Fluent Self Item!A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.

Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.

Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.

So last week Tuesday felt like Wednesday. This week Wednesday feels like Tuesday.

And I don’t even know what that means.

Lots of good stuff this week. Let’s go.

Also, I include links to Twitter handles too, when I can. If you’re not a fellow Twitterite, here’s my post about why it’s so great.

Item! Post No. 21 in a semi-ongoing series that gives me time to not be even slightly brilliant or amusing as I distract you with shiny bits of fabulousness.

Item! This post is brilliant.

It’s called “This is not a post about why I haven’t been blogging.”

It’s from Maggie at Okay Fine Dammit.

And it’s completely brilliant.

I can see it. I can. I suppose, if I were to sit here and thumb through these posts like a paperback I’m casually perusing I might gasp at all the angst, but honestly, that’s not the way my life goes.

It only looks that way if you try to measure me by this space, and in reality this space is just a place I come to dump out the contents of my brain when it is full to the point of aching — yes, more often than not, those are times when I am puzzling something out, when I am attempting to make sense of car accidents or the loss of a child or of one person hitting another in anger.

You need to read it.

She’s @maggiedammit on Twitter.

Item! Gold buckle up. It’s the LAW.

So when you have a duck people send you duck-related stuff until you have to duck hide from them.

Now that I’m running a pirate ship, I get a lot of pirate-related stuff.

But I have to say that these Pirate Laws are completely entertaining. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

When describing the size of a treasure, a pirate is required to exaggerate by at least 130%. Flowers are not treasure under any circumstances, unless said flowers are made out of gold.

Thanks Wendy Cholbi who is @wendycholbi on Twitter.

Item! A factory that makes hearts!

Seriously. Who doesn’t want a heart factory?

I have no idea.

Item! A talk with a dragon!

I thought this Dragon vs. Monkey post from Heather Freeman was pretty amazing.

She takes one of my techniques, pokes at it tentatively from different angles and then runs with it.

She talks to her dragon. She finds her monkey. She gets stuff done. Pretty neat.

Image: a dark, forbidding cave entrance. A reptilian head slowly peers out, the bulk of its body not much more than a shadow. It’s a Komodo dragon.

Definitely worth reading.

And she’s @livingartist on Twitter.

Item! This is crazy! But only if you’re me.

Okay. So I have not as yet officially announced the weekend workshop I’m teaching in North Carolina in August (or even linked to it from the blog until right this second).

But it’s actually already more than half full.

Because my people are hardcore wily obsessive fond of North Carolina awesome. I have no idea how this happened. But it did.

So I’ll just say that if it’s your kind of thing you might want to see about signing up before I go ahead and actually tell people about it somewhere other than here in the Item! post.

Item! Don’t go near the Anagram Generator!

Oh. My. God. This might be even better than NPR names!

So the first thing that comes up for my name when you plug it into the evil time-consuming anagram generator that is made entirely of yay?

Ravish Book! Which is so ridiculously appropriate if you know anything about me.

Though I’m also Shiva Brook. Interesting. I mean, especially when you think about the fact that the crazy power of deconstructing patterns lives in my brain and stuff.

Anyway, Marissa (my First Mate) and I have gotten kind of obsessed with it and it ended up taking up a chunk of one of our Kitchen Table (or: Betcha Tinkle) chat room adventures.

Some of the names people came up with? Luau Jitters. Narwhal Wet. Dairyman Mule. Cleaned Nail Men. A Healed Silk Pinko.

I don’t know what we’re going to do with them. Become exotic dancers? Use them as band names? Or — ooh! — new business names?

Because I don’t know about you, but I’m totally hiring A Laundry Mime.

(And I’m pretty sure I saw Cornea Lingerie performing at a drag show in Berlin once.)

Of course then we had to look up our businesses. So Marissa’s “Can-do-ology” is “Any Cool God.” But also: “Any Loco God.” Awesome.

And when I say Marissa, I mean her band Karma Ascribe, her business A Basic Remarkers, her side business Sarcasm Baker I, and of course her exotic dancer nom de guerre Maracas Bikers.

Meanwhile The Fluent Self is Nettle Shuffle, which I’m pretty sure was a dance craze in the fifties. YES! It also becomes Teen Hell Stuff, which might be even better.

Leave your anagram-ed up name and/or business in the comments!

Thanks @joyfulmess for the link.

That is all.

Happy reading.

And happy Blustery Windsday. See you tomorrow.

The Fluent Self