Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Disturbing search requests, or “How did someone searching for ‘naked tiny pickle’ get to my site?”

I just went and looked at the amount of clothes I bought yesterday, I thought there were far more than there actually are. I’m bored as hell right now, trying to find something interesting to do, but completely obsessing on growing my blog readership. I have no idea why. Why do we want people to read our silly little musings? Is it an attention thing? People don’t want others to read their diaries, why their blogs?

Embarrassing moment: at dinner after I got married, I asked my uncle if he would like to dip his meat in my sauce. Of course I meant about our food, but I don’t think I’ve ever blushed that hard in my life.

There are rumblings that the government is intercepting messages from Al Qaida planning another terrorist attack on the scale of September 11. Tie that in with the missing cyanide and I’m glad we have a home water delivery service. Will we ever be secure again? Even now when I hear a plane flying low, I cringe. I remember the first planes that flew over the house after the ban on flights was lifted. I expected any one of them to come crashing down on us. And a couple of months later, one did crash in New York. My second daughter was 4 days old on 9/11, and while we watched the news reports, all I could do was just hold her tight and shake. Tears well up even now, writing about that horrible day. I think what struck me most was the next week… all the flags everywhere, all the television channels either pre-empted by news or off the air with a memorial page on screen, or (in the case of MTV) playing comforting music. Our 2 year old was in Houston with her grandparents and I was scared to death that we would never see her again. Who know what else was going to happen?

Yep, that pretty much secured the fact that I’m not going to fly for a long, long time, and even then only if I’m heavily medicated. I have enough problems flying as it is. I’m too much of a control freak to feel secure putting my life in some stranger’s hands.

Oh, wow, I just checked out the weather forecast for New Orleans next week. It looks luscious. I once went to New Orleans in August and it was like swimming through boiling water. The city is actually a bit under sea level, which is why their cemeteries have above-ground crypts, because the water table is so high that coffins will come to the surface if buried (shades of Poltergeist). What that means is that the humidity is so high that it’s hard to breathe… which is fine if you’re just sitting there at a bar getting sloshed, but there are so many fun places to go and shop and discover that it sucks to be benched.

Is my cat hot or not?
I weep for the future
Gov. of Texas broke, film at 11
In-flight safety card
I feel violated, having watched this
Darwin Award runner-up

Speaking of waste of time… I’ve just spent the last hour playing QBeez, which is apparently more addictive than crack cocaine. Do not even attempt it. You will be sorry. You have been warned.

I’m surprised they didn’t force the parents to name the baby after his Uncle Sam.
Denver secedes from the United States, film at 11.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to announce the birth of a new domain name – www.addlepated.net. I figured that it most accurately described my usual state of being, and it’s easier to type. So anyway, update your bookmarks, kids, cause we’re going wild!

I got my hair dyed red today. I also bought a boatload of clothes for our trip next week to New Orleans. There may not be many updates unless I can convince my hub to lend me his PC, or find a Blogger program for my Palm.

Are you John Stamos?
Samsung means to come… This is very cleverly entwined with jazz music.
Holy gonads, Batman!
How to eat Pretzels

Kid banned from school because mom’s a stripper
Germans take speed limits seriously. Investigation of fowl play follows.
Don’t throw Chinese food at cops, lest they shoot at you.

Gun safety rant on:

Here’s the worst part of what is wrong with the previous story… not that the cop flipped off a civilian, or even that he fired because he “thought he was under attack”. Read this:

However, the sheriff also said he didn’t think Anderson had time to get a good line of sight but “fired and hoped they’d go away.”

It is essential in firearm safety that you know your target and your backstop. The dumbass cop could have shot anyone – a kid, a nun, your mother, anyone – if he wasn’t aiming properly. And the sheriff doesn’t seem to have a big problem with it.

Remember, kids – gun control is hitting your target.

I just found this business card in an old box that has the following written on it:

I’m kind of the “shy type” and this is really embarrassing for me.

It would be just swell talking to you about where you are from, and discussing the weather and things, then we could fuck.

Heh. And I found a short essay I wrote, too:

When I was a young child, my mommy, daddy, and I would go on weekend excursions down to the ranch. To me, the ranch held some form of mystique, for it was the place where we could set off firecrackers, take jeep rides through the wilderness, and, best of all, where I could collect rocks.

Rock collecting was my forte. I would toddle out of the ranch house with my brand new styrofoam cup and go down the hill to the firt road. There, all I would have to do was bend over (being close to the ground already) and dig through the warm sand to find colorful, sun-warmed treasures. Stones amazed me; they came in every size, shape, and color imaginable. My very favorites were the rose quartz.

When we got home, my cup (hand carried in the car) would be placed next to all the other cups on the top shelf of my bookcase, the ultimate high honor. These sandy, dented cups were my prizes, and I would scream bloody murder anytime anyone would suggest their removal.

As I grew older, I didn’t notice that the cups were disappearing one by one. I was much too busy for a few pebbles collected on a whim. In fact, I didn’t notice that all but one cup, with five rose quartz stones in it, was left standing until just the other day.

The reason I even looked at all was because I was cleaning out my room. I was throwing things away from the top shelf in my closet, the place where things deemed unnecessary by the maid are relegated. I pulled a box aside and noticed about seven dusty, styrofoam cups. I paused for a moment, faintly smiling, took the cups, and sat down on my bed, fingering the cold pebbles. I then carefully set them down in the throw away pile, where they became magnified, then doubled by a prism of tears.

~1988

I found some other stuff in that box, but I will dole it out a little at a time so as not to bore you all at once.

Stupid shell tricks

Ironically, M.S. wrote in her blog tonight about how she used to write poetry and short fiction in high school. I say ironically because I was just about to write a similar blog entry. So M.S. this is your notice to get out of my head (hey, where did all these penguins come from?).

I wrote tons of poetry when I was a kid. It wasn’t half-bad either. I actually placed in 2 different national contests. One was for Cricket magazine, where I got honorable mention. The other was a middle school contest and I got second or third or something, got to go to a dinner banquet which I very vaguely recall and get a plaque. My mom religiously submitted my poetry to the local Mensa newsletter and they always published it.

Then something happened. I became a horrible nasty teenager and Mom was just like, you know, soooooooo stupid and if she said the sky was blue, I’d roll my eyes at her and say “Motherrrrrrrr, it’s totally not blue, it’s magenta, sheesh.” Etc. Ad nauseum. If I had a time machine I’d go back and smack myself around. But I digress. Mom was the one who encouraged my poetry and always challenged me to write more, do more, get better grades – basically always setting the bar for me. I was set and determined to do absolutely nothing that would please her, so I quit writing poetry. If something was required for a class, I’d write something (and it would be pretty good, too, there was one about Nobody Can that I think is probably my favorite that I’ve done) but I wouldn’t show it to her. Someday I’ll find my stash and post something here. I can’t remember any of them now.

Then something else happened. My mom died suddenly when I was 16. And I realized that I couldn’t write poetry anymore. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. Complete and utter writer’s block. I only managed to get one line out – “but that eggnog tasted bitter” (referring to the Christmas after she died when I took over making the eggnog for the family), but I couldn’t put anything around it. My friend A. found the scrap of paper that I wrote my one line on and thought it was funny (but not funny ha-ha), and I couldn’t (and never have been able to) explain what it was about. I just shrugged it off.

I’ve written one poem in the 15 years since Mom died. No, actually, I wrote 2. One was for a friend who was in a hospice dying of AIDS, a sort of epistle that I regret horribly that I never sent to him. The other was, in my opinion, a pity party, but it was one of the only poems I wrote that actually rhymed and had scansion. I can’t remember all of it and I can’t find a damned copy anywhere, but here’s what I remember

…and so on. Wah, wah, better call whine-one-one and request a waaaaaaaaah-mbulance. The only part I liked was the last line:

“Meanwhile a sullen monster comes along and eats the sea”

…which I have no idea what it means, but I really dig it.