why do i love katie? because she picks topics like "nudity." i'll have to think about this one.

My Life as a Cell Phone

i want to customize my life like a cell phone plan.

here are the features i'd opt for:

• rollover minutes. all my wasted time, 5 minutes here, 2 hours there, would be compressed and carry over to the following day or month. i complain i have no time, but i seem to spend a lot of time doing nothing, then rush at the last minute to get something done. if i had rollover minutes, which were measured by lack of productivity, this would not be a problem.

• poor coverage. rather than wanting lots of bars, having too few would be convenient. then when i am talking to someone and wish to end the conversation, or i am called on in class and haven't done the reading, i can simply "drop" them. i'd just fall over or something. sorry, no coverage.

• free roaming. easy enough; the freedom to go where i want, when i want, with no penalty.

• the power to cause brain tumors. i don't really want to cause brain tumors. but it would be cool if there was a rumor that i did so people would be afraid of me.

• a plug-in charger. i'm not sure where it would plug in to, but it would be nice to get recharged in such a surefire way, not having to toss and turn and wonder how tired i will be the next day. this could also save the red pillow on my desk from acquiring excess drool.

• caller-id. but with people. i could see them coming and duck into the bathroom. if i wanted. (of course, if you're in my "in circle" i'd never use this option against you.)
  

• my own personalized ringtone. like, when i walk in a room, my own theme music plays. not sure if i'd stick with knight rider. maybe diff'rent strokes. or alltel's theme- come and get your love! (not that kind of love, silly)
  

these are the things i think about. now you know why my vic lit presentation today sucked arse.

Beware the Internet-Savvy 4 Year Old

trevor is quite skilled with a mouse. he deftly navigates web pages like thomas the tank engine, handy manny, and raven pinball. he pounds on the keyboard until he figures out which keys make things happen. thus, lazy, tired parent thinks to herself, how sweet, he's entertained and learning computer and critical thinking skills (pats herself on the back here).

however, this is not a good thing. a few weeks ago, he was playing a nice innocent fishy game on ebaumsworld, a game keegan plays, and keegan and i were watching television. keegan looks over and says, "what the?" he gets up and walks over. "uh, mom? trevor's watching video of sadaam hussein's execution."

the next morning, i walked by the unmanned computer, and there was video playing of two girls kissing. stricter monitoring started.

but this morning, he requested to play table tennis. i could hear the blip sound of the ball going back and forth as i did homework in the corner. all is well. until i start to hear explosions and blood-curdling screams. closer inspection revealed my son playing "staggy the boy-scout slayer II" - and, i must say, he's not bad with a sword. his black-clad, machete-wielding character made his way through the campground severing the heads off the unwitting boyscouts, occasionally slicing them in two. blood squirts, campers scream. trevor says, "c'mon, c'mon!"

maybe he will be a marine someday, or a computer programmer or game designer. maybe the boy scouts are actually evil, and he is fighting for justice. perhaps sadaam hussein's execution was a good life lesson. or maybe kids are one step ahead of us all the time.

now i hear gunshots. i think i will unplug the computer for good, evil box of death.

amish living sounds good about now.

Let Them Eat Crap.

this is what the world says to members of the FSU english department.

every time i'm in pancheros i swear i'll never go again, but my memory gets fuzzy after about a month or two. so today i find myself crazy hungry at about 10:30, and becky and i go to get a snack... what are our choices? the sweet shop, southgate, boca, and pancheros. mmmm. oh, i forgot the wiener stand, which only takes cash.

i decide i will order at boca, continuing my boycott of pancheros because they charge for sour cream and will only sell you a bottled water (no free cup). bastards. anyway, i am looking in the cold case at the lovely chicken bacon ranch salads that have no time or date written on them, but instead a "v' or a "u." i ask the young man behind the counter, "what do the letters mean?" and he looks at me with glazed eyes and says, "uh, b is fresher than a." helpful.

i say, "but these have u and v on them." he then tells me that he's sick and can't think straight. as he moves to make a latte, i inspect the salads more closely. he then calls over, an afterthought, "the later letter is fresher." ah. this means "v." becky, who is only getting coffee, says, "looks like you should go with 'v'." i say, "looks like i should go with pancheros."

i ask the guy, "were any of them made today?" his reply? "I dunno."

i say, "well i think that's something you should know if you want my patronage." (or "matronage" as they like to point out at all saints). i say that like i was all up in his business, which would have been cool, but i really just said it under my breath to becky and an amused girl with strange piercings in line next to us. and then i figure, if they were made today, they were made by this guy who a) doesn't remember; and b) is ill.

needless to say, i chose the lesser of two evils, and paid over 8 bucks for a burrito and a coke, and that was with NO sour cream. it was mediocre at best, probably worse than that, but i was so hungry. and a little mad.

so, why do the business and science geeks get all the good food? the food court, einstein bagels, quiznos, and more? could i walk there? sure. should i have to? no way. I recently shared undercooked chicken fingers with mya at the sweet shop, so my choices are dwindling.

i guess i need to start bringing my lunch. or pursue a nursing degree.

okay, so i thought my big goal was to get a novel published, maybe run a marathon, but i think i'd much rather aim at this.

Pustulio!

thanks to b, this week we have zits.

i should begin by saying that i hate the word zit and am not much fonder of pimple. i guess i would prefer a euphemism like blemish, but it doesn't sound right saying, i have this huge, ugly blemish on my forehead.

in a particularly disgusting episode of invader zim called "rise of the zitboy", zim develops a large zit on his face (after rubbing it with bacon grease... it's a long story). he is at first worried that this will impede his mission (to take over the earth) by making him socially unacceptable, but then makes peace with the pimple believing it has power. he draws a face on it, gives it a fake clothed body, and names it "pustulio."

perhaps invader zim is on to something. maybe if i made friends with my pimples, gave them names, personalities, and special powers, i would be able to exercise restraint from picking and popping and otherwise making things 18 times worse.

so i see you at the grocery store.

you say, "hi."

i say "hi." and then i say, "say hello to frederica the great here on my forehead. she was a chipmunk in a former life, is very good at math, and likes sunsets."

now you have a personal connection to my blemish and it does not gross you out. and i have a friend i can talk to, who can help me figure out the tip at restaurants. not only have i avoided using the word zit, but how could i ever pop or even complain about frederica the great?

Reunited (and it tastes so good)

if you love something, set it free. if it comes back to you, it's yours. if it doesn't, it never was.

it has been a long time coming. i have driven down north monroe street and fought that ache in my chest, that longing as i pass the closed down dairy queen wondering if it will ever return to me. there had been rumors... but every blizzardless day has been like a thousand.

last night i had a voice mail from my good friend paul, of paul and barrington, informing me that indeed, the dairy queen on north monroe had reopened. my heart danced with joy, not for the buffalo chicken strips or chili dogs or double bacon cheesburgers or even the parfaits - it is the blizzard i love, specifically the butterfinger, and i can sit in the staples parking lot and throw back a medium in 3 minutes, 23 seconds. i have complained that there was not enough candy, too much candy, or that it was not well-blended leaving nothing but ice cream at the bottom. i have ordered a medium or large and not finished it. i have driven by, and opted for a mcdonald's milkshake instead. it wasn't until my love was taken away that i realized my foolishness... perhaps if i hadn't been so picky, so unfaithful, it never would have left. of course, there were the rumors of unhealthy kitchen practices (which makes me wonder about the extra chunks in my blizzard) but another cliche came to mind: don't know what you've got til it's gone. i put on my cinderella cassette tape and cried.

but, my love has returned. first chance i get, i will drive thru, sit in the staples parking lot with my red plastic spoon, free ice water, and pile of napkins, probably listening to delilah... reunited and it feels so good!

What's Your Vector, Victor?

this week's theme - flying in an airplane.

my sister has a mildly troubling obsession with air disasters. this does not keep her from flying, but it makes booking flights slightly more complicated. for instance, she must have a seat over the wing. in plane crashes, it has been shown that this area of the fuselage seems to stay in tact. she requests an aisle seat because it is easier to escape. she asks which plane model she will be flying on, and if the answer is a dc-10 or 737, she'll say, "i'm sorry, we'll have to do this over."

other tips i have learned from her: count the seats as you walk to yours to see how far you are from the nearest escape hatch. this way, if all the lights go out, you can count your way to safety. wear shoes that tie. slip ons will fly off on impact, and you don't want to run barefoot over broken glass and flaming metal. and, don't wear pantyhose. the intense heat will melt them to your legs.

there is other less useful information about microbursts and ailerons that really can't help you, but somehow, the knowledge leads to some sense of control. and this is it - while flying is touted as the safest way to travel, i am not in control. if it goes down, i go down with it, along with my tie shoes and panyhoseless legs. all her instruction is really no match for a $5 glass of wine.

Sucks to your Valentine's Day!

arbitrary. that's what holidays are.

just ordinary days with meaning ascribed by men. no one can seem to pinpoint which valentine's day myth is true, yet we scramble around looking for a gift, a date, something so we won't feel left out of the collective celebration. humbug.

what is the ratio of happy to sad people on this day? how many people have true love to celebrate, and if they do, why do they need a designated day? i think more people are either sad, lonely, or disappointed with their date because they only got one so they wouldn't be alone (the same is true for proms). it seems to me valentine's day is a marketing ploy to generate revenue for card shops, florists, restaurants, counselors, and pfizer. if you love love so much, why do you need somebody else tell you when to say so?

where is the holiday for broken hearts?

now i sound like hope.

Rear-ended. Again.

today, i was rear-ended in the turn lane to wal-mart. this makes the third time this month. what is about my rear end?

since i have a vast frame of reference, i am certain that today's incident was different. this person was going much faster. with no warning, my car shook and my head hit the head rest hard enough to hurt bad and make me dizzy. when i pulled into the murphy usa gas station (which gives you 3 cents off per gallon with a wal-mart card... i know this because i was sitting there for an hour), i got out and asked the guy for his insurance. he said his "foot slipped off the brake" but it seemed unlikely.

so i got in my van, contemplating. why should i feet guilty calling the cops? isn't that what one's supposed to do? my head, neck, and back hurt, so i called. i don't think the guy was happy.

an hour later, i had a police report in case i wake up unable to move tomorrow. my cowardice in such situations usually wins out, and while i still felt like a coward, i did the right thing. yay me! of course, if you read minivan confessions, you'll understand my slight panic waiting for the police man because i could not find my insurance card. although it would have been a typical, appropriate ending, i did not get a ticket.

hoping my neck, back, and rear end keep it together from here on out.

Dead Pet Diaries: Smudge

i am guilty of catslaughter.

i didn't see the black cat coming. i was driving home from work and it just darted out in front of me. i heard the tell-tale "ba-bump" under my van, stopped, got out, and saw the poor thing dead as can be on the pavement, one green eye bulging out of its skull. i was very sad. somebody loved this animal.

i did not know what to do... should i knock on doors, looking for the owner and fess up? i thought i should. but i didn't. the cat's already dead, i thought, what would be the point? i went home for lunch, and an hour later when i left to return to work, the cat was gone. indeed, somebody loved him.

it wasn't until my daughter came home from school that it hit me. her friend three houses down has cats. shit. i asked her, "so, does savannah have cats?" and she said, "yes, two. chocolate and smudge." and i said, "oh." and she said, "well, actually, smudge died. he got hitted by a car." smudge was, indeed, a smudge.

it turns out that i knew the victim. not only did SOMEBODY love him, my daughter's best friend and her family loved him. i found this funny, this murderous secret, partly because the friend is bossy (see roger), but it really isn't very funny. i never told them. i never apologized. when savannah's sister introduced me to her new kitty, the one she got because "her kitty got killed," i smiled and said, "he's so cute."

this story has been so funny to me. but not so much right now; why wasn't i sadder? why did i not care for this girl and her pet? she must have been very sad. whoever found smudge in the street must have felt like she was punched in the gut. but i made jokes and hid.

perhaps it's not too late to go to hallmark and get a card for "loss of pet."

Dead Pet Diaries: Schweepie

baby iguana
fresh lettuce, sweet fruit cocktail
why wouldn't you eat?

Dead Pet Diaries: Roger

staying with the rodent thread, about two years ago, my daughter bought a gerbil. she named it something cute, like snuggles, but then spent an afternoon with her bossy little friend up the street and mysteriously declared later that day that her gerbil's name was now "roger." (for more on this neighbor, see a later entry on "smudge").

roger lived a strained existence. once emma lost interest (after about a month), he would sit, neglected. he had his wheel, but no playmates, and often his basic care was left to me putting away underwear in emma's drawer, looking up and saying, "oh, crap! roger has no food!" (substitute water, clean shavings, dignity here)

but then roger began chewing off his own tail. it was this tragic self-mutilation, this desperate cry for help, that caused me to lay down the law with my daughter, but i was undermined, no doubt. one day i came home and emma said, "roger ran away," and i said, "what?" and she said, "dad was cleaning out his cage and he ran away." she looked sad. a little relieved. i was mortified.

these things happen. parents give away pets and lie to their kids. sometimes, they release them into the backyard, reasoning that they will fare better in the wild than under the care of an irresponsible eight year old, and then lie to their kids. but it was not the same as dumping out my jar of captured caterpillars to let them go. this was cruelty and deceit at a high level. i would have at least fed him to the snake.

i have included roger in the dead pet diaries because i assume he is dead; frozen to death, or maybe dinner for a snake or a hawk. or maybe he found a nice little burrough and made some field mice friends, and they dance and sing songs and drink tea and tell stories by the fire. i'd like to think he has lots of cheese wherever he is. perhaps he is hiding, spying, plotting his revenge, hanging out at peta rallies, forming a gerbil army. wherever he is, i'm sure he is better off. my tail is chewed down to the nub.

Dead Pet Diaries: Willie

when i was in about the sixth grade, my friend shannon spread the news that her hamster had babies, free to good home (unless they were cannibalized first). my sister mary and i went to her house and picked out our new pets from the litter. her hamster, willamena, was golden all over; mine, milliscent, was golden with a white stripe around her midsection. willie and millie.

they were sisters, we were sisters. they snuck out of their cage, later in life we would sneak out of our windows. they fought, we fought. they squealed and peed on each other; we drew the line there. after several violent squabbles, we decided to separate them. one would get the cage for a few days, the other a nice homey bucket, and then they would switch.

two notes. after a few months, my sister lost all interest in her hamster and they both became my pets. after about a year, i bought an untrained, mean but sweet dachshund named rusty.

okay, so i was not always nice to my hamsters. i would set up a pillow on the couch, stand far away, and gently toss them to see if i could hit it. it was like a beanbag toss, but with hamsters. rusty, a hound, knew these creatures were there, and i guess i may have occasionally teased him with them. maybe.

this is where the story takes a most unfortunate turn. it was willie's turn to house the bucket and i must have left it in a not so good place, because when i called for rusty, he came trotting in the kitchen, head high, fresh kill in mouth. what happened next was a whirlwind... i screamed, he dropped her, my sister kathy beat the crap out of the dog, we drove to the vet's office (on a saturday) because willie was not yet dead. but she was going to die. we sat in my sister's subaru and i cried and cried, holding poor, wet, bloody willamena in my hands. where was mary? who knows. she didn't give a shit about her hamster.

i believe this was my first real encounter with grief over loss of life. i sat in the bathtub and cried. i remember this, muttering small prayers like, "why? why did willie have to die?" not to mention, i felt just a teensy bit guilty over the teasing. i placed willie in a shoebox. next to her, i laid a rose and a wallet sized school portrait of me - short ugly hair, plaid shirt, dr. spock eyebrows in full effect. i dug a hole near a pine tree in our backyard and invited my family to come to her memorial service. i was DEAD serious. so we gathered at her graveside, kathy, my mother, my father, and where was mary, the deceased's rightful owner? she arrived just a few minutes late - she and her friend chrissy from down the street took some extra time to dress in all black and find veils to wear over their faces. i started to pay my respects, and everyone was giggling at my sister and her friend, and probably at the absurdity of my seriousness, and i threw the box down and stormed off with some dramatic expression of juvenile frustration. something along the lines of a tearful, "this is serious, nobody cares!" or "i hate you all!" or... something.

i forgave rusty, but not the rest of them. a few weeks later, my dad drew a sketch of rusty and put it on the fridge. "wanted for hamster homicide." the story is still told with feigned sympathy and suppressed giggles. but behind my old house on ranchette lane, buried next to a pine tree, lies a thom mccann box that once held saddle shoes. willie's skeleton, a dead rose, and a yellowing school photo of me lurk there like ghosts. none of us really ever had a chance.

as for the fate of millie and rusty... another time.

Dead Pets

the problem with pets: they die.

my life is filled with dead animals, stories of love, loss, emotional attachment, and neglect. we buy pets to care for them, when really, they are the ones caring for us, our emotional deficits and need to be needed. i suppose there exists a genuine love and friendship between man and beast, and this is why hallmark has a small section under "sympathy" for "loss of pet."

my dead pets run the gamut: fish, hamsters, birds, a dog, a gerbil, monitor lizard, iguana, hermit crabs, and hong kong lobsters (fancy term for crayfish). what do they have in common? they were all under my care, and now they are all dead. i currently cannot choose one to focus on for it's late and i have a presentation to give thursday, but i plan to provide portraits of some of these beloved creatures who have gone to the other side.

so, millie, willie, rusty, shweepie, snowy, spirit, roger, cupcake, little mil, big mil, elmo, elvis, and the rest... here's to you.

Minivan Confessions

things i found while cleaning out my van:

1. 28 pieces to electronic battleship (hey, you sunk my air craft carrier!)
2. 5 coats/jackets
3. the interview with michael baker i have been looking for
4. a fork
5. not a plastic fork from a fast food restaurant, a real fork from my kitchen
6. antibiotics from three months ago
7. an unopened christmas card from a friend in atlanta
8. chewy sweet tarts anyone?
9. 4 empty water bottles, 5 legal pads, and 86 gum wrappers
10.trevor's christmas artwork (would have looked nice on the fridge, i guess)
11. i blow my nose approximately 94 times a day. let's just say you could stuff a king size pillow with the tissues i found.
12. kelly bryan's wedding present
13. my dignity and self-respect
14. $2.45 in change

these are just the highlights. but, hey, tomorrow's a new day!

Fear Continued... and Realized

yesterday i went to a local day spa and had a manicure/pedicure. of course it was lovely and therapeutic, foot and hand massage, lots of pretty, smelly creams and things, and paraffin wax intended to stimulate circulation. i told the lady that she better dip my whole head in the stuff, but she said it was not part of the service.

so, my fear of exposure. contrary to what you might be thinking, it was not a fear of removing my socks and being exposed for stinky feet. when i was finished, my nails were still wet. she told me she'd walk me out, so she grabbed my purse and keys and we headed up front. i thanked her, but she proceeded to open the front door and step outside. i told her i could get it, really, but she insisted. she opened my van, put in my purse, started my car, then put on my seatbelt for me.

if you know me well, you know where i am going. the interior of my van looks like a trash can, school locker, and halloween trick or treat bag all threw up in it. cleaning it out is on the top of my list, (i am NOT a slob, i just have some slobbish tendencies), but i was mortified that this woman saw my crap. and it made me think about my fear, and i decided that these things i don't want people to see... i guess i should contemplate them and make a list: "things that need to change" and "things that i am okay with, even if the manicure lady sees them." i'm not sure about my van in the long run, but it is getting a thorough cleaning today. well, but, it's cold out. maybe tomorrow.

Um... Not Quite

so the coach decided to put me back in the game today, giving me a two week extension to finish up and make a smooth transition. we huddled in his office and he told me i had four fouls and was close to fouling out, but he wanted me to take it straight to the hoop. i asked him if i could just be a cheerleader, maybe a water girl, but he said, "no. you historian."

so now that i have thoroughly worn out my metaphor, i will stop, but i must add a special thanks to my faithful friend barrington, whose appointment as my engineering woes dumping ground has also been extended for two weeks. sorry. i'll try to keep it to a minimum.