Starlite Blog

I set out to learn to be more independent, less lonely, stronger. To know myself more, to find more of myself. Other things find me along the way.

When I am lonely and sad, the afternoon and evening drags on interminably. Even the night turns into morning as slowly as tree sap oozing onto bark in a sudden freeze, trapped in silent stasis. I wake and toss and turn, then try to sleep again. Or I lie around and will myself to sleep because I can't face being awake.

On the other hand, if I have some things planned to do and a schedule to keep, the day or night does not yawn before me like an unfilled chasm. I'm surprised by not finishing everything I had meant to accomplish, at having things undone.

Perception is such a strange thing, that changes everything it touches. Is it really so hard to believe that time is fluid, and matter is exchangeable for energy, when memory is unreliable and the senses can so easily be fooled?

So there I was, just having started up a wash cycle, and I realized it was awfully full.  I wanted to add the "extra rinse" option.

Cancel, cancel, cancel. Beep.

Add extra rinse. Start again. It's not starting yet. I keep pushing start, but it's not responding. 

I keep pushing buttons and suddenly the whole panel freaks out and starts flashing error codes at me. "F", "11" "F", "11."

So it told me, I guess. F off.

Bird of Prey at the office

This guy (or gal, I really couldn't say) was hanging out on a sprinkler head right outside one of our office windows this afternoon.

Fortunately there was a camera in the office to snap a pic.

Now we know where all the small mammals and snakes have gone...

Beer Gets Seatbelt, Child Doesn't

Feb 5, 2008 - AP

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla.(AP) Police have arrested a motorist they say had a 24-pack of beer strapped in with a seat belt but had a 16-month-old girl unrestrained in the back seat with the toddler's mother.

Tina D. Williams was pulled over in St. Augustine on Sunday for allegedly running a red light.

A 24-pack of Busch beer was strapped in with the passenger-side seat belt, according to an arrest report. The girl was in the back seat with 20-year-old Amber Tedrick, who is the toddler's mother.

Williams, 46, said she didn't know why the child wasn't restrained.

Williams refused to take a breath test and a deputy found two metal pipes commonly used to smoke drugs in her purse, authorities said.

Williams was charged with driving under the influence, child abuse, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving without a license, a jail official said. She remained in the St. Johns County jail Tuesday after bail was set at $31,000.

The jail did not have the name of her attorney. It was not clear if Tedrick would face any charges, but the child was released to her care, according to The Florida Times-Union.

Today I imagined that that a piece of the sky fell (visions of Chicken Little).  It was like a fragment of sea glass, blue and streaked with a bit of cloud.

Slightly polluted.  Smog.  Burning coal. 

I don't think just anyone could hold a piece of the sky, if such a thing ever existed. Finding a bit of sky and putting it in your pocket would be like having a dress made of seafoam, or living at the edge of sunset. 

Do you have an unusual talent that you are ridiculously proud of?  If so, what is it, and why the smug look on your face? 
Submitted by mo.

I can crochet with very fine thread... i've made lace doilies with sewing thread, and for a while I even made 1:12 scale ones with lacemaking thread (which is finer than sewing thread). 

It's completely useless because no one even really uses lace anymore.  Occasionally I make them for people (or just for the hell of it) and give them away, or add them to my stash of things waiting for homes. It's therapeutic, sometimes, to do something that's basically repetitive and not too mentally taxing. I like the idea of keeping alive a craft that was well-known in my grandmother's generation, but is much less known now. 

not exactly resolutions, more like goals.  my new year's manifesto

• be true to myself
• don't give up
• i can be strong
• enjoy the flowers

Who is ringing in the New Year with you?  Who do you wish could be with you, but isn't there?

I spent New Year's Eve with most of my family.  Chaotic.  We made dinner together, stayed up and watched amateur fireworks being set off from our 11th floor patio.  It rained early in the evening, but fortunately cleared up so we could watch all the firework shells exploding near and far.

There weren't as many amateur fireworks as last year... makes me wonder if it's possible to create an economic index based on how much money people are willing to dump into blowing stuff up on New Year's Eve.  My brother Bob argues for the cardboard box index -- more or fewer cardboard boxes being sold relates to whether people are buying and/or shipping things.

My brother Ken wasn't here, though he sent us all tickets to the Tampa Bay Lightning / Philadelphia Flyers hockey game as a Christmas present.  I was disappointed he couldn't visit (I know he wanted to), but apparently he had no one to help watch his pets and it would have cost him a lot to board them all.

My sister Sarah and her husband already left for home, so they were also not here for New Year's Eve. Oh well.  I would have enjoyed spending more time with Sarah, but that's the way things work out. 

I have friends I would have enjoyed seeing on New Year's, but it just wasn't meant to be.  I was overwhelmed enough just mentally coordinating all the family-ness this weekend and holiday. I'm thinking of joining a community art class that starts in a couple of weeks.  I haven't done any regular drawing / art in about fifteen years, and I miss it. Not that I ever spent enough time at it to be good, but I enjoyed it.  Creating things makes me feel worthwhile in a way that not many other pursuits do.

my (own) family is making me neurotic already.  at least I'm not the only one.  My brother-in-law is feeling it too.  :-)

I never realized before that my sister Sarah and I giggle exactly the same way.  He said, "Stereo!... agh, stop the giggling!"  unfortunately that made us start laughing more.

meanwhile my husband's family is on its way.  his brother called about an hour ago from the Florida state line.

I think I need a therapist.  ackkkkkk. :-)