Amy, you rock (I was off cooking and laundrying). ANd Sumi, thanks!

The BBC just gave out their Best Folk Awards for 2005. Best Folk Recording went to Martin Carthy, best song? Famous Flower of Serving Men.

I want a UK deal, damn it. WHAT a tie-in.

Ooh, yes -- a special gift set with a book and a cd.

Although, what I want is a cd with your favorite versions of the songs you've used or will use as book titles.

Hooray for Deb! I totally approve of your bouncing.

what I want is a cd with your favorite versions of the songs you've used or will use as book titles.

Ooh, me too.

Oh, and Deb can take Chevy with her, if she swears to hide the body very carefully. God, hate him. Don't know how Belzer stands him except people aren't too picky about their friends at that 70's level of pharmacological expertise.
A Little Glance

(Indulge vanity gal for a moment, please...I'm embarrassed. This is so All About Me) Today I decided to see myself through the eyes of somebody who loved me.As usual, that sort of meant borrowing someone else’s gaze, but not quite as much as that first shock of the morning, when flush from dreams of a different sort of life, I face my addled appearance and think “Whoa, the bitch is back,” and that I’m stuck with myself for yet another day. I really try to avoid doing that. It would be a lot easier if I could just convert and sit shiva for my life, but Mom says that’s a lot of trouble to go to to avoid mirrors. Yes, even if that one is huge. I knew that workman didn’t like me...aw, he probably thought “Chicks and their primping” and that’s as far as it ever got.

Today is the day I stop hating his guts for that.Being the Michelangelo of the shower head on the other hand...

My eyes are the easy part, though they look a little like they’ve been caught on the Eve Ensler tip...looking at, um, something that’s not my face. Nice crippled girls look in a full-length mirror with a therapist so they can have a “realistic” view of where contents got damaged during shipping...where they’re straight where everybody’s crooked and crooked where everybody’s straight. Not to find something to like. I’m the only one in my family with eyes this exact color.(If I believed in hell, I could go there for this, but I remember a few times where they got me some attention, too...too bad I don’t really know how to work the wattage.)

Hey Deb, did you know someone near and dear to you is featured on Romancing the Blog today? Check it out -- it's a lovely column.

erika, whoa. And wow. That's strong as rock.

Amy, hook a girl up?

edit: never mind, found it. Go, Jenn!

Thanks, that's what I hope for. Sometimes I get "embarrassing navel-gazing" though. (although not of my actual navel...I still think that's unattractive.0

OK. Remember me writing an email to the Royal Engineers, about the vehicles used in bomb disposal in London, circa 1948?

"Dear Deborah

Beverley Williams at the Royal; Engineers museum, has been in touch regarding your enquiry about post war Bomb disposal vehicles. Today i have been in touch with a wartime Bomb disposal officer who remembers that the time in question 1948? that they were still using the wartime vehicles namely the Austin Tilley, and Morris 8 CWT. As Beverley wrote to you these vehicles had red painted front mudguards to distinguish that they were emergency vehicles. I shall continue to ask several other wartime bomb disposal personnel to see if any other vehicles were used, it is widely thought that about this time the Austin Champs were being introduced but i will be in touch shortly.

I love experts. I really do.

Just saw a news bit saying that half the remains from 9/11 can't be identified with current technology. I've always thought it was an incredible opportunity for someone who thought that way to decide to disappear. Somebody who was already bummed, worked in the Towers, maybe got out, maybe was dawdling on the way to work.

Writer's brain is a scary, cynical place.