Straight No Chaser:

12 Days

Spinning through the Year: a meme I am pretty sure I made up.

I've seen a meme here and there in which you have to go back in your archives & post the first sentence from the first post of each month of the year. Fun! I thought I'd adapt it and post sentences in which I mention each month; now my very own meme has been born! Yes, it has slithered forth from my creative uterus to span the Internets worldwide!!! This also gives me a chance to see how good my writing was before I stopped blogging for real (did anyone notice?) ... please go back and read some of my old stuff and rediscover why this blog is so fabu!!! And happy closing of the year to you, my cyber-lovers. ~xo, Spinnerina

* Monkey and the Spinning Wheels in January 2006 (Grab an Oar ... )

*I can’t believe random people in cars have the capacity to hurt my feelings. Today, I got the “Go ahead, go ahead, no you go, go already!” wave from somebody and I could tell from the tone of their fingers and wrist that the hand was pissed at me. It bothered me for a good long time. It’s such a gorgeous day today. I can’t even conceive of how February will feel. My feet look f-ing fabu in these shoes. (Pad Thai Meditations)

*28. In March of 2004 I drank 3 bottles of wine by myself and scared myself so much that I never want to drink again.(100 Things, or However Far I Get)

*April showers bring May flowers. Happy spring HNT! (HNT: In Bloom)

*This past May, my roommate A. (A for Anyhoo) and I battled: Wasps, Carpenter Bees, Millipedes, and Spiders. I like the hymenopterae from a distance (not so much when their stingers are engrafted in my foot), but millipedes creep me out (have you noticed that they smell?) and spiders haunt my darkest night-time imaginings. (Close Encounters of the Bird Kind)


*Teachers pretend not to like snow days, and moan about the time having to be made up in June, about the quadratic formulas that won’t get practiced today, the verbs that won't get conjugated. (Wintry Mix)


*When I started blogging in early July, my main mission was to vent out some things that needed venting. My early posts were a mish-mash of ire-filled rampages (since deleted, so don’t even look) that nobody read. (This Posting Life)

*On August 26-29 of 2005, the London Zoo presented an exhibit known as Human Zoo, in which Real! Live! Humans! were put on display in an old bear enclosure next to the reptile house. It was so ridiculous. The one good thing about HZ is that it inspired me to write 3.5 really good posts in which I pretended to be a participant. (Back to the Zoo)

*I felt like the world dropped out from under me on September 11, 2001. (The Down & Dirty Blog Frolic I: My Ass is on Fire!)

*Then when all/most of the pinkies are up, I chant, "pinkies in the air ... pinkies in the air ... now do a dance!" and we wiggle in a circle.* Now I have their attention and I can talk. To this day the students who were on my bus to Boston in October pass me in the halls and put their pinkies in the air. (School of Life II: The Bag of Tricks)

*Shopping at Macy's last Sunday was a head trip. They are playing Christmas Music. Christmas music!!!! On November 6th! Apparently, according to their customer service, by "customer request" they start the music the same time they start their holiday displays, which is now. (Pomegranate Meditations)

*My desk drawer complete with cigarettes from Uruguay that Quilting girl found in a NYC taxicab on our trip in December, then hid in my luggage to find later. (a late but very special office Supply Wednesday)

Are you smarter than an 8th grader?

Here's an online quiz my kids are taking. Their score averages around 8/10. How well do you do?

Work and Machines!

What crappy gift are you?

You Are Socks!

Cozy and warm ... but easily lost. You make a good puppet.

What Crappy Christmas Gift Are You?

Meditation on the Alto Part of He Shall Purify

I notice I haven't been writing much original work lately; but it's because all of my love is going elsewhere, and not into my craft. Where is my love going, you may ask? To the following (order does not indicate priority or % of love given):

• 89 13-year-olds
• My new choir
• Tuyet
• My personal trainer
• Jamwall
• My family

The 89 13-year olds have been draining much of my energy lately, but since I am not a mom, they are satisfying my mothering needs at the moment. This includes the 3-day "vacation" in Boston. Oh, I forgot to tell you one thing that scared me:

I quit my old choir because the 75-minute drive was spanking all the joy of singing out of me. My new choir rehearses closer to my house, and has a bitchin' lineup of concerts! At this moment I am supposed to be practicing He Shall Purify from The Messiah for tomorrow's rehearsal, but instead I am making peach cobbler and posting some original writing. I shall sing shortly!

I started talking to Tuyet a while back and have befriended her in the last few weeks. She is desperately lonely, adrift in a sea of self-searching, eternally optimistic, and clueless about how to be a woman. We've been IM'ing as I try to give her advice on her spiritual quest.

I've been working out 2x a week with my personal trainer and exercising a few days a week on my own. Consequently, my pants are falling down. Consequently to that, I am getting lots of attention from passers-by. Luckily, I am wearing pantaloons (most of the time).

Jamwall has infected my brain with his sick and errant ways. His depraved and condiment-laden mildly pornographic comments, text messages, and emails have finally won me over. I am his to defile as he wishes. I hear cowbell in my sleep!!! On the more human side, he seems to be quite charming and could even be trained to be lovable. We have decided to have a Caesar Salad contest, in which we perfect our recipes and then put them to the test. I don't know how well romaine holds up to being mailed.

My family has not been getting enough of my attention, because I have been so busy. But birthday season is upon us (2 weeks, people!) which gives us all an opportunity to be together in love and harmony. Also, diapers. And yummy meats, slowly cooked.

An original piece of work!

Well, I might have seen my secret crush do this on her blog ... ahem ... so? I'm busy, dammit!!!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME:

(first pet & current car)
Dr. Shitheap

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME:

(fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Mint Oreo Oreo (Yeah baby! like Snoop Doggy Dogg! Like this and like that and like this and like that and like this and like that and a HUH!)

3. YOUR “FLY Girl” NAME:

(first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
S Gir (hmm, this one kinda sux)

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME:

(favorite color, favorite animal)
Green Owl (Hoo!)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME:

(middle name, city where you were born)
Ning Ridgewood (Do I get to be a surrogate mom in this soap opera?)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME:

(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Girsp (I think that was a sound that Jabba the Hutt made when he ate that frog-thing)

7. SUPERHERO NAME:

(”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Lilac Java

8. NASCAR NAME:

(the first names of your grandfathers)
We don't do Nascar.

9. STRIPPER NAME:

(the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Lolita After Eight (YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:

(mother’s & father’s middle names )
I'm not playing.

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME:

(Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
McKee Minneapolis (Is that near Eden Prairie?)

12. SPY NAME:

(your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Autumn Lilac

13. CARTOON NAME:

(favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + "ie" or "y")
Nectarine Pajamy Panty (this one went straight to video)

14. HIPPY NAME:

(What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Smoothie Birch

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME:

(”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Singing Wind Tour

In the pink

So what happened was I suddenly got really busy, and it's like this crazy manic energy that keeps me just running running running like a hamster in the wheel I can't really spend a lot of time on creativity because all my energy is going into the projects, these amazing projects the kids are turning out which are due in two days and after that I will just crash, maybe. One day last week we had a really fun day that included a 12-on-12 tug of war and food, there was cake, lots of it. And of course it is so lovely outside the trees are blooming and dropping all their petals it's like a giant pink snowstorm so every day I go out and sweep my driveway of the petals. I wish I could box them up and send them to you but they wither so very quickly. I had a giant party for Cinco de Mayo lots of people came and I bought booze, actual booze, from the alcohol store for others to drink for the margarita punch, the booze store where I felt like a fish out of water funny when I used to make that stop every week, twice three times sometimes and they knew me by name how sad is that? Now if I could just find my Zen place I will turn to my former state of bliss and maybe some ideas will come, I'm a bit blocked in my writing. I think if I did this sort of thing more often then ideas would come. Oh and I still love you, I didn't forget you know.

Fill in the blanks.

Yesterday I ___ .
Today I ___ .
Tomorrow I will ___ .




Thank you.