So sorry msbelle. Wish I could argue you out of it, but I totally get hating the hateful folk.

Are you guys coming on the 31st?

Let me check. Unfortunately I think there's another thing that day too, but I may be wrong about the day, it may just be the same weekend. I'm hoping it's B, but I just don't trust my memory these days.

I'm probably allergic to the daffodils I have in my kitchen and my office.

phooey, that's a dud. You'll just have eat chocolate instead.

I love chocolate, it's magic!

I had TONS of food for dinner. . . involving spinach with artichokes and cheese, with salmon, as salad. . . of course, I'm not sure I had anything vitamin cish to help process the iron.

But it was delicious.

Class today was much better than last week! And I was able to follow instructions from the teacher on points I'd never really considered purposely before, so today isn't just a win in the sense my hand was behaving, but also in the learning sense.

Halfway complete: [link] (NSFW, boobies). I feel much more peaceful now. I might even read an art instruction book or something, without feeling at a total loss.

Wow, that looks great, ita !! I like the proportions and the smoothness of the overall lines. Yay for learning stuff.

Commiserations to msbelle.

Lee, that does suck! I hope that's not true for us too, because I planted 200 of the suckers this year.

Oh, and I would also just like to note that eye contact is also a cultural thing and shouldn't be used to judge people. I think with the hoodies thing it's the same illusion of control issue as usual. People want to believe they can see bad on people, so that they can control it and avoid it. Crossing the street to avoid a "thug" makes them think they can control their safety. But the big problem is that you can't actually tell who means you ill just by looking at them, and trying to do so just perpetuates the ongoing harm to people who cannot help but fit into whatever profile you've built up in your mind.

The one time in my life I have ever crossed a street to avoid someone I thought was acting suspicious he crossed too and ended up robbing me and mr. flea at gunpoint under a streetlight in the street. I guess I have good thug-dar? No hoodie, though.

Yikes, flea.

It does go to show that normal people can do a decent job of evaluating actual threats, you know?

I like the drawing.

That sort of drawing is exactly at what I fail. If that makes sense.

So the next time one get assigned to some group task, one can quote Vladimir Nabokov:

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

[link]

There's an article in the NY Times about elite nannies. [link] Some of these nannies are earning four times as much as I am.