What Makes Me Do The Snoopy Dance

Besides I've been such a snarly, growling poo-face lately, I've written down some things that turn me into a happy pogostick. Which I am a lot, really:

The druid-evoking oak grove at the top of the hill in front of my house--especially when it's foggy. Crazy, gnarled oaks, silence, strangely empty understory. Extremely calming. The journey is a 3.5-4 mile hike with switchbacks, but only the first mile is really challenging. Come with me! Bring your sickle!

Sitting on my front porch with the golden afternoon filtering through the oak trees, and a view that negates all human interference. Listening to quail, red-shouldered blackbirds, red tailed hawks, woodpeckers, and other birds whose songs Seymour or LH would need to ID for me. This is a rare occurrence, though, as who would be watching my kids in the afternoon before everyone starts returning from work and clogging up the soundscape with hoots and hollers?

Watching Strange Brew, or hanging out with people who chuckle when I steal lines from it. Seymour doesn't understand how it soothes me, and made me turn off the video just as Iz crowned! Twit. My affection for the movie has something to do with Trying To Understand My Canadian Heritage.

Maps. Map projects like this. I am a cartophile, and have the M.A. to prove it. In grad school, I preferred geeking out in the computer lab all day long while making my digital maps & animations to food (which was helpful since my stipend was $7K/year). Then they dragged me out of the lab and told me that the maps were insufficient--that the degree required a written thesis, too. Aiiigh! Hopefully no one will ever find that document (a shorter, almost coherent version of it got published in my favorite cartography periodical, shocking no one more than me). BTW, if anyone has a Mac with a floppy drive, let me know...I've been neglecting some serious archiving.

A big mug of Earl Grey tea with lots of cream and sugar (cold days only). My mom is an Anglo-Canadian (as in spells colour with the U, no problem with The Queen's picture on the currency, fantasizes about holidays in the Cotswolds), so I've been drinking my tea like this since I was 3 years old.

Torturing proselytizing Christian shitheads on the mothers club eGroup list who think that they are exempt from the ban on non-parenting postings since after all who could deny the supremacy of any message that spreads the word of Jesus Christ? Certainly none of our Athiest, Hindu, or Jewish members.

Hanging out with G-Spot, Dee, or The Little Flower--it could be months or it could be years, but we pick up the banter as if we'd just had lunch yesterday. Would you please fucking move back to California already?

Drinking! Neither too much (lest I transform into The Beast Without Impulse Control) nor too little (what's the point?).

Goats. Salmon or other anadromous fish. Information or jokes about either. Not squid--I have had nightmares about them since I was 6 or 7 (and guess how much sympathy I got for waking up screaming that there was a squid in my bed). My interest now is best classified as morbid fascination.

Music from my pre- and teen years (excepting that pretentious Bauhaus crap--PUH-lease!). Squids, Rainy Day, Fun Boy 3, first/second wave ska, esp. Untouchables, Fishbone's EP, Special A.K.A., Bangles pre-Manic Monday, the early New Wave stuff before Talk Talk and their poseur buddies ruined everything. Elvis Costello's New Amsterdam still makes me rock from side to side with a Stevie Wonder grin. Show tunes (before 1965), goofy old vocals like Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald (that would be my dad's influence).

Trying to harmonize--to anything--when no one is looking or listening. (Leelo pleads: NO SING!)

Literary brain-blending rollercoasters like Snowcrash or The Satanic Verses. Read the latter on our honeymoon, had to keep reminding myself that it would be a good idea to pay attention to my groom. Ah, patient, darling Seymour.

Good port. Seymour's dad is from the land of port--and he pours his stellar vintages with a liberal hand--so I'm ruined as far as the cheap crap goes.

Jelly doughnuts. I was safe for years, as it seemed like everyone on the planet had forgotten how to make a decent jelly, but Krispy Kreme has resurrected the classic version and I'm just screwed. (Jelly Doughnut coming! ha ha ha ha ha ha [see Strange Brew entry, above].)

Reading my friends' blogs. I'm not so good with the in-person communication skills, so the blogs often fill in the blanks. They also make me appreciate just how fricking cool these people are. I should dig out that Myers-Brigg test that Jo's mom did for me--I don't remember the actual letters, something like NFPLUFF, but Jo's mom said that it meant I have a very difficult time relating what's in my head to others, and think everyone already knows what I mean when actually they have no idea. This is why I tend to choose the jobs that let me work at home, by myself (the test's recommendation was Foreign Translator--ha! I am monolingual).

Finding blogs that are worth reading--why is this so hard? Worth the effort, though.

Treacly shit about my partner and kids that is interesting to grandparents and relatives only, which is why I have a whole pink shiny puffy website set up just for them.

Gardening used to, but nowadays I am too preoccupied to water the plants and they're all dying.

Have you fallen asleep yet? Good night.