For the next couple of weeks, I am re-releasing some old comics from a few years ago at the rate of one-a-day until July 1st.

1. Kansas. In 2008, I went to Kansas to visit my husband’s family.
2. The Sunflower State. I didn’t know what to expect. It was everything I had expected and more– including a tornado! Stay tuned.
3. What’s in Kansas? Kansas was a complete unknown to me.
4. Tornado Alley. I knew Kansas was famous for tornados, I just didn’t really expect to be in one.
5. Cawker City: Home to the World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine. The day started out, um, normally…
6. Rain Tornado. A rain tornado is one you can’t see, because of rain and darkness, until it hits you.
7. Tornado Shelter. The more doors you can put between yourself and the tornado, the better.
8. Tornado in Manhattan Kansas. It destroyed the True Value Hardware store. The K-State campus nuclear reactor wasn’t damaged.
9. Tornado in Chapman, Kansas. Everything you know can change in a matter of minutes.
10. Kansas Flip-flops. I found people from Kansas to be generous, practical and unpretentious.
11. Prairie Cathedrals. Parts of Kansas are so featureless that one often uses non-geographic landmarks for navigation.
12. Toilet Alley. Everyday life can sometimes seem rather dull.

I have to wonder, though: What sort of person becomes a butt doctor? I’ve met thousands of people in my lifetime and never once has anyone told me their life’s dream is to be a Rear Admiral. I can understand the desire to be a brain surgeon or somebody that can restore eye sight; I can’t imagine wanting to be up in somebody’s business.
The thing that scares me is– if they go far enough into the colon, through the stomach and past the esophagus– they might eventually find my head. Oh oh.

YouTube video of Katie Couric’s colonoscopy.

Dr. Kylie Johnson’s MADtv colonoscopy. “Alright, Robin, to the batcave!”
“Roll up the windows, kids, we’re going to pass a farm!”

I must have done something really awful in a past life. The great karmic hand in the sky reached down and smote me again. Luckily, I didn’t break anything. I sprained my thumb and elbow. I got a few abrasions and contusions (medical talk for scrapes and bruises).

Hang a faceted crystal in the center of the bathroom; place a three-inch round mirror on the ceiling directly above the toilet to visually reverse the downward flow of water; place earth-type objects in the corners of the room to stabilize the energy.
Quotation from Stephanie Roberts, The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Feng Shui
(Feng shui toilet tips)

Women have this higher alternative value of how to spend their time.
Quotation from Grace Tsiang, as quoted in Women Desert Wall Street (Reuters)
I love this quote.

No results found for “Hiking shoes for two left feet”.
Quotation from Google search

Anna Haase offers a toilet tour in Berlin, Germany. Before you rush off to Berlin however, you may wish to experience Japanese toilets as an interesting alternative. Better yet, visit Chongqing, China and see the world’s largest bathroom which is located in a four story building offering more than 1,000 toilets. But remember to bring toilet paper…

After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy.
Quotation from Lu Xiaoqing

2.5 billion people worldwide are without access to proper sanitation, which risks their health, strips their dignity, and kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, a year.
Quotation from the World Toilet Organization. Don’t forget to celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19th.

It was recently revealed that Russian spies posing as “ordinary” Americans were arrested. They lived in happy surburban homes. They sent messages to their handlers using invisible ink. They posted images on the internet with secret, coded texts hidden in them. They had “American” children. One alleged spy, Anna Chapman, was a “demure, divorced 28-year-old who said she founded an online real estate company worth $2 million.” They were, in short, “normal” Americans, which is probably what gave them away.

Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy. “They couldn’t have been spies,” she said jokingly. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”
Quotation from In Ordinary Lives, U.S. Sees the Work of Russian Agents by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage (The New York Times)

“She said they were from Canada.”
Quotation from Lila Hexner, who lived next door to one of the spies.

Water is water is water. Until you mix it with oil. Water and oil do not mix, and that’s a lesson we are learning again and again… and again.
The 10-million gallon Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska 21 years ago isn’t even in the top 30 oil spills of all time. Remember when Iraq opened the spigots on several Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1991? That spill topped 520 million gallons. A rig in Mexico collapsed in 1980 and spilled 30,000 gallons of oil into the ocean every day for a year. Bigger oil spills have occurred in France, Russia, Angola, Canada, Italy and in the Persian Gulf.
The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on America’s Gulf coast is “officially” leaking 5,000 gallons a day, but “Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Perdue University, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that by his calculations… the spill appears to be closer to 72,000 barrels per day–or more than 3 million gallons” of oil per day.
Tomorrow, the Deepwater Horizon will become the second worst oil spill in history. There is no good news in this.
My wish is that we could turn oil into water and let fishes be fishes.

The world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies [are] on track to earn more than $100 billion before year’s end. Yet, at the same time that Big Oil’s bottom line is going up, so are Americans’ energy costs.
Quotation from Allyson Schwartz

I hear one message- don’t blame me.
Quotation from Sen. John Barrasso, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (BP blames Transocean Ltd. and Transocean Ltd. blames BP… or maybe it was Halliburton Inc. Some blame the Republicans while others blame President Barack Obama)

I hear people say we should raise the stakes in Afghanistan. Or we need to raise the stakes in the War on Drugs. But you rarely hear talk of raising the stakes in the war on poverty. Why is that? If we are going to “raise the stakes,” we should do so for jobs, women’s rights, the environment, health care, financial reform and schools.

Drug cartels exploit illegal immigrants by forcing them into economic bondage or prostitution. “Drugs are only sold once,” Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the chairwoman of the House Homeland Security border subcommittee, said in an interview. “But people can be sold over and over. And they use these people over and over until they are too broken to be used anymore.”
Quotation from Josh Meyer, Drug cartels raise the stakes on human smuggling
(The Los Angeles Times)

A reader left a comment here yesterday: “Yeah, yeah. Let’s shower each other with compliments. You scratch my back, I will scratch yours. All are happy. I’m fed up with the over-sugarness in the photo-blogosphere. “Brilliant!”, “Incredible!”, “Great!” … blah.”
Having grown up in a negative household, I prefer having my back scratched. Too much sugar is preferable to sourness and the occasional bitter taste that life insists on feeding us. But, dear reader, I appreciate the honest comment. Thanks!

They loved my friend Adam
But he always got caught.
Man, that kid made fucking up look cool.
Aren’t we all so cool now? No.
Lyrics from Something Corporate, Cavanaugh Park

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I misjudged a step, fell down and broke my thumb. When I got home from the emergency room, my sister called to tell me Aunt Lucille died. Sometimes, there isn’t any choice but to accept whatever happens.

Well why do the hands of time
So easily unwind?
Some lessons we learn the hard way.
Some lessons don’t come easy and
That’s the price we have to pay.
Song by Melody Gardot, Some Lessons

The receptionist in charge of the bathroom key got laid off some months ago, so I now possess my personal bathroom key, which is a huge improvement in my work environment. But last weekend, somebody broke into our building. We had to change all the locks, including the lock to the door of the bathroom. I am pleased to report the toilet remains safe and secure from intruders.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Quotation from William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

When day broke, I used immediately to sweep my room out; and though I am by nature a lover of cleanliness, at that time I kept myself unusually spick and span. After sweeping up, I made my bed as daintily as I could, laying flowers upon it, which a Savoyard used to bring me nearly every morning. He had the care of the cistern and the casks, and also amused himself with carpentering; it was from him I stole the pincers which I used in order to draw out the nails from the holdfasts of the hinges.
Quotation from Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (on planning his escape from prison)