Tag Archives: musings

2011: The Summer of Raging Hellflames

2 Jun
It's so hot.......

Delicious fried sidewalk egg by Kate Ter Haar. Click the egg to check out her Flickr PhotoStream.

This is not spring; this is summer.

 This is all-out, balls-to-the-wall sweatylicious summertime and I am completely unprepared.   It came out of nowhere.  One day I was complaining about the constant rain and the next, Mother Nature was using the sun to pound down hellfire heat on my fragile, pasty skin.

I’m not ready for this.  Already, I am overwhelmed with the constant dew on my cheeks and the greasy, grimy feeling of my SPF moisturizer.  I’m so hot that my legs are sweating.  Every so often I have to take a moment to air out the backside of my knees – the armpits of the lower body.

This is my first summer with leather furniture.  It was a hand-me –down from a classy broad who gets tired of nice things quickly and I happily hauled it away to my home.  But now that my apartment is dripping in sweat and stench, I’ve begun to stick to the couch.

Quite literally – stick to it.

If I’m not paying attention or try to get up out of urgency, I have to do a double-take to make sure my skin isn’t still attached to the chair I’m getting up from.   It’s matched with a distinct ripping sound  – not unlike peeling the casing off a tightly wrapped sausage.

In this scenario, I am the sausage.

It’s just now the beginning of June and I’m starting to really dread what July may have in store.  I made it all last summer without air conditioning of any kind.  Dave and I happily hauled the AC out of the window and used a fan, embracing the heat and naturalism.  The car doesn’t have air conditioning either, so there was no need to worry about adjustment throughout the day.   A trip to the local grocery store, however, required a sweater. 

I don’t know if I can do that again this year.  2011 is apparently the year of the flaming, enraged, summer fire dragon and I don’t know that I can compete.    I’m too poor and stubborn to kick the AC on, too fat and flabby to frequent the pool, and too modest to walk around nearly naked.

One of those is going to have to give. ♣

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Email Shmee-mail

1 Jun

I always expect big things to happen when I’m gone.

I left work Thursday morning and didn’t fully get back to reality until Tuesday.  No Interwebz, no phone, no non-face contact with humans of any sort.  I feared turning my phone back on because I was certain I’d be flooded with a monsoon of texts and voicemails.  The thought of checking my email almost paralyzed me for fear I’d have too many things to respond to and too many opportunities missed.

I was totally wrong.

Apparently, I’m not as popular as I would like to believe.  After 4 straight days of ignoring society, society made it clear that it doesn’t care if I don’t want to be a part of it.  Except for my mom.  Note to self: never venture into the woods to disconnect from society without first warning your mother. 

My work email, however, was a different issue entirely.  I was greeted by 60 emails in my inbox, all crying for attention.  My personal email? Thirteen.   That may seem like a decent amount, but I”m a Groupon and LivingSocial nut.  Subtract one email a day for both of those and you get 5 remaining. One was from mint.com and another was some kind of magazine email newsletter that I delete every single time because I don’t feel like clicking unsubscribe.

I should fix that obvious display of laziness.

Throw in a couple Facebook notifications, and all I had left was a big, sloppy pile of loser. 

I don’t know what I expected.  In fact my email is really just a place where I sign up to have specific things sold to me.  I don’t check in with people or write anyone.  I have one pen pal who drops me a line every three months or so (perfect for my type) and that about does it.  Even my own family doesn’t get back to me when I write.  

Facebook, however, greeted me like a warm puppy.  And then I realized – I don’t need to check my email nearly as often as I do.  I don’t know why I’m pouring over emails that are just companies showing me things I told them I like when Facebook is the place where people talk to me.  In fact, when I saw something I liked on the Internet last week, I immediately linked it to Dave’s Facebook wall instead of emailing it to him.  I could probably abstain from email for an entire week and pull out half an email I actually want to read instead of clicking “Mark As Read” and pretending I did.

Occasionally I’ll mark something with a star or flag that I intend to follow up on later, but let’s face it: I never do.  My email inbox is nothing but a bucket of starred and flagged good intentions.

Maybe I’ll go through them all this week and see what it is I wanted to accomplish a few months ago when I marked them.  I could have plans to conquer the world in there but I just never got around to the follow-up.

This could be epic. ♣

Just you wait.

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My Swift Descent into Hippie-dom.

31 May
Camp Fire

Photo by Charles Dyer. Click the image to stroll on over to his Flickr Photostream.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that this week’s adventure was camping.  Almost.   Let’s face it: at this point in the game, it’s obvious that I’m a sheltered, awkward hermit who hasn’t experienced life. In fact, that’s kind of the whole deal behind this blog’s existence.   And though I was certain that I’d been camping at some point in my lifetime based solely on the fact that I was bred out of the armpit of America, I suddenly realized that all my experiences with tents were in the backyards of my neighbors’ houses.

There was an inkling of camp-age when I went to Ocean City, Maryland for my birthday a few years ago.   But a brief stint of rumination recalls a hot tub and hotel that were right beside the “camping ground” and we frequented them often.   Then there was the year I was a camp counselor and theater teacher for a children’s performing arts camp in Michigan (I don’t want to talk about it), but those were pretty darn nice cabins and my food came from a mess hall.

So this past weekend, I traveled into the heart of West Virginia to a state park camping ground to eat food cooked on a fire, sleep on a tent floor, and abstain from showers.

And I gotta tell ya – I’m a fan.

I’m in love with food cooked on a fire.   I’m pretty sure it can make anything palatable, if not incredibly delicious.  Vegetables, scrambled eggs, potatoes, babies  – anything.  Delicious.

I’m not such a fan of the dewy, awkward, blanket of moistness that accumulates on me while I sleep.  I’m not really down with the 4 times I wake up in the middle of the night to adjust the blanket for salvation from sweltering heat or freezing cold.  And I guess when I think about it, it would be pretty nice to just have a regular shower that isn’t in a shared half-doored bathhouse a quarter-mile away  filled with loud, adolescent girls.  But hey, I really didn’t mind all that much either.

I kind of like just being out in the wilderness and staring at a fire.  I like that my biggest concern is when the next log will need put on the fire, and I have an excuse to avoid every call, email, or text that could possibly come my way.

Maybe I don’t like camping – I just like being left alone.

Yeah, that’s it.  I like being left alone.  I don’t care if I have to strip myself of grocery stores, consistent, running water, and a mattress to do so; I am totally into this off-the-radar gig. And since I’ve recently been entertaining the notion of hiking the Appalachian Trail, I fear all the evidence amounts to me abandoning real life in trade for a life amongst the trees.  I think right now my level of comfort is somewhere between ‘camping’ and ‘hippie commune’. 

Ugh, I just admitted that I’m entertaining the notion of joining a hippie commune.  

Things have quickly gone downhill. ♣

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The Three Day Weekend Revolution

30 May
revolution

Photo by Chris Corwin. Click to view his Flickr Photostream.

I think every weekend should be a 3-day weekend.

Shouldn’t it? 

Think about how much happier you are having Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday off.  Think about how much you got done, how you had time with family, how you finally took a moment to sit down and breathe.  Or maybe you didn’t do any of those things, but I’ll bet you got closer to them. 

What if every weekend were this way?

I’ve posted several times about how dumb it is that we get off Friday, have to be at work first thing on Monday, and all the time in between just feels like time I’m using to catch up on all the things I couldn’t do Monday-Friday because I was busy with work.

Maybe I can organize a nationwide effort.   It’ll be like senior cut day in high school, back when high school was fun and full of pranks and good times instead of bomb threats and see-through backpacks and metal detectors.  Remember senior cut day? We just all carry on as if we’re going to show up, and then we just don’t.  We all stay home, we all have our own reason for doing so, and we all come back the next day like it’s not big deal.

What if we just all stop going to work on Mondays? We’ll carry on through Friday as if we have every intention of returning Monday morning, but we won’t show up ‘til Tuesday.  And we’ll spend our 3-day weekends feeling truly recharged.  We’ll spend time with family, we’ll read books we’ve been putting off, we’ll go make an appointment wherever we haven’t been able to before because they work the same hours as us.   It will be glorious.  We’ll start a revolution.

Who’s in? ♣

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Strumpets in the Summertime

29 May

This super awesome pic that sums up how I feel about summer skin is called "Vyolet Vygas", by Larry Wentzel. Click to check out his Flickr PhotoStream.

Is it just me or are clothes being made smaller and sluttier?

That has to be the only reason it’s acceptable for all these body parts to be out on display.  It’s not even summer and all the gals in the city are free-flying with their anatomy out in the sunlight for all to see.  Tiny little short shorts, dresses with dangerously high hems, and low, low, low cut blouses.

How, exactly, am I supposed to compete with that?

I don’t really have any good ideas.  I mean, I’ll put on a dress but I’m not about to approach looking like a lady of the night when I do it.  Quite frankly, I was raised a tomboy and the fact that I’m willing to wear dresses or skirts of any kind should have everyone’s mouths agape.  When I reach for a makeup brush, people should have near-heart attacks.

Or at least they would be if there weren’t five girls within a 50 foot radius at all times with their legs and arms and boobly-boobs on display.

It’s not really a matter of competition.  After all, I’ve got a handsome guy by my side and I don’t really have any interest in attracting anyone’s attention but his.  But holy cow if I were him I’d have a hard time paying attention to me.

Since I’m unwilling to go the way of sluttery, I’m going to have to think of something else.  Maybe I could always smell like something nice.  Not flowers or musk – I need something that competes with tittery.  What’s a good scent to get a man’s attention? Bacon? 

I don’t know that would help my cause to be associated with cooked pig.

Why isn’t there already some sort of scent out there to assist in these situations?  Perhaps I should bottle something myself and label it as strumpet defense.   The commercial could feature a bunch of strumpets (naturally) all dressed up in their strumpet clothes (of course) and a decent-looking-but-not-blow-your-socks-off woman in the midst of them with an aura of light around her and a man staring at her with rapt attention.   And then some clever slogan. 

I’m going to have to work on that.   In the meantime, I’ll just have to keep making delicious food and being charmingly dorky.  Because those are really my only two redeeming qualities and I’m not sure the last one even counts.  I’m just trying to slip that in so I can make ‘redeeming qualities’ plural.

Maybe the bacon perfume isn’t such a bad idea after all.  It might remind him of pig, but that will remind him of food and that will remind him of me.  We can go from boob-gazing to food-grazing in 3 seconds flat and I can pull him out of the outside world of strumpetry and into our apartment where it’s safe and where I feed him and make him forget that there are attractive, young women absolutely everywhere.

Oh man- it’s only spring!  I’m gonna need one helluva plan when summer hits. ♣

 

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Jackie, African Drum Extraordinaire.

28 May

I have a djembe sitting in my living room that’s been staring at my face for an entire year.

Today's word is "djembe".

I bought the African drum last summer, thanks to a movie I watched called The Visitor.  In it, a reserved professor of something-or-other returns to his apartment after a long business trip and finds squatters.  One of whom just happens to play the djembe.  Instead of kicking them out, he decides to let them stay.  He also becomes one heck of a djembe player.

That’s not really how my djembe story goes.

I watched a movie, bought a djembe, played it once or twice, and then put it on a shelf where it’s been staring at me ever since.  It’s my drum of good intentions.  One day I’ll get the tutorial DVD for it and I’ll learn how to lay down some slammin’ African beats.  Or maybe I’ll go join a drum circle someday and learn from other players. 

So djembe it is.  I think I need to renew my commitment to it.   I’m not sure where to fit it in with the whole day job/2 film projects/daily blog thing, but my golly I have to because the guilt and silliness is building up and I can’t take it anymore.

I always thought it would be super cool to have a hidden, strange talent.  Not like tying a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue (I’ve tried – it’s not working out for me), but like fiddling or playing the bagpipes or being one heck of a step dancer.   I think the djembe fits the bill just fine.  I’ll look like a somewhat normal person, but in actuality, I could be a djembe-playing fool.  I could go out to open mics and sit in parks and strike the hide so well that even Dave stares at me in awe, attracted to my ongoing quirkiness and strange new attempts at human tricks.   And besides – being a mean djembe player is probably the last step in my transition into being a hippie.  …Well, it’s either that or I stop showering.

I think I prefer the djembe. ♣

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The Death of Grumplepuss

27 May

I’ve been a grumplepuss lately.

I feel like about a month ago, someone came into my soul and took my natural cheeriness.  The ease with which I used to flash a smile and the light bounce I had to my feet have been switched out for a furrowed brow and forced conversation.

I remember feeling like this back in high school.  Back when I had a lot of nicknames that had to do with being chaste, sharp-tongued, and weird.

There are certainly perks to sudden lack of cheer.  Things are much more easily approached with logic rather than emotion. I’m one of the most emotional people I know, so if I can just stay in one gear for a while, I really get a lot done and it all makes a lot of sense. 

It’s all that up and down female business that gets in the way of good, logical work.

 I keep trying to shake things up a bit.  Maybe I need a new city or a new gig or a new experience.  Maybe I need to just do something ridiculous (mansion anyone?) or just eat less.  Or not eat at all.  Maybe I need to get my nails done or get a pedicure or go out for ice cream before I eat dinner just because I’m an adult and I can.

None of those things have worked.

I don’t mind cynical Jackie, it’s just been a while since she’s visited and I’m not sure I have much room for her to stick around these days.  I’ve really lightened up since her last visit and I’ve gotten a lot more responsible, too.  

Maybe it’s fake-it-til-you-make-it kinda thing.  I thought that for a while – maybe I just have to pretend that this isn’t happening and no one will notice that I’m incredibly grumpy and I won’t bring them down or make them ask questions.

That didn’t work at all.  In fact, I believe the correct term would be “backfire”.

So I’m off to the woods this weekend.  I’m going camping in West Virginia with some old friends to cook things over a campfire that were never intended to be.  I’m off to take trips in the forest and get lost. Maybe I’ll find cheery Jackie somewhere along the way.

Wood

It will be like this. Except probably not so awesome-looking.

Don’t worry: I’m autoposting.  There may not be Internet in the butt crack of West Virginia, but there sure will be daily posts regardless.  It’d be a shame for you to miss me while I’m gone.

See ya in a few. ♣

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Gettin’ My Nails Did

26 May

Yesterday I decided to go up the street from work and get my nails did.

This is epic.  I just recently acquired  my talons.   Never, ever have I ever in the past gone to have a manicure with my own nails.  I usually show up with irritated little nubs and ask them to glue fake ones on and slather it in paste and shellac until they don’t even look like they belong to a human.

Then I spend the rest of the week going about daily tasks with an added dose of difficulty.  Buttoning pants, typing, putting in contacts… how do beautiful people accomplish anything?  I usually get enraged and begin to rip off said fake talons within a few short days, throwing my money down the trash and completely ruining my once-unimpressive, now-torn-up-and-disturbing nails. But yesterday I went in to the nail place up the street from work and asked for a French Manicure.

Doesn’t that sound fancy?  I have long enough nails to ask for French things.  That’s sexy.

Actually, there’s nothing at all sexy about it and going into nail salons in general stresses me out.  For one, there’s usually so many women gathered in one place, gabbing about women things that estrogen is dripping down the walls.  Two, I can’t for the life of me understand what the technicians are saying.  Even if English is their first language, I can’t get a sense of anything while their mouths are blocked by the face masks.   And it would be one thing if I just had to get through explaining what I wanted, but then they try to make my experience better by talking to me during the services, and I just have absolutely no idea what’s being said.  I like to contribute, and so I try.  I tend to keep responses general and ambiguous.  You know, something that could pretty much be an appropriate response to anything.   I nod and smile and say things like “Yeah, I know what you mean!”, “Right…”, and the all-encompassing “Yeah.”

During my most recent experience, the gentleman who was kind enough to whip my new nails into something presentable saw something on T.V. that got him excited and began to mumble on underneath his face mask, looking at me every so often for my enthusiastic confirmation.

He monologued for 5 minutes.

Five minutes is a long time to wait out not knowing what the hell someone is talking about.  There are a thousand things I could be unknowingly agreeing to with all my “rights” and “yeahs”.   He could’ve sold me a broken down inn down the street.  He could have taken me for a prostitute.  He could have told me he was going to go punch a baby in the face and I would have just kept nodding on, waiting for the pain to end.

Luckily, an update for “Dancing with the Stars” came on  the television, and it trumped whatever was previously on his mind.  With rapt attention, he stared ahead, getting the low-down on what was to be expected from the season finale.

I would have been able to contribute to the conversation he was about to have with himself if only I had T.V. like every other American ever.

But I don’t.

Note to self: watch T.V., practice “yes” phrases, then go get nails done. ♣

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The Morning After

25 May

It’s always kind of awkward the day after a Freshly Pressed post.  It’s like a one-night stand.  Should we acknowledge this happened and it was awesome but then recognize that we can’t keep going on like this?  Should we just ignore it and act casual?

…Should we cuddle?

I’ve always gone the casual route.   With Freshly Pressed, I mean – not with one-night stands.  I’ve actually never had one of those.  But since I’m going to keep plowing forward with this analogy I’ve worked up for us here, I guess that acting casual and ignoring our connection yesterday makes me kind of a player.  I like to consider myself an old-fashioned lady, so allow me to take a moment and send a big, fat, genuine bag of thanks to all you who are browsing my pages, commenting and liking the sweet bejeezus out of my blog, and considering starting Lollipop Tuesday streaks of your own (which I absolutely support).  I really appreciate you stopping by, and I will get back to the comments you leave.  Eventually.  I’d do it all at once, but I’m kind of doing this postaday2011 thing and it’s pretty time-consuming. I hope you can understand.

This came at a great time.  Although I was gearing up for my half-year anniversary of blogging every day, it’s pretty darn hard.  And this was a lovely pick-me-up.

Not to mention a great, unexpected karmic reward for trying something truly atrocious.

145 posts down, 220 posts to go. Onward! ♣

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7 Ways to Eat a Cricket

24 May
Cricket in close-up

This is actually a grasshopper. But let's face it, they're basically the same thing. Right? Right. Photo by ABremner/"scoobygirl" - Click the image to view their photostream.

This week, I celebrated Lollipop Tuesday by eating a cricket.  Sour cream and onion, to be exact.  Grossed out? So am I.   Don’t want to read on? I don’t blame you.  Don’t know what Lollipop Tuesday is?  Check out the top of the page to calm that burning sensation in your cerebrum.

As it turns out, I need quite a bit of convincing to chomp down on the thoracic exterior of a once-live, now-sour-cream-‘n’-onion cricket.  It took me nearly half an hour to throw it down the hatch.  Here are some of the reasonings my mind attempted during the excruciating limbo:

“I’m sure lots of people in other cultures eat bugs.  Yeah.  I’m sure I’ve seen it on a travel channel or something.  Lots of other countries have people who see this just like I see a banana.  A banana with legs and eyes and antenna.  …No.  no that’s not working.

Maybe there’s something on the box that will help me.  Like a breakdown of how darn healthy this is for me.  *gets box* Actually, it appears there’s only a diagram of the cricket.  Outlining all its bits and pieces.  

Okay, look.  This is easy.  It’s 9:00pm, and I don’t have anything new for Lollipop Tuesday.  Nothing.  And it’s too late to go out and try to do something tonight so it’s cricket or bust.  Cricket or bust.  Cricket or bust.  Just do it.  Do it and blog it.  Bam.  Wham Bam Bam-o.  

No, I can’t. EEEEeeeewww look at it.  Look at iiiiiit.  Its little leg is poking out from the rest of it.  EW.

All right, JESUS! I SHOULD EAT THEM BECAUSE OF JESUS.  SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IS SAID TO HAVE LIVED ON LOCUSTS AND HONEY IN THE DESERT.  I CAN BE LIKE JOHN.

 FOR JESUS!!

No, I’m sorry, this is disgusting.  I can’t do this.  I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t.

Okay here we go.  I’ll turn it into a drink.  A Cricket Soco Shot.  Yeaaaah *goes and pours shot* Okay – new shot!  Crunch up the cricket as fast as you can, and shoot the Soco.  

…

…

Ew.  I can’t do this.  I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this.  This is disgusting.  All for a stinking blog.  A BLOG.  NO ONE’S EVEN GOING TO CARE.

All right, forget it.  Just forget it.  I’m just going to set an egg timer and when it goes off, I eat it.  Like Scattegories.  Okay.  *Tick tick tick …..* 

…

….

Okay this is unbearable.  5-4-3-2-1!”

 

And that’s when I did it.  I popped the cricket in my mouth, where I quickly crunched down on it and kicked it to the back right corner of my mouth.  My tongue in a frenzy to work to somehow chew it without tasting it, I was frozen in terror and got it lodged between my lip and teeth.  Mortified, my tongue scraped at my teeth, trying to work it to the back of my throat where my esophagus could take over and I could be released from my peril. 

Finally, it dislodged and I washed it back with a shot of Southern Comfort and disgust.  I quickly reached for my enormous glass of orange juice, which I stashed for such a crisis.  I guzzled the entire cup down in a blink and ran to the bathroom to rinse what I was sure were little cricket bits out from my mouth.

Haggard, I walked into the living room, where Dave made a remark about the irony of my egg timer being a ladybug.  And then something or other about the cricket being in my throat and wanting to crawl back up.

Today, I’m walking around with a lump in my throat, mulling over the atrocity that I swallowed the evening prior.  I imagine it swimming in my bowels, I imagine it running through the course of my digestive system, all the while a beady, black-eyed, cricket.    

Which, by the way, doesn’t taste as much like sour cream and onion as it does regret. ♠

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