I'm still a bit sick with the cold that will not go away, which is of course ridiculous. But as each month passes and the anthrax scare becomes less and less real I am no longer keeping a calendar of my activities posted on my fridge. For the investigators. To help them out. (Anyhow....)
The exciting news is that I am taking a drawing class on Monday nights. Last night was the first session. I was very nervous because I have about a million and a half assumptions about what kind of people draw/make art. For instance, I walk into an art supply store and all I see are skinny girls with multiple piercings and mile-long heroin habits.
It's so freeing to finally throw all that craziness out the window.
I am now the proud owner of charcoal, newsprint, and a fancy eraser. And the class was great. Our first assignment was to draw from a postcard (practicing proportions and planes). Now if I can only keep the cat still for his portrait.

This just in from gay.com:
The New York Aquarium has a new attraction - a couple of gay penguins.

"Wendell and Cass have been together for about eight years and adore each other. Keepers always thought that one was male and one female until a blood test was carried out to determine their sex. Zoo staff had a shock when they both turned out to be male.

Penguin keeper Stephanie Mitchell added: 'I was only seeing one mate with the other, but then one of the other keepers saw it happen the other way round so we did a blood test that proved they were both male.

Cass tends to be a rather aggressive bird. Wendell is very nervous; always has been. He's on edge all the time. They're currently in a dispute with another couple over their nest. It seems to be one of the most desirable places in the penguin enclosure.'"

Darla has just shown up with a link to that great Honda ad I mentioned in November (do you remember, it's the ad for a car that is the automotive equivalent of a really hot librarian?) Enjoy.

The USPS website could really use an editor.
Check out this annotation: "The ZIP Code Look-Up and City/State/ZIP Code Association are free services provided by the USPS to assist the public with their addressing needs."
May I suggest: "Find ZIP code here."

When my brother-in-law was courting my sister he told her this joke. She shared it with me while we were in Venice. Feel free to share with your beloved. If you like, hold out your arms and wiggle your fingers when you say the punch line.

Q. Where did Napoleon hide his armies?
A. In his sleeves-ies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tonight I fly to Venice. I made Carrie sing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" to me, I've packed and repacked, and am dreaming of my Carnival costume. See you in a week!

I take comfort in the fact that there are "idiots" everywhere.... so says the BBC:

"Since the average dealer now sits at a desk straight out of the Space Shuttle - and in many cases is relatively inexperienced and working under considerable pressure - mistakes are inevitable.
In May last year, London's FTSE 100 index dropped by more than 2%, after a trader typed £300m, instead of £30m, while selling a parcel of shares.
In 1998, in the biggest incident of its kind ever, a Salomon Brothers trader mistakenly sold £850m-worth of French government bonds, when he carelessly leaned on his keyboard."

What's going on with the job postings I'm seeing today?

• The Lacombe Public Library is looking for a “Library Program Coordinator” -- "applicants will be responsible for planning and implementing programs for children, teens and adults as well as shelving books ..."


• Sudbury is looking for a Virtual Librarian whose duties, in addition managing their entire website and online reference service, include "secur(ing) premises and set(ting) the security system alarm" as well as developing a "thorough working knowledge of the...Safety Manual."

You know what this second job description says to me? Crazy people run the Sudbury Public Library. As for "shelving" -- if I'd known I'd be doing the same work (shelving) that I did when I was a 9 year-old volunteer at my local library -- I might have saved the cost of a graduate education. In fact, why did I even bother with high school? I'm suddenly much happier in my one-half cubicle.

"White Rabbits" -- don't forget!!!!