When "vagina" is your mood and/or status update, you are too drunk for the internet.


This has been a pubic public service announcement.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."-Kurt Vonnegut

Not too much to talk about, really. The doctor's visit brought more medication.

In animal news, I changed the hermit crab's sand today, and I put in some hot pinkish sand in with the normal white and the coconut substrate. It looks rather like a torte cake, layered like that. It's pretty. Two out of three crabs changed shells lately - Destiny got into a new shell, then Angel came and took her old shell. Shelly is still obstinately staying in the same shell we got her in three years ago. Sometimes she gets out of it and tries on a new shell for a few minutes - but she always returns to her old one. Picky crab. Got a heater for Chaos Betta - the expensive kind, 'cause I didn't want to accidentally cook him. I got the kind that you can set to a specific temperature, and it's accurate within one degree, instead of having to guess with 'high' and 'low'.

Redesigned Jenny's myspace today- I'm not entirely sure I'm content with how it's come out. I still have to do some other stuff to it, like change the top eight.

Tomorrow I'm going to be running some errands, going to the historical society, maybe getting around to cleaning my coin some.

I think I might be joining Weight Watchers. I've been losing about two pounds a month or so on my own, but I've got a lot of weight that I want to lose - so I think I'm going to try that.

It's already mid-October, and I'm so far behind where I want to be writing-wise. I haven't gotten many revisions done, and I haven't gotten a very clear summary or plan for the new work. I really need to get things together before November. Other things I'm really behind on include crocheting a scarf I wanted to make, and getting things situated for our trip to MA to visit Rick and Gynn.

The Crane Wife leaked (well, the first seven tracks, anyhow) - this is sooo good. I love The Decemberists! Beautiful stuff.

Yesterday, I picked up a used Perfection game for one dollah - I'd forgotten how much fun it was to play that. The popping noise startled the girls and made them shriek, haha. It was funny. They got used to it after a while. I can still put all the pieces in with time left over. That was nice to know.

Also yesterday, got another letter from the IRS. This one said "Sorry we're taking so long - if you don't hear from us by 9/11, give us a call again." Yay. I hope that's another form letter sent out in error, so that we get our refund sooner than that. It's getting ridiculous.

Also also yesterday, I wrote a little Michael-drabble for originalit.

Today I'm not doing anything in particular - so far, just relaxing.

The MySpace Poet Society (hah .. yes, there is one) - sent me a little message asking if I would be their poet of the day for August 17th. Pretty sweet!

New update over at lsims for The Simkees.

On my poetry myspace, I have a new song/poem that jasonbeast did the music for. It's called 'Untelevised' - just load the page, it should be the first song that plays on the player. Have sound on, obviously.

This week, I plan on trying to:

write a letter to my penpal
work on the script
work on a Michael-story

and maybe some more sims stuff, and some gaming stuff as creativity permits. We'll see.

Pierre de Reeder (Rilo Kiley) - http://www.myspace.com/pierredereeder

Mike Bloom (Rilo Kiley, the Elected) http://www.myspace.com/mikebloom

So I got this call today from a concerned parent, one of my son's friend's mothers... who told me that they were having an emergency meeting down at the high school. Considering that every 'emergency meeting' is about something totally stupid, I had to try pretty hard not to just laugh and hang up. (For example sake here, the last one was because Paris Hilton wanted to be a teacher's aide at the school for her Simple Life show). Today's moral outrage? MySpace.

According to said mother, they were having a meeting warning parents about the dangers of MySpace, and how almost every kid has one now, and who knows what they could be messaging about? And there was a KILLER who had a MySpace, so that means that our children could be being exposed to criminals on the internet! Imagine that! She told me that she was bringing all her kids down to the school right away, so that they'd know why they shouldn't have a myspace in case they were thinking about making one. I didn't have the heart to tell her that all three of her kids have a myspace already. Why doesn't she know that? Because her kids, like about 70% of kids I know, are afraid to talk to their parents about anything they do on the internet because they're sure their parents are going to freak out and overreact.

I told her that not only do all three of my kids have MySpaces, but also so do I. What do they do on MySpace? Message their friends, send annoying bulletins (I know because I'm on their friends list and they message me to ask what's for dinner, and send out silly survey things all the time), and decorate their pages. Has anything awful happened from this? Well, they learned some basic computer and CSS / HTML skills, and their grammar and spelling have gotten better because they write more. Their typing speed has improved. This mother was SHOCKED and APPALLED that I would condone such things as MySpace, and said that I should take myself and the kids to this meeting straightaway to learn the truth about how dangerous myspace really was.

If I had gone to the meeting, it would have only been to point out how ridiculous they all were being. Why don't I worry about my kids on the internet? Because I taught them how to use the internet responsibly, and taught them to be smart and sensible in general. I also provide a good example for them with my own internet habits. That's really all parents need to do. Do I 'keep tabs' on them? I don't read their mail or their messages on a regular basis, no. But they'll call me over to show me something someone has written to them that they find funny, and if I walk into the room while they're IMing someone they don't hurry to close the window, because they know I'm not there to give them the third degree about what topic they're on.

Mass hysteria over two unrelated events annoys me. The killer in question isn't on the loose - in fact, he's now quite dead. So why does it matter that he had a MySpace? That's like saying "Oh my god, a criminal walked past me in the street once - I should never go outside again!" Millions of people use MySpace. Many of them are stupid. Some of them are psychotic. Why, that's just like the 'real world', innit?

As my son said to me, while rolling his eyes "Why are they so worked up? You know, if you don't want someone on myspace to contact you, you can just hit Block. It's right on the profile."

I think my 13 year old makes a lot more sense than the adults here.

/end rant

I rediscovered my lsims journal password, though all the links are broken now thanks to the damn server issue. Gotta find my sims directory and put it back up. But I posted some new stuff in there tonight. I was messing with the Sims and psp to make some graphics for my Michael-stories, and I came up with this...



and a few more, that're posted over there.

Yes, Michael has a myspace now - you can friend him at http://www.myspace.com/michaelstory . I'm going to mirror the stories over there in the blog. And if you haven't yet, friend my poetry/writing myspace over at http://www.myspace.com/lauracushing

Today my brother Joe came over and we hung out - it was nice. Went out to lunch, played Scrabble. Good times.

One of Steve's friends got a mowhawk and wanted me to see it - so I got drug out onto the porch by the kids to witness the mowhawkly goodness. I asked him why he'd chosen to get his hair cut in that style and he said "To piss my mom off because she made me cut my hair". So yes, if there was any doubt that teenagers do things just to annoy us... there ya go. It's proof.

Note to self: Finish drawing Snails tomorrow!

The kids drawings from the 1940s arrived at the Girard school in tact, but then they did some research and found out that they were made at another Girard location - Girard College (Don't know why they call it that- there's a middle school and high school there) which was where the school for orphan boys was, which is where my pictures came from. This means they're in transit again, as the elementary school is sending them over there. But they're equally excited about getting the pictures, supposedly, so hopefully they'll find their home there!

I spent hours today redecorating my myspace. I feel so lame! But I think it came out really well.

Tomorrow I have to get up at the asscrack of dawn to go to the DMV. Ugh. Hopefully they'll stop trying to screw me over.

Been a while since I've written anything... started physical therapy three times a week, chiropractic once a month now. Still seeing some misc. other doctors, but at least things are progressing, right?

Aus got his first back-to-work paycheck... for 20 bucks. How unamusing. Hopefully in two weeks, he gets his real, full paycheck. My brother came over yesterday and took me and mom out to lunch - we went to my favorite place that I can't afford to eat unless it's free (muhaha), Sweetwater Casino. Good food there- I had prime rib. Free lunches rock. Plus, it's so pretty out in the middle of the pines, being able to look out the window and see the water flowing by - it's lovely.

Writing wise- still haven't finished that poem. I should do that today, really. I've been busy with the non-fiction writing. I'm going to interview Runion and write a little article about the Elected and Lewis/Watson releases for Shelma's new project, The Midnight Hurrah. Looks like it will be sweet, once it gets going.

Am now tending a total of five MySpaces. How does this happen? They multiply, I swear.

Games are going good- didn't have our D&D this week, though - poor Drew had overtime work. Work is evil.

Today I'm just hanging around and being lazy. Wheee.

http://www.myspace.com/lewiswithwatsons

There are also MySpaces for Rilo Kiley - http://www.myspace.com/rilokiley

and The Elected - http://www.myspace.com/theelected