People Leaving

The other day I saw Andrej and had not talked to him for a while, at least a month. I took a picture. We talked about a lot of stuff.

My friend Franz has gone away. Maybe he needs a vacation. I hope he doesn't go away forever. It is good to take a vacation if you want to think about things. I hope I see him again someday. I hope he reads this.

I have keep talking to other people who say they are not into things in SL like they used to be. Maybe that is how things go. I wanted to do a lot of stuff at first but never really did. Well this post is just a mess. I don't know what I really want to say.

Blogs, Dancing, and Leaping Lizards

Usually at dance clubs people just sort of blurt out a lot of goofy chat lines and say stuff that looks like a picture with the text. Sometimes I get nosy and start looking at people's profiles. I noticed Karl Herber's profile (that's his picture) and saw he had a blog so I thought I would take a look. I enjoy it when people write a whole lot of stuff and we started IM talking. I put a link to his site and one he writes on SL freebies (a handy thing to read) on the side.

As I was talking to Karl it made me think of blogs and SL and why people write them and why people read them and who reads them and so on. Different people look at the world so differently and it is good to share that.

OK so if you look at the title of this blog you are probably wondering why I put "Leaping Lizards" in the title. Well a title is an important part of a story and just "Blogs and Dancing" seemed like it needed something else. Little Orphan Annie always said "Leaping Lizards" but I never knew why. Did they have lizards in New York City cartoon land?

Cleaning Out and More

I forgot to take a picture last night but I found an old one to put it tonight's blog. It is of me playing the piano. I got a freebie shirt and it says "Star" on it. Once I was wearing it and a person I didn't know walked up to me and just said "Hey take that shirt off - you ain't no star!". That was rather mean to just walk up to someone and tell them to take their shirt off like that. But I think he was just joking because he said "LOL" after.

Anyway my friend Leigh was cleaning out some stuff and was sort of worried he should not have of thrown some stuff away. So a poem was written to document the event:

life is rough - so use less stuff
when in doubt - throw it out
set them free, set them free
if they return it was meant to be

It is sad that people do loose touch with each other. Sometimes I think life is just like a big bus station. People sit down - wait for their bus - and leave. And then you wonder what bus they got on and where they went.

Die, Der, und Das

OK now let me tell you what I have learned. In German you can have something that is either male, female, or neutral. At least in Spanish there are only two genders but three! Well Die is for something that is female. And silly me used to see the word "die" and think it was pronounced like the English word die, to stop living. But it is just like "dee" ryhmes with "the". That makes some sense. It is like diesel, the fuel invented by Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel.

So Die katzen, and Der hund. Well so far so good. But then my brain went into overload with Das. I remember the movie Das Boot (not to be confused with DOS Boot in computers) so a boat is neutral. BUT not if the boat has a name. But wait - there's more! Sometimes rivers are male and some rivers are female. Well I guess a lot of things are both male and female.

Anyway the whole point of how Franz and I got into this discussion and how I learned a lot of cool new stuff about the German language is because of spiders, if you can believe that. That is because we say "it" when we talk about a spider in English. And sometimes we say "it" when we talk about animals.

Well I still don't like spiders.

Cellar Doors and Ball Peen Hammers

Well readers you may wonder why in the world did I choose "Cellar Doors and Ball Peen Hammers" as the title. Well let me tell you the story.

Leigh and I went to see Burning Man in SL and he suggested this writers party for people who write and love literature. I was almost too embarrassed open my mouth because everybody sounded so smart. I was afraid I would say something dumb and people would think I was running for US Vice President or something.

Then somebody said something about "hula" or something and I remembered I had a cool hula hoop. I started giving them to everybody. Then Leigh remembered he had a pogo stick and started giving out them. Before long people started to pogo AND hula! It was sort of funny to see a very literate group of probably college professors and serious writers all pogo-ing and hula-ing while talking about DH Lawrence and Virgina Wolfe.

For some reason (I can't remember why now) Leigh said something about a "ball peen hammer". Those are those hammers with a round ball head. I like the sound of the word - ball peen hammer. Then he said a writer mentioned the word cellar door as a word that had a nice sound. So I guess that's all I can remember .

Nothing But Sitting On The Balcony

Poor Franz made a really nice notice for the club but it said "Thursday, September 24" not "Thursday, September 25". What a drag. I've done that sort of thing before too. I told him before it went out and he was going to change it.

We sat on the balcony talked some - just a boring day - just talking. I think the frat house is going to closet of Franz's inventory.

Now I must make a confession before my conscious gets to me. Last night there was a really fun Octoberfest party and I tried to look "German". I wore a handmade black, red and gold shirt to match the German flag. Some people said it was quite creative, thinking I had made it myself. Well I must confess my friend Leigh Eel made it and gave it to me before hand. I just let people believe I made it. Now the truth is out - Rammy Urriah - guilty of shirt fraud!

One Should Not Be Verkrampft

Here is a picture of Franz, Quag and myself. We were talking and talking and Franz gave us a new word - "verkrampft".

I think the Germans have so many really good words and since I an English speaker I guess I like to snatch good words and put them up in a great big word collection box. Verkrampft is similar to feeling cramped up or tied up in knots, at least that is how I understand it. I think the word "cramp" must be a relative of it.

Franz says it is the opposite of easy. I will have to think and see if I can start to use it right. (Franz if you are reading this I hope I have this right)

I keep learning so many different things by just being around people. Maybe one day I will go to Germany and see it for myself. I will have to learn a whole lot more German words though because I don't want to visit a place and be rude by not knowing the basic words to be polite.