Pen-Elayne on the Web

Froggy Goodness!

Here on yon free Blogspot they don't allow image posting or hosting or possibly even boasting, but Madeleine Begun Kane (link at left bar and one day she and I will meet; sorry we couldn't hook up for the Al Franken thing last week, MadKane, but my husband was on his last deadline!) and Skippy (link also at left bar) have begun bantering about labels, which of course I love. I type labels, I've spent the last hour labelling outgoing envelopes, hey baby labels are me!! Anyway, as many folks know Skippy coined the term Blogtopia (although I still kinda lean towards Tom Tomorrow's "blogosphere" 'cause it sounds more gosh-wow space-agey and "topia" always seems more associated for me with depressing sf novels that become even more depressing Ridley Scottish movies, or with James Gurney, but I digress), and Mad took it the next step and thought progressive-minded bloggers may as well refer to ourselves as ProgBlogtopia. Then I suggested in response to Skippy that we all have a mascot, the ProgBlogFrog. Which Mad seems to like, thanks for the mention Mad! Anyway, I nominate either August Pollak or Ampersand (or both! links at left bar) to draw the ProgBlogFrog and post it on their sites, since Tom's on hiatus (link at left bar even so) and he has a penguin anyway. I'd also have suggested my husband, but he's not as progressive as me politically (although I dare say he's probably to the left of Tony Blair, being old Labour rather than New Labour) and besides he's doubtless "frogged out" after this. I also think the ProgBlogFrog would look great on the left side of StandDown! (link at =yes!= left bar) to balance nicely with the right side's "Don't Tread on Me" snake. It's perfect for the blog ecosystem, after all; while larger snakes eat frogs (and of course other snakes sometimes), larger frogs also eat snakes. Yum, reptilian feasts abound!

Yes, darn it, I'm being silly and proud of it. It's better than being angry. Silly takes creativity, anger's just draining. Unfortunately, that's my PMS Surprise Symptom this month. Just about every month it's something else, usually weird body aches in peculiar spots like the fourth toe or left kneecap, or acne in inconvenient places (like the subway, ba dum bump), and occasionally the hystereotypical stuff. This PMS it's been bad depression and anger. And as I get older and more curmudgeonly I find I have less patience for strangers who make me angry in person, and have found myself physically shoving them! Me, like a total pacifist! A couple months ago I shoved this weirdo who was harrassing Silver Age great Ramona Fradon as she and I walked to a Lulu group dinner, starting the downward spiral. Now, the odds of this in NYC are lesser than one might imagine, considering commuting routes and all, but both yesterday afternoon and this morning I've shoved into the same guy both times, a total nimrod who decided he was going to stand perfectly still on a stairwell during rush hour reading a newspaper. So I gave him a push both times - which started his feet moving again, like a weird little wind-up doll - and called him an idiot and didn't look back to see whether he was actually mouthing the words in the paper. Just my luck, he'll be friendly with someone who reads this blog and then I'm totally effed. But I don't care, because grrrr, I'm angry! I'm livid about stupid things like Al Roker blogging about deciding to go public about his gastric bypass surgery like it was a sudden decision based on him being tired of all the tabloid speculation, when it turns out he's had a camera crew around recording everything from the beginning so he could talk about it on Today and Dateline and presumably be compensated. I have nasty little paper cuts from this envelope stuffing so it really hurts when I slap my hands with, well, with my hands, to prevent myself from typing nasty posts on the Newsarama and Pulse message boards because grrrr, every news item on there is pissing me off, usually for no reason at all! I'm so bloody furious I can't stand myself! GRRRR, I says!! (Sympathetic e-mails to Robin are much appreciated.) So yeah, all in all it's probably better to be silly than angry. Test me out on Firesign chat tonight at 9 EST. Seriously, trust me, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.