The Queen's Meme

So much crazy news out there lately -from sunbursts to outbursts to implants to supplements. Here are a few topics spinning off the newswire.. Sound off and tell us how you really feel about it. Your opinion counts.

1. What would you do about the BP oil spill? Give us your suggestions. I don't understand why everyone says we must "partner" with BP because they have the technology to fix the problem. Don't BP, Halliburton and Transocean have competitors? Don't these other companies have contingency plans in case of a spill? Let's call on them, encourage them to help, and reward them handsomely if they can successfully clean up after BP. (BTW, I know they wouldn't work well together. I want the competitors to be as fiercely cutthroat as possible, trying to come up with the best way possible to fix hole.)

2. Tipper and Al Gore are calling it quits. How does this happen after 40 years? Am I the only one surprised it wasn't Bill & Hill?

3. It’s hot! The heat index topped 104 degrees today in some parts of the United States. How is the weather in your part of the world? Low 80s and sunny.

4. Do you think smoking should be banned in public places? Yes. Here in Chicagoland it pretty much is prohibited.

5. Unemployment from the top down: Do you think President Obama has a good chance or no chance of being re-elected in the next US election? Depends on who he's running against.

6. What??! Actor Gary Coleman’s wife reportedly sold private pictures of the deceased actor on his deathbed. This girl gets progressively creepier with every new revelation.

7. Texting while driving. Do you? Don't you? Will you? Won't you? I don't drive, so I'm innocent of all charges.

8. Lindsay Lohan. Has she been treated fairly or unfairly by the legal system? Let's just say the legal system in California has a history of being more than fair to celebrities.

9. The Sarah Palin rumor mill caught wind of her recent decision to have breast implants….so said the reporters-who-need-to-get-a-job-and-stop-making-up-news. She has denied the earthshaking allegations. Was this really news? Sure. Why not? If Heidi Montag's multi-surgeries are newsworthy, so's the "did she/didn't she" on Sister Sarah.

10. An asteroid is supposed to hit Earth this Friday. Are you prepared? Asteroid ... Is that "duck and cover" or "stop, drop and roll?"

Play along and stay out of the dungeon! Click here for details.

Clean Me

Every day I am going to do something -- no matter how small -- to improve my standard of living at home.

Lordie, but I have a lot of buttons! And yarn. Seems every blouse or sweater I buy comes with extra buttons and yarn and, being a slob by nature, I just kinda leave them wherever they lay. Not anymore, folks! Not the new Clean Me! All the buttons and yarn -- as well as their "clutter cousins," the earring backs -- have been assembled. Oh! And the hair clips and headbands I bought while experimenting with longer hair have been collected and tucked away, too. The top of my dresser looks like someone else sleeps in this bedroom!

I also threw went through my cosmetics basket on my dresser and threw away three tubes of lipstick because, well, I hate lipstick. I have no idea why or when I bought this stuff, but it was beyond time to bid it adieu.

10 on Tuesday -- Prepare to be inspired

Ten Inspirational Sayings from My Office Bulletin Board

1) Everything I need to know I learned from the people trapped in my basement

2) Tons of therapy and I'm still totally fucked up

3) People who live in glass houses shouldn't masturbate

4) Gossipy, raunchy and potty-mouthed.

5) Inner beauty won't get you laid

6) I am not like the others. My strangeness is my strength.

7) Does my fat ass make my ass look fat?

8) Some days it really isn't worth chewing through the restraints

9) We're not gossiping. We're plotting our evil, left-wing feminist agenda.

10) Children are a blessing. You never know when you'll need blood or a spare kidney.

There. Now isn't your outlook brighter?

It amuses me

En route from lunch I road the elevator with a pair of impeccably groomed young men who were commenting on how "rotten" Chicago's baseball teams are and that's why they "hate baseball."

I fantasized spinning around, in full Scarlett O'Hara/fury mode, and slapping them across their smug faces. "Hate baseball? Don't ever say you hate baseball! Why, that's the same as saying you hate your Pa and Mother, that you hate America!"

Do twentysomethings still watch Gone with the Wind? Would they know that scene?

Oh well, I like imagining them rubbing their freshly shaved (and now freshly slapped) cheeks and wondering "what the fu ..." as I flounced off the elevator. (Because Scarlett would flounce.)

Clean Me

Every day I am going to do something -- no matter how small -- to improve my standard of living at home.

I was once involved with a guy who was really into ... um ... a particular kind of lingerie. And, because I especially enjoyed being with him when he was especially happy, I had a drawer of that lingerie.

Note the tense: "had."

For I opened the drawer disposed of all the lacy lovelies. I mean, I couldn't donate them to Goodwill, could I?

While I hope I'm through with the support hose, I won't know for sure until next month. And, since they cost about $30/pair, I don't want them to snag so I put them in the quilt-top lingerie box.

It was a true sitcom moment. Rhoda would tell Mary how this was the perfect metaphor for a life gone hopelessly awry: yesterday's silk thigh top stockings are now today's industrial-strength support hose.

I'm trying not to look at it that way, though. I'm trying to see it as simply freeing up most of another drawer and bringing me closer to a "Clean Me."