Whatnot

A very strange word.

Strange words are often more strange when said multiple times in quick succession.

Whatnot
Whatnot
Whatnot
Whatnot
Whatnot

We don't say it on it's own. Often it is said at the end of a sentence as a sort of et cetera. Like your sentence is pretty much done, but there are still a lot of little things laying around that the sentence needs to pick up before it's clean, and it just uses "whatnot" to accomplish the task. A little sentence cleaner upper.

Maybe it's more like a sentence junk drawer because it is a combination of the words "what" and "not". Which is strange, because those two words together imply that the sentence you are finishing is "not" exactly "what" it seems to be.


Here's the definition:

what·not /ˈʰwʌtˌnɒt, ˈʰwɒt-, ˈwʌt-, ˈwɒt-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hwuht-not, hwot-, wuht-, wot-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	a stand with shelves for bric-a-brac, books, etc.

2.	something or anything of the same or similar kind: sheets, pillowcases, towels, napkins, and whatnot.

---

[Origin: 1530–40; from the phrase what not?]



Still makes no sense to me. Notice how it states that the word refers to "anything of the same or similar kind..." From the sound of it, it should refer to anything of a different kind, what with the not and all.


Which just adds more evidence to my notion that people of the 16th century just didn't have a clue. It may have been because they were often seen standing and pretending to read books with podiums coming out of their shoulders and funny hats with halos and whatnot.

I know. I should be sleeping, but I prefer thinking about nonsense. Sleeping just puts me to sleep.

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (So Why is There a Lump in My Throat?)

I just read Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. It's about a boy with ADHD and a less than ideal start family-wise. I'll give it five stars, but you have to be geared up for it if your kid has "something" or you have "something". I don't know if the author intended for this to happen, but I cried through the whole damn book.

Study: HypoThyroidism Linked to Obsessive Blog Posting and Excessive Donut Consumption

In a double blind study conducted over two days of one female subject aged 34 who forgot to take her 150 mg of Armour Thyroid.

Six chocolate donuts, one gigantic chocolate chunk cookie from the cafe Barnes and Noble, 3 pancakes with peanut butter and syrup. Three beers (one with a chocolate donut perched momentarily on the rim for humorous effect on hubby.) 4 Blog Posts. One illustration. Three loads of laundry on the pool table.

Now get me my medicine.

(Maybe a Motrin too. )

Wisdom (Or Why I Can't Make it Through a Yoga Class Without Laughing Dandelion Tea Out My Nose)

The other night when I was up way too late for my own good and my husband was snoring away next to me, I got to chuckling. I had a funny thought that stemmed from a conversation I had with a yoga instructor friend of mine. She was telling me about energy lines in our bodies, and why we sit with our index finger to our thumb when we meditate. She told me that once upon a time, gurus would spend as much as 20 years isolated in caves for the purpose of studying these lines. One guru may spend years only focused on the index finger, or the middle finger. She told me the middle finger was the finger of wisdom. I just can't shake this picture in my mind of a naked, wizened and worn old guru staggering out of a cave with his middle finger fully extended and exclaiming to the crowd "I got your wisdom right here! Now get me a big bean burrito!"

But the whole middle finger/wisdom thing makes sense. Often this finger has been used on me, and the dose of wisdom was instant.

Ajeet, forgiveness is divine, but I think an immature sense of humor is diviner. Yes?

Hey, put that finger back.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is a celebration of all the people whose birthdays I have forgotten or haven't properly acknowledged this September. I'm not so good at birthdays. Usually it's because I want to do something so great for you, because you're so great, and I look around for the best present for days, then I stress out because I haven't found anything. Then your birthday passes and I feel too guilty to call. Then I send you something as quick as I can. (Yes Monica, this bit is about you:)).

But I can't neglect to remember the birthday I remembered not to forget, which is the birthday of one of my most favorite-ist people in the whole world. I remembered her birthday today. And her birthday is actually tomorrow! So pat me on the back.

September is a big birthday month on my calendar.... So put a floppy red bow in your hair and twirl around in that pouffy blue sateen dress, and sing along!

(Yes, you too,Sam.)



Happy birthday
happy birthday -
Happy birthday
happy birthday -
Happy birthday
happy birthday.

Happy
happy birthday in a hot bath
To those nice
nice nights.
I remember always
always I got such a fright.
Seeing them in my dark cupboard with my great big cake.
If they were me
if they were me
And I was you and I was you -
If they were me and I was you
Would you have liked a present too.

Happy
happy birthday in a hot bath . . .

Happy birthday
happy birthday - . . .

They Got Him

Johnia Berry's murderer has been nabbed.

The composite sketch is the most accurate one I've ever seen. Her roommate had a good memory. The only thing off a bit are the brows. Brows make a big difference in a face, but the composite is very close anyway.

One of the Best Songs Ever

This is a shower song of mine. The water droplets and I cry together when I sing it.




I love how Paul Simon plays the whole guitar, and how the guitar and the voice are so bountiful in their simplicity. The songbook I have doesn't show the chords I see him playing in the video, but that's probably because most of us morons who went out and bought the songbook, are ...well.... morons. At least compared to Paul Simon.

Laser Treatments Can Scar You

Wow, this article could have been written about me, except that I had my scar-i-fying laser treatments done in a medical office.

Time

16 years ago I was 18 and I posed for a picture in my new orange dress that I just finished sewing from a vintage pattern. Due to the mirroring effect, and the fact that this post is about me me me, you don't see my boyfriend of the time in the picture. He's posing with a blue velvet jacket and a pipe. Two years after this photo was taken, I gave the dress away to that same boyfriend's new love (and his wife today). It looked stunning on her. I had no idea at the time that it looked so stunning on me. *Sigh* 16 years ago, I was 18. 16 years from now, I will be 50.

Ladies, we are younger today than we will ever be. If you haven't done so yet, find an orange dress, some red tights and a kick ass platinum blonde wig and get your picture taken. And don't waste your time in front of the mirror.

Funny Picture

This is my highly flexible son when he was about 8 months old. See how the foot on the right is turned? Sheesh. He walked very late. I think it was because he was too rubbery to hold himself up.

I think this photo looks like someone just threw some doll parts in a car seat with a towel and took a picture.

(If you've had a baby on a long road trip, you know what the towel's for.)

Pastel Painting

I told my hairstylist when he asked me to do a color portrait for him, that I don't do color, I only draw with pencils in black and white. I've always had a problem working with colors. The image either gets too muddy or facial features get blurred out and undefined. But when he handed me the photo of his wife and daughter on the beach, I couldn't imagine how it could be done in graphite. So I bought some pastelboard and pulled out my colors and this is what happened. This is the first painting I've ever completed without it ending up in the trash. I think I'll send off for it to be printed on some art paper.

I had my friends Beth and Tony come over, and I pretended that I was having a little reception for my new painting, but it was more of a grill out. Tony took photos of my painting with a very nice digital camera, and I am very thankful, because all of the images seemed like keepers.

Here's the same piece of art through a tungsten filter. It seems like cheating having it printed after it's been digitally altered. But anyway, whatever. I think it's prettier through the filter. What do you think?

Windows

Ever had something glaringly obvious hit you in the face and wonder how you ever could have missed it? I had that experience two days ago. The kids and I were sitting around the table and Jake (a.k.a Captain Obvious Life Sportscaster) said, "I can feel the wind coming through the window."

BING!

Josie and I, in unison, said "Huh. Wind! Window!"

Is the word "window" a simplified version of "wind door"?

I've been around windows my whole life. I've opened them mainly to let the wind in, but strangely I've always thought of them as light sources, and air sources, but never "wind" sources, otherwise I would have made the connection.

Sorry to My Loyal Fan(s?)

I haven't posted anything worth much, but you should see the other creative endeavors in which I am endeavoring to be creative.

I'll post the art when I'm done.

Big Numbers and A Seal.

The kids were arguing about the population of the United States, New York, Tennessee, and the world this morning, so we consulted to oracle for the numbers.

The population of New York City alone outstrips the population of all of Tennessee by approx 2.2 million people.

I said to them, "Take all of Tennessee, cram it into one city and add another 2 million people to that." Josie, in all of her linguistic glory, exclaimed "Wow! New York is so overpopulated! It's like the locusts infesting the savanna!"

I really had no idea how large New York City really was. I did have a clue that the state of Tennessee still has many wide open spaces when I flew over it last week. Which reminds me, I'm supposed to blog my Florida trip.

Here's a cute photo of a seal I got.

"Yes, I know, everybody tells me how cute I am."

(He needs a better caption if anyone has any ideas.)

In 1980 I Had a Turntable.

I was going through all the vinyl in the basement closet. Hubby's Souxsie and the Banshees, Cure, Shriekback, etc...my Air Supply (or my sister's I guess), Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper etc.... I found my Chipmunk Punk! I loved this album when I was little. When I was 7, I was hearing some of these songs for the first time, like "Good Girls Don't", sung by animated chipmunks. I still hear Alvin when I hear that song and I giggle a bit.

It's not actually punk, but that rhymes with "chipmunk". Here are the tracks:

Let's Go- R. Ocasek
Good Girls Don't- D. Fieger
How Do I Make You- B. Steinberg
Refugee-T. Petty
Frustrated- that D. Feiger dude again
Call Me- D. Harry
You May Be Right- B. Joel
Crazy Little Thing Called Love- F. Mercury
My Sherona- once again, Feiger.

I'm going to go on an audio tour of the net and see if I can't dredge one of these up.

Here's a commercial for it.

More on That Study. Or That Study for Morons. Whichever.

Scott Adams picked up on the "Conservatives are Stupid" study on his Dilbertblog. Yes I did get a kick out of it. I love some of the comments. One person remarked on the study where subjects were supposed to type an "M" or "W" quickly and concluded that the reason that libs did so well on the challenge was that liberals must play more video games than conservatives. Whether true or not, his conclusion seems more logical than the psychologists'. But that's my problem, I'm too logical. I am a conservative, and therefore I have no mental gauge for nuance.

Hat Tip: Dad

Great Autism Video

I love this song too. Watch it all the way to the end.





My kid may have to conduct all of her mega corporate business meetings from beneath the conference table in a cardboard box, but with 1 in 160 dealing with this stuff I expect to see inflatable under desk "conference boxes" equipped with noise canceling headphones in our future.

I Should Get a Special Parking Place

Conservatism is a psychological disability. It's true, cause I read it on Yahoo news.

So an assistant professor of psychology at NYU who has spent the last few years dedicated to the study of prejudice and the neurology of guilt and racism has hooked a whole 43 people up to electrodes in order to study their brains during a simulated driving test. From this small study the conclusion has been reached that while liberals are adaptable and flexible towards different ways of thinking, conservatives are neurologically stunted and have only habitual reactions to new situations. The article closes with the suggestion that with "experience", "rigid" conservatives' neurology can change and they can overcome their disability and grow into good "nimble-minded" liberal progressives. I mean, you'd be crazy to want it the other way around. Who would want to move from being an enlightened liberal to become a stunted and ignorant conservative.

Nature Neuroscience published the study, and the MSM ate it up. In this study of 43 people, half the American population is painted as intolerant to differences and unable to adapt to change, while hanging on desperately to old ideals. The irony is the left-wing political myopia of the MSM and Nature Neuroscience that without question buy this sort of liberal supremacist swill and call it science. Do I detect the very kind of prejudice here that the "tolerant" and "freedom-loving" left claims to abhor?

Based upon my own scientific study, my hypothesis is that liberal elite will soon declare conservatism as political insanity and send us off to a soviet style Gulag for shock treatments and insulin therapy. Maybe this hypothesis is born of a fear of people who think differently. Perhaps I need to find a few subjects and hook them up to EEG's and put them through a driving test just to be sure.

See my post on conservatives and dreams for more psychological enlightenment.

Update: Another study of conservative retardation from yesterday. Via Ace o' Spades.

Update 2: It's a different part of the study I'm referencing.

Yeah Yeah!

I ask any of my literary friends to tell me of the significance of the tomato in this video.

My husband,who detests tomatoes, contends that the first tomato grew on the Tree of Knowledge. Eve ate a bite then handed it to Adam. Subsequently they were banished from the Garden of Eden. Because of human sin, God gave tomatoes poison leaves and made them to grow low to the ground like a serpent. He also made them taste really bad. He likes marinara, but asserts that the sin-e-cine has been removed in processing, so they're kosher. Anybody who knows hubby knows the story of the "Devil's Dingleberry", he preaches it like he's on a street corner.

Anyway, at the beginning of the song "Love Stinks" (on vinyl), J. Geils tells the story of the Garden of Eden. Then there's this absurd mystery tomato in the video.

Is hubby's theory widely held?

Shoop Shoop Diddle-Liddle-Lit!

From the days when people danced to happy stuff.

More Color

Drawing from a photo, then scanned, then printed on art paper, colorized with pastel pencils, scanned again, run through a filter. I guess you would say it's mixed media.

I'm seriously considering sending it to this online printer I like to use. They will stretch it on canvas and I can paint it a bit.

I have a tendency to overdo things, but this way I don't run through the paper.

Stay tuned. I'll be messing with the Jake hair picture next.

Highly Creative Day

I keep recycling this image, but I really like it. So call me vain, I don't care.

I can't believe how many steps I've gone through with this thing. My portraits lately have been a real marriage of good old fashioned drawing, and high tech gadgetry.

First I took a photo, then I drew a portrait using that photo as a guide, then I took a photo of the portrait. I downloaded the image from my Nikon Coolpix and used Paint Shop Pro and put a hot wax coating on the image. That was a few months ago. Today I decided to print that image on some art paper and colorize it with some pastels and pencils. Then I scanned that image in and pumped up the colors. Here's what you get.

What's really funny is that the camera I used is in the photo. So is a rearview mirror. I keep using this portrait which is a photo of myself taking a picture of myself to make a portrait of myself. I've even photographed the portait of myself taking a photo. Scanned it too.

I'm not sure if I'm a good advertisement for caffeine.

Color Pet Portrait

My Nellie