Altar Call

Years before I became a Catholic, I attended a hellfire and brimstone Baptist church, the kind with the interminable altar call where we were implored to sing all the verses of "Washed in the Blood" or "The Old Rugged Cross." It was a small church and almost everyone had already been "saved." So the call mainly appealed to people who wished to "rededicate" their lives to Christ. It was a strange process filled with drama and excitement. You never knew who might walk down the aisle.

Four years ago, I did my very first blog post. I started the blog without any preconceptions about direction. It's been a wonderful experience; I've met some lovely people, written about some difficult things, had many laughs. I have had unbelievable support (the near death! Note to readers -- do not let your appendix rupture!). And this year I have finished my first memoir, You Are The Camera. I would have never written this book without the blog. So I take this day to rededicate my commitment to my blog. Next year, more pictures (fashion, fun, weird places), more of my beloved Detroit, more crackpot opinions, stories from the past, observations about the future. Thanks to all of you for reading, always. Without you, this wouldn't exist.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"This hair is from Detroit." "Maybe it ought to go back there." Chris Rock trying to sell hair in his documentary Good Hair

Cocktail Hour
Drink some champagne soon -- spring is here!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

Installation Continues In The Next Room

My hands used to blister and rip open after a time on the parallel bars. These were called rips by gymnasts and were hugely painful. You had to chalk up before hitting your routine and the chalk made the rips burn. The only way to get around it was an evil liquid called Tough Skin which felt like pouring liquid fire on an open sore. After, the sore closed up and formed a callous so the show could go on.

I wasn't very good at the bars. My strength was always the floor. Yes, these two lines are examples of self-service humor. You can make up your own joke. But I did have a perverse enjoyment of the callous-forming process. I haven't seen Tough Skin in years, but I think about it when I'm in pain and need to get over it quickly. Your hands and what they are dealt are always changing.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"When we cannot change a situation, we are forced to change ourselves." Victor Frankel

Cocktail Hour
Drinking movie suggestion: The Secret Lives of Pippa Lee

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Saturday! In honor of Earth Day, I'm taking the day off. I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the story . . . (Paul Harvey voice). Hope you're having a great weekend.

Become A Photograph

http://www.wordle.net/

The Evil Eye

You guys know that my luck has been all but perfect and so it goes without saying that I know everything in the world. But here's a mystery that has troubled me since the beginning of time, the jinx or the evil eye. My older female relatives always warned that as soon as you speak of something in glowing terms, you lose it. I already wrote about Jesse James' first mistress (and then there were four!) and how much I loathe the kiss and tell. But here's another question that the scandal brings up for me, unrelated to the various doomed tattooed love mistresses on Jesse's gun magazine of misery. When you give voice to something wonderful (ie, Sandra Bullock at the various awards shows, praising her husband), do you put yourself at risk?

The first time I managed to water ski, I remember not thinking at all. My dad's friend Larry had sat with me in the water, smoking a cigarette while I put on the child skis. It was labor day, the summer fading, a sad holiday filled with inchoate longing. I had tried all summer to ski, my face bunched up in concentration. I had just damn near given up on the idea. So I lifted out of the water without realizing it and went for a bit until I realized I was skiing. Then I got nervous and fell into the wake. That was my first zen moment when I realized I could do something if I didn't think about it which was counter intuitive to all my usual striving. I remember years ago when my marriage was failing, I put a picture on my desk and my next boyfriend put a post-it note on it that said, "Stop flaunting your happy little love affair. It makes the rest of us depressed." I wasn't flaunting, I was showing the flag, the one that let everyone know I was drowning, not waving.


Michelle's Spell of the Day
"To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute." Vladimir Nabokov

Cocktail Hour
Drinking documentary suggestion: Good Hair

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Say A Little Prayer For Me

Alert: Spoilers for Nurse Jackie!

Let me just start by saying I love the Showtime series, Nurse Jackie which had its season premiere last night. Edie Falco (Carmella Soprano for a time on another brilliant show, my favorite show in the universe) plays Nurse Jackie, a ER nurse in All Saints, a hospital in NYC. She also happens to be a pill-addicted adultress with two little girls. Last season, she had an affair with the hospital pharmacist Eddie (how much was love and how much was Vicodan is one of the gray areas this series skirts with ease) which blew up by the end of the season. He found out about her husband and children. The season opens with him attempting suicide and ending up in Nurse Jackie's care. But the chilling thing is this -- he didn't want to die. He wanted to see Jackie because she wasn't answering her calls. He took just enough pills to land in the emergency. She looks at him in horror. Like Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, she knows what has happened. Eddie is a bunny boiler.

You see lots of female crazies of this variety on television and movies, the Play Misty For Me types, the women who can't let go. We all know the type. But we seldom see men who aren't violent, but as Glen Close famously says, will not be ignored. What will Jackie do? Her supply is low and her nerves are shot. We end on a shot of Nurse Jackie, staring in the mirror. The rest of the season is going to be about what she sees looking back.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Not even the gods fight against necessity." Simonides

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion: www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday!

You Are The Camera

Hi everyone! Hope you had a great weekend, complete with the first day of my least favorite season. I'm still working on my FINAL revision (thanks for all comments that have helped -- past, present, future) of You Are The Camera. I'm in whatever metaphor you prefer -- death throes, labor pain, final stretch, last mile, . . . Thanks to all for your patience -- email returned tomorrow, I promise, pinky swear!

In sad news, Charles' (of Razored Zen) mother died this weekend. Please send him and his lovely wife Lana all your good energies and thoughts at this time.

I'll be back Tuesday -- be good, my dears!

What I Did For Love

I always wanted to be a dancer, to wear the leotards and be surrounded by sophisticated worldly choreographers like Balanchine and Twyla Tharp who would create dances for me. I wanted to live in New York City and to suffer for my art. I was big on suffering in those days like most young people who don't know that life doles out plenty of it and none of it is particularly glamorous. Of course, I lived in Mineral Wells, Texas so I had to settle for a beginning jazz class from a woman who was being stalked by someone long before the term had been coined. The stalker would call the dance studio and threaten to kill her or breathe heavily or hang up. Those were the days of land lines when you knew when someone hung up on you and didn't just lose the connection. These calls terrified my teacher and created a real mood kill as the class danced to Aretha Franklin's "Highway of Love."

My class wasn't like the book my dad bought me, Dancing!, a book that I desperately wanted and we couldn't well afford (twelve dollars in paperback was a lot of money for a book at that point). When I did get it, I read it obsessively. It includes lots of stories about the New York City of the 1970s, and its propensity for being both magical and dangerous. This was as close to the dancer's life as I would ever get. I didn't want it, not really. I wanted the trappings. A dancer's life is equal parts despair and hope and pain which plays out brilliantly in Every Little Step, a documentary that follows the process of auditions and call backs during the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line. There is great footage from the 70s, during the creation of the musical and like Woody Allen, A Chorus Line has its own font which always brings up a feeling of nostalgia for a time I never knew. What is the word for mourning a life you never had? I suppose it's all dead space, like the dial tones of the past that we don't hear anymore.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury." Twyla Tharp

Cocktail Hour
Anyone reading anything good right now? You guys tell me!

Benedictions and Maledictions

Go And Sin No More

Coming to the end of a week where women (Rielle Hunter, Michelle McGree) have no shame. My people, my people. Let's start at the beginning. Men and women cheat. This sucks. The men in these sagas are responsible for breaking their marriage vows. That ain't good. But must their mistresses pose provocatively in magazines and tell all the dirty details about the illicit sex they had? Including nicknames for private parts? Including pet names for the men?

Obviously, I don't know any of the players in these scenarios. The skanked out pictures of Michelle McGee posing with a Nazi armband make me glad not to know her. She claims she meant no harm by it and the WP tattooed on her legs doesn't stand for white power but instead wet pussy. That women is ALL class. Okay, I'm not the type to typically cast stones. We're all human, we all make mistakes. I'm not going to give a sermon on adultery. But it's the insult to injury part of this scenario that gives me pause. Rielle without pants next to a stuffed Barney claiming that she sympathizes with Elizabeth? Michelle outing her affair with Jesse a couple of weeks after Sandra Bullock gives round after round of interviews, talking about how much she loves her husband? I think of Jesus and the adulteress, about how he told her to go and sin no more. I'm thinking if Jesus imagined said adulteress going to In Touch or GQ and telling all the details, He'd do one more thing, the thing He did in the shortest verse in the Bible -- weep.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“When we take one step toward to God, he takes seven steps toward us.” Indian Proverb

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion: www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday! And in response to Dave, I'm a little younger than Hank, but not much. Hanging on in the late thirties!

The Last Laundromat

Hey everyone -- on what would have been Hank's fortieth birthday, I give you one of his poems from the infamous laundromat trilogy. I'll be back tomorrow with more excitment!

The Laundromat Trilogy, Part Three:
You Head So Big by Hank D. Ballenger

This is the last laundromat poem,
I promise.
I've moved to a better-appointed apartment complex.

I was dividing my attention
between Bukowski's Septuagenarian Stew,
my clothes in dryer four,
and a man to my right teaching a little boy
how to play the dozens.

"Your head's so big
you can wear a phone booth
for an earring."
I'd been watching this little drama
since the spin cycle.
Seems Mom,
who stayed well on the other side
of the washeteria most of the time,
was testing this man.

"Well, you head so big
it look like a dinosaur."
"Any man," I imagine her saying,
"can be good to a child every other weekend or so,
take him places,
buy him treats.
Let's see how he handles the real
day-to-day kind of stuff."

"Your head's so big
you need a fork lift for a hat-rack."

Two things were clear:
the little boy had been through this before,
and trying to teach a seven-year-old
how to play the dozens
was a bad idea.

"Well, you head so big,
it look like a cow."
"No, Thomas, that won't work.
It's not funny."
"Yeah it is, you look like a cow."
"No, that's not funny, it's just strange.
Say something else."

"You say something else."
I wanted to help him out;
but dozens for the Disney crowd
is not my speciality.
All the lines I know are strictly NC-17.
He seemed like a nice guy.
He even kept his cool when the kid talked
about his "other daddy" and his "first daddy."

"Your head's so big
they post hurricane warnings
every time you get a cold."
Good one. Go for snot.
Snot works.

Picture if you will a group of first-graders
on a playground
shot from the waist down,
a Gap Kids logo in the bottom
right corner of the screen.

"Best pickle joke," one says.
"That's a given," another replies,
kicking a soccer ball, "What's big and green
and fights bad guys?"
In chorus: "A Mighty Morphin' Power Pickle!"
Kids that age are natural born surrealists.
I guess Bukowski never grew out of it.

"You head so big
they post warnings
when you get a cold."
"That's not funny."
"Yeah it is."
"You just said the same thing I did."
"Well, it was funny."
"But that's not the way it goes, Thomas.
You have to say something funny and different."

Tell me about it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“Most wretched men are cradled to poetry by wrong: they learn in suffering what they teach in song”

Cocktail Hour
Drinking documentary suggestion: Every Little Step (plan on writing about this soon -- it's really great.)

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Shine On Your Grave

Here's a section of a longer piece -- working away! Hope you're having a good St. Patrick's Day and saving your energy for the green beer later tonight.

During my senior year of high school, there were no quotes on the chalkboard from Dr. E. Amer to read each day. Hank had left for college, taking his poetry and tidbits of wisdom with him. In junior high, he'd come up with a pen name to make his statement. It took me a few months to realize Dr. E. Amer was Hank, the name a clever nod to his romantic vision of himself as a dreamer, a perception that degenerated even more quickly than his sight. I always dreaded the days when Hank didn't leave a message on the board and wrote "Dr. E. Amer is on vacation."

Now he was always on vacation and I marked off the days until I left for college on a large promotional calender complements of K-Bobs, the local steakhouse where my friend Robin worked. Robin had one blue eye and one green, like a cat, and she did little tabs of LSD she brought to homeroom almost every morning. Despite my miseries, I couldn't bring myself to try it. Robin wore smeared red lipstick and admitted to me that she often woke up in the morning, unaware of what happened the previous night.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"May the light of heaven shine on your grave." Irish blessing

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion: www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bluebird Singing A Song

Hi everyone! Iggy and the Stooges are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, St. Patrick's Day is looming, and spring is on the way. Here's a couple of shots from the Blue Bird Inn (where I was posed in my last post) in its heyday of the 1940s and 50s. In answer to my old buddy Mark's question, this is the Blue Bird in Detroit. I'm still blasting away on what I hope is the final revision of my big project. Will post some new writing tomorrow.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am." Joan Jett

Cocktail Hour
Drinking memoir suggestion: Just Kids Patti Smith

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday! Thanks so Shea for the lovely compliment! And good to see you, MW!

The Stars Are Out Tonight

Mother loved to pose my sister and I in the crook of the big tree in the front yard, the one overgrown by oak and brush. You'd have to pick your way through the weeds and rocks to get to the center where you'd sit for the long minutes it took to get the picture. Mother let many snakes out by this tree, the ones she didn't kill and use for decorations, saying that they deserved a good life in nature. The tree sat pretty close to our house and needless to say, I felt as if these creatures might find their way back to our abode where they would try to enjoy the good life in our house.

These tree pictures always had a haunted look, mostly because of the fear of sitting in a place where you couldn't see what was under your feet. The rustling could be anything. I thought of that old Vacation Bible School song about the wise man building his house upon the rock and the foolish man building his house upon the sand. What if you built your house on something you couldn't understand?

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"He sees the city asleep at night/ He sees the stars are out tonight/ And all of it is yours and mine." Iggy Pop

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion: www.artjewelrydesign.com/
Also check out The J Spot for a great post on Iggy by my dear Jodi!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!

Search And Destroy

Happy Sunday! I hope you're all having a good weekend. I'll be back tonight with a longer post and will be able to return all e-mail! Michigan's own, The Stooges, are being inducted (FINALLY) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tomorrow. Iggy, as usual, is circumspect about the whole thing, saying "Well, they can kick you out, but at least you could say you were in it."

Negative Given

I worked in a dark room once, one of my first jobs at a newspaper. I didn't have a clue what I was doing which wasn't anything new in those days. A precedent, you might say, started when I was in first grade and was instructed to fold a grocery bag. All the other kids were folding their bags while I watched, fluffing my in a vain effort to look as though I knew what I was doing. Again, this problem resurfaced when we had tamales for lunch; I didn't realize they were wrapped in paper and subsequently ate the tamale, paper in all, not knowing any better until I saw all the dead soldiers on the other kid's plates. Not a good moment. But the dark room was a solitary humiliation; I ruined a lot of pictures. Even so, I loved the moment when you could see what was starting to appear on the negative. Like a Polaroid, the image didn't appear all at once.

I suppose this applies to the writing life or all of life really. We prophesy in part. Hindsight, that evil bitch that lives to haunt us, is always ever so twenty/twenty. Famous last words -- it seemed like a good idea at the time. Or as Hank used to say, You knew the assignment was dangerous when you took it. (He mostly said this to guys who complained about dating me. Awesome.) But even so, I have a nostalgia for the days when everything wasn't so instant. Which, of course, is totally satisfied by writing. Nothing instant about that process! And when you process all the negatives, you still must bring it to the light.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already.. the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of." Cindy Sherman

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion:
www.artjewelrydesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday! Must agree with Heff -- Feldman is the more annoying of the two Coreys. Please send lots of love to my buddy Mark, aka The Walking Man. I'm not at liberty to say more, but there you have it!

The Two Coreys

I want to write a long blog post about the nature of addiction and a kind of memoriam to Corey Haim, but I'm in the midst of the final push of a big project so I'm going to wait until tomorrow. I hope everyone is having a good week!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"It basically comes down to that word: Love. I guess that's what it's all about." Corey Haim

Cocktail Hour
Drinking cocktail suggestion: www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

Show Your Work

I read a story about a Korean couple who let their five month old baby starve to death while they went to a cybercafe where they played with and nurtured a virtual child for upwards of twelve hours a day. This, even I have to say, is bizarre. But I'm not going to lecture about the dangers of the internet (like everything else, best in moderation, prone to abuses) or the evils of games like Second Life or Farmville (hey, we all have time to kill -- I like to clean which isn't exactly excitment city, to each his own). It's got me thinking about what we feed in our lives -- real babies or virtual ones. It's easy to be deceived into thinking that we're feeding our most alive impulses when we're often only medicating impulses.

Lately, I've had to take a very different approach with my writing which involves getting back to the basics of what I knew a long time ago -- it takes as long as it takes, it pays to study other models until you want to stab your eyes out, and you must throw out a lot even when it pains you. Oh, let's face it -- it always pains you. I've had to feed the real baby and ignore the fun stuff, the glitter and bells and whistles. You think this stuff would be pretty basic. But it's not for me. In math classes, I remember teachers always telling me, You got to the answer the hardest way a person could. Don't I know it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it." Confucius

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion:
www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday!

Dreaming In Hindi

I just finished a beautiful memoir titled Dreaming In Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich. I'm not a person with a tremendous interest in foreign languages or other cultures except as metaphors I can use in writing which I'm sure the other cultures appreciate tremendously. But I am interested in words more than anything else and Katherine (as I call her in my mind as I'm certain we will become fast friends)writes elegantly about the way words shape our reality. As one linguist she quotes points out, If you speak one language, you have a certain reality and if you speak another language, your reality changes. Her first memoir (The Red Devil) is about another foreign country, a harsh terrible terrain no one goes to unless forced -- the land of cancer. My mother died of it, and I have many friends who are contending with various incarnations of the disease. I appreciate the frankness with which she writes, the self-deprecating humor and astute observation.

I'm in the homestretch of revising my big project (and yes, Mark is right -- it's the revising that's a bitch). It's something that hasn't been easy at all. I had to put the project away a few times before seeing it clearly. Which is the way Katherine describes learning Hindi -- hitting walls, letting it go, coming to a new understanding when she quits trying. It's kind of like the old chestnut about getting a boyfriend when you're not looking. Effort is everything until you hit the wall. Then you must wait. Which I guess is okay. After all, in VBS ever so long ago, we all had to pick a fruit of the spirit out of a hat. I got long suffering, which made everyone laugh. Even then I looked the part.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"I am not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star." Sojourner Truth

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelery suggestion:
www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Largely pleased by the Oscars awards. I really liked The Hurt Locker. Sad that A Serious Man didn't win anything (I thought it was pretty brilliant and tons better than No Country For Old Men). Yay for Jeff Bridges -- the dude most certainly abides! As do I -- I'll be with all the Motor City Burning Press people as soon as I put the last page of this awful revision to bed.

Academy Award Night

Happy Sunday, everyone! I'm gearing up for the Academy Awards (I'm a sucker for the clothes, bad speeches, the last Barbara Walters interview show, etc.) and thankful for all the comments. I liked a lot of the movies this year -- Crazy Heart, The Hurt Locker, Up In The Air (which I fear won't win anything because its not a feel good movie and is definitely George Clooney's best role for my money), Precious. I hated Inglorius Basterds and won't even go near Avatar. I'll be back tomorrow with more serious topics, but until then, have a good rest of the weekend, my dears!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Something becomes personal when it deviates from the norm." Kathryn Bigelow

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion:
www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
In response to Lana's comment, thank you! Hello Kitty came all the way from a McDonald's in Singapore from my dear friend Angela. She's seen the world, but the road for her really does end in Detroit.

Friday Delights

Hello Kitty received a beautiful set of rings from her dear friend Sarah at Jewelry Art Designs. Check out her wonderful site with the following link! I think the cut and glitter of these two pieces is spectacular.

Gearing up for the Academy Awards (I'll be wearing little outfits and practicing my speech for the best screenplay I didn't write -- my favorite look for accepting an award comes from Larry McMurtry who wore jeans while accepting an Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain). Any of you guys pulling for someone in particular? Of course, I LOVE Jeff Bridges (thanks for the correction-- I always get his name wrong) and have since his debut in Last Picture Show. Happy Friday!

http://www.jewelryartdesigns.com/

Jacob And The Angel

Been writing a lot lately which makes the rest of life fall away in certain regards. David Foster Wallace wrote an excellent essay on this problem -- "The Nature of the Fun." When you are in the finishing stages of a project, you tend to let go of the reins of control. Dishes don't get done, clothes tend to be, well, butt ugly (note Michael Douglas' writing outfit in Wonderboys), phone calls are unreturned. After the whole catastrophe is put to bed (as much as anything can be put to bed as far as writing is concerned), you spend your time trying to make Humpty Dumpty fit back together again.

I'm not a natural writer. Like most people, I face all the usual resistances. Resistance is a tricky little demon that reappears in different forms all the time. Mine usually takes the form of this particular incantation -- you'll write better when . . . fill in the blank. When you've worked out, when you're not so tired, when you have everything in order, when you have flossed your teeth. I hate this motherfucking demon because it's so insidious, it sounds so reasonable. The way to work around it for me is to demand a certain page count. Weirdly, after I do my pages, those pressing demon demands don't seem at all attractive. I don't have any energy for them at all, really. The demon, defeated on a basic level for the day says, Well, since you're too tired to do anything else, you might as well write. At least you're sitting. Damn, that demon is clever! The next day is all about the same half-nelson. You wrestle with the angel and if you're as smart as Jacob, you demand something from that angel, a mark that says what you did and that it wasn't in vain.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a queasy feeling in the stomach." — Mother Angelica

Cocktail Hour
Drinking documentary suggestion: Small Town, Gay Bar

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday! Thanks to all for being so patient while I pull myself out of torpor and respond to all emails, requests, etc. in the next two days. Also, I shall be wearing the new ring -- camera should be fixed in a couple of days.

Upside Down Detroit

Hello all! Here's a picture of my fair city. Hope you're having a good week -- I'll be posting more writing soon. My next post will be on balance between writing and everything else.

Every Little Step

Because my brain is still reeling from the recent rewrite I did, I'm at a loss for something to write about today. It does happen! So I cast this question to you -- most important thing about writing, least important thing about writing?

Also, I saw Roger Ebert on Oprah. Impressive and wonderful as always.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself." Christopher Isherwood

Cocktail Hour
Drinking documentary suggestion: Every Little Step

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday! Rest in peace, Barry Hannah!

Hope Chest

Here's a poem that first appeared in Art Times. I'll be back with new stuff soon -- spring is on the way!

Hope Chest for the Contemporary Single Girl

You start out hopeful, that's a given.
You dress better, say smarter things.
Hide the Prozac, the Paxil, the little
pills to take the edge off. You won't
be needing those little friends! Marvel
at how the dust on your computer sparkles.
How could you have missed this beauty?
You wait for those three words that will
change your everything, not "where's
the remote" or "get off me." The day
will come. Now someone else can plan
your elaborate yet tasteful funeral instead
of you dying alone eaten by your cats.
See -- everything does work out in the end!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing." Billie Jean King

Cocktail Hour
Beautiful jewelery: www.jewelryartdesigns.com -- I'll be modeling a ring from this collection as soon as my camera is fixed.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!