"Madam Z," I tell myself, from time to time, "you must learn to acknowledge your mistakes and move on."

But, I don't listen to myself. I try to salvage the unsalvagable. "But I spent so much time - money - effort on it! I can't let it go to waste!"

"Foolish woman! It's better to let it go; forget about it - put it in the garbage and try again another day. If you're going to eat/do something that's not good for you, at least be damned sure it tastes/feels good."

The most recent battle is still being waged. The subject of the dispute is a batch of truffles. Why, you may ask, would someone try to make her own truffles, when she could get a perfectly good bag of ready-made truffles at the corner store for 3 or 4 bucks? That is a legitimate and worthy question. Why indeed? Temporary insanity cannot be ruled out.

It gets worse. I had a perfectly good bag of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips in the cupboard, that I have been chipping away at for several days, a tiny handful now and then, when I must have something sweet. They are heavenly. I also had a couple ounces of dark chocolate which isn't anywhere near as good, but is purportedly "good for you." THEN! I bought a can of sweetened condensed milk, for some goddamned reason, which I don't even remember, and it had a recipe on the label for homemade truffles. I was electrified by this! I didn't even know ordinary people could make truffles! They seem too exotic to be made at home, at least at my home. The recipe was deceptively simple: 1 can condensed milk, 18 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon of vanilla. Put milk in saucepan, add chips, heat till chocolate is melted, add vanilla, and refrigerate till firm. Roll into balls and cover with some kind of coating. (I completely ignored this last step, since it's the inside that I was interested in.)

Okay. I didn't have 18 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I had those milk chocolate chips and a couple oz of that dark chocolate, so that should work, shouldn't it? SHOULDN'T IT? In case you're wondering, the answer is NO. Well, maybe it SHOULD'VE worked, but it DIDN'T. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good. It wasn't anywhere near as good as the plain goddamned chocolate chips were! And I used up about $6 worth of ingredients making the stupid stuff! So I stuck it back in the refrigerator, hoping it would taste better the next day.

It didn't. My self told myself to just throw the shit away. I certainly don't need the calories, anyway. But NO! I had a new plan! Melt the ill-fated concoction again and add a bunch of peanut butter to it! That'll show my smartass Self!

Oh man!!! It is now resting peacefully in the compost heap.

Question: Was he GREAT, or was he GREAT?

Answer: HE WAS GREAT!

He was calm, confident, self-assured and gave one hell of a speech. Plenty of lofty goals. Plenty of inspiring acknowledgements. Never flubbed a line. Promised something for everyone. I loved what he said. But I do have a question for him:

Um...President Obama, sir...How are we going to PAY for all these worthy goals?

It's Just Dust!

The best thing about blogging (and other Internet activities) is that it gives me an excuse not to do other things; things I do not want to do. Such as dusting. I do not like to dust. I don't know why. I put it off until the dust gets high enough that I could probably plant seeds in it, and have an indoor garden.

The drawback of blogging (and other Internet activities) is that my computer sits on my desk, which has a large, dust collecting surface, with two shelves mounted on the desk, one of which is at eye-level, and both of which are covered with dust. I don't notice it at night, because the light is dim. But in the daytime, the sun slants through the window behind the desk and highlights the evidence of my shameful neglect. Fortunately, I have a short attention span, so it's usually not a big problem. Unless, that is, I start to think about the composition of dust. That is what I am doing now. What's IN that shit, anyway? I think I read somewhere that a lot of it is dead skin cells, and the dust mites that feed on the skin cells (but I'm not going to think about that now, or I would get all paranoid and probably have to set fire to all the surfaces). Then there's the regular dirt that gets airborne and then lands on the furniture. There's hair, too. And probably all kinds of dead insect parts. Much of it is surely just small fibres from clothing and furniture upholstery. When my kids were little, we had a couple episodes of pinworm infestation, and our family doctor told me that the pinworm eggs were probably covering every surface in the house and the only hope for not reinfecting us all was to thoroughly dust and disinfect all those surfaces (along with boiling every piece of bedding and clothing that we owned). And while I'm pretty darn sure that neither Hubby nor I are afflicted with PW, I still think of that possible component of dust, on the rare occasion that I do break out the Swifters.

Bottom line is that there's no good reason to stir up that yukky stuff very often. Let sleeping dust lie... until, of course, my mother-in-law is due for a visit. When that happens, the dust will fly!

Two Words, Four Words, Six Words, Eight

Okay, I'm tired of haiku. I'm going to experiment with a new, less challenging format to express my lack of thoughts. Or something like that. How's this?


I will.
I will write it.
I will write my story now.
But first, I will eat some ice cream.
Oh no! The ice cream froze my brain!
My story is encased in ice.
I won't write it.
I can't.



Or this...


Why me?
I am not worthy.
Huh? I am? Are you sure?
Okay, here goes; remember... you asked for it.
Once upon a time, I lived in boxcars.
A fairly good-looking prince rescued me.
Or so I thought.
I escaped.



Th..th..that's all folks!

Haiku in the Dark

I can't fall asleep

I'm afraid I won't wake up

So I watch the clock

Why am I alive?

In bed, the question haunts me

I have no purpose

Do I sound morbid?

I'm not - I just need some light

The sunrise will help

I'll look to the east

Wait for the first rays of sun

There goes the alarm

It's time to get up

I've been awake long enough

Now I will sleepwalk

Diary of a Mad Teenager

Today I was rummaging through my disorganized filing cabinet, looking for my passport. I didn't find the passport, but I did find my ancient diary, which I kept from age 12 to 16. I come across it once every decade or so. Sometimes I read a few entries and sometimes I just toss it back into the past. Today I read it from start to finish. Talk about depressing! My parents were divorced and my sisters and I lived with our smart, but unwise, mother. She was always looking for "something better," whether it was a man, a job, or a place to live. So we moved every year, she had a different job every year, and a different man every year. The year I was 14, all three of those categories were something worse. The man, Freddie, was an alcoholic who couldn't hold a job. We moved to a god-forsaken tiny town far from L.A. Then Mom's idiot, alcoholic brother Bob moved in with us. He couldn't hold a job, either. Mom couldn't get a job, because she couldn't drive and we lived too far from town to walk or catch a bus. In L.A., she was always able to get a job, because she was smart and could convince any prospective employer that she could do the job, whatever it was. And, within two weeks on the job, she could do it and do it well. And back then, you could take a bus to anywhere you wanted to go.

But out in the boonies of Yucaipa, with no transportation, she was S.O.L. My sisters and I were also S.O.L. We lived in this crappy little house with no heat (no money for propane), a discontented, regretful mother, and at least three (idiot, alcoholic Uncle Bob brought his idiot alcoholic friend George in to live with us) idiot, alcoholic men. They would host parties for their drunken bum friends on Saturday nights. I remember one night when Freddie was so drunk and sick that he threw up on the kitchen table. It was sooooo nasty! Mom was trying to wipe it up and asked me to help, but I refused, pointing out that it was she who chose to live with the idiot, not me.

After almost a year of that S.O.L.ness, my dad managed to rescue Mom and us girls and set us up in a nice, warm, clean little apartment, back in L.A. Mom got a good job and we had about six months of relative bliss, before yet another adventure reared its head.

I swear - I'm going to BURN THAT FUCKING DIARY!