Velvet Verbosity

I was randomly tagged by Nancy to post seven of my oddities. Since being tagged I’ve been lazily rolling the idea around my brain. You know, through the maze of belly-button lint I’ve got stored up there. I think there’s still a few neurons and dendrites left.

I’ve never been “tagged” online before. My initial reaction was the same as when a telemarketer calls my house when I’m in the middle of cooking dinner or I just sat down for the first time in 57 hours. Tagging on a blog is like sending a chain letter, only without the warnings that should I fail in my task to pass it on my nose will fall off, my hair will spontaneously catch fire, warts the size of Cleveland will pop up all over my body, and I will never ever be loved by anyone. Ever.

By the way. No offense Nancy. I know you were just doing your bloggily duty. And because I realize that, I’ll play. For a minute. Grudgingly.

1. I didn’t like the game of “tag” when I was a kid. I couldn’t stand the anxiety. That and other kids touching me. Who knows where their hands had been!
2. I did love playing Hide-N-Seek. I always won. No finding = no touching.
3. I like stale Peeps. In fact I don’t like fresh Peeps at all, but I love stale ones. Makes it more of a challenge to bite their heads off.
4. Even though I blog, I don’t enjoy revealing private things about myself to the public. There’s a distinct difference between writing and listing. The first reveals something about the author. The author is providing a window into their mind. Yet one can never be entirely sure what they are seeing. Listing is like standing on your front lawn and revealing random body parts, up close, for passersby. There’s not a lot of doubt that, “Yep, that’s a kneecap alright.” “I think the technical name is Patella dear.”
5. I once had an injury to my middle finger that made it stick up for months. No. I’m not joking. It’s a good thing it looked a little purplish and gnarled. (See? Body parts.)
6. I diligently avoid wearing pink.
7. If I could pick my gender when I’m 70 I would choose to be a man so I could have a mustache to stroke and a pipe to smoke as I think.

Here are the rules:

1- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

2- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.

3- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

4- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I won’t be tagging anyone, but feel free to pick this up voluntarily.

**Image from Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games, University of Waterloo website.

I love technology. No. I do. I would marry my MacBook Pro if it had a pulse. But this technology scares me. The Touchtable - a modern day war table. It allows the military to zoom in on any geographic location and see what happened there over time. If you’re thinking about building an underground bunker, think again. It also allows the police force to predict crime by region and season so they know where to concentrate their forces and when.

If you’re the type of citizen that has bought into the hype of terror (a.k.a “the terror of hype”), you’ll be able to sleep easy tonight knowing that people in uniform can see the world at their fingertips. Knowing that the government has a huge electronic eye that’s watching every move of “the enemy”. Not very different from the Eye of Sauron. Yeah. Because, you know? Dark lords have a tendency to think they’re on the right side.

I just joined NaBloPoMo. National Blog Posting Month or something like that. I joined late. Why? Because I’ll be late for my own funeral (when I should have been late for my wedding…wait. I WAS late for my wedding.). What does it mean? It means I have to post to this blog every day for the month of November or else! Or else what? Or else the blog trolls will live under my bed and GET ME!

The most important question here is why I would do such a thing? In other words, do I have a BRAIN? Or is that just belly-button lint in my head? As if I don’t have enough to do without some arbitrary obligation to the blogosphere.

Sigh.

Truth is. I’m always looking for something to fence me in and make me write. Remember this?

Ah. November in New England. Bare trees against the backdrop of a low slate sky.

Ick! I hate November. There are only three things that redeem November in New England. It is the month I gave birth to a pretty cool human being, it is the month of Thanksgiving (i.e. homemade fatty comfort foods), and this Birch Tree Tote by feeldesign that somehow translates a bare tree against a gray sky with elegance, grace and style while leaving out the cold, bitter winds and depressing lack of sunshine. Who knew November could be so hip? I think I’ll just crawl inside this custom made tote and hibernate until Spring.

** Disclaimer - All items from Etsy that I choose to feature here are of my own finding. They are things I like, not things I will get a kickback on or a free gift of. No one has approached me asking me to review their product. Most importantly, I don’t always BUY these items (what, you think this blog is making me any MONEY?) This is just me, doing my part and sharing a little bit of what’s worth finding on the world WIDE web. No animals were harmed in the writing of this review, but an apple pie was relentlessly plucked apart and eaten.

Sleep talking is uniquely entertaining. It’s like hearing one side of a conversation. A dream-scape conversation that ends up sounding slightly psychotic, or drug-induced.

My son talks in his sleep and this morning when I went to his room to wake him up, before I could say a word, he smacked his lips, flopped an arm around and said,

“Oh No.” (pause) “Not another jerk-face”.

What? There was more than one?

She is beautiful. Radiant. She can’t possibly know her own beauty. Her skin speaks beauty, abundance and health. She sits, knitting, her brow furrowed in concentration, and I am mesmerized by the little repetitive dance of her fingers.

In the space of an hour she knits about 6 inches of something fuzzy, interwoven with pinks and purples. I don’t like these colors, but they suit her pink pink cheeks so for tonight I don’t mind pinks and purples. Suddenly I don’t mind them so much so that I wish she was knitting whatever it is she’s knitting for me.

It’s because I see her capacity for love, and the sadness that has broken her, and I want to be a vessel to receive what she hasn’t been able to properly give before. It’s because I wonder how she can be so radiant and so sad at once, and how much more radiant she could possibly be. It’s because I want the chance, just one chance, to help someone else shine so brilliantly that the whole lot of humanity goes blind with love. Just that once.

I wish it were some kind of surprising crush, but all desire is fueled by the want of something. It is not her that I desire, but what she is right now that I am not at the moment, maybe never will be again, maybe never ever was. I like to believe I was once a creature of flesh and sorrowful juices and radiant love. That I had beauty like that. My decaying bones and gristle want her life.

As we are leaving she comes up to me. She is so much taller that she has to arch her neck downwards toward me and her face is looming like a pinked moon just inches from mine. I feel vulgar next to her radiance, but I don’t turn away. I let her grace soothe me. I let my own spark ignite and burn. She is thanking me for something I said. “I really appreciate it you know”, she says, gently smiling.

Her heart aches through her eyes, and her love mixes with her sorrow creating tears that don’t flow out, but instead back down to her heart filling it up until it’s so large I can hear it beating in my own chest.

Picture Credit: I found this picture by doing a Google Image Search for “Juice and Gristle”. Brought me to a great little blog about “The Culinary Adventures of a New York City Lawyer”. Check it out. Tell him that Velvet Verbosity sent you.

Dude. I don’t know about you, but I find this bicycle toilet decal to be WAY better than the usual fluffy, flowery, gaudy or just plain stooopid toilet adornments that have been the status quo for FAR too long.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that toilet art is dead. No. No. Far from it. Some people are quite active in their County Fair’s toilet decoration contest.

Even the tank itself was patented for it’s aesthetically pleasing encasing of the vulgar inner workings.

But, as you’ve come to rely on Velvet Verbosity to bring you only the best and ultra-hip of Etsy (oh, you know you have!), I have delivered. In the words of Vital (the artists behind the decal) (no, NOT in the tank pictured here fool):

Through critical thought, art and design are integrated into all aspects of life. These values are layered into an aesthetic that is at once urban and rural.

Long Live Toilet Graphics!

** Disclaimer - All items from Etsy that I choose to feature here are of my own finding. They are things I like, not things I will get a kickback on or a free gift of. No one has approached me asking me to review their product. Most importantly, I don’t always BUY these items (what, you think this blog is making me any MONEY?) This is just me, doing my part and sharing a little bit of what’s worth finding on the world WIDE web. No animals were harmed in the writing of this review, but a whole bunch of tea leaves were boiled and consumed.

I guess I’m still in Halloween mode. Maybe it’s because I have one more party to go to. If I’m going to be accurate here it’s a Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead party. And Dia de los Muertos is pretty different from Halloween in history and tradition.

Dia de los Muertos, a primarily Mexican holiday, originated with the Aztecs who believed death was not to be feared as it signified the entrance to higher consciousness. Higher consciousness…Heaven? What I want to know is why all the good stuff happens after we die? What is UP with that?

Get back to me on that.

For now, for your entertainment, check out the Skull-A-Day blog.