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.

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...

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

This is an artist rendering of me. Look for me on your local post office walls.

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.

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.

This is my very cute dog. She loves everyone, even you.

I see you!!!!

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.

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.

Holiday amnesia

I have been so busy making my holiday gifts, preparing for debt consolidation (cat's out of the bag: I'm in debt) and hammering out my vacation plans for next week that I just plumb forgot that I have a blog. I have to keep my three readers entertained. Sorry Mom, Mchan and Mark.

Let's see what I've been up to since we last checked in.

I got to see Kid Beyond again. Really, my sweets, if you get a chance, go see him. He will wreck your sense of reality and you will be really happy about it.

He was on tour with Imogen Heap, so I got to see her too. I've not spent a lot of time listening to her music and I was happy to have a chance to do so. She just has one of those voices that takes you on a little jaunt through her stories and her compisitions are the perfect backdrop. This lady knows her abilitites so well and really works with what she's got.

And she's very tall. She has taken to backcombing (also known as 'ratting') her hair, which adds on quite a few inches to her already altitudinous person.

So I had the chance to chat with Imogen, and she is quite kind. Me being me, and not really caring whether people like me or not, whether they are famous or not, I had to ask her some questions. Nothing pervy, just about her music.

I'm fascinated with people who have the ability to focus on one thing. Especially people who are so focused on one thing that many go out of their way to view, purchase or buy what these people spend every waking moment doing. I have a Tasmanian Devil brain that can only ingest so much of one thing before gleefully slobbering and scrambling over to the next shiny object that catches it's attention. Plus, I tend to feel insecure around focused folks. I'm perfectly happy with my rapid brain, until I meet someone successful within their focus. Then I immeadiately wonder if I have wasted a bunch of time learning about dumb little things when I could have been writing music, or starring in a kick ass Broadway play I wrote, or working on becoming a household name.

So, I had to ask Ms. Heap "Why music?" to which she replied, "I was never good at anything else".

Duh. Of course! That makes perfect sense! If the only thing I could do remotely well was ice skate, or math, then you bet your ass I would spend my time becoming the best freaking ice skater or the best math-doing-person EVER!!!

I just like to do so much stuff and while I'm not good at all of it, I tend to pick enough of it up to have it enchant me for a while. Some stuff I got pretty good at while other stuff I'm just glad I lived through experimenting with. Yeah, I probably will be plagued with feeling inadequate while standing next to corporate CEO's, rock stars, or an Ju-Jitsu sensei. I'll just have to remember the wealth of information that I have picked up along the way was really fucking fun to gather.

Ok, so I can't set up a business plan, write a song or chop through a block with my head (the latter being the most enticing of the three), but I have been skydiving, moved to cities where I didn't know a soul, had no job and no digs and created a whole life for myself. I am learning how to weld, I can shoot a bow, waterski, spit really far, swim and kinda play guitar and piano. I've written and performed in plays, worked as a bike messenger, worked at a recording studio and worked as a dog walker while going to massage therapy school.

Take that all you mono-focused people.

Pictures of nicknames

These are some pictures that I found when I Googled 'nicknames'. Part of a burro, crazy hair Bowie, a caricature by Albert 'Wooltops' Hodgson and a list of soroity nick names.

I don't know much about sororities, but I do know that in the college town where my brother lives, the Tri Delta's are definitely monikered the Tri Sluts.

Another thought on nicknames: Giving nicknames to mostly strangers. I think everyone I know does this. For instance, in my personal universe, I have nicknames for everyone. Roast Beef Guy was a guy I met at the deli counter who was very dreamy. He told me the merits of the Boar's Head Londonbroil Roast Beef. My friends would always ask "have you seen Roast Beef Guy lately?", to which I always replied "no" because I never saw him again. He was an angel on temporary leave from meat heaven.

There was Hot Cheese Guy, a guy I had a crush on who worked at a natural food store (in the specialty cheese section). Later I found out his real name and his real girlfriends name as well. To me he will always be Hot Cheese Guy.

Then there is the rabble of not-quite-homeless-but-definitely-unemployed people who hang out all day on the main drag of the town I live in. There's Guy In Red, Arm Guy, who vociferously punches his right arm out in front of him every time he takes a step with his right foot, Fat Guy On The Porch and Eyebrows.

At first I was worried that I was too quickly judging people, pigeon holing them to make my life easier. Then I realized that these fun, quirky people are lovely ornaments to my life. I don't have to be emotionally involved with them, yet I either interact with them enough, or they left a big impression in a little span of time to make them memorable. I love these people. I need these people. I can spend time making up stories of why Fat Guy On The Porch won't cover his 400 pound frame with a large piece of cloth before wandering out onto the porch. I could fantasize about Hot Cheese Guy suprising me with a free block of Straveccio Parmesan with his phone number written on the wrapper. They feed my daydreams, my creativity and my curiosity.

I feel so lucky.

Nicknames

Eunice is one of the nicknames I gave my cousin when we were kids. She is 4 years younger than me and we grew up more like sisters than cousins. I took full advantage of our tight knit relationship by bossing her around and dressing her and the dog up in matching outfits. I was the poster child for "how to know if you child is a control freak". In fact most of the women in my family are highly bossy and nothing is more frustrating and entertaining than getting us all together for a family member's wedding and watching us try to run the show. On top of it, we're a loud people too. Needless to say, we all end up incensed that no one is doing it our way, then we sulk (no wait, that's just me).

But I digress. Cause I want to talk about nicknames.

I was one of those people who always wanted a nickname, but one never stuck to me. I was always fustrated that no one immediately caught on to my new, snappy name and would deflate whenever they would call to me using my given name. Hadn't I just told them all what to refer to me as from then on? Maybe it was a desperate need for not being me for a while and trying somone elses life on for a month or two. Even as I have grown to love my oddness and have learned how to gleefully dance with my demons and quirks, I still love to see through other peoples brains. I mean that metaphorically. If you've ever tried to peer through brain tissue, you can't see much, it's pretty dense.

Here's a list of nicknames I have tried to forever pin to myself, or someone tried to pin to me:

Klunky
Sprout
Moses
Mosey
Mo (this one actually stuck)
Snoopy
Lumpers
Grace (I fell down a lot)
Dister's sister
Maul
The Devil

The last one is actually not a nickname. It was the description used by somebody I had just broken up with when he was asked by an unknowing third party how I was.

Uncle Tom

This is Tom Waits. He is my favorite on many different levels. Favorite musician, has my favorite hair and hands of any musician, my favorite uncle in my pretend reality, one of my favorite story tellers. I'm sure there are other ways of him fitting into other favorite classifications, but that's enough for right now.

His new album is called Orphans. It's three discs, lots of kick ass pictures, all the lyrics and the best part, gobs of Tom Waits' music. He does a beautiful, achey version of "Goodnight Irene" and "Young at Heart" and tells stories of bull penis dog treats and grieving con artists. I can't shove this album into my brain fast enough.

Go buy it! When I was at the record store buying three copies of Orphans the day it came out (last Tuesday), I was told by the wonderful men who work at said record store that this album is a limited printing. They received a press release saying that was it, they shall print no more.

So please my children, go feast upon the exquisite flesh of Orphans.

Cat booty

This is Ethel (aka- Effie). She is a slightly posessed stuntwoman and collector of things. She stores her findings (which are mostly things stolen from me) in the kitchen vent. I've been meaning to put a cover on this open vent, but I am so entertained by her pilfering, that I just can't bring myself to do it.

Every month or so, I clean out the vent. Who knows why she chooses what she chooses to make off with and hide in there, but it's an endless source of giggling for me and my friends. What is most fun is thinking about what she plans on doing with these things, because I'm pretty sure she has a purpose for everything. She's just that kind of cat.

So, I thought I'd share with you what I've pulled out from what is now known as 'Effie's Vent'.


-A coupon for Toll House chocolate morsels
-Dried flower petals
-A disposable plastic top from a 5 gallon bottle of water
-2 lottery tickets. One was chewed to bits.
-A twist tie
-Cigarette wrappers
-A bottle of green tea extract
-A masticated fragment of a dog toy
-Popcorn wrappers
-A lid to a Classico spaghetti sauce jar
-A pin that reads "Artists Make Lousy Slaves"
-Keys to my truck
-Kindersuprise
-Bubble Gum lip balm
-A pedometer
-Instruction manual for pedometer
-Barettes
-A hose clamp
-A safety pin
-Mini picture frame

This is John Frusciante. He is a guitar hero. I got to see him play last Friday night with his band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Back in the day, I was a rabid RHCP fan and between the ages of 17 and 21 couldn't listen to Uplift Mofo Party Plan nearly enough to suit me.

My boisterous fandom has faded over the years, I will love them forever, but they are no longer my messiah. I still get a burst of sunshine in my torso every time I listen to Uplift Mofo, Freaky Styley and even Mother's Milk, but I've realized that no other human can be the knight-in-shining-armor that I can make myself, for myself. That's, at the same time, the saddest and the happiest discovery I have ever made in my life.

Then again, every time I see John play and hear him sing, I believe it's possible to be saved by a guitar shredding stranger.