Blake's shy of the camera today.

Reading: Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart

Moving: walked about two miles through the park

Listening: Tom Petty, in my head. I watched "Silence of the Lambs" last night and this morning read a movie review--it already escapes me whether it was of "Hannibal" or not--that said Chrissie Hynde, just to be Petty, covers "American Girl" (which a potential victim sings in "Silence of the Lambs," keep up with me here).

Watching: "Silence of the Lambs" last night; maybe a new movie tonight. Probably not "Hannibal," tonight or ever.

10 February 2001: My point

Yesterday the organizer of the Denver No Kidding group sent an email with a subject line about snowshoeing (about an upcoming activity) that also mentioned, at the end and parenthetically) that tonight's planned Board Games Night had been canceled. How many people not interested in snowshoeing might have deleted that email and therefore not know about tonight's cancellation until they show up on a darkened doorstep? Unless of course it was canceled because no one joined up.

RDC, never enthusiastic about the idea to begin with and dismissing it with the suggestion that one game would probably be "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" or its intellectual equivalent, opined that board games aren't a good way for strangers to meet.
"Maybe not Monopoly or Clue," I responded. "But Pictionary, that needs a lot of interaction?"
Nah, he countered. They also bring out the worst in people.
I know a hint when I hear one and waved my arm enthusiastically. He grinned. Haven't I said that I don't strategize well, which is why games like Stratego and Ratfuck leave me cold, and that I don't like having to plot against someone else, which is why I'll never excel at Setback and Parcheesi and backgammon? I suppose I should disclaim, for honesty's sake, that I can be competitive as anyone in games that I like, that is, games that come naturally easy to me, like Pictionary and Taboo. "Don't talk--play!" "Five seconds--answer!" So charming.

RDC just called me asking for help with his scales. His skin gets very dry in winter, and he can't do both halves of himself with one arm in a cast. I sprang upstairs hooting delightedly with him wondering why I was so enthusiastic about this mundane task, but then he didn't know what movie I watched last night.

"It puts the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it's told." This reference he got immediately.

But anyway. My point about the No Kidding group, at the start of our acquaintance, was that I wanted people who read. And people who have the native sense to cancel an event with an email that addresses that event. (This was one dinner we went to months ago. Am I scarred, or just a misanthrope? or just extremely selective? or hypocritical, given the entry of a few days ago?) Not just folks who are feeling their divorced oats or who do not distinguish between "your" and "you're."

Speaking of contractions. I never ever ever mistyped "y'all" until I saw a bumpersticker that said "Jesus is in control, ya'll." This cracked me up as a perfectly reasonable mistake, as 'll is a common contraction, although its reasonableness didn't stop me from also snickering at people whose Christian evangelism overtakes their grammar. One of the regrets of my pre-digital camera life is that I never wasted film on sign outside a Denver eatery advertising a hamb steak special. Hamb. Bwahahahahahaha. Maybe I'm easily amused. Anyway, one reason I never mistyped "y'all" is that I never used the word, dismissing it as Southern, until I moved out here. Now, in these dreary post-thou days and surrounded by people who call soda "pop," I consider it a useful plural.

I love pissing Haitch off. Needle needle needle!

I do realize that only New Englanders pronounce "aunt" as "ahnt" and even Brits apparently say "ant." When I told TJZ, a staunch Fairfield County denizen, about being in the minority aunt-wise, she bristled, demanding what people think the "u" is there for. Haitch suggests it does the same thing it does in "laugh." I love Haitch.

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Also yesterday, I walked down to Cherry Creek to have my blood drawn, at a 9:00 a.m. appointment before which I was not allowed to eat. No breakfast. Nine o'clock. After a 1.5+ mile tramp through the snow (which was, let me emphasize, stunningly beautiful under the clear blue sunny sky with the full moon setting over the mountains). I ate immediately afterward, a blueberry scone (since that Starbucks was out of my favorite, much more fatty, maple oat-nut) and orange juice (Odwalla, not the fresh-squeezed or its taste-equivalent, because Starbucks has ceased to do that), and ate again when I got to work, fruit I'd brought from home and Nutrigrains that I stock my desk with. But I never recovered, moved and thought in slow motion all day, until leaving 15 minutes early and, yes, taking the bus home.