Out of the Ashes

Ode (We Are the Music Makers)

2011-05-15T20:33:00.001-05:00

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning?

2011-05-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

The faceless coward is no more. May all those who lost their lives or even continue to suffer find peace.

Windcatcher

2011-05-01T21:24:00.004-05:00

So, to begin with, I'll just say this: bronchitis is NOT for the faint of heart. That is all.

I don't know if it's the massive doses of antibiotics and mucinex, or just my own nature, but I'm feeling especially poetical this evening (Danger, Will Robinson, danger! This often means I will be making up a few words of my own peculiar sort at some point in the body of this post). I've decided I'm going to talk for a few moments about wind. But only a few moments -- I'm taking time out of my Gilmore Girls marathon in order to type this up. I know. I'll be happy to take your applause and adulations in comment form at the bottom. They will certainly be deserved.

I've always been a big fan of the wind. Samantha Carter, I'm sure, could give me a big explanation of what wind is and how it's created and how much good/bad it does and what role it plays in the delicate balance of nature that Roland Emmerich exploited in "The Day After Tomorrow." Its sequel, I'm sure, will be titled "Next Week Sometime Around Brunch" and will be about how humans, in their stupidity, have been using the wind for their own selfish reasons for far too long, and this much-abused wind, having gained self-awareness through the mistakes of some nefariously well-meaning, albeit misguided, scientist, will rise up and cast down everything from the Sears Tower to Grandma Jenny's windmill in retribution. Mankind, thus humbled, will start searching for other alternatives for power and will allow the wind to return to its previous unfettered existence.

Aside from liking wind for its possible revolutionary tendencies, I've always found it to be a bit magical. If there is a way that God daily talks to me, it is through the wind. And think about it -- why do people want to fly so badly? There is the whole freedom idea, yes. But you can attain that just as easily with a red convertible and an open road.

Oh, wait.

That red convertible? Yeah, remind me what it does? IT LETS THE WIND IN. IT LETS THE WIND CARESS YOUR HAIR. (Bringing to mind the notion that when the nefarious scientist makes the wind sentient, he should probably include a booklet on socially acceptable behavior for the perv.)

Wow. I started out with every intention of being poetical. How do I get back to that? Oh, yes. Ahem.

So, Mom and I went out to see the bison babies at our local preserve. We've named the newest one Katie, which brings me an absurd amount of happiness. I don't know if y'all have been anywhere near anything resembling a device that brings you world news (which, in this day and age, it is increasingly unlikely that you haven't), but the South has been experiencing some major storms over the past month. We've had tornadoes, floods, monsoons, lightning, a locust protest meeting, thunder....all that great stuff. So when Mom and I went out to see the bison, there was also this incredible wind kicking up. I mean it; it almost sent me and Mom flying.

And as I stood there in the wind enjoying it, as I always do, I started thinking about how close I felt to flying. I often have dreams of flying; they usually involve me swimming through the air with a breast stroke, for some reason. For a brief moment, I seriously considered just leaning into the wind a little bit more to see if I could actually do it. Maybe the dream wasn't a dream -- maybe it was giving me instructions. In that moment, the laws of physics ceased to exist for me. There was a possibility of a life without limitations, without logic or reasons or gravity or "I can't." I could just fly, just by bouncing onto my toes just a little bit.....

A phrase came to my mind then, something I'm sure will at some point get turned into a full-length poem. I scribbled it down in my notebook so I wouldn't forget it. It was, "People don't jump off buildings because they want to die. They do it because they want to fly." Isn't it possible that the despair that some people (including myself at times) have felt is really a yearning to experience something that is outside of all the rules and the laws and the you-can'ts? And maybe the wind is how I am able to grasp that?

I have to believe that this yearning for wind is more than it appears to be. The wind, this scientific process that so many have so easily put in a box and defined and labeled, is God. He is touching me. He is reaching out to people and making them see that there is more to this world than what can ever be explained. It is that that I am so eagerly trying to seek out and learn -- the unlearnable, the undefinable and therefore, the unattainable. It is a fruitless yearning and I will fail, just as I would fail to catch the wind. But you know what? The dream of flying is more fun than sour gummy worms and Roland Emmerich films. So I guess I'll keep going.

My Opinions on the Upcoming "Thor" film

2011-04-26T16:01:00.002-05:00

This will never be Thor to me.

THIS is Thor.

That is all.

A Typical Day in Katie Korner

2011-04-26T14:21:00.000-05:00

Me: Honey, I'm home!
Dodger: MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM!!!!!!!! *comes careening around the corner, then skids to a stop* Hey, wait a second....sniff sniff.....YOU'VE BEEN CHEATING ON ME, HAVEN'T YOU?
Me: N-n-no! Why would I ever cheat on you, sweetheart?
Dodger: I can SMELL THEM!
Me: Wait....what does cheating mean in your world?
Dodger: You petting another dog! It's despicable! It's awful! I can't believe it!
Me: Oh. Well, then, yes. I cheated. Sorry?
Dodger: I shall now have to smell all over you and then kiss you until your nose is shiny. Only then shall you be forgiven.
Me: Uh...okay. Whatevs.
Dodger: LET THE TORTURE BEGIN!!!!!!!!

A Plea to the Masses

2011-04-25T18:40:00.002-05:00

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Let me know if you guys want me to bring this alive again!

Me

2010-10-06T15:44:00.001-05:00

And as an apology for my absence, I offer you this:

http://xkcd.com/175/

Tonka Trucks and the M&M Guys

2010-10-06T15:18:00.002-05:00

So, obviously my little experiment fell by the wayside. This is not to say that I haven't been attempting to follow it, but rather that I got lazy about updating about it. So I'm going to try again. Hrumph. Today's gratitude can on so strongly that I found myself logging to the blogger before I could finish my laugh completely.

I'm teaching my creative writing students about satire while using Diana Wynne Jones' book "Howl's Moving Castle" as my guide. (Is anybody really and truly surprised by this? I think not.) Today we were talking about one of the facets of satire, which is role reversal. I assigned each student a fairy tale and told them to reverse the role of one of the characters. My youngest student, Jacob, was assigned the story of Snow White.

Now the great thing about having a class full of boys is that I never know what's going to come out of their pencils. It can either be chauvinistic crap (which I promptly squash out of their systems with great delight), boring nonsense, or sarcasm so sharp or so utterly absurd that I can't keep my teacherly composure. The last is what happened today. Jacob told of Snow White going through many trials and tribulations. She lost all her beauty and so no man wanted her. (I held my tongue through great strength of character alone, when all I wanted to do was hit the kid with a battering ram of modern thought -- women have to be MORE than beautiful to land a guy and sometimes *gasp!* even plain girls can find love! Perish the thought! But I digress.) Finally, our poor beleagured Snow White ended up at the Toys 'R Us so that she could flirt with the boy dolls since no real man would have her. There she was approached by the M&M guys, who wanted her to be a new mascot since her flat face would look well covered in candy. Snow White eagerly agreed and led them to her conveyance. No coach and six was this, however! It was a Tonka truck. According to Jacob, she said, "Hop on!" The M&M guys backed and said, "Never mind. Your ride is too pimped for words."

I proceeded to die of laughter. This kid is eleven freaking years old and he caused my hardened twenty-two year old self to melt in a puddle of glee. Go forth and do thou likewise, preferably in your own too-pimped-for-words-mobile.

Day-I-Have-No-Idea

2010-09-09T20:08:00.003-05:00

Today was not a grateful day. It was a thoroughly-non-grateful-no-good-very-blah day. However, I was struck with a strange realization on my way home from Target (one of my favorite places, I must admit). I am obscenely grateful that I am not a telemarketer.

Think about it: within the years of my memory, there was a day when caller id didn't exist. We couldn't screen our calls. If somebody was calling that was annoying, you either had to put them off or become VERY good friends with your answering machine. Of course, some of the fun has been taken out of answering the phone -- kinda like what happened when all the traffic cams started going up. It took all the sport out of driving, something I highly resented. But I digress.

There is a wealth of wonderful methods for getting rid of telemarketers, methods that are sadly underused now in our caller id world. I enjoy my brother's technique particularly: whenever somebody would call, he'd howl into the phone like a Tuskan Raider. Then there's my sister's method, far more subtle but perhaps more effective and less likely for the men in white coats to be called out to the home. She just makes her voice sound even higher than normal and convinces the poor schmuck that she's not of age to make any household decisions.

My method is not as dramatic to a degree, but it is effective. I would find a convenient pot or pan, and when the telemarketer started asking questions, I'd drop it noisily and screech, "OH NO! (and possibly an expletive)" and hang up the phone with no further ado.

Then again, I think maybe I DO miss telemarketers now that I'm feeling all nostalgic about them....

Day Five

2010-08-31T21:25:00.002-05:00

Today, I am thankful for the advances in modern technology and pharmacology. Of which inventions do I speak, you ask? Why, of the heating pad and painkillers!

Yesterday I thought I would be a King Kong-ette and lift some stuff rather beyond my strength. I did it (I obviously have a promising career in store as a mule) but I woke up this morning feeling rather stiff. As the day went by and I went to work, it got worse and worse until I was walking around shaped like a horseshoe. The unlucky kind, you know, where the ends are pointed down and the luck drains out? But then my wonderful, kind and beautiful mother handed me the heating pad and I found some lovely painkillers in the medicine cabinet, and now I am happily ensconced in a cocoon of blankets on my bed with my dog and the first season of ER, since I'm caught up on Supernatural until the next season comes out next week. And man, that was a long sentence and I'm kinda wondering if it was a run-on, but I'm too loopy to go back and re-read it to find out.

So. Yeah. (Fragments! Horrors!)

How was YOUR day? Yes, you. I'm talking to you! What were you grateful for today?

Day Four (I think)

2010-08-30T22:50:00.002-05:00

As of today, I am grateful for predictability. That's a rather...mundane thing to be thankful for, but it grants me my super power. What I can do is quite frankly awesome. The only thing I would trade it in for would be flying.

I can predict the outcome of almost any movie.

Yes, you read that right. Cool, huh?

Seriously, it's mind boggling. I can watch a tv show and usually guess who the killer is or who's going to kiss who. You have no idea the self-esteem high this can cause, to have this power in your hands to know the future. It's totally like being Alice.

Tell me in comment form what your super power is!

Day Three: A Tribute to the Union Jack

2010-08-29T20:55:00.002-05:00

All right, mates? I decided that today's blog post should be in honor of all my British readers out there (*cough cough* Natalie!) who are so deserving of praise and gratitude. So I'm going to make a list of all the British things that I treasure in my life, things for which I am exceedingly grateful. And happy about. And stuff. Bollocks, now I'm getting carried away! And I ended a sentence with a preposition! Bloody hell!

Okay, I'm stopping now. And so it begins, the countdown!

10th place: The English language

While I am extraordinarily thankful for my mother tongue, it's kinda boring, so it made the tenth slot on my list. Honorable mentions go to the Germans and the French for their contributions towards the creation one of the most insane languages ever. Any language that creates a snobbish distinction between "pig" and "pork" is just....interesting.

9th place: Fish and Chips

Arguably one of the finest meals ever, and a stereotype to boot. Too bad the Brits were too busy to send some over to their Irish cousins at a crucial time...still and all, I enjoy it, especially during the winter.

8th Place: The Accent

What can I say? The many different varieties of the British accent amuse people the world over, and many of us enjoy mangling them in our attempts to imitate. I hope y'all are all flattered by this. Pip pip and cheerio and all that!

7th Place: Tea

Tea. Early Grey. Hot. 'Nough said. It is truly one of the most awesome beverages ever and comes in enough flavors to give St. Peter a headache. And then he fixes it by drinking some chamomile.

6th Place: Mary Poppins

Nannies around here almost never come riding in on the wind or are capable of twittering along with birds. I find this to be a gut-wrenching deficiency of our land.

5th Place: Castles

I seriously doubt that Brits truly appreciate how awesome it is to have castles and/or the ruins of castles all over the place. It's like having Cair Paravel at your doorstep. Here in Memphis, we have Prince Mongo's Castle. It's not quite the same thing.... (http://wikibin.org/articles/prince-mongo.html)I suppose we do have Graceland, but since I'm not a huge Elvis fan, it doesn't have much appeal for me.

4th Place: The Slang

I can get away with a lot more dirtiness with British slang simply because it doesn't translate here. But I giggle inside. A lot. Because I know what it means. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

3rd Place: The Royal Family

Because who else would you gossip about?

2nd Place: The Beatles

This is kind of a no-brainer, but I freaking love the Beatles. No doubt this why I don't appreciate Elvis overmuch. The Beatles, with the exception of the trippy "Yellow Submarine," are talented musicians and lyricists. Their contribution to music can never be overcome or forgotten. And now I'm getting maudlin, so I'll move on.

1st Place: Harry Potter

Another no-brainer. I'm still convinced that I'm going to Hogwarts -- my letter is just late. Very late. DON'T THREATEN ME WITH LOGIC! PROTEGO!

And with that, I'll say, ta, everyone! This post really takes the biscuit, yeah?

Day 2.5

2010-08-28T13:22:00.003-05:00

I'm going to have a longer post tonight, but I just had to share this. In the on-going gratitude experiment, I find that this right here makes me happy:

Very very very very happy.

Day Two

2010-08-27T22:31:00.002-05:00

Today, the happiness came in the form of peanut butter m&m's. (I wish I were awake enough tonight to be clever and make my sister laugh, but ladies and gentlemen, I am about as pooped as a dog park. So, I'll just be straightforward and try to be extra endearingly funny tomorrow. Deal? Deal. Thanks for the obedience.)

This was the second day of my new job. I still really like it, which is a source of unending surprise to me, but I gotta say that some of the stuff that the lowest person on the totem pole has to do can be exhausting. Today I had to go through a gajillion and one account numbers and match them up to trades. The print on said gajillion and one account numbers was maybe five point, so I had to lean really super close to the paper to make out the numbers. I'm sure the paper was thrilled beyond words that it was not an ant, particularly when I had to use a magnifying glass to even make out whether that squiggle there was an eight or a zero. In any case, this job took me about three and a half hours. I never got up from my chair and the only breaks I got were when the phone rang, so you can imagine how sore/cranky/exhausted/perilously close to tears I was by the time I FINALLY reached the end. But since I am the lowest critter on the totem pole (what does that make me, anyway, on said totem pole? A squirrel? Or perhaps an ant under a magnifying glass?), I maintained a professional attitude and blandly remarked to one of my coworkers (that still sounds cool to me) that I would probably need a masseuse after work. She then did one of the nicest things ever by saying, "Hey, we've got some chocolate over here. Do you want some?"

Are baboons butts blue?

So I walk over and she has a bag of peanut butter m&m's. I've had the peanut kind before, but never peanut butter. Can I just tell you that it was an orgasmic symphony of flavors, textures and happiness hormones?

I guess the lesson is that sometimes happiness is chemically based in your brain. But what delicious chemicals they are!

Day One

2010-08-26T21:52:00.002-05:00

So I decided to begin today's happiness experiment right. I woke up earlier than I needed to -- today was the first day of my new job at a financial planning company. It was TOTALLY outside of my comfort zone. Anything with numbers immediately begins an assault of the heeby-jeebies and I start looking for a flea collar or something. But I dutifully got up, took care of my dogs, ate some oatmeal, read my Bible. Geez, I even made my bed, and usually that takes something major for me to do. Like, the pope running his cassock along my floorboards.

In any case, I'm all dolled up, fed properly, and ready to face the day. I bounce out to my car and am all the way at the end of the street before I realize I've forgotten something vital. Like, say, my contacts. I hightailed it back to the house, dashed upstairs, put in my contacts (doing this WITHOUT damaging your eye make-up is a highly undervalued skill, folks) and got back on the road again. I was almost out of the neighborhood when I realize that I've forgotten my lunch. Same thing, rinse and repeat, just without the fear of mascara runnage.

In the end, I found that I loved my job. The numbers make my eyes glaze, but my co-workers are top notch. I'm serious, it's insane how nice they are. One of them, Jamie, is a British lady who moved to California in the eighties and actually worked with the writing and broadcasting of such small items of pop culture as "E.R.", "Fraiser," Seinfeld," and "Friends." Holy crap. It also turns out that she's a huge fantasy fan -- we spent half an hour discussing Miyazaki's interpretation of "Howl's Moving Castle." Needless to say, we bonded.

I wish I had some huge revelation to go with my first day of the happiness/gratitude experiment, but let's keep in mind that this is, in fact, only the first day. I did notice that I was a lot more content today. It was nice to be out of the house, working with people, learning new things, being stimulated. I also learned that I sound really professional when I say, "Good morning, Waddell and Associates. This is Katie. How may I help you?" Go me.

I guess finding contentment in the workplace is built up of a lot of little things, like learning to transfer a call to someone's voice mail, a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, and the truly AWESOME shoes that Kay was wearing. We'll see if this all holds up tomorrow. Day two of the experiment and of Katie's introduction into the wild world of finance continues!

The Gratitude Experiment

2010-08-25T21:04:00.002-05:00

I was recently reading an article in Reader's Digest about people and the benefits of gratitude and happiness in their lives. Even though "happiness studies" and positive psychology are all the new rage in today's climate, I was struck by a couple of facts. Did you know that people in their early twenties are the unhappiest age category? I didn't, but it makes sense.

Even though there is a lot of exciting stuff happening at this age -- the establishing of careers, finding life partners, spreading those dadgummed wings and flying high or whatever is on the latest motivational poster, all of this can be equally bloodcurdling. People my age are learning about the less pleasant bits of being adults, like taxes and insurance (and all the crap that happens when you DON'T have insurance) and being terrified that they'll fly too high and plunge to the ground in a fashion that would make Icarus proudly wipe a tear. Or they're experiencing social problems, like learning to deal with the realities that they might not be married by the time they're twenty-five or they'll be stuck in a cubicle rather than rescuing orphans in Africa or signing autographs.

Reality, my friends, suck.

But as I was reading this article, I realized something. I, a young twenty-something, am not happy. I am not happy that I am not happy. So I decided to conduct an experiment, which while being by no means an original undertaking, is something that could prove to be fairly eye-opening.

Okay. So I'd decided to conduct this experiment and post my thoughts on it daily on my blog. But for how long should I do this? My first instinct was thirty days. You're always told that habits take twenty-one days to form, but I've always been a bit of a slow learner. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I know that's an understatement. But then I decided to do some research and came across this article. The author states that psychologists actually believe forming a new habit can take up to sixty-six days.

Phew. This is gonna be a lot of gratitude. I find myself becoming faintly ill at the thought of all the approaching Pollyanna-ness, but maybe this is my grumbly young twenty-something self talking. I smash down the contemplation of wading in a pool of sticky-sweetness and continue on with my plans.

So now I'm left with deciding the parameters of this gratitude experiment thingy. I think it should be more than just counting my blessings, although this will undoubtedly be a huge part of the upcoming (weep, weep!) sixty-six days. I think I shall decide on a specific small goal every day to see if it improves my happiness level, such as smiling at every person I see or singing in the shower or playing my piano. I'll also decide on larger goals once a week, like learning a new piece, writing a chapter of my book, or dropping a bad food habit. This all seems very reachable to me. And maybe by the end of these sixty-six days, I'll be happier with me and you'll be happier with me.

Let the sticky-sweetness commence.

I would SO do this....

2010-07-19T22:58:00.000-05:00

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Owaya:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypothesis you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty Sears Craftsman 9-mm automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities

Declaraction of Independence: A Rather Narcissistic Post, but a Necessary One

2010-07-05T20:02:00.004-05:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Life's gotten weird, particularly since graduation. I'm having to reexamine who I am as a person yet again. I thought I'd already gotten through this crap during high school, but apparently not. Who am I as a person? What direction do I want my life to go? What can I do to alleviate some of the consequences of mistakes made years ago?

Some of the godawful soul searching has been helpful -- I'm applying for a job at Starbucks, which I'm really excited about. It's going to pay for my trip to Ireland with Alyce and pay back some debts and eventually help me purchase a new car. I'm trying to make small steps to get back to the joyful person I once was. For some reason, this involves painting my nails green, which makes me absurdly happy. I'm going out to dinner with friends and sitting in coffee shops reading and planning out my book and swimming a lot.

I've been doing some more thinking today, though. I tend to compare my life to Howl's Moving Castle a lot, mainly because I admire Sophie's character so much. I have a picture from Miyazaki's film as my desktop background. It's from the beginning of the film, when Sophie is sitting at her long hat-making desk, sewing, watching the train travel by in billows of smoke and dreaming of an escape, of a time when the magic will be real and will reach out and grab her. There's something so mournful and resigned in her posture, but the fact that she's sitting in front of a window, open to possibility through her observations, strikes me as being hopeful, too. I always imagined myself in a similar way; sitting in front of a piano or a school desk, watching the world around me and waiting for the magic to sweep me away. It happens to Sophie, after all. Howl comes along and takes her walking in the sky and she is snatched up and away from the doldrums of her life and tossed headlong into magic.

The point of all this is that I'm not going to passively wait around anymore. All that's brought me has been pain (the "'tis but a flesh wound" variety, only emotional), an obscene amount of angst that should only belong in a teenage drama, and antidepressants. Magic isn't going to sweep me up, up, and away. That's why I'm getting a job and moving to South Carolina next year and taking control of my life. If I don't take charge of myself, nobody else will.

And that's another thing. I refuse to be some guy's damsel in distress. I hate those girls that are never complete without some guy to fulfill their lives and give them a purpose. That's putting an awful lot of power into someone else's hands. I'm not saying this in a morbidly bitter way, please note. I'm just not interested in waiting for my Howl to get off his butt and lazily decide that I'm worth taking a stroll in the sky with. If he wants me, he can meet me in the sky. To use another metaphor, I will climb out of my tower when I am damn good and ready and I'll do it without some nut-job using my bloody hair to get there. I don't want to be rescued, because all that does is say that I am weak and incapable of saving myself.

I look at the people I most admire -- fictional characters like Penelope Garcia and Abby Sciuto and real people like Alyce and Shelby -- and the common thread about them is that they are unashamedly themselves and they don't apologize for it. I'm tired of being afraid all the time that something I say or do will be the thing to push me away. I'm exhausted from the fear. If you try to please everyone, you eventually break. In the end, all that matters is that I please myself and I please the God I love.

So here's the bottom line. You want to be around me? That's fine. But don't be around me unless you plan to stay around me and don't feel like you have to rescue me. I'm all right. And I plan to stay that way.

Leading Ladies and Best Friends

2010-05-13T16:11:00.003-05:00

In the movie "The Holiday" there are many great quotes. It's one of my personal favorites, to tell you the truth. I really identify with the character of Iris particularly -- she's such a real and earthy character and I LOVE Kate Winslet's on screen chemistry with Jack Black. However, the lines that have always haunted me the most have been during Iris' conversation with aged Hollywood writer Arthur Abbot:

Arthur Abbott: He let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out. Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.
Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! Arthur, I've been going to a therapist for three years, and she's never explained anything to me that well. That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.

I tend to share Iris' trouble; I don't see myself as being a leading lady. This has already bothered me fundamentally. I tell myself, "You need to be more assertive!" or "You always let people run right over you!" Then, the other night, a thought occurred to me.

So what?

Let's examine the quintessential leading lady role for a moment, shall we? In the movies, the leading lady typically follows these rules:

1.) She likes an amazing guy, but...
2.) ...there is always some sort of problem with her relationship with said amazing guy.
3.) She goes through an incredibly rough period, generally towards the end of the film just before the happy ending. This can involve heartbreak, the loss of a job, the death of a dear friend/family member, jail time, ect.
4.) She goes through a TON of drama and sad music before she finally manages to land aforementioned amazing guy.
5.) She can be somewhat of a drama queen and thinks that the entire world revolves around her.

Some examples of this kind of leading lady would be: Bella Swan in "Twilight," Jane in "27 Dresses," Cameron Diaz in "The Holiday," Mary Fiori in "The Wedding Planner," and Rose in "Titanic."

Now, let's examine the quintessential best friend role. In the movies, the best friend typically follows THESE rules:

1.) She is very often the comic relief, meaning she gets the wittiest lines.
2.) Most of the time, she is either married or in a stable relationship with an amazing guy. Usually the best friend's amazing guy isn't quite as handsome or as witty as the leading lady's amazing guy, but I reiterate, STABLE RELATIONSHIP. Low drama, and he's home at night when she gets there.
3.) She doesn't usually go through a really sad time just before the ending. Instead, she is there for her best friend, the leading lady, through thick and thin, further endearing her to the audience because of her selflessness and comic relief.
4.) She is allowed to have a quirky sense of fashion.
5.) She is often exceptional in some way, like as a fashion maven or a cook or having superior guy crushing skills.

Some examples of this kind of best friend would be: the girls in P.S. I Love You, particularly Lisa Kudrow's character, Sookie in "Gilmore Girls," Angela Weber in "Twilight, Paulette in "Legally Blonde," and Penelope Garcia in "Criminal Minds."

So, let's review, shall we? Drama vs. no-drama, steady relationship vs. trials and tribulations, and quirky fashion sense vs. classic yet all too often drab?

Yeah. No brainer.

Thoughts?

Tadpole Baptismal

2010-05-12T17:42:00.003-05:00

He is pruning the rose bushes, like he’s supposed to.
Homework has been done, like it’s supposed to be.
Everything is as it is supposed to be,
and yet he jabs savagely with the scissors.
The sky is gray, the thorns are sharp, and the roses are dull.

Mosquitoes buzz above the pool while spiders lounge on forgotten floats.
The sand filter is broken, and the water is stagnant,
the perfect incubator for bellowing toads and brown water insects
that buzz busily on the seedy skim of their biohazard kingdom.
He snips above the grouping of five leaves, as he is supposed to.

Then he hears a voice from heaven, just as he’d always imagined it,
and he sees an ordinary looking man, dressed in blue shirt and jeans.
The man’s face is blurry in its plainness, and the man’s head reflects the sun.
He drops the scissors, dead rose petals pelting the hot concrete.
The toads are silent, and then begin to complain.

Kneel the man says, and he does what he is told,
on the white plastic side of the teeming pool.
The man does the same on the opposite side of the pool,
looking at him across rotting water noodles and skating bugs.
He finds himself rolling up his sleeves for some reason.

The man begins to splash his lower arms and face with the lukewarm water
and he does the same, washing himself with the filth of the broken pool.
I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Where the disgusting water has touched him, he feels clean.
The sky is still gray, the roses still dull, but he is new.

With no theatrical flash of light or even a dove, the man disappears.
He stares down at the same old pool, noting with interest
the plethora of tadpoles and brown crawling spiders.
He picks up the scissors and keeps clipping above the clusters of five leaves.
He has been baptized in tadpoles and filth, so different from the “supposed to” and is cleansed.

Ghosts

2010-04-08T22:58:00.001-05:00

She drives down the I-40, going too fast and not caring
when out of the darkness, something catches and sends back the glow
cast by her car’s headlights.
Something about the tree on the side of the road makes her whip her neck around,
trying to keep it in sight as long as possible.
It’s difficult to notice detail when going eighty miles an hour,
but the impression of that tree stood out in sharpest detail,
the high definition of the natural world.

It is a dogwood tree, the blooms still present and capable of reflecting high beams
even now as spring is marching unsympathetically on.
The season has already forced itself upon the grass; green superimposing itself on brown
and birds trespassing on bushes and telephone poles.
She sees the white religious blooms and is struck at how they linger in the air,
the brown in the tree branches the same color as the night, and so remains unrepresented.
The blooms are the specters, leering at the cars as they pass,
and remain unaffected by observation as the girl’s neck creaks ominously.

She is uneasy about those blooms as she hurtles past, pushed forward by
plodding truckers and the impatient rat race of the weekday’s end.
The buds continue to float before her eyes,
and she is suddenly in other memories that are always before her,
forever ready and willing to present themselves if they are given but half a chance:
a snowman on a tissue box, a slice of pizza going uneaten, and another car’s headlights disappearing into the night. The suspended buds become those headlights,
and she turns up the music, drowning out the cries of the haunted.

How to Give a Cat a Pill

2010-03-23T12:03:00.001-05:00

1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbor's shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie the little *&#%^'s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for RSPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

How To Give A Dog A Pill

1. Wrap it in bacon.

2. Toss it in the air.

Beowulf vs. Godsylla

2010-03-11T22:02:00.001-06:00

Of all my classes, History of the English Language (appropriately nicknamed HEL) is probably my least favorite. It's an exceedingly difficult subject to grasp.

However, sometimes showing up can be worth it. Today, for example. Dr. Richardson brought up on a powerpoint slide this joke about Beowulf, and my immediate thought was, "BLOG!!!!"

So here it is. It's a little difficult to read because it's written in Old English style, but try to go by phonetics. You'll at least be able to get the gist.

Have fun!

Beowulf vs. Godsylla
(By Tom Weller, from Cvltvre Made Stvpid)

Meanehwæl, baccat meaddehæle,.....monstær lurccen;
Fulle few too many drincce,.....hie luccen for fyht.
Ðen Hreorfneorhtðhwr,.....son of Hrwærowþheororthwl,
Æsccen æwful jeork.....to steop outsyd.
Þhud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom!.....Ðe bigge gye
Eallum his bon brak,.....byt his nose offe;
Wicced Godsylla.....wæld on his asse.
Monstær moppe fleor wyþ.....eallum men in hælle.
Beowulf in bacceroome.....fonecall bamaccen wæs;
Hearen sond of ruccus.....sæd, "Hwæt ðe helle?"
Graben sheold strang.....ond swich-blæd scharp
Stond feorth to fyht.....ðe grimlic foe.
"Me," Godsylla sæd,....."mac ðe minsemete."
Heoro cwyc geten heold.....wiþ fæmed half-nelson
Ond flyng him lic frisbe.....bac to fen
Beowulf belly up.....to meaddehæle bar,
Sæd, "Ne foe beaten.....mie færsom cung-fu."
Eorderen cocca-cohla......yce-coeld, ðe reol þyng.

Tune In

2010-03-08T18:44:00.000-06:00

It is a winter day, sunny for once.
You go to stand in front of the window,
A dog rubbing at your ankles, wanting attention.
You look outside; the trees are bare.
Everything is lit up from the exterior, and it is far too clear.
It is painful. The world is quiet.
You can almost hear the hum of the silence in the air; it’s like another person,
But you know you are alone.

Is the world supposed to look like that?
No leaves on the trees,
No color in the grass, no birds in the nests?
You can see everything for what it is, but that is no comfort.
On days like this, he would putter around the house,
His back like a question mark, whistling.
He would kiss you softly as he passed,
And tell you that you were beautiful,
Even though you knew you weren’t.
The memory burns you,
Scarring your retinas,
Burning after images on your eyelids and on the window and on the dog on the floor.
Everywhere you look you see,
And you long for darkness,
But you know that you are alone in the light.

You turn off the lights, but it does no good.
You can still see him,
But he does not see you.
Is a mother bird sad when life goes as it so often does
And she is left alone in a nest in a naked tree?
It is a winter day, sunny for once,
And you hate it…
Because you know you are alone in the bareness.

Fade Out

2010-03-01T19:28:00.001-06:00

An excited call from the door –

Someone wants you to come see something.

It’s something odd…snow?

You shuffle towards the window, hands clasped behind your back,

Still the soldier.

You look out –

Is the world supposed to look like that?

You have a funny feeling it isn’t, but you keep looking anyway.

Nothing better to do.

Inside, even behind the glass, cold wetness fills your eyes and ears –

Makes you blind and deaf.

Fuzzy things from the sky fall down towards you and blur away all the lines

No shapes, just vague impressions of what used to be.

She would like this, you think.

She used to make homemade doughnuts whenever this…stuff…came.

Snow…that’s what it’s called, right?...

You think that it’s kinda like what happens when you wake up in the middle of the night

And walk into the bathroom and flip on the switch –

And suddenly you see only swirls of colors,

Meteor tails and galaxies of times past,

Places far away and iced over.

Everything’s fuzzy.

You crinkle your nose, reaching for the meteor tail –

But it slips away, out of reach, just like always.

White stuff…white stuff everywhere…

Outside and in your mind and in your feet.

Someone leads you away, puts warmer socks on your feet.

You sit down, because that’s all you know to do.

Nothing better to do.

She’s like a picture on the wall…

Within reach, but behind the glass.

She’s a vague impression –

But once she made you homemade doughnuts.

So you keep trying to break the glass, knowing all the time that you never will.

That fuzzy white stuff keeps getting in your way,

Snow…

You smile. Your eyes are empty.

And you try, once more, to reach her…that picture on the wall…

Disappear

2009-12-31T18:59:00.001-06:00

Walking out on a beach
I feel the sand coat between my toes
The crash of the surf fills me, for I am an empty vessel
I’m disappearing
Lost in the darkness
Lost in the fragments.
I have been beaten against the shore,
Swept by the waves until I am no more.
The wind touches me but I am not touched.
I am not touched because I do not exist
I walk into the surf believing, maybe, that I will get swept away.
The water reaches my ankles,
Then my knees.
As the tide goes in and out,
In and out,
I feel my feet sinking deeper into the sand
And I wonder how long it will be until I disappear completely.
The sand is a grave;
The rest of me will follow.
And then in my darkness,
My brokenness,
I feel something.
No, not a touch. I hear something,
But I do not know what.
I look at the sun rise and the words from the song come to me:
Here comes the sun, little darling…
But that is not what I heard.
I listen harder, trying to prove I exist
Even as I sink lower into the sand and the waves.
Then I feel the voice again:
I will not let you disappear.
I feel a broken shell against my foot. It is a different touch from the voice.
I will not let you disappear.
The sun rises higher –
Here comes the sun…
And the crash of the tide roars louder—
I will not let you disappear.
It is cold in the water, in the waves,
But I feel it.
I am separate from the darkness.
I lift my feet from the grave,
the cradle,
And walk along the shore,
And perhaps a little higher.
I would not disappear.
I Am that I Am.
I am myself, not darkness,
Not emptiness.
I will not let you disappear.
It’s all right.
It’s all right.

Fourth Wall Breakage

2009-08-17T13:36:00.002-05:00

I was watching an episode of Family Ties today while I was waiting for the load in the dryer to finish tumbling and I found myself thinking. I know. This can be very, very dangerous, but I persevered in spite of the "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dogs" signs.

The audience was having a personal moment with the Keatons in the middle of the night because Mallory was worried about one of her friends who had just discovered that she was pregnant. They were sitting around the table eating a chocolate cake. (Allow me to note here that this never happens at my house. On Golden Girls, the characters are constantly all getting up at the same time and inevitably end up digging into a cheesecake that just happens to be in the refrigerator. You just don't get up randomly in the middle of the night at my house without rousing one of our five dogs and causing no end of ruckus. There is also, regrettably, no cake involved. Instead there are drowsy questions and a desire to go to bed before you fall over. So I find the picture of Steven, Elise and Mallory sitting around the kitchen table eating cake together warm and touching, but highly unlikely. Same goes for Golden Girls. What group of women over fifty gets up at one in the morning to discuss a problem at work??? Most of the time, women over fifty get up and take another Advil and go back to bed which they never wanted to leave in the first place, let alone adding on another two pounds with midnight cheesecake which they're going to have trouble digesting anyway.)

But the cake wasn't the issue. It was the fact that all of the Keatons were in bathrobes. Seriously, what family actually wears bathrobes? I have one that I keep in case we have unexpected company or if I get treed in the bathroom without the necessary clothing. That's it. My family certainly doesn't walk around in terry cloth kimonos looking cute and Leave It to Beaver-ish. In my experience, people only wear bathrobes if they're cold or if they're having company.

The Keatons were wearing robes to indicate their familiarity with each other and their total unawareness of being observed, that being the whole point of the typical family sitcom. I, however, would have found the whole situation far more believable if Steven had showed up in old tennis shorts and a Bart Simpson t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder, rather than his pristine plaid bathrobe. So the whole point of television failed, because the fourth wall was broken and the audience became known. Otherwise, why else would Mallory and Elise have bothered with bathrobes? It wasn't like Steven hadn't seen them in their pajamas before, which I'm sure were of the cute and silken matching variety, that being what the typical mom and teenage girl wear to bed these days....

Beauty

2009-08-12T16:04:00.000-05:00

I found this on my old livejournal. It was written February 23, 2005

Beauty

There is comfort in the dark
there is beauty in the rain
there is mystery in the fog
when nothing at all seems sane.

When everything seems hopeless
when there isn't any light
when there seems to be no joy
I can journey from the night.

Oh! When I come to the edgeof that dark, dank forest
I can remember lessons learned
and again find peace and rest.

If I can see love in the rain
and find joy in the darkest night
I know that with God for certain
everything will soon be right.

Sparks

2009-08-12T15:49:00.003-05:00

What a summer.

Ups and downs, sideways and backwards. The wheel never stops turning, and all those other artistic-y phrases that say something about how we humans keep trudging on through the days and weeks and years before we look back and realize where we've come from and how far there is still to go.

I'm going to try and get back into the habit of writing on here again. I do want a record of my life and thoughts -- they can be pretty revealing! For example, I just stumbled across my old livejournal that I wrote in when I was sixteen and stopped when I was eighteen. My thoughts were so different then, and my mannerisms are utterly changed. Dang, I was cute! All bubblings about clothes and hair and how grown up I was becoming. How did you guys stand in the face of my bubbliness? But I can still see me in the bubblings, which is a comfort. I certainly laid a lot more of myself out there in the open than I do now.

This has been the longest summer of my life, I believe. It's been fun and memorable for many reasons. Now I'm looking forward to my new life at Union University, which begins in nine days. It's so funny to be having a beginning when I'm technically at the end, namely, the end of my undergraduate years. When you graduate high school, you believe that that's the end of life to a degree. I don't mean death of anything, but you can't really see yourself ever getting older. That's still true. I look at myself and marvel at the fact that I'm moving out, even if it is only for a brief time. This is the beginning of true adulthood, not the sham independence that I've been experiencing.

I guess I'm still bubbling about clothes and hair and how grown up I'm becoming.

One of the greatest lessons of this summer has been about -- surprise, surprise -- the phoenix. I guess I forgot that the phoenix doesn't experience victory over death just once. It has to do it over and over again. Every time of darkness is a chance to learn about how the sparks will never truly die. Not really. As long as there is a Savior, as long as we know that Light that can pierce any darkness, then anyone can rise out of the ashes of their despair or troubles. Nothing that traumatic has happened to me, mind you. It's just something I've learned. Even when a way of life is ending, like mine is at Crichton and even here at home is, there is always a new beginning.

During this summer, I got to see a tornado first hand. I've caught up on Supernatural. I've been on my first date. I've learned about packing tape and moving trucks. I've gotten closer to my friends. I've learned that being strong for others never stops and that small Baptist churches still exist.

Let the learning continue.

Do your pants hang low, do they draggle to and fro?

2009-06-03T09:48:00.002-05:00

I am most certainly not a fan of the long standing fad in the guy fashion world of letting the pants be so big that the whole world gets a peekaboo at the male's highly interesting boxers. As a matter of fact, I find the whole custom sloppy and crude. However, it is something I had to get used to in the course of my tenure at Crichton; you just learned to not make eye contact and to keep your mouth shut.

It seems that other people did not get this memo.

Shelby and I were in the bank on Monday when a hilarious incident occurred. We were waiting patiently in line with another lady, who was black. We all turned when a young man entered, also black, and whose pants were hanging so low that I was fighting the urge to run over and jerk them down all the way and run away giggling madly. However, I did the typical avert-your-eyes-and-see-nothing maneuver, because that's just what you did.

The lady waiting in line with us did not feel this need. Loudly, she proclaimed, "I just hate it when people do that. What do they think they're doing, walking around with their pants around their ankles? It's just rude. Don't you just want to walk over and tighten their belts?" This was addressed to Shelby and I, who are on the verge of hysterics.

We can't answer, of course, because that might get us shot, so the lady gets her answer in the shaking of our shoulders. She winks and then keeps going with her diatribe. I get the giggles, so I'm trying desperately to not look at her because I know I'll explode if I do.

Seeing my dilemma, the woman says, "I usually stay in the corner at parties."

I managed to choke out, "You shouldn't!"

The guy remained totally oblivious. Thank God for small favors, although he probably would have learned something had he opened his ears. And pulled up his pants.

Meet the Enemy

2009-05-29T23:49:00.004-05:00

The bane of all Memphians alike is found in a two pronged attack plan that was tailor made for the area.

The first pestilence with which we are forced to deal is the cloud of allergens that hangs just as heavily over Germantown and Orange Mound as smog does Los Angeles and idiocy does Washington, D.C. Perfectly healthy people come here and then only a year later are hacking and sneezing and swell-eyed like the rest of us. You know how in Jaws, the wife keeps asking when she'll get to be an islander? You are not a Memphian unless you have laid on a couch in abject misery with only a box of kleenex for companionship and the soft serenade of a vaporizer.

The Allergen Cloud is a plague, one that must soon be reckoned with or it will undoubtedly be the harbinger of Utter Doom. Maybe the terrorists developed this plan -- it certainly has the potential to be both destructive and long-lasting. The effects can easily be qualified as degenerative and cruel and unusual punishment. After all, allergies are very rarely fatal, but they produce suicidal longings in their victims.

Melodramatic, you say? I THINK NOT!

The second bringer of evil is smaller, faster, and a lot more stupid. It is the average mosquito.

We in the south have many fond monikers for the little monsters: "skeeters" and "our state bird" to name a few. They have many different hunting tactics which, while being predictable to a degree, are also changeable and had to counteract. This can make them a formidable foe. One must agree that they do have the strength in numbers.

First, they can lurk in large groups, buzzing around in abandon and pricking any and all who get in their way. The most common hangout of the mosquito swarm is the Fourth of July barbecue, a patriotic yet dangerous occasion. I was once the unfortunate recipient of over a hundred mosquito bites in one night as a child, and I was never again the same. I had been scarred and branded as a target by the insect world, a fact which I could never forget.

The second is perhaps not as intimidating, but far more blood chilling (pardon the pun -- didn't even see it until I was proofreading). The rogue mosquito will separate itself from the pack, waiting, observing, learning its victim's habits and moral beliefs so that the moment to strike will be perfect and unsuspected. These are the mosquitoes who come while their quarry is sleeping and then proceed to bite them four times in the same general area. They have no mercy.

This was no doubt the plan of the mosquito that just tried to alight on my arm, but it was careless. I was not to be defeated. Not to mention the fact that it was dumb -- it buzzed in my face barely a minute before coming back and trying to get my wrist. No doubt it was dizzy with thirst, but I remained unsympathetic as I sent it on to its just reward at the Blood Bank in the Sky. They like to party there with the vampires.

However, I know that there are far more where this evening's intruder came from. I will remain vigilant. I will remain focused and never forget the pain they have brought me.

I shall have my revenge.

P.S.

2009-05-28T17:16:00.003-05:00

It really is ridiculous that I should be so addicted to my new cell phone....it's pretty much THE ULTIMATE.

See? Isn't is pretty?

And I have "Into the Night" as my ringtone, which just makes me smile. "Like a gift from the heavens it was easy to tell / it was love from above that could save me from hell! / She had fire in her soul it was easy to see / how the devil himself could be pulled out of me."

Gotta love it.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head...

2009-05-28T13:23:00.003-05:00

So, the list of catastrophes is ongoing. Evan fixed my fan, thankfully. (We're not going to talk about how it had just been turned off with the remote by somebody else and I never thought to change that. I just kept flipping the wall switch. I'm really starting to doubt my own intelligence.)

But that isn't the worst of what happened. I can't believe I'm going to write what I'm about to write.

I busted...wait for it....my purity ring.

Now, before everybody's minds start going into the gutter, let me explain. In high school, my best friend at the time went to Hawaii and brought me back a pearl as a souvenir. Pearls represent purity, so I had it put into a ring so that I could wear it. However, it's always been a slightly unsound ring, simply because the pearl sticks up and is always easily banged against stuff when I'm not being careful. As you can imagine, I'm not careful a lot.

I was doing laundry on Tuesday, I think, when it happened. I was yanking wet clothes out of the washer to put into the dryer when my hand brushed too hard against the lid of the washing machine. The pearl went flying, of course. In a moment of sheer Jedi awesomeness, I managed to catch it, but then my usual nature took hold when it slipped out my hand as I was trying to put it on the counter for safekeeping. My beautiful Hawaiian pearl is now caught in the grill/fan thing that we have on our counter and I can't get it out.

Sigh.

On the happiness meter, though, one of my piano students' mom brought me some dishes. She'd just bought new ones and didn't want her incomplete set anymore. I was like, "um, yes, please!" Just another step to being ready for my apartment. *happy dance*

Thanks a whole heap, Abe

2009-05-27T14:20:00.002-05:00

Okay, so you know how the bar at El Porton is always an interesting spot for me? Apparently, so is Kroger. Mom asked me to go by there to pick up some ingredients for her astonishingly good onion souffle' stuff. I try to ignore the fact that it contains cream cheese. Cream cheese is the enemy.

So I round up everything on her list, even being enormously proud of myself when I find how many ounces are in that disgusting block of cream cheese and figure it out accordingly so that we have the proper amount for the recipe. I stroll up to the self checkout lane simply because I enjoy doing that. Don't know why, just do, and life is all about the simple pleasures. When it comes time to pay up, I start feeding dollar bills into the machine. It takes all my cash, and I'm starting to sweat it because I never carry much change. But I stoically push in all of my change when it happens.

The worst.

I am short by one. stinking. penny.

I glance furtively around for someone to borrow a penny, but the place is suddenly absent. It was like one of those old cowboy movies where the tumbleweed blows dramatically across the screen, except in this scenario it's a coupon for frozen broccoli that's on special for three for a mere ninety-nine cents. In other words, empty.

After digging desperately in my purse to find the one stinking penny, as well as shamelessly searching the floor for a haphazardly dropped bronze piece. No dice, and by this point, the people at the in-store bank are looking at me suspiciously. Charming. So I sucked it up and was forced to put one penny on my debit card. How lame is that?

Maybe it's all karma....maybe all this stuff is going wrong or on the fritz or something around me because I'm happy. But now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go. The picture on the wall outside my room just fell off the nail and shattered everywhere. I have to go find the mini pieces of glass with my feet. It's a dangerous job, but some clumsy chick's gotta do it!

What does this button do? zaps Nevermind.

2009-05-26T23:40:00.003-05:00

So, apparently technology hates me. I don't know why that is. Perhaps in a previous life, I beat up some machine's elderly grandmother. Or I could have just tripped over a child-computer's motherboard. It would be difficult to be an orphan in cyberspace, admittedly, but it's not entirely my fault. I can't help being coordinately challenged.

In any case, several pieces of major technology have failed around me at some point this week. Our home phones still aren't working. Personally, I think they've stopped working in protest to their own peculiar case of in-breeding in this household. You see, Alexander Graham Bell is on both sides of my family tree, the Graham from my mom's side, the Bell from my dad's. Creepy, huh? Anyway, don't bother trying to call my house. It won't work. Unless, of course, you need an exercise in futility, and then by all means, please continue.

Then came my cell phone. It stopped sending out texts. I could receive them, but the ones I was sending weren't making it to their destinations. This was highly annoying and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. So I took the phone into the cell phone store today (this was an adventure unto itself -- the store near my house had closed down and I thought I remembered where another one was, but it ended up being a different brand. Yuck. Mom finally reminded me of a different location and was then so kind as to meet me there to help me argue with surly cell phone people) and called customer service.

I hate talking on the phone, generally, so I was afraid that this was going to be a horrendously awkward conversation. However, I talked to a real person, an actual nice person who talked slowly and used small words. No doubt his suspicions on my intelligence were confirmed when we discovered that the whole problem stemmed from the fact that I hadn't actually turned off my cell phone in months. Apparently they need to reboot. The minute I did that, problem solved. Of course, this meant that thirty-five text messages were sent from my phone at once....sweet. I know all my friends enjoyed that one.

And then this morning, when I woke up, I discovered that my overhead light and fan weren't working. This problem remains unsolved. I'm not too eager to dig in the wiring and figure out the problem. Knowing me, I'd end up in Oz or something, and I think people would miss me.

There are days in which the Amish lifestyle look vaguely appetizing. But then I remember their fashion sense and change my mind again. Nothing's worth that!

Maybe the Israelites Weren't the Only Ones to be Abnormally Stupid...

2009-05-25T14:56:00.004-05:00

When I was younger, I never got the Israelites.

There they were, wandering aimlessly around the wilderness that wasn't even very big ("Mom, I know I've seen that rock before!" "You have, son, we passed it a year ago...and the year before that and the year before that...Remember, Grandpa Mishtu sat there while we were haranguing Moses about something or other? Probably about something really pesky, too, like water or rest.") because they had gotten their freedom handed to them on a platter and just couldn't accept it, so they had to whine like babies being put down for a nap instead of getting to play an extra hour getting excessively messy in the sandbox with little Billy down the road. I mean, honestly, they annoyed the hell out of me. They're hungry? Bread from heaven. Thirsty? Water from a rock (even though that one came back to bite Moses in the butt). Big ole sea? Parted. What in the world were they thinking, not trusting God after all that He'd done for them?

But here's the thing. I'm no better than the Israelites. I have been no better at trusting God with my life despite the obscene number of times that He has saved my butt and guided my sorry self to something far better than I could have ever imagined. I've been so busy erecting golden idols made out of old earrings to a calf (seriously, why did they pick a calf of all things? Cows, in general, are loathsome and disgusting. I'm sure there was cultural significance, but I have no idea what that could have been.) that I've totally missed the divine setup. Here's a run-down of events:

Stupid businessmen and bureaucrats and missionaries kill my school in the name of "doing God's work."

Katie is pissed.

God provides a school to go to, a school where Katie and Shelby fortunately already had many friends and where Shelby had a boyfriend.

Katie doesn't think she can get into really great school. She whines about having to try and finish in one year at her now deaded school.

God provides teachers and an admissions department that are willing to help Katie. She is accepted.

Katie doesn't know how she will pay to attend really great school.

God says, "Don't worry about it -- you won't have to pay anything because these people are going to take care of you. Paid in full."

A place to live becomes a problem.

God provides an apartment that is sneezing distance from the campus.

Affording place to live is now an issue.

God provides a roommate for Shelby and Katie in Aubrey, a roommate who doesn't even mind the fat little tootsie roll of a dog that Katie refuses to leave behind.

Katie begins to doubt where her life is heading. She doesn't trust God and doesn't mind saying so. She's still praying, but nothing's coming, apparently.

God provides awesome friends and then God goes another step further. God provides Zack.

I met Zack several months ago through my friends at Union, particularly Courtney. She and Zack have been friends for quite a while. This guy walked in and I thought, "Hmmm...." Attraction, bada-bing. But I was being stupid and ignored it.

We started to become friends, just chatting on facebook and stuff, and then I was even more stupid. I told him I thought we should just be strictly platonic friends. He agreed.

*bangs head against wall*

However, despite the stupidity, it worked well for us. I guess God loves a fool. We were able to talk a couple times a week for quite a while, just becoming friends. As time went by, the similarities added up. Similar senses of humor, beliefs, interests, values...

I start to hate the platonic vow. Vehemently.

I build a couple of idols and think that God will never grant me the desires of my heart. I concentrate on getting ready for the apartment and keep bemoaning the fact that I can't trust God. Feel free to hate me now.

And then after some drama, Zack looks and me and says, "I want to date you."

I stop banging. Stop building. Stop bemoaning. Stop being stupid and say "yes."

So, as a recap, if God hadn't killed my school, hadn't developed my friendships with the Union kids, hadn't gotten me into Union, hadn't provided me with an apartment, hadn't kept me from having other relationships in the first place, I would have missed out on Zack completely.

Thank God for bureaucrats and absurd missionaries and stupid businessmen.

It is a sobering thought to realize that everything in my life has led to this moment, just as this moment will lead to the next. And looking back, I would go through every bit of pain, every moment of abandonment, every self doubt that I've had to just get back here again. They're all worth it, because God was leading me to something better than I could have ever imagined.

Anybody got a refinery? There's this stupid golden calf I need to melt down...and a wilderness in which to stop wandering aimlessly around.

The Fourth Collision of the Mad Ones

2009-04-14T10:29:00.000-05:00

11:00 Upon receiving an irate phone call from Miss Swanson, the ever tardy Mr. Buls urged the Mad Ones to begin without him. This was verily done.

11:05 Miss Katie Johnson opened the minutes with an improvisational prayer, for which she was thankful, considering that she was not prepared with a written one.

11:09 Miss Shelby Johnson continues the meeting with a reading from the Graham Greene novel, The Power of the Glory. The excerpt was on the image of Christ in the world.

11:14 Mr. Vowell shared a quote on St. Augustine and offered his interpretation of it.

11:15 Mr. Buls finally graced the Mad Ones with his presence—he was greeted cordially despite his shameful breech of Mad Protocol. Mr. Vowell continued in his diatribe, considering that Mr. Buls did not possess the Magic Maraca. (We had to improvise. It was upon Madame Johnson’s suggestion that the Maraca was thus used with great delight.) Miss Shelby Johnson invited the presence of an angelic choir when Mr. Vowell quoted T.S. Eliot.

11:20 Miss Shelby Johnson gained possession of the Magic Maraca that she might offer her opinions on Mr. Vowell’s wealth of pertinent quotes. She spoke of the questions that Master Jenkins has lately been posing in the Authors of Christian Commitment class, particularly the loss of a unified culture.

11:25 Miss Aubrey Swanson gained the Magic Maraca so that she could read an excerpt from The Politically Incorrect to English and American Literature. This was very well received.

11:30 Miss Katie Johnson read from Emerson’s essay, “The Poet,” to which Miss Shelby Johnson took great exception.

11:35 The Meeting was put on pause for a minute.

11: 37 Miss Swanson became greatly perturbed at Mr. Vowell when he kept referring to the Holy Maraca as the Holy Macarena. He exploded, “It’s the shaky thingy with things inside that make a noise!” There was an abiding silence. The meeting continued.

11:39 Miss Shelby Johnson’s new chapter and story idea were discussed.

12:00 Miss Katie Johnson shared her ideas for her character’s development and was given encouragement to continue writing.

12:06 Mr. Buls began to share his trilogy. Mr. Vowell was intrigued by the idea and developed his goal to become a part of Mr. Bul’s cast of characters. The Mad Ones wish him luck in this endeavor.

12:30 Miss Katie Johnson was picked up by the long absent Miss Jones, so her participation in this meeting came to a conclusion. They could have invented rocket packs with built-in pencils and laser notebooks for all that she knows of the rest of the meeting…which would have been really cool….

Cake or Pie? Uh, NEW OPTION!

2009-04-11T19:29:00.004-05:00

Alyce came home for Easter and today I got to hang out with her. Needless to say that I am now in far higher spirits than I was previously -- Alyce is marvelous for reminding me what's important and what's crap. Anyway, we went to lunch and I discovered what is quite possibly one of the greatest wonders of the natural world.

Cobbler.

Warm peach cobbler with nice cold ice cream on top. The melding of heat and cold together in one's mouth is worthy of its own poem, if not epic. Great, just what I needed. Another addiction.

Sigh.

........anybody want to go try cherry?

Sometimes I wonder, O God, why Thou didst make me with a larger than usual sweet teeth? There must be a reason for Thy plan, but what, pray tell?

Beautifully Weird

2009-04-04T21:21:00.008-05:00

I've come to the conclusion that life is beautifully weird. Any situation can be accounted for by either saying, "Well, it's beautiful, but so weird!" or "How weird...but at least it's a beautiful world!" Try it. You'll see the brilliance in my conclusion.

Random much? Not really. Follow the reasoning behind my madness...

So today was a pretty cool day. Busy -- as seen by the fact that my INCREDIBLY eccentric knee is killing me (which is the weird part) but also by the mountainous amount of crap I bought for a hundred bucks today at the Rummage Sale (beautiful). The Rummage Sale is pretty much the penultimate of all yard sales to ever be held on the planet. I kid you not. It comes around once a year in April. Basically, a church's insanely wicked (read: epically awesome) idea for fundraiser for their big summer mission project is to get everyone in the congregation to collect all of their junk and unnecessary items throughout the year and then bring it to the church so that it can all be organized, priced, and sorted into three parking lots and two gigantic revival tents so that other people can buy even more junk and unnecessary items that they'll just end up giving to Goodwill at some point within the coming year.

Everybody following me still? Well done!

Anyway, what with the Great Johnson/Swanson Migration to Union this coming August, we decided to hit the Rummage Sale and do some damage on the amount of supplies we still needed for the apartment. My mission was to find a recliner. I do all my homework from my chair, so a place upon which to rest my weary behind was the Necessary of all Necessaries, the veritable Holy Grail of furniture. This is the reason why Mom, Shelby, Aubrey, and my lovely future Union buddies Courtney and Heather were all outside in the cold at freaking 7:50 in the morning. To say that my comrades were grumpy about the circumstance would be to say that Joan of Arc was a charming girl that merely swatted flies that were trying to get into her homemade raspberry preserves.

Despite this, we persevered and finally made it into the revival tents. I refrained from speaking in tongues and or asking someone to talk to me about the Lord and made a sanctified beeline for the furniture section. You see, we were battling half of Mexico here, and time was of the essence! I managed to find a lovely specimen of a recliner, though not the color I wanted, and promptly sat in it to mark my claim. This is the shopping equivalent of peeing on a fire hydrant or bonking a girl on the head with a club before dragging her away by the hair -- much more civilized!

Those of you who are women already recognize my next dilemma -- having found a recliner in mauve rather than in the wanted tan or blue, I came to the painful realization that none of my intended bedding would work in my new bedroom! So I was forced to head to that section of the rummage section, where I finally ended up with a charming choreography of sage green, cream, rose pink and mauve. Friendly yet durable. I found a few knickknacks to warm up the room (a really cool wavy green bottle was my personal favorite, as well as a stained glass mirror and a green wrought iron basket with cream roses) and considered myself well on the way.

After all of us managed to buy a lot of things we probably wouldn't use for at least a few years (*cough* HIGH CHAIR *cough*) and a few other fun items (Evan, I'm SO jealous over that lava lamp....no, I'm serious. If it were green, it would have been MINE!) we finally managed to make it home. It was at this point that we sadly lost Courtney and Heather's company. Mom then had Shelby and I put on dresses and gussy up and we went out and took pictures. It was mucho fun! (I'm supposed to know the word for that, but I'm too tired to care at the moment.)

(And I seem to be using a lot of parenthesis on this post.)

(Weird.)

(--but beautiful!)

(Yeah, if you say so.)

(And now I'm having a conversation with myself...this is disturbing.)

(Stopping now!)

(Stop.)

Ahem.

Anyway, the other funny part to the day was when I drove to pick up dinner for Mom and myself since we were the only ones home and neither of us felt like cooking. I had enjoyed the drive; it was a lovely day and I had the windows down admiring the budding trees and azaleas, not to mention the whole playlist I made of sappy music. I was humming "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol (the ULTIMATE of all sappy songs and it always makes me happy) while I was standing at the bar waiting for my order to be delivered. There were three people sitting there eating: an older guy and a kid, most likely a visitation situation, and another older man who looked slightly more, um, button down shirt-ed than his bar-fellows. If you catch my drift. So anyway, like I said, I was just standing there minding my own business when all of a sudden I start hearing the non-button down shirt guy start talking, and while I was only listening with one ear, it sounded like he was talking about me. "Don't worry, she's not paying any attention to us. Got her mind in her own world. Damn redheads...."

It was at this point that I whirled around, ready to let him have it, when I notice that he's not even looking at me. He's looking down at his enchilada rather despairingly, and Button Down Shirt Dude is just sitting there watching me to see how I'll react, laughing silently. The bartender lady looked at the dude incredulously and said something to the effect of, "Man, you better be careful when you're muttering..." and gave me an obvious look. The guy looks over at me and VISIBLY jumps when he catches sight of my red hair. He looked like he was afraid I was gonna slug him! So I start laughing and said, "You better be careful about us redheads, we've got bad tempers..."

Upon realizing that I am not going to relocate his teeth to his right ear, the Bar-Fellow laughed nervously and said, "Yeah, and I don't really need another redhead in my life!" I refrained from saying, Uh, yeah, cause you're never gonna have this one! and merely replied, "Yeah, I'm an Irish girl raised by hillbillies. You wouldn't have had much of a chance!" We were all still laughing when he told me to drive safely. Obviously hoping I wouldn't come back and haunt him for affronting my breed, of course.

Why do weird things always happen to me whenever I go to El Porton (see gay bartender post for details: http://blindingfirefly.blogspot.com/2008/03/series-of-random-events.html)?

Oh, right, because life is beautifully weird!

The Third Installment of the Mad Ones, as Recorded by Miss Katie Johnson, Secretary

2009-04-02T10:24:00.002-05:00

11:19 Herr Vowell called the third meeting of the Mad Ones to order; Mr. Johnson was excommunicated for twenty seconds for some sort of infraction against Mr. Vowell’s fragile sensibilities. There was great rejoicing among the commoners for this indication of Mr. Vowell’s inestimable power over the ham that is Mr. Johnson.

11:20 Miss Shelby Johnson has a diatribe on the need for tracking down that illusive Temptress, time, in order to write.

11:21 Miss Swanson offered an original prayer, “Blessing on the Written Word.” Miss Swanson was then offered the Magic Sharpie, as the Magic Golf Ball had rolled away somewhere and could not be bothered to offer an appearance.

11:22 Miss Shelby Johnson executed an arm-wavey-happy-dance upon Miss Swanson’s announcement of having begun reading T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. Miss Shelby Johnson then began to talk a lot, obviously forgetting Miss Swanson’s current possession of the Magic Sharpie. (Which she dropped on her computer, prompting Mr. Johnson to say the ever eloquent, “Smooth…”) Miss Aubrey Swanson then proceeded to inform us of the progress of her vampire story, including the creation of a new character.

11:36 Upon the successful reading of Miss Swanson’s piece, the attention was put on Miss Katie Johnson. Gulp. The honor due to this new leader of the meeting did not prevent Mr. Vowell and Mr. Johnson from having a Gollum/slurping noise contest. Babies. They were reprimanded by Miss Shelby Johnson. The excerpt of Miss Katie’s Johnson planned story was received quite favorably. A serious discussion on the importance of humor within a fantastic story followed.

11:51 The Magic Sharpie passed to Miss Shelby Johnson. She read a selection from Georges Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest. Next, Miss Shelby Johnson read a further portion of her novel; it was excellence in physical form. The Mad Ones all felt insignificant in her deceptively short presence and explicated prowess. Miss Shelby Johnson’s reading birthed a discussion on the need for emotions to be expressed through corporeal description.

12:10 Miss Vowell read the next serial excerpt on his story of Fain (sp?) and Mitzi. The Mad Ones were all eager to learn what would happen next in this fascinating tale of beans and poppycock.

12:27 Miss Shelby Johnson screamed in agony when Mr. Vowell refused to continue reading his story. They suggested that he change one word of his script—even though Mr. Johnson voiced his opinion that the Mad Ones were over analyzing—and Mr. Vowell agreed with the wisdom of this criticism.

12:30 Miss Shelby Johnson was scolded by Miss Katie Johnson for Miss Shelby Johnson’s incessant and blatant thievery of Miss Katie Johnson’s beloved Cheetos.

12:40 The meeting was voted to be drawn to a conclusion, with the next meeting to occur three weeks hence due to basketball games, familial visits, and the Rummage Sale.

The Official Minutes of "The Mad Ones"

2009-03-01T20:36:00.002-06:00

Statement of Purpose:

The Nature of this group is similar to that of the Inklings. We share our writing with each other as well as excerpts that can be literary criticisms or examples of how not to write. This is to promote our understanding of literature, be it good or crappy literature.

Members:

Jonathan Vowell

Evan Johnson

Shelby Johnson

Katie Johnson

Aubrey Swanson

Date: February 28, 2009

Location: The Johnson Abode

Climate: Cold and gray and demanding of jeans and hoodies as a uniform

Minutes:

11:02 Miss Shelby Johnson moved that “The Mad Ones” be opened with prayer. The Mad Ones alternate prayer responsibilities. Prayers can either be a written prayer by the Mad One or by an official Mad One or an improvisational prayer.

11:05 Miss Katie Johnson offers to be the Mad One’s secretary, as she is the fastest typist and has the best sense of humor as regarding the conflicts between chaos and genius. Besides, it would make for lovely blog fodder.

11:06 Mr. Johnson moved that the Mad Ones have an open door policy as regarding new members. Mr. Vowell, however, moved that any members that do not have the appropriate regard for the improvement of their writing be asked to leave.

11:08 Miss Shelby Johnson requested that the Mad Ones have eight members only. She also said that with peer reviews, the Mad Ones be compassionate but honest.

11:09 Mr. Johnson moved that a Mad One can speak only when they are holding the magic golf ball. Miss Katie Johnson found this quite humorous and withheld sarcastic comment. Miss Shelby Johnson then went into a long winded speech which Katie missed the point of and then Shelby got embarrassed and stopped talking so Katie guesses it doesn’t matter anyway.

11:17 Mr. Johnson read a prayer by Thomas Merton

11:18 Mr. Vowell read a devotion by Samuel Daniel. This was done with great dramatic emphasis.

11:20 Mr. Johnson and Mr. Vowell proceed to have a tug of war over Mr. Vowell’s subway sandwich.

11:21 Miss Shelby Johnson announced to her astonished siblings that she is in the process of writing a novel. Said novel is exploring the problems of a boy growing up in modern society filled with secularism and other shallow “isms” while watching his older sister self-destruct because she is encountered human problems about death and love and does not know how to deal with it because of the problems of modern society and the modern church. (Mr. Johnson reminded Miss Johnson of her need for the mystical golf ball. Miss Katie Johnson once again withheld comment.)

11:23 Miss Aubrey Swanson arrives late. She reads the minutes and finds that it is difficult to laugh over Miss Katie Johnson’s minutes without disturbing Miss Shelby Johnson’s novelistic soliloquy.

11:29 Mr. Johnson starts speaking foreign languages. Miss Shelby Johnson reminds the room that she has the mystical golf ball. She is backed up by Mr. Vowell and the meeting continues.

11:31 Sans golf ball, Miss Shelby Johnson begins to read an excerpt from her novel.

11:36 Miss Shelby Johnson blushes over curses in her novel. Mr. Vowell takes possession of the mystical golf ball in order to reassure this supposed breach of morality. Mr. Johnson makes some crack which wasn’t good enough for Miss Katie Johnson to record. Miss Shelby Johnson continues.

11:40 The Mad Ones stands in abject awe of Miss Shelby Johnson’s novel. They discuss the idea of descriptions. Mr. Vowell plays with the golf ball, which Miss Shelby Johnson takes away from him.

11:42 The golf all is passed off to Mr. Johnson because he greatly desires to see his basketball game. He then reads his poem entitled, “The Night Light.”

11:47 The golf ball is passed from place to place as the Mad Ones name their favorite lines of Mr. Johnson’s work.

11:48 Mr. Johnson’s dog howls at the Johnson grandmother. Mr. Johnson bids said hound to be quiet in the most genteel of terms. *cough*

11:49 The Mad Ones delicately critique Mr. Johnson’s word use. He accepts the criticism graciously—good for him. Mr. Vowell states that he likes the mystical golf ball. This is slightly disturbing for all involved, but the members of the Mad Ones ignore this. After all, genius can be slightly disturbing.

11:51 Both Misses Johnson shoot daggers with their eyes over their shared desire for the mystical golf ball, that they might speak. They are growled at by a jealous Mr. Vowell, who apparently desperately needs a girlfriend.

11:53 Mr. Vowell golf ball jumps Miss Katie Johnson’s turn. She is tempted to bite him, but restrains herself because she is not venomous, so therefore a bite wouldn’t be productive in any sense of the word.

12:10 Miss Katie Johnson shares an excerpt of C.S. Lewis’ writings. This spawns a whole conversation of imagery, fantasy and vampirism. Tangents, much?

12:18 Miss Swanson reads an excerpt of her novel. This is discussed heavily and Miss Shelby Johnson mentions several Gothic novels that Miss Swanson should read.

12:26 The Mad Ones exhort one another to write without trying to couch a sermon within a story. If we’re Christians and we also write, then Christ will be within our writing.

12:27 Miss Shelby Johnson reads a passage from “All the King’s Men.”

12:28 Miss Katie Johnson read an excerpt from her Fanfiction that was pertinent.

12:38 The Mad Ones approve of the chapter and discuss the various ways in which a point can be made in a story—through imagery, dialogue and character development.

12:39 Mr. Vowell gained the golf ball in order to read his own works. (Miss Shelby Johnson moved that readings work in opposite directions for meetings; whoever ended one meeting would begin the next meeting in order to ensure that all Mad Ones be given plenty of time to have the floor.)

12:46 Miss Shelby Johnson demands (“practically standing on a chair and screaming,” inputs Miss Swanson, who is the minute’s biggest fan) that Mr. Vowell finish his short story on the fundamentalist pity-or-hate character Harry Folkman, causing Mr. Vowell to blush and promise to try.

12:50 Miss Shelby Johnson moves that Mr. Vowell read one more of his shorter passages so that the meeting can be concluded in a timely manner, allowing the members to enjoy well-earned bowls of chili and a basketball game. She offers Mr. Vowell the consolation of opening the next meeting. Mr. Vowell agrees and so does as he is told.

12:56 Miss Katie Johnson, while greatly moved by Mr. Vowell’s story, moves that the meeting be concluded because of the rumblies in her tumbly. The meeting was pronounced a great success and another meeting scheduled to occur on the next Saturday hence.

Devastation

2009-02-27T09:54:00.000-06:00

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death (which almost went unnoticed last week) of a very important person.

Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey," died peacefully at age 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

Rules

2009-02-26T21:12:00.003-06:00

OKAY! GEEZ! I'm posting! Enough already!

Ahem.

So I was thinking today about the rules for life as according to Katie. It seems like multiple rules got broken today alone...and then I started wondering if even I know all my rules? Hence why I'm going to write them out.

1. Pie is better than cake. Don't whine. It totally is. So while I will cheerfully eat cake, especially when it has my mom's homemade icing on it, it is nothing compared to the mommy's little piggie moment that will happen if somebody slaps a key lime pie down in front of me.

2. Barbeque pizza is the best pizza out there.

3. The only place I can curse like a sailor and it doesn't seem to count on the whole morality thing is in my car. This is because of rules 4 and 5.

4. Almost every problem on the road can be fixed by speeding up. (My lord! I almost got creamed twice today just because some jack...err, asp, couldn't see fit to act like they had a brain cell running on half speed in their craniums and speed up while merging! Merging, I say! Isn't the whole idea to get up to the same speed as everybody else on the freeway so that the poor schmuck stuck behind your piddlin' butt doesn't meet his Maker today? Gah!)

5. Forget world peace. Imagine everybody using their turn signals! (I use mine when I pull into my driveway, for crying out loud. It's one flick of the finger, people. Heck, it even burns calories! And it also, gee, I don't know, shows that you have an ounce of consideration for those around you. But oh, no, we wouldn't want that...)

6. As evidenced by the above rules, sarcasm rules. Wow, that sentence was redundant, but no less true.

7. Sleeping on sheets that are any less than 400 thread count isn't worth the trouble. You might as well be on a tarp.

8. Daffodils can always, always make a day happier. This is an ironclad rule.

9. There is no greater feeling in the world that knowing your homework is done. Ergo, getting your homework done (*grits teeth*) is a rule. A rule which I sometimes break. But you didn't hear me say that.

10. Sometimes, you just have to cry. I like thinking of myself as strong, but even I recognize the fact that even that strength is false in some ways. You can either bite the bullet and bawl your brains out every once in a while or you can become like House. And while House is a brilliant diagnostician, he doesn't look too happy to me.

11. "Don't Stop Believin'" should be everybody's theme song to a degree. Why? Because it's made of awesome and it's a classic. Listen to it and then try to tell me that it didn't make you happy.

12. I believe in making the occasional comment while watching a movie, but if you talk constantly, then I will have to bite you. This rule includes watching a movie in my den and in class. *coughs*

13. Err...um....don't do drugs?

14. Grandmothers, especially cool grandmothers like mine, make the world go round.

15. Star Trek will always be cool. End of discussion. There is a Star Trek episode for every situation.

Okay, that's all I have for the moment. I have to lay out an outfit for my Union visit tomorrow. Squee!!!!

Meat

2009-02-17T12:17:00.002-06:00

A friend had this up on his facebook profile. I found it quite amusing, and decided to share it.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

the end

Elderly Me

2009-02-16T20:15:00.003-06:00

I think I'm losing my ability to connect with my piano students. Either they're really stupid, or I'm becoming dated. I have a suspicion that it's a combination of the two.

For example, I had a poster of Michael Jordan in the treasure box that I keep so that kids that have practiced and earned points could go shopping. Imagine my surprise that most of the kids, with the exception of one twelve year old, had no idea who Michael Jordan was. I can understand not being able to recognize his face, but to not even know who he is?

Blasphemy!

I grew up with the legend of the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan's face was constantly being shown on the TV and newspapers. It was the Era of Unbelievably Awesome Basketball. I remember Jordan leaving the NBA to play baseball, and how devastated we all were at this gross deception. I remember my older brother literally crying for joy when Jordan returned from this personal version of purgatory. Ladies and Gentlemen, I grew up in the time that was heavily under the influence of Space Jam, one of the most awesome movies ever created. Not only have I seen it a gagillion times, but I have the music on my ipod. Jordan wasn't the world's greatest actor, but pair him with Bugs Bunny and you have a hit, my friends. Spit shot, anyone?

Then I came up with quite possibly the most brilliant metaphor for dynamics that has ever hit the music scene. (For those of you who don't know, dynamics are the signs for how loud or how soft you play. As I tell my students, imagine dynamite. It's quiet in the beginning, and then boom!) One of my students just wasn't appearing to understand the importance of crescendos and forte and so on and so forth. So I finally told her that music without dynamics was like listening to Ben Stein talk. She didn't know who Ben Stein was. *head hits desk* But she knew about the Dry Eyes commercials, so I was able to explain to her from there that the reason the dude sounded was so funny was because he always talked in a monotone. He never got louder or softer, and there was very little variance in the tone of his voice. We didn't need to play music like Ben Stein. It made sense, she got that little light of understanding in her eyes, and we continued on with our lesson. I used the same metaphor later, and the kid didn't get it. He'd never even heard of the Dry Eyes commercials.

What are they teaching children these days?

More importantly, am I becoming...dated?

....do I care?

....................well......hmmm.........

........................nah. I don't.

A Night to Remember

2009-02-10T11:13:00.003-06:00

Last night was probably one of the least productive nights of my life, which is sad, considering I had a fairly productive day. I went to class, taught three piano lessons, did the laundry, did three hours of Spanish -- I even got about half of this week's Spanish assignments done! I find that I do much better in class if I have a vague clue of what Senorita Tina is talking about. Tuesdays are my busiest days, so I knew that I shouldn't stay up late. So I regretfully got off facebook even though I hadn't gotten to talk to some people, and got ready for bed. The rest of the night went as follows.

11:30 -- Lights out.

12:00 -- I begin to count backwards from 100

12:15 -- I decided that the light shining under the door was what was keeping me awake. No problem! One blanket shoved into the crack, and I was sure I was headed off to Slumberland.

1:00 -- Well, that didn't work. Okay, so what will be sure to make me sleepy? Reading something light might help. I turned on the light and started to read.

1:36 -- The aforementioned plan backfired on me. I'd picked up a short little Christian love novel, knowing that it wouldn't take more than two brain cells to read and that would hopefully lull me to sleep. Wrong! I was so busy mentally editing the author's writing style that I found myself getting riled up instead of relaxing. Honestly, were so many exclamation points necessary? Nobody gets that excited! Nobody writes dialogue like that, moron! And the plot? A joke! It would have been so much more plausible if...

Yeah, I'll stop there. Needless to say that this went on for about another twenty minutes.

2:00 -- The light goes back out.

2:17 -- I begin to play the piano in my head, namely "Clair de Lune." Wish it sounded that nice in reality. This plan went vastly awry when I couldn't remember whether a chord had an E natural or an E flat in it, and it was driving me crazy.

2:23 -- I start translating the minutes into Spanish. And having conversations with myself in Spanish. I wonder if this makes me a bilingual nut job?

3:04 -- I'm really glad that House and Cameron didn't end up together. I mean, I thought originally that they would have made a great couple, but honestly, House was right. Cameron just liked finding broken people and fixing them. She just saw House as a challenge, like he was a lost puppy sitting in the gutter that doesn't seem to realize just how crappy the gutter really is. Cameron and Chase make a much better fit -- they needed each other, but in a balanced sort of way. Cuddy, now that's the girl for House! She won't take any of his crap, and he won't let her be false... Now if only someone sweet could come along for Wilson...

3:29 -- For some reason, I begin to rewrite the lyrics for "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" so that it'll go with washing dishes. It went something like this:

Climb ev'ry sinkload,

Ford every tureen,

Follow every sauce stain,

'til they're nice and clean.

A clean that will take

all the elbow grease you can give

Every day of your chore

find the strength to forgive! (Evan for leaving his cups in his room and now they're all moldy and gross!)

Climb ev'ry crockpot!

Ford ev'ry pan!

Follow ev'ry fork tine!

Till...you...find....your....man!!!!!!!!!

3:55 -- I begin to consider just getting up and writing a paper and starting my day. What else was there to do?

4:12 -- Okay, so I really hope that Elton John sings "Tiny Dancer", "Your Song", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Bennie and the Jets." Oh, and "Candle in the Wind"! Too bad U2 isn't in on this tour...Elton John, Billy Joel and U2...of course, if they were touring together, the stadium probably couldn't contain so much awesomeness. It would fall apart, taking everyone with it. Not so sure that that wouldn't be a good way to go...

4:47 -- I turn on my light and read some more. Oh, the crappy Christian love thingy ends in a wedding. How predictable.

5:06 --The piano theme from "Finding Nemo" continues to run on a never ending loop in my brain. That's what I get for studying my Spanish to my Thomas Newman playlist.

5:14 -- I almost drift off with my head at the foot of my bed, but my dog decides to bark in her sleep. Thanks a whole heap, Iris.

5:28 -- Why do people think counting sheep helps? It doesn't do a darn thing! And all those sheep, just leaping pell mell over fences. They're probably partying all over the place, eating people's lawns, likely as not getting into Grandma's petunias, and thinking that the most convenient place for a human foot to step is the perfect place to take care of business! Where's the shepherd in this scenario, anyway? Where're the sheepdogs that check in and out of the field with a "Mornin', Sam" "Mornin', Ralph" conversation? Who first came up with the whole sheep thing to begin with? What random idiot just thought, Hmm, I think I'll imagine sheep. That's sure to bring on the z's!

6:02 -- I think I'll write my paper on...on....uh... *snores*

Mental note to self: Next time, start with planning out a paper.

Just Whistle While You Work

2009-02-09T10:33:00.002-06:00

I have a deep, hidden shame.

Yes, my friends, it is true. I, Katie Johnson, a reasonably intelligent and talented 21 year old girl, cannot whistle. I can't roll my tongue or cross my eyes either. I can't even lift one eyebrow in a forbidding manner, like my mom can (with great impact, I might add. When I was a kid, all I needed to see was that eyebrow shooting up like a geyser, and it garnered instant obedience. Not that I misbehaved very much in the first place, but you get the idea. All you had to do was look at me sternly and say, "Shame..." and I was a wreck of tears and repentance. Mom looking menacingly at me was far, far worse. I did anything and everything I could to avoid getting the Mom Glare. Well, the glare worked, as did Mom's subtle reach for her purse, where the wooden spoon was concealed from the public eye. But the spoon eventually got broken on Evan, which was fine. The eyebrow thingy was effective enough by itself.).

But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that facial contortions appear to be utterly beyond my capabilities. I can snap my fingers, though! Some people have trouble with that, I've heard. I can also do the Vulcan hand gesture with both hands (I taught myself as a child by putting a Barbie beach ball between my middle and ring fingers) and blow bubbles with my gum. But it is deeply disturbing to me that I remain unable to learn how to whistle. Just purse your lips and blow! It can't be that hard to do, and yet I remain stubbornly incapable to to do anything like a whistle beyond a shrill rushing-of-air noise. It's enough to make me have doubts about my intelligence. And I've always wanted to whistle, too. It seems lovely, being able to take music with you wherever you go. I hum a lot, but it's not the same.

So last night, when I had the most vivid dream about whistling, I vastly enjoyed it. I remember I was outside in the backyard petting Frosty (our old dog) when a bird came over. I suddenly started to whistle Simple Gifts, one of my very favorite songs. Whether the bird was magic and had incredible imparting-of-whistling skilz or I just learned by watching it, I have no idea. All I know is that I could feel it in the dream, feel the changes in notes and the pouring of melodious air from my lips. It was lovely.

Then I woke up and thought in the bleariness of that not-quite-awakeness, "Hmm....wonder if I can do it now?" So I looked around me furtively, making sure that no one was around to watch me making a fool of myself (the only witness to my shame would have been Iris, who was still snoring on my chair) and tried to whistle. And I couldn't. Grrr. All I got was a slightly clearer tone to the whooshing of air, which I suppose was something.

I won't let it defeat me, though. Before I go to my grave, I will learn how to whistle. It seems like such a small thing, I suppose, but dang it, I want to! Whoever said dreams were rational?

Recap

2009-02-08T16:25:00.004-06:00

Okay, so I've obviously been less than faithful about updating the old blog over the last two weeks. My apologies, dear readers. I figured that no one would want to listen to me whine about Spanish and the school situation, so I refrained in the interest of sanity, although whose sanity I was refraining for, I have no idea. It is entirely possible that it was my own or y'all's because you couldn't stand my belly-aching.

So here's a recap of the last two weeks, for all those who may be interested. If you're not interested, tune back in tomorrow for something either sarcastic or....non-sarcastic.

Pros:

-- The weather is currently in the 70's, which is lovely.

-- Thanks to the above lovely situation, I now have a bouquet of daffodils sitting on my dresser. They're my favorite flowers. They introduce cheer and grace to any situation.

-- I received two A's in a row on Spanish tests. This was through the grace of God alone...although, I guess it wasn't alone. I worked my butt off, too. So does that make my butt graceful? Don't answer that.

-- I got paid, which means that I got to go shopping yesterday (two dresses, a pair of pants, three camis and two shirts, all of which were necessary for my continued existence) and that I was able to pay for my Elton John/Billy Joel concert ticket, for which I positively cannot wait. I might faint when Elton John plays "Tiny Dancer."

-- My school might not be dead after all. Ever feel like you're living on a teeter-totter?

--I got to be on TV because of the school thing. Here's the link, since I know you're all dying to see it: http://www.wreg.com/wreg-crichton-college-sold-story,0,6645778.story

Cons:

-- The aforementioned lovely weather makes me nervous. It gives the perfect conditions for the building blocks of a tornado. We like not to jest about twisters here on the edge of Tornado Alley.

-- Who would have guessed it? Spanish! The frustration climaxed in a royal temper tantrum last Thursday after I couldn't tell what classes Julia and Armando were taking from their conversation. Later I realized that they were using words that I hadn't -- wonder of wonders! -- been taught yet! Anyway, my book was told quite politely by me that it should join the rest of its fellows and wander down to the balmy 800 degree temperature of Gehenna. And stay there. Surely Satan wouldn't mind an extended visit? Right? Right?

-- The school situation. Again with the teeter-totter bit. I don't know which end is up at the moment. Must be because some fat kid that sat down so hard on his end that I got catapulted off into space, which would explain the lack of orientation, considering the utter absence of gravity.

Anyway, those are the main happenings of my life over the past few weeks. I have to go cozy back up with my Spanish textbook to study for the test on Tuesday. Hey, didn't I schedule myself to have leprosy on that day? Gee, Senorita Tina, I'm sorry, I can't make it to class today....House and everyone are trying to diagnose me here......

Spaces

2009-01-30T11:08:00.003-06:00

For the past couple of years now, I've been on a never ending search to write a poem or song lyrics that could qualify as abstract. I like abstract pieces, but I've never been able to create one of my own. A few have come close, but never quite there.

So why, then, was I almost asleep last night and something hit me? I'm not sure if it's abstract, but it's on that same path.

Yeah. And so it goes...

Chorus:

One step up this stream

And I will topple off the beam

A few places down from blue is green

Inches are miles, only one step between.

Verse 1:

What’s the difference between a crack and a canyon?

Blue skies are so close to gray

A child gets older day by day

One day a babe, the next day a man.

A clock ticks by minutes, so small yet so great

A frail voice speaks and then screams and sings

How many straws before the back breaks?

A fuse burns quietly until it explodes.

Chorus:

One step up this stream

And I will topple off the beam

A few places down from blue is green

Inches are miles with only one step between.

Verse 2:

A gap between teeth decides beauty and worth

An acorn contains the promise of grandeur

A single short hour holds both death and birth

Only words come between shyness and candor.

So many little things that become more than they are

Inches are miles, only one step between

What will I say, what will I do,

What tiny thing will push you away?

Sins

2009-01-29T17:52:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, God decided to once again show His infinite mercy toward the average college student and granted us a snow day.

Memphis is interesting when it comes to snow. Whenever so much as half an inch falls from the sky, it's as if the entire city, with a wry wink and a knowing smile, decides that it's "dangerous" and everything shuts down. We Memphians don't have a lot of opportunities for snow days, and even if all it is is a light layer of powdered sugar, we all make an excuse out of the whims of nature in order to build pathetic snowmen and have slushy snowball fights. The Canadians up at school look at us scornfully as we talk about "icy streets" and "downed power lines." If they closed the city down every time it snowed, the city would only be operational for about three weeks in July. They don't understand us here, which is all right. I don't understand them. I mean, honestly, socialized medicine? Seriously??? And you guys don't even talk to each other in grocery store lines! What's up with that?

I took God's kindness in a stride and proceeded to commit several of the deadly sins during my snow day. It was lovely. I guess first on the list would be Sloth -- this was committed by my staying in bed almost all day and watching House. Great show, although I wonder sometimes how I would deal with House if he were my boss. Part of me thinks that I'd fold up and go home and curl up in a fetal position to cry every night as I sought to find a happy place within my tear-soaked mind. Another part of me thinks that I'd be super sarcastic and would end up getting in trouble. Goodness knows, though, Cuddy would probably be on my side....maybe.

The next sin on the list: gluttony. And I enjoyed every M&M of it.

Greed: I greedily watched House while ignoring the laundry, and I greedily...um...well, I don't have a lot of greed that comes to mind, but I'm sure it was in my day somewhere.

Wrath: I was wrathful toward my Spanish homework. It had no business being due on Wednesday. Especially on a Wednesday that was also a snow day. It was just plain wrong. Stupid homework! Muy mal!

Envy: I envied Dodger for getting to have this kind of day everyday. He gets to lie in bed and dream about chasing squirrels to his little heart's delight. Goodness knows if he ever caught a squirrel in real life he wouldn't know what to do with it. He caught a chipmunk once and just stared at it like, "Now what? Is this supposed to be interesting or something? No offense, but I that stupid kibble looks more appetizing. Great. I've attained the pinnacle of the suburban dog's hunting prowess, and it was all lies!"

Yeah, I'm going to quit there. I was mostly guilty of Sloth, anyway.

Spanish -- Shmanish

2009-01-26T20:43:00.002-06:00

Any post that I write this evening would probably contain something to do with Spanish. I'm tired of writing about Spanish. I'm tired of thinking about Spanish. I'm tired of translating things into Spanish.

You get the idea.

The other thing I'm thinking about is the Holocaust, and that's more of a poem type subject, so unless I get all literary, there won't be a post this evening.

My apologies.

-- The Mgmt.

To Love and to Cherish Until the Money Runs Out

2009-01-25T11:51:00.004-06:00

I forgot to mention that yesterday's post was my 200th on this blog. Suh-weet!

In any case, I was awoken from an extremely bizarre dream (that was a mix between "Lost" and the Twilight books, oddly enough...I said it was bizarre) by the smell of muffins wafting up from the kitchen directly into my nostrils this memory. In my opinion, there is hardly anything better in the world than getting woken up on a nice cloudy morning by the smell of something hot and scrumptious. Our little foster child, Christina, came down with strep throat last night, so I had decided to stay home from church today so that I could Clorox every available surface in the hopes of keeping anybody else from getting it. This is so not the time to come down with strep, and it's actually pretty dangerous to expose Shelby to it.

So I got up and fixed myself a muffin and sat down on the couch to watch ten minutes of a show while I ate my breakfast. Since CSI, regrettably, wasn't on, I turned to this household's fallback channel: TLC. This channel is the Ultimate of Ultimates in home desire, shopping, and really weird documentaries, usually showing the story of a family with thousands of children or a guy that's half fish. I like the first two and generally steer away from the third. Thankfully, the first option was available for my breakfast viewing pleasure, a show called "Moving Up." The premise centers around what happens to houses when the old family moves out and the new one moves in and redecorates it according to their tastes. The old family is then brought back to their old house and they get to rag on the new owner's shoddy decorating skilz and ultimately work through the five stages of grief. It's not my favorite show -- too many awkward moments, and besides, who gives a care what the old owners think? I totally get the emotional attachment behind a house, but honestly, they chose to move out. It's not their house anymore -- but I was only watching for a few minutes anyway.

I was actually given more food for thought than I would have previously realized. I learned that one of the couples on the show, Rick and Beth, I think, were lottery winners. They had decided to take their winnings and upgrade on their living quarters. A young, single woman named Kira bought their old home to be her first house. Kira, to start out with, struck me very favorably. It could be the fact that I will automatically sympathize with the young, single woman, but she really did seem like a sweetie. She decorated the house herself, came in under budget, and turned the old office into an enormous dressing room, including an elaborate bookcase just for her designer shoes. C'mon, what woman wouldn't love to have a room just for her clothes? And the only time you could get away with something like that was if you were young and single and had a house of your own.

Rick and Beth came in and immediately started burning Kira's design taste. They didn't like the colors, the furniture was stupid, they hated the fireplace, blah blah blah. Kira was watching a recording of their tour of her house, and she was a lot nicer than I would have been. Rick and Beth acted as if her design choices were some kind of character flaw, and Kira just smiled and shrugged her shoulders, obviously realizing that what Rick and Beth said was pointless because the house was hers now. I swear, the most petulant thing Kira said during Rick and Beth's onslaught was when they saw her closet room. Beth made some snide comment, and Kira replied mildly, "It sounds to me like she misses being single."

And you know what? Kira was right. The more I watched the show, the more Beth and Rick's relationship bothered me. They'd won the lottery, right? In today's material obsession, that should have meant instant happiness for them. They were moving to a new house, decorating it to suit their every whim, and from the sound of them, they were about as happy as two jackals with only one bone between them.

Rick was one of those quiet, non-confrontational sorts that pretty much let Beth get away with her spleen, but that's certainly not productive for a relationship in the end. And Beth! She griped, groaned, moaned and complained about every tiny facet of the move. Rick worked himself to the bone, doing much of the renovations on their new glitzy house. All Beth could do was b---- about the fact that they didn't have enough money for a hot tub to go in their backyard along with their patio, flat screen TV (outdoor, mind you), pool, and fireplace.

When they went back to their old house, though, Beth said in every single room how much she missed that house and how much she regretted moving. You could see how much the things she was saying hurt Rick, but he didn't say anything back. Again, not so sure that's a good thing.

But wait a second! I thought winning the lottery was supposed to be instant happiness, right? Right?

Wrong. Duh.

Beth knew that she had been happier back in her older, smaller, and considerably less glitzy house. Why? Because she had worked for it. She had loved it, and had more than money there -- she had memories. When they moved from her old house and focused on spending money as fast as they could -- by the end of the episode they admitted that they were broke -- they lost their connection with what was more important. I honestly don't think that their marriage will last long, and that's so sad. I hope that they'll learn to communicate, that they'll refocus on what's important, but that's hard to do when you don't have the Holy Spirit knocking you over with a two-by-four.

It just made me think about two things, one of which being my sister and her boyfriend. If I had one word for the way Jordan treats Shelby, I would use cherish. Jordan doesn't just love her, he cherishes her. As long as he had Shelby and something resembling walls and a roof over his head and a piano, Jordan would be just fine. Shelby could wear a burlap sack, and Jordan would tell her that she was stunning. I have a feeling that they'll still be making goo-goo eyes at each other when they're a hundred years old and can't remember their own names. But they'll always remember each other's names. Their relationship hasn't been a bed of roses the whole way, but I don't have any fears for them. Their relationship isn't built on money or attractiveness or something else that's stupid alone. It's built on love, trust, and a willingness to forgive. I wouldn't be worried if they won the lottery.

It also made me think of Crichton. What I wouldn't give to go back to the ratty tables and rented building and regain that pure beauty of education.

I suppose I'm rambling now. It was just a lot to think about.

Heart Attack

2009-01-24T18:03:00.003-06:00

Today appears to be made up of three things and three things only: Spanish, basketball, and online shopping. I cry "Boo!" to the first and "Right on!" to the latter two. However, such a semi-quiet day has not lacked in excitement!

Since I finally had my Spanish textbook, I had about two weeks of work to catch up on. I started at noon, and worked straight through until three, and I still wasn't done. At this point, I was ready to chuck my textbook out the window, laughing and crying "Hasta luego!" as it went flying gloriously to the ground below. I'm having a little trouble with remembering the grammar of it all, the typical "he is, she is, they are" type crap. I probably just need to make myself some flash cards, although the thought is somewhat degrading. In any case, the old math textbook that I'm starting to review for the GRE was actually starting to look 1/1,000,000th less puke-worthy, and that's saying something coming from the enormous math-phobe that I shamelessly confess myself to be.

So, I did what any sensible female would do in my place, obviously, which was to go shopping. That was happiness. Even better when the shopping can be done from the comfort of one's own bed. Let's just say that Target's online store ain't hurtin' for dough this evening. Probably half of what I ordered will have to be returned, but I enjoyed myself.

After the damage had been done, I went down to watch the second half of the Memphis/Tennessee game with Mom and Evan. For those of you who don't know, the rivalry between the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee can be politely referred to by such kind adjectives as vicious and blood-sucking. The hatred between blue and orange is hereditary and degenerative. There is nothing a dedicated Tigers or Vols fan loves more than watching the other side get put down, hopefully with a good helping of steaming hot humiliation piled on top. The last time these teams played and Memphis lost, a Vols fan threw a beer can at Joey Dorsey on his way out. If I remember correctly, dang near the entire stadium went to blows.

FYI, Dorsey is so not the Tiger I would have chosen to throw something at. The reason? Here you go:

Can you picture anything less warm and fuzzy existing outside of Hell itself? He was my favorite player. The guy was a friggin' tank.

The point being, the competition today was fierce. Numerous brawls nearly erupted from the court, and the refs were being pretty stupid. There was one blatant move on Chism's part that should have resulted in a T. Chism acted like a great big baby, made me want to offer him a pacifier if only to shut his whining. Never mind, Taggart got him back later with a body check. Resulted in a foul to U of M, but it made us all feel better.

The game was pretty tense, especially when we got below the minute time mark and things were still close. UT was only one point behind us, and if they scored, we were officially in the crapper. The coaches were using timeouts left and right, and Calipari was teaching me some new curse words that he shouted so emphatically that I was able to read his lips.

It actually got down to one second. At this point, I was crouched on the sofa peeking through my fingers and Mom was praying aloud to every saint she's never heard of and Evan was speaking in what could only have been tongues. Odd, how a basketball game can become such a spiritual experience. But it all turned out well. We held UT off and won, effectively spanking them in their own stadium. It was a very nice moment, and Mom promptly went outside to the front step to do her obnoxious, yet embarrassingly satisfying, victory dance and screech. I'm sure her, "Go Tigers! Woooo!" thoroughly endeared her to our LSU loving neighbors.

The phone rang then, and I saw that it was my grandmother's number. She was obviously calling to exult over the game. I picked up and started gushing about how great a game it had been when I heard NanNan saying incoherently, "I need someone to take me to the emergency room...heart attack..." Her voice was kind of fading in and out, and I promptly felt panic take me over. I thought I'd heard her say "Don" in there, which is my grandfather's name. Mom saw my eyeballs turn into UFOs and started to flip out at the words "emergency room" and "heart attack", when I heard NanNan finish a few seconds too late, "...because it was such a great game!"

I proceed to hyperventilate and gasp out, "Never....never.....ever.....ever say something like that to me again...."

Mom mercifully took the phone from me so that I could calmly pass out.

Ahem. Good games hath unexpected repercussions, I suppose...

Another Crisis Averted

2009-01-23T10:40:00.003-06:00

The powers of the universe, sensing the steady decline into madness that was occurring yesterday in my soul, sent a series of interventions that worked to my benefit. It appears that God, in His infinite and unknowable mercy, doesn't want me to be mad. This goes along with the assumption that I've already come to, namely, that He doesn't want me dead, that there must be a divine plan for my life, or I would have died in a car accident long ago. (Memphis drivers....ugh.)

After having spent a good portion of the morning on my letter to the editor, I taught a few piano lessons and headed out to school, bitterly aware of the fact that my Spanish textbook still wasn't in. If I didn't get that textbook soon, as in at that very moment, I was going to be in muchos problemas with Senorita Tina. Y'all know me. You know that I, Katie, aka SuperNerd, hate not having my work done in a timely manner. I live in a never ending search to make my professors proud, and Senorita Tina doesn't know me from Adam. First impressions last a lifetime, my friends, and I was making a first impression as a flaky, airhead of a junior. This does not a happy Katie make.

When I got to class (my favorite of the semester: History of Film! Squee!), I was not in a particularly good mood, although it was lifted some by how beautiful it was outside. Sixty degrees and blue skies! Doesn't get much better than that, even if it is January and supposed to be dreary and cold. If it had been any other class (in other words, a class which obviously requires electronic devices), I would have begged the professor to move the class outdoors. So I walk into class, expecting to have a good class but be unable to concentrate, due to trying to salvage my scholastic future from the dump.

Dr. Jenkins revealed his professorial rock star status once more.

What did he do, you ask? He brought in movies!

The movies were relevant to the class material, of course. We've been studying the beginnings of films, silent pictures and stuff. So the first film we watched in class was a documentary that started with the Golden Age of silent film and progressed through Griffith's Birth of a Nation. The documentary was absolutely fascinating, with interviews with actual directors, cameramen, and actors and actresses of the time.

It also contained bits of trivia about certain movies. We watched bits of one hysterical early Laurel and Hardy film in which they're absolutely tearing a house apart. The commentary said that the house was owned by a member of the film studio. The studio sent the man and his wife on vacation for a month with the guarantee that by the time they returned, their house would be returned to normal. When the production crew arrived at the house, though, they found that their key didn't work. Unperturbed, they merely broke down the door and got down to business. The characters subsequently busted windows, chopped down trees and bushes, and played baseball with vases from inside the house. Imagine their surprise, therefore, when a car pulled up and the man and woman inside, at the sight of the damage, promptly fainted. The production crew was at the wrong house!

I think my favorite silent actress is Lillian Gish. She was so well spoken in the documentary, and her acting was superb. She told so much of the story with her eyes and hands -- amazing. It kind of makes you take a second look at the actors of today. I certainly don't think that Keira Knightley could do the kind of acting that Lillian Gish did. I also like the fact that Lillian Gish hasn't compromised her views over the years. She hates what sound did to the movies, and had very good reasons as to why she hated it. She said it detracted away from the Art of film, that film and music were perfectly married, and that introducing words destroyed that union. Right or wrong, she's still saying the same things she likely said in the early part of the century, and you have to respect her for that. She hasn't cheapened her opinions.

Incidentally, I had no idea that Birth of a Nation was such a big deal. I wonder what Griffith thought about the fact that his movie masterpiece almost single-handedly rejuvenated the Ku Klux Klan? It kind of makes you hesitant as an artist -- who knows what kind of reaction your creation might evoke? I'm sure Upton Sinclair would say the same thing. He wrote a novel expecting to promote his form of art and ended up revolutionizing the sanitary conditions of our country. Disappointing to a degree, but no doubt necessary.

Anyway, the documentary took up most of our class time, but we spent the last ten minutes watching a shorter Griffith film, The Girl and Her Trust. It was the typical damsel in distress type film, but it was great. I've never watched much silent film, but I was fascinated with it. Isn't it marvelous that a lost art like that can still evoke such strong emotions? While I was irritated with the screaming, helpless heroine (just jump off the stupid handcart already, you feeb!), I still cheered the hero on in his quest to save her from the tramps. What does that say? It says that Griffith was marvelous. Racist, perhaps, but marvelous.

In any case, the movies preserved my sanity for a while. The attempt to keep from being fitted for a coat that would allow me to hug myself all the time was further helped by Mom showing up at the school and buying me a Spanish textbook from the bookstore since it appears that the one we ordered will never arrive. Gracias, Dios y Mama!

I drove home from school, and even put the windows down once I got off the interstate, and didn't care about the strange looks I got when people caught me singing, loudly, to "Can I Have This Dance?" and "Benny and the Jets." It was sheer joy.

Then I taught a piano lesson, for which the student was ten minutes late, hadn't practiced, and his father came in and talked for fifteen minutes. Grr. But then, wonder of wonders, Mom revealed the menu of the evening: homemade fried chicken strips, corn, fruit cocktail, biscuits, and bread pudding.

Bliss.

Another crisis has been averted, Batman! I will retain my sanity, thanks to small blessings! I love my life. Really, even when it gets hairy, it's still beautiful. Sometimes you just have to shave it a bit to reveal the beauty.

Dear Crichton Dos...

2009-01-22T22:34:00.002-06:00

My fabulous sister Shelby wrote a letter to the editor, too. It's far more intellectual than mine; I thought it was quite splendid. Here you go!

To the City of Memphis:

At my first philosophy class, my professor introduced Aristotle’s concept of teleology by placing his sneaker against the open door and asking the class, “Is this still a sneaker or is it now a doorstop?”

Given the events that have happened at Crichton the last few years, I feel we must ask the same question. Is the college still a college? Although the answer to that question is eminently clear now, one might also ask, when did it cease to be a college? Yesterday when the announcement to close the day program was made? Or even earlier than that?

It is my belief that Crichton ceased to be a real college years ago. According to Aristotle, when an institution ceases to fulfill its rightful purpose, then it ceases to work properly as an institution. It is imperfect.

In the end, we must ask, “When did Crichton cease to be a college?” Was it when the Big-Brother inspired administration fired the Dean of School of Arts and Sciences (the same philosophy professor who introduced me to Aristotle) for speaking out against the college’s esteemed president two years ago? Was it when the student-run newspaper was cancelled because the students criticized the school’s policies three years ago? Was it when those same students were told that the newspaper was cut for “financial reasons,” although it only cost printing materials? Was it when a few students were told by the school’s “Spiritual Life Advisor” that they were “Pharisees” for desiring Chapel services that went beyond the edification level of a kindergarten Sunday school class? Or did the college cease to be a college even sooner than that?

The purpose of a college is to educate and broaden the minds of its students’ by the presentation of the ideas and institutions that have made human civilization. Perhaps I should have put the matter more clearly. The purpose of a college is to educate. It is not to curtail the rights of free speech. It is not to show intolerance towards other viewpoints. It is to educate.

Outside of a few professors who held tight to their Christian vision of the school as a school of Christian education, Crichton ceased to educate long ago.

It ceased to be a college.

Sincerely,

Shelby Johnson

A Junior at Crichton

PS. If the matter is unclear, then the college certainly ceased to be a college when it announced yesterday that it would not honor any of its student’s academic scholarships after this semester. Does anyone know a good lawyer?

Mad Woman

2009-01-22T13:40:00.004-06:00

I think I'm just mad today, in the slow steam coming out of my ears way, rather than the lightning striking way. It's a quiet, burning in the embers kind of anger.

I pride myself on having sarcastic and charming and witty updates on my blog, but that side of me isn't revealing itself at the moment. So maybe if I say what I'm mad about, my normal cheeriness will be restored. I'm all for a little catharsis.

1.) I'm mad that my darn Spanish textbook isn't here yet.

2.) I'm mad that my school is closing. This branches out into many other small facets of anger that make up the ugly whole of my madness, namely:

-- I'm mad that I might not get my scholarship.

-- I'm mad that my professors are being canned.

-- I'm mad at the fact that while I really, really, really want to go to Union, I don't exactly have twenty thousand dollars laying around.

-- I'm mad that I might end up at U of M trying to take college algebra, which is like an invitation to failure for me, during my senior year.

-- I'm mad that I'm probably never going to see some of my friends again after this semester.

-- I'm mad at the administration people for being general all around wastes of skin. Just offer yourself up as living skin grafts for burn victims and call it good, why don't you?

-- I'm mad that I'm once again fighting off a bit of resentment toward my dad for being a selfish jerk and leaving us all to do things ourselves, and then I'm mad at myself for feeling that way, because I actually don't mind doing things myself and I know it's better for me in the long run. So, I guess I'm mad that my usual contentment with my lot is so easily disturbed.

-- I'm mad that God can't put up a billboard or burning bush or a plane dragging a banner or a still small voice or something to let me in on His plan so that I can do what He wants me to, and then I'm mad because I know that He does this because He trusts me, and that I have to live up to that.

-- I'm mad that this post now contains several run-on sentences.

3.) I'm mad that some of my piano students flaked out on me, causing me to lose around ninety dollars this month just because they couldn't get off their butts and get to my house for a stinking thirty minute lesson.

4.) I'm mad that I've done all the laundry for today. Now there's nothing left for me to angry wash.

5.) I'm mad that I've let myself get this mad.

I'm stopping now. Hopefully things will look better in a few hours.

Dear Crichton...

2009-01-21T19:43:00.004-06:00

So today was...ahem....interesting.

All was well in my world, initially. I was getting ready to head out to school when I noticed my friend Scribbles' status on facebook, saying that she was looking for a school to which she could transfer. I was immediately concerned and wrote her, asking if everything was okay. I thought maybe there was an illness in the family or financial difficulties in her life, and I wanted to see if I could help somehow.

Imagine my surprise when she informs me that my school is closing after this semester.

Yes, you read that correctly. Closing.

The day program is finite, vamoose, gone beyond recall. It was decided on Monday, the faculty and staff was informed last night, and it was announced at chapel this morning to the students, with the students being told that all scholarships would not be honored after this semester.

Need I remind you folks that I'm a second semester junior? Need I remind you that most schools do not accept senior transfers? And need I further remind you that the Powers or Dolts That Be decided to announce all this three days after the add/drop period for the U of M?

Katie was not a happy camper. That's probably the biggest understatement to have yet been uttered since the day that somebody said that Goliath was largely misunderstood; in actuality, he was a warm and fuzzy chap that slept with teddy bears and drank pina coladas with his lunches of brie and caviar and spent his weekends helping old ladies cross the street without getting mauled by all the other brutish Philistines.

So anyway, I've composed a letter, by which I mean that I'm writing it off the top of my head, of what I would say to the Board and our venerable and nasty excuse for a president if I had the chance.

Dear Crichton Board, President, and all those that it may concern,

First of all, I would like to thank you for the three years I've had at Crichton College. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Crichton was the best place for me to be, where God wanted me to be. I am not remotely the same person I was when I first came to Crichton, and while not all of my experiences there have been positive, they have all worked to make me into a better person and a better Christian. The professors are absolutely the best in the business, bar none. I cannot praise them enough. They are more than my mentors -- they're my friends.

That being said, I'm very, very, justifiably angry at the events that occurred today for several reasons. It puts me into a bad situation, personally. You didn't give me enough warning to transfer to another school, and most schools don't accept senior transfers. Where does that leave me? In the toilet, my friends. I'm either stuck hoping that the University of Memphis or Union lets me in, or that I can somehow finish out my degree with night courses at the shell of what Crichton used to be. Yes, spending my last year of college at a ghost ship with all my professors gone is exactly the kind of experience I need.

But as much as I hate what you've done to me, I hate even more what you've done to my school. It was such a special place, and now it's gone forever. Crichton used to be a haven of learning, of friendship, and even, God forbid, true diversity. This diversity was the kind that wasn't forced, but was natural and easy because you honestly didn't care about the color of peoples' skin so long as they were lovers of knowledge. It was when you started questioning that easy friendship that the racial tension broke out like a poison ivy rash. I had never in my life experienced prejudice until my sophomore year of college, and I'm white. I was judged on sight because of what I am, for things that I didn't do. How is that fair? How is that any different from the segregation of the 1960's? It isn't; you just inflamed racial tensions until you couldn't see what you were doing to your students. Instead of building them up and teaching them of higher things, you tore them down. You failed us all.

That's only one issue.

Why, may I ask, if the school was in such bad financial straits, were four new flat screen TVs and a new Foosball table put in the student center, rather than, I don't know, fixing the stupid leaking roof? As my friend Aubrey said, it was like offering a cancer patient a face lift.

Why were foreign athletes brought in at huge cost to the school, to a liberal arts school, and the Honors program allowed to die? What did we need with a huge athletic program? It's not like we were going to play during March Madness. When, of course, said athletes failed out in two semesters anyway, despite the required, unpaid hours of tutoring that the Honors students were forced to give them. Why were good professors dismissed and replaced with substandard and racist adjuncts?

These problems didn't happen all at once. They've been allowed to build and fester for several years now, and have gone largely unchecked. I believe that the downhill tumble started when the school stopped being a school and became a badly organized, financially unsound mission. Your focus became the inner city of Memphis rather than maintaining the highest standards of education that had previously been your ideal.

And my favorite part of this whole Carthage-esque disaster, salt sewn in the fields and all, is that we tried to tell you. I took every survey that ever came through my email account, and I told you my concerns. But you didn't trust us, or simply didn't take the time to listen to us. The school's administration acted like the students were a problem, rather than the reason that we were there in the first place. I never felt like my complaints and comments were addressed in a respectful manner by anyone other than the professors. We were just flies in the daily ointment, a nuisance instead of an individual seeking self-improvement. As an example of this treatment of the students, I guess I can refer to the financial aid office as a symbol of all that was wrong. The financial aid office was affectionately referred to as "Hell" by many of us, due to its disorganized nature and its tendency to cause students to slip into its depths, never to see the light of day again. We tried to tell you in every way possible, but we were not heard. We were ignored, and I have no qualms in saying I told you so now.

Shame on you.

Shame on you for forcing us into this position.

Shame on you for taking all the joy out of my senior year.

Shame on you for sending countless people into financial difficulty because they won't have jobs.

Shame on you for not listening to your students and to God, and for losing sight of the mission statement of our school.

Shame on you for taking away something I love because you couldn't be responsible with what you had been given.

Shame.

Signed,

Kaitlin Johnson

Two Sides of a Coin

2009-01-21T10:18:00.007-06:00

Okay, this is from one of my favorite books and comedians, Dave Barry. I was talking to a friend of mine, and this routine popped into my head, and it was too good to not share. I'll put something up of my own musing later today. Until then, have fun laughing over this! That's the great part of comedy -- it's based essentially on truth. Hence the hysterical irony of it!

Dave Barry's Guide to Guys!

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: ''Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?''

And then there is silence in the car.

To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let's see . . ...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they'd better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of myself-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their ...

''Roger,'' Elaine says aloud.''What?'' says Roger, startled.

''Please don't torture yourself like this,'' she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. ''Maybe I should never have . . Oh God, I feel so ...'' (She breaks down, sobbing.)

''What?'' says Roger.

''I'm such a fool,'' Elaine sobs. ''I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse.'''

'There's no horse?'' says Roger.

''You think I'm a fool, don't you?'' Elaine says.

''No!'' says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

''It's just that . . . It's that I . . . I need some time,'' Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) "Yes,'' he says.

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)''Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?'' she says.

''What way?'' says Roger.

''That way about time,'' says Elaine.

''Oh,'' says Roger. ''Yes.'' (Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse.

(At last she speaks.)

''Thank you, Roger,'' she says.

''Thank you,'' says Roger.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: ''Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?''

Dave Barry's Guide to Guys

Reverse Psychology

2009-01-20T12:19:00.003-06:00

At eight o'clock this morning, my highly excitable sister burst into my room, scaring me to death and waking me up from a dream involving Angel. I was highly perturbed with her, until she screeched something like, "Look outside!" This kind of thing doesn't happen in this household unless there's a very good reason, and said very good reason is always one thing:

Snow.

I yanked over my curtain, and low and behold, the snow was falling thickly. The flakes were absolutely enormous, and were no doubt of mint flavoring, hopefully with some dark chocolate thrown in there. I pulled up the window shade, snuggled back into my 800 thread count Egyptian cotton brown comforter (life is too short to sleep on a tarp, that's my philosophy) and proceeded to spend the next half hour watching it come down.

I'd seen on the weather forecast yesterday that they were calling for flurries, but I didn't actually believe it was going to happen. I'm starting to think that God is a God of reverse psychology. Every other time the weather people have called for snow, I've prayed fervently, and nearly hourly, that said blizzard would come to pass. I go to sleep anxiously, and wake up and push back my curtains, only to be disappointed by brown barrenness. It would figure that the snow would come on the one time I didn't pray for it, didn't expect it, and wasn't eagerly awaiting its arrival! What's up with that? Maybe that same formula will work in other areas of my life. "Please, God, let me fail this test....I really want to fail this test...."

Of Towels and Vampires

2009-01-19T16:40:00.004-06:00

If I were to choose a way to die, death by static electricity is only two rungs higher than being pecked to death by a baby ostrich. Or drowned in chocolate pudding...no, wait. That's a good way to die.

Mom bought a bunch of new towels since our green ones are old and raggedy and stringy, so I washed them last night and set about folding this morning. (After, of course, I took great delight in throwing away the old green ones that were in the pile to be washed. Why wash something that's destined for the dump? Besides, saves me some work, and why save something for tomorrow what you can get someone else to do for you today?) New towels, apparently, are pissed about being new and being washed and sent through a hot dryer, so they suppress a little bit of their own brand of vengeance. The first time I got shocked, I thought nothing of it. The electricity was slowly heightened, though, and progressively going up on the pain meter. By the time I was done, my hair was sticking out. Yee, cute. Shelby eventually took pity on me and came to help me, but I felt very slightly as if I were shoving a well meaning pagan into the arena so that I, the Christian, might go free.

Aubrey came over to work on Spanish with me on Saturday night (after we saw Defiance. My advice? Go see it. End of discussion) and by the time we were done, we hyper and loopy. So what did we choose to do to amuse ourselves? Oh, yeah. We starting watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I know you're laughing. So was I. Despite the fact that the show was created by Joss Whedon, (which probably saved it from being downright laughable instead of merely Elmo-esque silly) the acting of Sarah Michelle Geller was laughing and the creatures were goofy. You've gotta wonder after a while why nobody noticed that the students of Sunnydale High School (*snickers madly*) are dropping like flies with virtually no explanation. Not to mention the principal that got, I don't know, EATEN. Although Armin Shimmerman playing the replacement principal is hysterical. Hello, fascist Quark!

I've heard that the show gets better after the third season, but I really have no interest in watching it after the third season. Why? The reason I'm watching the first season of all would be gone. Here's my reason for watching it:

David Boreanaz.

The almost ultimate in hotness, only bested by Jensen Ackles and possibly Daniel Craig. Although I must admit, he has Robert Pattinson beat hands down for the whole vampire with a tortured conscience thing. I'm only watching the season for him. If the episode doesn't have Angel, a good episode it is not. Oh, and I won't be watching the second season either, when Angel predictably loses his soul and becomes a soul sucking fiend with the rest of his barbecue fork-ed teeth buddies. So I'll laugh my way through the first season and call it quits.

Farewell, my friends! I'll be in my room, avoiding my Spanish homework. Toodles!

The Ants Go Marching One by One, Hurrah! Hurrah!

2009-01-16T14:51:00.004-06:00

It's been quite some time since I've had a "random things I'm thinking about" post, so here you go, ye gods.

I think I've become shameless. Ever since I've become aware of my womanly powers of manipulation, they keep popping up on me unannounced and totally applicable in a myriad of situations. It happened again today while I was teaching a piano lesson! It was one of my favorite students, Jake. Jake is by no means my most talented student, but he has shown a lot of improvement over the past year. He's fun to work with and he has a great sense of humor. His only faults are 1.) practicing in fits and spurts and 2.) crying at the drop of the hat. I swear, I've made this kid cry no less than five times, and I've never so much as looked cross-eyed at him. I feel like Attila the Hun. Teaching him is kind of like dancing -- it's tons of fun, but there's always the possibility of stepping on your partner's feet or falling over backwards.

Anyway, it was quite obvious that he hadn't practiced much, if at all, this week. I love how kids think we can't tell and say, "Oh, I think I'm going to get this song marked off this week!" and by the time they're done playing it I'm going, "Um, sweetheart, you didn't practice at all this week, did you?" and they act all crestfallen and surprised. Sheesh, guys, I've been teaching lessons since I was fifteen. I'm not stupid.

To continue with the story, Jake limped painfully through his songs, I managed to reprimand him without evoking any tears (phew!) and then Inspiration Struck. I reached into my cabinet of extra music, and I saw his eyes get huge. There, in my hand, was a book of Star Wars music. Capturing his gaze in my own I said, "For every song you get marked off, you get to learn another line of Star Wars. Capisce?" He capisced and acted like it was the greatest thing ever. I should have remembered that book ages ago. Nothing speaks to the male race, even young members of the male race, like Star Wars. Betcha he comes back next week with four songs ready to get marked off. Muahahaha, I'm good!

Courtney and I decided today that French toast is among the seven unnatural wonders of the world. I was trying to think of the other six today as I drove/froze solid and slid on my own icy butt to the bank. I came up with the following items:

1.) Lavender scented laundry detergents and softeners. Lavender is my favorite scent, and doing the laundry can be quite relaxing when you've got that lovely purple bottle standing near. Not to mention the fact that it makes me feel mildly evil whenever I pull Evan's clothes and sheets from the dryer all nice and clean and smelling sweetly of lavender and vanilla.

2.) Amusement parks, more specially Cedar Point and Disney World. I am fearless in nothing but roller coasters. Best adrenaline rush in the world.

3.) Converse sneakers.

4.) Caro syrup. I'm one of the maybe four people on the planet that loathes maple syrup. Caro is a godsend of the corn category.

5.) Fred Astaire. Don't think he's an unnatural wonder? Let's see you dance with drumsticks and go crazy on roller skates and woo Audrey Hepburn and see how long it is before you have wood burn across your butt cheeks from constantly falling over yourself.

6.) All technology that allows me to watch TV and movies. I'd kiss your motherboards or whatever if I weren't afraid of electrocuting myself. This is me we're talking about. It could totally happen.

It took me forever to decide the fate of a good steak when it came to being a wonder. A good steak is quite obviously a little piece of heaven here on earth, but can it be considered unnatural? No, because God in his infinite and omniscient mercy put the cow on earth knowing that it would soon lead to the steakhouse, so I suppose a steak must be a natural unnatural wonder. God put the cow in the meadow, we put the steak on the plate with a good bottle of A-1 close by. It was a joint effort, although I'm sure the humans' bit of the miracle was divinely inspired.

It is unbelievably frigid outside today. I'm sitting in a heated house with shoes and socks on....why, if I may ask a question of the universe, are my feet still giant frozen fish sticks??? I went to the bank today, as I mentioned before, and every single person that I saw was, without fail, wearing a hoody. It made me smile. Gotta love the climate's idea of universalism.

Big news! Elton John and Billy Joel's Face 2 Face tour is coming to Nashville in May! I'm so going! Knowing my luck it'll be exam week, but I don't care. I'll do something unheard of and actually work ahead. It's not like these guys are getting any younger. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I'm going to get off now and go thaw out my feet. Too bad they don't make hoodys for the digits!

To the Makers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2009-01-15T21:40:00.005-06:00

I, the undersigned, being of somewhat sound mind and body, less an extremely sore throat, would like to issue you this formal apology for my gross insults and downright slanderous words.

You see, when the episode started tonight, you had us all riled up with those benighted, "Farewell, Grissom..." prompts that kept coming on and making me run to the bathroom so that I could blow my nose from emotion. I've been a long-time, dedicated fan of this series. I brought in my entire family into the CSI fandom. I've read CSI fanfiction, read the characters' bios on wikipedia, downloaded the "addicted to CSI" application on facebook to my profile, bought music from the show, ect. Those people, as pitiful as it sounds, are like my family. In a twisted sort of way, I suppose, I have a relationship with them. And when you remove three main characters in two short seasons, it's a little...bewildering. You're not sure what's going on, and you don't know if you can bear any more loses. It's almost made me give up on the show, and that's saying something. So when I tell you that I was very perturbed over the news of Grissom's retirement from the LVPD crime lab, perhaps you'll get the gist of what I'm saying.

The show this evening was all right for the first fifty minutes, if a little unevenly balanced. They kept having these sweet sappy moments when different characters would tell Grissom what he's meant to them (causing my sister and I to perform the inevitable and very descriptive "awwww...."), which would be immediately followed by scenes of the kidnap victim that they're trying desperately to save from a sadistic serial killer who's intent on torturing and killing her.

Can I just say, dear gentlemen of CBS and friends, that I loathe torture scenes? I saw the episode "Pirates of the Third Reich" and subsequently had nightmares for two straight weeks. They bother me on a very deep level. Like, I didn't even appreciate the eye gouging scene in Ian Holm's King Lear. Dr. Jenkins is giggling and pointing at it and I'm thinking, "Please God, don't let me vomit..." So, obviously, the torture scenes in tonight's episode went largely unappreciated for their artistic merit in this household. Whenever one would come on, I'd disappear into the kitchen while Shelby muted the TV and shouted a running commentary on what was happening. I just couldn't face it. There's just something about seeing people that are so twisted and wondering how they got that way, or if those same seeds of madness rest in everyone or if it's just random ... and if it is random, why are they like that and not me? It boggles the mind. But that's another story for another day.

As the episode progressed, I found myself becoming fond of Laurence Fishbourne's character, which I had absolutely no intention of doing, but which the producers, director, and Laurence made me do anyway. Drat them all. Why can't they just let me be mad in peace? But Dr. Langston was a genuine individual, a character with depth. He had a quiet spirit which I found very appealing, and there were lots of unanswered questions about his past. For instance, what was with that strange moment with his wedding ring? My guess is widower.

But I digress yet again.

The point is, I became reconciled with Grissom's leaving. Reconciled and happy are two separate things, though. There was still the unfinished story: his romance with Sara, which they'd spent seven seasons developing. I wanted a happy ending for GSR, and I was not going to be a happy camper if I didn't get it. Look, folks, I'm an English major. I'm well aware that happy endings are hardly ever realistic, probable, or even necessary for great literature. However, CSI is most certainly not great literature. I'd like my happy ending please, thanks very much, love, kisses, bye.

Therefore, the show has progressed. The sappy moments are over, Grissom is walking down a hallway. Shelby and I are getting anxious. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, leaning on the stool. The screen goes to a white-out, as if it's about to go to the credits. Shelby screams and I proceed to question the validity of the parentage of every person that works on the show (*coughs* with one word... *coughs*). The next shot shows Grissom in Costa Rica which, as every dedicated fan knows, is Sara's last known location. I begin a mantra under my breath, something to the effect of, "Oh, please, oh, please, oh, God, please let him to go Sara...." Shelby isn't much better.

Grissom stops to admire a bug, adding irony to his earlier statement that "bugs are everywhere." Squish it under your shoe, Grissom, and go find the bloody woman, dang it!

I am now kneeling on the floor with my arms on the stool. The mantra is much louder, and Shelby has joined it with me.

Grissom breaks through the trees, and the camera makes a huge, massively irritating circle. Shelby and I are standing and screaming the Buddhist-esque mantra. The camera stops...and we see the back of a brunette woman.

I begin to scream unintelligibly.

Grissom drops his backpacks. Sara turns, for it is indeed Sara, and a huge smile spreads across her face. She runs to him....he runs to her....I scream some more...and he lays a big, fat, wet one on her that I really didn't even see because I was so busy jumping up and down with Shelby.

Evan ran down the stairs to make sure we weren't being murdered (saying something as he came down to the effect of, "What in the name of Grissom's balls is going on down here?), then scurried back up to his room. He looked as if he thought our hysteria might be catching.

We didn't care.

Anyway, CSI people, I'm sorry for questioning your legal status at birth. I'm sorry for being irritated, and for screaming so loudly that I'm sure the neighbors thought a jet plane must have been going overhead. I think I need a cup of hot tea...

Thank you so, so, so, SO much for ending Grissom's run like that. It's what we, the fans, needed to have happen, especially after Warrick's death. And Conrad, the new undersherrif? Seriously? I mean, I like him better than I used to, but sheesh, he's such a little weasel....

Bring on Dr. Langston -- I'm interested to see where it goes!

Your loyal fan,

Katie

But Wait! There's More!

2009-01-15T10:18:00.003-06:00

A good and dear friend to this honored blog, a personage known throughout the infinite realms of the blogosphere as "Scribbles" has read the past few posts and has issued a request. After having read "Back to School -- whoopee" and "Hey, ho, to the washer I go," Scribbles has expressed her admiration for my small army of backpack dwarfs and wishes to have some to call her own.

Well, that request has spawned a whole line of personal care magical creatures! Don't forget that these products are available exclusively from Out of the Ashes, Inc. Don't expect to see them in stores!

Thanks to our new and convenient catalogue, you can get one or more of the following exciting products:

The Original Backpack Dwarf: Between six and ten inches of height, these delightful, yet slightly sullen, little helpers are worth their weight in gold! Simply slip them into the backpack or suitcase of your choice, and they'll go to work with a will! They'll toss the old gum wrappers, straighten your binder, and show you a lot of love in between the heckling.

The Miniature Backpack Dwarf: Perfect for purses or those stylish evening clutches! But be careful -- their small three inches of height can make them easily lost between your wallet and compact. Despite their size*, they pack quite a punch, and will make sure that you never lose a napkin with some hot guy's number on it again! They make a perfect Christmas or birthday gift for the special girl in your life.

*Senior purchasers beware: The Miniature Backpack Dwarf has a very high voice due to its highly convenient small stature. It is liable to set off your hearing aids. Out of the Ashes, Inc. is not responsible for any damages this might cause.

Dust Gremlins: Let these babies loose in a dusty room and come back in an hour to sparkling clean perfection! These magical beings eat the dust that clogs your sinuses and vents, so they're both productive and good for the environment! Coming in packs of ten, fifteen, and ten thousand for our more wealthy patrons, you're always sure to find the perfect size for you and your family.

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Disclaimer: Hermione with magic stunning spell not included. Available for purchase separately.

Ballistic Bathroom Kraken: Not nearly as scary as it sounds! After you've taken your shower or bath in the morning, uncork the bottle and let this fear of the wide blue yonder out to do its worst...with soap scum and mildew! Its powerful limbs are covered with super suckers and sponges that squeegee your bathroom to a whole new definition of clean. No germ is a match for the Ballistic Bathroom Kraken! Be the envy of all your friends with this little beastie, and show the shower head what's what. It'll never make fun of your singing again!

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Lavender scented Aerial Ariels: coming soon!

Please leave your orders under the comment box, and they will be filled as fast as our alien handlers can get them boxed. Please indicate after your order whether you would prefer light speed, airplane, or snail back for your preferred shipping method.

Katie, Kati, let's call the whole thing off....

2009-01-14T15:24:00.003-06:00

My head is still whirling from last night.

First off, most of y'all are very aware of the fact that calling me a night person is a gross understatement; it would, in fact, be far more correct to say that the ground is made up of crumbled oreos and the sun is liquid Gatorade. After about eight o'clock, I'm completely useless to the human race as a whole. Like a giant wet noodle named Katie. Or Kati, as my name is apparently used by those who can speak Spanish. Yeah.

So imagine my panic when I walk into my Spanish class and see this middle aged woman talking ninety to nothing in what I assumed to be Spanish (she could have been talking in Swahili for all I knew) and gesturing wildly at us, her bewildered pupils. When Aubrey leaned over and started to translate for me, the teacher suddenly broke out of her Spanish gibberish and squawked like a Catholic nun who's teaching naughty third graders how to multiply fractions. "No translations!" she screeched. Aubrey and I shrugged sheepishly, each grabbed a syllabus, and went to our chairs. I figured out in a brilliantly timely manner that this class must be one of those instant immersion doohickeys. Oy vey.

For all her faults (such as glaring hideously whenever Aubrey leaned too close to me, suspiciously close, like she might be about to gasp! translate something!), I like Senorita Tina McBee. She lived in Mexico City for five years, so she certainly knows what she's talking about, pun intended. I picked up quite a bit from her in just a few hours, even though a migraine accompanied said learning. It must have been every bit as exhausting for Senorita Tina, to be fair. To stare at completely blank faces for hours on end as you talk a language that seems perfectly easy and simple to you now and have to mime hugely at a chair or at a boy and a girl to demonstrate masculine and feminine forms of words must be excruciating. Like trying to get pizza dough out from between your fingers.

Honestly, I'm totally freaked out by this class. For one, it requires an obscenely expensive textbook. Obscene like the parts of the movie that your mom claps her hand over your eyes so that you can't see. Joy! *sarcasm dripping* For two, while I like Senorita Tina, I think she's expecting a lot out of a night class. We're supposed to learn all the pronunciations of the Spanish alphabet and greetings and times of day and all sorts of stuff in one week. It's a lot to ask of kids (and older folks that are trying to get their degree) that already have full loads. I guess she hasn't experienced the famous Crichton work ethic, or lack thereof, yet. For three, for as much as I like Senorita Tina, she scares the mierda out of me. She's not the kind of chica I see myself crossing and living to sing the ballad. And I'm no softy, mind.

*mob from Monty Python* Get on with it!

Okay, okay, I'll stop whining now. Or I'll try, anyway!

Anyway, the evening progressed and eventually Senorita Tina started talking in English, so that she could explain the syllabus and stop one older lady's head from exploding. However, it hit about 8:30 and we were all dying to get out of there, even Senorita Tina. We learned that, in true Crichton fashion, she hadn't known she was teaching this class until last Saturday. I have to say that I'm really impressed; she was very well prepared if she'd had that small an amount of preparation time. The caffeine supply was drying up, and the natives were getting restless. So Senorita Tina let us leave once she had heard us having a small conversation with our class partners. Aubrey and I greeted each other, introduced ourselves, explained where we were from, and were gone.

Funniest moment of the night: when I almost thanked Senorita Tina for a handout by saying, "Danke!" That would have ended really well, for sure.

Vaya con Dios!

My Archenemy

2009-01-13T10:23:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, I was confronted with a demon. Just as the Bible foretells, it portrayed itself as an angel of light, until I had given it my soul. Once it revealed itself, I was able to see it for what it truly was: a Specter of Utmost Evil.

I'm talking about....

....an exercise instructor.

Just not any exercise instructor, mind you. This is an exercise instructor on DVD, which is even more frightening. I swear, this chickie makes not only the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but makes your entire head of hair form itself into a mohawk. Not at all attractive on most females, I must say.

To explain, my new surrogate big sister, Micah, and I decided that we were going to start doing pilates together every evening. We both have some weight we'd like to finish losing, and we knew that we'd never be motivated to do it by ourselves. She got home from a horrendous day at work (I may have to tell you about it this evening, but we'll see -- I'm afraid it's a little too frightening, even for this blog) and I was experiencing a small case of first-day-of-school blues. So Micah and I went digging through the freezer for food and ultimately made lean pocket pepperoni pizza subs and fried some french fries and opened a bottle of sparkling strawberry juice left over from my birthday. I know, it all sounds so nutritious and conducive to better eating habits! But hey, we won't make a habit of it, and we had a blast. We ate dinner while watching Sixteen Candles, the quintessential eighties teenage movie. If you haven't seen it, I heartily urge you to do so. It's a little, um, raunchy in places, but it's well worth it. The only downer about the movie is knowing that the extremely gorgeous male lead is probably fat and bald by now. Sadness. But 'tis the joy of growing old!

Anyway, after we ate dinner, I was tired and ready to call it an evening, but nope. Micah wasn't going to let me get away with that, even though she, too, was less than enthused about doing pilates at eight in the evening after a meal of greasy french fries. So, with much whining from the both of us, we appeared in the living room and popped in the DVD.

Onto the screen waltzes this perky little blond Suzanne Summers type of woman. She seems friendly and knowledgeable, so Micah and I prepare ourselves for a workout, congratulating ourselves on our Initiative and Resolve. Along with the Suzanne Summers' type of woman (whose name was Marianne, ironically enough) were six other people dressed in thin purple workout clothes that looked like they'd been thrown off the holodeck of the starship Enterprise just after Worf, Deanna, and Dr. Crusher finished doing that weird martial arts workout they all did together on the show. These purple people were all stunningly beautiful, of course, and seemed to lack the ability to break a sweat or grunt. There was one guy doing the workout with the beautiful dancer purple people, no doubt in an effort to prove that pilates could be just as manly as lifting weights and squatting and spitting and whatever else it is that guys do at the gym. The dude was pretty ripped, so maybe he would have gotten away with it if he hadn't kept pointing his toes so beautifully.

Marianne started us on our first exercise, and it was hard, but Micah and I were proud of ourselves for completing it and somewhat keeping up with Marianne's fast pace.

This high and elevated reaction to the exercise didn't last long, sadly. No less than ten minutes later, I began to fear Marianne emotionally. She somehow didn't seem quite as pretty and perky as she had before. Micah started saying, "Are you serious, Marianne?" over and over. She forgot, no doubt, that Marianne was a two dimensional figure on the flickering screen of our TV. And Marianne, unaware of the sheer hatred she was evoking in her less than enthusiastic pupils, kept on saying encouraging things like, "Now this exercise is so powerful that we're only going to do it three times!"

Translation courtesy of Katie: it's going to hurt like an acupuncture gone terribly wrong, so I'm only going to make you do it a few times so that you don't show up at my house one night in order to beat me to death with the big rubber pilates ball."

That woman/demon had us doing things that I didn't know were possible for anyone outside the dancing or contortionist professions. The upside was that I'm far more flexible than I knew. The downside is that I have absolutely no strength at all. Go empowerment. It was when she had us trying to practically do a handstand that the cursing began. I'm really glad that a pastor doesn't live next door, that's all I got to say. I could hear my mom snickering the next room. I watched in amazement as Marianne spouted horns and a whip appeared in her hand.

Finally, after an hour of torture, we finished the routine. Micah had been able to do a lot more than I had, but then, she's faced Marianne before. I'll get better as time goes on. I spent the last fifteen minutes encouraging Micah to keep going with things like, "Bathing suits! Smaller sizes!" and so on. I think it was encouraging. Micah certainly didn't offer to rearrange my face like she was with Marianne.

Of course, I had trouble walking for the rest of the night. And guess what? I'm going to put myself through the exact same thing tomorrow night. The only reason I'm not doing it tonight is because I'm going to be stuck in a night class until ten. Saved by Spanish! At least that class will be good for something...

Hey, ho, to the washer I go...

2009-01-12T13:53:00.002-06:00

Well, the first day of school is officially over.

I laughed.

I cried.

And I'm totally pulling your leg.

This is the first semester that I haven't had a nine o'clock class, which is really nice. I got up at a reasonable time this morning, and made it to school an hour and a half early, since I knew I needed to finish getting my independent study set up. It was so great to see my friends and professors and my boss again! My school has its issues....a lot of issues....a Mary Poppins-esque carpetbag of issues...but I'm still really happy there most of the time. I know where I'm going, I know what's expected of me, and I have freedom within the form. The only moment of drama that I had was when the office of academic affairs almost didn't accept my independent study form because they needed a syllabus with it. Thankfully, I put my girlish wiles to work (which means I looked pathetic and confused intentionally) and they unbent a little and let me through the red tape. Good thing, too, I hate the color red when it's not associated with a hair color.

So I only ended up having one class today, and it was great! On Monday and Wednesday I have Dr. Jenkins' "Authors of Christian Commitment" class, and it's really small. Just me, Shelby, Rachel B., Aubrey, Christina, and one other older lady that I felt sorry for, but she fit in fairly well with us. Poor Dr. Jenkins....he's going to be dealing with a lot of estrogen in this class! Puts me back to my Abnormal Psychology class with Dr. Chaney (fabulous class) and it, too, was made up exclusively of females. He was describing a personality disorder, and said, "...which is abbreviated to PDS....not PMS, ladies..." I just about died laughing. I consider Dr. Chaney to be a surrogate grandfather, and just hearing him say that was hysterical.

Anyway, I came home, ate lunch, and then started on The Chore. It is the Job that never ends...yes, it goes on and on my friends... some people started washing without knowing what it was, and so on it continued to be done just because...anyway, you get the idea.

What is this job, you may ask? Well, in case the upper case letters haven't already caught your eye, I'm talking about: LAUNDRY!

I've become the family's laundry fairy since it's an infinitely lesser evil than doing the dishes, and I actually don't mind doing it. It's a fulfilling job to a degree, except for the fact that it's so circuitous. You get it all done one day and you're feeling absurdly proud of yourself and experiencing a warm fuzzy feeling because you've made life easier for your family, and then the next morning, THERE IT IS AGAIN! It's like a cockroach...it just never dies! I believe there's a myth about a monster that had a lot of heads, and for every head you cut off, another one grew.

Yeah, laundry's like that.

It even has a patron saint! Actually, it has several, but my favorite is Saint Veronica. She's the one that wiped Jesus' face when He was on the way to Golgotha. Now, really, if laundry has a patron saint, the job must be fraught with peril! I should have a lot of respect for being Bold enough and having enough Courage of Conviction to continue on with such a thankless, peril-fraught job. Or it could be that I'm trying to elevate myself when in reality I'm just doing a mundane task that everyone else on the planet, besides Jordan, knows how to do.

I would say more, but the next load is ready to be switched....I still have to put on my armor, grab a dragon, and hide the dwarfs in my backpack so that they won't be eaten. So much to do, so little time!

Back to School -- whoopee.

2009-01-11T14:25:00.005-06:00

I'm on a teeter-totter about the whole back to school thing at the moment. One part of me is totally jazzed about it starting back. Why? I actually like having a routine and knowing what I'm going to be doing from one day to the next. I also miss seeing my school friends and professors, and I'm going to be taking good classes this semester, even though my Fantasy Literature class got canceled. (Curse you, administrative scummmm!!!!!) But I think I'm going to do it as an independent study, which means three things:

1.) I get to read what I want to read on my time. This = awesomeness.

2.) I only have to write one massive paper, and I'm done.

3.) No having to sit in class.

Of course, there is the whole itsy, bitsy problem in that I have no self-discipline. However, I think Aubrey might be doing the independent study with me, so that solves that little problem.

Now that I think about it, I'm mainly pleased about school starting back. It also means the return of having money, which is very nice.

However, preparing for school to start back can be painful. I'm really going to miss seeing my Union friends this semester. I know we'll still work it out to see each other fairly often, but I miss them.

School starting back can also be arduous. Cleaning out my backpack alone is evidence in support of that assumption. I think I shall write about it in story form, just so you can all get the drama behind this seemingly easy chore.

Ahem.

"With the utmost of trepidation, I approach my closet, and begin to open the door, it creaking loudly and with the greatest of squeaky door sound effects. Hollywood could do no better. There, lying in a seemingly unobtrusive manner, is the Object of My Fear. It is the Bane of the College Student's Existence.

It is....the dirty backpack.

In one way, of course, the dirty backpack is quite deserving of study. It is a time capsule of sorts, a relic of all that what important or unimportant during the last four months of an individual's life.

If some sort of natural disaster occurred and the backpack was left blanketed under a layer of volcanic dust for a thousand years only to be discovered by an archaeologist in a really stupid outfit, this great explorer could deduce that the average college student (meaning me) existed on an extremely balanced diet of chex mix, Starburst, and flavored water. He would also find that bubble gum was absolutely necessary for productive studying (which it TOTALLY is -- try it sometime, it really helps, especially the watermelon Bubblicious type), and that only a lucky few of the papers make it into the labeled folders, while the rest somehow end up in a crushed mess on the bottom of the bag. This same esteemed archaeologist-Indiana-Jones-wannabe would find that the average college student had extremely dry hands, resulting in the four bottles of lotion. (I wonder if the dry hands are a result of the higher caffeine intake?) He will also discover that movies are far more important than textbooks, as there will be an utter absence of literature and an extraordinary amount of DVDs next to the laptop. And the ipod? Without it, the 18-22 year old would surely die a horrible, painful death.

Oh, and macaroni and cheese deserves its own food group. The cheesier, the better.

But I digress.

In any case, I managed to heave the backpack off the floor and deposit it on my bed. I undo the zippers, pray for deliverance, and tip it upside down. Out of its canvas depths fall everything from ponytail holders to folders to papers to books to dwarfs that have given up on keeping things neat for me and are therefore sitting in fits of sullen depression in the laptop's padded pocket.

Finally, sweating as if I've had tea with the Queen in Death Valley, I finish my chore with the backpack. All of the trash is headed down the river, no more chex mix baggies remain, there are new containers of lotion, and carefully labeled folders are in place, along with extra pens.

The hard part is over. Now, all I have to do is get through the semester. Eeek.

And thus endeth the story.

Fin."

Running Commentary

2009-01-01T15:22:00.004-06:00

When I finally stumbled out of bed this morning at ten o'clock in a haze induced by an absurdly late night and the Coca Cola Company, I went downstairs only find that my mom had the Tournament of Roses parade on. I remember being absurdly bored by those things when I was a kid, but it was vaguely interesting this morning in my less than peppy state. It became even more interesting when I started imagining turning off the boring as sin* commentary and having Alyce and me be the commentators instead of Al Roker and what's-her-name-you-know-the-blond-chickie.

(*On a side note, where do you think the phrase "boring as sin" came from? I find sin distinctly un-boring in its very essence. Sin involves intrigue and plot and humiliation and melodramatic repentance. Shouldn't the phrase be "boring as sainthood" or something like that? It would even have the same acronym. You've just been given a valuable insight into the way my mind works...run, Bucky. Run like a chill autumn breeze.)

Okay, so picture if you will *Twilight theme plays, the Twilight utterly lacking in hot vampires, of course* a lovely float coming down the road. It is decked in flowers and a girl is sitting on a throne. She is wearing a tiara and a long white dress. Her court is just below her, wearing purple dresses and smaller tiaras.

Katie: Annnnnd here we go with the annual Tournament of Roses Parade, ladies and germs! I'm Katie Johnson!

Alyce: *wicked grin* And I'm Alyce don't-you-wish-you-knew-my-last-name-you-pervs! And we're live in California, sitting in this ridiculous booth thing that makes it look like we're being carted off to marry a Rajah in exchange for twenty camels, a gay elephant, and some diamonds!

Katie: Too true, my fine friend, but just keep in mind that if our nice Indian rich camel dude gets irritating, we can go all Aristophanes on his hide! But back down to business. Down the road is coming the Queen-mobile, the more well-known Pope-mobile having been rented out for Spain's own parade of roses! Our Parade Queen was chosen this year in the midst of far too much fuss and blather and enough hairspray to dissolve the mythological ozone layer. Look at her smiling down there! They probably smeared Vaseline on her teeth so that she could grin and wave like Parade Barbie all five miles of the route.

Alyce: You know it's true, Katie, this chica clearly needs a better agent. And get a load of that boulder on her head! No, wait, sorry, that's her hair. Tsk, tsk.

Katie: Well, that tiara could probably feed an entire third world country for a year if you hocked it, Alyce. Get a load of her court down there, though!

Alyce: That Queenie had better watch her back when she goes to the powder room, that's all I gotta say. You can definitely tell which one is the runner-up, it's the plastic doll in too much eyeshadow down there fondling a knife that's hidden in a leg sheath, she looks like she's gotten a cramp from running or something...

Katie: *shuffling papers* It says here that I'm supposed to say that they take special classes to learn how to wave. Imagine some sweet little guy that's light in the loafers clapping his hands and saying...

Alyce: *cutting in* Do I have to imagine this? It's scary.

Katie: *glaring* Yes, you have to, now shut it. Ahem, as I was saying, imagine him clapping his hands and saying, "Now, ladiesss, ladiesss, let's pleassse try and pay attention! All right, now, girlsss, wave the hand to the right...on the beat, that'sss right...now to the left. To the right. Keep going....oh, Angie, really! You look like a bus windshield wiper! Let'sss channel ssssome Queen Elizabeth, now, sweetiesss! Make Betty proud, make her bloody proud! To the right...to the left...very good! Don't forget to breathe, girlsss, that'sss very important! In and out...in and out....great lung action, Kelsey! Hawt stuff, ladiesss!"

Alyce: *blinks* I was right. Very scary.

Katie: I know, right?

Alyce: Oh, and this float contraption doo-hickey was made with some obscene amount of expensive roses that nobody knows the name of. I hope no guys get into trouble this weekend. There won't be a rose available anywhere in the city! Those doghouses are gonna be filled to the brim this weekend...

....After careful consideration, I guess I should say that it's a very good thing we're not parade commentators. Although it would be as fun as all get out.

Alyce: Right on!

2009

2009-01-01T00:14:00.003-06:00

As you can tell by the time stamp, I am still awake on this day one of the year 2009. I am still functioning mainly through the overuse of coke (the drink, you silly people!) and great music (everything from Elton John to Alison Krauss to U2 to Richard Marx to Little Big Town to Nickelback...you get the idea.) and a funny fanfiction that's keeping me in stitches. It's not a wild party, but then, wild parties aren't exactly my style. I'm more the stay-in-and-watch-movies-and-listen-to-great-music kind of girl.

I actually kind of hate this holiday sometimes. It enforces such a sense of nostalgia mixed with a healthy dose of self-evaluation on everyone that isn't merely intent on getting drunk and setting off fireworks that wakes the elderly couple down the road, causing them to call the police who then proceed to rudely throw your butt into jail so that you can join their Bums' Hall of Holiday Fame. I know that I go over the past year endlessly, and I imagine the rest of the world isn't much different. What you did wrong in the past year, what you did right, usually tempered with a vague sense that "this is gonna be YOUR year" like you own the rights to it or something.

I guess New Years has also always been overshadowed by my birthday, too. New Years has just never been that big a deal to me. It usually meant attempting to stay up until midnight, failing and then shrugging my shoulders and making resolutions that I had every intention of keeping, which succeeded for, at best, a week until I failed and then went right back in to the bad habits that I'd hoped a new year would magically correct.

This is probably been the first time I've ever been actually sad to see a year go. 2008 wasn't perfect, but what year ever is? And I can honestly say that this past year has been one of the happiest of my recollection. There have been mistakes that I've made, and I don't mind admitting it. There have been friendships I wish I'd worked harder on, secrets that I shouldn't have told, stupid crushes that I should have avoided, tests I should have studied harder for, stories I should have written, ect. But I think I've learned the secret--I can't be sorry for those regrets, because I think I've learned from them. How can I ever be sorry for any pain that brought me to the place I am now? That's what I had to learn about my parents' divorce this year. Sure, it was hell. It was hell of a kind that no one should ever have to face, ever. But I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through it. I don't think that I would have ever developed any paltry depth to my character that I now possess without having gone through hell and back with no Virgil to guide me. But even that's not completely true. I had God. Virgil was sometimes a rather insensitive bloke, after all. God always knew. He always understood. I don't know how atheists do it, personally.

But in 2008, I found myself again. With the help of my friends and family and, most importantly, God, I felt like I finally stopped stumbling around in a dark room and rediscovered Light in all of its realities. And it's so beautiful. I accept the fact that I'm going to be dealing with the remnants of suffering for the rest of my life. I'm never going to escape it. But that's okay. Jesus has scars, too. I had the greatest moment of catharsis the other day when one of my new, and dearest, friends told me that she couldn't imagine me ever being depressed. I literally started crying. Imagine God healing me that much, that Courtney could see me as I am now and be unable to see me as I was even a year and a half ago! It was blessing and miraculous. I realize that that sounds melodramatic, but it's no less the truth.

Life is so open right now, and so many people are missing it. They're too busy waiting for an ideal to appear, like the perfect mate or job or whatever, and they're hanging everything on that. I refuse to waste my life in longing. Hence come my--duh, duh, duh!--resolutions.

1.) In 2009, I'm going to make myself happy. True happiness, I think, isn't a bright, sparkling joy. You can't experience that constantly. It's too tiring, and it will fade away. Happiness is contentment, feeling at peace with whatever circumstance you find yourself in. As long as I am happy with who I am in Christ, and am listening to God's will, what does the future matter? What does it matter that I'm single or I don't have the perfect job or whatever else the flavor of the month might be? Contentment can be found in doing the best I can in whatever I happen to be doing, and let the rest go hang.

2.) I'm going to get straight A's this year. My record for 2008 was, regrettably, marred by one B. Curse Dr. Carr's Introduction to Business Finance class! I'm so close to graduating summa cum laude, and I'm vain enough to want it just so I can say that I graduated summa cum laude. Laudable, I know, but I never professed to be a saint. I also know that this is the stepping stone to a good graduate school. I'd like to be able to hand them a transcript with only the three B's I now hold. I may not have graduated from high school with the highest scores, but I want those admission guys to see that I'm capable of running with the big dogs.

3.) I'm going to continue to make myself healthy. I only have twenty more pounds to go until I reach my goal weight (yay the fifty pounds that are gone!) and I really want to get back into dance. I miss dancing. It's joy in one of its purest forms.

4.) I'm going to refocus on my music. I'll be joining the choir at my church at some point in January, and I'm going to make an effort to reawaken whatever piano skill is currently sleeping in my toes. It may take some convincing to get back into my fingers, but that's what happens when you neglect a talent!

5.) I'm going to work on managing my money. God forbid that I should have anything saved, not to mention the fact that in a year and six months, I plan to be writing you all from a pub in Ireland. That aine gonna be cheap, my lads, so it's best that I be savin' me wee arse off. Begorrah, but I can' hardly wait!

These are all resolutions that I can build up to, and quite easily. Nothing has to happen overnight. That's what people try to do far too often with these things, I think. They believe that change comes through osmosis, without realizing that self improvement is a gradual thing. It's like spring. The grass doesn't turn green all at once, does it? Life is in everything, but you don't see signs of it until much later. Then the rewards are shown and everybody ooohs and awws like simpletons.

Oh, I forgot. My last resolution is to be with you people through this blog as often as I can. It occurred to me the other day that this blog is like a scrapbook of my life. It's a written time capsule. I can't ignore anything as important as that, now, can I? Besides, then my mom will stop looking at me so mournfully. Love you, Mom!

Happy New Years, my friends and family and unknown strangers across the globe. May it be filled with light, promise, and the faith that the renewal of the year always brings. May 2009 be filled with happiness and growth.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

2008-12-18T14:57:00.002-06:00

This has long been one of my personal favorites. I learned the Biblical passage from Luke AND the works to "Hark, the Herald" from this show! I'm so glad Shultz just smiled, patted the dude's head, and left the room. That's MY kind of man!

Enjoy!

In December 1965 came A Charlie Brown Christmas, the most successful special in television history. In a simple story from Peanuts' creator Charles Schulz where Charlie Brown looks for genuine meaning in Christmas while Snoopy and Lucy revel in its glitter, the show defied convention by using real kids' voices, no laugh track, sophisticated original music and uncluttered graphics:

"No one was more ready than Charles Schulz to write a parable about commercialism when [his agent] Lee Mendelson telephoned one Wednesday in May 1965 to announce that he had just sold a Christmas show to Coca-Cola. ... He brought in Bill Melendez, the Disney animator who had earned Schulz's respect by not Disneyfying thePeanuts gang ... [by] changing their essential qualities, either as "flat" characters or as his cartoon characters. ...

"[Schulz left] Lee and Bill to audition some forty-five kids, ages six to nine, then train the cast of seven principles, some of them too young to read ... [to deliver] their lines with startling clarity and feeling. ...

"Schulz loathed the hyena hilarity of canned merriment and rightly judged that an audience would not have to be told when and where to laugh; Mendelson countered that all comedy shows used such tracks. 'Well, this one won't,' said [Schulz] firmly. 'Let the people at home enjoy the show at their own speed, in their own way.' Then he rose and walked out, closing the door behind him. ...

"On the subject of scoring and music, however, Schulz put aside his own tastes ... [and his producer hired] Grammy Award-winning composer Vince Guaraldi. The catchy rhythm of 'Linus and Lucy' ... became the centerpiece of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and eventually a pop music standard. But it was the slower, mixed-mood, improvisational pieces in Guaraldi's jazz suite, especially 'Christmas Time is Here,' that elicited the unarticulated emotions lying below the holiday's joyful surface. ...

"Lee and his wife had read Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Fir Tree' to their children the previous year, and when he suggested that the show somehow involve a comparable motif, [Schulz] seized upon the idea: 'We need a Charlie-Brown-like tree.' ... [And Schulz] insisted that the season's true meaning could be found in the Gospel according to St. Luke, and they agreed that the show would somehow work in the Nativity story. ... When the script was finished in June 1965, Lee Mendelson made a stand against Linus's recitation of the Nativity story, insisting that religion and entertainment did not mix on television. '[Schulz] just smiled,' Mendelson later wrote, 'patted me on the head, and left the room.' ...

"In a screening room at network headquarters in New York, two CBS vice presidents watched the show in silence. 'Neither of them laughed once,' Mendelson recalled. When the lights came on, the executives shook their heads and shrugged. 'Well,' said one, 'you gave it a good try.' 'It seems a little flat,' said the other. 'Too slow,' said the first, 'and the script is too innocent.' 'The Bible thing scares us,' said the other. The animation was crude--couldn't it be jazzed up a bit? The voice talent was unprofessional--they should have used adults. The music didn't fit--who ever heard of a jazz score on an animated special? And where were the laughs?"

David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts, Harper Collins, Copyright 2007 by David Michaelis, pp. 346- 358.

Southern Sayin's

2008-12-16T10:36:00.001-06:00

*snickers* Mom sent this to me this morning. My personal favorites were "light in the loafers" and "mouth overloaded his butt." Enjoy!

Southern Saying: Like a chicken with your head cut off
Translation: Confusion
Usage: That boy was running around like a chicken with his head cut off!

Southern Saying: Butter my biscuit
Translation: Isn't that something!
Usage: Well butter my biscuit!

Southern Saying: Speckled pup in a red wagon
Translation: Reference to being cute or precious.
Usage: That baby's cuter than a speckled pup in a red wagon.

Southern Saying: Two goats in a pepper patch.
Translation: That's some hot stuff.
Usage: It's hotter out here than two goats in a pepper patch.

Southern Saying: Snowball's chance in hell.
Translation: Not a very likely occurrence.
Usage: You ain't got a snow ball's chance in hell of gittin' that girl.

Southern Saying: Argue with a fence post.
Translation: Stubborness
Usage: That woman would argue with a fence post.

Southern Saying: Rode hard and put up wet.
Translation: Looking rough
Usage: Man, you look like you been rode hard and put up wet.

Southern Saying: Heebie jeebies
Translation: A condition similar to the chills.
Usage: That fellow gives me the heebie jeebies.

Southern Saying: Light in the loafers.
Translation: gay
Usage: Leroy, that fellow light in the loafers to you?

Southern Saying: Three sheets to the wind.
Translation: Drunk
Usage: Betty Lou is three sheets to the wind.

Southern Saying: Short end of the stick.
Translation: Treated in an ill manner
Usage: We got the short end of the stick on that deal.

Southern Saying: Half cocked.
Translation: Lacking all the facts.
Usage: That fellow went off half cocked.

Southern Saying: Skint
Translation: Very versatile term meaning to remove hide, drunk, or to beat up.
Usage: I skint his hair back.

Southern Saying: Above your raisin'
Translation: Acting as a snob acts.
Usage: Little Miss Priss is shore above her raisin'.

Southern Saying: Ruffled her feathers.
Translation: Upsetting
Usage: I really ruffled her feathers.

Southern Saying: Chewin' the fat
Translation: Talking up a storm or � uh � talking about nothing in particular.
Usage: We was just a chewin' the fat.

Southern Saying: Like a stuck hog.
Translation: Screaming or squealing in pain.
Usage: Bo hit is finger with that mall and hollered like a stuck hog.

Southern Saying: I declare.
Translation: I did not know that or that is surprising or it can merely be used when there is really nothing else to say.
Usage: I declare!

Southern Saying: In a coon's age.
Translation: A really long time.
Usage: I ain't seen nothin' like that in a coon's age.

Southern Saying: Bump on a log.
Translation: Refers to one being unknowing.
Usage: He was just sittin' there like a bump on a log.

Southern Saying: Mouth overloaded his butt
Translation: That individual cannot back up what they are saying with actions.
Usage: Boy, you're lettin' your mouth overload your butt.

Southern Saying: Countin' your chickens �
Translation: The very risky act of assuming the outcome.
Usage: She's countin' her chickens before the eggs hatch.

Southern Saying: Bitten' off more than you can chew.
Translation: Taken on more than one can handle.
Usage: I really think this time I've bitten off more than I can chew!

Southern Saying: Caught with my pants down.
Translation: That individual was taken by surprise or was totally unprepared.
Usage: She caught me with my pants down.

Southern Saying: Like white on rice.
Translation: Southern symbolism at it's finest. Reference to traits or characteristics that cannot be separated two things that always go together. (Other colored rice is not eaten in the south except by those tryin' to live above their raisin'.)
Usage: She was all over him like white on rice.

Southern Saying: Barking up the wrong tree.
Translation: A situation to avoid at all costs. Indicates you may be about to have your hair skint back.
Usage: You're barkin' up the wrong tree now boy.

Southern Saying: Meat on that bone
Translation: There is still more to go - as in not complete.
Usage: There's still meat on that bone.

Southern Saying: Can't see the forest for the trees.
Translation: Unable to see the big picture.
Usage: Boy, you can't see the forest for the trees.

Southern Saying: Like water off a ducks back
Translation: Reference to the certainty of some event occuring or the ease at which it occurred.
Usage: It was like water off a duck's back.

Southern Saying: Shut my mouth
Translation: An expression of speechlessness. No, we can't keep our mouths shut and this is how we tell you.
Usage: Well shut my mouth!

Southern Saying: Two peas in a pod
Translation: Suited for each other or identical.

Usage: They like two peas in a pod ain't they?

St. Theresa's Prayer

2008-12-13T15:56:00.002-06:00

This is almost unbearably lovely. It's my prayer ... she just said it ten thousand times better than I ever could!

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

Decade

2008-12-10T13:11:00.001-06:00

What are ten years?

Are they minutes?

Hours?

Weeks?

Months?

Or are they memories,

Memories that can never and shall never be again?

Is a decade a grain of sand in an hourglass,

Or is it a puzzle piece to the world?

Are the passing years contained in the inches added to children’s frames,

Or the contests lost and the concerts given?

I cannot grasp this.

I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of a decade.

Time running on…

Life moving forward and grinding to a halt…

Love. Despair. Joy. Pain.

Life, trying to be contained in a single moment,

A moment that suddenly becomes years.

Ten years.

People call it a decade, to make it sound shorter,

More manageable.

Can time ever be managed?

I do know this:

A decade can never be regained.

Those ten long, short years,

A decade,

Has disappeared on the wind.

It is utterly lost, swept away down the river.

And you’ve missed it.

You’ve missed it all.

You’ve missed the inches, the concerts, the love, despair, joy, pain,

and growth.

You’ve missed the memories.

I would pity you, if you wanted it.

But you don’t.

You don’t understand the concept of a decade.

That’s all right, neither do I.

But these years, these passing, flowing puzzle pieces,

Refuse to be contained.

I won’t pity you.

It was your choice.

What is a decade?

I don’t know, but I do know this:

It’s been as short as a summer,

As long as forever,

And I know that I have the memories.

That’s enough for me.

Hell Week

2008-12-10T07:23:00.006-06:00

There's a reason that over the decades/centuries, the final week of the college semester has come to be called Hell Week. It's like that scene at the beginning of The Mummy, the one where they're all being mummified alive.

Or maybe it's more like having bamboo splinters shoved up your fingernails and being given an egg drop soup high colonic, as Colonel Potter said so eloquently on M*A*S*H...

Or like walking up to a poof of a dog that's sitting demurely on the sidewalk, only to look down to see that the name on the collar of said fluffball is "Killa" and that it's grinning madly in your direction with glistening, saber-esque excuses for teeth...

Or! Perhaps Hell Week is like having to be shut up in a room with really awful rap music playing constantly and you can't escape and you get a monstrous headache and your left eye starts twitching IN TIME with the music...

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that Hell Week is like going out on a boat with your family one summer day and thinking it's going to be an amazing time of fun in the sun only to realize that you've forgotten sunscreen and you slowly burn all day and then the fun time finishes with a fish scaring the daylights out of you and you fall unintentionally into the water and have to sit in a car all the way home in the squashy shorts that you had on at the time and they chafe and that's not cool... (That was quite possibly the longest run on sentence to grace the literary world since the Gettesburg Address. I feel kind of proud.)

Or may it's just hell, however hellish it might be.

You get the idea.

Diary Entry of an Exam Hunter

2008-12-08T10:05:00.003-06:00

8 December 2008:

The final hour of my quest is nearing now. I cannot believe that the moment has come. Everything for the past four months has led to this moment, and I know that I must not fail. The safety of the modern world (Third World countries don't count. They're on their own on this one) depends on me and on me alone. It is an intensely lonely and stressful situation in which I find myself now, but I know that I must somehow bear and forbear.

It is my destiny.

It is my calling.

And I like to pause a lot for dramatic tension.

And use long vocabulary words, that helps, too.

At the moment I have my prey locked irrevocably in my sights. It is cowering in the corner of this scholastic jungle, knowing that its doom is near. For four months now this wild animal has stalked me, and has gleefully kept me in a constant state of panic and fear. It never dreamed that it was being stalked as well. It never knew that its time of domination was limited. The beast has, on occasion, injured me and caused me to lose precious sleep. However, as an experienced exam hunter, I have learned to simply ignore the pain, to accept the pain and thank it for making me better and more qualified for my quest. (Sound like a Jedi, don't I? Sweet.)

However, there is a small, pitiful part of me that knows that this exercise is utterly futile. I can kill the exam now, which I will, but later the animal will regenerate and begin the hunt anew. It is an impossible fat to escape. I am stuck in an eternal quest, an unending safari, and I shall not be free of it until I begin to inflict the animal exam on my own pack of unsuspecting little students. My grasshoppers will then have to learn all that I have learned on their own.

It is their own destiny.

It cannot be escaped.

Told you I liked to pause a lot. Captain Kirk taught me.

I must close this diary soon. The rock salt I have used to surround and cage my prey will not last forever, and I shall then be forced to wrestle with it for domination. It is my belief that I will not escape this battle completely unscathed, but perhaps with my own excruciating pain, I can keep the wild exam from harming another soul for another six months. It is a thankless, dirty job, but it is a job that must needs be done. Countless minds are resting on my victory, that I might preserve their sanities.

Fear not, college students around the globe.

A new day will come.

It will dawn bright, shining, and free of any shadow of the stalking beast.

It is my gift to you.

And somebody please help me with the pausing thing! It's driving me crazy!

Uh-oh.

I disturbed the beast.

It's leaping for my throat!

Gotta run.....

If Dr. Seuss Wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation

2008-12-07T09:54:00.003-06:00

Picard: Sigma Indri, that's the star,
So, Data, please, how far? How far?

Data: Our ship can get there very fast
But still the trip will last and last
We'll have two days til we arrive
But can the Indrans there survive?

Picard: LaForge, please give us factor nine.

LaForge: But, sir, the engines are offline!

Picard: Offline! But why? I want to go!
Please make it so, please make it so!

Riker: But sir, if Geordi says we can't,
We can't, we mustn't, and we shan't,
The danger here is far too great!

Picard: But surely we must not be late!

Troi: I'm sensing anger and great ire.

Computer: Alert! Alert! The ship's on fire!

Picard: The ship's on fire? How could this be?
Who lit the fire?

Riker: Not me.

Worf: Not me.

Picard: Computer, how long til we die?

Computer: Eight minutes left to say goodbye.

Data: May I suggest a course to take?
We could, I think, quite safely make
Extinguishers from tractor beams
And stop the fire, or so it seems...

Geordi: Hurray! Hurray! You've saved the day!
Again I say, Hurray! Hurray!

Picard: Mr. Data, thank you much.
You've saved our lives, our ship, and such.

Troi: We still must save the Indran planet --

Data: Which (by the way) is made of granite...

Picard: Enough, you android. Please desist.
We understand -- we get your gist.
But can we get our ship to go?
Please, make it so, PLEASE make it so.

Geordi: There's sabotage among the wires
And that's what started all the fires.

Riker: We have a saboteur? Oh, no!
We need to go! We need to go!

Troi: We must seek out the traitor spy
And lock him up and ask him why?

Worf: Ask him why? How sentimental.
I say give him problems dental.

Troi: Are any Romulan ships around?
Have scanners said that they've been found?
Or is it Borg or some new threat
We haven't even heard of yet?
I sense no malice in this crew.
Now what are we supposed to do?

Crusher: Captain, please, the Indrans need us.
They cry out, "Help us, clothe us, feed us!"
I can't just sit and let them die!
A doctor MUST attempt -- MUST try!

Picard: Doctor, please, we'll get there soon.

Crusher: They may be dead by Tuesday noon.

*COMMERCIAL BREAK, COMMERCIAL BREAK
HOW LONG WILL THESE DUMB ADS TAKE?*

Worf: The saboteur is in the brig.
He's very strong and very big.
I had my phaser set on stun --
A zzzip! A zzzap! Another one!
He would not budge, he would not fall,
He would not stun, no, not at all!
He changed into a stranger form
All soft and purple, round and warm.

Picard: Did you see this, Mr. Worf?
Did you see this creature morph?

Worf: I did and then I beat him fairly.
Hit him on the jaw -- quite squarely.

Riker: My commendations, Klingon friend!
Our troubles now are at an end!

Crusher: Now let's get our ship to fly
And orbit yonder Indran sky!

Picard: LaForge, please tell me we can go...?

Geordi: Yes, sir, we can.

Picard: Then make it so!

Yeah, I couldn't resist. It's not mine. I found it on facebook, just fyi.

Eyes, Ears, Nose and Mouth...and, um, feet....

2008-12-06T22:39:00.003-06:00

I would love to know why God, in His unfathomable mercy and omniscience, couldn't make me live up to my name a little more than I do. I mean, I'd like to think that I'm pure grace in my behavior towards others, but why can't I be even slightly more graceful in physicality? I don't even have to be pure grace. I'm not greedy. I can live with tainted grace, or even substandard grace. Just a little help here would be nice, that's all I'm saying.

What brought on this rant? Why, I'm glad you asked!

This evening, my absolutely wonderful friend, Julianne, and I were able to get together. She graduated school last spring, so I don't get to see her much now that she's been kidnapped by the real world, aka, a job. It's truly amazing how that one syllable word can strike cold, sickening fear into the hearts of humanity. Makes one shudder by sheer reflex, doesn't it? In any case, whenever I can steal her away for a couple of hours for some girl time, it's much appreciated, especially now with exams staring me in the face. Boo, hiss!

We went to O'Charley's first, where we decided to fight against society's image of the perfect girl (cough cough Barbie cough cough) and devour our meals with the utmost Heart and Fortitude. We got a lot of talking done despite the shoveling of food that went on, and the conversation was lovely. It was very, very nice to be with another person rather than just being glued to my computer. While my computer is a marvelous companion, it just cannot fulfil all of my needs. But shhh! Don't tell the computer. I need it. I can't have it thinking I'm cheating on it or something. I'm personifying it again, aren't I? My apologies.

After that, we went to see that marvel of marvels, Twilight, again. This makes five times total for me so far ... some people survive for months on the amount of money I've cavalierly blown on movie tickets, but it's kept me sane, so I consider it a small price to pay. I rather like being sane, thanks. Julianne and I found some promising seats and sat down near the top, where we hopefully wouldn't be disturbed. The theater started the fill up, though it wasn't bad.

Until ... they came.

Yes. It was the dreaded Preteen Brigade. You know, the ones that are super loud, obnoxious, and utterly without parental supervision. Ugh.

Double ugh.

They settled themselves behind Julianne and I on Make Out Row. (Hey, I didn't know it was called that! Bobby told me. I'm woefully ignorant on this sort of thing.) They then proceeded to completely fulfill my high expectations of them by talking loudly and kicking the back of our seats. From their loud, uncouth mouths I learned that:

Robby is dating Sophia now. Dude, for real???

Tyler got his hair cut by some Chinese woman and now refuses to take off his hat.

So-and-so (didn't catch a name on this one. I know, I know, I'm ashamed of myself) snuck out of the house to come to this cheesy movie. Dude! Sweet!

And so on and so forth. I won't sully this high and intellectual blog with any more such drivel.

Julianne looked at me in a pained manner and I looked at her. Considering the fact that we'd just had a conversation on how much less patience we had with such things than we used to have, I knew what she was thinking. "Want to move?" I asked her.

"Yes," was her automatic reply. "But we're blocked in!" She was right. We were boxed in and getting out would be extremely awkward.

To which I was all, "Psh, the seats in front of us are empty. You step on the armrest, step down again, and Bob's your uncle." (I think I was showing my age with that one....)

Julianne was still looking hesitant, so I handed her my purse and proceeded to show her how it was done. Everything was going swimmingly until I got my foot stuck in-between the armrest and chair bottom on my final step. I managed not to fall and maintain my suave image (okay, I guess I'm not entirely graceless) and get down without looking like a total klutz. I also managed not to show that my foot hurt, really really really badly. Julianne sat down with me and everything was good. A nice looking lady down the aisle from us was looking at us with questions in her eyes for our monkey-esque behavior. I leaned over and whispered, "The Preteen Brigade up there..." and finished by gesturing vaguely.

She nodded knowingly and said, "Ah, that explains it. I've got one almost that age."

I looked at her in sympathy and said, "Good luck."

"Thanks!" she replied with a laugh. She was pretty cool ... all throughout the movie I would hear her husband whispering in either disdain or amazement, "Are you crying?" To which she would politely tell him to shut up. It made me laugh.

I'm sure you will share my devastation, though, when I tell you that the Preteen Brigade then did the unforgivable: THEY MOVED BACK DOWN TO THE ROW BEHIND US AGAIN!!! ARGH!!! They were like boomerangs, or Groundhog Day.

Anyway, once things got dark, I relieved the pain in my injured appendage by making atrocious faces. When the house lights finished going done, I nonchalantly leaned down and felt the top of my foot. I kid you not, there was a lump there! That takes talent. Too bad it's not a quantifiable talent. I can give you all the cheerful news that it's already turning black and blue. It's going to truly be a thing of beauty.

Before the movie really got started, though, Julianne got up to go to the little ladies room and I was left by myself. I could hear two of the Preteen Brigade talking quietly behind me, but it's kinda hard not to miss a conversation that's taking place right in your eardrums. "This seat is broken!" one complained.

"Yeah, said the other. I think it's why those girls moved. That and they were being b-----."

Oh, no he didn't. Yes, he did. And yes, I totally did. I turned around and said, "Um, guys? Point of interest? I have ears. Just fyi." There was silence for a moment while the mom down the row from me snickered. The two kids kept on whispering, though, obviously forgetting that vital, scientific fact that sound carries. They probably don't pay attention in school, poor things. I just rolled my eyes at them and went on about the serious business of Edward drooling. Hey, I'm single. I'm allowed to admire a Picasso when I see it! Although Picasso would have probably given him four ears and two mouths, which would have been utter blasphemy...

In any case, I am now left with several things as a result of this lovely evening. 1.) A foot that could pass for a kaleidoscope for its varying and mesmerizing colors, 2.) that evil little smug feeling that comes of putting a bunch of punks in their places and 3.) a lighter wallet, but a matching happier heart. It was a good evening.

Now, on to the latest mission: survive exams...

That might bruise me even worse, come to think of it.

A Note to All You Crazy Kids Out There that Want to Be Stalkers When You Grow Up

2008-12-04T14:22:00.004-06:00

No, I do not mean stalker in the creepy-hide-behind-blinds-and-record-videos-of-you-singing-in-the-shower sense of the word. This is a serious entry that's going to advance the lot of mankind, folks. If you perform certain actions toward me, I will henceforth dub you a stalker. Anyway, if you think you might like to be a stalker someday, this note is for you!

First, I suppose I should clarify just what a stalker is to all you ignorant folks. Here are some helpful hints that might help in the classification process. If you have four or more of these qualities, you should probably take a long, deep look inside yourself and abstain from your computer for a while. (That is, of course, if you don't want to be a stalker. If that is, in fact, your career goal in life, then by all means! Do please continue on your present course!)

To find out if you are a stalker, ask yourself the following questions:

1.) Do you spend inordinate amounts of time on facebook?

2.) Do you send friend requests to friends of friends, aka, to girls you've never met or only met once before?

3.) After being accepted as friend, do you begin to comment on every single item on their page?

4.) Do you think that talking once online makes you and said girl the absolutely perfect partners for one another in life?

5.) Do you feel that you have been rejected often, and thus have an oh-woe-is-me-all-girls-are-scum-if-she-could-only-see complex?

6.) During your conversations, do you automatically assume that either everything the girl says is a flirtation, or that everything she says is putting you down?

If so, then, by golly! Welcome to the stalker biz! Pull up your chair, err, computer desk, 'cause we've got a lot to cover. Here are some tips for those prospective stalkers are there. Hear and heed, and you may get to stay in the same creeptastic position for the rest of your days!

1.) Start out the conversation with lots of compliments, especially if you don't mean them. She'll never be able to tell the difference, and then she'll probably fall all over herself for you! Go you!

2.) Share your entire life story, including past sexual encounters and break-ups, in one breath. Chicks dig that. Hardcore.

3.) After you've talked for a mere five minutes, there inevitably comes the (duh duh duhhhh!!!!!) awkward silence. This is the signal that she's dying on the other end, waiting for you -- you hot stud, you -- to ask her out! By no means should you think that she's waiting for you to shut up and leave her alone. Oh, no. This is your chance! Leap for it!

4.) When the girl asks for a rain check or doesn't reply, ask considerately what the problem is with you guys "just getting to know one another. As friends, strictly, of course." It'll make her think that you're one of those strong yet sensitive types if you act like you care about her problems or hang ups. After all, it's not like she doesn't want to go out with you! Duh!

5.) Gasp! She turned you down? Seriously? No way, Jose! She said she was uncomfortable with that whole meeting you alone thing or whatever? Well, then, ha! You are free to show your true colors now and begin cursing and hounding her, saying that she is sexist, shallow, and an idiot for guarding her heart. That's very bad for a girl to do, obviously.

6.) When she starts to get squiffy right back at you, or threatens to sic her brother on your butt, back off of the hostility for a minute. Now is the time to use the guilt trip. It's one of your most powerful weapons, boys, so make sure you wait for the opportune moment. Make her think that she's the most despicable of creatures for ever not seeing that you guys are absolutely perfect! Work it, fellows, work it. She's obviously blind to the fact that you are an amazing piece of manflesh. Point out the fact that she's being short sighted not to see you in all your glory. Lay on the shame!

7.) Oh, I forgot to tell you earlier: be sure and have grammatical and spelling errors in ALL your messages. She'll be so busy editing it in her head that she'll completely miss the fact that you're a grade A jerk!

8.) When she turns you down for the last time, get huffy, sign off, and then proceed to tell all your mutual friends what a witch-with-a-B she is. That's sure to get her to come crawling back! Never forget, stalkers: You are pure awesomeness. Even though it seems like she doesn't want you, it only seems that way. It's all an act, big guy. Don't fall for it!

9.) By all means, give up after the first time. If nothing else will convince her of the heartfelt, sincere nature of your devotion, this sure will! She won't be thanking her lucky stars for escaping you at all.

10.) Finally, repeat the above process with the next girl in line, preferably a friend of the girl who was dumb enough to not want you. And then the next girl and the next girl and then the next girl... You're awesomeness! Someday you'll find that special girl that gets you! And she'll probably be one that you can order around and stuff, too, you lucky dog.

The sad part of all this? Yeah. Firsthand, personal experience.

I'm Not a Nice Person

2008-12-02T11:59:00.002-06:00

In all the stresses and vexations of forthcoming exams and Christmas, I completely forgot about one of the happier moments of the semester's end: class reviews. This is the time when students offer their opinions of the classes they've taken while being protected by blessed anonymity. Normally I try and be honest with these things while simultaneously doing my best to protect my teacher. At a school where there is no such thing as tenure, our professors' footholds are uncertain at best, so I try to be as complimentary as possible so as to offer them a little job security. Since most of my professors are absolutely and completely marvelous, this really hasn't been much of a problem up til now. I repeat, up til now.

Today was the day that I reviewed Effie's performance.

I'm going to hell. It was fun, but I'm mostly definitely doomed to perdition.

Let me clarify something here before you read anything further. I am not normally a malicious person. I hate confrontation and tension of all kinds. So this is not a good example of my usual behavior. This was an exception to the rule.

Yes, I did take fiendish delight in totally burning everything about this class that I possibly could. I've been polite and prepared and studious all semester, but seriously, folks, can you expect me to allow such ignorance to continue when I could have said something about it? I mean, how harmful is it to all those poor freshmen that come in utterly bewildered and are handed a complete load of bull to swallow? I remember what I was like as a freshman -- I had absolutely no discernment at all. Sub-par teachers should not, and must not, be tolerated when the quality of education is at stake.

Was I ruder than necessary? Absolutely! Should I have been? Probably not, although it was unbelievably fun to act that way for a change. There is a time for kindness, and a time to hand someone their butt. This was one of those latter times.

Anyway, to continue on with the story. There are a series of questions asked on these reviews to which you are supposed to circle one of the following answers: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. Normally I just dart down the page answering agree -- it was very different this time.

"Did the professor offer the material at a pace conducive to learning?" -- strongly disagree.

"Was the class atmosphere enjoyable?" -- strongly disagree.

"Did the teacher know the material?" -- strongly disagree.

"Did you feel free that you had ample opportunity to ask questions?" -- strongly disagree.

"Did the teacher respond to you in a timely manner?" -- strongly disagree.

"Did the professor present the material advertised in the catalogue?" -- agree. (I told you I tried to be honest on these things. She did present the advertised material, just not in a way previously known to mankind. She probably got her teaching methods from observing the habits of the Chacma Baboon.)

And so on and so forth. The feeling of glee in the room was contagious as all the students answered the questions in a similar fashion to my own. Finally, I reached the last portion of the review, where students could write out their opinions in response to questions. The first one was something to the effect of: "What was the most beneficial part of this class for you?"

My answer: "The satire that I was able to perfect -- this class gave me a wealth of material to use. It was most helpful."

Question: "What did you feel was wrong with this class?"

My answer: "Uh, everything? The material was presented in PowerPoint slides that were flipped through so fast that no one could take proper notes. Some students resorted to taking pictures of the screen with their cell phones out of sheer desperation. Professor Jones expected everyone to magically remember everything she said in her lectures, giving absolutely no consideration to those of us that are visual learners. Her classroom was loud and rude, and there were open altercations between students as well as racial tensions. It would also help if she would hand her tests back instead of just showing us the grades -- that way we could study more effectively and thus improve our grades. The homework was a joke, the reading material badly chosen, and the facts incorrect. I would say more, but I'm running out of room."

Question: "What would you change about this class?"

My answer: "There are no words. No, wait, wait, I found some! First of all, I would find a teacher that actually knew the subject and could make the material come alive, rather than just dryly reading off of PowerPoint slides that are misspelled and erroneous in content. How about finding a textbook that isn't written from a snide-hate-all-Christians-indiscriminately perspective? Better yet, how about hiring a teacher that didn't find her degree hanging on a bathroom wall? This class was utterly abysmal, and while I know that I sound horrible right now, I won't apologize for it. I actually care about this institution. I do not want to see the quality of Crichton's education suffer. Therefore, I will protest about every single aspect of this class in the hope that some changes for the better will be made."

I do hope changes for the better will be made. That's for everyone's ultimate good.

But in the meantime, I have to admit, I do feel a whole lot better!

It's a darn good thing I'm saved by grace, though, rather than works...

Out of the Ashes

Ode (We Are the Music Makers)

Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning?

Windcatcher

My Opinions on the Upcoming "Thor" film

A Typical Day in Katie Korner

A Plea to the Masses

Tonka Trucks and the M&M Guys

Day-I-Have-No-Idea

Day Five

Day Four (I think)

Day Three: A Tribute to the Union Jack

Day 2.5

Day Two

Day One

The Gratitude Experiment

I would SO do this....

Declaraction of Independence: A Rather Narcissistic Post, but a Necessary One

Leading Ladies and Best Friends

Tadpole Baptismal

Ghosts

How to Give a Cat a Pill

Beowulf vs. Godsylla

Tune In

Fade Out

Disappear

Fourth Wall Breakage

Beauty

Sparks

Do your pants hang low, do they draggle to and fro?

Meet the Enemy

P.S.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head...

Thanks a whole heap, Abe

What does this button do? *zaps* Nevermind.

Maybe the Israelites Weren't the Only Ones to be Abnormally Stupid...

The Fourth Collision of the Mad Ones

Cake or Pie? Uh, NEW OPTION!

Beautifully Weird

The Third Installment of the Mad Ones, as Recorded by Miss Katie Johnson, Secretary

The Official Minutes of "The Mad Ones"

Devastation

Rules

Meat

Elderly Me

A Night to Remember

Just Whistle While You Work

Recap

Spaces

Sins

Spanish -- Shmanish

To Love and to Cherish Until the Money Runs Out

Heart Attack

Another Crisis Averted

Dear Crichton Dos...

Mad Woman

Dear Crichton...

Two Sides of a Coin

Reverse Psychology

Of Towels and Vampires

The Ants Go Marching One by One, Hurrah! Hurrah!

To the Makers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

But Wait! There's More!

Katie, Kati, let's call the whole thing off....

My Archenemy

Hey, ho, to the washer I go...

Back to School -- whoopee.

Running Commentary

2009

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Southern Sayin's

St. Theresa's Prayer

Decade

Hell Week

Diary Entry of an Exam Hunter

If Dr. Seuss Wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation

Eyes, Ears, Nose and Mouth...and, um, feet....

A Note to All You Crazy Kids Out There that Want to Be Stalkers When You Grow Up

I'm Not a Nice Person

What does this button do? zaps Nevermind.