So here I am, sitting alone in front of my computer, experiencing what the experts commonly refer to as something spiffy-sounding, with lots of syllables, and probably in Latin.

I AM GOING TO BE THIRTY.

30

T  H   I   R  T   Y

And I'm a little scared that I'm going to be spending the birthday that makes me officially old alone with a bottle (or two) of wine.  If ever there was a time for that psychotic break I've been keeping back, this would be it. 

In an effort to prevent my induction into the white coat society, I propose that we have a get together the weekend prior, so that I can be well and truly braced for the actual event. 

It turns out that that panic and party planning don't mix well so all I've got in the way of ideas is dinner out and then a gathering at my new abode (for those of you who may be unaware I moved to Ballwin) 

I'm not really thinking out of the box at all here.  In fact, I'm pretty comfortably ensconced in the box.  I brought a sleeping bag and a pillow and am settling in for the duration.  If anyone's got some brilliant idea, feel free to share it.  Don't get me wrong, though.  I don't mean to knock the box.  I like the box.  It's comfy and homey, and there's a lot to be said for that.   Mostly, I just want some friends around me so that I won't have to watch myself turn wrinkly in the bathroom mirror.   




         

I'm reading a book written by a woman traveling in Yugoslavia in 1937.  I've not gotten very far, but I'm already fascinated.  Whenever I've written something I've always been thrilled when I feel that sense of rightness...of using just the right word in just the right way to say exactly what I mean in the most elegant, profound or clever way I can.  I get that thrill every couple of pages in this book because she achieves that state almost continuously.

She is discussing watching the footage of the assassination of the King of Yugoslavia in the harbor of Marseilles and she stops to describe a suspension bridge:

"...that vast suspension bridge which always trouble me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct.  I know enough to be aware that this bridge cannot have been spun by a vast steel spider out of its entrails, but no other explanation seems to me as plausible..."

Describing her anxiety before having surgery:

"I had been told beforehand that it would all be quite easy; but before an operation the unconscious, which is really a shocking old fool..."

Talking about the cathedral in Zagreb:

"It has been cut about as by a country dressmaker, but it has kept the meditative integrity of darkness considering light, the matematical aspiration for something above mathematics, which had been the core of its original design, and at that moment it housed the same intense faith that built it."

Hey, I've lost my cell phone but am replacing it tomorrow so you may or may not be able to call me in the near future.  Our lease is ending in several months and Gene is moving in with Amy and Mat and I are getting our own place. 

I was wondering how you like where you're living.  It seemed nice and I really want a washer/dryer plus we could probably get you some money off your rent for a referral not that you should let that color your response in any way.  How's the management?  Do they act quickly when your stuff breaks cause I've been quite spoiled in this area. 

Thanks!

What good is an office monkey that can't dance?

Wanted: 

One special occasion boyfriend.  Must accompany me to social gatherings, family parties and other various events.  Pleasant attitude required.  Any fooling around left entirely to my discretion.

P.S.  Must also be human

I'm an online poker widow.

I have been admonished.  Granted, it was kindly, even grandfatherly, but it was an admonishment nonetheless.

I went to the doctor today.  Our conversation went something like this.

Me: Remember all those little bumps you froze off of me before?  Well, one of them was missed and now it's swollen and red and painful. 

Doctor:  That was a long time ago.  <checks chart>  That was April of 2008.  You've had that on you since April of 2008?  

Me:  It was really little!  It was my lone survivor.

After the lancing (ick) and the bandaging, he tells me that when this heals and the infection goes away, it's possible that the little bump will still be there.  And here he makes deep eye contact so the full force of his instruction won't be lost on me as it was unfortunately lost last time.  "If that's the case, you need to come back so I can freeze it off."

Mat's old Army buddy, David, aka Chano, aka Channelwidth, came to visit yesterday.  Sadly, Mat hadn't called him back so we weren't aware of his visit until about twenty minutes before it happened and since Mat had to work, I was the host.  At first I was wary.  I like the guy and all, but that didn't mean I wanted to spend an entire Saturday hanging out alone with him. 

I needn't have worried cause I had a great time.  After talking for a couple hours we decided to order pizza and watch a movie.  He goes through both my DVD collection and Amy's and after some deliberation decides that he would like to watch his all-time favorite movie that he watches almost every day:  The Notebook.  That's right.  Big bad Army Guy watches a chick flick based on a Nicholas Sparks novel most mornings.  In what I find to be a hilarious turn of events, we had to go to Blockbuster so he could buy another copy cause no other movie would do. 

It wasn't a bad movie, and since he already owns a copy, he gave us this one which is good for Mat because he has a crush on Rachel McAdams so he'll be able to watch her two sex scenes over and over again.  Important Safety Tip:  check out the deleted scenes for raunchier versions.  It took us about three and half hours to watch because we kept talking and he didn't want me to miss any crucial moments so he'd press pause.

All in all, it was a good day.  I got to eat pizza and candy, watch a cheesy movie, and make fun of Mat, both behind his back and to his face when he got home. 

I have a pair of pants that are so loose I can pull them on and off without unfastening them.  I have several pairs of pants that fit me fairly well.  And I have a pair of pants that are so tight I can only zip them up if I suck it in and hold my breath.

And yet, every single pair of pants I own claim to be the exact same size.  Clothing manufacturers are clearly having their little joke.  They don't do this to men, though.  Across the board, whatever size a men's pair of pants claims to be, it actually is.  Mat doesn't even bother trying them on.  A woman who did that would be a complete sucker, and probably making a second trip to return her purchase.

President Obama is going to sign an executive order reversing the global gag rule!  

This link will take you to a previous entry with a couple of You Tube videos that are hopefully still active that explain why this is so thrilling to me.
http://slysalt.livejournal.com/67685.html

Once upon a time I had two friends named Rob and Kevin.  I use once upon a time not in the sense that I'm telling a story about something that happened in the past but in the sense that they are no longer my friends.

These two jokers thought it would be great fun to buy Amy and I stuffed penguins for Christmas.  I was prepared to think mine was cute, but then one of them started humming "Doo be doo be doo" and that was no longer possible. 

As I'm sure everyone remembers, a few years back some beer company used a psychotic stalking penguin unfamiliar with the rules of personal space and decency as it's mascot.  The creepy little fucker gave me nightmares.  So I took that stuffed "gift" and did the only sensible thing--threw it out the front door in the hopes that it would be run over in a freak trucking accident. 

Amy, in a fit of disloyalty that still has me baffled, brought her penguin home.  Luckily Mat's fascination with having it hum at me was short-lived, but there it is, lying about, mocking me.  I'm trying to persuade Flame to destroy it, but she's apparently in collusion with my nemesis.  Ungrateful wretch.  Would it really be that difficult to pull all the stuffing out of the thing and strew it about the apartment?  I wouldn't even care about the mess.  I promise.

Last night, after listening to yet more of my encouragement fall on her cat's persistently deaf ears, Amy sprayed that penguin head to toe with cat nip and all of a sudden, Flame was riveted.  I rejoiced! Finally total destruction was at hand, but only if by total destruction I meant forceful nuzzling bordering on molestation followed by an abrupt loss of interest. 

So the evil little thing still lives, and still mocks me, but I like to think it's been at least a little traumatized. 

Barack Obama's Address:

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.  The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.  Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man...those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and nonbelievers."

"...the bitter swill of civil war and segregation."

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility--a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfyin to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.  This is the price and the promise of citizenship...This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed--why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in cleebration across this magnificient mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

Elizabeth Alexander's Poem:

"We encounter each other in words."
"Anything can be made, any sentence begun."
"Praise song for walking forward in that light."

I also really liked the end of Joseph Lowery's invocation where he started rhyming the different colors of people with his hopes for them.  It was funny and unexpected, but I haven't had a chance to get the text.  It went along the lines of "let the yella be mella, the red get ahead and the white do what's right."

No one's going to suspect a giraffe of being a cannibal!

I've just had three nightmares in a row. 

1.  I had a fight with Amy
2.  I got pulled over by the cops.
3.  I actually went to my 10 year high school reunion.

Definitely time to get up. Who knows where my mind would take me for number four.  Of course, 6:15 is later than I usually sleep, so win?

I've experienced a grave trauma.  It happened last weekend, but I was too upset to post about it before today.  Even now, my hands are trembling so violently that I can barely type these words.

I AM NO LONGER A VEGETARIAN.

That's right.  I was at the Voodoo Lounge, happily and innocently munching on cheese quesadillas.  I went back for a second helping, but this time the perfectly innocuous tasty snack had been infested with...chicken.  I was the victim of a cruel bait and switch!  I looked for the hidden camera.  I waited patiently for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind something, until I remembered I'm not a celebrity.   And then the truth dawned on me.  I'm a meat eater now. 

When I watch t.v. and  some huge greasy burger's advertised, I know with a dull and dreadful certainty that I have to eat that.  I walk the aisles of the grocery store, and I try to force myself to put shrink-wrapped animal bits inside my cart, but I just...I just can't.  I'm not ready.  My carnivore status will have to for now remain unconsecrated, for it's just barely possible that I could track down a vegetable priestess who could annul the unholy alliance between that bite of chicken and my intestinal tract. 

Until then, I'll just keep crying myself to sleep...

So there I was, innocently minding my own business in Dierbergs, strolling through the health food aisle when I saw something horrifying.  And no, I'm not referring to the health food.  My favorite chocolate-banana and strawberry-banana soy milks were selling for a mere $1.86 which was joyfulling, but only for a moment, because the cheapness is a direct result of these items being discontinued!  Naturally, I bought five, but how will I make them last for the rest of my life?

Another thing that makes me sad: Bill Richardson doesn't get to be the Secretary of Commerce.  Since he's being investigated for a possible pay-to-play scenario (which I really hope he didn't do), he withdrew his name.   Richardson is one of my favorites, and I was really looking forward to this Cabinet.  Me = sad.

When I went to bed around 11, Donnie (Mat's older brother) was teaching his nephew to paint miniatures and Mat was alternately watching them or playing Call of Duty on the XBox.  They were both on their second large glass of orange juice spiked with a shot of Everclear. 

When I woke up around 4 am it was to the dulcet sounds of Mat stumbling home.  He drunkenly slurred to me while tumbling into bed that he and Donnie had polished off the entire bottle while in conversation with their father.  The intrepid heroes then went for a nice long walk, setting off every dog in the neighborhood.  By Mat's count, Donnie threw up three times en route.  Mat was priding himself that he'd matched Donnie's Everclear consumption and topped it with an unknown quantity of beer and he felt just fine. 

However, he didn't have long to enjoy his pride.  Those laurels he was resting on were yanked about an hour later when he jerked awake and sprinted to the bathroom, which is an unusually long trip because the only bathroom in the house is downstairs and we were in the guest bedroom on the second floor.  Needless to say, the loud spattering sound and muffled cursing were excellent and unwelcome indications that he didn't quite make it.

By didn't quite make it, I mean to say that the entire entryway and every item therein was victimized by vomit.  It quite literally covered all available floorspace.  It was on peoples' luggage, in peoples' luggage, on coats, shoes, Christmas decorations, an antique doll.  Basically, I followed the yellow brick road of vomit and my socks will never be the same.

Mat and I spent over an hour armed with paper towels, washcloths, Lysol wipes and spray cleaning every possible surface.  Mat's sister Beth got up about 10 minutes into this process and took over laundry detail as the contents of her bag, her daughter's bag and the bags themselves all needed to be washed.  I ended up up shucking my pants and throwing them in as they'd become disgusting in this hands and knees, search and destroy process.  Unfortunately, Drenda's washing machine was designed by NASA and neither one of us could figure out how to turn it on, so Beth had to go recruit her.  Luckily, she was laughing as hard as we were even when she saw the doll, which had been quite thoroughly violated from head to toe.  We all ended up in the kitchen trading drinking horror stories and laughing at Mat's humiliation as he haltingly consumed bread and water.

This is definitely one story that's going to be trotted out at every family gathering.  It will be included in his eulogy, and every time anyone reminisces about him, this story will inevitably get top billing. 

This is Mat's legacy.