Summercamp

I'm off to camp in the woods of western Mass. for the next ten days. The boyfriend is coming tomorrow to join me, so yay! This'll be my first ever summercamp without Mom, so boo. We'll have a couple of memorials for her, which I'm sure will be beautiful, and we'll scatter her ashes on the lake, and we'll all grieve together, and something will have ended that hasn't yet.

As usual, I cannot wait to be there; nothing else is really as usual.

My Pal's Name is Dorothy Dorothy (...Dorothy)

I have a new friend who is a tricorder! Her name is Dorothy, and she is shiny and exciting. I have taken the first step in my journey toward personalized Dorothy-themed ringtones for everyone, and I have assigned The Mysterious X a ringtone from this important piece of American musical history: Dorothy Wiggin's classic composition for her sister act, The Shaggs, "My Pal Foot Foot" (...Foot).

I post this now as a request from all of y'all for more Dorothys (Dorothies? Dorothese?) to honor with ringtones on Dorothy the Tricorder. Feel free also to contribute specific ringtones by which you think these Dorothys would best be immortalized. Obviously the top two entrants are Dorothy Gale and Dorothy Zbornak, but I still haven't decided what 5-second audio clips I want to use for them!



Alternatively, I could probably just give everyone I know a different Judy Garland or Bea Arthur ringtone. The question is: who gets to be "Be A Clown," and who is relegated to "Good Night, But Not Goodbye?"

Birthiversary

Today is my birthday. In accordance with the tradition in this culture of celebrating such events with gifts, I have received an amazing thing from The Mysterious X. It is an attachment for the tricorder I intend to purchase on Sunday. This attachment turns the tricorder into A MINIATURE PINBALL MACHINE!

Please observe this date in future years as the day upon which my productive capacity vanished entirely, replaced by an insatiable desire to make the virtual ball bounce around the screen.

Also, today I officially advance to candidacy, with all the paperwork out of the way at last. Huzzah!

Centering

Fact: when you are running around like crazy trying to do too many things in not enough time, there is one guaranteed cure for stupid stress.

Forget massage, deep breathing, yoga, drinking, running, smoking, whatever you do to de-stress.

All that you need, or rather, all that I need, is Tracy Chapman.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get lost in her voice for a while.