kellementology

life according to me

Month: June 2007

  • Slogged through Dog Days and alive to rant about it!

    Sometime around Valentine’s Day earlier this year after visiting my sister in VA, I was headed toward a security checkpoint at Regan National in D.C. and was sidetracked by the lure of books lined up in a shop. Cruising through the independent Olsson’s Books and Records before my flight home pretty much guaranteed that my wallet would be at least fifty bucks lighter. I love book stores in general, but my idea of heaven is to spend eternity in an independent book store.

    Why independent? The unique way that their selection of books comes together to convey a concise statement on what the shop is about, and how it differs from the next, intrigues me. Of course, they also stock the best-selling books that Barnes & Noble sells, that Borders is featuring, or that Amazon is promising to get to you faster than you can blink, but the books I’d never find, by authors I’ve never heard of who are published by smaller presses  is what captures my attention. The selection is unique, sometimes a bit odd, and of course, there is the tease of finding the perfect read that no one else has mentioned…yet. Oprah hasn’t put her seal of approval on it, it isn’t anywhere near the NY Times best seller list, and no Pulitzer Prize or Booker short list mention is on the radar screen.  So I would have to actually be looking at recently published books for any of this to happen, right?  Feh.

    I suppose I could find a book like that in a humongous chain store as well, but not always. And as much as I truly enjoy surfing through Amazon with obscure searches just to see what I can uncover, there are still gems that I know I would not find. Gems waiting to be found and marveled over. Well, not always.

    Back in February, I hadn’t started blogging yet. Was there life before blogging? If I think about it, I’m not sure blogging had even occurred to me yet– or had it? Anyway, while I was in Olssens, I did purchase five books. One, Slow Man, I finished on the flight home, and truly enjoyed even though it wasn’t an especially light-hearted read. The second, Dog Days, I naively waited to read, duped into thinking it would be “irresistable,” and all the while trudging through Mapping the Edge. Waiting, waiting to open that cover and surely snort the book up in one lazy afternoon. Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox NOT.

    For those of you who have been faithful, you know that I’ve been complaining about dragging myself through a book — kicking and screaming incessantly.  It’s been so long, I had to go back through my posts to see when I started it. It was April 9th! Ohmigod — that’s two months ago. Two months? Gone With The Wind Hell, I read Gone With the Wind in the 9th grade in a week. When I was a sophomore in college, I read one of Hemingway’s novels and several of his short stories every single week until I had read everthing. Two months? For a book that’s only 300 pages long and published over a year ago?  What the hell.

    Clearly, this has been an experiment. I’ve been on a quest to prove that not all books deserve to be read. Yes, I’ve already had S-U-C-K-E-R permanently printed on my head for purchasing Dog Days, but torturing myself to read the entire thing? It’s because I made that committment to myself to read all the books I currently have at home. You do remember part of that stack, right? IMG_1029   I spent the money, so I need to read the damn books! I can hear that nagging voice in my head saying, “Don’t go and spend more money for more books when you can force yourself to read the ones you already have, dork.”  Whot-evah.   The public library is calling my name right now…

    So if Dog Doo Days was such a complete waste of time, why did I buy it anyway, you’re wondering? No, I know you aren’t wondering, but it’s simple, really.  I must have had the idea of blogging on my brain, because I focused in on the back cover:

    “Ana Marie Cox is a columnist for Time and is the founding voice of the hugely popular political blog Wonkette. She has also written for Elle, Wired, Mother Jones, Slate, Salon, New York, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. She lives in Washington, D.C.”

    You get the idea, right? We’re all getting warmed up for the election next year, and something described as “snarky” and “a biting debut” with an author who’s a blogger as well? This had me written all over it. It didn’t matter that I had never heard of the blog. She sounded cool, looks way bitchy in the photo, and I love reading “firsts.”

    I really wanted to like the book’s main character, Melanie, but never could.  Her apartment is too dirty, her affair too gratuitous, and her best friend, too shifty. The political tidbits are interesting at times — the whole plot was a takeoff on Dubyah’s re-election campaign — but not enough to make me smile, let along giggle with evil glee at the parallels being drawn. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care so badly that not knowing who the “Clearheads” were for the entire book, and not once flipping back to refresh my memory, or correct my comprehension — a normal thing that readers do — didn’t really make a difference. And knowing who the Clearheads were, what their group believed, and how they could damage a campaign would be a key aspect of the plot. The only reason I know this now is because I flipped back to find out where the Clearheads first appeared — page 41 — right after the hotel room sex with the married journalist who refers to Melanie as “babe.”  Ick.

    I still don’t get it, because I can pretty much read anything. Thumbing back through the book, I suspect the style of Cox’s writing — something that works quite well for, uh… anything but fiction, just didn’t fit. When I read a novel, an edgy, biting tone from the author won’t carry the narrative. The dialogue of a character? Of course. But not the ins and outs of the story. It would be like trying to read a newspaper article that conjured up the voice of Mr. Rodgers — distracting — even if the piece is actually on Fred Rodgers, right?

    Anyway, I nursed my wounds by reading reviews at Amazon. Misery has to love company, right? And I hit pay dirt. After reading through several of the worst reviews I ever read (14 of 30 gave it only one or two stars with the rest seeming to come through because of their status as faithful blogflock members), I felt vindicated, but still pissed off that I read the whole thing. Ugh. Not worth it! Many reviewers agreed that although Cox is a superb writer, this book doesn’t come close to showing what she is capable of.  Can all good writers write fiction?

    So here’s the deal. I will proceed with my cost-saving commitment to read the books I currently have — but I’m going back to my tried and true method of reading. If any book doesn’t capture my complete attention by page 40, it is so not going to be finished. AT ALL.  And don’t mess with me on this.  I really don’t give a flying fart if you’re obsessed with having to read an entire book once you start it because Hell will freeze over and God will fall from the sky if you don’t.  Get over it because you won’t get more brownie points at the freaking pearly gates just because you finished all those stoopid books.  Nobody cares.  *Ahem*

    Now that I’ve wasted copious amounts of reading time (and blogging time) on two books in a row that have been less than entertaining, I’m so due for something painless.

    Painless usually means light and frivolous. Or something written about a place I’d love to travel to. Or that has characters I can live vicariously through. Oh, hell. Something that has steamy sex on every single page and burns my fingers just holding it, okay? Sheesh.  The Flame and the Flower  Nope.  Sneak read this one when I was fifteen!  Delta of VenusAh…no, again.  Read this one when I was 19.  Enthralling doesn’t quite get the point across.

    For the snobs out there who think I’m trashing my brain — or who are just too snooty to confess that they, too, occasionally read less than “constructive” material, I also have pulled up alongside me The Soul’s Code and Imperfect Control — both old books, but dusted off because of some of the crap that has been traveling through my brain lately. And no, I don’t read that sort of thing cover-to-cover. That would be completely dreary.
    I’ll bet you just can’t wait for that. You know me — I’ll try to find a way to connect the acceptable reading with the smut. Woot! Let’s hear it for the trash readers of America!

    What’s in your closet?

  • Genetically Meandering and Goal-Free, or Something

    Funny how a subtle change in a suffix or hyphenation can significantly change the connotation of something. As in goal-less or goal-free. One clearly implies not only lack — but a negative one at that, and the other, a sort of liberating, non-shackled state of being. Sort of the difference between:

    • the sad sack who hits the alarm button in the morning with a mental list of, “get up, take a shower, feed the animals, take the car in, pay the bills, defrost the Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, label my linen closet…” and

    • the ebullient chap who bounds out of bed each day exclaiming, “Yes! The whole day is ahead of me and I can’t wait to find out what amazing things will come my way!”

    Okay, well, maybe the contrast is a bit strong, but I came across this site not too long ago, and am probably one of the few who didn’t learn about it on Oprah, because I sort of forget to actually watch Oprah. Yes, I’m home. No, I just don’t think about it. The television doesn’t usually go on until about 7 or 7:30 so we can trash our brains family style watching things like Jeopardy, So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen, and — well, you get the idea. We are sort of in the “goal-free” category of television viewers. We “meander with purpose” to borrow Stephen Shapiro’s phrase.

    My mom often tells me she hasn’t had a goal in her life. This admission often comes after we’ve been discussing “stuff.” The stuff can be any number of “things.”

    Things like life.

    Not so small a thing, or even closely related to stuff. But if I listen carefully, the goal issue usually connects to the idea of planning on, organizing for, going through, and/or getting a career. Not a job or work. A career. Why other things don’t seem to be considered that took her determination and perseverance is beyond me.

    IMG_0892 I’ve noticed that people have a tendency to lord it over those who haven’t jumped through life’s hoops. Like there are a set of rules somewhere that we have to follow so that we can be recognized at the end of The Road. Kind of like a graduation. You get there, someone reads your name, and then there’s a list of what you’ve “done” with your life. Career seems to be at the top of the list. Especially a career that is connected to education. A formal education. One that was obtained at an easily recognized and even prestigious institution.

    But what if you haven’t done those things? What happens if you have a completely different set of rules that you live your life by? What if your life is goal-free instead of goal-less? More importantly, what if your goals have always been things like:

    • keep your children clean, fed, and well clothed;

    • be relentlessly productive because it is an end in itself;

    • teach your children to be practical;

    • make sure your children do their homework, and clean their rooms;

    • be extremely organized and tidy;

    • make sure your children understand that manners are important, and that they are a reflection of the entire family while in public;

    • focus on functionality;

    • teach your children how to cook, sew, garden, and take care of the house;

    • take time to grow, appreciate, and smell flowers;

    • pay your children an allowance even though you shouldn’t afford it, and teach them how to save that allowance;

    • buy musical instruments and pay for lessons when you know you can’t afford it;

    • tolerate inane jobs to earn a paycheck to feed your children;

    • make sure your children understand that nothing in life is free, so working very hard is how you get ahead;

    • have a day job and a night job;

    • make sure your children understand that education is important;

    • try different jobs when you no longer have to worry about feeding your children;

    • keep reaching because you know there’s something out there for you, just waiting, if you could only see it more clearly, and so many other things didn’t get in the way, distracting you, making you wonder if you should be afraid of reaching.

     

    Yes, what if your life has been filled with those kinds of things?

    Are you goal-less, or goal-free? The whole concept fascinates me because it is easy to line up a few people we can all identify as being successful without too much analysis. We default to the “who’s productive and wealthy” criteria that is so often the crux of  our society. But then, after assembling these iconic individuals, we have to examine whether they’ve all jumped through those hoops I mentioned earlier. Often, they have not. What we learn is they had their own set of hoops, and that the hoops were of varying sizes, movable, and sometimes intentionally avoided, or dismissed as being a waste of time.

    Hoop-less, or hoop-free? Maybe you think it’s all just Hoop-lah.

    What do you want to do? What matters to you? What is important? What will sustain you — and not just your bank account? Because I think that’s the key. If this whole business of making lists and setting goals is never going to be more than crossing off the things on your list, or checking off those boxes, then all you’ll end up with is a list of things you crossed off. Or maybe not.

    What if that list says things like:

    Travel around the world?

    • You have to want to do this, of course…

    • You have to at least think about how to begin or where to begin

    • You will need to consider how much or little to take with you

    Read untranslated works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

    • You might want to consider learning Spanish…and practicing a lot

    Be famous?

    • This is relative considering the guy who just got caught for spamming up our emails. Okay, so infamous. But still…

    • You can’t just sit and wait around for it to happen.

    • You have to at least learn what spam is and how to make everyone else miserable with it.

    • Or lose a lot of weight eating Subway Sandwiches instead of home-baked chocolate cookies with macadamia nuts.

    Winged Victory

    People who want to do things just do them. That’s why Nike tells us to “Just Do It.” What they really mean is, “Shut the funk up and get off your arse. Go brush your teeth and quit stinking up the air space with your monotonous jabbering about what you’re going to do or want to do or wish you could do if only you could do it.” Nike knows us. Well, they really just want us to pay a fortune for their products made for a fraction of a penny on the dollar in third world countries, but that’s another topic. So their marketers know us. Or get paid to act like they do. A lot.

    The problem is, when your head feels like it’s going to pop off every minute of every day because you’re just trying to make ends meet (whatever ends are pertinent to an individual’s life) heading in a semi-focused direction beyond survival can feel a tad bit overwhelming. Making that list may seem easier than doing something unfamiliar. Articulating those goals make seem like organizing for action. Being industrious and productive can look great on the surface because you’re “getting things done,” but that just takes up time. The rest of it is horribly messy and doesn’t really fit in any kind of a list, so you never really have to do it. Right?

    And when you run out of time at the end of the day, you can get into bed and dream about what you’d really like to do, if only you had the chance.

    I am a meanderer. I waver toward whatever I am interested in. Detour here, wrong turn there. Learning and taking notes along the way, but rarely with the journey being described as the shortest distance between two points. The plan would be to get there in the shortest amount of time, but there are just too many shiny things I have to wonder about and understand along the way.

    So probably more goal-free than goal-less. But always purposeful.

    Unflaggingly. Thanks for the genes, Mom.

  • If I Dream It, They Will Come: Bird by Bird

    The whole spider dream thing has been on my mind since early yesterday when it woke me up. I hear others talking about their dreams, and it’s always interesting to wonder why we dream about what we dream. I almost always remember my dreams, so it seems like second nature thinking about them. Although they can often be quite strange, I don’t have memories of issues dreaming about bugs or snakes, or creepy creatures. So it was a completely perfect distraction for me to investigate yesterday while I was reading through the Word Press codex on headers to also have alongside a variety of windows open to learn about what others think about dreams featuring spiders + babies + moms. Who knew!

    Well Dave did, because he chimed in before I could finish my research, let alone draw my conclusions. Now, I’ve suspected for a while that Dave is a seriously deep thinker, but a soothsayer? Whoa. How cool is that?

    To begin with, this source slotted spiders in the bug category, which is a problem to begin with. Cockroaches are bugs. Spiders are spiders. It’s that whole six legs versus eight legs thing. Anyway, the source indicated that seeing a spider in my dream was a toss up between:

    feeling like an outsider in some situation, or that [I] may want to keep [my] distance and stay away from an alluring and tempting situation.

    Okay. I confess. I do often feel like an outsider of sorts when I visit blogs that have a gazillion devoted followers who gush over them daily. I feel like an outsider when I add my pithy comment to the preceding string of 247, like, they’re gonna read mine? Not.

    As far as allure and temptation are concerned, I’ve succumbed. I ate three of the chocolate cookies left over from the ice cream sandwiches I made a couple of days ago — after I ate one of the ice cream sandwiches. What can I say? It was phoodplan weigh-in day, and I didn’t like my numbers. So I treated myself to my baked goods. Yum.

    Back to the dream analysis…

    The spider is also symbolic of feminine power. Alternatively, a spider may refer to a powerful force protecting you against your self-destructive behavior.

    Feminine power and chocolate are somewhat synonymous, aren’t they? And I guess the spider was supposed to be a warning to step away from the cookies, but because I hadn’t read the helpful information yet, I was stuffing cookies in my mouth while I was reading and clicking. They washed down quite well with the ice cold glass of whole milk I poured to accompany them. I need calcium, you know.

    But I’m not being exactly forthright about the information I found on dreams about spiders. My dream specifically contained a tarantula. Not a skinny, bald spider; a large, hairy, black tarantula. Of course, one site tells me that dreaming about spiders means that fortune will come — except if the spider is a tarantula. What are the odds? There have got to be thousands of varieties of spiders and I have to dream about a tarantula. Specifically, this site claims:

    To dream of a spider, denotes you being careful and energetic in your labors and fortune will be amassed to pleasing proportions. Domestic happiness.

    Conversely:

    To dream you see a tarantula, denotes disagreeable prospect for health or for pleasure.

    Fine. I’ll just have to walk even farther tomorrow to rid myself of those choco-cookie bombs. It will be a disagreeable prospect to trudge with my VBF knowing that I’m defeating myself by snorting sugar during the day instead of nibbling on celery and plain lettuce. Or crunching on ice cubes. Or macking down carb-free rice cakes.

    But there’s hope because there was also a baby in the dream. You know, the one I passed to my mother while I was in bed?

    To see a baby in your dream signifies innocence, warmth and new beginnings. Babies may symbolize something in your own inner nature which is pure, vulnerable, and/or uncorrupted. Babies may represent an aspect of yourself that is vulnerable and helpless…

    Yes! Uncorrupted new beginnings! Tomorrow is another day that I can begin to avoid — or, just flat out avoid shoving unnecessary calories into my face as if tomorrow, all the world’s food might evaporate.

    And mothers in dreams? That’s a bit strange to weave into this mix — at least from the sites I was distracted by. The idea of mothers being nurturing, offering comfort and guidance seems pretty basic to me.

    So in attempt to put it all together — because I have nothing but extremely long stretches of time to waste create with daily — I kept looking until I found this:

    Spider teaches you to maintain a balance — between past and future, physical and spiritual, male and female. Spider teaches you that everything you now do is weaving what you will encounter in the future.

    The spider awakens creative sensibilities. It weaves a web of intricate and subtle fabric, as if to remind us that the past always subtly influences the present and future. The spider found within the web reminds us that we are the center of our own world. Spider reminds us that we are the keepers and writers of our destiny, weaving it like a web by our thoughts, feelings and actions.

    Spider is the guardian of the ancient languages and alphabets. Many believe that the alphabet was formed by the geometric patterns and angles found withing the spider’s web. To many this was the first true alphabet. This is why spider is considered the teacher of language and the magic of writing.

    No, there wasn’t a web in the dream, but I can make some sense of all of this now, without joking about cookies.

    My mom’s appearance in my dream supposedly represents my wish for reassurance about the way my life is going. Even though I am content to “not work,” there is sure to be work on the horizon — because I want there to be. I’m a worker. Or, better said, I create. The issue is to grapple with the temptation to be very practical about finding “work” instead of finding time being willing to devote the same amount of time to create. And people who see themselves as workers or “do-ers” can struggle with the idea of taking time to create, which isn’t often seen as being productive. So I guess, with respect to my dream, I have to keep listening to “my mother,” and not make hasty decisions about what my “work” will be. I will get there.

    The baby represents something that is new. An opportunity, a beginning, a new mood of optimism. So the idea that I’m handing the baby to my “mom” is significant because it means I have to really nurture that seed of a what if that I’m growing, instead of worrying about it. The motherly reassurance will help it grow.

    And the tarantula? Not sure about that one because most sources I checked stated:

    To see a tarantula in your dream, signifies enemies are about to overwhelm you will loss.

    I don’t even know who my enemies are. That’s a pretty strong word for my world. Don’t you have to be in a particular frame of mind to even consider what an enemy is, let alone whom?

    Ohhhhhhhh……I get it. My “enemies” are those doubting voices. The ones Anne Lamott writes about in Bird by Bird. The voices that play on KFKD who tell you that you suck, and that you’re a loser, and that you can’t do anything right. The ones that play incessantly no matter how hard you work, but that you just have to turn the volume down on so that you can hear what matters. Because you have to hear the stuff that matters.
    The stuff that is the seeds of possibilities that need to be attended to, and nurtured to grow.

    If you build it, they will come. Right? I really, truly believe it with all my heart and soul whether they’re wearing baseball suits or not.

    Do you?

  • Dooce to the Rescue

    I’m holding the baby. I’m holding the baby and there’s a rather large spider — a hairy tarantula ambling clumsily over the uneven terrain of the blanket I seem to be tangled in. Trying not to show my alarm with any recognizable display of emotion, I tell my mom to take the baby, my eyes not quite leaving the arachnid, wondering whether it will reach me before I can ease away from its path.

    Wait. Baby? What baby? Mom? What the hell is she doing here?

    The spider — where did it go? There. I can feel it inching over my hair…my heart is pounding, and I know I won’t be able to contain my scream, already imagining my flight from bed and into the center of the room where I’ll have to thrash and flap, slap and wave to get the ugly thing from my head…

    But there’s no spider either. There’s only the chill of the night air on my face and the film of moisture covering it. My scalp tingles, and my breathing settles as I orient myself to the now familiar surroundings. No spider, no baby, no mom. Just another hot flash. It’s only 3 am, so I lay very still, listening to the night sounds from outside, thinking about going back to sleep. Thinking about disconnected aspects of yesterday. Thinking about today. Thinking about closing my eyes.

    But no. I think instead about my banner. About photoshop. About why the hell I can’t figure out how to do what I am trying to do. And then an hour into my thinking and wondering, and never quite cooling down after what feels like an eternity, I remember. Dooce has a tutorial I read some time ago on how she does her mastheads.

    Eureka! I can’t lay around in bed now, waiting for sleep that will never come. It’s too hot, I’m drenched, and it’s only a matter of minutes before I begin to freeze. I don’t have to drive to my VBF’s house until 5:30 to walk, so I sneak out of bed, careful not to step on the Big who is snoring on her sad and stinky excuse for a pad, head downstairs to make coffee, and back up to the office to check out her — Dooce, not the Big — archives.  It’s 4:35.

    In less than a minute, I’m there. It’s in the Friday, March 2nd post of this year. Her tutorial. Yes! But before I reread what I know will help me through my photoshop agony, I catch up on her latest posts while slugging down my first cup of coffee — which isn’t doing anything to cool the raging inferno that used to be my body.

    So much for the crappy theory that exercise and alcohol deprivation helps reduce the intensity of hot flashes. Oh. I forgot. I’m supposed to give up coffee, too.

    Uh…when pigs fly.

  • So Not Feelin’ the Photosh*t Love

    TrichotillomaniaOh my gawd — all I want to do is write.

    I don’t want to read Photoshop tutorials.

    I just want to poke the buttons to create something. You know — like my banner. The one I really want. Not the palm tree. But maybe me hanging from the palm frond and screaming, “I HATE PHOTOSHOP!”

    I don’t want to have to ask what the hell the “editor” is and then get completely pissed off when there isn’t a simple answer for what is probably the tool bar. And if it is the tool bar, why can’t they just call it that? You know, like why can’t all microwaves and remote controls be made exactly alike? What is up with always calling things different names? Jeez. Especially when it is a freaking functional thing.

    I just don’t want to deal with why I can’t open a photo, open a new workspace (or whatever the hell they call that!) then click and drag the photo into the workspace. I mean, how completely easy would that be? CRAP!

    I don’t want to watch the stoopid videos telling me how to do something and then when it’s time to do it, not be able to figure it out. Let’s see…how do I watch the video, which opens and runs on Firefox (okay by me) and have Photoshop open (which sort of goes away unless you’re “clicked” on it) and do what the tutorial says? Ph*ck! It just MAKES ME WANT TO PULL ALL MY HAIR OUT. Yah. I can do that and spin upside down while whistling Dixie out of where the sun doesn’t shine. Sign me up for the freak show before I completely explode.

    Every single direction has another set of directions so you can understand a term that’s in another set of directions. Can I please have visuals for gawd’s sake. That wouldn’t be TOO DIFFICULT would it?

    I want Al Gore’s computer set up The Guru of 3D -- Al Gore's Kind of a Computer Freak discussed here so I can open 14 freaking windows and look back and forth at them. Then maybe, just maybe I won’t have to jump up and do laundry, or get the hell out of this room before I start throwing things. REALLY.

    Cut and paste. Okay? It could be that simple. sh*t-s*it-*hit-shi*#@#!^%&*$$#^*(^$#%^^&*&**(*^%$$^&&*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I don’t like NOT being productive. EVER. I’m not good at it. Doing NOTHING or having NOTHING to show for my time just doesn’t cut it. And I’m NOT going for a walk to blow off this steam BECAUSE I ALREADY DID AT 5:30 THIS MORNING.

    Maybe if I lay down on the floor and kick and scream I’ll feel better. The capital letters and symbols aren’t cutting it. AT ALL.

    Watching this guy made me feel a bit better, however, because I LOVE my Mac. But he’s having the same sort of melt down that I am, so we must be soul mates or something. He does come around, though, so I’m sure that I will too, because I’m tenaciously, persistently, annoyingly, unceasingly, freaking NOT GIVING UP.

    But I’m so NOT loving PHOTOSHOP. NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT.

  • Me ‘n’ the Big

    Smile Warhol I can hear the MoH in the bedroom cooing loving endearments softly to the Big, calling her his latest rendition of her moniker: Quatro Formaggio. Yes. Four Cheeses. I know it isn’t quite Italian, or Spanish, but still. You get the idea. Now why a man would call his dog Four Cheeses and have it come from his lips as a velvety verbal gift is beyond me. The MoH is hilarious. He never coos at me. He probably knows I’d slug him for being so gooey. But he makes me laugh and that’s lovely.

    “Quattro Formaggio” is a bit more tolerable than the former derivative of her name; one which lasted for about two weeks and was never uttered as a pleasantry — “Jose Biggedy Jones the Quatro.” Or the all time favorite, “Biggedy Jones” which we think came from Indiana Jones or Harrison Ford, or something and came before the Quattro fixation the MoH has right now. And “Biggedy R.L. Jones the Third” was a good one for a while, but the RT and I could never get the MoH to tell us what the hell R.L. stood for. Go figure.

    Or sometimes he just calls her “Jones Jones,” just in case one Jones isn’t enough. All the names — and I am leaving an amazing number out because I can’t remember what order they morphed in — are all delivered in a pure falsetto that the Big always responds to with a shift of her brows or a rhythmic tap of her tail. The thing about the Big though, is she always knows her name. Even if it’s just Big, which is the name I use. After all, she is my dog. Me — a cat person with a dog — one that really looks like a cross between a pig and a deer. Or a cow with a pointy nose. The RT decided I needed one for a birthday about eight years ago, so voila. Now, do I look like someone who needs a d-o-g? Is that a zit?

    The Big doesn’t seem very smart most of the time, but understands a lot of language. I defensively remind the MoH of this fact when he’s telling her she’s not very smart. We even test her to see if the tone of our voice is the key to her understanding language, but it isn’t. It’s the vowels. You know — those a-e-i-o-u thingy-mo-bobs. She even understands the spelling of many sentences — not just words, so if we don’t want to get roped into doing whatever it is she’s listening for, we have to be very careful.

    Hoot Hey Big! Do you want to go for a ride? This one makes her crazy. She hips and hops — very difficult for a plus size girl — and tries very hard to make her sad excuses for floppy ears perk up. She cocks her head, her tail freezes, and she waits for confirmation that she has correctly translated her favorite sentence into Dog Speak. The Dog Speak version goes something like this: /uwannagoferaride?/ Pretty cool, huh? She loves to go for a ride, but not when we drive over 40 mph. Because then she can’t poke her face out the window and assail her olfactory system with the billions of scents she picks up along the road, providing dream fodder for a week of dog naps.

    Or: Do you want a bone? This was the first one she learned. Well, actually, she learned bone first, and the rest was added over time just to see if she could anticipate bone at the end of the sentence. Yep. She could.

    And: Where’s your boy? That’s the RT in case you forgot. She understands the boy part and is somewhat glum when he goes to visit his cousin for a weekend or two. I think she’s really attached to his basic teenage stinkiness, so when he’s not here, she completely gets it. The only reason she’s laying next to me right now is because the RT is sleeping in — call that avoiding his Geometry homework that has to be done by noon each Sunday. As soon as the RT is up, she’ll go lay on his bed, inhaling that earthy locker room fragrance that can only be the RTs. Well, except he’s discovered Axel deoderant which adds an interesting spin to things. Kind of a pungent spicy mustiness. The girls should be lining up any time now.

    I have to head downstairs to accompany the MoH on a walk to the farmer’s market again. He really liked that last weekend, and I’m on a quest to get in five walks this week. That’s about 15 miles tallied and the best I’ve done for about two or three weeks. Woo Hoo! I need it considering the time I’ll be on my butt getting this blob up and looking gorgeous. I’m reaching obsessiveness about it at this point, but decided to throw in the Me Shots just to keep you in line while you’re waiting. And thanks for waiting. Crosshatch Me

    Have a loverly Sunday!

  • That Simple Green Scent

    Okay, so I know this is ugly right now.  But at least notice the effects I learned how to create with Photoshop on the palm tree up there. Yes, I also know there are two boxes above that are supposed to be for ads.  I’m not game on the ads above my header, so I have to figure out how to get them off.  The serious bummer is that I spent a lot of time working on the “kellementology” piece and it doesn’t show up on this stoopid laptop.  I know.  I’m not supposed to have fun with the fonts, but jeez.  I get tired of the boring verdana, helvitica crap.  Life’s seriously more interesting with swirls. 

    I know this (blob transition) is wearing me out (yah, right) because I actually cleaned my house today instead of writing first thing like I always do.  Trying to write when my blog is a mess is like trying to relax when the house is a mess.  Wait.  Blogging usually is relaxing, which is why my house stays messy.

    Does it count as being messy when I have to use Simple Green straight up to get the catfood off the laundry room floor?  Or the catfood out of the laundry sink that has stuck to the sides after I’ve rinsed out the can in the morning?  Messy vs. dirty?  Hmmm…I know.  Gross.  But it’s clean now.  And laundry is swirling around in the dryer, the fresh scent of the RT’s whites wafting up the stairs near the garage — a marked improvement from the odor that was emanating from his bedroom yesterday morning.

    And I’m noticing our motley crew of pets is very content because they got their first dose of warm weather “flea medicine.”  No more Presh-Ass Yack Star Flea in-cu-bus lounging over the cable box and creating more tiny flea eggs than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime of owning cats.  Totally gross.  Biggity, our dog, is snoozing in the family room on the clean couch.  The one that the MoH stripped of its cover last weekend because it was sour smelling and covered with lick stains — a by product of the Big’s obsessive compulsivness.  We haven’t caught her licking it again — yet — but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.  It’s a drag sitting on the wet spot…

    And I could bore you even more than I already have to explain the condition of our carpet, beyond cleaning or repair because of the animals.  Yes.  The animals.  I don’t know what’s worse — the stains from the nocturnal hairball launchings, or the cleaning that happens afterwards.  Either way, I’m sick of the whole mess.  I know you’re sick of me ranting about it, but you have no idea how hard I’ve worked to avoid writing about the record size of some of the hairballs I’ve seen lately.  Guiness should have been contacted.  Somehow, taking a picture of a hairball seems a tad bit whacked.  Don’t you think?  Think about the poor RT. 

    “What does your mother do for a living? 

    “Takes pictures of cat hairballs to post them on her blog.”

    Uhhh…nope.  You’ll just have to wonder.  Or not. 

     I’m more convinced than ever that, even though I couldn’t live without them at times, that I have been thinking about how it might be “without them.”  The deal with kids is that they grow up.  Whatever “messes” they make sort of follow in line with their developmental progress.  But even if they’re completely slovenly as my gorgeous and loving sons have been, they grow up, go to college and/or gain relationships with others, and move out of your house.  The animals, the darlins — they stay.  And our house has definitely accomodated our animals.  Cat litter tracked up the stairs, dog “gifts” left on the patio, and rinsed down the drain outside.  Jeez.  It’s more work sometimes than I remember taking care of my two older boys who are only 17 months apart.  Way more work.

    Wait.  I am remembering that ugly sculptured and multi-colored brown carpeting we had when the boys were very little.  It was a complete disguise for myriad raisins, flattened beyond all recognition, and requiring scissors to be removed from their attachment.  Okay.  And I also remember the oatmeal I had to chip off the high chair and the wall next to the high chair.  Oh.  And those cookies — the biscuits that babies eat when they’re teething and disolve (the cookies, not the baby) into a disgusting mess on their cherubic faces.  Well, not so cherubic once it dried.

     But you know?  Blathering about our lovelies has really allowed me to avoid looking at the condition of my newest “pet” that seems to take up as much time as the other darlings I’ve had in my life.  So there you go.  It’s all good.  Except for the carpet.

    So I’ve wasted a perfectly good 20 minutes or so saying absolutely nothing.  Yes, my Warholled self will return as soon as I freaking figure out how the H-E-L-L  to modify it, save it, and paste it in the header.  Well, I can’t paste anything with this skin, so whatever.  Just hold your shorts.  I’ll get there. 

    Thanks for your patience while I’m learning about how to adjust fonts styles, colors, and sizes as well.  Like how all that work I did that looks gorgeous on my Mac looks like crap or non-existent on the MoH’s laptop which is what I’m using right now.  How stoopid is that?  Sheesh.  Thanks again to Thought Sparks who always keeps an eye on what’s up and offers assistant.  Very.  Nice.  Person.

    Okay.  Enough boredom.  Off to the store for coq au vin ingredients.  Yum.  Crusty bread.  Salad.  Wine… No party.  Just us.  I love good food.  So a great meal tonight AND tomorrow night will just allow me to avoid the blob for a bit longer.  Right?

    Toots.

  • Fitting into my Skin

    Still working on my blog skin. Still choosing. Still wondering what looks like, or at best may be a reflection of “me.” Something that isn’t beige or depicts “nobody.” A self portrait of sorts. Not My Self Portrait Or composite. Isn’t that what this strange business of blogging is sometimes all about?

    So don’t go away. I’ll figure it out. Billy Collins did in his “Instructions to the Artist”…

    I wish my head to appear perfectly round

    and since the canvas should be of epic dimensions,

    please trace the circle with a dinner plate

    rather than a button or a dime.

    My face should be painted with an ant-like sense of detail;

    pretend you are executing a street map

    of Rome and that all the citizens

    can lift thirty times their own weight.

    The result should be a strained

    but self-satisfied expression,

    as if I am lifting a Volkswagen with one foot.

    The body is no great matter;

    just draw some straight lines with a pencil and ruler.

    I will not be around to hear the voice

    of posterity calling me Stickman.

    The background I leave up to you

    but if there is to be a house,

    lines of smoke rising from the chimney

    should be mandatory.

    Never be ashamed of kindergarten —

    it is the alphabet’s only temple.

    Also, have several kangaroos grazing

    and hopping around in the distance,

    an allusion to my world travels.

    Some final recommendations:

    I should like to appear hatless.

    Kindly limit your palette to a single

    primary color, any one but red or blue.

    Sign the painting on my upper lip

    so your name will always be my mustache.

    And don’t forget — an entity is the sum of its parts… Check it out and see what you think. You’ll have to read it five or six times before your eyeballs settle back down in their sockets, though. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
    Lipzilla