Put Yourself to Bedlam

"To see the Summer Sky is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie - True Poems flee." ~ Emily Dickenson

After a marathon of work and social activities, ahead of me these next FIVE days lay whatever summer delights I can fill them with.

Of course I've a longish list of not so fun activities - all just as neglected as my musings on PYtB, but there are plenty-o-fun pursuits to choose from as well.

This week represents the last call to put up strawberries, as the local harvest is in decline. I've ordered a flat of local berries and plan to make jam and freeze a few to enjoy in the depths of winter - a delicious taste of summer's sweetness held in reserve like a culinary time capsule.

If I had to classify this summer in one word - what stands out the most is MUSIC. I've stumbled upon the most incredible new group of friends - mostly musicians.

Through the kind host of Anna and Dave' who brew their own beer and invite their huge group of artistic friends to taste it on Wednesday afternoons at what they've dubbed "The Hump Day Brewery, they've opened up a whole new world to me. Not only is the beer incredible - always a new flavor - anything from beet, to heather or dandelion and last week's spectacular hop free english style ale, that tasted more like a beer ade than a classic beer - So refreshing! So talented both of them.

Every Hump Day the people gather at their place, and after a beer or two someone will begin playing an instrument, and then another will join and often many others. I've seen up to 15 musicians jamming at once of every caliber playing anything from folk/rock covers to pure unadulterated improv. I have even joined in with a washboard and bottle cap  - and I've been known to tap my beer glass with a lighter or whatever - the music is positively contagious.

Through them I've met my new dear friend Christine - the dynamo that spends what appears to be every waking hour trying to make a difference and connect people with similar inclinations. She got me involved in helping out the Intervale by taking pics during their Thursday evening concert series, It's always a good time with lots of beautiful families with their beautiful babies running around enjoying the grounds and tunes. Photo ops galore.

As I was writing the above, my daughter stopped by, not unusual winter or summer, but the rounds of drop by guests definitely do increase in warmer months. My friends Frieda and Brandon followed soon after and before I knew it, three hours had passed and the beginning of an art project I'd been talking about for a few weeks.

I have this idea for a photo series turning boobs into representational gardens. Brandon was so kind as to allow me to color in his bird tats and build a little flower feeder for them.

Now I have to go deal with those strawberries and a few of those less exciting tasks I mentioned.

Hope all is well with all my friends and readers.
Happy summer!
XXKHT

"I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer.  My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music.  It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips. " ~Violette Leduc,

Mad in Pursuit

Now I've seen everything....

Fun with Site Meter Stats:

Good luck mate!
XXKHT

“Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.” ~ Leo Rosten

I think this month of blogging every day has had the opposite effect I'd hoped for.

Instead of forcing me to be more creative and disciplined, it frustrated and bored me. Compelled to post every day, I fell back on talking about the easiest thing...myself.

I realize PYtB has become little more than a Myspace page most of these days and I'm a pretty sick about it. It took a little over four months to become fabulously boring. It's like a love affair gone quickly stale, after you got your hopes up by it's electric beginnings.

I blame the 31 in 31, but not because it's a bad idea for everyone -  it was just a bad idea for me. In future, if I decide to accept a daily writing discipline challenge, I'll do it privately and only publish what's worthy.

On the other hand, I suppose starting another blog simultaneously to the exercise may have had something to do with it...

Bah!
XXKHT

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.” ~William Faulkner

Today plain got away from me.

It started out well enough. I sent out a job application first thing. After that I put on some housecleaning music and danced around deep speed cleaning. I vacuumed, which may not seem like much to you readers, but if you knew how much I hate the noisy heavy machine...

Then the doorbell rang and it was my daughter Ash with my surrogate daughter Hillary (Ash's best friend) and Ash's new beau, Rob, a kid I used to work with at Shitty Markup. A kid I was particularly fond of, so this is good news.

But there went my day; before I could say linguini, dinner plans were being made and the rest of the day was consumed with the making of it.

• Thai Chicken Stir Fry with Homemade Linguini, Asparagus and Broccoli

• Fresh Fruit Salad with Mango, Orange and Pineapple

• Green Salad (Ash insisted) with Romaine, Red Onion, English Cucumber, Avocado, Local Goat Cheese, and excellent quality EVOO and Red Wine Vinegar.

• Dark Chocolate & Lime Pie - a Key Lime adadptation with Chocolate Cookie Shell, Lime Custard, Chocolate Ganache and Unsweetened Whipped Cream

• Red Wine and Awake Dark Star Coffee

And a good time was had by all - except for maybe you :oP
XXKHT

*Sorry there are no pics
Recipes available on request.

Introducing....drum roll please.......

Anyone who reads this regularly (and I'm pleased and honored that a few of you do) knows that I've been beating back the blue demons of late winter. A few of these past days have been more like Holly Golightly's "mean reds..."

There was nothing for it but to start another blog. For certain I'm crazy to begin one right now, considering I really do need to start looking for traditional employment (outside of the house! - sharp inhale) and I'm doing the NaBloPoMo 31 posts in 31 days challenge here at PYtB.

Who cares?! Bring it!

Besides, I love the garden. I've never been so happy in my life as in that tiny patch of ground. Could it be a prelude to my ultimate future actually in the ground? Who cares if it is. Gardening is as orgasmic as anything - instead of just your body gone euphoric, you're entire being does so.

If you're not a gardener, you probably think I'm exaggerating. Below is a short list of behavioral changes that happen to me in relation to the garden.

1. My eyes well up in garden supply stores
2. I arrange seed packets (aka veggie porn) in relevant piles and imagine then as my embryonic plants
3. I whirl like a Dervish just thinking about the first weeks of gardening to come
4. I obsessively lurk in gardening sites and blogs (ok, maybe not a behavioral change but certainly focused!)
5. I started my own gardening blog in the middle of 31 in 31

So here you go. If this isn't enough for ya, here's some more:

The Life of A Garden

In TLoAG, I will attempt to journal one full season as a community gardener - from starting seeds, to planting, maintenance and all the way through food preservation. There will be plenty of recipes as well.

Isn't that just so dang cute? Isn't it? I know, I know.

Maybe I'm bi-polar like my mommy. Only at least in my case, I have an outlet for each of my two halves - Put Yourself to Bedlam for my Cynic with a Sense of Humor and The Life of A Garden for my Hopelessly Hopeful Romantic Do-Gooder Plant Junkie.

It doesn't get any better'n this...
XXKHT

B'days on this auspicious day: Douglas "Don't forget to bring a towel" Adams (55); Bobby "I'm way too happy" McFerrin (57); Rupert "I want all the money and your collective will to live" Murdoch (76); Lawrence "Made Grandma Squirm" Welk (104)

"I am a jelly doughnut!" ~ Herr John F. Kennedy

One fun thing to do with a blog is to analyze the stats on the site meter; the details are fascinating.

Yesterday, in a fit of boredom - or rather procrastination - I sorted the visitors by their entry pages. To my inexplicable but extreme pleasure, I found that someone had used google to translate my page into German.  If you haven't tried this with your own blog, I highly recommend it.

It's especially fun to read the categories:

"My Life Retarded with KHT" becomes "Mein Leben mit verzögerte KHT"
"Are Thems The Thoughts of Cows?" becomes "Sind sie die Gedanken der Kühe?"
"Weather or Not" becomes "Wetter (oder nicht)"

Bestellung von Joel Veitch, die wahrscheinlich Crush deinen Willen zu leben  in English is: Stuff by Joel Veitch that will probably crush your will to live"

Anyhoo....if you're really really bored, it's something to do. Or you could paint by numbers. Or do some sudoku, or something.

XXKHT
Missed her train cuz of the dang weather. Can you believe it?

Too Smart For Me

Spent a little time in the blog Sadly, No! today. Way too smart for me, but I'll read it anyway hoping to glean a few kernels here and there.

Anyhoo...they lifted this from YouTube and I'm sharing the joy.

As Sadly, No! says, "Kids today, with their YouTubes and their video editing skills"

Love Bowie!
XXKHT

At a Loss...

On a borrowed computer, I'm here to report, that my problems with the iBook are not a simple power adapter problem after all.

Worst case scenario: it's the logic board (apple's version of a motherboard) and if so, it could cost me more than a new PC. Why not just buy a new PC then? Because all of my software, including Photoshop, is for mac.

I'll do my best to post, but it certainly won''t be anything close to everyday (not that I've been all that attentive over the holidays anyway) and we'll see how the whole situation pans out.

According to my horoscope:

January 07, 2008

1. Libra (9/23-10/22)

   Get ready for a major surge of creativity today! Sharpen your pencils, free up some memory on your computer, and stretch those brainstorming muscles! A hurricane of brilliant ideas is headed straight for your brain, and it's bound to cause a flood. This is the beginning of a very productive period, full of positive changes. Learn from good old-fashioned trial and error. Resist the urge to censor yourself, and you'll spit out a remarkable new idea.

You never know...

XXKHT

"Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible", she said, "but that alone doesn't make it true." --Franz Kafka

I'm all about the site counter these days. The first step is admitting my compulsion to look up how people arrived here. I tell myself I'm studying the logistics of self promotion. Ha. Ha. HA.

Tonight, (a presumably bored) someone from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia typed "funny blog" into the Google Blogsearch and Put Yourself to Bedlam came up 11th in the queue. I am shocked to say the least, but yay PYTB!

Anyhoo...I decided to try the search myself and found that number 12 on the list is a blogging tutorial. Not only that, but today's topic is closely related to one I blogged about recently:

Why Your Blog’s Theme is Indispensable to Blog Monetization

which offers such helpful advice as:

If you are blogging about something that very few people will be interested in you can be sure that you will also get very few traffic, and thus, even less income from your blog. On the other hand, blogging about a topic that is very popular isn’t also always a good idea especially if you are not that knowledgeable about that topic. This reason for this is because a popular topic will surely have lots of blogs already about it, and unless you are an expert most people won’t bother spending time reading your blog, as opposed to the experts’ blogs. Instead what you should do is spend a lot of time thinking about what your blog really should be about.

and ends with:

On my next post I will be discussing how you should about finding a blog topic that would suit you.

How practical! How sage. How grammar. 

So the tutorial says that if I find a subject on which I'm expert and then blog about it - or something  super interesting that nobody else is blogging about, I could make $$!?

Maybe me blog monies some day. Maybe. 
I'll assume the sarcasm demographic is saturated.
XXKHT

"Monetization is the process of converting or establishing something into legal tender. It usually refers to the printing of banknotes blogs by central banks, but things such as gold vblogs, silver profiles and diamonds moneys can also be monetized. - Bastardized from wiki

""We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before." --John Perry Barlow; A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

I believe in the powers of the internet 100%. I'll even go so far as to say I think it may be our best and possibly only hope for survival.

It's the last bastion of free speech. Despite it's fallibility, it's the supreme source of information. When and if they try to take it away, I have faith the hackers will keep one step ahead.

It's the greatest medium yet created - a collective consciousness teeming with ideas that are constantly reaching to become bigger, better, more powerful, and ever more influential.

It's the greatest encyclopedic library in history and it's nearly free! It requires no physical space, and is instantly accessible. It can travel practically anywhere.

It's also powerfully addictive, with its infinite entertainments, horrors and enlightenments. It connects people one to another even as it isolates them.

It is the nearest thing to a legitimate Godhead we have - and just like the deities before it, it is the product of our minds.

And the blogosphere is its collective journal. The living, growing embodiment of the diary of our world; time stamping its way to become the most comprehensive record in history.

Jacked from Silenced Majority Portal - A short film promoting blogs and bloggers. DiAnne, the author of SMP is one of the interviewees. Congrats!

With Reverence...
XXKHT

"You can't take something off the Internet - it's like taking pee out of a pool." --News Radio