National Novel Writing Month

I just wanted to say, I think I am committed. I signed up a couple of weeks ago, but had the secret thought in the back of my head that I didn't really really need to do it, because a) I have less free time than I did the first year I did it b) neither I nor the world need another terrible novel and c) I already proved I could do it once, so why do it again? But I just wrote my first 180o+ words, and I think I'm in. Shit. (Don't anyone get their knickers in a knot: I have neither a plot (so far) nor any intention of sharing any of the next month's blatherings with anyone except the voices in my head...)

miniature horses

so i know there are more world-shattering things going on (Qadaffi's death, the Greek bailout, global warming, etc.) but this really needs to be brought to the world's attention:

miniature horses! as service animals! isn't that great? they put special shoes on their feets (as seen in the photo) so they can trot you around the shopping mall without trashing the floors, and apparently they can be house trained too.

and now for a completely freaky coincidence: roommate D. (who is among other things, mother of friend T.) was the one who was telling me yesterday about the miniature horses, and our conversation reminded me that I also wanted to look for images of pygmy goats and sheep, which I had read about a while ago as being used for weed control in vineyards (since they can't reach the grapes, they selectively eat the weeds and simultaneously fertilize...) and which are apparently also used for lawn care by organically trendy celebrities. On a blog called Tails of the City, I found a good photo of pygmy goats RIGHT next to a photo of a dog I recognized (!) - T's dog Lorna Doone - name confirmed by the photo caption, for anyone who might accuse me of delusional golden pitbull recognition. After a moment of total confusion in which I thought T. was leading a second life as a blogger in SF, I realized the blog was written by T's ex girlfriend and co-doggy-parent. Anyway, the point being: I know Google tries to make the search results relevant to the searcher, but that seems excessive....

short smelly men: a mystery I have no interest in solving

Why are the above ludicrously overrepresented in ballroom dancing classes? It is clearly their preferred venue for Meeting Women, which is weird, because it's not _working_; it if were working, they would be at home happily snogging their tiny smelly girlfriends, but instead, they keep coming to tango classes, where I want to learn how to tango dance. I don't expect my fellow beginner students to be good at dancing, particularly, or even coordinated or musical; we're beginners, that's the point, but it seems unfair that, in general, the women (with the exception of the scary sluttily-dressed anorexic Asian ladies in their forties who are a whole different ball of tango wax) are all very normal looking, and the men, in general, and when I say "general" I mean ALL OF THEM WTF, are all four foot tall and/or have hyperhidrosis and/or smell terrible and/or make peculiar snuffly noises as they try and steer you in to walls. I don't feel like I am being elitist (to use that favourite word of Republican politicians everywhere) in asking for a dance partner who is taller than me, showers regularly, and doesn't sound like Darth Vader with a headcold. Paying for private lessons just so I can dance with someone who meets the above criteria feels a bit like paying for sex with a dominatrix who can charge extra because she keeps track of and anticipates your particular fetishes, but you know what? I am at that point. I am not proud: I will pay for tango sex. (Although if you adhere to the theory that it takes ten thousand hours to get good at something, this is going to be one expensive project...).

two recent catalanomalaprops I want to remember for always and always

because they are so delicious:

1. I recently borrowed an egg off M., the 80-year-old leather aficionado & downstairs neighbour whose orgasms register loud and clear through our wood floorboards; I thought it only polite, in exchange for the egg, to take a few minutes to admire his watercolour paintings, which he was arranging in preparation for his open studio weekend. One of the paintings was of an undulating wall set with brightly coloured fragments of tile, and a robin's-egg blue sky behind, and I said, "Ooh, now that must be Parc Guell in Barcelona, right?" He said, "well, it's certainly meant to be evocative of Gaudi and Barcelona, but it's not any specific building in particular; I mean, it's not La Familia Sangria, for example."

2. Intending, presumably, to refer to alveoli, the small sacs of air in the lungs what transmit oxygen to the blood stream, a patient told me recently that because he used to be a deep-sea diver he had "more allioli in his lungs that most people." Patatas bravas, anyone?