Upstairs, Downtown

Blogging away while wondering if I’m the only person who regrets never learning to Riverdance…

Reports of my demise have been greatly slightly exaggerated. I am alive and well… or at least alive. Five-plus days of packing, moving, and unpacking have worn me out, physically and mentally. Thinking about all that I still have to do causes me anxiety. Anyway, that’s my reason for not blogging, and also for not perusing others’ blogs as usual, although I am still reading and commenting when I get a chance. I think that might be a small part of the reason that I seem to have lost my “funny” (and don’t know where to find it) as well. Hopefully, things will be back to normal soon. OK, enough complainin’. After all, my life is really just so hard.

Yesterday’s big excitement was the battery in my truck going dead. It’s those little unexpected surprises life throws at you that just make that hose you bought to hook up to the exhaust pipe but never did look evermore enticing. Fortunately, moving hardly costs anything at all! Who knew! So paying for a new battery was a delight. OK, enough sarcasm for one post, I suppose. I still get a little nervous putting in a battery and playing with jumper cables. Just seems like a good possibility of something catching fire or someone getting electrocuted. And by possibility, I mean probability. And by someone, I mean me.

Got all the big stuff moved in Sunday. Big thanks to Daniel (who I’m quite sure doesn’t read my blog) and Jonathan (who I’m quite sure doesn’t even read… just kidding… ish.) for their help, as well as my Dad and sister. Daniel was able to fit the couch, recliner, dining room table, mattress, box springs, washer, dryer, and two dressers on the back of his tiny 1983 Nissan truck and 6-ft. trailer. Not bad. It looked something similar to the Beverly Hillbillies vehicle. My sister has been a huge help, too. She also came by Saturday and helped me pack while we watched the Bama game.

I stayed here at the new place Sunday night. The cable and phone and DSL were all hooked up by that time. Very nice. Oh, and remember how I was so excited about living somewhere with stairs a few days ago? Yeah. Um. Not so much anymore. I do love it here though. Had pizza delivered last night! That is def among the top five things of living here. I’ll be eating healthy for sure! Oh, I almost forgot, when we got here Sunday, a girl walked out from next door and started talking to us. When I got closer to her, I realized it was my first cousin. Yes, blog fans, I’m living next to my cousin. Only in Alabama.

Live update: OK, I just had to take a break from blogging to go register my new number with the National Do Not Call Registry. I’ve gotten three telemarketing calls since I started writing this entry. Apparently, they pounce on a new phone number like a pack of starving, wild coyotes on a wounded bird. Oh by the way, the last four digits of my new number are 2888. If you can’t figure that out, it spells BUTT. That’s right ladies, call 555-BUTT for any and all of your needs. What the crap?

Alright, I need to get some unpacking done. I took half a day off work so that I could be here when the cable guy came by, even though the cable was never turned off in the first place. Long story. Oh, and Xinh’s post has me wanting to go to a fair, and have a candy apple, and some cotton candy, and funnel cake, and all that good stuff. It’s that time of year.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention Pablo. I don’t imagine he likes riding, he gets jostled so. But he seems to be doing OK now, just looking around getting accustomed to his new surroundings. I had him downstairs at first, but then decided to bring him up here Sunday night before I went to bed. Besides, I think he likes to chat online.

“I sold what I could, and packed what I couldn’t. Stopped to fill up on my way out of town…”

Baby Jesus Dog

The funniest things in life, the absolute funniest, are things that really happen. Not stories or jokes made up by creative people. The following happened to a friend of mine. I encouraged her to blog it, then told her that if she didn’t, I would. She said that I could. Some things just have to be blogged…

Tiffany, my friend, began selling items on eBay several months ago. Just various items, nothing in particular. More than once, she has told me, “You can make money on eBay.” She would make a good spokesperson for them. Not that they need one.

Anyhow, a week or two ago, Tiffany’s Mom came across this antique wooden nativity scene in storage, which had belonged to her grandmother. I never saw it, but they were expecting it to bring as much as $200, so you can imagine that it was a rather nice display. They cleaned it up and were planning to put it up for auction.

Well, her Mom went out of town for a couple of days this week. So Tiffany is sitting there eating one night while her Mom is gone, when she hears what she desribed to me as a “loud, crunching noise” coming from another room. Fearing the worst, and not ever knowing what to expect with a mischievous, fun-loving Dalmatian around the house, she runs down the hall towards the noise.

Upon entering the room, she finds that her beloved dog has, ummm, discovered the miracle of Christmas, if you will. He looks up at her, as only a dog doing something he isn’t supposed to be doing can, with the baby Jesus clinched tightly between his teeth. Springing to action, she manages to pry the Savior of all mankind from the jowls of the canine just in the nick of time. Standing there holding a drool-covered figure of Jesus, she is relieved for an instant, thinking she has managed to salvage the precious antique. It is about this time when she realizes that something else is missing from the scene. The manger is nowhere to be found. Apparently, it had only served as an appetizer to the Messianic main course.

She looks down at her faithful pet, who is still looking up at her with that confused tilted-head why-did-you-just-take-my-toy-away look. He has been bad. But she figures letting the devoured manger run its course in nature might be punishment enough.

So what do you think she could get for a manger-less nativity scene? Keep in mind, it was mentioned on If You Read Only One Blog This Year. That’s gotta be worth something.

“Comin’ outta my cage and I’ve been doin’ just fine. Gotta gotta be down, because I want it all…”

Rub Me The Right Way

(from “The Masseuse”)
Kramer: “First she sets the mood perfectly with this new age music played over ocean sounds. Then she lays you out on this table, and she proceeds to rub oil over your entire body. And she rubs long. And deep. Jerry, she rubs with love. Every muscles she touches just… oozes, beneath those silky, soft fingers. You can scarcely contain yourself, buddy.”

Oh. My. Goodness.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Yesssssssssssss…

Well, that pretty much describes my afternoon. I got my massage at Red Jasper Spa today. It was wonderful! So very relaxing. I can’t believe it took me 32 years to discover this delightful diversion. The hour seemed more like fifteen minutes. Lying there, face down, with my head in that little mini cushioned toilet-seat-looking thing, I was so relaxed that a couple of times I almost drooled. How attractive is that!

So I get there and we go into the room. She tells me to take my clothes off and get under the sheet and she’ll be right back. (I love when girls say that to me…. what?) So I ask her if that means everything. She says yes, as long as I’m comfortable. But you know, I didn’t want to take everything off, if that didn’t mean everything. Oh, by the way, I’ll be talking more about the massage on the show tonight.

She told me my back was extremely tight and that I should come back a few times until I got that loosened up. Umm, OK! Talked me into it. Oh, and I didn’t tip her. So I should have tipped, right? What do you think, ten bucks? I’ll have to make that up next time.

Anyhow, thank you to the person who challenged me to do something I had never done before. And thanks for all your ideas and to whomever mentioned or made me think about a massage.

Now, I just need some ideas on how to come up with 60 extra bucks a week. I think I’m addicted.

“Girl, I’m faded but I feel alright. Thinkin’ ’bout makin’ my move tonight. I can’t pretend that you’re one of my friends when you’re holdin’ my body tight…”

A Blerd’s Dissertation

This entire blogging thing continues to amaze me, blerd that I am. One of the coolest things to me is the fact that people I have never met read what I have to say, and even offer feedback and comments. And vice versa for the blogs that I read. And so, after awhile, I feel like I do sort of get to know Cindy, and InterstellarLass, and Crys, and OC Girl, and Pia, and Lindsy, and the Blonde, and the Brunette, and JC, and others. In some small way. Perhaps we have a desire to peer into the lives of others. Maybe that is why reality TV is popular.

When I first began blogging, it was mostly just a recap of the events in my life, or lack thereof. I have always expressed myself by writiing, in some form or another, whether anyone was reading or not. Usually not. Blogging has provided another avenue for that. But more and more, this has become a way for me to exercise my writing skills. Or… lack thereof. After all, surely the more one writes, the better one’s writing becomes.

Once in awhile, I will read something from my archives. (Still haven’t gotten around to a ‘favorite posts’ section yet.) I think that I was much funnier then. Funny has not come as easy to me lately, for some reason. I need to get that back. Somehow.

I have realized some other things about my writing. Or I think I have anyway. I tend to write about feelings and thoughts and emotions more than I do about physical things. I have a hard time remembering details, such as what clothes someone was wearing. But someone pointed out to me the other night that perhaps that is because I don’t really notice such things in the first place. I am more apt to notice that someone is sad or troubled, or remember how someone made me feel, than I am to note what kind of shoes they are wearing. I remember how being on a certain street makes me feel, but I have a hard time recalling any of the stores, cars, or people I may have seen there. I need to work on the details. And so much more.

I have never been able to write fiction, either. Good fiction makes you forget that it is fiction almost from the first line. The two or three times I have attempted to write fiction, it sounded made up. The names sounded made up. It all did. Maybe I could learn to do that one day. I think that I would make a good columnist though. I applied for a job with a newspaper years ago. Didn’t get it. But I think that I write much better now anyway.

I would love to be able to make someone feel an emotion simply by reading words that I have written. To bring back a memory. To take them to another place and time. Like all good writers are able to do. The thing is, I have never been very proactive with certain things. And career and relationships are two of those. I tend to let things happen naturally, in those areas at least. For example, I have never been one to really go out just looking for a girlfriend. Yet somehow, they always find me. And I have always been fortunate in that area. For the most part. Same thing with the career. Other than applying with the newspaper. Of course, ninety percent of everything depends on who you know. And I don’t know many people.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I have always wanted to write. Although I have not always admitted that, to myself or others. Maybe it is time that I did. No. On second thought, that is way too scary. I’ll just continue to keep that to myself ;-)

Now I think that I am just rambling about some nothingness. Silly, crazy dreams. Maybe every blogger secretly wants to write. I am certain that a good number do. And many of them write much better than me. That, I am also sure of.

So, there you have it. A blog entry… about blogging? How sad is that. Of course, I still hope that you will comment, blerd that I am.

“Do you wanna be a poet and write? Do you wanna be an actor up in lights? Do you wanna be a soldier and fight for love?”

Audiopost: I’m Moving On

Can I go to a spa…

…and still be considered a man?

(From Seinfeld episode “The Note”)
George: A man gave me… a massage.
Jerry: So?
George: So he… had his hands and he was–
Jerry: He was what?!
George: He was, touching, and rubbing.
Jerry: That’s a massage.
George: And then I took my pants off.
Jerry: You took your pants off?!
George: For my hamstring.
Jerry: Oh.
George: He got about two inches from–
Jerry: Really?
George: I think it moved.

I’m a little nervous. The spa I am planning to go to is closed on Mondays. So I am planning to call tomorrow and make an appointment. If nothing else, it should make for a good blog entry. (BLERD ALERT!) And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about? By the way, blerd has been mentioned on yet another blog. Thanks to Erica at Ecstatic Misery for the mention on her September 1st entry. Coming soon, “Bases for Blerds: First base isn’t what it used to be.”

The weekend
Went to eat Friday night at Logan’s. Then recorded the show. Saturday, I worked until 1:00. Then went to the Bama game. We won 30-21, after falling behind 21-10. The best part of the game was The Catch that Tyrone Prothro made just before halftime.

It was the #1 play on SportsCenter’s top ten Saturday night. The second best part of the game was when the field sprinklers came on right in the middle of the 4th quarter. Play was halted. There were probably about five or six sprinklers all over the field. They stayed on for a couple of minutes. I took a picture with my phone, but I don’t think you can really tell what it is. Sunday was just a very nice, relaxing day. I did laundry, watched the US Open final, watched the Cowboys win, went running, and cooked an enchilada casserole.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

EDIT: I go to look at the new apartment tomorrow!

You had to be there
“Are you watching this Agassi Federer match? This is great.”
“They look just like us.”
“Until they hit the ball.”

“My favorite song is Tease Me All Night Long. Do you know what song I’m referring to?”
“Not sure.”
“I think Florence Nightengale sings it.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure she doesn’t sing it. Florence Nightengale is like a dead nurse. Perhaps you’re thinking of Clara Barton.”

“Do you like my nails?”
“Yeah. Are you gonna paint them?”
“They are painted. It’s a French Manicure.”
“Oh… yeah, that’s nice… I like pink. Or red. Maybe some iced mauve. Or raspberry punch.”

“I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean. Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens…”

Podcast…ish

Well, as a few of you know, K and I have been messing around with the idea of a podcast. We just recorded our second show last night actually. So if you have a few minutes to kill, check it out. Again, it’s just beginning and really rough. Hopefully, it will get better with time. Right now, we’re just having fun.

Click here to listen and let me know what you think :-)

Otherwise, I’m about to leave for the Bama game. We’re on ESPN2 tonight, I think. So look for me. I’ll be the one wearing crimson ;-)

Hope you all have a super weekend, and Roll Tide!

“If I sorted it out. If I knew all about this one thing. Wouldn’t that be something…”

A challenge

Hopefully, this entry will be more cheerful. Guess I’m gonna have to start setting myself on fire each day so that I’ll have something to blog about.

I have been challenged. No, not to a medieval joust or a head-to-head Ms. Pac Man death match. I could handle those, especially the latter. (By the way, why was it Ms. Pac Man? They didn’t want us to know if she was married or single?) Anyhow, I have been challenged by an intelligent, wonderful, and well, challenging, girl to go out in the next week and do something, anything, that I have never done before. Sort of a way of expanding my horizons and experiencing something new. It can be something simple or something significant. But I want it to be something creative. So I am trying to think of what I am going to do to meet this challenge. If you have any ideas, please share. Granted, you don’t exactly know what I have never done before. But any creative suggestions are welcome.

Got some decent news today. It looks like an apartment that I had applied for may be coming open soon. I am really excited. It’s a little nicer than here and it will cut my commute to work down from 30 minutes to about 5. And hopefully, it will also mean no more heathen kids and COPS on location once a week. Plus, it’s two stories. I’ve never lived anywhere with an upstairs :-) (OK, so that’s really what I’m most excited about, getting to run up and down the stairs.) How sad is that. Also, if you think about it, I’ve never been able to properly play with a Slinky. Boy, I really have some big drama going on in my life, don’t I.

I watched the season premiere of the OC tonight. Just so that I will be able to talk about it with all the chicks who watch it. That, and that alone, is the only reason I watched it. Well, mostly. Been watching the US Open lately. The Andre Agassi/James Blake match last night was awesome! Agassi came back from 2 sets down and won in a tiebreaker in the 5th set. Unfortunately, USA Network, which was televising the match, decided to cut away when it was like 2-1 in the final set. I thought I had accidentally changed the channel, but no, apparently they just ended their coverage. What the crap?! So I had watched the entire freakin’ match, then had to miss the ending. I turned over to ESPN and they flashed the results on the bottom of the screen.

Speaking of great tennis… hmm. On second thought, nevermind. Weezer was just on Letterman. What was that guy doing with his mouth?

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

“Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming. Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running. Didn’t make sense not to live for fun…”

Grandparents and Green M&M’s

I remember in little league baseball we would sit in the dugout eating M&M’s. Probably why we never won so many games. We would say that if you ate a yellow one before you batted, you would hit a double. If you ate an orange one, you would get a triple. And if you ate a green one, you’d hit a homerun. (There were no reds and blues in the early 1980’s.)

I went to the funeral home for a bit last night. Amber’s grandfather passed away, so I stopped by the visitation for a minute. I have written only a small bit about my grandparents. I want to write more at some point. My Mom’s mother died in 1992. She was my last living grandparent. Even today, I can pick up the telephone and dial her number. I don’t know why I can still remember it. I would like to think that means that maybe I called her quite a bit. I hope so, but it’s hard to remember.

My Dad’s mom passed away when I was 12 or 13, I think. Dad was her only child. Meanwhile, Mom had eleven brothers and sisters. So we spent holidays with Mom’s side of the family. I vividly remember Thanksgivings when Dad and I would leave the family gathering and take a plate of food to his Mom. She would just be there all alone on the holiday, get to see us for ten minutes maybe. It tears me up so bad to think about that now. Being a kid, I didn’t think about it then. I am so sorry. I remember Dad would go and get her and bring her over on Christmas Eve day and she’d always have my sister and I these gifts that we’d have to pretend to like. How horrible is that! Her only two grandchildren. I hate this story. She probably died of loneliness.

I have heard friends complain about their grandparents from time to time. I always try to tell them what I wish someone had told me. Maybe someone did and I just didn’t listen. That’s probably what happened. Cherish your time with them. With all your loved ones. Going to see them or calling them may seem like such a chore sometimes. But there will come a day when you would give anything to be able to visit them. At least that’s how it is for me.

Anyway, when I got back from the funeral home, my sister called. She told me that a boy who was a year ahead of me in school had put a bullet thru his head. I never knew him much. We played little league baseball together. My sister wanted to know what makes a person do that? I wondered how do you go from hoping for a green M&M to life being too hard? In twenty years. I think that one of the best parts of being a child is the innocence, being sheltered for a little while from what can be such a cruel world. Once the innocence is ripped away, reality sets in. And I guess sometimes, for some people, reality can be way too much to handle.

Then I wake up this morning to see that Gilligan died. Boy, Skipper, cancer really is a rotten thing.

“And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas, well Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please…”

Grandparents and Green M&M’s

I remember in little league baseball we would sit in the dugout eating M&M’s. Probably why we never won so many games. We would say that if you ate a yellow one before you batted, you would hit a double. If you ate an orange one, you would get a triple. And if you ate a green one, you’d hit a homerun. (There were no reds and blues in the early 1980’s.)

I went to the funeral home for a bit last night. Amber’s grandfather passed away, so I stopped by the visitation for a minute. I have written only a small bit about my grandparents. I want to write more at some point. My Mom’s mother died in 1992. She was my last living grandparent. Even today, I can pick up the telephone and dial her number. I don’t know why I can still remember it. I would like to think that means that maybe I called her quite a bit. I hope so, but it’s hard to remember.

My Dad’s mom passed away when I was 12 or 13, I think. Dad was her only child. Meanwhile, Mom had eleven brothers and sisters. So we spent holidays with Mom’s side of the family. I vividly remember Thanksgivings when Dad and I would leave the family gathering and take a plate of food to his Mom. She would just be there all alone on the holiday, get to see us for ten minutes maybe. It tears me up so bad to think about that now. Being a kid, I didn’t think about it then. I am so sorry. I remember Dad would go and get her and bring her over on Christmas Eve day and she’d always have my sister and I these gifts that we’d have to pretend to like. How horrible is that! Her only two grandchildren. I hate this story. She probably died of loneliness.

I have heard friends complain about their grandparents from time to time. I always try to tell them what I wish someone had told me. Maybe someone did and I just didn’t listen. That’s probably what happened. Cherish your time with them. With all your loved ones. Going to see them or calling them may seem like such a chore sometimes. But there will come a day when you would give anything to be able to visit them. At least that’s how it is for me.

Anyway, when I got back from the funeral home, my sister called. She told me that a boy who was a year ahead of me in school had put a bullet thru his head. I never knew him much. We played little league baseball together. My sister wanted to know what makes a person do that? I wondered how do you go from hoping for a green M&M to life being too hard? In twenty years. I think that one of the best parts of being a child is the innocence, being sheltered for a little while from what can be such a cruel world. Once the innocence is ripped away, reality sets in. And I guess sometimes, for some people, reality can be way too much to handle.

Then I wake up this morning to see that Gilligan died. Boy, Skipper, cancer really is a rotten thing.

“And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas, well Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please…”