Not too long ago, Dana asked me for some music suggestions, which is not too unusual a request since I am the Queen of the Mix, the Maven of Music. Only this time I had no suggestions because I haven't listened to anything new iiiiiiiiin........so long that I can't remember when.

How did this happen? Well, this and this probably contributed since I've been up to my eyeballs in 80s music. And before THAT the Monkees mix and now, for the true low point, tonight I'm making my mom a copy of a cd of The Limeliters, which I put together one weekend using this new contraption she has that burns cds from records. I bet most of you don't even know who The Limeliters were, do you? Let's just say they were a 1960s folk group and leave it at that, shall we?

All these wanderings down memory lane have been just dandy for the last few months, but I'm ready for a change. I'd like to be able to listen to something in my car that doesn't make me feel like I should be driving a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle to a knitters club meeting followed by a riveting game of shuffle board.

In short, I'd like to feel young again. That's where you all come in - I know some of you are into music too, so tell me what you've been listening to. There's only one criteria: the cd can't have been released more than two years ago. I like just about everything, so genre doesn't matter much.

Please, help me before I'm facing a fate worse than death! (AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!)

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Oh, and thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Blogaversary! I do actually check back here from time to time, but if you want to know what I'm up to on a regular basis, see my other site.

That's right folks, it's officially been a year since I first wrote this statement of purpose and the first real entry on my original blog.

A lot has happened since I first decide to give this whole blog thing a try. At that time I was doing the Off-Again-On-Again Tango with Morelli, although unbeknownst to me I had already seen and talked to him in the flesh for the last time a couple of week previously. I think I had a clue something was wrong, which was in part why I wanted to start writing – to do a bit of venting of pain. But I was petrified of the idea of writing online...of putting my thoughts and feelings up there for anybody to read and comment on them and potentially judge me. I was worried that my friends and family would hate it, that they would be uncomfortable with being discussed or, worst of all, that they'd think was an uninteresting, self-absorbed hack.

However, I also knew that I wanted a way to express myself that was more....challenging than the old paper journal that I'd kept for years. So I decided to give it a go.

Now after a year, I think the decision to start a blog is probably one of the better chances I've ever taken. I'm so much happier (despite recent entries to the contrary) and more confident now and, silly as it may sound, I think that's in part because of the blog. At the risk of sounding like I’m navel gazing again (I know how much some of you HATE that), the process of writing the blog has helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin and in my own head. And I've been pleasantly surprised by how my nearest and dearest have embraced this little project of mine. I think most of you will agree that the input of folks like MCL, Garlock, Travers, Ford, Sojourner, Jordan and Wilson really have helped to make this virtual space feel more homey - to feel less like an online journal and more like a bunch of friends getting together over a couple of cuppas to chat. And of course, that was really what I was hoping for all along.

And then there has been the unexpected benefits of all the new friends I've made - Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara, Mocha, Chris, Bill, Sue, Dana, Jean, Loofa, Steve, Guinevere, Betsy, Elizabeth, Life in the Fast Lane, Pointless Ballyhoo, Tanilan, BGOAB, Alex and Belinda, Aynde, Christy, Tamara, Aunt Tea, and so many other folks that I can't even list them all (I mean really...this list is already longer than the Mouseketeer Roll Call). If someone had told be a year ago that I could become friends with so many people who I've never met in the flesh and who are scattered all over the country, I'd never have believed them.

So thanks all and congrats! You've all helped me keep this thing going over the last year. May we all spend many more years together!

I've known for quite some time that October was going to be "The Month from Hell" (tm) - too many volunteer projects, work projects, book signings, and other STUFF, all competing for my time. Add to that the unexpected family freakiness and you've got a stressful month. However, there is an upside to all this activity...you get to meet new people...like the guy with the nice eyes that I got to volunteer with yesterday. *grin*

That aside, it's been just crazy around the Caffeinated Librarian household. But there have been a few articles and blogs that have caught my eye. So, let's begin the weekly Tour:

• This past weekend, I started to write an entry about the pink women's cut team jerseys that I've started seeing all over the place and how much they irritate me. My thought, "Do I really need to wear a pink jersey to remind myself that I'm a woman? Are there really men out there who would MISS the fact that I am woman at a game without me wearing the bright pink jersey? And if there are men out there who really are THAT stupid...I would hope they wouldn't be fans of one of my teams." But anyway, I was just about to write an entry about all that when I saw a BlogHer article by Sarah called "Sports Fans: We Don't Appreciate the Pandering," which covers most of my points and comes up with a few I hadn't thought of. Allow me to give you an "Amen," Lady.
• John over at Stank has had quite a few good entries the last couple of weeks include an ode his dog Ed, his take on the Foley mess, a story of a man and a baby, and an entry that I think ought to have been called "The Best Email Ever" ('cause it made me laught out loud). Oh yes, and he mocks the Seahawks fans again (I know you're shocked).
• It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as Mocha definitely knows. She also has a great story about "Cookies and Cooties."
• Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara has news. Oh and Chica, Chris says you, me and Bill need to write up something about comic books sometime soon.
• Speaking of Bill, he had some of his expectations disappointed on his recent trip, but at least he came back with a bunch of odds and ends to write about. (Oh, and by the way dude, the ability to introduce order into randomness is called "being a librarian.")
• Christy has an update on her life and a really chuckle-worthy news story to pass along.
• Aynde had an interesting conversation with her husband the other day (yeah, I agree Aynde, I'd like it just fine too).
• Sue's been quiet recently (hopefully everything is okay), but last week she had an update on her daughter, DQ, and Kansas basketball.
• There's been a lot of talk on BlogHer about the recent school shootings and the fact that the victims have all been girls. One of the overviews of all the recent entries on the subject can be found in this article by Suzanne Reisman.
• For those of you interested in environmental issues, the Gulf Coast Wetlands are also back in the news.
• There has also been some controversy over a blog called Walmarting Across America.
• I know that Loofa recently asked how (or perhaps why) folks can date multiple people at the same time. Coincidentally I came across a woman who has two part article on this subject...see part 1 and part 2, if you're interested.
• Dove's natural beauty campaign has been raising some eyebrows online.
• This site is called "Think Geek" - need I say more?
• Ever wonder where the phrase "cup of Joe" came from? Ever heard of fried Coke? Doesn't matter how you get your caffeine, it seems it's in the news these days.
• Surely by now everyone's seen the story about the scientists looking to create a real, live version of Harry Potter's invisiblity cloak.

Every year the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library hosts a festival of reading called "Novello." Usually the festival runs through October (although this year it goes well into November) and includes a variety of authors and other famous figures who give lectures, answer questions, and sign books. It's a wonderful festival and my mom and I try to go to at least on Novello event each year. So on Thursday we went to hear Doug Marlette, controversial political cartoonist and author, talk about his new book Magic Time and his first novel The Bridge, which I wrote a little about earlier in the week.

First of all, we both really enjoyed listening to Marlette; although he was obviously uncomfortable talking in front of an audience, he is very funny and quite an armchair philosopher. Some of his ideas were extremely interesting to me and I'm going to try to do them justice tonight. However, he covered a lot of information in about an hour, so if I mangle it hopelessly, please forgive me.

Two of the things Marlette talked about at length were: how do good people allow injustices to happen around them without doing anything and why are those injustices so frequently forgotten by the very people who were witnesses to them? He wrote both of his books, in part, to explore how this "collective amnesia" (as he called it) works because several members of his family were witnesses to two major events in the South. Like the character "Mama Lucy" in The Bridge, Marlette's grandmother was bayoneted by a National Guardsman during the General Textile Strike of 1934, an event he describes in his book as "[The] Closest we've ever come in this country to a revolution." (I'm assuming he's not counting the Revolutionary War or the Civil War). His father was part of the troops called up to search for missing Freedom Riders in Mississippi during the 1960s (as pictured in the movie "Mississippi Burning") and that was the inspiration for his new book, Magic Time.

Those are both pretty big historical events, right? But Marlette thought it was strange that he didn't learn about either story until he was well into his 40s. And when he asked his relatives who had witnessed these events for more information he found that they knew very little about the events themselves, despite having "Forrest Gump-like" (again, his words) front row seats.

So Marlette set out to find his own answers and in finding them he came to some conclusions about why some people who witness injustices can forget them so quickly. He called it the "Good German" principle: basically good, moral, generous regular folks witness an injustice (like the concentration camps in World War II Germany) and make excuses for those evils saying that they aren't really that bad ("they're just factories," for example). But when the truth comes to light and the nature of the horror right next door is exposed (as in the Holocaust), these same good people are left with a predicament: if they allowed these awful things to happen without doing anything to stop them, that may mean that they aren't quite as good as they thought they were. That realization is to much of a threat to their sense of themselves and their reality, so they either say the injustices never happened or bury the story through a kind of collective amnesia (in essence, forgetting is easier than dealing with the questions).

The idea has a lot of implications for the South...but for the purposes of Marlette's books, his theory explains how good, God-loving, Bible-quoting Southerners could justify and fight for segregation in the 1960s in the face of awful events like dogs and water cannons being used to attack protesters in the streets, firebombings of black churches, and the assassinations of so many Civil Rights leaders. It certainly explains how the General Textile Strike of 1934 could become one of the bloodier and most forgotten events in United States history.

I don't know, maybe the ideas that Marlette spoke about on Thursday are nothing new - maybe they're well known concepts that other folks talk about all the time. But they were lightning bolts for me, not only in relation to my own family and their tendency to "spin" or forget history that doesn't suit their needs, but also because of recent stories in the news. Because just when I think we're making progress, a story like this comes along that reminds me that we're only a hair's breath from those bad old days. And the only way to keep history from repeating itself is to speak out and to ask questions - even if the answers might lead us to truths about ourselves about which we aren't proud.

Guess what I had for dinner tonight. If you guessed sushi, give yourself a gold star.

I was talking to my mom tonight and she started telling me a story about when I was little, about five maybe, and her mother and my father's parents were all over at our house. I had gone to take a bath and my "Ma" (my fraternal grandmother) had gone in to check on me. Well, she had just rejoined the others when I came out of the bathroom, dripping wet and said, "Mama, Ma just said she loved me more than Grandmother [meaning my mom's mother]! Why did she say that?!" Needless to say things got a bit awkward after that and my mom, not knowing what to tell me, said, "Oh honey, Ma was just teasing you." That seem to satisfy me and I went back to the bathroom, promptly forgetting the whole thing. Of course it was a lie, my grandmother meant exactly what she said and my other grandmother never forgave her for it, but that's all really beside the point of why my mother was bringing up this story now.

She told me that she realized now (from the look on my face and the tone of my voice) that even at that age I knew that what my grandmother had said was wrong, that it was an injustice. And I was going to take care of it right then...or to quote her, "you stomped in there and held court; I mean how many five year olds do that to a group of adults?"

She also reminded me of another time, in high school, when our band director started verbally laying into a group of students in front of a gathering of the whole band and all of their parents. I stood up, in front of everybody, and told him in detail why he was wrong. I also told him how unfair it was for a man with a doctorate and a position of power to humiliate a group of high school students in front of their parents. It shocked the hell out of everyone because I was a shy, quiet and overly serious kid - not the type of student who would ever defy an authority figure or talk much above a whisper.

'Course, I remember that one and I remember parents coming up to me afterwards telling me how impressed they were. And I remember thinking, "What's the big deal? He was wrong and he ticked me off."

So what's point of all this? "Well," my mom said, "I was just thinking about your blog and how you get when you see an injustice. You get indignant and head off to fix it right then, just like you did when you were five and like you did in high school. I guess I've just never realized that you've always been this way. So I guess it makes sense that you should start a blog."

You heard it hear first folks: I was born to blog.

I know this will probably sound like false modesty, but the whole thing mystifies me a bit. My mom seems to see this as some wonderful heroic quality in me and she's very proud of it (and me). I find it to be more of an annoyance than anything; I can guarantee you that if I could just learn to keep my mouth shut instead of stomping into situations (like the one on MSN) full of fire and righteous indignation, demanding justice - if I could just shut up, my life would be much more tranquil and I'd probably a happier person in the long run. Because, quite frankly, not everybody loves a crusader and sooner or later someone's going to nail me, either verbally or physically, for pulling this crap. Sooner or later there will be consequences - it's a miracle it hasn't happened before now.

Of course it's no use knowing this - I'm not going to change. I wouldn't know how, quite frankly. It's not like I plan these things. Stuff just happens and the next thing I know I'm hip deep in it without remembering making the choice to wade in. So I guess I'll have to grin and bear it and hope that my luck holds.

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I'll try to work on the Tour tonight, but I can't promise you much at this point. I haven't felt up to doing much blog walking this week. But I'll give it a go and we'll see what happens.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in to my other blog comments to tell me about good things. It means a great deal to me and I promise I'll get to answering you each individually later. And keep them coming if you've got 'em - I have a feeling we could all use as many warm fuzzies as we can get.

Oh, and I am feeling much better tonight (almost forgot to mention THAT).

An MSN friend clued me into this emerging firestorm surrounding a former featured Spaces writer and very popular blogger. Although I have had no contact with the gentleman in question, I had noticed his comments on plenty of friend's blogs. Still, it is very surprising to discover that something like this is going on in the blogsphere. It shouldn't be really, since we know that all sorts of folks who prey upon others lurk in real life - of course they would be online also. Still, it makes me sad - not only for the women involved, but also for the innocent men who may feel "painted with the same brush" of suspicion.

I wish I had something witty or wise to sum the whole thing up, but I don't - I'm just dumbfounded.

Start at the first post on Jeannie's blog, then follow to her post here and here.

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Addendum (11-03):

If you go looking for these post now you'll find they've been deleted, which puzzles me. On the one hand I understand: the ladies involved were worried that MSN would shut them down and they were bothered by the tone of some of the commenters on the posts who were, rightfully I think, angry about EZ's actions. But on the other hand, any trace of this whole effort is now gone and can no longer benefit future women who might fall under his "spell." Yes, people are more aware now, but turn over on blogs is pretty high so that won't last long.

Plus, to be honest, I feel a little duped: why did I bother getting so hot and bothered over something that had this little permanence? And besides, the mutual pat-on-the-back fest that's replaced the posts of the last few days irks me...and I can't put my finger on quite why. Perhaps because I thought the point was to DO something, not just for everyone to feel good about themselves.

If the folks involved go on to create some sort of blog to inform women about how to beware of online predators then that's wonderful; there's definitely a need for that sort of thing and when/if it's completed THEN this whole thing will have accomplished something. For my part, the main lesson I've learned from this situation is to be a little more leery of lending my two cents and my blogs to the causes of folks I don't know.

And on that uplifting note, Happy Tuesday.

Blame

I wrote such a beautiful book for you
'Bout rainbows and sunshine
And dreams that come true.
But the goat went and ate it
(You knew that he would),
So I wrote you another one
Fast as I could.
Of course it could never be
Nearly as great
As that beautiful book
That silly goat ate.
So if you don't like
This new book I just wrote-
Blame the goat.

~From A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

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I love Shel Silverstein. Before I could even read, my mother recorded an audiotape of her reading his poems so that I could listen to them at night when I couldn't sleep or when I was scared of the dark. As I got older I started flexing my vocabulary muscles by reading his books myself and, of course, his drawings still make me laugh today. I suspect I'm not alone in my love for A Light in the Attic and Where the Side Ends - I'm sure many of you enjoyed them too when you were growing up.

So would it surprise you to learn that A Light in the Attic is number 51 on the list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000?

My good bud Mocha came up with this great plan to spotlight Banned Booked Week, which runs from September 23-30, by writing about some of her favorite banned books and why she loves them. I think it's a wonderful idea and I hope others of you will go to this American Library Association website to learn more about book challenges and bans and perhaps write about your favorite banned books.

However, what really surprised me as I read Mocha's post was how many commenters didn't know that that books were still being banned in this country. I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised - unless you’ve been involved with a book challenge or work for a library that has fought one, there's really no reason for you to know. Me, I didn't have much of an option about that since my mom is a retired middle school librarian. I well remember her fighting book challenges in her school, in fact two of the books that were challenged in her library are in the top 30 of the most banned books list.

The banning of books always confused me as a child, I just could never wrap my head around the idea of books being a bad or dangerous things, something that I needed to be protected from. Part of that was because my parents, both avid book lovers and passionate supporters of free speech, never put limits on my reading habits. There was nothing that was forbidden to me and I was encouraged to follow my interests wherever they lead. And I think my childhood was the better for that freedom, it allowed me to discover who I was and what I was passionate about very early on...and what I was passionate about was words. Weird and wonderful words, like the kind I found in Shel Silverstein's poems and another well loved children's book (and number 25 on the Most Banned Books List) In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak.

As an adult, I understand the impulse to protect children a little more...the world is a scary place and parents have to work harder than ever to keep their kids safe. But I'm still a little puzzled at how a book of poems about buckin' broncos, unscratchable itches, and a girl who turns everything she touches into jello is really a threat to childhood innocence. I also wonder how adults make the leap from deciding that they don't like a book and that they don't want their kids to read it, to deciding it should be removed from the library's shelves so that no one can read it.

All this week, I'm going to try my best to write a few posts about banned books, libraries, and librarians (although perhaps not in that order). I can't promise you any answers, just a lot of opinions and a passion for the written word.

Oh, and since I started this thing with my good friend Shel, let me end with my favorite of his poems:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The impossibles, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
~"Listen to the Mustn'ts" by Shel Silverstein

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For more on this topic, go to my other space:

• Banning a Book
  
• BBW and More Tour de Blog

*sigh*

Let's see how this works: Technorati Profile

Oh, and there are also entries to read at my other place.

I know you're all getting as tired of reading it as I am of typing it.

One day I will have time to post on MSN again. Until then, the blog entries...they are here and here.

It was a busy night and morning and evening.

So go here for the Tour.

I promised I'd get back to this at some point.

Anyone else finding it difficult to login to MSN on the weekend?

The above explains this and this. ("Jump, jump!" - and yes, BGOAB, I'm stealing from you.)

I'll probably add it here later, but I'm running late this morning so just go here for the moment.

So....do you like pickles?

My mom is now the proud owner of a brand new Rav4. She's practically giddy about the car: "It's my size" she says, with lots of little hiddie holes in the back so all of her "just in case" gear is stowed out of the way, she has plenty of space to haul her plants/dirt, and she got the "Sports Package" upgrade with a 4 disk cd changer. In short, it's a sweet ride.

When we were at the dealership, the young, twenty-something chickie going through the manual and keys kept looking at me as she talked. In the back of my mind I thought, "She thinks this is my car." Sure enough, when I got up to show another employee which license tag to switch, the chickie remarked to my mom, "This is YOUR car? But this is a young person's car!"

Strangely my mom let her walk away with her eyes and limbs in tact. I take that as a sign that she was in a good mood.

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Lessons Learned This Weekend at the DMV:

1. Never show up at the DMV at 3 pm. You'll still be standing in line with at least thirty of your closest friends at 5:00 when DMV folks lock the doors. At least they didn't make us all leave.
2. If you're going to change car titles, make sure to call your insurer BEFORE you get in line at the DMV. Otherwise the DMV Dudette may refuse to give you your title until you have proof of insurance and you'll end up on your cell phone trying to holler over thirty of your closest friends to change your policy.
3. Never go to the DMV when you're sick. 'Nuff said.
4. Never take a child who just got his shots for school to the DMV. He may end up kicking, hitting and screaming at the sick librarian who is about two seconds from losing it. And yes I know, it wasn't his fault because he felt bad. Join the club, little dude, and don't thwack me with that huge stuffed rabbit again.

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Saturday was rainy so we spent a lot of on my mom's porch. She had the screened porch built a couple of years ago, although it had been in my dad's original plan for the house from before it was built. When she decided to make the cats indoor-only pets, she started leaving them out there a lot, many times unsupervised, until G-Cat started chewing his way through parts of the screen in order to pull a Houdini. The funny thing was that when she found him afterwards he never ran away from her, in fact he'd come strolling up to her as pleased as punch. It was like, "Look what I did, Mama!"

Anyway, she decided to make the porch more of a sun room as a result - had someone glass in the lower portion that the cats could reach and install a series of polymer panels up top that could be raised (for a sun room effect) or lowered (for a screen porch one). It looks really nice and sitting out there on my mom's white wicker furniture was wonderful: surrounded by the various greens of the woods, the ceiling fan causing the wind chimes to sing, and rain in the gutters sounding like drops on a tin roof.

Then my mom called me today...

MCL: "Tell your mother she's an idiot."
Me: *Short pause as various remarks go through my head, before I opt for the safe response* "You're an idiot, mom. Now why are you an idiot?"

Seems she had gone out to do some errands and, since it was such a nice day and the G-Cat was being so good, she left him out there by himself with the panels all pulled down.

You see where this is going, right?

Sure enough, she got back and there he was, trotting up to meet her. Houdini, the Master of Illusion escapes again....this time he climbed in between he polymer panels and the screen to chew his way out. *Ffppptt* Stupid cat.

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And on TV...

Are you ready for some football? I am. I cannot tell you how happy I was to watch my Panthers play their preseason game this past Saturday. It's a sure sign that Fall is not far behind. (And my main man Julius Peppers even got a sack. Pure bliss.)

What are you watching tonight? Me, I'm looking forward to the new episode of Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. It starts at 10 pm so sorry folks, I gotta go. Oh, but I am feeling better - today is the last day of my antibiotics and I am tentatively optimistic. I do have to say that after talking with various medical folks (my pharmacist, my doctor's partner, etc.), the best advice I got was from Future Dr. Cara. After I upped my yogurt intake everything got much better. Thanks Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara!

I'm heading to see MCL this weekend; it's a trip that we knew would happen sometime this month but we weren't sure when until today. Why? My mom My mom has been interested in getting a new car for a while and she's been looking for one that she wanted, something that won't cost too much to own but will let her haul stuff like dirt and plants for her yard. She finally found one and so off we go. What that means for you is that the Tour is going to be rather brief because I still have to pack. Sorry 'bout that, but that's life...what can you do

Okay, for the folks who are new to the Tour de Blog, here's the story. I wanted a way to share with my friends and family blogs and blog entries that I had found interesting (or funny, inspiring, whatever) with my friends and family. So I began writing lists every Friday a short introduction to the entry and a link. And, surprisingly to me at least, folks seem to enjoy it - so I do it every week.

Now, on with the show:

• If you have not yet read Belinda's wonderful entry about being an advocate for her family's health care or her husband Alex's equally eloquent entry about the same subject from his perspective, then get to it. It is without a doubt a must read, and I don't say that often. I do have to wonder what conversation at the family dinner is like in the Ninja Poodles household when you have two such articulate people in the same family. I'm betting there are rhyming couplets being tossed around left and right.
• WHW tells about what's been going on in his life for the last week and about his "bizarro magnetism" (his words, not mine).
• Chris and the kids had an interesting time at the county fair (once you read that entry, this follow up probably won't surprise you).
• Soon-to-be-Dr.-Cara is home and has plenty to say about what happened while she was gone.
• T proves that she's not only a FABulous teacher, she's also a MTV video fanatic.
• BGOAB debates whether to mow or ride, and relates his weekend plans.
• John over at Stank is rarely effusively positive about anything (that doesn't involve the Steelers, that is), so when he speaks glowingly about the new Google Toolbar you should probably listen.
• Sue's been spreading her wings at Blogger too, and this week she wrote about her trip to the cemetery. Back on her original space, she wrote a really great entry about what it means to really listen to people. Well done, Sue. I can barely keep up with answering comments on two blogs this week and here you are writing a bunch of great things on two spaces.
• This week Mocha got back from her trips of the past two weeks and got debriefed on what happened back home.
• Loofa wrote a very nice entry on whether blog friendships are real. I read a BlogHer article on the same subject not long ago and thought, "Hmmmm...I should write about that." Oh well. *grin* Yet another thing to add to my "to blog" list.
• I read two articles that I though folks might be interested in. For Aynde and Jordan there's an article on a new Bollywood film. And for those of us who grew up watching and loving the Muppets, there's an article on a new puppet project by Jim Henson's son.

So I got antibiotics from my doctor last Friday to hopefully kill off the sinus infection I've had for about three weeks. Well, it's worked out pretty well for the most part - my head is feeling MUCH better.

There's only one problem. Well, there are two actually.

The first is that this particular antibiotic is well known for cause...intestinal distress, if you know what I mean.

The second is that I work on a floor without a bathroom.

You see the problem. So I was out of work...again. I am so thankful that my boss is very, very understanding and that my co-workers are such good sports about me being out. And I'm glad I only have six more days of this crap (pun VERY much intended).

---

*sigh* I just love my mom.

It's going to be a long weekend and I have a lot of reading to do. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to really put in the effort to make it feel like home.

Attila, I'm heading off with the hordes...

Not much to catch you up on in my life this week. I've been sick (still), I've got a doctors appointment tomorrow (*insert Monty Python "yay" here*), accessing Spaces has been difficult (thank goodness they got the majority of the problems cleared up by tonight), and it's hot outside (blah). Work is work - although I've apparently been such a grumpy, snappish type person the last few weeks that everybody is either avoiding me or only poking their head in for a second to ask whatever they have to before heading for the hills as fast as they can. Oh well, I'm too tired to care about it much right now.  

And since I haven't felt like exercising or fixing anything but quick and easy crap, I've gained weight...so my clothes are uncomfortable. Yeah, it's just been that kind of summer.

But it's going to get better, I know it. Tomorrow I'm going to get meds and be back to my usually sunny self again in no time. Right? Right. Now, on to the Tour.

• No surprise, but the move to "Live" is the talk of MSN Spaces. To be fair, it's early yet - but the initial problems were enough to prompt several folks like Bill, BGOAB and myself to think about moving elsewhere. I can't speak for the guys, but I plan to investigate my options for a little bit. I may not end up going through with it but I'd like to know what the other possibilities are out there.
• This has been quite a week for T. First she was featured by MSN, then she had possibly the worst first day back at school ever, and then she had a visit by some cute firemen (and not a good kind of visit). Go by and say something nice to her, please, she deserves it.
  
• Prudence is still resting after her surgery, but Chris tells us about daughter Panda's adventures in pie making and competing at the county fair.
• WHW gives us a list of the things running through his mind at the moment and, trust me, it's a bit...how can I put this politely? Diverse. Yeah, that'll do. ("Palmetto" trees...*grrrrrr*.) Oh, and if you haven't yet seen his ode to parenting, you should check it out.
  
• Time to catch up with Aynde - seems she's been talking with birds, pondering her karma, and moving in with Mongo.
• Ninja Poodles has had a lot of good entries this week, including dealing with the backlash from her "Barnyard" post. (A Bogus Steve Oederkerk? What a loser in the Game of Life.) If that doesn't butter your bread, check out Belinda discussing her mixed feelings about her daughter's preschool interview. But, MY personal favorite is the entry where Belinda starts suspecting that there's something going on between her husband and Mocha.
• Speaking of Belinda's husband, he has his own blog where he's announcing the completion of "Tater," his potato cannon - which I just find frightening (there's a STUN GUN in it, daggnabbit!). Anyone want to place bets on how long it'll be until WHW makes one of these with his boys?
  
• Speaking of Mocha, she catches us up on events at BlogHer. And yeah, Dana, I wish I had been there too.
• John over at Stank makes some observations about the sign at The Kingston Christian Church.
• I have plenty of good BlogHer articles, like this one from Jory Des Jardins about whether it's "selling out" to partner with mainstream advertisers on your blog. I also enjoyed Liz Rizzo's entry on her reaction when he doesn't call (been there, done that a few times). And apparently there is quite a discussion going on about whether to be or not be a mommyblogger. It's not something I really have to worry about, thank goodness, but I can understand the debate since it very much reflects the tension I often see between the Singles and Couples-With-Kids.
• And finally, just for Mama Christy, there's proof that her choice to look on the positive side of life can pay major health dividends.
• Thought I was done until I ran into this entry by Purls Before Swine - all I can say is "wow" and "I wish..."