.

My blood glucose has been all over the map. I started on Byetta Saturday; cut back on my oral meds and good lord - I've been in the mid to high 200s most of the weekend and shot up from 160 this morning (fasting) to 299 90 minutes after eating oatmeal.

Yesterday, after church, I was totally wiped out. I thought it was just post-church nappiness, but after four and a half hours of sleep, my BG was over 299. It took all evening to get it down to 160 this morning, and now I'm zipped all the way back up.

After watching three episodes of "Dexter," Jeremy and I talked for a while about politics, the economy and such, my bedroom TV caught fire, which provided a little excitement. I hung all of my shirts on the new (very used) wooden hangars I bought from Nicole's grandparents, and then went to bed worrying about the house (fire, flood, famine and foreclosure.)

Fun times.

I just had someone ask me about my Manhunt profile in which I say that gay life is all about limerance. I explained it to him thusly:

People (especially gay people) meet someone, decide that this new person is THE one (which is an ideal that's in their head, not a real person) and have a relationship with this image personified by this new person. This relationship lasts weeks or months, until the realtiy of the now not so new person conflicts so violently with the mental image that the limerant rejects the now not new person and moves on to another person, repeating the process.

I took my car to NTB two weeks ago for brakes; they didn't do the alignment/balance work as I had asked. So, I took it back on Thursday. I still have a slapping tire, and the car changes lanes to the right on the freeway within about three car lengths.

Maybe I should walk everywhere.

Links, links, links

How close we are to attacking Iran. Disturbing.

How close we are to a significant recession. Disturbing. Explains why the collapse of housing bubbles is psychologically connected to individuals' opinion of wealth and the state of the economy.

Rush this...

How fun - Rush Limbaugh is back-pedaling from his comments about phony soldiers hot on the heels of the MoveOn ad. And, here is one of the phony soldiers commenting back to Mr. Limbaugh, whose never been in the military and claims he had a medical reason to not serve in Vietnam.

Ingrown butt hair, it seems.

Apparently, although his medical records suggest that he was healed, his ass is still bothering him. Maybe it's that boil on his ass that causes his vituperance and mean spirited statements.

I must now report that my interest in a Phaeton is deader than a doornail. The stories I read last week about the significant mechanical issues, and the expected dealership experiences killed it, when added to my level of frustration at my treatment at David Taylor, and other Houston area dealers over the last twenty years.

Went to Nicole's grandmother's this morning to sit with her while she had another estate sale - got a bunch of wooden hangars, cleaning supplies, ash trays for Bram's courtyard, a hall tree for the office. Met David at Red Robin for lunch, and had fun watching a private ambulance pull out of the parking lot and rip the nose off of a Toyota Corolla in the parking lot. I swear that the driver was considering just driving off, but then he realized that there were people watching, and he stopped.

After that, home to meet up with a guy from a Craigslist ad that I posted who was interested in some of my model trains. He was a tad early, and he bought five locomotives from me. Then, we went to Target, picked up my Byetta prescription ($242.00) and went to Petco and bought a new clipper for Jackie's forest of dirty hair, came home. Was planning on going to Baytown to look at the desk. I called, and the guy wasn't around. He's called a bunch of times to tell me I could go over there, but my intended window was already closed. I haven't listened to the messages yet.

Then, we had a nap - well, I had a nap. It was a hard nap, in which one awakens in a dazed state. My dazed state included waking from a dream that I was being choked by my room mate. NOT the most fun one can have. Time to make another Psych-K appointment, I'm guessing. It IS my birthday, so it's something I can give myself.

I'm invited to a party tonight; why do I so NOT want to do these things?