What was I going to do again?

This weather is beginning to wear on me. I’m finding it difficult to maintain the motivation to finish anything. I have a ton of great ideas, I just lack the ability to follow-through. I would love to blame this solely on the weather but it’s really my crushing sense of self-doubt and conviction that I will make people mad by asking for what I really want. I’m also finding it difficult to follow through with myy thoughts. I’m finding them a bit scatte…

I love cartoons. The first memory of ever looking at a TV screen includes a cartoon. They contain beautiful colors that you always try to see in real landscapes but never quite get close to. So, needless to say, I have loved the resurgence of animated feature-length movies that exploded on the scene with Pixar, DreamWorks, and Disney which led to a ton of independent films. One of these is “Mary and Max”. I don’t want to give too much away but I’ll say that their letters are so intriguing because they say so much about themselves but do it indirectly. There are some of the usual “I’m eight and live in Blahblah” but you also learn that Mary has a small family that lies to her and generally has a miserable life yet is filled with hope for the future. She doesn’t say “I have hope for the future”, instead she talks about saving to marry a Scottish Duke named Earl Gray and living in a castle. She’s not willing to give up because of her current condition.

This movie is so good that you could turn off the picture and just listen to the audio and still absolutely love it. There isn’t one superfluous or wasted word in the entire film. I am particularly enamored of the letters. I would love to receive a letter like that. A letter from a stranger that is attempting to tell you all about them yet keeping in mind that it’s a letter so you have to say things kind of quickly. If I were to rip someone’s address out of a phone book and write to them, my letter may go something like this:

Dear Mr./Ms. Randomly-picked-person-from-Telstra-directory,

Good day. This is my attempt at being colloquial and polite at the same time. I picked your name out of a directory because I wanted to write an actual letter on real paper to someone I’ve never met and may never meet in my lifetime considering that it’s extremely expense to travel to Australia and I’m on a tight budget.

The University of Minnesota has had a wage-freeze for two years but I’ve managed to still increase my take-home pay by getting what my supervisors may term as a promotion although I’m really just taking on my responsibilities and getting only slightly more pay so really, I’m underpaid. But at least I’m paid.

In today’s technologically advanced world, do you think it’s better to communicate a gripe better through email or by phone? I often get nervous when I actually have to speak and end up stammering which makes me more self-conscious and makes things worse so I prefer email but my supervisors have said that a phone call would be less confrontational. I disagree because I think it’ll make the SFR Senior Administrator only more confused and irritated and therefore, unwilling to listen to my side of the story.

I would continue but now I’ve lost interest and am convinced that this was a stupid idea.

Hurry up!

Do most people feel like they’ve let a whole section of their lives just slip by? I feel like I’ve always been busy yet I haven’t done anything.

When I was at the age when I didn’t have a say over where I went, I always had to go “camping” on the weekends. From Friday evening until Sunday evening, we were all sequestered on a 40 acre plot of land in Dresser, WI. Camping is in quotations because usual camping trips involve activities like swimming and hiking. Our “camping” involved mowing the lawn and doing a bunch of other work to reach a point at the end of the day where we could sit down for maybe 30 minutes and think “Gee, the weather sure is nice today.”

This lasted until I was 16 and could both drive and hold a part-time job; so for two years, I did fun things on the weekends. Then it was off to college where I worked on the weekends because if you haven’t developed the need before the age of 18, you definitely develop the need after age 18 of having to support yourself. That need became obsessive with me. I suddenly realized how much money I was going to need to keep a roof over my head for the rest of my life and I couldn’t image that there would ever be enough money left over for me in this big bad world after everyone else took their share.

I used to sleep until 10am when I was a kid. I would go to bed early too. I couldn’t get enough sleep. If I would have been the only one in the house, I would have slept longer. Now, I feel panicky and flustered the whole day if I don’t get up by 8am. See, I’m in a hurry to get things done so I can get to some point of reward. Something that will be great but I have no idea what that is.

Most times, I arrive early to where ever I’m going and if I don’t, I’m very uptight about it. I’m supposed to work from 8am - 4:30pm with a one-hour lunch. I can’t remember the last time I took an entire hour for lunch or arrived at work at 8am. I’m usually there by 7:15. I usually don’t take a lunch but instead eat at my desk so I can leave by 4:30-ish. My goal with this schedule is to get all of my work done so I can move on to other things that I want to do. I never seem to get to those things. I can’t figure out why. Seriously, I can’t.

I work hard. Really hard. Once I get to a point where my hard work is noticed, I feel like I can’t slow down for fear of letting someone down. I should just try to keep people’s expectations low, I’ll have a lot more free time that way.

I can start a lot of things that I like, but I rarely get to see them through. I started a performance class and another dance class with several friends six years ago; they’ve all done a lot in that time and have moved on to some great things but I haven’t. I’ve sunk. At this point, I’d be happy if I could plateau. If you could see inside my head, you’d find a lot of really good ideas and plans in there. Somehow, my body never catches up to my mind.

Tonight, I should sit down and come up with a plan to change this….but I really gotta get that lawn mowed first.

Summer summer summer summer summer

I liked 1978. I was 7.

My favorite movie, “The Deer Hunter” was released that year along with my other favorite movie, “Superman” and my sometimes-favorite movie “Star Wars”. Van Halen released their first album along with Kiss’ “Double Platinum” which my brother and I dutifully taped onto one cassette, carefully printed out the song titles in the accompanying cassette label, and listened to over and over and over and over and over and over and I still have it somewhere in my garage. Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” was playing all the time on the radio station my parents listened to although it was released in 1974; it’s a miracle that I ever managed to discover great things like Fender Stratocasters being played by phenomenal people like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

When I was 17, I bought my first car which was a ’78 Camaro. I used to drive around everywhere in the summer with the windows down which produces a wind tunnel effect similar to the hair dryer mechanism in “Blade Runner” that Joanna Cassidy uses. Men probably only remember that scene for Ms. Cassidy being naked but I bet most women remember that hair dryer thing. She just sticks her head up in that clear plastic bubble and POOF one minute later her hair is perfectly dry and styled. Someone should actually invent that.

All summer consisted of was swimming, mowing the lawn, walking through tall grass, mowing the lawn, swimming under water for hours (okay, minutes), sleeping with the windows open, putting on lots of mosquito repellant…oh, and swimming. I haven’t swum yet this summer. I also haven’t slept with the window open yet but then again, the city is a dangerous place and I don’t have anyone to protect me but me and it would be pretty stupid to leave the windows open when I’m letting my guard down.

I’ve been bemoaning the fact that I haven’t gotten out to do many summer things yet this summer (If I can think of a way to construct a sentence that uses the word ‘summer’ even more, I’d do it…summer.) I actually haven’t said it out loud to many people, I’ve just been thinking it over and over in my head; this way, no one knows what a whiner I am…until now.

BUT that’s all about to change. I get a chance to go to a real, live cabin this weekend. And, holy crap, it has a dock. The last time I tried to run off of a dock was about three years ago on a trip up to White Earth where there was a serious drought on and people had to jump into my path in order to stop me from jumping off of a dock that would have landed me on my head into a pile of mud. NOT THIS TIME! WOOHOO! That dock is going to get jumped off in a way it’s never been jumped off before and I hope it’s ready for it. It better start working out, stretching, preparing mentally, whatever it takes. The only thing that would be better is if I had a ’78 Camaro to drive up there in.

I’m going to buy a ’78 Camaro, restore it and drive it down to Texas to swim in the ocean. It’s going to be epic.

Warning: This blog doesn't really have a point.

The last time I wore this top, I was driving through Missouri. I was on my way back from some flimflam camp that I only went to because two of my friends were going to be there but after only a few short hours, I realized I was surrounded by people engaging in a gigantic oneupsmanship where by the person that could say the most outrageous thing was somehow held in great esteem by those gathering around….so I left.

An example is this exchange at the bonfire - correction, spiritual gathering involving flame of mother stick:
Man: “I’m just waiting for the right man to come along” (insert light laughter)
Young-ish woman: “You can have the men, I’m waiting for the wrong woman to come along!” (insert slightly louder laughter)
Old woman: “Well I need me a horny lesbian!” (Insert gafaw). Really? Because I think that if a horny lesbian fell in your lap, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with her and further more, she’d probably make you cry.

So anyway, I’m driving through Missouri on my way to South Dakota because I suddenly decided that I wanted to drive through Wounded Knee. Why Wounded Knee? Well one, I had never been there before and I like the movie “Thunderheart” (with Val Kilmer and Graham Greene who is completely underrated as an actor and should be in waaaaaaaay more movies and if you don’t believe me, just watch his two minute scene in “Powwow Highway”); two, I was at that age (29) where I was still very idealistic, which I believe explains my time spent at the flimflam camp, and thought that I would get answers to all of my questions by simply driving past; and three, it was on the way.

On my way out of the looney camp, I inevitably had to stop for gas. Let this be a warning ladies: when in Missouri, do not stop for gas at the one gas station that is on top of a hill with no other buildings or human beings within a 100-mile radius. Because if you do, you’ll find three unsightly gentlemen; one behind the counter who will tell you that the gas pump is broken and the total isn’t $11.00, it’s really $20.00 and two other gentlemen engaged in a battle of wits over a pool table in an area usually designated for automobile repair. If you make any indication of asking for corroborating evidence on this alleged “broken” gas pump, one of the two gentlemen in the auto/pool area will cease his cue ball setup and turn to look at you at which time you should set your $20 on the counter and get the hell out…quickly.

Missouri isn’t all bad though, one of the more poignant moments was when I stopped for the night at some motel which looked just like the ones you see in movies like “White Lightning” or “Thelma and Louise” minus Brad Pitt. The woman that ran it reminded me of Flo from that TV show “Alice” except without all the sass. She was very sweet. The room was filled with very old furnishings, carpet, wall coverings and “window treatments” but what was there was very very clean. When I left in the morning, they had changed the sign in front to read something about “Follow your dreams, you never know where they’ll take you” and I thought that was extremely profound for a roadside motel and then I thought “How did they know I was trying to do that?”

So then it was on to South Dakota and I’ll be damned if that Wounded Knee site and the surrounding areas don’t look almost exactly like the movie. I’m going to attribute that to the fact that most of the movie actually was filmed there. Either the prop guys forgot to take out a couple of cars from the gullies or the movie was extremely based in reality.

I discovered that people like to leave things at the Wounded Knee memorial. Stuff like flowers and necklaces and ribbons and anything else they can manage to attach to the chain link fence. This concept has always intrigued me. Why leave something there? Flowers okay, but jewelry? Eventually some human being is going to have to take it down and it will go to some other human being. I don’t get this leaving-stuff-for-dead-people, but that’s a topic for another time.

It was raining when I drove up but the sun was also starting to poke through the clouds so it all looked pretty spectacular. Even more so with the old guy walking up to the monument as if it wasn’t raining at all. See, the monument is located on top of a hill with a pretty long incline so to walk up to it takes some doing.

But anyway, back to my top. It’s the only good thing that happened to me at the wacko-camp. It’s a tie-dyed (gasp!) halter top that completely covers your front but leaves the back open. Lest you men think that this isn’t a good setup, I can report that the result of this design makes everyone’s abdomen look appealing, even if you don’t think yours will ever look appealing. The good thing about tie-dye is that if you’re not wearing a bra, no one really notices because there’s so much already going on up there. This top can be worn when the temperature is ungodly and I won’t have to worry about looking like a skank. I try to reserve that look for Skank Night.