Dear Mr. President April 21, 2006

Update (4/24): I had to take out the embedded player to see if it was truly what was messing up the font on my entire site. Here is a direct link to YouTube, where you can watch it yourself, get the link, grab the code for the embedded player so you can put it on your own site if you wish, whatever. YouTube – Pink – Dear Mr President – Live

Damnit. Apparently, if it was what messed up my font, it did it permanently. I’m going to have to mess with code now, and things could get ugly.

Well, looky here. I’m a magician! It’s all better now!

Also, this post has certainly raised some hackles, whatever that means. It sounds right, though, no? Anyway, join the discussion if you wish, and I will continue it. However, all this Bush-bashing vs. Bush-”respecting” back-and-forth gets old quick. Somebody say something new.

UPDATE:

I’ve had a few cocktails. Take all that follows with the grain of salt. You know, if you are a regular reader, that might be necessary from time to time.

That said…

I’m going to go smoke a cigarette outside and try to piece out what I want to say in response to some of the comments I have received as a result of merely posting a video of the performance of this song. I’ll be back in a flash.

I’m angry. You want to claim that this woman’s lyrics are bullshit? Our president, George W. Bush, Mr. President, if you please, is destroying our country. He is destroying what you know and love.

Blogofshit? Hello? Yes, I’m listening to the lyrics of this song in a serious way. You have a daughter now, dear. Her rights are as good as gone. And while you, as a father, might wish that she will never have to be in the position to have to take advantage of or wish she had those rights, the fact of the matter is that it should be available to her to decide. Don’t you fucking dare ever look me in the eye and tell me that a woman should choose one thing over the other. A woman should have the right to make the CHOICE. You force a woman into having to do one thing over the other, because choosing the “wrong” thing, the “illegal” thing, might kill her? You have no idea what being forced into a decision will do to her. It is a death sentence. Let me choose, goddamnit. At least the weight of the decision will be on me, not on the laws of my country or the edicts of my religion. Make me live a life in which every day I must wonder if I was ALLOWED to choose the other thing? Shoot me now. I can hardly make it through a day as it is. I can hardly look myself in the mirror as it is.

I have a son. He is the light of my life. And I fear every day, along with every other ridiculous and petty thing I fear in a day, that he will be forced to serve in a war that began when he was in kindergarten. Are you seriously so, fuck. Are you all so seriously blinded and brainwashed to believe my son will not have to give up college to serve in a war that began when all he wanted in the world was a fucking fruit snack, a juice box, a playground, and an hug from his mother?

This “President,” has failed us. He fails us every day that he wakes up. He is incapable of speaking clearly. The President of our country, the goddamn, motherfucking UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a moron. You sit in your pretty houses, or your dorm rooms, or your whatever, and you have the idiocy to say, to think, something as stupid as “He got to be President, he can’t be that bad.”

Wake the fuck up. This is not about a song that some woman who calls herself Pink and dyes her hair that color has written. Thi is about the future of this country.

Here are the lyrics that you, Blogofshit and Somebody’s Son, are calling bullshit on:

“Dear Mr. President”
(feat. Indigo Girls)

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let’s pretend we’re just two people and
You’re not better than me
I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pay the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don’t know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You’d never take a walk with me
Would you

There is a serious problem, among many, in this country, and it is why we have come to the point we have. We are not alone on this planet. But we, for some bizarre reason, believe that we are the best, the brightest, and the most righteous. We are wrong about that.

We’re backwards and retarded. And we are selfish and ethnocentric and stupid. I have, sometimes, these silly little fantasies. And while you might think my little fantasies might be sexual, they’re not. I have a silly little fantasy that brings me face to face with George W. Bush.

And much of what this woman says in her song are things I would say if I were brought face to face with him. I cannot understand, Somebody’s Son, how anyone can, with all seriousness, be so stupid as to think that just because this man was “elected” President, he should be automatically given my respect and admiration. You want to sit back and think: Well, he was elected President, he’s got a hard job, and we should all cut him some slack and let him do what he obviously knows better than us what needs to be done.

Bullshit.

Somebody’s Son? I appreciate your sarcasm. But this fuckwad is not kept awake at night by anything. If he were, something would have changed in the last six years. Yeah, sure, he’s doing the best he can. If he is? That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard in my life. This? What our country and our world is headed for? THIS? Is the best he can do? And he is the leader of the supposed most powerful nation on the planet?

That’s fucking pathetic.

Our world, and what I mean by that is the tiny little construct we’ve built around ourselves, is going to disappear. It is being taken away from us bit by bit, actually, fucking hell, chunk by chunk. And we are letting it happen. And there are those of us who think it’s A-fucking OK.

Maybe it will be okay with you if our right to free speech is taken away, because you’re talking the party line anyway, and they’ll let you talk.

Maybe it will be okay with you if your daughters do not have the right to make decisions about their own health care, because ou don’t want them having abortions anyway.

But do you understand, truly, what it means when a government takes away the right of any citizen, male or female, to make specific decisions about their own bodies? Do you? I don’t think you do. This does not just have to do with whether or not you believe that abortions are morally wrong or right.

I’m very angry about where my country is going. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I expected. This is not what I was told I would be in for. If I got on a plane and traveled abroad tomorrow, I would be embarrassed to admit I was from the United States. I would be ashamed.

I have chosen the life that I live. What I do, what and who I love? I have chosen it. I may not be happy with those decisions every day, but I’ve learned to live with them. And the most important thing to me is that I was able to make those decisions. But these things that I have chosen? These options that I have had? They will not be available to my children, if this country continues on this path.

Damnit, people. Wake the fuck up.

Let’s just, for a moment, look at the whole “No Child Left Behind” debacle. It’s bullshit. There are children in the Chicago Public School system who are chosen, yes CHOSEN to fail, because if the grades are too good, the schools won’t get enough money from the school system, the city, the state. Yet, those same children must be brought enough up to speed to perform well enough on standardized tests so that the school will not fail the standards put forth by the No Child Left Behind Bullshit Stupid-Ass act. But every child in these classrooms is destined to fail. Some of them, many of them, are bright and promising. But they do not have a chance in hell.

Fucking hell. You want to take exception to the lyrics of this song? Be my guest. But I have a lot more fight in me on this subject. I’m not done.

The Fake Flower Phenomenon April 14, 2006

If I could walk down the block and take a picture of this without calling all kinds of attention to myself, I would. I’m considering having my daughter do it, so that anyone who sees her will just think she’s cute and that she’s taking pictures of the pretty flowers.

The phenomenon? People who, yearning for the first blooms of spring and unable to wait even one hot damn minute later nor able to plant some fucking pansies for christ’s sake, available at any fargone hardware store or freakin’ grocery store, stick FAKE BLOOMS IN THE FUCKING DIRT AROUND THEIR HOMES!!!!!

I’m sure this phenomenon is not unique to the woman who lives down the street from me. I’ve actually seen it done before, most commonly with fake pointsettias in window boxes and crap like that. But in the name of all that is green, what would possess you to do such a thing? It’s not like fake flowers are all that cheap. The ones in her yard appear to be silk! Or at least a reasonable facsmile therof. What goes through a person’s mind that causes them to think this shit up?

One proposed scenario?

“Oh, this Chicago winter is so bleak, so cold, so grey and gloomy. I cannot bear it but a moment longer. I yearn for the fresh blooms of spring. I cannot wait for my tulips to begin to pop from the ground. OH WAIT. I FORGOT TO PLANT MY BULBS LAST YEAR! Moan and groan, what do I do?”

She sits, staring out the window, chin rested on hand, raising the other to wipe a fat tear from her eye. Then suddenly, she zips upright, points one finger in the air and cries:

“I know! I’ll stick all those crappy fake flowers from that box in the attic in the ground! That’ll do it!”

The thing is, it didn’t really go like this. Oh no. She shops for these things. This is not an afterthought, a way of reusing a resource already at hand. This is fully intentional, and she’s been doing it for years. Oh, hell. I’ve got to get a picture of this to further illustrate what I’m trying to talk about here.

In the meantime, if anyone reading knows the origin of this ridiculous practice, please leave me a comment. I need to understand.

Okay, and also? Remember my recent post where I went through my search strings and talked about all the weird things that have landed people here? Well, because of it, I am getting an unbelievable, I mean truly unbelievable number of hits from people all over the world looking for one particular phrase. What do you all think it could be? (Hint: it was mentioned in the first post, and someone also commented about it. That’s a big freaking hint.)

I’m only 20% Abnormal! April 8, 2006

You Are 20% Abnormal

You are at medium risk for being a psychopath. It is somewhat likely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom’s basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. April 8, 2006

But why, Viki? Why must we be afraid? Whatever could be wrong? Whatever could be upsetting you so?

Well, I’ll tell you. I was sitting at Starbuck’s up until just a few minutes ago. When I walked in, I had expected to find the store mostly empty, as there was only one other car in the parking lot, and its owner was sitting in it, smoking and talking on the phone. But no, the store was not empty. It was packed from wall to wall with giggling, squealing, middle school girls.

Now, normally that wouldn’t be so frightening, would it? I’m a grown woman. I can hold my own in a crowd of young people, no problem. I just push them aside and give them a look that says, “Don’t fuck with me, you little twit. Now stand aside so I can get my latte.” And they wither under my gaze. What frightened me was not that there was so many of them. It was that nearly every one of them was wearing the SAME GODDAMN JACKET.

You may think that I am exaggerating, but I’m not. I’m dead serious. Out of the fifteen, perhaps seventeen young girls milling around in Starbuck’s sipping their Frappacino’s, 98% of them was wearing THIS JACKET:

What’s wrong with that jacket? you might be asking yourself. What the hell kind of crazy, wingnut crap is going through Viki’s mind that she has to get so upset about a silly jacket?

It’s that they were ALL wearing one. Except for two or three who probably just left theirs at home. Most were wearing the pink version, or the “sweet berry” version shown in the photo above. A couple wore black, and only two or three had branched out into colors like red or grey, or even a khaki green version I had never seen. (I guess she must be the innovator). My daughter has been asking for this jacket, not seriously, bur frequently, for months, but I’ve refused because who the hell needs to spend $80 on a kids jacket when there’s a perfectly good one on the hook from last year (yes, I’m cheap that way sometimes). Plus, I do not want her to look like every girl in town.

So while I’m sitting there, in Starbuck’s, thinking about how sad it is that every one of these girls is wearing the same jacket, they begin to file out, and peace is restored to my Starbuck’s. I drink my latte and do some homework, and I’m sitting near the window, see? And what happens, do you think? It’s a nice, pleasant day, about 50 degrees (the sort of temperature perfect for a North Face fleece jacket), so the middle school girls are out in full force. And what walks by? Another group of girls, four or five of them, all wearing that jacket. They enter the store and go up to order drinks. As they’re ordering, another group comes in, three girls, yes, wearing the jacket. They all mill around for a bit, waiting for their drinks, then they leave, and as they exit, I shit you not, people, four more kids come in, WEARING THE SAME COAT. This group is clearly identifying themselves as the outcasts, because their jackets are the dark heather grey and black. But they are STILL wearing the same coat. Then in through the back door comes four more girls, these one’s are clearly high-school age, and yes, all four of them are wearing the jacket. Three in the pink, one in the above sweet berry. As they leave, a family comes in. The daughter AND the son are wearing the jacket.

So I sit there, in shock, realizing that every goddamn child in the entire town except for mine owns the SAME GODDAMN COAT. And I begin to think, hmm. Did I miss that memo? Was there a discount offered through the school? Was there some kind of mandate put out by the village that requires all of the children to wear the same coat?

What the hell is going on here? I’m thinking that the fact that the jacket is probably a relatively good value (at $79 dollars, keep in mind), being warm and all, and lightweight, and a jacket that the kid wants, so you’re willing to buy it because you know they’ll wear it, combined with the fact that probably some cool kids decided that was the jacket to have and then the rest of them followed suit, demanding their parents buy it for them. I don’t think that sentence made sense, but I’m too rattled to try to fix it. Proper grammar doesn’t mean anything right now, in a moment of crisis.

Do these children have separate identities at all? Most of the girls were wearing either jeans or those gaucho pants. Most were wearing Birkenstock clogs. Granted, these are the things their mothers are buying for them, but they’re all the same! They might as well be wearing uniforms. And what does that mean, really, in the larger scope of things? Are these children afraid to stand out? Afraid to be different than every other child in their school? Is this just something that happens with that age (although, keep in mind I witnessed high school girls wearing the same jacket as well)? I seem to remember, when I was in junior high, which, you know, was just last year;), that everyone wore jeans and Izods or Polo shirts. I owned a Preppy Handbook, I’m not ashamed to admit, and I did indeed own several turtlenecks printed with little ducks or turtles or whatnot, with coordinating Polo crewneck sweaters, in wool during the winter and cotton in the fall and spring. Looking back, we did indeed dress all alike. It was easier, I guess, than dealing with the shit-storm that descended on you when you didn’t.

Middle school is a perilous place. Kids are just beginning to form their identities, and they’re afraid to be too different lest they be noticed and made fun of. Middle school kids can be mean, because they’re just figuring out how to do that, how to ruin each other and bring each other down.

Why, oh why does it have to be that way?

My reasons why it shouldn’t, at this point, are completely selfish. For one thing, my own daughter will be starting middle school next fall. She will not have a North Face fleece. Unless I have some kind of mental breakdown or something. She will have a warm and cozy jacket, of course. But not a North Face fleece. Other than that, I’m simply terrified. I ran from Starbuck’s, barely taking the time to zip shut my laptop bag, dodging North Face fleece jackets and ponytails left and right, shoving a few out of my way to get to the door. I nearly ran a couple over when trying to exit the parking lot, and as I drove though town (not a lengthy task-town is two blocks long), they were everywhere. Coming in and out of stores. Milling around the train station. I nearly headed for home, thinking I should batten the hatches and stock up on ammo and bottled water! But I steeled my resolve and came here, to the library, where there are not only no middle schoolers, but no one wearing North Face fleece jackets.

This was an awfully long post, and I may have to come back and edit it a bit.

Yeah! It’s Friday Night! April 7, 2006

And I hope you’ve got something better to do than surf blogs.

Once in a while, I take a look at my stats and see what kinds of things people are searching for that leads them to my site. It is always an enlightening experience for me, and I love to enlighten the minds of my readers, so I’m going to, once again, share some of this information with you.

I find it very amusing that lots of people search for either beach ass, ass beach, or florida ass, and find their way here. I think it is because I posted a picture that I took while sitting on the beach, of the ocean, and it included my legs, which look fat and disgusting in the picture, but who the fuck cares.

One of the most searched for items was backstabbing sluts. WTF? It boggles my mind what people Google! What kind of information are they looking for? Do they want to meet a couple of backstabbing sluts? Did they just get stabbed in the back by a couple of backstabbing sluts and they’re all pissed off and checking their e-mail and they just can’t get those goddamn backstabbing sluts off their mind, so they pop onto Google and type in the phrase backstabbing sluts, just to see what will come up? Just to see, perhaps, if there are any other people out there in the internet world who have also been backstabbed by sluts? So that they can find some peace? Find someone they can identify with? Weird. I don’t know what to tell you, oh searcher for backstabbing sluts. They’re out there. Avoid them if you can.

I also got hits off of vikki blows and viki sneezed. What the hell are people trying to find with these phrases?

Another search phrase that landed people here was unhealthy friendship. I wrote about an unhealthy friendship that I ended over a year ago. It’s still over. Thank God! I’m thinking that unhealthy friendship and backstabbing sluts are totally related and I am pretty sure that now that I’ve put those two phrases right next to each other, I am soon going to get a hit off of the phrase unhealthy friendship with backstabbing slut.

Anonymous online confessions. You tell me.

26th and California jail picture was another one. First of all, I’d like to inform whoever was looking for a picture of the jail at 26th and California, it’s called GOOGLE IMAGES. Okay? And what do you need to know? What your future home is going to look like? Let me tell you, if you weren’t able to find a picture. It ain’t pretty. Best start running now.

One of my favorites is the phrase www.fucking sister in law. What the hell do you think is going on here? You think some guy is fantasizing about fucking his sister-in-law and wants to find a website that will tell him how to go about it? You think some guy IS fucking his sister-in-law and wants to find some other guys who are doing the same thing? He obviously (or she, I mean, I guess it’s possible some woman wants to fuck HER sister-in-law) is thinking there’s some website out there that talks about fucking your sister-in-law.

OR, he hates his sister-in-law, and this is of the “I hate my fucking sister-in-law” camp. Either way, I find it hilarious that someone was searching for this, and that they were led here. Don’t you? Because I’ll tell you right now, I love all my sisters-in-law, and I would never have the phrase fucking sister in law in my blog. Unless I was talking about someone else’s sister-in-law. Which, of course, is entirely possible.

Another person was searching for meaning with the phrase kidneys ache beer. I’ve spoken before about my kidneys aching, but it’s from vodka, not beer. Or vodka AND beer. Whatever. What I’m thinking is that there are a lot of people out there that don’t know anything about the internet except for GOOGLE. So they sit in front of their computers (I’m thinking they have a couple cocktails or three in them at this point, and another one on a coaster next to their mouse pad), and they type in www.google.com, because, they think, “Hey, everybody’s doing it!” And they look at that empty search box with that blinking cursor, and they type in the first goddamn thing that comes into their heads. In this person’s case, they’d had MANY MANY beers. And their kidneys ached. And they were sitting there, at their desk, draining yet another beer, and they were thinking, “Man, my kidneys hurt. I wonder if it’s from all this beer?” So they type in kidneys ache beer into the search box, thinking that will give them some kind of answer. That’s what I’m thinking.

What do you think about the search phrase exhibitionism and cleaning lady? What I’m thinking is that I need another cocktail before I analyze that one. Exhibitionism and cleaning lady. Exhibitionism and cleaning lady. What comes to mind, people?

I’ll tell you what comes to mind. What comes to mind is some sick fuck who lost his job, and his wife still works, but everything’s okay because she made more money than he did anyway, and he sits around all day, drinking, because what the hell else is there to do all day when you’re not working? I mean, you’ve got a CLEANING LADY, for chrissakes! So he pounds a few beers or ten and gets it in his head that it might be nice to give his cleaning lady a tip, you know? Because she does such a good job? And what better tip than to show her what he’s got in his pants? Only, he’s not going to do this in an obvious way. He’s not going to be sitting at the computer, naked, surfing porn, when she walks in (although he’s clearly doing this at other times). He’s going to wait until she pulls up in her thirteen-year-old Toyota Corolla with 237,495 miles on it that she bought for $500 at the used car lot downtown right after she arrived here from Poland (I’m allowed to be un-PC about Polish people, as I am not only 1/4 Polish by birth, but I’m also, as they say, Polish-injected. We’ll see what kind of people find their way here off of THAT search string, no?). So anyway, the Polish cleaning lady with the nice rack, who brings her own vacuum, and only charges $60 for the whole damn house, pulls up, and this guy, who has been standing by the front window, half-hidden by the drapes, drinking a beer, and probably fondling himself, rushes up the stairs, into the bathroom, the door of which he leaves slightly open, as if he wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the house (who shuts the bathroom door when they shower while in the house alone? You have to be able to hear the phone, or the doorbell, or if some crazy, crack-addled nutjob is coming in to rob you, right?). Okay, sorry, lost my train of thought. I’m embarrassed. I’m usually able to sustain an unbelievably long sentence for miles before having to stop myself with a well-placed period. ANYWAY, the cleaning lady comes in, hears the shower, realizes that Mr. Lazy-Ass, Lost-His-Job, Living-Off-Better-Educated-Wife’s-Hard-Work fuckhole is home, yet cannot force herself to start downstairs. Because if you’ve ever been a professional cleaning lady, you know that it’s best to start upstairs, and just sweep and wipe all the dust and dirt down, until you’re done, and then wash yourself out the door as you wash the downstairs floor, no? Correct me if I’m wrong.) So, she heads up the stairs with her bucket of supplies and her vacuum, and who times it perfectly but Mr. Lazy-Ass? He saunters out of the bathroom, all wet, loosely holding a towel around his dampened body (because he only had time to jump into the shower for a quick second before he heard her heading up the stairs, so his hair is still pretty much dry, completely giving away his little plan), beer in the other hand, because who doesn’t bring their beer into the bathroom when they’re showering midday? He sees her, and in his “shock,” drops the towel! Thus, we have “exhibitionism and cleaning lady.” Well played, Mr. Lazy-Ass. And unless she likes what she sees, you are probably going to be hearing it from your wife when your cleaning lady quits on you. And you’re probably going to have to start cleaning the house yourself until she’s able to find some other young Polish girl with a nice rack.

Wow. I think I need to take a deep breath after that one.

Next up, we have How to deal with someone who babbles. I don’t know whether to be insulted or proud. You know what? I’ll tell you how to deal with someone who babbles. Show her how to blog, okay? And everything will be okay.

The only one I’m worried about, and this will be the last one, because this is, I’m fairly certain, one hell of a long blog post that nobody surfing through via BlogMad is going to be able to read during their 25 seconds, and we all know no one is sticking around beyond that, right? If you do, leave me a comment. I’ll give you a prize. And I’ll know if you’re telling the truth, because you will have to have read all the way down to this part of the post! Anyway, the only one I’m worried about is writing teachers in the northern suburbs of chicago. Why am I worried about that? Because I’m trying to BE a writing teacher in ANY suburb of Chicago, or in Chicago itself. And I’m thinking that anyone looking to hire a writing teacher, say some lovely, wealthy, older gentleman who wants to write his life story but doesn’t think he knows how to write, who looks for a writing teacher by GOOGLING for one, might come across this blog and think, I would NEVER hire this woman to teach me how to write! She’s some kind of crazy, drunken lunatic! Let me assure you, dear lovely, wealthy older gentleman who wants to pay me $100,000 a year to teach him how to write his memoirs, that ALL of the writing on this blog is PURE FICTION. I am just taking on a persona, if you will. I am actually a completely sober, totally organized, fantastic writing teacher. So hire me. Okay?

You must read this April 5, 2006

No, not this entry on my own blog.

The entries on Bent Collective, written by Steve and Al, about their experiences on September 11th, 2001. While I am sitting here with the chills, and feeling as if I want to vomit (not out of being disgusted, but out of an odd sense of fear mixed with the memories of that day mixed with the realization that I have put the thoughts of that day out of my head for nearly five years now), and although I normally wouldn’t recommend that you go ahead and read something that is going to make you feel that way, I have to do it now.

Steve and Al are both excellent writers, excellent chroniclers of their experiences in life.

Hell, just go over there and read. And don’t just read those entries, read everything on the entire blog. I’ve learned a lot from Steve and Al about a great many things that go on in this world that I might otherwise, really HAVE otherwise turned an ignorant, blind eye to.

So sad… April 3, 2006

So, I’m spending the morning unpacking from Florida and doing laundry. I was sorting it all out-you know, whites, colors, darks, etc.-and I came across the comfy, flow-y shirt I like to wear over my suit when I’ve completely scorched my chest and upper arms to oblivion yet can’t force myself to stay out of the sun, or when it’s chilly on the beach. I lifted it out of the laundry basket to put it into the whites pile and this aroma of Florida wafted up to my nose.

So what did I do?

I stood there, in the basement, next to the washer and dryer, with that shirt pressed up to my nose. For, like, fifteen minutes. After I finally was able to put it down, I had to grab it and press it up again, inhaling deeply that salty scent of ocean, sweat, Australian Gold spf 8 deep tanning spray, and stale beer (I frequently spill on myself when drinking while lying by the pool-it’s hard to drink while lying down!). I refuse to wash it. I’m going to keep it under my pillow and breathe in that smell every night before I go to bed.

I know. I’m scary.

I have returned April 3, 2006

And my tan is fading fast. It’s raining and 50 degrees outside. I am wondering why in the hell I left Florida. Okay, sure, there’s the whole school and life thing, but honestly. Hello? Mother Nature? It’s April. It’s supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny and warm, and lovely, and sweet-smelling. I should be wearing capri pants and flip flops and t-shirts, with a nice sweater for the cooler evenings. I should not be putting on my WINTER COAT to go outside on the back porch for a cigarette. What the hell is going on here?

I have nothing of any real interest to write about, unfortunately. My vacation was lovely and uneventful. There were no dump trucks full of dead cows on the road with us. However, there was a ridiculous amount of road kill, and in the fog I get in when driving for two days, I came up with a fantastic idea for a book. Of course, it would require me to go on lots of road trips, and to pull over on the shoulder and take a lot of pictures of roadkill. But it could be fun!