Sabbatical

I always feel silly making posts like this, because it implies that I presume a large and devoted readership that has been lying around bemoaning lack of Bella. I'm not that big-headed.

But yes, I am taking a bit of a blogging sabbatical. Just a short one. I have several new projects I'm beginning (or continuing) work on, and I really need to focus on how I'm going to juggle all of them, do well with each of them, and not drive myself utterly nuts.

So I'm giving myself permission to stop worrying about lack of content on Bella Rossa for now. Give me a week. Or a few. And I'll come back refreshed and bursting with cool new content.

Feel free to e-mail and annoy me in the meantime, and also, enjoy this completely bizarre 1987 fashion and lifestyle video by Young and the Restless star Brenda Dickson. Did you know that fashion can be acquired? And that when you're shopping, your eye will naturally be drawn toward things you like? My god. She's like a prophet. Or a dull narcissist with borderline personality disorder. One or the other. (Where is Brenda now, you may ask? Going blonde and putting her name on a website designed by an eighth grader using a Commodore 64 in 1995, apparently.)

January Sunburn, Cornball Feynman

Of course it's a sign of global warming, the impending environmental apocalypse, and the dooming of all humanity and whatnot, but darn, I've been digging the unseasonably warm weather Chicago has been experiencing of late. In the last two days, friends and I have enjoyed some wonderful, very long walks along the lake (six miles, in one case). I forgot my SPF 65 one day, and burned my sensitive little cheeks, but I'm too full of endorphins and recently-absorbed Vitamin D to care.

Unexpected development - I may be allergic to corn. I've definitely developed a new allergy to something - not the anaphylactic, life-threatening kind, but the coughing like someone's emphysemic grandma after an enchilada kind. I'm from Indiana! My tiny hardworking ancestors fled Europe to work the till plains of Indiana, and create new lives out of freedom, and liberty...and corn. My dad will still, some seasons, get out his old heirloom tractor and stir up a few rows of popcorn out in the back field, and later go nuts with the full-size movie theater style popcorn machine he has in the barn. How can a Hoosier girl be allergic to corn?

I know it's mega nerdy, but in times of intellectual confusion and general life puzzlement and reassessment, I usually find myself watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos again and again, reading favorite old sci-fi tomes, and beseeching the wisdom of Richard Feynman. Hold the tomatoes, please, it's not like I worship at the altar of Katherine Janeway or something. Anyway, while googling for more Feynman, I found this marvelous 40 minute documentary video called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. I don't know if you're into this kind of thing, but if you are, enjoy.