"Players and spectators in the arena
Baffled by our moves and by the world's
We are playthings in the hands of time
Dancing to music that is not our own."
Khalilullah Khalili, afghan poet.

Reader "anya o" sent me those lines.
There are not enough words to express my thanks for all of you. For your kind words, your concern and the help offered.

Diane, having used the words [blogson] and [Salam] in the same sentence, gets to suffer thru all the embarrassing things "blogsons" do: me going on and on about pointless things and frightening her with the thought of me singing "thank you for the music" wearing my best ABBA costume. Thank you.

Jim Henley, man you are fast. And he knows I just have to tell Diane so he sends the email to her as well. Thank you, saying that I have been flattered by your offer is an understatement. Thanks for thinking of me.

Kathy thanks for all the tips and for offering me a blog home. And thank “MommaBear” for me as well.

Al, being the first to throw the (he’s a CIA ploy) thing at me will always give you a special place in my heart. This time he wrote me a poem.
Take it away Al:

Splendor in the Grass

Our ol' buddy Salam, he's a dirty lil' perv
Hussein just can't stop him
Bushy's chances are slim
When he's on a love mission, you know he won't swerve

So our bombs start to droppin' on his city so dear
And the Casbah starts rockin'
While the town folk be gawkin'
In shock as the smoke starts to clear

As the neighbors start looking for their goats most preferred
Past Saddam's charcoaled ass
Follow the bleats in the grass
And find Salam out humpin' the herd

You owe me a new keyboard; my brother spilled his sugary tea on it after he read this now it’s all sticky. Thanks Al

The lady who calls herself “a reader”: thank you, I hope you keep coming and keeping an eye on me.

Emily (I think hawkgirl.blogspot.com) thanks for offering to host my blog.

And finally Jason [shellen.com] from Pyra Labs. I was setting up a blog somewhere else when I got his email. I guess this means I will have to tattoo [blogger 4 ever] on my arm now, maybe right under my [I heart Omar el Sharif] tattoo.

I didn’t post the last couple of days because I wanted to see if they were going to block [blogger.com] as well. If they did that they would have figured out what this is, but since they didn’t it means they are giving blog*spot the geocities treatment. Since the first day internet was offered to the public anything on Geocities has been blocked, later msn communities, yahoo groups, anything on tripod and aol were blocked. The latest additions are livejournal and blogspot. But what happens is that sometimes when you are hopping from link to link a geocities site opens press refresh it disappears, go back and get to the site from the link that let you see the site and it loads again. I have no idea why this is like that but blogspot is the same now. Not that I care. Having had a thousand suggestions from you emailed to me and a techy brother I am now set up with two nifty programs which let me go anywhere I want. This isn’t a state secret, everybody here who wants to use yahoo or msn messengers has looked for things which let you circumvent the proxy, but it’s a cat and mouse game. They know which sites you’re using they block it and you look for another.

Thank you for making the last couple of months just great. for taking the time to read this weblog, to link, write an email or comment. most of you know more about what I feel and think than my family does. for starters none of them know I blog, you do. and Diane just knows way too much for my own good :)
thank you