I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish

Every year, the annual fundraiser for my undergraduate institution calls to solicit a donation from me. The number that they have is for my mobile, since I no longer have a land-line. Every year, they have no outgoing info to declare themselves. As a single woman living alone, I do not answer calls when I cannot identify their origin. Every year, they do not leave a message. When someone (particularly from a business) calls me and does not leave a message, I do not reply--no exceptions ever. The more that this happens, the less likely that I am to ever communicate/do business with the person/business again. I just blocked their number from my cell phone what is likely the ninth year in a row. When they call the next time, they'll get the message that they've been blocked from this number. When will they get the clue what that actually means? Stop calling, stop failing to leave a message if you have to call, and for the good of all things sane, stop sending a cloying letter after you've been blocked from calling, "offering" the "opportunity" to donate. It's never going to happen again!

I was surprised by how surprised I was, a couple of weeks ago, when I'd heard that a friend of mine had gotten married. I was happy for her. She and her boyfriend have been going together for a number of years, and have lived together in her condo for two. They both have good jobs, take nice vacations together, enjoy their dog and their time with friends. It seems like one of those marriages that will really work, because they were good friends first.

The funny/sad/pathetic thing is that I'm hurt, or angry, or some other thing I can't quite put my finger on, that I wasn't invited to the wedding. That shouldn't bother me, or, if I'm bothered, I should just be able to get over it. I know that if I'd been invited, it would have been torture to have gone--I would literally have known the bridal couple and one other person there, so my social anxiety or snobbishness, whichever it is, would have been overwhelming. Reminders of my single state are annoying at best, as are anything that draws attention to the difference in age between me and some of my friends. So why is it such a big deal?

If the situation were reversed, I would've invited them. I thought we were that kind of friend. Real friends. And we're not. It's like a dousing with cold water, and I have no idea how to act when next I face her. If I do.

Hey, hey! I am right now experiencing my first nosebleed of the season. I'll try not to bleed onto the post.

As you may know, I've been reading Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series since the books were recommended to me by The Cat last May. In that time, I've worked my way through the first fifteen books, and I'm currently about one-third through the sixteenth. (There are seventeen in the series so far.) It's strange, though, that I've not enjoyed the last two books (Borderline and the current one, Burn) much at all, after ripping through the previous fourteen in right around a year. I realized today when the problem is: Anna Pigeon has lost her edge. The fourteenth book, Winter Study, was one of the best in the series. The bad guy was really bad, and did quite a number on her--though she got her licks in, too. After I read it, I expected her to shake it off, as she had in each of the previous entries in the series, and move on to her next National Park Service post, older and wiser and with a couple more scars to show for it. Anna's a great character to read because she's an absolute car-crash in the first few books in the series, drinking too much and having illicit thoughts (and sometimes illicit relationships) with exactly the wrong people, coming close to making terrible decisions at work, and basically losing control over her life. She's a mess. As the books progress, though, so does she. She learns about the consequences of her actions, she starts to listen to the advice (both overt and subtle) that she receives from others, and she generally lives life with better care, even while facing the dangers that make the mystery and suspense part of the series so compelling. However, at some point, it all just loses momentum. She barely drinks (NOT that I'm advocating alcohol abuse! I'm just saying that her struggles with drinking were more realistic than her extraordinarily sudden ability to cool it, after years of careening out of control, alcoholically-speaking), her romantic situation is downright boring (boringboringboring), and as of the point I've reached in Burn, she's taken a full book and a third off from her job to recover what would have, in the first fourteen books in the series, not kept her off work for a day. The title quotation (by Anne Lamott) very aptly describes the way that Anna Pigeon used to think. Now, she's dull as dishwater. It's a shame, and I hope it doesn't last much longer.

I'm thinking about packing up the blog and moving it; it may be time, after all these years, to pay for a domain and grant myself some leeway that Blogger (and Google) won't give. It's still in the consideration stage, and a great deal depends on how the next stage in my life plays out, but I didn't want it to be a complete surprise, should it happen.

And finally: if you got some flat-soled purple (claret?) velvet shoes (oxfords, really), with what would you wear them?