givin

1. My body is currently thanking me from the bottom of its dairy allergy, but that orange créme from Starbucks was so delicious and refreshing, it was worth it.
2. Also worth it was the fact that it did not come from Dunkin Donuts.
3. I would like to find whichever graffiti artist tagged the Rachael Ray Dunkin Donuts billboard by the railroad tracks and give him or her a big wet kiss. Rachael Ray is okay, I guess, but I'm so tired of her face everywhere.
4. Yet again, it was a pretty day and my husband actually drove me around and stopped when I wanted to stop. I'm almost afraid to get used to such thoughtfulness.
5. It's also a pretty day today. I'm not quite sure my body wants to leave the comfort of home just yet, but maybe later.
6. Nothing pressing on my agenda, though, and I don't have to go to work, so if I decide I want to take this day and just be properly ill all day long, I can do so without guilt.

I got tagged by my favorite boatlady, Batten, who herself was tagged by Back Nine.

Here are the rules:

Tagged players post eight random facts/habits about themselves. At the end of your post, you tag eight more victims suckers newbs  people; they then write their list of eight in their own blogs and post the rules. Be sure to leave comments for your eight patsies losers targets invisible friends.

I don't tag people. I prefer to give anyone who reads the option of doing it themselves, or not. But I do try to fulfill tags if they happen to me, no matter how not crazy about being tagged I am.

Also, I made a rule some time ago that, if anyone has been tagged for the same meme and doesn't want to do it, reading mine all the way through renders them immune.

That said, here are eight random facts/habits about me, but since I've been tagged with variations of this meme over and over for the past few years, I'm going to make this one about sticks, just for a change.

1. My favorite clean joke is, "What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?" (Answer: "A stick.")
2. My favorite variation of the above joke was told by an island woman of my acquaintance. Envision the following being told by a tiny woman with a lilting French accent: "And why does the boomerang not come back when he throws it? Because it was a stick!"
3. My second favorite clean joke is, "What's brown and sticky?" (Answer is, again: "A stick.")
4. I like the phrase "More than you can shake a stick at," but nobody knows for sure where it originated. Don't bother looking it up online. I already did. Even World Wide Words had a bunch of theories but didn't know which was right.
5. I like corn dogs, creamsicles, and those gourmet lollipops from Linda's Lollies.
6. I also have rather an unhealthy crush on José Jalapeño.
7. I'm not only always amused when the Mom says, "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick," but whenever anyone else says it (I heard actor James Cromwell use it in an interview once, for example) I automatically identify that person forever as one of the Mom's "peeps."
8. The Monty Python episode with Eric Idle asking the RSM (played by John Cleese) about when they will be taught to defend themselves against pointed sticks (instead of against fresh fruit) is adorable no matter how many times I see it.

I really have been trying to stay perky and upbeat.

To be positive so as to attract positive things.

Two people of my acquaintance died in the past week, and a sort-of-former-colleague of my mother's was buried on Monday, to boot.

I'm so deep in the hole I can't see daylight, and no, I haven't spent a single nickel on myself in months. Months. I just keep trying to give to charity and, woohoo, more hole.

I put change into the boot every time we passed the fire station for a whopping twenty minutes of fireworks.

Not to mention that Elizabeth is currently making out with Anthony in For Better or For Worse. I want her to be happy, not just to settle for Anthony because she knows him and he's "safe." (I also lost a bit of respect for him when he accompanied her to court, then, knowing she was in emotional and fearful knots, added a little extra stress to her life by asking her to "wait for him." Way to step up and be unselfish, Anthony.)

I'm not sure who the Secret or the Charmed Life is working for, but I think they're getting all my good luck.

However, I am all about giving it a fair shot.

• When our twenty minutes of fireworks had been used up, we did not have to walk a mile to our cars (or try to find a bathroom along the way), then crawl through traffic, using up tons of expensive gasoline in the process, to get home. We just turned around, went back inside and closed the sliding glass doors. Yay balconies with unobstructed vantage points of the sky over Bradley Point.

• I had the following conversation with my husband on Monday, about my mother's sort-of colleague, whom we both knew was terminally ill.

Me: Mom tells me they buried Mr. Attorney today.
Him: Oh, wow; he died?
Me: No, they just buried him. He should be digging himself out any second now. Here's your sign.

• I didn't have to work yesterday or today.

• Carl Sagan is still rocking my world.

1. I had nightmares all last night. But I woke up.
2. I have to go back to work today. But I have a job, and clothing to wear to my job, and people at my job who respect my work.
3. It's raining. But I don't have to work outside.
4. I don't get paid for having received a Rockin' Girl Blogger award. In fact, it's just a Photoshop button. I could make one myself. Or I could steal one off someone else's page. But it was awarded to me, because someone really does think I am a Rockin' Girl Blogger.

Yeah. I'm okay.

1. I am going to dinner and a movie with my friend today.
2. I made a separate LOLCAT graphic to "hand out" to anyone who hasn't yet been awarded a Rockin' Girl Blogger Award:

and people are saying they like it better than the actual award.

3. I got paid for my blogs to profit; ten percent of the payment was less than the minimum accepted by credit card for most online charities, so I donated about half, in memory of my coworker who passed away last week.
4. One of my NYC favorites has invited me to spend a night with her the next time she's homesitting for her employer. I'm incredibly squee at this concept, not only because she's the awesome, but because I will be in New! York! and get to see all the sorts of stuff I don't get to observe shuttling back and forth from work to home (with the occasional side trip to the supermarket) in Connecticut.
5. Our fireworks didn't get rained out.
6. Nor did anyone I know drown over the holiday (at least four people in Connecticut did, that I saw in the news).
7. Also, though we were held up by the bad accident on 95 Thursday, we were neither headed northbound, where it had happened and everything was closed, nor, more importantly, were we involved.

I haven't been posting happylists lately. Know why? Because I'm noticing that, the more positive I try to be, the more bad things appear to be happening.

It's so weird. I make a conscious effort to attract success and happiness, and people around me are dying, my money is draining away faster than I can put it back into charity, and my friends are losing their jobs.

I don't want to say I'm giving up or have no hope anymore, but I've got to try to approach this differently, because the secret and the charmed life appear to be backfiring mightily.

I'm still here.

I'm just trying to change tactics, considering that the Universe is continuing to smile on me, much in the manner that sharks smile on smaller fish.

However, I am incredibly thankful for this:

Nicked from The Listener
Mi larsenny. Let me show u it.

Items of note:

• I just got a pretty neutral rejection (they didn't say I suck, but neither did they offer any encouragement) on a bit of writing into which I had put quite a lot of work, not only in ensuring that its content was wonderful, its format was scrupulously correct, and that it met the needs of the company, but also in infusing it with all the positive energy in my power, in accordance with the guidelines from The Secret and A Charmed Life. I'm almost relieved that they didn't want it, in the sense that pushing all that positive "Today you'll be contacting me about how good I am and what my next step is with you to move forward with this project" was as much work as going to my job every day; now that they've told me they are completely not interested, I can cross that item off my several-times-daily-to-do list.
• One of the many people pontificating The Secret at me like they're the the Happiness Experts of All Time is getting a divorce.

I'm keeping this site, at least for now, and I'm going to keep giving to charity as I've been doing. I'll try to drum up some more paying work for in here. But I'm going to do it because it's a worthwhile exercise and it's the only way I can get enough money to give to charity, since I can't afford it on my existing budget.

I will no longer put a lot of faith into the ol' hocus pocus. Either good fortune will come to me or it won't. I'll work toward what I have control over and let go of what I don't.

If an opportunity presents itself, I'll be prepared. But if it doesn't, I won't blame myself. The Universe isn't here to give me everything I want, nor even anything I need. It's just here, and I'm in it.

Yay for that, anyway.