And I respond thusly, “Pfffffthhh.”

Vegas isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s loud and dirty and crowded and people act like they are the only living thing on the planet and woe be unto you if you get in their way or impede their desires in even the most minute way. I’ve seen multiple car accidents and one pedestrian struck by a car. The other cars were honking – HONKING – at this man who was fallen in the crosswalk. How dare he not to continue to walk right on out of their way after being struck in a crosswalk? How dare he stand in their way? He should have crawled on hands and knees the rest of the way through the crosswalk, so as to not delay them even one minute. I despair for the human race, I tell you. My fingers to God’s ears, we’re a sorry lot sometimes.

The stench of cigarettes, booze and desperation hangs thick in the air. The con artists and smut peddlers are out in full force. It is most definitely a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Brimstone. Sulfur. Burning. Ash. What’s NOT to envy?

But it’s a living and it was only a week and  I get to leave Sunday. So I won’t complain about that anymore.

Instead, I’ll show you this article entitled The Art of Giving Up by Dyske Suematsu because it’s a good article and you should read it and then tell me what you think.

Thank you and I hope you are well and good night. Be home soon!

The importance of nurturing has been shown again and again. In the 1960s, psychologist Harry Harlow put groups of infant rhesus monkeys in a room with two artificial mothers. One, made of wire, dispensed food. The other, of terrycloth, extended cradled arms. Though they were starving, the baby monkeys all climbed into the warm cloth arms.

Those people. Not the ones who did this to her, but the ones who took her in, they’re better people than I could ever hope to be. The ones who did this to her? Well, there isn’t a punishment adequate enough. There just isn’t.

And also? Florida Department of Children and Families? Fuck you. You’re a bunch of apathetic idiots and you’re every bit as much to blame as her mother.

Anyway, it’s a new thing I’m trying. Just a place to store recipes and talk about cooking junk. Check it out if you want: http://www.shuckbeans.com/

And, I don’t know, you might find something you like. Maybe. Perhaps. I hope.

Anyway, it’s bloody brilliant. I didn’t see it coming at all.

They are all monsters, that’s the point. The show is for children, don’t forget. They are monsters the kids don’t have to fear. The show’s message for kids was “We know you’re sometimes afraid of monsters, but not all monsters are bad.

Sometimes monsters can be cute and cuddly and quirky and funny. Elmo’s a monster and he has such a cute giggle!. These are the good monsters.

Not like the monster sitting next to you on the sofa, watching the TV. Not like the monster WHO TOLD YOU FOR THE LAST TIME TO STOP CRYING.

Not like the monsters who kick your toys and curse under their breath. Not like the monsters who say you stole their youth and take pills because YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY. Not like the monsters who meet strange men at the door and leave you home alone. Not like the monsters who hit with their hands, or their words. Not like the monsters who come into your room at night stinking of whiskey and sweat, with madness in their eyes and a belt in their hands.

On Sesame Street, the monsters have not HAD ENOUGH, and they aren’t doing it FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

Your monsters are not brought to you by the number 4 or the letter M. Your monsters don’t want you to come and play, they want you to LEAVE THEM ALONE.

Cookie monster is safe, and so are Elmo and the Count. Even Oscar and Bert are your friends even if they are bit grouchy or fussy. Your monsters think our monsters are harmless.

To them.

Your monsters bought you a Tickle-Me Elmo doll, didn’t they? They bought it to JUST SHUT YOU UP ALREADY. So they let you play with Elmo and make him laugh and giggle. But Elmo doesn’t just laugh and giggle. Elmo loves you, and he listens.

And he records.

And soon, Elmo is going to tell you exactly what to do.

I couldn’t possibly agree more.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

brilliant! you can rest assured that the author most certainly has had children. or at the very least a very unhealthy relationship with fruit.

also while surfing i decided to hit some sites i used to visit frequently, but no longer do because i just don’t have the time. or they bore me. or whatever. here’s the thing that struck me about that. they still bore me. i still don’t have the time. i don’t really know what led me there in the first place, but one of the things that used to sort of interest me (for lack of good content, i guess) was the blogroll. i was fascinated by who they linked to and why. i would click their links, following the trail of breadcrumbs to their natural conclusion to see if the original weblog owner had anything in common with these people they had chosen to link to or if it was simply networking, vanity, whatever. look, when you suffer long bouts of insomnia you get pretty desperate for something to pass the time. now, going back after a long break i find a few sites that have drastic changes in their blogroll. this makes a curious sort of person like me wonder. maybe i’m suspicious. maybe i’m nosy. maybe my boredom causes me to create scintillating and scandalous scenarios to relieve the tepid banality of surfing sites i’m not really interested in. for instance? i can’t tell you that! they might be looking right now! they’d be all like, “gah! you wicked girl! how dare you spill all our dirty secrets on the internet? the dirty secrets you learned about…on…the…uh, internet.” admittedly, it doesn’t make sense for them to get angry at me, but this is the internet and there are crazies on here. i don’t know if you know that or not. crazies on the internet are the worst sort of crazies. they’ll eff your ess word up, man.

listen to me. i sound awfully egotistical. like they’re even reading this. crazies or not. they certainly didn’t count *me* as a member of their blogroll, so i can’t say why i would even think for one minute that they would be here now.

—

you’re not are you?

—

(now, i’m kind of freaking out here. nobody move. i’ll tell you the truth: the internet scares me. lil bit.)

sorry. i get a little worked up sometimes. anyway, i’ve decided. i can’t give you specifics. but generally, i just wonder, you know?

like, maybe, generally speaking, say this guy had a pretty popular weblog. not like A-list, celebrity, self-indulgent, quit his day job and move to Hollywood popular, but, you know, a lot of hits a day and a minimum of fifty and as many as a hundred and fifty or more comments on each post; no matter how insipid and boring. big, long, healthy blogroll. say he was to meet a couple girls that were on his blogroll, a couple girls who had also linked to him from their sites. i’m not naming any names or anything. but say he did. and he blogged about it, the lead up to the meeting, how much he liked them, etc. and these girls also blogged about it and commented on his posts and vice versa until the cows come home. it was a great big tangled web of links and track backs and posts. everything seemed really, really, really h!a!p!p!y! for all of them. the guy, the girl, the other girl. they were all such great friends. according to the posts, the comments, the numbers. but NOW when i go to his site, both of their links are gone from his blogroll and his link is gone from theirs and his comments have dwindled to like, maybe ten. i don’t care. i mean, if i didn’t remember to check my stats once in a blue moon and went by comments alone you’d think anji was my only reader. so i know comments alone don’t mean anything. but still, something happened, yeah? if they aren’t going to tell me — and believe me, i looked. i realize i’ve not been to the site in probably a year so i had a LOT of archives to go through — then i’m simply going to have to fill in the blanks myself. and those blanks are not going to be pretty after i’m done filling them in, let me tell ya. because i likes me a good juicy scandal when i’m bored. i mean, generally speaking, of course. something happened at that meeting, i betcha. something went terribly awry that cause bad blood and now he’s odd man out. off the blogrolls. no longer the golden child of the interweb. no one will comment on you now, buddy! we’ll ruin you! it’s so seedy and delicious! too bad i don’t know the details. it would make his site so much more interesting.

btw, the people on my links list? they’re there because they interest me and i like reading them and i passionately feel as though the best way to live life is to force my preferences on people around me. it makes me happy. if one of those links should happen to disappear it’s probably because we had a mad, torrid love affair in which a lot of lube and probably a small animal or three was involved. also: drugs. and possibly a blade, masking tape, rope and some sort of vinyl. you can bet on that. it gets awkward after that. too awkward to maintain a “blog” relationship.

either that or they decided not to blog anymore so i was literally forced to remove their link. but that first thing sounds like so much more fun.

and finally: i have a confession to make: apparently, i’m quite stupid. and not very observant. but i won’t go backwards. i’ll own what i’ve done. something FINALLY dawned on me today. speaking of blogrolls on boring sites, i was looking at my own links list today and i visited Trouble‘s site again to see if he was back yet. i finally saw what i apparently missed for the last eight months. he posted back in freaking August saying he was moving house and i actually commented saying i wouldn’t help him because blahblahblah. i don’t know. i tried to say something clever. but okay, here’s the stupid thing. i thought he was being literal. i missed the line above that saying he was moving his site to WordPress. which, good for him. i’ve been using WP for a few years now and i love it. but i feel like the biggest moron on the planet because every time i went to check to see if he updated yet i saw that the post was the same and navigated away, still missing the link to his new site. i did wonder what was up. i wondered if he was ever coming back. i refused to take his link down. the last link i had to remove from my list didn’t come down until the 404 error message finally came up, assuring me that he wasn’t coming back to post. never, ever. there was no such message on trouble’s page. hope springs eternal.

it wasn’t until today that i actually paused half a second longer before closing the window that i saw it. so i admit it. i’m a maroon. but hooray! trouble is back! and he has a new site! sort of. i mean, he didn’t actually GO anywhere and the new site has been around since August. but it’s new to me. and now i have a LOT of reading to catch up on. and i should probably get my brain looked at it. it’s clearly leaking cells at an alarmingly rapid rate. : /