Said, "Do That Hand Jive One More Time"

Today I decided to bring my camera to work in order to take some photos of the amazing flowering trees, and then maybe break-up the monotony of inputting information into my computer all day by going out on my breaks to see if I could capture some other arresting images.

Well, holy shit. I done hit the jack pot. That's right. I went out on my three o'clock break, and what did I see just sitting out there on the Pentacrest in front of god and everybody, but a real live mime. Not only that, but he was trying to propagate his species by training some other poor soul to join his speechless minions.

Now, before you start freaking out about how I'm being all prejudiced and feel like you need to call the ACLU on me, just let me reveal a little secret to you: I married a mime. (that should be the name of my new sitcom) My ex-husband actually studied with Marcel Marceau in the seventies. For real. Yes, I was young and impressionable, but sometimes those mistakes follow you around for life, because that also means my girls are half mime.

I was a little worried when Coadster was born with a strawberry colored birthmark on the back of her head that it might be some kind of "band of the invisible box making hand" sign. But now I can breathe a big sigh of relief, because both the girls have come out of puberty and I've never once caught them alone in their rooms trying to pull an imaginary rope. Whew. I think we might be in the clear.

I've Just Closed My Eyes Again

Here is a picture of a Bears flag. You know, just so you don't forget them this year that they're not in the Superbowl. Feel free to forget them from last year though.

Well, kids. I'm almost all ready to go. I have a road trip playlist. T. (who is driving down with me) emailed me and said she wanted songs she could sing to, and so I took care of that. I'm meeting my sister in Mt Pleasant and she's taking the girls for the weekend. I still have a few things to pack, but I'm almost done with that. I still have to print out my Mapquest directions and then I can finally go to bed.

Now, I'm going to stop relating annoying details and tell you about my dream last night. And yes, I'm aware that it's just as annoying to go on and on about your dreams, because no one give a shit but you. I just think if I write it out, I might be able to get the weirdness of it out of my head. So, please indulge me, okay?

I apparently, only had one day to go on a trip, so I decided to go to Kenya for that 24 hour period (who wouldn't right?). While I was there, I took a nap in a desert right outside where people were ransacking a village and making a bonfire out of dead bodies. These same people, woke me up from my nap and helped me get on my plane. I had that weird conflicted feeling I have with people who suck, but then can be nice. Once I got on the plane, it was full of my neighbors and their kids, going to a soccer game. And then I woke up. So, what the fuck was that? Wait, don't answer that. I'm sure any analysis would put me standing right on top of the crazy again.

Sooo, ADD much, Churly? Why yes I do, and now I'm going to change the subject again. If the weather isn't too crazy, I will be off to St Louis right after work and won't see any of you (except T. and Erik) until I get back on Sunday. If the weather is too bad, you're all stuck with me for the weekend. I think we'll all now pray for clear skies.

Why Do They Gotta Front?

I'm blogging early tonight, because I'm going out and I'm already going to expose you to something kind of scary in this post, I don't want to make it any worse than it is by writing it when I'm a little inebriated. I do want to preface this all by saying, good lord and Jaysus, Mary and Joseph and then, ah, for fuck's sake.

Have you ever gone out and had a beer or two and forgotten how white you were and decided it would be really, really funny if you made the gayest guy in the bar do some eighties dancing with you? You figured it would be fine because everyone else seemed to be at least as drunk as you, so they probably wouldn't even remember it the next day. Then about a week later your friend Dexter might send you an email with a photo of your sad, sorry excuse for dancing. Granted, he is nice enough to tell you that he got rid of any other copies, so if you deleted the one from the email, there would be no other traces. When you foolishly opened it at work, you had to stifle your horrified scream, because it looked like this:

Eeeeeek! Right? Your first impulse would probably be to hit the delete button about thirty times in a row, just to make sure it was really and truly gone. Then, after you thought about it for a minute, you thought it was just as funny as it was frightening, and if it were someone else, you would want them to post that photo of themselves so you could feel better about yourself in general. Plus, you know that you seriously have no shame, so there's really no use in pretending like you do.

So, what the hell, you all get to see me being a complete and total dork. Feel better about yourselves now? Yeah, I thought so.

How Could I Leave This Behind?

Here is some eggplant. It is very purple.

Let's see. We might be a little scattered and random today, but you shouldn't expect any less from me by now. Tonight was what it was. I found out some things that didn't matter and I was stupid to react to, but I had had a couple of beers and I'm a girl, so I let certain things bother me more than they should. Anyway, by the time I met my friends, I was in kind of a weird space. My girlfriends were great as usual and talked me down. My friend A. even told us about the game she and some of the women she works with played the other night. They would name three guys and they would have to say which one they would push off of a cliff, which they would have sex with once and never see again and which they would spend the rest of their live's with and why. Hey, now that's just some fun there. While we were laughing about that, my friend S.'s husband leaned over and said, "What? isn't there anyone you would want to set on fire?" And that REALLY got our wheels turning. That is, until we started making plans for Saturday night (after Stinky's party) for the Bijou where they will have a Guitar Hero tournament at 11 pm, right before the midnight showing of This is Spinal Tap. It could be just about perfect.

Now, as I promised, I will totally change the subject and tell you some things I saw downtown this week during my lunches and breaks.

Yesterday I walked by the Java House and realized that I knew pretty much every person sitting outside on the little patio. My first thought was, my friends are a bunch of slackers who don't have to work all day like I do. I'm so jealous. My second thought was that once it starts getting cold and I can't go outside during my breaks, I won't have much of a social life unless I start getting better about going out more. I'm really going to try harder, because I think I'm about ready to try to start dating again, and just think how much fun it will be to read about how uncomfortable I am during that whole process?

On Monday I was passing my favorite homeless woman who sits in front of what used to be Hills Bank, but is now a Cold Stone Creamery. She was having some kind of altercation with a gray haired, heavily bearded guy who had parked his bike right in front of her. She told him to get lost and he said, "I can be wherever I want to. I'm an American citizen, damn it." To which the homeless woman responded:

"No you're not. You're a pothead!" If you have to choose between being one or the other, I have a feeling I know a lot more illegal aliens than I thought I did.

The last quaint little thing I saw downtown yesterday, were two people trying to light a cigarette with the sun and a magnifying glass. What kind of a smoker, doesn't have a light, but does have a magnifying glass?

With a Boulder on My Shoulder, Feelin' Kind of Older

Here is a pretty flower.

Please note the time this was written and help me wish that some day, I will get really smart and buy a breathalyzer for my keyboard. I have Friday off, and I have all these things I'm supposed to do. I was thinking about writing a list, so I'd remember to do them all, but lists have bad connotations for me. My friend T. and I were talking about those bottomless chore lists our parents or legal guardians made for us in the Summer and how, because of them, it's hard to make lists for ourselves. The problem for me is that I remember to do a lot of everyday things, but forget to take care of the odd things, like making a hair appointment that has already been paid for. I'll have to wait for tomorrow to make that list, because I'm obviously a little on the dee-runk side right now. And judging by my behavior so far this evening, my "Churlita's drunken list of things to do" must have looked something like this:

1. Drink some PBR.

2. Talk loudly and yell, "Tits!" and Woo-Hoo!" a lot.

3. Get my drunk ADD on and only stay in one place for about 15 minutes at a time before I walk down to the beer garden, up to where the bands are playing and back downstairs to buy a beer.

4. Pretend to listen to my friend talk about whatever stuff he was talking about, but secretly be longing for my TV that I left home, all alone in my room.

5. Listen to my friend K. tell me that my friend wanted me to know that he wasn't trying to hit on me.

6. Walk up to said friend and say, "Hey, quit trying to hit on me, goddammit."

7. Point out the scariest looking guy in the bar to my friend K. and say, "That's your new boyfriend."

8. Watch my friend K. point to the guy who won't stop whistling and hear her say, "That's your new boyfriend then."

9. Try not to laugh two seconds later when "my new boyfriend" approaches me and asks, "Do you shop at the Co-op?"

10. Answer, "Sometimes..." and watch as he points to his chest and says, "I work in the meat department." Lie and tell him I think I recognize him and do my best not to look at my friend K. when he says, "You're fuckin' beautiful. I just had to tell you that."

11. Thank him and suddenly decide I need to go back by the bar and get myself some water.

12. Find the gayest guy in the bar and make him dance with me.

13. Abandon the gayest guy in the bar for my friends Brie and Ashley, so that we can do our kick-ass, punk rock, show choir moves.

14. Wonder to myself why people stopped naming kids Mary and Susan after 1975.

15. Leave through the beer garden, but stop along the way and introduce myself to people much younger than me and then explain to them that I used to work with their parents or their girlfriend's parents. (this is why, this is why, this is why I'm hot (not))

16. Blog drunk, drink a full glass of water, take an unhealthy amount of pain relievers and bemoan the fact that Stinky has early volleyball practice and must be at school at 6:30 in the morning.

17. Gaze longingly at my TV until I fall asleep.

If I Were Superman Then We'd Fly Away

...And so it begins. Today was the first home football game here. Even though I've lived in this town for many, many years, it seems that I'm still not above learning new lessons. Like, just because the game doesn't start until seven in the evening, doesn't mean the kids won't be out partying at noon. So, unless I want a bunch of drunk frat boys asking my cleavage for its phone number, (and I really, really, don't) I better stay far away from Kinnick Stadium when I'm running. I suppose the positive thing was all the spectacle I got to witness and viewing all the different ways people found to match black and gold. Apparently, gold knee highs and gold clogs are the thing these days. I couldn't even count how many guy, barbed wire, bicep tattoos I saw and then there are always the Hawkeye striped overalls that look like this:

Ouch! At one point, some young blonde boy was running in the opposite direction and got really excited when he passed me and said, "Running on game day. Yeah!" and gave me both thumbs up. Yeah, indeed.

I'm writing a little earlier tonight because I have two possible ways in which to spend my evening, depending on how things pan out. I could possibly see my friend Ed play at Wild Bill's coffee shop and then maybe meet my friend C., who might come into town in an attempt to escape Fort Madison for the evening, then drink enough beer that eating a Panchero's burrito at two a.m. would seem like a good idea. If that doesn't happen, I'll stay home and watch the Superman movie from last Summer and then play some of my geeky Oblivion game. I'd be happy either way.

You've Still Got a View of the Summer Sky

Here is Stinky's latest school photo. Coadster didn't get hers yet.

...And here is Stinky's first school photo from kindergarten. It's weird how they change so much in some ways, and not at all in others.

As part of an attempt to get my shit in order, I ran 31 miles from Friday - Monday. It's those equal parts, meditation, escapism and free high that make running so addictive for me. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect for almost the whole long weekend. The other wonderful thing about running, is having an Mp3 player. For me, music makes everything better.

Now, I will warn you for the five thousandth time that I am a girl who loves her cheese. Nowhere is that more evident than in my music preferences. Honestly, I like parts of almost every kind of musical genre, and that means lots and lots of really bad shit too. Really, there's something to offend everyone on my play lists. In the past I've teased Brando about the content of his play lists, in that way we do where we hope everyone focuses on the one finger pointing at someone else's cheese, in order to divert everyone's attention away from the three other fingers pointing back at us, er, me. So, in homage to Brando's (or as his wife affectionately calls him, The Circle Jerker) CJ's Random 11 posts, I'm going to share one of my random running playlists that came up when I put my Mp3 player on shuffle. Brace yourselves.

1. "Smile", by Lily Allen - It's a charming little ditty about a woman enjoying her exe's (who cheated on her) sadness. Quaint.

2. "Theme From Shaft", by Isaac Hayes - Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? SHAFT!... Why can't John Shaft live in my town?

3. "Mr. Brownstone", Guns N' Roses - Awesome music to run to. Duh. It's Guns 'N Muthah Fuckin' Roses, yo.

4. "Loser", Beck - Stinky very pointedly put this on here for me - just in case I forgot what kind of person runs 31 miles in four days. It makes her so happy when I tell her it came on during my run.

5. "I Don't Wanna Go to Rehab", Amy Winehouse - According to my girls, she did just that recently. Oops.

6. "Girl Like You", Edwyn Collins - Yes, this is off of the Empire Records Soundtrack and yes, I own it. No judgements.

7. "5:15" - The Who - Quadrophenia is one of the best albums to run to. When I lived in San Francisco, my ex-boyfriend and I would get high, put our Quadrophenia tapes in our walkmen and go running in the fog at night. It's the closest I've ever come to a liquid state.

8. "Such Great Heights", Iron and Wine - Skip. Sorry. It's too slow for running.

9. "Killed By Death", Motorhead - you can all shut your yaps. I heart Motorhead and no one will ever change my mind.

10. "Cynical Girl", Marshall Crenshaw - What can I say? Every girl's gotta have a theme song.

11. "Hard Luck Woman", KISS - Oh, wait. Maybe this is my theme song.

12. "Stranglehold", Ted Nugent - Yeah, we all know The Nuge has tons of scary issues. I find it easier to enjoy his music, if I just think of him as a cartoon character.

13. "Right Back Where We Started From", Maxine Nightingale - This. Song. Is. Awesome. Shut-up.

14, "Dancin' in the Moonlight", King Harvest - You're welcome to argue with me, but this very well might be the best pop song ever written.

15. "Know Your Onion", The Shins - It's gotta good beat and you can run to it.

16. "Tempted", Squeeze - The second best pop song ever written.

17. "Search and Destroy", Iggy Pop - I have to be careful, because sometimes this song makes me want to go find an innocent bystander, just so's I can kick his/her ass.

Okay. We're finally done. Once again, you are now free to feel superior. It's why I blog - to build you up.

And I'm Getting Old

Good lord, but that's a lot of face for a baby. It's also nice to know, that I've never, ever in my life, been able to sit like a lady.

Kids, you know I feel really bad doing another one of these so close on the heels of the last one, but here it is. I guess my excuse is that it's my birthday goddammit and I can blog drunk if I want to. Today was pretty kick-ass and I'm not just saying it because I've had a few and everything seems awesome while I'm wearing my beer goggles. I do know, that whatever hour I drag myself out of bed tomorrow, probably won't seem quite so sweet.

Right now though, I want to hug the whole world, except some of those stinky rock boys who gave me and my friends so much shit tonight. Those would be the same rock boys who kept calling and/or texting us while we were at a friend's house wondering when we were going to come down to the metal show. Those boys will get theirs all too soon. Especially, our friend J. who called us the "hen clan". As in, "I'm surprised to see the hen clan out at a show on a Sunday night," or "the reason I called you guys the hen clan is because all we could hear after the band stopped playing was you guys cackling in the back of the bar." J. will soon discover that we weren't kidding when we said we'd all show up at his house at 2 on Monday afternoon to watch movies at his state of the art theater...And cackle as often and as loudly as possible.

So, yeah. I have a feeling that I haven't made much sense so far. I would encourage you all to blame that final free birthday beer I was served after midnight. And since I obviously misplaced my filter, I'm wisely taking some kind of pain reliever, with as much water as I can drink and passing-out. I'm sure I'll feel like getting up early and running in the morning. Right?