Glimpses

Tuesday, walking from work to the bus stop--there's a group of little Japanese maples, their bare brown twigs jeweled with drops of rainwater. I know it's a cliche, but still totally gorgeous.

Then on the way to the store, a girl darted by me. I just saw her from the corner of my eye, grave elfin face framed by perfectly straight light red shoulder length hair, all at a slant as she hurried off to wherever.

Late at night, walking Rose, we passed by two women involved in some quiet, intense conversation, Eastern European accents, heads leaning together as they walk down Monte Vista. One woman's perfume was a burst of Narcissus, followed by the smell of a dentist's office. ???, I thought. Oh yeah, she smells like novocaine.

Then I realized the tip of my tongue was numb. Very odd airborne novocaine-narcissus perfume.

The Amazing Disappearing, Reappearing, Disappearing Hilltroll

Well here I am again.

Coming up on the horizon is Pantheacon, where I work the registration desk every year. For those of you who don't know about p-con, it is a gathering of Pagans and other weirdos to go to workshops about religion and magic, and also don outrageous drag and attend wild rituals and balls. It's on Presidents' Day Weekend every year for the last 14 years.

I will get there a day early so as to attend the staff meeting on Thursday night, which means that it will be Feb 14--you guessed it, Valentine's Day!! Since last year I missed my chance to do the Bittersweet Valentine Sad Love Song Sing-Along...I figure this is my chance to make it up! I have had a lot of time to practice songs and get better on my uke, so I am pretty excited. Here is my tentative song list, and I hope if you can think of additional songs you will write in! The more sentimental and over-the-top the better. So in no particular order:

Plaisir D'Amour
Love Hurts by Nazareth
Love Stinks by J Geils Band
Ring of Fire--Johnny Cash
Hopelessly Devoted to You-Olivia Newton John
I've Heard the Tearstained Monologue You Do there by the Door Before You Go--William Mason
Your Cheatin Heart--Hank Williams
Banks of the Ohio (traditional)
Banks of the River (Stanley Brothers--hey, does anyone know how to get the chords for this?)
One (Is the Loneliest Number that You'll Ever know)--3 Dog Night
Landslide (Stevie Nicks)
I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
You Suck (Ais Harvey)
Against All Odds (Phil Collins)
Yesterday (Beatles)
Tainted Love (Soft Cell--I also need chords for this one if anyone has them)
Cries for No One (Beatles)
Below in the Valley (Brahms)
If I Loved You (Rodgers & Hammerstein)
I Ain't Missin You (Tyler Hilton)
Sandy (John Travolta)
Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers)
Oh Darling (Beatles)
Tear in my Beer (Hank Williams)
Crazy (Patsy Cline)
St Louis Blues (I think this is traditional, that or Gershwin)

Still Waiting

Perhaps I should have referred to my previous list as Predilictions for 2008, rather than predictions. Here's what is actually happening so far:
1. Threw my back out on Jan 1 trying to demo a hip hop move for my mom.
2. Decided grocery shopping is a waste of time after purchasing crumpets at Trader Joe's.
3. No one is interested in slidewalks as a form of transportation except me but while I was looking for someone who and is not a sci-fi nerd I found this guy who is pretty funny.
4. I have lost my interest in TV. I will miss all my new TV friends, but it's probably for the best.
5. Remembered what PGAPTA means.
6. No one reads my blog anymore since I stopped posting for 5 months.
7. Got a free show at work yesterday: 5 agitated co-workers bobbing around my desk at a quarter to 5, waving their arms around after getting stirred up by the uberboss. I was astounded at my aplomb! Suddenly I am unflappable.

Year of the Troll Top Ten Premonitions

Hilltroll's premonitions for 2008 include:

1. Increase in tree-planting, organic gardening, and nature-based spiritualism.
2. Less TV, more books.
3. Less cars, more bikes, legs, and those annoying little scooters that I always see kids on and think they are going to veer into traffic
4. Popularity of gnomes will peak and then dwindle as people tire of the Travelocity ad campaign and their obvious theft of the gnome theme from the movie Amelie.
5. With the end of gnomish world cultural domination will come the day of the troll! Troll dolls shall abound! A trollish renaissance will light the fires of creative genius and inspire a new world order!
6. The whole world will at last realize the genius of John Bauer.
7. More butter. I like butter. This will be butter from nicely-treated cows.
8. More peace.
9. Less commuting.
10. Slidewalks.

Woo Hoo!

My connection is back up! PGAPTA.

Reminder to self:

First shoes, then pants.

Biscuits

I ate five of them for breakfast this morning.

Urp.

Short and Tall, we've got em all

Yesterday while waiting for the bus so I could go see my therapist I saw this guy cycling up Broadway on his recumbent bike reeeeaaaalllyyy sloooooowwwllyy. His head was about 2 feet above the ground, and since he was in the right-turn lane and it's a busy road, cars kept pulling partway into the lane, finally spotting the diminutive fella, and stopping short.

At his slow, sluglike pace (I kept waiting for him to fall over), he reached the light just as it turned green, and then accelerated rapidly, whizzing thru the intersection and zipping off to places unknown. I guess he was going slow so the light would change before he got to the intersection because if he had to stop, then he would have to unlatch his feet from the pedals since he's in those special bike shoes that are great for attaching you to your bike except for those times when you don't really want to be attached and then there you are, stuck on your bike as it topples over slowly and you topple with it feeling like an idiot.

Which put me in mind of the Tall Bike Riders, whom I have seen a couple of times now in Berkeley, riding way up above the ground on their modified bikes. The first time I saw one I couldn't figure out how they would stop for a light without falling over; would they have to jump off, and then find a stepladder once the light changed?

Jen assured me that tall bike riders would just go across town without stopping until they reach their destination. I should have a punchline of some sort here, but can't think of one. But keep your eyes open for the tall bike riders! Because not only are they interesting, artistic, and cool, they also apparently don't stop at stop signs. Ok, I guess that was my punchline.

So much, all the time

Went to McNear's beach today in San Rafael, with Jossie and her kids, Jake and Jonah; I haven't been there since I was about 10 or 11. Jossie's family used to take me there back in the old days, and we always had a great time, swimming in the pool, or walking way, way out on the mud flats until we started to panic & had to head back.

It's nice to go there as a grown up too, even though the tide was in & we couldn't walk out on the mud. We ate Fritos and pbj sandwiches, drank iced tea, and relaxed with the kids. Aaah.

Obviously, this picture was not taken at the beach, but it from the tea party I held several weeks ago. Everybody who came was absolutely fabulous, it was a great group of people, and we all got hyped up on tea and sugary cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting, and then the party segued into a sing-along and we all sang a number of songs really well, and then sang "I Will Survive" with great gusto but little accuracy. We also sang "Unchained Melody," and I got to play Linda a song I wrote for her!

It was a fabulous party.

And a nice day at the beach.

The Golden Compass

OK so maybe this is a little dorky but I am excited that they are making a movie out of one of my favorite books. Actually the first book in a fantasy trilogy comprised of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. The author, Philip Pullman, creates a rich world which I am not going to tell you about because you should go out and read the books yourself.

But I will tell you one thing, which is that in the world of The Golden Compass, all people have daemons, or animal familiars, that are like extensions of themselves. And on the website for the movie you can get your own daemon, based on your personality. Which I have done, and would you-all like a chance to comment? Is this the right daemon for me? Check out my little daemon-blurb in the upper right of this blog.

Website for Philip Pullman: http://www.philip-pullman.com/
Website for the movie: http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

Looking at Philip Pullman's blog, I see that he has not posted there since January (of which year, I don't know). So now I don't feel so terribly remiss in my laggardly blogging habits. I know, I know, but I won't promise to blog more because that sort of thing always backfires on me!

BTW, this is post number 100. Yay!

Grrrrrr!

I am annoyed right now.

Theme Party: Tiki Rebirth

Is it a drinking party? Or a polynesian rebirth ritual? Or what???

I am having a small tiki party on Saturday to celebrate...my divorce becoming final. Yup, Rhys and I will be no more. Legally speaking. People have asked me if I'll be terribly upset. And they have asked if I will be jumping around, whooping with joy. My answer to both is: I don't know.

But you can find out with me if you come over and visit! I haven't decided the exact details such as time and how much I can depend on people's potlucking generosity, but when I do you-all can expect a phone call!

Troll Hall of Shame

I am very embarrassed to say that I have not yet mailed the fabulous prize out to the winner of my Anita Blake trivia contest! Poor Tiffky is much deprived, and though she has politely not commented on her missing loot, I am sure that late at night when she is alone she may shed a quiet tear or two because she does not have an erotic poster of Jean-Claude the vampire with this Hand Down his Pants.

I swear, I'll mail it this week. Troll's Honor!

New Song

Found a new song at chordie.com this weekend...I never heard it before but instantly fell in love with the lyrics, so I invented a melody based on the chords that were supplied with the lyrics. I love it and can't stop playing it--title is "I've Heard that Tear-Stained Monologue You Do There by the Door Before You Leave."

Attributed to Mason Williams (see pic). He played it on the album Handmade (1970) but I don't see it under his list of compositions...

I know I haven't written in the blog for a long time. I've been kinda down & just didn't feel into it. But I am hoping to get back into the swing of things!

Coincidence?

So on Wednesday night I decided I wanted to learn to play the song "Sandy" from the movie Grease. On my ukulele, I mean. (this is the song that John Travolta sings after Olivia gets pissed at him in and leaves him at the drive in.) And I looked around at all my favorite music sites but could not for the life of me find the actual chords, just lyrics. It was annoying! Well, whatever.

So I gave up. But then the next morning I was walking my dog, the beautiful and entrancing Rose, and a garbage truck came rolling along beside me with the guys on the back hollering a song. Do you know what song that was? Can you guess?

What are the odds that for the first time in my life I would encounter singing garbagemen AND THEY WOULD BE SINGING THE SAME SONG????

Obviously there is some sort of confluence in my life, or perhaps the world is ending.

hideous?

The other day I looked at this blog on a computer at my work...and the color scheme was just awful! I don't know what is up with the color balance or whatever on that monitor, but the background was this disgusting yellow. Yuck. And the letters on the heading were all crowded together so they obscured my troll drawing.

Is that how the blog looks on other people's computers? On mine, the background is a nice taupe-ey beige background with dark browny-red letters. And the heading doesn't cover the troll...

Trolls in the Workplace

So on Friday we had a staff meeting, which means all the administrative staff at the Wright get together and have cake. Well, and we also discussed the new Diversity Committee.

But that's not really what I am writing about...do you ever find yourself just blurting something out that is maybe a little inappropriate? And then afterwards, you are not quite sure how inappropriate it was, or if anyone even noticed? And then you think you are a complete troll, unfit for normal human society?

So there has been some sort of kerfluffle about Richard Gere smooching a Bollywood queen or something...and the Wright librarian brings up the subject as we're all sitting around and waiting for the meeting to begin. And I swear it just slipped out...I just blurted something about why would the Bollywood peeps be upset, at least there were no gerbils involved...

And we moved on to other subjects, and I forgot all about it until the weekend, and then I started to worry that my co-workers were horribly offended that I mentioned the gerbil thing...even though they probably don't know about the gerbil thing (or does everyone know about the gerbil thing?)

I mean, it's not as though I described the gerbil thing at the staff meeting...

BTW, I do not think it's true. A person would have to be truly reprehensible to do that to a gerbil, and I don't think Richard Gere is reprehensible (though admittedly I don't know him all that well.)

Spent Monday morning in agony thinking I would get fired for saying gerbil. Got uptight. Then got over it. Love Mondays.

Exciting weekend

Hi! So here it is, in a nutshell:
nap, breakfast, walk dog, nap, nap, lunch, walk dog, bbq w friends and I drank some beer...
Sunday was more like nap, walk dog, can't do laundry because the neighbors are using the machine, pick up house, tea w Karin, geocache, feet are cold, dinner w mom.

Tahitian Hip Hop

So I got some new workout videos recently, and among them are The Tahitian Cardio Island Girl Dance Fitness Workout, as well as Tahitian Hip Hop. The teacher, Kili, is somewhat bizarre, but entertaining nonetheless.

I actually haven't tried the Hip Hop one yet because I am still trying to get the hang of the Tahitian hip thing. Since I don't have the moves totally down yet, it's not as much of a workout as I need, so I have been doing Island Girl for 20 mins or so and then switching to my Hip Hop Cardio DVD with the skittering bug lady.

Cleaning Troll (Not)

I had intended to do a spring cleaning today and yet somehow I still haven't started. Perhaps I could do it tomorrow before I leave for work?

It's not as though I've been too busy; here's my day so far:
Woke up, walked dog. Ate breakfast. Blogged.
Went back to bed.
Neighbor's kid came over, we worked out to my Island Girl video until he got bored and left.

Took a shower.
Took another nap. Justified this by telling myself that I am getting over a cold, and spring cleaning is overrated anyway.

Got up because neighbor's baby was crying. Went next door, the baby saw my giant boobs and instantly stopped crying. Held baby for a while.
Jason left with the kids, so I went home and apathetically played my uke.

And now I am drinking strong tea in hopes that the caffeine will motivate me, while blogging despite the fact that I really have nothing to say.