Mail call

When I got the mail today, I had a present! Oh boy oh boy!

The incomparable David Dust recently ran a little contest. He had interviewed an Australian artist named Rona Green (read the interview here--she does really cool anthropomorphic animal stuff) and was giving away a print that Ms. Green had donated. No, I didn't win the print, but he also had a handful of buttons that he was giving away, and I emailed him soon enough that I was able to get one. Isn't he cute? Thank you, David, you're a peach! I'll add it to my button collection.

And yes, I do have a small collection, and this particular blast from the past found me a couple of months ago. I was looking for something in the garage, and came across the strip of fake black leather with staples all over it onto which I'd stuck various band buttons (plus a couple of non-band items) I'd gotten back in college! I had it hanging on my dorm room wall. I have no idea how it made its way into the garage, but I'm glad I never got rid of them. I brought them in and cleaned them up (I didn't save the fake black leather with staples all over it, though) and was just delighted to see my old friends. (Click the pic for better detail.) I really like the square London Calling one, and the RIP Sid Vicious one, but I have to admit I still love the "I'm not strange, you are" one. Ha! I think my Dust bunny pin makes a nice addition. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with them all, but I suspect they'll end up framed. I love my pop culture! "New York London Paris Munich, Everybody talk about...Pop Musik!" (A Silver Squirrel to anyone who knows the name of the band that did that song. No cheating by googling it...it must be a part of your personal memory banks!)

I also had a nice email from my friend and former coworker, Jillian. I miss her...she always laughed at my lame jokes! (One day, she had on striped socks in fall colors. I said, "Your socks are cute! Very autumnal." She said thanks, and I said, "Hey...they're Autumnal EquiSOX! Get it?!" I'm sorry, but that's just a classic, if I do say so myself.) Jillian is the one who started the book club, and apparently it's being changed up a little bit. For every three books on the Modern Library's list, a member picked at random will choose a book they want everyone to read. I told Jillian she's much nicer than I am. I would have been like, "Nope, we're sticking to the list." And if they wanted to read other books, I'd have said, "Then start your own club." I guarantee that any of my former coworkers who might be reading this are going, "Yep. She would have." Ha ha!

I told Jillian that I'll be opting out of the extras. I'm behind as it is, and I've got more books than I know what to do with, so I don't need to add any more. What I'm enjoying about the Modern Library's list is that it's getting me to read books I never would have read otherwise, and some of them I've enjoyed very much (The Magus, The Sheltering Sky), so I want to keep to that list, along with the handful of dozens of maybe a hundred, okay?! books I've got waiting in the wings. I guess people had pretty much stopped reading the books, and that's a shame. I hope everyone picks it up again--and maybe this will give me a chance to get caught up!

This is off-topic, but I picked up a TracPhone today, so you all can rest easy. [wink] I'll activate it when our Sprint contract is done at the end of this month. Looks like it's fairly simple to use, and I didn't even worry about getting a camera phone! *gasp*

Even more off-topic, have you ever had a mad craving? I'm not talking about chocolate, either. I thought of cottage cheese last night, and it's been a while since I had any. I just had to have some, so I got a container today and ate a big bowl of it. Man, I love that stuff. Ken hates it, so I know he'll never secretly eat my cottage cheese.