Late Spring Random Bits

on a gorgeous Saturday evening.

Conversation with The Amazing Bob:

Me: I got my period AGAIN last night -- what the hell? Menopause is pure, unmitigated hell.
TAB: When does it end?
Me: When I’m dead but there's no guarantee.

Funny/incredible happenstance:

About ten years ago, I was in some on line political chat room, chatting. One fellow and I really hit it off conversationally -- we had a total ‘like minds’ thing going on. We ended up continuing our conversation via email, independent of the site. We talked about our creative, not specifically political sides -- he’s a jazz pianist in LA and me -- blathering about the painting habit.  Within 3 exchanges he asks/says ‘I know this is going to sound funny but you remind me so much of someone I used to know. Are you, by any chance Donna Maderer?’ Previously we'd been all nom de plumey.

..the hell? All this time I thought I was a whole ‘nother, new person now— that I’d evolved to unrecognizable, stellar heights since my depressingly unhip, neurotic youth! At first I was all embarrassed but then, duh, realized that he liked me then and still does!

Maybe I wasn’t such a maniac at 17 after all. Or maybe I was a not-so-bad kind of maniac.

Waddya know?

This evening’s totally deep observation:

There’s horse racing and dog racing. Illegal dog fights and equally illegal cock fights. Hell, there’s frog jumping contests and pigeon races. Interesting that you never hear about cat racing or organized cat fight competitions, eh? Kinda speaks to their clear intellectual superiority, don’t ya think?

Language thoughts:

Bilious — great word. I love the way it rolls off the tongue. Say it — you’ll feel what I’m saying.

“Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely.”

“Mastication or chewing is the process by which food is crushed and ground by teeth.”

Funny how these very different words start the same way.

The Amazing Bob and I each reduced to one sentence:

TAB - Literature reading, poem writing, jazz and baseball loving, piano playing, earthy, beat generation hippy type.

Me - Comic book reading, bombastic music appreciating, painting, scribbling, team sport eschewing, earthy, bohemian-ish broad.

On our marriage license (at Cambridge City Hall, natch) he listed his occupation as poet. I listed mine as painter. Didn’t ask what we got paid to do, just what we were occupied with.

How to spend a sunny Saturday Afternoon:

Just saw Dark Shadows with an old pal. The movie, while fun-ish, was pretty bad all in all. Still, spending a couple of hours in a dark theater on a sunny late spring afternoon, sharing a bag of salty popcorn with an old friend, is hard to beat.