hitler

This morning, my best friend Tracy and I were having our weekly Kansas City/Austin phone communication when she said,
"Hey, do you know what today is?"
"Uh", April 30?"
"Yeah, but you know what else today is?"
Reaching back into the vast wasteland of knowledge in my brain, I could not come up with any significant attachments to today's date. "You're going to have to tell me" I said.
"Well... it's the 60th anniversary of Hitler's suicide!" she exclaimed proudly.
"How odd." I said, "They didn't notate that on my Missouri Conservationist's calendar..."

If it seems strange that my friend, an apparently normal 47-soon-to-be-48-year-old first grade teacher, would know that today marks the 60th anniversary of Hitler's demise and be excited about that fact, let me give you a little background: Most people might think about Hitler and Fascist Germany occasionally. Tracy thinks about them every day. One day she might be thinking about Hitler's march across Europe, the next day she may be reliving the horrors of the concentration camps. You see, Tracy believes she used to be in a concentration camp in a former life. Yes, friends, she thinks she's a reincarnated, persecuted, gassed-or-starved-to-death Jew.

As proof of this former existence, she will point to the tattoo on her wrist. "See where it is? That's where the prisoners had their tattoos. On the wrist." Never mind that the tattoo Tracy chose back in the 1970s is of a pretty butterfly and a beautiful purple iris. It was the 70s and you just didn't go around requesting that the artist tattoo a series of numbers on your wrist.
"You say you want what? Numbers on your wrist? Like a Jew? Hey,I don't do that shit, OK? How about a nice peace sign or something?"

These days it's different. Today you could totally have numbers tattooed on your wrist. Today you could have numbers tattooed on your wrist plus starve yourself down to a skeleton and live your life as a persecuted, reincarnated Jewish person and no one would bat an eye. People alter their physical selves every day. Some people even have their bodies changed so they can look like their favorite animal - Humanimals, they're called. You've seen the documentaries - the guy who looks like his pet lizard, the guy who had whiskers implanted into his cheeks so he could be more like a cat. Freaks, some people call them; free spirits, others say.

All I can say is this: I know a woman who thinks she once died in a concentration camp. She has a couple of nice tattoos on her wrist and knows the date that Hitler killed himself. Some might find this a little freaky, but I do not. She's my free-spirited best friend who I love dearly. I'm just glad she's not a Humanimal.

big trash day

Yesterday was what is known in my town as spring cleanup, or Big Trash Day as it’s called in my neighborhood. This is where you can, on your regular trash day, put out all the crap you’ve needed to throw away all year, but couldn’t put out for a regular trash pickup. Things like furniture and TVs and old lawnmowers and boxes of junk from your basement. This weekend, piles of trash started sprouting on lawns and I joined them, carting my many loads to the curb last Sunday.

Big trash day always disturbs me. Although glad to be able to get rid of the useless detritus of my life once a year, I also feel wasteful and guilty about the environmental impact. Just the thought of all of those piles of trash all over the city being dumped into a landfill makes me ashamed in a way we liberals know all too well. Yet I join in, grateful to have it all disappear into the big truck. I’m an American and paying someone to make trash disappear is a privilege we’re born with. It’s best not to think about it too much.

If you have really good things on your pile of trash, say like a lawnmower that can be fixed up or a reasonably clean recliner, The Scavengers will come around and take them off your trash pile the night before Big Trash Day. The Scavengers are guys who drive around in pickup trucks looking for “good finds”. Spotting a potential find, they pull their pickup to the curb and quickly hop out, sizing up the item in a flash and tossing it into the bed of the truck if it’s deemed worthy, or hopping back into the running vehicle and swiftly pulling away from the curb if it isn’t. Sometimes I wonder what their homes look like. I like to envision them as happy junkmen, tinkering on a lawnmower or two under the ol’ shade tree in the backyard. In reality, they are probably the same people who live in the house out in the country I pass by occasionally – junk packed into every corner of the yard, entire conversation pits of old furniture next to piles of ancient washing machines and car engines that, over the years, have rusted and fused into one large mass of metal. Sometimes I wonder what they put out for Big Trash Day, but suspect they have nothing to offer.

Before the trash men came, I was surveying my pile of stuff when I spied something new on my pile. It was an unfamiliar box placed on top of everything else and when I looked inside, found it full of photographs – hundreds of them - old black and whites and newer color photos. I took the box inside and started going through what turned out to be a chronology of one couple’s life together. The photographer did not label the backs of most of the pictures so I never determined who everyone was, but found out the following: The husband was in WWII and was stationed in Germany. There were no pictures of concentration camps or starving skeleton-like people, so these pictures were relatively boring ones of fellow soldiers and bombed out buildings. The husband was an active guy – a competitive skier in the 40s, and competitive motorcycle and car racer in the 50s. He owned a 1959 Corvette. Later in years, he and his wife traveled extensively all over the United States, and to India and China. Interestingly, the black and white photos are full of people – people posing, clowning, or just sitting and unaware their picture was being taken. Almost all of the color photos - the travel photos - are of places: restaurants, signs, storefronts, museum displays. No people, just places and things. There were also a few very old photographs from the late 1800s and pictured two brothers. They were posed studio photographs, and paper clipped to one was an obituary dated 1974, saying the deceased was 89 years old when he passed. One of those ancient children got old and died, it appeared.

Why had someone thrown these photos out, I wondered, and how did they end up on my trash pile? Maybe a Scavenger had picked up the box on the previous block, thinking it was something good, then had discarded it on my pile later. Maybe it was left by a relative (son or daughter?) who didn’t want anyone to know they didn’t care about their family photos and had placed them on another neighbor’s pile of trash anonymously. It’s a mystery I’ll never know the answer to. Now the trash man has come and gone and I still have these pictures of people I don’t know. I wish there was something I could do with them but who needs pictures of nameless people they’ve never met? I’ll probably hold onto them for awhile, maybe keep them in the basement until the next Big Trash Day when, perhaps, a Scavenger will pick them up and find them useful for something. Or maybe not, in which case they’ll end up populating the landfill, lost forever.

20 things about me you don't know

I collect old medical textbooks. I especially like the ones with pictures of autopsies.

I think a good vacation would be to visit the Mudder Museum of medical oddities.

I like to go to the dentist.

I used to tell my doctor I was a non-smoker, even though I wasn’t. Now that I don't smoke I don't have to lie about it.

I like to do the same things at the same time every day.

I read books every day. My idea of fun is reading books.

I prefer to be alone and would conduct my entire life over the Internet if it were possible.

My motto is “No new people”. I actually say this.

I’d rather live in the city because it’s closer to art, not because there are more people.

I haven’t listened to a commercial radio station in over a year.

I don’t contribute money to any of the many non-commercial radio stations I listen to, even though I know I should.

I like winter better than summer because you can get ready for bed at 5:30pm.

I like winter better than summer because you’re not expected to do as much

Pepe LePew is my favorite cartoon character and my favorite thing he says is les mew. Sometimes I actually say this to my cats and think they understand.

I can laugh at just about anything even though I’m usually depressed. I don’t find this contradictory at all.

I never attended any dances in high school.
Not because I wasn’t asked, but because a guy I once danced with at a Jr High dance said I was sweaty.

I do not like birds or fish. I will eat birds but not fish.

One of my cats is old and cranky and none of the other pets like her. Sometimes I wish she would hurry up and die.

I don’t like to cook even though I can. When someone says a meal I cooked tastes delicious I think they’re lying.

I have a neighbor from Pakistan whose last name is Hussein. When Homeland Security says to “be vigilant” I keep my eye on him.

who the hell is sean hannity?

Oh my, little Karen has been scared senseless today! For some reason, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check out Sean Hannity's website. Before today, I didn't really know who the hell Sean Hannity was but boy, howdy I certainly have gotten an education now. So sit back and let me give you a tour, kiddies, of a website about a man whose ego is bigger (bigger!) than our president's...

Sean Hannity is a self-described MULTI-MEDIA SUPERSTAR. I personally have never seen the guy on TV, or heard him on the radio, or read about him in any print media (liberal bastards), so I'm not sure what-all media this guy thinks he's a superstar of. And he's never been on Oprah or Entertainment Tonight and frankly, one is NOT a superstar unless one has been on either one of those shows.
So that's A BIG FAT LIE.

Sean Hannity is a BIG fan of Ruth's Chris steakhouse, whose dinners are so expensive only Multi-media superstars can afford to eat there. There are two ads for Ruth's Chris on today's home page, plus, there's a nice pic of what looks like a foot-high bloody steak. And everybody knows that all good Republicans like their meat. Rare. Lots of it. Bleeding all over the plate. Mile-high. Bloody. Reminds 'em of huntin'. And fishin'. Killing shit. Killin' Iraqis. Makin' the world safe for democracy.

Another part of the website is for Support Our Troops Rally and the header reads Support Our Troops Calandar of Rally's. Rally's, get it? I hate it when illiterate dumbasses turn a plural into a possessive don't you? Buy hey, why be surprised? Isn't Stupid the new Smart now? (Think: Larry the Cable Guy, a true multi-media superstar)

Moving on to the handy links to all of Sean Hannity's favorite ultra-conservative, in-your-face, liberal-hating websites. The usual suspects all show up, Newt, Limbaugh, Fox News - who are scary enough - but then there are some that are EVEN SCARIER:

Stop Hillary PAC: Here you can download Buddy Icons that spell out Stop Hillary. I guess you can make a political statement when you're IM'ing your other conservative mook buddies while you tell them about how you actually got to have sex with your date last weekend, even though you had to slip her some GHB first. Stupid bitch.

CFS Risk Consultants: A place where you can hire folks to protect you and investigate the evildoers in your life. This looks like a place where the average American conservative can reap the benefits of the Patriot Act.

Rasmussen Reports: Looks like a website devoted to hyping Bush's approval rating, bashing Hillary, and quoting "statistics" about how much the average American loves God (57% of Republicans pray every day and 63% of Americans believe Bible literally true)

But perhaps the most disturbing website link is to the Flirty Flipper. The best I can tell, this chick is some kind of assistant to Sean Hannity (perhaps the Right's answer to Suzy Creamcheese?). She appears to be an adult female, but it looks like her maturity level stopped at about age 10. She has produced two children who are glorified in all their snotty-nosed splendor above cutesy captions like Daddy Teaching Jack to Mow the Lawn Last Summer and My Little Babies, Growing Up - Now 1 and 2 Years Old!!!, and there's something going on here with birds. Like she prays TO THEM (not with them, or for them - TO THEM). Even godless liberals aren't that wacky. Maybe the people from the Rusmussen Report need to have a little talk with Flipper Chick about the exact meaning of paganisn and how good little Republican boys and girls JUST DON'T DO THAT.

Wow. I knew there was a reason I steered away from this kind of crap.
Viva la Liberalism!

jeep thing

Driving home from work last Friday, I noticed the following sticker pasted to the window of the Jeep Cherokee in front of me: It's a Jeep thing...you wouldn't understand.

Being an unrepentent SUV-hater, I recoiled in disguest. "Could you be any more arrogant?"I wanted to shout.

Back home, I did an internet search and found this site which is aptly titled It's a Jeep thing...you wouldn't understand" which graphically illustrates a typical Jeep experience. Boy howdy, it sure looks like those folks are having some fun driving over big piles of rocks and into ditches and such! I personally can't think of anything better than having my kidneys jarred over and over and over for hours on end as I destroy ecosystems with my vehicle. Cool!

In contrast, the jeep I saw on Friday was pretty and clean and fairly new and didn't look anything like the Jeep pictured in the website. It also had two carseats strapped in the back. This vehicle had obviously never been off-road and I can't imagine mommy & daddy taking their babies out forsome rip-snortin' off-road fun, can you? So why the sticker?

All in all, I'd say the Jeep fanatics have it wrong. Every American knows exactly what it's like to feel cultish devotion to name-brand products. We are a nation that virtually worships the name brand, and Jeep people do not possess some kind of secret knowledge the rest of us wouldn't understand. I think I will get my own sticker. It will read: It's an ecology thing...you Jeep assholes wouldn't understand.

the prequel, pt. 2

This sure seems like the week for me to talk about my neighbors doesn't it? OK, so let's discuss the people who live on the other side of Chez Karen and are the other half of the reason why I'm building a fence. Let me lay it out for you. There's a mommy, a daddy, two little boys under the age of five, and two giant German Shepherds. These people are NICE and FRIENDLY and their children are pleasant and non-threatening. Sounds normal, right? Let's scratch the surface of this seemingly idyllic scenario and see what's underneath...

Daddy's a trucker who loves guns. He's also a conspiracy theorist. And an extreme extrovert with a loud, booming voice who LOVES to talk. Here are excerpts from some actual converstions I had with him just this week:

"...so I told Rachel I didn't want her cooking the boys' food in the microwave anymore. Did you know that the microwave makes all your food STERILE? So I said 'honey, we're getting rid of that thing', but she doesn't want to. Says it's too convenient. Man, can you believe that?"

"A friend of mine got this big-ass pinecone from a Sequoia tree and he's gonna give me some seeds - even though they're illegal - and I"m gonna plant a Sequoia tree in my backyard! Won't that be fuckin awesome? And when it starts growing up in the power lines and shit, the power compnay won't be able to cut the tree down cuz it's PROTECTED by THE LAW! How cool is that?"

" I'd like to get a handgun but I don't want to do the background check, you know? I think the government is spying on me, which I wouldn't be surprised if they are cause I'm always talking to people about how crooked Bush is. Anyway, I've already got over 1000 rounds of ammo right there in the house. That's a lot, right? Of course, you know I'm not crazy or anything so there's nothin' to be worried about, right?

As if 1000 rounds of ammo weren't enough, daddy also owns two Nazi patrol dogs - Hannah and Gretchen. They tirelessly stalk the perimeter of the backyard, barking at any and all perceived threats to the security of the family they have been trained to protect. This includes me. In my own backyard. Minding my own business. As soon as I step out of my back door they start - charging the fence, barking loudly. Oh, the mom & dad do their best to make the dogs stop. They yell, "Hannah! Gretchen! STOP BARKING" but soon enough it starts back up again. It's a never-ending cycle, really. My poor little puff-ball dog suffers the most. He tries to act tough but often just crumbles under the stress of being bullied through the cyclone fence. I often find him huddled next to the back door, high-pitched keening sounds coming from his tiny mouth. This I cannot tolerate. It's bad enough when they bark at me but Coco really shouldn't have to put up with that. The dogs are the primary reason I want a solid wall of wood between our yards.

The other problem I have is purely aesthetic. The children own every single brightly-colored outdoor toy that Fisher-Price ever made. They have the red fort with the green roof. They have the green turtle sandbox. They have the bright blue workbench with a million red, yellow and green parts. They have yellow trucks and purple trucks and red trucks. All of these brightly colored objects remain perpetually strewn all over the lawn and it looks like a circus threw up in their backyard. The red fort and the big tool bench are usually on their sides, having fallen down because they're located on an incline in the yard, and how safe is THAT? Maybe when the fort falls over with the kids inside, the dogs can perform a rescue operation and then we will know their true usefulness.

Soon I will have my little backyard oasis, free from threatening canines and the sight of busy little toddlers systematically moving primary-colored toys around their backyard like a giant game of checkers. The wall of wood will grant me my freedom, and my little dog will once again be able to poop in peace. Serenity now!

The Fence, The Prequel

The fence project Ken & I started last weekend is moving along at a pace you could call admirable for a couple of older folks. I'm especially proud of my work and chalk it up to having the proper attire - tool belt, sports bra, leather gloves. I like to call it the Suburban Commando Butch look. Has a nice ring to it, doncha think?

We have successfully repaired the neighbor's drunken fence and was rewarded with a plate of ribs for our efforts, which I thought was nice and even told Ken I would take back some of the bad things I've said about the neighbor, but not all of them. You see, the fence was built a couple of summers ago after an incident I refer to as the Wagging PeePee Incident. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning in July 2003, and here I was, having a normal conversation over the then-cyclone fence with my alcoholic neighbor who had already been slamming back a few brewskis, when all of a sudden I realised he was flashing me. Flashing me. Right there as we were having our normal conversation about lawns and weed killer and the weather. Flashing. Me. At first I didn't want to believe it, but there it was. He was waving it at me, jiggling it up and down as if were saying "Hey, how ya doin'?" I have to say it's kind of hard to change gears mentally when something like this happens. I mean, you're having a normal day and then something happens that's definitely NOT NORMAL but your brain just doesn't want to deal with it or acknowledge it. So it took me a few seconds to react to the wagging penis, which I did by saying "Hey! Put that thing up, will ya?" I then turned in disgust and walked away. So he starts yelling "WELL YOU SURE SEEMED TO ENJOY YOURSELF. YOU DIDN'T EXACTLY STOP LOOKING. HEY WHERE'RE YOU GOIN'? HEY, COME BACK. HEY, hey, ..." and then he gave up and I assume he went back to swilling his Milwaukee's Best. I walked into the house, totally mortified, and didn't visit the back yard for pretty much the rest of the summer - feeling, irrationally, somehow responsible for his behavior, as women typically do. A few weeks later he began construction on what has now become known throughout the neighborhood as the Drunken Fence which started leaning into my yard only a few weeks after it was hastily built. I myself referred to it as The Guilt Fence.

I had the satisfaction of telling the neighbor off a few months after the Wagging Pee Pee Incident, when he called wanting to know if I was "ever going to talk to him again." I told him he was just no longer a person I considered a friend and that if he thought that shaking his dick at me was somehow appealing, he was sadly mistaken and perhaps delusional. Over the past 2 years, In a classic passive-aggressive fashion, I've told mostly everyone on the block about the Wagging PeePee Incident, so his reputation is pretty much shot and now people just look at him as a somewhat broken-down pathetic loser that you'd best keep your children and wife away from lest he shake his ugly ol' drunken penis at THEM. This gives me a teeny-tiny feeling of redemption. Oh, and now I've blogged it so technically the whole friggin' world knows. So there.

I suppose I should feel sorry for this person. He is, after all, an alcohol-addicted man, younger than myself, who is dying slowly of liver failure, who continues to drink every day. He has trouble editing his words and actions and has been abandoned by his family, friends, and now his neighbors. His once beautifully landscaped yard is slowly deteriorating into a weedy mess. The paint on his house is beginning to peel. He is unemployable. But do I feel pity? Not really, although I would probably have been a bit more generous with my sympathies had certain things not happened.

So what's the moral of this story, kiddies? Here's two for you: Good fences make good neighbors, but drunken fences just piss off the neighbors. And Beware of who you wag your pee-pee at - revenge is sweet, my friend.

my living will

(I totally ripped this idea off from The New Yorker, but of course made it funnier)

My Living Will

1. If I am rendered unconscious (due to blow to the head, excessive alcohol consumption, or otherwise), I would like ice cream when I wake up.
2. If I stop responding to ticklish sitmuli you know I'm really sick.
3. If I stop responding to jabs with needles or sharp sticks, you may refer to me as "One Tough Bitch."
4. Even though I may appear to be unresponsive, I can still hear you talking about me.
5. I will be taking mental notes as to who came to visit and who talked smack about me.
6. If there is any question as to whether I am actually in a persistent vegetative state, you may consult a Ouija board ora Magic 8 Ball.
7. If the doctors declare that I am in a persistent vegetative state, you may not - under any circumstances - do the following:

a. Dress me up in a leopard-print getup and float Micky Mouse balloons around my bed in an attempt to prove I'm not gorked out.
b. Place any kind of stuffed animal in my room.
c. Ask President Bush to intervene on my behalf. I WILL come back to haunt your asses.

8. If the doctors declare that I am in a persistent vegetative state, you must do the following:

a. Make sure I have plenty of narcotic pain relievers, just in case I'm feeling ANY pain.
b. Refer to me as Princess Karen or Your Highness
c. Continue to give me gifts

9. You may "end my pain" in the following ways:

a. OD on previously mentioned narcotic pain relievers (preferred)
b. Karate "Death Blow" to side of neck
c. Pillow held over the head (Soft! Painless!)
d. Continuous showing of videotapes of "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette"

10. I would like to have my death declared by Donald Trump, stating "You're fired"
11. After my death, a family conclave will be held to determine the dispensation of my effects. The public will be notified of the results by the following smoke colors coming from the old stove flue:

a. Pink: All “girly” stuff has found a home
b. Blue: Family infighting over who gets the Ford Focus and
BRAND NEW weed wacker
c. Purple: Cats declare their intent to sue for sole possession of the electric cat box (like anybody cares)
d. Yellow: Threat level elevated
e. Black: Family members not speaking to
each other
f. White: Unanimous decision to just “sell all of this crappy shit”

new kid on the block

Hey, the ghetto has a new homeowner! Word has it that a guy from San Diego bought the only house on the block with no basement AND no central heating. Sucka! We can't wait till the tor-na-dy si-reens go off this spring and he starts looking around for his "safe place." And I can't even imagine what his thin, California blood will do this winter when the temperature drops below zero and the baseboard heaters can't keep up. Oh my, this could be really interesting.

Which Barbie are You?

I took an online quiz and discovered my Barbie alter-ego (finally!). I had to take it a couplea times cause I didn't wanna be Sorority Slut Barbie.


You're Gangsta Bitch Barbie. You're tough and you
like it rough, and of course you like to pop a
cap in any wiggers ass.

If You Were A Barbie, Which Messed Up Version Would You Be?
brought to you by

5 questions

I was recently asked a series of 5 questions by Kat (OK, I begged her to interview me) and here are the results:

1. You're 48 years old and worried about exercise because of weight gain. Damn! I was hoping that between now (I just turned 39) and the next nine years I would magically morph into a woman confident enoughin her own skin that she's decided sporting a wider amount of said skin would be okay. (This is a longie - you might need to get a hot towel or something.) Are you telling me that THIS ISN'T TRUE??

Yes, one does tend to gain more confidence in their 40s and the inevitible weight gain isn't really a problem - UNTIL - The Onset Of Menopause and the accompanying MidLife Crisis. The midlife crisis is the little voice inside your head that says "hey dammit, it's not YOUR TIME TO DIE YET" and then the gene that tells women to worry about their appearance magically wakes up from its 5-10 year sleep. However, the sane part of your brain knows you'll never look that good ever again and this keeps you from going totally mad.


2. Who are your favorite authors and what types of stories do youtend to enjoy the most?

Favorite authors: I just saw David Sedaris do a reading Wednesday night so I'd have to say humorous essayists turn me on. But I'm also on a Meg Wolitzer kick right now and she's just a fabulous wordsmith and great storyteller. I like stories that examine relationships between people in a fairly deep way and absolutely adore John Updike. I like stuff that makes sense which is why I don't read Virginia Wolfe. That's probably a residual effect from the LSD I took in the 70s (HA HA!! That's a JOKE, mom, OK???)


3. What music is it that sets your toe to tapping?

Music - this tends to be all over the place. I spent this morning listening to nothing but old Doors but yesterday listened to a bunch of Celia Cruz and stuff from Buena Vista Social Club.
So I like most everything except for pop music crap which makes me want to slap my hands on either side of my face and go ARGHHH.

4. Has the mailman ever caught you singing? (Surely this isn't justa 'me' thing.)

Usually the mailman catches me sprawled out on the couch watching crappy afternoon TV if I happen to be home in the afternoon. He walks around with headphones on so sometimes I've caught HIM singing. Mailmen are weird, but nice.

5. Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt and George Clooney... Sorry - my mindwanders at times. Anyway, I see that you work only with men. Hasthis affected your opinion of men as a species in general?

Ah men...the men I work with are construction workers which are a breed of their own. Their sentences usually start with "I ain't got no" and go downhill from there, so we're not talking rocket scientists here. I've found that a good sense of humor is a real asset when you spend a lot of time around men. It also helps if you bring food frequently.

That's it folks. If you'd like ME to interview YOU, let me know and I'll think of 5 deep, thought-provoking questions to ask.


.

the fence, part one: we've only just begun

Question of the day:

How wise is it for a 48 year old woman and 55 year old man to take $1000 worth of lumber and attempt to build a privacy fence? By themselves? In their spare time? With only limited help from the young and strong 17 year old that lives in my house? (hey, he has a job. Otherwise I'd be recruiting his young ass to take my place so I could, instead, drink margaritas, and read a book) . And what about the raggedy-ass fence my drunken neighbor built 2 summers ago that is falling down into my yard, which he "fixed" by propping it up with a bunch of 2x2s that I have to mow around? Yeah you guessed it. We gotta fix that ourselves cuz waiting for him to sober up ain't gonna happen.

So stayed tuned. I'm sure to get some more blogging mileage out of this project or folly or escapade or whatever you want to call it.

exercise your right to whine

I hate to exercise, but since I've gotten older I've found it's not a good idea to completely abandon the practice. I used to have an OK figure for my height although I've never been one of those prom queeenesque girls who could wear any style of clothing or bare any body part. My body can only best be described as having the shape of a troll doll. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout - those little tanned rubber dolls with short stumpy legs and squatty bodies, hank of bright pink hair sticking straight up. I had loads of these things when I was a kid, feeling a vague familiarity with them, as if they were some kind of lost civilization I had a genetic connection to. I would gather them all together around me and we would stare at each other, me their benevolent human counterpart, they with their sad but wise little eyes. We communicated through the sameness of our shapes.

Over the past 5 years I gained a lot of weight. Some of that is due to not exercising regularly but mostly it's due to this and this. So now I'm making an effort to lose it and I'm doing pretty good so far, even though I know it's going to take a few years. I could lose it all in a few months but (1) I'm lazy and (2) I'm not tring to attact men so why knock myself out? I'm real lucky that my boyfriend Ken doesn't mind too much about the weight gain cause when he met me I still looked pretty damn good, even with the stump-leg thing. He says I still look good, but I think he just says that to ensure he keeps having regular sex. Nobody can accuse him of losing sight of what's really important.

I've always had to perform some kind of exercise in order to maintain a weight appropriate for my abbreviated height and since I came of age during the Age of Jogging, that's what I've always done. Not well, mind you, and not far - maybe 3 or 4 miles at a time when I was in top form - but it takes more effort to move the stumps I call legs the same distance a normal person would run, so I figure it probably really was the equivalent of about 10 miles. These days I can barely eek out a mile on the treadmill, or 1/4 mile in the real world. I blame this pathetic showing on my age and a rapidly deteriorating right knee whose tendons and ligaments regularly flare up into an inflammed mess that makes it impossible for me to kneel down on the floor. This interferes with things like tying my shoes or wiping up dog pee or praying to God for more disposable income. When I do run, I like to do it in places where pretty much nobody can see me and my jiggling fat blobs - like the cemetary, which really is a great place to exercise if you don't like being around other people. Sometimes I go to the local park/hiking trail and inevitably there will be this one man there jogging. I call him the Real Runner (vs me, the Fake, Loser Runner) cause he trots along at this consistent rapid pace, barely breathing, and does two complete 3-mile circuits of the park in the time it takes for me to go halfway. He passes me about 3 or 4 times and it's getting to the point now where I'm avoiding going there at certain times cause I know he'll be there and I'll just end up feeling fatter and clunkier than I already am.

Christopher Reeve once said that he didn't have any sympathy for able-bodied people who complained about themselves, and I guess I'm supposed to feel guilty for griping. But come on, just because he got bucked off a horse and ended up in a hideously expensive wheelchair doesn't give him the right to lay a guilt trip on ME. What? I'm supposed to just be thankful I HAVE LEGS THAT WORK instead of complaining about their freakish shortness? No, my friend, it's my God-given right to feel sorry for myself and I'm not giving that up until the day when me and my short-legged troll relatives once again rule the earth.

barrel of fun

Ken and I ate at the Cracker Barrel restaurant last night so I could use my coupon for two free dinners. If you're not familiar with this restaurant chain, let me begin by saying that Cracker Barrel enjoys a cult following with the RV set; there are people who actually plan their vacation stops only in places where there is a Cracker Barrel restaurant nearby. In fact, Cracker Barrel provides special E-Z Find Cracker Barrel US road maps in their Old Country Store showing all their locations so you won't miss any opportuninty to have some Hash-Brown Chicken, in case you get a hankerin' on the road.

The interior decor is "Old Time Country", meaning there are dozens of displays of old-timey do-dads like lanterns and farm implements and button hooks and linament bottles. The display next to our table seemed to have a theme of "Things With Which Folks Used To Use To Get Dressed". An old man shuffling by our table stopped and pointed to the curling iron in the display and said to me "Know what that there thing is missy? That's what girls used to use to curl their hair!" He seemed really pleased to be able to pass on this ancient knowledge to me and I didn't have the heart to tell him that curling iron technology hadn't really changed much in 75 years, except for the advent of electricity so you could now plug it in instead of holding it over an open flame, thus avoiding a nasty 3rd degree burn. The only other artifact of any interest to me was a tin of Shoe Dressing, which I imagine was some sort of flavor enhancer for shoe leather. I can imagine really poor Dust-Bowl families sitting around an open fire, cooking up shoe leather. Mom would pass around the Shoe Dressing, saying "Here you go Mandy Sue, put you some of this here on your piece of leather and it'll be reeeeal tasty!"

The ambience of our dining experience was further enhanced by the piped in music which was a combination of Old Country Hits interspersed with Old Rock & Roll Hits, so you could hear Walkin' The Floor (Over You), followed by Rock Around the Clock, which I found a bit disturbing. The decibel level was up there around Disco Level, probably for the benefit of the clientele which appeared to be in the Old Geezer age group. One Old Geezer was having a birthday, and the waitresses all gathered around his table and sang Happy Birthday to him. The nice thing was that it was the ACTUAL birthday song, sung in a nice, respectful way; not the hyped-up bizarro version sung at other restaurants by a frantically clapping waitstaff who all appear to be buzzed-out on crystal meth. I have often threatend Ken with permanent disfigurement if he EVER arranged to have Happy Birthday sung to me at a restaurant, but I probably woudn't mind having the nice folks at Cracker Barrel do it.

The food was pretty good, and afterwards we browsed around in the Old Country Store where Ken became enraptured by a John Deere clock that makes a different tractor sound every hour. I found myself examining the display of Precious Moments collectibles. You know, the teardrop-eyed angel children in cutesy poses,with captions like Blooming in God's Love or Some Bunny Loves You. I personally dislike this kind of diabetic coma-inducing sweetness and would prefer to see something different. Perhaps a figurine of a desperate-looking child looking skyward, with a caption that reads Don't worry, God loves you even if your mom is a crack whore!

A quick check of my watch told me that I was about to miss Sex in the City - which I didn't want to miss because it was going to be the episode where Samantha dyes her pubic hair, but she leaves the dye on too long and it ends up looking like a bright red clown's wig - so I went to find Ken. He had found the 1:18 die cast car display and had EVERY SINGLE BOX pulled out so he could examine the cars individually. I could tell he wasn't even close to being finished and could probably have spent another couple of hours marveling over each one, but I made him put them up anyway cause I wanted to see my TV show, dammit. We finally made it out of there but then Ken was distracted by the row of rocking chairs on the "front porch" of the restaurant, so he had to sit and rock a spell. "Boy, there's just nothing like a wood rocker, eh?" he said wistfully. On the way home, we talked about rocking our kids to sleep when they were babies, and I realized that we're not too far from Old Geezerville ourselves. Then I slapped myself a couple of times and took a silent vow never to become the kind of old lady who plans a vacation around the locations of a chain restaurant that features Hash Brown Chicken on its menu.

Dear C&C

Dear Charles & Camilla,

Congratulations on your recent nuptials. Charles, you looked quite natty in your wedding suit. Camilla, I thought your dress was chic, but really dear, who on earth advised you to wear that dreadful hat with all the plumage? Probably a Diana sympathizer who just wants to make you look bad, that's what I think. My goodness, you looked just like a deranged cockateil! Well, whoever it was, you just tell them to shove it next time they try to give you fashion advice. I think you do just fine on your own with the wonderful polyblend suits you fancy so much. Just stick with those, dear, and you can't go wrong!

So sorry the Pope died and spoiled the original date of your wedding. All the ducky souviners had to be pulled from the shelves and redated, how dreadful! And then the death of Prince Rainier, could you believe it? Well dearies, I could just imagine your panic, wondering if you were going to have to postpone your honeymoon to attend yet another funeral - YAWN. Hats off to Prince Andrew for taking your place! He certainly came through in a pinch.

I hope you both have a wonderful honeymoon in Scotland. Camilla, I hear the blokes are actually NAKED under their kilts. Fun for you! And remember, the people of Scotland actually like you, not like those stuck-up Diana-lovers back in England. You know, I used to like Diana myself but she really was just a big baby wasn't she? "Boo hoo, Charles won't boink me anymore, he's too busy shagging Camilla." What a whiner! I guess Charles made sure he wouldn't be hearing from HER anymore, didn't he? (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Well, I'll sign off now so I can get this in the post. Here's hoping you have a splendid honeymoon and a long life together and remember, even if you're not a good-looking couple, you're still royalty, and that counts for something.

the bird feeder

Last winter I purchased a bird feeder. I don't know why I made this purchase; I always said I would never be one of those women, which to me meant "old woman who feeds birds" (sorry mom). I cannot explain this purchase other than to attribute it to just another out-of-body experience I occasionally have when shopping at the local SuperWalMart. You may be familiar with the out-of-body-shopping phenomenon - you're pushing your cart around the store for about an hour in a somnolent haze, having a vague awareness of idly picking things up off the shelves and putting them into the cart, then before you know it you're waking up in the check-out line and notice you're purchasing things like a bird feeder, and a pole to hang the bird feeder on, and bird food, and a small sledgehammer to pound the damn bird feeder pole into the ground with. At that point, it's too embarrassing to say "hold on, I briefly left my body while shopping and don't know why I put this shit in my cart", so you just pay for all the crap and schlep it home.

I took my new little sledgehammer and pounded the damn pole into the half-frozen winter ground, filled the feeder with food and hung it up. It took a couple of days before I noticed any bird activity around my feeder so I guess it takes awhile for one of them to find new food and report back to the others; but soon enough there were lots of little gray birds hanging around eating the seeds they all seem to enjoy so much. After a couple more days the feeder was empty. Empty??? How could those little tiny birds eat so damn much food? I filled it up again, exhausting my supply of bird food, and they just as quickly emptied it. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting birds, I lost interest in them and their avian welfare and didn't rush out to buy more food. Occasionally I would see a lone bird fly over to the empty feeder, look around, then fly away in disgust and could imagine him reporting back to his little friends huddled in bushes and trees, shivering and hungry, saying "sorry, no luck again today, guys."

Soon after that, there was an ice storm and the entire bird feeder assembly was pushed to the ground by the weight of the ice. There it lay (laid?) for the next couple of months, the pole sprawled out and pointing towards the feeder which lay several feet away, upside down, ice-encrusted and empty; a sad testament to my indifference towards the birds.

Warmer weather eventually came and thawed the ground. One sunny afternoon, in a brief flurry of activity, I pounded that pole back into the ground with my little sledgehammer, filled the bird feeder up with new food and hung it up. The birds returned, of course, and they enjoyed a feeding frenzy for the next couple of days - until the food ran out again. That was 3 weeks ago. The birds are disgusted with me. I'm sure the word is out that I'm totally unreliable, but really, they should have known this all along. I never fill up the bird bath either.

oh grow up

For some reason, I cannot get it through my head that I AM NOT 25 ANYMORE (I am also not 35 or 45 anymore which I also cannot get through my head). Ken and I had dinner last night with his son, daughter-in-law and their two friends - all in their 20s - and this thought occurred to me about midway through the dinner when I realized that that these kids were probably anxious to get on with their evening AND WERE JUST WAITING FOR US TO LEAVE. God, I hate being an old fogey, especially when I used to be such a fascinating person.

the only girl on the team

I am the only female among males in my workplace and my home. This means I might go entire days without having any female contact whatsoever, including telephone contact. Here are some of the things I've observed:

1. No one will ever notice my new haircut, fingernail/toenail polish, shoes, outfit.
2. The dirt I see, which drives me crazy until it's cleaned up, will go virtually unnoticed by everyone else. Men will literally sit around in their own filth for days, weeks, or even months.
3. The toilet seat will always be left up
4. Crying makes men uncomfortable. It's best just to go into the bathroom, lock the door and get it out of your system.
5. Ringing phones in the workplace should only be answered by the female (if present). Males believe there is always the possibility that their penises will fall off and/or they will grow breasts if they do a job they perceive a woman should be doing.
6. Jokes told by men will invariably involve excrement of some kind. They believe that excrement is the funniest thing on the planet.
7. Their language will be bad.
8. Their grammar will be even worse.
9. Scintillating conversation will involve NASCAR or football or meat cooked on an open fire.
10. Conflicts between men are resolved quckly, with few hard feelings. Women, on the other hand, will nitpick each other to death, or until one of them develops an eating disorder - whichever comes first.

Caution: Adult parenting teenager

Today I had to address a school behavior issue with my soon-to-be 18 year old son. For the past two weeks I could sense the restlessness in him, blown in with the warmer weather and brought to life with the long aimless days of Spring Break. Julian's band instructor had emailed me to complain about his chronic semester-long tardiness and yesterday's unexcused absence, topping it all off with a threat to drop him down to the dreaded Concert Band (where, by the way, I happily spent my high school band career, forever a mediocre clarinetist) if his behavior didn't improve.

Being rather thin-skinned and easily hurt when criticized, I felt horrible the entire day; dreading the inevitable conversation with this creature who lives in my house and believes himself to be an adult male and therefore invincible. "Be gentle" advised my father who raised three teenagers successfully. "Be gentle" advised Ken, the boyfriend who also raised 3 teenagers successfully. "Be calm, you're the one in charge," I told myself, all the while knowing that my ability to be in charge of anything regarding this young man is based solely on my very shaky control over a few of his beloved objects: the cell phone, the car, the computer. He has no idea of his real power yet, still believing the myth that we parents know what we're doing.

We had the conversation and I was calm and gentle and firm, just like the instructions I was given. I felt some sense of relief as he rattled off all the standard excuses given by teenagers since time began: I didn't do it, the teacher hates me, the teacher's crazy, all the kids do it. I thought to myself, "Aha. This is familiar territory. This I can deal with" and I encouraged him to do what he's supposed to do, and gently edged him back over to my side. I believe with all my heart that I convinced him to suck it up and do what he's supposed to do - at least for awhile, or until the programming wears off and we have to do it all over again. In the meantime, I'm counting the months until he graduates...

crispy salty things

After 2 whole work days off and 2 whole weekend days off(minus 1 hr for bloody daylight savings time), people are asking me- "What did you do on your time off?" My answer is this: "I ate lots of crispy salty things." I feel I could actually live on such foods exclusively if need be. The only problem I have discovered is this: The metabolic end-product of crispy salty things is not energy, as one would expect from normal food products. Noooo. The crispy salty food's metabolic pathway leads to the psyche's manufacture of guilt, shame and depression. They should really put this on the nutrition labels.

the ticket

I got a speeding ticket today; this day of daylight savings time which, because of the springing forward of our clocks and watches and computers and wristwatches, always seems off. Not a normal, complete day, but a shortened, unsatisfying alien sort of day that you're glad is over quickly. I decided to spend my day in a darkened theater in an attempt to escape its warm strangeness and to hasten its end. The movie I wanted to see was at an "art" house about 25 miles away, over a river, through a large metropolitin city and over a state line into a huge mass of suburban sprawl. I wore my bifocal contacts, making this an even more exciting and daring kind of trip, as the nature of the bifocal contact causes the world to be as skewed-looking as daylight savings time makes it feel. One contact is for distances, while the other contact excels at close-up reading. This makes the world kind of like a trip to a Hall of Mirrors at a cheap carnival with everything skewed and out of balance. Not impossible, but difficult and strange.
The movie was fine and suited my mood. The main character was depressed and isolated and unsure why he felt that way. The other people in his life swirled around him, puzzled and resentful. The movie theater was attached to a large mall which, like most malls these days, sat mostly empty and forlorn; abandoned by the same suburbanites that hailed its completion back in the 60s and lovingly shopped in its many stores over the years. All that was left of this mall were the two large "anchor" stores on each end and a few brave hangers-on sprinkled throughout - Topsy's, Seasonal Accents, The Snack Shack. The shoppers all seemed to be immigrants of one kind or another - hispanic, aisian, indian - happy to have this place to shop in relative anonimity, away from the suspicious, watchful eyes of post 9/11 Americans.
I left after the 2-hour show and headed back home; back through the suburban sprawl and its largeness, driving carefully because of the bifocal contacts, mindful of my speed limit through countless construction zones, always signalling my lane changes, and feeling smug when I passed the state trooper parked under the bridge, hiding in the shadows. "I am such a careful driver" I thought to myself. Over the state line, in the metropolitin area, I wound my way over roads I had driven hundreds of times, performing my lane changes with precision and perfection, feeling safe and confident now that I was back on more familiar roads, when I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I immediately knew the lights were for me and understood that they were a cosmic punishment for my previous smugness. I pulled over into the narrow breakdown lane and stopped, trying to quickly remember what to do next. I opened the glove box and pulled out the brand new insurance card I had just gotten the previous week. When it arrived in the mail, I made a mental note to put it in the car, saying don'tforgetdon'tforgetdon'tforgetdon'tforget over and over, then feeling a sense of relief when I deposited it in my glove box, safe and sound. The policeman walked up to my window and I immediately handed him the card, which he handed back without even looking at it, saying "I don't need to see your insurance card ma'am, just your license please." I took my sad little insurance card back and retrieved my purse. I had just gotten a new purse the day before, and as I was unzipping it, my mind went blank and I couldn't remember where to even begin to start looking for my license in this brand new purse-space. As I fumbled around, muttering "sorrysorrysorry, new purse" I wondered if the policeman would think I was fumbling for a gun and if so, boy was this day going to end real shitty. As it was, I found the license, he wrote the ticket (60 in a 45. 45?? on the highway??), and I carefully pulled my shameful little silver Focus back onto the busy highway feeling like a grade-schooler who had been made to stand in the corner while all the "good" kids stared and felt grateful it wasn't THEM. Obeying all of the traffic laws, I crossed the river, took the exit to my little town, drove to my house, went to my room and cried. I don't know how much the fine is because the ticket is buried in the bottom of the new purse and I'm not going back in there yet. I will wait until tomorrow which will be a more normal, complete day with all of its 24 hours intact.