Ruminations & Consultations

my next project

2008-01-16T11:01:00.001-05:00

day 15
Originally uploaded by gkp

Today's glitter nail polish is lacking the necessary glitter to polish ratio. (see above for proof) Plus, it lasts about 3 seconds before glitter starts to flake off everywhere, leaving your nails bereft of sparkle and everything else in a 10 foot radius littered with tiny bits of shininess. That's why you'll find me hunched over my kitchen table, brow furrowed and thinking cap firmly pulled down over my forehead, inventing my own glitter nail polish that is not only super sparkly, but has fierce staying power. Extra Strength - Extra Sparkle - Extra Sassy!

Wow, I should be in HBA R&D, y'all.

Happy New Year's!

2008-01-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year's!
Originally uploaded by gkp

Cooking a real meal (ok, a dinner dish) for the first time in a while...I had forgotten that I actually enjoy cooking...

Black-eyed peas, hot country sausage, onions, garlic, and brown rice. Yum. And the peas are good luck on New Years!

Happy Sunday!

2007-12-16T16:33:00.001-05:00

And might I suggest Ingrid Michaelson's album "Girls and Boys" for your Sunday evening listening pleasure? It's making cleaning tolerable, so it must be good.

Love y'all!
Gabs

Le Swoon!

2007-12-09T22:47:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I was going to write something insightful, something meaningful, something that would make you all go, "Wow, dude. Deep." Something that would make you wish that you still smoked weed just so you could more fully comprehend my subtle, mysterious and life-changing message.

Then, I saw this and could not stop laughing. Who needs the answer to life's most persistent and thorny questions when we have Emily, who can make me forget trouble and woe with her amazing interpretive dance...

Enjoy.

Emily, if you're reading this, I find your dance completely captivating. I cannot get you off my mind. I long to bask in your awesomeness. (Call me!)

i'm not afraid of failure

2007-11-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I set some lofty goals for November...let's see how I am doing.

NaBloPoMo:
Let's see...17 blog posts....and it's November 27.

365 Days:
Last photo logged November 15. (I've taken them since then, but not edited/posted them.)

NaNoWriMo:
1129/50,000. And it's November 27. I can be prolific, but 49k in 4 days is beyond my ability. I have to sleep at some point.

Score: 0/3

There's always next November, right? :)

let me tell you about my ovaries

2007-11-20T22:31:00.000-05:00

Aren't you all so glad I decided to hammer out 4 blog posts this evening? Because when I run out of ideas, I talk about my reproductive organs! Good times.

Long story short, mine hate me, apparently. I'm only 30, but I figure they're on strike. Maybe after 20 years, they were thinking about early retirement. Maybe they want a bigger slice of my internet revenue. I don't know. The union guys aren't talking to me anymore. And they've been picketing, refusing to do any worthwhile work.

But apparently, my ovaries have decided they are tired of sitting on their asses and they want to get up and get cracking again. Or else, there is a tiny gnome trying to burrow his way our of my left ovary out into the light. Perhaps both.

There's a word for this feeling- mittelschmerz. Those crafty Germans and their compound nouns! It roughly translates to "You are ovulating and will be doubled over your hot water bottle for the next couple of hours! Enjoy!" So now you know what I've been doing the last 90 minutes, aside from diligently blogging. And complaining bitterly to myself. Stupid ovaries, what with their sense of comic timing and all.

And the bourbon, it is gone!

And now, I daren't take a NSAID, for fear of eating through my already compromised stomach lining. Sigh. At least I have my beer and hot water bottle.

Wow. I bet you all are overjoyed that this makes 4 posts for tonight. Otherwise, I'd have to resort to telling you about that one time last year when my toe almost rotted off and killed me! No, really, it could have! And I have photos! But don't worry, I'll save that story for tomorrow.

Good times, indeed.

Fuck turkey. Here's what I'm eating this Thanksgiving.

2007-11-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving Day Buffet at Margaux's Restaurant, Raleigh, NC

Thanks, Margaux's. I hope you have a wheelbarrow to get me out the door.

16th Annual Thanksgiving Day Buffet
Family Style Platter Appetizer For Each Table
Chilled Shrimp Cocktail, Blue Crab Cheddar Dip, Deviled Eggs,
Country Ham Biscuits, Falafel & Hummus

Buffet To Include
Roast Turkey & Cranberry Orange Sauce
Roast Angus Steamship Round Au Jus & horseradish cream
Traditional/Oyster/Smoked Bacon Stuffing
Green Bean Casserole
Pumpkin & Wild Rice
Corn Pudding
Candied Yams & Marshmallows
North Carolina Turkey Leg Meat Hash
Shrimp & Scallop Newburg Bouchee
Herb Roasted Salmon & dill sour creme
Sesame Teriyaki Chicken Drumettes
Pulled Boston Pork Butts & collards
Fall Vegetable Quiche
Three Cheese Canneloni
Mashed Potatoes & Market Vegetables
Assorted Fresh Market Array of Salads

Family Style Dessert Service
Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, Chocolate Chess Pie, Apple Cranberry Crisp, Tuxedo Mousse Cake, Tiramisu, Coconut Macaroons, Carrot Cake, French Vanilla Cheesecake

I hit 159 lbs today. Hooray! I have a feeling I won't be seeing that again for a while...

It's bacon and booze!

2007-11-20T21:56:00.000-05:00

What is there not to love? Seriously, if you don't like either of those items, we should probably stop talking. Unless you're a recovering alcoholic Jew or Muslim, and then I might cut you some slack. But all you Protestants and Catholics, y'all at least need to be down with the bacon. You've no excuse.

With that in mind, here is a recipe that will warm the heart (and possibly other places) of the bacon lovers amongst you- the BLT cocktail. I know, sounds...a bit...over the top, perhaps, and yeah, it possibly is. But it is also love, in a flute. Mad props to Jason for pulling this one out of his...brain.

Fresh bacon crumbly goodness (Please, for the love of god, do not even contemplate using Bacon Bits here. Ew.)
Fresh tomatoes, chopped
Cava or the sparkling wine of your choice
1 tsp of sugar
1/2 tps sherry vinegar
Hot sauce to taste ( I prefer Tabasco, but that's just me...)

Combine the tomatoes, sugar, and sherry vinegar. Scoop you a little of that yummy stuff into a champagne flute. Add some bacon right on the top.

Then fill yo glass with sparklies. A splash or two of hot sauce, then your lettuce right on the top, and you are one toast away from heaven.

Yeah, it sounds...questionable, maybe. But it looks pretty, no?

Now close your eyes, take a deep breath, and throw it back . Aw, yeah. That's some good shit right there.

We enjoyed it, obviously.

Oh, that's right- I'm supposed to be blogging this!

2007-11-20T21:00:00.000-05:00

Um, hi! I seem to have lost track of time! Could it really have been 4 days since my last post...huh. What about that? Um, hey, look over there- it's bacon! Look at the pretty bacon!

Sigh...What was that I said about falling off the horse? Man, this fucker does like to buck, doesn't she? But over here, we're adhering to the spirit of NaBloPoMo more than the actual letter, and going for the whole 30 posts in 30 days thing...so if I write 4 tonight, ostensibly, I will be caught up. Under my own slightly cheaty-yet-sort-of-sensical rules. And I'm ok with that. So here we go, back in the saddle.

I haven't done a bullety list yet this month, and I'm thinking it's about time. (It's a good way to get through one post, anyway, and get to what you really want to hear about, which is a BLT cocktail. Oh, trust me, you not only want to hear about that, you want to ~~eat it~~ drink it!)

Let's do the iTunes Shuffle, y'all! A spin of the wheel...come on big money, no whammies, no whammies!

1- "You Give Me Something," James Morrison
Who is this dude? I know I don't have this album. I don't even know who this dude is...oh, looks like it was a free iTunes single of the week. It's not *that* bad, but it's sorta R&B lite...not quite enough soul, and the lyrics are a trifle insipid.
"Please give me something, 'cause someday, I might know my heart..."
I have a better idea, pansy pants- why don't you grow some nuts, and then we'll talk. Damn. I guess I really didn't like that song at all.

2- Track 6, Unknown Album.
I love it when this happens. Complete randomness. No idea who the artist is. At first, this song was totally creeping me out, what with jazzy/kabuki-esque quality of the artist's voice, and the extremely minimal backing instrumentals, but it grew on me over the course of 3 minutes...and it's kinda sexy, honestly.
"There is a crying in my heart that never will be still, like the voice of a bird behind the starry hill..."

3- "Route 66," Wayne Hancock.
This rocks! Actually, it swings... I don't think I even have to say anything about this song, except that I love it and I love Wayne Hancock, and this song makes me want to learn how to really dance instead of just shuffle my feet. It also makes me want to buy a red convertible and drive cross-country.
"Get your kicks on Route 66..."

4- "Pushing the Needle Too Far," Indigo Girls
I love Amy Ray. (She's the brunette Girl, the intense one. I want Emily, the blonde, to be my sister. I want Amy to be my....well...anyway.) Emily's songs tend toward the pretty, the romantic, the idealistic. Amy's tend to have a bit of an edge, musically and lyrically. This song is a great example.
"I woke up this morning, grey dawn, with a prayer on my breath.
I lost something precious, God'll save me from losing myself."

5- "Am I Too Blue," Lucinda Williams
Her voice is just so forlorn sometimes, and this song is no exception. It's a perfect fit for the lyrics. The song is a perfect fit for those of us who have wondered at one time or another re: a relationship, am I just too much? Am I too intense? Do I want this too much? What the fuck is wrong with me?
"Is the night too black? Is the wind too rough? Is it at your back? Have you had enough?"

Hey, that was both fun and painless. Thank God the Shuffle Gods didn't happen upon my Jewel or Justin Timberlake. I might have some explaining to do then.

the last time I saw my muse, she was standing on a corner downtown in thigh-high boots

2007-11-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

But I think she's gone upscale or something and I can't afford her outcalls anymore.

Seriously, my NaNoWriMo novel idea is pretty interesting, but I just can't seem to make myself sit down and I don't know- write. Half the month is over, and I'm just still about 48k short...now, I've been known to go on writing binges where I throw down 10k in a sitting, so there's still hope, but I still have to actually sit down and and I don't know- write? Put my fingers on the keyboard for some reason other than NaBloPoMo or 365 Days picture fixin'...maybe I really did bite off more than I could chew this month? Oh, and let's not forget about that 5k on December 1...Jesus, what was I thinking?

Here's some journaling I did re: the pleasure of writing a few months ago...it reminds me how much I truly love creative writing and how transcendent I feel when I have a really great session. Not unlike having a great run. Of course, I've missed the last 2 days running, so I have a lot to feel guilty about today...

When I write sometimes, I feel like I'm swimming alone, rhythmically, in the ocean, really half floating, taking in the intoxicating salty smell, the blue-green-gray water, the blue blue sky and the seagulls calling and the children laughing and the waves crashing all together at once, just melting in and over me, and a gentle wave comes and I drift back to where I can put my feet on the sand and slowly pull myself up and walk deliberately back to shore. I feel foggy, like I'd been sleeping and just woken up from a deliciously peaceful nap, and just slightly tired but completely relaxed, like maybe I had an awesome o while I was asleep. I remain disoriented for a while after. I wish I could stay in that state whenever I chose, but alas, there this thing called life and family. But the nice thing is that it's free, whenever you have the free time to pursue it, and it doesn't matter how well you swim or who is watching- it's the way it makes you feel that's important.

That's a reminder to me that no matter how hard it is to sit down and start, it will all be worth it once I finish. It's not so much the end product, but the process. And the follow through. I can still do this- tomorrow I will write 10k and tomorrow I will run 2 miles.(But, tonight, I'm going to finish my beer. Hey, they don't call me Procrastinatrix for nothing.)

so, I cut my hair

2007-11-14T22:44:00.000-05:00

Even in my youth, I was not generally impulsive. It took a great deal of effort to break outside my routine and try something different- whether it was making new friends, or trying a new hobby, or defying someone else's wishes for what I ought to be. I would turn a problem over and over and over in my mind, and usually choose the most pragmatic (read: boring, staid, safe) course.

Case in point- senior year, I got early acceptance to the only two colleges I really wanted to go to, the only two to which I applied. One was a state school in the western part of the state- the tuition was very reasonable, the location was gorgeous, the humanities program was great... but I didn't know anyone there, and had no parental support where room/board/tuition was concerned and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a job and cover expenses.

The other school was a private college in Georgia, where I already had friends, the Education and Classics programs were both excellent (I wanted to either be an English teacher or a Latin teacher), and the location, while next door to the ghetto, was also spectacularly stunning. And I had a partial scholarship for 10k a year- but tuition was 20k. See above re: expenses.

So instead of taking the leap to go somewhere exciting, somewhere I truly wanted to be, and deciding that money would just work itself out, I applied late to NCSU, stayed in Raleigh, and the rest is history. Thinking back, if I had just taken the leap, either way, who knows where I would have turned up? Not that I have regrets, it's just...well...one can be too cautious, I think.

Anyway, this major digression is to say: I'm not a terribly impulsive person. Love and booze are pretty much the only battering rams that get my defenses down, and even then, it takes copious amounts. Other decisions, I agonize over, and mull, and overthink.

I've wanted to change my hair for a while now...but there was always something. First it was this guy I was dating, who was pretty vocal about preferring long hair. Then, we ended up getting married, and there was the wedding- you can't chop your hair off right before your wedding! And then there was the inertia of having this particular style, that everyone seems to like, especially the guy you married, and you don't really want to upset that apple cart, right?

Except I did. I love short hair. I've had it for large portions of my life, so I knew what to expect (easy showers, less shedding, and a much easier time covering my grey!) And frankly, I'm not the kind of gal that enjoys getting up and messing with a 'do. It was more of a wash, detangle, put in a bun situation for me. And with two tons of coarse, thick, frizzy hair, if you don't love long hair personally, the resentment builds up fast.

The time was right for a change. And a couple of days ago, the itch became too intense not to scratch. It's just hair. It's not me, it's not who I am, right? It's just hair. What's the harm in getting rid of it?

Before I could think myself out of it, I warned my spouse and picked up a new set of scissors.

And before I veer out further into tangent territory, here's how it went down:

So, I Cut My Hair

The funny thing is- it's *not* just hair. The reactions hair provokes are amazing, and I'm not immune myself. I feel so much better, so free, so liberated, so much more myself, than I did under all that hair, no matter how pretty other people thought it was. I feel...like me again. Like I've taken control of this situation, now I can take control of all those other things that have been bothering me for so long...

But that's crazy- it's just hair! Right? Now, I'm not so sure.

How to lose 2 lbs in 2 minutes.

2007-11-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

Full photo essay tomorrow....Right now, I'm too busy running my fingers through my hair.

Fresh out of ideas. Luckily, I have photos.

2007-11-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

Sigh...I wish I could turn on the creativity like a faucet, but...um...no. So let me shows you a picture.

Yeah, that about covers it for this evening.

too bad you're not eating bacon

2007-11-11T23:42:00.001-05:00

This goes out to all my peeps who missed their daily required allowance of bacon today.

Check out this video: Bacon

monkeys!

2007-11-10T23:33:00.001-05:00

monkeys
Originally uploaded by gkp

On my feet!

This almost makes up for the fact that Target did *not* have my sock monkey pajamas in stock.

I love sock monkeys. I had one as a girl, and remember him very fondly. I wish I had a sock monkey now to cuddle on those cold winter nights. I would hug him and squeeze him and call him George. Maybe Santa will bring me a sock monkey. I"ve been a good girl this year. Mostly.

every second of the night, I live another life

2007-11-09T19:32:00.000-05:00

I have always had slightly bizarre dreams. As an example, last night, I dreamed that I went camping with Kevn Kinney from Drivin n Cryin. And while that does sound like fun, it's not a thought that has ever crossed my mind during my waking hours.

I've had a lot of recurrent dreams, too. For years, I have dreamed about my great-grandfather every 4-8 weeks. In the dreams, I'm completely aware that he's dead, but it's not odd at all that he's come for a visit. We kick back, shoot the shit, and then he leaves, and I wake up. That's one of my favorite dreams, and I'm hopeful I'll keep having those sort for years to come.

Then there were the recurrent dreams about disposing of corpses. Every week, for a number of months, I had these crazy ass dreams where my car, my closet, and once, my entire house, were filled with dead people. I knew that I hadn't killed these folks, but I knew that I had to get them out of my house before the police found them. These dreams were frantic, frightening, and completely, totally fucked up. Many times, the killers would be my roommates or friends, and they'd be sitting around casually, not even bothering to help me clean up their mess. Dr Freud, any thoughts?

Probably my very favorite dream of all time, in terms of sheer randomness and delight, is the first dream I had about my Gay Dead Boyfriend.

A couple of years ago, we bought the full set of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Best $92.00 I've spent in recent memory. We watched it straight through and then watched it again. I just love me some MP. The mixture of the absurd with occasional snatches of dry British humor of the black variety is right up my alley. I love all the fellas- in my mind, John Cleese is the cute one (to me, anyway), Michael Palin is the quirky but quiet one, Terry Jones is the guy you want to be best friends with, Terry Gilliam is the weirdo that doodles all the time, Eric Idle is the asshole you can't help but love...and then there is Graham Chapman, my all-around favorite. He's smart (a trained MD even!), sophisticated, classically handsome, and the master of the straight man delivery. Le Swoon. If he was still alive...well, I would hope they had lax stalking laws in the UK.

But, as you may already be aware, my stalking would be all for naught, for Mr. Chapman did not row his boat on the same side that I fall on. The good ones are all gay, dead, or married, indeed.

So anyway, prior knowledge of his sexual preference apparently didn't matter to my subconscious. After a marathon session of MP one night, I laid my head down on my pillow and came to in a beautiful meadow in jolly old England, blissfully cuddling with Graham, who I have come to refer to as my Gay Dead Boyfriend. In the dream, we snuggled and kissed and confessed our love for one another. He admitted that yes, he was gay, and also dead, but that hardly mattered here, where we were. Gosh, it was all so sweet and romantic, like a couple of teenagers falling in love before the throes of puberty really settle in and tear up your insides with hardcore lust.

I woke up nearly giggly. It was amazing. I shared nuzzlies with one of my favorite comic actors of all time! What a night!

I ended up having two very similar dreams over the next couple of weeks, each just as chaste, but just as sweet as before. I have no idea where they came from, but I certainly wasn't complaining. My subconscious is a strange, but wonderful place sometimes.

in yer computer, readin' yer blawgs

2007-11-08T20:22:00.000-05:00

One reason I don't get much done is the sheer volume of blogs I read nearly every day. Some a webcomics, some are mommyblogs, some are devoted to personal development, and some are just pure silliness, and I love them all.

I frequently recommend blogs to certain people (like my husband) espousing the virtues of this writer or that comic, and I literally see the words go in one ear hole, do a circuit around his brain, and fly out the other ear. Then two weeks later, certain people (like my husband) will say, "Hey, I heard about this great blog/webcominc/writer, you gotta see this!"

Since I'm just talking to myself whether I'm talking to him or typing to you all, I'll go ahead and give you just a few of my blog recommendations...

Dad Gone Mad

Danny does everything from poop jokes about his kids to moving tributes to his friends, and he doesn it incredibly well, with humor, sweetness, and lots of curse words. A very funny Jew. Plus, his t-shirts are awesome. I especially love my "Hot Wife" shirt, even if I'm not as Hot as his Hot Wife.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

If you don't already know about this one, set aside a few hours, grab a beer, and try not to spray it all over your monitor. I dare you.

Largehearted Boy

Terrific music and book reviews, plus free, legal downloads. So much awesomeness awaits if you like reading and/or chair dancing.

Overcompensating
Either you will think this webcomic is really fucking funny or seriously damn offensive. You could be right either way. Personally, I got with the former

xkcd
Sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet, always smart. I love a webcomic that routinely has me checking Wikipedia for explanations of the math references. I also love a webcomic that routinely makes grammar jokes. There aren't enough good grammar jokes out there. If I was single and childless, I just might be stalking Randall Munroe. Not, not really. But I would knock on his door and ask him out.

The Simple Dollar
An excellent personal finance blog. Trent has a chatty yet straightforward tone that makes his very informational posts very easy to read. Finance is a topic that can easily be dry and boring, but Trent makes it interesting.

Pink is the New Blog
Another Trent, but totally different direction. Gossip blawgs can be snarky and mean, but Trent serves up the dish without being cruel. A secret, but not guilty, pleasure.

Miss Zoot
So down-to-earth and cool. She's blogging as a sort of scrapbook for her kids, and her obvious devotiion to them comes through in every post without being precious or cloying. Plus, she seems like a damn cool broad. I'd love to take her out to lunch in real life.

The Sneeze
A silly, silly man. I just love ths guy. Start with "Steve, Don't Eat It!" You will get hooked.

Miss Doxie
She's hilarious, she's Southern, she's adorable, she's drunk a lot. She's my hero. I may have a mini-webcrush on her. Ok, maybe a big one.

Damn, that's a long list and I haven't even scratched the surface! No wonder I can't get shit done, I'm too busy readin' blawgs! The great thing about blawgs though, is that instead of making me feel less connected to the outside world, like heavy computer use sometimes has a tendency to do, I often feel more connected after reading about someone in Alabama, or Atlanta, or Canada, that has shared that same experience, loved that same song, drank too much of that same wine...and as much as I like to think that I'm unique, sometimes I like to be reminded how much we are all the same.

keep on keepin on

2007-11-08T19:46:00.001-05:00

Well, I kinda blew the whole 'write everyday for 30 days' aspect of NaBloPoMo, as I missed not one, not two, but three days in a row...and I'm woefully behind on my NaNoWriMo novel. But I have kept up with my 365 Days project! One out of three ain't bad.

However, in the spirit of finishing what I started, sort of anyway, I'm still going to strive to write 30 blog posts this month. And at least one everyday from now on. We'll see how this goes. It's kind of like this whole running thing- I miss a day or two and then go back to it, just trying to keep plugging along, not giving up. This strategy is working for me so far. I've never been a friend of perfection. It's so damn boring.

Speaking of running,

I RAN ONE AND A HALF MILES TODAY WITHOUT STOPPING!

I ran a mile on Tuesday, and nearly wet my pants with excitement. Three-fourths of a mile had been a challenge up until that point. A mile was awesome. I never would have dreamed that I could do 1.5 miles today! A friend was gently prodding me to run and dropped a line something like, "Now go run one and a half miles..." and I responded that no, I didn't think that was happening.

But, when I hit one mile, I thought, hey, I'll just go for one and a quarter, and that will be great! And then I hit 1.25 miles and thought, damn, I really could make it the whole 1.5 miles. And even though I knew it was coming, I was shocked when I hit the 1.5 milepost, on many counts:
A: I was still alive, and not hyperventilating or in danger of a massive heart attack.
B: I was still alive, and I ran 1.5 miles without stopping.
C: I was still alive, and I ran 1.5 miles without quitting.

In the past, quitting when the going got tough had been a acceptable option, at least for pursuits like exercise, which while important, are not life-changing in and of themselves. If I fell off the wagon, or messed up, I'd just throw up my hands and quit. But now, I not only feel obligated to follow through, just because I've told other folks about my goals and don't want to disappoint them, but because I don't want to disappoint myself. I want to push myself. I want to see how far I can go. And the more little changes I'm able to make in my life, the more motivated I am to start plugging away at the big things, the things that are extremely important and life changing, but just seemed too impossible or too difficult to attempt to fix.

For the first time, I feel like I really could run three miles without stopping. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I really could make it to the next milepost without giving up. Hell, I might even sprint.

slightly random

2007-11-04T17:10:00.000-05:00

I thought that I would write something truly original and interesting today to make up for the feeblemness of yesterday's post (But, hey, it was a post! So it counts! Quantity not quality, I always say, in November, at least..) So here's a couple of random links to brighten your day. Or not. What do I care, it's still a post.

-Friday night, my BFF and I went to see this wonderful movie. I originally heard an interview with the 2 lead actors on NPR, got the soundtrack, and was hooked. It comes out on DVD in December, so select it for your NetFlix queue now. And buy a extra box of Kleenex if you're an old softie like me.

-Also Friday, we met up with a bunch of friends here. Yeah, that's just the liquor list, but skip all the way down to the list of single malt scotch. That's all you really need to know. If you're in Raleigh, you should get on out there and get you a nice drink. I also recommend the burgers and chili cheese fries. Although you may want to grab a beer for that. Scotch is for dessert.

-Somewhere in this house is a bottle of single malt that I got Jason for a surprise, 'just-because-I-love-you-and-I'm-a really-awesome-wife' gift...and then the motherfucker promptly hid it. Not a bad move on his part, actually, but still...if you have any ideas where it might be tucked away, let me know. The ABC store is closed on Sunday.

your quote of the day

2007-11-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

"Cleopatra's teacher of absolute love, the "ABC of mama cat," with the swallows's 10 disciplines above the arctic white owl's birth-controlled love!"
-E.H. Bronner

This quote brought to you by my Dr Bronner's soap bottle. Terrific soap, excellent bathroom reading.

And I Ran

2007-11-02T16:25:00.000-04:00

And, seeing as I have to run (figuratively) this afternoon, I'm going to make you do the work by just linking to my Flickr set for today's blog (I was going to post them here, with all the captions, neat and pretty, but ah, well...you guys aren't afraid of a little work. It's good exercise for your clicky finger.)

I'm off to the big city to see a great movie and then drink some great beer with some great folks. Til tomorrow!

off and running

2007-11-01T19:46:00.000-04:00

For my first NaBloPoMo post, I thought I'd take the easy way out and do a little photo essay, nothing complicated, just a little something on my new running pursuit.

Hah.

I've already spent waaay more time downloading and fixing the pics than I would writing a post, and I haven't even started the actual writing yet.

Geez. I thought I was taking the shortcut.

So, a couple of months ago, my best friend ad this great idea- let's run a 5k together! She had already run one a few months beforehand, and although she wasn't still training, she assured me that it would be easy to get in shape. Never mind that I'm a complete couch potato who hadn't further than the path from the couch to the fridge since college. No problem, I thought. I can do this. I'll just wait until we get back from vacation.

Well, then we went on vacation. And somewhere between the crashing surf and icy gin, I completely forgot about this race. It didn't dawn on me until a week after we came back from vacation. Another week lost. Do I really want to do this, I thought. She'll understand if I back out.

I made the mistake of mentioning this race thing to another friend, who cheerfully promised to remind me to go run every day. And did. Suddenly, I had someone very gently prodding me to go out and do it, every day.

I hate hate hate exercising. I like activities that are fun, and that don't feel like a workout. You know, like biking, and hiking, and eating bacon. Running is probably the most heinous of all exercising, because there is no real reason to be running, on purpose, unless a cheetah is chasing you across the veldt. Or a Cheetah Girl is chasing you across the bar. That would also be a good time to run.

But having someone to be accountable to changed the equation for me. The first few days I didn't want to disappoint someone else. Now it's getting to the point that I don't want to disappoint myself. And that's a huge leap for a girl that couldn't be bothered to walk to the post office, which is a whole block away.

The irony is, that race I was training for...well, by the time I signed up (a full month prior to the race), it was FULL.

*sob*

I couldn't believe it was full. I couldn't believe I wouldn't get to run. I couldn't believe I was so disappointed.

So I'm going to cheer on my friend at that race, and she and I will run another 5k together a couple of weeks after that. And hey, it doesn't hurt this couch potato to have a few extra weeks to train, seeing as how I'm still working on running a continuous mile...but I'm almost there. And even if I can't run the entire 3 miles, I will still finish the race, and that's enough of a victory for me.

Hey, maybe tomorrow I'll get around to showing y'all those pictures.

To Do List-
~~NaBloPoMo post~~
~~365 Days photo~~
NaNoWriMo

Oops- gotta run!

(I never can resist an easy joke...)

uh oh

2007-10-31T19:28:00.000-04:00

PLUS...

Oh, and did I mention...

365 Days Project

I think I may have bit off more than I can chew.

Then again, I have a really big mouth.

See y'all tomorrow!

one more reason I'm glad I don't work in an office anymore

2007-10-05T17:18:00.000-04:00

Chair Dancing.

It's nearly impossible for me to sit still when I'm listening to music. I'm bopping, swaying, tapping or clapping at least one body part on something nearby. It's a reflex. I can't control it unless I really concentrate hard, and at that point, I'm not really listening to the music anymore, so it stops on its own.

I'm sure this is alternately annoying and amusing to the people around me. On one hand, the incessant tapping/slapping/drumming might drive someone insane, and if I had an iPod when I worked in an office, I'm sure someone would already have beaned me for making their cubicle walls shake. On the other hand, imagine walking around a corner and seeing one of your co-workers rhythmically jerking and flailing in her desk chair, very obviously doing a white girl dancing thing, badly, with absolutely no idea that you're watching her. I bet you could assemble half your work group around to watch the show before she'd even notice.

Man, I am so glad I don't work in an office anymore.

I promised you pork

2007-10-04T22:34:00.000-04:00

And I am a woman of my word. Here's a photo essay/restuarant review/bunch of pictures of pork. Follow the nice linky here:

i love pork

If you know a source for truly Fucking Awesome (or FA, as I shall refer to it from now on, or at least a while) barbecue, or any other ingestible product for that matter (I'm particularly fond of pig and beer, but any good eats and drinks are just fine by me), then please let me know. Or take me out to eat! Even better!

Aren't you glad I'm tired of talking about my *feelings*? Me, too.

3 Great Chicks for One Low Price! Plus 1 Bonus Gabby!

2007-10-03T18:31:00.000-04:00

Tres Chicas

The Pour House

Raleigh, NC

November 24-25

They are filming a live DVD, y'all! Squeeeeee! Go check out their MySpace page and see if you like 'em. If you don't, you are dead to me, as you obviously have no soul.

Seriously, though, I know some of y'all aren't too fond of my 'twangy shit,' but they are just good. They transcend twang, and probably also the lower layers of the atmosphere. Plus, if you come, I might even buy each and every one of you a beer. (Hope you like PBR in a can!)

Ticket prices are TBD, but I can't imagine it would be more than $20, and you know you've spent $20 dollars worse places (ahem, Foxy Lady, anyone? I won't mention any names, since I am nothing if not discreet, but you know who you are.)

I rest my case. (And I promise, on the whole, the women at this gig will be much classier.)

P.S. For y'all rockstar types, Patty Hurst Shifter is playing at the Pour House on Friday. Go and have a PBR for me. Actually, maybe you should make that CPA instead. PBR can be dangerous when combined with rock. Don't ask me how I know, just trust me.

on the horns of a dilemma

2007-10-02T17:53:00.000-04:00

Welcome back from vacation, the world said to me. You have miles to drive before you sleep, the bulk of those with a 4 year old and a medium to large dog, and you will have no internet access or beer with which to soothe your frazzled nerves when you get home.

Screw you, you dirty motherfucker, I said to the world. Or that's what I would have said, if I hadn't fallen immediately into bed and to sleep.

Vacation hangovers are always tough, but this one was the worst I've had in a while, maybe ever. We had such a lovely, lovely time, full of friends and food and gin and tonic...and the calming power of the ocean. If vacation was like floating peacefully in a warm hot tub (and there was some of that, too), then coming home was like being dipped in a vat of ice water. I felt all warm and fuzzy with a heaping touch of effervescence on vacation, and now, in comparison, I feel a bit tepid and hairy with a glaze of ennui.

But I digress. Poorly. Now we are home, and that is that. Grow up, sister.

Here is my dilemma- we are scheduled to go to DC this weekend for my cousin's birthday bash, at which there will be all kinds of people that I love and that make me feel warm and fuzzy and happy to be alive whenever I see them, which would be especially welcome after the start of this week. But DC is almost a 4 hr drive, with the old lady and kid and dog, all of whom are tired from last week. We shouldn't go, I know. But I desperately want to. I love seeing this side of my family, and I don't get the chance very often. I don't think any of them are coming o the Soiree, and it will likely be after the first of the year when we get to see them again.

It's like a lot of choices in life- I'm certain I know the right choice for everyone else, but in the end, I'm certain it's not the right thing for myself. And, most often, I'll defer to someone else's needs over my own. I'm not sure whether that's kindness or cop out. We're taught to be selfless, not selfish, and in many circumstances, that's completely the right choice, especially when you have kids. But where do you draw the line? How long and in what situations do you have to remain unhappy so that someone else is happy? You don't rock the boat, but then, one day, you feel like throwing yourself overboard and you don't care if you drown.

Gah- I thought I was done with bad cliches and flowery metaphors for today! My apologies.

What was I saying to myself earlier? Ah, yes- Grow up, sister. It's not that life isn't always fair, it's that it rarely is. But it's rarely unbearable, either.

I always feel guilty about wanting more, when I know I'm very lucky. And I'm not a poor, pitiful passive-aggressive type (um, anymore, anyway), either- I have no problem asking for what I need, at least the first few times, and may even be a lttle bossy and exasperating about it. And I usually have most everything I need. Maybe I am blowing this all out of proportion. Maybe I am overthinking. Maybe I need to shut up.

Maybe I need to go back on vacation.

Maybe I need to stop talking about my *feelings*. Because, honestly, I always end up sounding like a martyr or an asshole, and I am neither.

Maybe I am a tiny bit of an asshole, actually.

Maybe my next post will be on something lighthearted and winsome. Like pork.

Oh, yes. Pork.

I already feel better.

the spirit of beer

2007-10-02T17:21:00.000-04:00

A friend had me listen to some of his music this past week on vacation, and part of his selection was electronica-type music. Normally, this is not the direction in which I swing (there is no twang in techno), so I was very pleasantly surprised that I was totally into it. Wow. And upon coming home, once the internet began to breathe again in our house, I promptly made myself a couple of Pandora stations based on a couple of those artists that I remembered. So, of course, those 2 stations have produced several more new band seeds for me, which shall beget more, and so forth, until the end times cometh and the earth is drowned in a burning lake of fire.

A lot of what has popped up on these stations so far happens to be great zone out music for the working hours, as I'm not usually paying that much attention since there's minimal lyrics, and the driving beat kicks my brain into overdrive for some reason. So this afternoon, I'm working, and a song starts up, and I'm paying it no mind, just typing along, until I hear, in this ethereal voice: 'The Spirit of Deer..."

WTF?

"The Spirit of Deer..."

Huh? Um, is this Native American techno?

"The Spirit of Beer..."

Oh, this is beginning to make more sense now.

"The Spirit of Deer..."

Wait, I though we already went through that...

At that point, I abandoned my work and popped over to Pandora to find out what in the hell I was hearing.

The Spirit of Fear.

Well, I think I like my options better.

No fear, just beer! Or deer! Take your pick.

Or, take both, like maybe a nice stout with some good homemade venison jerky...

Warning: non-sequitur ahead
Dude, there's some Neko Case on my Kathleen Edwards station. Sweet. Now maybe I won't have to drown myself in my water cup.
No, I'm not sure what that last line meant, either, but I'll leave it in there an we can pretend I was being profound.

This would be the part where I go and commune with the spirit of beer, except that I have to take my 4 year old to buy school supplies so he can finish his homework. Let me say that again.

So he can finish his HOMEWORK.

He's in Pre-K.

This is where is starts, people. Next thing you know, kids will be listening to language tapes in utero through Mommy's belly and doing long-division in first grade. Oh wait. That's already happened.

Sigh.

I was born with an abundance of inherited sadness

2007-09-20T18:38:00.000-04:00

Well, that kind of sums things up for the last 2 months. Bonus points if you can name that song and artist.

Seriously, sometimes I feel so guilty for not being happy most of the time...I have a terrific family life, a great job with a nice boss that allows me to work at home, and plenty of food, shelter, and love. What in the world is wrong with me? Why can't I enjoy it?

I feel stuck much of the time, not in the sense of my marriage, or family, or career necessarily, but stuck, inside, on pause. I can't summon the energy to move forward creatively, mentally, physically, and I can't pinpoint just which gear is broken, if that makes any sense.

I have moments of happiness, several times a week at least. It's not that I never feel joy. In fact, it comes in waves. But I almost feel like I am observing it from the outside, not really experiencing it. And when the waves die down, it's interminably still.

This is the human condition, yes? But for me, it's unusual. I've always been more a glass half-full type, a cynical optimist. But I don't feel that so much anymore. I don't feel, period, as much anymore. I feel partly cloudy, with occasional breaks of sunshine, or even rain. But when it's sunny, it's blinding. And when it rains, it pours, and doesn't stop for hours. Sometimes days. Sometimes it's a hurricane, with lightning and tidal waves. And it's frightening.

I worry that this is just life, as an adult, with all it's disappointments and lost dreams. I worry that the not-altogether-disagreeable ennui of my job has taken its toll. But mostly, I worry that I'm possibly following in my parent's mental health footsteps. There's no shame in that, and it never occurs to me that it's an issue when it's an illness in another person. But it's so hard to try to admit to myself that I may need help.

I used to worry about my creative impulses being dulled by medications...now I worry more about cheating my family out of what they deserve from me if I don't take something...I don't know the best course, I don't know the way. I don't know if I can handle this. What if it isn't me and it's just life? If is this the way it is supposed to be? That's even more frightening.

hoo boy.

2007-08-01T18:14:00.000-04:00

Well, the past few weeks have been eventful. I am a low-drama person, and we have had outside drama galore, so it's been kinda stressful, but hey- that's life. In the immediate, in the house family, everything is perfectly fine, so that's a blessing. Everything else will work itself out.

In other news, Jason is 38 now. Damn. One foot in the grave, baby. :)

In other news, I am now 30. Starting up that hill to slow, painful decline. However, Jason will always be older than me. Ha ha!

In very happy news, my awesome peeps from the old Raleigh posse threw me a surprise 30th birthday flamingo party. Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds, complete with a flamingo bra and grass skirt. No, I don't have pictures because I didn't have my camera- because it was a surprise! I think someone did take a pic of me in a grass skirt and flamingo bra, which of course I will share with you if I get a copy, as I have completely no shame.

Speaking of no shame, Jason got me a karaoke machine for my birthday. Best. Present. Ever. I have been coveting one for over a year now, but wouldn't buy it for myself because they are entirely impractical. I think it is the best gift ever, because it shows he was PAYING ATTENTION TO MY WANTS. Men, take note. Anyone can buy jewelry. Lots of girls like jewelry. But knowing that your woman is burning to sing cheesy 80s songs in the privacy of her own home- and that you are going to be forced to listen to her and likely participate in this madness if you buy her this damn thing, but You Do It Anyway- that's love, my friends.

And now that I have my very own karaoke love machine- bitches, it is on! Don't come to my house and expect to drink liquor unless you are going to pony up and sing karaoke with me. May I suggest that someone learns "It's Not Unusual"? I fucking love that song. I'll make any drink you want.

Oh, and by the way- we only have 2 months until the Great Conception Rally begins, so hurry up and start making your travel/karaoke plans!

craptastic to fantastic

2007-07-17T17:19:00.001-04:00

Just plain shitty.

That sums up my weekend.

As terrifically awesome as the previous weekend was, this weekend was perfectly horrible. A quagmire of suckage. A morass of yuckiness. Bad.

In fact, it is way up there with the worst weekends of my life, and that is saying a whole lot as nobody died or is getting divorced as a result. Everyone here in the Big City of Kelford is fine. It was/is a family situation. And that's all I will say, since it involves sensitive information about a family member and I have to respect his/her privacy.

The highlight of my weekend was coming home late Saturday night after dealing with all this sadness and unpleasantness since Thursday. No matter how much bad icky poo life throws at me, nothing can beat the look on my Little Dude's face when he's been missing me and I walk into the room. There's nothing that I can think of that a sticky four-year old boy hug can't cure. I feel like I can withstand anything just to be able to be there for him, be strong for him, be good to him. Being a parent is the greatest joy of my life.

Although, coming home to a husband that *really* missed me ain't half bad, either.

2007-07-12T11:57:00.000-04:00

I forgot this post was quietly waiting in my drafts folder...about 10 minutes after I wrote this, I got the call on my bat phone and headed out to take care of some 'family issues'...and promptly forgot all about silly stuff like blogs. Well, it's not timely anymore, but I still feel this way, so hey, here we go.

10 years ago today, right about now (it's 1157a as I write this), I was poised at the top of a staircase in a beautiful froofy dress, getting ready to descend and take my grandfather's arm and walk down the aisle for the first time. I was giddy, giggly, nervous and overjoyed. It was the happiest day of my life, the nineteen years leading up to that point, anyway.

If you had asked me on that day, I would have told you that in 10 years, of course we would still be married, and we would have a house, a dog, and a child- maybe even a picket fence.

I am married, with a house, dog, child- but not with the same man I married 10 years ago. The happiest day of my life is now the day my son was born. If you had told me this 10 years ago, I wouldn't have believed you.

I'm glad that no one told me. While I do regret things that were done and said, especially the things I did or said that hurt someone I loved very much, I don't ever regret falling in love, or getting married, even if things didn't go as planned. Some of the most intense emotions that I have ever felt were a direct result of that relationship, and while some were frightening (anger, jealousy, resentment), most were exhilarating (love, passion, desire). My life is more reasonable, calm, contented now, and for that I am glad- but I am also glad that I had the thrill of that kind of love.

And I'm glad that I can look back on it all now with a certain fondness. I feel mostly wistful, instead of despairing, when I think of what we had and lost. I'm not sure how, or if, he looks back on it all. I think that we're both much happier now that we aren't together, which is a bit sad, but at the same time, comforting. I may not actively mourn, but I will always grieve and always remember.

But life goes on. I have a wonderful family, including my Big Guy and Little Guy, for which I am very grateful. I have a terrific group of friends, including old ones that I had lost track of after the breakup, and new ones that I gained when I married again, and for that I am very grateful. And days like today, I look back on what I had, and for that, I am also very grateful.

still recovering

2007-07-11T22:52:00.000-04:00

I keep meaning to write a long blog post about what an awesome weekend it was, but I am still recovering from all the awesomeness. The below pictures can give you a pretty good idea, though...

The only representative photos missing are drinking good beer with Sheila and Taylor at McCouls and staying up until the butt crack of dawn watching movies and making our own special effects sounds at Bill and Rae's. Use your imagination. Hey...wait...we were all clothed! And there were no hamsters present. Sheesh. You guys are terrible.

A hearty thank you to Sheila, Taylor, Mick, Eddie, Ruth, Chris, Carrie, Melissa, Tony, Brandon, Lucy, Justin, Bill, and Rae for too much fun of the foam and fried variety, and most of all to Barbara, Vince, Robbie and Julia for keeping the 'kids' this weekend so we could pretend we're not still grown-up, just for a little while.

an unexpected repercussion of being a hipster hippie

2007-07-05T21:10:00.000-04:00

Naturtint Herbal Hair Colour 5C - Light Copper Chestnut

Gabby's Hair on Naturtint Hair Colour 5C - Dark Cherry Armoir

Naturtint is a vegetarian, no animal testing, sweet hippie hair color. I've been trying to switch over, where possible, to low-impact on the environment, animal-friendly, organic and natural products. We've mostly achieved this with our food, while realizing that sometimes it's not feasible (like when you eat in a restaurant, which we do infrequently), but we feel like we do a pretty good job on balance and that the bulk of our choices are very responsible, which makes up for our minor transgressions.

Hair color was one area where I hadn't yet 'gone green', and I was excited to pick up the Naturtint the last time we were blowing a wad at the friendly Raleigh Whole Foods. My foray into natural moisturizer (Jason- the natural cosmetics company, not the husband), makeup (Burt's Bees) and body wash (Dr Bronner's- works great with Noah's excema, all the 'flavors' we have tried smell terrific, and it gives me something to read while I'm on the pot- check out their labels next time you see a bottle!) has so far gone swimmingly, so I was naively expecting the same...or at least, something closer to the color I saw on the package.

Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished.

I was just trying to help out all the poor bunny rabbits that are blinded, injured, or killed during scandalously evil animal testing. But the truth is that almost no companies animal test in that way, if at all, for cosmetics these days. They don't have to- the ingredients in today's cosmetics have already been tested by and large, and all those poor bunnies were already crippled or dead years ago. But it was the principle of the thing, man!

Now, all I have to day is, screw my principles and the bunnies. I'm going back to L'Oreal. If it's good enough for Andi McDowell, it's good enough for me.

You better watch your back, man.

just what we needed

2007-06-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

So we went to the beach this weekend. Oh, the beach!

The sound of the pounding surf, the sand beneath your toes, the knowledge that you have nothing more pressing than reading your novel and napping for at least the next two days...what could be better?

How about the knowledge that you have a built-in babysitter for not just the Kid but the Old Lady? Priceless. Thank you, wonderful in-laws.

It's difficult for me to accept the help of my wonderful in-laws sometimes. I don't talk about them very much, and really, who does talk about their in-laws, unless they are crazy, or mean, or horrible in some way? But I should talk about them more, because my in-laws are terrific. They are relaxed and fluid about where we spend holidays (usually here, especially for kid holidays like Xmas, or in GSO, for family holidays that include my mom, like everything but Fathers' Day), they hardly ever complain about my crazy family (er, crazy mom), and they are always offering to help us with something. I am now realizing this is 'normal' family behavior. Maybe I don't talk about them so much because I am just now beginning to take them for granted. It sounds horrible, but it's a godsend to me. I have friends that take their normal and wonderful parents for granted all the time- I have never been able to do that with my...irregular...parents. The fact that I can take my wonderful in-laws for granted is unbelievably precious to me. Also, they insisted on ferrying around the Kid and the Old Lady in their car the whole time we were at the beach, and you know what that means? NO backseat fighting! Yay! ( I swear, sometimes, it's like having two children...)

So they insisted that we go out on Saturday night...well...twist our arms. We decided to go to the Jolly Roger, since it was within reasonable walking distance from our hotel, just in case things got exciting. We just thought we'd get a couple of drinks and drive home to the hotel, but as soon as we arrived- lo and behold, who should we see? Adam Lane and his lovely wife Megan!

The night was lubricated by beer and karaoke. And before you ask, yeah, I did karaoke, and I think I didn't massacre "Power of Two," but only because I have been singing along with the Indigo Girls for many years. Of course, my only feedback was from my husband, an old friend, and his wife, and they weren't exactly impartial, you know? Anyway, it was much more enjoyable to watch Adam Lane rock the house on such hits as "Hurts So Good" And "Wanted Dead or Alive" (Adam is the lead singer and songwriter for a rock/alt-country/whatever band, and he owns the stage.) Also very enjoyable was dancing with the aforementioned Adam, who dances as smoothly as he rocks hard.

The highlight of my night was seeing Jason tear up "Born to Be Wild." If you know Jason, you can imagine- his waist-length hair bouncing around, his theatre-trained voice booming, his handsome yet scary-biker face scrunched up... If you don't know him, just trust me- it was awesome. We ended up having so much fun we left the car and were committed to walking back- until Adam and Megan offered to share their cab. Thanks, y'all!

The next two days are a blur of steamed fish and beachiness. Go to the beach, eat fish, drink beer, rinse, lather, repeat. I was so blissed out on beach, fish, and beer that I thought I would die of happiness. I was so relaxed that even going back to work today and dealing with umpteen thousand phone calls from agents and case managers and assistants didn't interrupt my bliss. And that is saying a lot.

We also managed to make it out on Monday night for a lovely walk on the beach at sunset, which was punctuated by such romantic utterings as, "You're not THAT hard to live with, baby," and "If we're here next year this time, I might be packing more in my tummy than two fish tacos and a scoop of ice cream!"

It's not Shakespeare, people, but that is real life.

parental manipulation at its finest

2007-06-12T17:25:00.000-04:00

The Little Dude has been in quite a state this week. Tantrums, acting out, refusing to eat lunch or take a nap, biting, hitting... You name it, and if it's verboten, he's probably done it this week. Not that this type of behavior is totally surprising in a four year old, but he is usually relatively laid back, so whenever he goes through a phase like this, it takes us aback. Luckily, they tend to come about every 4-5 months and only last 1-2 weeks, coinciding with big milestones like talking, potty training or going to a new school. He is learning to recognize letters and numbers now, and 'reads' new ones every day, so I think that's what's behind the latest round of fits. Too many neurons firing all at the same time...it's enough to make a little boy crazy.

Anyway, today he gets up for the umpteenth time during what is supposed to be his 'nap'. He goes to the bathroom right before he takes his nap, but still will often get up right after he goes down to 'poopy.' It's like he holds it in until after he lies down just so he has an excuse to get up. Anyway, on this day, he gets up after he's been put to bed, and barges into my office without knocking. 2 strikes, buddy. Just when I open my mouth to be stern with him and tell him to get back to bed posthaste, Mister, he looks up at me with the sweetest smile.

"I forgot to do something I wanted to do before I went for my nap, Mommy..."

"Oh, yeah, what?" I ask, fully expecting him to have to go poopy or get a stuffed animal buddy or something.

"Kisses!"

And with that, he reached up, planted the sweetest kiss right on my kisser, and then flitted back off to bed. After I scraped up the puddly goo that used to be my heart before it instantly melted, I thought to myself, "Damned kid, he knows just how to push my buttons."

They learn young, they do.

By 'recreational', I mean tennis and horseshoes, of course...

2007-06-07T20:33:00.000-04:00

I am in the process of archiving all my old photos (you know, those things we had developed from film at the drugstore before there were digital cameras?) It is a painfully long and laborious process, but there is an upside. I keep coming across some very...interesting... photos from my past. I never think of myself as old, but when you look at photos from high school and realize that they were taken 15 years ago, well...it makes you wonder if you are maybe just starting to get a wee bit old.

I forgot how much 'recreational' time I had during my younger days. Once I had a child (really, once I became pregnant), all those recreational activities necessarily ceased to exist. But I had forgotten how much *fun* those extracurricular activities were...or at least seemed to be...and luckily, I have documentary evidence.

I present...4:20, A Retrospective.

I know something you don't know, my younger self teases.... (Namely: Your ass will never be this small again!)

Huh huh huh, I burped in your face, huh huh.

Eww. That stunk.

Stop! Munchie time! Oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh!

(No, that is not what you think it is in the background. And if it was, well, that was 10 years ago, in college. I haven't seen it in years...unfortunately....)

By the power vested in me by the state of North Carolina and this alien eraser top thing on my finger, I now pronounce myself stoned.

Yoda one for me! Hahaha! Get it? I made a funny! Aaaaagh!

OH, all this recreation is so taxing...don't you agree, Sammy?

Sammy, you ok, man? Sammy?

I'd rather be shattered than know forever without you...

2007-06-04T10:15:00.000-04:00

How many times can one person break your heart?

And what does it say about me that I have asked myself this same question about more than one person?

Sometimes it feels like all I have ever been looking for was love, and all I have ever gotten for the trouble was heartache. I have tried to make my parents love me the way I wanted them to love me. I have tried to make my lovers love me, too...I have tried to make my husbands love me...and they all did, or do, in their own way...and I couldn't see it, because it wasn't the way I expected or wanted them to love me.

My parents, perhaps incapable of the so-called normal kind of parental affection, have tried in their own way to love me, even if that way is often incomprehensible and irritating. I try over and over again to make lasting contact with my father, we have wonderful conversations, both in person and over the phone for a couple of years, and then, he vanishes yet again. I try over and over with my mother to keep her in my life, regardless of her erratic behavior, even when it wrecks every holiday and special occasion. My friends sometimes question why I keep trying. So do I.

And yet, if a parent's love for a child should be unconditional, shouldn't it also be the other way around? I think that it should, and yet, when my mother acts out for the umpteenth time, or my father goes months, or a year now, with no contact, I feel the parental-child bond stretched to its breaking point, and I just want to cry out, "I give up! You win! I quit!" But I don't- because I am the one who wants this relationship, and I will continue to work at it, to try to love, to try to get them to love me, no matter what they do.

Besides my husbands, and I laugh to myself when I put that 's' out there, the lover that mattered the most, the only other person that shares that kind of romantic real estate in my heart, he did love me. I know that now. He just didn't love me best. Does that matter? It did at the time, when I was young, newly single, in love, and very lonely...but now, after having a child, I understand better than I ever could have back then. And I wish I could have understood better, but I don't regret having loved him, and now, I don't regret having had to live without him. He loved me as best he could, and if he had done the things I wanted him to do, I would never have been in a position to fully understand why he did what he felt was right. And no matter what other regrets I have, having a child has not ever been one of them. And no matter what else happens, not matter how hurt I might still feel, I understand that nothing else matters quite as much as your child. And now, any love or hurt I still feel is also infused with deep understanding.

My heart breaks not just for myself, but for those people I disappointed. I feel, on some level, that I disappointed my parents, or else they would love me more. I feel like I disappointed my lover, by not being able to understand him more. But I know that these disappointments, whether real or imagined, are not anything I had much control over at the time, and I don't regret the circumstances.

If I have any regrets, it's that I wasn't a better wife to my first husband. Yes, we both had our issues, but as much as we loved each other, perhaps we should have been able to overcome those. Maybe we didn't have good role models, maybe we were too young, too immature, too different at the core. Maybe we had too many problems to fix for our own selves before we could ever fix our relationship issues with each other. But as many problems as we had, I don't think not loving each other enough was ever one of those problems. I wish love was just enough.

It all adds up, over the years, and I guess that's what they call 'experience'. You get hurt, you hurt others, you try to figure out how to stop that crazy cycle whenever possible. For my part, I try to be a more open, outspoken person, more ready to flare up, more ready to get it all out on the table to discuss and argue and make up, and now, I'm nowhere near as combustible and crazy and out of control as I used to be on occasion. I try to be more accepting of what people are able to give me, as opposed to what I expect them to provide, no matter their role in my life. I try to be more patient with my family, all around, and I appreciate their patience with me.

We all do the best we can. I try to remember that now. I wish I had known that back then. And I hope that they can forgive me for not.

*The title is a line from "Please Break My Heart," by Caitlin Cary, from her album I'm Stayin' Out.

I'm not ok, and you're ok with that?

2007-06-03T23:32:00.001-04:00

Originally posted on my MySpace blog 6/3/07.

half crop glasses
Originally uploaded by gkp

I am one of those people that's always fine, thanks for asking. Or at least I try to be. My very closest friends can get away with calling bullshit when they hear something in my voice that indicates I really am not fine, and god bless 'em, because by that point, I have 'I'm fined' myself all into a tizzy and they hear more than they ever wanted about how un-fine I really am.

Now, I understand the social conventions that underlie the "hey, how are ya?" and 'oh, just fine, and you?" that make up our passing acquaintances. And I wholeheartedly agree. Sometimes it's hard enough for me to express myself fully to my very good friends, so I am more than happy to keep everything nice and easy with passing pals.

But then, every so often, something happens that makes me wonder. A few weeks ago, a person I counted as a good friend let me know she was getting divorced, and that the circumstances had been trying. I was aghast. I hadn't seen the signs, I hadn't asked the questions, I hadn't known anything had been wrong, and all this had been going on for several months. I had been occupied with the wedding, and because she is a good friend, she hadn't wanted to worry me with the details in my happy time or during the holidays. I felt horrible. What kind of friend was I not to be attuned to her grief, and what kind of friend was I that she thought she couldn't worry me during my happy time? Sheesh. I suck.

Then my best friend reminded me I did the same thing during the time she was getting married, which was on the cusp of my subsequent separation and later divorce. Oh.

I guess we don't want to trouble our nearest and dearest when things are not going well, but those are exactly the times that we should. There's even scientific evidence:

http://health.msn.com/centers/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100161793>1=10102

Look, friends are as good as Prozac! Or at least a good adjunct therapy!

There's a lot of things we don't talk about in this culture, and not being fine is way up there on the list. But what happens when we don't talk about it? We internalize, we gunnysack, and then we end up throwing shoes at walls (or maybe that's just me. Don't throw any high heels at drywall if you don't like heavy duty spackling, that's all I'm saying.)

I actually haven't thrown any shoes in a very long time, thanks to understanding friends listening to my whiny drivel (at least that's the way it feels sometimes) and a partner who is willing to talk it out, even if it is painful (which, God, it is! Sometimes I would rather throw shoes at walls!) I wouldn't have believed this was possible a few short years ago, but lo! I have learned the errors of my ways. If you have a couple of very good friends, they will listen to you complain about anything from not getting laid to the fact that you just can't find good half and half these days, and it takes a lot of the pressure off. And did you know that if you tell your spouse he/she is pissing you off before you get to the shoe throwing stage, then the conversation generally goes a lot smoother? I didn't know this. And also, you should be there to listen to your friends bitch about whatever they want (not generally a problem, since my friends have much more interesting lives) and also- you are probably pissing your spouse off, too, and you have to be ready to hear that (ooh, not so much fun, but that's the price of being a grown up. Plus, when you argue, you get to make up. Hmmm...)

All this rambling is to say- it's ok not to be ok all the time. That's life, and some of it's magic and some of it's tragic and right now I'll stop before I quote more Jimmy Buffett. But when we stop and acknowledge that, as hard as it is, it makes the rest of the journey a little easier, and we'll have a good life all the way. And sometimes we just can't help the Buffett.

...and then, the SOB made us all buy funny hats!

2007-06-03T23:22:00.002-04:00

Originally posted on my MySpace blog 5/24/07.

ole thumbs up
Originally uploaded by gkp

Or, What I Did on My Weekend Vacation to South Carolina

Last weekend, my family went to South Carolina. South Carolina is right next to North Carolina, but it took us six hours to get there. I guess that is because we stopped at Hardee's in Scotland Neck on the way, and they were busy, since apparently everyone in Scotland Neck eats breakfast at Hardee's on Saturday, because Mommy is tired of cooking. Noah went to preschool there in Scotland Neck and he learned that Mommies do all the cooking and Daddies aren't supposed to cook. I guess that is the difference between Scotland Neck and Kelford. And that is also why it took us thirty minutes to get a damn biscuit.

..Once we got on the big highway I-95 in Rocky Mount, we could pick up the speed a little. I think we went about 85 mph the whole way to the South Carolina border, but I'm not really sure. I didn't pay that much attention, because I was too busy driving. Jason took a little nappy while Noah and Mama fought in the back seat. It was really fun.

We finally got to South Carolina, and as soon as we passed the border, everyone got the urge to go to the bathroom. I guess there is something about South Carolina that makes you want to take a piss. We stopped as soon as we could, and everyone got out to pee. I got to take Mama and Noah to the bathroom at the same time. Mama is 96 and Noah is 4. That was really fun.

Then we called Uncle Laurin and Aunt Shirley. "You're still two hours away at best!" they said. We were already late, but that was ok, because our car goes really fast. I didn't notice any speed limit signs on the highway, because I was too busy driving. Then I passed a policeman doing 90 miles an hour. That was not so much fun. But he didn't come after me. So that was nice of him.

We finally got to where we were going. My Uncle Laurin and Aunt Shirley live in the lovely town of Summerville. I think it is historic and folkloric, but I have not seen much of it except their subdivision, which is like a fucking labryinth. We always get lost in their subdivision. That is really fun.

We all had to pee again when we got there. They have one bathroom on the first floor, and Noah and Jason decided to pee there instead of in the backyard, like I suggested. So I had to wait. That was not really fun.

Then we had a nice weekend. I forgot all about the drive. Especially after we all peed, and Aunt Shirley gave us turkey sandwiches and hugs, and Uncle Laurin got up from his nappy and we went to the grocery store and bought four bottles of wine and we came home and drank them. And ate shrimp. That was really, really fun. Except for the part when we had to get Mama up the flight of stairs going to the bedroom she was sleeping in. That part was not so much fun. It was sceeeeery.

And then the next day, we got up and got Mama back down the stairs, which was not quite so scary, and Aunt Shirley stayed home from church and made us french toast. Then she made us pork chops and mashed potatoes and salad and fresh bread and Jason made broccoli and we ate again, except with sweet tea this time. That was really, really fun, too. And we had pecan pie with whipped cream and brownies for dessert, except for Noah, who had bananas with whipped cream since he didn't want pie and brownies. Sometimes I think that there was a mix up at the hospital.

Sometimes I think that I want to run away from home and go live with Aunt Shirley and her pecan pie.

Then we went to the park, where Noah and Sadie and Bonnie, Aunt Shirley and Uncle Laurin's new dog, ran around like carzy. That was also fun.

Then we got on the road back home. That was not fun, because I was really hoping I could stay and move in with Uncle Laurin and Aunt Shirley. Oh well.

But we did get to stop at the South Carolina border again, except this time, we stopped at a place called South of the Border. They call it SOB for short. That is really funny. We saw their colorful billboards on the way. I made us stop to take pictures of the big sombrero, but we ended up eating dinner there and even buying our own sombreros, which explains the funny picture. That was really, really, really fun.

And then we drove a long time and got home at 1 am. We had to take the sleepy dog, the sleepy Noah, and the sleepy Mama out of the car and put them to bed. And then get up for work the next morning. That was really not much fun. I hope we are staying home this weekend.

The End.

I do love the Spring

2007-05-16T18:43:00.001-04:00

Originally posted 5/14/07 on my MySpace blog.

wow, that water must be cold
Originally uploaded by gkp.

Well, Happy Mother's Day to all y'all Moms! Hope you had a wonderful day filled with flowers and rainbows. Me, I hauled the family all the way to Greensboro for MD with my mom and in-laws, and I had a mostly wonderful day filled with Thai food (yum!) and clothes shopping (yay!) and people reminding me that they think I am fat (fuck you!)

In fact, I was going to post a rant about the fact that while I love the moms in my life, every time we get together, they conspire to remind me how fat I am. These are otherwise lovely women who somehow release the governor on their normally temperate mouths when it comes to my weight, either by carefully couching their statements in such interesting ways as "Well, you know, you could buy it in that size and hang it up on your wall as encouragement to lose weight!" or in more direct terms by looking pointedly at my stomach and stating, "You're pregnant, aren't you!"

Y'all, I know I am not skinny, but damn, I'm not fat either, at least not according to my BMI. And even if I was, isn't the point of family to love you the way that you are, especially when you respond to these 'encouragements' by calmly stating that you are very comfortable with your size and don't feel the need to lose weight (times two or three or ten?) What is the issue? I understand that these women are uncomfortable with their size in various ways (one has lost a good bit of weight recently, and the other has an eating disorder and is far too thin), but damn! Leave me alone. I'm not looking to inherit your neuroses.

I am a woman. I am not a girl anymore. My body is curvy and soft and downright pillowy in places, but that's okay with me. I am 5'8" and I weigh 158, and I have a rounded tummy instead of a six-pack. I will never wear a bikini. And I am perfectly happy with that. I don't need to be rail thin, or even taut like I once was. My body is strong- I can work all day in my yard digging holes and shoveling earth and making things grow. My body is nuturing- I can envelop my child in my soft arms and make things right with the world. My body is amazing- I grew a child there for nearly nine months, and pushed him out into the world so that I could continue love him.

And even if you have done none of those things, your body is amazing, too, in the fact that it propels you along, whether by your feet, or by wheels, or by your imagination- your mind and your heart continue to propel you along into this amazing journey of life- and who gives a damn if you don't look like the latest supermodel or movie star- so much the better! You look like only you can, and that in itself is amazing!

But I said I wasn't going to rant. My apologies.

It is Spring, time for new beginnings (pray for my second elderberry bush, for it is not looking happy), and old reconnections (Hey David! And Amy! Squeeeee! So excited to 'see' you again!) And, it's also the time for fucking outside. If you don't already know what I'm talking about, go here:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/listen

And listen to "First of May." And his other stuff, because it rocks. And hey, how many singer-songwriters do you know that can work the phrase "in flagrante delicto" into a song?

Love y'all!

Gabs

for better and for worse

2007-05-16T18:40:00.001-04:00

Originally posted 5/8/07 on my MySpace blog.

wistful
Originally uploaded by gkp.

I think everyone has one. That one person from your past that makes you feel something, emotionally, physically, every time you think about them, talk about them, see them. You can't help it- no matter how far you've grown past that relationship, you always get that feeling, that twinge, that urge, that dampness in the eyes, when you think about him/her too long, or maybe just at all.

I have that person, too. I thought that things would get easier in time- guess what- they didn't, not for me. Time only amplifies the feelings that I have.

I am a happily married woman, with a wonderful child that I love more than anything I've ever contemplated, and this old feeling is not due to a lacking in my current life. This feeling is deep seated, ingrained in my psyche, and impossible to rid myself of. And I'm not sure I would want to.

It's a reminder to me, a reminder of how fully, and deeply, and absolutely I loved, in a way that I honestly never will again. And that is not to say that I don't love my son, or my husband, because I do, deeply, and in ways that I could have never imagined just a few short years ago. But it is different. Not better, not worse, just different.

The younger me believed in love beyond all understanding, and passion, and soulmates, and fate. The older me still believes in all that stuff, but knows that it's much easier and much more sane to base a relationship on compatibility, and mutual admiration, and friendship, and plans. Neither is right and neither is wrong. The later love has a stable quality that makes me feel content and happy nearly every day for it. The younger love still alternately wrecks and fills my heart whenever I allow myself to think of it. And I feel very grateful for both.

dirt is my weed

2007-05-16T18:33:00.001-04:00

Originally posted on my MySpace blog on 5/4/07.

i love nature
Originally uploaded by gkp.

I think I have found my new favorite mood enhancer. Just a little bit, and I feel relaxed, calm, and happy. A lot, and just a short while later, I feel blissed out, slightly sleepy, and completely starved...

Ummm, I love me some good, sweet, green-smelling dirt!

I used to be a big fan of that other wonderful, relaxing mood-enhancer colloquially known as Weed, Ganja, Chronic, MJ. Back in college, of course. When I worked in a restaurant. With a lot of nice country boys and girls with good connections. College age + service industry + nice country boys/girls = lovely, lovely memories.

But now, I am older, and I don't partake of the wacky weed anymore, for several reasons. Here are my top three:

1- I am much older now, and have less brain cells to spare. I need to hold on to as many of those bad boys as I can.

2- I am much older now, and have many more fat cells than necessary. I need to prevent as many of those bad boys as I can.

3- I am much older now, and have a child, and currently, no arrest record. And as much as I loved the Chronic, I love my Little Dude even more, and only have one of those to spare. And unfortunately, the green stuff is illegal, and I just can't chance that. Nope. No way.

But duuuuuuuuude, sometimes, when life gets hairy, and I need a pick me up that won't put me down in the dumps, I fantasize about it. Oh, I could use some of that. That happy, sweet, smiley feeling.

And then I found that feeling again- in the dirt!

Planting just one little plant, fingers deep in the dirt, hollowing out a place in a pot of soil, or working a hole in the ground, gives my that calm, happy feeling in spades. (Look, I made a gardening joke!) And the more plants or bulbs or seeds I have, the more that feeling multiplies, and wells up in me, and gets under my fingernails, and the feeling lasts for at least a day after- a much better rate of return than 30 minutes...well, maybe an hour or so if you got some really good shit...

If my young self could hear me now, she would take a swig of her beer, tuck her wavy blonde hair behind her ears, and eye me very suspiciously while reaching for her bong. She would note that she doesn't like keeping up with her laundry, and there is no way in hell that she'd enjoy trying to keep up with some damn plants, unless they're already picked, dried, and ready to smoke. And then she would laugh to think that she's gotten so square.

My older self listens, takes a swig of her beer, tucks her bushy red hair behind her ears, and eyes her with amusement. She notes that she still doesn't like keeping up with her laundry, but now she's able to keep up with a four year old, and hopefully, a few plants that have already given her as much, if not more peace, than that beloved 18 inch hand-blown glass bong. And then, she laughs too.

Let me tell you your fortune...

2007-05-16T18:27:00.000-04:00

Originally posted on my MySpace blog on 4/27/07.

Hold on one second while I go get a cookie.

Since Jason has been laid up with a bum knee, I have been in charge of the cooking. Actually, I *should* say that ever since Jason has supposed to have been laid up with his bum knee, I have supposed to have been in charge of the cooking. The first day, I drove about 20 miles to get Chinese take out. The next day, I offered PB&J all around. The third day, Jason decided he was okay to stand up a couple of hours a day and cook. What a trooper.

Anyway, when I so valiantly hunted down the Chinese food, we received fortune cookies along with our meal. Our fortunes were eerily prescient:

Jason: Your good deeds are never forgotten.
It could only have been more appropriate if it said: Your good *cooking* is never forgotten.

Noah: A great pleasure in life is doing what others say you can't.
This one needs no explanation at all, as he is four years old.

Me: A chance meeting with someone from your past is in store.
What?

Now, don't get me wrong- I have had some real happy chance meetings here, on Myspace of all places, with old friends and acquaintances I thought I would never get to see again, and I am so incredibly thrilled! And I can think of a few more old friends I would love to get in touch with again.

And then, I can think of some folks from my past that, well...should probably be left there, in the past, as memories.

So, my mind has been racing- who will it be? The old friend that I haven't seen or heard from since his wedding seven years ago? That would be awesome! One of the guys or gals that I used to work with at Granny's or PieWorks, way back in the day? Sweeeeet! The pretty boy I dated for a very brief time a few years back that told me I had "too many opinions"? Ewww. No. Not cool. (And dude, if you thought I had too many opinions back then, I would blow your tiny little brain into a thousand and one pieces now. Especially since you've probably fried those few remaining brain cells with that industrial strength bleach you used on your coif. But I'm not bitter.)

But thankfully, every single person that I have re-met in the past few years, the past few months even, has been an incredible experience for me. Previously, I thought Myspace was just for teenagers and child molesters, but thank goodness I learned differently.

So, if you could 're-meet' an old friend, lover, acquaintance, etc...who would you choose? And why? To rekindle and old friendship or love, to set things right, to say 'fuck you'? For myself, I can think of quite a few folks that fit the first two...but I can't really think of anyone I want to bless out. I've tried to be very forgiving towards anyone that might have slighted me, because Lord Knows, I have needed that forgiveness so many times in the past and will again before I die (Jason, baby, I am sorry I can't cook anything that doesn't involve a Bundt pan, pie crust, or cookie sheet! Please forgive me! Here's a Toll House cookie!) But that doesn't make it wrong for you... Feel free to take the time to scream "You go to hell, bitch! You go to hell and you die!" to that special someone in your mind. I'll wait.

There. Hope you feel better!

Now y'all go and have a wonderful weekend...I've got a glass of wine, a clear blue sky, and about 30 more minutes of daylight...so Happy Friday!

Love,
Gabrielle

updated 5/16/07: OMG, I called it- it *was* peeps from my PieWorks days! First the lovely Amy, and then her bro David! Sweeeeet!

choppin' broccoli

2007-05-16T18:25:00.001-04:00

Originally posted on my MySpace blog on 4/25/07.

broccoli is hardy
Originally uploaded by gkp.

Today, while Jason was making lunch, I took a mini-work break. I work alone, in my bedroom/office, for 9 hours, 5 days a week. Yeah, I'm at home, but I act like I'm at work, so it's kinda like being in a cubicle, except there is no one to yell to over the gray fuzzy walls. It's a bit lonesome, so in addition to calling up my work buddies to chat a few times a week, I have tried to get in the habit of taking 10-15 minute breaks every couple of hours, like I would naturally in the space of talking to coworkers if I was actually at work. (Who am I kidding? I would take MORE breaks if I was at work! I am actually more productive now than I ever was in the office, due to the complete lack of distractions, made possible by a stay at home spouse whose full-time job is corralling the kid. I love you, Jason!)

Anyway, I smelled something really good wafting from the kitchen, so I got up to investigate. It was TVP Sloppy Joes, vegetarian baked beans, and baked french fries- yummy! (And coincidentally, this was exactly what I had told Jason I wanted to eat for lunch today the night before. Did I say I love you, honey?) Noah looked up from his toys and went in to check it out with me.

"What we having?" (Preschoolers aren't too concerned with 'helping' verbs most of the time.)

"Sloppy Joes."

(Yucky face) " I don't tink I like dat."

"Yes, you do, we've had them before."

"Well, they not healthy." (They are actually- we make them from TVP- texturized vegetable protein, which is made from soybeans and is so much more tasty than it sounds. It's also shelf-stable, so we can stock up when we go to the big city, and use as needed without worry that it will go bad, unlike any kind of meat. In any recipe that calls for ground beef, like taco filling, chili, sloppy joes, or meat sauce, you literally cannot tell the difference if it is cooked well. And Jason is an excellent cook. Yes, I am spoiled.)

Noah again- "We should haf broccoli. I want broccoli. Can we please haf some broccoli?"

I am not making this up. The kid loves broccoli. It is one of his favorite veggies. He also eats lentils, any kind of beans, hummus (another favorite, with 'piter' bread, of course), sugar snap peas, carrots, etc. I don't say this to gloat- I am as amazed as you may be. I think his love of veggies comes from our reluctance to fix him special meals, due to our own upbringings where you got what everyone else in the family was eating, and if you didn't like it, too bad- you don't have to eat it, but that's all there is. I'm totally not going to get into parenting issues here, because I think everyone should do what works for them, The End. I am not Supermom, and I ain't giving anyone advice, since frankly, I am unqualified.

But every time he says something like this, I am amazed and grateful that my kid loves veggies.

And when he's fifteen and wants nothing but cheeseburger, fine- he can buy his own damn food and learn how to cook. And fix Mom and Jason a cheeseburger while he's at it.

Turds are dog twinkies.

2007-05-16T18:20:00.000-04:00

Originally posted on my mySpace blog on 4/20/07. And no, I didn't. I'm a mom now, and not *that* cool of a mom. Sorry. (Actually, no one is sorrier about that than me...)

*Headline courtesy of my husband, Jason, who noticed that our dog Sadie just loves those delightful treats that other dogs leave behind when they traipse through our yard.*

You know, while I was trying to type that, I accidentally typed,"Turds are god's twinkies." And that made me think, "Well, gee, that explains a lot about my life." As the mother of a four year old, the owner of a two year old dog, and the roommate of 2 ten year old cats (you are NEVER the owner of a cat- you are merely its roommate, as the cat will be happy to inform you), I've seen, cleaned, and unfortunately, handled, a *lot* of turds. But if turds are God's twinkies, then my friends, I have surely been blessed.

This week has been quite a whirlwind. Monday afternoon, I left for GSO to take my second professional exam, for which I felt terribly unprepared. Basically, we had to learn a textbook full of medical material on our own. Now I have taken many insurance industry self-study courses before, on every topic imaginable- customer service, regulatory rules, and supervisory skills, just to name a few. I have a long list of acronyms to show for it now- ACS, PCS, AIAA, AIRC, and the mother of them all, FLMI. But the exam I just took was very specific to my current job, and while I passed the first exam, on Risk Selection, last year (all the while feeling as if I failed), this exam was on...medical knowledge.

I deal with more than rudimentary medical knowledge every day as part of the risk selection process as an underwriter, but this textbook was off the hook detailwise. I have so many sources at my fingertips- I don't have to memorize much of this stuff, although it does get stuck in your head after you see it all the time. But seriously, this book went down to minute details. What did they expect us to know? Just an overview, or detailed shit like percentages and exact death rates?

The exam wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I still don't feel great about it. We'll see in about a month whether I passed. It's a paper exam that has to be graded. The good news is that it's not a job requirement- in fact, it's brownie points for me and my other colleagues just to try, as most people in our profession don't pursue professional certification. The bad news is that I tend to be a little Type A when it comes to my job, and always want to do the best possible work, and I will be SOOOO super embarrassed if I fail. Even though my boss is all, "That's ok if you fail- there's always next year. At least you tried." And I'm all, "Noooo!" inside my head, because I just know he will hold it against me, even though he said explicity that he could care less.

Which is really hilarious considering that I am a total non-Type A slob when it comes to my home life. No clean towels? Let's go to Wal-Mart!

Then, Wednesday afternoon, my husband wrenched his knee playing fetch with our dog Sadie. Not being a whiner, he stated that 'it wasn't that bad.' Until the next morning, when he could barely walk. I responded that he was going to the ER, stat. Many hours later, the docs determined that nothing was broken, it was probably a bad sprain, and sent him home with script strength Aleve. But we have to wait a week to know for sure, since our down home ER only has x-rays, not an MRI. And, here's the pisser, he has to stay mostly off of the knee for a whole week. You know what this means? I am in charge of cooking for the family until he is well. Lord help us. I hope they don't revolt after day 4 of faux chicken nuggets and/or fish sticks for lunch! I did order out (pick up 20 miles round trip, so it *was* an effort) Chinese today for meals. Hey, I had to work. And stuff. Now maybe y'all will believe me when I say Jason doesn't work for money, but oh boy, does he ever have a job.
But now that I am done with school and ordering food, I have time to do cool things like watch movies and read for pleasure. Yay!

And also peruse teh intarweb. You should, too. Especially these linkypoos:

http://icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/
OMG, LOL at dis websit. U cannot resist de cheezburger and catz.

http://www.pandora.com/
I am a Pandora newb, but I love it. And now they are going to take it away from me! Just goes to show- Maybelline did the same thing with my beloved "Wine and Everything" lipstick, those mother fuckers. If you also love internet radio, go here:

http://www.savenetradio.org/

And finally, linky goodness from my Google Reader that shows the complete non sequitur that is my brain:
http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/
http://www.lifehacker.com/
http://slashdot.org/
http://www.dadgonemad.com/
http://ranprieur.com/
http://www.talkingchop.com/
http://www.erinpavlina.com

My brain is a wonderland.
Love, Gabs

so I have this other blog...on MySpace...where this post came from...

2007-05-16T18:00:00.000-04:00

originally posted 4/10/07 on my MySpace blog...shut up. Everyone's on MySpace these days. Really.

I should be asleep and stuff, but I've been studying liver disorders, cancer, and mental disorders all night, and I can't relax. So I'm having a glass of wine (which, according to my reading, will likely increase my risk of all of the above, the thought of which is further inhibiting my ability to decompress), and I thought I would tell you about my other blog.
I've been keeping this blog for about 2 years, and it's been an intermittent diary of sorts. I may have mentioned it to a couple of friends, but as far as I know, no one keeps up with it. And that's ok with me. I generally post things that I'm not comfortable talking about all the time, which to my mind can make it kinda boring, as those sort of topics tend to be my crazy family and my various nervous tics. But now I am sharing the love with you! So, if you aren't already bored to tears, here's a linky poo:

http://ruminationsandconsultations.blogspot.com/

Warning: I have recycled some of the blogs from here, because I felt they captured really well the way I was feeling at the time, so there is some overlap. Because I am often lazy.
If you just can't get enough of me (hahahaha!), here's a link to my Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nutellaisevil/

I love taking photos, but I am a very amateur photographer, so please keep that in mind. I appreciate the input of more seasoned photographers or photography lovers, so please comment with constructive criticism if the mood strikes you.
There you go. I am going to study more on colon and rectal cancer now. I would hope that viewing my photostream is not quite that painful.

Ladies, did you know...

2007-04-10T01:43:00.001-04:00

treasure
Originally uploaded by gkp.

that alcohol and tobacco use do not likely play a role in increased prostate cancer risk, but reduced sexual activity *is* thought to be associated with increased risk? That means you should get your men out to a smoky bar, get them loaded, and tell them you know a great way to reduce their risk of prostate cancer. I have already informed my husband that we will be very conscientous about prevention.

That is, after I am done studying for my ALU 201- Intermediate Medical Life Insurance Underwriting exam, which is where all this fabulous information is coming from. Shit. I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Don't tell my 11th grade English teacher!

p.s. Unfortunately, immoderate alcohol comsumption does seem to increase the risk of breast cancer, so ladies, try and lay off the sauce yourself. I know, unfair, right?

don't sneak up on me

2007-03-21T20:50:00.001-04:00

bw eyes closed
Originally uploaded by gkp.

I will admit it- I love to be depressed.

In small doses, under my control, usually self-administered by way of memory-laden music, I love to be transported to a well of feeling I haven't sipped from in a while. I've often felt like this practice was my release valve, my way to circumvent any potentially serious problems by periodically skimming the accumulated fat off the surface of my psyche.

I love to sit up late at night and reminisce about how good it was, and how bad it was, and sway to dark brooding chords, and maybe have a good cry.

And then I fall into bed, snuggled on one side by my sweet husband and on the other by my sweet Lab, and I sleep peacefully, my appetite for sadness successfully appeased for another day, week, month.

Except when it's not, and it sneaks up on me for no reason- sometimes memories of being done wrong, but mostly just memories of doing wrong, and things that turned out wrong, and why and whether things now are being done right...sometimes it's just wondering where that old friend went and why did I ever let him or her get away, and now that part of my life is lost...lost like I feel.

I would not change a thing, as I love where and who I am today...but I can't get rid of these feelings. It's okay when I indulge myself on purpose, but more than I would like to admit, these feelings seep up unbidden, sometimes slowly as a funk that turns into a slowly rolling cold front, but more often like a volcano that lies silent and dormant, only to burst and spew lava everywhere, immobilizing everything in its tracks...

I've tried it all- quitting meat, alcohol, sad music, tearjerker movies, and Kodak commercials...and it still attacks me by surprise. Well, I've tried almost everything...everything but pharmacuticals. There's absolutely nothing wrong with rx- many people are able to function excellently due to the many fine medications that are on the market today. I feel no stigma attached to these meds, it's just that I'm not sure that it's what I need. Most of the time, I'm fine. Except when I'm not.

Maybe I'm overthinking, but I feel like this is a more existential issue...the essential human sorrow that is barely hidden behind the facade of our daily lives...or maybe I'm just afraid to go to a shrink and find out there's really something wrong with me. With a family history of mental illness, I am a bit gun shy, I'll admit.

For now, I am practicing watchful waiting...luckily, I live with a pretty good seismologist- if the tremors get too bad, I trust him to step in and warn me before it gets to the point that he has to give evacuation orders.

spring is in the air

2007-03-21T18:17:00.001-04:00

water tower 2
Originally uploaded by gkp.

...and a young woman's thoughts turn to love.

Except I'm not so young anymore, and I'm married. So my thoughts turn to more practical things like home improvement and gardening.

We are getting ready to employ a contractor to work on the little cottage out back here at the old homeplace. This "Little House" as we have always called it in my family, is a 400-500 square foot house located about 25 feet behind our big house (which is about 1000 square feet, so 'big' is a relative term in these circumstances.) My great-grandparents built this Little House about 40 years ago to have parties and to have a separate area to cook smelly stuff like fish and collards, and 'put up' the fruit of their garden. They had a big backyard veg garden and canned or blanched (for freezing) everything in it- beets, beans, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, etc- as well as making pickles, hot sauce, and jelly every summer. It used to have a gas stove and heater, a water heater, washer and dryer, and an extra freezer and fridge. All the appliances are gone now, and the w/d have been moved in the house, which has been very convenient for my great-grandma.

However, now we're here, and we need a little more space to breathe, so we're looking toward rehabbing the Little House. Our dream is to make it into an 'in-law' suite, and add back the appliances, an electric heater, and a bathroom (woo hoo, an extra bathroom! If you have ever lived with anyone other than yourself in a house with only one bathroom, you know how excited we all are about this prospect.) We are also excited about having a 'private' space where we can go practice the 'married arts.' I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Just know that our current bedroom shares one wall with my great-grandma's bedroom and one wall with where the Kid sleeps, so we need some 'adult' space in a bad way. Moving on...

The contractor we hope to use is actually a man who helped his father build the Little House when he was a young man. He's still working, and we're excited to see if he can work on it again. Only in Bertie County.

We also just ordered a shit load of berry bushes. We've never grown berries before, but hey- the catalog said they were easy to grow! And we wanted plenty of berry alternatives for Noah, as he is allergic to NC's favorite summer berry, the strawberry. Say it with me- awwww. How terrible! We hope he'll outgrow this horrible affliction, but in the meantime, we will have loads of blueberries, elderberries, and blackberries to eat. In about 3 years, of course. These things take time.

I feel so old, getting excited about home improvement. Don't remind me that I'm going to be thirty this year. Sigh. But hey, when the berry bushes get laden and heavy, and we're overflowing with juicy goodness, we could pick a couple of bushels, and fill our new private bath tub, and...hey, I think I am feeling young and frisky thinking about gardening after all! If you'll excuse me...

sexy

2006-12-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

bath, originally uploaded by gkp.

I've been inspired by the artful nudes that I've seen in the 365days pool (it's this self-portrait project thingy I'm doing over at Flickr), but I've been a little too nervous to try one myself. Well, here goes nothing. I did have lots of fun trying to shoot this group and not drop my camera in the tub or throw my back out.

I didn't realize how curvy I'd become over the last couple of years...I've just felt kind of chubby, especially considering this is the most I have ever weighed while not carrying a child. But taking this group of photos, it was like I saw myself as a completely different person- and I kinda liked what I saw. I'm curvy in the right plaves, soft and touchable, inviting...maybe even sexy...

It was worth contoring myself into all kinds of strange positions, camera held out at all angles, legs, arms, and back trembling to hold a pose, just to feel that way about my body again.

I miss you, old friend

2006-11-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

I miss you, old friend, originally uploaded by gkp.

I still keep this in my desk drawer. Remember when we took this picture in high school? God, it's been so long since then...how things have changed. The world is a very different place than we imagined in that photo. I married, you married, I divorced...I don't think you did. Hell, I'm married again. You might have kids now, like I do, and I don't even know. I miss you. I have for a long time. I always will.

i hate you, Patty Hurst Shifter. Yet...

2006-11-19T18:35:00.000-05:00

rock out 10, originally uploaded by gkp.

i love you.

I love you becase you are the first music that I have listened to since the Kid was born that made me nearly cream my pants. The rock is that hard, yet that catchy. I love you because you make me want to headbang around my bedroom/office with my eyes clenched shut, my lips wide open, and my arms up in the air. I love you because you compel me to get back into music, lest I miss another awesome band like y'all. I love you because you make me remember what it was to rock, hard, and I love it. I love you because you make me realize that I spent the last few years ignoring the music scene while raising a youngun, and while that was time very well-spent, now, I want to be back, with a vengeance.

And I hate you.

I hate you because I fell in love with you after moving to NE BFE, where the nearest club you might play in is a good two hours away, and I pine for you. I hate you because now I wonder what other incredible music I missed in the last four years. I hate you because I can't get you out of my fucking head. But most of all, I hate you, because when your first album came out, my ex-husband taped it for me and gave it to me, stating, "You'l love it. You'll see." And goddamn it, he was right. And I hate you for that.

But mostly, I just love you. Come to Bertie County soon.

bastard hamster

2006-11-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

my favorite escape, originally uploaded by gkp.

I am one of those people who remember their dreams quite frequently. At least 3-4 times a week, I'll wake up in the morning with a vivid recollection of a dream, generally an extremely weird and crazy dream, and think to myself, "Where the fuck did that come from?" I also often relate these dreams to my husband, who either laughs or looks suspiciously uncomfortable, like he might be rethinking that whole getting married thing. What can I say? My unconscious works in mysterious and frightening ways sometimes.

Last night, I had a garden variety bizarre dream. I was living here, in our very small home, with 5 other people, plus my Great Granny, who lives here in real life as well. The 5 other people and I all slept in the 2nd bedroom (this is a 2 bedroom house) in 3 sets of bunk beds. Among my roomies were my real life best friend and LL Cool J. During my dream, I walk into the bedroom to find LL engrossed in self-pleasure, and he isn't the least bit embarrassed to see me. It's good for you, he explains, as he continues on, unplussed by my presence. Then my GG walks in, sees the scene, and turns on her heel and walks out without a word.

The scene changes to the backyard, where the vegetable and flower garden that I plan on planting next year was in full bloom (in the dream, I thought to myself, wow, and we just planted that garden yesterday), and one of our outbuildings had been cleared out to renovate it into a dormitory. There is a party in full swing, and I remember my best friend is getting remarried. Much to my surprise, my ex-husband is there, through a friend of a friend, and we begin to chat. I need you to do me a favor, he says, it would mean a lot to me. Warily, I agree, and he proceeds to explain that he wants me to officiate at his upcoming wedding. Huh? Before I could ask him how his new wife was going to feel about all this, I woke up.

I would be worried by the weirdness, but all my dreams are similarly strange, if not stranger. I once dreamed I went on a golfing vacation in Scotland with my boss' boss' boss, and after a round of golf, we went to a petting zoo/night club, where a large caterpillar in a striped 'Cat in the Hat' style stovepipe hat attacked me while everyone else laughed. There were also tiny baby monkeys the size of little plastic Army men in small cardboard boxes in that dream. I used to have recurring dreams about having to dispose of strangers' corpses, and by that I mean the corpses of people that other folks had killed and then dumped in my car, or office, or home.

I do wonder sometimes what these dreams mean...LL Cool J whacking off? My ex wanting me to literally marry him to someone else? Strange corpses popping up in my closet? Dr Freud, your thoughts?

Or do they mean anything? Are they just my subconscious taking out the trash, dumping all those extraneous thoughts and associations that wander through my brain during the course of a day? I wish that I could corral all these strange but usually creative thoughts in a more well-formed and organized manner, say, a plot for a novel that I am supposed to be writing in November, which I have barely even started yet, even though it is now November 18? But alas, that is not the way my mind works. It is like a wayfaring hitchiker, stopping off in odd places, only staying still briefly, not making much of an impression on the surroundings, even if it would be interesting were you paying attention.

I find that the best dreams, the one that are the funniest or the most exciting, are the ones I don't remember. I wake up laughing or thrilled, and have only the briefest clue as to why, which then quickly vanishes as I become fully awake. This morning, I woke up knowing that I had just dreamed the most hilarious sentence ever. I saw it in big lights in my dream- it was the whole dream itself- and then I woke up, rolled over, and woke up Jason and told him. I promptly fell back asleep, and when I woke up, I remembered everything about the dream- except the full sentence. All I can recall is that it began with the words 'bastard hamster...' I am disappointed on so many levels. I am not a terribly funny person anyway, not on purpose at least, but I would like to be, and now I feel like my subconscious is probably quite humorous, and I have no idea how to access it. It's like that old Mister Mister song, the one that goes, "you can look at the menu but you just can't eat, you can feel the cushions but you can't take a seat..." Plus, I am dying to understand how you make a sentence that gets even more funny after the phrase 'bastard hamster'.

And of course, Jason doesn't even remember me waking him up.

election day

2006-11-07T13:32:00.000-05:00

election day, originally uploaded by gkp.

This shirt sums up how I feel about the state of American democracy. Now everyone go vote, even if you are voting for you-know-who!

my kid is cooler than your honor student

2006-11-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

sillymommyandnoah, originally uploaded by gkp.

Noah and I were sitting at the computer last night, me uploading photos to Flickr and him attacking the keyboard with his toy crocodile. I popped over to my myspace profile, and of course, my profile song started almost immediately. I have to admit I found this annoying on other people profiles, until I found out I could add drivin n cryin to mine. Sweet!

Anyway, as soon as the song ("Fly Me Courageous") started up, Noah started, well, banging his little head. Then he turned to me and said, "Rock N Roll." Tiny fist pumping ensued.

It was one of my proudest moments as a parent. My Little Dude Rocks!

grumpy

2006-11-04T16:32:00.000-05:00

last rose, originally uploaded by gkp.

I am so grumpy today. My mind teems with undone work, paid and fun. So many new cases came in on Friday, I've only written 285/50,000 words on my Nano novel, I still haven't organized my photos from 2005 yet and it's almost 2007. What are we going to do about Thanksgiving, much less Xmas, do I have to spend them with my mother, is that pain in Mama's chest really just a muscle strain or is it angina, is that pain in my side really just cramps or is it appendicitis, am I really just stressed out or am I finally going insane?!??!?!?!

I can't just sit back and enjoy a lazy Saturday afternoon. I have to obsess. My mind is chasing its own tail and I can't seem to make it stop.

I need a glass of wine, a hot bath, and a certain French novel I purchased last weeek and have been dying to read. Maybe that would turn this frown into a smile. Or at least an O.

Hmmm...

Excuse me, I just realized I have a pressing engagement.

wineandwords

2006-11-02T17:52:00.000-05:00

wineandwords, originally uploaded by gkp.

Time again for Nanowrimo, and that means it's time for wine!

Of course, it is already day two of Nano, and I haven't even started yet. I meant to write yeaterday, but I wasn't feeling inspired. And, there was also the little niggling problem that I am had no fucking idea what I was going to write about.

But then, today, it came to me while I was working- a flash of creative brilliance- why not combine as many of my interests as possible? I like morbid, humorous, sexy things that make you think- so why not a murder mystery involving a wise cracking chief suspect and lots of lustin'? Perfect. This is will be a real change from the previous 3 noevls (okay, 2 attempts and one completed novel) that were mostly light hearted. But hey, death and sex can be funny, too!

hey, wait.

2006-10-31T18:06:00.000-05:00

I *do* have something to post about that wasn't on my myspace blog. I don't think I want to spew this kind of vitriol to the masses, but hey, this here is my personal blog (which nobody reads but me) so I can be as bitchy as I want.)

Not unexpectedly, my mother bitched me out on the day of my wedding. Less than 2 hours before my wedding, in fact. But this was one of the worst, most hateful 10 minutes of crap that she has thrown at me to date. You're a terrible daughter. All you do is talk shit about me to everyone, which is why they hate me and don't talk to me. I hate you. You're such a bitch. I wish you weren't my daughter. In repsonse, I calmly told her that she was being a bitch and that I had wished we could get through one weekend without a tantrum (this was her third of the weekend and we had barely been there 24 hrs at this point. She also threw one the next morning before she left.)

Not that I expected her to apologize, but today she called me and made it seem like my fault. She said she was sorry that we had an argument, and that it was just because everyone was 'nervous'. This, to me, is the worst part. She started 'our argument' by screaming at me at the top of her lungs, and all I did was tell her that I thought she was being a bitch, albeit in a very calm voice. I did not scream back at her or tell her she was not Donna Fucking Reed herself, and that I didn't even want her to come to my wedding, but I invited her anyway (and went 2 hrs out of my way to pick her up at the train, which was 2 hrs late, making me 4 hrs behind schedule on the day before my wedding.) I call that restraint.

I feel like I have tried really hard with my mother, and that I keep trying in spite of the fact that she ruins every holiday, birthday, and special occasion with her temper tantrums. I try to get over the fact that she has insulted and berated me more times than I care to admit, in front of my husband, family, and friends. If she were a friend, I would have stopped seeing her a long time ago, but she's not- she's my mother, the only one I have (well, with the exception of Mama, who is more like an actual mother to me.) I try to see things from her perspective, that she knows people are nervous around her since she's a loose cannon, and that she doesn't have many friends because of it, and that she senses I get along better with Jason's parents than we ever got along, etc, etc, etc. But then I think- it's not my fault that she acts out this way. I am not responssible for her behavior. She is, and she won't ever take responsibility for it. And the rest of us have to pay.

I fell like I have reached a crossroads, in that I don't want to put up with her behavior anymore. I don't think I'll ever want to totally cut her off, because she IS my mother, and I feel like I need to try and keep some kind of relationship with her. But I don't want all my special days to be marred with the specter of worrying about her tantrums, and worse, experiencing them. I don't want to sepnd Thanksgiving and Christmas with her this year, I just don't. And yet, I don't know if that's the right solution. Jason's parents put up with her beautifully, and they would never suggest such a thing. In fact, I worry that they would think badly of me for suggesting it. And talk about a tantrum- I'm sure I'd never hear the end of how her own daughter cut her out of the holidays, the most important family time of the year. But what about what I want? Don't I get to have a peaceful, relaxing, joyful holiday? I know that idea is that that's not possible when your family is around, and that one should just suck it up and deal with it, but I think we're beyond just basic family irritation here.

Am I horrible? Or am I finally realizing that it's insanity to think that things will ever be different? Is it selfish to want to have a nice holiday when that means not inviting my mother? I wish I had the answers.

Or a Magic 8 ball. That would be a huge help right now, actually.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage (10-30-06)

2006-10-31T18:04:00.001-05:00

As if it weren't enough that the weather was perfect, the wedding ceremony went off nearly flawlessly, and the reception was so wonderful that the cops even dropped by to say hello - twice - on our way back from picking up Sadie the Wonder Dog yesterday, we had a sign from Him! That's right, an image of the FSM appeared before us in the dirt on the back of a long-haul 18-wheeler on I-40. We feel blessed indeed. Perhaps this is a sign of His blessing? We were certain we had pleased Him with the Pirate Wedding Theme, but were saddened that we could not procure a beer volcano in time. However, I will note that the weather at the ceremony was nice and cool, an effect I believe was brought on by the amazing volume of pirates in the area. Someone should enlighten Al Gore.

Anyway, I just wanted to pass the news of our vision on to the fellow Pastafarian faithful. It is a most auspicious start to our life together, to be sure.

Ramen.

***Go here: www.venganza.org

if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. at least this time, I do have an explanation for you.***

Disaster Averted! Game On! (10-17-06)

2006-10-31T18:04:00.000-05:00

We successfully pressed another devoted pal into service as our officiant for this weekend. Much love to JMC III, soon to be the Rev Prof JMC III. Sounds kinda like a rapper name, huh?

Whew. That was close.

uh-oh. wedding snafu in progress. (10-16-06)

2006-10-31T18:02:00.000-05:00

If I hadn't mentioned this before, I'm getting married this weekend. The groom is a fabulous guy. We've been together 3 years, in which time I have gained 39 lbs- did I mention he's a fabulous cook? But more importantly, my son has gained a great father figure and I have gained a great friend. He has taught me so much about the really important things in life, like cowboy music, Terry Pratchett, and artisanal cheese (which is how I gained the 39 lbs- now he's having to cook tofu and greens to help me get rid of it. Only 23 to go-woo hoo!)

Anyway, we are very much looking forward to our wedding and reception (mainly the reception- we've been accused of getting married just to have a great party, and to that I say hey! you know a better reason to have a great party?). We were feeling a bit smug about having most of the major details taken care of already, one week before the wedding (we are very last minute kinda folks, so this is a major accomplishment.) However, yesterday, we got some bad news. Our officiant, a dear friend of ours, has broken his heel and will be laid up all week. All week. Including this Saturday. When he was going to marry us.

Shit.

Now it's a major bummer that our dear friend is going to miss the most fabulous party of the year, and we are going to miss having him there immensely. Oh, and there's also that little niggling problem that now, we have no one to marry us. We can't just run out and get a preacher to marry us, since we don't regularly attend church and aren't very religious. We could go down to the courthouse, but then our families and close friends won't get to see us actually get married. And we can't just get any officiant to do it, since we're having an untraditional theme wedding.

Anyone know where I can get a buccanneer pirate minister on the fly? (Must have own eye patch, earring, and poofy shirt. Parrot not required, but highly recommended.)

lazy girl

2006-10-31T17:55:00.000-05:00

So...it's been a while. But I've been busy, really. Moving, marrying, working, all that stuff. I also have joined all the cool teens and child molesters out there and got my very own myspace page, so I can have cyberstalkers all my own. Hooray!

Since i have posted a (very) few blog entries over there, I figured I'd take the lazy way out and post 'em here, too. I'm practicing padding my writing, since nanowrimo starts tomorrow. Which means I probably won't be writing any more blog entries utnil Demcember. Oh Well.

Parents, Geez.

2006-07-04T23:14:00.000-04:00

My parents are awe-inspiring. Really. But maybe not so much in the Leave It To Beaver, Parents Are God sort of way, but in the Oh My God Are These Really My Parents kind of way,

Exhibit A- my mother. Long time friends and former lovers know that I call my mother by her first name in conversations where she is not present. I think it's so that I can quantify her uniquely bizarre acts with a fitting adjective (namely, her name) and also distance myself from these same bizarre acts by not laying direct claim to her as my mother while describing them. But Lord no, I never forget that these things are done by my mother, and in my years of describing them and psychoanalyzing them, I can never fully depart from the fear that they will one day befall me. I almost never call her on the phone, becasue I fear (and know) that it almost never ends pleasantly, especially since we (shock! horror!) moved away from the town she lives in to help someone else in our family. Here is something my mother said recently-

"Oh, God, it's just so hard without you here to have to take me to do things, and I have to do my laundry alone in the laundry room and I fell in the laundry room and there's no one to look out for me and go places and I'm just so lonely and there's no one here for me!"

(Said because we moved 3 hrs away to go take care of an elderly relative and are no longer in town to pick up her laundry and return it clean or take her out to dinner and listen to her bitch about how she has no social life and infer that it's my job to not only do her laundry, but get her a life as well. Never mind the fact that her ex-boyfriend, who helps pay her rent as I understand it, also comes and takes her to his house to do her laundry.)

I am not my mother's mother, or nursemaid, or maid at all, much to her chagrin. She is an adult. She has worked (sporadically, yes, but successfully) in professional type jobs, was quite successful, and is still in fine physical (if not mental) health. Why she can't act like an adult, much less a parent, is unfortunately not beyond me, but still a disappointment.

My father, who was not present during my childhood, is completely different. Our conversations are polite and cheery, with much focus on what I am doing and much backslapping and 'good jobbing' on his part. This is nice, even if he never calls me, and I am always the one that has to initiate any dialogue that takes place. I always enjoying talking to him, because he is overwhelmingly supportive, if a little distant seeming, like a proud therapist trying to keep emotional distance from a client or something. Yet something is missing. He never, ever contacts me first. He is moving out of the country for a time and I wouldn't have known if I hadn't called him. He is missing my wedding and seems nonplussed. He has never met his only grandchild in person, and my son is now three! I try not to take it personally, as I know he's not that close with the rest of his family, and they had a strange childhood, and etc... but I can't help feeling resentful sometimes that he's not more emotive about his only spawn, especially when I find beautiful things like this written on the internet, penned by my stoic and stalwart dad, waxing poetic...

"Well done! Any practical applications for the Mandelbrot and Julia sets? I am a non-mathematician, but the elegance and awe inspiring symmetry of the sets left me with an almost religious thought - that such complexity could arise from such a 'simple' function and initial conditions is mind boggling. Mirabile dictu! I think I've glimpsed one of God's shadows."

...about fractals! I mean, come the fuck on! Fractals are amazing and shit, but where is the love for what your own DNA wrought and wove and created, that's what I'm thinking! Mirabile dictu indeed!

The thing is- my parents have always been this way. My mom has been crazier, and hey, at least I live 3 hours away from her now. My dad has been much, much more distant- I think I had contact with him less than 10 times by the time I was 23, and now we talk almost once a month, even if I do have to call him. Why can't I just accept my parents as they are and not wish they were June and Ward, or a reasonable fascimile thereof?

The thing is- I don't wish my parents were perfect. I think they're both brilliant, and wonderful, and yeah, fucked up, but that's okay. I like that they're different from the so-called perfect parents in that respect. The only thing that I do wish, the only thing that I would change, is that they acted like they loved me best of all, above everything else, because I'm theirs. But I get the feeling that's hard to do when they don't maybe love themselves that much. And that's unfortunate, because even though I bitch about them, even though they drive me nuts sometimes, I really do love them the best of all the parents in the world, because they're mine.

Lord, have mercy.

2006-06-27T00:39:00.000-04:00

We moved. Out to the sticks. Waaaaaay out. Bertie County. Ain't nothing here. But a new prison! Yeee haaah! And I have connections, seeing as how one of my very good childhood friends works there, so if I get thrown in the pokey, I'll at least have connections.

You can read the ongoing saga at my other blog, devoted to small town life, here:
www.butyoucanseethestars.blogspot.com

I will try to update with my usual, yet not very timely, nonsense here. I promise I will write more before next Xmas.

Much love,
MH

I have been outed.

2005-12-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have not been paying attention, I am an award-winning singing sensation. Okay, an award-winning karaoke artist. Okay, an award-winning song slanderer. But note- I am AWARD-WINNING!!!

In order to catch up the rest of you (hahaha- like anyone reads this...except maybe one of you, who has my undying love and gratitude, for a myriad of reasons, but foremost at this moment because you, only YOU, remember that I have a blog and read it from time to time, thereby rehashing every inane thing I have already said to you thirty times in person- oh, friendship! Is there any better friend than the one who does not complain that you are a selfish bitch boring them to death with your petty little problems? I think not, and therefore, I wish that I could buy you many wonderful Xmas gifts wrapped in pretty little bows, when in reality, you will get a heartfelt hug and maybe you can feel me up real quick while I promise not to notice, while I'm still fat and still have my big, luscious BOOBIES...but that's a subject for another entry, entitled "Why My Family Keeps Reminding Me I am Fat"), anyway, to bring the rest of you up to speed, me and two cohorts won the work karaoke competition this spring with out rousing rendition of "Loveshack," complete with wigs, shades, and loud clothing for the gals and a zoot suit, shades, and shorn head for the guy, and raucous dancing by all. And yeah, we sang, but I guarantee that's not why we won. Just trust me on that. But who needs vocal talent when you have STAR POWER, baby?

Anyway, back then, I was in a different, looser department, where everyone knew we were loud and proud and unashamed to be foolish. Fast forward several months, and I am in a different, much more sedate, department of the same company. I try to dress professionally (some people wore sweat-like pants in my old dept, which I think is kind of pushing the whole 'business casual' dress code, if you ask me), keep my head down, and do my job. No one seems to know that this mild-mannered analyst was the one in the towering blond beehive shakin' her considerable thang on stage in front of the whole company back in May.

Today, I was having a discussion with the newest member of my direct team (we were talking about people, not gossiping, mind you, which is a whole different thing, promise), a person who I really get along with and like a bunch, and who is the only person with whom I have been able to develop a chatty relationship in this department, as the two of us are of the same age and still 'the new folks,' feeling a little out of place with all the pretty, thin, impossibly well-dressed younguns in this same department. Somehow, the subject got around to the concert that I attended on the company's dime, and I revealed that I had attended as part of the winning group of this contest, as said concert was the 1st prize.

"Oh My God! That was you? Someone told me, but I didn't believe them!!!!"

The someone that told this person is not in our department, and my friend really thought they were joking. I am of two schools of thought about this phenomenon of sheer amazement.

1. I am damn glad that no one else in this department seems to realize that was me, because it would rock their world (as evidenced by my work friend's amazement.) And I understand, I mean, really, do you expect (or want) your Financial Analyst to be a little...oh...crazy?

2. I am dismayed that this seems so out of character for me, given my work persona. Am I so different - and boring - at work, that no one thinks I have that much personality (even if it is the slightly frightening variety) in me? My good friends would gladly confirm that I am not the shrinking violet type, that I am maybe a little too loose for my own good. But at work, I'm quiet and sedate. This worries me. I don't like the implication. There's this huge disconnect between my work self and my self self. I feel dysfunctional.

Maybe everyone feels this way. No one cuts loose at work like they do at home, and that's good and professional. I don't want my coworkers farting on me and scratching their nuts/cootch in my presence, like I do when I'm in the privacy of my own home. But I don't want to be a nameless, faceless drone, either...perhaps this is at the heart of my severe dissatisfaction with my current work environment...

Or maybe this is just another little petty problem I'm subjecting my audience to...

oh, BTW....

2005-12-03T11:21:00.000-05:00

Woo fuckin hoo!

I was too busy finishing writing the damn thing to post the last few chapters to my NaNo blog, so I will try and get that accomplished at some point. I have also been toying with the idea of finishing it (since 50,000 words was just not enough...) and editing it some so that I can get a free printed copy from the nice folks at Lulu.com. But it would have to be in by January 16th, and I just don't know if I'm up for that...although a little bound book would be awfully nice....

Right now, though, I'm just ready to celebrate!

42% done!

2005-11-27T23:08:00.000-05:00

And only three days to go!

I'm trying to live up to my NaNo name...

http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=22602

Anyway, I am also trying not to give up this year, as I have tried and failed on two previous attempts to 'win' by getting the 50k done in thirty days...so what if I have to pull a couple of long-nighters... I can do this! Yeah! Right! I am trying to bribe myself with the promise of a new haircut (longish bangs and long layers to enable the 'fro factor to take hold and enable me to spend even less time on my hair) and a new t-shirt- lookie here!

http://www.threadless.com/product/352/Octopus

I love it sooo much! I want to have its baby! Okay, not really, but I do want that shirt and it is only ten dollars and I should buy myself an Xmas present even though I just bought this:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/brothersgrim

and this:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/kickingrass

and this:

http://www.buyswag.com/kevnkinney/
(Just the CD, not the t-shirt....for NOW anyway...bwahahahaha!)

And I am going to quit blogging now and go write some more novel, but before I go, let's share a hearty HELL YEAH! Go here,

http://www.thepourhouse.musictoday.com/PourHouse/calendar.aspx

look for Sunday, December 18th, buy tickets, and say it with me- HELL YEAH! WOO HOO, MOTHER FUCKERS!!!! (We already bought tickets and have a babysitter, so Jason gets to go this time. Yay!)

Hopefully, my lame ass novel will be done by Wednesday at midnight and then I will be back to regale you semi-monthly with such stories as How I Ruined Thanksgiving for My Mother, Why Does My Family Keep Calling Me Fat?, and Why I Am (Almost) Out of a Job (or, A Tale of a Merger of Equals). Sometimes, I'm glad that no one reads this blog.

Love,
MH

10% done!

2005-11-16T23:48:00.000-05:00

My NaNo novel is 10% finished!

Hooray!

Um, there's only 15 days left...halfway through the month, 10 percent done...not good odds, huh? But I like to be the underdog. I'm a come from behind kind of girl...(please insert dirty joke of choice here. Before I do.)

The worst part is, I used that horrible line above previously in an email and am recycling it for use in my blog. Terrible.

If you like watching trainwrecks, here's a link to my NaNo blog:
www.changeyourlifein30daysorless.blogspot.com

Warning: there's no editing involved to date in this novel. That's what March is for...
www.nanoedmo.org

mystery chick

2005-11-01T22:08:00.000-05:00

mystery chick, originally uploaded by missmaddiehope.

I have no idea who she is, but she's hot in a trashy sort of way.

noahrailroad

2005-11-01T22:07:00.001-05:00

noahrailroad, originally uploaded by missmaddiehope.

Toot toot!

That's the sound a train makes, if you didn't know.

noahcute

2005-11-01T22:07:00.000-05:00

noahcute, originally uploaded by missmaddiehope.

If he were any cuter, I'd have to sell him.

noahluvsgoats

2005-11-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

noahluvsgoats, originally uploaded by missmaddiehope.

I am learnin' how to be all 21st century...

Insert curse word of choice here.

2005-11-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Take my word for it, I wrote a pithy lead up, then went to lay down with the Kid to scare away the monsters, only to come back and finish my post and find that it had been eaten when I tried to post it. Fucking monsters.

Oh, well.

Here are the pics. One tawdry mystery tramp, and two pictures of a very darling child. If he were any cuter, we would have to sell him.

Onto my novel, which for those of you not in the know, is brought to you by the geniuses at

www.nanowrimo.org

My progress, such as it is, can be followed at

www.changeyourlifein30daysorless.blogspot.com

Luv, MH

Hope this picture posting thang works. I'm new to this whole Advanced Internet Concepts idea. I know, it's been around for a few years, but, hey, we're just catchin on to Books on Tape around here, okay?

Update: fuck it. I sorta figured it out, but it's clunky. But it'll do for now. You get to see cuteness, I get to go work on important things, like the 1666.67 words I am due to produce today to hit 50k by November 30th at midnight. Wish me luck.

Oh, the horror!

2005-10-30T22:08:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow. Is. Monday.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

Don't make me do it, no, I swear, I won't, I can't, you will not make me go back and sit at that nice big real wood desk in my real office with walls and a ceiling and a door I can close instead of a crappy cubicle (but okay, no window) and hate it hate it hate it!

See, this is the agony of my Sunday night. It's like this every week. Having spent a most enjoyable weekend doing whatever (this weekend it was hanging out in Winston on Friday night and seeing a movie on Saturday, all while ingesting shocking amounts of saturated fat- we ate burger and shakes for dinner on Saturday and still had a large popcorn at the theatre...oh, and there were the fried eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast, and did I mention that I stopped off at McDs at o'dark thirty on Saturday morning on the way home and inhaled an Egg McMuffin and hashbrown before I went to sleep? Oh, but it was so good. And I ate an Herby Turkey for breakfast this morning to clean out my system... but we won't discuss the Nachos Bellgrande I had for lunch, but it did have chicken on it, okay?) So anyway, a good weekend was had by all, and we picked up the Kid this afternoon early and went home and did productive things like putting up the bunk bed and cleaning and I sat down at nine in delighted anitcipation of cheesy goodness to dip my Hint of Lime Tostitos in and realized-

"Damn it. I have to work tomorrow."

I think I might have mentioned previously how much I hate my job. And I feel terribly guilty about it. It would be one thing if I hated my crappy job because my boss was a pill and my co-workers sucked and my company was a cesspool of corporate misdeeds.

But my boss (and her boss) are the nicest people you could want to meet, much less work for, and my co-workers are all very nice and friendly, but not in that fakey fakey way or that weird, stalkeresque way, and my company is a model of conservative investment and ethical dealings.

But I hate my job, the actual part that I carry out to get the paycheck. I have had boring jobs before, but none that paid this well. Yet another reason I feel guilty about despising this job.

I figured it out the other day, I think. My previous job (same company) was stressful, but I was figuring out things, solving problems, getting things done, making a difference (well, sort of, anyway.) This new job involves me pulling numbers from reports and importing them into other reports. No problem solving skills necessary. Hell, you could program a computer to do this shit (and I don't see why they don't, but I'm glad of it, so at least I have my crappy job until the other shoe drops, which would be our impending 'transaction,' but that's another story entirely...)

In the past, I always thought it was the people you worked with, not the job, that made it tolerable/intolerable. Then I met this job. And I have been shown the error of my ways.

Yet every time I contemplate cutting out, I feel so guilty. I have a good-paying job with nice people, those don't come around every day, and hey, I may be out of a job in 4-6 months anyway, so better off to wait around and see if I can get severance, and maybe take my employer's 401k contributions with me, and don't I realize how lucky I am? I just can't turn off the Jewish grandmother in my head admonishing me for even thinking about taking any risks at all. She sees the corporate ladder and wants me to climb, climb, climb my way to financial security, and therefore, heaven. I just fear that the farther I climb, the farther I will have to fall (or that at the very least, I'll be afraid to jump off even more than I am now.)

What's a girl to do? Oh, well. At least I get to be fabulous for a few minutes tomorrow. I'll let you know if I win anything.

You internet, me Jane.

2005-10-18T00:26:00.000-04:00

Um, I know I can add sidebar links, but without the handy-dandy guides in the template (that somehow mysteriously disappeared), I can't figure it out right now...

Anyway, here's a link to my unfinished 2003 NaNoWriMo novel (well, most of it):

http://doinghowardstern.blogspot.com

Yes, 2003. Yes,I know, I'm slow.

I'll have 2004 (what I was able to eek out, only 15k) up around Halloween ('06, that is) and look for this year's novel, oh, maybe before the Kid is in college.

If you're wondering what NaNoWriMo is, check this out:

www.nanowrimo.org

And if you get hooked, don't blame me!

A bedtime story

2005-10-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

This is a short story that I wrote a little bit (like a couple of years) ago. It's not great literature, but I had fun writing it. It's a little long, and I hope the formatting is readable, since I can't link it, seeing as how I don't have a dedicated page to link it to , but anyway, hope you like it (and if not, you don't have to tell me. But you can, and I will try to take it as graciously as possible.)

How Moses Saved My Life

“I talked to Daddy again last night,” I drawled sleepily as Moses peeled back the covers. He crawled over me carefully, dismounting from our small bed with a nimble half-leap, even though he’s a right big guy. He looked down at me and smiled.

“That’s great, sugar,” he replied as he kissed the top of my head, the only part of my body that I hadn’t already pulled back underneath the covers.

“Yep,” I murmured, as I drifted in-between sleep and morning, still hovering in a syrupy fog. I’d have to tell Moses what Daddy had to say about the oil pan on the tractor. Daddy’s a mechanic, and he likes helping with those things.

Daddy also likes Moses. And Moses likes Daddy, or what he knows of Daddy, which is mostly from my talking about him. Moses doesn’t seem to mind the fact that I talk to Daddy frequently, a three or four times a week at least, getting advice about everything from my cooking to the baby to the leaking oil pan on the tractor. A lot of men might have minded, or thought it was a little excessive, or maybe thought that I was a Daddy’s girl and a little crazy on top of all that. Especially since Daddy has been dead for fifteen years.

Moses padded quietly back into the bedroom and sat down next to me. The aroma of good strong coffee lured my body into an upright position almost against its will.

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Moses whispered as he handed me my cup of coffee, perfectly sweet and milky, just the way I love it. How romantic. He is so good to me. No wonder Daddy likes him so much.

Daddy has special reason to be so fond of Moses, considering he did save my life and all.

There I was, minding my own business, just walking down Main Street one beautiful but already terribly muggy July morning in Branton’s Leg, which is where we live, and where I was born, and which is a very, very small town. We have no stoplight, just a big stop sign in the middle of town in the middle of the road, which some people find a little off-putting, but boy, it does make you slow down. I tell you about this stop sign because it is a major factor in the life-threatening conditions from which Moses so valiantly rescued me and which cemented his good favor with Daddy from the very beginning of our acquaintance.

So anyway, there I was, just strolling down Main Street, not walking fast and certainly not jogging, since I was born with bad knees and have never been able to jog or really do anything stressful on the legs, and that is just fine, since I don’t have the best coordination or the interest or patience necessary to really apply oneself to an athletic endeavor. My mind was out for a stroll, too, which isn’t unusual, since I’ve always been a dreamer, as Daddy would say wistfully and my teachers would say disparagingly.

My mind was wandering so far out that I didn’t hear the squealing of the tires on Mr. Rodney Dunn’s baby blue ’64 Mustang convertible as it slammed on breaks in a belated attempt to slow down so as not to hit the big stop sign that we have in the middle of the road here in the middle of town. That car skidded for about fifteen feet, which seems like a long ways unless you’re in a car going 40 miles an hour and you need to stop real quick and your car definitely does not have anti-lock breaks.

Fifteen feet certainly was not enough room for Mr. Rodney Dunn’s baby blue ’64 Mustang convertible. It ran up the side of the decorative grassy knoll that the big stop sign was set in, ran right over the pretty little petunias that Miss Opal Mae Pritchard plants there every spring, and hit the bottom of the sign just right (or just wrong, if you ask me) so that instead of bending up and falling over, it popped right out of the ground, flew back over the length of the car, and landed not 2 feet in front of me on the sidewalk. This event sure woke me up, and rather rudely at that.

In fact, what it really did was get my dander up. Now, I am a very nice person. Too nice, maybe. And very quiet. I hardly ever get good and riled up. But having my person threatened with imminent injury all because some idiotic 50-year-old drunk playboy couldn’t remember that for the last twenty years, there’s been a big damn stop sign in the middle of the road in the middle of town because he was too drunk at seven o’clock in the morning while I was out for a quiet morning stroll before the weather got too hot and the townspeople with their incessant chattering and sideways glances emerged to look at me strangely and titter about my abnormal height and even more abnormal silence - well, that just pushed me over the edge with absolutely no warning. Maybe it was the humidity.

Whatever it was (Daddy would say it was the devil, with a wicked grin), it caused me to recover from the shock of it all rather quickly and light upon Mr. Rodney Dunn like a duck on June bug. A real mean, nasty duck. That poor stupid drunk man hadn’t even staggered from his car yet, hadn’t even opened up his door before I was over there, scrambling up the decorative grassy knoll, right through Miss Pritchard’s pansies and up to his car. I leaned down and beat on the driver’s side window, screaming like a banshee. I don’t know what was coming out of my mouth, but Moses said later it sure wasn’t words. Maybe it was the devil.

When Mr. Rodney Dunn didn’t respond, I took it upon myself to yank open his car door and pull him out by his collar. Mr. Rodney Dunn was a big man, well, bigger than me at least, and I’m a fairly big girl (big in the tall sense, not so much in the wide sense, although I’m not skinny, but I’m certainly not fat or even big-boned, just not delicate and petite like the rest of the women in our family.) But I had superhuman strength, or superhuman righteous indignation, anyway, and he slid right out of the car and onto the grassy knoll. I stood over him with my hands on my hips and nudged him not too lightly in the ribs with my sandal.

“What in the hell are you doing, you stupid %*%$## drunk?”

I don’t know what other cuss words I said because Moses wouldn’t tell me, not because he didn’t want to foul my virgin ears but because he didn’t want to embarrass me by reminding me what horrible things I called Mr. Rodney Dunn, words I’m not even supposed to know, and in front of half the town, no less, since Moses and most everyone else that lived on Main Street had heard the crash and was standing outside on their porches watching the festivities. Daddy would have told me, but every time I thought to bring it up (it’s hard to remember these things in your dreams, you know) he would start to tell me and then he’d get to thinking about it and start laughing so hard that he couldn’t talk. And I’d get so mad at him laughing at me that I would wake up myself up with the pouting.

So anyway, there I was, in the middle of the decorative grassy knoll, standing over Mr. Rodney Dunn, calling him unspeakable things, nudging him from time to time with the end of my sandal, and him just laying there like a bloated dead mule, when up runs Parker Jean Dailey. She was Mr. Rodney Dunn’s girlfriend, well, that week anyway, since he liked variety in his life. She was full of bright hopes for their love, certain that this time will be different, certain she will be the one that finally catches and keeps hold of this slippery little bachelor that’s worth so much money. Maybe she was thinking that she could outrun him and pin him down, since she was considerably younger than him. She was my age, which was twenty-five then, to his fifty-something, not that there is anything at all wrong with that. May-December relationships can be very rewarding, just ask my mama, who was nearly thirty years younger than my daddy and she married him not for his money, because he was a middle-class mechanic, but for his ‘erudite charm, dapper good looks and other grand manly attributes,’ as she told me on my wedding day with a wink. That is something I happily could have gone to the grave without knowing about my daddy, but what can you do?

So Parker Jean comes running up, hands a-flapping like she was getting set to take off into the wild blue yonder, squealing so loud it made me stop my screaming and turn and look.

“Oh, my poor little Rodney baby! Get away from him! Get away from my Rodney baby, you creepy little freak!” she screeched, pushing me out of the way, causing me to trip and fall face first onto the grassy knoll, into a mud slick created by the skidding tires of the baby blue ’64 Mustang, my waist length, natty, blond hair splayed out around the head of Mr. Rodney Dunn, right as he opened his mouth and threw up what appeared to be lentil soup.

It was all too much for me. I nearly had been killed by a rampaging drunk, I had been slandered in front of all of Main Street, I had been pushed down into the mud, and now, I had been puked on. And Parker Jean was responsible for three out of four, which were bad odds for her.

I tossed my head, splattering vomit all over Parker Jean, who was kneeling at the side of Mr. Rodney Dunn, patting his head like she was Florence Nightingale or some such nonsense. She made a little noise of disgust, which was quickly followed by a scream of horror as I leapt over the head of Mr. Rodney Dunn and right on top of her.

I straddled her ample bosom, grabbed a big handful of her impossibly jet-black air, and began methodically pounding her head into the grassy knoll. It was strangely soothing, and I soon got into a comfortable rhythm. I might have killed her, and then been arrested, followed by a jury trial by my peers, who already thought I was an odd duck, and undoubtedly convicted due to the testimony of 50 credible witnesses, all of whom were standing on their porches watching the entire incident take place (but not interfering, mind you), and sentenced to certain death for first degree murder as everyone would say that I was so calm about the whole matter that I likely had been planning it for sometime and that I never liked Parker Jean anyway (which was true, but it didn’t mean I wanted to kill her). This would have been my sorry fate if Moses had not intervened.

I didn’t even know someone had come up behind me, as I was so into my work at that point, but I suddenly had the sensation of levitating above the scene. I froze, puzzled. My fingers uncurled and Parker Jean’s head fell back with a soft thud into the muddy indention it had created during my pummeling. A strong and binding force (that incidentally smelled like fresh mown grass) enveloped me. A deep voice whispered in my ear.

“Sugar, you aren’t going to be able to beat any sense into her, so you might as well stop now.”

That’s pure Moses. He doesn’t ever get upset, even under dire circumstances like these. He makes quiet observations and precise little jokes, which is why Mama likes him as much as Daddy does. Plus his dapper charm. I haven’t told Mama about his grand manly attributes, because frankly, that is none of her business.

And that is how Moses saved my life. Instead of going to the electric chair, I got to go home. Carried by Moses, even, because I think he was afraid if he put me down, I would run back over and start beating Parker Jean, who was still passed out from the shock of seeing the quietest girl in town turn into a raging madwoman. She got over it and suffered no discernible damage to her cranium (although Dr. Peacock did tell Moses later that it was a good thing the ground was soft or else Parker Jean would have been a bloody mess and by the way, he’d advise him not to make me angry, since you know it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Moses told me this with the cutest little evil grin on his face, like he was going to bust a gut trying not to laugh, ‘cause he knew that would make me mad. Which is more than I can say for Daddy. I thought it was good of Moses to restrain himself for my sake.)

No one in town ever brought up this incident in front of me, I think because they were probably afraid I might snap and jump them like I had Parker Jean. Bettie Sue Dimmesdale made the mistake of bringing it up to my mother at the beauty parlor, saying I had seemed like such a nice girl, not the type to try and beat a poor young woman like Parker Jean into a bloody pulp. My mother countered that Parker Jean had it coming to her, calling someone else a nasty name when she was a money-grubbing little slut shacking up with the biggest drunk in the Tri-County area. Well, Bettie Sue shut up real quick and no one ever mentioned it to my mother again.
I don’t talk about it much. I haven’t thought to bring it up to Daddy in a while, since I enjoy our conversations so much I don’t want to wake up from them. Moses doesn’t remind me of it, either, but when someone asks me what’s the most romantic thing he’s ever done for me, I tell them. Moses saved my life.

Blog Angst

2005-10-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

I hardly ever update this blog, and really, it doesn't matter because no one I know reads it. No one I know even knows I have a blog, except for my boyfriend, and I don't think he reads it. And really, that's okay, because when I do blog, I don't have to worry about being witty and erudite, because no one is going to read it.

So my newest dilemma is twofold. I have been toying with the idea of blogging my NaNo novel this year as a preventitive measure against procrastination. That, and Roof has been bugging me about reading the first year's novel for the last two years, and I figured that this way she could read as I go along (and help nag me to get things done, since she's that kind of supportive friend and one of the few people on this earth who could get away with gently nagging me and not get a right hook for her trouble.)

Problemo Numero Uno: I am sorely afraid that the idea of people (even one person) reading my novel on a day-to-day basis will completely shut me down creatively. One of the problems I had last year was not knowing where the plot was going as it was veering severely off the track. I couldn't put my brain aside and and just write. If I know someone else might be reading it going, "What the fuck? Where in the hell did THAT come from?" I might spend forever spell-checking and editing and sweating over 10 words instead of cranking out 50k.

Problem B: (Don't you love it when people start a list with numbers and finish the very same list with letters or vice-versa? It drives me batty! Completely insane!) If I do blog my novel, do I link to this blog? And if I do, can I ever feel free to say what's on my mind again? Now, honestly, all the people that might read this blog if it were linked to my novel blog are probably people that like (or tolerate) me already (friends, folks from the NaNo group, friends from the NaNo group.) I'm not worried about offending anyone. I am, however, extremely frightened of appearing stoopid.

I know, it's, well, stoopid, but I can't help it! I know people who are intelligent and amusing and urbane all the time, and I admire them greatly, but I am not one of them. I am amazed at the skill that many people have in what I call 'skillful small talk', which isn't always about the weather and those incredible/awful "insert the name of the local sports team here," but are more often about asking probing ( but not too personal) questions that get you talking about yourself and feeling really interesting or are about telling fascinating, yet slightly deprecating, stories about (mis) adventures that s/he has recently experienced. I must have been in the dessert line when this skill was passed out, because I can hardly ever think of something interesting to say off the cuff, and when I do, oftentimes it turns out not to be interesting, but deadly stoopid, as evidenced by the embarrassed silence of my audience shortly following the culmination of my tale. So I have learned to try to nod my head and say "How interesting!" to those around me instead of trying to be the interesting one.

But if people can see my terminal non-interestingness here, in print, archived for all eternity...I'm doomed!

The solution of every problem is another problem.
-Goethe

Oh, my head...

2005-10-13T20:52:00.000-04:00

I have had it with financial reports. I have had it with Excel. I have had it with my shitty work computer, which crashed halfway through one of the 4 reports that I was working on at 7pm tonight. One of the 4 reports that was due at noon today. Oh well. At least my boss didn't have hers ready, either. Hooray.

Good thing we have the fabulous State Fair on the schedule for this weekend. There's nothing that a corn dog and a ride on the Big Slide won't fix.

Nothing grew and I still hate my job.

2005-10-06T22:16:00.000-04:00

We managed to harvest approximately 9 cherry tomatoes and a handful of hot peppers. Everything else was viciously consumed by a mysterious yet frightfully efficient parasite who sucked our tomatoes dry while they were still freshly green and ate my pimento and bell pepper plants before they even had the chance to fruit. Oh, veggies, we hardly knew ye.

But there's always next year.

In other news, I still hate my job. I have fantasies of quitting and working late nights at the naughty bookstore in the Taj Mahtittie complex. "Yes, I recommend the Dr. Johnson small butt plug and the economy size jar of Anal-eze for someone just starting out with anal play."

Finally, a job I could feel passionate about....

De Plant, De Plant!

2005-06-06T20:47:00.000-04:00

I know, that was so bad it's not even worth mentioning how bad it was.

My first flower is growing...I think. I planted some lily bulbs about 3 weeks ago, and the first one I planted has sprung up some green stuff. Of course, the other 8 I planted are still in hiding, not counting the 4 that are in the planter with the gladiola. They aren't coming up for air yet, either. But at least one made it above ground. Now if it will just grow and flower.

I've only killed 2 watermelon plants so far. Unfortunately, that's all the watermelon we planted. The torrential rain here last week crushed the watermelon plants, but curiously, the canteloupe plant looks untouched. And the peppers and tomatoes are shooting up like weeds. Speaking of, we haven't seen many unwelcome plants so far, save for that crazy groundcover that has completely overtaken our furthest plot. We've decided against planting anything we actually want to live back there, as it would probably be choked to death pretty quickly. Even the hardy rosemary likely would not make it. You will be assimilated...

Our 2005 Family World Tour continued last weekend in Raleigh with another wedding. We also had business with the ex and visits with both groups of friends (his and mine) squooshed in for good measure. It's all about multi-tasking. This weekend, we have the dinner/concert that our group won at work, but at least we will be in town. Which reminds me, I have GOT to get a sitter...

I really should blog about the show, but I don't think words can do it justice (although my friends have had to suffer through an email or two about my shining 15 minutes of fame...) But a picture might just do the trick. Let me see if I can figure out how to post it.

I was going to go to WalMart tonight and get a bike lock so I can stop procrastinating and start biking to work...but I think I'll just do it tomorrow.

Hey, at least I finally mowed the grass tonight, okay?

Which reminds me of one plant we left off the garden list... damn.

Happy Fucking Mother's Day

2005-05-05T21:03:00.000-04:00

It has occurred to me that no one in my immediate family seems to remember that I'm a mommy, now, too.

I mean, it has only been 2 years, so I guess I can understand if they forget. I didn't really expect anything last year, it being the first year and all, and being a single mom, there's not really anyone to buy a gift for me, well, except for my mom, and then there's my boyfriend (but he gets off the hook for last year since we had only been dating 6 months, and hey, I don't think he'd ever dated a mommy before), oh, and then there's the FATHER OF MY CHILD!

But this year, I was kinda hoping that someone might say, "Hey, Mommy of that small child over there, what would you like to do for Mother's Day? What kind of gift would you like? Would you like to go out to eat? What can we do for you, you Mommy person?" But, no. Instead, we're cooking dinner at our house, and I don't even think anyone wants to come. My great-granny is pissed that we're not coming to see her. My mom is getting pissy about sharing holidays with my boyfriend's family. And truth be told, they probably are tired of sharing with my crazy family, too, although they are way too polite to say it. And I get the feeling that they aren't psyched about coming this weekend, as they kept making references to 'letting them know if we really still wanted to do it, because if we didn't that would really be fine...'

I know, I know, if I wasn't so passive-aggressive, I would say, "Hey, what I want to do for Mother's Day is go out to eat and then go get my nails done and go shopping all by myself, then come home and take a long bath and a nap. Y'all can come if you want, and if not, well, so be it." But, no, of course, I'm trying to make everyone happy but myself, which is making no one happy in the end.

Sigh. Will I ever learn? I tell myself I'm being selfish if I put what I want to do first sometimes, but in the end, it's more selfish to play the martyr in my head, 'cause it tends to leak out and make me seems terribly irritable, which makes other folks very uncomfortable. Biting the bullet and doing my own thing would be like ripping a Bandaid off- painful at first, especially when everyone else is bitching, but it's over quickly and you feel much better afterwards.

One of these days I'll take my own advice.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde

PMS- Pre Midlife Syndrome

2005-04-26T21:03:00.000-04:00

I am fat and ugly and boring and horny and I hate my job.

No, I'm not a 47 year old man, I'm a 27 year old woman.

I understand why the stereotypical middle-aged man decides to chuck the Caravan and trade up to a Corvette, in literal and metaphorical terms- he wants to feel alive again. (Yeah, we all saw American Beauty, get on with it...) I feel like a condemned man many days- rush to work, only to spend nine and a half hours in a state of agitation and frustration doing mind-numbing, terribly non-creative work, come home, feed, bathe and entertain the wee one, put him to bed, bitch about work, eat dinner, fall asleep in front of the couch, get up late, rush to work...sometimes I just want to go lay on the railroad tracks and put myself out of my misery! (No, I'm not prone to melodrama, why do you ask?)

Well, I guess that's not totally true. I like the people I work with for the most part, I just don't enjoy the office politics and pointy headed management style of my middle manager (the VP is great, but he's not my direct contact...and Ms. Middle Manager is personally very nice, but as a manager, she is a clueless nitpick- knows very little about the actual dept, but knows a lot about how we should all be treated like factory workers, punching a virtual time clock and focused on speedy production vs productive, fulfilling work.) I think about moving into a different field with the same company that will pay much more, but would require a few years of study. Part of me says, Yeah, go for it! Make the big bucks! Who cares if you don't like it or it takes a few years- show me the money, honey! And another part of me says, Well, what about the Great American Novel? Do you really think you're cut out to be a business woman? And do you even want to be?

As far as my immediate family, I really do enjoy the company of Little Guy and Big Guy, both, it's just that we're all so busy doing stuff, getting ready, going places, that it seems like we have precious little time to actually hang out with each other and catch up, to talk, to play...I enjoy being a Mom more than I ever thought was possible, and that's probably the least stressful part of my life right now. (I know, I hear you saying, wait until he hits 13...but for now, he's a darling.) Little Guy is talking and emoting and not hanging off my titties anymore, so once we get him out of the diapers for good, it will be all gravy until he starts having wet dreams. And the Relationship is going well, we get along fabulously as roomates and friends. He helps take care of Little Guy, and I know he really loves him (and vice versa, as Little Guy has taken to calling him Daddies...) It's just that Big Guy and I spend so much time working and bitching about work and being drained that it takes a lot of energy away from...well...other things. But if we don't unload, then it's hard for either one of us to relax. But it's hard for me to relax someitmes without...well...you know...and when it doesn't happen, I feel rejected...I feel kinda fat and ugly already, since I almost weight what I did when I popped out Little Guy and I am too pooped to get off my lazy, fat, ugly ass to start exercising, so I am completely wasting the seventy bucks I spend on a YMCA membership every month! Especially since Little Guy *still* hasn't learned how to swim!

But I'm not bitter.

Whose fault is it anyway? Our capitalist society, with its focus on do more, earn more, buy more, be more ad infinitum? Or is it my fault for focusing on only the bad stuff? I try to remind myself that it's just work, and I need to leave it there, and I need to be fully present with my family and do sweet things for them, and I need to stop blaming others for my hangups about my body, and not allow myself to be victimized by my circumstances, which aren't all that bad anyway, etc...and it's really not working. I feel this overarching sense of pervasive ennui, and it's clouding my vision of the foreseeable future. Is this all there is? A sort of acceptance that could be called contentment, but probably not happiness? I know you can't feel like sunshine and roses all the time, but still....I feel like something is missing.

If it's not that my child is not fulfilling enough, or my partner is not perfect, or my job is not interesting...then I guess it's just me. Is this what it's like to be a grownup? Funny, I was thinking there was something more.

It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint while the body still perseveres.
Marcus Aurelius

The Consultation Part

2005-02-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, so up to this point, this site has been totally my Ruminations. Well, ruminations might be too strong a word to use. Some might call it rambling. Some might call it stream of consciousness. Some might call it diarrhea of the mouth.

But, for the sake of fair advertising, I will provide some Consultation resources for your edification. Now, since I rarely consult with anyone myself, as I like to make my mistakes all my my lonesome, I don't have much in the way of advice that I have received recently to relay to you. Also, as much as I avoid asking for advice, I avoid giving it ten times more strongly, so I definitely don't have much advice to give you. I think the following three items pretty much encompass the knowledge I feel competent to pass on to you in good faith:

1. Ingesting cat food, either dry or regurgitated, will not irreparably harm your toddler.
2. Curry tastes great, but neither smells good before you cook it or after you eat it.
3. Masturbating frequently will not make you blind or cause hair to grow on your palms. In fact, it might keep you from gouging someone's eyes out.

Given that I am not personally a good source of advice, below are some reputable or at least interesting sources for you, Gentle Reader:

www.loveadvice.com
Straightforward (and often hilariously plain-spoken) advice from Dr. Tracy. Don't ask her if you don't want her to call it like she sees it. The Love Library is great, especially if you want to remind yourself that your love life could be fucked up way, way worse.

www.goaskalice.columbia.edu
Can BDSM be part of a normal relationship? For the answer to this and other pressing questions, go ask Alice! (Hint: Columbia has a BDSM student group. Now, that's where I should have gone to college.)

www.vegporn.com
Wondering why you should go vegetarian or even vegan? These nubile, partially nekkid young things can give you a few good reasons. My favorite: "Because I'll give you head."

So there. Don't say I never gave you anything.

I've Got a Big Butt and I Cannot Lie

2005-02-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

You other brothas can't deny, When a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in yo face-

Oops. Did I sing that out loud? I was having a Sir Mix a Lot moment. But hey- who DOESN'T fucking love that song?

I do have a big butt though, and my comparatively itty bitty waist is much larger than it used to be. I was walking tonight at the Y, trying to get back into the exercise habit (I'm good at sticking to my bad habits, but not so great at even starting good ones...I say this as I drink my second beer...but I haven't had a cigarette tonight, so I'm doing well. And it's a well known fact that masturbation does not make you blind, so I don't consider that a bad habit either.) Anyway, the indoor track is on the second floor, and there are windows on two sides so that you can view beautiful downtown G'boro. Well, seeing as how it was 7pm, the windows acted not like windows, but rather like mirrors. While hustling down my lane, feeling good about lappinjg 2 gossiping women and a slow fat guy, I looked up into the mirror and was faced with a fact so startling I completely lost whatever momentum I had achieved in my 5 minutes of speedwalking when I realized that "My God- I have a bubble butt."

Now, let me explain that I think bubble butts are cute as hell on other women. I know it sounds stereotypical (because it is), but African-American women seem to carry off the bubble butt quite well, especially along with a sassy personality, a nice rack, and some tight pants. It is an asset, pardon the pun. It is not viewed as an asset on dorky, flat-chested, pasty white chicks in Buddy Holly glasses. Not for the first time in my life, I wish I was not white. Black people just seem to have more fun. Please don't stone me for that remark~ think about this- have you ever enjoyed going to church? It can be like pulling teeth at its best. Now think about all the black church programs you have ever seen on Sunday morning TV. Now if they can make going to church fun, just think how much fun they're having at a club on Saturday night, luscious bubble booties bouncing, while us fat white girls sit home and worry about our cellulite? And our white men would never think to tell us how much they just love our ample derriers, because, truth be known, they probably don't. They just say stuff like, "Oh, it's not that big," and then they won't touch it. But there's a whole song, written by an African-American guy, devoted to big asses. You can't tell me they don't have more fun. If they can make going to church fun, and proclaim the wonders and beauty of a set a large buttocks, then they are having more fun than 99.9% of the white people I know.

These dreams

2005-02-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

I have some fucked up dreams.

There's no other way to say it. I've had the usual dreams- naked dreams (naked at school, naked at Wal-Mart, naked at Church), flying dreams (flying like a bird, flying like a fairy, flying really, really high, man- wait, that one was real...), screwing dreams (screwing someone you want to screw, like a movie star or your boyfriend or your girlfriend, and screwing someone you definitely don't want to screw, like your mom/dad/favorite furry animal).

But I also have some very unusual dreams. A recent selection includes a series of dreams in which I was traveling with my boss' boss (our VP). They weren't sex dreams at all, but implicit in the dream was that we were traveling as intimate companions, even though we are both happily ensconsed in relationships and have children. One of these dreams involved visiting a nightclub/zoo at which we saw tiny baby monkeys the size of your thumbnail get scattered like so many marbles and a foot-long flying green worm with dark spectacles and a top hat who delighted in attacking me by air whle everyone else laughed uproariously.

Lots of my dreams end with everyone else in the dream having a great deal of fun at my expense. I think I'm a little paranoid about people not liking me. After being married to someone whose chief thrill in life seemed to be to criticize everything about me, this is not a shock. However, in his defense, I have to say, I had that issue before we met. He just developed it. And even after being involved in other relationships, friendly and romantic, in which I felt loved and safe and appreciated and interesting and not completely stupid, ugly, inane and irrelevant, I still apparently can't shake this fear of being completely unlovable. Perhaps, deep down, I'll always feel inadequate, unworthy of affection, liable to be abandoned at any moment by those I love most, just as my parents abandoned me physically and emotionally in my childhood.

On the other hand, maybe psychoanalysis of dreams is all bunk. Maybe dreams are just psychic waste and waking up is like flushing the crapper, except I obviously have a problem with my flapper, because my shit keeps swirling around in my bowl instead of washing away.

Or maybe I just think way too much.

Such is life...

2005-02-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

In my previous post, I was bemoaning the fact that there were just too many things to do on February 12 that it was difficult to decide which one I really wanted to do.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

We ended up not doing ANY of them since we couldn't get a babysitter. Foolish of me to think that Grammy might want to babysit for one night, especially right around Valentine's Day. It's okay though. We ended up exchanging presents and falling asleep in front of the TV at 830pm. Ah, romance.

I got a promotion. Now I'm getting paid very slightly more to do the same job I've been doing for6 months, and I won't get paid overtime since they've made me an exempt employee. And since that entails more reponsibility, I am expected (but not explicitly told) to stay later than the regular quittin' time, since all the other exempt employees do. And I have so much work that I have to stay if I even want to make a dent in it. And of course, Little Dude is down with the fearsome and incredibly contagious PINK EYE this week, so I'm going to miss at least 2 days of work! I had to drop by yesterday for what was supposed to be 15 minutes but turned into an hour and a half just to check on some things...I really don't get paid enough for this. They've told me that I should ask my boss to get set up for access at home, but I don't think that's a great idea. I can just hear it now- You aren't finished with that yet? That's okay, you can work on it tonight at home and have it done first thing in the morning! Fuck. That. I'll just tell them that we eschew technology in our home for the sake of meditative solitude, and that we don't even have a microwave, much less a computer. Well, the microwave part is true.

I need a vacation. It's only February and I've already had to use 5 vacation days for Little Dude's sicknesses. I don't see a vacation happening, unless I come down with pnuemonia or some other fearsome acute illness that causes me to be hospitalized. That might be my only chance for days off. Hmmm...lying about all day, watching the tube, receiving sympathetic calls and possibly flowers from dear friends, getting all my meals delivered in bed...if it wsan't for the bedpans and the hospital food, it would sound incredibly appealing.

I'm not any closer to getting my guitar yet, but I did get 4 DNC CDs! I can listen to them and practice my air guitar now! Hell yeah!

Add It Up...more random shit.

2005-01-23T02:21:00.000-05:00

Ah, the Violent Femmes...brings back memories of being young and irritable. Seriously though, was there ever a better 'Fuck You' song than 'Kiss Off'? I think not.

I bought 4 DNC albums off half.com today, to flesh out my collection. Since the D-I-V-O-R-C-E, I have been woefully DNC deficient, excpet for some complilations, but I am rectifying that problem. It's still hard to get Whisper Tames the Lion and Scarred but Smarter, but one can keep trying.

WHY, oh why, do Jason Isbell, Thad Cockrell, and Kickin Grass all have to be playing on the self-same night (2/12/05)? This is terribly unfair. Yes, Isbell is playing at The Garage, which is just in Winston. Cockrell, who I haven't seen in two, count 'em, two years, is in CHill. Kickin Grass is in Raleigh, but despite my longing to see Thad and my newfound interest in Jason Isbell/DBT, I happen to know one of the dudes in Kickin Grass and he's an old friend, plus my sweetie hasn't had a chance to hear them play live, or meet said friend, so I am really leaning towards that option.

All of which, of course, rests on whether we can get a sitter. So all of this musing may very well be a moot point. Yes, it was easier pre-child, but then again, it wasn't as interesting.

I am dreaming of a Seagull S6...now I need to hear how it actually sounds...hard when you can't just walk into a store and pick one up and play it, huh? It's particularly distressing that I live less than 3 blocks from an authorized dealer, and I can't just walk over and pick one up...it's a paradox- I know what guitar I think I want to learn to play on, but until I learn how to play, I can't really just walk in and pick one up. Sigh.

Oh, dear

2005-01-21T23:40:00.000-05:00

Blogthings - You Are 27 Years Old

You Are 27 Years Old

27

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

I don't know how I should feel about this...I mean, I'm glad I don't act, say 72, but I feel fairly mature, and 32 isn't looking all that bad to me right now...I guess...I act my age.

Oh, God! Save me now!

Death to Losers!

2005-01-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

Yet another way to waste time...

Wx Plotter Fun Tests - Fatal Quiz (aka Death Test)

Only 43 more years? I guess if I'm a loser, I should be glad that I'm not living any longer.

Let's Be Honest

2005-01-20T15:39:00.000-05:00

I've always said that if I was as richer than God, or say, Oprah, I would be in the shape of perfection. I would have a personal trainer haul my fat ass out of bed at 6am and whip me into shape, I'd have a personal chef to cook me delicious, yet low-fat food, and I'd have a personal tailor to design and create kickin' clothes to show off my fabulous figure.

Actually, if I were that rich, I'd lay around all day and eat rich ethnic food, cooked to order by a stable of authentic native chefs kidnapped from the 4 corners of the Earth, sold into culinary slavery, and bought by me, me, me. They would be on-call 24/7, whipping up Chicken Korma at 1am, Pho for breakfast, tamales for lunch...I would then nap on my ultra-luxe sheets in my huge TempurPedic bed, surrounded by down pillows, only to wake up in the wee small hours of the evening and be carried to the clawfooted, three and a half foot deep jacuzzi bath by my seven barely legal, toned, taut and tanned Swedish houseboys, who would lovingly caress and massage each and every pit of cellulite and fat. Then my slightly older but still incredibly virile, intellectual but not snooty, tall, dark, and handsome (but not pretty) lover would make sweet, sweet love down by the fire to my soft, pale, doughy body, all the while telling me how he loves a 'real' woman with plenty of curves. Then we would order some steak frites from the Frenchy cook we keep tied up in the basement.

I would NOT be out running the Marine Corps marathon. I would not be able to bounce a quarter off my abs. I would not have a 6 pack, except in the specially made built in fridge under my nightstand, and that would be fresh selections from my personal brewery. I would probably be fat, but I would absolutely not give a tinkham damn.

Am I too old? Too old to do the things I've dreamed about doing, anyway. Not anything like climbing Mt Everest, becoming a rocket scientist, or winning Miss America. I have slightly more modest dreams. I'd like to finish a good novel (writing it, not reading it, which if I didn't do so much of, I might have time to write my own...reading's an addiction, I know, but it's slightly less expensive than coke.) I'd like to learn to play golf. I'd like to learn to play the guitar. These are all things that I've wanted to do for 3-15 years now, and I feel I would probably gain much pleasure form all 3. So why don't I just do it? Well, you know, there's never enough time, and there things going on, and there's the Kid, and work, and, and, and, and, and....I'm lazy and scared. Too lazy to get my shit together and make time in my admittedly busy schedule to do something for myself, because if I did it, I'd have to stop dreaming and wanting and bitching about it. And too scared, because what if I did it and was no good at it? Then I would know and I couldn't have the fantasy about what my life would have been like if I did it. And then, even worse, what if I did it and was good at it and ENJOYED it? That's scary. What would I do if there were no barriers to happiness? And are there any now, really, other than the chains of my own mind?

Hey, wait a minute. This is getting way too deep, and I don't have my waders. I'm not prepared to deal with self-help existential angst today without feeling nauseated.

So let's talk about the guitar I think I want. Seagull S6. Great reviews, good resale potential, solid construction. The problem is that I know how I want my guitar to sound, but I can't play yet (that's why I'm BUYING a guitar, duh), so how do I go about purchasing one without getting totally ripped off, looking like a total ignoramus, or both? There are also some good deals on EBay, but I am wary about buying a guitar online and having it shipped from Kalamazoo sight unseen...what if something is wrong with it? Even if $200 is a fucking awesome deal, it's all for naught if you get merch that isn't what was advertised...or am I just trying to create more roadblocks to my bliss???

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Make it stop, make it stop! Get the New Age therapist out of my head!

Must go read Goats archives now...

www.goats.com

Sigh. Much better now. There's nothing that Satanic chickens and randy goats won't cure.

Random

2005-01-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

Winter in the Nethlerlands...is so delightful...???

WTF? Why is it that so many alt-country/Americana/folk/southern rock/whatever the hell you call it artists I want to see decide to take lengthy tours in Northern Europe in February and March? Yes, it IS 15 degrees in Greensboro today, but hey, we're lower in latitude than the freaking Netherlands! I mean, what do they have in the Netherlands besides war-crime tribunals and weeee...d. Oh. Nevermind.

Couldn't put my finger on it...

So The Kid went potty for the first time ever last night! Hooooray! I went in the bathroom to do something (pop a zit, I think) and Little Dude followed me. We got the potty down Monday night and he had a big time sitting on it, but nothing happened. Well, last night, he followed me in and started yanking his pants down. We got 'em down around his ankles, and he plopped down on the potty with this big ole smile. I said in that silly sweet Mommy voice, "Do you have to do something?" And he smiled even bigger and started to pee...all over the bathroom rug. Being a life-long girl, it never occurred to me that dudes can't just plop down on the pot and let 'er rip. You gotta hold that thang down, so you don't pee all over the rug. Learn something new every day, that's what I always say, and it was definitely true last night. After I related this story at work, a co-worker told me to just show him how to put his finger on his wee-wee to hold it down so he pees in the potty. Oh. So that's how you guys do it when you sit down. Hmmm. Never noticed that before. So, of course, I wondered how many drunk guys have peed on their bathroom rug because they were too drunk to remember to hold their wee-wee down when they drunkenly sat down to pee because they were too drunk to stand up and do it? Does this ever happen? I wonder.

Quoth the raven...

Coming to the Nevermore film festival in Durham this weekend, to see some gothic/horror films. Of course, once you've seen the product of the awesome and terrible Rotovirus, nothing can ever scare you again. Trust me. Two words for you- Neon Green. Eeeeewww. And on that note...

Have a blessed day! (yeah, nice sentiment, but if one more telemarketer tells me that, I'm going to bless something other than their heart, catch my drift?)

Luv,
MH

Warning- this site could be addictive

2005-01-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

www.deadlounge.com

The Goth-O-Matic poetry generator, guaranteed to help you wile away at least 10 minutes in complete silliness. This is especially amusing if you or those you love are former denizens of the dark side of high school freakiness known as Goths (aka 'The ____ Mafia- every high school had one, long before wacked out kids started mowing down their classmates. And most Goths I knew were waaaaay too disaffected to even care about their fellow students enough to go to the trouble of doing anything more than give them withering looks. Freaks have gotten a bad name over the past few years, which disturbs me. If a couple of cheerleaders had brough automatic rifles to school and gone on a rampage, you wouldn't see high schools banning cheering squads or sending Muffy and Peaches to counseling, but try wearing a black trenchcoat to school and looking surly...)

Where did that soapbox come from? So sorry about that...

Anyway, here's my latest Goth-O-Matic masterpiece. Go and create your own and then tell me you didn't laugh just a little bit.

death deserved

what have you wrought?
a miasma of agony as perceptions vanish.
once we savored bliss,
untainted and virginal,
but your thirst shrank.
a deadened pool of bitterness -
tears follow memory, follow pain,
love bled dry.
in a haze of hatred,
i still love you.

Hell fucking yeah!

2005-01-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

I don't know who all came up with the idea of a Caitlin/Kevn/Jason show, but they have my undying gratitude. What a fucking awesome show. I should write a proper review, but after today's work, my brain might explode unless I consume another generous G&T fairly shortly. So just take my word for it until later.

I would like to personally thank Caitlin, Kevn, and Jason for being gracious enough to happily sign the t-shirt I bought for my ultra-cool, unbelievably sweet man who had to stay home with The Kid. (This falls under the heading HOW TO BE THE BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD.) Of course, at that point in the evening, judging from the relaxed smiles and empty glasses, they probably would have signed a pizza box for me and not known the difference. I do love people who know how to enjoy themselves.

I will say that I can't wait to hear the rest of Caitlin's new album with Thad Cockrell. The only possible way that the show could have been improved upon is if he were on stage with them, but the dude singing backup for Caitlin did an admirable job (did she call him Big Bartholomew? I have seen him around in years past, doing sound for The Brewery and I think playing in another band...)

I also need to pick up Kevn's new album (The Sun Tangled Angel Revival), but I knew that already.

What did surprise me was how much I enjoyed Jason Isbell, of the Drive By Truckers. I've noticed that band name before on music schedules for certain venues, but never heard much about their music or been tempted to go hear them play sight unseen (would that be aurally unknown?) as it were. Well, slap my ass and call me Charlie if that boy can't sing and write songs. (And if anyone really wants to slap my ass, let it be known I prefer to be called "Naughty Girl" while you're doing it, not Charlie. Nothing wrong with Charlie, it's a very nice name and I have known a couple of exceedingly nice people named Charlie, it's just not a turn on for me. To be called Charlie, that is. I'm sure that there are plenty of nice, attractive men named Charlie who might be able to turn me on, if I wasn't otherwise involved at the moment, so it's not like the name is a total deal breaker or anything, I just don't want to be called Charlie myself.)

Hey, I told you upfront there would be digressions. Look at the top of the page. See?

So anyway, we should all go buy at least 2 new albums this week. I know I will.

On a final note, it was super fabulous awesome to see Jamie Dawson, Jamie's very nice sister-in-law whose name I don't remember because I am terrible with names, and Adam Lane. It has been waaaaay too long. I was very pleased to hear that Jamie's bluegrass band, Kickin' Grass, is doing smashingly, and that Brothers Grim is still around in a slightly different incarnation. Rock on.

My only regret is that I did not make Adam Lane tell me the story of "Lumber and the Terribly Hot Chicken Wings." It is my very favorite Adam Lane story, and Adam Lane has many good stories, so that is saying something. In fact, he is the only person I know besides me who seems to have a story for everything, and his were always much more amusing than mine. I have tried several times, usually after several delicious libations, to tell my boyfriend Jason this story, and I always fuck it up royally because I can hear Adam telling it in my head and it makes me laugh and then I don't get it right and I thoroughly confuse Jason and myself and end up laughing in a pathological fashion for many minutes. Anyway, if you happen to meet Adam Lane one day, make him tell you this story. It is fine.

Mid-Mid Life Crisis

2004-12-29T18:19:00.000-05:00

I think I must be having a mid-mid-life crisis. I spent my lunchtime
fantasizing about working at a job where I make a real difference to the world-
teaching high school.

Somebody just shoot me now.

I know better than to even daydream about this- I was married to a high school
teacher, for God's sake! 60+ hours a week, tons of red tape, parents from hell,
all this excitement can be yours and we'll pay you -this is the real kicker- $8
bucks an hour!!!! And that's in a wealthy school district!

Call me materialistic, but right now, the pull of better money for less hours
and more free time has definitely won out. But it's a nice thought.

However, if I'm in a cherry red Corvette the next time you see me, then it's time for an intervention.

Hell, yeah!!!

2004-12-28T22:31:00.000-05:00

For one night only (as far as I know), the fabulous Cailtin Cary and the amazing Kevn Kinney on stage, together, for 2 full sets, live at The Pour House!!!!! (Oh, and that guy from Drive By Truckers, too.)

Woooooo Fucking Hooooooo!

I already bought tickets and called the Baby Daddy to (hopefully) arrange some baby sitting, as he'll be shipping out to Kentucky at the end of January and needs to change as many diapers as possible before then. He was congenial, but unfortunately, he is having a bit of surgery the day before, and may be out of commission.

How To Be the Best Best Friend Ever:
I called my dearest bud just to tell her something else funny (a couple of high school friends/acquaintances have a band that is playing the same venue a couple of weeks later) and mentioned that we were coming to see the above band (without mentioning babysitting probs or anything) and she says, "Hey, just bring him (the Kid) by our house and we'll watch him." Totally nonchalant, out of the kindness of her heart. I am so lucky.

Of course, this will be our last resort, only if Baby Daddy and Crazy Grammy don't work out. Because it is a work night, and I love her so much.

Things Not to Mention at Xmas

2004-12-28T01:23:00.000-05:00

...besides politics and religion. Courtesy of my mother, who mentioned every single one this Xmas:

-Rape, yours or anyone else's.
-Toilet training, yours or anyone else's.
-Terminal diseases, your (imagined) ones or anyone else's.

How to be the best boyfriend's family ever:

-Comment, "Oh, really?" in a detached yet concerned voice to all of the above.

Not only do I love him, I love his family, too.

But as I mentioned to his brother, I think we'll just go to Vegas next year (and neglect to tell my mother.)

At least we're not Jewish, else she would've been at my house for 8 nights instead of just one day. (Praise Jesus!)

Happy Holidays!

A New Christmas Memory

2004-12-24T00:20:00.000-05:00

On the day before Christmas Eve, my mother gave to me...

12 sidelong glances
11 bitchy statements
10 'I hate Christmases'
9 hours of sighing
8 mini-migraines
7 'Nobody Loves Mes'
6 freaking guilt trips
5 totally unwanted pieces of advice on how to raise my chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild!
4 episodes of paranoia
3 'I don't cares'
2 'Fuck This'es
and a Nervous Breakdown outside of Target!!!!

Merry Fucking Xmas.

Christmas time is here...

2004-12-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

Houston, we have a Potty (Elmo, that is...black poop, Texas sized...)

Okay, that wasn't entirely funny. Actually, it wasn't funny at all, but if you know me, then you won't be surprised.

However, you MIGHT be surprised at how popular Potty Elmo is. For those of you who aren't hip and in the know, Potty Elmo is THE toy for chic toddlers this season. Elmo is decked out in a midriff baring tee and tighty whities, accessorized by a hospital foam green issue sippy cup and personal potty chair. The happenin' toddler gives Elmo a little somthin' somthin' from the sippy and in a blink of the eye, Elmo needs to go potty. Get Elmo to the potty in time and he sings a reward song. Don't, and fear the wrath of Poopy Elmo. Actually, he just says in a very pitiful voice, "Uh-oh- Elmo didn't make it to the potty in time." It makes me want to cry, it's so maudlin. Hopefully, it will make my toddler want to shit in the pot instead of in his pants.

Happy Holidays!

maddie who?

2004-12-17T00:53:00.000-05:00

Kevn Kinney
Macdougal Blues
"Last Song of Maddie Hope"

Go buy it now. You'll thank me later.