Sometimes even the poet's words run dry. I fear I may have come to end of my words for now. I just wish I knew why it was so wearying to live my life. I also wish people wouldn't treat me as if I am horrible when they decide to visit on the spur of the moment that I should have time for them. Have I mentioned enough that those who care too much tend to have a lot of people vying for their time? *sigh* Until something more exciting enters my mind, I shall leave you.

TOP TEN THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T CONFESS ON A SITE YOUR BOSS READS

10. You only work there in order to eat the book glue.
9. You barcoded all ten of your toes and plan to do your fingers next.
8. You tattletaped his desk just in case he tries to wheel it down the street on a book truck.
7. You really didn't believe that story about how he was Zeus in the last Olympics.
6. You only wanted to work on the books because they build bigger forts faster than microfiche.
5. That purple frog on your speaker is really an alien monitoring EIDCs (Earthling Information Distribution Centers).
4. You're glad he's your boss because he makes you feel like a hobbit.
3. You have decided your job description is "Clean your cubicle" and your co-worker's have each been assigned to "put things in the hobbit's cubicle for her to clean."
2. You weren't kidding about turning the empty cubicles around you into a condo.
1. Knufflebunny has hired you to get his story out to the public. (payment in giggles each time you say his name)

This weirdness brought to you by department meetings. In other words, I don't have much else amusing or pleasant to share. Want some cat hair?

Oh, yes, I used that word. I said soapbox. Yes, that does mean that what I really want to do is get up on mine and rant about the world and why it infuriates me. Perhaps, even, why you infuriate me. I can never be quite certain of who is reading this after all. However, it has been such a productive day and ranting won't produce results. No one listens to my rants. Most days, they don't listen to me in general unless they think I am going to say something they can repeat later and claim as their own words. I warn you this doesn't work well if a) English is not your native language or b) the people you repeat my words to have had the chance to observe my unique method of delivering the English language to an audience.

So, with that much said, I would rather dance around happily at the thought of what I have accomplished today. To start with, I made it out of bed. I managed to take a shower without Ziggy jumping into the tub with me. (I know she is working up the courage for this one.) I decided to try a new soap and I am not sure if it is me or not, so if anyone saw me sniffing my own arm today, it was no because I am a nut. I was just observing the scent of my soap. I have six bars of it though, so I have a feeling I will have to learn to like it sometime.

I also came to work where the book fort has almost been destroyed. I only have a couple of more piles of books before my time with books is pretty much over. No worries though, I have the fiche and the barcodes to console me. I will never run out of fiche and barcodes. The library is also full of promise for more special projects that need special hobbit attention. Besides, if my job is to clean my desk, I really do have job security. *big wink*

I finished up another wonderful piece of writing this afternoon, as well. I completed my annual report. That one will not posted for the world to view unless a lot of you pay me large sums of money in advance. You could just give me large sums of money for fun though. In the meantime, back to my other fun places on the net.

Without love, is there any point to any of this? Some days the books that cross my desk appall me. Not for their content, but sometimes for the way I can see with a glance that the author has no passion for what they write. We write of murder, immorality, pain, anger and so much more without any thought to how this is the worst of the human condition. We write of love as if it is disposable. We write of sex as if it is something less than sacred, less than intimate. I worry for us. In the same moment, I laugh to see some of the children's books we have. After all, not everyone would think to tell a pigeon not to drive a bus or take a pig for a trip on the Titanic, but people do write of these things.

The big winner though was a book entitled Boing about a pack-rat kangaroo. The perfect present for a boy named Joey, perhaps? Hey, I have to plan ahead. You never know when a relative or friend's birthday is looming up on you. *looks around suspiciously* Anyway, on to more kangaroos and maybe some more thoughts of family fun.

Some days I find myself reviewing what I have not yet accomplished. This is actually not a good idea. New projects jump into my lap like eager beavers shopping in the forest more often then I care to think about. So I thought I would briefly recap what I have accomplished in the past couple of days. I made another fun game for Family Home Evening last night. I was assured that it was great fun. This is always reassuring since that is the nature of most games. I fear that my games tend to be a bit too cerebral sometimes though. I need to make the goal of a simple yet fun game--perhaps even mindless.

I got a good start on cleaning up some of the papers that I had piled up in my "churchie stuff" pile. I found quite a few wonderful pictures of adorable couples who have gotten married over the past few years. Something tells me that there are still more of them floating around somewhere, but I hope to find them and vanquish them to the realm of "cheap attempts to scrapbook" as well. I also finished the more annoying parts of a project I am working on. I have also almost completed one of my Christmas presents for the upcoming year.

I also made some time to go to Institute this evening. Institute gives me a little time to recuperate. I confess that I may not get the most out of it some nights. Tonight my mind was wandering as I doodled aimlessly on a notepad someone gave me. People love to give me notepads that are advertising intriguing prescription drugs. I am not sure if they are trying to tell me something or just continuing the ongoing rush to give me more garbage to find uses for. Ah, the things I can do with garbage, but that is another story and future accomplishments. How I wish I had something more intriguing to say to my journal.

This is not an entry about a publisher trying to keep me happy by offering me gifts. I wish it were, but despite having one completed novel (aka my love letter) and a feuilleton that now surpasses 33,000 words, I have yet to be published. I am still shaking my head about the napkin from Mickey D's, MacDo, McDonald's, the Golden Arches, or whatever you wish to call it that came fluttering out of a book I was processing today. And I try to make it sound like nothing exciting ever happens to me?

I went to a friend's house in the hopes of proving my mermaid nature but the intermittent thunder storms were not conducive to this. In fact, they were quite discouraging, so I watched Hitch instead. Came home to the irony that I am apparently expected to be somewhat like that. Seriously, do you think it is flattering to have every guy you meet ask you for love advice. I never claimed to be Aphrodite, but I am certainly not Vulcan (I mean the hideous god not the pointy-eared race). But such is life and such is fate and one day I am going to wake up with my twenty-seven cats and say, "Ah, purr, this is where I am meant to be." On to better things.

I missed out on an opportunity to slip into a croissant costume and roll around in butter. I missed a chance to make a tri-colored cake and chow on the French flag. I missed the chance to run through the streets singing something about my patria *snicker*. I didn't post on Bastille Day. Don't you feel horrible for me. On a good note though, today is payday. We all know what that means. I got the phenomenal chance to pay even more bills. Don't you love how that works? If anyone else would like to donate to paying my bills, please feel free.

I am still awaiting my brain's completion of one of the many novels bumping around in my head. Unfortunately, they keep bashing wildly against each other. Nothing could possibly be more exciting than the smashed together bits of thought that are attacking me right now. Since not much else of interest has happened today, however, I will release you to play.

The day started out bad. So most days seem to start out bad. The air is pulsing with some sort of tension and something tells me I am not the only person to notice it. I noted this yesterday as I was filling my car up with incredibly expensive gas. I am paying more for cheap gas than I was when I was still pampering it with the good stuff. (I don't want to hear it. The hobbitmobile needs all the love it can get.) As I was watching the numbers spin up and up, closer and closer to the big two oh, the air changed. The mugginess lessened a bit and then flecks of chilled water washed under the carport and over my face. I felt relief from all the tension for just a moment and couldn't help but wish that the rain would be able to wash all of that horrible tension away and leave us all feeling less burdened by whatever woes, stresses, or strains were pulling us down.

Then the pump made that noise, you know the one, that says, "I can't give you any more gas though at this price, you know they wish I could." I replaced the nozzle, closed my gas tank (always a good idea), and hopped back into my hobbitmobile to drive over to the church. I then presented people with peanut butter cookies and read a little story about hymns. Don't be knocking the hymns. They are quite beautiful like poems put to music. (Poems that aren't bitter or mushy like mine.) Then we proceeded to play a fun game of what I like to call cheat. I won about half of the games. Oh yes, we also played Ucre [sic]. I am not sure I get that game completely. It may take me a couple more goes, but in the meantime, losing is a nice humbling experience.

Anyway, on to today. I woke up with what I would like to call a tremendous headache. I went to work anyway. I picked a project that is fairly reflexive and went with it, trying to accomplish something with my day. About halfway through the morning, the sun attacked, but I slogged through, hoping that my healthy lunch would help to alleviate my pain. No dice on that one. I had to come home where I passed out for a good four hours, waking up just in time to drop off some refreshments and go give my beautiful Karnsy moral support at belly dance class. The big news of the evening being that if you touch your nose, it helps your balance. I didn't try this, despite feeling a bit groggy and afraid the headache was hiding, my balance worked out quite well.

Anyway, I then proceeded to catch up with some wild and crazy kids to go hang out at the Roadhouse. Nothing in the world can compare to the joy of being sprayed with spit and water while trying to eat a roll. I also got whacked in the head with a spitball. That person, despite it being an accident, got what I like to think of as the elephant treatment--whacked with a peanut. Then I drove the brave souls who road in my car back to the Institute to release them into the wild world. They were headed to Fairmont, which I am glad they didn't mention in the hobbitmobile because, as we all know, the hobbitmobile secretly aspires to live in Fairmont.

Then on the way home, I noticed the moon. Not a 2005 eclipse, but still beautiful as it glittered in the sky. And on that beautiful note, I am going to go sleep with the cat who already passed out next to me.

With actor Scotty Doohan's passing, I feel the birth of a new geek cult(ure). "Beam me up, Scotty" will take on new meaning for people trying to follow their favorite Scottish engineer's path to a land where you always have the power and dilithium crystals necessary to keep your enterprise hurtling through space. Before I implicate myself further as a Trekie, I think I shall move on to another topic.

Today during lunch, I had a novel metaphor enter my charming head. The library as a three ring circus. (Warning, the images that enter your head are not my fault.) Let us start with the animals. Obviously, we deal in books, so our beasts would be books. This would make my favorite department, Cataloging, the animal tamers and trainers. We stamp them into submission and send off to their cages to gnaw on book dust. Those lovely ladies (predominantly) of Reference are the ringmasters, directing the attention of the wonderful audience of patrons to the right ring.

Acquisitions is in charge of getting the right animals and talent to keep the audience interested. This makes them the talent agents. Access services is in charge of ticket sales as they charge and discharge the books to the general public as well as sell them those great resident borrower cards. I had to puzzle over the West Virginia Collection for a while. I finally decided that since they are so high up in the building that they can be our trapeze artists. Media Services gets to be our publicists mainly because they have the word media in their name and I put Systems in charge of pyrotechnics and sound because they get to play with all the fun high tech stuff.

This leaves our branch libraries. The lonely soul in charge of the Mathematics library gets to crunch numbers under the direction of the financers of the Dean's office and the money managers of the business office. Evansdale houses the books on agriculture and forestry so they get to care for the animals. Health Sciences, by default of being so far from the main library, houses our personal freak show. I don't believe they actually have bearded ladies or midgets out there, but you never know what kinds of interesting people wander in from the Health Science Center (they may have some experimental drugs there).

Perhaps, I should review the days highlights. I got to sleep in until my insistent cats finally dragged me into wakefulness. I played with the bread machine I got for my birthday. I also woke up without a sore throat. Of course, the best was when a random girl crawled into my lap and mauled me. Only in my world, right? Ah, but then I would have to review the lowdarks, but who cares if it doesn't affect them? Yeah, not you, look really carefully into yourself and I defy you to prove me wrong. Go ahead. I, however, am going to go try and accomplish something I didn't accomplish yet...

So today is another celebrated holiday. My brother the kangaroo has passed another year in the world without too much excitement keeping me down. Happy Birthday, Joey. Ah, he knows I love him. I did take him that lovely red velvet cake. My mother found this amusing, declaring to him that he killed it. He certainly did, taking about half of it for himself before letting the rest of us try for a piece. Of course, I did get to lick the bowl while it was baking, so I wasn't too worried about the amount of sugar in my system. Despite rumors to the contrary, however, he did decide to hold off a bit on getting married.

That brings me to the fact that I have accomplished only three of the things that I had on my list to accomplish over my break. I finished a skirt that I had already started, I posted another fabulous entry for my story, and I made it to the temple. With four days off, and a weekend, I should have finished so much more. I have given the matter a bit of thought, and I believe I figured out why this is the case. To start with, I have had a cold since last Thursday (which would be the first day I took off). Then I have all my friends who think that Bella's vacation means "my vacation" with the my declaring their possession. Of course, being the healer of hearts, I have tried to be nice and say "no", but then I get bawled out, cried at, or whined at incessantly. Yes, all of these things keep me from actually accomplishing things. Thanks for noticing, btw.

So I have been thinking that I need to try a new type of getting away. My living room couch may even have to miss me. I may need to disconnect from the world, completely,leaving only a sign that says, "It's Not About You" though everyone will disregard it because as I have said before, unless they are in the picture, no one really cares what is going on with Bella.

So for the last topic of the day, I return to what I like to think of as random encounters. I bumped into someone I knew in the old days in the darker regions of the Shire. It occurred to me that I have known her since first grade and she really hasn't changed much, but I don't remember seeing her after fourth grade. Now this is probably just a quirk of fate as far as not having classes together, but I think it was more that the girl is an absolute sweetheart. She is also absolutely beautiful. Just one hobbit's opinion. I always remember her being a good artist, too. My Mrs. and my Aravan are probably looking at this going, "Yes, Bella and her love for the artists." Somewhat comforting to realize that I don't really hate everyone. I just need to try to notice the people who are sweet, considerate, and above all completely honest with me, themselves, and the world. Ah, for honesty...

In tribute to my favorite California girl, Leda, I decided to post the following:

TOP TEN WAYS TO USE A HIDEOUS SWEATER TO ESCAPE

10. Wearing a hideous sweater can disorient would-be pursuers.
9. One can unravel some of the wool and use it to make booby traps.
8. Tying multiple hideous sweaters together makes a great rope.
7. Or, you could unravel the sweater (if you only have one) and weave your own rope.
6. Lots of people already use them to escape holiday shopping as my closet has historically attested.
5. The right level of hideousness can keep even crocodiles at bay.
4. Throw the hideous sweater over the head of your pursuer.
3. Offer it to your pursuer as a bribe, their hysterical laughter will give you time to make a break for it.
2. A hideous sweater can cause them to pity you for your obvious bad taste or mental incapacity.
1. With luck, would-be assailants will figure they can't do worse to you than that sweater.

Another lovely day in our confused world. It is so confused that intermittent rain showers would give way to the sun. I love days like this. It proves the world is just as mixed up as the vaulted halls of my mind. Some day, maybe even you will understand what I mean by that, but I doubt it because no one has entered those halls. Yes, I am terrible and keeping people out. I just don't want random lawsuits if you get lost in there. I get enough crap for the misinterpretations people make of what I am silly enough to say aloud. So go find a sweater and escape to sleep.

How I wish this was an entry about how someone got me a 2006 Ford Mustang for my birthday and is paying the insurance on it for the next year. That doesn't happen to me. If it does happen to me, the heart attack will carry me away to a place where materialism does me no good anyway. I like to think I am not a needy, greedy girl whose only interest is accumulating wealth, power, and names to drop. It that were my goal, I have definitely failed anyway. I try to be considerate of others. I try to keep one hand on the iron rod, my eyes pretty concentrated on the important things in life, and my other hand ever ready to help someone in need.

The mustangs I refer to are the wild horses of the west. Every little girl loves horses, don't they? I believe I have admitted more than once to this obsession. As can be imagined, I am also an avid reader. I was always impressed by these wild horses who could not an would not change who they were to please man. People would try to break them. They would think they had them won, saddle them up, shove a bit in their mouth, and then go to ride their prize for all men to see. The horse would clamp its teeth against the hard metal and fight and resist these harsh attempts to control and harness what can not be controlled. Of course, the rider would pull the reins again, thinking this would get them what they wanted. In some cases, it worked. In others, the animal would still rear up, biting the bit harder, blood pouring from its mouth and nose, sweat flecking its shimmering coat. If the would be possessor continued, it was assured they would lose the horse as well as their pride when it died beneath them rather than succumb to them or succeeded in shaking lose the cruel oppressor. Why do people want so much to possess something that they would rather watch it die than accept that it is not theirs to own?

It is rare that one tries the right method of breaking such a wild animal. I shall not detail that here. If you do not know it, pretending will not bring it to pass. The world has enough lies, I am not going to encourage more them. The mustangs of the world will just have to run free until the right person comes along. In the meantime, they will feel no more guilt and no more shame for not bowing their heads to the false gods that men wish to be to them.

Makes you wonder why that image was so firmly ingrained in me that I could not get it out. Keep wondering. I am still wondering why I haven't got rid of the loveseat slipcover that I have. It is blue and white plaid, so if you know someone who would be interested, direct them to make a reasonable offer to me. The price tag reads $115, so I am judging reasonable based on that as well as the fact that money is good when one pays one's own bills. I have other weird things that I need to be rid of, but am not in the mood for a yard sale, so feel free to e-mail me ( fanklubz@meowmail.com ) if you are interested in what else I may be willing to part with. Don't waste my time with ridiculous questions though. I am not selling myself, for instance, though I may be convinced to sew or create something for a reasonable price, and if you just want to give me money for the heck of it, you can shower me with praise.

And now for the updates on what happens in the life of a hobbit. Be wary for the excitement may kill you. I got to work with the fabulous fiche again today. So nothing exciting in the work department. All the happens when the sun is slipping down. I decided to up my Laurafication by hanging out with a couple of my Laura's. We watched Miss Congeniality II: Armed and Fabulous in the hopes of making me more congenial. I believe that it failed, but I could be wrong about that. Not a bad movie. I will never look at Dolly Parton the same way again though.

Then I ventured back to my house. One charming person decided to cut me off on their way between the lane to the left of mine and the one to the right of mine. Luckily, I had started slowing down for no logical reason seconds before they cut into my lane. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting them, but I did succeed. Then as I continued my travels another person decided to take up half of my lane as I was coming around a turn. My car almost got to make sickening metal on stone love with a stone wall since that particular part of the road has no give. I certainly love driving in this town and look forward to the thousands of bikers who will be enjoying that pleasure this weekend.

I also arrived at my house to find I could have missed all that fun by visiting another friend on my way home. I just know they were playing Risk without me. I have no idea how I will recover? More to come in the hobbit files.