i like this one alright – i’ll try to find the pictures of my other two book covers. the first one is alot more detailed, and it’s my favourite of the three.

• 1974 – when i was 4, i could read. like, actually read. my grandfather used to have me read random excerpts from the newspaper aloud to his friends in order to show me off.
• 1976 – bicentennial – just before i turned 6, i got the lead in the kindergarten play – i was miss liberty – the key character and narrator. i gave the prologue, introduced all the different peoples that made up our country, and ended the play. i learned my lines plus everyone else’s.
• 1976 – for my 6th birthday i got a motorcycle and learned how to check the tire pressure, chain tension, brakes, and how to measure for the pre-mix AND THEN i learned how to ride it.
• 1977 – when i was 7, i took an IQ/aptitude test in school and was immediately placed in a smart kid program which i attended for the next 5 years.
• 1978 – when i was 8 i got in trouble for including naked breasts in a collage i made in class. i was well aware that i was pushing my luck but i did it anyway. heh.
• 1980 – when i was 10 i learned the sign language [finger] alphabet along with 2 other friends so’s we could talk during class.
• 1981 – at age 11 i was asked to be a member of the safety patrol. i agreed and was then selected as captain (and the boss of everyone, so HAH!) even though i was the youngest member.
• again in 1981 – i realised that if i didn’t show up at the smart kid school i was attending one day a week, they thought i was in my regular class and if i didn’t show up at my regular class on that one day, they assumed i was at my smart kid class. soooo… one day a week, i went to the river. it lasted about a month before i got busted
• also in 1981 – my 6th grade teacher pushed the school to bump me up a grade and they did. i never went to seventh grade.
• again, in 1981 – lost a lunchbox for a few weeks behind some shelves in the bandroom. when it was discovered, i promptly tried to kill my entire 6th grade class with the contents (thanks to mary cassube koon for reminding me of this one)
• and one more for 1981 – it was a slappy year. i slapped the dog piss out of andy west for tripping me while i was playing kings and queens, and in pursuit. i got sent to Row 1, but it was totally worth it, and it was a very memorable slap. that same year, i almost got kicked out of girl scouts for slapping the leader’s daughter for twisting my arm behind my back and spitting crackers on me.  i left a handprint on her face and i’ve since apologised for that but to my credit, i TOLD her she better never let me go…
• 1982 – when I was 12, i ranked 5th in the state of florida in the 50cc mini-b motocross class. i rode a honda, of course.
• 1984 – the summer i turned 14, i went to a 2 week computer/math/science camp. on awards day, i got “best over-all girl camper” out of about 80 girls. i didn’t do anything spectacular except ask my usual kinds of questions… but i got a fantastic scientific calculator that i still have.
• 1985 – at 15 i was chosen (unexpectedly) by my school faculty and administration as the BHS Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation representative and attended a 1 week seminar in tallahassee at the university. heheh they probably regretted that one because i promptly got in trouble for wearing a toga in the pool at midnight and partying with the [FSU] college kids, and i learned absolutely NOTHING from the whole experience.
• 1986 – i was chosen (again unexpectedly) by my school faculty and administration to be on the school safety committee. this meant that in the event of an emergency, i had to evacuate the part of the school that was [at that time] out of earshot of the alarm – the band room, the girl’s locker room, and the gymnasium.
• 1986 – the navy band put on a show at my high school. i chatted with them after and then checked myself out of class via a forgery and went to lunch at the sub shop with them and then along to their next gig at our rival high school. when i got home that day, my ma met me at the door with arms folded asking where i had been. my reply was “at school” which was a half-truth – i didn’t say i was at MY school. i got busted because i went there with my [former] bff and she also forged a note BUT the school attendance officer thought hers looked suspect, called her mom and confirmed it, and then called my mom simply because she knew that we were most likely together. how shit is that? 6 hours after-school detention and the next year when the navy band played, the PRINCIPAL of the school called into my next class just to make sure that i was still there. sheesh.
• same year, 15 minutes before the end of a school dance, i went out back to smoke a cigarette. 20 minutes later i was walking through my front door to the [increasingly familiar] site of my mother standing there waiting for me with her arms folded and foot tapping. apparently the aforementioned school principal had phoned her and said “michelle’s smoking cigarettes behind the gym”.
• 1986-87 – age 16 – eight-ish years later and again with the naked breasts art project only this time it was an oil painting in my senior year and i got away with it.
• 1986-87 – i kinda fucked off in my classes and wasn’t making the grades that i should have been so i nicked some blank report cards and made myself new grades. everything would have been fine except that my ma was in the school office one day and said something along the lines of “isn’t michelle doing well in her classes?” to which she recieved no verbal reply but some seriously strange glances and shortly thereafter, all was revealed. oops.
• 1987 – age 16 – graduated one year early anyway. so there.

i’m sure there’s more but that’s all i’ve got for now… and i think my parents knew all of this before but they certainly know now (but it’s ok because i’m almost 40).

xx

this one is called Union (1954). it looks like a mushroom.

wow.

so, for a group of sounds to be considered a language, it is generally accepted that “it must contain words with abstract meanings; possess syntax in which the order of words is part of their meaning; have the ability to coin new words; be composed of smaller elements; and use words separated in space and time from what they represent.”

it appears that the prairie dogs are well within these parameters, and are quite possibly better at it than dolphins… and in some aspect(s), humans.

here’s a BBC article about it but SURELY it’s not restricted to north american ones.

…and here’s another article about it

below is a crop of the prairie dog photo i took at the belfast zoo the other day. obviously the ones at the zoo don’t feel particularly threatened by much of anything and in fact,  we were like the buzzing of flies to this one! it couldn’t have cared less, really. they’re awfully cute though

nom nom nom…

*coughcoughmysanitycough*

completely unrelated, i would like to find out who makes the best raspberry martinis in north central florida – the kind with actual raspberry puree in them, not just flavoured vodka . i’ve had two in my life and would like another but my standards are WAY high on this and i refuse to budge. any suggestions? surely it’ll be had somewhere in gainesville?

…or the florida keys? heheh… whichever really.

finally, i think the next anything-but–annual “party at michelle’s” is going to be on saturday,  july 31st. i already know that this date doesn’t work out for some BUT i’m stateside for two months, i really do think the party is best had at the halfway point, and hopefully other arrangements can be made to see those who must be seen.

ciao!
(back soon xx)