Voices

I'm listening to music tonight. 1980's music. Voices of singers/bands/artists who used to sing about things that made sense to me. Or maybe it didn't make sense to me. But they could put voice to my questions... Some of those same singers/bands/artists are still out there performing, but their voices can't reach me like they used to. Our paths diverged somehow. It is hard now to find a voice that speaks about my questions. I still am not good at doing it myself, so I always liked having some help. That help is harder to find now. I miss that.

Trees

Trees... nice, green trees... such a wonderful thought... I used to climb trees - my first boyfriend would sometimes find me waiting for him in the tree out front... I wrote poems about trees in Senior English... Mrs. Apple (really her name, not a tree) liked those poems... Trees provide shade and beauty...

But trees can get complicated... take buying a house, for instance:

You want trees strategically planted for privacy in your backyard. However, you don't want trees that get near your roof and tear up your shingles. And if you plant a tree to close to the fence that grows out instead of up, your neighbors might not be happy. You might have a favorite type of tree, but if it prefers acidic soil and your yard has alkaline soil, that won't work. And then someone in the family says, "we need a tree that stays green all year". What tree is that? What if you don't like that tree? And it is possible that you can't plant any more trees anyway because you might mess up the sprinkler system, but who has the diagram for where the lines are? And if the tree that you like has a pollen that someone in the family is really allergic to? What then?

Trees can get really complicated.

Heck Week 2009

This is officially Heck Week. If you follow Dilbert, you know that Heck can be worse than Hell. From my sister having dangerous allergic reactions (we don't what the allergy is) to my chihuahua throwing up on my favorite quilt - it is just Heck Week.

And yet in the midst of all the chaos, I have received some of the nicest, most sincere compliments. I won't share them because it seems like it would be bragging, but still... getting warm fuzzies in the middle of Heck Week is just a surprising blessing.

Very random thoughts after a long day...

Did I ever mention that my husband wants us to live in a bunker? That is his dream house. Underground. Cement walls at least 2 feet thick. Hidden entrance. I asked him how I was supposed to decorate that. He asked why we would even need to decorate - cots, folding chairs, card tables, tin plates and cups... what more do we need?



Now I should also mention that he is not involved in any conspiracy theories about people coming to get us or the end of the world. After 21 years in the Army, he is just most comfortable with very basic surroundings and sparse amounts of "stuff". I don't think he knows what to do with all the furniture, decorations, and collectibles we have in the house. At least he wipes his feet before he comes in the door...



I guess if he really wants to live in a bunker, I should consider that. I don't know exactly where we would find one around here. I don't think the Homeowners Association would be really happy with that. Unless we just found a neighborhood full of bunkers.



***



I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever achieve my dream of moving to London to become a Garden Gnome Polisher. That is what I really want to do. I bet there is minimal paperwork involved. And all of the different types of gnomes... just imagine!!! I bet I wouldn't get bored.



London and gnomes have not come up in our recent search for a house to buy. I'm much more likely to find cement armadillos and longhorns where we live, but keeping them clean is just a piss-poor substitution for polishing gnomes. I'm very partial to fat, jolly gnomes. The skinny ones sometimes look evil. I don't want to be involved with evil gnomes.



Now of course, I liked the Underpants Gnomes from South Park. Granted, they were stealing underpants and I don't approve of theft, but they were still pretty funny.

I forgot all about you, Little Blog...

Wow. That first post was so long ago. Things hit the fan so badly after that. I'm not sure if I even remembered that I had a blog. Not that I am very familiar with the workings of cars, but all of the sudden I remember a friend telling me about a car engine blowing up on a speedway, and he shouted, "and there were rods flying everywhere". For anyone who knows engines, you know that was a mess. That is what the days, weeks, and even months after my first post were like. Damage and destruction.





I don't know how - Divine Intervention most likely - but I reached out for help. And I ended up in a really safe place with a really safe boss and really safe co-workers. I still see the old boss and co-workers almost every day, and it is a reminder of what insanity I was in the middle of. (You know I could really use some in-depth study on how not to end a sentence in a preposition. But the "correct" way always sounds so formal.) I like some types of insanity - like the kind I have with my INXS-fan buddies. But the destructive insanity is just too much drama and a waste of time.





So now I am in a safe place that is not really all that challenging. Which leaves time for thinking about other things, such as:





*house buying (Hubby and Realtor nixed my idea of a designer refrigerator box)


*my friend who is seeing a fertility specialist wanting me to find out if I can get pregnant by me trying to get pregnant (wanting to know if it is possible and making it so ARE two different things, aren't they?)


*finding my old recipe for edible play-dough



*finding a job that encourages me to have pink hair



*if the rain in Spain really does stay mainly on the plain or if it was just a silly song



Yes, I am consumed with thoughts of weighty matters. I thought critiquing the writing style of the Constitution might be a bit dry, but it is still on my to-do list.



And even though I have just found you again, Little Blog, I must say goodnight. There are rumblings of mutiny from the Hubby and the puppy if I don't come to bed.



Hopefully, I will see you again soon.

It's a start

So there I was. Somewhere between midnight and 1:00am. I would like to convince myself that I stayed up waiting to find out what would show up on Woot! at the beginning of the new day (something I couldn't use, no less). Really, I was sitting there praying, being scared, listening to Acappella and Vocal Union, waiting for my blood pressure to go down.



A little voice inside my head had urged me to check my work email even though it was a Sunday night. And sure enough there was an email response from my supervisor saying that I was "wearying" her. And all of the uncertainty, anguish, anger, confusion, indignation, and thousands of other emotions that had been swimming around inside of me for the past few months - all of those came rushing up at me.



I remember when I was younger, I had been sent out to the trash barrel (55 gallon drum) at my grandfather's house. I was supposed to lite fire to the trash and keep an eye on it for safety reasons. I guess watching a fire burn can be fascinating, but not then. It was the middle of a summer afternoon in West Texas. I already felt like I was on fire. All of the sudden there was a loud noise and a blast that I felt in my little body. My wild imagination told me that a tiny meteor had fallen out of the sky and busted that barrel (I guess I had the sensation of the explosion coming from overhead). What I found out later was that it was an aerosol bottle of Grandma's hairspray that had heated up and exploded. Meteor or hairspray can - it didn't matter. I just felt shocked and scared. And that is how I felt when I read my supervisor's email. *BOOM* What?!?!?! "Oh no, something is very wrong..."



So what was I supposed to do? Panic, as I used to do? Blow it off, which is more of my husband's style? I had no idea. It was too late to go trying on shoes at any place other than Wal-mart (current selection is not to my taste), so I decided to create a blog.



And how, you might ask, does a blog replace shoe shopping in the face of major panic? Well... I always get told, "you should write about it". If I am experiencing something already, why would I want to relive it by writing it out in vivid detail? More than half of the stuff that goes through my head doesn't make any kind of sense. Why would I immortalize that on paper (or pixels)? I hate having to write about my feelings as some sort of therapeutic exercise. That and I am a snob. If you don't write like the literary masters, why bother? (which is just an excuse not to do anything)



But, if you tell me that it might provide some entertainment value for my friends, I might consider it. And a blog would prevent me from spamming the inboxes of my friends. They don't even have to delete whatever my latest drivel is. If they don't want to read it, they just don't go to the blog, right? But some of them will. They will comment and ask me questions. And that is enough of a motivator for a beginning. And if I get some therapeutic benefit out of it, that is good too... just don't tell my counselor, okay?