Mad crazy blogging. It's not just for November anymore.

Okay guys -- and I mean guy guys -- do you really think that hollering out a car window as I'm walking past some unintelligible mush about my breasts as is going to make me come running back, shouting, "Yes! Yes, thank you for noticing my tits. I was hoping you would. They are quite nice, aren't they? Especially in this sweatshirt I've had since 1993. It's way hot"

Lesson one: WOMEN HATE BEING YELLED AT WHILE WE'RE WALKING DOWN THE STREET DOING SOMETHING NOT EVEN REMOTELY SEXUAL!

(Like coming back from an emergency tampon run.)

And have you noticed the official cat caller soundtrack is invariably Aerosmith-laden? I've yet to be "hooted and hollered" at by a man in a Jetta pulsating to the beat Belle and Sebastian or Bright Eyes.

I'm not doing the "Top Ten" thing anymore. One, it's actually harder to come up with ten little snippets than it is one vaguely cohesive post, and two, so many people do a Friday bulleted list-type post, eh... with all the talk of originality...

Never mind.

Anyway, if you know me at all, (or have read this site for a while), you should know by now that I have a few issues with sandals. Not sandals per se, but the condition of the feet inside them. I've found out I have another pet peeve regarding flip-flops and their ilk: toes that extend over the shoe itself, sort of like a claw. Or a paw.

Granted, if I had my way, the world would be shod in classic, practical sneakers (sort of like the ones the members of Heaven's Gate wore, but more stylish), but if you're going to wear toe floss, at least buy a shoe that fits.

Thank you.

End rant.

Addendum: Remember when I said I was going to try to make this blog (and writing) fun again? Hmmm. That lasted all of two seconds. Let me ask you something: How is it that most of you guys can write these essay-length posts on a daily basis while I struggle to squeeze out two or three coherent paragraphs? I'm not being snotty, I really want to know. Is it time management, or have my terrible TV habits finally killed off my remaining brain cells?

Someone once said, "Every woman is either a Betty or a Veronica." (I think this wise person may have been a character in some long forgotten movie from the mid-eighties where Samantha Mathis plays a teen brimming with angst and ennui but without the benefit of an equally alienated Christian Slater to console her.) I am neither. I'm not the girl next door, nor am I the rich bitch two towns over.

(Though I do covet Veronica's sleek, black do.)

However, I am a Miranda.

And I'm totally a Dorothy.

I couldn't find a quiz for it, but I'm sure I'm a Jo Polniaczek, too. (With maybe a soupçon of Natalie.)

I once was a Bette, but now apparently I'm a Rosalind.

(26% grit, 62% wit, 24% flair, and 2% class! That 2% class is actually a bit high.)

NaBloPoMo's July theme is food, and while I have a post in mind (no really, I do!), I keep axing each title as I run through them in my head: been done before, vaguely offensive...

I almost called this post "The Meat In Me," but that just sounds dirty,

I stopped eating meat about a decade ago. Before that I did the "Well, I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish and chicken," conveniently forgetting that fish and chicken do not grow on trees. In my meat-loving family, I'm a bona fide freak. Even as a kid I never had the taste for meat. I remember one summer barbecue my uncle tried to cajole me into eating a hotdog. A burnt hotdog at that.

"C'mon," he said shoving a steaming frank under my nose. "It's good for you. It'll put hair on your chest."

Which is exactly what every six-year-old girl wants: a hairy chest. I actually was dumb enough to believe that, and stayed away from hotdogs, at least burnt ones, for the next couple years. (Ever have hotdog tartar? Not so good.)

I waited until I was safely out of high school before I even thought about giving up meat for good. I spent a few years as a semi-veg, claiming to go back to a "normal" Midwestern diet once I lost the "freshman 25" (or in my case, 35). Around that time I read John Robbins's Diet For a New America and was convinced. Meat = bad. Nuts and berries and brown rice and wheatgrass juice = good.

Er, wait. Did I say wheatgrass juice? Make that Skittles and Diet Coke. Yeah, I don't always have the healthiest diet. I try, but I eat too many meals at my desk. Coincidentally, I was planning on making a strong effort to eat better. Just don't expect recipes from me -- I only have a few, and they all prominently feature chocolate and alcohol.

I've done quite a bit of scanning and post-production work, despite only getting one roll of film in at Pridefest. I think I like random crowd pictures as much, if not more, than the action going on in front of me.

See? This is actually one of my better shots of the day.

Speaking of the post-processing, lately I've developed a system of gradients, layering and blurring to get the look I want. I don't use actions or plug-ins, and it's really inspired by nothing save for the way photos look when they're faded and shoeboxed for several years. I bring this up because of the recent blogging drama (out of respect for both parties, I will not name names), I'm already rethinking this "look" as it might be derivative of someone else. I assure you it's not -- at least not intentionally -- and no one has the monopoly on the vignette tool or a couple multi-colored gradients, but I've been there before, where someone's ideas were a little too close to mine; too close for comfort, in fact, that it made me a little paranoid. The truth is, there is very little out there that is truly original.

Ideas may not be original, but voices are.

What did Picasso say? Oh yeah: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."

Not that I would ever consider myself an artist, great or otherwise.

Granted, I've been taking pictures long before I had a blog, or computer even. I would probably be pretty pissed if someone suggested I borrowed someone's style. Years ago, before I even had a website, someone who knew very little about me made a catty remark about my photographic prowess, among other things. Ouch. Now that hurt. What I should have done was reply "Yes, thank you. I am pretty good at this because I work damn hard at it." But I let it go because really, it wasn't worth the minute it took to write that sentence. Sometimes it's better not to fight back.

That being said, I'm going to make a few changes around here. I want this blogging hobby of mine to be fun again. Too often I write what I think Jane Average Blog Reader wants to read rather than what I really want. (Yesterday's post came close though, and believe me, wasn't without the thought of "Ooh, I'm getting a little too political here.") I'm not Jane Average Blog Reader, or even Jane Average thirty-something woman, so why would I want to write for her? I'm pretty sure she doesn't exist.