The basketball game was good. VCU won. They got more balls into the basket. I sat on the correct side of the stadium (the same side as the VCU team). It's a very nice stadium. I'm sure you could have national level, professional competition there. The team started out slowly, making a few attempts at slam dunks and keeping 10 points behind UNCW. Then the refs got a thing about VCU fouls even when UNCW players did the fouling. During the second half the team came out looking more confident and actually won at the last minute beating UNCW by one point. I was happy to see that and happy to see that Kristina Cesnaviciute did a great job blocking. She also seemed to be more a part of the team than last time. She comes all the way from Lithuania to play basketball so there must be a reason.

I'm going to try to catch a nap before I go to work.

Next event: VCU Women's Basketball on Thursday night. The last game I saw, on the 16th, was very intersting. The VCU team has a couple of good players, including one I thought of as a "natural athlete." The William & Mary team had a few good players, too. However, the W&M team could actually get their ball into the hoop. Still, it was a close game and made time go by quickly.

What do you call a blog that reports on the annual assembly of state senators and representatives? Ass. Blog? I prefer personal reports and these reports are personal. I like them. I may publish them some day.

Looking forward to this weekend dumping of ice and snow. NOT!

The world get's very spooky when you watch movies made by M. Night Shyamalan.

Why I Could Never Be Bridget Jones

1. When Bridget gets her first email from Daniel Cleaver (Is skirt out sick?) she responds with a joke. My response: "Sorry. I'll wear a longer skirt tomorrow." (Hope he doesn't fire me.)


2. After the ride down the elevator Daniel asks Bridge out to dinner. Her response: "Not tonight." My response: "Sure!"


3. After Daniel makes his third attempt to ask Bridge to dinner (What about the day after tomorrow?) she responds "Let's wait and see, shall we?" My response: "Okay. I could go then."


4. After sex Bridge waxes witty. My response: Snuggle close and say nothing for hours. (Boyfriend baffled.)


5. reserve the right to add items later

One way I am Like Bridget Jones

As Daniel lays in the street with cuts and blood on his face, he proposes by saying, "If I can't make it with you, Bridge, I can't make it with anyone. We belong together." My response: just like Bridget's (That's not enough for me. I'm looking for something a little more extraordinary than that.). Go Bridge!

Men I Would Consider Dating Even Though I Know Very Little About Them and Their Famousness Might Be an Issue
Viggo Mortensen
Harrison Ford
Bernard Hill
Joe Inscoe (I have actually met Joe. He lives here in town. I spent a couple of hours talking with him over two years ago. He gave me three videos of his movies to watch—"Last Dance", "Nell", "Lassie." He never returned my calls when I wanted to give them back to him. Was that a bad move? Unlike the others, Joe's famousness would be a different sort of issue that I know he's very comfortable with. I met him on a "bad eyelids" day which I have less and less of now. Maybe that drove him away?)

The other issue (only one?) would be that I am not the sort of person that turns up on the arm of a star. I am not the right physical type.

Oh, well ...

Can't resist posting here since I'm unblocked at work. You can't stop a person from wasting time ... if they're determined enough! I'm not a time-waster though. That's why I'm here on a Friday afternoon.

Later. :-)

It's all passions these days. What are you passionate about? Do what you're passionate about. Last month I took a free online class at the B&N University led by the author of the book "Do What You Love." I had done what I loved for three years and then found out it helps a lot if you have a good business model. Actually, it helps a lot if you have any business model. While I was good at financial management and using my talent, I didn't know how the industry worked or how that applied to my business. So I got a job. The same one I have now. I don't love it but it keeps me off the street. It's also confused the heck out of me, which is why I took the class. I found out I still love the same things. I'm just not doing most of them.

I'm not passionate about anything. I'm too intellectual. There are things I feel strongly about and I do have opinions. There are things I do a lot of and I have some persistent habits. But passion? I don't know. Does sex count? I get pretty vocal behind the wheel of a car. I dip into passion occasionally—like after my divorce I had a lot to say about marriage. I still have a lot to say about relationships, families, society and social engineering. I also have a lot to say about the legal system, valuing talent, intelligence and ... hmm, there must be something else. But I don't say them often.

Perhaps the lack of listeners, or earnest listeners, has shut me up. Maybe I never found the right audience? Maybe I just don't stay with anything long enough to get so deeply passionate that it sticks. I found myself crying listening to a "Save the Children" representative talk to Katie Couric on the Today show yesterday. All those orphan tsunami victims doing what kids do all the time: accepting their fate. Quite sad. But it passes. Eventually it will pass.

All things come to pass I guess. That's what the I Ching is all about. It used to be about freedom—free love, free universities, free people. How times have changed.

btw - Who is this guy? He looks familiar to me. I feel like I have had long conversations with him or that maybe we went to high school together or had a college class together. Who knows?

It's not there until you see it.

I am not a normal woman. At 7 am I could taste pancakes, sausage, bacon, grits and gravy with fried apples and two cups of coffee. I set out at 7:15 am to find them. I ended up at Denny's where the best waitresses end their shifts at 8:30 am. Fortunately I got a good one. She brought my breakfast as quickly as a server in "Defending Your Life."

I enjoyed eating at that Denny's next to the Duron paint shop, by the commercial center that is constantly changing and has been home to a Hilton and is now harboring a Ramada. Across the street is the the old Reynolds' place now the hideout of Philip Morris. It's a hard place. No one cares that I'm unwashed and unbrushed, wearing glasses, a cap that says "Ocracoke", a black chinese coat, red shoes and a sweatshirt. My waitress is wonderful. She comes right by and offers me a drink. I choose coffee which arrives in an instant. When she senses that I can't find my combo on the menu she carefully writes down my list of requirements and later calls it "The Grand Slam." I forgot the apples, though. After Nuvene went home another waitress (who barely speaks English) convinced another waitress (who obviously was put out by having to work) to get the chef to put apples into a little dish for me. I loved it all. Happy New Year!

I'm reading this totally great book, Equal Rites, left to me by my traveling daughter. It's the first time I've read a book with the author's name (Terry Pratchett) written larger than the title of the book. I love this book. I love this style of writing. Here's a sample from page 168, a footnote to "the Guild of Thieve, Cutpurses, Housebreakers and Allied Trades."

A very respectable body which in fact represented the major law enforcement agency in the city. The reason for this is as follows: the Gulld was given an annual quota which represented a socially acceptable level of thefts, mugging and assassinations, and in return saw to it in very definite and final ways that unofficial crime was not only rapidly stamped out but knifed, garrotted, dismembered and left around the city in an assortment of paper bags as well. This was held to be a cheap and enlightened arrangement, except by those malcontents who were actually mugged or assassinated and refused to see it as their social duty, and it enabled the city's thieves to plan a decent career structure, entrance examinations and codes of conduct similar to those adopted by the city's other professions - which, the gap not being very wide in any case, they rapidly came to resemble.

Rollicking fun and a good story to boot. Fortunately, Terry has written a library's worth of books. I should be set for a year or so.

So back to the theme, I'm not a normal woman. I'm not a usual woman either. I've stopped pretending to be one. Although I still stop short of removing any doubts that I might not be a normal woman. I suppose that's progress. I'm also reading The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot.

Dressing as I did this morning does not make me a good candidate for Match.com or even eHarmony.com. I've discovered that it's all basically the same people. Those that can't find someone on Match.com or Americansingles.com or lab631 end up in eHarmony.com. Including me. Those guys are all still looking for the same thing. Either a) a little woman about the house or b) a lonely rich widow. I am neither. I'm know there are other men out there. Not-normal, unusual men who would value me for the sack of jewels that I am.