'Twas the night before Christmas... How are you spending this Christmas Eve? Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions you're excited about?

For a time, I grew very depressed during the December holiday season.  I was having a hard time resolving eager childhood memories with contemporary worries about providing for a family of my own.  Part of that ( Read more... )

No, not really.

For years I rebelled against structure and wrote freeform.  Right now, it's near 9 AM and it is too early for me to be much inspired by meter.

Today you will either have the longest day of the year,
or the shortest, depending on where you are. What will you do to
celebrate the solstice?
Submitted by Jack Yan.

First of all, thank you, Jack, for contributing a great QotD! I mean it-- we've had a few flops and it's good to see one of quality :) much more from someone I recognize.

I will wish ( Read more... )

The sciatica is terrible.  There was one morning where I woke up and the nerve pain was so bad I was in tears.

I'd go to the pool, but I've been sick repeatedly.  Got over one thing to come down with another.  I was recovering from some sort of congestion and was hacking and coughing constantly and then BOOM it was a really bad head cold.

It's been ( Read more... )

NOTE: The .resized in all the titles simply reflect that I resized the photos in a batch through a program.

I used a bread machine to mix up the dough-- a Salton ( Read more... )

The title is taken from Jaime's first sentence in the post, which I think cuts straight to the subject at hand.  This post links to an earlier post by buzban in which he remarks that Nielsen ratings studies state that viewership is at an average of 8 hours a day in each home.  This led to Jaime's question stated in the title above, as well as ' ( Read more... )

So Jaime was talking about random things about her-- a meme list of 25, and #25 was:

Ever danced like no one was watching?

Gee, I guess that's about a good excuse as any to get a boogie on down, and this tune suddenly popped into my head:

Sorry, I don't have a camcorder, so I can't show you my dance moves, hehe.

as seen at the VOX blogs of Hangaku Gozen, Purplesque, and blogginginthewind

So... list 7 things about yourself that your friends would describe as weird (or strange, eccentric, whatever).  I'd say you get bonus points if friends have actually posted about it and described it as weird, but it's totally optional.

1.  I really like oyster and anchovy ( Read more... )

What did your parents do when you were a child that mortified you?

Oh good God-- do you REALLY want me to answer this one?

I'm sure the author is asking about quirks and idiosyncrasies about their parent's behavior in public, more especially when it seemed uncool or very less than hip.  But for anyone that's grown up in a dysfunctional family, they' ( Read more... )

Very good question!  I vaguely remember some suggestions (studies, even?) that women's hormones seem to be tied to phases of the moon.  Menustration, after all, literally means "that which happens monthly".  Whether men's hormones behave in a similar fashion, well, that I am unaware of.  I've also heard it said that crime rates increase with a full ( Read more... )