All those things the title references are places I saw road signs for today. I had to get up pre-dawn early to drive, drive, drive up into the mountains for work. It's a nice drive, and one I used to have to make for work all the time. There's plenty of out in the kudzu scenery (I quoted the kudzu entry of the REAL PLACES book in the crazy magazine junky thread on our Night Shade topic, the other day, if you're interested in that sort of thing), and it was foggy and gray but not in an overly dangerous or depressing way.

Sadly, I was exhausted nigh until death, so glazed over I barely even shrieked with delight at the Slade Reptile Museum (which unbelievably does not have a website). (I did think it would be fun to spend New Year's weekend at the Natural Bridge park in a cabin though, and it's just right there and I've never been inside!) We had a really great version of chat in my screenwriting workshop last night, with this hilarious, enthusiastic manager as a special guest. It was way cool, but as a result I stayed up incredibly too late and woke with a baby migraine. Survived though! And that's all that matters.

So, Paris Hilton and Lionel Richie's Daughter -- please tell me they get shot trying to run in heels in the season finale of "The Simple Life". It is really hard to do the bad fashion and the uber-pouting and the whining and the just general "we are rich but we are also terrible assholes"-ness of these two justice. I am so addicted to this show. But only in a way where I want to be able to exercise my secret superpower of assigning calories I and my friends eat straight to their most skinny bits and reach through the screen, breaking the fifth wall, which is the one where you can actually hit the person inside the screen. (Rather than just a character addressing the camera.)

Anyway.

That's all I got today. Here's some more pictures! These are ones Richard and Barb took and are awesome! Why am I using so many exclamation points?

This one is of the strange little camel in Phoenix Park next to the library. Research as we may, we haven't yet determined his significance. Though I accidentally misremembered that we had and told Richard and Barb it was because there used to be a Cairo Hotel there. Okay, so that was the J. Peterman catalogue and it was t-shirts and bathrobes. A girl can get confused.



Christopher and me at sushi. You make up the caption...



And, last but never least, the portrait of sad George, sad because his dear friends are leaving him here with just us.



earworm: still "Jackson," covered beautifully by Hem

random rec: Jackstraws by Charles Simic

namecheck: Daniel "Cumberland Gap Me" Boone, or failing that, Debbie Boone