How to save a life and shoes

I was afraid of my closet. The floor of my closet of what I now know was: shoes, shoes, shoes, discarded Mylar balloons, weird discarded 7 pennies, random socks, which Smitty has blamed me for months, whatever. My closet was a benign symbol, much like the malignant " Bayou Shark," I recently witnessed with Kristy Swanson on SyFy Channel. 

I cleaned the damn thing out, gimme a break. I found books  I forgot I owned , shoes I dreamed I had, and clothes that I am now too damn voluptuous to wear. I hate my stupid closet. It's like a time capsule, designed to end in tears. No, I no longer wear a size 8 in those pants that were mocking my semi-deliverance denial into cleaning out my closet altogether. I hate my closet, but I love it too, like a Jewish, guilt-ridden goy at this point......Oh, Happy Roshashanah.

I threw you out, inane Old Navy, "tank shirts," if you think you can produce a tank shirt that covers actual human breasts, give me a call...mine are spectacular...maybe you need an ad...When did Old Navy become Pedophile United? There are no clothes now that fit beyond puberty, barring a special order? My blog grows angry. FYI: I cut and dyed red my own hair. I like my weird, brassy, partially uneven red hair. What??

Things I can discuss in therapy

My mother signed up for match.com. There, I said it out loud (sort of). Let me preface this by saying, in theory, I adore the idea of my mom finding a nice, non-creepy man to date or plan canasta with or whatever the dating seniors do these days. In reality, since I found this out, I can't get the image of spending holidays with someone named Gil or Stan who has ear hair and wants me to call him 'Dad' if I'm comfortable. (I'm not and never will be)

I have friends on match.com..my God, I went out with exactly two people I met on there, both creepy and clingy and professing eternal love on the first date. I do not have a good association with these digital matchmakers. Plus, my mom's trying to date! Hello, freaking out! I still have dreams about my dad almost every night, and I really don't think he would like this. Maybe I'll ask him tonight while we're flying with the Beatles.

I know I'm being childish. I guess it's akin to your parents divorcing. Eventually they would date, but my dad's only been dead for a little over a year. Plus, if I had been married 40-something years, I dunno that I'd be jumping back into it for a while. Also, don't people freak out when their divorced parents date/marry other people? I'd say right now, yes, I acknowledge some childishness on my part, but on the flip side, this is the first notion I've heard of my mom out on the town with a "divorced male, 60 years old," so I'm allowing myself some illogical immaturity.

Enough of that, or I'll have nightmares. Speaking of sleeping, I literally slept 15 hours last night. I woke up so disoriented, I thought I was still asleep or that I had died and my heaven was my bed, which is how I like to imagine heaven...my bed on a cloud where everyone I ever wanted to see again or meet hangs out and occasionally, we have karaoke.

I also experienced a bout of unwarranted hives all morning. It's not cool to get to work and suddenly have the urge to scratch every part of your body. I would request to be moved away from someone who did that, so I had to maintain, take a Benadryl, and try not to nod off while helping customers. It was a long, fuzzy puff of a day, and somewhere in the muddle, there was Chef Boyardee ravioli, which I am partially ashamed to admit I still eat when I can't find anything else to take for lunch.


"Mommies are just big little girls."  ~Author Unknown

I do think "The Help" helps

I finished "The Help" a few days ago, but I've been sort of processing what I want to say about it. First off, let me preface this as such, I,
as perhaps the whitest girl alive, (I'm almost clear) have no idea, nor would I presume to know what it's like to be black in any era, much less
at the height of the civil rights movement. Also, I somewhat agree with the criticism that it's slightly egotistical for a white affluent female
author knows much more than I do about the subject. For that matter, she and I, as white women growing up in Mississippi, would probably struggle to find common ground.

That being said, I thought it was a good book. Certain parts made me cringe and wish I had been alive during that time, as I like to believe
I would've been "Skeeter" or someone similar, trying to spotlight the often ill treatment of the maids that kept the South running. I will say
that I think reviews like "If you only read one book let this be it," are vastly overblown. This is no "To Kill a Mockingbird." I'm sorry, but
other than the fact that they are both books set in the South, the similarities end there.

I know there's been controversy surrounding the book and the movie about perpetuating stereotypes and keeping black women in the outdated state of servitude and complacence. After hearing all of that, I guess I expected something different when I read the book. I couldn't disagree more with the notion that it portrays black people unfairly. If anything, white people come out looking like complete buffoons and frankly, uptight bitches. I would've much rather hung out with Minny and Aibileen than Hilly and Elizabeth, although Celia would've probably been a hoot, too, until she drank too much and threw up on me.

I think the thing that reviewers outside the South might not understand is that, as a Southerner, even in 2011, some of us recognize some of these characters and their behavior. If you visit Macon, MS where I grew up, you'll feel like you stepped into a time warp. People there still use "help," and I can confirm in some cases, they aren't treated much differently than they might've been in 1963. I'm not trying to malign
the modern South, but race relations in the South are still about 50 years behind race relations elsewhere, and that may be the sticking point to remember.

I found the book fairly poignant about how different people from different walks of life can come together and change things.
If no other message is taken away, take that one. If that weren't the case, where would our country be? Would Barack Hussein Obama be President? Hardly. And who was his closest competitor for the Democratic nominee? A woman. That, too, would've been unheard of, but that's a different cause for a different day.

I know we can never be colorblind, we can also never be class-blind, disability-blind, or gender-blind, to name a few. But I think that at
least the discussion of these issues is a good start towards maybe going from blind to just myopic or near-sighted. That's my hope anyway.

I can bring home the bacon and burn it up in a pan...

I am not domestic...I'll hold for those of you who know me to pick your jaws up from the floor. In my post-college apartment, I ended up throwing away dishes that had been sitting unwashed in the sink for over a month. My car once doubled as a mobile trash mobile, and when I did once thoroughly clean my apartment in anticipation of a gentleman caller, I pulled a back muscle.

Then, I met a hilarious, sexy, sweet gargantuanly tall man who found me winsome and charming, and I moved in with him to start marital bliss. Our first fight was over how the dishwasher was loaded, although in my defense, I still don't know what I did wrong. He cooked, he cleaned, he tried to ignore the pairs of shoes that were scattered in various places throughout our tiny apartment. He looked away when faced with my bedside table, that no matter where I live, ends up looking like a rat's nest (eye drops, lip balm, ponytail holder, book, phone, Jimmy Hoffa).

I would also like to preface this by saying I had NO chores growing up. Sometimes, I had to fold laundry and once I can remember raking the yard while singing a slave spiritual, but I didn't even have to make up my bed until I was in high school, and I still didn't do it every day. I was not taught cleaning skills, knowing when to clean, what to use to clean, and where to clean, that you can't just wipe around stuff, that you have to pick everything up in order to clean well. Also, was not taught cooking, unless you count heating pop tarts and boiling water so I could have my precious spaghetti. All cooking is self-taught...which is fairly evident.

I have:
1. Broken a plate by setting it on a hot stove eye
2. Set a plastic Pyrex lid on fire in the oven because I thought it was oven-safe
3. Cooked chicken that was not fully thawed, resulting in disgusting, bloody chicken that still haunts my dreams.,
4. Burned at least one pot with corn that wouldn't wash out due to not realizing you have to keep liquid in the dish to avoid this.
5. Caused countless smoke plumes, resulting in the smoke alarm going off to the point that we had to just keep it unplugged.
6. Misread cake directions and cooked a cake for the 8 x 8 size, but in a 9 x 13 pan, meaning the outside of the cake was delicious, but the inside was raw.
7. Most recently, broke our pizza stone, although I maintain I used it as directed, and maybe it was just "its time."

All that being said, I am never one to shirk away from a challenge. I am, in fact, the dish Nazi now. If you leave a dish on the counter, even if you're not done, I'll rinse it. I don't like for the kitchen to look cluttered at all, and if you don't rinse your dish, God help you.

Cooking: I will tackle you yet. I can cook, no really I can. I am in constant search of easy, simple recipes, and most of what I cook Smitty really likes. The turkey meatloaf was a big fail, and something I made called sweet onion spoon bread was like onion pudding, but other than that, I do all right. It's just a big learning curve, and I secretly want to go on a home cook reality show like "Worst Cooks in America" so I can learn some stuff. I also secretly know that would end in disaster once I got yelled at and threw a pan at Anne Crazy Hair, so I practice in anonymity.

Today, I have a pork loin in a crock pot with cream of celery soup. It's supposed to be creamy and delicious and ready in 7 hours. However, I have the number for Domino's handy.

"I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food."
--W.C. Fields.

After while, Crocodile

Today is my dad's 74th birthday. I raise a glass upward and know that he's had a day of fishing and Clint Eastwood movies and maybe only a brief nod (hopefully) to the fact that he is missed down here today. This is the second birthday of his without him here. I always think the day is going to be terribly depressing, but ends up being a day where I talk about the best memories I have of him and as long as I don't linger on it, it ultimately makes me happy to remember the kind of relationship we had.

Speaking of fishing, he taught me how to fish. I had my own rod and reel, in fact. I don't know how many afternoons were spent with him at various "fishing holes" in Noxubee County, in mud with bugs and heat and stinky fish water, casting and re-casting my line. I mention the conditions, because I cannot imagine doing that now, although fishing would still be fun maybe in a boat, but those were some of the most enjoyable memories I have. There's a picture he had on his bedroom mirror until he died, of my sister and I, in matching visors (oh, yeah....), and she's holding up either a fish or string of fish while I pose with my hip stuck out and my hand on top, like "America's Top Model....and Fishing." 

He also taught my sister and me how to shoot on some of those trips. I remember thinking how incredibly cool it was to shoot a gun, and frankly, my sister was like a secret government sniper. She loved it and was a really good shot, and I mention this because when I think about my sister, sharpshooter is not the exact image that leaps to mind. Smitty has a really hard time picturing this, as I freak out about the guns he has in our house, but that has more to do with being terrified that one's going to go off accidentally and shoot one of our feet off...sorry, I have my peccadilloes. They include, but are not limited to: guns, bugs, sharks, cows, and hearing fingernails scratch on anything.

When I reminded Smitty this morning that today would've been my dad's birthday, he let me ramble about different things growing up, and all this stuff came to mind...:

1. Almost every time he left to go anywhere, probably until I was in my 20's, we had this exchange. "See you later, Alligator," "After while, Crocodile," "See you soon, you big Baboon," which is one of those things that is so silly at the time, but as I write this, is making me cry and want to hear his voice, which perpetually smiled.

2. Even when he was sick, really sick, including before he died, he worried about me. I had a toothache around the time he died that I totally blew off and turned out to be nothing, but he asked me every day, "Did you go to the dentist?"

3. He taught me to appreciate all kinds of pasta, particularly spaghetti, and at age 10, I could describe and demonstrate "al dente" noodles, explain that it literally means "to the teeth," and tell you that the flag of Italy is red, white and green, for the tomato sauce, the noodles, and the bell peppers. FYI, we are not Italian, have no Italian roots of which I'm aware, but much like the fact that he could eat his weight in shrimp, he could do the same with noodles. I got that from him, still will pretty much eat only spaghetti if Smitty is out of town and be perfectly content, and I think of him every single time I drop a noodle into boiling water.

4. He literally told the dumbest jokes in the history of the world. In his defense, he picked these up from friends and colleagues, but, wow...example...

"If cloning scientists work with figure skaters Dorothy Hammil or Nancy Kerrigen, the result will be an ice queen clone."

 "Dyslexics of the world, untie!"

When I heard this, my favorite joke, and I told him, I think he was actually proud...


"So this pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel in his pants. Confused, the bartender asks "Hey bud, why do you have a steering wheel in your pants?"
"I don't know" the pirate says, "but it's driving me nuts!"

So I've had my cathartic cry for the day, I've laughed remembering when I told Smitty about the fishing trip he and I took where he had to shoo the cows away from the truck (only in the South) before I would even remotely get close..(see above irrational cow fear), smiled contentedly telling Smitty how I always felt he was proud of me no matter what I did, mainly because I so resembled him, but how that does a lot of good for a child's, or adult's, for that matter, self-esteem. Thank God for that. I can still feel like I'm on a completely random path and the faith and confidence he had in me sustains me. And I can end today, a bittersweet day, not feeling sad, but blessed to have these memories and many more that remind me of how important he will always be to me.

This was our favorite scene from a movie to quote, ever....:
"You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark will go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'."

"Jaws," the scene with Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss, where they're in the boat, hunting the shark and sharing drinks and war stories.

Blue roses...google Tennessee Williams, for God's sake

No one really likes to hear about people being sick. Other than, "Oh my God, you have cancer?" and "You broke your ankle by tripping over a handicapped ramp?" (I did, indeed...a good story and a worthy explanation of why I don't wear any manner of platform shoes or spiky heels) I love my mother, but when I was old enough to understand what "feeling bad" meant...a. she was going through menopause ( I was a change of life baby), hurt for no apparent reason, and cried at me, like projectile crying, for my being born.... and b. my dad took great pride in taking care of us when we were sick. He brought us juice, soup, took our temperatures, gave the OK for us to nap if we felt like crap, and I follow this principle today whether I feel like crap or not...naps cure a great deal of things. Also, Smitty doesn't understand why I equate fever with grave illness...I thought everyone had mercury thermometers that you checked thrice daily when you were sick...apparently, I was mistaken.

I want to explain this: I am allergic to 24 of the 25 things for which allergists test you. I cannot use soap, body wash, gel, etc...or anything with perfume. I use Dove Unscented soap, which almost makes me cry, because I used to be a HUGE fan of all manner of scented body wash. I was a Bath/Body Works junkie, which I now pour into shampoo/conditioner because thus far, there has been no link between allergies and my hair products. I currently own 6 shampoos and 5 conditioners, just in my shower...I have a back-up 2 shampoos and 3 conditioners as well. It's sick..I'm the same way with lip balm, because so far, I'm not allergic to any lip balm, so I have like 7 back-ups.

My point is, and I require no self-pity whatsoever, but if you don't have these bizarre anomalies, you couldn't possibly understand. I, personally, would've called myself the "snotty kid on the playground," except I wasn't...at ALL, until I moved to Birmingham and enveloped their extreme brand of pollution. So, I take Allegra every day, and I take Nasonex every day, and I take 2 allergy shots every 5 days, and even doing all that, because my septum, the bone that separates your nasal cavities, is shaped like a question mark, I can still get sick as a dog in the middle of spring, summer, fall, or winter, it doesn't matter.

And, oh my God, how I try to be positive about it. I do not want to be a sickly person, but here's what happened recently...I went outside...just walked outside to look at the dogs, just to look, because the last time I played with them, because I love them and want to pet them, an immediate hive patch formed on my chest, and then my face got hot, and when I say hot, I mean, I looked in the mirror and my face looked and felt like I had spent an entire day on the beach with no SPF, and it didn't go away until I went to the doctor and had two shots and 2 prescriptions written for possible allergy and for possible rosacea.

So, I miss work for a few days because my face is the color of a cherry tomato, plus swollen to about its size + 1/4, which looks vaguely like Eric Stolz from "Mask." And when you try to explain to normal people who have normal immune systems and don't understand this sort of thing, I feel like they think I'm just kinda making stuff up. Look, until 6 years or so ago, I was never, ever like this. My only suggestion is that I am far too delicate for pollution...that's what triggered it. It's been a complete nightmare since I moved here...I blame it on marriage (not really...I fully blame it on Alabama, specifically Birmingham and Alabama fans)

But, look. I am completely serious. I can walk outside and have a weird hive thing happen. I can come into contact with chemicals and have a weird hive thing happen. I can have a doctor who won't listen to me prescribe a medication which will not only cause a weird hive thing, but will also cause a full facial swollen thing. I am not lazy, I want to work, I want to do work that is even with my level of intelligence, in fact, I am a remarkably hard worker with little tolerance for stupidity, but it seems sometimes that I am an island...like John Donne or Jon Bon Jovi...take your pick.

I would just like to say that Smitty and I appreciate your prayers and good thoughts to fling us upon the universe wherever He may find us useful, and I feel for one or more of us, that ship has sailed. I just don't think life should be this hard. And I know, before you match your strife to mine, which I also find a bit distasteful, we all have hardships. We all have physical issues and emotional issues and et cetera, et cetera, but I find the best thing we can do when confronted with others' issues is convey empathy, rather than engage in a one-up-man-ship with one another.

I will be the first to admit how I am wildly self-involved, but when it comes to those I care about, I will listen to you all day long, and I will not once say, "Oh, you went through that? You don't even know..listen to this...," because that makes things only about you and it belittles the feelings of those you claim to care about. I grew up with this, and if I ever display this behavior, you have my personal permission to call me on it. Life is not about any one person, and if you go through it only caring about yourself and your experiences, you've pretty much succeeded at only moving your purposes forward in life.

As a sickly, snotty allergic, ridiculous person, I don't ask at all, even remotely, for special treatment. I just ask that you understand or try to understand that I'm not just making shit up, I get sick easily, and I work and function through 75% of that, but the other portion, is where I feel like Death is daring me to get up in the morning because I have a 101 fever or because, recently, my face looked like Elephant Tomato Girl..I'm thinking of having T-shirts made. I find it ridiculous no one can say definitively that you're allergic to something or you have a freaky(new)  incessant skin condition. I don't feel that bad in admitting none of this concerned me terribly until it got to my face. As I sit here, I didn't wear make-up to work today, my face feels like it's on fire, and if you hold your hand an inch away, you'll get a contact sunburn.

I do not at all ask for self-pity. I'm not dying, there is nothing life-threatening wrong with me, but I frequently feel awful. I try to make plans in advance, and the day of, I feel horrible, and I don't want to be a complete drag, so I cancel plans. Under NO circumstances, do I want to talk about what's wrong with me, so I make stuff up, which means if you really like me, we haven't hung out in forever. But no more....my new little pledge to myself is to engage with more people and at least let them know that it's not them....it's genuinely me..but I will change that...

"Smitty is bullying me into bed; he took away my wine. That was unnecessary.
If you're my friend, you know that I come from a place of love. I can't possibly police from where your love comes. If you're feeling guilty, you're free to speak to me about this hole I know holds you captive. Don't threaten me. I've cut your co-dependence off before, and I won't hesitate to do it again. You hold nothing over me, mother, ex-mother, and whatever you are now....severing this tie does nothing for your current position. Never forget that."

me, 2011

We all need a clown to make us laugh

I'm generally an entertainment snob. Sure, there are the occasional Adam Sandler movies (Billy Madison is freaking brilliant) and funny voices and midget wrestling that appeal to my basest need to giggle, but for the most part, I'm fairly discerning. Smitty refers to it somewhat like this: "Oh, it wasn't nominated for an Oscar? Then Emily won't watch it," which is not really fair, I'm not that snobby, but you get the idea. Brief sidebar: How excited am I about the new "Planet of the Apes" movie? James Franco AND monkeys bent on destroying the world, but only because the world deserves it...it's like Hollywood created a movie based on a focus group of me. Add in Yoda voices, Al Gore as the President and the utter annihilation of anyone named Kardashian, Lohan, and Rush Limbaugh, and it's heaven on earth.

Nonetheless, with all this taste of mine, lately I've been glued to TruTV's reality shows like "Hardcore Pawn," "South Beach Towing," and "Repo Games." I partially blame this on the utter lack of good summer TV and for God's sake, don't tell me to read or enrich my life. I read a lot, and I'm enriched adequately. Trust me. All of these shows are visual showcases of human misery, and I am somewhat ashamed for watching them, but I am unable to stop.

If you're not familiar, basically they all represent rock bottom in some form or another. I saw a guy trying to pawn/sell a penis ring  (who would want that, I ask), a woman who sold jewelry to replace the money she was given for bills that she lost gambling, only to go gambling again, a woman who left her poor dog in an illegally parked vehicle inside a duffel bag for TWO hours and then was stunned she couldn't get him back, rival tow truck drivers engage in fisticuffs....do you get the idea? It's horrible; I wish these shows didn't exist, so I wouldn't be drawn to them, but they do...and I am..

I look at it like this:
A. I feel much, much better about my station in life when I see this behavior.
B. In the current economy, as outlandish as some of this behavior is, we can all somewhat relate (except to the dog woman, she should be locked in a car with a bag thrown over her for two hours in the Miami heat).
C. It's just plain entertaining to witness others engage publicly in ways we would never, ever imagine actually doing, but have perhaps envisioned in a Walter Mitty-esque kind of way.
and
D. Some people just act like complete ass clowns when money comes into play. I adore money, but I'm not going to yell expletives at someone because they don't want to buy the earrings I bought at Claire's Accessories for $100. It's just common sense.

My 34th birthday looms like the guy in "The Crow," which I watched part of last night, which is not a movie I would recommend watching before bedtime. I guess when it came out, I was in high school, and it was very cool to be deep and tortured, but that movie is seriously depressing..but has an excellent soundtrack. Thirty-four...my parents had two kids by the time they were 34, not realizing that the best was yet to come..(ME). I don't feel 34, I don't think I look 34, but damn...34..I feel the need to adopt some Malawian puppies or live in India for 6 months or maybe just clean my car out and dye my hair. All of those things currently sound exhausting.

I have arthritis in my finger? Yesterday, I cut off my Barbie's hair and colored it with a Magic Marker. 
Nightly I think about losing my remaining parent or my love having a cardiac arrest in his sleep, and I drift away to dream of recess and tennis matches and the time I was the Queen of Hearts in a parade.

I won a spelling bee and now can barely remember you have to be desperate to 'pe(e)' to remember the difference between words, and speaking of 'pe(e), I have to interrupt what used to be a constant slumber to assault my eyes with pre-dawn fluorescent light and curse the existence of soda and tea.

But my skin is clear and elastic; when I pinch my hand, it snaps back like a rubber band, not like my grandfather's used to gather and take its time to return to its position atop the bones. I can't be old. I can still stand on my head for five minutes straight. I'll show you if you want to see.

-- me, 2011

Where the day takes you

As I was driving through Birmingham today, or as I like to call it, the Seattle of the South, on the 14th day of afternoon torrential downpours, I started giggling. I think I have a rare form of ADD, not one that requires medication or anything, but the kind that causes random songs to come into my head and therefore, out loud, and produce the most random thoughts possible.

I used to work at a newspaper; I worked there in total about 5 years, actually, and sometimes I miss it a lot. If you've never worked in news, either at a paper or a radio/TV station, it's not something I can explain. You work constantly, as the news never stops, you develop a camaraderie with some people and an intense annoyance and dislike for others (they know who they are). You also get silly a lot.

We used to constantly make fun of another local paper that apparently had illiterate 5-year-olds writing stories and editing copy. You could get wasted playing a drinking game if you drank every time a word was misspelled or there was a grammatical error, and the stories were almost all cheesy human interest with a handful of actual news stories.

What made me laugh this afternoon was this: We were reading over that paper's latest gem, a story about an old house that had been restored, but the lede (for non-news folks, the beginning sentence of the story) was "If this house had a face, it would be smiling from ear to ear." Seriously, that was the lede. What ensued was the following:

"If houses had faces and mouths, they'd say 'why did you paint me this color'?"
"If houses had faces, the house eats you when you enter."
"If you see faces on houses, you've got issues."
"If houses had faces, this one looks like Picasso created it."

You get the idea. There were more, but they either weren't as funny, or I just plain can't remember, but it made me laugh because even parts of that job were cruel and unusual punishment, parts of it were awesome, and I laughed and had more "work friends" than any other job I've ever had.

There was the day I proofread a story about an escaped criminal and the headline read "Convict on the lamb" with no hint of irony until I returned it to the writer with a picture of a lamb taped to the bottom of the mug shot we had. I had to have an ethical conversation with an employee who didn't want her divorce printed as part of legal information about how we didn't get to omit our embarrassing information and print everyone else's, and somebody removed her divorce listing anyway, and I made sure it was included in the next week's paper...can't imagine why she and I were never close...good times.

On a final note, through recent experience, I've discovered that "sexy talk" and the art of seduction should probably not involve two things I may or may not have done recently:

1. Compared one's self to "the kid from 'Mask,'" to refresh your memory, the '80s movie with Eric Stoltz based on the kid who had lionitis, the disease that made his head enormous and the bones in his face all mixed about...
2. Laughing so hard that you either spit....or snort....I'm told this is not sexy.


"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."
Robert Frost

Is that all there is?

As I write this, I'm looking at my feet and the fact that, a. I need to repaint my toenails, and b. I've worn my Croc sandals every day for a week because I'm too lazy to search for other footwear early in the morning. Funnily enough, those two details embody my whole mood lately...what's the freaking point?

I feel I've been gypped somehow (by the way, is 'gypped' a racist slur toward Gypsies?). I should be more exciting and fabulous than I am on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty fabulous, but I think when I envisioned my 30-something life, it involved fame, a butler, and a car not made out of recycled bottles. Also, I pictured a better wardrobe, although part of that is my laziness and apathy toward being in shape. I want to be in shape, I just don't want to actually do anything to meet that goal.

Someone told me recently that if I worked out a lot, I wouldn't be sick all the time. That may be, I don't know, I don't see how working out would cure my allergies, but that's also like saying if I ate only salad with oil and vinegar every day, I'd lose weight. Yes, that's true, but I would also be working out and only eating salad. When people say things like that to me, I hear my dad's voice, chiming in with my inner one, saying, "Why the hell would I want to do that?"

I don't know, I feel as though growing up, I was promised some sort of exciting life if I did the things one does to get to adulthood....like there's a secret maturity prize no one can tell you about, (I speculated it would be a monkey or a pirate vacation) everyone gets it once they settle down, get married, etc...Let me clarify, this has nothing to do with any level of unhappiness in my marriage, but just in general, real life is pretty boring...dishes, what's-for-dinner, did-you-get-gas, it just goes on and on until one of you dies..or kills the other one..or until you have kids and then it's a different set of monotonous, mundane issues...

Maybe I wasn't inherently promised anything; maybe I misread the signs. Possibly due to an overblown extroversion and sense of entitlement as the youngest child, I expected impossible things. I thought by now, I'd be a well-known author, or a beloved, bad-ass English professor, or in a lesser plausible scenario, the wildly red-haired lead singer of an upstart indie band, sweeping college towns with a wardrobe of gauzy peasant shirts and a following of well-read, intelligent fans.

Alas, I answer phones for a living, the last thing I had published beyond this blog was probably in 2005, I watch episodes of "Monk" every night to lull me to sleep, if there are 30 credits required for a master's in English, I lack 28 of them, and I not only own, but wear a Snuggie when I am cold. Fifteen-year-old me would beat 33-year-old me to a bloody pulp.

Can you miss a life you haven't lived? Is there a version of you, living another existence, wishing for the life you have? When it rains and that feeling to which you cannot put a name emerges, is that a life not lived, is it regret or a dream that disappeared before consciousness? Or is it something else? 

I woke up, drenched, in the middle of the night, and I forgot where I was. The smells were familiar, but a fear gripped and paralyzed me until I heard your breathing ebb and flow and coax me back to sleep. I once was lulled back to sleep with mechanics and traffic and the sounds of street yelling bouncing off the tops of cars and settling into the night, along with me. 

No one can raise a family in the city, but they do, I swear, I've seen the curt, assured visages of those who grew up in the city, but they're scared, too. 

We all are.

You can't change anyone; change is inevitable; fear change, but don't fear fear for fear's sake.

What the hell are people talking about anymore? I don't know. I can't think with all this noise and uncertainty. Let's go to sleep.

-- me, 2011

I've got a brand new pair of roller skates

I've been neglecting my poor little blog; it's not that I have nothing to say..it's never that, as Smitty will attest, I've just lacked motivation or a truly brilliant stream of consciousness...

Also, per Smitty, I'm apparently not allowed to impart information that's too personal (refer to last blog where I announced his diabetes and my aching womb). We compromised; I won't mention his health issues, but I don't think my aching womb will be silent. I kid...mostly...we're not ready for that quite yet, but the number of people that are currently pregnant grows..I think the economy preventing society from going out as much is causing rampant sexual behavior. Perhaps our generation really will replace the Baby Boomers by repopulating them and then some..I predict Social Security to be saved right around my retirement...sweet.

I'm still smoke-free. I've had a few setbacks here and there, but I have been on the electronic cigarettes for about two weeks now, and I've come to the conclusion that they're the most brilliant invention since birth control and electricity. Now, I think they should create e-cocktails, e-fried pickles, and e-brownies. I haven't completely thought through the logistics, but I say, if we enjoy it, create an electronic simulation for it. People will buy it.

Speaking of smoking, I just saw the new, graphic labels that will be printed on cigarettes, and I find them ridiculous. First of all, they are far too incendiary to be put on a product that is sold out in the open, and second of all, smokers are going to smoke if they want to. Period. Take it from a person who once literally stuck strands of a person's hair into my nose to inhale the smoky wonder...it's not a casual addiction. Picture of a tracheotomy..no problem, you can get a Sharpie and create butterflies around the throat opening. I feel there will be a huge increase in the purchase of cigarette holders and cases so that you can simply throw away the attempted enforcement of morality after the fact and enjoy the slow acquisition of lung cancer in peace.

I'm trying to start psyching myself up for the '12 Presidential election.I feel it will be rife with shenanigans, as I know Sarah Palin will throw her bear skin in the ring at the last minute, and I am so excited for this. This is why I subscribe to Time. Except for every 4 years, each issue comes in week after week and mocks me with its intelligence, while I read about the Kardashians and Team Jacob vs. Team Edward in People and Entertainment Weekly. However, this I vow....once the presidential race heats up, I will use Time magazine as more than just a drink coaster. I will be knowledgeable, and I will inwardly mock....and outwardly mock, when warranted. I used to be smart and informed; I can get there again, I think. Yes, we (I) can!

A cigarette, my kingdom for a cigarette

Smoking....oh, what an immediate gratification for something that is worse than than eating at McDonald's every day..I think, I dunno, I would never eat at McDonald's every day, but I've been a regular smoker since I was 14. It was totally a peer pressure thing, I won't lie, I was an awkward teenager with giant boobs and a minimal sense of social appropriateness. I wanted to talk about movies and books I had read, but 14-year-olds don't really want to talk about that kind of stuff. I wanted to fit in. At the time, both my parents smoked, so I wasn't averse to the idea, except that our house did smell like smoke all the time. I did what everyone else did.

Oh, how I wish I could've bucked convention like I did with most everything else at that point, but I didn't...I started smoking...I didn't even inhale at first, but was eventually taught how...the downfall....flash forward almost 20 years later....I have tried to quit smoking about 5 times. I hate that I do it. It makes me feel crappy, it makes me smell, it makes me cough, and it lowers my already compromised immune system. Also, I would want to smack my dad for literally fighting me for cigarettes after he had been in the hospital for breathing issues, and he would turn nasty, calling me one of the damn ungrateful daughters from "King Lear," because I wouldn't give him a True 100 after he was just disconnected from oxygen.

I vowed that I would not be so irrationally stubborn about my health as he, that I could quit whenever I felt like quitting. For those of you that have never been truly addicted to cigarettes and those of you that have, that understand this completely...oh....my....God.....not only do I have this constant edgy feeling, like things that would not normally irritate me, make me absolutely livid, noise, lights, stupid behavior...it's all there, picking away at my sanity bit by bit.....I wore the patch the first night, but I had the most disturbing dreams, that I can't sleep in it again, even though it helps, and the gum helps with those monster cravings where I would slit someone's throat in front of me if they had a pack of cigarettes.

Since Tuesday, I've had 3 cigarettes, which I think is amazing, and today, was put in a bit more focus, when dealing with Smitty's health situation. Smitty may have diabetes. He took his sugar a few days ago when he was feeling sluggish, and it was 378, which is crazy high. Mine was 101, which is good, but we are making some lifestyle changes. Funnily enough, we had already decided to quit tobacco as of June 1, which is what we've stuck by, but this sugar thing is a new development. We knew he was prone to diabetes, but I think we expected it to be later in life. It's fine, we will and can adjust, and he even pointed out the Folic Acid for me to take pre-pregnancy, so this has not derailed any plans of ours, but it does scare me. My dad was diagnosed as diabetic, and less than 15 years later, he died.

Granted, this was largely because he gave no mind to watching his diet or alcohol intake or any remote health adjustments, but I hear "diabetes," and I freak out...which Smitty does not respond well to...also, my freaking out is somewhat irrational even when I'm not quitting smoking, so, there you go...We will deal with it, as we deal with everything else, with a modicum of drama, but a majority of humor and coping, together....The most important thing to me right now is that we don't make a huge deal of nothing and that we adjust our lifestyles in a way that doesn't seem like we're stifling ourselves. I think we'll do it just fine, and I hope that it ends up being a weird blood sugar spike that doesn't necessarily mean diabetes, but may just mean, "Hey, Fatass Pasta Married People, are you kidding me? Watch it!"

All I know is that I can't let myself think about Smitty having to be on diabetes-related dialysis or something similar, not because I can't handle it, which I can, but don't want to, but because I don't want him to be in any unnecessary pain. I understand now, that what love means, is that I would gladly trade places with him, and take this health bullet myself. We talked about baby names today, and that is the sort of thing that makes me fill with a quiet content that I can't imagine not experiencing in 50+ years. Lord, I ask you, bless our family, and allow us to grow it as you see fit.

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other. -- Mother Teresa

The night the lights went out in Alabama

My poor neglected blog...I've not paid much attention to the blog for a couple of reasons. One, we were without Internet for almost two weeks, and two, I had to process everything that's happened in the last few weeks before I could write about it.

The tornado: First of all, Smitty and I were/are extremely lucky, and I fully recognize that, and by perhaps making light of my experience during the tornado, I do NOT take away from the tragedy of what happened. But I have to get it out, because making light or no, it scared the ever-living hell out of me, and I am so grateful we are okay.

We watched the storms progress through early afternoon in north Alabama and west Alabama, thinking we would most likely be fine, until towards the end of the afternoon. We watched, horrified, as a tornado literally formed onscreen in Cullman, Ala., and laid waste to their downtown area. Shaken by that, we still thought we probably wouldn't be directly affected until we saw the tornado headed toward Tuscaloosa.

I have never, ever, in my life seen something so terrifying outside of a movie. My sister lives in Tuscaloosa, and as I a. have no sense of direction to know where the thing was hitting and b. was hyperventilating at that point partially due to a., I freaked out. We watched, paralyzed, as the angriest, darkest, widest cloud of destruction cut a swath through downtown Tuscaloosa, and more hyperventilating ensued once I heard "and this funnel is headed directly toward Birmingham." I was able to find out my sister and her family were okay (thank you, Lord) right before we had to deploy our tornado plan.

The plan consisted of my getting in the bathtub in the master bathroom, while crying, mind you, and putting a comforter over my head while listening to the scariest radio weather report I've ever heard. Smitty went to the bathtub in the guest bathroom, and when he left the bathroom and we said our teary "I love yous," I kid you not, I thought I might never see him again. I cried and prayed and sang "Amazing Grace" in my head while it sounded like every tree in the yard was falling. I heard nothing but the radio and the noise of limbs, pine cones, etc...falling on the roof and in our yard. This lasted maybe 3 minutes and then it got quiet. I did exactly what Smitty told me not to do and came out of the bathroom before he came to get me and saw that the abject darkness had passed. So, I went to get him.

I won't go through the power outage and how we learned we should never been on any type of Survivor-type show together, because it's smug for me to complain about losing power for 30 hours when some people were left with nothing. I can honestly say with no sarcasm at all, that the experience changed me; I can't speak directly for Smitty, but I think it changed him, too. It's hard to focus on the things that tend to consume us when literally faced with God's reminder that, as my father-in-law says, "We are not in charge; we only think we're in charge."

It's so easy to complain, believe me, I know, but it's so much easier just to be thankful for the things in your life that are important: your family, your friends, all the love that surrounds you at all times..and focus on appreciating and making those areas better. The other stuff is the gravy, the peripheral, the  Grey Poupon..the stuff you may want, but doesn't really sustain you. My Lord, I love my husband. Thank you for finding me worthy of him.

On a different note, due to our storm-induced cable outage, we also missed all of the Osama bin Laden hoopla. If not for Facebook, I wouldn't have known he was dead until that Monday morning. Apparently, I ruffled some feathers on Facebook when I posted, "Obama caught Osama. Sweet." First of all, I am aware that the military, in fact caught bin Laden, I am not a moron. Just because I don't go around sporting a yellow magnetic ribbon affixed to my car or know all the words to that song about putting a boot in somebody's ass who doesn't like America, doesn't mean that I don't support our military. In fact, I don't think they ever should've gone to Iraq...how's that for support?

Second of all, I'm pretty sure Bush supporters attributed the capture of Saddam Hussein at least in some part to Bush, even though Bush's military experience consisted of running away from the National Guard like a cross-country runner with his little satin shorts on fire, to the best of my recollection. I didn't/don't/and will never like George W. Bush, but even I gave him some props for catching Hussein...and I get snark and sass for being proud of the President for whom I voted being able to orchestrate catching the #1 criminal on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

Also, I would like to point out, had the military not initially retreated from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan under Mr. Bush's regime in '02, we might've caught the guy then. Or, if we had not focused our military efforts in Iraq, which had no connection to the 9/11 attacks, it could've been a bit sooner than 2011. I'm just saying, you want to tell me Obama had nothing to do with catching Osama, neither did Bush, and it certainly wasn't for lack of trying to mess it up in the most colossal ways possible.

Finally, when did it become impossible to have civil debates about politics with even close acquaintances? Yes, I'm a Democrat, yes, I worked for John Kerry, and I voted for Obama, and I cried with joy when he was elected. However, I am capable of having a political discussion if it doesn't involve personal attacks, straw man arguments, and you actually know about what you're talking. Otherwise, it feels like I'm talking to children who argue by calling someone a "poopyhead" and calling it a day.

Also, and about this I'm so serious I had a dream I got into an argument with a really old man...since when does any party or person have a corner on the religion market? As far as I'm aware, Obama has never indicated not being a Christian, nor have any Democrats that have run for office in the past, oh, I dunno, 50 years, yet somehow there are these little digs at Obama about how he doesn't want to say "under God" or mention God. Did I miss a crazy Falwell manifesto? I'm a bleeding heart, yellow dog Democrat, and I am a Christian. I pray, I feel I have a good relationship with God that doesn't involve judgment and finger-pointing at others but love and acceptance and witnessing by being a good person, and I'm getting a little sick of hearing that I must be a Buddhist or agnostic or cat-worshiping nut, just because I don't go around wearing a "WWJD" t-shirt with my baptismal dress. Enough is a-freaking-nough. Elephants and/or Tea Partiers, whatever the deuce that is, don't own the Trinity, last time I checked.


"Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause." 
Mahatma Gandhi

The tow truck guy and I

In the spring of 2005, I bought my first car. I had cars before, but they were paid for my parents or just hand-me-downs by my parents, but after moving back from Philly in '05 and literally destroying the '97 Toyota Camry my mom gave me...(in my defense, there was salt from Pennsylvania snow trucks, someone stole my rearview mirror, and in a separate instance, hit me while I was parked)....the car did its best...and then after only about 3 months in Mississippi, poof, died. I sold it for parts for about $400.

So, I set about buying a new car. Keep in mind, I had terrible credit due to college credit cards and a job that paid well worth below what it should've....thank you, Columbus-inherited wealth. I bought, in '05, a '04 Chevrolet Aveo, with 13,000 miles at about $13,500, so I could have car payments at around $240. My interest rate, because of my terrible credit, was like 25%, which I had no idea was a bad interest rate, until I told Smitty, and this little thing in his head popped out, and we re-financed.

The car gets excellent gas mileage, like 36 miles per gallon, and I haven't had a lot of issues out of it...until the last few months. You could probably refer to a recent blog, I don't do the hyperlink thing, you either read it or you don't, where the radiator had issues, and I endured a commute with smoke billowing out of the hood. We had all that stuff replaced, plus a timing belt, all is well in Aveo land....until today.

I'm leaving work at 4 p.m., and the car made this weird noise like I ran over something. I clearly did not, so I kept driving. It wouldn't accelerate, and when it did, it make a clicking noise. Okay, Smitty is out of town, I just want to get  home, so I say a prayer to make that happen. No, no, that is not to happen. The car completely died at the beginning of the on-ramp for St. Vincent's, which if you live in Birmingham, you know, is the worst place to have an incapacitated car. Did I mention Smitty was out of town?

So, 45 minutes after calling tow truck, tow truck man shows up, and immediately tells me to leave the keys in the car and get in the tow truck, because of the precarious location of the car. He ended up throwing a glove at a passenger bus because they wouldn't move over...Hell, yeah! He also gave me a ride home, which they're not supposed to do, but I think I was sufficiently pitiful and called the recent radiator hose replacement, the "radiator tube-y thing."

He also asked me some vaguely inappropriate questions about my length of marriage, his disdain for his own wife, pride that he had 5 kids, and a hope to find someone to carry more, to which I replied, "I only want ONE child, period, I think that's all I can handle." He said something about kids making the world go around, and I'm sure they do, if you get paid $105 for every person you tow. I literally have no idea if this was a hitting on me thing, as I NEVER know this sort of thing, but whatever...thank you for the ride home, and at least you weren't visibly scary. I don't like to play the Blanche Dubois card, but, oh, how I will, if I need to. Funnily enough, the people at the servicing place, who will eventually be footing this entire bill, since they used a faulty timing belt, also offered me a ride home. Apparently, the gal's still got it.

Losing sight of the fun in dysfunctional

I've been told a few times by different people that they can't believe that I write such personal things on my blog, and if they were me, "they wouldn't tell anybody 'that.'" Well, it's my blog, which to my understanding, means I can write about whatever the hell I please. Also, when I do write my fortune-making novels, they will be thinly-veiled stories of my life experiences, so I tend to think holding things back in writing makes for boring and way less cathartic writing. Also, I can do what I want.

I find it interesting that you have to take a test to get a driver's license or a gun safety certification or to become a U.S citizen, but any crazy fool can have children and screw them up to the best of their ability. I'm am not a self-pitying person, really, I'm not. It bugs me when people blame their parents for their lack of station in life, or their substance abuse, or whatever, unless they're the child that New Hampshire teacher had with her student or Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter. In those cases, I'd say they were a little down in the parent lottery from the beginning. However, I think people make their own lots in life, and even those who come from horrible beginnings can end up perfectly fine, or functional, despite what hands they were dealt.

I say I'm scared to have kids for the weird physical things people post online that kids can get or eat or do, or the fact that I'm scared I'm going to dent that cushion-y part in their head before it solidifies, and those things are completely true, but I'm also terrified that I'm going to inadvertently, or just outright, screw up my genetic material. I'm talking Lizzie Borden or a new chapter to the Manson Family, just because I'll be honest, I don't have a truly functional reference guide.

If you look up co-dependency and narcissistic personality disorder, those are just a few of the things to which I refer, and I won't even name names at this point.

Co-dependency: Codependency describes behaviors, thoughts and feelings that go beyond normal kinds of self-sacrifice or caretaking. For example, parenting is a role that requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice and giving a child's needs a high priority, although a parent could nevertheless still be codependent towards their own children if the caretaking or parental sacrifice reached unhealthy or destructive levels. ( Pay super close attention to that last sentence, just my personal recommendation)


I will say this: there are certain things I will never say to my child, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. "You should be more like your (sibling, cousin, neighbor, etc...). It is not productive to make comparisons between your child and anyone. I plan to be my offspring's biggest cheerleader..not literally of course, I would look ridiculous with those little skirts, but whatever my child chooses to be or do or look like, that is their choice.

2. "You can't ________." Phooey. They can do anything they want, and even if they can't, I won't tell them. They'll figure it out, because I won't have dumb kids..um, kid, unless two shoot out of there at the same time. Seriously, don't put limitations on your children; they'll face that enough from the rest of the world.

3. This is not a specific thing I won't say, but if my child is ever in the hospital, sick, hurt, or what have you, I will not project my misplaced selfish drama on them. I've been scolded by a family member in the last 5 years while an IV was in my arm, and I was about 1/2 an hour away from surgery. As I gain more perspective, I don't really know why I care about this person's feelings, as they clearly do not care about mine.

Before I devolve into a Joan Crawford movie, I think I'll stop. I needed to get some of this out, this is what I do to keep from having the white coats take me away, and if you judge me for it, fine. Knock yourself out...literally. I will not, even more so now, apologize for being myself and making myself happy. If you're not happy, what's the point, and why invest so much time in such toxic relationships? I console myself with the knowledge that no truly successful writer came from a functional family unit...they also mostly died of alcoholism, but we'll just focus on the first part for now.

"Friends are God's apology for relations."

Hugh Kingsmill

Tra la la

I'm not a negative person; I'm a sarcastic person, and there is a huge difference, in my opinion. However, I think I do get bogged down in the ennui of day to day life and the fact that we don't have a mansion with a pool and monkey butlers, and I get surly. That shouldn't happen as often as it does. On that note, these are things that make me happy:

1. Laughing until it hurts. Think about it; how often are you overcome with that body-shaking kind of laughter that makes snorts and tears emit from your person? Not often enough. There's something cleansing and almost  healthy about letting out a guffaw until your sides ache. This can be achieved for me through: animals wearing people clothes, funny voices, and "Bob's Burgers."

2. Singing at the top of my lungs. I do it every day. In fact, I didn't realize that I passed by a certain place every day until Smitty pointed it out because, frankly, during my commute, I'm too busy doing my Carrie Underwood impression to pay attention to silly things like landmarks..I love it when I'm really belting out something and am completely oblivious to the person in the car next to me, until I glance over, and they're laughing..I like to think perhaps I made their day a little better, too..

3. Cooking. I never, in 5 million years, thought I would say that, but there is genuinely something cathartic about putting together a meal for those you love. You get to become a little scientist with ingredients and measurements and even improvise (I'm getting better) and produce this tasty meal and say, "Yeah, I made that. I freaking rock." Plus, the stress of the day just rolls off while you have your mind focused on not burning stuff..or that could just be me.

4. My dogs. Norton, who is 11, and Zoe, who is about 1 1/2, are the funniest two animals I've ever seen. Norton barks at imaginary squirrels to make us think he's super protective, and Zoe will forgo a steak bone if you'll just let her lick you..which, I don't. I wish she'd stop that, in fact. It took them a little while to get along, but now, they're like a little crime duo...with fur.

5. Smitty. Duh...the boy makes me happy. We've been married now nearly 4 1/2 years, and the good times keep coming. We've been through a bit with the usual things that marrieds go through, but there is no one I'd rather have by my side. I can be in the worst mood, and he can give me a look or do a funny voice, and that's it, tension dissolved. I could not be luckier than if I had designed my own husband, "Weird Science"-style with a computer. I keep thinking my mom paid him to "get me off her hands." I hope everyone is lucky enough to find someone who makes them this happy. It's rare to find a best friend that you want to see naked...I think...

A full-blown phobia, it seems

I thought I would write a sentimental or maudlin post yesterday on the 1-year anniversary of my dad's death. It turns out, I wasn't feeling maudlin, and I was enjoying shrimp and a re-make of an old movie in his honor, so I didn't feel like writing about him. That's how I roll. I can write about him at any given time I choose, or I can remember him and connect with him in the way we would have, were he alive. I can do whatever I want. Boo.

In the meantime, my fear of bugs has grown to an alarming level. At 4:15 a.m., I woke up with a start. As I am nowhere near a morning person or an early rising person, I thought, "What the hell? Why am I awake?" Approximately, 4 times in a 10-minute period, it felt like a needle had stabbed me, in the left ankle, the right ankle, the left and right elbows, until I thought, "While originally, I thought I may've established the first case of restless foot syndrome, this really hurts." I got up, went to the bathroom to confirm 5-6 bites that looked like I had just gotten shots and were very itchy. I then went into the bedroom, turned on my night table lamp, and threw back the covers.

There, staring at me with a defiant look was Monty the Ant. I have seriously never seen an ant this big. I don't do bugs, and the only ants I recall are fire ants and wood ants. This little hooligan was as big as my pinky fingernail with a little actual hair. He looked at me as if to challenge my authority, and I scooped him up in toilet paper, but left the sample on the counter so I could show Smitty, since he did NOT wake up, so he could I identify if I were going to die from some rare Alabama ant disease.

This morning before I got into the shower, I unfolded my little friend, and there he was, all squished up, presumably dead. After I got out of the shower, I checked the Kleenex so I could show Smitty, and he had vanished. I looked all over the bathroom, as this was an injured ant with what I presume to be very little pep and vigor...no where to be found. Great. Smitty informs me had I crushed his thorax, he would have died and never made a break for it. I called him a nerd and told him to shut up.

So, for the day, I've been feeling twitchy hairs escaping from my hair, which is way overdue for a haircut and twinges and twitches from nothing at all, although I imagined Monty having curled up in my hairbrush and waiting for his time to shine. Logically, I'm sure he went down the drain or something rational to find water, but I am literally afraid to go to bed, because I feel, even though insects have tiny little brains, if you try to kill them, or they have previously attacked you, they will come back....like the bad guys in a Steven Seagal movie. And Smitty is out of town, which is perfect, because the damn ant didn't bother him....and now they can feast on their real target...

If I set Lysol around the bed, like a shrine, will that do anything? Or do ants get confused when you touch their little path, what if I literally draw a finger line around the bed? Seriously, bugs are my worst fear, and due to my lovely allergies, I'm itchy anyway so it's hard to distinguish the pyscho-somatic itching and the real thing. Do ants carry any lethal diseases??

The thoughts that knock about...

Tomorrow will be the 1-year anniversary of my father's death. Damn. One whole year. In some respects, it seems like yesterday, and in others, it seems like 10 years ago. It affected me; in more ways than I admit, other than Smitty dragging unpleasant feelings out of me, it still affects me. This is part 1 of my Adrian Perry Gaither III tribute blog...(and frankly, I can do as many as I want...it's my damn blog)

I want to call my dad every day to tell him things like they're showing Elizabeth Taylor movies on AMC and discuss her life and tell him that I'm reading Marilyn Monroe's biography, and wow, what a trollop she was....and that I broke into hives on my arm, did he ever do that, since we share odd physical traits?

Do you know that he taught me the joys of riding in an un-air-conditioned truck in the dead freaking heat of Mississippi in a pick-up truck, with the windows almost completely rolled down, listening to Paul Harvey? And the fun of that were those were the days he took me to work with him at EMCC to show me off and take me to Brigg's, who made the best homemade French fries I've ever had, to this day. I was like 8, and met his friend Larry Salter, who taught psychology, and I said, "Psychology, huh? The ego, the id, it reads like stereo instructions, don't you think? It's tiring." First of all, I was EIGHT; second of all, I made a new friend for life.

I never would've known about the Smothers Brothers and the Yo-Yo Man or the complete odyssey of Elvis Presley, and I had the joy of having him teach me speech and English Lit, although, damn, he was a hard-ass. He critiqued my speeches ruthlessly, saying I "played with my hair too much," and he actually counted the times I said "like" and "um," damn smartass. He still gave me As, but I assure you, I had to work for them.

My mom asked me tonight if I realized tomorrow was the anniversary...it's funny, I'm terrible with dates, honestly, I'm horrible. Outside family, if I remember your birthday, you are gold to me. Otherwise, I'm useless with dates. Honestly, I'd forget our anniversary before Smitty would, but luckily, 11/25 is an easily date for me to remember. But, my dad's death, I will remember. I will do something tomorrow to commemorate, just for myself, if nothing else. I want to pick up the phone and call his snarky ass, and this is why I find death unfair.

Maybe I'm a woman child, I dunno, I don't think that I will ever be "over" losing him. We had too many memories and commonalities. He loved the ocean when we were little. I loved the ocean when I was super little, although one fateful summer day when were at Gulf Shores, it was raining, and we watched TV inside...Jaws 3...I have literally set foot past  my ankles three times in 20 years as a result of that movie.

Further, the next day, the sun came out, and he was all about the ocean again. I refused...and he wanted a picture with me and my sister on our rafts. I had recently been given a kidnapping lesson at school, so when he tried to literally force me on the raft, I screamed, "He is NOT my father! I want to go home!" and those damn tourists completely ignored me, and there is a picture of me, forced on a raft, crying, but where it could be interpreted as really awkward smile. I made him regret that later.

We had a dog, Clyde, a black cocker spaniel, that my brother "gave us" when I was about 7. He was the sweetest dog on the planet. He was the best possible dog for kids, all he wanted was to be petted and loved, and we actually had him the longest we had a dog (prior to Mr. Norton, of course), and he got flattened in front of me and my mom one summer day by a grain truck, that not only saw that he killed the dog, but saw us reacting to him killing our dog, and he kept right on driving.

I saw my dad cry one of the maybe 3 times in my whole life when he collected Clyde and buried him in our backyard under a Christmas tree-esque tree in our backyard. He loved dogs and detested cats as much as I do, and it's funny, I feel like a part of his spirit of his stays alive in Norton, because of how much he loved him. They went to the post office every day, they attempted fetch, but Norton doesn't do fetch, and he genuinely kept my dad company.

I will leave you with a funny story, as tomorrow might be a dark, suicidal post..(nah, not really) I was really good friends in high school with a black guy named Romero. He and my boyfriend John were going to drive to pick me up for a movie. Not that my dad was ever a racist, but he never made things easy for anyone ever picking me up. So, John and Romero arrived, and I leapt to the door, "We're ready, I'm leaving, see you later," but he had to meet everyone. He had met my boyfriend John before, but he met my friend Romero, shook his hand, and said to him, "If you're cool with Emily, you're cool with me..." I wanted to die, while Romero and John were hyperventilating from laughter, and then he yelled, "She turns into a pumpkin at midnight!!" If I had could've crawled under the seat, I would've.

"Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever."

Author Unknown

The 80s and me..

I'm currently watching "Karate Kid Part II" and thinking about a. There is NO Karate Kid unless it's Ralph Macchio and b. They just don't make movies like they did in the 80s. There were so many movies with an underdog and "the mean people." It was usually a glaring class sort of a thing; the underdog was poor, be it Daniel LaRusso or any one of Molly Ringwald or Anthony Michael Hall's characters, and the mean guy, who was always William Zabka, was rich.

I guess growing up in the 80s, I was 13 when 1990 came about, the 80s are where most of my cultural upbringing originated. Yesterday, when driving back from my sister's, I listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 replay from April 1986..wow. It was full of one-hit wonders, Loverboy, and a long-distance dedication featuring Lionel Ritchie. Awesome. I mean, honestly, the movies and music were so cheesy, but you can easily tell from 30 seconds of either, from which decade it came.

My sister and I used to tape the Top 40 every Sunday, well actually, we had to physically listen to the Top 40, have the cassette tape ready to go, and record our favorite songs, including, but not limited to: "Right Here Waiting" -- Richard Marx, "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" -- Chicago, "What Have You Done for Me Lately? -- Janet Jackson, "Hold On" -- Wilson Phillips, and "All I Need" -- Jack Wagner. I kept a large majority of those tapes in a bag in my car until I bought a car that wouldn't play cassette tapes. It was awesome, hearing the broadcast before the actual song, and we would either cut it short or let it run too long. I bet my 9-year-old niece doesn't even know what a cassette tape is...*sigh* I'm turning into my damn dad...even more so...

On a different note, I heard a story today about black members of the NAACP being upset that Hispanics have been appointed as presidents of local chapters. A black minister in Worcester, Mass., said that "the NAACP was set up for black people, that black people have specific issues, and that their agenda would likely be hijacked by non-colored members being appointed to positions of power." He then likened letting Hispanics into the NAACP to the National Organization for Women letting in men. I'm sorry, but that is not the same thing. The NAACP is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and I think trying to keep Hispanics or Asians or anyone of color from being an integral part of it isn't much different than racist whites interpreting "all men are created equal" to mean all white, free men. It's 2011, and I think everyone's "agenda" should be the same, and discrimination in any form should not be tolerated.

"We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value, no matter what their color."
-- Maya Angelou

Those who make us Yosemite Sam mad

I'm worried about a friend of mine. We've been friends for 15 years, and he periodically disappears and reappears and goes to rehab and gets okay and then descends into madness again. I'm pretty pissed, actually. I'm tired of losing people I love. It's funny, the people who come in and out of your life, who maybe at the time don't seem that significant, but who do have a pretty big impact.

I think addiction is selfish. There, I said it. My father was an alcoholic, and while he never laid one single hand on me in anger, it stole a part of my relationship with him. As close as we were and as much as we shared, I can't imagine what our complete relationship might've been, had that not been a part of him. I have had other issues with family addiction, which are not currently my story to tell, but they steal parts of me. The addicted person has no concept of their effect on other people, and I know this is a part of addiction, but that weakness makes me so angry, that I have a hard time coming to grips with it.

I've grappled with my own issues; I'll be the first to admit that I am nowhere near perfect. Alcohol has caused problems for me in the past, and I recognized it enough to metaphorically kick my own ass and pull myself out of it. I would never want to cause pain or suffering to anyone I love, and that is the thing that keeps me most grounded. I think that I don't and will probably never understand true addiction because I can't fathom picturing those who I love most so worried about me that it makes them sick or truly alters their lives.

It's funny the things that seemed commonplace or "okay" 10 years ago are most assuredly not okay now, when you have families and spouses and mortgages and responsibilities to consider. I have and do love some people that have deep roots in addiction and self-destruction, and it's literally like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. You don't want to turn your back and think you could've done something differently, but in truth, there's nothing you, singularly, could do to change a course of events.

For over 10 years, I've harbored a guilt that an ex-boyfriend I had reconnected with killed himself because I didn't answer a call the weekend that he shot himself. I thought it was cool that we were friends, but we needed to understand distance and what that meant, and when I didn't answer his call and was told 2 days later that he killed himself, I lived with, and partially still live with, the nagging thought that it's my fault, that if I had picked up the phone, I could've changed something or said something. If guilt were a talent, I could rock it at Miss America..srsly, I have a gift generally bestowed to the Jewish.

My point is, no one can make anyone do anything or choose a path or decide their fate. I am so worried about you, J.C., and I want to literally kick you in your ass, but you have to decide, in the words of the immortal Morgan Freeman (well, Stephen King, really) "Get busy living or get busy dying." For real. People with the talent that you possess are bound for greatness, you just have to find that opportunity, and I swear if you come out of this, I will cry with joy and punch you in the throat. I feel the Yosemite Sam anger rising....

Not in a state of yo

I'm anxious. I've been this way for about a month now. I can't pinpoint what's causing it. I have a few ideas, but until I mull them over, I think I'll keep them to myself for a bit. Smitty says I share too much information anyway. That may be true, but as a writer, I genuinely feel I don't need to hide anything about myself. Yes, I walk into doors and fall into holes and wore two bras to work one day...that's the beauty of me...

I just saw a commercial for a Senior Citizen dating website. In theory, that's nice, although creepy. In reality, it brings to mind that my grandmother mentioned to my sister recently that my mother should "find somebody." It's been less than a year since my father died. While I don't begrudge my mother having another relationship, I think maybe more than a year should pass since your husband of 48 years' death before you start dating. And also, I would like to say for the record, this is not something for which I'm ready. If this happens soon, I will actually need therapy and will have to stop joking about the fake need for it.

Disorganized people can have children, right? I've been thinking about the whole "little person" (baby, not midget) thing seriously lately, and I worry. On the one hand, we always have milk and canned goods, and we have guns to fight against zombies and baby kidnappers, but on the other hand, I have sand in my car, and I don't know from where, there is a pile of at least 15 pairs of shoes on the floor in front of my dresser, and I think Jimmy Hoffa is in my closet.

Children need structure and order, but they also need milk (which we have) and maybe they need beets and oysters in a tin, which we also have ... for some reason. And they need creativity and imagination, which I have, in droves, and acceptance and love and unconditional support, but also a kick in their asses, which Smitty and I can both provide. I think we'll be okay...I just worry...these random things are the things that keep my neck in knots and cause insomnia and weird dreams and thoughts.

I think that Smitty and I balance each other out well enough to have ONE (only one) well-adjusted child. If you had told me 10 years ago I would marry a gun nut with more than a touch of OCD who lives for football season, I would've called shenanigans. But, I imagine if you had told him that he would marry a Noxubee County yellow-dog Democrat with no coordination who frequently runs out of gas and sings a soundtrack that ranges from Frank Sinatra to Carrie Underwood to Concrete Blonde to Sheri Lewis, and sings 80% of the words wrong, he would've guffawed and called his own shenanigans...but it works...oh, how it works. I internally give thanks every day for him.

I'm very excited to be on a reading dervish again. When my ADHD kicks in, I don't want to read, but I think recently, I need inspiration and a bit of escape..and I refuse to play any weird, role-playing games. I feel good things are afoot for Team Smittily. We'll see how it unfolds.