mariness

I know. I know. I've been neglecting this blog recently. It's not LJ (or Dreamwidth) or a sign that I'm going to leave LJ (or Dreamwidth) although, while I'm on this subject, LJ's recent tendency to suddenly log me out when I'm trying to view your locked posts and trying to force me to watch a pop-up add before allowing me to attempt to log back in is not making me much fonder of LJ. I have a paid account, LJ; stop logging me out of it, and stop trying to sneak in paid ads. Where was I? Oh, right, about to explain that I'm not feeling much like writing anything at the moment, fiction or not. Last week was at least a better week on the fiction/poetry front, but this week…not so much. I'm blaming a combination of fatigue and Mercury, which is apparently in retrograde at the moment, not because this is a particularly good or believable explanation, but it is at least a convenient one.

So, some random thoughts to fill the gap:

1. I realize that we're all supposed to be kinda shocked that Gordon Brown called one of his constituents a bigot, but, I gotta say, I was kinda relieved to hear a politician actually expressing his unadulterated, honest opinion about something. Yay for forgotten mikes.

2. On a related note, I must say that the Brits, as always, hold more meaningful sounding elections than we do. I have decided that it's the accents.

3. I am sorry to say that the ponies that I told some of you about are not ponies at all, but miniature horses, which just goes to show that I should never make any statements about any equine species whatsoever. In my defense I thought they looked like ponies. The peacocks that share their field are, however, actual peacocks.

4. On a related note, I am placing a $3 million dollar imaginary bet on Devil May Care on this weekend's Kentucky Derby. (I believe that if you are making imaginary bets on horseracing, you should bet big. I also believe that since I have lost about 99% of my imaginary horseracing bets, I should never be allowed to make real ones.) No, not because she's a girl horse, but because Devil May Care is one of my favorite Elizabeth Peters' books. Also she looks pretty. I am placing a $2 million dollar imaginary bet on Dean's Kitten because I like kittens. Also he looks pretty. (You may be beginning to see why I am not suited for a career in racetrack gambling.)

5. The Grey One, previously the sort of cat who preferred to hide under things and could easily vanish for days upon end (I'm still convinced she's mastered some sort of inter-dimensional/parallel universe travel, and don't tell me that's against the laws of physics, because I don't think she's interested in obeying those) has suddenly become friendly to the point of becoming a major nuisance, by which I mean, just when I finally come up with a sentence that might work in the novel, she raises her little grey head or her little grey paws in an unnecessarily sharp reminder that my hands are on the keyboard and not on her chin. Hmm. Maybe Mercury in retrograde isn't my only writing problem.

6. Oh, and delayed thanks to everyone who recommended the Whirly-pop popper; I'll just add that yes, you can use it while you're sitting down, which is awesome, and it makes seriously good popcorn. This is also the only popper I've used that almost never leaves behind any unpopped kernels. I'm in awe.