No, people, as much as some might dearly wish, Mojo is not dead. She was not swept out to sea by Hurricane Sandy--although Sandy DID rip a substantial amount of roofing off the bedroom addition to the house. Now that we have two inches of snow forecast for tonight, instead of fixing it proper I was up there with bandaids and chewing gum, hoping my fairly-native (okay, so we moved to New England when I was six months old) Yankee ingenuity will somehow keep us from waking up with a big pile of snow on the blankets. And looking forward to a proper big ol' roofing job once the weather turns warmer.

So Mojo thought, in her infinite wisdom, that rather than paying for her roof out of pocket, she should instead launch a MASSIVE CHRISTMAS SEASON OBNOXIOUS MARKETING EXTRAVAGANZA and raise the funds for her new and exciting Lamborghini oops, I mean, "roof". (That's okay, Mojo, you will just remember to take that out before this post goes live. And while you're hiding things from your adoring public, remember, Mojo--you're the greatest!)  MORE Mojo! »

Why? I'll tell you why. Because Mojo KNOWS PEOPLE. That's why.  MORE Mojo! »

Dear People in Mojo's Life Who Seem Dedicated to Making Mojo's Life Even More Difficult Than It Already Is,

Tell me. What is Mojo supposed to do with you? Since Mojo really CANNOT FATHOM someone who will PROMISE to do something, SWEAR to do something, and then flat-out NOT DO IT.

Mojo's had difficulty in the past understanding people. For example, due to her truly idyllic childhood, Mojo was a Young Adult, all doe-eyed innocence, before it began to dawn on her that evil, nasty, mean people existed in this world and were not merely characters they put in movies to make them more interesting. I'm not kidding. The first time a mean person totally screwed me over, aside from the usual upset, part of Mojo was agog at the VERY NOTION that such people existed. It was all I could do not to just walk up to them and go, "Wow! You just really, seriously screwed me over for your OWN PERSONAL BENEFIT! I had NO IDEA you'd ACTUALLY DO that! Wow--you're just, like, one of those EVIL people they have in Disney movies, aren't you?!?"  MORE Mojo! »

I was going to title this blog post "Spraychel" and just let the chips fall where they may, but as usual Mojo feels the word requires a lengthy explanatory preamble before Certain Readers Take It The Wrong Way.

Okay, as a young adult I lived for a year, as many people do, with my Favorite Brother. Not that all that many people live with my Favorite Brother per se, only that many young people may room with their siblings to share costs and whatnot. Assuming, of course, you get along with your siblings, as Mojo tends to do with hers, since Mojo is so saintlike and tolerant of the foibles of other, lesser creatures.

Anyway, among the realm of fond remembrances of the time is our first calling a certain margarine/butter/greasy spread product "Ick-Bimb". We are talking, of course, of that thing with the unwieldy long name, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name and the trademark. I'm at least guessing this--and remember, despite her utter brilliance Mojo is NOT a lawyer--because if you read the packaging it refers to itself with the acronym "ICBINB!" complete with said punctuation. This amused us young hipsters, to the point where we started mangling the assumed pronunciation of said acronym and started to refer to our greasy spread as "Ick-Bimb", as in, "Hey, wouldja please pass the ick-bimb?" (See, even young hipsters can still be polite. There is a Valuable Lesson To Be Learned There.)

On the plus side of reading the packaging, eventually Mojo got it in her head that such chemical monstrosities really have no part in her diet, and she went back to good ol' butter on those rare occasions she required grease. Or a nice BLT. Anyway, my point is Ick-Bimb slowly faded from my life. Or so I thought.  MORE Mojo! »

As regular readers know, Mojo has at least ONE guilty pleasure she admits to: reading self-help literature. She does not read it for help; she reads it for the sheer entertainment value, as others might read trashy novels.  MORE Mojo! »

Only to herself, mind you, but it's a start.

I've been feeling down lately, and trying to figure out why, and last week it finally struck me: I have been reading a TON of depressing books, lately. "In Cold Blood", inspired by the Capote film, and then the Truman Capote biogaphy. I LOVED ICB, but the biography itself was a violent depressing downward spiral that left me depressed.

I then began discusssing Capote to anyone who would listen. One of my librarians said she couldn't read ICB because of the subject matter, but she loved loved loved Capote's other stuff. So I read "Other Voices, Other Rooms" because both she and Capote's biographer gushed about how lush and beautifully it was written.  MORE Mojo! »