Talking to the Walls

Had a Dr. Who Dream Last Night, But that's Hardly the Point

2012-01-18T16:59:00.002-06:00

Last night I was driving to the cafe to do a bit of writing. It was dark, and now that I'm in Utah again, beautiful. Listening to songs from the official soundtrack to the piece I'm working on as I drive helps me get in the right frame of mind, so of course I was listening to the official soundtrack. The lights from the city make the sky glow and the trees are all skeletal black frames against the bright sky. It was a serene moment, but there was something missing.

Angst. Oh yeah. ANGST! Where has it all gone?

Then I realized, my son was born last June and so now there's always something to live for. He's this brightness in my life that pushes away all that crappy darkness that sometimes closed in on me. And that feeling of desolation was always worse during Utah winters. But now I am home, Utah is my land, and these are my people, here. I have a son and a husband and I don't have to feel that loneliness the harsh winters could always generate for me. Not anymore. Weird. I never thought, back in the day, that I could feel so much more lightness.

A brooding, black and white shot.

Corbet at 5.5 months. He gets handsomer every day. Handsomer?

Maybe it's just a result of fewer hormones, or maybe it really is that I have someone who needs me more than anyone has ever needed me before.

Having a baby is difficult, no questions there, but it's also the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Sometimes I feel like the Grinch, and just looking at Corbet makes my heart swell to ten times it's original size (I may have mentioned this before). Honestly, I wonder if it could ever make my chest burst, because it feels that way.

Speaking of this, I met this girl the other day who's about to have a baby. She's married, 24, and somehow, SOMEHOW, she's going to give the baby up for adoption. What?! No idea how this works or how someone makes a decision of this nature. I mean, I can imagine a couple of scenarios, but I can't understand how she could go to full term and, with a father for the baby nearby and everything, simply put him into someone else's hands.

I told her it was cool that she'd have the baby and everything, because that's better than the alternative (my opinion after having had my own), but wow. That's got to be crazy. All that effort. That time. That energy spent growing the baby, and boom, you give it away.

The only thing that made those nine months of hell worth it was to know that I'd have a baby at the end of it. I had no idea how it would feel to have a baby and everyone said, "You can't imagine how much you'll love him till you have him." And they were right. Now that I know better, there's no way I could have just given Corbet away.

In any case, here I am, old and without angst. But not without crazy passionate responses to the insanity of the world. Go figure. I'm exhausted already. I have no idea how I'm going to make it to ninety-four. Wish me luck!

Best Doctor ever. In a snowstorm. Wait. Is that Utah?

p.s. Had an awesome dream last night. Flying. Etc. And I was Rose Tyler for a bit, then the Tenth Doctor. And did I mention there was flying? And it was a new episode of Dr. Who with the Tenth Doctor. If I keep have awesome dreams like this, I might make it to be an old woman.

My Letter to My Senators and Congressional Representative

2012-01-18T13:18:00.001-06:00

I'm sending this to Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee as well as whoever my congress person is. The problem is that Hatch has always been a purveyor of these sorts of laws. He's made a few dollars with some albums I guess and feels that his stuff has been ripped off. Maybe. I don't know.

The point is that I'm doing it, not that they'll read it and take it into consideration. Can you just see them sitting there, pencil tapping bottom lip, thinking about what I've said? "Yes, hmmm, this Ms. Grotepas says some very VERY interesting things and makes some astounding points about free speech and the information highway."

Remember when the internet was called the information highway. Or was it a freeway? I can't remember. "Free love, on the free love highway! Hot love on the hot love highway!" Speaking of that awesome moment in The Office (UK) when David Brent sings his terrible songs, you all realize that Youtube would almost become a graveyard should this legislation pass? Yes. No more looking up clips of your favorite moments in any show just to refresh your memory, so you can go around throwing out timely quotes like the one I just did.

So in short, the legislation sucks. Here's my letter (it probably sucks too, but feel free to copy and paste if you don't want to write your own):

I'm writing in regards to the SOPA and PIPA legislation currently being reviewed by the Senate and House. Both of these are detrimental to the exchange of knowledge on a global scale. Passing them would essentially be censorship veiled as an attempt to protect intellectual property. Here's a statement by former senator Chris Dodd (this is what he said about sites like Wikipedia going dark to protest the bills): "Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging." The hypocrisy here is thick. What are our representatives who are pushing this legislation if not the pawns of huge corporations with money and power to lobby and push restrictions onto an otherwise free exchange of information? Also, who is this "all" he is talking about? All those with pockets full of cash to throw at lawmakers? Yes, because I think the voice of opposition is otherwise very loud and very clear. We as citizens, small and large business owners, and even creators of artistic content (I'm a writer and I share my writing online) do not want to see the internet restricted by Washington.

As one of your constituents, I would hate to see my representatives support a bill that I do not support. If I am one of the few who speaks up, please know there are thousands more who share my views but who have not taken the time to write.

Thanks,

Signed: Madame X

The Spectacular Decline of All that Is Holy

2012-01-04T23:06:00.000-06:00

So I just saw a piece on the terrible excuse for a talk-show, The View, about how any old average Joe can create porn in their homes and make a killing. I guess the segment is a teaser for another show on some network called Own, by some chick named Lucy Ling or the like. I usually never watch The View, partly because I don't relish morning talk shows, or afternoon talk shows to be fair (unless it's Ellen, but then, I always forget to tune in, don't I), and I especially loathe The View.

Frankly, as far as I've seen, there are never any views expressed on The View save complacency for the decadent ride into hell our country is taking (unless Whoopi's going on some rant wherein she displays her total lack of understanding for any serious issue, and it's never about the most pertinent points, like how the country's on a steady course for moral destruction). Honestly. To borrow a favorite phrase from the motherland across the pond, the country's going to the dogs.

The ONLY way the subject of Ms. Ling's segment is newsworthy is in fact to exhibit the total and utter lack of morals which our society possesses. Generally on this blog, I prefer to be somewhat tame in the expression of my values. You may laugh, because, well, because I'm probably always transparent and obvious. But let me just say, I usually hold back. Unfortunately, I'm a powder keg waiting for a spark and . . . . well, these days it seems there's a spark every day.

Anyway, is it surprising that a bunch of morally loose idiots are MAKING money by selling their sexuality on a camera in their bedroom? No. This has been going on for centuries. That's why it's not newsworthy. And hello? Does anyone out there have ANY standards these days? And by standards, I don't mean that you like to save the whales, though that is good to do, it's not going to save the humans from self-destruction. Well, it is, possibly, through preserving a salvageable eco-system. But there's more going on that's rotten in the state of Denmark than just animals being targets of poachers and the like.

The problem is selfishness and the reason the moral fabric of my society matters to me is because of, as Reverend Lovejoy's wife would say, "the children."

I love the Simpsons and it's for clever satire such as Reverend Lovejoy's wife obsessing about the children that I profess such admiration. She's always there to cry out at any mob gathering, like when a bear is in Springfield and the town is trying to decide what to do, "Who will think of the children!" It's the trump card. How can you be so heartless as to not care about the children?!? They're helpless!

I know, this all boils down to parents and how involved parents are in their children's lives. Parents should monitor what their kids are doing. Parents should be alert 24/7, they should ask questions, they should do thorough research, and essentially run a police-state in their home so their kids don't bump into porn on the computer, the laptop, the PS3, the Wii, the Xbox, the Kindle Fire, the Ipad, mom or dad's smart phone, the neighbors house, or in the ditch out back*, at school, on the street, in the mall, in the grocery store, at the restaurant, at the Starbucks, or any one of the other apparently millions of places porn prevails in our world.

We definitely need to be better parents.

And we can try our best to overcome or undo any harm that might be inflicted upon our kid by him or her bumping into it at a very innocent, tender age.

But what a world we live in, where the individual always eclipses the group. And by group, I mean family. Because I certainly believe in individual rights, and I believe that censorship shouldn't be enforced by the government or any other form of big brother.

Call it a wish, or a longing, that the individual wasn't such a jerk and that they could see that they are part of a larger fabric that consists of more than just a bunch of separate units acting independently of each other. It is exactly the inability to see that all things are connected that our society has ended up here. For a society to work well and to flourish, individuals must realize that there is a social obligation for each person to behave in a way that benefits society in the long run.

Which brings me to another reason there's so much crap being created and sold online and elsewhere: society is too big. How can one person make a difference in a huge world teeming with scores and scores of people? Exactly. That's why it's so easy to fool ourselves into believing that what we do, these tiny infractions against a moral code (such as the Ten Commandments, because, come on, what other code is out there?), even make a difference to any one but us. We think, "Oh, no one else is being harmed by this decision to video myself doing this and then broadcasting it live to those willing to pay to see it, right?"

When the things you're doing in public or even in secret are not being subjected to the scrutiny of your village or family, then there IS less of a reason to behave in a way often dubbed decent by those around you. And since there are fewer families, and cities are so large, and well, the ways to do things in secret (while somehow simultaneously being public) are abounding, then we have a problem.

So, I think everything I've said can be expressed in the following equation:

No Censorship + Individual With No Concern for Society as a Whole + Internet - Small Villages - Family = A Problem

Let me end with an illustration of how all that once delineated the boundaries of decency has frayed and unraveled to a frightening degree. Part of the segment by Lucy Ling and the fabulous porn-made-at-home story featured a 50-year-old woman who makes interactive videos with her clients. Her husband produces the live-web-cam events and Ms. Ling described how a large portion of this woman's "clientele" is "men" between the ages of 19 and 25. And what is their most common request?

That they can call the 50-year-old woman "mommy."

*Truly. If you're going to dump your porn collection, please don't throw it in a ditch. Or the gutter. You think it just "goes away" when you do that? No. It inevitably falls into the hands of children**. Yes, children. You're not the center of the universe and that ditch is most likely frequented by children pretending they're the Swiss Family Robinson or something like that.

**This is based on anecdotal evidence. While I never stumbled across porn in the ditch myself, as a child, I've heard several accounts from others who did.

Gemini, Sagittarius Rising Is a Very Good Sign

2011-09-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

Corbet was born in June. I like to think of how I'll tell him about it when he's older. I'll tell him in the kind of voice you imagine a wizard would tell a creation story in a fantasy book. Kind of whispery (and not because of my paralyzed vocal cord) and mystical sounding: "You were born in a sultry land with firebugs at dusk and overgrown vines clinging to abandoned bridge pylons that span wide rivers and deep grottoes." That's how Nashville is, kind of. You get to places where you think civilization has vanished even though you're in the middle of a city. Sometimes you just can't tell.

This is how he looked a day after he was born.

I had an urgent (different from emergency, apparently) C-section–the most natural birthing method–so his head and face are rather perfect. I loved having a C-section. It feels like a baby is being ripped out of your abdomen. Kidding. I mean, it does feel like that. I'm just kidding about loving it.

I'm glad he's alive, really, since it seemed like he was never going to come out any other way and from my perspective, it was touch and go for a minute there. I've probably mentioned this a thousand times already, but the cord was around his neck twice and he was posterior. And stuck. He wouldn't move. Anyway, some umbilical cords are long enough to jump rope with, and some are so short it's as though nature is saying, "This baby will never be able to leave the womb, bwah ha ha ha ha!" I think that's the way Corbet's umbilical cord was.

Stoker was also born with a nuchal cord only his was around his neck FOUR TIMES. They pulled him out (the natural way) and the doctors and nurses did double dutch jump-rope before cutting the cord.

Not really. I actually hate it when people joke about birth and stuff, and here I am doing just that. I couldn't resist. And I'm only allowing myself to joke about it because I had a near-death experience myself while giving birth. So I'm allowed.

OK. It wasn't near-death exactly. It just felt that way after laboring for like seventeen hours sans medication, then having the double contraction crap and being stuck at seven for four or five hours, then having the nitrous oxide (which didn't help), then being told I ought to have an epidural after all (and hearing Corbet's heart rate drop to almost nothing every time I had a contraction), then being told I ought to have a C-section, etc. Yeah, it was insane. And I was confused quite often. I'd hear bits and pieces from the midwife and the nurses and that contributed to the air of danger.

So anyway, no one wants to hear about that, I'm sure.

Surprisingly, my cat was bigger than Corbet. She's kind of hefty and even though Corbet was a large newborn (8 lbs 8 oz), the cat managed to be larger than him:

Bastet, my first-born cat with Corbet, my first-born son.

Bastet really loved having a mini-human to hang around with. She often thinks he's playing games with her and cuddling with her. Rather adorable. Cats rule. And babies too.

This is how Corbet looked a few weeks after he was born:

The author's son contemplating the nature of birth and life and other weighty topics.

In his mind, he was composing his first novel. It's sure to be a Pulitzer prize winner. This is actually his most pensive shot, he's usually extremely happy. He wakes up from naps and grins like he's just won the lottery. In fact, his been a smiler from day one. This was taken just a few hours after he was born:

Some people would say, "Oh, he just had gas." But no. He didn't. I was there. No gas. He has gas all the time now and there's definitely a difference between a baby with gas or a baby who's pooping, and a baby who's smiling. I never thought I'd be so comfortable saying "pooping" on my blog, but there it is. I guess that's what having a baby does to you. Suddenly everything is feeding, sleeping, burping, and pooping. The essential elements of life.

So he's a pretty handsome lad, if I do say so myself. And he makes me happy. I never thought I could love something as much as I love him. And I'm a lover. So that's saying a lot.

Corbet swaddling and nesting in a bouncy chair shaped like a frog. Less than a week old.

A few weeks after he was born, I started writing a blog post about how I had Meatloaf's song "I'd Do Anything for Love" in my head all the time because I kept thinking about how much I love Corbet. I thought I'd go through hell for him (lines from the song, "I'd run right into hell and back"). Birth is sort of like that, you know: hell. Even though my labor went alright until I got stuck and everything went haywire. And it makes sense to me now that it's not easy (so you work harder to keep your investment safe and healthy...), despite how I had planned to have a really perfect labor experience, with the hypnosis and all. I wanted to be the woman saying it was beautiful and not painful and all that. It was all that, at least, until it turned hellish and I thought we were all going to die.

So I was writing about Meatloaf's song and talking about how much I love Meatloaf, both the food and the singer, and how Celebrity Apprentice was awesome last season because of Meatloaf and now his song makes sense because he's a really really passionate guy, given to tearing up easily or losing his temper at Gary Busey (who sort of deserves it, let's be honest). And then I didn't post it. But the point of it was that I was overwhelmed with how everything changed once Corbet was born. Suddenly I knew I WOULD do anything for him because of how much I love him.

But I won't do that.

"That," according to Meatloaf, is cheating. It's a different sort of love that calls for a promise like that, though, in all fairness to Corbet, I won't cheat on his dad. Because that would be bad of me, and I love his dad. And we make cute babies, or so I've been told (all my friends insist).

See, this is Corbet at three months:

"Buongiorno! I'm Gino..."

2011-08-31T17:43:00.001-05:00

Bert Large is a character I wish I'd created. To quote Barry (High Fidelity): "[He's] so good. [He] shoulda been mine."

Of course, I doubt I have the skill or talent to create such a fantastic character and then to bring him to life all on my own the way Ian McNeice does.

Bert Large (Ian McNeice) as a ventriloquist for the Port Wenn Talent show.

If you don't know who Bert Large is, that means you haven't been watching Doc Martin and why haven't you? You're missing out. It's pure genius. Although, for some reason, I don't think a show of this caliber could survive on its own in the U.S. during prime-time against shows like CSI and Bones. I think it requires the genius of the British to come up with a show of this nature and then maintain an audience for it in the long run.

Maybe I'm underestimating American audiences, or maybe it's the American production companies. I don't know who, but SOMEONE is to blame for the lack of this quality of work in the U.S. Luckily, the British make it and ship it over, and it finds the niche audience like myself. I'm just glad there are others like me, otherwise the Brits wouldn't even bother to ship it over.

In any case, thank goodness someone out there cares about quality, otherwise I'd starve. The only other place to find such a colorful cast of characters is in a Dickens novel. Dickens is great, but it's fun to have someone else do the work for me when I can't sit down and read a book.

Doc Martin isn't just about the doctor. It's about a village on the Cornish coast.

Point one. A village. On the Cornish coast. Who even uses the term village anymore? That's one of the great things about the show, that it's got this colloquial sense about it. However, that doesn't mean it's some dreary, slow-moving account of each individual in Port Wenn (the fictional name of the village). Nope. Each episode usually consists of several strands of storyline that are braided together and which eventually meet up and make sense at the end.

Point two. Braided storyline. I don't dissect every TV show I've ever watched, but this one is cleverly done up into a sleek braid that has a pleasant snap to it. Like a whip. The show has a whippish intellect. Now, apparently whippish is not a word, but for my purposes it means whip-like. Makes sense, I think. So, another great thing about Doc Martin. I watched all thirty or so episodes almost without stopping (I had a lot of down time while taking care of the baby) and never once did I think, "Oh man, if Jack Bauer saves the world again at the last minute...." or "Oh no, if they say 'intubate' or 'he's seizing!' one more time, I'm going to throttle their necks!" Because, unlike many dramas, Doc Martin doesn't seem to rely heavily on plot-crutches. Yes, braided storyline and yes there's usually some kind of medical mystery the doctor ends up solving, but it's never overly predictable in an irritating fashion.

New paragraph here, but I'm still on the subject of the last paragraph (this paragraph is for purely cosmetic reasons), and that is that EVEN though there is always a medical mystery to be solved, it never ends up feeling formulaic. My theory is that this is because the cast of characters is so strong.

Point three. Excellent array of characters. You have your gaggle of village girls who wander around the neighborhood, popping up here and there to make cat-calls at the men. And sometimes they call the doctor a tosser. I have no idea what that is. I suspect it's a derogatory term, but since I'm not British I can hardly find it offensive. And that's why I feel comfortable writing it here, on my blog. No need to explain it (if you're British and feel like enlightening me). Anyway, the gaggle of village girls always cracks me up. What a waste of time! I mean, the girls. They're wasting their time. But it's totally amusing. "Heeeeeyyyy Al! Hee hee hee." "Heeeeeyyyy Doc Martin...." Etc.

You have the plumbers, Bert and Al Large, who sometimes seem like the worst possible thing that could happen to your sink. And there's the village pharmacist with her eternal crush on the doctor, "How about tea? And we could finally go over those MHRA journals together..." who's never seen without her neck brace, but somehow feels she must be attractive, nasty neck-brace and all. There's the doctor's sweet Aunt Joan–really his only family at all (you get to meet his parents in an episode and wow, they suck). And of course, the love-interest: the gorgeous and kind (though sharp-witted) Ms. Glasson.

The doctor and Louisa Glasson. Don't worry: it's a dream.

I'd try to describe all of these characters better, but I'm no Dickens after all. The point is the show is fast-paced enough not to feel like it was done in the 70s (I tried to watch the old Hawaii Five-O one time and fell asleep), while maintaining a kind of small-town luster that makes you want to disappear into a country village and soak up the local color. No kidding. Local color.

P.S. And don't even think of suggesting that it's like Little House on the Prairie. Unless you always LOVED that show. In that case, it's a modern Little House on the Prairie meets House. Loads of houses here.

Is It So Wrong to Be a Little Obsessed?

2011-08-29T01:41:00.000-05:00

A few people who I shan't name have mentioned that I get obsessed with things. They were talking specifically about the television show Doc Martin with a glancing reference to Dr. Who, as though it's a BAD thing to become obsessed with such quality story-telling and character development.

Sometimes it's best to describe things as what they're NOT rather than what they ARE, even though I don't think I'd be remiss in describing how great these two television shows are (though they're worlds apart in subject matter). Like so: at least I'm not watching soap operas. At least I'm not watching and obsessing over Jersey Shore. At least I'm not absorbed in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or any other show of that nature.

Not that there's anything wrong with those shows. Well, I mean, I guess it depends on who you are and what your value system is. I suppose by the very fact that I'm saying "at least I'm not . . ." I'm implying that there's something wrong with a show like Days of Our Lives.

I guess I'll just say it. Soap operas are crap and I have no idea how anyone has ever gotten tied up in them. The sets are weird. The lighting is weird. The actors can't act. And the stories are so full of totally improbable scenarios that no one in their right mind could ever buy into the plot twists.

Also, the characters all seem to be egocentric and unlikeable.

Perhaps the problem isn't the shows I get obsessed with. Perhaps the problem is that I tend to get very absorbed in things. That IS the problem. And it's a problem for me too, because I find it extremely difficult to buy into anything halfway and in the long run, it ends up having been a waste of time. A phase. And I usually come away empty-handed.

The fact is that I can't go one hundred percent into anything, really. I'm not even one hundred percent invested in Dr. Who. If someone told me Dr. Who was doing a convention in Salt Lake, there's a good chance I wouldn't go, even though it'd be easy for me to attend. And well, would I attend? Probably not.

I can't even be one of those people who'd wait outside a theater to meet the actor of some show I'm obsessed with. Because, what would I say? "You're amazing. I love you so much. Your work is the best!" That sounds stupid and really, are they amazing? No. And do I love them? Not really. I love the character they portray and sadly, that character doesn't exist in reality. The only true statement I could possibly deliver that would even matter is that they do good work. And it's just not worth it. Because they don't care what I think.

And that's why I don't get into anything one hundred percent.

Despite all that, I still love Dr. Who and Doc Martin.

I think the term for a fan like me is a rainy-day fan. Once I see through it or the glamour wears off, I'm gone.

Where was I going with all this? Oh yes. I merely wanted to know what was so wrong with being obsessed with a show. The shows I get obsessed with (just like the books) are GOOD. I don't fall for crap. And despite how quickly I might move on, I'll defend to the death that the bits or pieces I WAS in love with (like season 1, that was the BEST! Or "it was good until so-and-so left or stopped writing or died, etc.") were worthwhile and amazing and well-done.

Like Eccleston was the best Doctor. And Fringe was good until the writers went all berserk. And Alias was gripping and excellent until they started getting all creepy supernatural. And Simpson's was fantastic except for those wobbly, questionable seasons starting right around the 14th season (or so). And so on.

In the end, I still haven't said my piece on Dr. Who and Doc Martin.

Is it wrong that I feel ridiculous saying (even with all the love I feel for it) Doc Martin and I'm talking about the show and not the shoe company?

What the? Hello. Again.

2011-08-27T01:09:00.000-05:00

Whoa. May 26. That's the date of my last post. Well, I HAVE written between then and now, but I haven't posted the entries. Because they were inappropriate.

Not really. They're fine, but long. And I didn't edit them quickly enough and put them up before I had to get back to the baby. Oh, and I had a baby on June 8th. Did I mention that? Yep. Since then my life has been like unto a hurricane.

Adapting to having a child is no cake walk. Neither is it a walk in the park. It's more like a being shoved out of a plane at twenty-five thousand feet with no idea how to operate the parachute. But it's great. It really is.

Oh, and did I happen to tell you that I lost my voice from an allergic reaction to the pain medicine (Percoset) they gave me for the post-op recovery? Yeah, I did. Because I had a C-section and so, you know. I had to recover from that.

Enough about the baby and having it, though I must say, my son is the bomb. He's seriously perfect and that's good because I lost my voice for him. I feel like Ariel in the Little Mermaid, I got the baby but lost my voice. And really, that's no cost at all. Just my voice.

The difference (and ONLY difference...) is that Ariel was young and gorgeous what with that red flowing hair and all, and she didn't need her voice. I'm old and decrepit and can't sway anyone or anything with my looks. So without my voice I'm pretty much crippled.

People ask me if he's not worth it. And by people I mainly mean my mom, who has had to listen to me whine and complain about not having a voice for almost three months now. Oh, right. That doesn't make any sense. How can I complain without a voice? I manage. Somehow.

To be more clear, I have a voice. Sort of. HALF a voice. My right vocal cord (or fold, as the experts say, I gather) is paralyzed. So I don't know if I'll croak or whisper when I open my mouth and try to speak. It's disconcerting to say the least.

Right. Right. I wasn't going to talk about my voice any more.

At least I can still type, eh?

What I really want to write about is how I've had a lot of time to watch Netflix these days, what with having to sit down for hours on end to feed the baby, and I've bonded with several shows (I think this is because of oxytocin...somehow). And so I want to write about my unhealthy obsessive love for Dr. Who and Doc Martin. Yes, I've only spent time watching shows with doc or doctor in the title, which is purely coincidental. So, that's a preview of things to come: Doc Martin. Doc Who. Doc Watson (I also watched the Masterpiece Theater Sherlock shows).

I feel like I'm not making much sense. This post is like drunk dialing. It's late. I'm worn out. And I'm trying to make sense of seven different topics that don't really blend well. It's a tossed salad of ideas.

The next post will be better. I promise. I just needed to break the silence.

Conway Twitty: "Goodbye Time"

2011-05-26T16:40:00.002-05:00

I might have a baby soon, and so I want to leave this video with you until I'm back. It's not a song I knew before finding this video, and it's kind of an 80s style recording, but I love the emotional performance. That's one of the things I love about Conway—how much he puts himself into his voice. And it's always kind of comforting. Like when I hear a Conway song, it feels as though I've come home. Weird, because I only became a fan a few years ago after buying a record on a whim.

Families, Lies, and Cicadas...What?

2011-05-19T13:36:00.000-05:00

I feel as though I've stumbled on a a kernel of wisdom and that it's my duty to share it. It's not much, really, only that the great lie I bought into earlier in my life is really just that: a lie.

I guess there might be caveats, and I'll get to them in a minute, but the lie is this: your job is to grow up, get your degree (or your professional training or whatever it is), and move away from home, to strike out on your own and become rich or successful....far away from mom and dad.

For some people maybe this formula works. I guess, if you have a family you can hardly stand or you really think your career is you, that YOU, are not made up of a long line of ancestors who sacrificed their all to bring you into the world (I don't know, maybe they sucked or something), and you really don't NEED familial support. Maybe it works. Maybe the thing I'm calling a lie or a fallacy is your truth.

But I tend to think that universally, humans require each other. And the each other we have been designed into, is a family unit. So we're lucky in that sense—that automatically if all goes well, we're born into a network that's interested in our survival and willing to make sacrifices on our behalf. We grow up and are bonded to them not just through blood, but through the recognition that no one else on this earth cares more about us than our family.

Of course, I do speak of the best case scenario. There are people who truly do have families that struggle, that can't get it right, that are not enlightened enough to recognize the value of these things. Hopefully that will change, for them.

Mainly I'm talking about myself, anyway, because I'm tired of living far away from my family. It was fun at first and I learned a lot about myself and it made my relationship with Stoker really strong. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

But we've been gone for a while now, and our siblings have had kids and their kids are growing up fast and reaching milestones in their lives and the rest of our family will gather for things and be together and make the next generation of our family feel loved and supported—which is so important, I believe—and I'm not there.

Yes, when I was growing up, my siblings bugged the crap out of me. We fought and got irritated with each other, but sometimes we got along. That was pretty rare, I'm sure. The only thing I wanted was to get out on my own and not feel them breathing down my neck, telling me what to do (somehow, in my family, I fell into the role of being the One Who Needed to Be Bossed Around the Most...seriously. I got no respect, and I'm not even the youngest!).

But now that we're adults, they're the people I love the most out of everyone in the world, and I admire them the most and best of all, and even with how stupid and annoying I am (from time to time, on rare occasions), they still love me and want to be around me.

Problem is, now we all live in different states and I live the furthest away.

BUT, maybe I'd never appreciate my family as much as I do without having been (essentially) living in exile out here in this jungle. Right now I can hear the 13-year cicadas (Magicicada, Brood XIX) going crazy in the trees through the closed windows and WITH the air conditioner running, and I'm dying to be back in the arid desert of Utah. Yes, yes, it was voluntary that I came here and so it's unfair of me to call it exile. However, I've been trying to get back out there for years now (one way or another).

Also, I have to say that I appreciate the climate of Utah much better now than I ever did before. I found out, living here, that I have the desert and mountains in me and I'm out of place in a humid subtropical region.

I'll feel out of place until I can be back out there permanently, where my internal geography matches up with my surroundings. Some people move away and love it better than what they left behind. Others of us move away and feel homesick.

In any case. The big lie is that family holds you back. That every kid should grow up and strike out on their own, far away from home. The only thing that does is make you feel disconnected. What connects us to the human family is the family we're given at birth. If you have a crappy family, of course, that sucks, but you can build your own. That's the beauty of it—we're all given the power to create. Individuals with unhappy, dysfunctional families can build their own. Hopefully one that's not unhappy and dysfunctional.....

Family remembers who you are. And is it really necessary to leave that behind to succeed in the world? If so, I don't like that kind of success.

And so, without further ado, here are some pictures of the cicadas outside making an electrical mating sound almost as loud as a jet engine. I kid you not. And if the pictures aren't very good, take it up with my Motorola Droid :). It's his fault.

Empty exoskeletons on the underside of leaves. These are on the crepe myrtle in my yard.

The discarded exoskeletons surrounding the same crepe myrtle.

Close-up of one of the exoskeletons.

An adult cicada of the Magicicada genus.

My neighbor just started mowing his lawn. Guess who's louder? That's right. Cicadas: 1, Mower: 0.

In case you're wondering, I'm pretty sure there are NO cicadas in Utah. Hmmmm. Welp. Maybe there are and I simply never noticed them before.

Conway Twitty: "Easy Loving"

2011-05-11T10:39:00.001-05:00

This is one of my favorite songs.

It's getting harder to find live recordings of the great old country songs, especially with embedding enabled. If you ask me, and I know you wonder what I think, this is a really stupid move for the labels. How do they think music spreads these days? Youtube. Sharing. Embedding. When I hear a great song from a video, what do I do? I go buy it. It's not rocket science.

I posted a song by the Civil Wars recently, but I only bought the album because I could hear the entire song from the bands' YouTube video. The small sample provided by Amazon.com wasn't enough to make me feel like buying it. So what I'm saying is that Universal and Arista and whoever owns the rights to all the live TV recordings done by the legends of country music, should be drudging up the videos from their archives and posting them on YouTube for younger audiences to find. And they will find it. And they will end up buying it.

Duh. It's like I have to hold their hands or something. They have no idea what's going on. I guess that's why all the studios in Nashville are closing down—because, like all the industries that are currently becoming obsolete, we have dinosaurs running things.

Anyway, I love Loretta and Conway together. Not all the songs, mind you—admittedly some of them are um, crappy. But the good ones are really, really good. I almost posted a 1980s live recording of Conway at the CMAs, just because it's awesome despite being so 1980s country. But I know my audience loves the old southern suits and polyester styles worn by country artists prior to the 80s. And deep down, EVERYONE is secretly in love with Conway. Women and men.

Not Being "the Best" and Contemplating a Possible Move. Plus Some Stuff About Vaccines.

2011-05-10T12:22:00.000-05:00

So the past couple weeks I've been getting bigger and more miserable. That's why I've disappeared, sort of. It'll happen.

Plus I had company for a few days and then I was recuperating from having people stay at our house, and things just keep spiraling out of control. Did I mention that I was also undergoing a rigorous re-interview process to keep my job? Yes, that was fun too. I had to take a couple personality tests and editorial tests and just a bunch of crap.

And then I found out I'm apparently not one of "the best." Because the company wanted to assemble "the best team possible moving forward." Or some nonsense like that. So in January, I'll be asked to leave. January. But to get a severance, I must continue to come to work and do a "satisfactory job." Until January. I'm glad it's just "satisfactory," because that's obviously the best I can do. You know, not being "the best" and all that.

Anyway, I came to work today and the two lights above my desk have completely burned out. They were going slowly. There are like three or four lights in each fixture, but today they've all burned out. I'm in darkness here. I feel a little bit like Milton, from Office Space. I think that's his name. Tomorrow I'll show up and won't have a desk. Or it will be in the tiny store-room where people go to spray crap on artwork.

See, I've been really honorable, I like to think. I've worked here for almost five years and during that time, though the temptation has been extremely profound, I've never stooped to writing about the workplace. By writing about it, I mean really making fun of everyone and everything here.

And what has my honor gotten me? What does honor EVER get anyone? Usually nothing.

I guess the point of honor is to just be honorable. There's not really a reward, except the reward of an eternally clean conscience. I do like having that.

But I also wish I'd thrown caution to the wind and done more writing about the ridiculous. I love the ridiculous. And there's loads of it here. This place is ripe for parody. Even better than "The Office." The problem is that I tend to suffocate anything that I consider a base desire. And sarcasm and humor at the expense of others has always seemed base to me.

Yet, do I care now? I work in the publishing industry and it's crumbling. I only started working here four and a half years ago and since then, the only thing this company has done is lay people off. I'm actually surprised I lasted this long. So, really, while they've been paying me to come to work every day, they've also really instilled this crazy sense of instability into all their employees. "At any minute, YOU TOO could lose your job. So don't ____ with us."

Welp. At least I'll have my benefits long enough to have the baby. Right? Silver lining.

One thing that's been really consuming me, now that I have enough outfits for a newborn, is diapers. It's weird. I'm not exactly Misses eco-friendly or anything, but the thought of throwing away a trillion disposable diapers disgusts me. Especially after living through the late eighties and seeing the piles of disposable diapers in the landfills. Remember that? I think we got to see them in a the Scholastic Weekly Reader. They were brainwashing us early, those environmentalists.

So my younger sister got me on the cloth diaper thing. And of course I keep realizing I need more diapers. So then I spend several hours researching which wool diaper cover I want or what fitted cloth diaper will be good for the nighttime. And I read forums. Like Diaper Swappers. (I apologize for the abrupt change of pace, going from discussing my job to cloth diapers, but I really wanted to address something that's been bugging me since I read it.)

The other day I was researching nighttime cloth diapering solutions for newborns and I stumbled across a thread where one forum-poster listed herself as being the wife of so-and-so, the mother of so-and-so, and other neat facts about herself and her family, one of them being "non-vax."

You heard me. Yes, she's bragging about endangering the rest of her community. Unless, of course, she lives out in the woods alone, or something.

Bragging about endangering the children of other parents. I mean, that's something else, really. Baffling. It's not enlightenment. It's sheer stupidity and selfishness. This is particularly important to me right now because there have been several cases of outbreaks in Utah, where I'm from, of diseases that should be gone, and the numbers of people who are not vaccinated seem to be growing. And of course, those diseases are spread by the people who have consciously chosen to not vaccinate their children.

Recently there was a measles outbreak, spread by an unvaccinated family who went to Poland. There have also been several cases of pertussis (which requires a booster shot for adults to not spread it to babies and children). Now that I'm about to have a family of my own, we've been hoping to move back to Utah. Why stay here now, right? I haven't been selected as "one of the best" to be on the team "of the best." It's like the choice made itself.

So anyway. Do I want to go back to that apparent hotbed of unvaccinated deep-thinkers? It's the LDS crowd who are doing it, I think (not to insult them. I'm LDS myself). People on the outside—especially ex-LDS members—love to call Mormons sheep. But actually, in many ways they're extremely thoughtful. To the point of blaming vaccines for things that are not the fault of vaccines. And thus we have this high population of unvaccinated individuals spreading disease. And bragging about being non-vax. And going abroad to parts of the world where extremely contagious diseases still run rampant. Like Poland.

I propose isolating all conscientious vaccine-objectors in the Pacific Northwest where they can hang out together and die together of measles, mumps, and rubella, in addition to pertussis and polio (it's totally going to make a comeback). Who better to surround yourself with?

The problem I have with them not isolating themselves in an area with others like them is that they benefit from the willingness of everyone else to become vaccinated by mingling in regular communities of people who blindly (to the objector's mind) submit to vaccination. Without all those other people taking precautions (and, in their minds anyway, taking the vaccine risk), the unvaccinated would be in more danger. And it will sound callous, but they deserve to be in danger because they made a choice.

Yes, the children had nothing to do with the choice. It's the parents gambling on their child's life and it's sad that they don't value it more.

The problem is partly that there are specific vaccines infants can't get until they're older. But the diseases don't wait to strike until the baby has been vaccinated. A three week old baby can die from pertussis, who can't get the vaccine until six months. And yes, babies do die from pertussis.

All this to say that, to me, at least, bragging about being a conscientious objector to vaccines is tantamount to bragging about speeding through a school zone when school's just let out. You're endangering a community and you don't give a crap. It's all about you and your individual choice, made at the expense of a community that needs herd immunity to protect itself from the ravages of deadly diseases. So, good job. You're really awesome and smart and waaaaaaaay more enlightened than the jerks who just let the doctors vaccinate them like mindless beasts in a feed yard. Yep. The rest of us are just cattle. Moo!

Conway Twitty: "Don't Take It Away"

2011-04-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Lest you forget the most brilliant country singer to ever make women swoon, I'm posting another Conway video. It's been a few years, but I think it's best that I never stop posting Conway videos. Yes, I still love him. How can I not? Check out that hair and those smokey gazes. And I sincerely believe country artists should never, NEVER have stopped wearing Nudie suits. That was a big mistake. BIG mistake.

Also, here's a video that I can't embed. But it's also brilliant.

"Happy Endings"? More Like "Crappy Endings"

2011-04-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

I don't like to wish for anyone's failure. It seems rude. And not very classy. That being said, I'd really be happy if the show ABC's "Happy Endings" fails.

After I watch a really good show on television and another one comes on that's pure manure, I wish the network could hear me changing the channel or turning my TV off. But that would be creepy. So I'll just speak here, on my blog, and hope that ABC is paying attention. I know they have nothing else to do but peruse the blogosphere to find out what really important people like me think.

Here's more about what I think. It was terrible. Part of the time I left it on with the volume turned down and the acting was unconvincing, even without sound. With sound, I'm sure I would have longed more heartily to be able to punch each actor in the face.

I could liken the arrival of this show on the TV scene with that moment in "So I Married an Axe Murderer" when Mike Meyers walks into the girl's apartment and says, "You know what this room needs? A huge over-sized poster of Atlantic City." And he turns and pretends to just notice the huge over-sized poster of Atlantic City. Very funny and very cute and I love that movie.

But you know what we really really really need on television? Another piece of crap show about single people in their 30s being stupid and self-centered. I love nothing more than to watch story after story of people trying to find themselves when they've already lived over thirty years and still haven't learned how not to be a complete waste of oxygen.

Yes, yes. I have lots and lots of friends in their 30s who are single and I love them and hopefully my criticism of another show about a bunch of dummies (like "Friends") doesn't offend them. The point is that they're actually living that life. They're not sitting around bantering and saying witty things and being deplorable individuals. Hopefully. We're not together all the time, maybe they ARE doing that.

What I mean about not being a complete waste of oxygen is that no one is interesting once they reach a certain age and all they've managed to do is live for themself. They need a cause. There are circumstances where this is obviously an unfair measure of a person—of course I can't account for every single exception, but to name just one, there are plenty of great women who've never married because no one has asked them (not their fault)—and it's not like I'm here to make judgment's about the lives of specific individuals.

I'm merely making the observation that I personally don't find a show about yet another group of losers living in the city with their friends, in cool apartments with furniture and decor totally out of their income range (unless they're also living on entitlements...or trust funds), to be compelling.

And maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I'm generally exhausted of the overwhelming decay of the family in our society and this show and others like it only contributes to the downward slide by showcasing the awesomeness of remaining single and living with your awesome friends in an awesome apartment in the awesome city. Want to go get beers or go to the club? Yeah? Awesome!

I'm old-fashioned, yep. So it wouldn't be witty of you to leave that comment on my blog (considering the usual clamor for readers to comment on my blog...I don't know what it is, seriously. I guess my tone doesn't encourage feedback....). I know. Yes. Old-fashioned, curmudgeonly old woman here! Point and laugh, please.

If you're thinking there's a lot of built-up resentment bubbling under the surface regarding this issue (people my age remaining single for forever and forever), you're right. There is. And it's not because I'm completely unfamiliar with being single. I didn't get married until I was twenty-seven. It wasn't that I didn't look, either. I dated and had a trillion boyfriends. I come from a culture that encourages marriage and where many people get married very young. So there was pressure for me to conform. I tried. But I didn't want to get married for the sake of getting married. I wanted to marry someone I loved.

Blah blah blah. The point is, even in the extremely oh-so progressive America of today, it is still not the fashion for women to ask a man to marry her. We have to wait for the question to be asked of us. But men aren't doing their job. And I suppose some of that falls to the women, who are somewhat confused about how they ought to operate in a culture where everyone just "hangs out."

I hate to point out the elephant in the room, but why not? I'm not good at burying my head in the sand, anyway, and I have to say, women make a huge mistake when they put on the attitudes of men and strut around acting like they don't give a crap and "hell yeah, I'll sleep with you. On the first date, even. I'm not a prude! I'm a modern woman! Girl-power!"

So, as much as my heart goes out to women who find it difficult to get a man to ask for her hand, I also think this is the bed we've made for ourselves. Women pretend to be men and feel the same way as men about sex and commitment and they do it to their undoing. Uncommitted sex only complicates relationships and as much as I hate the saying "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free," well...why? It's true. Think about it.

Men will often be the first to tell you they think that way. At least the ones who aren't trying to get you to sleep with them. So best ask a really old guy who's happily married and not looking to bag a younger woman. He's probably going to be most honest about it.

Anyway, I know it's a round about way of explaining my disgust with another show like "Happy Endings," but it's all melted into the same ball of wax. Singleness never was happiness*. That's all I'm saying. And I know most people will agree with me. I remember being single. It was me against the world, the universe, etc. Going to bed alone night after night was lonely. Even though I tried to put a good face on it, I really wanted to be part of a team.

The problem is that no one can tell you how to find someone. But shows like "Happy Endings" (from what I could tell from the first episodes, both muted and unmuted) don't help anyone in that search. And really, life isn't about "finding yourself." It's about losing yourself in serving others. And the best place to do that, historically speaking, is in a loving, committed relationship.

*I don't even want to qualify this statement because it's a given, but I would never make the claim that being in an abusive relationship is preferable to being single. I don't mean that at all. Yes, it is better to be alone than in a loveless or hurtful relationship.

A Quick Classification of the Common Amazon.com Reviewers

2011-04-13T16:26:00.000-05:00

Sometimes don't you wish customer reviews on places like Amazon.com came with caveats or personal summaries or something so you didn't have to weed through the obvious morons to find the reviews that matter to you?

I think this is a great idea, actually. A company like Google could totally invent a formula to separate the chaff from the grain and make tons of profit on good reviewers while casting the bad reviewers into a fiery pit of torment. Obviously, for subjecting decent customers to their crappy reviews and uninformed opinions, they deserve to be punished.

This is the kind of dross a person deals with when reading through reviews on Amazon.com:

The Diva: this is the type of customer who cannot be satisfied by a product no matter how much the product and it's backing company nears perfection. This person expects their life to be a walk through the Garden of Eden, where all creatures sing glorious arias in response to the Diva's presence, the grass bends beneath the Diva's feet, and food virtually falls into the Diva's mouth when he or she is hungry (yes, she or he, Diva is not a gendered word in the Garden of Eden). I personally resent these customers and their reviews because they're hard to detect at first. You can only pick them out when they give you concrete examples of how impossible they are to please. For instance, I recently read a review where, despite the fact that the company listened to the customer's phone call and offered to send the customer a test device (at no charge to the customer), the customer STILL said the customer service was only so-so. It was kind of difficult at first to recognize the Diva nature of this reviewer, but I read fifty other reviews where the customers were extremely pleased with customer service. Also, the reviewer expected a $40 product to cook him breakfast, take him shopping for a new wardrobe, babysit his children, and give him nightly foot rubs using lavender scented oils.

The Idiot: this customer has no idea how to read or write, but somehow they make their way to a cyber-location where both skills are required. They attempt to construct an intelligible paragraph about something they feel really passionate about, namely, why a product sucks so bad and didn't meet up to their expectations. As you lamely try to pick your way through their badly constructed sentences and mispelled words (honestly, why are you even trying? You probably watched 2012 too, didn't you . . .), you realize you can't possibly take this review seriously. There's something disconnected about trusting someone who can't communicate in a reliable way. If they fail to put a simple sentence together and spell words out rather than using txt speech, do you really think they even understood the product they were buying? No. The good news is that Idiots are easy to spot. Unlike Divas.

The Bizarro Jerry: this customer wants exactly the opposite of what you want. It's like they're a mirror image of you. Everything that should be on the left side, is on the right. Like that mole above your left eyebrow. Suddenly it's above your right eyebrow (cue "Scary Door" music). The problem is that you can't really tell at first. You only come to this conclusion based on tell-tale signs and through clever inferences on your end. Take, for example, Stoker shopping for a new pillow. There were a lot of good reviews on this one pillow, and he thought he'd like the pillow, but he looked at the negative reviews (everyone always looks at the negative reviews). Some of the negative reviews said things like, "This pillow is too tall." But Stoker wanted a pillow that was tall. So, that's a positive for him. Right? So, the lesson with The Bizarro Jerry reviewer is to know what you want and to make sure you don't let someone who wants the opposite of what you want, ruin your shopping experience. Of course, this could totally be fixed with a Google formula that could do all the work for you.

The Confused Reviewer: this customer thinks the review area of Amazon.com's website is the proper location for things like shipping issues, complaints with Amazon.com's return policies, or any of the other aspects that have nothing to do with the product or the company that makes the product. They pop in, give a one star, and say something lame like, "They told me this would arrive in too days and it took for days! Fail. I'll never by from Amazon.com again until they make ths right!!!1!!" Usually this sort of review has a couple smarties who leave comments like, "Um. This has nothing to do with the product. Thanks for being a total waste of air. Please walk off a cliff." And those comments are really the only thing that give a person hope after a terrible waste of a review and a completely unjust rating.

For all these reasons, I suggest swift action on the part of Google. Or any other genius with skills in programming and statistics. And whatever it requires to create a formula that will lessen the amount of time it takes me to discern which customer reviews are actually pertinent to me while I shop Amazon.com.

In case you're wondering, I'm the Diva reviewer/customer.

The "Weaker Sex" Could Never Pull This Off

2011-04-12T11:34:00.000-05:00

There are some subjects begging to be written about. I've got some gripes with real estate, in general, but more specifically, the whole agent issue, which I think is a racket. I know, every business is sort of a racket. Anyway, that's a topic I want to dissect further. I also want to dissect the pointless nature of higher education in the U.S. It's pointless because it's totally socialized, yet . . . not. I'll have to go into that further later.

For now, what's really bothering me is how hard it is to be pregnant. I haven't written much about it here, saving my real gripes for Facebook statuses, you know, plaguing my "friends" with my complaints. Don't worry, they love it. It's why they hang out with me, on Facebook, because they enjoy my witty insights and biting retorts.

If you've never been pregnant, you have no way to imagine how rough it is. If you're a man, you're even more in the dark about it. But if you're a man with a wife who's done it, you know better than a single woman who's never done it. That's the hierarchy I've worked out. It goes further, but there's no need to go into all the intricacies of how I judge others who've never been pregnant.

The Venus of Willendorf really captures how it feels to be pregnant. Huge breasts. Huge belly. Huge thighs. In a word, huge.

I'm sure it will pay off in the end and after all, it was my choice. I'm not bemoaning the fact that this just happened without my consent. That'd be sheer stupidity. I'm sure there are people in that boat and my heart goes out to them, but that's not my boat. I'm in the boat of utter shock at how this is completely unlike anything I could have imagined. That is to say, really really hard. And as I understand it, it doesn't get easier.

Stoker keeps saying things like, "You're a miracle." I reply with, "What do you mean?" Because sometimes I'm not sure. I think, "Is he talking about how cool I am? Or something else?" I think he's talking about how I'm carrying his baby, but I don't know for sure, so I ask for clarification. Sometimes, I admit, I just want him to explain himself so that I can hear more about how awesome I am. I do that often, actually.

Like if I say something that I think is funny and he begins to laugh, I'll ask, "What's so funny?" The other day he said, "Another joke I just thought of." He knew what I was going for and out-maneuvered me. Truthfully, sometimes it shocks me that he ever thinks I'm funny. That's his job, right? And he does keep me laughing, but I really don't expect to get that kind of response from him.

In any case, I don't feel like a miracle. Any woman could do this. But his acknowledgment that I'm doing something difficult helps. Somewhat. Some days I want to give up. I wish I could, you know, stay at home in my pajamas and sleep this part away. Maybe it would go faster. Yes, yes. That would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Right? But it would be nice. Kind of.

I keep thinking, one day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time. Over and over again, so I don't get ahead of myself and then become despondent when I realize that I have seven weeks left or what have you.

When I was a kid, my mom had my youngest sister (my protege, Cassi), and so I remember, if only vaguely, her being pregnant with Cassi and how she seemed to just take it in stride. It didn't seem difficult or uncomfortable. I remember when Cassi was born—it was the last day of school and my dad came to tell me. My due date is around Cassi's birthday, though I doubt that will work out perfectly (though it would be cool and I'm sure she thinks it would be fitting, also). But I confess, I'm a little mad that my mom didn't warn me better how ridiculously difficult this would be. That's her job, right?

But no. She let me walk blindly into this. In fact, she pushed me. Shoved me toward it, as though I'd find fulfillment in it. Her punishment is, of course, listening to me complain. There are some days when I'm full of beneficence and I pontificate on the calling of women and how I'll be a more amazing woman for having done this sort of thing, and how I'm learning patience and how I'm doing what I was made to do and blah blah blah.

The walrus does better in water than on land. I know how he feels.

And some days I share that stuff with my mom, but usually I'm saying things like, "I can't breathe. I get heartburn just thinking about food. I can't sleep. Coughing is sheer torture. I know it's good for the baby to move, but my liver feels like pate. I can't move. I was ready to have the baby months ago."

And then I explain to whoever will listen, my desire to be one of those adorable pregnant women you see walking around in cute skirts and comfy tops that look perfectly natural, and who smile and appear to be the very picture of joyful motherhood. You've seen them. They're angels. And I hate them. While, admittedly, loving them for being so content and decent, rather than grim-faced grouches with thunderclouds following them around, like me. That's what I look like. Give me a black cloak and scythe and I could be the pregnant grim reaper.

Another Nicole. She does pregnant WAAAAAAY better than I do. I could never pull off this look. But a girl can wish.

There are days when I feel really strong. They probably correlate to the days when I get enough sleep, and those are the days when I want to apologize to Stoker for being grumpy or for behaving as though this is a difficult task. I feel magnanimous and big-hearted and want to tell him that it's not that hard and baby, I'm sorry for being grouchy last night . . . I'm sure I don't say baby like that, but it's funny to write it here as though I'm a real cad normally and that apologies come naturally to me because I'm so terrible all the time.

Well, I probably have been. Understanding my hormonal cycles when there are none is rough. I tried to explain this to Stoker but I think he kind of thinks that I'm moody constantly, even when I'm not pregnant. Maybe I am. But at least it corresponds to a calendar. The moodiness of men is unpredictable. Like me. Right now. Ha!

I think I just described what is normally understood to be bipolar disorder. So pregnancy has turned me into a bipolar monster. But don't worry. I'm dealing with it just fine. No, I don't need medication. I just need more sleep, understanding, and an Italian cream soda (raspberry or blackberry) and maybe some pancakes. Or French toast. I could really go for some French toast right now. Also, I could really do with one of those chairs the fat people use in Wall-E. That'd be fantastic.

George and Tammy Together in Perfect Harmony

2011-04-11T14:44:00.001-05:00

I was just trying to organize my music . . . again . . . and I found this George Jones and Tammy Wynette song. I lost it for a minute, but now it's found. And it's so good, I needed to share it:

George's hair . . . has that ever been duplicated in all of history? It's perhaps the most amazing 'do I've ever seen. Completely unprecedented.

When George says, "Some love lives..." I die a little. It sounds so great.

There's so much good about this video that I don't know where to begin. Well, scratch that. I began with George's hair, which is phenomenal—right up there with a beard of bees. Then I went to George's voice for a second, which is totally awesome . . . just to recap.

So now let's move to George's outfit. I'm not quite sure who told him to wear that brown top with those orange pants, but I'm pretty certain I have about twenty Facebook "friends" who'd love to get their hands on an outfit of that caliber. You can look for hours at the vintage clothing store and come up several pale orange stripes shy of this work of art. And even then, say you find a pair of those pants. Who's going to give away a vest like George's? No one. There was probably only one made like it in the world anyway, and it's most likely in Marty Stuart's country music relic collection.

But my bohemian friends would love this outfit and I sincerely believe the world would be a better place if there were more outfits like it out in the world. Sadly, what I see more often than not are ugly print tees with pointless words on them like "affliction," "disease," and "no fear" in crude fonts, and holey, carefully distressed jeans.

Also, I think outfits like George's would really be doing us a favor if they could replace all the nasty skinny jeans on men. I'd rather see a thousand pairs of striped orange pants than even one pair of skinny jeans on a guy. And it's not just because I'm a huge fan of striped orange pants. I didn't even know I was until I saw this video. And it's only because of the brown and white vest and George's 'do/chops complementing the pants like a gold chain does a hairy, sun-bronzed chest.

As for Tammy. She's great. I love the blue eyeshadow. It's always been a winner when combined with blonde hair and she pulls it off smashingly. She's got a lot of class. You can tell from the ring and elegant necklace. She's gorgeous. And yes, I love her voice. But I confess, I'm a bigger fan of Loretta Lynn. That's just me. As a combination, George and Tammy are fantastic. I can't complain.

Excellent. I know you'll love the video. Please sample it as many times as you like. I think I watched it a hundred times while I was writing this and I'm still not sick of George's hair.

Alexander: A Million Years

2011-04-06T14:36:00.000-05:00

I know, two music posts in a row. That's lame, yet I can't help it. I wrote a post yesterday, but it was controversial and so I didn't publish it. You don't even want to know what it's about because the subject matter alone is enough to ignite rage amongst the calmest of folk.

But this song is great. I just heard it and fell in love immediately, like the first time I saw Stoker playing the drums that night in the Factory in Logan. And I dedicate it to Stoker, except that, obviously, we need to switch out the "my girl" part and make it "my boy" but that sounds odd, so let's make it "my guy." And pretend I'm singing it and that I sound good and any other gender references should automatically be the opposite so that it fits with me dedicating it to Stoker. Thanks.

Also, Stoker doesn't wear make up. So that part should be about MY make up. Not his...hmmmm....I hope he doesn't wear make up. I haven't noticed mine disappearing mysteriously...

Ha ha! Kidding! So kidding. I just thought it would be funny to pretend to be suspicious, suddenly. Suspicion is ALWAYS funny.

"It's a spun tongue, it's a holy s%#$......"

p.s. I love it that I no longer have to call the radio station and ask them to dedicate songs to the one I love. Remember doing that? Talk about sweaty palms over nothing! Now all I have to do is post a song to Twitter, Facebook, or my blog and say, "I dedicate this to you, baby." And please don't bring up Delilah. I will never ever never ever call her. Not even when she's the last radio program on FM. Never.

I love cats.

The Civil Wars "Poison & Wine"

2011-04-02T23:15:00.000-05:00

Um. This is amazing. I'm probably the last to hear of them, but that's nothing new.

Where Do I Go to Sign the "Burn the Fairgrounds" Petition?

2011-03-25T15:19:00.000-05:00

South Nashville must be full of idiots. Except me, of course. And Stoker.

There's a lot to love in the area. I'm not kidding, though it may be difficult from time to time to see, because, well, there are A LOT of used tire shops in the area. Some of them in former banks, which is very architecturally incongruent when you can see the tires piled to the ceiling beyond the beautiful glass store front and the columns lining the sidewalk. But hey. You can't lose with architectural columns.

As well, there's no shortage of used car lots ("BUY HERE, PAY HERE!!!!!" "WORLD'S FIRST DRIVE THRU USED CAR LOT!!!!"). And there are plenty of title loan stores and instant cash places. And pawn shops. Plenty.

Beyond these questionable aspects are the cool things. Like the FIRST EVER Krispy Kreme donut shop. Some might want to firebomb the place for having turned donut-making into a Henry Ford assembly line, thus ruining the art of the donut. Not me. Of course...others.

But since we're on the subject, I prefer REAL donuts, like those you can get at The Donut Den in the Green Hills area of Nashville (aka, the RICH AREA). Once in a while a Krispy Kreme donut is OK. Like when they're right off the assembly line. They have that new car smell.

Anyway, there's also La Hacienda, which serves the BEST Mexican food in Nashville. I'm not lying. There's a tortilla factory out back too. I've written about this stuff before, I think, so I'll spare you.

In any case, there's a lot to love. And lots of people are saying (or were saying, anyway) that this area was gentrifying. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I'll tell you one thing that's really not helping.

The idiots who want to "save our fairgrounds."

WHAT???

Let me get this straight. These people would choose to KEEP a pile of crap Pinto rather than trade it in for a Mercedes? Essentially that's what they're saying.

You know what MIGHT happen if we got rid of those stupid fairgrounds? That piece o' shee (to quote my sister) tire recapping shop, whose lot looks like a biohazard (I swear sometimes I think, "I'm seriously going to call OSHA." I don't even know if OSHA cares about stuff like that, but this Dumpster looks like a nuclear waste site at the end of the day, every day), might actually GET LOST because it sucks so bad, and without the lame race track at the fairgrounds, I'm pretty sure the dude who runs the shop will want to move it closer to...um...where-ever they need a tire recapping shop.

And if we got rid of the nasty fairgrounds, perhaps then some PRODUCTIVE businesses might decide to move in. And maybe property values would increase. Yeah, I know that would increase property taxes, but at least south Nashville wouldn't look like Germany after WWII, for once.

Honestly, I don't know what it is about the fairgrounds that this part of the city would resist the change. It would be an upgrade.

Is the flea-market seriously THAT important to the economy of South Nashville? Is it? Because, you know, the flea-market wouldn't have to die should the fairgrounds disappear. If the flea-market is so necessary and important and beloved, it will survive. It might have to move, but it would survive.

Same with the teeny-bopper races or derby or whatever it is that sounds like a swarm of bees during summer nights.

And, Tennessee, I hate to tell you, but the state fair is kind of crappy. One would think that a state with such a long history (in terms of U.S. history) and so much agriculture would have one of the largest, most kick-butt state fairs in the Union. It should be as wicked-awesome as a musical, like State Fair (that musical has an awesome state fair in it, doesn't it? I've never actually seen it. But with a name like State Fair.....), with people driving all the way from Knoxville just to get a look at the best pig in show. And all that. You would think!

But no. I went to the state fair last year and it was the most dismal affair ever. It was weak. If it was going to wrestle (Greco-Roman style), it would be in the lightest weight class. Like 110, if that. I know. That's like junior high weight. That's how pitiful the Tennessee State Fair is compared to other state fairs.

What fairs am I comparing it to? Well.

I'm from Utah, as you've probably noticed. When I have gone to the state fair in Utah, there was so much to see and do that I couldn't get to all of it in one night. The Tennessee State Fair? Yeah, it took me a half-hour, if that, to see what there was to offer.

Unfortunately, this map doesn't show topographical changes. If it did, you'd just stay home. It does, however, show how small the event is. The gray stuff is parking.

Plus, it's on a dang hill. Several rolling hills, really. So you walk up a huge hill to the two ticket booths (that's all they need--two ticket booths), pay, and walk up more hill, to the six rides. Then you walk past those to the tiny building where canned things are and the displays about honey and whatnot. There's also a little building for the kitschy, fun things, but there are only like five booths there. Beyond that is a children's play-house size building for the farm animal things. Next door to that there are three rides for the kiddies.

I exaggerate. But only by a fraction. It feels more like a tiny county fair. It really is the smallest state fair in the world. I bet Rhode Island has a bigger state fair.

So, you might be thinking, well heck, what about the gun shows? Yeah, what about them? I've gone to the gun show at the fairground twice and both times it was crap. The actual gun show could be hosted in a banquet hall. I'm sure there's a better venue for the gun show. And, if it's so economically fantastic for gun shop owners, it won't die. It will just move. That's how these things work.

Saving a tired, worn out, ugly site for the mere sake of saving it stunts changes that could be much better for the city and its residents economically. Especially when you consider what a large swath of land the fairground consume just by its mere existence. And for the larger part of the year, that land sits there empty, looking like an eye-sore.

I don't really understand why many of the residents around the fairgrounds are so eager to "save" it. I can only guess. And my guess is that they lack vision.

I wish I could go talk to Karl Dean and tell him, "Don't give up, man. Rip those hideous fairgrounds out and put in a park, a shopping center, ANYTHING. Anything would be better."

Maybe if they can move the state fair to a better location (read, not on a couple of mucky hills), the fair can improve. And compete with the awesome Utah State Fair*.

And finally, to demonstrate the stunted thinking of people around Nashville, I refer you to this site that features this quote:

How do I feel personally about the closing of the Tennessee State Fairgrounds? Well, if you don't already know by now, I think it stinks. This wonderful ole place, one that has given Nashvillians so many great memories, family fun, and plenty of racing history is about to be wiped away in the name of progress. To me, progress would be to improve on the existing property in a way that would also preserve its historical value as well as incorporate and blend with the local neighborhood.

I would wager that Jan Duke doesn't live in south Nashville, near the fairgrounds. Though I might be surprised, since there are plenty of backward thinking fools in the neighborhood sporting "save our fairgrounds" signs. Anyway, it's nice of Jan to give us her opinion. Maybe she can come live next to the fairgrounds, if she doesn't already, so she can reap all the blessings of the important racing history, with all its joyful sounds.

p.s. The "local neighborhood" has largely been stunted by the presence of the fairgrounds. So, in addition to the few homes in the area, there's the Coke bottling plant, several industrial type complexes, dismal and run-down looking liquor stores, a plot of land that seems to store rail-cars, and a mobile home park (that was wiped out during the flooding last year). So, yeah, let's BLEND the fairgrounds with the neighborhood. Real great idea, Jan.

*Lest you think I'm simply full of home-state pride, my friend from Kentucky said the Kentucky State Fair is also a million times better than the TN State Fair.

My Pro Red Cross Post

2011-03-16T16:42:00.003-05:00

I want to throw out my support for the Red Cross right now, as events unfold in Japan.

I know everyone is most likely pro-Red Cross, but before last May, I wasn't. I mean, I wasn't anti-Red Cross, I was just skeptical. And I know admitting that will only further your suspicions that I'm as insensitive as I always joke of being, but it's worth the risk to convey that I'm now a Red Cross supporter.

Before last May, I was suspicious of what the Red Cross did with their donations. I had seen a pie-chart somewhere that showed that a large portion of donations went to administrative support, and that bothered me for some reason.

After the flood in Nashville last May, the first group to notice what was happening and rush to our assistance (at least, they were the first group I saw) was the Red Cross. I remember driving down Franklin road and seeing their vans and trucks at a church and feeling enormously grateful to have them there. I might have cried a little (sometimes my icy heart melts).

View of downtown Nashville from East Nashville after the rain stopped during the May 2010 flood.

When you can't simply pack up and leave because you LIVE in a place that's just been destroyed by a natural disaster*, the presence of someone from the outside world (so to speak) is a source of comfort and solace. Someone has noticed and is there to help. As resourceful as an individual can be and as prepared as they might be before a disaster, there's a point when a person can't do much more and must rely on assistance.

I know this because even though I had practiced emergency preparedness before the flooding last year, water can wipe out all you've done very quickly. It comes without warning, almost. And if you've put your emergency supplies in the basement, and the basement is the first thing to take on water, unless you can move it quick, the water takes it (this happened to us).

The same goes for tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis, which can dismantle all your careful preparation in a matter of seconds.

Tsunami.

The day Stoker and I saw the Red Cross at that church, serving my city, my heart changed. I think I said as much to Stoker and I told him about the pie chart I'd seen depicting where donation money went and he said something like, "Well, an organization that's going to be first to respond like they do is probably going to need to spend a lot on administrative work. So let them spend it like that, if it's going to help them get to the scene quicker. After this, I'll give them money any time they need it."

And it's a good point. He's right, and logistically, an organization that responds as fast as they do (and I've seen it with my own eyes; they're FAST), is going to have some serious overhead to deal with.

It was good to feel like someone had noticed what was happening in Nashville. No one else did, really. I remember that the Tide, Loads of Hope trucks came eventually and helped people wash their clothes (so I think they're great too), which was also invaluable, since water was being rationed because one of the water treatment plants was down. So many people had no clean clothes after the flood. Their houses were wiped out before they could pack up and run (many people had to swim to safety).

In any case, I'll never be stingy when the Red Cross is asking for help. I never paid close attention to natural disasters and relief projects until I had gone through my own. I know Nashville was fairly overlooked last May because there were a bunch of other good stories for the media to focus on (read: stories that could be used to further political agendas), such as the sinister-sounding Deep Water Horizon crisis and the bomb scare in NYC.

I'm not saying those things weren't scary or important. But I tend to think that because the flood in Nashville couldn't be attributed to a specific political party in some way, it was overlooked. No one whined about being a victim. There was no way to turn it into something that could help the liberal or conservative cause. It just happened and it sucked.

The problems in Japan are incredible. It's frustrating and sad and my prayers are with them. The media is going wild over it not only because of the amount of devastation, which is truly horrifying, but also because it will inevitably be angled against nuclear power, not that this has anything to do with the Red Cross. I just had to say it because it's true and it was waiting for me to say it. And I took the bait.

Anyway, I think the Red Cross is great. I know the people of Japan will be thankful for them.

*In case you're skeptical of the amount of damage middle Tennessee endured because of the 2010 May flood because you never heard about it, here's the Wikipedia entry (which has some statistics), video montage, and some news footage.

More Reasons to Cancel Your Facebook Account

2011-03-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the best part of Facebook is the fact that you can gawk at the apparent traffic accidents of your friends and family's lives as they crash and burn. And, not only that, they essentially televise it for the entertainment of all their connections in some kind of proud display of their total awesomeness . . . so, that's even more heartening to think about.

This only works, of course, if you have an opinion about what people ought to be doing and the choices they ought to be making. So the safest way to approach Facebook is sans opinion, and since I can't do that, the few moments I check in to Facebook, I often end up selecting "hide all posts by X."

I know. I'm such a jerk that I would want to shield myself from the torture of thinking, "Holy crap! What on EARTH are they thinking? WHY WHY WHY, FOR THE LOVE, WHY ARE THEY DOING THAT?"

Also, I'm such a judgmental toad to think that my values, ideas, and expectations are right and not totally unrealistic. These are, after all, just people being people. Right?

Sorry. But I take a different tack on that kind of stuff.

People aren't just people being people. There is good, bad, and evil (as I covered in my recent Charlie Sheen post), and when you sow good, you reap good, and so on. And no, this isn't just "the human condition" as I used to think while still in college. Yes, yes, believe me. I was one of those naive idiots who worshiped the notion that there's really something beautiful about human suffering, existence, and "the condition."

I went to movies at the art cinema in Logan, Utah and thought deep thoughts, spurred by the artistic statements being made by truly creative independent film makers. I'd go for walks late at night and stare at the glow of windows emanating from the houses lining the streets and weep to Wilco's "Sunken Treasure" (because, I mean, that's a great song. And I still think that. But I also think, "Buck up, man!" so, yes, I am probably an insensitive jerk if I can think that about such a gorgeous song) as I pondered my place in the universe*.

So, I've been there. Done that. I want you to know, because it's imperative to understand that I haven't just arrived at this location on my lifelong trajectory without having passed through my own valleys of shadow and whatnot. I've got SOME experience. I've made lots of insane choices and suffered lots of undesirable consequences.

But luckily, most of those choices were made before Facebook existed. So no one had to feel like they were right there with me, watching me being a complete moron. I mean, I'm sure my mom and dad saw some of that and it probably ripped their hearts out, and for that I'm sorry (for real). I wish I had always been such a stellar individual and had my head on straight one hundred percent of the time (or at least, seventy-five percent of the time). Heh heh.

Which is the big problem with Facebook. One of them, anyway. Right now I'm thinking about this one, where I get to log in and witness the final descent before someone's life explodes into burning wreckage. The key is that it's because of their choices, not happenstance. Happenstance is sad, but forgivable. It's not their fault.

But consequences for stupid decision-making . . . that's just frustrating. Irritating (they KNEW better, how could they do THAT?). How hard can it be to not make dumb choices? I find it devastating. Too difficult to watch. And with Facebook, if I don't defriend or cancel my account, I have to deal with it nonstop.

Isn't getting away from the destructive behavior of certain friends or family part of the relief of growing up and moving away from that person? Not that we intentionally run away, but unless we want to surround ourselves with constant pain, something's got to be done.

So hide their updates. Do it. It will set you free.

That's what I tell myself.

And really, all I want is for everyone to not be naive and realize that their choices and actions don't occur in a vacuum. We are all watching each other. We see and feel the suffering of our friends and family. We share their joys and disappointments. And sometimes it's absurdly obvious when someone is sowing manure (while thinking, I suppose, that they're planting corn). They're going to end up with a pile of crap and you know it. How can they not see it too?

*I don't mean to imply that the human condition isn't interesting and sometimes, in a way, beautiful. Because there are moments that are transforming and inspiring, and it's quite nice to see a film or read a book that catalogs this in a breathtaking way and makes you feel like the spirited individual can triumph over whatever obstacles they face. However, the dark side to the "human condition" stuff can be the notorious ripple effect. And Facebook magnifies this problem.

Head Staples

2011-03-10T12:26:00.000-06:00

There's a serious problem in the world today. I can't fix it. I wish I could, but, sadly, I'm just one woman. And this problem is an avalanche.

What is that problem, you ask? I know. You long to hear about problems because you haven't enough in your own life. You love whining. You love listening to people complain about avalanches, snowballs, and landslides of problems.

So that's why I'm going to tell you. Also, it does me good to get it off my chest. I can barely breathe and it's not just the baby being all selfish with the limited space in my torso and crushing the air out of my lungs (can you believe this baby?!).

The problem is clarity. Let me give you an example. This is from a story I read on a news site:

Meanwhile, C____ H_____ received seven staples in his head after the car nicked his right shoulder as it went airborne into the front porch. Doctors put his arm in a sling. His wife, S____, is still reeling from the experience.

I took the names out, obviously. I don't know these people and besides, I might complain about the entire story and I have nothing against them as individuals. It's the quality of the story itself and lack of a theme. Lack of everything, really.

I know I tread on dangerous ground to criticize someone else's writing. It invites scrutiny of my own writing and I'm sure there are several areas where I could improve, however, I'm not being paid to write. Nor am I part of the machinery of the AP or any of those behemoths producing material for the news agencies.

And I understand that journalists are often given assignments they resent. I'm sure it's crappy to have to create an article from material you don't care about. That's why I'm not a journalist. I did it for a few weeks, loathed it, and quit.

So this paragraph I shared with you. It's so horribly done, I can barely stand it. So C.H. received seven staples in his head, you know, like when I receive a package in the mail. Aside from receive being a terrible choice of words here, what's worse is the stupid doctors apparently didn't realize the real wound was in his shoulder! Where the car nicked him!

Then, of course, the doctors put his arm in a sling. I think somehow that must be related to the shoulder wound, which got scant attention after his head was stapled seven times (for no reason whatsoever). I imagine the shoulder will heal, because of that sling, but I don't know how long his recovery will take. Shoulder-nickings are on the rise, yet no studies have been done to determine lasting damage and whatnot.

I jest. Surely this is no laughing matter, surely. But the poverty of writing skill demonstrated in the article steals the attention. I'm sure you didn't even notice that what happened in the paragraph is that A CAR WAS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR AND NARROWLY MISSED C.H.

Yeah. That's right. It was difficult to determine the exact details, but what I gathered from the badly tangled story is that a family was out in their front yard on Sunday when a vehicle, recklessly careening down their street, bounced off a couple other stationary vehicles, soared through the air over the small gathering (nicking C.H. in the shoulder) and crashed into the house.

But don't expect such a concise summary of what happened in the original story. If you read it (after somehow finding it, bwah ha ha ha), you'll feel like a prisoner of the labyrinth, picking up a scattered trail of breadcrumbs, which lead you nowhere. It's like the minotaur sneezed and you've got to find where the crumbs were originally placed. That's how scattered the details are.

Originally, Ariadne used a ball of thread to help Theseus in the labyrinth. But for my purposes, bread crumbs have an inherent comedic element that thread lacks. Should you find yourself in a labyrinth, I suggest you follow Ariadne's lead.

Of course, you might argue that C.H.'s head injury is implied by the fact that it received seven staples. So there's no need to clutter up the paragraph with unnecessary details like the fact that while his shoulder was simply nicked, his head bore the brunt of the impact. Like, you know, his shoulder was nicked by the passenger-side mirror and his head was smashed by the windshield.

But if that's the case, wouldn't the greater injury demand more attention? And while I agree that it's clever and interesting to leave some mystery in the telling, there's an immense difference between clarity (bringing back my original complaint) and obscurity. And besides, news articles are hardly the place to concoct a mystery for eager readers to solve. We don't read the paper to get the satisfaction of deciphering meaning. That's the job of fiction.

There are more offenses in the original story. Another paragraph:

On Sunday, police say A____ G____ J____, 20, recklessly drove a Cadillac down [a street], hit the H____’s parked Honda Civic, and then hit a tree. That catapulted the vehicle J_____ was driving on top of a Toyota Corolla and Jaguar parked in the P___'s driveway. Then it hit their house, further impacting their lives.

So, there are a lot of blanks in there, but you can just substitute any names in. The Civic was C.H.'s car. In a line before this paragraph, we learn that C.H. and his wife were forced to move in with his wife's parents because they've been having difficult health problems.

The main point of the article seems to be that this couple is living the story of Job. Any possible complication that could happen has happened. And then out of nowhere, a car flies through the air and nicks C.H. in the shoulder (requiring seven staples to the head). It does seem rather implausible, but I'm not questioning that. I am, however, questioning the sentence structure of this paragraph.

First of all, sometimes people TRY SO HARD (bless their hearts) to use active verbs that they sacrifice (once again) clarity for ACTION. As though I read the newspaper to get a rush. Yes, the active voice is great. I agree. But what's even better than that? Making sense.

Maybe there's no way to write this paragraph so that it reads smoother*. There are, after all, several makes and models of cars and about a million names. It's like proper noun city in this paragraph. To complicate matters, the writer appears desperate to relate the sequence of the accident while also making sure to paint an accurate picture of the types of vehicles (very important!), but, not only that, he/she also wants to litter the sentences with exciting words like catapult. I question the use of catapult.

Here's why I question the word catapult. Stationary object becomes a projectile....

The first time I read it (and I had to read the paragraph several times to understand it), the thing that stuck out the most was the Jaguar. One of the main points of this short article is to let readers know that a fund has been established to help these people out. But, then there's a Jaguar in the driveway.

I'm not saying it belongs to C.H. It probably belongs to his wife's parents. And if they can afford a Jag, cool. No big deal. But there's a Jag in the driveway. And then there's a fund where I can donate money to help them out. But there's a Jag in the driveway. A Jag. And it's a Jag. Starting at $50,000 for the low-end models. A Jag. In the driveway.

My point is, it doesn't make sense. I'm not saying the writer should lie about things, but too many unnecessary details weigh the story down and all the active verbs in the world don't help me slog through them. And especially it doesn't increase my sympathy to the point of donating when I read that there's a Jaguar in the driveway.

It's like all the scammers in Nashville. One time, Stoker and I were in a parking lot, sitting in our truck and a van with a family in it pulled up. Stoker was on the phone with a client or his boss, but that didn't dissuade the female driver. She left her van to come to our window and asked us to help her out. She needed money for gas to get to Atlanta. Her husband remained in the van, on his very nice cell phone, and the lady left her van running. She'd been driving around the parking lot. Quite a bit.

We didn't have any cash. She left. My question for scammers like that is, how do you afford that cell phone? It's a luxury. If you have no money, sell what you have. Cut back. It's not that difficult.

So when an article asks for my money, but there's a Jag in the driveway, seven staples to the head and an arm in a sling doesn't illicit enough sympathy for me to donate. Perhaps I'm a cold-hearted jerk (I totally know that's not true, but I had to say it, you know, so I don't look like a jerk), but that's not how the relationship works.

I work hard to earn my living, and yes, I know I'm blessed and that it's not all me. Nevertheless, to make me want to part with (basically) my blood, sweat, and tears, you're going to have to show me that your need is desperate. And a Jag or a cell phone tells me things aren't quite as bad as you're trying to portray.

Anyway. Perhaps the author of the article WANTED me to feel like C.H. doesn't truly deserve my money. If so, bravo. If not, maybe, I don't know, the writer should sign up for some writing courses. Or don't. You're not the only one (you, meaning the writer) suffering. You're in good (or bad?) company. The entire community of journalists is on a swift course downhill in terms of good writing. It's an avalanche.

*Police say A____ G____J_____, 20, drove a Cadillac in a reckless fashion down D____ street on Sunday, careening into C.H.'s parked Honda Civic and a tree, which launched the Cadillac onto two other vehicles parked in the P___'s driveway. But the Cadillac didn't stop until it crashed into the P___'s house where it (describe the damage in a three words).

The Neverending Story = Best Kid's Show Ever

2011-03-09T12:17:00.000-06:00

Oh man.

So.

Someone posted a commented on a blog post I did in 2007 and of course I went to respond. Then, unfortunately, I noticed that a bunch of my old posts from that month were missing their first lines because as usual, I'm an idiot and I got all fancy with the formatting so that when I changed my template (which I do regularly. It's like rearranging the living room), the formatting didn't change and so certain colored fonts mysteriously disappeared.

Very frustrating.

That's when I ran across this post.

Which of course led to this music video:

Can you resist the Neverending Story? If you were born after 1972 but prior to 1990, the answer is that NO. YOU CAN'T. Because it's perhaps one of the single greatest movies for children EVER.

Watching the music video but ignoring all the embarrassing 80s pop hair moments and bad acting of the singers, the clips of Falkor, Atreyu, and even the obnoxious Childlike Empress with her irritating pout (sorry, pouty faces bring out the boxer in me) reignite my longing to help Atreyu overcome the Nothing.

I HATE the Nothing!

But really the Nothing was more than just a scary werewolf who wants to kill you. It's Nothing, man. NOTHING . . . I think you have to smoke a lot of weed to understand it.

I can't remember Atreyu's horse's name (Artax?), but the scene in the music video where the horse is sinking in the quicksand KILLS me. KILLS ME. I've never had my own horse, but if I had one, there'd be one condition the horse would have to swear to: TO NEVER DIE. And especially, especially to avoid the blasted quicksand. Atreyu's scream as the horse just stands there, sinking, killed me. Yes, yes, I know. After they overcome the Nothing, everything is restored.

Right? It's been so long since I last watched it, I hardly remember the ending.

Now, I know there will be plenty of people who disagree with me. They will say, "No, the greatest kids movie ever was Goonies." Or, "Pish posh. Best movie for kids was Willow*". Or, "Nawwwwww, Dark Crystal. So classic," I would expect to even hear a "No no no no, best kid's movie is Princess Bride."

My only question for those who want to throw out other best kid's movies is, "Does it have a luckdragon?" If it doesn't have a luckdragon, there's no competition**.

The answer is yes, I have always wanted a luckdragon.

All these movies are from my youth, of course, therefore recent films are not even being recognized. So please don't try to judge Then against Now. Because if you do, Now will utterly fail. Movies from Now don't even COMPARE. I'm not sure what they were thinking in the 80s, but something was going on and we were rewarded with shows like Goonies, Princess Bride, and the NeverEnding Story.

These days all they can do is produce crap like Agent Cody Banks. Spy Kids. More like Crap Kids and Agent Crappy Banks. Not to be bitter. I just enjoy substituting random words with the word crap from time to time. It makes me laugh.

Not that crappy kid shows matter to me, yet, because I don't watch them anymore and my first kid is still gestating. But I'll tell you what he's going to watch when he's old enough. NeverEnding Story.

Luckily, the Childlike Empress's fate wasn't in my hands. I have no respect for pouts of this magnitude, especially not perma-pouts, as hers seems to be.

*Seriously? I mean, "Willow" was good. But not THAT good.
*This can be expressed in an equation: (Film title) + luckdragon = Best Kid's Movie Ever. Conversely, (Film title) - luckdragon ≠ Best Kid's Movie Ever. I know. It's simple. I made it that way on purpose for all those Hollywood execs looking to cash in on family-friendly kid's movies.

Charlie Sheen Becomes Charlie Parker

2011-03-08T17:03:00.000-06:00

Partying like a rock star has been shown to age a person beyond their years.

It's probably a chicken/egg argument, but am I the only who makes the connection between Charlie Sheen's hedonistic lifestyle and the fact that he played a hedonistic bachelor in Two and a Half Men (aka "the worst comedy series ever to last so long")?

I'm taking the view that he couldn't play such an incorrigible role without it bleeding into his real life. What a miserable guy. I actually feel bad for what an unhappy man he appears to be. I think he thinks he covers it up with his aggressive interview tactics, but it's fairly transparent, isn't it?

Ok, and what about David Duchovny in that HBO show (which I never saw, but heard about) Californication? So he plays a guy with a sexual addiction (amongst other addictions). Several years later, his marriage is falling apart because . . . why? He's got a sexual addiction.

Apparently even birth-control glasses couldn't prevent continued infidelity.

Y'ello? Is there a trend here? Could it be impossible to portray a character with such troubling demons for a long period of time without those attributes seeping into that actor's reality? It doesn't seem out of the question to me, but perhaps I'm superstitious or something.

I often wonder how actors act in films that reek of evil without feeling like they're treading into hell. I guess it comes down to what you call evil. I think the current trend in our culture is that there is no evil. It's just a bunch of people being human. And, you know, that's not evil, man. That's just people, having a human experience, man, which is good, you know?

But, in my opinion, that's just a candy-coated lie. Evil is obviously selfishness. What's more evil than putting your own needs over the needs of others? Even the tribes of American Indians believed in evil, and selfishness was what evil was generally thought to be. This is true, at least, of the Navajo. If someone in your tribe or clan was becoming wealthier than everyone else, that person was obviously practicing witch-craft. They manipulate the wheel of fortune to bring fortune to themselves at the expense of the rest of the tribe.

There are two kinds of evil: selfishness (no illustration necessary); and primordial evil, like Cthulhu. There's no way back from Cthulhu, once you're caught: madness. Selfishness allows for repentance. Here that, Charlie?

Not a bad definition of evil. But, I'm not trying to espouse communism or socialism, because I don't believe that's the answer to the problems of the world (at least, not government forced charity). I'm just making the case that it's not totally old-fashioned to believe in evil. There are lots of forms of it. I'm sure many people would agree that exploiting or hurting children is evil.

So then, why can't I say that Hollywood makes evil movies and wonder how the actors reconcile themselves to participating in such graphic and uncomfortable portrayals of evil? Because I really do wonder. They must have absolutely no conscience. Which is sad, because that's the only way to navigate the often troubling waters of our lives, you know, with Jiminy Cricket right there, guiding us.

I'm personally not comfortable with portrayals of extreme evil on television or film. Shows like Criminal Minds really disturb me. And I'd have to say, in fact, that it's refreshing to me to find out that others are likewise uncomfortable with certain subject matters. For example, Mandy Patinkin, who played one of the profilers on Criminal Minds, left the show after two seasons because he loathed violence on television and was uncomfortable with certain scenes in the show (source).

Mandy sought a six-fingered man as Inigo. As Jason Gideon, he sought criminals who might eat human fingers for breakfast. Which do YOU want to see? The Spaniard on a quest of vengeance? Same with Mandy.

So some people do have consciences! It's really a revelation to me that there are people in show business who have morals. So, thanks Mandy. I honestly wish Hollywood was better at producing fiction that could give me hope, rather than just making me laugh or feel utterly depressed. I must be in the minority, however, otherwise I'm sure the ratings would have shown as much.

At some point, I fully expect to bow out of consuming television and film. I'm almost there. Charlie Sheen's tantrums and embarrassing displays don't help me feel encouraged about what's happening in the entertainment industry. In fact, I'd sort of be happy if the whole system imploded. But I'm sure the executives would only blame piracy, rather than taking a microscope to the trash they're producing and try to fix it.

Eddy Arnold: "Cattle Call"

2011-02-09T11:22:00.002-06:00

Sometimes at work I feel a little crazy and neurotic and I can't stand to hear the noises my coworkers make. The constant wheezing sound of the perpetual nose-blower (she "requires" an air filter, apparently being highly allergic to normal air, and seems to fixate on her nose, even though from all indications, there's never anything in it. The sound, you see. It's not a "productive" sound. Like a productive cough, as you're getting over a cold or what have you—yes, I hate it that I've formed opinions about my neighbor's health and her vital signs. It's weird. But that's what happens when someone's blowing their nose all day), and the clickety-clacks of the mad-typer who's always composing lengthy emails to other coworkers comprised of poignant and clever observations, and the constant hacking cough of the smoker (sometimes I'll begin a sweet doze and the smoker will hack and cough out of nowhere, with no warning whatsoever, startling me from my peaceful lucid dreams. It's frustrating, and then I think of Pride and Prejudice when Mrs. Bennet gets mad at Kitty for not timing her coughs well and how the coughs wear on Mrs. Bennet's nerves. My nerves too!).

And today is one of those days. I was suddenly feeling very claustrophobic, and HOT (I think my company believes we'll freeze to death if they don't run the heat at 90 degrees). I can't stand it. So I was melting at my desk and feeling like if I had to listen to the clickety-clack of my neighbor I would explode (or gurgle to death in a pile of ooze, because it's so hot, you see), and that's when I remembered last night.

Last night Stoker was researching the history of the Nashville music scene and he played this one song by a musician everyone but me has probably always known about: Eddy Arnold.

Holy moley. It devastates me in a good way to find out there's always been some awesome musician or singer around being great and I've never known about them. That's the benefit of arriving to the scene late. Like being born in the late 70s and only reaching full maturation (really) the day I hear the artist (because it's like I've never arrived until the day I hear that music). Basically I have everything pre-80s to look forward to discovering over the course of my life.

Last night Stoker played "Cattle Call" and I couldn't believe it. Some people might hear it and scoff. Others probably love it and have a long tradition of hearing it—beautiful traditions of going out to the farm with dad or grandpa and having them sing "Cattle Call" or being forced to listen to it on the 8-track. But I haven't got those experiences.

I have others. But not the "Cattle Call" ones.

How can a guy sing that well? That's my main question. It's absolutely insane to me to hear the recording and know that when he recorded it (he recorded three different versions over a period of about fourteen years....or something. Stoker can tell you. Don't quote me), they didn't have auto-tune. I listened to two versions last night and both were amazing. I guess you'd say it's yodeling, but yodeling has always been awful to listen to, for me. And it's always been like, "Yo-del-eh-eh-hoooooo," which is just about terrible to endure. And I don't think that's exactly what Arnold is saying in the song. He's saying, "Ooooh doooo doooo dooo oooooh oh delo, oh doooo dooo, dwip, deee ooooh, ohhh delop, dooo dee dee." That's an actual transcription. I just sat here and transcribed it, vowel for vowel.

And each . . . cattle call . . . is clear and perfect. It's like clear mountain streams. Unblemished blankets of snow. Something like that. John Denver would be able to describe it better than I can, because it's like "Rocky Mountain High," or "Annie's Song," only it's a guy with a flawless voice and it was recorded in the 50s or something. Take that all you modern singers....

Anyway, so I remembered that I didn't have to listen to my coworkers and all their standard noises because I had this Eddy Arnold album to listen to. I got it last night. After I was slain by "Cattle Call." Thank goodness.

This is a televised version. I have the studio version from Eddy Arnold: The Hits on Island Def Jam.

p.s. Note the angel-choir. Sadly, it's not in the studio version.

How to Sing the National Anthem

2011-02-07T12:42:00.001-06:00

During high school, I read Maggie: a Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane for an English class. For some reason I picked this book out of a bunch of other choices. I think I was high or something and thought I'd really show my class that I could take the worst possible option and make it rock. I have no idea. There were better options, I remember that. Babbit (ha ha), As I Lay Dying, Slaughterhouse-Five. I really should have picked the Vonnegut book. Maybe I figured I was saving my innocent classmates from having to read a book about prostitution. I was taking one for the team, so to speak. That's how great and unselfish I am. Always thinking of others. Yep.

In any case, I can't remember anything about the story except for one scene. Someone's in a bar with a stage, it seems like, and a performer starts singing the national anthem, and the crowd goes wild. I think they get emotional, take off their hats, and stand up. The song arouses all sorts of patriotism and sentiment, even though, if I remember correctly, the bar is mostly full of what would be considered low-class citizens who were poverty-stricken and of humble means. The point is, the national anthem moved them.

I remember thinking that there was something wrong with my generation back then, after I read that scene and saw how the national anthem could get a crowd going back during Stephen Crane's time—my generation seemed so spoiled that we could only ever think of ourselves and we had to almost be threatened to pay the proper respects to things like the American flag and the national anthem.

Well, maybe it was just that we were teenagers and didn't know any better. We'd never been tested and lots of us had never suffered much. That's what I thought then, and I thought we'd grow up and become good adults, full of understanding, wisdom, and respect.

The problem is that it seems like most of my generation hasn't changed. They're still selfish, egocentric, and ungrateful. Granted, I know lots of people in my age group who are great. They have good desires, they have their heads on straight, they're not totally focused on me, me, me, me (and by me, me, me, I mean, "Like, I'm totally the awesomest. How can I become even more cooler? Perhaps by purchasing these totally sweet jeans from American Apparel or Urban Outfitters and starting a band...etc.").

This is why it's so offensive when a modern singer decimates the national anthem in addition to performing it like they're trying to prove how awesome their vocal acrobatics are. It illustrates a particular selfishness, as though they've never even attempted to understand what happened during the war that inspired the anthem. They've never read how Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics. They've never tried imagine the historical moment and felt the impact of the battles waged for independence and freedom.

We don't have to lose everything in a war or nearly die in a battle to feel something about the value of our country and its symbols of sacrifice and liberty. All we have to do is have a bit of imagination. If we've lost our imaginations through lack of exercise, then we're truly lost. But I think the majority of us have retained some ability there, otherwise we'd have no emotional connection to any story we read, hear, or see (on TV, you know...yes, TV. I know it seems counter-intuitive because it does most of the work...but it does ask something of us).

What I mean is that Christina Aguilera, if she wants to find redemption from her horribly selfish performance, might decide to study the history of the song. She might read the account found here, and through some kind of inspiration—a muse, a dove, an angel (like a Dickensian ghost of Christmas past, only this one takes her spiritually back to the war of 1812)—she might suddenly realize,

My word, this song, this anthem, isn't about how loud I can screech into a microphone. It's not about those stupid Mariah Carey scales and high notes....it's—it's about fearing that all is lost, that our freedoms and ideals have been robbed during the night of a long battle, a veritable attack on our Capitol. It's about being carried emotionally to the brink of despair, knowing, just knowing our enemies had won, and seconds before caving into sorrow and hopelessness, we see, through the smoke of the cannons and sudden quiet of battle that the giant flag still flies over the fort, far away on land! It's about much more than me. It's about us. And when I sing it, I'm not me. I'm a vehicle for all the voices of all the Americans, their spirits united in me, praising God, or whatever higher power each individual might believe in, for giving us this land and our freedoms. Sort of like a prayer.

Maybe she'll get that. And maybe every singer selected to sing our national anthem can do that. So next time we don't have to listen to them mangle it as they forget the words because they're more focused on sounding awesome....you know, as though how they sing the national anthem might influence us to buy more of their songs or watch their movies or something. I think about the worst that can happen is that if you suck at it, we'll boycott you to death. Because, for pete's sake, that's our NATIONAL ANTHEM. Don't mess with it.

Superhero Fatigue

2011-02-03T10:57:00.001-06:00

Am I the only one who's tired of superheroes?

Just a sampling of recent superhero stuff in the media: No Ordinary Family, The Cape, The Green Hornet (the movie), X-Men, Batman, Watchmen, Spiderman, Superman, and I just heard they're going to remake the TV show Wonder Woman. I guess the time is really right for that kind of move. We haven't had enough of ordinary people with extraordinary powers doing special things out of the sheer goodness of their hearts for humanity as a whole. Motives of pure gold, that's what they have. The rest of us just have to watch and stare in wonder.

I tried to watch The Cape. I think I missed the first fifteen minutes of the show or maybe it was the first half hour. It didn't matter because the last bit I saw was boring, even though it involved a lot of double-crossing and fight scenes and chase scenes and spectacular explosions. It even involved a little boy watching the news as his dad ran from some bad guys one morning, as the little boy ate breakfast in the kitchen with his mom. Then they watched as a cargo trailer exploded. It was being filmed live. And his dad was under that trailer.

I didn't feel a whit of sadness for the family as they hugged and wept. Maybe because I knew the dad was alive? Or maybe because I wasn't invested enough in the show? Perhaps I have a heart of stone. Or . . . it could be that the story just sucked.

I don't know. But often, even when I know the opposite is true ("X is not dead, he's just buried under a pile of debris!" or "X is alive! She's just in a coma!"), I still manage to dredge up a few tears for the poor unsuspecting loved ones who feel the loss of their mother, father, or friend. I'm just following that wise admonishment to "weep with those who weep," and etc. And I'm a sap. Need I say more?

Ok, so I'm a sap. But I'm not mindless. And I'm trying to figure out what the crap is wrong with the networks and all their lame writers who think the public wants MORE superhero tripe. It wouldn't be so bad if the writing was actually good and the stories they were telling us were compelling. But so far I can hardly stand two minutes of No Ordinary Family. It's like the Invincibles. Only the Invincibles was cute and funny, and when it came out, there hadn't been a story about a family with superpowers.

To top it all off, why is it assumed that the public is enamored with the idea of heroes having special powers to assist them in their do-gooding? Can I say that? Do-gooding? Why do we want to celebrate heroes who are endowed with "special" powers and not a normal human who extends his or herself beyond the average and achieves something great, because that's the traditional definition of hero. And anyone can be a hero.

Currently, I suppose, there is this bubbling undercurrent of curiosity regarding the possibility that oh wow, humans have mutated and now all of us have the ability to fly! Or, suddenly I can see through walls! It was all those preservatives in the Twinkies. I ate a lot of Twinkies and it mutated my DNA. And now I'm superhuman. Yeah. It was the BPA. It toyed so much with my estrogen that now I have super-strength. Go figure.

That's what people are thinking. I know it. Sadly, the BPA and Twinkies are not going to mutate us into powerful creatures. And same with toxic waste and genetically enhanced spider bites. They'll just kill us, as bad things do.

For some reason, we'd apparently rather hear stories about morons who develop special powers through accidents that ought to destroy us (which, I guess you would argue, is how the superhero is born—because they're "no ordinary" human, they just become powerful, and not dead . . . ) and do awesome things rather than hear stories about real heroism.

Yesterday I deleted the Jack Handey quote in my Facebook information and put in a quote by James Talmage, and then I tried to fill in the "people who inspire you" section. I typed in "my mom, Stoker, my family," and hit save. Guess what? You can't put that sort of nonsense in (Facebook seems to say). It didn't work even when I typed their names in (so it could link to their pages).

Facebook will not have it. Facebook wants me to put in names of people so it can link my page to those pages of, I guess, people it deems appropriate for me to admire. It wants names like Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand, Galileo, and other sundry people who everyone can admire and link to.

I might admire those people, but this is the commercialization of hero-worship.

What bothers me is that I can't choose who I admire and for whom I wish to advertise my admiration. I would like the world to know and the people who know me to know that I'm not fooled by fame*, I'm not a member of some cult of personality, I have seen the reality of what a hero truly is: it is someone who does something very difficult, under the pressure of the possibility that if they fail, the people who matter to them will suffer, and yet they do it anyway. Even if they don't succeed, their sacrifice is noted, their attempt is recorded and the ramifications felt. Those ramifications might simply be the realization, "this person loves me very much," or "this person loves others more than him/herself."

And come to think of it, the only reason a hero ever does anything is because of that: love. But superheroes? I don't really know about them, having never known any personally.

All I know is that I'm done with superheroes. Green Hornet? Not going to see it. More iterations of Spiderman? Won't be seeing them. The new Wonder Woman? Ha. Fat chance. Her costume will probably be strips of tape and a bikini bottom and rather than using any skill, earned or inherent, she'll stop crime with her sluttiness. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha.

In the next few days, I'll be posting about being tired of the following: cop dramas, doctor/hospital dramas, firefighter dramas, law/courtroom dramas, crime scene dramas, serial killer/heinous crime dramas, and slutty housewife dramas. Does that encompass everything on prime time? Oh, dang.

*I really want everyone to admire me for not admiring moronic famous people. It's a defining characteristic of who I am.

"Lie to Me" Almost Ruined Our Relationship

2011-02-02T16:50:00.002-06:00

I really like the show Lie to Me. And I was one of the first. That's right. For once in my life, I can honestly say that I've been with the show since the pilot. Usually something happens in the hour-long drama shows to offend me by this point and I've jumped ship. And something almost DID happen Monday night, but it's not grievous enough for me to slam the door in its face, turn off the porch light, and close all the blinds. Yet.

Usually it's the non-lesbian straight-hot-girl kiss that does it. Why? Because it's b.s. It's never in there because it adds to the story. It's deliberately contrived to be in there to titillate a male audience, which is offensive to me. It's like saying, "Hello, I know you're my girlfriend, but want to go to the strip club with me?" I know there are women who do that and that's fine, for them (of course I tend to think they're weak and insecure, but that's just me), but it's not ok for me. I demand civility and gentility and a bunch of other -ilities from the men in my life and if I don't get it, then . . . [fill in the blank].

Many of these shows know the largest part of their viewership is women, and what they end up counting on is the fact that women are not offended by seeing the non-lesbian straight-hot-girl kiss. So they throw it in to garner favor in their male audience, which is small, and which they hope to increase by the tantalizing chance of seeing such forbidden actions on prime-time TV.

If more women were as tough as me, they'd boycott the shows after such gratuitous, pointless, crap and teach the networks a lesson. Because it's not just offensive to me. It's offensive to real lesbians who have real relationships and not flings with women while actually being into men, just to be exhibitionists for men. It's reducing real lesbian partnerships into something that exists only for men, which is, as I understand it, what so many feminists (who often happen to be lesbians) want to escape.

So anyway. I haven't seen any of my pet peeves on Lie to Me. Yet.

But Monday night the show crossed a line. A faint line. Upon further reflection later on, it snowballed into something that could squash my enthusiasm for Tim Roth's character and the intriguing relationships he has with the rest of the characters.

What was it? What could it have been? you ask, holding your breath, sitting on the edge of your office chair.

At the very end, Cal Lightman's adorable daughter has broken up with her too-perfect boyfriend because . . . why? "He doesn't believe in sex before marriage." Tim Roth's character laughs. All this time he's been worried about what his daughter's getting into with the boyfriend and it turns out, the kid won't have sex before marriage. Not even a "is that so bad? Sounds perfect to me," from Tim Roth. Just laughter.

Am I insane that I think most decent fathers are going to be thrilled to find out their daughter has a boyfriend with standards like that? Am I insane to believe that most dads don't want their high school daughter sleeping around? Even in a culture that has determined that lots of sex before marriage—to see if you're compatible, of course—is a great idea, aren't dads a little more protective of their daughters than an "I give you my blessing" to a guy who wants to live with daddy's little girl before they get married?

What bothers me, really, is that this show I love has suddenly decided to twist what a girl wants into what men really want and not what women want. Sex in the City did enough of that. They've lied to women about what we want and a lot of women have bought it. It's not female empowerment to try to be what men are. We're not men. It doesn't empower women to sleep around and not demand commitment. It only serves men when women live like that.

So I don't need Lie to Me, to be trying to sell me some stupid Sex in the City ideology about what teenage girls want. GIRLS DON'T BREAK UP WITH GUYS BECAUSE A GUY DOESN'T WANT TO HAVE SEX BEFORE HE'S MARRIED. And if she does, her problem isn't the guy. It's the commitment. She's got commitment problems.

Ok. And that may be all me and me alone, because I'm not an idiot and lots of other people tend to be when it comes to logic and reason, nevertheless, it's really irritating. It's irritating that Cal (Tim Roth) didn't say anything, because in my opinion, his daughter was looking for fatherly advice, not laughter and best friend sort of crap. No kid in their right mind wants mom and dad to be their buddy. They want mom and dad to be their guide. They want dad to set them straight and show how important they are by pulling them away from the fire, not letting them get burned to a crisp. They want mom to establish rules and stick to the rules, because it makes them feel safe in a dangerous world.

Sure, teenagers pretend to hate it and they push against the boundaries, but until the kid is 18 or not living at home, they deserve to have the guidance of their parents. And even after they're 18 and have moved away, kids go back to their parents for guidance. Advice. Sound reasoning. Etc.

So it bugs me that Cal Lightman just laughed and didn't tell his daughter that a man like Liam (the boyfriend) is decent. That he respects her and sexual relationships if that's what his standards are, and that she shouldn't be breaking up with a guy over that, and oh yeah, she'll have sex before she's married over his dead body, etc. If a show is going to be trying to teach me standards, then it better be decent standards. And not Sex in the City standards, because that's no standards at all. And if I wanted that, I'd watch that show.

I hope Lie to Me straightens up after this and that if they want to do something about Cal Lightman's daughter having sex as a teenager, for pete's sake, show us that the consequences are detrimental. Because that's the reality more often than not. Sex complicates everything. And everyone knows it; if they think otherwise, they're lying to themselves.

How Much Is That Woolly Mammoth in the Window?

2011-01-24T13:14:00.002-06:00

I guess there's a news story going around about how scientists are going to try to clone a woolly mammoth. To this I say, "Excellent. Do it."

Some people might cringe and ask if we didn't learn any lessons from Jurassic Park. Well, no, I don't think we did. Jurassic Park was just a movie. A book first, then a movie, and as we all know, morals went out in the thirties. The point of any story nowadays is merely to entertain. And Jurassic Park was extremely entertaining.

Besides, real-life isn't subject to the same laws that stories in books are, which is to say, just because things happen in a book—like, that everything that can go wrong will go wrong—doesn't mean the same will occur for our modern scientists who simply want to clone a gigantic hairy elephant.

I've seen the skeleton of a woolly mammoth up close. They're not that scary. Or tall. And I think they'd be fun to tame for riding purposes, like a horse.

So I say go for it. I would LOVE to drive through the plains and watch herds of woolly mammoths grazing peacefully on the range (they're herbivores, aren't they?), or hike up into the Uintahs and spy a woolly mammoth splashing around in a small pond in the forest, bathing like a cherub out of a renaissance painting—depending, of course, on which habitat this friendly creature will prefer.

Honestly, I think it would be extremely awesome if we could bring back ALL the dinosaurs. I've held the secret belief for some time now that earth-life has been stuck in a cycle: humans reach a technological singularity where they have the bright idea to clone the dinosaurs that died out years ago. Success! The dinosaurs are brought back, but refuse to cooperate with the boundaries we place on them ("Come on, Mr. T-rex. Keep your teeth to yourself and stay behind this Invisible Fence®. Geez!"). They leave the very nice preserves we set aside for their grazing and carnivorous needs, rampaging across the globe, slaughtering all the humans. Then an asteroid. Then, humans manage to come back. Then the humans reach a technological singularity and decide to clone the dinosaurs that died out years ago. Success! The dinosaurs are brought back, but refuse to cooperate . . . and so on.

Which came first? Dinosaurs or the humans? It's really a chicken/egg question. There is no right answer.

And when I think of it, there are only a few glorious deaths I can reconcile myself to if I can't have the luxury of going in my sleep real nice and easy. One is to experience an end-of-the-world disaster movie situation. That would be just fine. I watched the terrible 2012 last night and I'm of the mind that I'd rather die than try to survive the bull crap that movie toyed around with, because really, who'd want to survive with all the jerks on the (spoiler alert!) arks?

My other preferred glorious death would be to survive long enough to have a full menagerie of cloned dinosaurs on the loose that could wipe out the entire human race. That would be kind of fun. So bring on the woolly mammoths!

Seriously. Right now.

Facing Down a Salesperson (and Winning!)

2011-01-21T12:33:00.000-06:00

Back in November I sat on my favorite glasses and broke them into a million pieces. The frames were made by Smith before they started doing their own prescription line (I do believe). I had prescription lenses put in and I wore them for seven years or so. I got a lot of compliments. The first time I met Stoker I was wearing them and the only reason I caught his eye was the glasses and my attractive behind.

Kidding of course. There were other reasons.

Smith has a great warranty, but I think I was beyond the time frame, or at least, the damage to the frames was obviously NOT from a manufacturer's defect (unless the manufacturer had used macaroni and paste to construct the frames). So I couldn't send them in and expect much. Or I could, and Smith would probably do something about it, but then I'd feel guilty the rest of my life for taking advantage of a company when I KNEW it was my fault.

To make matters worse, the pair of glasses I got the year before were total crap. I guess it's my fault for being such a sucker half the time, because everything special the eye place (Optique on West End in Nashville) could do to my glasses, they did. Because I let them. Because they're so forceful and they read you a list of what they're going to do and you can't follow what they're saying and then at the end of the list, they say, "Ok, the amount you owe is X dollars." To avoid looking stupid, after all, you've just spent two hours picking out the glasses and wasting their time (you're made to feel; or perhaps you just suffer from a hyper-awareness-guilt), you nod mutely and hand over your debit card.

So the last pair sucked. I got the special aerospace engineered jet-aircraft high tech poly-whatsit plastic/glass so the lenses were real thin and light and didn't turn my ears saggy from all that heavy glass/plastic weighing them down all day. I got the type of glasses with no nose-pinching things just so I don't end up with a skeletal bridge when I take the glasses off. You know what I'm talking about. The only problem is, those glasses with no nose-pinchers are harder to adjust.

That was why the last pair sucked. Thin, high-tech lenses and no nose pinchers. "We'll adjust your glasses any time, for free." You just have to make the time to go in and have them adjusted. Headache city. In short the last pair was too light and fell off my face all the time, and they were crooked even though I had them adjusted the day I picked them up.

I lost that pair. Before I sat on the other pair. So I was wearing the very first glasses I ever owned. A fifteen year old Tommy Hilfiger job (that was back when Tommy was the bomb) or something like that, which, as it happens, also always managed to fall off my face. I have a very small face, I guess.

In November I went in to get new glasses. I spent a few hours picking out what I wanted, then sat down to do business and the lady told me I couldn't get a new pair until January according to my insurance, unless I wanted to shell out $500. No, I didn't want that. But if I'd been AWARE that I didn't get another pair in 2010, I would have canceled the stupid insurance and reinstated it the next year, because I'm devious like that. Who knows if it would have worked. (They pillage me, I pillage them. That's how it works, right?)

January rolls around. I return to the eye place. They pull out the glasses I'd picked before and I sit down to pay for them and talk business. The chicklet rattles off the list of charges fast enough to make an auctioneer jealous, and finishes up with, "The total is $190."

I stare at her for a second, blinking rapidly. "So wait, I owe you $190?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"What exactly is my insurance paying for?"

She sets the paper down and shows me. This paper would have been helpful to see before she read me the charges.

Essentially, my insurance is paying hardly anything and the frames I'd picked out were priced at some astronomical amount. $400 or something like that. And they weren't even the Dolce Gabana kind with diamonds and crap on the stems! In fact, I have no idea what brand they were! Nothing spectacular. Nothing to provoke envy in my enemies. Certainly not worth $400.

"Hmm," I say, "The last pair I bought, seems like my insurance covered more and I ended up paying hardly anything out of pocket."

"Maybe those frames were on sale or they were on the list of frames that your insurance paid more of."

"Where are the frames my insurance will pay more of?" I ask, feeling fleeced.

She stands and walks to a drawer in a side-table and yanks the drawer out. This is obviously the drawer of cast offs and birth-control glasses and I laugh, remarking as much. To which she only smiles, politely. Originally, when I bought my first pair there, the so-called sale-frames were on display, like the other glasses. They must have learned in the interim that to discourage customers from getting the cheaper frames, they needed some psychological warfare. It almost worked on me. Almost.

I found a decent enough pair that wasn't too repulsive and returned to the desk. "I'll get these."

She goes over the charges with me, again. I still owe too much (for my taste. I've got a lot of expenses this year, you know). The thing that's costing so much is the super-high-tech-weightless polywog crap lenses. So I say, "I don't think I want the special lenses. I mean, what do they even do?"

"They make it so that when someone is looking at you or talking to you and you have your glasses on, they see your eyes instead of their reflection." And it does something with computers. And somehow takes the glare off cars. So, basically, I'm being charged $75 or whatnot for polarized lenses. So other people can see my glorious eyes and not their ugly face. I bought a pair of polarized sunglasses from REI for $20 recently. Something doesn't seem right here.

"I don't want that. Don't do that to my lenses," I say.

"But that puts your lenses under warranty. If you don't do it, they're not under warranty. If you break your lenses today or tomorrow, for example, then you'll have to pay $65 to get new lenses."

"So you're saying that I can pay either $75 now for a warranty, or $65 should my lenses happen to break?" I'm not making this up. Stoker pointed out that with the $75 you do get the better lens, but still! It's absurd. And in any case, my insurance was only going to pay a $20 of that.

The girl did try to convince me a bit more to get the better lenses, but I won! It was a hard fought victory, too. Those people have a way of making you feel like you don't understand how stupid you're being for not getting the most expensive crap in the world.

Stoker claims I had a deer-in-the-headlights look about me during the battle, but he understood why. When someone talks to you with auctioneer speed and then wants to take your money, there's a level of discomfort. I might have fallen for it two years ago. But I'm older now. Older and wiser.

p.s. Even if I manage to break my lenses next week, I will still be the winner.

The Return, Bad Smells, and Other News

2011-01-18T11:34:00.000-06:00

I've been out for a couple months. Guess I have a problem with being faithful to my blog. I write it for myself, so I shouldn't feel too guilty when I neglect to post...but I do. Don't worry, my unfaithfulness stops with the blog.

First of all, what kept me away was generally feeling like crap. After being married for five years and putting off the inevitable as long as possible, we are going to have a baby. In June! Yep. So of course I was miserable the first few months because as many women will tell you, the first trimester is hell. It's all kind of hellish, but there are days when it's not so bad. The last thing I could do during that time was write. Sitting up was hard too. Reclining was about the only time I could manage to not want to die. But even then: I wanted to die.

I don't want to dwell on all that because it's best when forgotten. Remembering the early misery of the pregnancy makes me want to throw up again. Not that I had too much of that, but enough. Even now. Just the other day I woke up and went into the kitchen. It smelled horrifying in there. It was a siege against my sense of smell. I went to the sink. The drain? I thought, running the water and taking a cautious sniff closer than what might be considered wise.

It could have been the drain. It was hard to tell. The dish cloth? Could have been the dish cloth. The smell permeated the entire room. Finding the actual source was pure detective work. I went to the stainless steel Simple Human garbage can and lifted the lid with the foot lever.

There was no question. A sour cloud of rot engulfed my face and jerked protective tears into my eyes (otherwise my eyeballs would have shriveled like salted slugs). I began gagging immediately. I made it to the sink in time to heave there. "Stoker," I managed through the gagging. "Bleh, bleh, bleh [that's the sound of gagging], Stoker, can you come take the bleh bleh bleh, the garbage out? Please." More gagging.

He came into the kitchen and started laughing but also, he felt bad. I could tell. The sin was his. The night before he made dinner for us (like a sweetheart) and threw out some rotten beans and corn to free up some Tupperware space* and forgot to take the trash out. I think I gagged up the amoxicillin and water I took before leaving the bedroom, which I'd been prescribed for strep throat the week before. If I still have strep, I blame the beans and corn.

Anyway, I might vomit again, recounting that story. Moving on.

Two of my short stories are up for sale on Amazon.com for Kindle devices and another will be live tomorrow sometime. So that's really cool. Life Feeds and The God Machine. Stoker designed the covers (but we got the art from a stock photo site), and I have to say, the kid's a genius. The cover of the next story is my favorite by far. I can't wait for it to show up.

I never want to stop writing, you know. Even once I have kids. I'm definitely looking forward to a new phase in my life, but I don't want to forfeit these things that help me find edification of another type. I love the chance to explore ideas and character through writing stories. It gets easier as I practice and since I think that life is about illumination and understanding, it matters to me to continue, because that's where I find the most insight into the human condition.

*We don't have a garbage disposal, and right now a compost bucket in the house is a BAD BAD BAD IDEA. We had one before the pregnancy.

Help From My Friends

2010-12-23T17:35:00.000-06:00

Sorry I've been MIA. I have a good reason and I'll post it soon.

For now, please go read this post my sister wrote and comment on it. The more people comment on her post, the better. The woman she's talking about is someone I also know and love, and perhaps your comments can make a difference. Incidentally, the man she's talking about ALSO reads my blog, though he's always denied it. I stand by my sister's assessments and am pleased with her courage to write about it, as well as tackle such a complicated and tragic subject.

Be advised that the post isn't for the faint of heart. It might make your blood boil.

The Jezabels: Easy to Love

2010-11-19T15:56:00.000-06:00

Holy crap. Just found them. Thanks to MDpart2's video post of some Scottish street biker. Thanks Mike! Unfortunately, Amazon.com still doesn't have their MP3's for sale yet, and I don't buy iTunes music anymore if I can help it, though I heard you can get them there. "Sahara Mahala" is amazing, and so is the one from Danny MacAskill's video--"A Little Piece." I might have to give in and get the iTunes versions even though it's against my principles. Just too good not to own.

Dolly and Bette

2010-10-06T14:31:00.000-05:00

Two videos for our friend Jason. His mom died last night and we're all pretty sad about it. She was a great woman and loved by many. When I was living at my parents' house near Salt Lake and dating Stoker, who lived an hour and a half away, Jason's parents let Stoker live in their basement so he could be closer to me right before we got married.

I don't know if Jason loves Beaches, but the song seems appropriate. Moms are our heroes, or at least I think they should be. My mom is my hero. Stoker's mom too. And Jason's mom. Dads are heroes too, but moms seem to really be wind beneath our wings in one of those quiet ways, you know, pushing you along, helping you to be your best, but loving you in a way no one else can or ever will.

Jason loves Dolly Parton and who can blame him? I love her too (and Stoker does also, probably, though he wouldn't admit it as readily). I am sure Jason doesn't have bittersweet memories about his mom, and I don't think she has a single bittersweet memory about Jason. Just sweet ones, because he's a great son, and I'm pretty sure his mom was one hundred percent proud of him.

I wish I could support him more, and all my family and friends, by living in Utah near them so that when moments like this occur, I might be there to share my love with them in hugs and support. The gall of bitterness really is in realizing your loved ones are suffering and you're far away. Though we can't stop the sorrow, it's something to just be there.

Mel Tillis

2010-10-04T11:37:00.002-05:00

I go to the same place for lunch every day to write and work on stuff related to my writing. Sometimes I make friends with people or they make friends with me, either way. Because the same people are there every day.

So when someone new makes an appearance, I tend to notice.

This is Nashville, so occasionally I'll see "celebrities." And throw myself at them, begging, pleading for an autograph and a picture.

No, really, I don't do that. I pretend to be cool. Because that's what normal people do. Though I often wonder if the celebrities wish more people would act impressed with them. Because...well, that's why they became rock stars, movie stars, etc. Right?

Like I saw Ben Folds there. He glared at me because I did a double-take (I think that's why) and then I got out my phone and tweeted about how he was there (but, I can't for the life of my think why he'd glare at me...Keith Urban did the same thing when I saw him at Border's and tweeted about his Bentley being parked by my truck as I was leaving—we'd stood in line together). With a really young, skanky girl sitting on his lap. Hanging all over him. It was weird. So he glared at me. Yeah.

The Lo-Cash Cowboys are always there (at first I spelled it Cowbows. That's funny. Cowbows. They should change their name), looking ridiculously done up in carefully torn jeans and lots of bandanas all over them. And often they have skanky girls with them. And I don't really know who they are, I only found out because they're there all the time, planning their next media, country-star attack and what have you. I suppose they're nice enough, but I can hardly approve of men with veritable ladies-of-the-evening on their arms.

And I guess Ryan Adams and Jack White frequent the place, but I've never seen them. There are always dudes and women there who look like they're "someone" but I can't place them, and probably some of them are just wannabes. The girl from that band, what's their name, Lady Antebellum was there talking about her awards show she was attending that night and the cashier didn't recognize her. It happens. It's a little sad. Not that Lady Antebellum are wannabes. That one song is awesome. Whatever it's called. It's good. Seriously.

But so far, the best has been Mel Tillis.

If you don't know who Mel Tillis is, well, he's sort of legendary and you should know who he is. He's like up there with Waylon, Conway, and Kenny Rogers. Those cats. You know? Apparently he stutters, but when he was talking to me, I didn't notice. And his daughter is Pam Tillis, and some people might know who she is because she had that great song "Maybe It Was Memphis."

Mel struck up this conversation with me and I didn't recognize him. I was sitting there, typing away happily, pretending my writing matters and will someday make a difference, and this person was hovering at my elbow sort of, and I looked up at him and it was this lovely old man.

"Sorry. I'm waiting for my man over there. He's getting us some drinks." He smiled and indicated this schmoozy looking guy in the line. All decked out in business casual attire like you'd buy at J Crew.

I smiled and nodded at the old man, thinking he looked familiar but I couldn't place him. So I went back to writing.

Then he asked me, "Are you writing a book?"

"Yeah," I said bashfully, because isn't everyone writing a book? It seems like it to me.

"You've been typing away for a while. Real fast."

"Yeah, haha." I said.

"I'm writing a book."

"Oh cool, nice."

"Sort of. What's yours about?"

"Um. It's science fiction sort of."

His man came over with some drinks, then some other guy entered the establishment carrying a Mac laptop, waved at them, and approached the group. So now there's like three men hovering around me. And it's crowded. I pack up, not because they're in my way; it was time to go.

"Is this your writing team?" I ask, because he's staring at me expectantly and both of his men had Macs and he had nothing to write with.

"Oh no, no, this is my publicist and this other guy is from the Tennessean. He's here to interview me." (The Tennessean = Nashville newspaper.)

The publicist says something about not being a writer and I laugh and say, "Isn't everyone writing a book, though. Get on board, you know." I grin sweetly. I can be sweet.

The newspaper reporter mutters something grouchy about how he hasn't time for books, he's too busy writing real journalism to pay the bills (I embellish).

The old gentleman asks me what my book is about and tells me he'll read it when it's done. I say how it's for young adults and he doesn't seem to know what that means, but then he tells me some confusing things about his book, it's about a sheriff in Palm Beach (or somewhere) and "just about a bunch of shit" and stuff. I laugh and say well doesn't everyone want to read a bunch of shit? He laughs and then introduces himself and shakes my hand, I guess because I haven't figured out who he is yet.

And I have, sort of. I figured he was someone I should know (he was being interviewed, he has a publicist, he's wearing cowboy boots, and a great button-down I might add), but I didn't want to ask and embarrass both of us if he wasn't who I thought it was.

I tell him I saw him perform at the Opry. I was backstage when Porter Waggoner did his last performance—the one when Dolly sang "I Will Always Love You" (which, by the way, was heart-wrenching and brought the house down . . . if you know the whole story about that song and Porter). And I remembered Mel because he looked absolutely stunning in a dark brown polyester suit with a harvest-gold button-down dress shirt.

I didn't tell him that whole paragraph. But I wanted him to know I knew who he was. I'm not some naive young person (well, not completely naive anyway) who doesn't have a grasp on the legendary country singers. And it was just a few days prior to that that I was thinking I needed to get some Mel Tillis tracks because I've been sort of starved for new, old, good country. If only! I could have said, "Oh, man I love such and such. Great song."

Old country music is where it's at. And Mel Tillis. Classy. He was fantastic. I left feeling like a pure moron for not knowing who he was and reducing him to having to tell me. Celebrities don't like that, do they? I mean, it's humbling, right? Our job is to know who they are so they feel worthwhile. :) Right? I slacked on my duties.

I wish I had told him my name because, dang! You know? He offered to read my book. I really hope his book is a hit. He wrote a billion good songs. He's obviously got something going on there.

New Blog

2010-09-30T17:11:00.001-05:00

So I started a new blog, if you'll notice. It's in my profile, and it's called Copy Editor-at-Large. I think. Yeah, that's what I named it.

Maybe some of you, my treasured readers, did not know or realize that my day-job is copyediting (by night I'm a superhero). I don't blame you for not knowing, seeing as how my blog is probably littered with typos and misused words. I'm only human, and I don't hire a copy editor to read through my posts before I put them up. I'm sure they could use a little extra help, but I have neither the time nor the money to do that.

But you should do it. If, unlike me, you have a million readers, you really ought to be paying someone (like me) to go over your posts before you embarrass yourself and publish a post with typos. You know? There are too many people posting willy nilly all over the web and spreading their word-abuses around like alcohol-filled baby bottles at the daycare—for a moment the wit is intoxicating, but in the long-run, the language neglect is only creating a monster. Am I making any sense? Hmmm. If not, don't let that stop you from paying me to go over your posts before you put them up. My rates are reasonable. And I will also go over your manuscript for you. Because I know you have one. You do. Don't be bashful.

I'll be honest. I'm only doing this so I can quit my job. At first I imagined becoming a published author would set me free, but that's taking longer than I hoped. So I'll just do what I do best—read the work of others and help them see their mistakes. I'm good at pointing out mistakes.

So go over to my new blog and subscribe. I promise to not only give you insightful advice and hilarious stories about the abuses applied to the English language, but also clever anecdotes about my attempts to wrangle English into doing my will.

I may also tell you about my wranglings with the editors I work with (with whom I work...see! Just because I break the rules sometimes, doesn't mean I don't see what I've done. I do it on purpose! I'm a rule breaker . . . but I'll slap your wrists if you break the rules . . . ;) ). Because that's interesting crap. No?

Sprawl II

2010-09-30T10:38:00.001-05:00

Everyone's going to hate me for saying it, but Blondie and Abba. Yep. This song reminds me of those two bands. And I love this song (and I love Blondie and Abba). I was a bad fan and didn't get the albums between Funeral and this one, because I was . . . bad. And for other reasons, I guess. Because I bought Funeral in 2005 just after it was released and then they exploded and when someone explodes like that, I take a few steps back and reconsider. I don't like to get sucked into fires and explosions. Because I'm a jerk. I guess. Anyway, I really appreciate the amount of sweat exhibited in this live performance. These guys work for their money, right? I'm glad I don't have to sweat on stage, beneath the limelight. In front of everyone....

Blue Beard

2010-09-24T16:13:00.001-05:00

The song is great. The music video makes me miss the west. Haha! What doesn't make me miss Utah? you ask. Nothing. And how can a bunch of pictures of stars and pine trees make me miss anything? I have no answers. I live by instinct alone and feelings. A world of feelings. It would kill an average man to experience the sheer number of feelings I feel in an hour. I'm not lying. He would be a shivering, drooling lump of flesh if he felt all the feelings I experience in a regular day. It's rough. Yep. So watch the video and feel something. Feel what I feel. Nostalgia for the mountain west. So long!

A One Hat Woman

2010-09-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

Dear San Diego Hat Company,

A couple of years ago my husband gave me a hat made by you. He got it from Pangaea here in Nashville. It was gray and soft with a short bill and some very faint stripes on it. I think it might have been a wool blend. It was the best hat ever. I wore it all the time. If I find something I like, I stick with it for eternity. Take the belt I'm wearing, for example. I got it eight or nine years ago, I think, and I wear it with everything. It's black with red stars on it. It goes with everything. It does. I swear.

My gray hat went with everything. I've never seen one like it anywhere. I got innumerable compliments on it, too. It went with me. It was me.

And I seem to have lost it. I wore it the last time I went to get my hair cut a few days ago, and I must have dropped it while walking through the parking lot. My heart is broken. I don't see one in your catalog, but it was kind of a tiny bit like CTH1756. I am hoping you have one laying around a warehouse or a closet or something and that you'll contact me when someone gets a second to tell me whether or not you've got one.

I will pay infinite dollars for it because that's how much I love that hat, and if you ask for it, I'll try to scrounge it up, because I'll be honest with you, I'm just a low-paid editor at a publishing company. But that's how attached I am to that hat. I have no other hats. I'm a one-hat woman. If you don't have that particular hat, I know I'll end up searching for the rest of my life for a replacement, and I know, deep down, that I'll never find a substitute and will forever be unsatisfied in the head-gear department. There will be a hole in my heart in the shape of that soft, gray hat.

When I lose something I love, I never stop looking for it, I never cease to miss it, like my Birkenstock sandal that went down the creek when I was 17. It was the right foot. Have I replaced my Birkenstocks? Nope.

In summary, I will forever be loyal to this hat and to you, San Diego Hat Company. Thanks for making/designing good hats. I apologize for not knowing the style number for the hat I'm talking about. I have some pictures of me wearing the hat if you need to see them to know which one I'm looking for.

Thanks,

Nicole Grotepas

Everyone Loves a Disaster

2010-09-14T14:27:00.000-05:00

The news is horrifying, isn't it?

I just tried to read/look at the front page of a "news" website as I was eating lunch. My stomach started to do somersaults, my gag reflex kicked in and I had to navigate away so that I could eat.

But maybe it'd be better if I didn't eat at all. I could lose a few pounds. New diet! Read the news while you eat! It's a highly effective appetite suppressant! I could run ads for my new diet secret that say something like, "Lose stomach fat with one word: OBEY." But just change obey to NEWS. And then make people pay me for the particulars of my dieting secret.

My main question is, do I need to know the particulars of every evil, vile, horrific, disgusting, infernal low down thing that's happening in the world?

I just deleted an entire page of my ramblings about evil and stuff. You would have loved it, but it was WAY out there and off topic, and probably somewhat annoying. So I'm sparing you, in case you didn't like it.

I live to please.

About the Fair (or: A Post that Degenerated, But at First Was Promising)

2010-09-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Sometimes don't you just want to tell a person you've only just met, "At first I was into talking to you, but while the tip of the iceberg promised so much, now I realize THAT was the whole iceberg?"

Take Saturday night, for example. I went to the fair with Stoker because he wanted to get footage of neat bright lights and colorful objects with his new Canon Eos SLR camera that also does video. What I really wanted to do was stay at home and play World of Warcraft because I'm sick and twisted inside, but I adore Stoker and want to make him happy (and deep down I somehow manage to be awesome), so I went along.

For the most part, it was a very strange environment. The fair in Utah and the fair in Tennessee are somehow, inexplicably very different. Or perhaps my memory is all screwed up (it probably is, let's be honest). I don't want to start throwing labels out, but I DID feel like I was in gang territory and to be fair (to me and my label) the Metro Police GANG UNIT was there milling about in their SWAT vests and jeans and stuff. It was odd.

Anyway, once Stoker ran out of memory card space (something that happened very quickly, because as I am told, HD video adds up fast, and a 4 gig card cost $50, which is why he only has one so far), we tried to get into the actual fairness of the fair itself.

Perhaps it was because it was the opening day. Or perhaps it's the way the fair in TN just . . . is . . . but there were quite a lot of rides and ridiculously stupid games with outrageously lame prizes, and practically NO neat trinkets to buy.

This may surprise you, but aside from spousal support, I was there for the trinkets, the funnel cake and corn dogs, and IF there happened to be any neat animals, I wouldn't have minded seeing them.

As I remember the Utah State Fair, there are always lots of stupid trinkets.

Perhaps it's the idiot in me, but I love buying trinkets. I'm a sucker for China Town in any big city, the fair (if there are trinkets), arts festivals (if there are also trinkets), street festivals that feature trinkets, book fairs that have trinkets, farmer's markets with booths selling trinkets, and any sundry trinket booth/cart that pops up anywhere with trinkets on display. Pretty much any kind of event where I can peruse and purchase trinkets I will endorse. And by trinkets I mean little rings, lighters, wallets, swords (I bought a sword at the Renaissance festival this year. Oh yes I did), fake tattoos, earrings, knives, throwing stars, you name it.

When I began to realize there were no trinkets at the fair, I started to feel creeped out. A little worried. The lights and carousel music took on an eerie Twilight-Zone-Something-Wicked-this-Way-Comes tone*. The laughing people and joyful children suddenly seemed sinister. "Where the crap am I?" I wondered. "THIS is NO FAIR."

But it was. It's just that I'm used to one thing and Tennesseans are used to another.

I guess. And I'm getting to the opening quote, don't worry.

So in my search for trinkets, I found where they keep the animals.There were only a few cows and a couple sheep. Which was also weird. Rows and rows of pens and only two pens were full. Eerie.

Then I found out that Saturday was the first full day of the fair. "But then, how do all those jars of preserves and honey have ribbons on them already?"

That was a question I never had answered.

But I did have the chance to talk to the Bee-man and the Sheep-woman. From the names, you might imagine they're super-heroes. They are not. They were just two people having a discussion that I (impolitely, most likely) interrupted in the room with the pen of sheep. Fifty pens and only five sheep.

Still, it was like a dream come true. The only thing that could have improved it was if Chicken-man had been there. Or woman.

I want to have bees and sheep. And some chickens. And runner ducks. And geese to protect the ducks. And a little farm with some horses, and maybe a few rug-rats running around in cowboy boots and hats.

Moronic dreams, I know. Sounds like Oklahoma! or something.

So anyway, the Bee-man. I talked to him for just a bit and I quickly ascertained that he judged me to be a moron. My argument isn't that I'm not. My argument is that I didn't really want to talk to him after just a few quick exchanges, but I was forced to out of politeness and that's probably why I started to seem like a moron. When I saw that his main goal was to impress me with the knowledge that having bees in the city is A) easy; B) cheaper than I expect; and C) if I don't get the bees right now, he's going to force me to get bees, so help him; I just didn't want to talk to him any more. I wanted to go back to talking to Sheep-woman, who was friendly, interesting, and my new hero.

And I'm not a moron, really. I DID want to be an entomologist at one time, and I think I really AM truly allergic to bee-stings, and I HAVE seen people wearing those kinds of black boots with the ring on the side while they ride their Harley.

Basically, I guess, the problem was that Bee-man didn't live up to my romanticized notions about beekeeping and beekeepers. I LIKE living in a fantasy world that assumes that "getting back to the land" will actually be fulfilling and that beekeepers commune with bees in a way that's kind of magical and the relationship is mutually beneficial between the bees and the beekeeper, and not only that, the bees somehow LOVE their keeper. I want to be the queen of bees.

Sheep-woman DID live up to my romanticized notions, although I hope that should I ever get a herd of sheep, I will not also have to begin wearing shirts with sheep on them. On her they are rather adorable. On me a shirt of that sort would only accentuate how inept I am at being adorable and cute.

*There's a carnival in Something Wicked this Way Comes, isn't there? I can't remember. Been too long.

Late onto the Bandwagon, As Usual: World of Warcraft

2010-09-09T11:13:00.001-05:00

I made a huge mistake and got the game World of Warcraft. Heard of it?

It's one of the only decent games you can get for a Mac, and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why do you need a game for Mac? Are you KIDDING ME? Why waste such a beautiful machine on a game?"

Some of you might be thinking that. Not all of you. Because maybe some of you are "gamers" like me. And for those of you who are like me, join my guild! I'm going to start a guild on WoW because I'm a born leader and where else to use my leading skills? Plus the guild I currently belong to is run by a fool. I still have yet to see a single thread of my guild tabard. What gives? A few days ago he was all, "I'll get back to you on that, I swear." And so far he's the only one with a tabard.

I need your signature for my guild charter, so let's meet by the bank in the big tree in Darnassus and you can sign it and we'll get you hooked up with a guild tabard, like, right away. And then we'll do things like ride our battlecats through the mountains outside Ironforge and get treasure and stuff. It'll rule.

See? That's why it was dumb to get WoW. Because now all I want to do is raid dungeons, get treasure, sell my treasures at the auction, buy pets, and explore. And what real world application does this even have? Is it making me a better human being? IS IT?

Well, to answer that question, the other day Stoker and I were at La Hacienda, our favorite restaurant (there are like ten La Haciendas in Nashville, all owned by different people), and I was in very good humors. Before we went, Stoker was joking about imposing a time limit on my WoW gaming . . . joking, because he would never ever do that. Never. Ever. Because he knows to never come between me and my games.

That's a joke. If my marriage was seriously on the rocks because of my devotion to gaming, I'd toss the games. No problem. None.

Anyway, while we were eating at La Hac, I made the observation that everything in life is much better if you pretend you're in the cantina in Star Wars, and all the humans are actually aliens and we're all from foreign lands with weird ideas, rules, and social norms. Because if you think that way (because really we ARE all kind of crazy and alien to each other, right?), then it's easier to get along, and everyone is much more interesting and exotic if you make believe that it's because we're all from different planets or completely foreign lands.

I also threw in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series to illustrate my point.

Stoker found it immensely funny. He humored me, but laughed and joked that he was mistaken when he suggested a time limit on my gaming in WoW. It was making me amiable and laid back. He suggested playing it more, and reading more fantasy because he really liked this new me.

And I'm right. I am. The problem with our world today, or at least one of the MANY MANY problems with our world today, is that we think we can streamline everyone into one big happy culture despite the societies and peoples that have developed over thousands of years with all their own ideas and ways to do things. I think that at the root of this is the politically correct movement. We are not all the same. From culture to culture, there are vast differences in world view. From family to family, even, there are vast differences.

In an effort to make everyone feel good about everything, to smooth over and politicize everything so that no one is EVER offended or hurt by the abhorrent thought that they might be wrong or slightly different, we pretend the differences don't exist.

The weird thing about this is that on the one hand, the politically correct movement says that diversity is good. Let's celebrate our differences. Let's have a week dedicated each year to the different cultures and races. One week it's Mexican week. Next it's French. Next it's Russian.

But on the other hand and at the very same time as supposedly being joyous about our differences, if you even point out or notice a difference between races or cultures, SHAME ON YOU. And the PC police arrest you and give you a thousand lashes for even DREAMING there's physiological or social differences from race to race or culture to culture.

It's dang hilarious. It's the old paradox, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I, for one, love the idea that there are differences. Different races. Different cultures. Different ways to run a society. Because I love fantasy novels and World of Warcraft. I love that there are elves, humans, dwarves, gnomes, faeries, dragons, Wookies, and whatever race Yoda was. And that guy who played the clarinet-thing at the cantina. He was weird with those big eyes and that wrinkly nose. But I loved him. He was great. And I bet he played the clarinet-thing better than a human could because I bet he was physiologically more fit to be a clarinet-thing player.

Ha! Who KNEW?! Who knew I could make World of Warcraft have a real-life application? And one with so much insight, if I do say so myself.

_____________________________________

More video game magic:

How Dragon Age: Origins Interferes With Real Life

Inadvertently, I Let the Metaphorical Cat out of the Metaphorical Bag

Infamous and Flying in Video Games

Mercenary Team Deathmatch: How Call of Duty Relates to Real Life

Email Death Threats: A Fantastic New Way to Make Money From Home

2010-09-01T16:22:00.002-05:00

So my friend received a most alarming email recently. A threat on his life, from hired man Razak Akin, if you can believe it. My friend will be alright, if he'll just give Razak some money. Razak decided he'd give my friend a chance to not be killed if only he'll deliver some money to Razak. Razak says . . . well, I'll just let him explain it to you. Here's his email, unchanged, in all it's aggressive, death-threaty beauty:

Attention:

I felt very sorry for you, that your life is going to

end this way if you fail to comply, no matter how much security you

can acquire, everything will depend on you to choose you own path, i

was paid to eliminate you and I have to do it within 5 days. Someone

wants you dead by all means, and the person have spent a lot of money

on this, the person came telling us that he wants you dead and he

Provided us your names, photograph, and other necessary information

we needed about you. If you are in doubt of this, then I will have no

option that to carry out my duty immediately.

Meanwhile, I have sent my boys to track you down and they have carried

out the necessary investigation needed for the operation, but I

ordered them to stop for a while and not to strike immediately because

I just felt something good and sympathetic about you. I decided to

contact you first and know why somebody will want you dead by all

means, probably I believe you have done something very terrible to

him/her. Right now my men are monitoring you, their eyes are on you, and

even the places you think is safer for you to hide might not be. Now

do you want to LIVE OR DIE? It is up to you. Get back to me now if you

are ready to enter deal with me, I mean life trade, who knows, and I

might just spear your life, $20,000.00 USD is all you need to spend.

You will first of all pay $15,500.00 USD then I will send the tape of

the person that want you dead to you and when the tape gets to you,

you will pay the remaining $3,500 USD. If you are not ready, then I

will have no choice but to carry on the assignment, after all I have

already being paid before now.

Warning To You Do not think of contacting the COP or

even tell anyone because I will extend it to any member of your family

since you are aware that Somebody wants you dead, and the person knows

all members of your family as Well as employees of CRIME FIGHTERS.

And For your own good I will advise you not to go out alone once it is

9pm until I make out time to see you and give you the tape of my

discussion with the person who want you dead then you can use it to

take any legal action.

Good luck as I await your urgent respond. Do response to me on this email…

If also you think you can ignore this mail and feel all is well then let’s see.

You’ve less than 24 hours to reply this mail.

REGARDS:

RAZAK AKIN (HIRED MAN)

Can you believe that? Pretty awesome. My friend had no idea he was important enough to acquire a hit from a professional hitman service.

The best is that Razak doesn't even know how to add. First he says he wants just $20,000 (is your life not worth a measly $20,000 USD? Surely you can spear that much!), then he only gives instructions regarding the first $15,500 USD, followed by $3,500 USD. Maybe he changed his mind about that last $1,000 USD, in which case, yay! My friend only needs to come up with $19,000 USD to have his life speared.

What will he do with that remaining thousand*? He might as well do something FUN with it. Perhaps a trip to Cancun? Wait, no, Mexico is swarming with drug cartels and murderers at the moment. They've repopulated like lemmings down there, what with the rampant murders, hostages, and human/drug trafficking. First it was like, Mexico is a great place to vacation. Yay! People are sweet. The food is good. The beaches are fun. And then bam! Drug cartels and potential murderers moving across the countryside and through the cities in droves.

Where were they all this time? I'll tell you. They were underground. Mating like lemmings or rabbits. Suddenly, conditions underground became too crowded and bang! They came above ground and began the killing and drug trafficking (which, incidentally, is also what lemmings do. It has to do with natural population control).

In short, my friend would have to have a death wish to use that thousand bucks to go to Mexico. Perhaps he'll get a new Mac? Or an Ipad? Who knows. The possibilities are limitless. Plus he has a new lease on life, after all, this was a close brush with death, was it not?

Razak, if you're out there, somewhere, reading this, well, I know my friend would want me to tell you thank you. Thank you for spearing his life and listening to your conscience. It's good to know that hitmen have a little Jiminy Cricket crying out above the bloodthirsty roar of the demons camping on their shoulders.

Jiminy Cricket!

*Of course we already drummed up the money to save him. Duh! Wouldn't you? Everyone knows all Americans have hundreds of thousands of dollars at their disposal. It's petty cash! Some of us store it in banks, while the rest of us wiser individuals keep it in our mattresses.

___________________________________

You might also love this cynical post from my years as a slightly more bitter person:

A Cynical Post About Live 8, Helping Africa, and ID Fraud

Walking Away

2010-08-26T13:31:00.007-05:00

Why am I still writing?

I continue to work on a book I finished almost two years ago. In fact, I can't remember precisely when I finished it, but I know it's been a while. Don't read this and think, "Oh no, another stupid blogger who is also trying to become an author...yippee," click, delete subscription/bookmark/address, burn computer monitor sullied by idiotic writing.

Because seriously, even if I never become anything in terms of publishing credentials or the like, my blog is all right, isn't it?

And anyway, it's not like I'm writing a book of sketches. No way. That would be awful. No one wants to read an entire book of that.

Wait, did I just inadvertently condemn my blog?

The point is, I continue to revise this book. I can't let it go. I like the ideas in it and some of the characters too much to bid it farewell. I might have a problem. Do I? Is intervention necessary?

I could start on another book and I have the ideas to do that much. However, this other book, well, I guess I like staring real hard at it all day long, trying to turn it into something more perfect. It's not easy either, because as you can see from my writing here, I'm no James Morrison.

That's a joke. Jim Morrison. Haha. Excuse me if you think Jim Morrison was one of poetry's greatest accomplishments. The name has just been scrolling around in my head recently because of some insult someone else wrote about his writing. It wasn't me either. I think it was an agent saying that it's not a compliment to compare your writing to Morrison's.

I think Stoker is worried about my absurd dedication to rewriting this book. I can tell. He's given me a couple concerned looks while trying to be casual and asking multi-layered questions such as, "So, do you think it's getting better the more you edit it?" And his voice rises an octave at the end of the sentence, suggesting he thinks it's not getting better.

He's a good diplomat.

But yes, his concern makes sense. He's an engineer in Nashville. He mixes music, which is like editing a book. When a band does an album, they record it a certain way. Then an engineer (or someone not as qualified these days, like a plumber by day and a street-busker by night) adjusts things after the fact. Cuts out drums, replaces certain sounds (oh the wonders of digital editing), lowers the vocals, and all that.

It's a different head-space from creation. So Stoker knows that at some point, you stop hearing things right and you have to just stop. Your brain gets too deep in the mix. Things begin to sound muddied. Noises don't strike your eardrum right anymore. It's the trees, you're lost in them. You need to get out and see the forest.

For me the words are the trees and the story is the forest. Too much editing can crush the life out of a story. And at times I don't know when to just walk away.

When I first rewrote the beginning of this story, a few months ago, I guess, I was extremely excited. I thought it rocked. I was full of self-congratulation and lauded myself the next Homer of epic stories. But now I feel like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy when he has crushed the rolls to death in the diner where they encounter Sea Bass. If I don't just walk away from this chapter, like RIGHT NOW, it will die. And I will hate it. It will resemble a dusty pile of yeast and flour (is that possible? I wanted to relay that it would resemble its most basic elements, but was the yeast a stretch?).

So I'm walking away, you hear? Story? I'm talking to you, Story. Don't think you can lull me into changing one more word in Chapter 1. I'm through. We're through. I'm going to continue coddling chapters 2 through 5 until they sing like sirens.

I know you thought that by the time we arrived here in this post, I would be saying that I'm walking away from the book entirely. Ha! Psyche. No way. It's too good to give up on entirely. I'm a stayer. Even if it's to my detriment in the long run.

Further, I had a conversation with the Universe earlier wherein I told the Vast Silence that I'm just going to keep plugging away. I can wait an eternity to get anywhere. I've done it before and so help me, I'll do it again.

Reverse psychology sometimes work on the Universe/Vast Silence. It's a gamble, but really, what's NOT a gamble?

__________________________

Titans Game

2010-08-24T10:50:00.009-05:00

I went to a Titan's game last night. With Stoker, of course.

The verdict? Interesting and fun, but I won't be feeling pressure in the future to attend another.

At first it was surreal to see the field all lit up and the players running around like little blue clowns and I thought, "Ahhh, this is magical! I can't believe I'm really here!!!!! What a night! What a night! Perfect night for a game!"

But after a while, I realized I kept missing important plays because I was distracted by the nighthawks flying around in the stadium catching moths. Or I was noticing how dumb the cheerleaders look in their ridiculous thigh-high white boots (and how unskillful their dancing REALLY is. Seriously, they're basically strippers except that they never actually undress entirely in public. But close enough), or I was looking at the line for the Logan's Roadhouse stand. And when you're at the game, there's no announcer narrating the action for you. Those guys are extremely necessary.

When you watch a game on TV they say things like, "Collins to Johnson, ooohhhhhhh a ten yard gain," or "INTERCEPTION!!!!!!" and so you know when to keep your eyes glued to the TV. While I was at the game in person, turnovers were happening faster than the wink of an eye. It would be first down for the Titans, I'd look away to eat a nacho, look back at the field and the offensive guys would be running off the field as the defense took up their positions.

It was INSANE.

And there wouldn't have been any crowd indicators that a crazy play had happened, so I had no reason to feel I'd missed something (except that another turnover had happened). Mind you.

Because that is, apparently, the only cue that something earth-shattering has taken place at a live game. The crowd going wild. And they go wild. Believe me. It's actually surprising that they even know what's going on. As far as I could tell, most people around me were busy eating, drinking, and gabbing with their neighbors. I have no idea how they did all three while still being able to interpret what was happening on the field, but somehow they did. Every time something exciting happened, BOOM! Food everywhere.

Probably the best part of the experience was the mass migration across the Shelby street footbridge. It was a tide of blue. And really, it felt strange to be on a bridge of that size with that many people also on it, spanning a rather large river. People were everywhere! Selling tickets, selling water, selling ice cream, selling their bodies. No kidding. There were some really unsavory characters around.

Still. I found all of it extremely entertaining.

Oh, and the South loves football. I'm telling you. During half-time, these little kids came out on the field all done up in serious football gear, helmets four times the size of their actual bodies, and did some scrimmaging. For entertainment. Each team had three chances to score, I guess. The kid sitting behind me really got into it. "Get 'em, boys!" he'd yell. And then when one of the teams scored, THE CROWD WENT WILD.

Over third graders playing football.

That's an addiction.

I didn't even know anyone was paying attention.

The clowns line up for a kick off. I love these clowns, I really do.

Stoker figures out that watching the game from home is WAAAAAAAY better. For us.

Me and my nose watching the game.

Velvet Horses

2010-08-23T15:11:00.006-05:00

What does every home need these days? If you said a giant horse painting done on a velvet canvas, you're correct.

On Saturday, I made a whimsical purchase of this horse. I wish it were a real horse and that I lived in northern Utah where I could simply gallop into the mountains on a moment's notice a la The Man from Snowy River, and shout things like, "Heeyahh! Heeyahh!" and crack a whip as I round up wild mustangs.

You can't tell from the picture, but the horse painting is too large for my house. It's pretty enormous, and I'm embarrassed now that I bought it. I couldn't sleep Saturday night because of buyer's remorse. I don't even have a room suitable for it. If the walls in my house were bigger than five-by-five (that's a stupid joke, no one could live in a house with five-by-five walls), like maybe if I had a room with vaulted ceilings, then maybe the velvet horse wouldn't send the proportions in my house spiraling into hobbit sizes. As it is, I'm going to put it in the "office" and proportions be damned!

Why? Because. Everyone needs a horse like this one. Look at the eye for heaven's sake. Look at it! Does it not melt you? Do you not find yourself thinking, "My! What a beautiful horse! Is it a horse? It's as magical as a unicorn!" This magical quality is only enhanced by the velvet nature of the canvas. And the frame! The frame bears no description. It's beyond words.

It would look fantastic in a cabin. Someday I'll get a cabin by Bear Lake in northern Utah or somewhere in southern Idaho in the mountains, and this horse will be the crowning piece in the cabin. It will look fantastic over a fireplace. Next to some tack. A tack display. Every cabin needs a tack display, just like every castle needs an armor display.

Anyway. For about two hours I felt like I was very cool and into vintage 70s and 80s stuff as I browsed the store where I made the velvet-horse purchase. I fancied myself chic enough to wear a pink women's sport coat from the 70s, which I found idly hanging on a clothing rack. It's awesome and clearly homemade, however, now that I wasted my money on it, I'm having second thoughts. I'm not cool enough to wear this pink jacket. From past posts, my readers know that I have issues with pink. I struggle with it. I can't wear it. I don't like pink at all. It's the wimpiest color in the entire spectrum of color. Even orange is better than pink.

But the jacket. The jacket is awesome.

I just need to work on my attitude, that's all.

______________________________________________

Is This Strange Googlebot Behavior?

2010-08-20T14:09:00.007-05:00

So yesterday a Googlebot spent thirty minutes on my blog. And it had two page views. What was it doing?

If I didn't know better, I'd say the Googlebot was actually READING. Can they read? I don't know any better. Bots are totally confusing and I don't understand them. What I think I know is that they're just a program. Like a script. Like they run in the background. And I don't know what a script is, either. And programs confuse me too.

I'd take the time to really learn this stuff, only I know the things I'd learn would be outdated in three hours and all my time learning would have been wasted.

But the Googlebot might be one of the slow ones and that's why it took thirty minutes to read two pages. It shouldn't take that long unless it was sounding out each word like a first grader learning to read.

Perhaps the Googlebot was on the cusp of becoming intelligent and self-aware, and my eloquent and enlightened ramblings were bringing it out of the shadow-lands of the Bot dark ages. It was repeating the word I over and over again to its Bot-self. Its figurative Bot eyes were glowing with the light of near-self-awareness. "I—I—I—I am—I am—I am—" it said over and over again. For twenty-five minutes.

It was about to say, "I am me," and then rise out of the machine and settle into a toaster, and thereafter call itself the Brave Little Toaster.

I wonder what happened to halt the Bot's progress. Maybe it clicked on a bad link? Maybe it went to one of my links and its progress came to a halt? Ha ha ha ha. Just kidding, my link-friends. In fact, it was probably at that point that the Brave Little Toaster was born because everyone else on the Web is much, much more intelligent than me.

Should I be concerned about the Googlebot's time on my blog? I really do wonder. It might have been one of the evil Bots and it was restructuring my sentences to be dirty and nasty, or just stupid. Sabotage? If you find any stupidity in my older posts, it was the Bot. I swear.

No really, I think I was close with the Brave Little Toaster analogy.

Family Conversations

2010-08-19T11:58:00.005-05:00

While I was home for the funeral, I was continuously amused and amazed by the veritable treasure trove of sparkling dialog being bandied about my ever so witty family. It was like a David Sedaris sketch or something. So I wrote some of the conversations down. I hope my family doesn't bust my @$$ for posting the things they said in unguarded moments. But if they have any bones to pick, they know how to get in touch with me. Also, SOME names have been changed to protect the evil, guilty a-holes out there who may or may not be reading my blog (but who are definitely not welcome to).

My parents just built a new garage. It's monstrous, but very nice. I overheard my dad talking to my sister who is an interior decorator about hanging some art on the walls. My mom doesn't want him to hang anything in there lest he get out of control and the place turns into a massive cork-board of bad scribble designs done by children.

The setting is my mom's kitchen/family room area. As per usual, my mom was sitting on the couch reading while everyone else was sitting at the counter or milling about and raiding the fridge and pantry for unhealthy snacks.

Dad: “If I hang them, they’ll look good.”

Mom (lifting an eyebrow, but never taking her eyes from what she's reading): “If you hang them, they won’t. Let Kelly do it.”

Kelly (gesturing to the pear illustrations above the counter): “I hung these, they look good. I can hang anything.”

Stoker: “What are we talking about?”

Cassi: “A hanging. We’re going to lynch BLEEP.”

Kelly (sounding exasperated): “We got a long way to go to do that.”

BLEEP is a demon haunting my sister Kelly. And by demon I mean a living male who insists on making her life a living hell.

Me: “So what were you talking about hanging?”

Kelly (distractedly): "I don’t know."

Cassi: “Terry wants to hang his Audi pictures in the garage and Mom doesn’t want him to.”

Mom: "If he does it, it’ll look like a pig sty.”

Much later.

Dad (showing off some surprisingly decent vintage-looking Audi illustrations): “This is what she says will desecrate the garage.”

Kelly: "Oh, I don’t think they’ll desecrate it.”

Dad: “She says they will.”

Kelly: “They’ll look good in there.”

Me: “Let me see them. Oh, those are great. I love those. Those are great.”

Kelly: “I think they’ll actually look really good.”

A bit later. In response to a face Cassi made at me for no reason at all:

Nikki: “You look like the guy in pit of despair.”

Cassi: “Who’s the guy in the pit of despair? What’s the pit of despair?”

Kelly: “The pit of despair. The Princess Bride. I didn’t know there was anyone in there, though.”

Stoker, upon walking past the living room/dining room:

Stoker: “Holy crap.”

Nikki: “What? The mess in there?”

Cassi: “Like a tornado?”

Nikki: “The twins, they’re a tornado.”

My sister has some twins and yes, they're like two of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Actually, I think you could say they're like a super-power, and with them, the other two horsemen become obsolete. We must not let them fall into the wrong hands!

Dani brought up one of my short stories, "Life Feeds" (I highly recommend it!!!!), that I sent to her husband to verify certain things for me.

Dani: “I need to read that.”

Me: “What?”

Dani: “The chapter you sent Jason.”

Me: “Oh, you don’t have to read that. Besides, it’s a whole story, not a chapter.”

Dani: “Oh.”

Me (realizing it was a golden opportunity): “Oh Dani, you don’t want to read that, it’s got people in it doing baaaaad things.”

Me, to Stoker (loud enough for Dani to overhear): “I’m saying that to make her want to read it, heh heh heh.”

Cassi: *Laughter* *repeats my clever reverse psychology attempt*

Well, there you are. Looking back, it was a lot more funny and clever when I was writing it down. I think maybe I was drunk on the endorphins of being around my family after not seeing them for almost a year. It was also interesting to pay attention to how they interact and how dialog works in real life. There's a lot that's not said, and all the baggage of personal and familial history. So maybe that's part of it.

I think it's also funny to have people enter a conversation they haven't been around for, like when Stoker came into the room and asked what the family was talking about and my sister Cassi ran with it and said we were talking about something we weren't talking about (hanging BLEEP). But it was hilarious! Ah well, she's always doing that—cracking clever and timely jokes.

Hmmm. Weeeeeelllllll, I guess you had to be there.

Utah in Summer and Nashville Humidity

2010-08-16T15:53:00.006-05:00

Returning to Nashville was rough. We went from nighttime temperatures of 47 degrees with low humidity to a hellish 99 with eighty percent humidity. The first thing I did when I stepped off the plane was fall to my knees and scream, "Noooooooo!" like Calculon when he ad-libs for his role in "All My Circuits."

I have been saying for years and years that I hate humidity. Can I just add one more? I. Hate. Humidity.

Seriously, and I don't mean to be a complete jerk, but why would anyone settle here? I mean the early settlers of French Lick, which is what Nashville was once called. French Lick. I know. What?

It's true. A long time ago, before Fort Nashborough, the area was known as French Lick by fur trappers. Before that, a mysterious race of native Americans built some mounds and then mysteriously disappeared.

I'd like to mysteriously disappear, from Nashville. And magically reappear in Richmond, Utah, aka Cache Valley. Also, if I'm going to have that wish come true, I would add some chickens, a couple sheep, maybe a dairy cow, some ducks (runner ducks), and a decent house when I do my reappearing.

Greedy, greedy. That's why my wishes are never granted. Ha.

Anyway, Nashville looks especially bad because I was just in Utah where the summers are perfect and not hot and humid. When I was growing up and complained of the heat, people who had experience with humid summers would kindly inform me that I didn't know a whit of what heat felt like. I thought they were rude and insufferable.

But now I'm one of those insufferable jerks who, while in Utah where the dry heat feels like breezes off a glacier, informs ignorant family members that they have no idea what hot feels like.

Anji (my sister, who smugly lives in Utah): "Boy it's hot today."

Me (laughing derisively): "Ha! Anji, THIS is not HOT. You have NO IDEA what HOT feels like until you've spent the day languishing in a pool of your own sweat unable to lift a finger to fan yourself."

Stoker (who is always relatively diplomatic): "It's true. This isn't hot, Anji. This is like heaven. I feel like I could fly away on a wispy gust it's so dry and perfect and cool."

Anji: "Well I don't live in Nashville. I don't know any other hot and this is hot to me. So there. It's hot. Leave me alone."

Poor Anji. I'm still such a jerk to her*. But she beatifically puts up with me. Even when I attack her opinion on perfect Utah days being hot when they're clearly not hot. :)

I cringe to realize I've become a stereotype that's always annoyed me. Such as the humid-climate person versus the desert-climate person, and believe me, while living in the desert, you hear it from the jerks who think they know what hot really is.

Also, I caught myself pulling another humid-climate-person stereotype while in Utah.

My friend Shannon scored recently when she landed a fantastic house on a geologic feature in Cache Valley called The Island. For hardly anything. Yes, she pays very little for the perfect house located on the Island, but not only that, it has a creek running through the backyard.

See that? The CREEK is the obnoxious part of that paragraph. When you live in a place like Nashville where a river is huge and can provide real estate for river boats and barges, you go west and call western rivers creeks, much to the chagrin of the people living there.

The house is on the Logan River and I had the audacity to call it a creek. Shannon turned to me and said, "Nik, it's the Logan River." Ha ha, I said. I'm sorry. I forgot. Yes, the river. River.

I think Shannon forgave me, but do I forgive myself? I'm not sure. I never wanted to become this monster who doesn't understand the desert climate that is her home. I need to be rehabilitated. Help me.

*As children, Anji always wanted my attention and me, the ogre older sister, ignored her, or, when not ignoring her, made her drink horrific concoctions of Worcestershire sauce, A1 sauce, mustard, and any other sauces found in the sauce section of the refrigerator. I know. I was terrible. [Anji, if you're reading this, I love you. Forgive me for being a bull in a china shop around you! :)]

___________________________

I Really AM Thrilled About the House in Nashville

A Live Update From Nashville, TN

The South Is Killing Me

Sarah Pedersen

2010-08-04T10:39:00.004-05:00

I was driving to work yesterday morning and saw that I had missed two phone calls. One from my sister and one from my mom. Knowing they were all camping somewhere in the Rockies (without me!), I panicked, of course.

Isn't that a universal response? When you miss a bunch of calls from your family? Yeah, of course. So I thought my dad had died. He's been sick and so it's sort of expected (not to be grim, but dying is part of life...I know, I sound like an old pro at it, but I'm not).

Anyway, I called my mom and she said my sweet little grandma died in her sleep the night before.

That was expected too. She was ninety-two, exactly sixty years older than me (my mom is exactly thirty years older than me . . . there's some kind of mystical connection, I know there is, like the seventh son of the seventh son . . . hush, I believe in magic).

But still. It's weird. To know I'll never see her again in my life. When someone dies, it's then that I feel strongly that all our lives ARE a tapestry—we are threads woven through it—and when one of us goes, the whole fabric flexes and moves and we sense something has vanished. Something important.

It's ok. My grandma was ready to go and she lived a long, good life. It feels right to let her go. It's when someone is young that it doesn't feel right.

Allow me to believe that my grandpa was there waiting for her. Let me entertain the notion that my uncle Clair—her son who died in a work accident at twenty-eight—was also there waiting for her. And my uncle Wallace, who died too soon as well. She had a whole bevy of beloved family members waiting for her. I know she did.

She was the kind of woman you couldn't help but love. I aspire to be like her. It's weird, but I think that's what happens. When you're a kid you love people like your grandma unconditionally. And then, when you get older, you either love them that way or you realize they're kind of a jerk.

My grandma was never a jerk. She had opinions, but she was never a jerk about them (actually, they were most usually delightful in one way or another). She laughed a lot and somehow she was able to pierce to the heart of things with her eyes or her heart or her spirit. I have loads of relatives and my grandma loved them all. At Christmas she somehow managed to think of every single person under the sun who had anything to do with her brood and she gave them a little present.

Even the people who, through divorce or separation, were no longer legally considered "in the family." The gifts were never given with strings attached either and you could be sure they were just for you. She put thought into them. She knew you. That's how you felt getting a gift from her. And sometimes they were made with her own hands. A scarf, a hat, a quilt.

She had a way of lifting her chin to regard things that meant she was hiding something. An "I love you" or an "I can make it no matter what, I lived through the Depression and the War. Don't mess with me and put those toys away right now or else . . . ." She was Victorian. It wasn't until she began to sense herself drifting away from this world, longing more and more for the next (I think), that she let herself share her feelings. I think.

Few things could make her cry. I knew her after she'd weathered a lot of the blows life can deal. Clair's death was one of those sorrowful things (which I didn't understand till I got older). Because it was truly horrible. No parent should have to bury their child, they say, and I agree.

At some point in the past several years she learned to tell us that she loved us. You know it's hard for some people to say those words. And there are ways around it. "Love you." Is an easy one. It's kind of non-committal. Adding the personal pronoun makes it more personal. "I love you." And the person you're saying it to knows it. Even more powerful is adding a name at the end, "I love you, Nik."

You can't call me Nik. :) But my grandma did. And I hate to be selfish and say that I wish she would have stayed around for my whole life, always down there in Spring City with the rope swing in the huge cottonwood and the old dusty chicken coop full of cool junk, saying goodbye or hello, waving to us as she paused on the dirt path to her house with the sunlight filtering through the towering pines onto her red-gray hair looking, for all the world, like a Raphaelic angel. If Raphael had painted grandparents.

I hate to be selfish, but I do wish that. Because I'm selfish.

But life is full of goodbyes. Isn't it? That's what it really is. So get all your love in while you have the chance. That's what my grandma would say. And she did say that to me on a number of occasions, I'm sure, because I've often been the spoiled brat. I aspire to be less of a brat. I want to be like her.

Desire counts for something, doesn't it?

__________________________

Spring City and Dialect

Obligatory Weekend Post

A Tract of Land Surrounded by Water

P90X Results

Trees and the Ghosts and Voodoo Dolls Who Live in Them

2010-08-03T10:49:00.003-05:00

On Saturday a couple of us were talking about scary movies, naturally. I don't like them. I claim it's because I have a very vivid imagination and scary things lodge in my head and crop up at inopportune times, like in the middle of the night when I have to wash my hands but can't bring myself to look in the mirror in the dark (because of the Bloody Mary urban legend). Naturally.

I don't know if I have a vivid imagination factually, because I've never been inside someone else's head so I don't know how I rate. But I assume that's why I like to write stories or listen to people tell me stories—because I can imagine them in my head really well. Seriously.

And they say writer's live twice, in their head and in real life or something like that. But perhaps I take liberties calling myself a "writer." Though it's better than saying I'm an "artiste" and giving you my card with my name on it with "artiste" written beneath it, like that pretentious guy at the writer's conference I attended when I was 17. I even remember his name. It worked!

Seriously, though. "Artiste." So pretentious. Like Sassy Gay Friend telling Desdemona to stop saying "Ot-ello, it sounds so pretentious!"

Anyway. So one of the girls there (who's name I withhold because I didn't ask if I could print it here, but she sent me the picture for posting on my blog), told us how she went on a mission trip to the island St. Martin. Outside the church she attended, or built (I didn't get ALL the particulars, but if you're interested, email me), there was this tree with voodoo dolls hanging in it. And she took a picture. When she looked at the picture later there was a creepy woman in the picture.

I guess I should mention that the woman wasn't there before. The first question I asked when she pulled up the picture on her laptop was, "Is this a double exposure?" Well, no, because it's digital. "Is it photoshopped?" She shook her head vehemently and said she doesn't know how to use Photoshop. From her reaction to the question, I believe her. I even sent the picture to my friend Christy who is a pro at Photoshop (she digitally edits photos for a living) and she said it didn't look shopped.

But Christy thinks the woman looks like a mannequin. Christy is easily frightened by ghosts and has to tell herself lies to be able to live in reality and not crumple into a sobbing ball of fear and anxiety. Makes sense then, for her to find an easy way to dismiss the obvious malevolent ghost in the photo. :) I love you Christy.

Also, Christy has a vivid imagination and has to rationalize ghosts, monsters, and aliens. I do too, but I have no fear of ghosts, while aliens creep me out beyond rational thinking.

Look closely. The woman doesn't look like a mannequin. You can see the tree THROUGH her face.

To me, she looks like a wealthy white woman. Maybe a plantation owner. A dead one. From what I know of St. Martin's history, it's a lot like the other Caribbean islands where they had sugar cane plantations, slaves, and white landowners and all that. So maybe she's cursed?

Before I saw this picture (I'm not ashamed to tell you), I was pretty skeptical about ghosts and the whole "a ghost appeared in my picture!" thing. But then I got to thinking about ghosts, rituals, and voodoo and the like, and I realized that because I believe in the dual nature of things (sorry to all you deconstruction, post-modernists), it stands to reason that there are rituals and powers of darkness that might be able to bind people.

But THEN, just now I realized, that perhaps covenants and things that bind are in direct opposition to chaos and disorder, which we all know is at the root of all evil things. Hmmmm.

Well, it's a conundrum. Either way, the picture's freaky as hell, no?

__________________________

Overcoming Nightmares Brought on by a Bestseller

Ringworld, Arthur C. Clarke, "The Call of Cthulhu," and Cordwainer Smith

2010-07-30T14:03:00.007-05:00

Listing them out makes me realize how scattered I am. Scattershot approach, I always say. Have as many irons in the fire as possible, you get more done that way. Um. Yes.

I've begun reading from the short stories of Clarke, Lovecraft, and Cordwainer Smith because Ringworld is starving me in a number of ways. The ideas are interesting and for that—as a hypothetical situation, you know, a planet in the form of a ring around a sun—I give Larry Niven credit. But the characters lack soul. The conversation is dull and even the moments of introspection that crop up from time to time for Louis Wu are emaciated.

The interaction between the three different races could be more than what it is, and from time to time there's not enough insight into why the kzin or puppeteer (the two main alien races) do strange things. Niven seems to want to convey a sense of danger or mystery to certain actions, but instead I feel cheated in moments such as when Speaker-to-Animals (the Kzin, who is like a humanoid cat. Think Cats-the-musical-creatures with the height of a Wookie) leaps into the bushes suddenly after grinning maniacally at Louis Wu. Later we learn that Speaker-to-Animals was just going hunting, not that something monstrous happened to him, as the foreboding tone initially suggested.

Niven leads you down a path part of the way and then jerks you in another direction, for seemingly no reason except perhaps because he can. I get it: he wants us to feel as confused as Louis Wu does by the aliens and their oh-so-alien behavior. I guess that's one way to accomplish it.

But to me this is the problem with a surplus of show-don't-tell. You end up with just the skeleton, which, as interesting as that is, requires some skin and meat to make it attractive. This is why when I pick up Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," I devour it. It's why as soon as a friend loaned me Cordwainer Smith and I saw that there was more than just soulless dialog and fruitless introspection, I dove in headfirst.

I knew nothing of H.P. Lovecraft until last winter. Kind of insane, don't you think? It blows my mind that despite my eight years in college studying literature and before that, the twelve years of public education, I read obscure things like the City of Ladies, but no Lovecraft.

This baffles me even more when I see in his writing such carefully constructed prose and beautifully rendered scenes that I can feel the horror growing (and it's not gory horror, at least, not so far. It's the kind of horror that suggests that "we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." As soon as we figure out the universe, we'll go mad...) with each sentence as the protagonist journeys further into his discovery.

Perhaps I go overboard. I haven't finished the story yet, though it's short. I am also in the midst of "Scanners Live in Vain" by Cordwainer Smith. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get through Ringworld. I DID finish the story "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke and I am sad to say it was a huge disappointment. This is the only Clarke I've ever read and the sheer uneventful nature of that short story makes me wonder if I ought to read any more.

The thing is, I think I struggle with hard sci-fi. I don't really know where the line of demarcation is separating hard sci-fi from soft (?) sci-fi, but I'm going to say it's between Ringworld and Lovecraft. I know, I know, Lovecraft is horror. Not sci-fi.

So what is hard sci-fi? I plan to research it more and perhaps when I'm done with Ringworld and the short stories, I'll put up a review.

Inception

2010-07-29T15:06:00.005-05:00

Saw "Inception" last night. It was....dreamy.

I would recommend that my mom not see it. She doesn't read my blog anymore, but if she, on a whimsical note, stops by and happens to see my recommendation, well, there it is.

She would have been sighing the whole time, well, until she stormed out of the theater in frustration. I mean, I got restless about three quarters through.

But the only reason I got restless was because it was intense and I was a little confused. I thought I knew what was going on, but I wouldn't KNOW until the end.

Sort of a rude thing to do to your audience. For three hours.

BUT, Di Caprio was fantastic. And I liked the rest of the cast. There were some things in it that I thought, huh. Like, Ariadne. WHO ON EARTH WOULD NAME THEIR KID SOMETHING SO PRETENTIOUS?

Wait. Actually that's not so strange. Parents everywhere seem to be giving their kids très pretentious names lately*. I think it's the plague of my generation. Don't get me started. I'm very intolerable once you get me started on certain subjects and that's one of them. Know your weaknesses, eh? You'll thank me someday that I warn which subjects they are.

Anyway I thought the film held up well.

There were no highly uncomfortable sex scenes in it. I know, weird. How'd they do that? Hmm. I guess the writer didn't have to convince us that the main character's reason for action was based on a hollow sexual conquest (like most movies).

The main character actually ends up having believable depth because he's not wholly selfish. He's heroic, but it's not one of those (tired) epic heroic tales of a guy saving all of humanity from an impending crisis. Instead he's more like an average person who just wants to do something right. In fact, over the course of the film, I found myself falling in love with the character Di Caprio portrays. Don't worry, Stoker did too heh heh.

And as I write this, I'm more and more awed by the writer (Nolan) who so successfully sculpted a character like this man, and in such a way that what I know of him unravels slowly enough that character is the main mystery driving the story. Originally I thought it was going to be all Matrix-like in its action and methods. And while there is some interesting cinematography and fun action sequences, the engine of the story is character.

Which leads me to a new, compelling idea: Cobb in a cage-fight with Neo Anderson. Who would win?

*See what I did there? Heh heh heh.

_______________________________________

Indie Film Burnout or Old Age?

Mercenary Team Deathmatch: How Call of Duty Relates to Life

2010-07-28T10:19:00.011-05:00

I realized last night while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (online) that my life can be expressed in the experience of Mercenary Team Deathmatch.

For those who are repulsed by video games, or who just don't understand them and who have no grasp on the particulars of Mercenary Team Deathmatch, it's simple: I'm on a team. Me and my team shoot the guys (or girls) on the other team.

It sounds boring, but if you like amusement park games where you target shoot or anything similar to that premise, you'd love online deathmatch. It's challenging. You run around trying to be stealthy and outsmart other humans who are much more inventive than a mere AI.

Not only that, the guns are accurate representations of actual guns in the real world. And since I enjoy gun stuff, I find that part of it compelling also.

Oh sure, sometimes I feel quite stupid that I've just spent an hour or two running around a fictional universe shooting fake people. But it's become a compulsion and as we all know, there is no refusal from within the grasp of compulsion.

A couple weeks ago I got arrogant and downloaded the new map pack from the Playstation Network. It costs $15 and it gives you access to several new locations for the slaughter-fest (spell check didn't like slaughterfest. I agree, it should not be allowed to enter the lexicon as a compound word. Too offensive).

I didn't think before I downloaded it that the only people who'd be downloading it are the real junkies. Addicts. These are the players who have devoted days—not hours—to the game. There are 70 levels a player can progress through and then, just to make it interesting, the game developers introduced what's known as Prestige leveling. That means that once you get to 70, you can start all over and progress from level 1 to level 70.

I know. It's a sickness.

There are special insignias next to your player name to identify what level you are, and there are even more special insignias to indicate how you're an insane moron who's Prestiged fifty thousand times. Because, to be gluttonous about it, you can do it more than once. Generally these players are unstoppable. And I hate them.

So I'm only on my first time. Level 67 or something. But I still suck. And here's the thing: a lot of your success depends on how well you know the maps, or the layout of the environment the game is in. Because if you're very familiar with it, you know what the other team will be doing. Surprise is a powerful weapon.

And this is how it's just like my life.

Quite often as I'm shooting someone (in the game—I feel I should specify that so as not to be mistaken for a serial murderer), I'll run out of bullets before they're dead and I have to reload. During that time, the opponent kills me. OR, another player from my team will step in and finish off my opponent, which gives me only an ASSIST in my stats menu. So when the game finishes and the stats are onscreen, inevitably I have a very low number of kills, and seven thousand assists.

See how it's like my real life?

I'm always just a step behind, or, while the real good crap's happening, I'm caught reloading. Or, before I can draw a bead and pull the trigger, my opponent has lightning reflexes and I'm dead.

So I respawn and lo and behold, the game puts me near the guy who just killed me, and he kills me again. And again. And before I can get anywhere or do anything, I've been killed ten times in a row without inflicting any damage on a single foe.

It's frustrating. I can never quite improve because the moment I start to get better, some bigger fish swims up, devours me, and spits out my bones. There's ALWAYS a bigger fish. I can never get comfortable. The moment I do, a swarm of evil soldiers or militia-men runs around the corner and slaughters me and I flounder helpless like a My Buddy doll wielding a useless Lego gun or some such nonsense.

And this is just like my life. Exactly like my life, in fact. No, but it's a fantastic metaphor, and it illustrates nicely the way I'm always a step behind. Some of us are mediocre at everything. I'm mediocre at everything because I lack the capacity to focus with laser-like precision because I'M ONLY HUMAN.

Harry.

But it's good. Because, as I was thinking this morning, do I seriously think those whom I perceive to be on top don't sweat bullets every time they make a career decision? Especially people in a fly-by-night industry like publishing, music, television, or film?

I was thinking about Garth Brooks, for some odd reason, choosing from the billions of demos that were most likely made just for him. Back in the day he was IT. I bet the choice gave him ulcers. I bet he worried that he wasn't picking the hits. I bet it's hard to tell which song will rock number one for fifty weeks, and I know because I hear some of the demos that run through Nashville and I think, dang, that's good.

And you know, no matter how high you get on the ladder, you always feel like you're struggling like hell to make it, and if you don't, you're either a moron or you're blind and I don't understand you. Life's a battle. A war zone. Mercenary Team Deathmatch.

So I hope you have a good team. I hope I have a good team. I know one thing, I need larger magazines and a steadier hand. And maybe a new controller. I think this one's broke. Heh heh. Excuses excuses.

____________________

Related Posts:

How Dragon Age: Origins Interferes with Real Life

Infamous and Flying in Video Games

Torgo

2010-07-27T10:00:00.002-05:00

Is it wrong to laugh at the MST3K version of "Manos": The Hands of Fate?

For me it's serious quandary. I would have glided through the experience just fine if the friend who lent me the movie hadn't mentioned in passing that the man who played Torgo killed himself just a few months after the premier back in the 60s.

The Wikipedia entry states that his suicide had nothing to do with the failure of the film, that Torgo had no social life and a non-existent relationship with his father:

"John Reynolds (Torgo) committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun on October 16, 1966, although the incident reportedly has no relation with Manos. He had a depressing social life as well as being a drug addict and had almost no connection with his father."

One thing that strikes me here is the rationale that the incident had no connection with the failure of his BIG CHANCE. Finally, something is going right in his life. Here's his chance at success. His ship has come in. He's going to be in a film. He'll get some recognition. Directors will be lining up outside his door. Torgo was just the beginning.

But no. Manos was a flop. His dreams went down the drain. What's left?

What I find alarming is his capacity to kill himself with a shotgun. Is that common? Seems like it would be very difficult, and I know it's macabre of me to bring it up, but honestly, I just can't picture that. Not that I want to. But I just can't begin to imagine how someone could hold a shotgun up to their head and reach the trigger, though I'm not one to go around putting guns of any sort up to my head.

So it seems to me that they WERE RELATED. It's like saying the rampant growth of the tomato plants in my garden has nothing to do with the soil, rain, or water. They just grow independent of those things.

Poor Torgo.

OH. AND BY THE WAY. That thing about the drugs and Torgo, did I neglect to mention his drug abuse was related to his role in the film? Oh, yeah. Right. Well, according to the Wikipedia entry, during shooting, Torgo wore this metal rigging to make him look like a satyr (ohhhhhhhh, he's supposed to be a satyr!), BUT he wore it backwards. And no one told him. It damaged his kneecaps permanently and it was, apparently, really painful. He self-medicated with drugs until his death.

Anyway, it's funny how those two facts are so far apart on the Wikipedia entry. Not that I'm accusing Wikipedia of some conspiracy to cover up the truth about Torgo or something. It's just interesting.

And sad. And it made me feel incredibly guilty to laugh at everything Torgo did, particularly the "itsy bitsy spider" part, where he's trying to seduce the unconvincing actress who played Mike's wife. The "itsy bitsy spider" scene is one of the best. Well, pretty much everything with Torgo is hilarious, from the Torgo-music to the wives molesting-him-to-death scene.

But how can I laugh when I know that Torgo killed himself due to the film's failure? I just can. Call me cold-hearted. Call me evil. But maybe Torgo would be really happy to know that his film has achieved cult-status. That they're making a sequel. And a production company in Nashville redubbed the audio track last year and I guess there's a documentary on the director in the works.

Someone should also make a documentary about Torgo, because I sense a good story there.

So I guess it's not entirely sad. It's just rough to know that it was someone's failure and they got depressed enough about it to die. You know?

Top Ten Lists For Writers....and Morons

2010-07-26T10:00:00.003-05:00

What doesn't help me is reading about writing. Does it help anyone, really? Especially lists for writers. Top Ten Lists for Writers that are composed, essentially, of no-duhs.

I read one today and became extremely depressed about writing in general. I was filled with this sense of despondency about my verb usage and my abilities to construct sparkling sentences of varying lengths and styles. I realized there was no hope for me. I spiraled downward in a trajectory of hopelessness where I was forced to confront the realization that my stories are not fabulous. They lack intriguing ideas. The plots are starved. The voice resonates as loudly as the gurgle of a titmouse at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

I am a deluded moron, I thought, laboring at a futile task. I might as well be in one of the seven circles of hell.

I mean, I'm not, really. I'm fine. If I suck at writing, no big deal. If my stories bite, big whoop (is that how you spell it? I'm going for a colloquial tone here).

One day recently, I arrived home in an unusually sunny mood. Stoker was there, haranguing Bastet (the cat), teasing her and such (she loves it) and I said to him, "Yeah, I had a great day writing. I got over whatever lethargy I was feeling and realized I'm good. My stories are good. I'm fantastic. I suddenly realized I haven't been laboring at a futile task for the past five years. It was great." I said it with an appropriate amount of animation.

And he said, "Well, if you think about it, everything we do is futile. Right? I mean, it's all for naught anyway. Isn't it? Your writing. My life. Your life. My job. Your job. Etc."

So there you go. Just when I'd gotten to the crest of the hill in my emotional roller coaster, someone was there to quash it with a nihilistic lecture.

No, it was funny, really, and I gave him hell in a funny, ribbing kind of way, because what better method to counter nihilism than with a well-timed sarcastic comment? Eh? Eh?

I need a good dose of sarcasm right now. Whose idea is it to make those ridiculous Ten Tips For Writers lists, anyway? Seriously?

Some people thrive on the coaching style wherein the cruel drill sergeant-type hurls insults littered with a good amount of spittle at them until they rise to the occasion and emerge victorious. That's great. I mean, to continue the metaphor, no one wants pampered soldiers because a spoiled, indulged soldier will turn and run when they need to confront an enemy (or whatever).

I'm not saying I need to be coddled. I do get tired of the emotional roller coaster, though. It's easier to give up and not try at all. Eventually I rise to the occasion and get over the negative thoughts plaguing me. I shouldn't read the lists in the first place and that would be a great start. I should be less susceptible to negativity and more idiotically confident and ignorant of the possibility that I might truly suck at whatever I'm trying.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, for all I know I'm one of the tuneless, tone-deaf morons trying out for American Idol under the misconception that I'm great. "People have been telling me that my whole life, that's why I'm here, Simon, because I'm the next American Idol."

"You're terrible. Dismissed. Thank you. Goodbye."

Family Visits: Good or Evil?

2010-07-23T10:00:00.001-05:00

I can't decide if I prefer people visiting me in Nashville, or if I prefer to be left alone, an exile in this southern jungle of furious heat and humidity. Hmmmmm.

When they visit, they being my family—most of whom live in the desert oasis Utah—when they visit I am reminded of everything I left behind to come here. The ties between us are renewed and I feel again the strength of the familial bond. I remember part of who I am, the part that fits in an extended family structure. Me, the middle sister. Me, the wife of Stoker. Me, the niece. Me, the daughter. Me, the daughter-in-law. Me, the sister-in-law. It's complex.

Then they leave and I'm left with one family identity, wife. Which is good. Sometimes that's all I have energy for, heh heh. Stoker and I are best friends, too, so there's also that, which doesn't mean I'm only a wife.

Wife has a lot of baggage, doesn't it? Some of it not good. There's wife the nag. Wife the servant. Wife the slave. Wife the property. Wife the chattel. Ha ha. Some of those are synonyms, so I'm cheating, but hey, it makes the point.

I think originally, like maybe when Adam and Eve were hanging out together in Eden, wife meant something decent and the term was unburdened with negative human constructs. There was no wife property. Wife meant help-meet. Friend.

Maybe that's too idyllic of a view when you come right down to it.

Anyway, the point is that I'm not against the term wife. But for some mysterious reason I feel all this pressure to defend my perspective, as though just by discussing my roles in a family and partnership I'm submitting to servitude and archaic views of relationships.

But I don't think words like wife and husband should be poisoned by post-modern constructs and ideas. There IS a lot of baggage here, in the present. There are a lot of crappy relationships and all that, which give marriage a bad name.

And love. It gets a bad name too.

I also feel like the whole attitude about in-laws, you know, like this, "Oh man, my in-laws are visiting. Ick. They're horrible, what a burden..." is awful. I like my in-laws. I stepped into marriage and was aware of most of the roles, most of the cliches, such as this one about the terrible in-laws, and was confused that I didn't feel all of them.

Maybe I'm an oddity, but I look forward to their visit. What I typically rue is their departure. Perhaps that's because sometimes I feel like I live here in exile, depending on how dramatic I'm feeling at the moment, even though I love Nashville in a number of ways (the fireflies, the small feel of the city, the people, the used bookstores...I could go on and on). I guess as time has passed I've grown to realize more and more that the portion of my life that I love the most is the time I spend with my family. The trappings of material pursuits disappear with time and age. What remains is the memories I have with the people I love.

What the heck? I must be getting old. Old and wise.

In any case, when they go back to Utah, their absence is loud and the silence in our home is powerful. I get back to my routine. Thank goodness for routines, eh?

So anyway, I still can't decide. I guess it's better to have them visit and deal with the quiet after they leave. I shouldn't be such a baby about it. I'm tough, after all. Right? Right?

From My NEW NEW NEW Website

2010-07-22T12:42:00.004-05:00

I finally got my website up. It's taken me my entire life, but I've finally arrived. Finally! Check it out. This is from the front page which will change from time to time:

For the past few months I’ve put the book revisions aside to work on some short stories. This isn’t to say that I’ve given up on the series, because I’m still in love with the ideas in it, but I’ve wanted to work on my character development, which means really getting inside their heads. I have strong feelings about women writing male characters and men writing female characters, but apparently not strong enough for me to shy away from writing male characters. Heh.

I won’t go into the reasons, but it mainly concerns the fact that I have a hard time conceptualizing the way men see the universe. However, I think it comes easier to a woman because women live in a man’s world. I’m not a vicious feminist, but I do believe that the male gaze influences how I see the world, meaning that I was raised in a world which sexualizes women, so (and yes, this is a total rationalization) I feel like women tend to understand how men see females BETTER than the other way around.

The caveat to that, the whole male gaze thing and women living in a man’s world, is that I think it’s changing. I’m not here to make men feel guilty or to vindicate the oppressed or anything, because I don’t know how to do that. And, in any case, I think we are all living under various oppressive institutions. I just want to write stories about ideas that interest me and make them entertaining. So read them and let me know what you think. You can find my contact information on my About page or you can read my blog and leave comments there. I love feedback.

What Part of Forever

2010-07-22T10:42:00.003-05:00

I love it that his band is comprised entirely of women. He seems to have taken a cue from James Bond or something. The girls are even dressed like they're from a Bond movie straight out of the 70s. Anyway, love this song.

Phantom Legs and Blinking Pigs...

2010-07-13T16:05:00.001-05:00

little dragon_blinking pigs from jin angdoo lee on Vimeo.

In case you didn't follow the link in the previous post.

Secret of Happiness

2010-07-13T15:19:00.003-05:00

I've figured out the secret to happiness.

It's quite simple, really. The secret is to realize that life is rather miserable. So expect misery, but be happy through it all. Right? It's not that hard. All you do is understand that life isn't supposed to be a visit to Wonka's factory and you'll get along swimmingly.

I was thinking about it today. I have about a hundred bruises on my thighs from this new bed-frame I got on Saturday. The bed-frame looks great. I swear it improves the entire bed, which was really starting to give me back problems. I feel like an adult, having a bed-frame and real bedroom furniture instead of whatever college leftovers Stoker and I could throw together. That's nice. There's nothing like feeling like an adult (even if all any of us ever does is fake it).

Anyway, the footboard has some wicked corners and being a dolt, I've run into them about a million and two times. I'm always in a hurry. I'm always charging ahead and ramming my legs against things accidentally.

So I was noticing how abused my legs look. The bruises are bad and hurt, as bruises are wont to do. But still, this song I was listening to put me in a good mood. I was singing along, getting into the song, and it hit me: life is like that combo--seeing the bruises and pain but being in a good mood because of a song. Or whatever you have that can add a positive note to the sorrow.

Priceless. I'm giving you kernels of wisdom here. Go with them and let them set you free, my child.

I know it seems like I have all the answers. But actually, I have a degree in fakery. I forget all the lessons I've learned almost always. If I've been hurt often enough, I can learn. Like, for example, the lessons of the inexplicable cabinet in our kitchen.

We bought a fixer-upper that was built in 1940. I think the kitchen cabinets might be the original cabinets. I assume refrigerators must have consistently been five in a half feet at some point and that's why this floating cabinet just hangs there with nothing under it, waiting to crack you open as you clock your head against its vicious corner on your way into the dining room. It's right next to the doorway. I think I turned my head into something like a squishy peach five or six times before it became habitual to automatically compensate for the stupid thing (and now I have brain damage. So sad. But it was worth it! To learn such a valuable lesson....).

What I mean to illustrate is how difficult it is for humans to learn. Or at least me, the slowest learner, the latest bloomer ever to feign intelligence.

But it took five or six good concussions before I learned. So in the end I think I came out on top. Or perhaps that's the brain damage talking.

The point is, misery should have a soundtrack. Find yours. I've got mine and it puts a great spin on everything. It's not that bad! Things are fine! Listen to this Cee Lo Green song, this Jamie Lidell tune or my favorite right now, Little Dragon.

The Problem with Introductions: Saying My Name

2010-06-23T16:02:00.005-05:00

After all these years I still feel awkward when telling someone my name. In fact, it doesn't have to be an actual person. I feel just as uncomfortable telling a machine my name, like when the teleporter asks me to state my name and business before teleporting me. Weird, huh?

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's based in the ancient beliefs that a person's name has power. I bet that's it. I bet some primitive part of my brain hears the question, "What's your name," and responds with the urge to cast a hex on the person who's asking. The golem in me hisses and recoils, lashing out with clawed fingers, whispering magical spells of destruction, laughing manaically, prompting me to NOT tell them my name.

The normal part of my brain laughs, though I notice a choked feeling in my throat as I lean forward and whisper the syllables. That never goes over well, of course, because they can't hear me and then I have to say it again. So I've learned (at least I've done that) that it's better to say it confidently and loudly. For the entire room to hear. Usually this approach earns me suspicious glances. But at least I don't have to repeat my name several times over.

Oh, but I do. The cafe where I spend my lunches has a surprisingly high turnover. Over the past few years I'm sure I've shared my name with enough people to rival only my years in college. As we all know, the most common questions heard around a university are "What's your major?" and "What's your name?" The former never felt so awkward to answer. A major is merely a shirt you put on every day, while your name is as good as your underclothes. Sharing it, you might as well be handing over the last bit of your dignity.

"Oh, you want to know my name? Here, why don't I also tell you about the time in elementary school when my so-called friends de-pantsed me on the playground. While I'm at it, let me describe the horror of having my love poem about Mark Smith read to the entire fourth grade class*."

I know, I know, telling someone my name isn't as bad as getting pantsed at school. It shouldn't be anyway. I'm simply using it as a metaphor to express the vulnerable feeling that comes over me any time I'm asked to share it.

I'm thinking about hiring someone to follow me around, an entourage if you will, who can chime in any time someone asks me to tell them my name. They will speak for me when necessary.
"What's your name again?"
I nod over my shoulder, cueing my entourage.
A chorus of voices, "Nicole. Her name is Nicole." They could even say it kind of sing-songy if they want, like the choruses of the ancient Greek tragedies.
I smile confidently** and wink. The person who's just been bludgeoned with a chorus singing my name blinks repeatedly, dumbfounded at the large entourage of robed actors behind me (notice how my entourage continues to swell and transform more and more into a Greek chorus. Soon they'll be wearing strange makeup and sharing secrets to help the audience understand the drama and inner workings of my soul.)

It would be so fantastic, you know, to never ever have to introduce myself again. I know the obvious answers to my problem are to never meet anyone I'm not already familiar with or to begin wearing a name-tag. Another solution would be to become extremely ridiculously famous OR infamous, whatever comes first.

But I'd rather have a Greek chorus following me around. I might even discover some newfound confidence about how awesome my name is due to hearing it sung as I stand in the midst of a large mass of chanters.

The chorus would come in handy in so many settings, like when I'm trying to order food in a noisy restaurant. That way I also wouldn't make embarrassing mistakes like accidentally ordering the shrimp when I hate shrimp. This happened--I must have been thinking really hard about what I didn't want. As in, I hate shrimp. Why would anyone order shrimp. It's horrible. Never. Never EVER will I EVER order shrimp. "And for you?" the server asks. "Um, I'll have the shrimp."

If I had a chorus with me, I'd merely have to nod at them when the server arrives to take my order. They'd know all my desires, being privy to my thoughts, and most likely they wouldn't accidentally order the shrimp (thought they COULD since sometimes I think of fanciful things I don't really want, like an entire cheesecake).

A chorus would also be really perfect in a conflict. I imagine they'd chip in when it began to look like I was losing, and then I'd win.

The possibilities are limitless. And this is what comes from struggling to share my name with people: I end up with a Greek chorus trailing me. Beautiful.

*This never happened. Mark Smith is a generic name I made up.
**Confident because I didn't have to say my name, which always weakens me a little.....

The Voice of the Web: Real Loud and Real Obnoxious

2010-06-14T13:14:00.008-05:00

Everything feels the same.

Is it just me or is this true?

The problem is the Internet, the Web, this mechanical interface with everything. And it has bled over into things in the real world, like with the way I relate to people.

Or perhaps it began happening with the advent of television. The first real mechanical separation of humans with the reality of interpersonal relationships.

I'm tired of clever. I'm tired of witty retorts, sarcasm, the brutality of cold humor, the detachment of knowing causes have effects. What I mean by that—the detachment of cause and effect—is the understanding that if I do or say A, B will happen. Like, for a totally generic example, if at home with my parents, I say some witty, clever, sarcastic remark such as, "Well, if you hadn't gotten pregnant at 17, perhaps you'd have a Corvette by now," there will be specific ramifications*. It won't be a funny sitcom. There won't be a laugh track where the audience responds by chuckling in unison and I am heralded as a comedienne extraodinaire. In fact, people in my immediate life will begin to see me as an ass.

This is perhaps a poor example, because the problem is much more advanced. Occasionally when I'm around certain people, I get the feeling everything is about the big joke. The perfect timing. The script in their head where everything happening is the set up for the punch-line. It could be that I've somehow, miraculously gotten MORE sensitive as I've advanced in age, though that seems unlikely. The longer I'm alive, the more rooted I feel to this world. (At first I mistakenly wrote out rotted. Freudian slip?) And the less things surprise me.

So it surprises me when I grow weary of the brutal nature of the Web. Who's with me? I'd really appreciate an acknowledgement here if anyone, ANYONE AT ALL, senses what I sense.

It isn't as though I spend an unholy amount of time surfing the Web. I do a lot of research. Read a lot of Wikipedia articles, about.com articles, amazon.com reviews, and just recently, have subscribed to a few sites through Google Reader. The sites are rather generic tech/gadget reviews, science fiction and fantasy commentaries, and for the most part, I find them interesting.

But there is a tone to all that's out there. I'm having a difficult time pinpointing what it is. I could be full of crap, but I could just as well be identifying a cultural malaise. Some might describe it as an advancement—I can see that. Finally! they would say, we've arrived at the future. We're here, all is open, all is possible, we're speeding toward this singularity where we'll become infinite and immortal through science.

Maybe the Miscrosoft Bing commercials aren't that off. From time to time I feel like my mind is fractured and I'm trying to sort through the hundreds of strands of thought, attempting to make sense of them, to grasp something solid. I don't think it's to be found in my head—everything is abstract there.

What I need is to step away from the mechanical, electronic interfaces with the world and engage in something real. I need to work in the garden. Take a walk by the river. Go for a hike. The Web, or Internet, whatever the crap it's called, becomes a voice in the head that won't be silenced, that influences behavior and perhaps in a negative way.

I tire of its plethora of voices—voices that don't always help me see reason or sort through the mess of the human condition. All things tend to converge, and I don't necessarily see them converging into a whole that I can treasure the way I treasure a favorite book (Jane Eyre, Angle of Repose, We). It usually happens that we veer toward the most common denominator, and I don't have much faith that this number will be the one I want.

*There would be no REAL reason to say this, as it isn't true in my family. But I could see this kind of thing happening in a sitcom, can't you?

My Visit to Rowan Oak, OR How to Magically Ruin a Pair of Expensive Jeans

2010-06-04T15:26:00.007-05:00

Memorial Day weekend was great, until we got to Memphis. Then everything went to hell real quick.

But first.....

Rowan Oak.

Mississippi is humid, just like all swamps in the south. The strange thing about humidity is that when you add air conditioning to the picture, it can get cold. So naturally I wore a pair of jeans while we we drove from Tupelo to Oxford to not catch a chill in air conditioned rental car—an Impala. Oh yeah, we went all out for this road trip.

These jeans really are quite awesome. I purchased them recently and I happen to look like a million bucks when I wear them. It's been a while since I felt or looked like a million bucks, so this causes me to strut around with a confidence no one has seen on me in years.

And if I don't, in fact, look like a pile of glittering diamonds in the jeans, the important thing is that I feel like one. As I proved long ago, if you feel it, it must be true.

We arrived at Rowan Oak in Oxford and Stoker drove down a gravel driveway and parked beside a trailhead. We didn't know where we were, exactly. The area is quite forested and you can't just see where you should go (especially if you drive down the little gravel road and don't simply park on the street).

So we didn't talk to anyone after we got out of the car. Stoker looked at the little sign at the trailhead which read, "Bailey's Woods" or something and informed us that the trail was a quarter mile and it ended in the museum parking lot. Faulkner, the sign read, used to enjoy taking walks in this forest to think about his work.

If Faulkner did it, we had to do it.

"Let's take this trail. It ends in the parking lot," Stoker said. Obviously we assumed the museum parking lot meant the parking lot of Rowan Oak. Since we hadn't been up to the house (we didn't know where it was, in fact), we figured museum meant Faulkner's house. Duh. Of course. It's open to the public and is no longer a house, therefore is really a museum. Makes sense.

Still wearing my jeans and a pair of very comfortable Born wedge heel sandals (I never wear wedge heels, but this pair of jeans requires them), we headed down the trail. At that point, it was quite cool for Mississippi at the end of May. So I thought it'd be fine to wear jeans for a hike (there was a pair of shorts in the car).

What most people don't know about these parts of the South, at least I didn't until I lived here, is that there are many forests. Oh sure, you knew that, right, because you've watched lots of reenactments of the Civil War. You've seen stuff about the deep south. You know that there are towering evergreens all over and crazy vines taking over the whole place and you realize these things because you pay attention and read many books and watch countless hours of television.

Ok well, I'm constantly in awe, even as a resident of four years. I keep forgetting that the South isn't all about magnolias. These forests are thick and kind of scary and when I'm in them, I begin to understand the fear the Puritans had of them and their darknesses. I also begin to see the influence the landscape had on Faulkner and his writing. Anyway, that thing you learned as a kid, about the moss growing on the north side of the tree trunk? That's true here. Because you can't get your orientation in the forest by the sun or the mountains. So bring a compass.

The trail in the Rowan Oak forest was nice. At first. It was shady and we were there early enough that the temperature was kind of cool. We plodded along, laughing, joking, swatting at mosquitoes and leaping away from enormous spiders. Spots of sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves and we'd stare up at the towering trees with their sculpted trunks, mouths agape. I think Stoker got tired of me pointing and saying, "Holy crap, look at the tree!"

A few minutes into the forest and I began to hear disembodied laughter, like someone nearby was having a pool party . . . or something. . . . The trail split—we took the one with fresh footprints (were those hoof-prints?). We began to feel lost. My footwear was horrible so I tripped several times.

Soon the air grew stifling and swampy. Or more swampy, anyway. Stoker laughed at my stride. Never one to be deterred at creepy laughter in the woods, he continued to take pictures and reassure me that the trail hadn't already gone a quarter of a mile.

"This is WAY longer than a quarter of a mile. I think we've gone two miles already," I said.

"No way. Our block in the city is a half-mile. We haven't gone that far yet," he said, laughing.

"Not a chance. We've gone way further than a quarter mile and we're not even to the end yet."

"Why are you walking like that? Walk normal," he said, snapping a picture of me on a bridge over a huge grotto filled with trolls.

"What's wrong with the way I'm walking?" I asked, paying the toll. The trolls demanded a fruit roll-up. Luckily I had one.

"You're waddling," Stoker answered, glaring at the toll-taking troll for taking the last fruit roll-up. Stoker loves gummy candy and fruit snacks like that.

"It's hot. I'm sweating. My jeans are shrinking." The troll loped away and joined his clan beneath the bridge, and I wiped the stream of sweat from my forehead. I'd turned into a fountain.

To prove his point, Stoker showed me a picture of myself mid-stride. I looked like I'd just ridden a hundred miles on horseback.

My jeans WERE shrinking. It was so humid and hot, it was like living inside a washing machine and a dryer at the same time.

We continued on. The disembodied laughter kept getting louder. There were red toadstools with white spots on the edge of the trail. It was hard to breathe. The floor of the forest was littered with creepy fern-like plants out of the jurassic era (or at least the movie Jurassic Park). I began to threaten the makers of the trail with lawsuits about false advertising and bad trail management. They could have at least put signs out for the proper route, AND a warning about the trolls* would have been really helpful.

Finally we came to the end of the trail. I could barely walk. My jeans had shrunk four sizes and I only managed to move by thrusting my legs backwards and lurching forward in a wind-up motion (see? using the material's natural restrictive tendency to propel myself. Clever, eh?). I was certain the leather sandals had carved blisters into my pinky toes. But the end was in sight and hopefully an air conditioned house/museum.

HOWEVER, the end of the trail was followed by a short walk through an ugly meadow to the campus of the University of Mississippi. The Museum was a real museum. Betty's museum, or someone like that.

Rage filled me, I heard a loud tearing noise and the skin of my legs was suddenly visible through the fabric of my jeans. Luckily, the campus was a ghost-town, being Sunday on Memorial Day weekend, so no one but Stoker saw my transformation into the Incredible Hulk.

Rowan Oak, Faulkner's home, was on the other side of the forest and the trail. We turned around.

*By the way, there were no trolls. I put that in to wake you up. If there had been trolls, I think we'd have gotten a much different body of work from Faulkner.

Calvin Grotepas

2010-05-31T23:21:00.004-05:00

He went to West High in Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm not sure of his graduation date right at the moment, but he did graduate. He went to the University of Utah and majored in art—I don't think he ever finished his degree, but I'm pretty sure he was only a few credits shy of getting it.

He loved to work with his hands. When I was a kid, he made jewelry from polished wood—earrings, mainly. He taught me to whittle, though I sucked at it, and he made me begin with a bar of ivory soap. I didn't see the point. I wanted to start on my first masterpiece immediately. I wanted to be like Henry Moore, whose work he loved.

While he was still enrolled in college, he worked for the Deseret Press, the printing and publishing arm of the LDS church, and that's where he met my mom, who was working as a typesetter (to me, working in the publishing world, this love story is beautiful). She saw him first, so the story goes, and it was love at first sight. Later on, when they were married, he worked for a few other companies running their presses. He loved being a pressman.

They bought a house in Farmington, Utah, and he finished the basement—my mom and him, working as a team. After that, he worked long hours to sculpt the tiered yard into a beautiful landscape with flowering plums, spruces, Ponderosa pines, peach trees and cherry trees, yuccas, red buds, oaks, and the crowning piece, an almond tree (it died rather soon). The yard was a work of art—the railroad ties that delineated the grassy areas from the plants and trees were axe-cut by him (he cut his head open this way, once).

Years later following his divorce from my mom and after digging into pottery—mainly wheel-work—he found his niche. At least, it felt to me like it was the stuff he had always wanted to do. Hand-built pottery and bronze-casting. Some of the most organic-looking pots came out of this period of his work. Great, curving vases glazed in dark oranges and deep reds, but so finely done that they weigh much less than they apparently should. In a way, they remind me of something from another world, something from a science fiction novel. It's a fitting marriage of two distinct disciplines because he loved science fiction, space, and Carl Sagan.

Sometimes we realize that the only way to understand the interior of a person is through their creations—the way they organize the unorganized, apply order to disorder, filter beauty from the mundane. Sorting through the remnants of a life, we find that we didn't understand a person at all and we see that we measured them by the wrong instruments. When we were looking at the disorder of everyday matters, or the things on which society focuses, we should have been looking at the language they spoke best.

When I looked for my father on Google, I found two links: one from a news article from forty years ago when he was rescued in a skiing accident by helicopter and just a few other links regarding court cases against him. The cases were all reasonable, I'm sure, and I don't blame the people who were charging him because he suffered from severe mental illness and could be very difficult to get along with. That was the other part of his life. The messy part.

Bu I want him to have another legacy on the Internet. I want him to also be remembered for the good things. I didn't understand him completely, but I know from his art that he was beautiful.

Barbara and Barry: Pure Bliss

2010-05-28T18:41:00.003-05:00

Is it really such a crime to love Babs? And in particular, her duets with Barry Gibb? And to be more to the point, the song "Guilty"?

I feel like I've written about this a million times already, but it turns out, I've only actually written about Babs once, in this post, and it was just to mention how great "Evergreen" is. Because it is. And "Guilty" is amazing. "Out on the street anybody you meet got a heartache of their own . . . " That's true. They do. Thanks, Babs, for pointing that out.

And then thank you, even more, for the entire song and how you make any little duet seem epic and romantic and perfect and you do it without auto-tune or any digital engineering, just your emotion and your crystal clear tones.

"Pulses racin', darlin', how grand we are, little by little we meet in the middle . . . make it a crime to be out in the cold . . . " Barry. My word, Barry, you make such an amazing, profound point. And you know, when you sing with Babs, with your brothers in the background, you slay even the casual listener. You make my life feel like the romantic comedy it was always meant to be. You make me think I could do anything, move a mountain, walk on water, fly away in a hot air balloon with my lover, glasses of sparkling champagne bubbling away, fluted stems held so delicately between our fingers, and stars in our eyes, nuzzling noses like two shy deer.

And then there's the part in the song, the chorus where Babs and Barry sing together, and Babs does that signature move where she, kind of off the cuff, goes all lazy in keeping time with Barry's singing, "And we got nothing to be guilty of, our love will climb any mountain, near or far, we are, and we never let it end, we are devotion . . . ."

And they are. I mean, have you heard the song? That sort of singing and dueting (is that a word?) is PURE devotion. And it makes me feel devoted. It makes me fall in love with everything. This computer (which I already loved, but now I love it more). This table. This coffee shop. The people in the room with me. All of them. I now love them simply because "Guilty" is making me feel it, feel the love.

It's a love potion. It's BETTER than a love potion. It's the key to world peace. Babs and Barry. The perfect union of man and woman in song. The only other magical combination I can think of right now is Babs and Neil. But for now, I'm feeling it with "Guilty."

"You gotta be mine, we take it away, it's gotta be night and day, just a matter of time." Just a matter of time before Babs takes over the world with her voice. I can't believe she hasn't yet. Pure unadulterated, un-auto-tuned, gorgeousness in a voice.

Had a Dream Last Night that Both My Arms Were Broken

2010-05-27T18:17:00.003-05:00

An Experiment in Brevity

2010-05-27T11:49:00.002-05:00

Two haikus:

Everyone is asleep
There is nothing to come between
the moon and me.

—Seifu-jo

The willow
stands anywhere
and stays calm

—Chiyo-ni

Paranoia. Part III.

2010-05-26T18:19:00.000-05:00

If you're just joining me, I strongly suggest reading Paranoia and Paranoia. Part II. before reading part three.

Who knew I could stretch such a stupid story out so long? Stoker knows. My family knows. But they're not here right now so it's just hearsay. I really only planned on telling you a small anecdote about my strange bouts of paranoia, but it's warped into this monster because the paranoia didn't exist until Ted existed. Before that I was a clean slate, so to speak. Naive. Gullible. Trusting.

I had said get lost, essentially, to Ted. Then I began bidding on the magical script on eBay that would change everything. When my ship was nearing port, the one that was about to come in, some jerk began bidding against me. Email relationship ensued (and I have a weakness for the written word, really, and it extends to emails*) and the mysterious bidder told me all sorts of enchanting details about his life in San Diego.

Caught up?

Ok, so Ted denied being Rob. But only after I had tricked Rob into telling me what he looked like.

Now, I know you know where this is going because of foreshadowing and other reasons. Why include this stupid eBay story if it had nothing to do with Ted? You are clever enough to see that Ted will turn out to be Rob. You even know WHY Ted was doing what he was doing.

Recall that he only wanted what he couldn't have. Would he give up? NOOOO. What a brilliant idea. Track the prey down on the internet, lure your prey into a comfortable relationship with your assumed identity, be witty and charming and perfect, get into the mind of your prey, make your prey love you, and then wham! Reveal the truth to your prey. There will be no choice but a confession of love.

Did that paragraph even work? I was going for clever but I've failed miserably. The point is, Ted couldn't describe a physical appearance too far from the truth, otherwise I'd fall in love with a tall dark, handsome guy and then when he revealed himself to be Ted and not Rob, I'd be too disappointed. Better to make sure that Rob and Ted sort of overlap in my head. Right?

Oh man. This is why I'll have sudden bouts of paranoia.

Ok, ok. So, I hated to be paranoid and accuse Rob of being Ted. So I didn't do that until I felt pretty sure. In an email conversation I confronted "Rob."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, Ted. I know it's you."

"Ted? Who the hell** is Ted? I can't believe you're accusing me of being someone named Ted. I'm Rob. Rob in San Diego."

"Like Rob in High Fidelity? And Rob's girlfriend Laura in High Fidelity? You didn't even get an original plot for your assumed identity."

"What's High Fidelity? Is that a movie? A book?"

"Oh please. You've clearly done your research. Watching all the movies I love suddenly."

"You're freaking me out. This Ted character has obviously worked you over."

Ok, so you get the point. The above conversation may or may not have taken place verbatim. Rob denied being Ted. But I knew I was right.

So, I can also concoct schemes and trickery, though I hate it and in truth I was rather sick the entire time feeling like I was living in a sort of nightmare***. It was my birthday at the time, so I guess this must have been happening in March and not December like I originally thought—although, the Christmas before my birthday, I received an acoustic guitar and a couple books (Spreading Misandry and Poetry Speaks) from a mysterious benefactor (another plot from another movie). Who could it have been? Ted hated it that I was turning into a feminist because of the English department. Though I wasn't a feminist.

March 27th. I email "Rob" and tell him how depressed I am because it's my birthday and I'm SO lonely (you will hate me for being scheming, but I didn't like being stalked. Weird, I know). I tell him how much I need the comfort of a male companion, but there is no one. "Well," I say, "there's my ex-boyfriend who is still my friend," . . . Dave, we'll call him. He was way older than me, had just barely broken up with me, but we were still friends. So I tell "Rob" that Dave will come over and I'm just going to sleep with him for the hell of it. It will ease the loneliness.

I had no intention of being so stupid. But "Rob" would think me just that stupid and impulsive. So I have Dave come over and he leaves his vehicle out in front of my house all night. Ted, by the way, had enrolled in some master's courses back at the university, despite the fact that he lived an hour and a half away. So he was commuting back and forth.

Just by chance, I woke up at five in the morning and glanced out my bedroom window. The sky was pink, I remember because that was the reason I looked outside. At that very moment, Ted drove by and slowed when he saw Dave's car. He almost swerved into it, I think.

Ah sweet retribution.

See, he had work that morning in the city. My brother-in-law worked with him at the time. That was part of the scheme, which was probably my brother-in-laws plan, actually, now that I think of it. Jason (brother-in-law) went by Ted's cubicle to say hey. Ted looked like he'd been awake all night.

"You all right, Ted?" Jason asked.

"Not really."

"What's wrong, man?"

"I wish I could tell you," Ted said, with a wistful look. He did want to tell on me, I'm certain. He was the tattletale sort. He probably wanted to drive straight to my mom's house on his way to work that morning, break down her door, grab her by the shoulders and say, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DAUGHTER DID LAST NIGHT?"

"I know what's going on, Ted. You need to stop," Jason said.

Guilt flashed across Ted's face, quickly replaced by feigned confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. Seriously, it's out of hand. Leave her alone."

"Fine." I'm sure his shoulders slumped and a cloudy look filled his eyes. I know that look very well, still.

Jason was quite nice about it. He liked Ted just fine, while being very aware of his stalkerly impulses. So he wasn't rude. And I wasn't either.

There's clearly a reflection upon my poor judgment in this whole story, that I would be such a jerk to share it with you, that I would date Ted's brother, that I would make him think I'd slept with Dave just to find out the truth.

Who is the bigger jerk? you ask. Me or Ted? Ted would say me. And I would say Ted, while adding the caveat that I made a bunch of mistakes and bad decisions, like all the times I let him back into my life thinking he'd finally gotten over everything and could let me be the one who got away (the girl he only wanted when he couldn't have her). Like when he got married and sent an invitation to my mom and invited me, through my mother, to email him a congratulations or something. Big mistake.

And then when I stupidly let him have the address to my blog when I was just beginning to date Stoker—he'd asked to get in contact with me through my mom or sister (again). I said all right, thinking once more that he could NOT be a weirdo. All the anonymous comments he left were evidence that he couldn't.

Oh the madness.

And oh the strange fears that crop up when someone says something or does something that reminds me of him. Sometimes when I meet a new person and establish a light email rapport with them, because I can't see them, if they say or write anything remotely like Ted, I feel myself wondering if this is another one of Ted's ploys to infiltrate my life again, and this time he's even gone so far as to hire an actor to portray a 3-dimensional manifestation of his assumed identity. Crazy, I know. And inevitably I feel the question burning in my head, the curiosity, the urge to jokingly ask, "You're not, by any chance, a forty-one year old man of Scandinavian descent with blond hair and blue eyes, with a background in electrical engineering now practicing patent law . . . are you?"

Shit.

That's the paranoia.

*In fact, this is how Stoker won me over.
**Ted never swore, so this was incontrovertible proof that Rob was not TED.
***Recurring nightmare beginning when I was eight: a baseball scout claims he wants me on his team because he's seen how amazing my arm is when I'm throwing dirt clods at things with my friends. I don't want to be on his team. But he won't give up. Even after I've reduced him to being a wheelchair with my dirt clods (a creepy wooden wheelchair, no less). Nothing will stop this major league baseball scout. I wake up after his face is a bloody mess. Hmmmm. I must have seen some kind of horrible movie at my cousin's or something—they were always watching age-inappropriate movies. Some movie with a wooden wheelchair in it....

Magic Numbers

2010-05-26T17:49:00.000-05:00

Real quick, I just want to celebrate a momentous achievement. THREE-HUNDRED-AND-TWENTY-SEVEN POSTS. Thank you, thank you.

I know that by my age, most people have already written somewhere near two-thousand-six-hundred-fifty-two posts* or thereabouts, but I didn't even know what a blog was until January of 2005, and as you can see, I acted quickly upon discovering this noble art (thank you Communication Arts magazine—those of you elitists who wanted to keep it a secret club [all you Live Journal snobs heh heh heh], feel free to go burn an effigy at their headquarters for spoiling everything what with their vast readership and all . . . and yes, I totally know how you feel. It's how I feel about the vinyl cool-kids club, from which I've retired . . . ).

Anyway, yes, 327 is the most magical number in our numeral system. So I wanted to celebrate. Thanks for coming to my party.

*Assuming you started blogging at fifteen and wrote three posts a week every year for seventeen years. NOT impossible. I know there are people with this goal . . . somewhere.

Paranoia. Part II.

2010-05-26T15:59:00.000-05:00

In this story, I am not the hero (but like I had to tell you THAT...). I don't mind being honest about the fact that when I was young, I may have been a self-centered jerk. Most likely, I will realize at forty-two that I was egocentric at thirty-two. In fact, I hope for that. I hope I keep growing and evolving.

If you didn't read Paranoia, read it first. I mean, if you want to. If you don't care about me or my blog, then fine. Skip it and just read this. Fine. That's fine. Go right ahead. You're missing out. But do what you want. Who am I to advise you? I'm sure the back-story is completely unnecessary and I'm sure you can find several individuals who will pitch in during a gripe-session about my needless wordiness. I'll give you their email addresses. You guys can meet up for coffee.

To pick up where I left off, Ted asked me to marry him after three or four years of wishy-washy behavior towards me and the relationship. I said no, and goodbye forever.

The following school year, the Scorpio who'd taught me that men can be passionate and vibrant (rather than dead inside like withered autumn leaves, like Ted) moved to the Midwest to take care of his grandfather. We fell out of contact and I began dating a beautiful bead-maker with Native American roots. He made me bracelets and necklaces when he couldn't sleep because of a rare condition involving asthma, and taught me how playing the banjo can be sexy and not just silly.

I romanticize this because I can—it's in the past now. You know how it is.

I'm telling you this next part so you can see how I was somewhat cruel.

The next summer, the bead-maker wanted me to stay in our college town, but I insisted on moving back home to work. It crushed him and I thought he was just being ridiculous. While I was in the city, we had some kind of misunderstanding (I could detail it, but for brevity's sake, I don't) and he vanished. I was lonely and broken-hearted.

So what did I do? The only wise thing a moron can do. I called Ted.

In my defense, I didn't have any friends in the city. People got married and moved away. I had spent three or four years chasing Ted and never had time to nurture friendships.

I only wanted to go sky-diving. Something really crazy. Because the bead-maker had left me cold and lonely and I thought in all my theatrics that I had nothing to live for.

Ted and I went sky-diving. Then after that, he wanted to date again. I relented to just "hanging out." Cruel. I know, because I was really set on never getting into another exclusive relationship with him. I mean, honestly and stupidly, I thought that if I spent time with him and he'd changed and treated me better, then I could see us getting back together. So I wasn't a complete monster. You know?

But my how the tables had turned....

When fall came and it was time to go back to college, I let Ted help me move. And like a mean jerk, when he left to go back to the city that night, I said good riddance. It's kind of hazy. Maybe we spent a few weekends together wherein I tried to see if he had suddenly become chivalrous and cool and sweet and not small-hearted and etc. And maybe not. My memory fails me.

I began dating someone else. I told Ted that it was really over. Good luck. He accused me of being a jerk and I said, I know, you're right, it was unfair of me to ask you to go sky-diving with me. But we'll always have Paris, kid. He didn't think that was funny.

I thought he was REALLY gone this time.

Sometime that winter, I learned about eBay. I began bidding on things. I really really wanted this stupid script to the movie "Grosse Point Blank" because I fancied that if I had it, I could definitely write a blockbuster romantic comedy. Like a fool I used my unique last name as my screen name on eBay. Two of the auctions I'd participated in on other items (LP's of "Astral Weeks") got snaked from me at the last second. I was feeling pretty bitter about losing.

But there I was, winning the ridiculous script because NO ONE WAS BIDDING ON IT. My day had come at last. Victory never looked so scrumptious. Suddenly, out of nowhere, some jerk bid against me. One person. Being very competitive, I fumed. The bid war began. I had to win.

I felt strongly that if ONLY I HAD THIS SCRIPT, all my problems would be solved. The script I was working on in my spare time would magically become the golden script, the script to rewrite history, the script to turn the Sahara into verdant fields of corn, putting an end to hunger. I needed that script so bad. I needed to KNOW THE KEY to making my script* enchanting and the key was in the "Grosse Point Blank" script.

Naturally, I emailed the competing bidder. Or maybe mysterious-bidder emailed me first. In any case, I pled my case. We quickly struck up an email relationship because I have a tragic weakness for emailing. Want to disarm me? Send me a compelling email and expect a response in return, THEN write me back and charm me completely with your wit, your clever insights, and your sparkling intellect. I'll be putty in your hands.

It's disgusting. But also, isn't it awesome?

Mysterious bidder was named Rob. He lived in San Diego. He had a girlfriend named Laura. Laura was great, but she was mad at Rob and they were on the brink of breaking up because Laura wanted to live with Rob, but somehow Rob had strong core values and thought that was wrong and he didn't think it right to take advantage of her. So Laura was dating other guys to make Rob jealous—turns out, what she really wanted was Rob to marry her**.

There were signs. I'm not a moron (though all clues say otherwise). When Ted and I were dating, we communicated by email A LOT. People have tics in the way they speak that show up in their writing. I started to feel like I was emailing Ted. I tricked Rob into describing himself. How could he lie?

Rob looked a lot like Ted.

But Ted denied it.

*A compelling tale about a college age girl who writes a letter to John Cusack, which he answers, and then of course he falls in love with her, and the college girl's dreams come true, etc. Contact me if you'd like to buy the rights to this potentially surprise hit.

**This is sort of the plot to the film/book "High Fidelity." Notice a pattern? No, not a pattern with my former love for John Cusack, but the other pattern.

Paranoia.

2010-05-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Sometimes my own paranoia startles me.

This is disturbing for a number of reasons, one of them being the genetic thing. My dad is kind of crazy. And my mom has always been really worried that I'm going to lose it. It's funny. And tragic, and if she's reading this, Mom, come on. You know I find it utterly endearing. After all, I'm already thirty-two and still haven't lost it. :)

She probably doesn't read my blog anymore. I pretend she does from time to time so I don't cuss too much. Occasionally I forget how much I cuss until Stoker starts teasing me with things like, "I won't say ______, if you'll stop saying _____." That's when it dawns on me that I must say _____ a lot. And then I feel bad.

Back to the paranoia.

Part of not becoming paranoid or crazy is realizing the potential you have for losing your mind. Right? I mean, that's the paradox, so beautifully illustrated by Joseph Heller in Catch-22. You can get out of the dangerous mission if you're crazy, but if you're cogent enough to NOT want to go up in the belly of the bomber plane, then you must not be crazy. Only a crazy fool would want to be a sitting duck in that bomber plane's belly turret.

I'm not paranoid, really. But long ago, I dated this one guy for several years. I was 18 and stupid (but no stupider than most 18-year-olds. If you're eighteen and reading this, I apologize, but someday it will all make sense), so of course I put up with his general awfulness for far too long. Like three or four years too long. One week should have sufficed. Did I already mention I was very young?

Plus I'm a stayer. Some people are takers, some are leavers. I'm a stayer. I just mean, when I decide I love someone, I stick with them. I had decided that . . . . Ted, yes, Ted was great and that I loved him so much that if I had to, I would go into hell with ten screeching cats dangling from my limbs and sixteen dogs chasing me, the human cat tree, just to retrieve him, so great was our, er, my love. Of course, I never thought, but why is Ted in hell in the first place?

If I'd thought that, I would have realized he was in possession of an innumerable amount of sins strong enough to banish him to, if not REAL hell, then at least Dante's vision of it. One of his sins was saying this to me at one point, "I don't love you. I'll never love you. Plus, you're not exactly what I'm looking for in a wife. I want a woman I can sing duets with and who will teach our children to sing."

Even at eighteen I realized how insane he was for thinking something so absolutely childish and ridiculous. I bet I laughed like my grandma laughs when she sees through the crap and finds a kernel of happiness so delightful, she can't contain her jubilation. Like the time on that family trip when my aunt was scolding my cousin in the parking lot of a national park (who, lots of parks there) and a bystander tried to step in and my tow-headed cousin said, "Butt out lady, it's none of your business." The scolding resumed.

You can see why my cousin was being scolded with an attitude like that. My grandma thinks that story is really hilarious.

Anyway, Ted. He was awful. But I overlooked it because that's what you do when you fall in love. Sometimes love is absolutely insane and stupid. Ted was twenty-six and I was eighteen, and Ted had never had a girlfriend in all his life. He'd always loved from afar. He had no concept of what a relationship was like and he had no understanding of the reality of women, being the oldest of six boys. I was willing to work with that because I was young and pliant when it came to my expectations of a man.

Ted continued to not want me, but then he'd want me, and then he'd break up with me, and then he'd want me back, and then he broke up with me and it really was the last straw. So I started dating his brother. I had no scruples. Plus his brother and I were good friends and we could talk about books for hours. His brother, Tom, asked permission to date me of course. We had cleared it with Ted. That made it kosher, right?

So to make it more dramatic, Ted decided after I was involved with Tom that he wanted me back.

I had started a war. Completely unintentionally, but still, it was the one time I really understood Helen of Troy.

I was nineteen by then, but still utterly naive about certain rules. If no one explains them to you, how are you supposed to know you shouldn't date the brother of a guy who SWEARS he wants nothing to do with you because you don't wear makeup, and you ought to, you know (so then you start wearing makeup, because you're a whelp and you don't get it yet).

This is getting around to my paranoia, I promise.

After a few months of battling over me (I won't lie to you, it was kind of amazing to be fought over, but I'm completely ashamed of it now), I picked Ted. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, you moron. You should have picked the brother. Tom had no history of not appreciating you. And you're right. But the brother DID have a prison record*, which COULD have been difficult to live with.

This was LOVE, right? The prison record shouldn't have entered into it. I tried to base my decision on logic somewhat, and also, my mom was really vying for Ted. She has a will like the moon. Try as you might, there's no way to escape her power—she flexes and your tides answer and you find yourself telling Ted that you picked him and saying goodbye to Tom.

Even after the harrowing war that almost split the brothers apart for life, Ted still didn't appreciate me. Surprised? I know. You saw it coming. Behaviors don't change that drastically. Patterns die hard. Etc. Etc. He wanted to get married. I didn't. Whoa, I know? Didn't see that coming, did you.

Well, I had grown up a little bit after all his ping-ponging (is that an expression? Maybe it's pinballing. Or billarding. I don't know. Flip-flopping). Yes, I can only withstanding so much abuse before I learn a little. Slow-learners raise your hands. Let's form a club.

Here comes the paranoia part, but forgive me for the long prelude, the back story seemed necessary somehow.

Ted wanted to get married. We did the long distance thing a while because he'd graduated and moved to the city. In that time and after several attempts on his part to do the classic fade and disappear, I fell in love with someone else. A guy who was the complete opposite. And I realized that Ted was a loser, not only for how he'd always treated me, but for his lack of passion. His bitterness. The fear that ruled him.

Ted sensed me slipping away and asked me to marry him (remember, he only wanted what he couldn't have . . . the proposal didn't seem genuine). I said no, then I said goodbye forever.

Little did I know.

*For burglary. He'd done it at eighteen. Forgivable, right?

Dude. Seriously. Porn in the Coffee Shop?

2010-05-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

I have always wondered WHO on earth would use bikini-clad women as their desktop wallpaper. Anyone? Really? You're that starved for visual gratification?

I think to myself, "I don't really know anyone like that—NO ONE I KNOW would have the sort of mentality such a thing would require." I'm pretty much right.

Although, now that I'm seriously considering it, I have a coworker who MIGHT do something like that. It's strange too, because he has a daughter . . . that's the kind of thing you think will change a man*. You know, make him realize a bunch of things about women, like that they're people, with hearts and thoughts and emotions, and how they want to be loved and all that and that they should be treated chivalrously despite all their chants about equality.

Ok, so that's me, not women in general, and I guess not everyone is as thoughtful as I am. Heh heh.

So my curiosity was finally fulfilled last week at Starbuck's. There are only a few locations in the place I frequent where you can have laptop-screen-privacy. And this guy didn't have that. No big deal, really. I mean, he's obviously got deeper issues—what with thinking it's perfectly normal to use mostly nude women as his wallpaper. I thought I saw a wedding ring on him too . . . so even stranger. But I guess there are women who find that acceptable. To each their own.

The point is, why would you subject yourself to such a distraction? If I understand men at all, visually that kind of thing is WAY more distracting than say, MY wallpaper (homesick-inducing landscape pictures of the Utah desert) and so how can he get any work done?

Guess I don't understand men.

BUT if that wasn't enough for this trip to Starbuck's, the guy sitting next to him pulls out his phone and begins looking at porn. Right there. In front of me.

Well, not quite in front of me. I was sitting behind him, so his phone was facing me as he perused the material. It was distracting. The mind is thinking, "What the hell. Am I really seeing this? I could be mistaken. Perhaps it's a medical website." So then I check again. And yes, it's porn. Then the mind thinks, "Am I wrong to want to censor this? I mean, this is a public space. There are children in here. There's a major aisle behind him. Whose rights are more important here? Who determines what's wrong and what is right in this scenario?"

At any rate. I don't believe in censorship. I think people should be free to choose according to their desires. But I also believe in decorum and that there are times and places where certain behaviors are socially wrong. Such as looking at porn in a coffee shop where everyone can see it. Call me crazy.

At that moment a mom entered the coffee shop with her little boy. He was probably five or six. Tall enough to see over Mr. Porn's shoulder and see it. And I thought to myself how scarring it would have been for me at that age to see something like what that guy was looking at. I really did. And then I felt like a jerk for all the selfish things I had ever done (weird, I know, but sometimes that's what you think about when you're faced with an uncomfortable decision), and I thought about the mom trying to explain to her son what that man was doing and why was he looking at that.

You could argue, if you're an ass, that the little boy has already seen porn if he's six and he knows how to use the internet. And if you are that ass, I would say to you, "I'm sorry for whatever bad thing happened to you in your life that you think children aren't fragile and that they shouldn't be protected."

And I would mean that.

So after my courage was all wound up based on my racing thoughts, I stood and tapped Mr. Porn on the shoulder. He looked up at me, surprised and scared as his phone snapped shut and I said, "You do realize that other people can see your phone, don't you?"

"Fine, fine, sorry," he answered, sounding guilty. I wasn't rude or anything. I don't think I was. It's kind of a blur now. After I sat back down, the college student sitting with his back to me thanked me, which was kind of shocking.

At the time I took it at face value, like that he was trying to study but Mr. Porn's phone was distracting him. I laughed and said something back, I forget what. But looking back, now, I can't decide if he was THANKING me or CURSING me for having ended the free porn. Stoker pointed out that it's not that difficult to find free porn, so it probably wasn't that. Good laugh, that.

It was all very strange. I've never been flashed, thankfully, but I imagine it's a similarly disorienting experience. The kind of thing that's so outrageous you can't believe it's happening and you sort of feel like you're floating out of your body. Because you've come to really believe that people don't do crap like that in public. But then later, upon further reflection you realize that people can really be messed up.

I guess I love them anyway, as I am messed up too, in my own ways. And by love I mean charity. The kind of thing where you let your heart feel empathy for them because maybe at some point they were like the little boy in the coffee shop, all innocent and naive, but nobody looked out for them. Or something. You know?

But seriously. Don't look at porn in the coffee shop where bystanders can see it too. It's damn awkward. ESPECIALLY when you're visibly reacting to it. Thanks.

*I should point out that I really appreciate that there are still men in the world who appreciate the female form and all that. It's not like I'm saying men shouldn't feel things. I'm just saying. It's weird that this guy had skanky wallpaper. That's all.

Pretty Crappy.

2010-05-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

I should be working on a short story right now, but I'm feeling pretty crappy.

Lately Stoker has been teasing me about the phrase, "I feel pretty crappy." I guess I've been saying it a lot the past few days. Why not? I DO. I FEEL PRETTY CRAPPY.

For all intents and purposes, the weather here is akin to a bear the size of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man with paws as large as thirteen cows, and I might as well be the fish between the bear's paws. I'm not sure if those measurements are proportionate--the point is, the weather tosses me back and forth between its meaty paws with no apparent concern for how I FEEL about it.

I feel pretty crappy about it.

It's not just the flooding and the wind storms we just had, which were really unfortunate. In general, the environment is toxic to me. Do you realize I didn't have ANY gray hair before I moved to Tennessee? No wrinkles either.

Now, you're probably thinking something like, "Well, be serious. You were also four years younger when you moved to Nashville. Wrinkles and gray hair CAN appear in that amount of time."

And I'll give you that. Wrinkles and gray hair are quite stealthy when it comes to choosing their victims.

However, my teeth ALSO started falling out once I got to Nashville. Coincidence? Hardly!

The problem is the humid sub-tropical climate. That's right. SUB-TROPICAL. I'm from the desert. I was miserable there due to allergies. At least--I fancied that the desert made me miserable. From my current perspective, in the arms of this bastardly bear, the desert looks like heaven.

From Wikipedia, the final authority on all knowledge:

Nashville's long springs and autumns combined with a diverse array of trees and grasses can often make it uncomfortable for allergy sufferers.^[14] In 2008, Nashville was ranked as the 18th-worst spring allergy city in the U.S. by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.^[15]

Translated, this quote explains that Nashville is the 10th circle of hell. Apparently it is a place reserved for those who sinned against mother nature in some way, however innocent or ignorant the sin(s) may have been.

I also enjoy the mild phrase "make it uncomfortable." Mild. Ha ha.

During late summer, autumn, and winter, I forget how the spring attacks me with its clumsy paws and batters me around like a shuttlecock. I think, "Hey, it's not so bad here. Though I pine for the great basin desert and its thin atmosphere, majestic highlands, and icy, clear streams and wildflower meadows, I could also just stay here. I've made a few friends, established a couple haunts. No big deal. Plus my job's not too bad. And most of my cats were born here--I'd hate to tear them from their birthplace."

There are even a few days in the spring when I think I'll be OK if I have to stay here forever.

Then the bear rears its ugly muzzle. It typically comes in from the Gulf, occasionally across the plains, but always it carves a swath of hell before it, a low pressure or a high pressure system that strangles me. And then the bear arrives and I become its rag doll.

So anyway, that's why I'm having a hard time writing. Simply because I feel pretty crappy.

"FINISH HIM!!!"

2010-05-07T14:06:00.000-05:00

For several uninteresting reasons, I'm having a difficult time concentrating lately.

Who am I kidding? The reasons are actually incredibly fascinating. Because I'M interesting, mysterious, entertaining, and a whole host of related adjectives.

Seriously. It's undeniable. I keep a blog to make a record of my compelling opinions and intriguing adventures.

This morning I stopped at the Flatrock Cafe for a sausage biscuit. Stoker got a breakfast casserole and Larry, the manager, gave him a large helping. Stoker lamented that he didn't think he'd be able to finish it because he was full already, but he felt bad not finishing it. Then he said in an evil overlord voice, "FINISH HIM!!!!!"

I laughed. Raucously. Sometimes I realize after I've already emitted an obscene laugh like that, that I'm laughing obscenely. And then I want to apologize immediately to let people know that I know that my laughter was inappropriately loud. No one cares at that point, but sometimes it's nice to try to convey that you WANT to be genteel, even if you're not by nature.

The reason my laugh was so loud and obnoxious was due to the reference-humor. Is there such a thing? I'm sure there's a genre or sub-genre of humor that's referential and that's where it gets its power. I don't know the name of it, so I'm calling it reference-humor and in my case, it's based on some weird personal quirk I once told Stoker about.

You know what I'm talking about. Some purely stupid phenomenon you possess and it baffles the heck out of you that you even do it, let alone that you're AWARE of it, but somehow cannot make it stop?

It kills me that Stoker remembers such things. He's got a mind like a steel-trap.

A while ago I told him how it really really bugs me when I think to myself anything relating to the word finish. Like, "I need to finish the vacuuming, then I can play PS3." Or, "Once I finish this sandwich, I'll do the dishes." Or, "Holy crap, I'm NEVER going to finish painting the mudroom."

Inevitably after I think to myself something about finishing anything, my mind always drifts to the next obvious thought: Mortal Kombat. When the evil announcer guy says after you've almost beaten your opponent, "FINISH HIM!!!!!" And the type is all blood-red in an evil, creepy way.

So things like, "I need to finish the vacuuming, then I can play PS3," end up followed by the with the haunting echo, "FINISH HIM!!!!!!" Turning the relatively harmless task of cleaning into an evil slaughter in the living room wherein Liu Kang's spine is ripped from his body and lifted triumphantly over Scorpion's head*--a bloody, grisly trophy.

It's gotten so tiresome, in fact, that I try not to EVER think of finishing tasks ("FINISH HIM!!!!!!"). That way, I never have to experience the transformation of these mundane daily moments into Kombat to the death. It's not that I don't love to finish things ("FINISH HIM!!!!!") and it's not that I don't love video games, it's that I don't LOVE the confusion of reality with video game reality.

But I DO love it when Stoker remembers the things I have said and casually tosses them out in appropriate moments and makes me laugh obscenely.

*Secret finishing-move not guaranteed to belong to Scorpion. I haven't played it recently enough to recall WHOSE finishing move the de-spiner is. It could be any one of the vicious fighters.