Category: etc.

Okay. I lied below where I said I wouldn’t write about AI. I just watched it and I just have this one wee comment:

OHSWEETLORD, that Taylor is a SPAZZZ!! I swear he was having seizures at the end of “Try a Little Tenderness.” He just writhes about, hugging himself and then doing that constipated crouch he does. I CANNOT STAND that move. One wonders if he’d even be able to sing if he was made to sit down and do it. I don’t think he could. He has to do the constipated crouch. HE HAS TO. And it makes me feel icky, as if I’m watching some very private moment involving toilet paper and a good book.

And Randy Jackson came up with this clever new nickname for him: “Have-a- good-time Funky Taylor.”

That is just …… awesome.

But I think Cap’n Constipation is going to the finals.

….. I missed AI last night because I had to go to a meeting. But I taped it and will watch it and will not give a review because who wants to hear it a whole day later?

Just in case anyone’s wondering.

But also, about 24:

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO AARON?? THAT IS ALL I CARE ABOUT!

Seriously.

Oh, my gosh. I found this site that lets you make your own doll. You choose everything about her — hair, face, clothes, shoes, everything! Laugh if you will, but I am SO into this — I am 7 years old again!

I remember when I was a kid, there were certain types of playing I did when I was stressed — dolls, for instance. But when I was in that mode, I didn’t make up elaborate scenarios for them or act anything out, like I might usually do. No, I just dressed them or combed their hair. Over and over. It was a little OCD, I guess. (So this is what I did last night to escape the impending doom of real life. Whee! Clearly, I have my priorites straight.) Now, I’m kinda bugged because the background here is supposed to shimmer and move and generally dance about, but it ain’t doing it. Back in olden times, we’d have called this a “gyp.” Whatever, ya gyppers.

So this is my worry doll, I guess.

But check out her cool tennies. Ooooh! Maybe a new look next week!

Oh, and fellas? No need for you to feel gypped. They have boy dolls, too. Haha!

UPDATED: I took out all the Dingo Baby silliness from the top of this post. It was selfish and stupid. The point was meant to be how PROUD I am of these boys and how funny and beautiful I think these writings are. Here they are, without the previous, ah, intro:

Dear Nana,

You are the best grandparent I could ask for. Being in 5th grade, you are at a lot of other kids houses and you tend to meet their grandparents and let me tell you, they are no fun at all. Some just sit on the sofa. Others just talk on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on — it never ends. Others are always grumpy. But not you. You and PopPop always have funny stories to tell, fun games to play and most of all, arent grumpy.

Love,
Joseph

Hahahaha! May I just say I love the whole “being in 5th grade” thing, like, he’s been around, you know? And the “let me tell you” — what is he, 85?? And the “on and ons”? I counted. There were 13 of ’em. They took up two whole lines of the paper, so it just looked hysterical.

Patrick, my older nephew, is the one who reduced me to tears, though. He’s 14, with all that involves. He is too tall and too gawky. His hair is too bushy and his feet are too big. He is mostly too quiet, but sometimes, too nonsensically talkative. He is too shy around his peers, too afraid to go to casual get-togethers. He is too apathetic about everything, unless it’s basketball or video games, about which he’s too obsessed. Everything is too “too” right now. We all worry about him, of course. Think he’s never coming back to normal. Worry about just what the hell is going on inside him. Worry if that boy we all knew is in there anywhere.

He wrote this for my mom:

Million and One

A million green leaves
A thousand bristled pine cones
And hundreds of golden summer days
The green of the plants
never looked greener
The golden sun
never shone brighter
The blue of a puddle-shaped pool
was never quite as nice
The white water falling over rocks
has never sounded so soothing
as this Sunday of memories

Out on the back porch
One can almost hear
The children’s laughter
The splashing of pool water
The creak of that old tree swing
That hasn’t been used in years
The bounce of balls or the spring of the rim

Out on the back porch
One can almost smell
The chlorine-soaked towels
The paint of a million pictures
The peach cobbler cooking
The pines as they sway and shed
Or even the glue of a thousand messes

A woman sits on that back porch
She watches the leaves
The leaves that flicker with golden sun
From under a bush
runs a squirrel
He stops for only a second to push
and the long-lost plastic egg, rolls
But one he has pushed too hard
and weighted with metals inside,
the egg rolls into the blue pool and slowly sinks
and the woman watches the egg
And in the pink plastic she sees
a million and one
of the purest memories

The plastic egg image kills me. I can’t get past it. Every Easter my parents have an egg hunt, hiding them all over their huge yard. As the kids get older, the eggs are plastic, filled with coins, sometimes bills. And dad always loses a couple of them. Always.

And now I know Patrick is in there. He’s in there. And I am crying because he is such a great kid and because I love him and because I think this is beautiful. He’s not dead inside; he’s alive. He’s gonna be okay.

He’s gonna be okay.

Today, a homeless woman passed out on the toilet in The Beanhouse.

Now I suppose I could tell you that she had drunk an entire giant bottle of mouthwash and then swigged the coffee remnants from a cup she found in the patio trash and that is why she passed out.

Or I suppose I could tell you that I clocked her a good one because she told me I looked like Hillary Clinton and that is why she passed out.

Which one would you believe?

I am still working on several of “those” posts. I’m struggling to put them together, for a variety of reasons, one of which is this: Because of one unscrupulous, horrible man, My Beloved and I are facing the real possibility of financial ruin. I won’t go into any more detail. Those details are accurate; they will suffice. We may lose our place, the place we waited so long to buy. We may lose everything.

And I am sitting here, writing this with tears in my eyes because I just glanced at My Beloved and he has fallen asleep on the couch …. a calculator in his hand.

It is too much for me right now.

I’m sorry to be so “naked,” but I would appreciate any prayers.

I love this: Maps you can create of where in the world you’ve traveled.

Here’s my World Map. (Um, it’s way down because I babble on and on here.)

Reminds me of two things: 1) I really want to travel more and 2) I really need to write some posts about my 2004 trip to Thailand. Oh, and I’m cheating there on South Korea. During the trip home, we had a LONGGG layover in Inchon — so long we were hoping to leave and see some sights while we waited. Nope. The price to escape the airport at Inchon was waay too high. Seriously, it was like they made you post bail or something. Forget you, Inchon.

And, right then, I remember the bad mood really kicked in.

Because, basically, I’d been up for 30 hours straight, been trapped in a torrential downpour in Bangkok right before the flight, and was now walking around in clothes that I’m pretty sure were starting to mildew. Oh, and one of our pastor’s bratty kids HIT me. This, of course, did not go unnoticed (ahem) by ME. Here I was, on a missions trip for our Lord, puffed up by my own rampant goodness, and I suddenly wanted to throttle a little kid. Trust me, you would’ve wanted in on that action, too. He was not a little kid; he was a little snot. And I STILL think that. I’m sure God understands. I mean, HE made ‘im. He knows. Oh, I remember before we even left on the trip — during one of our planning meetings where the holy terrors were engaging in blatant, unchecked floor-rolling, a practice I DETEST — My Beloved leaned in to me and whispered, “Those kids have international incident written ALL over them.” Haha!

(Although maybe he hit me because I smelled like a load of rotten laundry. I dunno. Whatever Snot’s reasons were …. he did NOT hit me again.)

Oh! I just remembered something else about that airport — sitting there in that modern, eerily empty space, peeking over the shoulder of a bizarre teenage kid who’d come on the trip with us. I am being kind when I say he was bizarre. He was not so much bizarre as he was BIH-ZARRE. When we wasn’t randomly flicking his pocket knife open-closed-open-closed, he was suddenly practicing aikido, and when he wasn’t suddenly practicing aikido, he was scribbling in his journal, and at this particular moment, he was scribbling in his journal, and I was, frankly, bored. So what was the harm in a little peek? This kid fascinated me because after two weeks of observing his behavior and that vacant, thousand-mile stare he had, I’d decided that one fine day he’s going to go Mosquito Coast on someone’s ass and I’ll be able to say Hey! — and I knew him when he was just a weird random knife flicker. Peeping over his shoulder, I could see his scrawl and I got a gander at THIS: “I dont know what to say. I am so filled with imosions.”

I jumped up, moved away. I was choking with laughter. From all the imosions, you see.

Oh, yeah. South Korea counts.

So — Yes! The map:

(Hmm … it doesn’t all fit. Why doesn’t it fit? Oh, well, this portion covers my world travels thus far anyway!)

create your own visited countries map

And my USA Map:

(Not enough room here either. Um, what’s missing from my USA travels here? Oh, Massachusetts.)

create your own visited states map

Found in Poorla’s notepad tonight:

So … i always write a mental warmup before the show to clear my head:

aaaaadle eeeeedle oooodle iiiiiidle iiiiidol Ready!!

elliotts ears — can he hearZ with those earZ
they are SO funny …. hey is he a smurf??

chris + paula = luv4evR ….. tell your wife to BACKOFF!!

SOMIN! i mean SIMON!! he is such a ….. a …… um ……. what is that word ….. meanieass!

simon needs midol!
midol ryhmes with idol
and Midol – M = Idol wow. Think about THAT.

parises butt makes me hungry. Its a candy apple on a stick butt!

hey — is randy jackson related to MICHAEL jackson!!?? That would really freak me out.

i just remembered that time when michael thought i was webster. SO gross.

Shut up, Ryan! You are such a girl!! Yeah, your wearing suits now, but gimme back my blouses, lame-o!!!

taylor’s dancing reminds me of when i danced with that cat
hey!!!! he was a pretty cool cat but it’s really rude he hasn’t called me.

my Taylor Fat Cat — see the dancing jiggly belly? hee!

omigob ….. WHAT is happening?? CHRIS! The stage is on fire!!!!!

someone call my farmacist!!!

OHHHHHHHH, NOO!!!!!!!

oh

randy just told me thats the video projection. but maybe he’s just messin’ wich me. “straight up now, tell me,” dawg!! LOL!!! Man, I am in da dawg pound tonite!!

heeey, katherine — are you scrubbing the floor or something?? well, girl, you missed a spot!! ROFL!! Why am I always SO funny when no one hears it??

i really should have my own show.

hey, i was serious about the farmacist thing. and that is a totally weird word, like a farmer with a cist!! which is gross if you think about it. i hate farmers.

taylor just said lover. Did he mean love her? like he loves me?? ohgawd, not again. why does this always happen to me? They all fall in love with me and what am I sposed to do? …. those vitamins from my farmacist must make me totally irresistable or something!

Well, I guess I’m just 4eveR your girl!!

Damm!! U crack me UP, Paula!!!

I have several drafts I’m working on about our infertility struggles — or what I sometimes refer to as What to Expect when You’re Expecting to be Expecting. (Don’t steal my book title, haha!)

I’m just dashing this off before I head to The Beanhouse to say that when I write of these things, I’m writing of how I felt in the past. Sure, it’s the fairly recent past, but I don’t feel quite that same way now. No one can live in that intensity of grief for too long and LIVE. You can’t. You move on, out of sheer exhaustion, if nothing else. At some point, there becomes no choice. You must. Living any kind of life DEMANDS it.

So maybe it’s like the difference between a sound — a loud sound — like a gong — and the echo of that sound. I’m living in the echo. It’s not so fresh. It’s not the same constant clamor. It’s no longer those waves that seemed to drag through my entire body. No. Now, it’s the echo. I still can hear it. I still can feel it. But it’s more quiet, less intense; more manageable, less insistent.

But accessing those feelings isn’t hard at all. For the rest of my life, it will probably never be hard, even if it’s not fresh.

So again, PLEASE don’t feel you must say you’re sorry. I know you are.

I really, really do.