Tuesday 30 October 2007

oh, that’s right - I’m having issues

So, our glorious football team (American style) lost again last weekend. Pedersen is gone (remind me to cry over a sad movie later) and Osborne is back in the stadium, although not as coach.

I have a few observations to make:
1) fair weather fans suck and it's about time the athletes starting talking back
2) heard a rumor that someone has come up with the money to buy out Callahan's contract
3) if that happens, we are the coach-for-4-years school

1) I grew up in the Chicago. The Bears won the Super Bowl one year - 1. It was in January of 1985. They beat the Miami Dolphins 64-14. The only game they lost that year was against the Dolphins. I started moving before the Bulls had Jordan. No one in my neighborhood followed hockey as loudly as they did football, and did I mention the baseball? No. You know why? Because they lose. They lose a lot. They always have and it's okay. In the long run, I am a White Sox fan. When in the position to choose a side, I root for the Sox or whoever is playing the Cubs. It's the rule. Even when they suck. Why? Because they're my team. I know nothing about stats anymore and couldn't name a player if you paid me. I would go to a game in a heartbeat and will take any White Sox merch over anyone else in an instant. Why? Because they are my team. I don't care if they lose all the time. I don't care that the way things work with the Sox is that they do really well for a while (anyone remember what year they got a pennant thing? it wasn't all that long ago) and then, they suck. The Bears used to be a 3rd quarter or 4th quarter team. They made it work. And then they won the Super Bowl. 1 year in the 10 that I lived there. It's about not hogging the spotlight. It's about the sport, not self-definition. I am, of course leaving out the part about McMahon's unmanageable ego and Ditka's perfect hair. The point is that while I love how energetic Husker fans are, I do not love how much people seem to depend on the Husker football team for their self-definition. Perhaps I am reading it wrong, but why else would someone accost an athlete who is also a college student with the kind of negativity that has been getting reported in the Whirled Herald? What kind of a person feels justified in yelling at someone on the street that they suck? (Unless you are me and it's someone you know and don't care about) I see nothing good from that, I see nothing heartening about it, I see it being destructive and if I were the Huskers, I'd pay the hotdog shooter guy to shoot loaded dogs straight at the fans who are booing from the stands. That is not how to cheer on your team. It does not show support.

2) So, you've got 5 million dollars and you want to buy out Callahan's contract, huh? I have a great idea for another option for that money - first off, though, keep your fucking mouth shut unless you want everyone in town to know about it - Lincoln is a small city, everyone knows where everyone lives and everyone knows everyone else's business. When it comes to the athletics department, particularly in times of coaching stress, this town gets smaller and people's mouths get bigger (Solich was fired for bad coaching, my ass). Take the money and buy a few homes for Friendship Home, fill them with clothes, beds, bedding, kitchen appliances, dishes, etc., hire a personal trainer, a tutor, a nurse and few policemen for each one, because for every game that the Huskers lose, more women get beaten by their husbands than when the Huskers win, and we are going to need to find a place for them and for their children when they finally have had enough of Husker fan life and have to run away.

3) What the hell is this athletics department about anyway?

Also - I weigh more than I have for about 18 months, and am somewhat distressed to find that Godiva Chocoiste dark chocolate with caramel only has 180 calories in it. The gremlins are fine and growing, although Boris is growing faster and more than Ethel who is a lemur-slinky. I swear that creature has no bones - she's all nose, claws and fur. They are both very lovey still, and Horace and Boris's relationship is calming down and is now mostly based on grooming. We'll see what happens when the nephew comes to town (toddler attack!).

Sunday 28 October 2007

The thing about socks

I just threw away about 5 socks and four pair of underwear. The reason for this is as follows: plastic tubs on sale at Pamida, therefore there was buying, therefore there was using, therefore there was some consideration for the number of socks and underwear I own and so, some of them had to go. I threw away socks that had holes in them. As I don't match my socks, as a rule, and so don't have to deal with the pain of finding the single one, it's not like there should be any big deal about it. There are certain things not to keep - socks and underwear with holes fall on this list.

And yet. I haven't thrown away a sock that wasn't practically lace in years. And I mean like Years - more than 2. My socks are tough. They can stand on their own with any other sock I choose, they got drug around the house by Til who liked to think they were her kittens (did anyone else (Anne) notice that she stopped doing that when Wigs had her first litter?)(I just realized it.)(I think she went to scarves and sweaters after that), and now they suffer from the affectionate rubs and clawings and occasional attempts by Ethel to pick them up and carry them away while they are still on my feet. I collected them like they were a drug after Joe and I split. Anne was the one who noticed that I was developing a problem with the dollar sock bin at Walgreens.

But, But, But - Dollar Socks!!!

And now some of them are gone. Probably more than some of them, but that's not the point, my current pain is the point - focus, please.

I wonder: how many socks are too many socks? Same for underwear. Bras, too. We are talking about functional foundation wear only. Because I've lived with people (husbands) who seemed to think that the best way around having to wash underwear was to buy more. I never got that. But, maybe someone else does - I don't know.

Anyway, I'm kind of sad now. I'll live. The felines are being distracting and demanding and wonderful and Cloud is staring at me as if I was the one responsible for levitating her food bowl away from its rightful spot and into the microwave. Well, I am, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm going to read a book and contemplate something. I haven't decided yet what it will be.

Tuesday 23 October 2007

It’s not ’made-up,’ it’s just never been said before...

Floofy is a word that should have been said before. By someone not me. Probably was. That person doesn't seem to know anyone that I do, though. I suppose that's a good thing. Can you imagine if there were more than just one of me (or any of my acquaintance, for that matter) running around this town? Yep. It would be good. But oh so wrong.

The newspapers would report incidents of road rage between thirtysomething men trying to out-punk each other with their radios, comparing trophy tattoos. The reporter with the state legislature beat would be proficient in many dialects of international sign language, able to distinguish the Beer from the Sandwich because of how they mime the concept of bread.

And yes, there would be pop-up shrines in the desk drawers of my co-workers. One specifically. It would be a vision of connected cords and coding with an altar for the daily offering of chocolate to the goddess Pandora. (not a deity, I know, that's not the part that is the joke, trust me)

There would be a strip mall wherein a shopper could find such businesses as "Where Do You Want To Go?" a bar with a busy drug trade in the alley, "I Don't Care" adult toys and gifts, "Somewhere Different" a sandwich shop specializing in soup, "Like Where?" the hobby store (with jigsaw puzzles made of wood!), "I Don't Care II" for mom-to-be and baby, "Fine, We'll Just Stay Home" your specialty and whole food grocery store. I would love it there. actually, I wouldn't hang out at that strip mall, I'd be too busy hanging out at the one across the street specializing in obvious (un-ironic) store names: laundry, books, pizza, beverages, newspapers & magazines, quiet place for reading or fucking, cell phone friendly plaza - you know, the kind of stores that only have exactly what the name says they do. Of course, I would complain endlessly about the lack of maps in the book store and why there are no newsletters at the newspaper & magazine store, and the fact that you couldn't get a t-shirt if you stole it out of someone else's laundry basket, But I'm okay with that. And hey, free condoms in the reading place! Score.

It occurred to me the other day that I wasn't in the mood to complain. I was concerned for a moment. It didn't last long, sometimes moods just hit and there's really nothing you can do about them but relax and breathe and wait for some schmo to fuck up your morning by feeling the need to have a 'conversation' over coffee and a cigarette. Whanyeh?! I don't like to 'talk' that early, especially not with cleverness and caring - ew.

As to my whining earlier this afternoon - imagine the squeaking of metal parts in my brain just trying to work their way through a slightly changed routine - not much of a change, but enough to be noticeable. Floofy, my ass.

Oh, in case anyone else is keeping track - 4 incidents of deja vu in the last 2 days. None of them particularly layered or inspiring, just, you know, freaking me out again. Dreams of driving. Kind of miss the dreams of water. I liked those. And the caves. Those were neat, too.

Thursday 18 October 2007

pledge drives and resumes

I have decided to listen to NPR on my computer at work. It keeps me from spending too much time listening to my brain while I'm here. I am remembering the sound of it while I stay at the farm. There is no other human noise, no worry about much of anything except chores, which are just nothing anymore. I remember what the silence holds for me. It is good.

Decided to approach the resume as a skill-set list instead of the reduced bits of my personality and job history made pretty on a page or two.

Friend John loaned me tapes of a show called The Power of Art - the episodes about Picasso and Carravagio. I love them. There was an ad for one about Bernini. I love him, as well. Tortured artists dying of fever on the beach. What more could a girl ask for? Really.

Much good friend time this last few weeks. Looks like much good friend time for a while yet. Is good. Is doing. Is hitting the thrift stores on Sunday with Jenny and Ula - yes, yes, the thrift store is good.

Have many other things to say, but they need time and attention and proper grammar. I have put up more pictures - some of my office, some of my gremlins, some of other people's gremlins (Chandreyee's and my parents' specifically).

Also - yes, yes, I love commentaries. What did we do before DVD's? Really? Reviews and interviews and all sorts of even less believable shite? Ah, the good old days are good and gone, and I enjoy the endless entertainment of other peoples' self-aggrandizing. There's good stuff in there, Maynard - you just have to listen for it.

Ethel, the quiet, loving kitten, has found her voice and boy is it loud! She's got the best purr, though. And she lets out some loud loud loud growls - impossible for such a small creature. She really is just the smallest little thing! And she has a thing for hanging out in the dryer. Cleaning herself. She gets mad when I take her out of it. She is so her mother's child.

I'm done now.
Thank you for listening.

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Comfort food and other evils

It is my new theory that what resides in the appendix is not, as had been previously suggested, silent suffering. It is my new theory that what in fact resides in the appendix which I no longer support inside my body is fear. I feel no fear. I do not fear anything. Pain holds no mystery. Love is a sign of universal stupidity. Inaction is what happens in between chores. Death and I have never been at odds. Other people will fuck up their own lives. There is no such thing as perfection and being at peace is just another way of being.

Today is a day of fragile. The vodka cranberry sprite of yesterday evening left me with a dry mouth and slightly wonky head this morning. The beer and wine that preceded set all of it up, of course, but that last drink is what sent the head over the edge and down into the doldrums where I find myself today. Being fragile. Slightly broken. No more than usual.

I will leave the library at the end of the month. There is no need to find myself in a situation where I am very aware of my replaceability. It is a depressing habit of all former 'victims' to persist in reminding the world and therefore themselves that 'I am not a victim anymore!' Bullshit.
Last night I learned of a goddess who lives in books. I remember the sound of her name, though I do not know how to spell it.

When I was a child living in a home where the kitchen was yellow, as all good kitchens are, there was a kitchen witch who hung by the window, keeping her broom at the ready, a kerchief holding back the wiry hair, revealing a hideous nose and one or two teeth and a smile like a cackle on a wrinkled old face. She kept us safe. Baba Yaga of the missing hearth.

The ethnologists who studied the Nacerima believed that this culture worshiped at an altar made like a sink. I wonder of the name of the god or goddess who may have lived there. I can find the meaning and saint or angel or protector or goddess or god or holy person of every room and item in my new home. The new religion is not about understanding and love. The new religion is in the icons that we collect, the stories that we tell about them and the constant conflict that rages in the absence of pan-dimensional understanding when Bast meets Odin and the kittens hide.

I would find a kitchen witch. Mayhap I will craft a new one out of what I have already. All parts accounted for. Some assembly required.

Sunday 7 October 2007

Horace meets Boris

The morning was early, earlier than yesterday, but I didn't have anywhere to be, so there was no reason to resent getting out of bed. Mama is making omelettes for breakfast, I can smell the eggs from here.

Boris and I are settling in quite happily upstairs. He has discovered that aloe is not-so fun to chew and has stopped. This morning, he helped me write a little poem and then fell asleep on the desk worn out from the effort. He does not seem to mind my reading habits, and, unless aided and encouraged by one of his siblings, doesn't have much interest in book corners for chewing. He does not much like falling asleep on my arm to be awakened by my sneezes.

It is incredible to me to see how small his is in relation to Horace and Cloud, neither of whom would win any cat pageants for slimness, mind, but Horace seems to have accepted his diet and is losing weight and Cloud is of a good, healthy size. They are both just big cats. Boris is about one third of Horace's size. I'm so accustomed to him being almost the size of his mother and Street that this is taking a bit of getting used to. Also, I forget what it means that he is only 3 and half months old. He is amazed at everything and kind of freaked out by the breeze coming through windows and doors.

I will be happy when he stops being quite so jazzed about playing with my hair at 5 in the morning, though.

The grandparents have, of course, fallen in love, and Boris goes from being adored to being scolded and chased off of counters and tabletops. Just like any small child visiting relatives, not quite managing to stay as calm as the adults have learned to be. Even my father has put aside his general dislike of felinity in all of its guises to admit that he quite likes Mr. Boris.

Horace and Boris have learned how to play. A little. A very little. Cloud is not impressed and takes every possible opportunity to let Boris know how little she wants him around. She feels that her lap time is being threatened and does not quite know what to do with small-ones. Ethel will be a bit of a shock to her, but she will survive. Cats are very good at surviving without acknowledging adaptation, I have found.

Thankfully, there were fleas here already.