Sorry, Dear Gustav

Dear Gustav,

Thanks for you interest in visiting me – you are one among many suitors. While I am flattered, I must decline your invitation at this time. My areas are already flooded from previous relationships that didn’t work out (the others “moved on”) and I’m really not ready for your hurricane-force love. I am still trying to clean up the broken promises and shattered dreams that litter the yard of my heart.

Please understand. Perhaps if you veer out into the Atlantic and try again in another couple of weeks, things will be different. But for now, I ask that you please respect my wishes. I am a Category 5 in emotional instability.

Thanks and good luck,

Me

So Many Choices, So Little Deliciousness

i have not blogged since october 2007.  if you continue to check my blog, i apologize for your certain torture in viewing photoshopped photos of me, despite their burgess wonderfulness.

as of now, i've got a whole lotta nothin' - but, if my sweet friends are still interested, how about a weekly topic revival?

this week - food courts.

Baby Loves Katie Burgess

why? first, she came to the football game. second, she makes online photo albums about baby, just like she said.



nobody puts baby in a trash can.



nobody puts baby in a bunny suit.


nobody puts baby on a cake.


nobody puts baby in a trailer.


nobody puts baby in a corner.


nobody puts baby in an aquarium.

and, quite possibly my favorite...

nobody puts baby on some chick's back.


baby loves her some katie.

Nobody Puts Baby in a Trash Can

the musical.

Flirty Cooking

when i broke my ass, i ceased running. and blogging. i am trying to resume both habits because they are good for body and mind and soul, but it is always slow starting back. when i think, i should go run, or gee, i should blog, i inevitably find myself mesmerized by another law and order rerun. or a chocolate cookie.

danielle chose cooking, and katie chose flirting, so i am combining the two topics in order to expedite service and catch up.

i once saw a show on cults that described a witnessing technique used by young women in the group called "flirty fishing." they would go to bars, seduce men, bring them home, do the nasty, then try to convert them in bed. i'm not making this up. they even backed it up with a bible verse.

i suppose a flirty cook might wear only an apron with high heels while she kneeds the biscuit dough. she may also use double enterdres about her cooking like, "i love the feel of these (meat) balls," or "could you come in here and taste my niblets?" it's pretty hot in the kitchen, and i haven't even turned on the oven yet.

now in my head i'm singing "cookin' flirty" to the tune of "ridin' dirty."

I Will Survive

so now i'm back... from outer space!

i came out of my self-imposed blogging hibernation to find things not as they were. the topics are gone. the band broke up. everyone is using facebook.

i could give an update as to my whereabouts and activities, but this would be long and tedious for me and you, gentle reader. all i can say is, if you'll have me, i'd like to return to the fold.

but do i have to join facebook? my next million dollar idea - i'd like to create a web community called "assbook" where one can join and "enemy" people. you can look up that bully from grade school, or the girl who stole your boyfriend in high school (no she di'int!), or the PE coach who called you lead butt o'brien. once you find them, you invite them to be your enemy, and you swap nasty comments.

it's just in the idea phase right now, but i think it's up there with b's Inside Magazine: For People Who Don't Like to Go Outside.

New Topic

bloggies - sorry for my delinquency in picking a new topic.

this week: going to the doctor.

ORCA: A Killer Movie

keegan came home the other day with a new obsession - the movie ORCA. he says it's supposed to be like Jaws, only better. he says they were made around the same time and ORCA was just overlooked. he called every video store in town with no luck. i say what does that tell you? he tells me to shut up.

he says at this point, it's no longer about the movie - it's about the hunt. he must find it. and, he finally does. so i go to this dinky little video store in killearn and rent the VHS. he wants me to watch it with him. i say no way. about eight hundred times. last night, i gave in.

the movie was made in 1977 and bo derek probably wants to forget she was in it. a shark hunter decides to set his sights on a killer whale, thinking it will bring big bucks from an aquarium, and bo derek deftly foreshadows the tragedy to come: "you know whales are monogamous. that means they have one mate their whole lives. we could be breaking up a family."

the harpoon nicks the male target and hits his female mate. she writhes and squeals. then she swims into the boats propeller in an attempt to commit suicide. when they pull her in, she is bleeding, and then a grotesque mass bulges from her privates, and her young fetus falls on the deck. the male has lost his love and his unborn child, so now, you guessed it - he's pissed.

the female dies, and the male (i call him willy) stalks the fisherman, wreaking havoc on the small fishing village where he lives. he bites off bo derek's leg. he sets the town on fire. the villagers become angry with the fisherman, urging him to go out to sea and "fight" (this is what the whale wants). and, in a cleverly placed dramatic plot point, we learn that years earlier a drunk driver killed the fisherman's pregnant wife. he feels the whale's pain. they are one.

in a moby dick like chase, he follows the whale into icy seas, the whole crew dies, and he falls in the water and the whale waves his great fluke and tosses the man onto an iceberg, crushing his skull. vengeance is willy's.

so, ORCA - Jaws meets Moby Dick meets Free Willy. it's a horror/suspense/drama. but i've never laughed so hard in all my life.

www.toothpastefordinner.com/

Scaaaars!

danielle chose scars as this weeks topic; for some reason, when i say it in my head, i close one eye, make a hook with my finger, and say it like a pirate - scaaars!

the other night i watched the end of jaws on tv. as the the three men on the orca sat around the table drinking, they were comparing scars. and, it was not the size or shape of the scar that made it superior to other scars, it was the story of how it came to be. and perhaps that's why scars are cool - they each have a story. not always a cool story, mind you, but a story nonetheless.

scars are reminders of what we've endured and that we indeed heal; i think that's why i really like them. i don't have many - one on my left leg from a steam burn (i call it the hawaiian island), and about five up and down my left leg from surgery i had about five years ago. the largest one is on my ankle, and the area is still numb to the touch. but every time i look at those scars, i remember how they got there, how much they once hurt, and how amazing it is that they are all that's left.

and if we didn't heal and have scars, we would be walking around with unsightly oozing wounds like massive head-wound harry (see picture, if you don't remember him). which brings me to emotional scars, wounds, and healing, not so obvious, not so automatic. where our tissue succeeds, our minds and hearts often fail - i wonder if these wounds and scars could be actually seen like our fleshly ones, if we would all be grotesque, stinking, oozing messes. and we would say, "hey, where'd you get that one?" and unlike the cool stories swapped in jaws, the answers, the stories, might make us very sad.

I Want to be Wilma (not Flintstone)

will (who needs to come see us) picked TV remix.

my sister and i used to make bracelets out of kleenex colored with magic markers and pretend we were electra-woman and dina-girl. i should note, that in our tv role playing, this was the one instance where she actually let me be a girl character. but i don't want to get into it.

i think i want to be erin gray. erin gray had the two best roles on television - wilma on buck rogers, and kate on silver spoons.

buck rogers was my all-time favorite, and i should note that i did have a BIG crush on buck. so, to be his leading lady, complete with laser pistol and shimmery white spandex body suit... well, let's just say i've had daydreams.

and of course, who wouldn't want to live in ricky stratton's house complete with arcade video games and alfonso ribiero? i wasn't keen on ricky schroeder per se (and he's hideous all grown up, but i did cry when i watched the champ) but the dad was cute, and of course, so was jason bateman. what i would have paid to have been erin gray, riding on the miniature train that ran through the living room.

imdb tells me that erin gray has gone downhill since these roles i coveted; some baywatch, some port charles... and it's really no surprise. there was really no place to go but down.

Summer of Love

yay, v! she picked summer flings.

the summer i fell in love with rick tuttle, i was ten and he was 46. it wasn't that kind of love.

the tuttles had been our next door neighbors for as long as we lived in our house, but i can't say i ever saw them much. they had kids much older than me who, by the summer of love, had all moved out. they had a dog named j.j. that i saw a lot and loved like my own until he ran away. mrs. tuttle was always kind. mr. tuttle had multiple sclerosis and was paralyzed from the neck down. he spent his days in a lawn chair in his living room.

i don't remember exactly what brought me to their house that summer day, but mrs. tuttle invited me in where she was playing computer games with mr. tuttle. they had an apple IIe (ha!) and so did we, so i was familiar with it. she asked me if i would like to play, so i sat down while she escaped to do other things, and for two hours, i became mr. tuttle's hands, pushing the keys he told me to push. we played chess and cribbage, but his favorite game was wizardry. for the rest of the summer (and the next three years) i went to the tuttle's house and played computer games with rick.

he could barely speak; it took a lot of effort. when he laughed, he would open his mouth wide and no sound would come out - he would only make noise when he sucked air in. he had a catheter, and his urine bag hung off of his lounge chair. i could occasionally hear pee trickle into it. when he got thirsty, he would say "drink" and i would grab his glass of watered down cranberry juice and hold the straw to his lips while he gulped. his hands were fixed in tight fists across his thighs, and occasionally, he would shake involuntarily. he told me jokes. he taught me how to play chess and cribbage. he had graph paper in a special folder - when we played wizardry, we mapped out all nine levels so we would know where the doors, pits, and teleporters were. it took a long time. when i had to go home, i would kiss his forehead, and he would thank me. i hated going home.

looking back, i imagine i was a great help to mrs. tuttle, giving her free time to do other things. but they were a great help to me. there is something so pure about love from a man who is completely incapacitated and vulnerable, who exists to just, well, exist. i know i brought him joy and brightened his day, but he loved me in a way i needed at that age - his house was my escape, and his friendship was the safest i'd ever known.

the tuttles moved to clearwater beach when i was thirteen. i occasionally went to to see them, but not very often; by then, a book had come out with all the maps to the levels of wizardry. when i was sixteen, rick tuttle died. i hadn't seen him in a while, but at his funeral, i sat in the very back and cried more than his family. i understand he was probably a burden to them. but he was never that to me. i went to his casket and kissed his forehead one last time.

why do the good ones always get away?

and that, my friends, is as melancholy and nostalgic as i get. i'm now going to go have a good cry and put my broke ass on ice.