He Knows That Something Somewhere Has to Break

Me and some other Ottumwa girls in the dorms at UNI. Don't you love that old Diet Pepsi can?

I figured I'd go on with the "year in review" posts. Let's do years ending in three next, okay? I was going to start with 1973, but then I found this picture of me in the dorms, wearing a sweater vest with a t-shirt underneath from 1983. I thought we all could use a laugh on Friday.

Age: I started it at 17 and turned 18 in July.

Music: Every dorm party included songs from U2, The Police, Men at Work, The Fixx, anything from Michael Jackson's Thriller, The Talking Heads', "Burning Down the House", and Men Without Hats', "Safety Dance". (complete with the weird arm movements from the video) The biggest thing for me was that I finally got to see The Police in concert in November. You can give me all the shit you want, but The Police is still one of my all-time favorite bands ever. I first heard them in 1979. If I remember it correctly, I had been listening to Steve Dahl and company on WLUP blowing up disco records at Comiskey Park. (my brother and I were big Steve Dahl fans back then) Later that night, they played Outlandos D'Amour in full and I was hooked. I went out and bought it the next day and played it over and over, until my brother threatened my life. So, seeing The Police live was HUGE for me. There was a big, ugly snowstorm that day, so half the seats were empty and we could get really close to the band. It was awesome.

Movies: I saw a lot of movies that year. My sister worked at the theater in Ottumwa, so I got to see a lot for free. I was also too young to drink legally, and we'd get drunk in the dorms and then go check out a film. These are some movies I saw that year: Easy Money, Terms of Endearment, Cujo, Return of the Jedi, Flashdance, The King of Comedy, The Big Chill, Risky Business, Silkwood, Scarface, Star 80 and Valley Girl. The one movie that I regret never having seen is Evil Dead. I know.

TV: We watched tons old shows in the dorms. We tried to catch Leave it to Beaver every day. I also saw that made for TV movie, The Day After and thought it was too boring to cause as much controversy as it did. At that time, General Hospital was really big on my dorm floor. It was one of the Luke and Laura momentous occasions and I can't recall which one. She either got raped by Luke and then fell in love with them, or the whole town got frozen by a freeze ray, or maybe that's when they got married. I never paid a whole lot of attention. Did I mention that I smoked a lot of pot back then?

Books: When I was still in high school, I read a lot of Vonnegut, and John Irving, and I liked Russian writers back then too. Once I got to college, I stopped reading for pleasure. It was one of the few times in my life when I didn't.

What I Wanted to Be When I Grew-Up: Like all the other young losers, I thought I was going to die within a year or two, so I didn't worry about a career.

Winter: Winter was bad for me. My siblings were all in college, so I was left alone to deal with my aunt and uncle. I had to do all the chores, inside the house and most of the ones outside too. One positive thing I can say, is that I have an incredible work ethic because of it. The negative part, is that it took me many, many years to scrape up some self-esteem. I almost never went out with my friends and I loved school because it was the only time I could relax and talk to my peers.

Spring: In high school, Spring always meant track season. I was injured my senior year, but I still went to practice and meets. I graduated in May and my aunt and uncle actually let me go to a graduation party. My sister gave me a ride there and back, because she was so awesome. Since we were in Ottumwa, the party was at somebody's farm house out in the middle of nowhere. All I remember, was that this guy Bruce started hitting on me after his girlfriend passed out in his truck, and that's how I knew it was time to go home.

Summer: My aunt and uncle let-up a little on me in the Summer. My brother advised me not to move out the minute I turned 18, because it would be tough to find a place for a month, and I didn't have a bed or anything else for an apartment. My aunt and my sister were finally reconciling, so, for a week or two, my aunt let me stay with my sister because I was detasseling all day and then I went to a Summer writing workshop in the evenings. My sister helped me get into bars and I had an actual social life for the first time in my high school career.

Fall: I went to UNI in August. It was the weirdest experience I had in my short life. I was finally free. I went from being controlled by my aunt and uncle, to having every single freedom I could handle. (or not) I made up for a lot of lost time my first semester in college. My roommate was the Chickasaw County Beef Princess. She was super shy and we didn't have much in common. I hung-out with a lot of older students and the guys who lived down the hall from me, who smoked pot from Budweiser cans, played Euchre and Quarters and quoted Fast Times at Ridgemont High any chance they could fit it into the conversation. I transferred to Iowa City in December.

I'll go One-On-One Against the World, Left Handed

So, kids. I've been on the tired side lately. Mostly it's my own fault, because, while I am busy this time of year in general, I still spend too much time either obsessing over stupid shit on the internets, (I'm looking at you YouTube) or just plain dicking around. I thought I might try this new thing called, getting at least four or five hours of sleep in a night to see if it improved my dispostion and my ability to hold a thought for more than two seconds. It seems my attention span went on hiatus, and my severe abandonment issues are causing me to stress out that he will never come back. Sure, he was a little short, but I still miss him all the same. I might have to start tacking up "wanted" posters around the neighborhood to see if anyone has seen him.

Originally, I was going to make this a photo post, but then I couldn't get any photos to upload here. I have no idea what's to blame, whether it's my photo program, or Blogger or the storms on the East Coast, but I'm too tired to figure it out tonight. I might do that thing where I turn the computer off and hope that things magically start working correctly again tomorrow.

So, instead I'm putting up a link to a video. The college kids in my office played it about 87 times in a row, while our bosses were doing performance reviews in another area. It's called "The Landlord", with Will Ferrell. You may have already seen it, but if not, check it out here.

I've also been pondering something else, and I thought I'd see what you all had to say. What happened to the novelty song? You know how in the seventies, there were about a million novelty songs? There was "Dead Skunk" and "Basketball Jones" and "The Funky Worm" and pretty much anything by Ray Stevens. Who is the Ray Stevens of the new millenium? Don't say Paris Hilton either, because she is actually trying to be serious, and she doesn't count.

In case you were wondering, this isn't the kind of thing that's been keeping me up at night, so you don't all need to come running to my house with the commitment papers and a stun gun at the same time. It's just something I thought about for two seconds, before it was gone again.

Everybody's Smilin' - Sunshine Day

Here is Coadster as seen through the net...

So, today was pretty kick-ass. I was exhausted when I first got up this morning, but I felt better as the day progressed. I love Iowa City when it first gets warm. Suddenly, all these people come out of hiding - the crazy guys pace back and forth through the ped mall, chain smoking and talking to themselves, there's a whole new crop of twenty year old panhandlers, asking me for money when their hipster glasses cost more than I make in two weeks, and the regulars are parked on the lawn furniture in front of the Deadwood. I love catching up with the Deadwood regulars. Of course, when you ask them what's going on, they can only answer, "Nothing much." They don't have jobs, or cars, for the most part, but they are funny as hell and always quite liberal with the compliments. I feel so much better about myself, going back to cubicle world after my three o'clock break.

After work, I went to Stinky's track meet. I missed her throwing discus, but caught her just in time to kick serious ass at the shot-put. I was wearing a skirt, so I was a little worried that she might be blinded by my pasty, white legs, but she was smart enough to look away right before she threw.

By six, I had to jet over to Coadster's soccer game. Looking around the bleachers, I was pretty sure I would win the award for the most inappropriate, foul-mouthed soccer mom at the game. Then I got excited thinking about how fun the imaginary award ceremony would be when I was presented with that honor. All the other not-quite-as-foul-mouthed soccer mom's would be talking so much shit about me. Don't worry, it's not like I missed much while I was daydreaming, the game ended with a tied score of zero to zero.

...And here is Coadster with her game face on.

When She Goes Downtown She Walks Like She Just Don't Care

Stinky making a goofy face underneath the Christmas lights.

So, the girls went to see a bunch of bands play at the Hall Mall as a benefit for United Action for Youth. They said it was fun, but they had to go outside a couple of times to get away from all the cigarette smoke. Stinky was telling me about what she saw downtown on a Saturday night.

Stinky: I guess there was this costume contest at one of the bars, so a lot of people were all dressed up. Most of the guys were dressed like people from the seventies, and all the girls were dressed like skanks.

Me: That's usually how it goes when college kids wear costumes.

Stinky: There were these girls who were walking around in nothing but corsets.

Me: Really? What did they wear for bottoms?

Stinky: They just had tights on and high heel hooker shoes. Then, these other, more rocker college girls came up to them and said, "Hey, you lost your pants...And your shirts...And your dignity.

Me: Nice.

Fourteen Joys and a Will to be Merry

I run past this pink, plastic flamingo every day and it's never not funny.

Sorry kids, I wasn't on the blog much this weekend. I was crazy busy on Saturday and then it got nice today, so I had to run and ride my bike. And all that practical stuff I was going to get done? Let's just say, there's always next weekend.

I had a lot of comments on Friday asking me to write more about Mr. Dateman. I am happy to oblige, but there is just one little problem. See, I'm all different kinds of stupid about him right now, and I'm so afraid that if I'm not careful, my post could start sounding like the mawkish girls in my high school who listened to too much Air Supply and dotted all of their i's with little hearts.

So, I'll write about my fourth date with Mr. Dateman, but I'll try really hard to proofread it - you know, just to chickity-check myself before I wrickity-wreck myself by being all mushy and gushy.

The fourth date was kind of a special day, for reasons Mr. Dateman doesn't really want to talk about, so we'll apply the first rule of Fight Club and just say, we celebrated by getting really drunk on wine, and it was awesome. At first, I was a little worried that I'd get too obnoxious after drinking, but he kept telling me it wouldn't bother him, and so I let loose, and if Mr. Dateman tried to tell me to quiet down later, he couldn't be heard over my loud, Ottumwa girl persona.

We watched a few WKRP in Cincinnati episodes he had taped, but mostly we got all dorked-out and talked a lot of shit and laughed and laughed and it was super fun. At one point, I remember admitting that I really liked Kenny Rogers, and he not only still spoke to me after that, he got a Bob Welch song stuck in my head for almost twenty-four hours now. Just in case you were wondering, Sentimental Lady is not the best song to have playing over and over in your head during a seven mile run.

So, how was that? Was it mush-free for the most part? If not, it's the best I can do right now. Maybe tomorrow, I'll try to write about work so I can be more jaded and get back some of my blog cred. 'Kay?

So Sublime, When the Stars Are Aligned

Tonight the planets aligned just perfectly, so that the girls were at their respective social events during the same time period. If I were a more practical or responsible person, I would have used that time to clean and/or organize my life. I don't really need to make a big point to tell you that didn't happen, do I?

In my world, I try to put my precious and very fragile sanity first. I decided that the best thing I could do for myself, was to converse with adults who weren't my co-workers. So, I called some friends, hung-out with them for a while, laughed a lot and talked as much shit as I could fit in the time allotted. I couldn't have asked for a better evening. I'm so much happier, and I figure I have the whole rest of the weekend to get practical shit done.

It's a Wonder Tall Trees Ain't Layin' Down

Here's the first thing I saw when I left my house, the morning after the tornado.

Friday, April 13th is the one year anniversary of the tornado that slammed us. How fitting. We're having a neighborhood get together to commemorate it on Saturday afternoon. In my neighborhood, any excuse to eat and drink beer, is a good one. Did I ever tell you how much I loved my neighborhood? If you haven't already read it, you can check out my original post on my old blog here.

The weekend after the tornado was overwhelming. I didn't go to work on Friday. Instead, I spent most of the day looking for any of my salvageable shit through mountains of trees, insulation and mud covered garbage and helped dismantle and remove said mountains. We had no electricity or running water for most of the weekend, and it was over eighty degrees outside. By Saturday night, I had gone almost three days without a shower and I smelled really, really good. (or not)

The great thing about Iowa, is that no matter what horrible thing happens to you, you will never be without food. Besides the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, people I had never met before dropped off meals at my friend B.'s house, where we all congregated on Saturday night. We really needed to blow off some steam, so we ate and drank more than usual. I was still in my "keeping busy" mode, so I was dishing stuff up and washing dishes, and trying not to think about where I was going to stay or how long the girls and I would be displaced from our home.

"This is my nephew, Churlita," one of my neighbors said. I said, hi and asked him if he wanted some food. I started fixing a plate for him, like I had for everyone else who came through the door. My neighbor's sister and some other women were standing around laughing about how gross we all were, while topping off the wine we were drinking out of jelly jars.

"Hey, we still have some ribs left. Do you want to finish them off? " I asked my neighbor's nephew. He was about ten years younger than me and very conventionally attractive. Apparently, I wasn't too stressed-out to notice that. "Potatoes or pasta or both?"

"I know you," he said. "...I mean, I don't know you. I know who you are. I think I see you running in my neighborhood."

"Oh probably. Do you live around here?" He told me where he lived and we talked about some people we knew in common.

"Do you go to North Dodge?" He asked me.

"Hy-Vee?" I asked, because going to the grocery store is my social life most weeks.

"No. Athletic Club...Remember how we were talking about you running?"

"Oh, right. Duh. No, I usually just run outside. If the weather is really bad, I'll go to the rec building." At that point I looked around and realized that an entire kitchen full of people had disappeared. The men, the women, the kids - all gone. It was just the conventionally attractive guy, and me, unshowered and wearing the same, stained wife-beater and cut-offs I'd been in for two days. "You know, I better go see where my girls are. It was really nice meeting you," I said and went outside.

"What the hell are you doing out here," my neighbor's sister said to me. "Go back in there and work that boy. He was totally hot and super into you." I knew they were up to something. I love my neighbors, they are always looking out for me and trying to fix me up with every guy they think might be able to spell s-i-n-g-l-e, but I'm really good at resisting.

"Are you kidding me? I can't work a guy under normal conditions, there's no way I'm going to try it when I'm stinky and I got my post-traumatic stress syndrome going on."

The party this weekend should be even better, because I will have showered, I have a place to live and my neighbors promised me, no more fix-ups.

Wonderin' If We're Really Ever Gonna Get That Far

Here's me with my roommate and her friends and lots of Old Style, when I first moved to Iowa City and before I started wearing WAY too much black eyeliner.

So, thanks again for all of your kind comments the last two posts. I knocked all that shit loose from my craw and my cold is much better. I'm afraid I've been sounding a little too Lisa Bright and Dark on here lately, so I thought I'd do one of those "songs that took me back to a specific day and time" posts tonight.

Sometimes I have to go ask a co-worker for information on specific cases I'm working. When I go to her desk, she's always listening to one of those lite oldies internet stations. The other day, that Julian Lennon song came on. You know that one song? The one hit he had in 1985? It took me right back to the very first time I heard it. This is where I went:

"You wanna do it now?" My friend Marty asked me and my other friend Schmud, and of course we did, so he pulled the tabs out of his pocket and we each put one on our tongue. We were all sitting at the bar after our shifts drinking free beer. The plan was to go back to Marty's place, because he lived in a rooming house with some other guys we knew and their room was all set-up specifically for taking acid. They had all this weird shit in it to mess with and stuff to draw and paint. Marty used to steal street signs and make really cool drawings with permanent marker on the backs.

"You guys didn't take it already did you?" Pete came out of the dish room and was all pissed-off at us because he still had to work. "Then give me mine and wait here until I'm done."Since he found us out, and the owner of the Mill had gone to a party, we thought it would be okay to hang-out at the restaurant for a bit until Pete was off work.

Of course, the owner came back early and we were really taking off, right as he and his girlfriend walked in the door. The guys were smart and hid in the back room, but I wasn't paying attention and the owner came over and started talking to me about pate and how it was made of duck and chicken livers in his loud and whiny voice. My eyes were very wide, as I tried to pretend to pay attention and not freak-out. The guys had all come behind the bar to make faces at me behind the owner's back. It got to the point where I didn't think I could stand it anymore, and I told the owner that I had to go to the bathroom. I hid in a stall and giggled until I could go out and face people again.

"I gotta go. I can't take it here with Keith back from the party. It's starting to really freak me out," I said. Pete was getting off work anyway and so we all went over to Marty's house.

At first, the guys with the trippy acid pad weren't home, so we went to the communal refrigerator and put Tabasco sauce in all the food. There was a band called, 149 Dead Marines that also lived in the house and I knew some of them, because they were from Ottumwa and they were really tough. I got even more freaked-out, thinking what they'd do to us if they found out we even put hot sauce in their milk. The guys thought it was hilarious. My friend Marty who used to tease me for being from Southeast Iowa, kept talking like a hillbilly, and draining the hot sauce into anything he could find in the fridge. "It's okay, Churlita. They won't even know. Don't y'all put Tabasco in everything you eat down in Ottumwa, anyway?"

Our other friends came home and we went into their apartment to smoke some pot. This one guy named Steve, wouldn't smoke any, because he said he didn't want it to mess with the purity of his acid.

"Isn't there rat poison in acid, or does it just feel that way?" I asked, but no one seemed to hear me. Instead they got these plastic, collapsible cups and we were all entertained for at least an hour, smashing them down and setting them back up again. In what was supposed to be the walk-in closet, they had set-up a TV in a weird cage thing. I don't remember it ever being turned off. It must have been earlier than I thought, because Friday Night Videos was still on. When we were tripping, watching videos was even more fun than playing with collapsible cups.

At first, when Julian Lennon's video came on, I thought it was a joke. I loved John Lennon, and the guy on TV looked a lot like him and sounded similar too. "Hey, what is this?" I asked.

"It's John Lennon's son, " Schmud said.

"Nuh-uh. This guy sucks. Listen to the lyrics. It's like bad high school boy poetry. 'It fits so tight, closer than a glove'? That's so dumb. He can't be related to John Lennon." I was all indignant.

"Yes, he can. He looks and sounds just like him. He's just cashing in, " Marty said. And we all quietly watched the rest of the video, before we started getting hungry and regretting we had put hot sauce in all the food.

Can't Find a Thing to Ease the Rain

Hey, look what survived the frost and cold?

Dear Gentle Readers,

Although I feel much better now than I did earlier today, I am still tired and sick and sick and tired. Plus, I have a thing or two stuck in my craw as of late. Don't worry, I won't dig it out and unload any of it on you. You have all been so wonderful and supportive and shit, and I think it's stuff that will work itself out, or it won't. Some of it is work related, and I just wasn't feeling well enough to have to deal with it today. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, if I feel better, my craw could be completely empty.

Tonight, though? Tonight, I'm kind of in a mood, and I just need to take my trusty cold meds and see if I can't pass-out as quickly as possible. Please feel free to take a gander at the super-duper close-up flower picture below. Can you tell I'm trying to make up for my whining by showing you pretty, perky flowers?

Love,

The Churlish One

It Would Kill You Just to Try and Be a Nicer Guy

I kind of stopped doing these "Year in Review" posts, because the next logical year would be 1996 and it was really bad for me. It was the year that I finally decided to get out of my abusive marriage. I couldn't actually move until May of 1997, because I didn't have the money, but it was the year I stopped trying and started biding my time. The big problem with writing about it, is that I don't know how to do it and not make it sound like a bad Lifetime movie or Oprah's book club selection, and worst of all, it's not really, very funny. On the other hand, I write about every other kind of bullshit on here, and a lot of it isn't all that funny either. So, I'm giving it a shot. If it helps, you can imagine Meredith Baxter playing me. Yeah, I realize we look nothing alike, but it seems to be the law that she plays the victim in all those Lifetime movies, so stretch your imagination.

Age: I was 30 when the year started and turned 31 in July.

Music: As usual, I listened to a lot of everything back then. I went to see as many local bands as possible. I also worked at a coffee shop with a bunch of college kids, so I heard much Pavement, Yo La Tengo, and Son Volt depending on who was working. I saw Stereolab play at Gabes and when my friend's band was opening for the Mountain Goats, he put me on the guest list. I had to back-out at the last minute, because I gave my marriage one last try and went to see my ex-husband act in a play at the Old Creamery Theater instead. No one can ever say I didn't try hard enough. Secretly, I adopted Aimee Mann's I'm With Stupid as my theme album that year.

TV: I worked almost every night and ran around with the girls during the day. I think we watched Sesame Street in the mornings, and then the obligatory Seinfeld and The Simpsons here and there too.

Books: Back then, I read a lot of short fiction. I just didn't have time for novels. I remember reading Thom Jones, Joy Williams, Tobias Wolfe and some Don Delillo.

What I Wanted to be When I Grew-up: By the end of the year, all I knew I wanted, was out.

Winter: It was really cold that year. I remember being cooped up with my girls. The woman who lived downstairs was crazy as a loon. I know I've already written about her in my other blog, but she used to call us and hang-up every time she heard the girls move and then when I talked to her about it she denied it - even after I star 69'ed her and she answered the phone. The other scary thing was that she played Natalie Merchant's Tiger Lily really loudly about a hundred times a day. Yeah, she came close to making me crazy too.

Spring: My ex started getting more controlling in the Spring, after a little Winter hiatus. I was never sure what actually caused his moods, but he was big and scary and when I would perform such heinous crimes, as buying my daughters mittens he didn't like, or getting him the wrong kind of beer, or, in his mind, when I started acting like I thought I was smarter than him, he would get mean. Mostly it was yelling, swearing and throwing things at me. A few times, he raised his hand to me, and each time I calmly assured him I would call the cops if he ever actually hit me. Amazingly, he could control himself enough not to end up in jail.

Summer: My birthday sucked. Our car broke down and it was a hundred bazillion degrees outside and I didn't have enough money on my credit card so that my ex-husband could rent a car to get to his rehearsal in The Amanas. He got angry and threatening and then thankfully, he found a way to work and left. Later that month, we went out to talk about how fucked-up things were between us. I thought it would be safer if we were in a restaurant, because he was always good at acting like he was a nice guy in public. Like most abusive men, he got even more angry if he thought I was telling my friends about his behavior. That night, he told me that he thought Coadster would always calm him down if he got too violent. It took me a while to process the fact that he expected his four year old daughter to keep him in line. When I did, that was it for me. I realized that I was the only idiot working so hard at this, and maybe if I put all that energy into figuring out how to safely extricate myself and my girls from the situation, I would keep Coadster from a lifetime of feeling responsible for her dad's hideous behavior.

Fall: After I gave up trying to save my marriage, I stayed away from my ex as much as possible. He worked days and I worked evenings, so I made sure I never got home before he went to sleep. That's when I started going out with friends to see shows after work. When we were home at the same time, we spoke only enough to fill the other one in on what was going on with the girls. It was a suffocating environment, but it was actually better than when I cared and thought it was my job to fix shit.

Bloody Red Eyes Go to Sleep

Now here is a picture of some trains and a fence.

I'm just going to go ahead and start this post out with a disclaimer. I woke-up with that bad cold that everyone else has this morning. My eyes looked just like Sylvester Stallone's at the end of Rocky. I came this close to slitting them with a razor, so I could see better. And even though I'm on my meds, I still have a bit of a migraine, so don't go thinking I'll be making any sense on here today. I did you all a favor, however, and I'm posting before I take my cold medicine. I'm here to tell you, it could be way worse.

I went on date number three last night. I probably won't do many more date posts, (unless something really funny happens) because I'm sure there has to be a limit. I'm just guessing, because I'm not a girl who understands limits very well. It seems like people either stop going on dates with each other, or they continue going on dates and if it goes on for a long, long time, blogging about them could turn into something like this:

Our 5,745th date was great. I think. What I can remember of it, was that we sat in our matching Lay-Z Boys, eating TV dinners, while watching Matlock reruns. At some point, he farted and I said , "Good one." And he said, "Thank you." And then we both fell asleep in our chairs and woke-up the next morning with cricks in our necks.

Please feel free to come to my house and shoot me in the head, if I ever write that post for real.

My real date was nothing like that. Unfortunately for him, it was a lot of me being lame, because, like tonight, I was rocking a bit of a migraine. He bought wine, that didn't come out of a box, (that's how classy he is) but I couldn't drink it because of my bad brain. I also think I did that embarrassing, spaced-out thing I do where I tell the same lame-ass story I've probably already told him too many times before. Poor guy.

I got to see the wonder that is Guitar Hero. It reminded me a bit of Dance Dance Revolution, but with way better music. I think to appreciate the full beauty of it, you'd have to be a stoned-out thirteen year old boy, but I have a feeling, my brain isn't wired too much differently than that, so I appreciated it just fine.

I'm sure there were a hundred other ways I was lame, and listing them all off here, would only make me look really, really bad. So, let's just say, I'm planning to bring much better game next week.

Now, I'm off to take as much cold medicine as the box allows and fall asleep telling myself the same dumb stories over and over again.

Modern Medicine Falls Short of Your Complaints

I got home from work yesterday and Coadster had already left for soccer practice. I had about 10 minutes before it was time to pick-up Stinky, so I figured I'd waste some time messing around on the internets. The first thing I saw when I got on was a YouTube video of The Fifth Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues". Coadster must have been watching it, and I wasn't sure if I should be worried or not.

I have already documented Coadster's bizarre taste in movies and music. I can't even count the number of times she's watched Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar. And, although I might be able to live happily for the rest of my life without seeing either film again, I still can't get enough of Coadster's exaggerated show choir-type moves when she sings, "YOU'VE got the power, YOU'VE got the glory" in our living room.

Lately, Coadster's love of weird music is being taken to new levels...And this is coming from me. Most people think they like some cheesy music, and then they meet me, and are completely impressed, or totally frightened - usually both. Don't get me wrong, Coadster still likes a lot of contemporary stuff like Pinback, Death Cab, and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, but the rest of her playlist looks like this:

1. Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan

2. For Once in My Life - Stevie Wonder

3. Up-UP and Away-The Fifth Dimension

4. Incense and Peppermints - The Strawberry Alarm Clock

5. Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul

6. Too Shy Shy - Kajagoogoo

7. Tainted Love - Soft Cell

See what I mean? I know if I cornered her and asked her why she was so into that kind of crap, she'd just answer with, "I learned it by watching you."

I Hate People When They're Not Polite

Here is a photo of a big old tree I took when the girls and I went to hang-out at the apple orchard last Fall. It was 80 degrees on that day, and we just set a record low last night of 22 degrees. I'm in denial right now.

Hey, remember when I used to have a different blog, but I changed it because I stupidly put my name in the URL and then I thought my boss had found it? Yeah, me too. So this week, I found out it wasn't my boss who found it after all, but some muckety muck guy who works in another office in the very large institution where I'm employed.

A woman who works in my department, but in another office, came over to my desk on Tuesday and very loudly said, "Hey, I was at a meeting and one of the head honchos asked me if there was anyone in my office who wrote a blog. He said he had been reading one, and they moved it, but he thought it was hilarious and he had been totally obsessed with it. You're the only person I could think of, who would be writing a blog like that in our office. So, am I right?"

I think my squinty, little eyes got bigger than they had ever been before, and I stuttered, "Uh. Hmmm. Well. I did have one..."

"Well, he seems to think you might have another one and he really, really wants to get to it. Can you give me the link to give to him?" Half of the people in my office were peeking over their cubicles at me. There was no way in hell, I was going to admit to everyone in my office that I still had a blog, so I nervously redirected the conversation.

"What's the guy's name and how did he find my old blog?" I'm sure I was twitching and blinking excessively at the same time.

"Some girl he went to school with gave him the link originally. His name is, #$#Q#%$# *(&(&869." Luckily, she got called away to do something else and in about an hour my heart was down to only 897 beats per minute.

The next day, I thought it was all over, until I walked into the break room along with five other co-workers, and the same woman addressed me as, "blog girl" and said, "So, do you have another blog, or what? Don't you want everyone to read it?"

"Actually, I think everyone I work with knows way more about me than they want to, as it is."

"So, you don't want to tell me...That's okay," She said and hasn't talked to me about it since, and neither has anyone else. Jeesh. If that guy had been reading my blog as obsessively as he said he was, he would know that I went into hiding, and you'd think he'd make a point to tell the woman that she should be discreet. Normally, I love it when people read my blog, but I can be an open wound on here sometimes and I'm pretty much incapable of censoring myself. There's no way I would ever trust that guy to respect that.

I guess if nothing else, I got one hell of an adrenaline rush for a few days this week.

Freakazoids...Robots...Please Report

Here's what our town will look like very, very soon. Even though right now, it doesn't feel like it will ever get warm enough for the leaves to come back again.

So, today at work we had this diversity workshop thing to go to. Normally, I do a lot of eye rolling when it comes to morale building or inter-personal relationship training. They are usually pretty lame-ass and I end up spending most of my time trying to sift through the corporate speak and hand clapping to figure out just exactly how they are trying to manipulate me. Today's workshop was actually okay, though. It was a group of four actors doing skits about dealing with diversity on the job and on campus.

At first sight, I thought the guy who wrote and ran it, was going to be one of those baby-boomer, fakely earnest, new-agey assholes, but he was actually pretty cool. He did go into his drug addiction and recovery for a minute, but, you know...We all have our shit. At least he was talking about it to give us some background, and not like he was saying, "Look at me. I'm a sole/soul survivor!" All in all, it held my interest and the message was good and not too preachy.

At the beginning of the workshop, the head guy asked us to turn to the person standing next to us and compliment them. Of course, I was standing next to my long-suffering cubicle neighbor, John. He really is such a good sport, but knowing that fact, just brings out the worst in me.

So, I turned to him and said, "Have I ever told you how pretty I've always thought you were?" It was awesome, because he never saw that one coming. I'm pretty sure he thought I was going to say something mean. He was speechless for a second, before he said,

"God, you're such a freak."

"So, was that my compliment from you?" I asked.

"Yeah. That's about all I can do right now."

"Actually, I'll take it... You're saying 'freak' like it's a good thing, right?"

Cold as Ice - You Know That You Are

Here's me talking some shit to my coach at track practice when I was sixteen. I would have taken pictures of my daughters today, but I didn't want to get frostbite on my hands.

You know how I always talk about how much I love my daughters on here? Well, lately I've had to put my money where my mouth is. I am right in the middle of Spring activities for the girls, and I've been doing things that I would only do for them.

On Sunday, Coadster had a choir concert at St Mary's church. They sang religious music and it was all very beautiful and a lot of it was in Latin, but it was also really, really long. The show lasted almost two hours. I was so glad I took a nap beforehand, because even on a hard, unforgiving church pew, my friend sitting next to me, fell asleep. Not just a little doze either, he was dreaming and everything and his head started falling into the people in front of us, before he woke-up and bolted upright. Once again, I got caught laughing in church.

Today I got to leave work an hour early to attend Stinky's track meet. She throws the shot put and discus. In the eight or more years I was in track, I never once got to see the field events. They're actually pretty cool. It would have been great, if the winds hadn't been blowing and the temperatures dropping by the minute. I don't like to be cold. I'll say it again - I REALLY don't like to be cold. After Stinky finished her events, I went home for a half hour before I went back out to Coadster's soccer game. I had to grab the biggest, warmest comforter to wrap myself in while I sat on the aluminum bleachers. And since I was feeling a tiny bit dramatic, I also took a minute to call my friend K. and whine about how cold I was. K. is an awesome friend. She not only didn't tell me to suck it up and leave her the hell alone, she stayed on the line and commiserated with me until she was actually at her destination and didn't want to be one of those "talking on her cell phone in the store people".

The soccer game was much better than the track meet, because I was actually dressed properly. Plus, I finally stopped whining after I watched Coadster and her teammates running around in shorts and kicking up tons of water and mud from the saturated soccer field.

Spill the Wine

Here is a construction site on North Dodge Street last Fall.

I know I've mentioned on here several times before how much I like living in Iowa City. It is an overeducated town of freaks, and I love that about it. Another thing I love, is when very different types of people are all stuck in one room. In these situations, I sometimes forget that I'm not invisible or that I'm not at home watching it all on TV.

On Saturday afternoon, I finally made it to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed in my car. Just in case you're interested, Jiffy Lube has surprisingly immaculate bathrooms. Which has nothing to do with my post at all. I'm not sure why that made such a big impression on me, although I have a feeling it might be because I'm pathetic and need to save up and buy my ass a life.

So, wait. Where was I? Oh yeah, I sat in the waiting room for about a half hour while my car was being serviced. At first, it was just me and a frat looking guy, an older man in Carhartts, and a more artsy looking college girl. We all sat around reading the out-of-date magazines from the rack and determinedly not establishing eye contact. Then a mom walked in with four junior high aged girls. The frat boy and the Carhartt guy left and then it was just me and the artsy girl and the mom with the teenagers. The artsy girl took out her cell phone and started talking very loudly and pretentiously about wine. The junior high girls got really quiet while the artsy girl went on and on and on and on about what she liked and why and my head hurt almost as much as it did when I watched Sideways.

I then made a big mistake. I looked up from the interview with Will Farrell that I was reading, and saw all the teenagers rolling their eyes and opening and closing their hands to make the "too much talky talky sign" behind the artsy girls back. When they noticed me looking at them, we all cracked-up. The good thing was, that I didn't even have to feel bad for hurting the pretentious girl's feelings. She just kept loudly describing wine flavors to some poor sap, completely oblivious, until my car was all better and I got to run, screaming out of there.

That's the Way It Oughta Be

This is the door to an apartment building by my house. So, you can probably tell that I still haven't taken any new photos. In my defense, I was really, really busy this weekend. I promise, I will get around to taking non-snowy pictures as soon as I can.

Ever since I announced to that one person in my office last week that I was going on a date, and then she, in turn, announced it to everyone else, my co-workers have been trying to "help" me by dispensing all kinds of unsolicited advice. Certain people in my office think there are rules that should be observed when dating, and they want to make sure that I'm following them. Silly people.

Apparently, there are a specific number of days one must wait until they call the other person after a date. There are also particular behaviors that should be followed on date one and then date two and three and so on. As many times as I remind these co-workers that I'm not a structure girl, they just ignore me and explain another thing they think I should be doing or not doing in regards to dating. Yeah, well...I've already diagnosed myself with oppositional defiance disorder, so all their talking, talking, talking just makes me want to do exactly the opposite of what they tell me. If only I had listened better, I could have gone down their lists, and broken every single, last one of their stinkin' rules.

Here is my list of things that happened on my second date. I'm pretty sure that absolutely none of these things were on my co-worker's lists:

1. The second date must be the one where you watch the brilliance that (ahem) spews forth from Jackass II.

2. On your second date, you also get to see pictures of Mr. Dateman's Bon Jovi hair in high school. Which is why the second date is your very favorite date so far.

3. You get to meet Mr. Dateman's roommate and her boyfriend on this date as well. They are one of those couples who are kick-ass and hilarious and sickeningly perfect for each other. Even though they gave you the okay to write about them on your blog, they may have had a beer or two before they consented, and so you opt to write sparingly about them. There has been a time or 5,263 in your own life when you thought something sounded like a great idea when you were a little inebriated, and then sobered up and changed your mind.

4. On your second date, you have even more fun with Mr. Dateman than you did on the first one. You think that there was some rule against that, and are really happy that you are stubborn and shun structure in general.

The Moon and the Stars Was Shinin' Bright

Here I am, doing a quick Friday night wrap-up.

Today was full of crazy, nutty phone calls because April 1st is a huge deadline in our office. I think I handled everything pretty well, except I complained that people were "Gonna drive me to drinkin'" after conversations with a few of the more entitled callers.

After picking Stinky up from track practice, I went running in the fog and it felt really cool.

I just got done watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I get paid tomorrow.

I also have my second date with Mr. Dateman, and I'm just about as excited as my sister was in this picture:

So, tonight what I think I'm trying to say is, Woooooo Hooooo!

Spitting in a Wishing Well

Here is a messed up bike in a rack I saw on my way to work one day.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I was grouchy and I don't know why. I may have been sleep deprived or I might have had a little Spring fever, but whatever it was, it made me all spaced-out and irritable. I wasn't the only one. I walked into the bathroom and one of my co-workers was hiding in there by the sinks. I asked her how she was, and she said. "Churlita, I don't know, but I think I hate the whole fucking world right now. And obviously, it's bad enough for me to drop the f-bomb at work." I told her, that to me, there was no better place to drop the f-bomb than at work. It's almost always justified.

I got crankier as the day progressed yesterday too. In that frame of mind, I decided to put my futon back together. I'm sure I've said this a million times, but I'm not very mechanically inclined. I actually did okay with that part, but I could really have used another pair of hands because it was not only heavy but cumbersome. Next time, I'll be smart enough to wait until I can get my neighbor, who is always very good about helping me with mechanical fixes or heavy lifting projects, to assist me. I actually did kick it and swear at it at one point, and yes, it did make me feel much better, thank you.

Tonight though, things started turning around. I ran for a long time after work, and then later in the evening, I did a wonderful thing for myself. I took in about an hour's worth of Jackass. I'm telling you, it's the perfect antidote for grouchiness. If watching sixty minutes of grown men farting, crashing into shit, and kicking each other in the balls doesn't perk you up and restore your faith in the world, I don't know what else will.

They Told Me, Don't Go Walkin' Slow

Here's me when I was five. Almost all of the red was out of my hair by then.

I know I'm not supposed to, but I can't help it. I always jump on the little cord at the gas station on my way home from school. It dings and a guy who works there comes out and sees it's me and yells. This is only fun in the morning when I'm with my brother, but I still do it by myself, anyway. Since I'm in kindergarten, I get out of school eary and have to walk home alone. I jump hard to make sure it dings, and then I run even harder to get away from the man who swears and calls me a brat.

I have to walk through the city on my way home from school, and I get scared and run a lot of the way. One day, someone had torn apart a porno magazine and spread the pages all over the playground. Some boys I knew thought it was funny to chase us girls with the papers full of naked ladies and I ran for three or four blocks, before I got tired and saw that the boys had stopped chasing me.

Another time, everybody said that there was a guy who was throwing bowling balls out his car window, so all the kids left school right away for a week, until my sister said she didn't think it was true. How could you throw a bowling ball at a kid?

Sometimes it's okay to walk home alone - like when they change the billboard by the gas station while we're at school and I get to be the first of all us kids to see it. My brother will come home to tell me it's different, and I will get to say, "I know. I already saw it."

By the end of kindergarten, a girl named Karen moves to my school and she walks part of the way home with me. We jump on the gas station cord together and it's even more fun than with my brother, because she doesn't call me names when I can't keep up with her. Soon, I will be in first grade and I will walk - just walk home with my brother and my new friend Karen.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

I swear to god that I will take some new photos very soon. These snowy ones are starting to get a little ridiculous.


It was almost eighty degrees here on Sunday. Even though I was a little tired and still feeling kind of high from the night before, I couldn't pass up the chance to run and get even more buzzed. It seemed as though the further I ran, though, the more discord I felt.

Once I was almost to Scott Boulevard, I heard a middle aged couple arguing. At first I thought they were just kidding around, but then I heard the woman say, "Oh, so then you get home and it's four o'clock and you sit around watching sports for the rest of the night and nothing else gets done. Real nice, Joe. Maybe everything will just magically get taken care of by itself." I exchanged raised eyebrows with the couple walking toward me and picked-up my pace to get away from all the negativity. I didn't want the Bickersons to ruin a perfectly good buzz.

Once I turned on to Court Street, it happened again. This time a woman was sitting out on her deck screeching at someone inside her house. A male voice said, "Shut-up, bitch." And then she really got loud.

The worst part, after all the f'in' this and f'in' that, was that she finished by saying, "Whatever, bitch." I thought that was supposed to be my special phrase. I'm not sure if this kind of dissonance took place all the time on my running route and it had just been contained inside all winter by closed windows, or if there was some kind of bad juju in the air for some reason this weekend.

On any other day, I might have soaked up the discord like a sponge and let it take away from all the endorphins I'd been cultivating. On Sunday, however, I was working with two different highs, and I was able to make it safely home, still thinking about unicorns and rainbows and cute little puppies.

Share the Same Space For a Minute or Two

I took this last Fall. It is dangerously close to where I work.

On Friday I was doing my own bit to help increase morale in my office, by letting everyone laugh at my expense. It seems if you tell one person at my workplace something, like, oh say, that you are going on a date for the first time in forever, the whole office finds out and gets to make fun of you. The date razzing seemed to be calming down by the afternoon, until the ex-nun decided to take it back out and beat it some more.

Ex-Nun: Hey, Churlita. Are you still going on your date on Saturday night?

Me: As far as I know.

Ex-Nun: Is your futon fixed yet?

Me: No. I guess it takes longer when they're fixing it for free.

Ex-Nun: You might want to go in there and get a loaner for this weekend. And tell them not to bother taking the plastic cover off of it, if you know what I mean...

Me: You know, I always wondered why you got kicked out of the convent, but now I finally get it.

Ex-Nun: They didn't kick me out. I was the one who left them.

Me: Oh, okay. Whatever you say.

Feet They Hardly Touch the Ground

Remember how I like fire escapes? Yeah, well here's another one.

Mr. Dateman has kindly given me consent to blog about our evening. So, here's my take. I'm going to do another list thing. I'm sure you're all shocked.

You know you're on a good date when:

1. Mr. Dateman walks into the restaurant looking really, really, really, really, really, really good. (and that's me trying to exercise restraint on the "really's". I could easily have used several more)

2. He makes you a mix CD by artists with names that begin with "the" - ie The Clash, The Buzzcocks, The Specials, The Pixies... You get the drill. Each song on it is perfect.

3. He offers to drive in front of you on the way to the bar in the small suburb of Iowa City where he lives, so you don't get lost, and to be the one to hit the deer if it should come running out onto the road. He also saves you the parking spot closest to the door and parks at the other one further away.

4. He makes you laugh a lot. And after every time you think, "Ha, ha. That's so funny. So, when are you going to kiss me?"

5. He makes you feel comfortable about your own nerdiness, by being completely open about his own geeky ways. You can't quite remember the actual number of video games he said he has now, but you know that even the most serious gamer would be very impressed.

6. He doesn't instantly run away to fill-out a restraining order after you admit that you stalked him on the internets.

7. When you finally go home after spending twelve hours in a row together, it still doesn't feel like enough time.

Shapes of Things Before My Eyes

Here are some daffodils that the morale building organization in our office gave us today. They've been trying to recruit new members and were going from cubicle to cubicle like Jehovah's Witnesses a few weeks ago. When they got to me, I told them that joining anything would upset my delicate punk rock sensibilities. They laughed like it was joke, but they haven't bugged me about it since.

I'm going to make the rest of this post very short. Apparently, everyone decided to go off of their meds at the same time today, call my office and spew bile through the phone lines. Lord knows, I've had plenty of experience dealing with other people's crazy, but by the end of the week, it just makes me tired. Plus, Stinky may have an ear infection, so I'm going to have to get up earlier than I want, to take her into the doctor. I guess what I'm really trying to say is, goodnight.

I Better Be Quiet Now

So, now that it's been warm for a couple of days, the snowy pics look kind of pretty again, don't they?

Ah, let's see. How do I say this without sounding like a total, scary dweeb? I have a date on Saturday night. I haven't dated in ...Well, a very long time. This is all the information I'm going to give you about it too. Since he reads my blog, and the little bit I've written is already too embarrassing, this is going to be one of those, "if I tell you any more, I'm going to have to kill you" situations. Suffice it to say, I'm more than a little nervous.

You know how you guys are all so nice and concerned and you do and do and do for me? Well, I appreciate it and all, but now I'm asking you to do a little more. It's been so long, that I'm pretty clueless as to how this whole dating thing works, and I thought maybe you who do it more often, or at all, could give me some pointers in the comments. Feel free to assume I'm a little "special" in this arena and please write slowly and use the smallest words possible.

Here are a few things I know I'm going to need to work on: I'm not a big drinker, so I shouldn't have more than two beers, (no matter how many I think I need) I have to remember that chronic, nervous laughter is not even a little bit sexy, and no matter how hard it might seem, I need to keep reminding myself to use my inside voice. (loud Ottumwa girl talk should be avoided at any cost)

Okay, I'll leave the rest up to you all, while I go breathe into a bag for the next day or two.

Across a Crowded Floor, They Worked From 8 Till 4

Hey, look what I saw when I walked out of my house first thing this morning. I know it's a crappy picture, but I take a long time to wake up and I see things all blurry and over-exposed like this until about ten o'clock. The weird thing about these guys, is that I've lived here for four years, and I've never seen flowers grow on this side of the house before. I think they might have bloomed this year because the tornado took all the trees away from the East, and now the sun gets in there in the morning.

I know I've been writing about the office a lot this week, but I honestly don't have much of a life outside of it right now, so it's what I got.

The guy who sits behind me at work, reminded me that it's almost the one year anniversary of the tornado. He told me he thought the people in my neighborhood should all get together and throw a huge party and play Twister, watch The Wizard of Oz, and serve all the cocktails with a twist. After I told him to get the hell out of my cubicle and leave me alone, he pretended to hock a loogie into my gigantic ceramic mug full of tea. I acted like I was going to wipe snot on him and he finally ran away to his own cubicle, where he thought up creative ways to flip me off for the next hour.

I retaliated by singing, "His name was John. He was a loser..." to the tune of "Copacabana". (try getting that song out of you head) I also read aloud a fake e-mail to his wife, telling her that he drank tomato juice and ate oranges for lunch. (he has really bad acid reflux)

Did I mention that all our supervisors were gone for two hours at a meeting today?

Tell It to Me Slowly

I took this almost exactly a year ago today on the railroad bridge behind the Union. I couldn't bear to post a snowy picture on the first day of Spring, so I had to steal from some back files.

Even though the breezy, thinner air has made it feel more like Fall the last two days, it is indeed the first day of Spring. Woo hoo! It's like someone flipped a switch and things both inside and outside of my scary brain, are rapidly changing to accomodate the new season.

Both girls have started their Spring sports. Coadster has soccer practice everyday after school and Stinky's doing track. It means that soon I will be frequently watching sporting events and catching up on the gossip with the other parents, while we remind each other to pay attention enough to see our kids do their things.

My head is burning up with Spring fever. It makes me so stoooopid. I'll be in the middle of a task, and suddenly forget what the hell I was doing. I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself thinking, "Uh, wait. What?" It's as if my stoner roommate from college is couch surfing in my brain.

I have that early spring conundrum where I'm just starting to shed the Winter pelt, but I still have a ways to go, and I also want to wear my cute, warm weather skirts. I keep trying them on and telling myself, "Next month. This will look so much better on me in just a few weeks."

On Monday night, I went to my friend K.'s house to plan out the garden we plant in her backyard every year. We did talk about at least one related topic, like how we'd just buy peppers from her neighbor who works at the Co-op and apprentices at an organic farm where he grows tons of them. It will be less seedlings taking up my kitchen table and her shelves. Most of the night, we forgot about why I was really there, and talked a bunch of shit instead. We'll figure out all the garden stuff as we go, I'm sure.

You know how I'm super immature with my potty brain, and my extreme love of the double entendre? Yeah? Well, that is even worse in the Spring. I keep misreading words or hearing things wrong at work, so that it seems as if everyone is being completely inappropriate in a supposedly professional environment. I've even accidently typoed my real name twice this week, once as Tata and the other time as Tarta on work related e-mails. It was hilarious...to me, anyway.

And You Can Act Real Rude and Totally Removed

Here is the picture from my first college ID at the University of Northern Iowa in 1983. I must have thought it was worth ripping out of the laminate and saving, if only for the light pink OP shirt and giddy expression I was wearing.

In 1983 I graduated from high school and went to college in Cedar Falls, Iowa. I chose to go there because,out of the three state universities, it was the furthest away from Ottumwa, it had the cheapest tuition and I thought it was my best shot of walking on for track and earning myself a scholarship. I got injured my senior year, and the only school that offered me money to run, was a small christian school in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. With my big mouth, love for loud music and white girl angst, I didn't think I'd last long there. So, I chose UNI and learned a lot of things.

In high school I wasn't allowed to go out very much and never dated. I had spent the last eight years, cooking cleaning, being told I was shit and thinking that's what I deserved. During my first few months of freedom, I was sure I was going to get hit by a train or come down with a terminal disease. I couldn't imagine how to live a life like other people. It actually took me several years to get rid of all the crap leftover from my aunt and uncle, and quit fucking myself over. Out of all the mistakes I made that year, I'm going to relate to you the one that always made me feel the worst:

Because I was a runner and goofy/spazzy and probably the Lucille Ball of my high school, I had tons of male friends, but never dated. It didn't occur to me that a boy would like me as anything other than a friend. The first date I had in college, was a set-up by one of the girls who lived on my floor. The guy was very nice and cute, but very normal. He was an accounting major, and played rugby and thought Cedar Falls was a big city. (he was wrong) After a group date where we drank beer and watched The Exorcist, (about the least sexy movie you can imagine) he asked me to come watch him play rugby. I told him I would, but then never showed.

I was scared and thought that everyone else in the world had dated in high school and already knew some set of rules, that I had never learned and I wouldn't know what to do. I didn't think I'd see him again, but it turned out he was in a huge lecture of mine. (that I obviously didn't go to very often) At the final, he tapped my desk with a pencil and said, hi. He asked what happened to me that day, but not in the vindictive tone he should have used with me. I lied and told him that I had to do something with my roommate at the last minute, and couldn't make it. I'm sure I wasn't the least bit believable. He said that was too bad and really meant it and then went to find his seat.

Back then, I had no idea that I could hurt someone's feelings. When I realized I had, I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't even apologize. At this point, I think my relationship karma has kicked my ass about a hundred times over, but I still feel bad for my lame-ass behavior with that first guy.

You've Got to Pick Up the Pieces

Here is a slide covered in snow. Excuse all these snow photos, but I haven't been out to take any new pics in the last month, so I'm using up the old ones.

Oh, Kids. Let me just say that today has been a very, very, very, very bad day. If I wasn't so tired, I'd put a few more very's in that, because four doesn't quite cover it.

I had a migraine to beat all migraines. It kicked my ass from 11 am - 6:30 pm. Normally, I'll get one and take half of my migraine pill and in two hours, it's gone. Sometimes it's almost gone, and I take the other half of my pill and in another hour, I'm all better. Today I took half a pill and went back to bed, and it got worse instead of better. I took the other half and it didn't touch it. I puked and had to sit up because lying on a pillow made my head hurt too much. I took another half a pill and started to get a little better, but an hour later, I was back to puking again. I took the last half pill I could take and then Coadster gave me an awesome head, neck and shoulder massage. I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of teaching your kids massage at a very young age. Coadster should seriously be licensed. When she was done, I was finally able to sleep for an hour and when I woke up, it was almost gone. Egads!

Okay, enough of my wah, wah, wah. If it comes back tomorrow, I'll just have to deal with it. Until then, I think I'm going to resort to the lameness of "Google searches that led people to my blog." Yeah, I know, but it's really all I'm capable of right now.

a cartoon picture of a door with a stinky smell coming from inside of the door - People have often describe my house that way. Now I want to draw that - maybe tomorrow if my headache doesn't come back.

i don't want to grow up song- Do you think they mean the Toy's R Us commercial song? That song sucks and now it's in my head. Thanks a lot, supid Googler.

how to get your sister in trouble- Can you imagine how awesome it would be to be a kid right now, when you could just Google shit like this and get answers? Damn, when I was younger, we had to think it all up on our own.

dudes- I have no idea why they checked out my blog, when the other options were:

The Dudes Warehouse, Shaved Dudes, Huge Dudes: The Biggest Dicks on the Internet, Dudes Dressed Like Jack Sparrow and Does Shane West do Dudes?

I may have to start Googling "dudes" more often myself.

firefighter songs "shine on me"- Mmmmm, firefighters.

men who are cantankerous- Is there a "cantankerous men" website? I would love that. It could be full of old guys yelling at kids running across their lawns and shaking their canes at people driving too fast down their street. How hot would that be?

big ass girl- So, yeah. I'm not sure how to take this one. Do you think they want a girl who has a big ass, a girl who acts like a big ass or just a plain, big-ass girl? Either way, they probably came to the right place.

adonis & casanova- Dude, I've been looking for those guys too.

blogs about crazy people- What? What!?

who's gonna ride you home- I have no idea what to say about this one, except, that's one hell of a pick-up line.

"never be an adult"- Amen to that, sister.

phlebotomy lunchbag- Obviously, I don't get out much, but is the some new sex term, and if so, do I want to try it?

And You Used to be So Sweet I Heard You Say

Here is a picture of two corn cribs, in case you're not from a farm state and didn't know what they looked like.

Tonight I went to my friend A.'s house and and visited with her and my other friend G. It's St Patrick's Day, on a Saturday and I didn't drink one drop of alcohol. How odd. I think this post would be way more entertaining for you and embarrassing for me, if I had.


It's late and I'm tired, so this will be mercifully short. You know how lately things have been breaking down in my life, and people keep fixing them for free and another friend offered to try and help me out with Cubs tickets? Do you think all of that is because I live in Iowa and people here are just that nice, or do you think I was really fucking awesome in another life, and I'm finally getting my karmic props?

All the Young Dudes (Hey You There With the Glasses)

This is a picture of a large, glass building downtown.

I thought I'd do a fun little post where I make sweeping generalizations about indiscriminate men. Since I think this might be something I'll want to do again, I'll call this, "the futon store edition".

1. Guys who work at the futon store are hot.

2. Guys who work at the futon store are surprisingly, not hippies.

3. Guys who work at the futon store are too young for me, and so they're totally safe.

4. Guys who work at the futon store are just rough enough around the edges for me. Being churlish, I don't like my eye candy to be too tidy looking.

5. Guys who work at the futon store tell me they'll fix my frame for free, and therefore, they're perfect.

Whatcha Gonna Do When She Says Goodbye?

Here's Coadster running away at The Adler Theater in Davenport. We were teasing her that she looked a little like Jerry Lewis in this photo. I can only assume that she was yelling, "Dean! Deeeeaaaan!" when it was taken.

The closer I get to Coadster's fifteenth birthday, the more imperative everything feels. She'll be gone in three years. THREE. YEARS. That's nothing. Especially, since she and Stinky looked like this:

just last week.

Fifteen seems to be a magical age for losing child benefits. I just found out today, that Coadster needs to get her dental sealants put on her teeth before May 15th, when my insurance stops covering it. I'll also lose my additional child tax credit for her, after this year. I have no idea why they take that away then. It's not like her upkeep will take less money, at that age. She'll actually start costing me a lot more. I'll have to shell out a few hundred dollars for driver's ed., and my insurance will probably go up higher than it would if I had hit that dumb kid with my car last weekend, when Coadster starts driving. The biggest expense, by far will be all the hair dye, blood pressure meds, and the Prozac/ liquor cocktail it's going to take to see me through her first years of driving.

Lately, I've been thinking of some things I want to do for her before she leaves me and complains to her friends about how needy I've become and starts only coming home to ask for money and to do laundry:

1. She really wants to see a musical - a real one, not something her dad is in at a local community theater. So, even though you already know my feelings about musical theater, I'm going to try to get tickets for whatever show comes to Hancher next year. Hopefully, it won't be something totally lame. The girls and I will even dress-up and eat at a fancy schmancy restaurant beforehand.

2. I'm going to try to make her fifteenth birthday party as kick-ass as possible. I thought it would be funny to do a po' person version of My Super Sweet Sixteen, where we show up at Coadster's high school parking lot in a rusted-out 1969 Ford pick-up and hand out grease stained invitations. We could go to Goodwill for cast-off bride's maid dresses and get the food catered courtesy of the dumpster behind Kentucky Fried Chicken. It would be so emotional at the end, when we roll out her shiny, sleek case of Hamm's beer, birthday gift that I picked out myself. I have a feeling this idea will be quickly vetoed by the birthday princess herself.

3. We're planning on going to Chicago this Summer to see my friend S., check-out some museums and most importantly, take in a Cubs game. I know the tickets are ridiculously expensive for a team that rarely wins, but it's something Coadster has wanted to do for years and years. In the scheme of things, ten years from now I won't remember that I charged a hundred dollars on my card, but she'll remember her first Cubs game and overpriced hotdog at Wrigley field.

4. I want to plan another bigger Summer trip in the next few years. Coadster still talks about how awesome our trip to South Dakota was, and I'd like to be able to do something at least on that scale. Ideally, I want to take the girls to Northern California and do Yosemite, San Francisco and drive up to Humboldt so I can show them where I used to live, but the money for that could be a few years away...Unless, of course, I stumble across a trust fund on my way to work someday soon.

Break It On Down

Hello, big, tall tree in College Green Park.

So, last night my futon broke. It, being a futon, is our couch and the bed I sleep on when the girls aren't at their dad's house. (which is most nights) I think something unscrewed and one whole side came down, pulling out the mission style slats under the arm.

I seem to be going through another break cycle in my life. I'll be humming along, not really noticing how good I have it and then, bam! Things start breaking down. It didn't happen when I was younger so much, because until my mid-twenties, I could fit pretty much everything I owned in a backpack and one of those huge army duffel bags. As my brother says, the less bells and whistles you have, the less things that go wrong. But now I own things, and things eventually fall apart. This past month has just been a painful reminder of that.

I would like to say I calmly surveyed the damage, trusted my instincts and fixed the situation, but I think you all know me better than that. I don't ever trust my instincts, because they always tell me to spaz. I did survey the situation and called in Stinky, who is the one in our family who can fix things, to help me figure it out. We tried a bunch of stuff, but there are little nail thingys that keep the slats in their places and most of those nails had been pulled out and twisted. I tried for over an hour to get the dowel thingys in their holes and the nails back in the wood, but it never quite fit together. I stepped away from the whole mess, thinking that I was so not above, just duct taping that whole side and hoping for the best. Instead, I threw my futon down on the floor and decided to sleep on it. (literally and figuratively)

When I woke up today, I had an amazing idea. I would go to The Futon Store and see if they could fix it. The guy at the store told me to bring it in and they'd see what they could do. This is the first time in years and years, that I've had enough money (read, credit) to pay someone to fix shit for me. I doesn't seem quite real. I'm sure I sounded like a total hillbilly at the store when I said, "You mean to tell me that alls I gots to do, is bring that puppy in here and ya'll 'll put it back together for me, for just a little bit of money? Well, shooooot. Hot damn!"

So, tomorrow, I'm going to take my futon couch apart and bring the right arm in to see if the futon guys can make it all better for me. After Stinky helped me work on it last night, I apologized for being stressed out and said I hoped she didn't feel like I was taking anything out on her. She replied, "No. You were good. I just knew you were upset, because you kept saying the F word. I wanted to laugh, but I remembered how you say there are times when you can laugh at yourself, and other times when you won't think it's funny, and I thought this was one of those times." Stinky has never been more right.