Queen of Hearts

Devotees of the tarocchi,

The other day I appeared not once, but twice, as the Queen of Cups (in a conventional playing deck, and more tellingly, the Queen of Hearts) as the first card in a Celtic Cross spread with two different decks.

I, of course, am always the Queen of Rods. Redheaded, fire-signed, sunny, capricious, creative, ebullient, exuberant, sharp-tongued, loyal, opinionated, passionate, impatient, ambitious, confident, and suchlike. Sounds about right, no? The Queen of Cups: sentimental, nurturing, romantic, empathetic, intuitive, loving, affectionate, shy. My first reaction was, "That isn't me!" but, then, the damn question was about me.

What does it mean to be described as something else entirely to a querent? Certainly not that I am NOT the Rods type, I think. That I am the queen of cups right now? To that person? What is it to be something you do not identify yourself to be FOR/TO someone else anyway? To me that sounds disingenuous at best and terrifying at worst. But I suppose the more sentimental among us consider that to be romance. And who is active agent is that perception? Am I the one being different, or is the subject that is seeing me differently than I see myself?

I imagine in a spread for another person, the latter is most likely the case. Which is not to say that a person's first impression is wrong. Just, judging from my incredulity, not the primary or my preferred iteration of my personality. So what is that about? Am I completely mental to have some kind of ranking for qualities which I feel are more important or most salient? And how is it that I ended up preferring to be described as impetuous before comforting?

Hmm. Mysteries of the universe. :P

More fun with my parents

So in my typically indiscreet fashion, I told my mom about cherry onion firefly after quoting her extensively. Of course, in my mom's typical mom fashion, her first comment was that my writing style has not athrophied and reamins engaging. Her second response was to tell me she didn't read everything because she wasn't sure if it was private or not which is completely hilarious not only because that probably is not true, but also because I am the least secretive person on the planet (ex: "I am retarded for you." "Haha. You're retarded?" "No! *I'm* not retarded...I...er..." FUCK.). Then my mom told me that my dad was kind of disappointed that I hadn't written anything about him yet which is so adorable it makes my teeth hurt.

My dad is very easy going and very Texan. He knows everything about geography, history, and politics. I get my uncanny sense of direction from him. All my guy friends drive up to Dallas to tailgate with Daddy even if I'm not anywhere near Dallas because he's that awesome.

The problem is that Daddy stories usually work better being told than transcribed because my dad tends to make up words or twang them randomly. In case you're a yankee, a twang is a Texas accent, it isn't called a "drawl." Every once in a while my dad will use really obscure words for perfectly normal things too, like calling something "persimmon" instead of orange-colored. I'm not even sure my dad's ever even eaten a persimmon, but there you go.


So I will make a concerted effort to incude more Daddy stories as they transpire.

Rotten.

My mom told me over Thanksgiving that she was worried because I had no Yule presents.
I bought six pairs of shoes online and shipped them to the house.
I am spoiled.

Rapunzel

My beautiful bunny Rapunzel

!

My Mom rocks....kinda

Mom: Oh, I love this song! [sings and bobs back and forth] I want to rock and roll all night. And party every day!
Me: Really, Mom? Do you?
Mom: Mmm-hmm.
Me: Party every day?
Mom: Well, I could read a book all day.
Me: .... I'm not sure that's the same thing.

Oh, hells no...

Dude, I just left decent weather in New York, and it's SNOWING in Dallas. DALLAS. Dallas, TEXAS! Frozen dihydrogen monoxide is falling from the sky. Solid water is precipitating from the atmosphere. Al Gore, you can take your global warming and go fuck yourself with a chainsaw...SIDEWAYS.

Secret.

scarletfvr29 (1:30:26 PM): stop looking at my blaaag in front of your family
scarletfvr29 (1:30:30 PM): it's private
scarletfvr29 (1:30:35 PM): that's why its on the internet
scarletfvr29 (1:30:39 PM): for everyone to see

Medicine

No. Shit.

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(that cracked out eyeball really is on my bottle of cough supressant. wtf.)

Daily Tarot

The Lovers

The Lovers represent a powerful union and the harmony of opposites. It represents the combining of two elements to create an even greater entity. This card often represents the formation of a new relationship or the strengthening of a current one. Love can come your way at anytime.

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I know, I know. Thanks, captain obvious.

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Your accuracy is improving, Facebook Tarot; your helpfulness, not so much.

Email from Barby

From: Barbara Pool
Sent:Mon 11/19/07 11:11 PM
To: Leesie (valkyrie@alumni.rice.edu)

Little B2Shoes,
send me the stuff I need to get for your dips so I can get them hopefully tomorrow or wednesday.
LA(ww)M


Emails from my mom are always a bit perplexing. Despite the fact that she is an erudite librarian who has been proofing my papers for two decades, she prefers to type emails in a telegram style frequently leaving out punctuation and pronouns. She happens to be asking me for a salsa recipe, but as you can see, she eschews the ethnic Spanish for "dip."

What I'd like to point out, however, is the salutation and closing. If you're confused that the email is addressed to "Little B2shoes," knowing that stands for Little Bouef-y Two Shoes probably doesn't help either. I, in fact, have no idea what this means, but she's been calling me this ever since I can remember. I guess it's a conflation of "goody two shoes" and the French word for cow, which may or may not be a term of endearment in France. Who knows. The B can alternately stand for "bitchy two shoes" which is used with almost the same frequency.

LA(ww)M stands for "love always, without wax, Mommy." This is also weird, but easier to explain. The word "sincerely" derives from the Latin "without wax" which refers to the practice of patching up botched marble sculptures with wax. If a sculptor fucked up someones nose, he would fill in the mistake, but a master's sculpture, in contrast, would be free of revisions or wax, thusly a "sincere" work. Anyway, I learned that in fourth grade and my mom has been signing notes like that ever since. I imagine that she was hoping I'd follow in her footsteps and take Latin and watch "I, Claudius" marathons with her, but much to her disappointment I studied Greek and our Classical impasse sustains itself to this day.

Lastly, I'd like to point out something that I think sums up my mother's character pretty succinctly. My mom spells her name "Barby," but half of her college friends mistakenly spell it "Barbie." Every Christmas there is a crisis because my mom tries to remember who spells it which way when she's signing her Christmas cards because she feels it would be rude to correct that person and feels obligated to sign "Barbie" lest they feel embarrassed. 40 years later. No, really.

Tormenting Walt!

Walt suggested I NOT make "Tormenting Walt" a weekly item, but respecting that wish would not really be in the spirit of "Tormenting Walt," now would it? So, in honor of Walt being far, far away here is this:

scarletfvr29 (3:26:34 PM): so when are you going to berlin and prague?
TrikWally (3:26:48 PM): tonight.
scarletfvr29 (3:26:59 PM): ah
scarletfvr29 (3:27:05 PM): bon voyage
TrikWally (3:27:17 PM): uh...thanks
scarletfvr29 (3:27:35 PM): well, that sounds more elegant
scarletfvr29 (3:27:46 PM): than, 'don't crash over the ocean
scarletfvr29 (3:27:51 PM): so i won't have to pretend to be sad'
TrikWally (3:28:12 PM): your attempts at faking emotion move me. thanks

Um, you're still bringing me back absinthe, right?
xo,
L