I decide to post something like this:

It’s been pouring since around 11 this morning. I’ve spent most of the day doing, well, nothing. I made some biscuits from scratch… had some soup… downloaded the Spore Creature Creator… watched some movies… it’s such a nice break. I even stepped outside in my rain boots to take some rainy day photos, but then the rain came down a little more heavily and the thunder and lightning started, so I opted to head back in the house. But I got this image of a gray, gray, wet day.

And this leaf struck me as pretty, though I couldn’t get close enough to get a better photo and without toppling over and getting soaked… so I did a little image enhancing to make it appear as lovely as it did to my eye in real life.

So I have this nifty plugin installed in WordPress that automatically filters comment spam from the blog. Honestly, I get more comment spam than actual comments - and that’s sort of OK and expected. This isn’t Dooce (as in, not crazily popular - or at all) and I’m well aware of that.

The comment spam I get is pretty entertaining. Today’s selection was “Shakira porn shakira hips don’t lie naked porn video.” Please. At least keep it current. Or marginally modern. (Hey - let me drop some really hip and timely references to Paris & Nicole fighting or to the whole file sharing/Napster thing so I can be equally on the ball!!)

I had a shitty-ass day. Non-stop crappy nonsense that added up (along with hormonal ickiness and such) to major stress and me sitting in my car when I got off the train, resting my head on the steering wheel, breathing deeply and trying not to cry out of sheer frustration that the day was not yet over. But then I got home, ate some leftovers, and baked some brownies (Ghirardelli, from a mix) and had a hot brownie and mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae. All better.

Also nice was opening up my email to see a request from an academic who’s making a documentary and requested permission to use some of my photos of the Schuylkill River in Philly (which he found on Flickr) in the documentary. No money, of course, but photo credit and a copy of the DVD if the photos are used in the film. That’s pretty cool. I’ll take it.

And now it’s late and I should be getting to bed. The stress tension in my shoulders and neck never quite went away, so I’m going to have a rough time of it tomorrow morning.

If the post title compels you to start singing that song by the Killers, by all means, do so. Yesterday was chockablock full of things to do. First, at 11 am, I helped a climbing friend move back onto her college campus; she recently had ankle surgery and is on crutches, so a helping hand was needed. I got sweaty very quickly; it was humid and we got everything moved out of the house, into cars, out of cars, and into the dorm in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Intense.

Then I went down to Princeton to meet up with my friend Sara to pick up something she was holding for me (technically, for my mother - but I was happy to play liaison) and then hang out for a bit. We wandered around the Princeton University campus for a while. It’s lovely. Quite lovely. Drew University in Madison, NJ, also has a lovely tree-filled campus, but Princeton kicks its ass with architecture (in some cases, Gothic - which is gorgeous) and sculptures on the grounds. See below for photographic evidence of the sculpture and the architecture:

"Big Figures" by Madgalena Abakanowicz

Alexander Hall at Princeton University

While in Princeton, I also had some delicious gelato - a scoop each of roasted cashew, Anjou pear and SWEET BASIL. They were all quite good - the flavors were amazing and unexpected (esp. sweet basil). The consistency, while good, didn’t quite measure up to the awesomeness of the gelato I had at the Capogiro Gelato Artisans locations in Philadelphia.

Around dinnertime, my brother joined us since he lives about 10 minutes outside of Princeton. So we went and had some Indian food for dinner, along with a fairly tasty Shiraz - Fools Bay Dusty’s Desire Shiraz from the university liquor store across the street. BYOB is nice.

We walked around a bit to make sure we were all OK to drive… stopped and had tea at a Starbucks… and then went on our merry ways. I got home around 10:30, so it was a fairly long day.

And today is all about cleaning. More purging of stuff. I’ve got two more boxes of books for Goodwill, as well as two bags of clothing… and possibly a whole pile of CDs. We shall see how inspired I am to simply throw shit out. I am quite a packrat, so I know the dangers of deliberating too much over whether or not to keep things. Most times, I just have to tell myself, “NO!” and chuck it.

In the long run, it will make it much easier for me to load a moving truck in the coming months (a search on Craigslist today yielded some decent results, so I just have to prepare myself for “comfortable financial readiness” so I can afford to buy any missing niceties and not screw myself by biting off more than I can chew - as I’ve done in the past).

I do so love my books. I took some photos of my shelves because they make me happy.

I set up my nice Flickr photostream, posted 200+ photos… I was feeling rather proud of myself. I saw I had 80 views. Yay! Then I saw that 24 of those total views were of one particular photo.

A rather blah photo of a woman’s feet.

I commented to my brother’s girlfriend that the only way I could see that photo garnering so many views would be from fetishists trolling Flickr.

Flickr stats evidenced my supposition this morning:

It’s hard to read at that size, but the searches are “barefoot”, “woman barefoot” and “barefoot-male-fetish.” Terrific.

And I am sad. Crikey.

Some of the beauty I observed at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Do you ever find yourself buying a lot of things in a particular color or motif, developing a palette or theme practically unbeknownst to you? Yeah. I do that. Check it. My Philly purchases:

And just so I’m not hogging it all to myself, here’s an MP3 for you.

From Girl Talk, here’s “Here’s the Thing” off of his album Feed the Animals. The DJ behind Girl Talk is from Pittsburgh, not Philly, but I’m just posting it because I like it.

There’s a moment (at 1:15) where he successfully mashes up Nine Inch Nails with Kelly Clarkson. I heart it. Because, otherwise, I can’t stomach anyone from American Idol. It’s full of other clever moments of mash-up delight. Later on, you will hear Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” playing alongside the Prodigy’s “Firestarter.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it works.

If you enjoy this, go buy the album entire (it’s a pay-what-you-want set up, a la Radiohead).

I stopped at CVS today to pick up some digital prints and almond M&Ms (what??). At the check-out, I saw this guy.

It’s the top of a pen.
It’s a boxing skeleton pen.
A pink and silver boxing skeleton pen.
And it’s crazy and weird and I love it.