Over the last months, I've had the pleasure of hearing lots of sayings. I've spent time in new places and from these new places have sprung forth sayings that keep rumbling around in my head.
"It's not how the world works, but how you work in the world" -From an email that my brother sent me in response to my fretting about the state and fate of the world and the beings in it.
"I want to make sure we're all singing off of the same song sheet."- First uttered by my ad director in a corporate meeting when she was going into detail about a spreadsheet. I use this one all the time now.
"Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." -Said by keynote speaker Martin Sheen at the annual Michigan ACLU fund raiser dinner that I got to go to last Saturday.
"Watch yourself, this could made a goat walk backward." -A warning given to me by a Southerner while handing me a mighty strong cup of coffee.
"Arrogance is ignorance matured." Another Martin Sheen saying.
Funniest things in subject lines of spam email that landed in my email box:
"Pediatrics Taster"
"I would try spraying him before you have him neutered"
"Nobody will know about your problems"
"Be untensil into battery"
"His conyers will brasstown"
"On himself recurring"
"There are no difference!"
Best spam sender's names:
F Kimberly Q Butts
Lewie Throop
Anus Romines
Friday, December 07, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
BBK
Barbara Bennett Kline
November 20, 1911 - September 20, 2007
One of the most wonderful, powerful, creative women even known. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this life without her. I will ache for her forever.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Weirdo
I feel boring.
I spent my twenties moving around the US, taking whatever job sounded cool and having one crazy experience after another. I road tripped around the country for two months by myself. I've been to acting school and massage therapy school. I dated a guy who ran dungeons for the local S/M scene in the city I lived. I was tear gassed and shot at (with rubber bullets) by cops at many different protests and demonstrations. I sat through a bomb threat at a Mumia rally wondering one moment if the person who called the threat in was serious and realizing in the next moment that if they were, I would be dead, and I sat in anyway. I biked through Ireland for a month by myself in the soft season buzzed on Guinness most of the time.
I'm going to stop revealing my twenty something shenanigans at this point because my Mom and my son read my blog, but you get the idea.
So here I am in my thirties and I feel like I'm already a granny. I happen to love grannies, especially my own, but I don't want to be thought of as one until I'm well into my 80's. Even then I won't start acting like one until a week before I die which will be when I'm 103.
I haven't been to a rally or a demonstration in almost 8 years. I haven't traveled much, gone to school for anything new or learned the best way to restrain someone in a good long time. I have a 9 to 5 job, occasionally sing karaoke, write in my journal and my blog (mostly about the good old days. Horrors!) and have a very steady beau with whom I'm swamped in the love with.
Fuddy duddy doesn't even begin to cover it.
Today I had lunch with a few ladies from GM. I work in the automotive industry, and even though I'm on the back end of operations, I still manage to get out to see our clients here and there when my ad director is in town. I really like the people I deal with at GM, they are helpful to the point of being moms to me. They patiently walk me through procedures as long as it takes for me to understand their complicated billing procedures. They are friendly, sweet and usually spend most of our lunch meetings talking about food (one of my favorite topics).
During the conversation, it grew apparent to me that just because I haven't been on the brink of arrest or exploring a new country alone, those rebellious, inquisitive, unsatisfied parts of me are alive and well and very much who I am.
I'm not sure if it was one of the women telling me that she hated women or the group conversation about the new Britney Spears album being pretty good, but I felt like a bearded lady at a Miss America luncheon. I was rattled by FishTacoMama (NOT her given name!) saying she couldn't read anything "deep" and had to keep her reading limited to "puffy" best sellers. I don't know, maybe it was the part of the conversation where someone said they couldn't stand reading about the plight of the poor, southern African-Americans because it's not like she was going to ever meet these people, that made me feel out of place. Then again, I was probably being "too sensitive".
Walking back to my car after lunch, I fumed and questioned. I really liked these women, really, but I wanted to slap the shit out of all of them. The amount of apathy and prejudice displayed in one hour was more than I could take. The woman hater (CrunchyCrabRoll) was enjoying the benefits of the sacrifice that so many feminists took on to make the world that much better for the ladies. The hater of "deep" reading didn't express any concern for how global warming might affect her child's future or how our national deficit, down the line, will probably fall on the shoulders of her offspring.
One thing I did notice about all these women. They all loved the musical adaptation of "Wicked" but the actual book was too long and full of too much boring information. Maybe that's the problem. There are people who want to dive into the juicy expanse of life and there are people who want to get a happy musical version so they can go on buying crap for really cheap (another big topic of lunch conversation today. For your sake, Dear Reader, I'll save you the slave labor diatribe).
I have always been aware of the issues that are important to me. When I was a kid, I always took the new kid in school under my wing so they wouldn't have to face a new school alone. I brought home strays and wanted to give money to our poor relatives. I've always wanted to fix and help wherever I could.
Lunch today was a great awakening. I learned that my twenties weren't about rebelling or sticking it to the man, my twenties were about finding what really mattered to me. Those things still matter to me. Although I find it sad that feeling and thinking as I do makes me a weirdo and a minority, I also feel empowered because neither Pottery Barn nor E! Entertainment will ever dictate what's important or real and worth fighting for.
I will.
I spent my twenties moving around the US, taking whatever job sounded cool and having one crazy experience after another. I road tripped around the country for two months by myself. I've been to acting school and massage therapy school. I dated a guy who ran dungeons for the local S/M scene in the city I lived. I was tear gassed and shot at (with rubber bullets) by cops at many different protests and demonstrations. I sat through a bomb threat at a Mumia rally wondering one moment if the person who called the threat in was serious and realizing in the next moment that if they were, I would be dead, and I sat in anyway. I biked through Ireland for a month by myself in the soft season buzzed on Guinness most of the time.
I'm going to stop revealing my twenty something shenanigans at this point because my Mom and my son read my blog, but you get the idea.
So here I am in my thirties and I feel like I'm already a granny. I happen to love grannies, especially my own, but I don't want to be thought of as one until I'm well into my 80's. Even then I won't start acting like one until a week before I die which will be when I'm 103.
I haven't been to a rally or a demonstration in almost 8 years. I haven't traveled much, gone to school for anything new or learned the best way to restrain someone in a good long time. I have a 9 to 5 job, occasionally sing karaoke, write in my journal and my blog (mostly about the good old days. Horrors!) and have a very steady beau with whom I'm swamped in the love with.
Fuddy duddy doesn't even begin to cover it.
Today I had lunch with a few ladies from GM. I work in the automotive industry, and even though I'm on the back end of operations, I still manage to get out to see our clients here and there when my ad director is in town. I really like the people I deal with at GM, they are helpful to the point of being moms to me. They patiently walk me through procedures as long as it takes for me to understand their complicated billing procedures. They are friendly, sweet and usually spend most of our lunch meetings talking about food (one of my favorite topics).
During the conversation, it grew apparent to me that just because I haven't been on the brink of arrest or exploring a new country alone, those rebellious, inquisitive, unsatisfied parts of me are alive and well and very much who I am.
I'm not sure if it was one of the women telling me that she hated women or the group conversation about the new Britney Spears album being pretty good, but I felt like a bearded lady at a Miss America luncheon. I was rattled by FishTacoMama (NOT her given name!) saying she couldn't read anything "deep" and had to keep her reading limited to "puffy" best sellers. I don't know, maybe it was the part of the conversation where someone said they couldn't stand reading about the plight of the poor, southern African-Americans because it's not like she was going to ever meet these people, that made me feel out of place. Then again, I was probably being "too sensitive".
Walking back to my car after lunch, I fumed and questioned. I really liked these women, really, but I wanted to slap the shit out of all of them. The amount of apathy and prejudice displayed in one hour was more than I could take. The woman hater (CrunchyCrabRoll) was enjoying the benefits of the sacrifice that so many feminists took on to make the world that much better for the ladies. The hater of "deep" reading didn't express any concern for how global warming might affect her child's future or how our national deficit, down the line, will probably fall on the shoulders of her offspring.
One thing I did notice about all these women. They all loved the musical adaptation of "Wicked" but the actual book was too long and full of too much boring information. Maybe that's the problem. There are people who want to dive into the juicy expanse of life and there are people who want to get a happy musical version so they can go on buying crap for really cheap (another big topic of lunch conversation today. For your sake, Dear Reader, I'll save you the slave labor diatribe).
I have always been aware of the issues that are important to me. When I was a kid, I always took the new kid in school under my wing so they wouldn't have to face a new school alone. I brought home strays and wanted to give money to our poor relatives. I've always wanted to fix and help wherever I could.
Lunch today was a great awakening. I learned that my twenties weren't about rebelling or sticking it to the man, my twenties were about finding what really mattered to me. Those things still matter to me. Although I find it sad that feeling and thinking as I do makes me a weirdo and a minority, I also feel empowered because neither Pottery Barn nor E! Entertainment will ever dictate what's important or real and worth fighting for.
I will.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Southern Man
This is Buck. I met him in Arkansas.
He is a million year old chihuahua who's penis is about 1/3 of his body weight. He is so old that his bark now sounds like the wail of an infant extra terrestrial. He has no teeth, but does not refrain from trying to take your hand off should you attempt to pet him while he is in the arms of another. He stands as a great reminder of determination in the face of the limitations that old age can bring. And that old dogs are just fun to laugh at.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
My fleet.
I have this job that I fell into a year and almost a half ago. Along with learning things like Excel, ad campaign management and setting boundaries for someone with the emotional maturity of rotten cabbage, I have had the rare pleasure of driving a different car just about every week.
I work for a small automotive website and work out of the house of an automotive journalist. Since he needs to drive new cars and report back to the masses, he has a constant stream of cars flowing in and out of his driveway that are loaned to him from the car companies. He drives them, writes about them and gets paid for it. Not a crappy job.
One of my many duties at my job is to schedule the cars. I know what's coming today, what's leaving tomorrow, and what he is to drop off or pick up from the airport when he travels. Since my truck is in need of some expensive repairs and I have spent the money that would go towards that on slimming my bulge of debt, I have taken advantage of the random cars that lay about the driveway and put them to good use driving around, tending to my life in the Motor City. What's there that week is what I drive.
Since I am now in the market for a new car, this has been the year of ultimate test drives.
I have driven everything from the Suzuki Reno to a Bentley Continental GT. It's fun to slip into my flavor of the week and start rummaging for satellite radio stations and free pens. Once, Goat found a $20 dollar bill under one of the rear floor mats, with which he took me to the movies.
Since I use these cars for my day-to-day use, I get to find out which holds the most purchases, which doors stay open when you are grabbing items from the back seat and which ones hungrily pinch your legs in the frame. Most of all, I get to learn all the stuff about the cars that a 15 minute test drive won't let you in on.
Goat has had a great time too. When we first started dating last year, I was driving a VW Phaeton. I came ripping up to his apartment in my $100,000 VW and took him out for ice cream. For Valentine's Day, I slid sideways into his driveway in a BMW 750i upon which some dummy forgot to replace the performance tires with snow tires. The car may have been built on technical ingenuity and sound engineering, but all of that meant exactly squat as I slipped from side to side on 22 inch tires meant only for dry pavement. I'm so glad we didn't die and the car didn't side swipe a dumpster.
It's been funny to see that different cars bring out different attitudes in me and have made me see drivers and driving in a different light. I will write more on this in future entries and I'll even include pictures!
In an act of protest against the growing gap between rich and poor, my dog Lula only throws up in the cars that cost $80,000 or more. Take that Halliburton.
I work for a small automotive website and work out of the house of an automotive journalist. Since he needs to drive new cars and report back to the masses, he has a constant stream of cars flowing in and out of his driveway that are loaned to him from the car companies. He drives them, writes about them and gets paid for it. Not a crappy job.
One of my many duties at my job is to schedule the cars. I know what's coming today, what's leaving tomorrow, and what he is to drop off or pick up from the airport when he travels. Since my truck is in need of some expensive repairs and I have spent the money that would go towards that on slimming my bulge of debt, I have taken advantage of the random cars that lay about the driveway and put them to good use driving around, tending to my life in the Motor City. What's there that week is what I drive.
Since I am now in the market for a new car, this has been the year of ultimate test drives.
I have driven everything from the Suzuki Reno to a Bentley Continental GT. It's fun to slip into my flavor of the week and start rummaging for satellite radio stations and free pens. Once, Goat found a $20 dollar bill under one of the rear floor mats, with which he took me to the movies.
Since I use these cars for my day-to-day use, I get to find out which holds the most purchases, which doors stay open when you are grabbing items from the back seat and which ones hungrily pinch your legs in the frame. Most of all, I get to learn all the stuff about the cars that a 15 minute test drive won't let you in on.
Goat has had a great time too. When we first started dating last year, I was driving a VW Phaeton. I came ripping up to his apartment in my $100,000 VW and took him out for ice cream. For Valentine's Day, I slid sideways into his driveway in a BMW 750i upon which some dummy forgot to replace the performance tires with snow tires. The car may have been built on technical ingenuity and sound engineering, but all of that meant exactly squat as I slipped from side to side on 22 inch tires meant only for dry pavement. I'm so glad we didn't die and the car didn't side swipe a dumpster.
It's been funny to see that different cars bring out different attitudes in me and have made me see drivers and driving in a different light. I will write more on this in future entries and I'll even include pictures!
In an act of protest against the growing gap between rich and poor, my dog Lula only throws up in the cars that cost $80,000 or more. Take that Halliburton.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Yet another 5k!
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My cheerleading section snapped this picture of me at the starting line.
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This is me mere feet from the finish. I was running as hard as I could which actually felt like I was going backwards at the time. I did manage to knock two minutes off my time without barfing at the finish line. Woo hoo!
The race was 3.2 miles that wound through a neighborhood. Along the route, there were people sitting on lawn chairs in their front yard, drinking beer and cheering us on. It was a warm-not-hot day but when you are running faster than you usually do because you don't want to be in last place it does feel like your head might pop. Some of the spectators in the neighborhood put their sprinklers on in the street so us running masochists could find some reprieve from the blood pounding in our heads. That should be a requirement for all races, sprinklers for the runners to run through.
To Put You In The Right Mood…
Over the last year or so, I’ve been suffering a left brain dominant life. I’m really good at my job, which includes gobs of information management. I am a bookkeeper, sales/advertising support staff and online ad campaign manager all within 40 hours each week for a website. My second job is a similar gig where I keep track of who needs to be invoiced when and for what as well as managing all the contact information for all of the advertisers and subscribers to the particular website that I work for. On the side, I am the keeper of the volunteer contact information for a new local non profit organization. I keep lists of our volunteers, who’s involved in which project or event and I send email blasts to each group depending on the current tide of information. All of this equals, what “they” call “marketable skills”. Currently, this equals the death of my creativity.
Not too long ago, I was living exclusively in my right brain. Also known as all art and no bill paying. I was happy there, maybe a little moody, but content. Unfortunately, none of the art was paying any of my bills and I sought some form of employment that moved beyond barely sustaining me. I wanted a “big girl job” with a steady paycheck and some benefits. I love the steady paycheck; it makes it so much easier to bail myself out of the debt I got into when I was acting and waitressing when I know how much money I’m getting every two weeks.
Now I seek balance. Yin and Yang. Left brain and right brain. I’m coming to terms with the fact that despite my fiercest childhood dreams, I’ll never be a movie star. For now, I have to have two and three jobs to work my way out of debt. For some reason, I have used this bit of reality to beat my creative self into unconsciousness, have thrown her down the stairs and locked her in the basement. Like she, not the lack of ever learning about finances and budgeting, has put me into a situation that requires me to work very hard to keep from drowning. Last Saturday, I realized that the debt was not her fault and it’s time to get busy and creative again because I miss the right side of my brain. It’s just so damn fun in there and while I need to work to pay back what I owe, I’m not going to spend time on my deathbed wishing I had spent more time at the office.
In order to resuscitate my creative beast, I have to start in places where I remember that creativity was a happy, impromptu dance and not a matter of conquering or bargaining. All my old mixed tapes are a reminder of those days where the brain halves skipped hand in had, working as a whole unit. It takes more than left brain skills to figure out which song will perfectly fill the last minute and a half on the side of a tape. It takes the right side figuring out which really short song will carry the mood over from the song before it without too bizarre of a twist or creating a new jumping off point that you can’t follow up on. It takes the cooperation of the two brain halves to be able to seamlessly jump from Janis Joplin to Soundgarden to Madonna w/ Prince to Puccini without anyone noticing.
From the almost forgotten top shelf of my office closet have come my cassettes. Inspiring me renew the vows of partnership between the sides of my grey matter and to forge ahead on foreign, yet mutually advantageous ground. This is a new place where “marketable skills” will work in conjunction with creative beasts. Come together…right now…over me. You and me, we’re in this together now. So happy together.
Not too long ago, I was living exclusively in my right brain. Also known as all art and no bill paying. I was happy there, maybe a little moody, but content. Unfortunately, none of the art was paying any of my bills and I sought some form of employment that moved beyond barely sustaining me. I wanted a “big girl job” with a steady paycheck and some benefits. I love the steady paycheck; it makes it so much easier to bail myself out of the debt I got into when I was acting and waitressing when I know how much money I’m getting every two weeks.
Now I seek balance. Yin and Yang. Left brain and right brain. I’m coming to terms with the fact that despite my fiercest childhood dreams, I’ll never be a movie star. For now, I have to have two and three jobs to work my way out of debt. For some reason, I have used this bit of reality to beat my creative self into unconsciousness, have thrown her down the stairs and locked her in the basement. Like she, not the lack of ever learning about finances and budgeting, has put me into a situation that requires me to work very hard to keep from drowning. Last Saturday, I realized that the debt was not her fault and it’s time to get busy and creative again because I miss the right side of my brain. It’s just so damn fun in there and while I need to work to pay back what I owe, I’m not going to spend time on my deathbed wishing I had spent more time at the office.
In order to resuscitate my creative beast, I have to start in places where I remember that creativity was a happy, impromptu dance and not a matter of conquering or bargaining. All my old mixed tapes are a reminder of those days where the brain halves skipped hand in had, working as a whole unit. It takes more than left brain skills to figure out which song will perfectly fill the last minute and a half on the side of a tape. It takes the right side figuring out which really short song will carry the mood over from the song before it without too bizarre of a twist or creating a new jumping off point that you can’t follow up on. It takes the cooperation of the two brain halves to be able to seamlessly jump from Janis Joplin to Soundgarden to Madonna w/ Prince to Puccini without anyone noticing.
From the almost forgotten top shelf of my office closet have come my cassettes. Inspiring me renew the vows of partnership between the sides of my grey matter and to forge ahead on foreign, yet mutually advantageous ground. This is a new place where “marketable skills” will work in conjunction with creative beasts. Come together…right now…over me. You and me, we’re in this together now. So happy together.
A Good Mixed Tape...
Earlier this year, Goat got a sweet Subaru Outback. It was a few years old and had cool accoutrements such as seat heaters, heated windshield wipers and a tape deck. En route to hiking or Mom’s house, we had a blast reliving our high school days and our rebellious twenties listening to our old mixed tapes while ripping down the highway with warm butts. Some of our tapes were gifts from good friends, a few we had made for someone else but they turned out so good that we kept them for ourselves, but most of all they were a way for us to talk using someone else’s words. There was something about expressing my thoughts using someone else’s prose that made me much more daring in making my intentions clear while creating a mix for a boy I had a crush on. In my twenties, I was fond using the creation of mixed tapes to express my innermost feelings; usually turmoil and usually about a guy.
Sadly, after a mere two months with his new-to-him Subie, Goat and the Outback were involved in a high speed, multi car pile up on the highway that closed the whole damn freeway for an hour (save for the drunk driver that crashed through the police barricade, miraculously not adding to the carnage despite the number of victims, cops and first responders that were milling around the closed lanes. He was pulled over immediately and was so drunk and freaked out that he pissed his pants while being cuffed. I’m sure that’s the least of his problems right now, but it still seems so horribly humiliating). Goat is fine; he walked away with one small scratch even though at the time of the crash he had 8 foot pieces of wood he was toting home from a dumpster diving score in the car with him. Goat was so fine, in fact, that he woke up at 5:45 the next morning and ran a 5k trail race, knocking over 2 minutes off his road running time. Impressive. If you are a runner that runs dirt and pavement, that will be even more impressive to you.
Unfortunately, the Subie is a goner. She did her job and absorbed the brunt of the crash into her metal makeup so Goat’s spongy viscera, organic bone structure and spaghetti thin spinal cord were spared. We humans are sheets of wet paper in comparison to the brutish technology we create. He did manage to get a great deal on another used Outback, a few years newer, same color, but no tape deck. No Minor Threat and Misfits mixes on the way to the Art Hop in Kalamazoo; no more explaining how I got from Skin Yard to Bob Dylan to a song from The Little Mermaid soundtrack in three steps, no more favorite songs that I never knew the title to or performer of. Now, we just listen to boring old mixed CDs made in this decade, which isn’t far away enough for me to look back on it fondly.
Sadly, after a mere two months with his new-to-him Subie, Goat and the Outback were involved in a high speed, multi car pile up on the highway that closed the whole damn freeway for an hour (save for the drunk driver that crashed through the police barricade, miraculously not adding to the carnage despite the number of victims, cops and first responders that were milling around the closed lanes. He was pulled over immediately and was so drunk and freaked out that he pissed his pants while being cuffed. I’m sure that’s the least of his problems right now, but it still seems so horribly humiliating). Goat is fine; he walked away with one small scratch even though at the time of the crash he had 8 foot pieces of wood he was toting home from a dumpster diving score in the car with him. Goat was so fine, in fact, that he woke up at 5:45 the next morning and ran a 5k trail race, knocking over 2 minutes off his road running time. Impressive. If you are a runner that runs dirt and pavement, that will be even more impressive to you.
Unfortunately, the Subie is a goner. She did her job and absorbed the brunt of the crash into her metal makeup so Goat’s spongy viscera, organic bone structure and spaghetti thin spinal cord were spared. We humans are sheets of wet paper in comparison to the brutish technology we create. He did manage to get a great deal on another used Outback, a few years newer, same color, but no tape deck. No Minor Threat and Misfits mixes on the way to the Art Hop in Kalamazoo; no more explaining how I got from Skin Yard to Bob Dylan to a song from The Little Mermaid soundtrack in three steps, no more favorite songs that I never knew the title to or performer of. Now, we just listen to boring old mixed CDs made in this decade, which isn’t far away enough for me to look back on it fondly.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Payoff
As I get older, I'm not sure if I'm getting more impatient or if I'm getting less tolerant. I feel like I just want to settle into a life that suits me better than this one I'm currently wearing. Actually, my life is fine, it's just the location of my life that I find frustrating.
After graduating from massage therapy school in Chicago, I had to decide where I was going to live. I hated living in Chicago, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to head back out west or down south quite yet. So, I decided to come back to Michigan for a while. I grew up here, I knew the rules and was familiar with the feel of it, I had friends and family and I could pause for a year or two and get my hands (literally) around building my massage business and regroup before moving on to my next adventure. That was almost eight years ago and I want to get the hell out of here.
Detroit (second picture) has been bothering me since I got back almost a decade ago. Wow, just writing that I've been here almost a decade makes me feel a little sick. I don't like it, yet I have managed to buy a house and set up a life. I have my closest friends here, some close family members and a sweet house that would have cost five times what I paid for it if I had bought in in a place I actually liked to live. My life is totally awesome, I like it, I just want to move it somewhere else and bring everyone with me.
I have been extra agitated lately in my dealing with my surroundings. I don't like winter, the people around this part of the state are cranky and selfish, the state as a whole is about 30 years behind most others in regards to environmental issues, race relations and big business running amok. I find myself really hating where I am and I have been devoted to making some kind of peace with that.
Friday, I drove to Ann Arbor for a work meeting. As I merged onto M-14, traffic came to a halt. Then, a few minutes later, worked up to a crawl. As I got more and more grouchy, I stopped myself. It was a gorgeous day, I was listening to my iPod, and in the lane next to me, two cars up and in perfect view, there was a chopped, cherry '49 Mercury with mail slot windows, flames painted up the side and it grunted like a happy pig. So I took a breath, rolled down my window, turned up Prince and ogled the Merc. We all crept through the construction that whittled that lanes down to one. Everyone drove like a bunch of jerks, like they didn't care if they hurt anybody. 3, 4, 5 miles of two lanes blocked off and not one piece of construction work actually happened. No big orange trucks, no beer-bellied guys holding a sign that said "Slow". No jack hammers, no groups of guys watching other groups of guys work. Aside from the lanes being closed off by tall orange pylons, there was not one shred of evidence that any construction had happened or was going to happen. The lanes were blocked off for absolutely no reason. And I was 35 minutes late to my meeting. At that moment, I was struck with a huge realization.
I hate living in Michigan because there is no payoff.
I used to get asked all the time "how could you stand living in LA? There are so many people and the traffic and air are horrible". Well, I loved it. Every damn minute and here's why. When I lived in LA, I was going to acting school, spending my weekends at the beach or in Hollywood with my friends, living the life I had fantasized about since I was a kid. All my childhood dreams were rooted in Hollywood and there I was living right on Hollywood Boulevard. What's a little traffic and smog compared to that?
In Detroit, there is no payoff. I deal with traffic, tons of backwards thinking, crime, and most of the people that live here are stuck in reactive grouchiness. And for what? Nothing. Right now, Detroit is where dreams go to die, there is no ocean, no chance meeting with celebrity, no mountains, very little art and lots of repression. If I am going to survive intact, I need to get out very soon.
Recently, Goat had his friend visiting from San Francisco. Just talking about the sunset on the ocean made my heart ache. I lived in Santa Cruz (first picture) for a year and I pine for it on a regular basis. It was expensive, I had no family out there and no good job, but I loved it and I dream about living there again. I have ideas of moving to Arkansas, where my brother is, where it's mountainous and more mellow, no snow in the winter and plenty of outdoor activities within reach.
I don't know where Goat and I will land, but we both feel the itch to get out of Southeast Michigan. We have both lived in amazing places where putting up with certain things was definitely worth that payoff. While living in LA and in Santa Cruz, I worked hard to be there, I was exhausted at the end of each day, but completely invigorated and inspired. I slept very little because I didn't want to miss anything. I was thrilled to be awake and alive and to see what happened next. Once you've had that life, living in a place that doesn't inspire you every morning upon waking makes you feel like you are giving your energy away. Will I miss my friends? Hell yes, but that's what email, phones and airplanes are for. Besides, most of my friends want to get the hell out of Michigan too.
I'm glad there are people in the world who can do a day to day life on a nice even keel and are content wherever they are. I'm just not one of them. I need payoff.
Screw guilt.
I feel guilty.
It's a stunner of a day for the first of July, 68 degrees and sunny. Yet I remain sedentary on the front porch, sipping mango black sun tea and fidgeting with shoulds and supposed tos. I should be mowing the lawn and repainting my shutters. I'm supposed to take the dogs to Island Lakes to go hiking and canoeing with Goat. Yet I remain in my spot, contemplating a nap and a long stretch of sitting in a sunny patch on the carpet and reading. Watching that movie I've had from Netflix for three weeks, cozy on the couch with the dog and cats.
I have another 5k run this evening and I'm still sore from my bout of obsessive gardening yesterday. I ripped out some grass, weeded for hours, laid mulch around the boxwoods, trimmed back the shrubs, swept, hauled dirt and set all the yard waste by the curb to be swept up by the garbage men and composted. I am sore and tired and all I'm going to do today is relax until I go pick up Champ and we head up the the race.
Yet outside calls to me, all blue skied and wind whispery. Temptress you are, you beautiful day you. Calling to me to step out into the sunshine and replace the storm door. Feel the breeze tickle my ears and sun toast the top of my head as I clean up the back yard.
This totally reminds me of swimming parties my coach had back in my early teen years. A few times a season on the day of a swim meet (usually against our big rivals, Bloomfield Surf) Coach Dan would gather up the younger team members after practice and bring them to his house to watch scary movies and hang out for most of the day. Every good swim coach knows that a swimmer's favorite thing to do after swim practice is swim all day until we were so tired we could barely see straight. Fat lot of good we would have been competing in a swim meet if we were near drowning from exhaustion. Dan was a great coach and knew to keep us quiet, he would have to supervise all of us. Zombie movies, healthy snacks and girls giggling about boys are the things I remember. Good times.
So today, I am without my team mates of days gone by, but I still feel that little excited wiggle in my belly. I get to spend a decadent day napping in the sun and other limited energy output activities. Tonight I get to go run.
I kinda feel like a kid again for the first time in a long while.
It's a stunner of a day for the first of July, 68 degrees and sunny. Yet I remain sedentary on the front porch, sipping mango black sun tea and fidgeting with shoulds and supposed tos. I should be mowing the lawn and repainting my shutters. I'm supposed to take the dogs to Island Lakes to go hiking and canoeing with Goat. Yet I remain in my spot, contemplating a nap and a long stretch of sitting in a sunny patch on the carpet and reading. Watching that movie I've had from Netflix for three weeks, cozy on the couch with the dog and cats.
I have another 5k run this evening and I'm still sore from my bout of obsessive gardening yesterday. I ripped out some grass, weeded for hours, laid mulch around the boxwoods, trimmed back the shrubs, swept, hauled dirt and set all the yard waste by the curb to be swept up by the garbage men and composted. I am sore and tired and all I'm going to do today is relax until I go pick up Champ and we head up the the race.
Yet outside calls to me, all blue skied and wind whispery. Temptress you are, you beautiful day you. Calling to me to step out into the sunshine and replace the storm door. Feel the breeze tickle my ears and sun toast the top of my head as I clean up the back yard.
This totally reminds me of swimming parties my coach had back in my early teen years. A few times a season on the day of a swim meet (usually against our big rivals, Bloomfield Surf) Coach Dan would gather up the younger team members after practice and bring them to his house to watch scary movies and hang out for most of the day. Every good swim coach knows that a swimmer's favorite thing to do after swim practice is swim all day until we were so tired we could barely see straight. Fat lot of good we would have been competing in a swim meet if we were near drowning from exhaustion. Dan was a great coach and knew to keep us quiet, he would have to supervise all of us. Zombie movies, healthy snacks and girls giggling about boys are the things I remember. Good times.
So today, I am without my team mates of days gone by, but I still feel that little excited wiggle in my belly. I get to spend a decadent day napping in the sun and other limited energy output activities. Tonight I get to go run.
I kinda feel like a kid again for the first time in a long while.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
I've heard of brown nosing...
There are things you should know about me.
1) I was an actor. Then I wasn't. Then I was again and now I'm not. I quit because the business kept me in a state of reactive egomania and actors, not all but most, drive me bananas.
2) My job is fairly independent. I work by myself, I have no boss looking over my shoulder and I have no co-workers to shoot the poop with. I love working alone, I'm really good at it, I wear whatever I want and I can listen to songs with lyrics like "Yeah, I know what to doooo, I'm gonna fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you, fuck you" and no one cares cause they can't hear it. Deeelightful!!
The only problem with working alone and being a reformed actor is that I have a vein in my body that pumps the blood of a natural born entertainer through my person, but I have no one to entertain. I genuinely like people (despite what other posts might have lead you to believe) and I love to interact with them. My old friend Gene used to refer to this trait in me as the "Hi! I'm Lumpers!" trait. Wherever I go, I love to chat up the people around me and make friends. It's how I feel comfortable in the world, how I connect to my universe. I'm always searching for commonalities and have become adept at finding them.
Given that I have that vein and that I spend perhaps a little too much time alone, that energy tends to get a little backed up. Since I have no one to entertain or make friends with, I must entertain myself.
Today, that got me a blue nose.
As I was filing some information, I found that I hadn't created a folder for our press fleet contacts. So, as I popped the cap off the blue Sharpie to label a recycled file folder with, I made a little joke with myself about huffing the fumes from the big fat pen. In a fit of overcaffeinenation, I bumped the pen right onto my nose, and I am left with a big blat of blue to take with me as I make new friends wherever I go. Sharpie does not come off skin easily, so I am a marked woman for the next day or two.
Talk about a conversation starter.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
5ks, food and Dru
I have been busy. I'm not sure doing what, but I've been busy.
I finally finished watching the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. It was so good, that the day after I finished the final episode, I started at the very beginning again. Goat was very worried upon learning that I was watching a second time, as he rarely saw me during the evenings while I was in my Buffy obsession. Watching it a second time is so great because now I know the fate of all the characters I got really hung up on loving or hating the first time around, and I can now just enjoy the show.
Like Drusilla.
She reminds me of one of 'those girls'. We all knew one in high school or many if you went to acting school. They are those girls that are constantly on the verge of emotional collapse, and have a habit of making every single nuance of the universe all about them. Upon entering any room, whether it is a doctor's office, the gym (which they rarely go to as they can't fathom lifting a weight as the weight of the world constantly bears down upon them) or the theater, they manage to suck every molecule of air from that room. Many of them also have a sixth-sense/ESP/seer trait as well. They not only bear the brunt of tapping into every feeling that every human ever had, but the feelings of those beyond as well. Other notable traits include precisely timed temper tantrums, illness or emotional strife; a trail of men that pine for their affections and a mysterious lack of energy felt by anyone who spends more than five minutes with these girls. Despite my loathing of these girls in the real world, I have come to love Drusilla during this second watching of Buffy.
Willow is my favorite character in the show. Oddly, Buffy is one of my least favorites.
I have been spending much time at Goat's house as he has the kick ass porch action. Front and back porches! Plus he has a grill, growlers of beer and a door that goes directly from his house to his back yard (at my house, I have to walk the dogs around to dump them in the back yard). Plus, it being Goat's house, I get to be with him while enjoying all the porch, beer and grill time. I got to enjoy climbing around on a backhoe when he got a new sewer line dug last week. Big piles of dirt and large machinerey? I'm there!!
I planted flowers in the front yard. Now I just need to keep them alive.
I have become more obsessed with Trader Joe's. Dark chocolate covered mini pretzels, cuban mojito simmer sauce, koorma simmer sauce, woven wheat thins, double glouchester with chives, Cellar No. 8 cabernet sauvignon, the salsa kit and the carne asada. That's all there is to say about that.
One fine day, I went to buy some new running shoes because I needed something to do besides the elliptical and I'm not really that interested in going to the gym. Goat and I had run a few times together and actually liked it. So the super cool lady that sold me my running shoes encouraged me to sign up for the running class. It was a 4 week class, class was once a week and they promised that by week number 5 we would be ready to run a 5k. It was part of the class and the class fee included the entry fee to the 5k. I was pretty convinced that an overweight, out of shape, recently quit ex-smoker such as myself would have to be dragged across the finish line by my friends or carted over it on a gurney. So I managed to get my inner critic in a sleeper hold just long enough to try the class and see what happened.
I used to be pretty active, riding my bike all over town every day, and all over dirt trails on the weekends. I used to rock climb and hike and occasionally ran uphill just for poops and giggles. I've been wanting to reawaken that part of me, that girl that would ride her bike in rush hour traffic in downtown Seattle for fun. I have really been missing her. Well, I found out that I love to run, it's like an ache that I have now and I just have to run. The thing that frustrates me is that my body is not in the kind of shape I need it to be in to run as fast and as far as I want to go. I'm really trying to be patient, I run three days a week and weight train two and even that gets exhausting, but slow progress is much better than none at all. I'm trying to focus on the movement and how good it feels to just go. No one is chasing me, I'm not running to anything, not running from anything, just going.
The class was really cool. We did 3 minute running and 2 minute walking intervals for about 3 miles. Each week the running intervals got longer and the walking shorter and we had running homework. After our run, we would have a cool speaker talk to the class about running. One week a podiatrist came in, the next a nutritionist, the next a physical therapist. They all came armed with extremely helpful, runner specific information and answered all my overly enthusiastic questions. I am a self proclaimed anatomy and physiology nerd, I read medical text for fun, so my head burned with wanting to know all the wisdom they were willing to impart.
Then there were the people who lead the classes, the employees of Running Fit. Super cool, inspiring, positive people who are obsessed with running. Two of them ran in this year's Boston Marathon that, for the first time in it's 111 year history, was almost canceled due to weather. They are bad asses of the truest kind and so happy to answer even more of my questions. I never though our class would be ready to run the 5k. Prior to the run, I had not run more than 2 miles at once and I was a little panicky about it. My goal was to run the whole 3.2 miles, no matter how slow I ran it. So I did. I ran the whole thing. Not only that, I averaged a 10 minute mile, which, for a girl who is way out of shape and only 121 days into her non-smoking life, ain't too shabby.
I have another 5k the day after tomorrow. 3.2 miles of running in the dirt, through the woods and the finish line is at the top of a sledding hill. I'll let you know how it goes.
I have more to talk about, but I have to go now.
Till next time, my friends...
I finally finished watching the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. It was so good, that the day after I finished the final episode, I started at the very beginning again. Goat was very worried upon learning that I was watching a second time, as he rarely saw me during the evenings while I was in my Buffy obsession. Watching it a second time is so great because now I know the fate of all the characters I got really hung up on loving or hating the first time around, and I can now just enjoy the show.
Like Drusilla.
She reminds me of one of 'those girls'. We all knew one in high school or many if you went to acting school. They are those girls that are constantly on the verge of emotional collapse, and have a habit of making every single nuance of the universe all about them. Upon entering any room, whether it is a doctor's office, the gym (which they rarely go to as they can't fathom lifting a weight as the weight of the world constantly bears down upon them) or the theater, they manage to suck every molecule of air from that room. Many of them also have a sixth-sense/ESP/seer trait as well. They not only bear the brunt of tapping into every feeling that every human ever had, but the feelings of those beyond as well. Other notable traits include precisely timed temper tantrums, illness or emotional strife; a trail of men that pine for their affections and a mysterious lack of energy felt by anyone who spends more than five minutes with these girls. Despite my loathing of these girls in the real world, I have come to love Drusilla during this second watching of Buffy.
Willow is my favorite character in the show. Oddly, Buffy is one of my least favorites.
I have been spending much time at Goat's house as he has the kick ass porch action. Front and back porches! Plus he has a grill, growlers of beer and a door that goes directly from his house to his back yard (at my house, I have to walk the dogs around to dump them in the back yard). Plus, it being Goat's house, I get to be with him while enjoying all the porch, beer and grill time. I got to enjoy climbing around on a backhoe when he got a new sewer line dug last week. Big piles of dirt and large machinerey? I'm there!!
I planted flowers in the front yard. Now I just need to keep them alive.
I have become more obsessed with Trader Joe's. Dark chocolate covered mini pretzels, cuban mojito simmer sauce, koorma simmer sauce, woven wheat thins, double glouchester with chives, Cellar No. 8 cabernet sauvignon, the salsa kit and the carne asada. That's all there is to say about that.
One fine day, I went to buy some new running shoes because I needed something to do besides the elliptical and I'm not really that interested in going to the gym. Goat and I had run a few times together and actually liked it. So the super cool lady that sold me my running shoes encouraged me to sign up for the running class. It was a 4 week class, class was once a week and they promised that by week number 5 we would be ready to run a 5k. It was part of the class and the class fee included the entry fee to the 5k. I was pretty convinced that an overweight, out of shape, recently quit ex-smoker such as myself would have to be dragged across the finish line by my friends or carted over it on a gurney. So I managed to get my inner critic in a sleeper hold just long enough to try the class and see what happened.
I used to be pretty active, riding my bike all over town every day, and all over dirt trails on the weekends. I used to rock climb and hike and occasionally ran uphill just for poops and giggles. I've been wanting to reawaken that part of me, that girl that would ride her bike in rush hour traffic in downtown Seattle for fun. I have really been missing her. Well, I found out that I love to run, it's like an ache that I have now and I just have to run. The thing that frustrates me is that my body is not in the kind of shape I need it to be in to run as fast and as far as I want to go. I'm really trying to be patient, I run three days a week and weight train two and even that gets exhausting, but slow progress is much better than none at all. I'm trying to focus on the movement and how good it feels to just go. No one is chasing me, I'm not running to anything, not running from anything, just going.
The class was really cool. We did 3 minute running and 2 minute walking intervals for about 3 miles. Each week the running intervals got longer and the walking shorter and we had running homework. After our run, we would have a cool speaker talk to the class about running. One week a podiatrist came in, the next a nutritionist, the next a physical therapist. They all came armed with extremely helpful, runner specific information and answered all my overly enthusiastic questions. I am a self proclaimed anatomy and physiology nerd, I read medical text for fun, so my head burned with wanting to know all the wisdom they were willing to impart.
Then there were the people who lead the classes, the employees of Running Fit. Super cool, inspiring, positive people who are obsessed with running. Two of them ran in this year's Boston Marathon that, for the first time in it's 111 year history, was almost canceled due to weather. They are bad asses of the truest kind and so happy to answer even more of my questions. I never though our class would be ready to run the 5k. Prior to the run, I had not run more than 2 miles at once and I was a little panicky about it. My goal was to run the whole 3.2 miles, no matter how slow I ran it. So I did. I ran the whole thing. Not only that, I averaged a 10 minute mile, which, for a girl who is way out of shape and only 121 days into her non-smoking life, ain't too shabby.
I have another 5k the day after tomorrow. 3.2 miles of running in the dirt, through the woods and the finish line is at the top of a sledding hill. I'll let you know how it goes.
I have more to talk about, but I have to go now.
Till next time, my friends...
Friday, April 27, 2007
Buffy me!!!
As a girl who prides herself on and is often frightened by having obsessions, I try to keep that energy focused, so it doesn't get out of hand and do something rash.
My new obsession is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Needing something to watch while on my elliptical, Champ let me borrow the first season a month or so ago. I devoured it in three days and liked it so much that I bought a boxed set of the entire series.
I am currently in the beginning of season 6. I'm totally hooked and my friends are so very glad. We got together a few weeks ago for wine and cheese at Mchan's and spent, I kid you not, at least an hour talking about the show.
We decided that it was time to venture to a place no point of light has gone before: A convention. BuffyCon 2007. So we hopped online, where all people go to find information, especially regarding conventions of any kind, and we sought out information about this year's Buffy convention. We talked about how cool it would be to have it close to Knoxville, TN so we could all go to Dollywood too because that's a trip we have long been trying to get together when suddenly, the giggles died down and a somber tone took over the room.
There is no Buffy convention this year.
Just when I was so excited to be nerdy enough about something to go to a convention for it, they stop having them. Apparently last years attendance was low and there were whispers even then around the Buffy community that that one was it.
So here's my plan: I and my girls convince the cast to come to my house for a Buffy BBQ in my back yard. They don't have to act scenes from the show out, I don't think any of us will be wearing costumes (maybe plastic vampire teeth, but I swear that's it) and we could drink beer and shoot the shit and I could quietly be thrilled by the people who play my fictional heroes being in my back yard.
How cool would that be? I'd have an excuse to pretty up the back yard too.
BuffyCon 2007! Coming this summer to my back yard, where only the points are invited!
My new obsession is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Needing something to watch while on my elliptical, Champ let me borrow the first season a month or so ago. I devoured it in three days and liked it so much that I bought a boxed set of the entire series.
I am currently in the beginning of season 6. I'm totally hooked and my friends are so very glad. We got together a few weeks ago for wine and cheese at Mchan's and spent, I kid you not, at least an hour talking about the show.
We decided that it was time to venture to a place no point of light has gone before: A convention. BuffyCon 2007. So we hopped online, where all people go to find information, especially regarding conventions of any kind, and we sought out information about this year's Buffy convention. We talked about how cool it would be to have it close to Knoxville, TN so we could all go to Dollywood too because that's a trip we have long been trying to get together when suddenly, the giggles died down and a somber tone took over the room.
There is no Buffy convention this year.
Just when I was so excited to be nerdy enough about something to go to a convention for it, they stop having them. Apparently last years attendance was low and there were whispers even then around the Buffy community that that one was it.
So here's my plan: I and my girls convince the cast to come to my house for a Buffy BBQ in my back yard. They don't have to act scenes from the show out, I don't think any of us will be wearing costumes (maybe plastic vampire teeth, but I swear that's it) and we could drink beer and shoot the shit and I could quietly be thrilled by the people who play my fictional heroes being in my back yard.
How cool would that be? I'd have an excuse to pretty up the back yard too.
BuffyCon 2007! Coming this summer to my back yard, where only the points are invited!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Trouble
Since when did it become okay to shoot people as a means of expressing negative feelings? Every newspaper, cable news network, and website I have seen in the last few weeks has blood and mayhem as the lead story. Blood and mayhem as a result of someone shooting people for no other reason than they were feeling rejected and needed some kind of tangible retribution.
Two weeks ago, I called my son to make plans for dinner that night and he asked me "are you still on lock down?", to which I replied "I'm supposed to be on lock down?". Apparently, there was not one but two gunmen running from back yard to back yard, hiding in sheds and garages, hoping the cops would never find them and arrest them for barging into someones house and shooting them. This all happened less than a mile from my house.
That same week, a disgruntled man who had been recently fired from an accounting firm, walked into his old office in Troy, Michigan and opened fire. He was upset that he had been fired.
We spent last week choking down the glut of media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.
What the fuck people?
I don't know who to blame, but I need to blame someone, or something. It's the only way I feel I can even begin to wrap my head around this. If there is a tangible reason, there can be a way to compartmentalize it. The 'lone nut' or 'depressed' explanation will simply not suffice, there needs to be some solid answer so I can fix it and it doesnt happen anymore.
For me, it seems to be related to the fact that many Americans are becoming nutjobs. Politics seem to be at a peak "us vs.them" mentality. "Reailty" TV encourages us to quickly judge people based on the doctored versions of who they are and we get to decide who wins and who gets the boot. Celebrity is based not on merit of craft, but who's husband someone is supposedly fucking, who's in rehab (or running away from it), and who has the best stuff. All of these, I desperately hope not by design, make us regular folks feel weird about who we are and what actually means something in our world.
Along with all these factors, a bull's eye was hit by my friend Champ over the weekend. Us ladies were sitting outside on an impossibly beautiful April evening, discussing the state of the world and when the Virginia Tech shootings were brought up, Champ pipes in with a precise and scathing comment about the state of mental health care in the United States. It is just not there. For anyone. If you are lucky enough to have tremendous health care, you might have access to it at the cost of a co-pay, but that is rare. Most of us just have to buck up and cope in the face of alarming rises in rates of mental illness in our country. Only the rich get to have the luxury of having a clear head, and frankly, after meeting a some of them, they are completely beyond repair anyhow. How sane do you have to be to sit on your ass and shop online all fucking day?
One last thought on all of this. How much is all this technology helping us? We can email at a stop light from our Balckberry, are expected to call people back within moments of getting their messages and can communicate with clients half a world away in two seconds with one email. But I still don't feel enough kinship with anyone to stop wishing horrible things on them when they drive too slow in the left lane, or don't meet my needs, or improperly cross my path. How wrong is that? When I think of anyone saying the things I say to someone I know, I'd hit them with an iron skillet. Or give them a fierce glaring at anyhow. How can we be talking to each other so much yet have no idea how to communicate?
Two weeks ago, I called my son to make plans for dinner that night and he asked me "are you still on lock down?", to which I replied "I'm supposed to be on lock down?". Apparently, there was not one but two gunmen running from back yard to back yard, hiding in sheds and garages, hoping the cops would never find them and arrest them for barging into someones house and shooting them. This all happened less than a mile from my house.
That same week, a disgruntled man who had been recently fired from an accounting firm, walked into his old office in Troy, Michigan and opened fire. He was upset that he had been fired.
We spent last week choking down the glut of media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.
What the fuck people?
I don't know who to blame, but I need to blame someone, or something. It's the only way I feel I can even begin to wrap my head around this. If there is a tangible reason, there can be a way to compartmentalize it. The 'lone nut' or 'depressed' explanation will simply not suffice, there needs to be some solid answer so I can fix it and it doesnt happen anymore.
For me, it seems to be related to the fact that many Americans are becoming nutjobs. Politics seem to be at a peak "us vs.them" mentality. "Reailty" TV encourages us to quickly judge people based on the doctored versions of who they are and we get to decide who wins and who gets the boot. Celebrity is based not on merit of craft, but who's husband someone is supposedly fucking, who's in rehab (or running away from it), and who has the best stuff. All of these, I desperately hope not by design, make us regular folks feel weird about who we are and what actually means something in our world.
Along with all these factors, a bull's eye was hit by my friend Champ over the weekend. Us ladies were sitting outside on an impossibly beautiful April evening, discussing the state of the world and when the Virginia Tech shootings were brought up, Champ pipes in with a precise and scathing comment about the state of mental health care in the United States. It is just not there. For anyone. If you are lucky enough to have tremendous health care, you might have access to it at the cost of a co-pay, but that is rare. Most of us just have to buck up and cope in the face of alarming rises in rates of mental illness in our country. Only the rich get to have the luxury of having a clear head, and frankly, after meeting a some of them, they are completely beyond repair anyhow. How sane do you have to be to sit on your ass and shop online all fucking day?
One last thought on all of this. How much is all this technology helping us? We can email at a stop light from our Balckberry, are expected to call people back within moments of getting their messages and can communicate with clients half a world away in two seconds with one email. But I still don't feel enough kinship with anyone to stop wishing horrible things on them when they drive too slow in the left lane, or don't meet my needs, or improperly cross my path. How wrong is that? When I think of anyone saying the things I say to someone I know, I'd hit them with an iron skillet. Or give them a fierce glaring at anyhow. How can we be talking to each other so much yet have no idea how to communicate?
Friday, March 30, 2007
Tis' the season.
Well my friends, it's begun.
That season that only exists where rich people who have lawn service live.
Leaf Blower Whining Season.
I am not yet able to afford to live in such a neighborhood and when I am, I will boycott my WASP-y neighbors by having the Addams Family house. I do love the Addams Family, but mostly, I would just want to piss of all the pickle-in-their-ass Protestant lawyers who live in my neighborhood.
I do happen to work in one of these richy bitchy neighborhoods at a beautiful house, in a corner office with huge windows and a gorgeous view of every one's meticulously preened yards and landscaping. The most anal retentively manicured yardscape in the neighborhood is of the couple whose house backs up to the house I work in and my many office windows overlook it. Very pleasing to the eye, but horrible on my aural senses and brain stem.
I started to get nervous on Tuesday, when I saw the ChemLawn guy spread fertilizer all over the yard (is having a green, weed free lawn really worth destroying our water supply over? I guess that's a whole other blog entry). He was clad in the uniform tall rubber boots, moving as only one exposed to concentrated amounts of toxic chemicals over a long period of time can. But it wasn't his gait that got me concerned, it was his purpose. He was trying to make the grass grow, which meant that other people would soon come to cut it which is always followed by the most abhorrent of all the lazy person's power tools: The leaf blower. Or, as I call it, the fucking leaf blower.
Sure enough, the season indeed commenced today. Since it's 46 degrees with a chilly breeze outside, the lawn crew landed in the anal retentive neighbor's yard with thick jackets (one step down from a parka) and commenced the mowing, followed by the fucking leaf blower. This sound will echo through the neighborhood, just about every day, for the next five months.
Most of the neighbors aren't home at this time of day. They are at work being doctors and lawyers and high powered sales people. Some of their wives are home during the day, I see them walking around the neighborhood at a ferocious pace, pushing the infant SUV stroller, or walking the little yippee dog, trying to get those last stubborn pounds off their scrawny frame. Never a smile or a hello when I see them outside, cause they are way too good to be talking to the girl in her red Converse One Stars with the punkitty rock hair. But these women seem immune to the incessant wail of the leaf blower that consumes the neighborhood. Like it's just part of the natural setting of where they live. That sound, just like Chanel, Conde Nast, and themselves, belonged in a neighborhood such as this.
As a person who doesn't live in such a neighborhood, I find this sound not only irritating but symbolic for many vile things. I, who had to pay the city I live in $250 dollars last summer because I let my grass/weeds get so long that the city sent people to cut it for me, live in a neighborhood of do it yourself lawn mowers. Every weekend morning, starting at about 10am (unless you're the asshole who lives two doors down, then you are mowing at 6:30am on a SATURDAY) there is the glottal grumble of the lawn mower heard throughout the neighborhood. The sound of people who tend to their own property, who, regardless if they want to or not, don't have a lawn crew. This sound is a homier sound to me. It's the sound of people out in their yards, saying hello over the fence, inviting each other to the porch for a Bell's Amber while their dogs rip around they yard together, making plans for a neighborhood block party. The sound of community. You don't hear many fucking leaf blowers in my neighborhood. If there's some grass on the sidewalk or covering the mulch where the flowers grow, who cares? Let's go have a barbecue.
The sound of the leaf blower is cold, unfriendly, passive aggressive and competitive. It's the sound that masks reality. I sit in my office and listen to that incessant howl, all day long, ringing throughout the neighborhood, but if I drive through at night, not a peep. It's placid, serene and frighteningly perfect. During the day, I see the lawn crews working to make everything flawless and sculpted, so when everyone arrives home at night, it's just like the grass lowered itself on it's own and the weeds pulled themselves out from the flower beds and wandered off into the garbage bags hidden behind the garage until trash day when the housekeeper takes it out to the curb. No one had to fuss with a lawn mower of their own or those pesky lawn and leaf bags, no one had to make small talk with the neighbors, no one had to worry about their $1200 pedigree Portuguese Water Dog messing with the mangy Spaniel down the street. They can continue to be exclusive and choosy with who and what gets their precious time.
Me, I like my neighbors. Even though Sarge to the south of me is kind of a dummy who regularly does stupid DIY projects, and it's a miracle that he hasn't blown up his garage, lost a limb or downed wires. Or the house to the north of me that has a rabble of renters who rarely take out the trash and leave it outside the back door for weeks on end. Or me, for that matter, the lady with the unfinished flower bed in the front yard, rusty gutters and the kitten shredded curtains that hang in the big picture window in my front room. But I'll invite these people over for a beer on the front porch, watch their dog for the afternoon, or keep an eye on their place when they are out of town. I'll definitely take that over a well kept lawn any old day.
That season that only exists where rich people who have lawn service live.
Leaf Blower Whining Season.
I am not yet able to afford to live in such a neighborhood and when I am, I will boycott my WASP-y neighbors by having the Addams Family house. I do love the Addams Family, but mostly, I would just want to piss of all the pickle-in-their-ass Protestant lawyers who live in my neighborhood.
I do happen to work in one of these richy bitchy neighborhoods at a beautiful house, in a corner office with huge windows and a gorgeous view of every one's meticulously preened yards and landscaping. The most anal retentively manicured yardscape in the neighborhood is of the couple whose house backs up to the house I work in and my many office windows overlook it. Very pleasing to the eye, but horrible on my aural senses and brain stem.
I started to get nervous on Tuesday, when I saw the ChemLawn guy spread fertilizer all over the yard (is having a green, weed free lawn really worth destroying our water supply over? I guess that's a whole other blog entry). He was clad in the uniform tall rubber boots, moving as only one exposed to concentrated amounts of toxic chemicals over a long period of time can. But it wasn't his gait that got me concerned, it was his purpose. He was trying to make the grass grow, which meant that other people would soon come to cut it which is always followed by the most abhorrent of all the lazy person's power tools: The leaf blower. Or, as I call it, the fucking leaf blower.
Sure enough, the season indeed commenced today. Since it's 46 degrees with a chilly breeze outside, the lawn crew landed in the anal retentive neighbor's yard with thick jackets (one step down from a parka) and commenced the mowing, followed by the fucking leaf blower. This sound will echo through the neighborhood, just about every day, for the next five months.
Most of the neighbors aren't home at this time of day. They are at work being doctors and lawyers and high powered sales people. Some of their wives are home during the day, I see them walking around the neighborhood at a ferocious pace, pushing the infant SUV stroller, or walking the little yippee dog, trying to get those last stubborn pounds off their scrawny frame. Never a smile or a hello when I see them outside, cause they are way too good to be talking to the girl in her red Converse One Stars with the punkitty rock hair. But these women seem immune to the incessant wail of the leaf blower that consumes the neighborhood. Like it's just part of the natural setting of where they live. That sound, just like Chanel, Conde Nast, and themselves, belonged in a neighborhood such as this.
As a person who doesn't live in such a neighborhood, I find this sound not only irritating but symbolic for many vile things. I, who had to pay the city I live in $250 dollars last summer because I let my grass/weeds get so long that the city sent people to cut it for me, live in a neighborhood of do it yourself lawn mowers. Every weekend morning, starting at about 10am (unless you're the asshole who lives two doors down, then you are mowing at 6:30am on a SATURDAY) there is the glottal grumble of the lawn mower heard throughout the neighborhood. The sound of people who tend to their own property, who, regardless if they want to or not, don't have a lawn crew. This sound is a homier sound to me. It's the sound of people out in their yards, saying hello over the fence, inviting each other to the porch for a Bell's Amber while their dogs rip around they yard together, making plans for a neighborhood block party. The sound of community. You don't hear many fucking leaf blowers in my neighborhood. If there's some grass on the sidewalk or covering the mulch where the flowers grow, who cares? Let's go have a barbecue.
The sound of the leaf blower is cold, unfriendly, passive aggressive and competitive. It's the sound that masks reality. I sit in my office and listen to that incessant howl, all day long, ringing throughout the neighborhood, but if I drive through at night, not a peep. It's placid, serene and frighteningly perfect. During the day, I see the lawn crews working to make everything flawless and sculpted, so when everyone arrives home at night, it's just like the grass lowered itself on it's own and the weeds pulled themselves out from the flower beds and wandered off into the garbage bags hidden behind the garage until trash day when the housekeeper takes it out to the curb. No one had to fuss with a lawn mower of their own or those pesky lawn and leaf bags, no one had to make small talk with the neighbors, no one had to worry about their $1200 pedigree Portuguese Water Dog messing with the mangy Spaniel down the street. They can continue to be exclusive and choosy with who and what gets their precious time.
Me, I like my neighbors. Even though Sarge to the south of me is kind of a dummy who regularly does stupid DIY projects, and it's a miracle that he hasn't blown up his garage, lost a limb or downed wires. Or the house to the north of me that has a rabble of renters who rarely take out the trash and leave it outside the back door for weeks on end. Or me, for that matter, the lady with the unfinished flower bed in the front yard, rusty gutters and the kitten shredded curtains that hang in the big picture window in my front room. But I'll invite these people over for a beer on the front porch, watch their dog for the afternoon, or keep an eye on their place when they are out of town. I'll definitely take that over a well kept lawn any old day.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Where she stops, nobody knows.
I am constantly teetering on the edge of either falling into the warm abyss of happiness or the pit of misanthropic hell. I understand that my brain is still finding a new center point since I've quit smoking and started exercising. There's bound to be a period of time where my brain chemistry is righting itself after the winds of quitter-dom blew the nicotine out of the boat of my grey matter, but how long is that grace period exactly? Is there a specific calculation factoring time of active addiction, time of abstenince, and amount of endorphins from exercise? At what point am I able to say "Ok, this is as happy/grumpy I can expect to be from here on out and if I feel a need for a change in perspective, this is the chemical base point from which to work."? No one has really been able to give me a specific answer as to when I can stop fretting about the emotional pendulum I'm riding. I know where the center point is, I swing past it all day long, and I'm never sure which reaction zone I'll swing into next.
Reaction to the news of the day:
Much to my suprise, Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted on four felony counts of lying to a grand jury. They didn't buy his claims of memory lapse, which is a relief. If he is sentenced to any time, it will be in a country club jail where he will suffer the unimaginable torture of steak and lobster only once a week and having to play golf on the same 18 holes day after day for up to two years. But he did get convicted, and rolled over on Cheney who is in dire need of severe comeuppance. I think that Bush is doing serious damage to our country that will take much time and many resources to undo. But he is Tiddlywinks compared to how insidious Cheney is. My favorite story about kind of person Dick is happened in June 2004. While senate was in session, Cheney was getting grilled by Senator Leahy about Halliburton and Cheney got his feathers ruffled and told Leahy "go fuck yourself". Charming. I understand that people get heated up and tense under pressure, but if you can't keep your snarling at a minimum when people are poking at you about your business dealings, get an IT job. Especially if you want to be the next president, Dick.
I don't have much faith in politicians in general, so when the system works, I feel suprised, cautious and minimally hopeful. I know that Libby getting a small slap on the wrist for lying to a grand jury is a miniscule triumph in comparison to what politicians get away with on a regular basis, but this is an imprtant triumph. I realize that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and the journey of reclaiming this amazing country from business interests and bringing it back to the people, all of us, is a worthy journey. I know, it's a big lofty pipe dream, but go big or go home.
Then I think that this is a small distraction that the Illuminati put in the paper to make us feel placated. Lulls us into the notion that the system actually works for us and is keeping us all safe from those mean guys who want to steal our democracy and lie to us. In the meantime, the Illuminati are sitting on their uncharted island just off the coast of Peru, drinking the preserved blood of Hitler and planning the next world war. These ideas make me want to eat exotic cheeses with Bear who works at Zingerman's, drink wine and shop for vinyl and pay no mind to the puppets who pose as our "world leaders".
Regardless of what the truth may be, "Scooter" is one of the stupidest nicknames for a 56 year old man I've ever heard of.
Reaction to the news of the day:
Much to my suprise, Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted on four felony counts of lying to a grand jury. They didn't buy his claims of memory lapse, which is a relief. If he is sentenced to any time, it will be in a country club jail where he will suffer the unimaginable torture of steak and lobster only once a week and having to play golf on the same 18 holes day after day for up to two years. But he did get convicted, and rolled over on Cheney who is in dire need of severe comeuppance. I think that Bush is doing serious damage to our country that will take much time and many resources to undo. But he is Tiddlywinks compared to how insidious Cheney is. My favorite story about kind of person Dick is happened in June 2004. While senate was in session, Cheney was getting grilled by Senator Leahy about Halliburton and Cheney got his feathers ruffled and told Leahy "go fuck yourself". Charming. I understand that people get heated up and tense under pressure, but if you can't keep your snarling at a minimum when people are poking at you about your business dealings, get an IT job. Especially if you want to be the next president, Dick.
I don't have much faith in politicians in general, so when the system works, I feel suprised, cautious and minimally hopeful. I know that Libby getting a small slap on the wrist for lying to a grand jury is a miniscule triumph in comparison to what politicians get away with on a regular basis, but this is an imprtant triumph. I realize that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and the journey of reclaiming this amazing country from business interests and bringing it back to the people, all of us, is a worthy journey. I know, it's a big lofty pipe dream, but go big or go home.
Then I think that this is a small distraction that the Illuminati put in the paper to make us feel placated. Lulls us into the notion that the system actually works for us and is keeping us all safe from those mean guys who want to steal our democracy and lie to us. In the meantime, the Illuminati are sitting on their uncharted island just off the coast of Peru, drinking the preserved blood of Hitler and planning the next world war. These ideas make me want to eat exotic cheeses with Bear who works at Zingerman's, drink wine and shop for vinyl and pay no mind to the puppets who pose as our "world leaders".
Regardless of what the truth may be, "Scooter" is one of the stupidest nicknames for a 56 year old man I've ever heard of.
Friday, February 23, 2007
St. Boringshire
Well, I've still been cranky and lame, but at least I know what to expect from my emotional forecast. The first few weeks of me not smoking were exciting. Well, exciting if you like hanging out with the emotionally unstable. If that's the case, I would have been your playground.
I wish I had something exciting to report or at least a funny anecdote, or even an entertaining observation. But, I just don't. My life is boring. No, I recant. It's my brain that is boring. I think that's why I have been hiding out alone in my house, in fear of boring the living shit out of my friends and loved ones.
Last weekend, I went to a cool and very tasty gourmet pizza and wine bar with my dear Mchan, spent Saturday burning through gift certificates at the mall with Max, Saturday night at the rodeo with Goat and Sunday afternoon repeatedly screaming down a big ass hill on a sled with a fearless and priceless five year old. Much to my ire, I have nothing to say about any of it that is of any importance or if I did, I could not say it in any sort of entertaining way.
I'm hoping it's just a phase.
I wish I had something exciting to report or at least a funny anecdote, or even an entertaining observation. But, I just don't. My life is boring. No, I recant. It's my brain that is boring. I think that's why I have been hiding out alone in my house, in fear of boring the living shit out of my friends and loved ones.
Last weekend, I went to a cool and very tasty gourmet pizza and wine bar with my dear Mchan, spent Saturday burning through gift certificates at the mall with Max, Saturday night at the rodeo with Goat and Sunday afternoon repeatedly screaming down a big ass hill on a sled with a fearless and priceless five year old. Much to my ire, I have nothing to say about any of it that is of any importance or if I did, I could not say it in any sort of entertaining way.
I'm hoping it's just a phase.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
St. Elsewhere
LAME!!!
That is what I have been the last few weeks, LAME!!!
Actually, I've been CRANKY and LAME!!
I can ambulate just fine, my walking ability has nothing to do with my lameness. It's an attitudinal lameness. I have been working so hard to reconfigure my brain chemistry, that I have spent no time entertaining and expanding the funny/odd/frightening thoughts that pop up in my head.
My current thoughts are entrenched in things like "How many calories does this piece of sustenance have?" and "Watching Swingers and listening to Heart of Saturday Night make me think on smoking fondly, but I'm not going to bum any, buy any, or light up any cigarettes" and "If I don't get out of my cozy bed now and hop on the elliptical, I'll have to work out after work, and Goat wants to take me out to dinner, but if I work out after work then it will be a late dinner and then there will be no time to watch Family Guy before bed." and "How quickly can the dog pee bacause I really want to go back to my couch and my Family Guy marathon because it's six-fucking-degrees-farenheit out here.". Oh and "How much does that cost?".
Obviously, my mind has been on other things than my blog, which I find endlessly frustrating. I'm also a little worried that I'm thinking way too much about Family Guy. If the average human uses something like less than 10% of their brain, why can't I kick it up a few percentage points? Then I could focus on all this habit reforming and still entertain all my quirky thoughts of shoving horse manure in my boss' mouth while he's duct taped to a chair, the fact that quitting smoking has unveiled a raging inner bitch and that every season on Family Guy, Meg becomes progressively more pathetic. These are important things to think, these are the things that I think about to exercise my head and stretch my creative muscles. It's a weenie creative workout, I know, but since I used to do improv every day, paint, make music and write on a weekly basis, I'm stunned my unused creativity hasn't atrophied to rigor mortis. I use these thoughts to keep a pulse until I get enough of my poo together to nurse my creativity back to health and let it loose to run screaming wherever.
Habit reforming's a bitch.
To my credit, I havent smoked in 36 days, have NOT smoked 661 cigarettes and saved $171.50. Plus I have dropped 7 pounds. So I guess that I need to put those stats into my pipe and smoke them. Just as long as it doens't have any calories.
That is what I have been the last few weeks, LAME!!!
Actually, I've been CRANKY and LAME!!
I can ambulate just fine, my walking ability has nothing to do with my lameness. It's an attitudinal lameness. I have been working so hard to reconfigure my brain chemistry, that I have spent no time entertaining and expanding the funny/odd/frightening thoughts that pop up in my head.
My current thoughts are entrenched in things like "How many calories does this piece of sustenance have?" and "Watching Swingers and listening to Heart of Saturday Night make me think on smoking fondly, but I'm not going to bum any, buy any, or light up any cigarettes" and "If I don't get out of my cozy bed now and hop on the elliptical, I'll have to work out after work, and Goat wants to take me out to dinner, but if I work out after work then it will be a late dinner and then there will be no time to watch Family Guy before bed." and "How quickly can the dog pee bacause I really want to go back to my couch and my Family Guy marathon because it's six-fucking-degrees-farenheit out here.". Oh and "How much does that cost?".
Obviously, my mind has been on other things than my blog, which I find endlessly frustrating. I'm also a little worried that I'm thinking way too much about Family Guy. If the average human uses something like less than 10% of their brain, why can't I kick it up a few percentage points? Then I could focus on all this habit reforming and still entertain all my quirky thoughts of shoving horse manure in my boss' mouth while he's duct taped to a chair, the fact that quitting smoking has unveiled a raging inner bitch and that every season on Family Guy, Meg becomes progressively more pathetic. These are important things to think, these are the things that I think about to exercise my head and stretch my creative muscles. It's a weenie creative workout, I know, but since I used to do improv every day, paint, make music and write on a weekly basis, I'm stunned my unused creativity hasn't atrophied to rigor mortis. I use these thoughts to keep a pulse until I get enough of my poo together to nurse my creativity back to health and let it loose to run screaming wherever.
Habit reforming's a bitch.
To my credit, I havent smoked in 36 days, have NOT smoked 661 cigarettes and saved $171.50. Plus I have dropped 7 pounds. So I guess that I need to put those stats into my pipe and smoke them. Just as long as it doens't have any calories.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Winter means time for warm things, like thermal photos of you and your beau.
This is me and my beau. Being thermal.
Winter didn't seem like it was going to happen this year. Up until a few weeks ago, it was pretty balmy here in the mitten state, all 45 degrees and rainy. We were having a Seattle/Portland winter, which was just fine by me. But now that the snow is here, I want Goat to teach me how to snowboard and run the dog in the snow because it's funny to watch her bound around. My dog looks like Santa's Little Helper and runs like the wind, but frequently will lose communication between front half and back half upon deceleration. The end is a hilarious mid air hula.
Ahh, winter.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Making Headlines
Today, as I do everyday, I got to work, fired up my computer and hopped onto my email to find out all those things I missed in the fifteen and a half hours I was away from my work desk. While waiting for my work email to load, I quickly hopped onto MSN to check my personal email. Every day I get an email from this website that charts how long I have quit smoking, how many cigarettes I have NOT smoked since I quit, and how much money I've saved. I find this to be a great way to start another day of not smoking.
But, I digress.
So the MSN homepage comes up and there, under the section "MSNBC News" is the headline, "Rescued teen relieved after rescue".
First, I thought "Duh". Then, I read it a few times to make sure my brain wasn't processing anything incorrectly. Then I laughed for a while. I am glad the boy is home, I'm glad he got rescued, and I'm sure he is relieved but that has to be one of the stupidest headlines I have ever read.
I come across this type of hack headline writing frequently, too. It's not really a now and then thing anymore. I love these kinds of headllines, because they make me laugh.
Headlines can be stupid in many fashions. They can state the obvious, such as the one above did in spades. Sometimes they sound dirty, even though you know what they are talking about and you know it's not dirty. For example, all this talk about gas prices over the last handful of years has created extensive use of the word "pump", which can easily be made lascivious. Some make it seem like, in the time pinch to make a deadline, no one read the headline to see if it was fit to print. Most fun is what they make me think of when I read them.
Here are a few others from sifting through today's papers that made me pause, followed by my first reaction.
"Doctors propose uterus transplants" - Ummm....
"No sprinklers at fire"- Isn't that why there was a fire in the first place?
"Hangings spark anger"- Hangings have been known to do that.
"Many across nation help, march, reflect" - Shiny happy people! Safe for jogging at night.
"Lockheed gets Navy warning shot" -Taking one for the team! Immediate second though being: It's about time someone started shooting at those bastards at Lockheed.
My favorite headline is one that I'm pretty sure no one read until the paper was on the news stand. That had to be the case, or else it never woud have been printed. In 1998, the San Jose Mercury News proclaimed, on the front page, "CIA Clears Itself in Crack Probe". I have never laughed so hard in my life. It took me a few minutes before I could calm down enough to explain to my roommate why I was laughing in the first place. When I showed her, she laughed until she was on the verge of peeing in the driver seat of her car. I still have that little gem of a headline stored away, waiting to be framed and put on display in my bathroom.
I know, headlines are for grabbing attention. They have to explain the crux of the story in a few short words. I'm sure it can get tricky, but it seems that some are almost an afterthought, or worse they can seem like they explain everything so you don't have to bother reading the whole story. Regardless of intention, I will be endlessly entertained every day as I sift through the papers and laugh thinking about the clean crack of the CIA.
But, I digress.
So the MSN homepage comes up and there, under the section "MSNBC News" is the headline, "Rescued teen relieved after rescue".
First, I thought "Duh". Then, I read it a few times to make sure my brain wasn't processing anything incorrectly. Then I laughed for a while. I am glad the boy is home, I'm glad he got rescued, and I'm sure he is relieved but that has to be one of the stupidest headlines I have ever read.
I come across this type of hack headline writing frequently, too. It's not really a now and then thing anymore. I love these kinds of headllines, because they make me laugh.
Headlines can be stupid in many fashions. They can state the obvious, such as the one above did in spades. Sometimes they sound dirty, even though you know what they are talking about and you know it's not dirty. For example, all this talk about gas prices over the last handful of years has created extensive use of the word "pump", which can easily be made lascivious. Some make it seem like, in the time pinch to make a deadline, no one read the headline to see if it was fit to print. Most fun is what they make me think of when I read them.
Here are a few others from sifting through today's papers that made me pause, followed by my first reaction.
"Doctors propose uterus transplants" - Ummm....
"No sprinklers at fire"- Isn't that why there was a fire in the first place?
"Hangings spark anger"- Hangings have been known to do that.
"Many across nation help, march, reflect" - Shiny happy people! Safe for jogging at night.
"Lockheed gets Navy warning shot" -Taking one for the team! Immediate second though being: It's about time someone started shooting at those bastards at Lockheed.
My favorite headline is one that I'm pretty sure no one read until the paper was on the news stand. That had to be the case, or else it never woud have been printed. In 1998, the San Jose Mercury News proclaimed, on the front page, "CIA Clears Itself in Crack Probe". I have never laughed so hard in my life. It took me a few minutes before I could calm down enough to explain to my roommate why I was laughing in the first place. When I showed her, she laughed until she was on the verge of peeing in the driver seat of her car. I still have that little gem of a headline stored away, waiting to be framed and put on display in my bathroom.
I know, headlines are for grabbing attention. They have to explain the crux of the story in a few short words. I'm sure it can get tricky, but it seems that some are almost an afterthought, or worse they can seem like they explain everything so you don't have to bother reading the whole story. Regardless of intention, I will be endlessly entertained every day as I sift through the papers and laugh thinking about the clean crack of the CIA.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Truly Lumpers
Happy New Year!
I'm sure you are wondering what landed under the christmas tree for me. Maybe that was so many blogs ago that you forgot what I asked for. Maybe your new to my blog and have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe you landed on my blog by accident and don't give a flying rat's ass.
Sadly, I didn't get the horse I've been putting on my christmas list for the last 27 years, nor did I get the composter. I did get a Sephora gift certificate (thank you 2T!) and my awesome Mom is giving me a laptop!! Whoopie!!
I also got an infection for christmas (where was that on my list, Santa?!?). So I did the American thing and took antibiotics. To which I had an allergic reaction. I felt all off and funny as soon as I started the medication and lo and behold this past Tuesday, I broke out in hives EVERYWHERE!!!
I truly lived up to my name: Lumpers
The great thing about the hives (cause there was one) was the timing. I had spent a chunk of last week in Arkansas with my brother and his wife and many, many dogs. I got home and had a great little New Year's Eve party at my house, got to lay around and relax the next day, and returned to work on Tuesday. Tuesday was my first day quitting smoking. I was going a little nuts and feeling awfully cranky and cantankerous when my earlobes and neck started to itch and get puffy. Within a few hours, I was pretty much covered.
Over the next few days, I was in hell. I was itchy and swollen and whacked out of my tree on antihistamines but the last thing on my mind was smoking! I haven't even thought about it until going to lunch with my beloved this afternoon. It was the first time I'd left the house in a few days in a non-Benadryl state of mind, and it was lovely! I didn't even want to smoke!
I know I will stumble on cravings and want to just have one (which always turns into a pack a day within a month). I will just have to remember the raw, distorted, itchy monster that showed up this past week in the mirror to take my mind off the lack of nicotine in my body. In my gratitude for that monster's intervention, I must not smoke again.
I'm sure you are wondering what landed under the christmas tree for me. Maybe that was so many blogs ago that you forgot what I asked for. Maybe your new to my blog and have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe you landed on my blog by accident and don't give a flying rat's ass.
Sadly, I didn't get the horse I've been putting on my christmas list for the last 27 years, nor did I get the composter. I did get a Sephora gift certificate (thank you 2T!) and my awesome Mom is giving me a laptop!! Whoopie!!
I also got an infection for christmas (where was that on my list, Santa?!?). So I did the American thing and took antibiotics. To which I had an allergic reaction. I felt all off and funny as soon as I started the medication and lo and behold this past Tuesday, I broke out in hives EVERYWHERE!!!
I truly lived up to my name: Lumpers
The great thing about the hives (cause there was one) was the timing. I had spent a chunk of last week in Arkansas with my brother and his wife and many, many dogs. I got home and had a great little New Year's Eve party at my house, got to lay around and relax the next day, and returned to work on Tuesday. Tuesday was my first day quitting smoking. I was going a little nuts and feeling awfully cranky and cantankerous when my earlobes and neck started to itch and get puffy. Within a few hours, I was pretty much covered.
Over the next few days, I was in hell. I was itchy and swollen and whacked out of my tree on antihistamines but the last thing on my mind was smoking! I haven't even thought about it until going to lunch with my beloved this afternoon. It was the first time I'd left the house in a few days in a non-Benadryl state of mind, and it was lovely! I didn't even want to smoke!
I know I will stumble on cravings and want to just have one (which always turns into a pack a day within a month). I will just have to remember the raw, distorted, itchy monster that showed up this past week in the mirror to take my mind off the lack of nicotine in my body. In my gratitude for that monster's intervention, I must not smoke again.