I am the Empress...

who has apparently had Botox.

You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

And you?

(Thanks, Cavu.)

Perhaps Google understands the stress of job-searching?

I have a gmail account that I use only for job-related correspondence--sending out resumes, cover/pitch letters, etc. Gmail--the Google mail application that scans your messages and delivers advertising and online group recommendations customized to what it thinks you'll like--served up the following:


alt.drugs.hard - Group description: Heroin, cocaine, and friends.

alt.support.depression.medication - Group description: Discussion of anti-depressants.

Go here.

Lisa Congdon is my new favorite stranger.

She makes beautiful things, too.

(Seriously, go. Here. Now.)

It's too bad New York doesn't have crews authorized to rescue "immature males still living mostly by [themselves]"...



Brookfield crew rescues dolphin trapped in Speedo
By William MullenTribune staff reporter
Published August 17, 2006

A lucky adolescent male bottlenose dolphin is back to living nude and free in Florida's Sarasota Bay after making a potentially fatal wardrobe choice early this summer.The 10-year-old dolphin, known as Scrappy, probably owes its life to a Brookfield Zoo marine mammal research team that works year round in the bay.

The drama began July 6, when a member of the team working in the bay spotted Scrappy unaccountably and uncomfortably swimming around while wearing a black, Speedo-brand man's bikini swimsuit.

"He must have found the swimsuit floating in the water," said Randall Wells, a population biologist who runs the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program for the Chicago Zoological Society, Brookfield Zoo's parent organization.

"Somehow he got his head and torso through the waist and one of the leg holes of the suit, and it was hugging him right where his pectoral fins and body meet.

"The project team, which has been tracking and observing 150 resident dolphins in the bay for the last 36 years, began looking for Scrappy every day. They feared the tight-fitting, non-rotting synthetic cloth suit could injure or kill the dolphin as "drag" force from swimming pushed it into the soft skin in front of the pectoral fins.

"Eventually it could cut deeply enough to sever arteries, causing him to bleed," Wells said.

When the swimsuit was still stubbornly clinging to Scrappy after three weeks, the team got an emergency rescue authorization from federal officials who monitor its work in the bay.

Scrappy's capture turned into an all-day ordeal for the depantsing team Wells organized Aug. 3. Five fast boats carrying 31 people raced across the bay after the animal, trying to surround it with a net.

In one close call, the net got caught in a boat propeller, allowing the dolphin to swim away. In a second encounter, Scrappy adroitly evaded the net by leaping over it. Late in the day they were able to bring the dolphin aboard a boat.

The suit had made cuts a half-inch deep and three-quarters of an inch long in front of each fin. Scrappy was visibly underweight and also had a fresh, visible but non-serious shark bite, both conditions probably caused by a hampered ability to swim because of the suit.

"We had been prepared to take him ashore to our veterinary hospital," said Wells, whose team works out of Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory research facility. "But that is the last thing we wanted to do. We don't like to have our dolphins becoming familiar with humans, which can happen during extended veterinary care.

"We felt his injuries weren't that serious, so after we removed the swimsuit, we cleaned the wounds and gave him a strong antibiotic. Then we attached a small radio tag to one of his fins and, after about half an hour, we let him go.

"With the radio tag, his team can locate the animal easily every day, Wells said, and Scrappy, who as an immature male still lives mostly by himself, has shown no ill effects from his wardrobe experiment.

"One of the comedians on our team said the lesson in all this is that Speedos can be a threat to more than just good taste," Wells said."

I suppose the real lesson for humans is that, if you bring something to the beach or on your boat, take it home with you. Anything you leave behind could have dire consequences for wildlife."

Do you think I can still be president?

I went online recently looking for the date of a party I went to last winter. The theme was Pink vs. Orange, and I made a fabulous orange strappy thing out of velcro and ratcheting straps from Home Depot. I googled "Bass Nympho's Ball" + "2006," clicked on the second link that came up and discovered this at the bottom of the page:



There I am, in all my orange glory, faux-ging for a friend's camera (I will have to discuss his picture-posting habits before I find myself featured on www.xxxgirlznextdoor.com). The party wasn't great, but I am very proud of the outfit, even if I do have a second-tier-Russian-model-cum-sci-fi-dominatrix look about me in this picture. Ever single piece is individually attached with velcro, so the whole thing can be refashioned in any number of ways. I think I inherited a mangled version of my mother's craft gene after all.

I Just Ate A Salad. This Is A Very Big Deal.

I just ate a salad for lunch. This may not seem like a Very Big Deal. People eat salads every day, in many many parts of the world. News segments do not begin, "Man ate salad. Film at 11." You never see "Brittany Spears Eats a Salad!!" splashed across the cover of The National Enquirer.

I, however, have never eaten a salad as a meal, and seldom consume lettuce at all. I spent 26 years of my life avoiding all vegetables, save for corn, raw carrots, and potatoes--hearty, starchy Midwestern fare. One time when we were at my Aunt Helen's for dinner, I was forced to eat three bites of green beans before I could have the Really Cool-Looking Bunny Cookie that my mom brought for dessert. I gagged on the second bite and almost threw up. She gave me the cookie anyway. My vegetable avoidance continued.

But one lunch hour in the winter of 2004, I walked to my favorite cafe deep in thought: I had moved across the country to be with my boyfriend and we were breaking up. My company was closing and I was losing my job. And I had just been robbed by my crack-dealing super who took everything I owned, down to my shower curtain rings. Distracted by inner tumult, I forgot to order my chicken sandwich sans veggies. The guy behind the counter handed me the sandwich. I saw leaves poking out from under the bun, and a trickle of red watery tomato innards oozing out the side, and I contemplated handing it right back. Then I looked at it again. "A tomato," I thought, "is not going to kill me." And I ate it.

And that was the beginning.

(Naughty) Poetry Thursdays

I first read e.e. cummings in high school English class. Though we nearly killed "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by discussing it ad nauseam, I still came away with a fondness for cummings' rhythm and his cheeky "no capitalization, no punctuation" thing. When I looked into him a little more, I discovered "may i feel," and his other, more sensual poetry, which our teacher neglected to clue us in on. I think English grades would have gone up if she had.

may i feel

may i feel said he may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

-e.e. cummings


Read more of his work here.

And a shout out: I first discovered Poetry Thursdays from The Voix, who I blog-stalked for months along with the rest of Cavu's blogging posse. Thanks for adding a little poetry to my week, blog queen!

And Speaking of Coffee...


I wish I could do that.

I (Heart) Legal Stimulants

I just made myself a cup of coffee. I'm neither hungry nor thirsty, I am merely bored, and I find the jittery feeling I get from downing cups of chemical laden caffeine vaguely amusing. What's next, a crack pipe wedged between the stapler and the tape dispenser?