A Little Bit of This and That

-I can't STAND when lotion gets that little crusty bit that hangs off of the tip of the bottle if you don't use it for a while. I usually fling it on the wall. Between that, and some of you who might remember my hair on the shower wall capers, you all would probably decline to be my houseguest.

-Actually, crusty lotion cruising on the walls and hair in the shower notwithstanding, I'm kinda neat-freakish.

-Recently a wise woman told me, after I'd confessed I get a little jealous when Zee Baby magically transforms from crabby-pants to charming, beaming, arm-waving baby as soon as Zube Boy walks through the door after work, "Daddies get all the glory even though Mommies do most of the hard work. Get used to it." I've been mulling this over for a bit.

-Even though I break free from the restraints of Good Grammar quite regularly, I almost always know what rule I'm breaking and so to my mind, that makes it okay. I get thoroughly annoyed, though, when I'm unsure of a particular rule. But most often I can't be arsed to look it up. I just let it bug me.

If a Tree Falls on Your Neighbors Deck, Will Homeowner's Insurance Cover It?

I mean, if you're the one who put it there?

Sorry I broke my promise to blog every day, but I've been busy. Zube Boy and I have an assload of trees that have been killed by the pine beetle in our yard (assload is a highly technical term meaning approximately 25...or so...in this case anyway) that need to be felled. And burned or chipped before the beetle takes flight again this summer. And seeing as how dead trees are highly flammable and all and we're overdue for a forest fire 'round these parts, it'd be a good idea to rid our yard of them even if we weren't trying to be all, Protect Other Trees from the Pine Beetle.

Admittedly Zube Boy has done most of the hard work, chainsawing, dragging the winch and yadda yadda, but I took on the honorable role of winch operator. I've included a video (in which you will see my tree falling friend Bud Weiser...and you'll also prolly wonder if we're fucking idiots pulling the tree down like that, just know, the winch is anchored on another tree further away so we weren't, in fact, trying to pull the tree in my general direction.

Feel free to fast forward to the end of the video where you'll hear me, "Oh Shit,"ing...That's where it gets exciting.



Also? It all worked out. And Zube Boy was never near as scared as I was. He's more of the calculating type. While I'm more of the arms flailing, "OH SHIT!" type. As you've just seen. I was a little concerned about our neighbor's deck just to the right of the video. And the two healthy trees we were about to topple over. But Zube Boy employed his other handy dandy winch posessing vehicle. And we (ahem, he) fixed the situation. While I had visions of the opening scene of Ghost Ship tumbling around my head as there was a very tense cable about, um, a foot from it.

Needless to say, I'll not be applying for a tree falling position anytime soon. Or anytime at all. Ever.

The Cards You're Dealt

When I was in college, I used to read people's tarot cards. I was pretty damn good at it. The less I knew you, the better the reading. I remember doing a reading for a guy at a party, a mini party obviously because if I was doing keg stands at a big party I wouldn't have had time to do a tarot card reading. He was a bit skeptical and I ended up flooring him. This was a friend of a friend of a friend and I'd never met or heard of him before. I read in the cards, and in my heart, that he was applying for college and trying to decide whether to major in music or engineering. I never gave him an answer but I hope he went with music. Because while the reading told him to follow his heart, it didn't say to follow Zube's words.

I miss reading tarot cards. I miss feeling psychically in tune. But it is tough for me to navigate being psychically in tune and being a little too woo woo. And I was pretty woo woo lo those many years ago. But now I'm just a little too practical. I'm a swinging pendulum. Wondering when I'll start swinging the other way. And hoping gravity will help the pendulum swing less and less either way. Until I'm right in the middle.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle *BOOM*

You know, life is always making me eat my words. Well, and ice cream, too, but that's another matter entirely. I was thinking to myself while driving to the post office that blogging is nothing like riding a bike. Presumably, once you know how to ride a bike, it's pretty easy to hop back on and hit the ground running...er...pedaling. But, with blogging, it's different. The more you write, the better you become at it, and when you take a break you have to start all over.

Anywho, I'm not eating my words over that last sentence up there. That's true. However, while the bike analogy was bouncing 'round my noggin, I was fortunate enough to glance up the street and witness a couple fall off their two person bike.

So, maybe blogging isn't like riding a bike. A single person bike. I'll eat those words. With some ice cream. And chocolate sauce. And caramel...Ahem. But a two person bike? Without the matching clothes, of course, because, believe it or not, there is a limit to my too muchery. That analogy I'll accept.

And I would also like to thank my lucky stars. Without them I would not have had the distinct pleasure of witnessing a couple falling off of a two person bike. If stars ate ice cream, I'd send up buckets full.

I Have the Most Crushingest of Crushes Right Now...

Not so long ago I'd caught the blogging fever again. It was exciting. And feverish. I wasn't quite my old self but I'd made the leap. I decided that a new template might be just the breath of fresh air I needed to assist my jump back into the fray. And I loved my old template. Really loved it. But I wanted a change. Because, just between you and me, I've changed. While no one was looking. Not at me anyways. Kids are a great diversion like that. (See? I did it again!)

Well, I got a new template and instead of spending my days, fingers a-typing with fervor whilst breathing in fresh air and belting out, "The Wind Beneath My Wings," I kinda got the wind sucked out of me. There were issues. Major issues. About a year of my archives were completely fucked up and unreadable. The unreadable year happened to be The Miscarriage Era. Among other typos and misplacements, that was the most gut-punchingest of all. I remember seeing in my statcounter that someone was trying to read through those days and I wanted to conjure up their e-mail address all ESP-style,and send them a message: "I hope, hope, HOPE that you are simply Brad Pitt trying to decode my unreadable blatherings from The Miscarriage Era because your obsession knows no bounds, but if you happen to be a recurrent miscarrier like me and are looking for some HOPE like I did when perusing recurrent miscarriers' blogs who went on to actually have a baby, please e-mail me back and I will cut and paste and e-mail the archives to you. Because I just put my HOPE to bed. After she bit my finger. Hard. And I laughed between tears." But, thankfully, I don't have to conjure up my ESP skillz after all.

Because Amy saved the day. Thank you Amy. You seriously have NO idea how much you have rocked my socks. Seriously. I always knew I could count on another girl with a Mike to pull me out of the doldrums. Us girls with Mikes have gotta stick together because if we do, we're unstoppable. Dealing with Mikes, who wouldn't be?

All that said, welcome to my new home. I hope you like it as much as I do. And I've made a promise to myself tonight to post something every day this week. No matter how stupid. Because that's how this whole thing started. I mean, hell, my May '05 archives are embarrassing. But you don't get to be a gud riter bi not riting! That's how this shit started out. So pardon me whilst I embarrass myself for a bit. Again.

Amy, YOU are the wind beneath my wings...

And I Think You Might Know Me Better, Just a Little, After This...

Umm, why is the first sentence not showing up? WTF?

I decided to give myself a little bloggy project, because stream-of-consciousness writing is failing me abysmally 'round these parts. I am a huge fan of music. Huge. I have always had songs that can instantly package me up in a time machine and transport me to a memory-laden part of my brain. There are others I love because they speak to my core. Shake me up and stir me a bit, maybe coat my rim with a little salt, and inspire me to enjoy, relish who I am, where I am. I wanted to list them here for posterity. My top ten. And just, you know, in case you're in search of something to post about, I'm terribly nosy, er, rather, curious, and I love to hear what music speaks to other people. Just sayin'.

The List.

10. When I was having a rough spell in college, and wanted with every fiber of my being to be a bouncy, happy soul, and writing dark entries in my diary outside of Forcina Hall donned in my combat boots and baby barettes and my Dad's old worn-out WAY TOO BIG jeans wasn't working for me, this song would steal me briefly to a happy place where I was that free spirit I so badly wanted to be.



9. You may remember me mentioning an asshole in my past who sent a hoagie sailing past my head and threw a television in my general direction. We were together for about five, maybe six months. For the last four or five of those months, I listened to this song over and over again, wistfully tearing up. And when I'd finally had enough of him quelching my Zube-ness and kicked his ass out, I'd listen to this song smiling. And blast it to the highest decibal possible on my cheap old cd player when he proceeded to sell drugs on my porch. Asshole.



8. When I was in high school, I adorned my notebooks with little I Love Myself doodles. I didn't really mean it at the time, but I hoped that writing it over and over again, someday I might. Still don't know if I believe it, but this song reminds me of the need to try.



7. In 2003, my Uncle John died of a heart attack. He was only 45 and left behind three young children. It was tragic. I was heartbroken. He had always been kind of my favorite uncle. My Mom said when she went to his house while visiting for his memorial, he had a picture of me on his mantel. I didn't know he had cared about me enough to display my photo. And sadly, he probably didn't know how much I cared about him. The truth of it is, while I was saddened by his death, it made me promise myself that I would never take people for granted. I can't tell you how often I put off a visit to him in Wisconsin. I thought I had all the time in the world. But the fucked up thing about life, and death, is that you just don't know. It's the reason I started blogging. I wanted people to be able to find a little piece of me should I be gone. So they didn't feel like they'd missed out on so much. Like I did with Uncle John.


Uncle John loved the Devils. I love the Devils. In 2003, they won the Stanley Cup just a few weeks after he died. For him. Or so I like to think. After they won, I played this song on the juke box. And everyone at the bar toasted him. The bartender bought the shots.



6. Because I'm always striving to be.

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5. Makes me cry every time. In a good way. I have leaned on so many and can only hope that I've been there for others to lean on half as often.



4. In the past, and sometimes still, I worry I hurt those I love more than not. I hope its not true, but I worry nonetheless.



3. Because I will get by. And I will survive. I have. And for a while there, I didn't even want to. So glad I did.



2. Because lo those many years ago when I was sitting in my dorm room staring at the bottle of sleeping pills I'd been prescribed, I listened to this song. And just took one. And put the bottle back in the medicine cabinet.



PS- Thanks, Dave, for introducing this song to me. Don't know if you still read here.

1. This is my song. Because you just don't know how it feels. And, neither do I know how it feels to be you. And I like to picture us all wandering around trying to make the best of the fact that the only person we know what it feels like to be is ourselves. And hoping that taking this truth into consideration, we do the best we can. It doesn't always work out well that way, but it's a nice pipe dream to have.



If you're so inclined, please let me know if you share yours. I'd love to take a peek.