According to Merriam-Webster,  a talisman is "an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring fortune", or "something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects."

There are objects in my life, from my past, that hold a talismanic power for me. They connect me to my past - to places I can no longer go. Part of me insists that if I only have and hold the correct set of talismans, then I CAN go there again. 

I've made a list of those objects - a few of which I have, and many which are lost.

1. A bridle rosette given to me when I was six, because I loved horses. Lost.

2. A small thick ceramic coffee cup with green stripes left over from when my parents owned a hamburger shop. Lost.

3. A small gray ceramic dog which I named Andy Pandy. This is a particularly powerful talisman, which unfortunately, is lost.

4. A set of Wizard of Oz ornaments for Christmas, each representing a different family member. Lost, but remade with vintage materials. Nearly as powerful as the original set, which was destroyed by evil.

5. A small, white, smooth stone that my mother liked to run her thumb across. I have this, but I can't put my hand on it and I fear that it may be lost.

6. A ceramic bull planter with golden horns. This belongs to my father.

7. A stone my mother found near a creek - jasper, with veins of blue and white that formed a perfect eye. Lost.

8. A cast iron Scottie dog made by a foundry in my hometown. I have this.

So many of these things are lost that I am sure I can never collect enough magic to travel in time.

My next best idea is to conjure them from the past and into a painting. Make a painting that can serve as an actual time machine. If I focus my thoughts and my will and my gifts; I can create a painting that will serve as an aggregate of all the talismans I've lost. 

Then watch me go.

What I was Doing 31 Years Ago Today

Carrying on in the tradition of my mother – I will tell you what I was doing 31 years ago today. As it happens, I was doing the best thing I ever did: Bringing the most amazing person into the world.

I had been having labor pains all day long the day before, but was only 31 weeks along, so I assumed they were false labor – and everywhere I went, I said as much to whoever I ran into. ‘Hey, I think I’m in labor! Ha ha. I’m sure it’s false labor.’

If you traced my path that evening, it would look like one of those Family Circus cartoons. I stopped by Mom’s house for an hour or two to watch ‘The Wizard’. (Not be confused with the ‘Oz’ wizard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(TV_series). Told Mom and Jennifer that I was having pains, but that it probably wasn’t really labor.

I visited Debbie Born to let her know that I was almost certainly not in labor. But maybe she ought to be on standby, just in case.

I went to Kroger to buy toilet paper. I told the cashier, (whose name was Emma - weird, what you remember, isn’t it?), “I’m having false labor.” She shoved my bag and my change at me and said, “Get out! You’re not having a baby here!” We both had a laugh.

I went home to my little efficiency apartment on Dayton Street and tried to figure out how to make the pains stop. False labor or not, it still hurt. I’d heard if you laid down on one side or the other – can’t remember which – that it would help, so I tried that. It didn’t help.

I didn’t have a phone, so I drove to the King Kwik down the street and used the payphone to call the ER at Fort Hamilton Hospital. I described the pains and told the nurse that I was sure it was false labor. She said the only way to tell for sure would be to come to the hospital and get an exam. I didn’t want to go to the hospital because I was certain that the pains would stop as soon as I got there and then I’d end up spending the night at the hospital for no reason. But I went anyway.

When I got to the hospital, I sat in the parking lot and had a frank discussion with my uterus. “Look. We’re at the hospital. You can stop with the pain now. We both know this isn’t really labor. We are a couple of months away from that. I really don’t want to go in here and get poked and prodded and end up going home in the morning feeling stupid.” My uterus didn’t provide any satisfactory cessation of pain, but I drove back home anyway.

Back at my apartment, I got into bed and curled up. The pains got worse, and closer together. It was about 2am. I was all alone, with no phone, and I realized that this was really happening. If I didn’t get up and get to the hospital soon, I wasn’t going to be able to.

So – back to Fort Hamilton. This time I went in, which turned out to be a good thing since I was pretty clearly in labor. The real kind.

Back then, Fort Hamilton didn’t have much in the way of facilities for caring for preemies, so their first priority was to get me to University Hospital in Cincinnati, tout de suite. The nurse who was caring for me informed me – with great delight – that we’d be taking the helicopter to UC. No thank you with that helicopter crap. Uh huh. No way. The nurse was all ‘yes way!’ because she was going to get to go along and it was evidently the most fun thing she could think of doing. It wasn’t really clear that I even had a choice – until the thunderstorm rolled in.

It was a WHOPPER of a thunderstorm, thanks to which I rode to UC Hospital in an ambulance, not a helicopter.

Long story short – and it is a much longer story involving, among other things, the docs at UC unsuccessfully trying to stop my labor by standing me on my head (ok, not literally – but they tilted my bed so that my head was toward the floor and my feet were pointing at the ceiling and giving me a drug that made my heart beat so fast I thought it was going to escape out my throat) – Elijah Willis was born at 3:50pm the next day.

He came flying out like a football so suddenly that the doctor almost dropped him. He weighed 3lbs. 9oz. His body from his neck to his bottom was the exact length of my hand. His foot was the length of the first two knuckles of my index fingers. He was beautiful and healthy and tiny.

nd nothing was ever the same for me. When folks tell you what it’s like to be a parent, they don’t ever tell you how completely helpless and vulnerable you are going to be to this deep and overwhelming love you feel for this little person. If they are hurt, or sick, or heartbroken, it breaks your heart too. If some little shit makes fun of their Power Ranger socks and they come home from school crying, you will find yourself wanting to kill a fourth grader. And 31 years into this whole parenthood thing – I don’t see this vulnerability waning.

But it’s worth it. Because look at this wonderful person I raised! He’s out there in the world being a deeply good person, and chasing his dreams and building his own life and future.

I love you Elijah Willis. I am proud of you every day, and I wish all the success and happiness in the world for you.

Things I have seen with my telescope

Just wanted to keep a list - so here it is: 1. The moon. 2. The sun, and sunspots. 3. Jupiter and all 4 Galilean moons. 4. Pleiades 5. Orion Nebula 6. Sirius 7. Aldebaran 8. Betelgeuse 9. Capella 10. Messier 36 (Although it's possible it was M37) 11. And a random double star that I would like to identify at some point.

Three days in a row. Yep. Don't faint.

When I noticed the date, I thought I might write about where I was September 11, 2001, but I've decided not to. I think it would feel trite and insufficient. It's hard to imagine how the world would be different if that hadn't happened because I do think a lot changed that day.

On a not entirely unrelated topic, I remember that I used to be terrified of nuclear war. There was always this undercurrent of anxiety that it was going to happen at any moment. Loud thunder in the middle of the night would cause me to wake up in a complete panic because I was sure there was a mushroom cloud nearby. Or how about the tests of the Emergency Broadcast System? Remember those? I was always so afraid that it was going to be the real thing. I hated the noise that test made. I would change the channel really quickly to make sure it wasn't on EVERY channel, because that would mean it was happening.

(Although I did hear an actual Emergency Broadcast on my car radio one day. Turned out to be related to a tornado. I hadn't even known that the Emergency Broadcast System existed for any other reason than to tell us the nuclear bombs were on the way.)

But what I'm getting at is that I was anxious all the time for years and years. At some point, I started to feel less anxious. The idea of nuclear war still terrifies me, but it only terrifies me when I think about it, and I don't have to think about it constantly. It's not always in my head.

Now I'm starting to feel the anxiety again. Not about nuclear war, or terrorist attacks, or anthrax or whatever -- I feel anxiety about the Tea Party. I feel anxiety about people who want to 'Take Our Country Back!'. For crying out loud - who do they want to take it back from?? Me?? Isn't it mine too? So what...it doesn't count if the people and policies that I support are voted for by a majority of others in the country? Suddenly our democracy isn't working anymore? I read somewhere where someone said there's a big difference between tyranny and losing an election. Yes. Listen Tea Party, I'm talking to you - if your side loses an election, it just means that you lost. It means more people disagree with you than agree with you. It does not mean that our government is broken.

So what am I worried about, specifically? Civil war. I don't really think deep in my gut that there's going to be a civil war. I think the vast majority of Americans just want to live our lives and not be bothered with a bunch of upheaval - but that doesn't prevent me feeling anxious about it anyway. It actually causes me to avoid the news altogether for weeks at a time. (Although I've recently discovered that the news is much less stressful if I just don't read online comments about the stories.) The problem is there seem to be an awful lot of lunatics in the world and an awful lot of people who will vote and act against their own self-interests because of whatever misguided notions about religion or what America is that they have.

I guess that's it. The country is full of a lot of misguided, misinformed, manipulated, and misled people. And they scare the shit out of me. I think they mean well, but they're scared too and they don't seem to know any better.

Which brings me back to where I started - 9/11. Without that, I don't think any of this would be happening. At least not in the way that it is.

How's that for a pretty good ramble?

Two days in a row!

Maybe it means something - maybe that I'll be posting more regularly!

But don't hold your breath. Really, it's just not good for you.

Well, sometimes it is. For example, I make it a policy to hold my breath any time I walk past someone who is carrying a lit cigarette, or who is coughing, or who just looks like they may stink. In those cases, not only do you have my permission to hold your breath, but I encourage you to do so.

I suppose it's time for one of those updates I post every couple of years or so. So let's see...where were we? Right. I was living in a college town in Indiana, I was in a great relationship with this hot chick who wanted to be called Kevyn in my blog, and I hated my job.

So where am I now? In a big-ass city in Indiana, still in a great relationship with Kevyn, and I still hate my job, but it's a different job and I don't hate it as much. Some days I don't hate it at all actually.

The move to the big city was prompted by the fact that not only had I been working there (and commuting from the college town), but Kevyn also ended up working there and hated the idea of commuting - so here we are. It's been an adjustment, but for the most part, we've enjoyed living here. We miss our friends back in the college town, but we try to see them as often as we can.

And speaking of kids (ok, I wasn't - but I was thinking about them which really should count. Seriously, who needs a segue?) Nate is starting what should be his senior year of college. Theater. My son is a thespian. He lives in the college town still (which will henceforth be known as C-Town) so I don't see as much of him as I'd like to. And really, that's typical too - he's always been a very busy guy and that hasn't changed. Hard-workin' kid.

Kevyn's kids are scattered hither and yon - her son lives in C-Town (graduated college last year) and her daughter is in school about 3000 miles from here. I realize I haven't written about them here before - but I will remedy that as soon as I think of fake names for them. You'll like them.

What else? Well, the economy. That's been pretty rough. Who doesn't know that though, right? I've been laid off twice in the past three years. I think I'm done with that now, at least I hope so. This job seems fairly stable and it's in a field I enjoy working in. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh - I almost forgot to mention that I lost 65 lbs about a year and a half ago. I don't look the same. It's been a while now, but I'm still not used to how I look in the mirror or in photographs. I'm pretty happy with this. Maybe next time I'll post about how that all came about. Maybe even...tomorrow?? Who knows. But like I mentioned before...don't hold your breath.

More soon.

I remember when I was a kid and I would occasionally torment my sisters. It was especially easy to torment my youngest sister - five years my junior and very prone to temper. I could, and did, provoke her just by looking at her. Literally.

So I would look at her, and she would scream, and our mother would say, 'Charlotte, stop looking at your sister!' And I would say, 'but I'm not HURTING her! And besides, she broke the legs on my Malibu Barbie yesterday!' And Mom would say, 'Look, you're older and you know better! Now stop looking at her!' And if I didn't, I got my ass busted.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days - pretty much since I heard about the church in Florida that wants to have a big Quran burning. In case the parallel isn't obvious - the pastor of that church is a lot like my 12 year old self harassing my 8 year old sister just to hear her scream. He, and others, try to justify this in a variety of ways - the upshot generally being that 'this doesn't cause any real harm and besides, THEY'VE done worse!' But for cryin' out loud - that shit would not fly with my mother.

They know better than that.

And even though it's been a long time since I was a church-goer, there are a couple of things I remember pretty clearly. 1. Love one another. 2. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I am 100% certain that Jesus would NOT burn a pile of Qurans - because when you get right down to it, even though the consequences could be much graver, it's just a variation on the theme of sticking your tongue out at your little sister. It's petty and provocative.

And I'm tellin' Mom.

Click to see this at full size. I saw this one day on my way back from lunch and had to go grab a camera to get a pic. The woman who owned the store caught me in the midst of snapping the pic and said, 'You need a picture of my door??'. I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded and then fled. I figure either she'll figure out that her sign had a pretty funny mistake, or maybe she'll think I'm an evil villian of some sort. Either way - it's all good.

Kevyn and I went to see a movie Saturday night. We both love movies and get out to see them very often. This one was 'I Think I Love My Wife', with Chris Rock. It was all about Lesbian Bed Death, without the lesbians - which I guess makes it more about Heterosexual Bed Death. And all in all, I say let them have the bed death. We don't want it.

But that really isn't what I wanted to write about. I am here to tell you about the power - nay, the grandeur that is Interpretive Dance.

What does this have to do with the movie? I'll tell you. As the closing credits were rolling and people were filing out of the theater, a piece of music came on which compelled my sweet girlfriend to begin dancing. It was subtle at first - some shoulder rolling, a little hip shaking. Then the arm movements began - at first beckoning, then shooing away, then wildly waving.

Then - there she went...down the aisle, towards the screen - gyrating and twisting and undulating rhythmically - thrusting her arms up in front of the screen, fingers spread wide open. Then she's facing me again, hip jutting out to one side, one leg bent and standing on her toe, the other out in front - her arms rigid, swinging in wide circles from her shoulders.

It was something to behold. Beautiful and yet, oddly funny. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it was funny, yet oddly beautiful. Either way, it was one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen - far better overall than the movie.

I've decided that what I'm going to do is start renting her out for parties. If you're interested in livening up your next dinner party, shoot me an email and we'll set something up.

MAMMOGRAM -- Doesn't that sound a little like a telegram that you'd send to a woman of a certain age? Like 'Ma'am-O-Gram'. I like that idea better than the actual process.

Of course there are many, many things I like better than the actual process, since the actual process involves having my breasts mashed so flat that I'm convinced they're going to explode. I found myself wondering if that's ever happened. One minute you have a decent pair of knockers; the next, something that resembles a deflated balloon.

It's been five years since my last mammogram (forgive me, radiologist, for I have sinned...it's been five years since my last mammogram...)

Let me start again. In the five years since my last mammogram, they've apparently introduced a note of whimsy into what is generally not a whimsical process. Before you get started, you get stickers to put on your nipples. I'm assuming this is so that when the radiologist reads your mammogram and sees a little knob of dense tissue protruding from your breast, he or she will know that it's just a nipple, not a tumor. Anyway, these stickers look a little bit like a 'snap' - like on baby clothes - there's a little nub of metal sticking up in the center of the sticker. Presumably this is the part that shows up on the film.

The whimsical part is that the sticker itself has flowers printed on it. They are positively decorative. I wanted to wear mine home. I think this is an amazing idea, and I'd like to shake the hand of the man or woman who not only came up with it, but pitched it to some medical supplier who thought it was worth paying to have these nipple stickers printed. I doubt it's cheap. I'm sure it jacks up the overall price of the things. I've decided to believe that this is a case of someone realizing that a little whimsy can go a long way towards relaxing a person in a stressful situation. The alternative, of course, is that someone in the medical supply business has a brother-in-law in the printing business.

So...here's the upshot: I have a smooth, oval-shaped, benign-looking MASS in my right breast. They will look for it on my films from five years ago, and if they see it there, then god bless and godspeed and they'll see me in a year for my next annual mammogram. If it wasn't there five years ago, then they'll see me in six months for another 'ma'am-o-gram' to see if anything has changed.

Either way - not too scary overall.

It's my birthday. I'm 43 today, so I decided to stop by my blog and update my heading so that my age is correct.

I said a couple of years ago that I thought my forties were going to be my best decade, and so far; so good -- so no real angst around this birthday. And I've decided that when I'm 48 or 49, I'm going to resolve that my fifties are going to be my best decade so far. In this way, I hope to avoid any and all anxiety around getting older.

Another thing that helps is being happy with where my life is. I'm in a relationship that I feel great about, I'm happy with my job, and I seem to be healthy. It's all good.

I don't typically make New Year's resolutions, or birthday resolutions, but I'm going to make one this year. I'm going to paint. A lot. I'm not sure yet how to fit that into my already fairly busy life, but I'm going to make an effort. It feels wasteful not to.

The last thing I painted was a portrait of Kevyn that I brought on our first date. She'd sent me (via email) a picture of her cuddled up with her beagle, and I thought it was a really interesting shot and wanted to do a painting of it as soon as I saw it. We'd been talking on the phone every night and I already felt a connection, so I wanted to give her something special. I was also aware that she was dating a couple of other women and thought it might be a good idea to come out of the gate strong so as to thin the field a bit.

So I did the painting over a weekend and brought it with me for our first date - which was also our first face to face meeting. Then I spent the entire drive over here (two and a half hours) vacillating as to whether or not to give it to her. And if I was going to give it to her, when should I give it to her? Should I bring it to the door with me? What if she thought I was a stalker or a weirdo? Should I wait until after I saw how things were going - then if it went badly, I could just leave it in the car and she'd never have to know about it?

What decided it for me more than anything else was probably my need for closure and my general desire for immediate gratification. I brought it to the door, turned backwards. After she opened the door and we managed to get the 'hellos' out of the way, I turned it around and said something about having promised her a one-woman show.

She loved it. She almost cried. She hugged me. It was great. I recommend this as an ice-breaker for anyone else who is looking for a way to stand out. I mean, lots of people bring flowers - but how many bring portraits? Not that I'm bragging.

Ok, maybe I'm bragging.

Anyway, that was well over a year ago, and aside from painting the kitchen, I haven't touched a paintbrush since. (And Kevyn hasn't touched any of those other women she was dating since either!) So it's time to get busy and start producing. Times have changed so much since I was in college and another student called me "a prolific little bugger."

So that's my goal for this 43rd year -- to be prolific. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I was reading over my recent post about the 'twinging pain' in my right breast and remembered a story from when I was in college - also involving breast pain.

I do love to talk about my breasts.

So anyway - I was about twenty, living by myself, and attending a bevy of art classes (drawing, painting, printmaking - the whole tamale). One day, shortly after spending a couple of hours in my printmaking class working on a wood block print, I started noticing this sharp pain in my right breast, shooting straight through my nipple. I felt it almost every time I moved and it was truly awful. It made me break out in a sweat.

Clearly, I had breast cancer. The kind that comes up on you all in one day with no warning and becomes excrutiating.

I called Planned Parenthood (I was indigent and used them for all my health care at the time) and made an appointment to go see them the next day. I went to Mom's house and languished on her couch for a while trying to be as still as possible.

I managed to worry Mom to the extent that she called Dad, which led to a very awkward phone conversation with my father during which he asked me what was wrong with my 'booby'. Honestly, I was just grateful he didn't use the term 'lung wart' as he had been prone to doing when I finally grew breasts. (I say 'finally' because I was fifteen and flat as a pancake, and then woke up one morning with a respectable set of C-cup breasts.)

After hours of worry and doom and intermittent piercing pain, as I was getting ready for bed, I finally bothered to take my shirt off and have a look at my breast. This had simply not occurred to me earlier in the day. Not only didn't I look at it, I didn't even touch the thing. I was avoiding all contact with it.

I took my shirt off and looked down, and there - sticking directly out of my nipple, through my bra, was a splinter of wood. It was protruding about a quarter inch outside my bra, so I grabbed it and carefully pulled it out. Altogether it was a good half inch long, and had no doubt been sticking straight out of my nipple since I'd been working on carving my wood block for printmaking class earlier in the day. Every time I moved, my shirt would move against my bra and jostle the splinter, causing the (literally) stabbing pain.

I didn't know whether to feel more relieved or embarassed.

It appears that there is another MASS in my life. This one is small and isn't as scary as the other MASS. It's in my right breast and my doctor says it feels exactly like a fiber adenoma. I'm off to get mammogrammed in the very near future to rule out anything scary, but for the most part, I'm not too worried.

This process has taught me something about my girlfriend, Kevyn (let me interject here that she chose her own psuedonym and it's not nearly as girly as she is). I learned that Kevyn will say anything.

Some background: I have been having an odd little 'twinge' sort of pain in my right breast for a couple of weeks - infrequent and not particularly bad. I wasn't too worried about it, but made a doctor's appointment just in case. The morning of the appointment, Kevyn mentioned to me that she'd felt 'something' when she'd touched my breast a few days ago. She hadn't mentioned it at the time because she's aware of my tendency to panic and obsess.

Fast forward to my appointment: We mention to the doctor that Kevyn had felt 'something' in my right breast. The doctor examines my breasts, then asks Kevyn to come over to the table and see if she can locate whatever it was she'd felt before. Kevyn comes to the table, lifts her hands towards my breast...hesitates...then says, "well, actually...I found it with my tongue."

Suffice to say that she used her hands to locate the problem area and that although I did not die of embarassment, I was criticially wounded. I'm feeling much better now.

I wanted to add a couple of things to the post I posted yesterday (how many posts would a woodchuck post if a woodchuck could post posts?). I've seen this same story under a few different headlines that I thought were noteworthy:

1) The Blitz Massage - this is pretty good. I like that it makes use of the word 'blitz' which is german. Very clever.


2) The Love Attack - I like this one even more. Violent and swift, yet oddly...friendly. Almost welcome...but not really.

3) Bush's Magic Fingers - now this is my favorite. This doesn't even need comment from me. I wish that I had written this headline.


That's all I got.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not a fan of GW, particularly. In fact, I'm kind of an anti-fan. I think he's a religious zealot and therefore a nut. And most of the time, I think he's a puppet, or a robot...he just doesn't seem very human to me. It seems like everything he says is scripted. I can barely stand to hear him talk.

But it turns out that I don't mind him talking so much if he's cussin'. He said 'shit' yesterday (at least, I read about it yesterday) and I found myself, almost, admiring him. For a second. Grudgingly. Then I gave myself a stern talking to and the moment passed.

Today, he's topped himself. You must go at once and have a look at this:

Bush Grope

I'm not sure what he was thinking, but apparently he was going to give an impromptu massage to a German Chancellor, Angela Merckel. She, very sensibly, recoils in horror.

At least he didn't vomit in her lap.

So my new theory is that he isn't a robot so much as he's a dork.

It seems really strange to me that I've been posting to this blog for nearly four years now. I can remember really well exactly what I was thinking when I started it. I thought about it for days. I'd been feeling depressed about the way things were going in my life, and I had resolved to try hard to focus on things that I enjoyed doing. Starting a blog was the first step.

I was living in Georgia then, and was newly out of my longest relationship to date. I was working at a job that I actually enjoyed, but I was struggling with depression. Reading over my past posts, that does seem to be a theme of these past four years. It really hadn't been much of a problem for me in my twenties and early thirties. I don't know really whether it's been a function of circumstances in my life, or maybe just a general hormonal shift, but it's certainly been a recurrent problem over recent years.

I'd almost forgotten how much I struggled with the idea of antidepressants until I read over some of those old posts. I was really afraid of them - afraid that altering my chemical make-up would somehow make me less me.

Last summer kind of made that debate moot. Between the scare with the MASS and the breakup with Jadyn, I'd gotten into a really bad place. Always before, no matter whether I was sick, or cold, or in pain, or depressed, I knew in the core of my being that I wouldn't always feel like this. Conditions were temporary. This time, I couldn't make myself believe that. It was scary and awful.

I just realized that in a way, having this blog was a good thing for me then. I posted what I now realize was a very melodramatic psuedo-suicide note thing on here. I don't know what else to call it. It was sincere - but also maudlin and self-pitying. I think I was hoping or expecting that someone would come to my rescue. Someone would leave a comment that was reassuring and affirming of my general worth. Instead, almost immediately, someone left me a hard, harsh, almost mean comment. I don't even remember what it said because I deleted the comment and took down the post right away, but it was something to the effect of how I was full of shit and just generally needed to grow up. Wow. I was so angry at first, and then so ashamed. But it was like a slap in the face - one that I needed. I realized I'd better get myself in hand. So I did.

I resolved to stop wallowing, for one thing. I decided that I would have to at least act like I thought things would get better. And I started taking effexor. It took a few weeks, but I did start to feel better. I was still so sad...it's hard to explain how I could still be so sad and yet feel so much better at the same time. And I still felt like myself. Effexor didn't make me into someone else -- although I had been feeling so bad, I doubt I would have minded very much being someone else, as long as that someone was happy.

I stayed on the effexor for about six months. I won't go as far as saying that it saved my life because that sounds so dramatic and I'm not sure it would have ever gotten that dire, but I'll say it helped. It certainly helped.

And that caustic comment on my blog - that helped too. I never found out who left me that comment (I had my suspicions, but the person I felt sure was responsible denied it utterly)-- but whoever you are - thank you. You're either highly intuitive or a jackass, but either way, thanks.

And now I'm in yet another state - Indiana this time. Not too far from home. I'm happily involved in a relationship that I feel great about. I'm in love. I hate my job, but I'm working on that. And I'll try to stop by here more often. I think my life is settling down enough these days that I'm starting to have the attention and energy to spare for this sort of thing. For a while there...whew.

Wish me luck on my search for a new job, and I'll keep you posted as things develop.

I can't believe it's been two entire months since I updated my blog. No wonder people are shaking their fists at me and making vague threats. Of course this post may not stop that as I have stopped by to say HUMBUG!

It's Christmas again and I can't wait for it to be over. Oh sure, I like having cookies and brownies and other assorted baked goods floating about the office...but it's all that other stuff that gets me down. That shopping stuff. For one thing, I hate crowds. My personal space is a very well defined area extending approximately 18" away from me in all directions. After having my personal no-fly zone violated repeatedly, I find that my elbows start to rise in preparation for jabbing the ribs of the next unfortunate interloper. My lip curls. My brow furrows. I growl. And despite this display of primitive aggression, I am trampled by eager shoppers, to whom I am apparently completely invisible. By the time I leave the (store/mall/bazaar), I have a headache, an ulcer, and ingrown toenails.

And can we talk about Christmas music? I've been hearing it virtually incessantly since early November. BEFORE Thanksgiving. I am so sick of it now that I think I'm going to puke if I hear 'Winter Wonderland' one more time! Exactly how many versions of that song are there, anyway? And what's the deal with that 'Buy my mom these shoes because she's going to DIE and meet Jesus tonight' song??? What kind of fucked-up, manipulative sack-of-shit wrote THAT song? What does it have to do with Christmas? And more importantly, who buys this record?? Arghh. Somehow this is the fault of the Republicans. I'm also sure they are behind the Kenny Rogers song I heard just yesterday that seemed to be put together using some formula: God + USA + Christmas= Huge Record Sales. I am waiting for David Allen Coe or someone to make the perfect Christmas song - 'It was snowing the day I bought my dying mother shoes so she could be pretty for Jesus before I went off to save CHRISTmas from the secular humanists here in the USA!'

All I want for Christmas is to see Bill O'Reilly hanging from the highest Christmas tree.

But back to shopping...have you noticed how many clerks and cashiers are using the phrase, 'Can I help who's next?' I hate that. I want it to be stopped at once. Banned, preferrably. I want it to be illegal and to carry some substantial jail time. The grammar is just all fucked up. How about, 'Can I help the next person?' Or just a simple 'Next?' would work for me. I'm just that kind of girl.

And one more thing...what about when you have to wait an excessive amount of time in some line or another and someone then says to you, 'I'm sorry about your weight'? Oh, I know they mean, 'I'm sorry about your WAIT'...but I always hear it the other way. And I always think, 'YOU'RE sorry? Imagine how I feel?'

So, in conclusion, and not to totally disregard everything I just said...BUT....Happy Holidays everyone!

I think it's possible that the only creatures weirder than boys are kittens. I acquired one of these beasts over the summer, mostly for the purpose of keeping my grown cat company while I'm away. I've long thought that cats and kittens are so different as to almost be two separate species. They metamorphose, as in caterpillar to butterfly. You don't think of a caterpillar as a baby butterfly, and you shouldn't think of a kitten as a baby cat. You should think of it as a baby monster.

For one thing, kittens have a quota of things they have to knock over per day. My particular kitten, a darling little orange thing that I named Munch, has an especially high quota. If she can knock said items over on top of my head...well, that's just a bonus.

Munch loves me. If I am in the apartment, Munch wants to be near me. Or on me. And if I try to walk away from her, she makes it her business to wrap herself around my legs and trip me. And since I do enjoy being adored, I love Munch back...from about 7:30am until 2:00am. It's the wee hours of the morning when I find myself plotting mayhem, murder, and wanton kitten abuse. That's about the time when she gets what my sister calls 'The Rips'. To have 'The Rips' means to have an overwhelming need to barrel through the house, yard, or airport (as the case may be) for no apparent reason and with no specific destination in mind. This results in Munch barreling right across my head repeatedly while I'm trying to sleep. And then when she gets tired of that, she jumps onto the mantle above my bed to get a head start on the day's quota of knocking things over. Onto my head.

I do understand that all of this is typical kitten behavior and I know that she'll grow out of it. What I don't really understand though is why exactly she feels the need to excavate the other cat's feces from the litter box and leave them on the bathroom rug. I can only assume she feels that Allie's waste is fouling HER litter box. She is, after all, the Queen. At the very least she's a Duchess or a Princess.

I think she's going to be a great cat when she grows up. She's very affectionate and I've always wanted a lap cat...but wish us all luck at surviving her kittenhood.

And send coffee. Lack of sleep is starting to wear on me.

For L --
Real; Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence.

But I guess it was more the perception of reality I was talking about the other day. The wholly unobjective FEELING that a situation is or isn't actually occurring. And not so much in the way things sometimes feel unreal when you're very stressed, but a more general feeling. Like when you wake from a dream and it seems almost like the dream was more real than the bit where you got up and brushed your teeth and headed out for work. Don't you ever have moments when you know the aliens will be here any minute to tell you that the test is over now, you passed, and you can come home?

If not...well...nevermind. I'll see about getting my medication adjusted and we'll never speak of this again.

By the way, I've changed my 'comment' settings so that you have to do a little word verification thing to leave a comment. Sorry if this is a pain in the ass, but I keep getting these spam comments that I hate, so this should get rid of them.

Thank you for your support.

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I decided to post some pictures of the convention I went to Utah to work on. Be sure to click to see the larger versions as you really can't see much in these small versions. It was all for a company called Nuskin, but each of their divisions had it's own separate area and look. This one is the Nuskin product area. We printed all the graphics you see here, banners, signs, etc., and my company designed and built all the structures you see as well.








This next one is for the Big Planet division of Nuskin. Again, my company designed and built all the structures. That big 'b' logo was particularly interesting to try to adhere graphics to. It's nearly 6" thick and made out of several layers of gator foam, routed to shape. The fun part is that there's a motor underneath it and it actually rotates.








This one is of the Pharmanex area. We built the bridge and painted it to look like old wood, and some of the crew actually went to the mountains and brought back the log beside the bridge. And that's real dirt too! The forest graphic along the side of the bridge was printed by yours truly. That was one of the really cool parts about getting to go to Utah -- seeing the graphics that I print actually in the environments they're being used to create.






This is typical of a lot of the graphics we printed. It incorporates the show logo as well as it's slogan "Choose to be a Champion", and we really like making dimensional displays. We rarely use flat graphics when we can build something that stands on it's own. Not only does it look cool, but it saves money on buying or building stands.








And here's something else we made. The stage. We designed and built it. We also handle the lighting, so while it's purple and blue in this pic, at other times it was green or orange. We also provide the video or speaker support that goes on the big screens you see, and often we'll have a producer who is actually calling the show and giving cues and such.








Last but not least, here is a view of Salt Lake from the hotel window of a co-worker of mine. This is why I so wanted to get out of the convention center and into the mountains. Beautiful, isn't it?

I'm going to pose a question that I would really like some responses to -- no matter how weird it might seem.

Have you ever felt like the world we're living in is not the real world?

I had an interesting conversation with Nate the other night (and that would be Nate, my son's pseudonym, not Nate my boss, for those of you who know me) about how he feels sometimes that this isn't the real world - that there's something else he's supposed to be doing or preparing for, and this isn't it. He has this image of himself in a room of ash that both protects him from a flow of lava that surrounds it, and imprisons him within the room. I guess it's sort of a Matrix-ish idea...that he's moving around this world, but that in the real world, he's stuck in a room of ash and needs to get out somehow.

What really interested me about this idea is how many times I've said that I feel sometimes like I'm stuck in a box that I can't get out of. I posted a poem on the subject that's somewhere in the archives of this blog. We both seem to have an idea that there's something else we're supposed to be doing that we can't quite define. He also mentioned that sometimes he thinks he just needs to leave the house and start walking and go out into the world. How many times have I said that very thing?

So...are we both having some kind of malaise and discontent that seems to be genetic? Or does everyone feel like this?

He went on to tell me about a dream he had that seemed very real to him, wherein he felt that he was in the actual REAL world, and was doing what he needed to be doing. There was pain and cold and struggle in the dream, but he knew he was where he belonged. He'd like to get back to that dream. I told him that maybe that dream was teaching him something about what he wants, and how he wants to feel. That he can have that feeling in this world. I confess I was having some concerns about him going off all half-cocked and trying to catch the Hale-Bopp comet or some such. I told him he's searching for something and he needs to keep looking and he'll find it in this world -- this being the one we seem to be in and all. All the same, I know I've had the same feeling before, that there's something else out there...and I wonder if I was telling him the truth. I told him what made sense, but still...I wonder -- probably because I haven't had any success finding the feeling he described, and I know I've searched for it too.

So you tell me...is it the family wanderlust coming home to roost (or maybe the family mental disorder), or do you all feel that way too? Are any of you trapped in boxes or rooms of ash? If so, how do we get out?