Ars Gratia Artis

How many calories does worry burn?

Last night, I finished attending a short continuing education class at UWM: Read to Write! It was the sort of class I like—learning through experience–and I found the instructor to be both pleasant and helpful. To his credit, he was well-able to tolerate my tendency to wave my arms and rant senselessly, so he is [...]

I’m in a great deal of pain. Thy mystery injury has flared up again. Last night, all my demons danced in my dreams.

… a story about me and the monkey that I want to share with you. It’s supposed to be part of the broadcast tomorrow morning, but the streaming audio segment is available now. If you are not aware of vocalo.org (and why would you be, if you are not near Chicago?), it’s a sort of [...]

I ordered a copy of Ethan’s book from Amazon.com; it arrived today. Coincidentally, I followed a link on the facebook page for Ethan’s book to an interview: http://grindingtovalhalla.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/reading-the-text-ethan-gilsdorf/
I’m the Queen of the Geeks. LOL. At least, for that one day. I always knew the SCA would make me a Queen. LMAO.
Meanwhile, Ethan’s book is [...]

Happy birthday, mom, wherever you are in the universe now. Today would have been your 72nd birthday.
Welcome to another Solstice.
I put my first public entry on the web, my first open journal, 10 years ago today, and I started it in much the same way: Today, were she still alive, my mother would [...]

And so the pain awoke me, and dragged me from my bed, and danced with me through dark hours. It’s an awful place, awful moments, when you look at what has been done, and what must be done, and everything that ever was and ever will be haunts you like the ghosts of the lost.
Moody. [...]

we are in hell these past few weeks. this looks, i know, like I am about to drift into the usual “my lief sux” emo rant one often finds in blogs, but that’s not where this is at.
But we have found a turning point, a place where we are again challenged to deviate from [...]

I admit. I have been “cheating,” using the quick interludes with my camera to substitute for writing out my thoughts. The problem with this, of course, is that they slip out so randomly when I do that.
So, first, a little project reportage:

How doth thy garden grow?

The last few moments of working on the November installment [...]

From The New York Times obituary:
Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

She was here for K’s birthday; now she’s on the plane, back to Seattle. I don’t feel very good right now.

So, since Angelique has moved to Seattle, we have been watching the boys 1-2 days every weekend. This is nice, in that their father gets some help in caring for them and we get the opportunity to play with them at least once a week. Baby Ry has, for as long as we have known [...]

*Sick. Sick. Sick. Much grumbling on this subject, but I will refrain from it at this time.
*Working on a little knitted bag for a cup holder in my feast basket. It’s going along better than the last time I tried to knit something. I did start out trying to knit it in the round, but [...]

Just a quick note. I’ve no time to write lately, as the boys have been here all weekends and many evenings for the last several weeks–we are in the midst of Real Life. I love having the boys around, but it does mean that little else but interacting with the boys gets done when [...]