quoth theodora

I had a hilariously daft ab fab moment this morning at a friend's house: we were talking about some stuff in a storage room and much to my delight found a bottle of unlabeled essential oil. Upon taking an excited deep inhale of my new mystery oil I discovered it was not hippie perfume, but rather a bottle of poppers.

offered up to ( read, then insert entity )

To the guy in the black car, 3:45pm, Nederland. - w4m - 35 (Nederland, TX)
Date: 2011-12-06, 4:30PM CST
Reply to:

We were both in black cars, stopped at a stoplight at Nederland Ave and 27th Street. I glanced over and you looked back. You drove beside me, smiling and making eye contact for a couple blocks, then waved as I turned off. I have no idea who you were and don't even need to see you again.

Just wanted to tell you, mystery man, that you gave me a smile. Being a single mom, in the middle of a divorce and feeling awfully rejected - it's very nice to have someone make you feel like a pretty girl again.

Thanks...

Location: Nederland, TX

PostingID: 2739617953

---

Later, another one caught my eye. They can get a bit more... literary? verbose? charmed? in the city.

---

No New Tale To Tell (Faubourg Marigny)
Date: 2011-12-08, 4:17PM CST
Reply to:

Its all the same thing.

But.

You look smashing in that black dress. And hose, or maybe tights, given it is getting cold. Sarah (alphonse's la plume, 1896) looks to have healed. And it is hard, it seems, to keep your hair down, even if the faun's horns up front do not mind.

My world is your world. People like to hear their names. I am no exception. Please call my name.

Location: Faubourg Marigny

PostingID: 2743222610

catullus is for lovers

a translation of the poet-laureate of warm fuzzies ('n rage) which I had begun as a response to brother posting this:

102
Γλύκεια μᾶτερ, οὔ τοι δύναμαι κρέκην τὸν ἴστον,
πόθῳ δάμεισα παῖδοσ βραδίναν δἰ Ἀφρόδιταν.
sweet mother I cannot work the loom
I am broken with longing for a boy by slender Aphrodite
Sappho (from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson)

I am in a romantic mood of late, as Aphrodite has been all up in my kitchen eating pierogies, so who should come to mind but Catullus? Carmen 6 popped up, a letter to a friend. this was touching:

Verum nescio quid febriculosi
scorti diligis: hoc pudet fateri.
Nam te non viduas iacere noctes
nequiquam tacitum cubile clamat
sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo,
pulvinusque peraeque et hic et ille
attritus, tremulique quassa lecti
argutatio inambulatioque.

Really, I don't know if you love
some fevered whore-boy: it shames you to admit this.
For your bed shouts that you, silent in vain,
are not sleeping nights deprived of him,
reeking of flower chains and Syrian oil,
and the pillow equally smashed down here and there,
the creaking and battered roaming of your trembling bed.

...of course, it's well in advance of St. Valentine's day.

of immigration and cacao

If there are two fairly unrelated things in this world for which I have a deepened appreciation, I confess freely that they are chocolate, and the immigrants arriving to our country with whom I work on a daily basis, often hearing stories which at once depress me and inform my views on such an uncomfortable subject to a degree which well accounts for any discomfiture I may personally suffer.  In point of fact, I have been known to keep a stock of good chocolate in my desk to safely guide me through some of the more strenuous moments of my workday.

So, it properly takes the chocolate enchantment cake that Hershey finds itself the subject of protests by a class of students, here on a J-1 visa, supposedly established to permit foreign exchange students to come and work while they experience American culture (lay aside my predilection for my native French-Spanish-Indian-whoever your grandmother fancied in the 1800s-culture) but in this instance turned into an anti-immigration activist's wet dream gone horridly wrong:  no, they have not come to steal your jobs, at least not permanently -- only for as long as they are exchange students!

A few thoughts on the subject, which I have sent to Hershey's somewhat gleefully (it was a cold day in Hell the last I bought a Hershey bar):

As not only a chocolate consumer but also a social worker for the citizen and immigrant communities in my state, I must take double issue with this situation. 
Not only had I abandoned any purchase of Hershey's chocolate eons ago, once introduced to much more richly endowed products, I have also firsthand witnessed the horrid abuses of persons permitted lawful entry into our land for various reasons, be it in search of a possible better life for themselves and their children, or in pursuit of a better education, or to simply immerse themselves in the curious richness of our people.

For this reason, I am made ill at the revelation of the abuses taking place at this packing plant, not solely that of the deception and mistreatment of young people having come here for a taste of America (if somewhat ironically represented by the cheap, base, waxy taste of Hershey's chocolates), but also of the dismissal of local workers in order that Hershey may better avail itself of a cheap influx of unusual tourist labor, to the detriment of those whose roots are far closer to this country.

Though it is not surprising that a company producing such dreck for chocolate would resort to heinous methods to guard its (understandably beleaguered) bottom line, it stands to clear reason that the makers of a far less criminal chocolate and the possessors of a far fairer morality would scarcely need employ such brigand means as have been witnessed to maintain themselves in the world.

A sad and cheap taste, indeed, which you have left in the mouths of these students, the former workers, and indeed all America such as can still palate your "chocolate" without a grimace.

Though in all honesty, I can only begin to guess what sort of intrigues several of my favorite chocolates' producers have engaged in throughout their long histories (one is located in a country with a tortuous political history).

zydeco au croissant

et je parle pas du pain -- rather, the Crescent City.  today is the fifth annual Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco festival, which is grossly entertaining to me for more than one reason.  hailing from Southwest Louisiana and growing up Cajun, zydeco was that mawkishly irritating music Dad would put on the radio on trips down to see family in Cameron parish.  yet with the passing of the years and a progressive eastward migration down I-10 to Baton Rouge and then New Orleans, one grows fonder of childhood things, most especially in their absence.

years ago, a good friend from New Orleans once said as a music conversation turned to zydeco: "What, that crap they play in the tourist shops in the Quarter?"  With the long-suffering patience of one who half agreed with the statement at the time, I let her in on the secret that some were born having to listen to the music that gets played for the tourists in a contextually incongruous setting;  New Orleans, despite being ubiquitously emblematic of Louisiana, shares superficially few musical links to the equally humid world of the fais do-dos from the Calcasieu to the Atchafalaya, and bon Dieu sait (the good Lord knows) they've forgotten their French as well if not better than we have.

And naturally, people from Lake Charles to Lossiemouth and elsewhere savor the spices flowing in all the music on the air of this city, with ample reason (it just tastes so good), but I'm excited to hear zydeco coming from a stage instead of a shop-- allons, let's check it out. 
 
Cajun-Zydeco festival page  <<

one horrid excuse for a comic

probably worth redrawing with my actual hand, le meh.

natalia y yo hablamos de la vida

1:48 PMnatalia
gracias, solo no queria hablarle en ingle si es latina
a veces los latinos me hablan todo en ingles y me parece tan raro
1:49 PMyo
a mi me viene raro tambien, sobre todo cuando marcan la linea en espanol
no me sorprende tanto en la vida cotidiana pues me creen 'gringo' en seguida
1:51 PMnatalia
yo no te tomaria por gringo a vos
pareces espanol o gallego como decimos en argentina
1:52 PMyo
: D  me tomaron todos por gallego ahi, me encantaba
1:52 PMnatalia
hablando de la patria - sabes algo de john?
1:53 PMyo
sip.  no se nota tan satisfecho con lo de la escuela de leyes
a el que no le gusta nada lo ilogico no me sorprende ya que el estudio de la ley es ejercicio en lo arbitrario
pero tendra exito, solo que necesita acostumbrarse y ubicarse--  aparte de esas cuestiones esta bien
1:55 PMnatalia
pobre, yo por eso dedidi no ir a leyes
era mi sueno
todavia me apasiona
pero es un mundo en el que no quiero vivir
todo tan estructurado, para aprender luego las vueltas a la cosa
1:56 PMyo
ahi va, lo has captado
ya voy creyendo que a el le va a despertar un activismo feroz
pues no le gusta tampoco la injusticia
mejor dicho, no la aguanta
1:57 PMnatalia
es muy dificil - la politica es aun peor
justo las dos cosas que me gustaban
1:58 PMyo
el soñaba hacerse senador
degollaria a la asamblea entera dentro de una semana si fuera
1:58 PMnatalia
me costo mucho - pero entendi que todo en politica es gris
la democracia nunca puede ser real
y todo eso
1:59 PMyo
me fascinan las dos, de punto de vista de activismo -- extraer y sanar lo pudrido...
pero es un baile de balanza - contrabalanza
y la democracia si puede ser real, tal como el buen canto de una pollera llena es real
2:00 PMnatalia
es que si es real a niveles nacionales todo se hace un caos - los humanos somos unos cretinos
espero conozcas la palabra cretino?
2:01 PMyo
POS SI
2:01 PMnatalia
argentinisima
me pongo asi cuando hablo politica
de todos modos en los tiempos que vivimos pocos buscan los ideales
pero te digo que algunos hay de los buenos todavia
pero para ser democraticos tienen que dejar opinar a los malos y despiadados
los que dicen ser perfectos y juzgan - ya sabes
2:04 PMyo
si, y poner fe en el hecho de que las opiniones de los 'buenos' venceran, por apelar a la naturaleza buena de los humanos, o por simple numero
y por eso funcaba bien en los tiempos de aristoteles cuando todo era ciudad-estado, separado y soberano
2:05 PMnatalia
exacto
ahi puede ser
2:05 PMyo
y por eso ves el revuelto cuando llegas al nivel nacional
2:06 PMnatalia
pero ahora todo - hasta las ciudadades son una cosa gigantesca
como monstruos
2:06 PMyo
BsAs me espanto a la vez que me fascino
como 16 ciudades individuas hechas colossus
2:07 PMnatalia
es asi, tiene muchas ventajas el modernismo, la urbanizacion, pero la maldad humana junta es tan triste
2:08 PMyo
las abuelas ricas con chaquetas de seda y poodles en los brazos -- a la otra esquina, niños harapientos dormidos en cartón
2:08 PMnatalia
me gusta que ves lo que digo
este mundo se tiene que acabar pronto
2:08 PMyo
si no acabamos con el antes
2:09 PMnatalia
asi es
bueno, te dejo laburar porque yo me entusiasmo mucho
con esos temas
2:10 PMyo
eso, me pensaba y que buena tertulia echamos... dale, la proxima vez que estas aca o yo ahi debemos tomar un cafe y masticar estos temas cuanto mas
invitamos a merce tb y arreglaremos los problemas del planeta
2:12 PMnatalia
suena buenisimo
2:12 PMyo
me vuelvo a estas santas bonachonas cartas
gracias por el alimento cerebral

mother sends me many things

In adulthood, my mother has taken to sending me a great and varied number of e-mails with content so widely ranging as to be offensive, endearing, or confusion-inducing.  This is one which just falls into the 'giggle' category. 

 -----------

Sometime this year,  we taxpayers will again receive another 'Economic Stimulus' payment.
This is indeed a very exciting program,  and I'll explain it by using a Q & A format:
     
    Q.  What is an 'Economic Stimulus' payment?
       A..  It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
     
    Q..  Where will the government get this money?
       A.  From taxpayers.
     
    Q.  So the government is giving me back my own money?
       A.  Only a smidgen of it.
     
    Q.  What is the purpose of this payment?
       A.  The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.
     
    Q.  But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
       A.  Shut up.
  
  
    Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:      
           
        *  If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart,  the money will go to China or Sri Lanka.
     
        *  If you spend it on gasoline,  your money will go to the Arabs.
     
        *  If you purchase a computer,  it will go to India, Taiwan or China.
            
        *  If you purchase fruit and vegetables,  it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
            
        *  If you buy an efficient  car,  it will go to Japan or Korea.
          
        *  If  you purchase useless stuff,  it will go to Taiwan.
         
        *  If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock,  it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.
  
  
    Instead,  keep the money in America by:
  
       1)  Spending it at yard sales,  or    
       2)  Going to ball games,  or  
       3)  Spending it on prostitutes,  or    
       4)  Beer or    
       5) Tattoos..
  
    (These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.)

    Conclusion: Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard
sale and drink beer all day!

   No need to thank me,  I'm just glad I could be of help.