Twistedchick's celestial navigation

If you're thinking of going to the Inaugural in person...

2008-11-20T15:59:08Z

I learned a few things from a friend who works in a Congressman's office about the arrangements for Jan. 20 in DC:

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-19T12:57:00

2008-11-19T17:58:09Z

I hoped for silence this morning, only
to hear hours of paving outside the house.

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Cheney indicted in Texas

2008-11-19T16:10:05Z

VP Dick Cheney and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales have been indicted in Texas for conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor asasults" through involvement in private prison companies in Texas.

Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.

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what, you think the news stopped on Nov. 6?

2008-11-15T22:27:40Z

Yes, it is entirely possible that Bush might try to issue blanket pardons for himself and everyone who has done something wrong under his orders. But there's a need to restore confidence in the Justice Dept., and how better to do it than by exerting the rule of law, as opposed to what the Washington Post thinks would be right, which is letting them all get away with it. However, Obama has some ideas about that, in this Salon article, and 'getting away with it' isn't one of them.

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-14T17:11:00

2008-11-14T22:12:26Z

Simba gets up.
Jenny lies down next to me
I am a timeshare.

twistedchick @ 2008-11-13T16:09:00

2008-11-13T21:16:44Z

"Oh, you're a newspaper reporter. That's such an interesting life..."

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-12T12:57:00

2008-11-12T17:58:10Z

Obama is planning trials in the US for prisoners at Guantanamo.

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armistice day

2008-11-11T14:44:11Z

Ninety years ago
the deafening roar of guns
silenced
and men crawled out of the earth
blinking in the quiet light
wondering:
what next?

oh, please

2008-11-11T02:06:57Z

what I would *really* like for Christmas -- starting with *last* Christmas and continuing now is for Simba and Jenny to quit having a pissing contest over turf issues on the basement tiles in front of the washing machine. It's worse whenever there's construction noise outside -- such as today when the water was off and they were replacing water lines right in front of the house with big noisy equipment all day -- but it happens often enough that I'm getting very tired of it. They're both perfectly healthy; they have been checked repeatedly. It's behavioral, a reaction to feeling insecure, and I get this -- but I would love to be able to walk in the basement without having to deal with it, do laundry without having to deal with it, and go from one day to the next without either the SU or me having to wash the floor.

my mother's house is gone

2008-11-10T22:40:35Z

My mother's house is gone
the place she designed on a bean field
bony pine beams smothered in plaster
its face marred by heavy gray shingles
like undertakers' wax on a corpse

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-09T20:08:00

2008-11-10T01:09:12Z

A doe, two young bucks
yearlings with nubbin antlers
eating azaleas.

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-09T17:27:00

2008-11-09T22:27:58Z

My Yuletide list:
From various people on my f-list for the past couple or three weeks:

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silly dyeing tricks

2008-11-09T19:39:06Z

I'm dyeing Hog Island wool today, and it's getting interesting.

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-08T14:58:00

2008-11-08T19:58:38Z

Still here. Taking a break from politics. Writing flocked poetry for NaPoWriMo. Mostly not dizzy. Starting to feel better. Enduring yet more deconstruction of the road in front of the house; yes, that *is* the appropriate word, since they are not being reconstructed but played with over and over on weekdays. But smiling *a lot* about the election results.

why don't I have a fireworks icon?

2008-11-05T04:31:37Z

Obama has won
the presidency. It's over.
McCain's conceded.

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OBAMA HAS IT

2008-11-05T04:17:40Z

Virginia has gone Democrat for the first time since Lyndon Johnson. McCain *cannot* pick up enough votes to make 270; the best he'll do is 139. Obama is projected to get 297.

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watching America change itself

2008-11-04T21:55:53Z

When I woke up this morning, I knew today would be a day I'd want to remember - and I wanted to find a way to include as many people and things important to me as possible, just because. I put on a stone green sweater (mine), and the bracelet the SU gave me for our first Christmas together; my mother's ring that she got from her mother, and her sister's ring, and my father's watch, and the scarf my favorite cousin gave me, soft and purple -- all that was for family. I know she's voting up in New York, but it made me feel she was closer.

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NaPoWriMo

2008-11-03T23:11:21Z

So far:
-- 1 limerick
-- 1 Shakespearian (style) sonnet
-- 1 sestina (first time I've done one, though I would consider it to be co-written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson)

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A sestina on the eve of voting, 2008

2008-11-03T16:57:35Z

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
we, the people of the United States.
All are created equal, all of us,
free to speak, to write and to assemble
to petition for grievances' redress.
We choose our future in the voting booth.

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twistedchick @ 2008-11-02T15:03:00

2008-11-02T20:03:45Z

Note: I am friendslocking the better poetry entries this month (at least, I think they're better) because I want the option to send them for publication at some time. If you are on my flist and read them, please do not link them, and ask me before doing anything else. Unlike the Sarmatian Sonnets and the Sonnets from the Jedi (published in zines) these are not fannish works, and I would appreciate it if they are not treated as such.

twistedchick @ 2008-11-02T13:20:00

2008-11-02T18:20:45Z

Wall Street Journal: Will this election be stolen? Two views: one historical and one a bit more frantic.

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poem of the day, with commentary

2008-11-01T14:32:40Z

Dizzyness is not
the way to make the world spin.
Twirl a globe instead

I am typing this from as flat on my back as I can manage (thanks be for lightweight laptops) because I popped something in my neck and when I move any closer to vertical the world spins around. Or the room does. The lamp is definitely not staying still. It feels as if I had the gooooood drugs, when I didn't have any. (Yes, I am calling the doctor on Monday.) In the meantime, I am not driving (the SU will do the honors on Monday) and I am perforce going to miss two fannish gatherings that I've been looking forward to for *weeks*. I can read, but I can't do much else.

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did you drop acid before I got here? -- Chevy Chase, in 'Foul Play'

2008-10-29T19:26:07Z

In Wisconsin, a Madison area woman who is blind was unable to vote using the automark machine -- it wasn't working, it didn't print, was out of ink. So she had to be assisted to use a paper ballot. ADA, anyone?

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not quite nanowrimo, but still...

2008-10-27T16:45:11Z

I'm not up to writing a novel in a month -- but I'm going to try something new-to-me: a poem a day for all November, whether it's blank verse or sonnets (my favorite form) or haiku or odes or whatever. I have found some interesting books on writing poetry and I want to try out some of their ideas. Probably won't put all of the poetry up here (the truly dreadful stuff won't make it out of the notebook) but some of it will show up, since there won't be that much politics to write about --

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twistedchick @ 2008-10-27T10:23:00

2008-10-27T14:23:09Z

I've been having some back trouble, so the physical therapist suggested I take a 'back class', on the structure and how things work and the way one thing influences another, so I did. It was interesting enough, considering I was 20 years younger than most of the people in the class, who had far more severe problems. But the instructor was reasonably interesting and she was using PowerPoint with images made from 1980s industrial slides to illustrate the proper way to stand, sit, etc.

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