Abecedarian

Abecedarian is a funny little word and fun to say. Pronunciation here.

The 7 o'clock magpie just dropped by for a few peanut chips before retiring for the night. She is no abecedarian but rather the resident expert, having mastered the secrets of the Bird Park.

Writer's block?

Ever suffer writer's block? I think I do most of the time, to one degree or another. It's a terrible thing. Mental_floss recently posted one writer's creepy solution:

While plagiarism and alcohol are pretty lowly tactics for dealing with a bad case of writer's block, no one's quite handled their agony as morbidly as writer Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

A poet and a pre-Raphaelite painter, Rosetti truly loved his wife, Elizabeth. ("How much did he love his wife, you ask?") Well, after she died of a laudanum overdose in 1862, he buried her with the only existing copy of his unpublished poems. Seven years later, however, Rosetti found himself suffering from an extraordinary case of writer's block, so he dug up her body and retrieved his poems.

They were published in 1870 and were well received by the critics. Rosetti, however, never quite recovered. The poet could never forgive himself for pilfering his own wife's grave.

Bush almost blows himself up

Huffington Post disabled comments on this story and no wonder. Mr. Chucklehead President Bush almost blew himself up the other day ... heh heh.... Even if it didn't have a happy ending, it's a story worth repeating. I hope it brings an Easter smile to your face. Isn't Bushie cute? He looks so happy. Always getting into things.


Full story here:

Business Insider

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.
Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.
"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen. This is all off the record, right?"

Haste makes ...

Ten minutes before the NAC deadline this evening I ran up the stairs to their office clutching my still drying submissions packet but half way up I tripped and crushed it with both my hands. I smoothed it out although it instantly went from a nice, clean envelope to looking like it had been in the back of a pick-up truck for a week. I made it in the door, they stamped it and that was that until about an hour later when I realized that, due to a last minute edit, I had included a duplication and therefore failed to meet the criteria of 10 poems. Fucking Lovely. Have I learned anything besides the fact that I am an arrogant idiot? Perhaps. How about give yourself enough time to do it right ... or ... pay attention ... or don't run on the stairs. Anyway, I got several new poems out of the deal so I'm not complaining plus I finally opened my NaNoWriMo manuscript from last fall and didn't want to commit suicide after reading a few paragraphs. I just got home after reading some of the new work at Comma Coffee's open mike. It helped me come down a bit. I am still rattling off of the caffeine and adrenalin high. I want to grow up now.

Afternoon report

Okay, I harvested 10 poems from the NaNo pigpile of words. It wasn't as painful as I imagined it would be. The ol' internal editor is still out of the office so I'm gonna take what I got and run with it. The red pen comes later but right I've got to meet Susan at Comma Coffee. I blame her. She threw down the challenge harvesting 11 poems from her NaNo-rama pile-o-words.

Lucky Pierre and Monsieur Chance mock my effort to sell out.

Dear Diary

Must open flash drive and view NaNo manuscript. I'll pretend I wrote that one thousand times now so I can jump ahead to the dread. Okay ... dread ... dread. Got that over. Now .... hum .... must have more tea then, promise to self, I will get to work. Meeting Susan at 2. Must have something. Grant deadline Friday, 5pm.

Now that I have made my resolve public will I drag myself into action? Will your implied presence keep me honest?