Singing never got me anywhere except in a perm and an ankle boot

I had very beautiful blond hair from the time I had hair until kindergarten when an extremely mean girl took those stupid safety scissors and literally hacked at my hair until half was long and half was short. So, from kindergarten to about 6th grade, I had what could be called a pixie cut if you were being nice, I call it "young lesbian." 

So, after a period of this short hair torture, my mother decided "Hey, let's make it worse...Ogilvie home perms are nice." Thus began the afro days of Emily...short, unbelievably tightly curled hair with perms performed by my beloved Mamaw...Picture it, fumes, crying, yelling, with the final result resembling, oh, I dunno, Annie..which brings me to....

My mother decided I could sing. I can sing alright now, enough to pass, like if midgets had guns to my head and said, "Sing, monkey, or we'll take your arms," I could probably do it well enough not to lose my arms. However, at the age of 7, I really couldn't sing. Not only could I not sing, she wanted me to sing show tunes, namely "Tomorrow" from "Annie." Oh, and "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music," and "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead," from "The Wizard of Oz." I have no idea why I don't see a therapist regularly. My music teacher kept telling me, "There is a high Emily, and a low Emily, and I want to hear the high Emily." If you've ever heard my voice, there is NO low Emily. My speaking voice is nearly monotonous, and whenever I try to do a falsetto, it's painful to do and to hear. 

So, seriously and thank the LORD we didn't have a camcorder, I entered into a number of ill-fated talent shows and lost every single one, except the one where I was the only one in my category. Nice. I have like one trophy that resides at my parents' house that mocks me every time I see it. Not meant for Broadway, and at approximately age 12, I think I held my breath until I passed out until my mom agreed to stop cutting my hair. Which is also why I will never, ever have hair more than an inch above my shoulders.

Fast forward to 20 years later...I loved/love karaoke so much. It is one of my guilty pleasures, and I don't need much prodding to agree to do it. I was at the Sports Page in Columbus, MS, which is a double wide trailer on some kind of stilts, doing my weekly karaoke routine. I was feeling sassy and as I left, I turned around to say something decidedly very clever, and as I slammed the door with satisfaction, I tripped backwards over the handicapped ramp. 

Forget thinking, "Oh, no, I've broken something," no, no, I was too worried about the fact that I did this in front of 10 people. I jumped up, realized I couldn't put any weight on that foot, shook it off, and went to an after-party, where I was carried everywhere, which I rather enjoyed, and then argued with my ride home, an Australian friend I used to have before he turned into a self-important arsehole, and fell asleep on my bed in my clothes. I woke up the next morning to go to the bathroom and fell on my face due to the pain. I crawled to the bathroom while my dog Norton jumped on me and then had to call the aforementioned Australian to come help me by taking the poor dog outside. He proceeded to pee for about 7 minutes. Poor Norton.

So, the moral of the story is that in a handful of cases, very humiliating things have happened to me while trying to entertain the masses. I need to learn how to use my charisma in a positive way that benefits mankind as well as myself. No casts or ankle boots included. 

Little ditty about all kinds of stuff

I am on Day 97 of disgusting throat infection with a side of coughing and fever. Apparently, I've taken so many antibiotics over the past 3 years, my body has decided, "Nah, not so much. Just give us sugar." I have also now infected Smitty, who hardly ever got sick before he met me, Typhoid Mary. So, we are a real laugh riot right now. We nearly came to blows last night over the remote control. He wanted to watch that sword fishing reality show, and I wanted to watch "The Soup," so rather than watch anything, we just bickered for 30 minutes. Being sick makes us both extremely cranky. Good times.

I think that there are two kinds of people, small-town people and city people. You could be born as either one and end up switching at some point, but inherently, you're one or the other. I am a city person. In fact, even growing up in rural Mississippi in Macon, population: 2,500, it's not like I was living on a farm or using an outhouse. We lived in town, both parents had master's degrees, etc...I was quite the disappointment when I moved to Pennsylvania because I spoke proper English and had no idea how to milk a cow.

Growing up in a small town is great, although I had occasional irritation at my dad for moving from Memphis before we were born, b/c growing up in Memphis would've been really cool. Nonetheless, it's a safe way to grow up, everyone knows you, not a lot of crime, etc...Ironically, except for the crime, those are the primary reasons that I do not ever want to live in a small town again. I don't actually want to know what my neighbors are doing. I rather enjoy just waving at them awkwardly when we're coming and going. I don't want them to know what we're doing either. If I want to perform a fire ritual in the back yard with an inflatable sheep and some Pygmies, that's my business.

I remember writing something shortly after I moved to Pennsylvania that began "I left home so I could disappear," and I meant it. With small-town values comes gossip, judgment, hypocrisy, and in Southern cases, racism, which is discussed openly as though nothing is wrong with it. I can't stand that. I can't be an educated 33-year-old with a college degree who hopes to have children and teach them by example and let it be okay hearing bigotry used as a punchline. When I moved to PA, friends of the family basically let it be known that since I was working for John Kerry, that "liberal," (real meaning: sympathetic to minorities), they really hoped I didn't do well, and how could my parents let me do that? Forget that I was 27 years old at the time, how could I forsake my roots and serve the liberals?

I'm sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now, but that has been bugging me for a couple of days. On to something lighter...I have been Emily, Mistress of Destruction, for the last couple of days. In my defense, some of the carnage wasn't my fault. Here is a sampling:

1. My car battery died, I mean died, dead, wouldn't even turn over. This is not my fault, but Smitty did have to come home from work to replace it so I could get to work. Yay, Smitty.

2. In connection with the car battery, when I realized it was dead,  my first thought was to take Smitty's Passat, having forgotten that its battery was also dead. In my hurry to find the key, I apparently ripped a nail out of the wall that was holding up our "key holder," and now we can't re-hang it because of the way the nail ripped.

3. I poked myself in the eye with a pen yesterday while at work. My contact lens came out while I was on the phone, so I had to put it back in without a mirror and with dirty hands, so my eye was a plum-esque color for the latter part of yesterday.

4. Also at work, I had numerous coughing fits, the kind where you can't stop or talk or do anything. I was on the phone when most of these happened, so I would mute my phone while hacking up internal organs. Except that I was convulsing so hard from one attack, I unmuted and unleashed a truly disgusting mucus-filled cough into the poor customer's ear... Gross

This quote kept running through my head yesterday, and I have no idea why. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

That's me in the corner losing my voice

I am now on Round 3 of antibiotics. I completely lost my voice overnight Sunday night, which made for a truly excellent day at work on the phone Monday, where people either couldn't understand my name or thought I was saying "this is Billy," because my "Ms" didn't work. I'm starting to think I could be a case on "House," where they figure out that all the diet Coke in my system has dissolved my ability to respond to antibiotics. Either that, or I'm going to find a shaman or holistic healer to chant the bad germs back to hell.

Because I'm still sick, I can't make my the mini-memorial all my dad's friends are planning this weekend. Even if I'm better, there's camping and woods involved, so that would be the thing that caused my two white blood cells Marv and Herb to just give up and drink hemlock. I really wanted to go, even if there was camping involved, (I actually sorta thought they were kidding when they told me to bring a sleeping bag and pillow) because these men, who I called "Uncle," were friends with my dad for over 50 years. They all kept in touch that long, three or four of them were pallbearers, and they are the ones that got the unvarnished, twinkly, mischievous version of Daddy to whom I had such a connection.

I was really looking forward to being in that place, that camp that meant so much to him for so many years, and feeling his presence and the fellowship of those who loved him so much. I talk to him all the time, though. Most of the time, it's not out loud, just so parents in the grocery store won't remove their children from my general area. If I see something that reminds me of him, I just sort of think, "Daddy, look at that shrimp. How many pounds of that do you think you could eat?" or "Daddy, they're showing the Making of Jaws on AMC. I'm totally recording it." or "I saw Cool Hand Luke all the way through last night, and I remember all your commentary when I saw it for the first time."

So, even though I can't be there to celebrate him with others, I celebrate him every day with little things and telling people how funny and what a smart ass he was. I got his best qualities..haha...and then some of his worst..my skinny, chicken legs and complete lack of an ass..Oh, well, in the immortal words of "The Facts of Life," "You take the good, you take the bad...." That Mrs. Garrett was a wise woman.

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of codeine cough syrup

I seem to be relatively well from my bout with a sinus infection and pharyngitis. I have one antibiotic left, which I am not sorry to see the end of, due to having two days of face flushing, arm hives, and not being able to sleep until after 2 a.m. Oy.

Yesterday, I had a flashback to college days when I would stay up so late, staying up all night seemed the best idea. However, then, I could go back to my dorm after class and take a nap. Now, I obviously stay at work, despite the delirium and at one point in the afternoon, everything was kind of yellow, and I was convinced everyone could hear my thoughts. I was asleep no later than 10:30 last night and popped up this morning at 6:15. Smitty slept until after 8 and looked wildly confused when he walked into the living room and I was watching TV and drinking coffee. I like to pull little surprises like that on him every once in a while. Even if it really wasn't deliberate, it keeps the mystery alive, unlike when I get taziki sauce in my hair and trip over the carpet.

I've been on a Facebook friend-deleting kick for the past two days. It's really nothing personal to anyone, but I realized there are people on there whose friend requests I never should've accepted. We were never friends. Yes, we are aware of each others' existence, but that's pretty much where the common ground ends. I simply don't care what some people are doing, and I know they could care less about what I'm doing. So, I began yesterday, and as the mood hits, I will be whittling down the old friends list.

I think I have a caffeine addiction. I stopped drinking soda for so long and only drank coffee. So, to make up for the soda deficiency, I decided that 10 cups of coffee should do it. I spend most of the day bouncing my leg up and down, peeing, and twitching. I could stop...but I doubt that I will. I may start a Juan Valdez Coffee Drinker Anonymous Support group. The problem with that, though, is that support groups always have donuts, and how can you eat donuts without coffee?? So I say we have Bloody Marys..because we're not Alchoholics Anonymous.

Thank you, Alexander Fleming, a tip of my hat

So, my two white blood cells, Herb and Marv, gave up on Sunday. I had been around someone with contagious germs attaching themselves to my every being, and I fought the good fight. Yesterday, however, I succumbed and went to the doctor. Diagnosis: Sinusitis and pharyngitis and the knowledge that some resistant strain of something with a really long name that in ends in "coccus," tee, hee..is going around Birmingham. Lucky me.

Babies are everywhere lately. I have friends with babies, I see babies on TV, babies, babies, babies. I also recently read a post by someone on Facebook that said "you don't start living until you have babies." I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Does that mean I didn't have a life-changing experience in Philadelphia and find out more about myself than I ever thought possible? My father died before I have babies; does that mean my time with him was pointless?

I love children, I really do, and we do want one...ONE, you hear me? If we have twins fine, but after one, we're closing up the Uterus Shoppe. You can have one child and make sure they're not weird. He/she will have five first cousins to play with, and will meet friends at school and such. I dunno why everyone is so surprised when I say we only want one. Watch me eat my words and have a basketball team, but I doubt it. I'm 33, and the 'ol eggs probably aren't what they used to be.

Nonetheless, I understand that when you have children, it's wonderful and you love them, and they may complete your life, but I find it mildly offensive to suggest that a married couple without them isn't really living. That's a very egotistical comment to make. Some people never want children, and they live completely full and happy lives. That's like me saying, "If you've never been to Paris or New York, you've never really been anywhere." However, I do think if you've never eaten a fried pickle, you've never had pure joy in your mouth.

Speaking of children, I need a Halloween costume idea. And I don't want to hear "slutty," "naughty" or "schoolgirl" suggested. I like funny costumes, and have yet to understand why Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress like extras in a pornographic movie. It's a kids holiday, not a late-night Cinemax costume showcase.