Littering

Yesterday, we spent the day fishing at a handful of lakes in the area. They were beautiful pristine spots. The autumn afternoon sun was warm on my back, as the wind was lapping over the waters.

Geese were frolicking about the edges of the lake, their distinctive sound breaking the silence of solitude.

It was perfect. It was pristine... until

I noticed that people everywhere were throwing trash on the ground. Spent line, beer cans, broken tackle.

Michael and I spent an hour at dusk picking up after everyone else and throwing their refuse away in the garbage can that was ON THE WAY to the parking area.

Why are people such assholes?

Displaced

Friday evening was our "date" night... something that we rarely do. Too often I think we get caught up in just existing, and forget that we are still lovers, still dating in a sense, even if we are married.

We went to a hole in the wall pub, ate fantastico chicken wings and the best BLT that ever existed, and then decided to go to the art fair. It's the 75th anniversary or something of the art fair, and we needed a rather strong piece for the transitional area between our living and dining rooms. We had a good time walking through, and I will say that the art fairs here put the Las Olas art fair to shame.

As we were walking back to the car, there was a group of men with placards standing on the streetcorner yelling at everyone that passed (via bullhorn) that they were damned to hell, and that they needed to accept Christ as their savior or they were going to burn in the fiery pits...

yada yada yada

Michael leaned over and said, "Well, I guess they got displaced from New Orleans as well."

I laughed so hard I nearly fell over.

And then my heart ached for our beautiful city of Orleans. And I worried about those that I know and love impacted by Rita.

Women are inherently rational

I mean, how else could I justify that during a moment of extreme stress, that I went and had seven inches of my hair whacked off last night?

Don't all women do that during emotional upheaval?

No?

It's just me?

Ahh.

Well, some bit of good news today - I PASSED THE BAR EXAM! Results were posted at 11:00 this morning, and I will now officially be dual licensed.

The most important news of the week is still pending, so keep your fingers crossed for that.

Blast from the past

From time to time I wonder what has happened to people I knew once upon a time. And no, not just people that I dated or crushed on - but for instance Amy and Kelli Hodges who were twins and my best friends in fourth grade whose dad used to go hot air ballooning, or Melissa Sobotka and Shana Metz my best friends in third grade who I lost track of some fifteen years or so ago. Or people from my highschool classes... although not necessarily the Cubs pitcher that I went to school with. I'm sure everyone else wants to be his best friend now that he's in the "show"- but not so much for me. Whatever happened to Bill Harding? Hillary? Sabrina? A million other people?

I wonder if other people other than him have made their big breaks. I wonder if they're content with their lives in suburbia shuttling kids to and from soccer practice.

True, I wonder about "those" people too. Not that I have any intention or desire to rekindle old flames, but I just want to see how they're doing, to see if they're happy with the lives that they have. Are they married, do they have kids, etc.? Are they happy with their career choices? Have they all turned into right wing nutjobs?

O.k. I admit, a small part of me wants to go "haha! look how much you screwed up" to a certain person or two, but for the most part my interest is completely innocent.

I got another random e-mail from someone I went to high school with the other day and hopped on to Cl.ass.mates to see if I could find out where a few other people were. To my disappointment, the majority of people that I wanted to find weren't on there.

I wonder if some of the people I'd like to find even would remember me.

Just don't.

In the event you have a blister the size of a half dollar on your palm, from your sad attempts at converting the side of your yard into a tulip garden - without realizing that no, you don't have soil but really two feet of clay cleverly disguised with an inch of topsoil... it might be a good idea to just step away from the gel antibacterial cleanser in the bathroom because it will burn like a sum' o bitch.

In seven days

All kinds of news, both extremely good or absolutely devastating could hit our house this week.

I'm literally ill with trepidation.

Friday apparently did not go well. Not at all. My heart is just sick with worry. No matter what, we will work through this together. I just hope he knows that I will stand by him through this.

Wednesday some incredibly important results come in for me.

Thursday we have an appointment with our last shot "miracle" doctor.

Saturday we had planned to go to the Ren Fest, but he looked at me and said - you know, I think that we should go get items to donate for Katrina. We went to Costco, loaded up on diapers, baby wipes (ironic really...), feminine hygiene products, water and toilet paper. Then we took Ms. Pants' lead and went to the dollar store and literally wiped out their stock of $1 shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, deodorant, and bought fresh clean new undies for men, women, and children in all sizes.

We drove to Manhattan to deliver it to the football semi-truck that is headed to Louisiana on Wed.

We didn't do it because we expect to find favor with the fates in exchange. However, if it helps, well - I certainly won't turn it down. Not right now.

We could use all the help in the world this week.

My knees are literally raw from begging for mercy.

An overwheling time

too large of a bed
too large of beers had alone, sitting at the bar with googly eyed men pretending I was single. When all I wanted was you, here.

I wonder sometimes, what it's like to be on the other side.

but instead, I see that I am where I am. I am happy with that. For the first time in a long time.

I just hate the very minute that I'm in right now.

God I miss you.

Smiles verbotten

Having been seriously attached to two men now of rather heavy German descent, the new law in Germany declaring that all future passport photos must be made without smiling strikes me as hilarious.

But will they be without tight white jeans too?

Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Nuggets with Almonds - I love you. Seriously. My ass doesn't... but I do.

Mice infected with black death are....

Missing.

Fan-fucking-tastic. Three mice that were infected with bubonic plague are "missing."

How exactly does one lose the plague?

*sigh*

Empty bed

In the three plus years that we've been married, Michael and I have only slept apart at most a smattering of days that can be counted with my fingers. Once, because we were fighting, and we both woke up alone in the middle of the night and met each other in the hallway asking for the other to come to bed. For my sister's high school graduation, for each of my bar exams, for the first day of his (I drove up the second day because I couldn't sleep without him) - and that's it.

I hated sleeping with another person before I met him. I hated the feel of another person's breath on my neck while I was trying to sleep. I hated the feel of another person's body generating warmth in the coolness of the cotton sheets. I couldn't sleep with someone else in the bed.

Tonight, he is out of town to deal with an incredibly uncomfortable situation that has been brewing for over a year. Tonight, I will sleep alone, in a house that creaks in the night. A house in a neighborhood that I am unfamiliar with, in an area where I feel foreign.

Actually, tonight I won't sleep. I can't sleep without him there.

I already miss him.

I sound pathetic.

Never underestimate the little guy

Our street is lined with tall stately oaks that must be around thirty to forty feet high. Every morning and evening a plethora of squirrels scurry between the yards, stuffing acorns away for the winter. Yesterday morning when I went outside, there was a group of five squirrels or so in one patch of the yard that were foraging for acorns.

As I opened the front door, I startled them and they stood up on their haunches, their stash held in their front paws. As the door slammed behind me, one large squirrel dropped the acorn he was holding, and a chipmunk who was under the porch ran out and took it while the squirrel stood frozen. The chipmunk stopped a few yards away from the group of squirrels and chirped, something that I can only imagine is the chipmunspeak equivalent of "take that suckaaas!" and he took off up the downspout.

The 'robbed' squirrel who was easily three times larger than the chipmunk looked dumfounded and vocalized a rather angry sounding noise.

I couldn't help but laugh.

Just in case

You ever visit Huntington, West Virginia and end up staying in the Ramada because all the other hotels are all booked up, beware of room 214. It apparently is directly above the electrical room and you will feel as if you have put in a quarter for the "massaging" bed in a seedy roadside motel. The walls vibrate, the mirror above the dresser vibrates, your eardrums will vibrate.

But don't worry about it... there are no other rooms in town.

It'll serve to settle your nerves since you flew in from Cleveland on an Embraer 145 which could handle a whopping 18 passengers on board.

The MG

Michael's mom just gave us a little white convertible MG. It's got blue pinstriping, and is adorable. It still needs some restorative work, but my Dad is an absolute genius when it comes to fixing cars. He's going to come up and have the car shipped down on a trailer, and then fix it up and drive it back.

I am so incredibly excited.

Melted lipstick

I'm an amazingly lazy person at times, and tend to put my makeup on in the car on the way to work. It had been unusually cool here, so I just left it in the frontseat. I wasn't expecting the heat wave of the last few days, and when I went to put lipstick on the contents of the tube just oozed into a giant melty mess.

I was amongst the last group of children that didn't have mandatory child safety seats and seat belts. I remember standing on the hump that cleaved the floorboard in the back of the car, bracing my stubby toddler arms between the front two bucket seats so I could see through the windshield. My mother always threw her arm in front of me to prevent me from barrelling through the window every time she stopped. I still do that now, with my husband in the passenger seat. It's instinctive.

On a blistering hot afternoon when I was about three years old, she left me in the front seat alone while she ran inside my grandmother's house. No trip to my grandmother's house is a quick one, to this day, and it must have taken longer than she had expected.

Bored, I decided to look through her purse to find something to entertain myself with. I found her crimson lipstick - the holy grail of entertainment. At first I tried to mimic her - sliding it over my lips - but my coordination was off and instead I ended up biting through it. I still remember how badly it tasted. I tried wiping it off, which only made things worse. As a child I hated to have my hands dirty... I wouldn't play in sand boxes, wouldn't play with birthday cakes... nada. Bright red melting lipstick was everywhere. It was all over my hands... and I got frustrated, and left it on the seat where it promptly oozed into the new seats. Angrily, I flung it a la Jackson Pollock around the front seat. I patty caked my red hands all over the windows. Streaks of crimson ran down the passenger window and across the dash.

About five minutes later my mother walked up to the car and saw the massacre of Mary Kay. I still remember how loud her screams were, I remember her yanking me out of the car... I remember her frantically looking me over, trying to see where I was hemorhaging from.

We had the car only a week tops, it's white leather interior looked like a mob hit.

I wonder if she still remembers.

streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttchhhhhhh

I have been reading internal revenue regulations for the last four hours.

I am so sleepy.

Choices choices....

Work? Pub?
Pub? Work?
Work? Pub?
Pub? Work?

Think I can squeeze in both?

Random teeth stuff

Why is it every time I drink a diet coke (I'm from Texas - so"coke" means Dr. Pepper, Sprite, etc. - basically anything carbonated) that it feels like my enamel is dissolving off my teeth? I know it's an urban legend, but still....

I'm sort of a freak about teeth.

I carry floss with me at all times, I actually enjoy going to the dentist. I use Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste, but as a kid used only Crest (the blue gel). My sister was fascinated with Miss Piggy bubblegum toothpaste with silver glitter in it and to this day it makes me gag to smell artificial bubblegum flavoring.

When I was 14, I had very expensive liquid sealants that hardened into little enameled covered caps put into my back molars. I walked out of the dental office and chewed a piece of gum and they all immediately popped out. My family was not happy with me. The dentist had to redo them, twice. They still popped out.

I'm really bad about chewing on things - pens, ice, my nails... etc. or using my teeth to open things.

I'm horribly afraid of dentures (my great-grandmother used to be able to pop hers out at us with her tongue and I was petrified of them).

My next door neighbors had two sets of baby teeth come in and fall out. I thought that was incredibly cool.

I was one of the last kids in my class to lose a tooth. I lost my bottom two front teeth first, during the same weekend in first grade. One wasn't even really loose, but I wouldn't leave it alone until it fell out. I was so proud of my snaggletooth school pictures.

I lost a tooth in a Hostess chocolate pudding filled fried pie and haven't been able to eat them since.

I once left a letter for the tooth fairy to leave a picture of herself so I could know for sure she was real. I wasn't sure I believed, but I didn't want to be wrong and miss out.

My sisters all had braces. I didn't.

My teeth used to be fairly straight, but now - thanks to impacted wisdom teeth - they're kinda jumbled on the bottom. I'd like to get them now, but feel silly at my age about doing it.

I chipped a tooth last year and had to have the dentist file it down for me.

One of my front teeth has a flouride stain on it that makes it have an incredibly white stripe in it. It looks sort of like the little stars that cartoonists use to show that something is shiny. I used to hate it, but I've gotten used to it.

I had all four of my impacted wisdom teeth extracted at one time. So unlike normal adults who have 32 teeth, I have 28. I busted out all my stitches and got oreo crumbs stuck in the holes because I just couldn't take any more jello and mashed potatoes. I ended up with more stitches. Which I again promptly pulled out.

My tongue is just barely long enough to flip up and cover my upper teeth. My lingual frenulum should have been cut when I was a baby and it wasn't. My tongue is the shortest I've ever seen.

I dream about my teeth a lot... about them falling out or swallowing them. I have no idea what that means.

Sweeeeeeeeettttttttttt

I got my deposit back today from the house that we were at in S. Fla. I am so relieved. $2,880+ back into our account, if only for a short time before it's sent of to bills and to help out some more in New Orleans.

In five weeks, we've now received a whopping one piece of forwarded mail from the old house. Thank GOD the landlord sent it to the new house. Considering that there is apparently already a new tenant in the old house, I doubt we'll see much of it. I'm going to drop a handwritten note in the mail to them today to see if I can find out if the mail is being delivered there. Who knows if they'll even open it or respond to it.

6 a.m. tailgating

Michael and I are flying out to Huntington, West Virginia this weekend for a football game. He's pretty serious about college football. The game is televised on ESPN, but super early in the morning, so we'll be tailgating at around 6 a.m.

That's a little early for me...

Changing of the guard

With Rhenquist gone, I shudder to think about the make up of the Supreme Court in the upcoming years. The thought of Roberts becoming the Chief Justice makes me green around the gills. The President may have confidence in him, but I do not. I shudder at the thought of having a Chief Justice who is so conservative. It doesn't matter if you call him "moderate." A spade is a spade. What really bothers me, though is the fact that Roberts is so young. As much as Scalia frightens me I would rather he be appointed to the position of Chief Justice.

I fear that we are rolling back the clock on all the freedoms we hold dear.

I am truly afraid.

Sometimes

After all this time my heart still occasionally gets hung in my throat.

I was sitting on my bed this morning, leaning down to put on my stockings. As I looked down I gasped. My porcelain colored legs... marred by bruises, covered in varying shades of green and purple splotches. My breath caught in my throat and the sobs wracked my body, it had been so long. I had almost forgotten.

This time, it really was from my clumsiness. This time, I really did fall. I really did run into the sharp corner of a dresser. This time, I didn't have to say that as an excuse to cover up the truth.

This time it was just a memory floating into the present... not a horror I was trying to repress.

I am finally getting used to being safe. I am finally getting used to being able to sleep without one eye open...

I am finally not afraid.

But it still hurts. It will never go away.

Why does this make sense?!?!

I finally have a secretary. Considering that I've been here now a month - it's about damn time.

I'm sharing her with two partners. What I do NOT understand, however is that my secretary is assisting three attorneys now who all work on THREE DIFFERENT FLOORS.

How is this efficient? What do you think the chances are that I will *ever* see her are?

Bah.

Some things simply never change

I was heartened, at first to learn that people were opening their homes to those that lost theirs due to Katrina. I was pondering whether we would be able to help, and perusing the ads that people put up on craigslist and other places.

White Baptist family willing to house same.

I promise that I will stop talking about the hypocrisy of people who claim to be Christians. That is not what this blog is about... and it's not what I dwell on normally. But it bothers me. It REALLY bothers me.

All kinds of people, all faiths, all creeds, all colors, all sexual orientations, all races were affected by this disaster. I understand that it is (at least on a base level) gracious that someone would offer the intimacy of their home to someone. I realize that someone would perhaps, be a little uncomfortabe sharing their home with someone who did not share & respect their religious beliefs. But what better way to demonstrate your faith than by housing someone who is, shockingly enough, just a little different than you?

I did not, however, realize that as a nation we are still so fixated on race. I simply cannot comprehend how someone who claims to be a Chrisitan would refuse to provide a roof, or a meal for another human being because of the color of their skin...