The Master of Complicated Things

In 40-some-odd years on this planet, I have learned many complicated things.  I can drive a straight shift, fix a toilet, create a delicious meal (OK: edible) out of MacGyver ingredients, cross one eye and leave one staring straight ahead while arching one eyebrow* (a look that reels them in like moths to a flame BTW), tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue, and say the alphabet backwards.  (It occurs to me that many of these skills were learned during the ever-formative college years.)

So it is beyond me why, to this day, I seem to be completely unable to apply mascara without poking myself in the eye.

Sigh.

*Do not try the cross-eye trick at home or without the proper supervision of a bartender.

When Are the Auditions for the Next X-Men Movie?

I think I'm a shoe-in to play the part of Magneto's girlfriend.

You see, this past summer I had a surgical procedure done and two little pieces of metal were implanted inside me.  After that, I began to notice that I was setting off metal detectors, particularly at Target & Anthropologie.
"It must be my phone."
"Maybe it's my car keys."
"The buttons on my coat?  My handbag?  My earrings?"
While I was in Anthropologie last month, I asked the staff to work with me to find out what it was.  After all, I've flown a handful of times since the surgery and make it thru the airport just fine-so it couldn't be ME, could it?  Eventually they had me stripped down to my yoga pants and t-shirt and the detectors still went wonky as I passed thru.  "I think it's you," the girl said.  Ohhh yeah...  I hadn't made the connection until just then.  It's me.

Now, I find it hard to believe that Target employs more sophisticated metal detectors than the TSA, but maybe so.  Now I just smile as I beep on through-"It's just me" I say & wave, waiting for the day some overzealous security guard grinds me into the pavement and I can retire.

Until then, it seems I have my own little super power...  although I'm a better fit for "Mystery Men II".

Love Ain't Always What It's Supposed To Be (Part 2)

Several years ago, on our way to dinner, we passed a cavalry of cop cars & t.v. vans two streets down from us.  A quick call to a contact at a local t.v. station revealed that it was a homicide.  Grrreat.

When we got home, we turned on the 11 o'clock news to see if the perpetrator had be apprehended or if we needed to sleep in shifts.  Turns out, it wasn't a homicide, it was a domestic assault.  The reporter informed the viewers that a couple had fought & she had shot him in the butt.  That's not exactly how he said it, but that's the gist of it.  In the background a gurney rolled by with a  young man lying on his stomach and sorta propped up on his elbows.  He called out "Eye luuvve yew!"

Off-camera, a (somewhat remorseful) voice called back.  "Happy Birthday!"

Love Ain't Always What It's Supposed To Be (Part 1)

First, let me preface this story with a confession.  I'm a klutz.  God has blessed me with many gifts, but grace is not one of them.  And for now, let's leave it at that.

Yesterday morning I had to be at work at an ungodly hour, so I was up and out LONG before the sun even thought about peeking over the horizon.  When I was ready to leave, I tip-toed back into the bedroom.  My intent was to softly, sweetly kiss my sleeping beau on the forehead in a gesture of love & hopes for a happy day.

As I gingerly stepped across the pitch black room, my foot got tangled in some of his discarded clothing on the floor and I lost my balance, plowed into the bed, and head-butted him.

Ahh, the head-butt.  Can anything say 'I love you' more than a solid crack on the head while you sleep?

I can only think of one...

To Be Continued

Proud to Be an American

While we're on the subject of country music stars, I have another little tale to tell.

It was Christmastime and I was running 30,000 errands on my lunch break.  Okay, 3 errands.  Whatever.  The clock was ticking and I was due back at the pressure cooker in 10 minutes.  I was sitting at an intersection, hoping against hope, to turn left.  It felt like an eternity before I got my chance.  Clear to my left: yep.  Clear to my right: yep.  Clear to my lef... no wait, here comes a big honkin' Suburban.   Great; by the time he clears the intersection, the light is going to turn and traffic will start flowing from my right again.  Sigh.

Then the Suburban does the unthinkable.  He turns.  He turns onto the road I'm stuck on.  No signal.  If he had signaled, I could have made my left turn, but no.  Now I'm stuck until the light at the bottom of the hill changes again.  So I did what any good (highly irritated) American would do.  I flipped him off.  Inconsiderate jerk.

And as he passed, I noticed his license plate.  It was a Lee Greenwood Theater license plate.  What kind of loser has a Lee Greenwood license plate, I wondered?

Well, the answer to that question, my friends, is this:
Lee Greenwood is the kind of loser who would have a Lee Greenwood license plate.

Garth Brooks & The Hillbilly Eyewitness

Despite living in East Tennessee, I'm not much of a country music fan.  But I happened to be in New York on a business trip when Garth Brooks gave his free Central Park performance.  Assuming this to be one of my only chances at a historic "I was there" experience, I went along with my friend Beth.

We never did figure out where the stage was, but there were jumbotrons everywhere, so we just settled into a spot, standing around with a million of our closest friends.  Beth was singing along and I was looking around for a beer truck.  What kind of outdoor concert doesn't have a beer truck--do you really expect me to sing "Friends in Low Places" without sloshing a beer around--come on! (Sidebar: before that night, I never knew rednecks existed outside of the South.)

About 3 songs in, a little red dot appeared, centered on the back of the guy in front of me.  More sophisticated types might have recognized it as a laser pointer, but to my bumpkin mind, it meant one thing-we needed to get out of there in a hurry, lest we were embarking on more of a 'grassy knoll' kind of historic "I was there" event.  Beth & I exchanged alarmed glances--she was with me.  When we cleared the crowd, she said "do you think we might have gotten shot?"
"No," I said, "something much worse."
"What's worse than getting shot?"
"Being on national television.  You know any time some tragedy happens, the media's first job is to track down the hillbilly eyewitness.  And honey, that's me."

I had visions of myself plastered across ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN-with a blood splattered shirt and spinach in my teeth, saying "Yew know, we's jus' standin' thar an I saw that red dot on the boy infrunna me an' I said to my friend Beth- (high pitched voice) Beth? Yew reckon sumbody's gotta gun?  And BLAM!  Next thing I knowed they dun blowed his head off.  I bet it was cause they don't have no beer truck."

15 minutes of fame I could do without.  Thanks.  

When Did I Stop Reading Cosmo?

When I'm in the grocery store, I make a conscious effort to pick the longest line.  The strategy is simple.  Get in line, march up to the magazine rack, grab a People and read it while I wait.  Don't judge: saves me thousands of dollars a year on cable.  And yet I still never make it out of the store without at least one magazine in the cart.

Lose 40 lbs by Tuesday?
Wait--what day is it?
Sunday?
I'm your girl.

Last week, I was cruising the the rack and I noticed Cosmopolitan and Better Homes & Gardens side by side.  The inner struggle began.  Which is more important-finding out the 50 ways to seduce a man or finally decluttering my home (and my life!) for good?  hmmmm....  I went with the Better Homes.
That night me and my Meredith Publication cuddled up together in bed.  Isn't this nice?  Look at that pound cake I could whip up next weekend.

But the Cosmo nagged at me.  Don't you want to know the kinky sex secret 64% of women secretly want to try?  Think you already know what he hates for your to wear to bed?  What's wrong with you?? When did making the perfect pound cake take precedence over the Bedside Astrologer?

Somewhere I have a photograph of me and my Grandmother.  I'm about 5 or 6 which would make her in her mid-seventies.  We are lounging in her bed.  Me in my pajamas with a Fresca on the night stand beside me, she in her satiny robe with a ..."Fresca"... on her night stand.  She's smoking a cigarette with one of those Bette Davis filters and I'm reading a Cosmo, upside down.  She's got a "you just wait" sly grin on her face and I've got a "what's a G-spot?" deer in headlights look on mine.
Clearly, my Grandmother, who lived to be 97, felt there was more to life than the perfect closet, 40lbs by Tuesday or even pound cake.

Last night, I bought a Cosmo.

The Blog Entry Entitled "I Think I Have Tourette's" or "Just Another Shopping Day at Sam's"

I am prone to sudden out-bursts.  Sometimes it's a brief impression of Linda Blair and sometimes it's just one simple word.  After which, I immediately put my mask back on and act as if nothing  happened.  Just like I did yesterday.

I don't know why I do it to myself.  Nothing good can come from going to Sam's on a weekend afternoon. As I pull in, I can almost hear them saying "Hey, Hon, I'm getting hungry.  Let's go down to Sam's and grab some lunch.  What time do they start handin' out them samples?"

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not above some sample tasting, but I'm NOT going to wait in line for a 1" x 1" square of Wal-mart grade pizza or a third of a cheese stick.  And it's not like there's actually a line.  They start crowding around that poor little old lady; she's desperately trying to keep up with production and say her spiel, but they don't care.  Just gimme my pizza sample!

I usually just run in, cruise by the book stand (because I need another book), grab my vat of baby spinach and bushel of red grapes and go.  But yesterday, I decided that I might need a year's supply of bagels or tortillas, so I puttered on down to the sample tasting side just as Auntie Em was pulling out a fresh pizza demo.  Holy Batman-it was like Night of the Living Dead.  I don't know where they came from, but suddenly I was surrounded by sluggish bodies moaning ''pizza, piiiizzza" and threatening to trample me.  It didn't take long for me to abandon my mini-bagels and start swimming upstream.
"Stay in your happy place." I warn myself.
"pizza, piiiizzza"
"Namaste.  Ommmm."
"pizza, piiiizzza"
"Remember, you are the epitome of Southern grace."
And then Sling Blade blocks my path.
I opened my mouth to say "Excuse me, please" but what came out was
"MOVE!"
I smiled benignly and walked away.

Maybe I have Tourette's.  Maybe all you gotta do to ward off zombies is yell "MOVE".  Maybe I need to stay out of Sam's on Saturdays.

P.S.: Phil bought a pizza

I Have a Few Things to Say & Some Stories to Tell

In the March issue of O Magazine, there's an article written by Beth Macy entitled "Before I Forget" which details a colleague's descent into dementia.  I read it on the plane on my way home from Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.  
Last week, I finished "Buffalo Lockjaw", Greg Ames' story of a son's last Holiday with his 56 year old Alzheimer's stricken Mother.  
Four days ago, I realized I was driving in circles when I passed Target for a second time...  


Granted, I was in an area that's unfamiliar to me, but it made me start thinking.  You just never know, do you?  You never know when the rug might get pulled out from under your feet and suddenly you're clutching a stuffed frog in some old folks home, completely unable to communicate to anyone that the frog needs a beer.  


So that's why I decided to start a blog.  I have a few things to say and some stories I'd like to tell...  before I lose my mind.  


Stay Tuned.