She's a fan. I read a story aloud at a party last month that she liked a lot. Today Attila the Hub chatted with her mother while the girl talked to me about my writing, and her writing, and whom we each liked to read.

I realize that this is one of many times in my life I've witnessed an exchange between a precocious little girl and an adult who is just awfully dense: yes, this small person really is interested in adult things, and can be spoken to on an intellectual level.

Every other time, of course, I've seen this from the perspective of the smart little girl. Now I'm the stupid adult. Tempus fugit.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:50 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Instead, I think I'll stay in and work on my writing and my weight problem.

Not necessarily in that order.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Writer's Group didn't turn on me with pitchforks. So I suppose I shall have to finish this thing.

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"you do look beautifully put together."

It was nice to hear, especially since I was wearing black velour sweatpants and flipflops, and had barely decided to wear makeup yesterday, crappy as I was feeling.

Most of the time my mother regards me as awfully vain for wanting to bathe every day and wear makeup when I go out: it disrupts her schedule. It takes too long.

But on a day I've invested nearly nothing in my appearance, it's a nice surprise when she says a thing like that.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Errands galore, and tonight is writer's group—so I need to crank out a little bit of fiction. Therefore, you may not hear too much from me until I get that 11:00 p.m. energy surge and check in to obsess about Some. Urgent. New. Thing.

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Lunch with my mother. I talked mostly about myself. We came up with theories about my stomach problems, including:

1) inflammation of my appendix, with fun times ahead of me;

2) an ulcer;

3) some exotic cancer (perhaps the first of its type);

4) pain resulting from alien abduction and resulting abdominal probe (up-to-date Martians have appently gotten bored with the lower intestines and are moving up the old digestive system);

5) "Welcome to middle-age, Babe: you're fat and you get tummy aches. Deal."

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Wait; that sounded wrong. I was convinced it was the flu until I failed to get any body aches. So my symptoms are occasional vague feelings of nausea and gassiness, along with:

-dizzy spells every 48 hours or so;

-near-constant discomfort all along the front of my torso, from right below my boobs nearly down to my pelvis;

-bloating (e.g., I'm wearing sweatpants because anything with a waistband is uncomfortable).

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:24 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Probably an obscure symptom of peri-menopause, because of the way the stomach upset comes and goes. It's likely that my hormones have gone kerflooey, and taken my erstwhile iron-clad constitution with 'em. Oh, well: some people live like this their entire lives.

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One of them made a whistling noise the reminded me of a tea kettle just as the water is beginning to simmer.

Another produces a sound very like a dial tone, but louder—as if through a speaker phone.

I've lived up here for nine and a half years, and have never learned the names of our flora and fauna. (Can one say "fauna" WRT birds? Someone check for me.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:35 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Flora are plants and fauna are animals. Birds are animals. So, yes, birds are part of your area's fauna. (So are fish. For that matter, so are you... )

Posted by: Kathy K at May 21, 2006 01:26 PM (Bm7x5)

2 Here's a good list--http://www.folar.org/information.birds.html I think tits, of all varieties, are the most common-at least from my observation. Especially at industry events like the Academy Awards. Thanks for the hanging softball!

Posted by: Darrell at May 21, 2006 01:50 PM (7KEHB)

3 ba-du-PAH!

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 21, 2006 04:20 PM (4IuF2)

4 Dziękuję bardzo! Jesteś tak miły, Attila Girl! If you weren't speaking Polish, ignore this comment! Or explain, please... Here's a site on The Great tit-- http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/g/greattit/index.asp Sadly, it doesn't cover the LA variety, the bushtit(see the previous link of LA birds).

Posted by: Darrell at May 21, 2006 08:02 PM (+HKlX)

5 That was the sound of a "rim shot" on a drum kit. So people would know your pun was funny.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 21, 2006 09:37 PM (4IuF2)

6 It would take more than that! I see the MSM is trying to manufacture a big stock drop, after ignoring all the strong economic news of the last couple of years. Don't fall for it people! Brokers just made their "sell' calls last week, getting nervous types to do a little profit taking, while giving themselves new cars(people always forget that this is the way brokers make their money--buy, sell, they make commissions either way.)The jump in inflation is almost totally explained away by the increase in oil prices--more than any other jump in the past! And those oil price increases are totally driven by oil futures prices--not supply and demand! Don't fall for this attempt to hurt the US economy so that the DEM bastards can have an easier time getting into office!

Posted by: Darrell at May 22, 2006 07:44 AM (sEh88)

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"Would it be fair," one of the older women there asked me, "to say it was a blessing in disguise?"

"No, it wouldn't," I responded. "There was no disguise involved. None whatsoever. Pure blessing."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:26 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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I got fired.

And, I'm being perfectly sincere: it's the best thing that could have happened. I'll explain later, but right now I'm dancing around, celebrating my newfound freedom.

I have May pole up in the living room. I know it's a bit late, and it turns out that it's particularly challenging for one person to dance around a May pole by herself, aided only by her husband—when he's awake.

But I'm managing just fine.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:40 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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And my mother's getting full price for the place, which is nice after everything she's been through.

One woman who looked at it tried to 1) bargain her down, and 2) hustle into an immediate commitment that very afternoon. She's a producer, which kinda figures (not to promote stereotypes; some of my best spouses are producers, ya know).

It kind of annoys me when people try to take advantage of my mother because she seems like a sweet little old lady. But mom just said—sweetly—"I'm not comfortable making sudden decisions."

Saved me some ammo, that did.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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. . . was to go to bed early on Friday night, and sleep for-freakin'-ever. Instead of crashing around midnight and getting up sometime around 6:30—as is my habit during the week these days—I was going to start sleeping circa 10:00 and keep going until noon in hopes of cancelling this entire week's rest debt.

With some inactivity and a little Ambien, I was indeed asleep before 10:00. However, my body has somehow gotten the message that after six hours it's time to wake up and begin feverishly worrying about work.

So I arose at 4:00 a.m. On a Saturday morning.

Yes, I'm having a gin and tonic. One. No, I didn't take any more sleeping pills.

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. . . at lying to myself. I'm too quick to admit stuff.

Presumably, the absence of conventional defense mechanisms is in itself a defense mechanism of a more twisted variety.

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. . . to celebrate their anniversaries. They probably don't settle down in the media room with a deli chicken from Ralph's and the Ultimate Fighting Championship on pay-per-view. But one of the Gracies will be there! We must watch. Nothing more romantic than watching Brazilian-style jujitsu dominate the cage.

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She's started ordering tonic and lime when she goes to bars, because all the gin there is so pedestrian.

Is she turning into a snob?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's just that you aren't reading.

I'm blogging, but MT is having its annual snit about the length of my posts: it only wants short ones these days. So you don't get to see most of my brilliant observations about life.

Of course, that means that when Movable Type is in a better mood I'll never have to blog again, what with all the entries I've got stashed away in various Word files.

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And Prof. Purkinje once alerted me to the fact that genetic engineering has finally produced hypo-allergenic ones.

Two grand, from what I hear. But I'd be happy every moment for the rest of my life, and you can't put a price on that.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:32 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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It won't let me correct my typos from last night.

And now I just popped tonight's Ambien, so I'll be producing more quite soon.

Editors around the world, prepare to disown me.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:29 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Should I:

1) Start dropping by the range again for some badly needed target practice?

2) Find a yoga studio or T'ai Chi class near my workplace?

3) Take up jujitsu again?

4) Work on one of my long-term writing projects?

5) Leave it unstructured and stop getting all compulsive about filling every waking hour.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:05 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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