Thursday night was interesting. I had just dyed my hair a bit darker than usual (I feel silly now with light blonde hair), and it was almost dry but full of that super-rich conditioner that you put on afterward. I went outside to enjoy the moonlight and the cool breezes. I lit some charcoal, and threw a couple of rosehips and bit of lemongrass on it to saturate the night. I lit a couple of candles, and as I bent down to light the third, my hair dropped into one that was already lit. Phewmp! I was on fire! Just that fast. I clapped it out right away, but now I have some bangs underneath on one side. Oh, it smelled horrible! It made me remember something I had forgotten, though. When I was a kid, I had very long hair, and I remember that I used to pluck strands of it out, and light them on fire off of the gas stove. I was in 4th or 5th grade. The smell reminded me. I wonder if my mom knew.

Readers of the blog… and my neighbors… will know that I sometimes like to sing. I crank up my iPod and go through all kinds of songs. Lots of times I’m just mimicking the singer, which can get a bit amusing sometimes. Anyway, I was doing that – singing pretty loud, but directing my voice into the deepest part of the woods out back. I really got into it, and walked out to the little picnic table. So picture this: I’m standing on top of the table, facing away from the house, eyes closed, singing at the top of my projection power – and to anyone listening, that’s a capella.

I finished the song, and heard applause! When I opened my eyes, two strangers were standing about ten feet away from me, in my yard, wildly clapping their hands. I don’t think I’ve moved so fast since an alligator chased me around my car. I jumped down – I think I must have turned about five shades of red.

It turns out that they live a few houses away, around the block. They said they’ve been listening to me sing for months, and they love hearing me sing. Or – at least they say they do. Anyway, they decided to walk over and meet me and express appreciation (and find out who I am). Their son sometimes joins me with his trumpet – or plays on his own. He seems like a sweet kid, but I only met him in person once, at the neighborhood yard sale. Now I’ve met the family. It was cool in a way – nice to think they like it. I view my singing as something that I have to do – but I don’t really expect anyone to like it.

Wasn’t Barack Obama fun last night? I thought he was a lot more amusing than Wanda Sykes. That line about John Boehner (video) was the best putdown I’ve heard in a long time; it works on so many levels.

In the next hundred days our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner will consider becoming a Democrat. After all we have a lot in common. He is a person of color–although not a color that appears in the natural world.

He poked fun at all the hype around himself, too:

During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days. … My next 100 days will be so successful, I will complete them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest.

I also liked the way he spoke back to the cynicism of the crowd. Catch his last few minutes on journalism and the media if you can.

Work takes up a lot of my energy these days. I enjoy it, but it’s tiring. I haven’t done anything creative lately. There are a number of things I’m supposed to be doing, and writing, and thinking about – but I am not in the right space to do that.

I’ve been waking up really early in the morning for the last couple of weeks, and it feels really good just to take it slow. It’s been a nice relaxing weekend so far. I’ve been puttering around the house, starting to reorganize a little. John dragged a bunch of stuff down to the curb. The place has gotten out of control. I’d like to get things into more streamlined shape before it gets too hot. I’m not a natural homebody, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to concentrate on those sorts of things until my surroundings are a bit less cluttered and disorganized.

i’m an ex-JW who has since become a pagan because the beliefs make more sense to me. i found the humour about JW’s on your site refreshing and amusing as I left three years ago and have consequently not heard from my parents or little sister for three years.

So i just wanted to say thanks for the healing to my soul that your jokes provided.

Especially since I was abused when i was growing up both emotionally and physically and watched my mother and sister being abused to, and my abusive dad backed his actions up with the bible and was an elder in the local congregation whom everyone looked up to and thought well of. Of course they never saw what he was like behind closed doors and I was too terrified to tell anyone.

i also didn’t ever like the fact that the bible said one thing but the watchtower said another and that the organisation had taken the place of God to most people. If only they’d read their bibles properly they would see that things have become overly complicated. So i’ve gone back to the old religion.

Just wanted to say thanks for the jokes.

Aella Brenna (it means Whirlwind daughter of Raven)

A little sample:

Witness: Well, God’s going to kill you. And … well, I can see from the toys in your yard that you have children. Am I right?

Householder: Yes.

Witness: Well, God’s going to kill them, too. And it’ll be your fault. There. You’ve been warned. I’ve just discharged my own responsibility, so the bloodguilt is yours now. When God kills your kids, it’ll be all your fault. So you better take these magazines.

Householder: But we pray to God every night. We even pray together, as a family! My wife and my daughter and I kneel every evening before we tuck her in, and she folds her hands and prays for us and for her dolls and for Rover, her puppy …

Witness: That’s cute and all, but I’m afraid it isn’t enough.

Householder: So my daughter …

Witness: Dead.

Householder: And my wife …

Witness: Dead …

Householder: What about Rover?

Witness: Dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. Look, are you going to take the magazines or not?

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a condom because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed.

The Darwin awards is always fun (try the random button) and actually, The Onion is pretty good today with gems like “Mitt Romney Is Candidate Most Voters Want To Get Into Bar Fight With,” “Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?” and “Lone Gunman Envied By Married Gunman.”

Don’t sigh. Don’t cry. Laugh and survive to laugh again tomorrow.

St. Peter greets him at the Pearly Gates, and says, “Hello, Father, we’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Welcome to Heaven! You are very well known here, and as a special reward, because you are such a spiritual and holy man, we’re going to grant you anything you wish even before we enter Heaven. What can I grant you?”

“Well”, the priest says, “I’ve always been a great admirer of the Virgin Mother. I’ve always wanted to ask her a question.”

St. Peter nods his head to one side, and lo and behold who should approach the priest but the Virgin Mary!

The priest is beside himself, and he manages to say, “Mother, I have always been a great admirer of yours, and have studied everything I could about you and followed your life as best I could. I have studied every painting and portrait ever made of you, and I’ve noticed that you are always portrayed with a slightly sad look on your face. I have always, always wondered what it was that made you sad. Would you please tell me?”

“Well”, says Mother Mary, “to tell the truth, I was really hoping for a girl.”

(thanks, Sharon P!)

• 3-Way Watch Blog – Mercs in a Corporate World
• AMERICAblog – Condi has to force State Dept. officials to Iraq
• Amanda’s Engima – More great Wallpapers from WallpaperStock
• An und für sich – The Complication of Nature and Grace in Aquinas
• Arianna Huffington – Midnight in America: the Mainstreaming of the GOP’s Lunatic Fringe
• Atheist Revolution – Christian Extremist Links CA Fires To Homosexuality
• Bitch PhD – Fatness as Metaphor
• A Blind Chihuahua Speaks – Processing
• Blog of a Bookslut – Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia
• Blog of Death – Winners of the Final Farewell Contest
• Buttrrflyyz – sometimes…
• Brainsnap – Ann Coulter Follows O’Reilly Playbook
• Bring it On! – FEMA: The Federal Editorial Management Agency
• Capital Hill Blue – America’s lost soul
• Cosmic Variance – Vice Vice Baby
• CounterPunch – So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness
• Crooked Timber – Facebook profiling
• Crooks and Liars – Dodd’s Speech on the Constitution & Rule of Law
• Daily Kos – “I Don’t Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier’s Life“
• Dante’s Virgil – Here’s Your Sign, Dad. And It’s Shaped Like A “D”
• Data Dome – Corporate Culture Comic Strips
• Democrats.com – Join our Impeachment Group on Facebook
• Discourse.net – Torture Charges Filed Against Rumsfeld in France
• Douglas Rushkoff – My Formula: Social Control as a Function of Media
• Ecstatic Days – Riley and Cat (photo)
• Ergo Dubito – Two Quotes
• Even the Devils Believe – Recap of last week (Washington)
• Everything Isn’t Under Control – Caught in the Wild
• Eyebeam reBlog – Kafka couldn’t make up something this absurd
• Faith In Public Life – God and Global Warming
• Frogs and Ravens – Terra Cotta
• Further Left Forum – Blackwater’s Run for the Border
• Gary-Philosophy.com – Foucault, surveillance, panopticism
• Georgia Politics Unfiltered – A Cleland-Chambliss rematch could be close
• Get Religion – Why does ‘evangelical product’ sell so well?
• Get Rich Quick! – Grate Fun! Child Franchise from China
• Godspy – I Was in Prison, and You Tortured Me
• Grateful Bear – Compassion Training
• infinite thought – blair and bartleby: the conditional as enemy
• Information Clearinghouse – Taxi to the Dark Side
• Inside Higher Ed – ‘Too Good’ for Tenure?
• Is America Burning? – Read It – Just Read It
• Jehovah’s Witnesses and Thought Control – Thought Control and Shunning
• Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) – Five Years On….
• Language Log – Linguistics in the Funny Papers
• Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm – To fold or to roll when packing a suitcase
• Liberal Oasis – What are we, Americans, about?
• Liberty Street – Take A Deep Breath, Let’s Look Under That Rock
• Life Cycle Analysis – Google maps of Southern California
• Looking beyond the Cracked Window – I believe…
• Lord Matt – MySQL methods Get, Do, Show
• Love Ministries – The Book of Job
• Mad Kane’s Political Madness – Pondering Condi
• Makanani – Save the World with PB&J
• Mama Christy’s – Task Completed: Elephant Peeking at Me
• Mark Crispin Miller: News from Underground – Blackwater: America’s White Army?
• Mark Morford – Come see our giant toxic stew! 1,500 miles wide, floating in the Pacific, made of all your plastic crap. Bring the kids!
• Mary Pause1964 – The Cost of Recruitment
• Meditations on an Eyeball – Monologue on a leaf
• Metroblogging Atlanta – Atlanta Water Shortage Blog
• Michael Moore – US peace activist barred again from entering Canada
• My DD – GOP Presidential Candidates Shamed Into Acknowledging Disaster
• Neil Gaiman – to autumn
• Nonviolent Jesus – Head Bloody but Unbowed
• The Notion – Matthews on White House Crime & Media Failure
• The Ominous Comma – Blogging Week – Frumpy Friday
• The Onion – Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
• The Online Rant – Does information naturally gravitate towards freedom?
• Open Letters to George W. Bush – Dear George Oct. 28 2007
• The Ordinary Mystic – Is Salvia Divinorum Really a Teacher Plant?
• Pandagon – Laugh of the day: Winger blog Red State bans Ron Paul supporters
• Panopticist – Lower-case N, Standing on a Hill
• Politics TV – Paul Wellstone on Iraq just before his death
• Postcards from Hell’s Kitchen – Gotta Have It! The Lost in Space Robot
• Professional Mirror, Ph.D. – One way to get tenure
• Prose and Thorn – Words Taken Down: The Murky Puddle Left Behind When Terrible Truth and Corrupted Consequence Collide
• Quod She – Help! I don’t want to be grad director any more
• Radical Druid – Thoughts on the Undertown
• Radical Goddess Thealogy – Goddess Perpetuations and America the Christian Nation (tie)
• Real Clear Politics – PM Line
• Reconstitution – Presenting the Other Side
• Religion News Blog – Marine’s Father Sues Church for Cheering Son’s Death
• The Revealer – Letting Jesus and Buddha Dance Together: Eve and the Fire Horse (by my former fellow grad student and always friend Brent Plate! Nice surprise.)
• reverend mommy’s random thoughts – I’m Shredding
• Rhetorica – Dumbness in Campaign Reporting
• Rudy Rucker – Kyoto #5: Enlightenment and Good-Bye
• The Satirical Political Report – Media Watchdog Group: ‘Fake’ FEMA Reporters More ‘Fair and Balanced” than FOX
• Street Prophets – Wanker Of The Day
• Sunrays and Saturdays – Thought for the Day 1
• Tapped (American Prospect) – Can We Please Stop Calling Rudy Giuliani “Pro-choice?“
• Telling it Like it is – You Just Can’t Please Everyone – A Rant
• Tenured Life – Things I’ve learned since I last blogged
• Think Progress – Military Strike On Iran ‘Would Lead Absolutely To Disaster’
• thinkBuddha – A Little Light Reading
• Total information Awareness – On Distinctions and Differences
• Unconfirmed Sources – Ann Coulter Denies Sexual Relationship With Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
• Uncyclopedia UnNews – In response to widespread devastation in California, Bush declares war on fire
• The Untraditionalist – All hell will break loose?
• The Vanity Press – What If They Gave an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Nobody Came?
• Virtual Bourgeois – I’m Caught Up!!!
• Virtual Pus – Smart people can be morons too
• The Wall of Separation – Proclamation Consternation: Washington State Governor Gives Support To ‘Christian Nation’ Rhetoric
• Watchtower Quotes – Love Bombing
• What Now? – Stick a fork in me
• Whitehouse – President’s Remarks to Super-Stoked Troops During Mega-Secret Photo Op in Increasingly Ultra-Safe Iraq
• Wonkette – Rumors – Blackwater Is For Our Children’s Future
• Worldwide Sawdust – Hard Rain Journal: Asking the Right Questions

I hope that you find a few interesting things to read here, but I remember now why I don’t do this very often. (smile)