It's Lassie and a cantelope!!!!!!!!

Melancholy.

Meh.

Maybe it's just all the negative/sad/depressed vibes from other people. I feel so worn down right now.

So let's write about stuff.

1. There's a trebuchet posted on Craigslist here. How come no one's spamming all the SCA lists with "Is this a stolen trebuchet."

2. I have a cunning plan.. It involves getting close enough to royalty to be managing their polling lists. I will then add, "A Small Earth Cat" to the Pelican polling list. Once the SEC is on the list, it will have been polled for. I will then bribe the king and queen to give it a Pelican, this proving that "If Tibor can be a Pelican and Liam can be a Pelican, a small earth can be a Pelican."

[Libor says: Yo, Liam, "Hoc est consilium farcimen." This is a weinie plan.]

3. I think women with long hair are really attractive [Libor says: "Liam, you think *all* women are attractive."], and I have a number of friends who have it. So I read the longhair community. One of the big pet peeevs there is people who come up to people with long ahir and say, "That's lovely. Are you going to donate it to kids with cancer?" There are various suggested responses, including "What are you gonna do with that extra kidney," but this story from nenaknight is just beautiful:

Okay, so I'm at the Yellow Daisy Fest at Stone Mountain Park, in GA. I overheard this woman commenting on another woman's lovely long hair. She had her hair in a loose braid that fell to her mid-low back.

Yes her hair was FAB, yes she looked great with that style, but to ask if she was going to donate it to "those kids with cancer", I almost fell over.

SOOOOOO..... Her comment went something like this.

"Well, I work at the Children's hospital here in Atlanta, and as soon as I get 1000 bone marrow donors, on the bone marrow registry, I will cut my hair and make a wig for one of the children IN (stressed the word in) the ward. Are you a bone marrow donor? Here."

The best thing happened, she then shoved that lady a CARD to register as a bone marrow donor!

That commenter person had the look of guilt, shame, and I think fear. Practically RAN off after that. The worst was she tossed the card.

Now the lovely long haired woman. Had something. The shock value is enough to make people think... maybe, or at least become a bone marrow donor. For those "kids with cancer".

4. This one is so cheesy I am not going to rat out the theater student who told it to me:

The Taco Bell Chihuahua, a Doberman and a Bulldog are in a bar having adrink when a great-looking female Collie comes up to them and says, "Whoever can say liver and cheese in a sentence can have me."

So the Doberman says, "I love liver and cheese." The Collie replies, "That's not good enough."

The Bulldog says, "I hate liver and cheese." She says, "That's not creative enough."

Finally, the Chihuahua says, "Liver alone . . . cheese mine."

5. So, anyone out there who can talk intelligently to me about being an empath or empathic?

Oh . . . .I am listening to Canadian country music from Alberta. Trucks, beer . . . and snow.

Happy birthday, T!

Good Lord, it's been 23 years since they put her -- all red and wriggly -- into my hands and I felt the enormity of being responsible for another living human being. artisticphoenix was not awake yet, so it was just me and T. I cannot describe it.

A few hours earlier, the doctor and I had been laughing and watching the NFL and the U.S. Open.

All of a sudden I was a daddy.

Wouldn't trade it for the world.

No one gave N. and I a user's manual, but I know we got it right.

I love you, T.

Living on compliments . . .

Yes, it's a cliche, but Mark Twain was right when he said, "I can live a week on a good compliment."

I have been feeling down lately, but I need to take stock and maybe listen to the people around me a little more. I have been sharing the mopiness, but I have been forgetting to share a few other things.

• evilnicola and I are walking through the Common, just because she wants to spend time with me. We're talking about the fact that I was surprised I still had the chops when it came to filing newspaper stories on deadline. She looks at me and says, "Daddy, sometimes I forget how amazing you are.Every time I read your stories, I wonder how you can do it. You are really amazing."



• I share the same surprise with a friend I worked with back in Connecticut. His response "Are you kidding? The deadline machine? Remember the 35 stories you wrote after New London-Ansonia IV?" Actually, he and I filled three full newspaper pages on a day that three or four of our local teams were in state championship football games.



• A fairly new friend and I are talking. I have only met her a couple times, but there's a strong connection ona "friend" level. I mention that I was sorry I hadn't been able to spend much time with her while she was visiting our house (partly because I was sick). She looks at me and says, "I feel safe when you're around. I was trying to get to sleep, and I couldn't, but then I heard you walking in the hallway, and I felt safe and went to sleep."



• Finally, today, my roommate is reminding me about the time she said her kids had said something that they had obviously learned from me. I said, "But I wasn't trying to teach them anything at the time." And she said, "I wanted to remind you that that's what teaching is all about.

I think I need to listen more.

Squee!!!!!!

More from the good news front.

So I mope home last Wednesday (I wound up staying home the next day because I felt so crappy).

Anyway, all of my roommates and a visiting friend are sitting around the steps. I look like a Pak-Mara ate my cat.

They're all smiling at me, and I look down and I see A BEAGLE PUPPPPPPPPPY!!!!!!!!!!

I knew they had been talking about it, but I was really surprised to see the BEAGLE PUPPPPPPPPPY!!!!!!!!!!.

Jack says, "Guess what we named it."

"Fenway???" I ask, since this is what I suggested she name her most recently born male child.

"Who told you?" she asked.

No one told me, I was just hoping it would be Fenway or Liam. ;)

Turns out, at the family meeting, G. says, "I suppose we could do what Liam would do and name it Fenway."

And, all of a sudden, there's a chorus from the small, female lobby, "Fenway, Fenway, Fenway."

So it was a unanimous vote.

There will be pictures once I can get things figured out.