12-13-13

11-17-13

Allyour style is belong to me. 

11-16-13

Adduunimpressed

02-26-13

A Study in Contrast

02-25-13

My real hair is flat.  This only happens at night.

02-20-13

...

"Down in....back...!"

02-16-13

Even on a good day, there is no possibility of being seen in public without covering this up

02-12-13

I do not sleep under a fan.  Really.

02-07-13

"Heavy wind off the starboard bow"

02-04-13

Pillow wind advisory!  

02-03-13

Faux hawk?  I can do that in my sleep

02-02-13

"Oh, that's the way uh-huh uh-huh..."

02-01-13

"Good morning, is Bozo in?"

01-28-13

Now there's a fine how-do-you-do

01-21-13

I see my future...

01-09-13

It's the motion of the ocean...I am getting seasick...

01-07-13

My stylist always asks me, "where do I part my hair?"  Are you kidding me?

01-04-13

Casual Friday

01-02-13

the camera is still hungover ... but my hair is ALIVE!

01-01-13

Welcome to 2013!   I shall submit this photo as my resume for a spot on "Ancient Aliens."

Welcome new year.  May you bring joy and health, etc., etc.  For a change.

I am not a resolution maker.  More of a resolution breaker, aren't we all when we're being honest.  Why would I want to start out a brand new year resolving to disappoint myself, or fail?  The cliche promises to visit a gym, to diet, to lose weight, ad nauseum.  Why do people do that to themselves?  Why begin a new year committing yourself to something you really don't want to do?  There is folly, even self-defeating cruelty in it, I gave up making such silly false promises long ago.

Instead of depriving myself of something I like, stopping smoking, eating, drinking, etc., or making myself do something I really don't want to do, why not resolve to do something I like or enjoy?  Or to stop doing something I hate?

There are certainly things that I do which annoy me-things I could easily change if I put my mind to it, and can there be a better time to start stopping annoying behaviors?  And so, my resolution.

I shall not pile.

I am a piler.  I am a builder of piles.  One note about piles...there is implicit, underlying organization to them, so I give myself a nod for that redeeming quality on the way to hating my piling, and the piles it creates.

I am especially fond of piling up paper.  There are at this moment 3 deeply annoying piles of paper in my home.  One is nearby on my desk, right there off my left elbow.  It is a pile that forms, is investigated, diminished, removed, and reforms throughout the year.  It is a pile of "want" letters from innumerable charitable organizations.  All worthy!  All deserving, all of whom I wish to support.  I WANT to fix global warming!  I WANT the best candidates to be elected.  I WANT to end the suffering of animals, dammit!

So this deluge of letters, each one patiently and thoroughly building a case that everything can be fixed if I just contribute a small amount of my money to the cause, deserves my attention.  When I reconcile my finances this month, or next, or maybe the one after that, I will at last top off my bill-paying with a triumphant contribution to charity X.  And I will feel good about that, and the pile of letters will...still be there.  Because these letters arrive in an overwhelming rapid-fire barrage, and in reality, by the time you make a modest contribution to 10 or 20 worthy causes, you will have severely shorted your grocery budget and will spend the rest of the month turning every dime over twice to get by.

But I can't just throw them away.  Recycle, I mean, but still...I am guilted into accepting my financial responsibility where endless needy causes are concerned, so I put them aside until I can afford to solve their problems with my  money.

The truth is they all find their way to the recycle bin eventually, because I can't afford to help them all and I am too indecisive to decide which one or two I should sponsor while guiltily avoiding eye contact with the ones I discard.  So in the end, they all age together in the pile and ultimately, go out together.  But not before they've plagued me with their nagging needy presence and been shuffled from this corner to that chair to that table to that counter to that floor to that OHMYGOD why the FUCK don't I just throw these away?!

It guilts me deeply that those earnest, devoted organizations really want me to send them my $15 so badly that they invested money in  printing, packaging, and mailing these letters, and I just hand them off to the recycling bin.  But so far, piling them around me has never created more funds in my budget to give away, and has only contributed to my anxiety.  So...beginning today, the current pile goes OUT and henceforth, when a beg letter arrives and is opened and read, either I fire off a check, or it goes to the bin, and done.  NO PILING.  It won't change a thing.

Catalogs.  Pile #2 is comprised of catalogs.  Every purveyor of goods has apparently found me at my new roost, and decided that after decades of not ordering things out of catalogs, I must want to start again because for some reason I have given up on the ease of ordering online, and miss the accumulation of dusty piles of catalogs that used to call my home "home."

When a shiny new catalog arrives in my mailbox I feel simultaneously angry and thrilled.  Oddly touched, too, that they thought of me!  While dreading doing so, I can't wait to read it!  I want to scan each and every glossy page, admire the contents and gasp at the prices.  So, read the thing and dispose of it properly, no problem.  The problem arises when amidst all the useless clutter, the overpriced cheap imported junk, there it is...The One Thing.  The one thing that is perfect for so-and-so!  And they have a birthday coming!  Like everybody!  And so is Christmas!  In just this way my current pile of dog-eared catalogs began to form.

At this point, I don't even know what the hell is in those catalogs.  Not one single, solitary item that I dutifully earmarked for someone was remembered later, let alone purchased...so why are they all still here?  Because...that really is a cool thing.  And I really do want it, or want to give it to someone who will smile or laugh and cherish that special gift (or not) and at the end of that, there is perhaps something else redeemable: I enjoy giving gifts to people.  I really do, and I honestly do think some of those things, anyway, would be appreciated, and I would have liked to give them.  But I didn't.   Because I can't, because I can't afford all those things, either..and yet there's always the chance, right?  There's always the chance that I'll suddenly discover I'm wealthy and can afford to indulge all these impulsive purchases, so the dog-eared catalog is added to the pile, which grows ever higher and more annoying, until it's new year's day, and I decide to put an end to piling, forever!

Oh hell.  How can I stop reading catalogs?  One:  ask to be removed from mailing lists.  That's an excellent idea, I'll do it.  But I refuse to make work for myself researching and contacting every catalog sender to make the request...instead, I'll do it as they come.  Thanks for your latest catalog, I'll enjoy reading it, please take me off your list, forever, again, goodbye.

Two:  Open it.  Read it.  Find The One Thing.  Or two, or whatever.  If I can afford it, buy it.  Now, not at the intended holiday, but right now, today.   Can't afford it?  Well OK then!  Out it goes.  No pile can begin without a foundation, so just. don't. start.

I know this will be a hard one for me.  So I have an alternative, or addendum strategy.  If The One Thing is too powerful, if I really can not resist its pull, remove the page from the catalog.  Every page has the necessary info, so that single page will do.  I will begin a folder of desirable catalog items, and into this folder each torn page will go.  There will be one tidy, orderly place where I can go and quickly locate my stash of fantasy purchases, and at the end of each year henceforth the pages in that folder will be ceremoniously emptied into the recycle bin, to follow their parent catalogs into the afterlife.  Amen.

Bills.  (This includes receipts.)  I am very good at record keeping.  It's easy, really, I just keep everything.  Not sloppily, but ordered into labeled folders, which age into labeled file boxes, which just keep accumulating around me in a sort of....pile.  But anyway..seriously..WHY do I pile papers and receipts for months instead of just putting them directly into their existing folder/drawer/box?  The solution to this one is so painfully easy.

Here is where my resolution becomes a gamble, I guess, because like all others, I have to actually stop doing something dumb or start doing something smart.  I have to change, and I know we all fail to succeed at that little goal most of the time.  My method is going to be simply reminding myself at each juncture that I hate my piling and that I will look around my dwelling with greater satisfaction when the piles are absent, and I know they won't be arriving, today.

I don't smoke, I drink little, I don't have an unused gym membership, I'm not medically overweight...I'm no saint but I haven't any obvious vice to give up.   So I resolve to be less annoying.  I may be the only one who benefits, but in the long run I'm resolving to be happier and more content, undeniably a good thing.  Therefore, I resolve to to clean up my piles, and stop making them, and I feel good about that.