Thank you and good night.

It’s what I feel like doing right now.  That would be collapsing, not reading.  Quite a lot of energy was expended walking to/from work and shoveling that GODT….DAMNED….DRIVEWAY!  My lower back doth protest too much. 

Sometimes I question why I bother trying to follow the rules.  I am definitely a Walter rather than a Donny or a Dude.  I’m just going to go with some ab work and then sleep.  That’s my rule for the evening, I’m following it and no one can fucking stop me.

Good Day, Sunshine

Oh sunny day.  Well, warmer day anyway.  For a few moments this afternoon, it honestly felt noticeably warmer.  I mean warmer like I had visions of lawns and lakes and jazz floating through my head. 

The other thing that was nice about today was taking a class from my former teacher again.  That brought back memories of when I always tried to do my best in class, as if I was performing right then and there.  By coincidence, after class I read a quote online from someone insisting on calling himself Jim Norton who stated (to paraphrase) life is not a rehearsal.  We shouldn't just kind of call-it-in for a while always thinking that at some point in the future we’ll put this rehearsal to use.  It’s all really right now and every chance you get to do any activity that pleases you, you should do it.  I would add to that to not only do it, but do it to the best of your ability.  That’s something I didn't do during my last official performance and I feel bad about wasting people’s time.  They could have done something else with that 4 minutes but they chose to spend it watching me and I didn't give them the best I could do. 

Right now, I can only think of the Skinny Cow mint ice cream sandwich in my freezer.  I’m going to go eat it to the best of my ability.

On to the next year

I have now commenced with my 44^th year.  Having finished 43 successfully (and I’ll measure success by still being alive and not in prison) then perhaps I shouldn’t try to fix something that’s not broken.  But something feels like it’s broken. 

 I feel like I need to figure things out, make decisions and then act, but I’m not sure if that sounds stupid.  Maybe I should stop making lists.  That may be too drastic.  I could list the pros and cons of not making lists and see how I feel about it and then revisit that decision in a few months.  Woohoo, taking action at it’s best.

I watched “The Big Chill” last night and secretly wished I could make everything all better by bringing a group of people together that I’ll pretend I was great friends with to share a weekend in a private house with a big kitchen and smoke dope all weekend.  I’m sure by Sunday afternoon, everything would be back in order. 

I was realizing last night how I am no longer good at the things I used to be good at.  It used to be that I could sit in front of a piano after years of not sitting in front of a piano and in only a few minutes, play just as well as I ever could.  I haven’t played in a while, but I’m scared to now after coming back to the oboe.  The oboe isn’t as easy as I remember.  I’m a hypocrite.  I preach practice but yet don’t when no one is looking. 

I should be of an age where I should stop feeling pressure from other areas.  I’m a little too much like my mother.  There is a very real need for me to stop freaking out and building up anger.  There is also a need for me to relinquish control over every aspect.  I have a plan, a redundancy protocol, and several backup plans.  That should be enough.  Telling the truth about what I’m thinking is also enough.  No need to paint different pictures or frame things for other audiences. 

Speaking of pictures, I hauled myself out of work specifically for the purpose of catching this view for posterity.  I also hauled myself out to avoid being mugged.    

 

 

.

I don't think I'm allowed back.

No one told me that I had to look down while walking from room to room INSIDE the house. I’m the youngest in the family so I’m not used to babies being given free range to just waddle from place to place without a bell on. It didn’t make any noise so how was I supposed to know it was sitting in the doorway from the kitchen to the living room, occupying the very spot of where I was and where I wanted to go? I didn’t mean to kick it in the face. I have to say though, it was like kicking a bag of flour except it came with a sickening feeling in my stomach because while I wasn’t sure what was on the floor I was sure that it wasn’t a bag of flour.

Amazing how all activity stopped and focused on me and the floor in front of me. It sure did start to cry then. Oh sure! Make all of the noise now AFTER I’ve hit you! You could have let out a little “goo” or something only 20 seconds earlier and you wouldn’t be feeling that stinging sensation in the middle of your face.

But it was bendy still, right? Most likely there wouldn’t be any damage like a cleft palate or an upturned nose. The teeth should still have all come in at a normal pace and in the normal spots. If I remember correctly, it was a boy and boys punch each other all the time so he should thank me today if he has the ability to really take a punch. And by the way, aren’t they supposed to be enshrined in some type of wheeled device with a little pouch thing to sit in? Wasn’t someone, like a close relative, supposed to be watching it?? Someone else was slacking off but I got the dirty looks.

And who puts a doorbell in the middle of a door?? It looked like a decoration, not an actual working part. Putting the doorbell in the middle of the door wouldn’t make any sense because you would have to open the screen door to get to it and you’re really not supposed to touch the door until someone comes to it after you’ve RUNG THE BELL LOCATED ON THE SIDE OF THE DOOR. So when I touched it, I was very surprised to hear a loud DING DONG which of course set off the two large dogs barking and woke up the dad who had just gotten home from the third shift.

Worst sleep over of my life. I wonder if Kari was allowed to have any more sleep overs after I left?

Excuse me, your cap is blocking my view of the sun.

Its graduation time and it always makes me feel like a failure.  Graduation means it’s time to reminisce and I go in reverse chronological order.  I’ll first remember that last year, I had this same feeling.  Then I’ll remember the first time I walked through all of the festivities outside of Northrup Hall as a staffer in 2006 (they don’t have as big to-do’s on the St. Paul campus).  It’s really hard not to get caught up in the feeling of happiness and excitement…for a moment.  Really, only about two seconds.  Then I remember how I gave up on graduation ceremonies for my second degree in 2003 due to the experience at the first college graduation in Duluth in 1993.  There were so many people I didn’t know and I couldn’t see my parents anywhere in the stands until I spotted my mom with the video camera who didn’t understand that I was motioning to her to record the speaker because she was the one person I did know.  My brother wasn’t able to make it, being wrapped up in Fed Ex goings-on in Memphis.  I made it to his graduation from UND in 1990, but it was much easier for me since it was more like a vacation.  I didn’t have to worry about a job, just finding time to not get behind in my freshmen classes.

My high school graduation ceremony in 1989 was attended by my mom, Grandma, and cousin Julie but missed by dad and brother.  Tom was on his way home from UND with his new girlfriend, Danelle and didn’t quite make it in time for the ceremony but more than made up for it at the grad party (much more fun anyway).  I can’t remember if I made it to his graduation in 1985, but I must have because I was 14 and would have been made to go.  I do remember the grad party though. 

Would you believe that I remember my 6^th grade graduation?  I do because it’s the only grad ceremony that took place before the first real one from high school.  It was from Wilder in 1983.  It’s nice to have a gathering with classmates where an elder figure of respect mutters a statement of appreciation for us making it this far and then something about the future that will go over our heads, but let’s not get all crazy and turn it into an actual “ceremony”. 

During this particular trudge down self-loathing lane, I choose to skip over certain painful memories in order to concentrate on the ones more related to educational milestones in my life.   I chose to re-enroll in college in 2000 after spending Dec. 31^st, 1999 under a plastic covering in a hotel restaurant doing my Controller duties making sure the horrible prophecies of 2000 wouldn’t hit my hotel’s financial system, at least without a good fight.  I decided that I wouldn’t spend another New Year’s Eve in that same position although now when I’m given the choice, I choose to stay home because I hate New Year’s Eve due to all of the crap I put up with while working in the hotel industry for 12 years.  At least it’s my choice and I’m very happy there on my couch and no one puking on my shoes.

My first degree in Business Admin was supposed to lead me to the top of the hospitality world, enshrining my name in the anals of Hospitality Management for generations to look back on.  Too bad I didn’t carve my initials into the cashier podium that night in 1999.  Then I could have kind of said that I reached my goal.

My 2^nd degree in soil science was supposed to launch me into the freedom of scientific endeavors where I could study stuff and find answers to problems without ever having to work the 3^rd shift.  Instead, it led me to realize that I couldn’t support myself in that field alone right away and had to “fall back’ on accounting again to pay the bills for awhile but got stuck there after people realized that I was good at helping people in scientific endeavors to solve problems where I am occasionally lectured by an overzealous co-worker hoping to show off his newly acquired knowledge as to what an Income Statement is even though I was working on them back when he was trying to figure out who to ask to the prom.  Speaking of prom….oh, I’ll get to that later.

In the midst of this self-depreciation, a few faces will pop into mind.  There are two people in particular that make me wonder how things would have turned out if only things could have been just a little different.  Person #1 will remain nameless because I said so.

I see his face as it was back then.  Big eyes, cleanly cut afro, incredibly strong and so so sweet.  He’d sit with me before gymnastics practice when I was in 8^th grade.  In the Minneapolis Public School system, you could be on a high school team even in junior high as along as all of the proper paperwork was signed by legal guardians and you could actually get there in time after your school let out.  This could be true everywhere but I wouldn’t know because my schooling was confined to the Minneapolis public school system.  I always showed up early (as I still do to everything) and would just sit outside of the gym doors in those big, cold, uniquely smelling high school halls.  Interesting how the sizes of the hallways increase with the grade numbers.  They get wider and ‘heavier” as you move up the grade ladder.

One day during our chat, I causally mentioned that I was in a class with his younger brother.  Being the smart person he is, he quickly deduced that in order for me to be in a class with his 8^th grade brother, I would have to be in 8^th grade myself.  At this point, if he could have turned white, he would have.   See, he was going to ask me to prom because he thought that I was a junior.  I, of course, was thrilled!  He, of course, was horrified.  I wish that would have worked out because he has turned out to be a modern-day, real life super hero.  I read about him every now and then in the newspapers and am reminded that I at least had a few sweet moments where I knew him well and that there may be people in the world that will never meet him, and that’s too bad….for them.

His younger brother inherited that ‘wonderful’ gene.  Younger brother used to make me laugh harder than anyone else at Folwell Jr High.  Whenever I was scared and wanted to hide, I would think of him and feel safe, even though it was just in my mind.  I guess feeling safe is the start of being safe….wait, no it’s not. 

Younger brother has chosen a more out-of-the-limelight path so I’ve never read anything on him in the newspapers, although I think he’s living in a suburb and is married.  When I realize that the odds are he is married, a part of my chest sinks in since a part of my brain wants it to be true that he’s still hoping that he may see me again one day when, at which point, he’ll propose and I’ll accept, after reviewing his financials of course.  No sense in taking on more debt. 

I used to not get why parents always cried at things like graduation ceremonies.  I now think it’s partly because they may be looking back and thinking about all of the earlier goals that never quite saw the light of day.  It’s not about you, it’s about them.  It also doesn’t just happen to parents, it happens to everyone so stifle your “you don’t understand because you’re not a parent” comments.   There’s one goal I did reach…not having kids.  Whew.

Can't sleep....again.

I recognize this restless feeling while trying to fall asleep, it means I have to get up for awhile and figure out what's bugging me.

My birthday is coming up - which I think is the real sleep-stealing culprit here - and I've been thinking a lot lately about dreams. I, like every other kid everywhere, had many fantastical dreams. Very action-oriented, specific, with location, costuming, set-design, colors, people, etc. For instance...

I wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer. Not just a Solid Gold dancer, but THE dancer, Darcel. It didn't matter that I was the wrong color, I wanted that hair and that strength, that arch in my back, those "lines" as their called. I liked the idea of arriving at a studio in comfy yet trendy clothes and warming up in a cold room.

I also wanted to be a pianist...in New York. Not just so I could play piano, but so that I could whisk between a cab and a theater door as if it's just a few minutes before the time I'm scheduled to be there, never late though.

I then wanted to be a chemist because of all the pretty crystal-like structures I saw while watching "Superman" in the school library from a top-loading VCR player. I went home and pretended that my electric curlers were little vials of stuff. This dream later morphed into becoming a chemical engineer after I read an article in 1989 about the highest paying positions (chemical engineer was at the top).

The Cat is restless too. He usually doesn't meow at me this much or try to kill my foot that's hidden under the blankets. He usually tries that in the morning when I'm tyring to oversleep.

That reminds me, I used to dream of having a pet tiger. Not a Bengal tiger, although they're the prettiest; I wanted the biggest - a Siberian. It would jump around the living room on the unrealistic sectional sofa while I wore this super cute thermal underwear set that was black with thin colored lines that I saw in a Yougn Miss layout when I was in 7th grade (I told you, set- design, etc.)

Sometimes I would get a little vague about a main idea but really nail the details, like the dream about being AN ADULT with a job during daylight hours where I wore my favorite pink sweater to work and had my hair braided down my back and lived in my house (my parents, of course, had long moved out) that was filled with bean bags and really large floor pillows. I don't know where the tiger was at this point.

Fast-forward to today; I have Darcel's hair and have received a "very strong" comment on my dancing, I'm not an official pianist but I can make my computer keyboard sing and while I never "whisk", I am never late; I don't own that super cute thermal set but I have about 5 different other super cute thermal sets (sometimes it's as if Victoria Secret reads my mind!) and I often jump around my living room with my orange tabby cat. Please refrain from calling me a crazy cat lady because I only have one and he's way better at catching mice than I am. I guess, in a way, my dreams did come true.

I better think up some new ones so when I can't flall asleep when I'm 80, I"ll have something to ponder.

WARNING: Do not read this while eating...

Today’s headlines seem to be all about last year’s headlines. I was trying to find something fun to write about while eating my chicken chow mein lunch. Unfortunately, my lunch contains one piece of chicken that looks as if it may have some feather residue on it. The problem with this, among so many obvious problems, is that I work for a center that studies influenza, including Avian influenza. What initially makes me apprehensive about digesting this particular piece of chicken is my gut reaction to catching H5N1 from eating this…oh, and that feathers taste yucky.

Having a moment to sit back, I’m able to calmly remember that H5N1 (like all influenza strains) is transmitted from the virus being transported out of the human carrier into the new victim’s eyes, nose or throat via saliva or mucus (Isn’t this fun meal-eating reading material?) Birds tend to store the virus in their guts. I’m not attempting to eat the gut so therefore, my possibly feathered chicken will not transmit the H5N1 virus…if it had it to begin with. None of this is getting through to my stomach which is currently rejecting the possibility of this item entering its boundaries.

I’ve also worked in a soil and plant testing lab and have specifically worked on feathers. Feathers are tested for chemical properties by first being ground up into dust-like particles. I can tell you that it takes a long time to grind up feathers into dust-like particles. I further know that the chemical make-up of feathers includes pretty colors like magnesium, sodium, calcium and iron. Following this logic, if I were to go ahead and force down the chicken, it’d be like taking a daily supplement. My stomach is still not buying it.

I have eaten the veggies and little hard noodles and actually some chicken. I just can’t get myself to eat the rest of the chicken. I’m really glad I have an emergency container of soup in my filing cabinet. That and there’s a few Christmas cookies left in the copy room.

Shoot, the soup is chicken with stars.

And the listing goes to....

I have arrived at a conundrum in my life – whom to list as an emergency contact. I’m the one that’s usually contacted in an emergency. I can’t list one definitive person to contact in an emergency because it depends on the emergency. Let me give you a few examples.

I work at the U of M (East Bank). If you’ve ever had to even drive through the East Bank, you may have an idea of how hard it is to find parking. I have a really good idea of how hard it is to find parking. Thanks to a combination of Minneapolis’ finest and some possibly shady towing companies, I have a much better understanding of street laws that we all tend to forget the second after we pass our drivers tests. I have fractured a few of these street laws, some of which have led to what may or may not be legal tows. This has been somewhat of an emergency in the past depending on what my future schedule is. I have called a neighbor, my mother, a friend, and once was lucky enough to catch a co-worker before she left her office. I don’t feel right listing the neighbor, the friend, or the co-worker as an emergency contact on my passport. If I’m detained in Thailand for any reason or have a heart attack on an airplane, I couldn’t imagine that those three people would be able to do much about it. If my mother were called, she would need more help than I would and that’s just with driving directions.

When I was in 8th grade, I broke a piece off of my foot bone while working on a new dismount on the uneven parallel bars. My mother was called for this emergency and my brother also showed up because he was in the gym just down the hallway with the rest of his wrestling teammates. My spotter, who would go on to be an outstanding member of the N. Minneapolis police dept., joked around because they were in the same class and I was an easy target being dizzy and all from those deep breaths everyone kept telling me to take. I think they just wanted to see me dizzy. This was a pretty easy emergency contact listing since one usually doesn’t have any choice when in school. They don’t ask you for an emergency contact, they ask you who your parents/guardians are and write down that information, assuming that these people will be able to step into any situation and get you out of it. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty big assumption.

I stepped on a nail in my garage two years ago and I didn’t call anyone. I drove myself to Urgent Care, which isn’t open that early on a Sunday so one is forced to go to the emergency room. I was a bit torn on this one because I’m not certain it was an emergency but it was “a gusher” and I couldn’t get the image of the rust from the nail breaking off into my blood stream, floating up to my head and making my brain explode. Both the doctor and nurse were incredibly handsome. That’s too off-point though, sorry.

Last January, I agreed to go in to the hospital for a week for a video monitoring session recommended by my neurologist to see if seizure activity could be captured and recorded. This wasn’t an emergency, it was voluntary and planned for ahead of time. What I learned from this is that I don’t necessarily need people for emergencies, I need people for things I can plan ahead for. I needed someone to check on The Cat and take in my mail. Mail should be taken in because that’s a beacon to any potential burglars who may be staking out the joint. It also pisses off the mail carriers when the box gets too full to put more mail into. The Cat has to be looked after because he’s a living entity that requires food and water. I can dump a bunch of food into a bowl and provide enough water with those cool bottle contraptions to last a week, but The Cat also requires human contact. As far as cats are concerned, he’s quite the hard ass. Where humans are concerned, he needs love and attention every day. My neighbor (a different one from the towing neighbor) graciously agreed to cover this for me.

These past experiences have all led me to this point in time. I have to list an emergency contact at work, oddly for the same reason we had to list someone when we were 10. I also have to write one in on my passport. Not only am I trying to decide whom to write down, I am trying to decide if I even need to write anyone down at all.

If I end up in the hospital yet am conscious and have full mental capacity (at least as much as I currently have) then the person I would want to contact is my neighbor so she can take care of The Cat. If I am unconscious and the medical staff needs my medical history, they’ll have it in the computer system and I usually don’t step outside without having my ID on me so even if I end up on the shores of the Mississippi, they’ll be able to get to my medical records. I’d still need the neighbor to watch The Cat but I’d also need her to contact my supervisor so I don’t get fired for three no-call/no-shows in a row. If I don’t have my ID on me, then it won’t matter who I list because they won’t know where to look to find my emergency contact information. If I’m held in detention at the Mexican border, I’m going to need the neighbor for supervisor alert, The Cat, and to also grab my checkbook kept in my house to work on transferring funds down to pay off the policia. That settles it then, I’m going with the neighbor.

This little exercise has proven to be quite enlightening. It’s interesting to find out what you’d really categorize as an emergency. Gee, I hope I’m not forgetting anything.

I'm sure this is the start of something big

2011 gave me my first Vikings game…and my last Vikings game. It’s not a reflection of my feelings towards the Vikings; rather, it is a reflection on my feelings towards Vikings fans. I don’t like being that close to people for three hours. Unless I’m offered a box seat or a front row seat between the 30 yard lines or the end zones, I’m not going to drop that much money on one plastic seat.

I have to admit though, the people-watching can be fun. At yesterday's Bears/Vikings game, there were several families that were split over loyalties. One family in front of me consisted of one boy who was a Bears fan and one little girl who was a Vikings fan. The little girl had a lavendar, purple and yellow tulle tutu on so she definitely won the fashion contest over her brother who only donned a Bears t-shirt and stocking hat.

At the beginning of the game, the mother had them stand together for a picture. Brother dutifully put his arm around his sister and they both sported very pleasant smiles. At half-time, mom had them get together for another picture and this time, positioned the brother (still with his arm around his sister) to stand up taller with his shoulders out like he had just been drafted, and positioned the sister next to him with her shoulders slumped as if she was about to start crying. Even her tutu was turned down. It was really cute. Not quite worth $300 though, so in the future I will remain in my living room (or someone's living room) and watch the game on a comfy couch and hope that a camera man picks up a cute scene like that in the future. If not, I'll go to the kitchen for a free sandwich.

Enough about 2011, let’s talk about 2012. A few things I’ve already decided to do are: one, practice more; two, read more Shakespeare (yes, again!); and three, take a real vacation. “Practice what?” you say? Everything. Practice everything. Okay, not everything. I already know how to do the dishes really well so I don’t need to practice that. I’m also really good at mowing my lawn so there’s another thing I don’t have to worry about. The piano and oboe on the other hand, those I should worry about. While I don’t own a piano (I’ve been offered but I can’t fit it in my house) I do own a keyboard which has almost a full piano keyboard. It doesn’t have all of the bass keys though so I can’t play many Elton John songs.

My mother bought me an oboe two years ago during a holiday sale. I’ve only played it a few times since then. Oddly, I’m looking forward to the pain and follow-up numbness of my embrasure for hours or weeks…whatever it takes.

Dancing is another thing I’ll have to practice because spring session classes are not in the budget. I’ve been through enough classes now where I should be able to keep the intensity level up on my own for a while.

Shamefully, I also need to practice writing. I used to be much better at it, but just like everything else, if you don’t do it enough, you are not as good at it. My performance level at this particular task will need to improve. I can see now that I’m going to need to buy more legal pads. While I am a fast typist, I’m too easily distracted when I hop on the computer. I’ll need to have my ducks in a row before I log on so that I can just type it out and then go google the latest sports news. Speaking of sports, I need to get back to this game….

Lest you get too comfortable....

At the end of this glorious day, I am always reminded of the words of my immortal grandmother...."It's disGUSTing how we eat like gluttons like this every year!!" Thanks grandma, now not only am I physically uncomfortable, I'm emotionaly uncomfortable.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Let me tell you what you can do with that gravy...

I’ve said this before, but I feel like saying it again. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No gifts. Well, kind of no gifts. I spend more on Thanksgiving than I do on Christmas (dried cherries are expensive and oddly, cranberries aren’t cranberries without cherries) but I’m also more confident that people will like what I’ve spent the money on.

If you haven’t made a turkey before, you wouldn’t believe how easy it is. That’s what the advertisers are counting on; that you think it’s hard so you’ll buy all this specialized crap to go with preparing this one bird this one day of the year. All you really need is salt, butter, some oranges and something that can be used to tie two knobby legs together.

The only thing that is tricky is the timing and that will depend on how much extra stuff you want to make and your day job. I go absolutely ape-shit over side dishes. I have no less than seven sides that I feel must accompany the caged, injected, oiled-up bird. I’m not going to tell you what they are because I want you to be surprised if you ever come over.

Other highlights of the holiday include football and then football…and pie.

The one thing I hate about this holiday is gravy. I HATE GRAVY. Always have, always will. I hate eating it, I hate smelling it, I hate looking at it, and I most certainly hate making it. I hate the stupid custom dish it has to be in. That stupid dish never fits into the hutch just right, you always have to move other dishes around and then the aesthestics are all off. Gravy ruins fung shui.

Gravy has stupid sayings too, like “It’s all gravy”. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? Are they implying that gravy is easy? It’s not. You have to remember to add all this crap to the bottom of the roasting pan and then pour that little amount of liquid out of that big, heavy roasting pan into another one of the advertisers specialized pieces of crap to skim the fat off of the top which is replaced with more fat and some flour and then wisked in back in the huge roasting pan and then it has to be poured into the stupid fung shui-ruining dish and served right away because it sucks if it gets cold.

My potatoes are so stunning that they don’t need gravy. None of my life needs gravy. I have worked everything out so that I never have to utter the words “please pass the gravy”. I am the 1% that doesn’t need any goddamn gravy.

You can join me. We can increase to 2% and then maybe 10%. Take that first step, refuse to buy the fat skimmer. Next, throw out the gizzard and neck. Then, when you’ve gotten the proper amount of rest and have eaten three nutritious meals, bypass the package of gravy mix and the ready-to-eat gravy in a jar. You have to be at your peak condition to master this last step. This involves not only passing up a few food items, this involves changing the precepts of society.

You can do it. I believe in you. Just keep saying to yourself “NO FUCKING GRAVY!” Put gouda and heavy cream in the potatoes instead. You’ll thank me for it. Colors start to look brighter, aromas are more intense, laughter of children is more enjoyable with no gravy in your life. We can have a world with no gravy; a world with balanced china hutches and no stains on the table clothes (It’s always the gravy). It’s a glorious world I can see and I want you to join me in it. We’ll procreate and raise an entire community that knows nothing of gravy! Gravy-devouring countries will bow before us. WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!

Okay, I gotta go boil the wild rice…

When I was young, we had to sit there and hold our broken bone until it healed...

So Dominique Barber broke his foot and the technical term is Lisfranc fracture where all the metatarsals are displaced from the tarsus and I know that’s right because it’s on Wikipedia and it reminds me of my friend Linda’s fracture but anyway I was noticing that Mr. Barber had a red cast on but then allegedly changed it to blue and white which I have to admit left me speechless for a moment as I pondered how that could be possible since a cast is supposed to be super protective and should then be not easily taken off OR CHANGE COLORS so where does he get off being able to change colors like that or even get to HAVE colors in the FIRST PLACE unlike his predecessors like me who have broken my foot although not the tarsus unless my tarsus is located on the side of my foot where that bump is which it is not so it was my talus bone that I broke which is close to tarsus but only in spelling and which my doctor at the time gleefully referred to as my “foot bone!” and put a plain white plaster cast on it leaving only my toe nails poking out thank goodness because I could at least still paint my nails and impress my seemingly easily-impressed doctor but by not telling me the correct medical term I was forced to say that I broke my "foot bone!” instead of getting to say “talus” but that wouldn’t have changed the color of my cast but it does lead me to wonder if a red cast itches a lot because a white one sure does and I know my doctor told me not to stick anything down there to scratch no matter how much it itched but I think it had been some time since he had his own plain white cast on and forgot how absolutely annoying that little itch can be so when no one was looking I grabbed my mom’s canister of knitting needles where there were a ton to choose from and I first reached for the pretty pink metal ones but then I felt a little bad about using the pretty ones because she used those all the time so I grabbed the ugly plastic ones and rammed one of them down there where I was able to get really close to my itchy “foot bone!” but I got a little carried away with the motion and all of a sudden out of nowhere it broke WHILE STILL IN MY CAST which is just what my doctor told me would happen and I didn’t believe him but now there was evidence that he was right but I was still stuck with one broken plastic knitting needle in my cast and I began to panic has I imagined my foot turning gangrene just like my doctor said would happen if I stuck anything down there and then I imagined the look on my mother’s face when the cast came off yelling OH MY GOD and then THAT’S WHERE THAT NEEDLE WENT as the broken needle fell to the cold hard hospital floor and the doctor turning to grab the skill saw to saw off my foot since it was gangrene and just as I got to this point in my imagination I managed to grab hold of the little flat top edge of the stuck needle with its free partner and yank it out but not without leaving what felt like a long wide scratch on my leg that I was certain would turn gangrene so I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t but all was well when the cast finally did come off and there was no yelling or sawing or gangrene. Just a stupid white cast on the floor.

I'm going to have to tweet this....

So, this whole social media thing still bugs me sometimes. People have loved to attribute incredible commendations to it when it’s played a part in movements like in Egypt, other Middle East and N. African countries. I guess if you’re in prison and you have access to a smart phone, it’d be great to let someone know you’re there to see if they can come and get you out.

To me, it seems that social media is currently having the same integrity issues that we had to deal with when the internet first came on the scene. When I started my college career, the internet didn’t exist. We had to go and sit in a mold-ridden library and page through little cards (while standing) to find the volume of a certain journal we needed and then, after searching through 50 articles, try to scrounge through our laundry coinage to find enough change to copy the pages we needed, and then walk home barefoot, uphill, through snow.

When I went through the second phase of my college career, the internet was up and running but many journals were still in the process of converting their entire libraries to online sources. The search engines were mostly adequate, but the keywords were hit and miss (at least you could sit while doing this). It didn’t take long for professors to get savvy about this and devote some substantial time to educate students on how to tell the difference between a reliable internet source and Wikipedia. You can now really get some good work done using internet sources.

Just when I get used to the idea that Satan doesn’t really live on the internet, along comes Facebook and Twitter. No, I do not want to tweet my thoughts to a news program to be recited in real time. A commentator just stated that tweets are “quick and to the point”, which is true, but many stated "facts" are unreliable, unsubstantiated, and simply untrue. Comments are posted at such a quick rate that I don’t understand how there’s time to do some fact-checking. It doesn’t take long to google a sentence and come up with what looks like a good article supporting your opinions, but how do you know that’s right? The reason why it takes so long to make scientific progress is because of the very definition of science - you have to replicate experiments to make sure the results are valid. This takes time. It should take time.

The pro of communicating strictly through electronic media is that you can hide from people. The con is that people can hide from you.

It allows me the luxury of taking on more projects because I can work on them in bits and pieces when I have time and then email results. The recipient can read them when they have time and then can respond to me when they have a moment. If that moment is 11:00pm, I would much rather get an email than a phone call. I hate the phone. Let’s not rehash that conversation.

Siri is what is really scaring me. Are we now going to ask a phone to answer questions only we can answer for ourselves? In a commercial, a guy asks Siri if he can walk to the hotel. If the man has legs and they are functional, then yes, he can walk to the hotel. Is Siri programmed to automatically know the weather conditions, the best route to the hotel, the amount of foot or automobile congestion, and then decide if this is the best option for this particular individual? I see this as a ripe opportunity for villains like Gargamel or Mojo Jojo to take over the world by instructing us to keep going straight instead of taking that left turn at Albuquerque. That might get me lost on my way to find this guy who can help me survive after the sun explodes in 2012.

Ring Ring! Are you going to answer that?

I hate phones. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve always hated the phones I’ve owned. There are plenty of phones out there that I love, but I’ve never been fortunate enough to own them. When I was about 10, I remember going into the AT&T Bell store at Minnehaha Center (back when “Bell” was still attached to the AT&T brand). They used to have the coolest phones. There was one in a big, oval sea shell which I had planned on putting in my bathroom in my apartment in Manhattan (I had big dreams when I was 10, which included a red corvette). My favorite was the French-style phone. I think Katherine Chancellor had one on “The Young and the Restless”. I found one years later in a Hello Kitty store but the base was way to light and it would fling around everywhere whenever I tried to answer it. Plus, there was plumage wrapped around the receiver, which always stuck to my lip gloss.

The phones I owed always had a loud, horrid ring tone; never a pretty, dainty, pleasant one. It was a kind of ring that sounded like I was already being yelled at by the caller before I even answered. You may be thinking to yourself that now, in this modern era of choosing anything one wants for a ring tone, why haven’t I found a nice ring tone yet? Because I have the plan that doesn’t allow me to. In order to get the nice ring tones, you have to buy the large plans with tons of bells and whistles that I never use. I have the basic plan with 300 minutes per month (voice only) and I barely make it to the half-way mark. They’re not going to give a nice ring tone to someone who won’t hear it often enough.

Texting on the other hand…..I am starting to go off the deep end with texting. At first, I hated it because I don’t have a normal keyboard on my phone, it’s a number pad and trying to type words on a number pad is excruciating to someone who can type an average of 92 wpm on a normal keyboard. I didn’t like the general idea of texting because I thought it wasn’t personal enough. I was also a bit annoyed with others around me who would text while just standing at a bus stop. For some reason, this really really annoyed me. No one was looking around anymore. There was stuff happening all around, people to see, eyes to make contact with, squirrels to watch duke it out over a French fry out of a U of M garbage can, and no one was catching this great stuff.

A few things started to change my outlook. First, I realized how convenient a cell phone could be. I still needed a landline to let people into my building, but being able to call people while outside of my apartment was a feeling much like the first time I was allowed to stay home alone – total FREEDOM. If I had one while I was on jury duty, my spring break would have been a lot better.

Second, I realized how even much more freeing it was to be able to respond after having time to think through my answer and then type it out accordingly, which is a wonderful option for a stammerer to have.

So now I’m sold on texting. I want to do it all the time. I wish I would have come to this conclusion when picking out my service plan. I chose the voice only plan where texting was extra. Now, my texting charges make up the bulk of my bill.

I am currently in the interesting position of either upgrading my service plan (which will lock me in for 24 months), or finding a new phone and starting fresh. I’m considering getting a phone with a camera, so I can take pictures of squirrels duking it out over a French fry at a U of M garbage can. Seriously, you have to see that because it is hilARious!

So a new phone is probably in my future, but this leads me to another thought – am I setting myself up for a series of arguments and misunderstandings based on the content of my texts? What I think is funny and what others think is funny can sometimes be two TOTALLY different things.

There is a group of people who know me well enough to be able to understand my meaning, but I sometimes forget that there is a much larger group of people in the world who don’t. Lately, I’ve been forgetting this when I send emails at work and when I tweet. Or maybe they are laughing and I’m just not “seeing” it. That’s one big downfall with this worldwide communication change. You don’t have the immediate facial expression/reaction in a text message. Many times I really miss that. Emoticons are not a human face.

I believe I'll go with All Lacquered Up...

So here I sit, in my backyard, on an October day that is still in the high ‘70’s. The only use I can find for this weather is that it helps dry my nail polish more quickly.

I’ve always loved to do my own nails. Having to go without for 47 days, once a year, is excruciating because I’ve convinced myself that men don’t want to hold hands with a woman who has dirty nails. So you’d think I’d be very happy to paint them again. I am, sort of.

Being able to paint them again means that fest is over for another ten months. Seven years ago, I didn’t know what this feeling was like. The end of fest meant that I took all of the pictures off of the wall, dusted them, put them back into the plastic bins in a very anal-retentive way (which is right down my alley) and then packed the plastic bins into the back of the huge automobile in a very anal-retentive way (again, no objections). I would then drive down the dirt road out to Highway 41, usually crying like a baby. Those tears were for the loss of an opportunity to experience the magic I saw outside of the booth every day. Wanting to be able to say that I knew those performers I saw out there, making people laugh, smiling all day long, even in rain.

Six years ago, I started a new tradition at this time of the year. I was granted the rare opportunity to be a part of what I had watched for seven years past (in case you’re confused with the counting at this point, I started working in a booth in 1999, then joined the cast and “worked” starting in 2006 through present. That’s where I get the seven years past [1999-2005] and seven years ago [2005] and six years ago [2006] and if you use numerology, you end up with the number 2, which has nothing to do with anything). Where was I? Oh yeah, six years ago, I started a new tradition of being able to come back on the day after and eat and laugh and pack up one more time with everyone. There would be the long fest/Minnesota good-byes, some tears, some inner thoughts of “Damn, I should have hooked up with him. Maybe next year”. There would then be a good week’s worth of depression. I never seem to appreciate at the time, how much I would miss the crowds of people, the impossibility of ever being alone except maybe in the privy, the inability to make a statement without someone else having a retort, until it’s gone and I’m suddenly surrounded by silence…and memories.

Every meal is empty without someone sitting next to me on a bench with a good portion of dust on our food. Every evening is just darkness without someone beside you, walking across a patch of land dotted with decrepit buildings and beautiful sunsets, with one hand on your pass, ready to show the people with yellow flags. Scotch never tastes as good as it does being poured out of someone’s belt into a dusty, dirty, small wooden chalice-shaped shot glass as people file by you to get to their cars, maybe wondering to themselves “I knew it, they all do drink here!”. I’m considering hiring Rich Shepardson to show up outside of my bedroom window every morning just to sing the last few bars of “Swing Low…”. That rattles my rib cage….in a good way. I’d like Rich to bring Neal Skoy with him to run into my tree trunk in my backyard.

I suddenly want one more chance to walk down the lane and mistakenly step on someone’s bit and feel really stupid for a few minutes until someone mistakenly does it to me. I want to walk in the parade while a pirate tries to snatch my glass out of my hand and I swing it carelessly about.

Making someone laugh is the best thing I could think to do for them. I feel silly giving people cards. Giving presents can be fun but it’s kind of fleeting. Getting them to laugh is priceless and everlasting. Having been on the receiving end during the lowest points in my life, I can tell you that it is priceless and everlasting. If anyone uses that statement against me at contract time, I’ll beat the hell out of you.

The kind of humor that is found at fest doesn’t always translate in the same way outside of fest. At least, the reaction isn’t as free. Your co-workers will correctly give disapproving head shakes because the employee manual says so, but I think that deep down inside, there is a guffaw lurking.

Finding the opportunity to be able to do this at this specific location is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that transcends management, ownership, parking conditions, and heat. I’ve met the most incredibly talented, generous, caring people, all of whom continue to let me be around them.

Mandy Patinkin, in a Princess Bride documentary, talked about what it meant to be a part of that movie. At the end of his statement, he tears up and tries to say, without his voice cracking, that “I never dreamed I’d get to be in a movie like this. I never have since and I guess you’re lucky in this life, if you ever get close to something like this.” I couldn’t agree more.

So now I will paint my nails and dream of what could be in another ten months.

Brian’s Song:

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
…Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
Within a dream. (Earnest Dowson)

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (Shakespeare, The Tempest)

Juggling as a metaphor for life

Question #1 - Guess who now has three balls with which she’s trying to keep two in the air at any given time? Me, that’s who. Yes, I proudly purchased three balls designed to withstand an adequate amount of use throughout varying environmental conditions over several years.

Question #2 – Guess what builds up quad muscles and helps to stretch out hamstrings? Learning how to juggle, that’s what (all that bending-over to pick up dropped balls.)

This is not my first attempt at learning how to juggle. I’ve read several online “manuals”, complete with drawings, on the subject. I’ve asked the MRF Juggling School plus several other free-lance MRF jugglers for the secret and hopefully quick+surefire method to learning how to juggle. I’ve even paid a guy $35 to learn how to juggle. A co-performer also paid the same guy $35 but it actually worked for him.

Here’s the part I have difficulty with: just exactly how am I supposed to catch these balls without looking where they’re going to land? Do you ever see a juggler looking down at his hands? No. I find this incredulous. How can you possibly know where these balls are going to land? You don’t! Sure, you can assume that they’ll land in your hands but you don’t KNOW that they’re going to land there. I could trust in differential and quadratic equations of trajectories and hope these are correct but how do I know they’re correct all the time? And further, which equation should I go with? What if Galileo was wrong?? WHAT IF HE WAS WRONG?? Then I’ll never catch those fucking balls!

There are far too many factors involved in knowing for certain where the damn ball will land. I’d have to estimate the launch velocity, launch angle, trajectory height, and the positions of the launch and landing points. I can’t do that all in a few seconds. I can’t even do that all in a few days.

Wikipedia has a cute little animation showing a stick figure juggling 3 balls in what I believe is the common beginner’s pattern. I could also mention here that it is referred to as a Siteswap 3 but part of me feels that term was added to the Wikipedia page by some professional juggler in an attempt to get the newbies to repeat a silly sounding phrase. I would like to point out the lack of environmental factors in this animation like wind velocity, differing weights of the balls, and surrounding distractions. I also think this page illustrates how we can be fooled by the internet into thinking life is much easier than it really is.

Supposing I could decide on a calculation that I trusted, I would then have to contend with Zeno’s paradox that motion is an illusion. In order to move from point A to point B, I would first have to throw the ball half way, but in order to reach that half-way point, I’d have to get the ball half-way to the half-way point. Because there are an infinite number of points to cross before getting to Point B, I’ll never actually get around to throwing the ball up. In fact, I’d never get around to picking the balls up because I’d have to bend half-way, but first I’d have to bend half-way to bending half-way….oh nevermind.

Louis Pasteur said that “chance favors a prepared mind”. It seems to me that catching a ball would favor a prepared hand but I can’t figure out how to prepare my hands for this.

I think there is a secret mind-control method to juggling. Jugglers have learned how to make the balls go where they want purely with the power of their minds. Microscopic laser beams are coming out of their eyes and directing the balls where to go...and then Satan is making sure the balls land in their hands.

Juggling may be the cruelest trick to play on an obsessive-compulsive person. I really want to catch the balls RIGHT NOW but I want to know exactly how to catch the balls RIGHT NOW. I think the stupidest thing I ever did was to purchase three balls designed to withstand an adequate amount of use throughout varying environmental conditions over several years.

Now Playing....

Did you know that the first alien body was unearthed in 17th century Ireland by two body snatchers? You would if you've seen "I Sell the Dead". It's too bad that cool movies like this don't get wider exposure. Or at least wide enough so that I'm learn of their existence sooner.

I'm not sure what kind of statement it makes about society that movies can be so influential. My mother grew up in the 40's & 50's when Katharine Hepburn was popular. My mother's senior picture sports a Hepburn 'do and I think she really believed that Katharine wouldn't lie to her about how life would turn out just like her movies, if you watched them often enough.

I personally would still be struggling with necklines on sweatshirts if it wasn't for "Flashdance". Boy, was that liberating for my un-effeminately large trapezius muscles. I also wouldn't have the faintest idea how to change into a space suit in a tightly enclosed area with a potential danger lurking outside if it wasn't for Sigourney Weaver. I pity the generations of women who've grown up not knowing how to slide themselves down a door jam to prolong that first kiss from a first-loser/then-winner/then-winner-again/then-one-more-time-winner-again/then-ugh-winner/then-whocares boxer. And I can't believe any woman who grew up in '80's would name her daughter Jenna.

I'm not dumb enough though for a second to believe that a group of scab football players would do the Electric Slide while incarcerated.

Excuse me, I have to go let some geek borrow my underwear for 10 minutes afterwhich I plan on making out with Mr. TallDarkandHandsome over a cake.

A Mid(end)summer night's eve...

I only have two weeks left of summer. Disambigually speaking, there's 47 days left. In the fashion world, autumn has already begun.

I'm claiming two weeks left of summer because in 13 days the MN Renaissance Festival begins and then I enter that black-hole period where the temperature waivers between sweltering and freezing with maybe two days of pleasantness, I enter my house to only take my clothes off, throw them in the washer, get myself in the shower, then bed, then up, then out the door and repeat. I successfully manage to burn myself no matter how much sunscreen I put on and I question my motives and choices every seven minutes. When it's over, it's time for the first snow fall and week 4 of football. I've done this for twelve years. I think I would have led an extremely boring life if I hadn't have done this for twelve years.

If I hadn't have done this for twelve years, my fence would be complete (including stain) and my gardens would be properly weeded. I would have gotten to that three-season padio construction I've been drawing out on notebook paper for years. I would have a clean garge and a lot more football stats committed to memory.

But since I have been doing this for twelve years, I have piles of paper filled with ideas, lists, paragraphs, stories and articles laying around everywhere; scraps of material and patterns stuffed into closets and drawers; a sword and whip just laying around in my unclean garage; another sword on my wall and three more laying on my china cabinet; the ability to articulate what makes me hurt and what will probably make others laugh and those usually aren't the same things; an appreciation for how what doing what you love doesn't mean you have to make money at it to make it important to you; the ability to pen incredibly long sentences; and most importantly, I have a host of incredible personalities in my life that makes me want to get up in the morning and keep going.

Thirteen days is plenty of time to finish a hat, oil boots and get one more kayak trip in, right?

Hurry up and finish.

After sitting here for several minutes, I have decided to challenge myself again with the task of writing what comes to mind without going back to edit. I would like you to know how extremely difficult this is for me.

If I could have a spell-check or thesaurus implanted in my brain, I would totally do it. I just broke my own rule there by going back to correct "brian from "brain". See? This is hard.

Okay, so today's top ic is.....umm......accomplishments. As in, finishing one thought at a time. Well, it also includes finishing that emial I've been meaning to send to that certain unnamed pain-in-the-ass central unit which almost cost me $99,502 in uncollectable expenses. It's great and all to have a University that has no many different fields to offer a student and a community, but it's also a complete pain in the ass to tyr to have said University function in a cohesive manner. You wouldn't believe the amount of rules there are with research funding. I feel fortunate that I don't need to document the amount of times I....ugh....interrupted by the co-=workers phone "ringing" with the ringtone of crickets. It's almost as annoying as her laugh.

Oops, I've gotten off=topic. I wish I would have practiced the location of the '0', I mean '-' key in typing class in ghigh school more. THen that last reference to off-topic would have been much neater. Wow, this is hard.

Where was I? Oh heah, accomplishments. This is starting to rmind me of that muppet scketch where Fozzie is typing the script on a broken typewriter and Kermit doesn't have time to proof-0fread before he goes on stage. It's a cute little bit.

My accomplishments lately include the starting of several projects. My next set of accomplishments will be to finish those projects. It's all in the wording, you can make anything sound good if you put a little effort into it.

My final accomplishment for this session will be to end this mess of a post and get back to work and finish the exectuive team reports which will be edited and re-"finished" several times before next week's meeting. Who invetnted the work 'accomplishments' anyway? What an idtio.

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.