Blurring The Lines

As long as I can remember, my mom has "spoken for" our pets. She'll say something and pretend it's what the animal is saying. And she won't admit that it's really her and not the pet. Often, a dog will look on with a worried and helpless expression while my mom carries on a conversation for it. I get the impression the pet really didn't intend to say what she claims it does, but she will never back down. Ever. She denies any implication that she is just making it all up.

In the "conversations" I've had with pets over the years, my mom has always called me "sis." As in, the cat is calling me sis. It's as if the pets are my younger siblings. But my mom has never gone so far as to actually call them her children. She allows the pets to be part of the family, but doesn't take it further than that.

Ok, so I just saw a commercial in which a lady is talking about how much her son likes her new car. Then she specifies that her "son" is a cocker spaniel. Now, you'd think that with my background of blurred distinctions between people and their pets, I could take this in stride. But this is bizarre! I'm saying it's freaking weird to claim animals as your children. This is coming from me. It's weird. That is all.

Academic Nightmares

Who else has had this dream? I'm going to class and getting good grades, and then toward the end of the semester I realize there was a class I signed up for but forgot to go to the whole semester. I panic and start going, but then forget until it's time for finals, and I either a) go to the final and bomb it or b)realize the grade have already been issued and there's no escape from my failing grade. I've had this nightmare a lot over the last three years. Curiously, it only started after I graduated. It's been slowing down in frequency for the last year or so, as I settle into the certainty that I did graduate and I do have a certificate that states SUU does, in fact, own my soul.

But last night a new dream emerged from the recesses of my fevered brain. I was in the process of applying to USU and everything seemed to be going well, when suddenly I was fired from my job and rejected on my application in one fell swoop. I begged my employer to let me know why they had fired me, and they said they had received a letter about me but would say no more.

So I went to the admissions dept at USU and begged to know if they had received a letter, and it turned out they had. But they wouldn't tell me what it was about, only that it had come from a high school English teacher named Ms. Davis, who was my teacher in Battle Mountain and who happened to be in town. So I looked her up and went to talk to her. She was all stony silence at first, but after much begging on my part she divulged that she had it on very good authority that in the tenth grade I had written an analytical essay about The Diary of Ann Frank without actually having read the book. I was guilty, and I knew it. I begged for mercy. As a defense, I mentioned that the movie of Ann Frank follows the book pretty well. She was unmoved. She had found me out, and as a punishment I would never go to any college ever gain, and I could just forget about vet school because it wasn't going to happen.

I left my conversation with Ms. Davis (who is, in reality, a very good English teacher) reeling from the shock of the blow. I wandered around USU campus, wondering who else I might speak with to defend my actions, knowing it was all too late, mourning the loss of my last chance. I was sad.

When I woke up I felt incredibly relieved that it had only been a dream. But then my next thought was, "Here come the nightmares!" (Side note: my older brothers showed me installments one through three of The Nightmare on Elm Street saga when I was four years old, but I never had a nightmare about it. But college? This is scary stuff.)

Yep. I Did That.

Today I very responsibly took back the DVDs I had rented from Hastings and went on about my day. Later, I opened the CD tray on my computer and lo, there was one of the movies I had rented. Then, Shayne opened the DVD tray on our TV's player, and there was the other one. Yeah. I had taken two empty DVD cases back to the store.

In other news, I'm seriously considering going back for a second bachelor's in pre-veterinary medicine so as to eventually become a vet. I would get a lot of the studying done here, and then it would take me back to Washington to study at WSU. And then, since nearly everyone in the Seattle area has pets, I would simply drag Shayne back there. And it would get me more money than, say, working at call centers.

Sorry, I Don't Work Here.

I didn't know it was unusual to be hit up to do things or find things at stores where I don't work until I mentioned it in passing to Shayne and saw his response. I mean, I understood that it might be a little unusual for old ladies in Walmart to ask me to reach things down off the high shelves, but then, not everybody is as tall as I am. I'm really ridiculously tall, and I'm used to being put to work in this way. Fetching things from high places is part of my service to humanity.

Shayne thought it was crazy, not only that people ask this of me, but that I just take it in stride. He thought it was very weird. Why didn't this happen to him, as he is taller than I? I've hypothesized that maybe the old ladies find me more sympathetic because I am female. Whatever the reason is, I feel that someone else must have this experience sometimes. It can't just be me.

But besides this, I feel that I get to be mistaken for an employee at whatever store I happen to be shopping in far more often than is my due. Once, when sopping in the Redmond, WA Fred Meyer, I discovered a display of cute little ruffled aprons. I selected a red one with black polka-dots and cupcake applicees, and put it on just to see how it felt and how long it was on my tall frame. It that moment, another customer appeared at the end of the aisle and began explaining in detail some item she wanted, that I had never heard of. Had I know where to find the item I would have just told her, but instead I had to cause us both embarrassment by letting her know I didn't work there and I had just been trying on the apron. She snorted her derision and stalked off with an expression of disgust on her face. I wanted to ask her if she really thought a Fred Meyer employee would be caught dead wearing such a kitchy apron, but the answer was obvious. The fact that it was an apron at all meant I was an employee.

Just a couple of days ago, I was pushing my cart through the kitchen tools aisle at Walmart and I had just placed an item in my cart that I wished to buy when a lady came up beside me and told me she had a random question and she was getting ready to go to Home Depot for the item she wanted. It was one of those plastic refrigerator soda can dispensers where the sodas roll down and you grab them at the bottom...you know. My parents have one, (my mom has one, now that my dad is gone) but I never had a use for one. I suggested the sodas section of the store, or maybe the hardware section. She had already looked in those places, and she said she would just go to Home Depot. She thanked me politely and left.

After I left the store, I realized she must have thought I was an employee. I carefully considered my outfit: light blue jeans and a navy blue grandpa cardigan that was unbuttoned to reveal a yellow-green shirt beneath. Had she thought I was an employee just because I had on a blue cardigan? Had she missed the large, red patent-leather purse in my cart, or the stylish yellow-green shirt with the subtle yet striking bronzy metal studs?

Anyway. It seems like this happens to me all the time. Shayne wears his actual blue and khaki walmart uniform to walmart in his off hours and doesn't get asked questions. He says it's because he's not wearing his name tag. Go figure. I, on the other hand, wear something that gestures vaguely toward an employee uniform and people assume I work there.

And another thing -- why do people only ask, "Do you work here?" when the person obviously does? They don't ask me if I work there. It's weird.

Dear Disgruntled MacDonald's Breakfast Enthusiasts

Dear Disgruntled MacDonald's Breakfast Enthusiasts:

I understand how much you love some MacDonald's goodness in the morning. No, really. I do. Maybe you promise yourself that if you just get out of bed, you can have breakfast at MacDonald's. Maybe you come in with your mouth watering, yearning for your sausage or bacon or yummy, yummy hotcakes. I get it.

I want to assure you that when we switch over to the lunch menu at 10:30 am on weekdays and 11:00 am on weekends, the purpose is not to ruin your day and deprive you of what is rightfully yours. I agree that it's an outdated custom. It used to be de rigeur for diners and restaurants of all kinds to put away their breakfast ingredients and serve an entirely different menu for each meal of the day. Nowadays, with places like Denny's , IHOP, and Jack In The Box serving breakfast all day, the old way seems antiquated in the extreme.

But really, are you honestly surprised? It's always been this way at MacDonald's. When you toddled into MacDonald's, holding onto your mom's finger, and sat in a high chair to destroy parts of an egg MacMuffin, MacDonalds' menu changed over at 10:30. When you were a college student and never got to eat breakfast at MacDonald's because you couldn't get up early enough, this was still the case. Even now, when you come in at noon and ask for your food without looking at the menu, you're still too late.

I'd like to let you know that MacDonald's employees are not particularly intimidated by your anger. In fact, we rather enjoy it. It's amusing to us when you plead your case ("I really had my heart set on a MacGriddle!"), receive your firm refusal, indulge in your tantrum and then storm out in a huff. When our coworkers call us to the back of the kitchen to describe the scene you made, we will recreate your histrionics in detail, complete with hand gestures. We will mock you. We will laugh at you and comment on your stupidity, getting yourself all worked up over a MacMuffin.

If you simply cannot remember the ironclad deadline of 10:30 am, I recommend a reminder of some sort. A post it on the dashboard, or a cell phone alarm to let you know that you are too late and must go to IHOP. If you choose to come to MacDonald's any way to insult the minimum-wage-earner behind the counter and register your disapproval of our outmoded custom... well, that's your prerogative. But I want to let you know it will do no good, and to be honest? You look really funny when you're mad. Sorry, but you do. And once you're done venting your frustration, we will amuse ourselves by predicting your death by premature heart disease, brought about by a combination of your short temper and your fast food diet.

Thank you for your understanding.

Bwahahahahaha!

My Favorite Mormon Ever

I'm claiming Porter Rockwell as my Most Favoritest Mormon Person Ever. I love that he was a little crazy, definitely different from other Mormons. I love how tough he was, and how he went in and got the job done. I love how he could be criticized by others, yet still remain entirely devoted to Joseph Smith and the gospel.

I wonder: did he ever feel like a square peg trying desperately to get into a round hole, as I do when I'm at church? Did he ever crave the acceptance and approval of other Mormons? Did he, like me, try to change everything about himself that ever bothered another Mormon, only to find that they hated him all the more for his simpering people-pleasing? Did he, like me, give up the fight and resolve to serve God while being precisely, utterly who he truly is whether they hate him or not?

I admire his courage most of all. I've been inactive for years now because I dread to dirty looks and the harsh whispers I get from other Mormons. I just can't make myself go anymore. It feels like high school to me. I got into church and have to confront a lot of people who already have their established cliques and family pews. I can't fit in because of some nuance of my hairdo or my makeup or the way I talk. I flee as soon as sacrament meeting is done because of a nasty remark someone made about me, and have to sit of the back steps crying because I just can't do it anymore.

I try to will myself to just go anyway. I should be tougher, right? I should understand that we're all just there to praise God and to worship Him, and he'll hear my prayers just the same while I'm wearing red lipstick. And I already know it won't do any good for me to just wear a different color lipstick. I've tried that. I'm a red lipstick girl. Red is my shade, and when I change myself to fit in, people seem to sense it and they regard me with even more contempt than before.

Anyway...Porter Rockwell. He was stranger than I am. If I wore a long black coat and carried a gun, I bet people would think twice before saying something nasty to me! But he must have encountered serious opposition, even in the early church when people hadn't yet socialized each other to behave like clones. He must have had the same sort of thoughts about how he got along with non-Mormons much better. He probably could have gone into any rough frontier town, had a few drinks and smoked a few cigars around a poker table, and gotten by just fine. But he chose to stay where he wasn't really welcome, out of his faith in the gospel and service to Joseph. In my craven heart, I wish I had his fortitude.

I truly believe I would feel more comfortable around him than I do around many of the preppy, backcombed, self-righteous Mormons I've met. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying all Mormons are evil. But the truth is, I seem to fit in better with others who feel out of place in church much more often than not.) I usually feel an instant kinship with others who don't belong. For instance, once I stopped in Mesquite for gas, and a very rough-looking biker with shaved head, goatee and silver-studded leather chaps got off his Harley and opened the door for me with a smile. I looked him in the eye, smiled back, and said thank you with utmost sincerity. He didn't frighten me a bit, nor do goth kids or emos or homeless people. I usually get along with them just fine. It's the middle-aged women with short hair who appear in church with no makeup, wearing bizarrely ugly pink pinafore dresses, that send me running for the door. Or the younger women with their hair so backcombed they have square heads, wearing sensible khaki skirts and way too much makeup, struggling to corral a herd of tiny children and snorting with derision when they see me. Or the home teachers with the confident, arrogant, condescending smiles that convey both pity and revulsion. These are the people who frighten me.

Of course, there's no guarantee that Porter would have wanted to be my friend. He might have seen me for the milksop I am and regarded me with the same polite condescension most other Mormon men do. But since he's not here to pass judgement, I'd like to believe he and I could have been friends, and he might have understood me as most "normal" people don't. Check it out -- I'm trying to befriend a dead man. Good job we believe in life after death.

So the upshot of all this is that I think I'm going to be stealing the name Porter as a baby name. For...whenever we have a baby. Just in case the name can imbue greater courage on my offspring than what I enjoy myself.

The Coffee Monster Lurks In The Shadows

It's no secret that I wasn't raised LDS. My mom and my aunt introduced me to coffee for the first time when I was twelve. They came home from an outing and presented me with a mocha (part coffee, part hot chocolate) with all the aplomb that an LDS parent might present their child with, say, a surprise milkshake. But there was another element too. Another layer of the present. It was sort of a coming-of-age milestone ritual. Today I am allowed to drink coffee. I am twelve and I have reached that point in my growing up where I can have an adult beverage. It wasn't just a surprise gift, but an introduction to young womanhood.

Oh, I drank that mocha. I loved it. If I were Homer Simpson, my pupils would have dilated and all sorts of dendrites in my brain would have fired simultaneously with drooling as a potential side affect. It was. So. Good. Mochas and lattes became a special treat that I enjoyed throughout my teenage years, carefully nursing my drink so as to enjoy that wonderful flavor as long as possible. In high school I joined a coffee of the month club and enjoyed a hot cup after school. Despite the caffeine, the coffee was wonderfully relaxing and fortifying. I loved the rich, roasted flavor, offset by the slight sweetness of the sugar and milk. After a cup of coffee (or three) I could face that essay that I knew I'd be working on late into the night. I could memorize my lines and endure the thought of going back to school the next day. Like spinach to Popeye, coffee was a comfort and a strength.

I was eighteen when I decided to be LDS and gave up coffee with the intention of never drinking it again. And it was several years before the old addiction started to creep back, little by little. I think I was twenty-four when I succumbed to a grocery-store frapucchino. When I got into my upper-division coursework at SUU I used a lot of Red Bulls during finals week. I despised the flavor of Red Bull. A lady in one of my classes suggested that coffee would be healthier than the energy drink, and I found it plausible. As it turned out, a cup of Starbuck's drip coffee was also a couple bucks cheaper than the Red Bull. My student frugality worked with my old addiction. Soon I was going by Starbuck's a couple days a week, as long as I had some money. I wasn't at the point of buying my own coffee pot yet. That would be like embracing it fully.

Ok, so I struggle with ongoing urges to drink coffee. I tell myself it could be worse. I mean, it could have been heroin. Or meth. Or alcohol. On the list of substance addictions, coffee is really kind of laughable. But to a Mormon person, this is a rich mine of guilt. I didn't purge the desire to drink this unholy beverage. I returned to my sin like a dog to its vomit, so to speak.

This past week, while I've been struggling with strep throat, I've really been fighting off coffee cravings. I wanted that strength to keep going, keep enduring. I didn't give in. I still haven't, but when I woke up this morning and began reading and watching the reminders of 9/11 and returning to what I felt that day, I found that I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the couch with a steaming cup. It's so comforting to wrap my hands around the warm mug and feel the new energy singing through my veins.

Instead of drinking coffee, I worked out. I took a shower and put on a dress. Now it's too late in the day to really enjoy it, because I know I would never sleep (I'm not used to caffeine anymore.) Still...I want it. The coffee monster is there, and I'm starting to realize that it will always be there. I will always want coffee when I am sad and frightened and in need of encouragement. And what will I do when the cravings come again? I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Happy TMI Thursday! (This post contains what many would consider to be an overshare.)

I've had strep throat for the last several days, and it basically shut me down. I haven't had energy or willpower to do much more that sit on the couch, watching food network and playing sorority life and bejeweled blitz. No sewing, no job applications. I've mostly been eating Top Ramen, sometimes yogurt and herbal tea, making sure that my food is warm and soft so it won't hurt my throat.

Well. Yesterday I woke up with my horrendous sore throat as well as a splitting headache. I trudged into the bathroom and discovered that my period had started during the night and had soaked right through my pajamas. So then I became desperate to eat something so I could take my pain meds, because strep and cramps at the same time is enough to inspire some very colorful swear words from me. So I got my top ramen breakfast, took enough pain pills (seven ibuprofen tablets) to take the edge off the pain (I could still feel all of it), and settled in to endure the day.

As time went on, I perceived the development of a new problem. Diarrhea. Probably the result of too much ramen. Ugh.

The good news is that after a day like that, the next day is likely to be better, and it is. I think the infection in my throat is going down, my terrible headache is gone, I feel able to eat things more substantial than ramen, and, well, my period always gets less painful as it goes along. Today I had energy to read! maybe tomorrow I can sew up the laptop case that's been cut out and languishing on the living room floor for the past week, while I've felt neither the energy to finish it nor the inclination to put the supplies away.

For this bout of strep I decided to just endure it rather than go get antibiotics because I'm sick of getting this same infection over and over. So if my evil plan comes to fruition, I will have the antibody to this bacterium and maybe I won't have to get it again! (Cue maniacal laughter.)

Afghans!

So, I'm totally loving vintage afghans. I understand that lots of people (read: stylish people) don't care for afghans these days, but to me they are magic. I mean, they're handmade, for one thing. Somebody touched and manipulated every inch of yarn in each one. And because these blankets are so labor intensive, they are made with lots of love. Usually, it's a grandma making them for grandchildren, like the one on the right, which came from Shayne's grandma. The middle one is from DI and the one on the right I ordered from etsy.com, so I don't actually know any of the people who made these. The love with which they stitched these afghans wasn't directed at me, but it's still so comforting to snuggle up with something that contains so much affection.

Yay for vintage clothes!

I like my new dress for the following reasons:

1. The colors are very bright and happy and cheerful.

2. It's loose, flowy and easy to wear.

3. It only cost $5.

4. It's incredibly comfortable.

5. It's bright. Did I mention that?

6. It's modest. I could wear it without the sweater.

7. It's obviously not of this era.

8. Polyester doesn't fade. Or wrinkle. Or shrink.

9. It's fun!

10. I bet nobody at in town has a dress just like it.

There you have it, folks! I like my new dress, and I'm going to wear it around town and blind everybody.

DI Strikes Again!

You know you're addicted to DI shopping trips when you're up early and feeling disappointed that you have to wait until 9:00 to actually go to the silly thrift store. That is how I feel.

Of course, I'm not surprised that I'm a DI addict. I am. Several years ago I admitted my habit to a neighbor who then proceeded to go get a copy of the LDS 12 step program and read off all the steps. I was entirely laughing at him, but he kept going and I'm pretty sure he was serious. I mean, apologize to the people I've hurt with my DI shopping? Whom have I hurt? I dunno.

In any case, a couple days ago I saw a dress at DI that I vetoed at the time, but now I have changed my mind after reading instructions in my online sewing class for resizing and modernizing a vintage dress. Yeah. I want the dress now. And as soon as it is 9:00, I'm going to go after it, and I hope it is still there for me to buy.

Bibs!

I made these bibs for some friends of ours who are expecting a little girl in September, and I hope they like them. I am learning so many cool things in the sewing class I'm taking! It's exciting.

Home Ec

When I was in serious therapy, sometimes I was too deeply depressed to open up to my counselor about what was bothering me, so he would give me some paper and some colored pencils and ask me to draw something. The original idea was that if I felt too threatened to say something, I should draw a picture of it instead. But for some reason the act of drawing helped me relax enough that I was able to talk to him and start telling him things again. He said he loved watching me create because it changed my whole demeanor when I was making something.

That was years ago, but I find that when I'm struggling with a severe bout of depression, I can choose to either wallow or...create. The wallowing is easy. You just sit on the couch with the TV on and think about how much you hate your life. Then you cry. Getting up and going through one's fabrics, reading pattern instructions, scouting out the ironing board and iron that your husband put "away," that's harder. It requires me to concentrate on something other than the hopeless void of reality.

Knowing all of this, and also being aware that sewing is a lot cheaper than additional therapy without insurance, I used my final paycheck to spring for an online sewing class. The class is for beginners, and I feel like I'm probably at the intermediate level, but I will be learning a few new techniques and getting out of my comfort zone a little. And it gives me something useful to do. Like make the little quilted pincushion pictured above.

My favorite thing about this class is that it teaches sewing without a pattern, which is really fun. It's kind of like extreme crafts. Also, there's something automatically soothing about the sound of the sewing machine motor, maybe because this very sound provided background noise for my entire childhood, as my mother is an expert seamstress and sews all the time.

My goals for tomorrow are to complete the shopping bag project for class and dig out the rough draft of my book and get the first chapter revised and uploaded onto webooks. Yeah. Tomorrow.

I Had A Job And I Liked It

Majestic Mountain Sage has fired me, and it hurts. I feel like I haven't been doing very well at all since we arrived in Utah. I feel like I don't belong here. There is something about me that many Utahns just don't like, but they seem unable to really define it. I would really like to ge back to Washington, with its culture of diversity and acceptance and courteous drivers. I held a job there for three years.

It makes me sad! I really liked working there. I was going to buy a lot of stuff from them to make christmas presents. Now? I don't really want to have anything to do with them. There's not much I could do, that would fit in with my personal code of ethics, to let MMS know I don't like them. I suppose withdrawing my business would be as much punishment as I could muster.

So what did I do to get fired? I wasn't happy enough. I mean, I guess I can understand where they're coming from. I struggle with clinical depression, and since we came to Utah I've felt like I'm trapped in the low mood where everything hurts my feelings and I just can't seem to think clearly. But I was getting better because I HAD A JOB I LIKED. I was doing better.

Ugh. Now I will try to find volunteer work, I think. I'll try to get on unemplyment and focus on volunteering for awhile and try to get better before I reenter the jobhunting fray. I'll get a library card from the USU library and discover a wonderful selection of books to increase my vast knowledge of obscure details about...everything. I'll finally get down to studying for the GRE and just get it done no matter how much I dread the silly test. I'll take a sewing class. I'll go back for my Matser's Degree, since I feel like that's the direction in which my life is pushing me. And most importantly, I simply must write. I must write my books. I was three volumes into a series when I gave up to give my schooling my undivided attention, and now that I'm fully trained as a writer I must do so. Writing is the strongest impulse I feel. So I will, and this time I'm not kidding around. I'm going to finish my books and start the process of getting them published.

I love It When Shayne Works At Walmart

I confess -- I treat my husband as a sort of supermarket go-fer just because he works at Walmart. It's so convenient. All I have to do is text him. "If you bring home some ground meat I'll make meatloaf for dinner." Bam. Done. I don't have to brave the crowded Walmart with my sweaty, flushed, overheated, sore-footed self. I can just sit at home reading and the groceries come to me.

Here's another confession -- ever since I was introduced to the website, peopleofwalmart.com, I've been paranoid about going to Walmart without looking nice. I know. This is a weird fear. At one point I was looking at a picture on the site, and the caption read something along the lines of, "Haven't people figured out by now that someone is walking around Walmart taking pictures of them?" WHAT? Oh, no. And no matter how much Shayne assures me that I don't look like the people on the site, there's always this nagging sort of possibility that one day I may log on and be both outraged and mortified to see a picture of myself in my work clothes, stopping in for something quick on my way home from work. Yeah. I'm afraid someone with catch me wearing jeans and a T-shirt, as if that were normal.

But when Shayne works at Walmart? I just don't have to worry about it as much. And I like that a lot.

Please Rock With Me

I really love music, and I've been discovering a lot of wonderful artists lately. many of them are from other countries, and so few people in America have ever heard of them. This must end. Here are a few selections of the music I've found that is endangered in America.

Lisa Mitchell! She was a contestant on Australian Idol, but her CD, Wonder, isn't available except online, as an import. I ordered the CD from Amazon because I couldn't find it anywhere, not even on itunes.

Mika! "Take your girl, multiply her by four/now a whole lot of woman needs a whole lot more!"

"All of the past is finally in back!" I love the beautiful harmonizing combined with the catchy beat and the profound lyrics. Poetry set to music.

I think the thing that first made me want to listen to this song is the title. Love it.

Florence + The Machine is from England. I really love the simple arrangements that often include only percussion, harp, and Florence Welch's amazing voice. Oh, and the poetry in the lyrics. That's the most important part for me.

I first heard Hunting My Dress on the Private Practice TV show, and I knew I had to have it. I googled it, searched it, finally ordered it on Amazon as an import from England.

So cheerful! I admit that I've been listening to a lot of really happy music lately to combat severe depression. This is one song that I really love.

Feist! I love her stage name. This song accompanies to closing credits of an amazing movie called Paris, Je T'aime, which I also recommend.

Lenka is Australian. Why do Australian artists get so overlooked in America? I dunno, but I love her CD. Another import.

"Earth below us, drifting, falling/floating weightless, calling, calling." This song was definitely used in a commercial. It was originally recorded by David Bowie, but I like the Shiny Toy Guns' updated, edgier version better.

Ok, so I'm once again guilty of choosing a song featured in a commercial. I loved it and googled it and searched it, but it was very hard to find. itunes doesn't have it, but luckily, once I ascertained the name of the band, I found mp3s to download on Amazon.

All right, now just one more for the road.

I love this song, and the video too. These things never happen to me at the laundromat.

And this concludes our tour of various obscure/foreign/under-the-radar songs I've been listening to lately. Happy Saturday!

Huzzah!

Woo hoo! My mom and oldest sister came to visit for my birthday, and they camped in a nice place up the canyon. On Monday they were too tired from their drive to do anything, but on Tuesday we went to Olive Garden for my birthday dinner and they presented my with the wheeled cart pictured above. (If you don't understand why I'm excited about this, go here. I've been doing laundry that way since we got to Logan in March.)

I got to hang out with them at their shady campsite, which was cooler than our apartment, and I played with the dogs. My mom has a new dog named Jamie, who is half chihuahua and half dachshund; the designer name for this breed is "chiweenie." He is so cute! He's a teacup-sized shorthair with the most velvety coat ever. He had been abandoned on a busy road in Pahrump and some neighborhood kids brought him to my mom because they knew she had just lost our old husky, Sampson, a week after my dad died. He's a squirmy little puppy who loves to snuggle, and I was really excited to meet him and play with him.

Last night we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, and my mom surprised me with a check for $200 to put toward a gas grill of my choice, and guess what? I have chosen. I. Can. Not. Wait. There is gonna be some serious grilling going on! I'll need to go through my Rachael Ray cook books and start making the hamburger recipes, because I can! The tiny George Foreman we have now only actually cooks one burger at a time, even though it says it cooks two. Yeah, if they were sliders! Anyway, now I can make all sorts of wonderful burgers and grilled meats and veggies and fruits. Yay!

So it was kind of like celebrating my birthday all week long. I enjoyed it.

Life Has A Funny Way Of Helping You Out

So, While I was lamenting my inability to fit in here in Logan, I got a friend request on facebook from a girl whose name I didn't recognize. Her profile picture didn't have her in it, so it took me a couple days to figure it out. The name I didn't recognize? It was the married name of one of my oldest friends, who disappeared into the ether years ago. I had searched for her several times on myspace and facebook but had eventually drawn the conclusion that she didn't want to be found. Or maybe she just hated computers. I didn't know.

Anyway, we had a mad texting party and started catching up, and suddenly my life started to seem so adventurous and cool, exactly how I had wanted to script it. I mean, I lived in Seattle for two years just because I wanted to. I got tattoos back in college, I eloped with my husband, I work in a warehouse that processes craft supplies. My husband and I are living on a shoestring and going to grad school, and I come home smelling like perfume every day.

I still stings to have been rejected by the league of mormon housewives. Sorry I can't be precisely like them. God made me such a unique snowflake that when "normal" people look at me all they can see is a bizarre ugliness. This is the first time that mormons have ever come right out and asked me not to be their friend anymore because I don't fit in. Usually they just glare at me and whisper to each other about the color of my lipstick and how inappropriate my hairdo is. Oh, if my father were alive he would have had a heyday. It would have been perfect fodder for his anti-mormon sentiments and his similes with the pharisees. Whited sepulchres and all that.

On the other hand, it's worth noting that when I did ask for help, at least six people popped out of the interwebs, some of them within minutes, to offer comfort. And every last one of them was mormon. So if I'm tempted to ask, 'where are my relief society sisters when I need them? Where is the charity that never faileth?' Now I know. It's right here. Just not where I expected to find it. There are mormon women who aren't threatened by tattoos and a non-lds upbringing.

And for charity that never faileth? I've never known a better example of it than my old friend who put up with me when I was a broken person, before my years of prayer and therapy and careful wiring to fit the pieces back together. If you know how strange and difficult I am now, imagine me without any social skills or life skills at all. She didn't give up.

So I won't either.

Here, I'll Save You Some Money For A Therapist

So the truth is that I've struggled with severe depression for a long time, and every now and then it spins completely out of my control. I manage it, but it flares up. So I was walking around work today trickling tears and wondering how many days (or weeks) it would take me to get out of this blue funk I'm in. Then I was assigned the task pounding buckets of shea butter closed with a sledgehammer, and it was FUN. I kind of freaked my coworkers out a little by how much I enjoyed it. I was in three years of church-sponsored psychotherapy a few years back, but I'm telling you this is the best therapy ever (I still respect your mad therapeutic skillz, Bad Dawg!). By the end of the day I was singing and dancing around. And the best part is, I got paid to do it!

The Dreaded Faucet Nose

Last night I felt as if there might be a sinus infection coming on, so I irrigated my sinuses with a powerful salt solution before bed. I blew my nose repeatedly, and I thought I had gotten all the salt water out.

Nope. This morning as I got down to work, my nose started streaming water while I was talking to one of my coworkers. Right there in front of God and everybody. Embarrassing.

What Do You Do? What Can You Do?

Right now I'm sitting in my living room sobbing and shaking with emotion, and I don't know how to express myself. I have no idea what I did wrong, or why I've just been rejected by the only people I know in this town. I know that I experience tremendous difficulty in making friends, and that I thought I had made friends with the group of people in my book club. For several months these book club meetings have been the light at the end of a very dark tunnel, and it's what pulled me through the months that I was unemployed. I loved the ladies in the group. I felt no indication that they disliked me, or that they didn't want to come to book club because I was there. It's one of those situations where you think everything is going fine, and then you get an email from someone you considered to be a friend, who simply doesn't want to see you any more.

maybe it wouldn't hurt so deeply if I understood what I had done, or why the other ladies didn't like me. The email simply said that I made others in the group feel "uncomfortable," and that since they were older friends than I, I was no longer welcome to join in. The email also suggested that I might wish to start a new book club with "my own friends." There's the problem. I don't know how to make friends, much less keep them. I don't have any other friends here.

Would it hurt me this intensely if this were not the defining aspect of most of the friendships I've had in my life? The majority of my friends, as well as two of my older sisters, have ended things this way. They don't tell me that the problem is, or even that there is a problem. Mostly they just disappear, like one sister who disconnected her phone and moved away with no forwarding address. My other sister told other family members that I only called when I wanted money, which was a misunderstanding. I decided to let her make the next phone call, but she never did. It took me a couple years to even figure out what had happened. I didn't know it was possible to reject people so easily.

What I don't understand is how people let it get to the point where they never want to see me again without ever telling me there's anything wrong. How does this happen? How do you just throw away a person who thinks they're your friend? I don't get it, and I never have. What's worse is that no one ever tells me what I did wrong, so I have no feedback for next time. I keep messing up over and over, with no idea what it is I'm doing wrong.

I'm so upset right now! Those of you who are my friends, may I please have a kind word right now? I really need some encouragement.

I Am The Girl Who Loves Vintage.

I've liked vintage things for a long time. I've always loved maniacal shopping trips to the thrift store where I pick up all sorts of crazy things, like an old clown costume that I wore as pajamas. Or an insane psychedelic dress I wore in a school play. Or vintage housewares, or jewelry, or what have you.

I suppose it's not a coincidence that my love of vintage items has blossomed into a full-blown romance just at the time that Shayne and I moved to Logan and became very poor. Sadly, my new relationship with vintage is nudging away my fading love affair with the color red. I want to redecorate, and this time I want all sorts of colors. Wonderful, bright, riotous, clashing colors. I don't want anything to match! Each item must be unique and completely at odds with everything around it.

And I think it will work. Either that, or someone will turn me in to the tacky house tv show and they make me change it all. But for now...joyous, bouncy, fresh, bright, happy color!

In related news, I have found the perfect fondue pot and a lot of vintage fondue cookbooks, along with a fondue journal that I believe will help me to achieve my fondue goals. My children will either throw all my things away the moment they ship me off to the nursing home, or they will treasure these silly things and marvel at their mother's summer of fondue.

New Job or Let The Good Times Roll

So I know I said this about my last job when I was in training, but I really like working at Majestic Mountain Sage. Today I filled squillions of little glass bottles with essential oil, put the caps on, wiped them down of excess oil, affixed the labels, and arranged the bottles on the shelf. Over and over. It was so nice. no pressure to sell anybody anything, just me and my coworkers and the bottles. And I finally figured out that I can actually take painkillers to help with sore feet and back. It took me long enough.

At the end of the day I came home reeking of a mix of coconut, lavender, citronella and neem oil. The neem oil smelled the worst, like rancid coffee. No kidding. It smelled moldy. But we got it done and one may hope that neem oil doesn't need to be poured all the time.

I now understand why essential oils are so very expensive. It's all incredibly labor intensive. There are people standing there pouring oils into the bottles with little beakers, printing labels on the computer, weighing each bottle to make sure it has the right amount, adjusting amounts with an eye dropper, putting everything on the shelf in a specific order, then another team comes and gets the bottles and packs them up by hand to ship out. This is the "handling" part of "shipping and handling."

Now I want to go out for dinner. I think I will.

Someday I'll Learn

Shayne's parents had very generously given us a card table and two folding chairs so we would have somewhere to sit and eat. I really liked one of the chairs, a green and white striped number with armrests. It was perfect. When I sat in it, my knees were bent at a right angle, ergonomically perfect for crafting. I scootched it right up to the card table to do some scrapbooking.

Last night, at one point, I shifted my weight to the edge of my seat. I don't remember why, but I know there was a reason. Anyway, I was sitting on the edge of the seat, and I suddenly began sinking. I heard a crackling sound as the chair sagged and shuddered floorward.

Naturally, I jumped up and inspected the chair. I discovered some duct tape wrapped around one of the folding joints that had covered a clean break in the plastic. I want to emphasize that the structure was compromised beforehand, and someone had fixed it with duct tape, which had held it together for awhile.

I told Shayne I didn't want to sit in the chair anymore because it didn't seem safe. I parked it in the kitchen.

Well, this morning I wanted to work on my summer log some more,and I decided to sit in the chair. It seemed OK as long as I sat at the back of the seat. I crafted and crafted. I decided the chair might last a long time and still be functional.

Well, then I scooted the chair back to stand up, and that's when it snapped right in half. I mean, the plastic arms of the silly thing snapped in half and the whole back broke off and lay down on the floor.

And now? I don't think we can salvage it. The St. George summers must have weakened the plastic. Drat it, I liked that chair. I need a job so I can go buy a new chair.

Because I Can (And I Like To)

So, having strep throat really sucks. Especially since, as usual, I have an atypical strain of strep and docs always kind of act like they don't know what to do about it. They give me antibiotics that are too weak and make me suffer for awhile as the meds do nothing. Extreme hatred for my sore throat.




So, to distract myself, I went ahead and made a summer log journal from my Red Velvet Art Summer Camp class. Yay! When Shayne came home he asked me why I made it, and I told him it's because I have hope that there will be things happening this summer that will be worth documenting, and I am prepared to do so.

On The Topic Of Literary Censorship For Children

I went ahead and wrote a comment for Tawnya's blog post about whether or not to censor children's literature, but I was too chicken to actually save it in a forum where I knew lots of the other people had kids. People who are parents have a tendency to summarily dismiss my views or plans for motherhood because I haven't yet had the opportunity to have children. (The truth? Despite my vocal declarations that I'm not ready to be a mother, we haven't done a thing to prevent pregnancy. It really just hasn't happened yet.) But Since I was married in November, my mind has been working overtime, forming plans that I hope will at least be guidelines I can follow when I do become a mother.

I grew up in a household where censorship of any kind did not exist. My mom loves murder mysteries, true crime and action/adventure, both in her books and in her movies. Moreover, she spent several years living in Europe, where she learned to be very comfortable with sex and nudity. She never made any attempt to hide anything from me. I remember her taking me to see Rambo III in the theater when I was seven years old. I remember making some comment about whether this movie was really appropriate. I don't remember my exact words, so my mind forms the expressions in words I would use now, but I know I said something. My mom assured me that everything would be OK. We watched the movie, which, at the time, was the most violent movie ever made. I honestly don't feel scarred. In my heart of hearts, I don't feel that Rambo damaged me in any way.

While in Europe, my mother had purchased miniature replicas of Michaelangelo's sculptures, David and Bathsheba. They were both naked. David stood proudly with his hips thrust out, penis fearlessly displayed. Bathsheba was portrayed in a bent stance, drying her leg with a towel. She wore a flirtatious, inviting expression on her face, and her towel concealed nothing of her body. These statues mortified me as a child. I turned them around on the shelf so that only their butts were visible, and whenever my mom noticed what I had done she chided me and turned them back around. She insisted that they were art, and that the blatant sexuality they conveyed was acceptable in this medium. This was her answer, in fact, whenever I felt offended by sexually charged material in movies, TV shows and paintings as well. It's art. It's beautiful.

At age eleven, when asked to write a story for class, I wrote a vivid depiction of rape. I knew by the stunned silence that rang in my ears when I was finished reading my story aloud that I had done the wrong thing. Maybe if we were older it would have gone over better. To me, the story was a commentary about things were wrong in the world. In my mind, it was right that this story should be written. Looking back, I can see how precocious I was, and how this sort of topic might be uncomfortable for others. My mom, however, saw absolutely nothing wrong with it.

There was one time, when I was twelve years old, when my mom and I left a used bookstore in Bremerton and she caught sight of the cover illustration on the book I had purchased. It depicted a woman fully clothed in medieval style clothing, holding a sword that dripped blood. At last, I had found something that offended her.

"Cydni, I don't want your heroes to be killers." She told me firmly.

"She's not a killer. She only fights because she has to."

"And does she kill people?"

"Well. yeah. But only because she has to."

"So in other words, she's a killer."

"Well..."

"I don't want your heroes to be killers, Cydni."

Really, I failed to see the difference between the character in my fantasy novel and the detectives or spies or agents in her action movies who sometimes killed out of necessity. I still don't understand the distinction. I do know that she never made any attempt to take books away from me based on what was inside. Nor did she try to guilt me out of reading them. It was entirely up to me to decide what I did or did not want to see, and usually I chose to stop watching long before she did. I'm remembering a wildly explicit European movie she rented, that I walked out on despite her urging me to stay and watch it with her. I was twelve.

When I reached a point where I wanted to learn about sex, I turned to the literature. I read books of all sorts, from graphic sex scenes to educational reading. My mom never checked up on what I was reading, and even if she had, I doubt she would have seen anything wrong with my choices. After all, I had been the one all along who dictated what I was willing to see and when. Besides, my books were small fry compared to the movies she was renting and bringing home to watch with my dad. I was the one who decided I didn't want to watch the pornos. I had the opportunity.

By this time I was a teenager, and our family was living in areas of Nevada where prostitution was legal, and where the brothels and nudie bars advertised with billboards. I lived in an environment where pursuit of casual sex was encouraged, and it offended me to the core. This was the aspect of Las Vegas life I hated most, and it was instrumental in my decision to go to college in Utah. Even at age seventeen, when I settled on SUU, I was busy narrowing my own experiences based on what I thought was appropriate.

And yet, even knowing myself the way I do, or perhaps because of this, the idea of forbidding my children to read whatever they want to is profoundly disconcerting to me. I would expect them to be upset to learn about things like pain and people hurting each other, but I honestly think I would be doing them a disservice to try to hide the negative aspects of life from them. I've always felt very strongly that I would teach my children that life absolutely SUCKS and that the way we react to life's challenges is what defines who we are. Writing this, I am reminded of one of my mother's favorite expressions: "Life's hard, then you die."

Really, in my heart of hearts, I know that my children will be precisely who they are no matter what I do. I also know that there's really no point trying to shield them from life's heartbreaks, or act as if deep pain were anything other than completely normal. Additionally, I will most likely find some way to mess up their lives no matter how hard I try not to. But I really don't think monitoring their reading will help anything. I think it would only point them in the direction of the things I don't want them to learn, which would make them all the more curious.

But that also creates a new question in my mind: is there anything I really don't want my children to learn about? The more I ponder this question, the more convinced I feel that there are appropriate ways to address any topic this child feels curious about, and that censorship really isn't necessary. I feel much more comfortable with a full-disclosure style of parenting where I simply tell my children all about life and let them choose what they will pay attention to when they are ready.

And that's why, thirty years in the future, there will be another young redhaired woman who will write a blog very similar to this one, about how her mother never shielded her from the reality of life and how, in the end, her mom was absolutely right.

Sandra Lee, The Superhoarder

So whenever I watch an episode of Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee, I marvel anew at her capacity for buying all new junk to decorate her table. She calls the array a "tablescape" and she decorates so much that I can't even imagine there's still room for food. And since her theme is different for every show, she has all new supplies every day -- dishes, napkins, silverware, vases, napkin rings, place card holders, oh my gosh!

If Shayne is in the room with me, I never fail to mention how she buys all new crap every time. His standard response is, "Yep, her husband hates her." And I can see why. I'm imagining that, after several years of doing this, she has filled several rooms of her house (and possibly one or two other houses as well, along with numerous storage lockers) with shelving units that groan and sag under the weight of her decorative bounty. She has separate table settings for every imaginable holiday and occasion, and often several different versions. Aaaaaagh!

Oh, and it's not just her table she decorates. Her set kitchen is decorated with a different theme for every show. So if her theme for the day is a tea party, she'll have lots of pink ceramics, ruffled curtains, rose-patterned placemats, etc. On cinco de mayo there will be bright fiestaware in festive colors.

Ugh. I should just read. That's what I should do.

The Johnie Shellshock of Telemarketers

I'm remembering a really great movie called The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain, that few people had the opportunity to see. In particular, I'm thinking of a character called Johnie Shellshock, who had been sent to fight in WWI and had returned home with a badly damaged psyche. His experiences in the war had affected him so profoundly that he no longer spoke to others. Maybe he had no words to express what he had seen.

In any case, it was easy to see that Johnie had no mental defenses against the horrors he had witnessed. Where other soldiers might have been able to disassociate themselves from what they were experiencing, Johnie internalized it and brought it home with him. The military had wisely discharged him to go home and try to put the pieces of himself back together as best he could.

I propose that there should be a similar allowance for telemarketers who have gone a little crazy and melted down under the pressure. Anybody who has ever been desperate enough to try telemarketing knows that it's a bloodbath, and only the very strongest survive, of whom I don't even try to number myself. Desperate? Yes. Poor? Yes. But not strong.

I tried to go back and do some telemarketing, and I made it a whole day without any outward sign of distress. On my second day, however, I completely lost it. half an hour into my shift I began crying uncontrollably. I made two trips to the bathroom to pull myself together and reenter the fray, but both times I collapsed into tears again as soon as I put my headset back on. At one point, when I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror, my eyes were such a vivid shade of red that for a shocked, confused moment I thought I was crying blood.

And I just couldn't force myself to continue. I somehow put my butt back in my seat over and over at Healthways and tried not to think about the fact that there have been jobs where I literally never cried at work. But I couldn't do that this time. I just couldn't force myself to go back. I stayed at work for an hour, crying nonstop, before I gave up.

I am cognizant of the fact that I have bills, and that I can't simply go without a job. Like, I get that. I don't want Shayne to feel like he has to bear the burden of supporting us, when we both agreed that we would work together. But I understand now that I can't do telemarketing anymore, not even for a little while, not even while I look for something else. Even horses, at the end of their lives, go to the glue factory. Used up telemarketers? I dunno what happens to them. Maybe they can be recycled.

*Read At Your own Risk* -or- The Singular Case Of The Fire Alarm In The Nighttime

Shayne and I didn't sleep well last night. At some point, I became aware of the fire alarm randomly chirping, and it woke me up enough to be aware of it. I resolved to call building maintenance in the morning, put on my earplugs, and tuned it out enough to go back to sleep.

But it kept going. And it wasn't the normal chirp, either. There were occasional chirps, but mostly the fire alarm was making a repetitive beeping sound more like an alarm clock than its normal piercing cry. And I know because I have accidentally set off the smoke detector A LOT wince we moved in.

Well. At one point Shayne got up to use the bathroom and pushed the button to test the alarm. Yep, it still worked. But the faint beeping continued, just loud enough for me to hear through my earplugs. He puzzled over it for a moment before shrugging and disappearing into the bathroom for a little reading time. Wile he was gone, the beeping stopped. When he returned and closed the bedroom door again, we settled back into a fitful sleep which was presently punctuated again by the strange beeping.

When we finally awoke for the morning, or rather gave up trying to continue sleeping, I opened the bedroom door again. After a few minutes, the sound ceased.

"What was causing it?" We pondered the question together.

"Well, it's not the normal ring. It's something else. Could the weird ring mean it's detecting a gas other than smoke?" I hypothesized.

"Like what?"

"Well, didn't they tell us the smoke detectors were also carbon monoxide detectors? Could there be carbon monoxide of some sort in the air?"

"But then it's just in the bedroom. What's in the bedroom that's emitting carbon monoxide?"

"Hmmm."

We considered.

"Well, we both ate chili for dinner last night, right? I ate some and then you went and ate the rest." I asserted.

"So what are you trying to say?"

"I mean, You let a really stinky fart last night. It was bad. It watered my eye. And I bet I was farting too and didn't know it."

"You think my fart set off the fire alarm?"

"No, I wonder if OUR repeated chili farts combined set off the carbon monoxide detector."

"But how can that be?" He wailed.

"I don't know. But it's the only thing I can think of."

And maybe it was.

This Idiot Girl Moment Brought To You By The Letter Cydni

So I thought I would take out the trash. Being the person I am, I was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of stretch pants that I wear to exercise but that I usually would never actually wear outside the house. In addition, I had not showered, nor had I wiped yesterday's mascara out from under my eyes. I put on a pair of dress shoes that were easy to slip on, as I was just going to the dumpster and back.

Yep, I locked myself out. First I went to the R.A.'s apartment but it turned out she had moved away. Then I trekked over to the housing office, where they made a phone call to the MASA office, where I should have gone in the first place, and told me someone would meet me back at my apartment. So I walked back home and found...no one there. I waited a few minutes before heading over to find the MASA office, where I discovered the girl had forgotten. Ok. One of the R.A.s let me in.

So I'm I'm pretty sure the entire town of Logan has now seen me walking heavily in my dress shoes with freshly blistered feet, wearing only stretch pants that I wouldn't even put on to go to wal mart, and an old t-shirt that says, "Carrot Tops Are Green, Einstein." across the front. Oh, joy!

My Book!

Somewhere, packed away in the scary room, is the seed of a book. I must find it, and I must work on it.

...Weep And You Weep Alone

It seems strange that going to book club would be so important to me that I might actually burst into tears at the first sign that I might not be able to go, but that's exactly what happened tonight when I walked out of my front door and stood on the front lawn, pushing the unlock button on my keychain over and over. Of course, Shayne had taken my car, just as he has since we got here. But the last few days, when I was working, he took his own car, which is parked several blocks away and to which I have no key. Today he took mine, and I didn't know until it was time to go.

I guess I didn't realize what a toll living in Logan had taken on me until I found myself crying, trying to hold back the sobs that I knew would only make my face red and solve nothing. Luckily, I had the idea to ask Lacey for a ride. Otherwise I would have just collapsed in a heap, thinking about the few dollars I had been hoarding all month, the book I had read and pondered, the dinner I had looked forward to and the people (other humans!) I desperately wanted to see.

Shayne takes my car as a money-saving strategy, and he wants to become a one-car family, but I find myself becoming more and more opposed to that idea. Sitting at home with nowhere to go for three months is maddening, and I know it will only become more frustrating. Because here I am, back in Utah, in a town that smells like poop, and I don't even have the use of my car. When I was single I could at least go places. Now I can't go anywhere, and I tell myself it's OK because I have nowhere to go anyway, but really it's not OK.

Of course, it's not as if Shayne does this on purpose. He's trying to find ways to save money, and my clinical depression isn't his fault. His family functioned like this, shuttling each other to work and trading the car back and forth amongst themselves, whereas my family has almost always had at least two cars. In my family, nobody was really stuck at home. And maybe they weren't stuck in his family either, because they lived in a town where they were mostly established and they knew other people.

Rationality aside, I want to scream at him and demand my car back. No, you can't take my car away from me! Give it back! My mother gave it to me! I don't want to be trapped here in this little apartment in this shabby little redneck town, waiting for you to come home. I'm not a housewife and I don't want to be. Use your own damn car and give me mine back!

What I actually said: "When I start getting paid, I think you should get your car out of hawk, because I was really upset when I thought I wouldn't be able to go to book club."

And so we see if rational, thoughtfully chosen words can really get the point across.

Reflections Upon Having Finally Joined Twitter

I resisted twitter for a long time, only giving in so I could receive updates from summer camp on my phone. It seems a little unnatural to me, at least the way I understand it. People phone their tweets in at any time of the day, describing the minutiae of their lives to the tiniest detail. Now I'm in the salon. Now I'm watching a movie. Wow, I like it!

I mean, the whole focus of writing a story is to include the most entertaining parts that will keep people reading and exclude the everyday slogging through life. I see no reason to know what my friends are doing at every moment, and I feel quite certain they don't want to know every tiny detail of what I'm doing. (Now I'm watching Judge Judy. Now I'm watching Iron Chef. I should be reading. I don't feel like reading. I just want to sit here like a slug.)

Of course, this is the perception of a person who has never actually belonged to twitter until now. Will it surprise me? Is it really cool enough to earn its popularity. We shall see.

It's Kind Of Like In That Movie "Signs"

The back of our couch is where half-full cups go to die, and it's all my doing.

Things Everybody Else Knew About Painting That I Just Learned Today

1. It's not enough to just wear an apron. You must also change into grubby clothes.

2. Between me and the can of spray paint, the paint is smarter.

3. Spray paint flies in all directions. Well, I knew that, which is why I was prepared with a newspaper sheet to place behind what I was painting and catch blowback. But in all that, I somehow forget that paint's favorite direction to fly is down. I now have drips on my patio.

4. Spray paint has a mind of its own. It's not thick like normal paint. It doesn't cover dark green paint very well, and if you add more paint it just runs in rivulets. Not pretty.

5. Ha ha it's fun!

New Job

OK, so I went in for my first day of training. I'm a jaded soul, and I tend to be very skeptical about my ability to like, let alone do well at, call center jobs. But from what I've seen so far, this one appears to be pretty cool. So I heave a sigh of relief and feel grateful to have a job.

And I can once again support my craft habit (I hope)! So I'm kicking off the summer by enrolling in a class called Red Velvet Summer Camp and I am sooooo excited to get down and jam out some craft projects. Nothing makes me feel more content or more alive than creating something I find beautiful, and this class will provide tutorials for thirty different projects (eeeeee!).

The summer camp doesn't start till June 14, but there is consolation for me: Creative Boot Camp! It isn't about crafts but about whatever artistic medium most speaks to you - in my case, writing. I need a shove. I can never be a writer if I never write anything, right?

So the moral of the story is that I am STOKED about this summer and rarin' to get started.

What's Your Most Embarrassing Moment?

I cringe when I hear this question. I can never remember enough embarrassing things to really amuse those who ask. I do have very embarrassing moments, quite frequently in fact, but I work so hard at just shrugging them off that I end up forgetting. I tell everyone and try to make it as funny as I can, and then it all turns into a big joke that we all laugh at. Then I move on.

I do have a couple of work stories from Healthways that my coworkers reminded me about so often I can't help but remember. Healthways was a call center, and I would make outbound calls and introduce myself. So one day I got a call and I said, "Hello, my name is Cydni, I'm calling to speak with Stephen." Only I didn't say "speak with." No, that would have been, you know, correct. For no good reason, the words that came out of my mouth were these: "Hello, my name is Cydni. I'm calling to sleep with Stephen." Aaagh! I was talking to the man's wife! I was terribly embarrassed and I apologized all over myself. The lady was polite and told me her husband wasn't home. After that call ended, I reminded myself over and over to say my script correctly, but I ended up doing it a couple more times and I decided to change my scripting to different verbage, like saying I'm calling for Stephen.

Another time, after transferring a customer to my supervisor, my sup came back and let me know that the customer had guessed from my voice and demeanor that I'm a redhead. We found this amusing, and I was thinking about it when my next call came in. "Hello, my name is Cydni. I'm a representative from Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield calling for Susan." Only I didn't say representative. I said, "I'm a redhead from Wellmark Bue Cross Blue Shield." Oh, dear. My customer cracked up laughing, as did the coworkers sitting around me.

Indeed. The story of my life is explained most clearly by a Far Side comic where a man stands at the back of an orchestra thinking, "This time I won't screw up, I won't screw up, I won't screw up..." But he's holding only one cymbal in his hands. The caption reads, "Rodger screws up." That's me. I concentrate so hard on not screwing up that I just screw it up worse. Le sigh.

But I'm not the only one who does embarrassing things! I know this because I read Laurie Notaro and I know that I am, in fact, what Laurie terms an "Idiot Girl." I'm OK with this. Or at least, I'm learning to be OK with it.

All right, I really want to hear other people's embarrassing moments. Would you tell me a story?

Aah, What Delicious Lentils!

In his book entitled The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis asserts (And I quote from memory cause I don't care at all about accuracy in my blog) "Nothing ruins good, ordinary food like bad magic food." This is at the part where Edmund doesn't want to eat fish dinner with the beavers because he wants more Turkish Delight from the Queen.

But lately I've been paraphrasing the quote to match my own situation, as our food stores get down to the bottom of the barrel and we find ourselves with nothing but the very plainest, simplest food possible. I find myself watching TV and seeing footage of a juicy hamburger, and just craving it with all my might. I may be iron deficient, come to think of it. But my point is that nothing ruins good, honest food that is the ultimate in health and nutrition like bad, overprocessed, oversalted, superfatted junk food. I see the hamburger and I want to eat it instead of my lentil and barley vegetable soup.

Luckily, I come from a long line of verified vegetarians, so I know how to cook healthy vegetarian food at this time when we can't actually afford meat. I know how to combine the grains and legumes to form a complete protein. I know that what I'm feeding my body is wonderfully healthy. And yet I would prefer to gorge myself on something that tastes better. Right now, there is no possibility of doing so, therefore, I eat wholesome food. Le sigh.

Why do the really yummy things have to be so very bad for you? It's not fair.

Another Chapter From The Life Of The Queen Of Freak Magnets

So, last night I went over to my nineteen-year-old sister-in-laws's dorm room to fetch some papers my husband needed her to print. It was a routine visit, but when I got there the door was open. I didn't quite know the protocol, but I remembered my own dorm days, so i just called out, "Knock Knock!" and walked in.

There was a dark-skinned fellow in there, talking to my little sister-in-law. I decided to assume there was nothing amiss and said hello. He stepped up and introduced himself in a speech so mumbled and unintelligible that I couldn't understand his name at all. This, combined with his feeble handshake, led me to believe the man was mentally disabled. He stood there, saying nothing, staring at me unabashedly with mouth agape in what can only be described as a gawk. His tongue ran across the corner of his mouth several times with an audible slurping sound.

"So, where are you from?" I asked, desperate to relieve the intense awkwardness.

"Bahamas." He replied, licking the corner of his mouth again. He never blinked.

"Oh, the Bahamas!" I gushed. "I would like to go to the Bahamas! What a wonderful place to be from! A beautiful place...in the pictures I've seen."

By this time my sister-in-law was edging toward the doorway where I stood.

"I was just leaving." She murmured, head down, obviously uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the whole situation took on a more sinister cast.

"Oh! All right." I hadn't been aware that she was coming with me, but I understood that she needed rescuing. No prob. Big Sis is here. On our way out, the fellow opened doors for us repeatedly. We thanked him politely, but all the time I was mentally instructing him to back away from my sister-in-law. No likey.

"So, I assume he is mentally disabled." We might not have been quite out of earshot when I made this observation.

"What? No, I don't think so." She replied.

"Really? My mom's a special ed teacher. I really think there's something going on there." I think this is the same concept as people using their father's priesthood for spiritual purposes. But really, I have had a little more contact with my mom's students that the average kid. I had been positive that I'd identified a classic case of mental retardation.

"No. Well. maybe."

She told me she'd had her bedroom door open because she was trying to prepare a carload of her things for me to help her take to Shayne's and my apartment, where she will store her "college" belongings until she returns in the fall. As we talked it turned out that this Bahamian fellow was twenty-four years old, and was going out in Civil Engineering. Civil Engineering. I pondered this and experienced a profound shift in my perception of what had just transpired. Not only was this man NOT RETARDED, he was of above average intelligence.

Ah ha.

"Yeah, I saw the way he was looking at me, but I thought he was retarded." I told her a little about the sort of men I tend to attract -- men from cultures where most of the women are thin and a young, fat woman can be difficult to find, like Kenya, Mexico, Tonga, California... the list goes on. These fellows tend to be "ethnic" like the Bahamian. They are used to dark-skinned women, and my fair skin, red hair and green eyes appear incredibly exotic to them.

I felt a little protective of my sister-in-law, as she was dealing with these guys at the tender age of nineteen, but a moment later I remembered that I had to fend off Gingivitis John at age fifteen, The Crazy Kenyan at age seventeen, and then The Homeless Mexican and The Tattooed Tongan both arrived when I was exactly her age. I understood that this is all just part of growing up, but at the same time I felt compassion for my little sis. It's freaky when The Freaks like you and try to hook up.

Really, I think my sister-in-law is probably better off that I was at her age. She's very assertive. The key to dealing with these guys is to be polite but firm. Don't step on their manhood, but let them know there's no chance. This is a lesson that I learned early on, which is how I earned my title as The Queen of Freak Magnets. If anyone out there would challenge my rule, let's get together and trade Freak stories. I'd be happy to hand over my crown!

For the time being, I'm including The Bleak Bahamian in my list of Freaks, and I will share him with my Sister-in-law as we were both confronted by him.

Mother's Day Madness

Ok, so I am not a mother. I do have a mother, though, and since I am flat broke, I endeavored to construct a suitable gift from just the craft supplies I had on hand. Behold! This creation is a banner to hang on the wall. I embroidered the dolphin mother and baby designs, then colored the background with crayons to give it a sort of a "childhood project" feel. The hope is that she will be persuaded to like this picture simply because I am her daughter and I made it for her. I will start a similar picture for my mother-in-law today. I don't know that my mother-in-law will be as susceptible to my crayons, but maybe she will forgive me. We'll see.

Reading on the patio

Today I had my first really pleasant moment since we got to Logan. I've been really miserable since we moved, but today I took a camp chair out on the patio to read in the sunshine. The sun was gentle, which was refreshing, as I know it will turn into a searing death ray when summer comes. Everything was quiet and peaceful and I had the pleasure of ripping apart an inferior novel, metaphorically speaking, and denouncing it as rubbish. A lovely afternoon.

The Curious Case of The Frying Vegetables

So for dinner tonight I decided to make a fusion style vegetable stir fry. I didn't have any Asian veggies on hand, so I diced some sweet potatoes, onions, turnips and brussels sprouts. Yum! The Asian touch was going to come from the dressing. While the veggies sautéed I mixed up a bit of soy sauce, seasoned rice vinegar, red pepper, ginger and garlic. It smelled odd. Oh well, I thought. I haven't made this in awhile.

Once the veggies were done cooking I drizzled the dressing over and mixed it all up. I took a taste and detected not even the slightest hint of soy sauce. I shook some more soy sauce over the veggies, stirred, and sampled again. Nope. Couldn't taste it.

I tried once more, adding a touch more sauce, with no result. What was wrong? I glanced at the bottle resting glibly on the counter and a terrible thought struck me. Slowly, I turned the bottled around. There, written on the label in the clearest lettering possible: Worcestershire Sauce. Yep. The Tamari stood innocently in the cupboard where I had left it.

Ugh. The veggies were gross! It was meant to be fusion, but the Worcestershire sauce just did not work well with the other flavors. Shayne, ever the gentleman, ate it and called it good. I called it ruined, but I ate as much as I could so as not to waste. Quelle dommage! The tragedy! Another Idiot Girl moment.

In Which We Examine The Cost Effectiveness Of Procreation vs Purchasing a House

So, Shayne and I were watching a show on HGTV about first-time homebuyers, and Shayne commented that the people were crazy to be buying a house right after they were married.

"Well, I don't know." I countered. "In her book entitled Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie Notaro remarks that others in her community expected her and her husband to either have a baby or buy a house in their first year of marriage."

"What, is this some kind of rule I haven't heard of? Why would they need to do that?"

"I don't know. Everybody was just all like, 'when are you having a baby? When are you buying a house?' and Laurie felt like they needed to do one or the other in the first year."

"Weird. I would have a kid. It would be cheaper."

There was a pause in the conversation as his assertion sunk in.

"At least at first it would be cheaper." He amended.

"I'm not sure." I told him.

"It would be cheaper at first. At least in the short term." Shayne insisted.

"Well, I don't know. These people are getting a thirty year mortgage. I am now thirty, but my mom isn't free and clear. Mortgages end, but your kids are still your kids forever. Worlds without end."

"Without end?" He echoed.

"Without end." I confirmed.

And I think it's true. I mean, I have a credit card that my mom gave me to use when I need it. And lately I've put some charges on it. And I'm thirty, my friends. And my mom isn't free. And since families are forever, She Never. Will. Be.

Yeah. I think I would buy a house.

The Continuing Saga Of Cydni's Attempts To Convince Herself She Is Capable Of Motherhood

So, Shayne and I went to visit some friends last night, which was fun. At one point during the evening, the baby came up to me and laid some seriously sticky hands on my jeans. "Um, no. I'd rather you didn't touch me with your yucky sticky hands." I told the baby as I gently removed his digits from my clothing, at which point he began screaming.

"Oh. He's not used to not being loved. That's exactly what's wrong." The child's father asserted. Everybody was looking at me with expressions ranging from shock to exasperation to condemnation. It was as if I had committed a crime.

"I didn't want him to touch me with his sticky hands." I told them lamely. "It's gross."

They shook their heads. Shayne and his friend cleaned the baby's hands with wet wipes.

"There." The child's father deposited the baby in my arms. "Now she will allow you to give her loves." He was speaking to the child. I accepted the baby and he happily sat in my lap for a minute or two before moving on the other adventures.

As the night's festivities wore on, the older child came up and hocked a giant loogie on the couch cushion right next to where Shayne was sitting. (Good job it was Shayne, because I would have freaked out.) The combined mucous and saliva ran along the upholstery and oozed under Shayne's pant leg.

"Oh, move your leg. It's getting on your pants." I told my husband.

"yeah, so?" He didn't care.

"Well, OK, if it doesn't bother you..."

I tried to ignore it. The viscous fluid sank into the fabric slowly, eventually creating a damp spot with a slick pool of thick mucous at the center. I felt glad that my clothes were nowhere near.

Shayne's friend found my disgust highly amusing.

"Oh, if you think that's bad, just wait till they poop on you." He warned me. "Kids do everything. They barf on you, they pee on you, they spit on you..."

"Man, I tell you what. If you love Shayne -- as a friend, I mean -- please do not do this to me, because I am totally freaked out right now." The fellow wisely stopped teasing.

I was thinking about how, just a couple of months ago, I had managed to convince myself that I could be a mother. Even though I wasn't able to have my children back when I was too young and stupid to realize I couldn't handle it, I told myself that my greater maturity (compared to myself at age eighteen) would benefit me and make me a better mom. And I really better get going at it, I thought, now that I'm thirty and stuff. So odd that it only took a few visits with Shayne's friends and relatives to set me straight on that point. How quickly the tide changes!