C is for cookie.

I'm eating cookies right now if you weren't able to guess from today's title. Key lime white chocolate. They're gooooooooood. We have two guinea pigs and they're crazy. Whenever they hear the crinkle of plastic, they go nuts because they think they're going to get some timorthy hay. I don't know if you know what a happy guinea pig looks like, but they jump around and squeal a lot. Sometimes I'll crunch up a plastic bag after I put away groceries just to watch them go ballistic. It's funny, really, it's funny. It's a prime example of classic pavlovian conditioning. My daughter is turning out to be a bit of a scientist herself, but more along the lines of Frankenstein than Pavlov. She likes to do things that essentially torture the animals to see what their responses will be. For example, she'll shine a bright light directly in the eyes of her gerbil just to see what happens. Before any of you whacked out animal rights people get your panties in a bunch, we do stop her when we see what she's up to. She'll also brush the guinea pigs against the grain of their fur because it makes them squeal like Ned Beatty. They don't like it, but she thinks they're shouting their joy. Yeah, I still haven't seen anything that convinces me children and animals are a good mix.

She wants a cat now. I've told her she can't have a cat until the gerbil and hamster die. If you're keeping track, you'll have figured out we have two guinea pigs, a gerbil and a hamster as pets. When I told her the smaller rodents had to die before I'd even consider getting another animal, she suggested we set Bertha (the gerbil) "free" in the back yard. We told her that wouldn't work. Her real dream is to get onto Pet Stars, which is an animal talent show on Animal Planet. At first she tried to teach her hamster Snoozer to do somersaults. Training sessions consisted of her yelling jump and then tossing Snoozer from hand to hand. We had to let her know hamsters don't catch on that easily, so she decided she'd turn to the guinea pigs. She thinks their happy dance is enough to win her a prize. But now she dreams of the day when she'll get a cat and can torture, er, train it. Going to a pet store with her is interesting because she spends all her time trying to figure out which cat condo she wants to buy when we finally get around to getting a cat. I think I know what she really wants and I'm buying her the deluxe kitty highrise for Christmas.

I see you.

Looks like God got this one right.


Brown Eyes


What Color Eyes Should You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't know why I like taking these little quizzes. Probably because I'm hoping to find out I'm not really as twisted as I think I am. Yeah, that's it.

You dropped the bomb on me, baby.

I've been noticing lately that when I go to the gym, people have not been flushing the toilet after they use it. I'm not understanding why because flushing the toilet is one of the things that's really emphasized during potty training. Most often, it's urine and decomposing toilet paper I encounter. Occasionally, it's a turd. However, yesterday, it was a bloody tampon floating so nonchalantly in the bowl when I opened the stall door that you'd think it's a pretty typical occurance. What the hell? What is so freaking difficult about flushing the toilet? I mean, come on. No one wants to see that. Not even other women. It's bad enough we have to deal with the gross realities of our own periods. I don't want the evidence of someone else's monthly terrorizing me from the creeping depths of the gym toilets. FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET, YOU LOSERS!!! OK, now that I've got that off my back...

Since I'm talking about the gym, I saw this girl running on the track, and she had a huge bruise on the back of her thigh. I found myself staring at it while I jogged because you don't often see bruises that large and I wondered what had caused it. I tried to make out if it was shaped like anything, like a hand or a shoe or something that would indicate someone had hit or kicked her. It did look something like a sneaker, but I can't be sure. Anyway, you would think if she got the bruise as a result of someone beating her, she would have hidden it, right? Because victims of abuse often try to hide the evidence of their torment. In general, I like watching other people jog because it's interesting to see the way their bodies move. I've got to tell you, some people look really goofy when they run. I'm sure I'm one of those people, but since I can't see myself, I like to think I look really cool and sleek when I jog. I also get to see a lot because most of the people running on the track are young undergrads, so they all pass me and I spend a lot of time behind other people. I recently discovered the importance of having good running shoes. I've always bought my running shoes at places like Shoe Carnival or Shoe Warehouse or whatever so that I don't have to pay an arm and a leg. However, I would notice on the the days that I ran, I'd have really deep muscle pain in my legs for the rest of the day. So, on the advice of a coworker, I went to a running shop and had them set me up with a proper pair of shoes and I couldn't believe the difference it made to have shoes that correctly support your foot. The first time I ran with the new shoes, there was no muscle pain and my feet didn't hurt the way they normally do. So my advice for all you would-be runners out there, drop some cash and get a good pair of shoes. It makes all the difference in the world.

Same old, same old.

Nothing new or exciting happening today, unless you want to count that I had to drive my husband to the car dealership to pick up his car this morning. I think Life in Debt is a goner. He hasn't posted in over a month and I think all his philandering ways have finally caught up with him. So let his propensity for making really bad choices serve as a cautionary tale to those of you who might follow in his sorry footsteps, which wouldn't be difficult given modern pressures to have more than you can afford and to look for immediate gratification.

Hold on, I've got to go check on my mac & cheese. BRB.

K, I'm back. Now what was I talking about? Oh right, bad choices. This is actually something I wonder about a lot , and I'm fascinated by people who never seem able to do the right thing, Of course, "the right thing" is a subjective concept, but I think most of us know it when we see it. Just like pornography. What compels people to go against the most logical course of action and pick the path that only fulfills the most superficial need? Admittedly, I tend to be a little too practical in my decision making. Sometimes to the point that I wonder if I know how to have fun. I enjoy fun and nice things, but if I can make due with what I have, it never seems wise to blow a load on something that just satisfies an aesthetic desire. I'm talking specifically about cars. I drive a Honda station wagon. It's not fancy, but it gets me where I need to get. In general, I don't think a lot about cars, but there are cars out there now loaded out the ying-yang with stuff to fool you into thinking you're driving around town in your living room. It would be nice to have a car like that, but paying $700 a month to have a car like that isn't nice. But sometimes I do get sick of making the decisions I'm supposed to make--the right decisions. I wish I could be bad sometimes. I wish I could not care about the consequences and only think about the moment. It's not often I think like that, but sometimes I do.

It's Sew Easy.

My daughter says she wants a sewing machine for her birthday, so I just ordered one from Amazon.com. I hope I don't live to regret this purchase. I hope I'm not making an emergency room visit in the future so they can separate the fingers she's sewed together. I am surprised, however, that there seems to be an incredible dearth of sewing machines for children out there. I'm not talking about toy sewing machines, I'm talking about real sewing machines designed for children. I bought something that seems OK, I hope it won't turn out to be a piece of junk and a waste of $40. You'd think there'd be a market for it. You make a real sewing machine, just size it a little smaller for kid-sized hands. That doesn't seem too difficult to me, but apparently it is. Anyway, speaking of sewing, my daughter finally decided what she wants to be for Halloween. We went to Jo-Ann's and she picked out the pattern for a dragon. It's this bodysuit thing that's got wings on the shoulders, spines down the back and a tail. It shouldn't be too difficult. I accidently threw out one of the pattern pieces, though, when I was cutting the thing out. It's part of the glove, but I'm going to wing it with the part of the glove pattern I did manage to keep. It should be OK, otherwise she'll be the dragon with jacked-up hands. That would make a good title for a short story. I'm drinking hot chocolate right now. Thought I'd throw that out to give you a more complete picture of me at the moment. I've got envelopes to open, too.

I'm adding a new link to the side. It's a project in cyber-writing. It's going to be an ongoing short story written by a group of writers here on campus. So far, there's only one entry, the one I posted to get things started, but hopefully some of the other participants will be adding on to it pretty soon. This is a typical sort of writing exercise, when one person writes something and another person adds onto the story. But I thought it might be interesting to try it in the blog format. The only real problem I've noticed is that I can't see a way to have the posts appear in reverse chronology, so people are going to have to start from the end and work their way up as we add to the story. Of course, that would only be for people who don't read from the very beginning, so go, quick, go read so you don't have to keep scrolling down to get to the beginning. GO NOW!!!

P.S. Desperate Dad, if you're reading this, I assume you have a new bundle of baby in your arms. Congratulations and good luck.

Turn your head and cough.

OK, go check this out. Doctor sexually assaults patient Now, when I first started reading it, I assumed the patient was a woman. Apparently, I was wrong. What I want to know is if the patient is upset enough to file charges, (as he should) why didn't he stop the doctor once he started "massaging" his genitals? I'm not attempting to blame the victim in this case, but I'm always curious in these type of cases that a prolonged assault takes place. If I were seeing a doctor and realized they were doing something inappropriate, I can guarantee you I'd be kicking them in the teeth before they had a chance to take it any further. Then I'd go screaming out of the examining room to tell everyone what had just happened. But first, I'd mess up my hair and smear my lipstick all over my face so it would look REALLY bad. But really, it's disgusting that any medical professional would violate the trust of a patient in such an appalling manner, but there does come the point when the victim has to immediately respond to the situation, preferably with a punch in the face.

Renovate me!

Last week I was watching this program on TV called Renovate My Family, or something like that. It's the first time I'd ever seen it, but I know my purpose in life now is to get on this show. It's a reality show where they come in and, as the name suggests, renovate a family. The episode I happened to watch was about a family of five outside Chicago. Apparently the son suffered paralysis due to a snowboarding accident or a water skiing accident or something along those lines. Anyway, the associated trauma of the event was basically tearing the family apart. In addition, their house was poorly designed or equipped to accomodate someone in a wheelchair. So the Renovate My Family folks come in and completely redo the house and solve all the family problems and give them all makeovers. So, I want these people to come to my house and give me a new house and a makeover. I told my husband we had to come up with some sort of serious dysfunction we could fabricate so they'd come put us on the show. He flatly refused. I don't why whenever it comes to trying to get onto television, my husband gets all ethical on me. This is the man who wants to open a super welfare complex where he'll have a check cashing store, liquor store, discount cigarette store, casino and hourly daycare under one roof. So, I'll probably never get onto the show and have my house redone. That's really what I want--a complet house makeover.

I've noticed "Life in Debt" hasn't posted for quite some time and I wonder what happened to him. You'll remember he's the bloke whose managed to completely screw up his life with compulsive shopping and extra-marital affairs. I wonder if he got fired. There's something I don't understand when I read blogs written by British folk. It doesn't seem they have to actually be at work very much. It seems like there are a lot of ways for them to get off work and not have to worry about losing their jobs. It sounds like they have leave coming out the ying-yang. Can anyone explain this to me? I don't know much about standard leave practices in Europe, so I'd appreciate anyone who'd be able to fill me in on the specifics. I know, in general, there tends to be more leave available to Europeans for things like maternity and paternity leave, but what else do they get?

By the way, I'm still soliciting for interviewees. If anyone out there thinks they're interesting enough to be interviewed and wants to launch their sparkling personality into the blogosphere, let me know and we'll set something up. Let me also note that the only rule is that you have to be willing to answer any question I ask. If you're interested in just being foul for foulness sake, don't bother. I'm not interested in talking to you because that's just boring.

I concede.

OK, I find I must bow to the master of grossiosity, my brother. Dirty Sanchez apparently ain't the half of it. His list manages to blow my one puny entry (which wasn't even my own entry, if you recall) out of the water. So, all hail the male ability to make one want to vomit.

Went to a reading last night at a local coffee shop. I should probably say the local coffee shop. We're not overflowing with coffee shops here. We don't even have a freestanding Starbucks here. All the Starbucks in town are little cafes in other stores, like Barnes & Noble or Target. This particular reading was for the grad students in the MFA program. It was good. I can remember before I had ever gone to a reading, I imagined they were really cool and hip. They're not. It's a lot like going to a lecture. But that's OK.

My daughter has changed her mind once again over what she wants to be for Halloween. She's going to have to commit to something pretty soon because it's a done deal once I buy the fabric for it. She was Hermione from Harry Potter last year and she's now saying she wants to do the Harry Potter thing again. That, of course, makes things really easy for me because I won't have to make a new costume this year. Although, I suspect she'll change her mind once we go shopping. I tried to get her to be Alice in Wonderland because I made that costume for her school play last spring. I suggested that my husband and I could dress up as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but she didn't go for that one.

I don't know how many of you out there sew, but I can't believe how expensive it is to sew. One of the reasons I learned was I thought I could spend less money on dressing my daughter, but fabric's not cheap. A lot of times you can buy something cheaper off the rack. And of course, the nicer the fabric, the more money it costs. I'm going to make her first communion dress when it's time for that and I plan on using the types of fabrics available for wedding gowns and some of that stuff costs as much as $45.00 a yard. But I like the idea that she's wearing something one of a kind for an occassion like that. I don't have to worry about the veil, though. I still have my communion veil, so I'll have her wear that one.

I'm Monica.

I'm Monica Gellar-Bing from Friends!



Who are you?

Random thoughts.

What am I thinking about today? This moring while I was eating my yogurt and granola, I was skimming through a recent Scientific American that highlights Einstein. One article was comparing and contrasting Einstein to Newton, saying they were basically the two most important scientific minds...ever. Anyway, the article said Newton's universe is one of absolutes and Einstein's is one of relatives. Various other articles went on to explain how many scientists today devote their careers to disproving Einstein's theories and whatnot. It made me think that very few people in academia think for themselves anymore, if they ever really did. Scientists have to tear apart someone else's work to validate their own careers. Newton's work became the basis of modern scientific thought and Einstein envisioned the other side of Newton's coin. And everyone else has been following in their footsteps. Is it laziness? Anyway, I see the same thing here. The graduate students learn to regurgitate what their professors tell them is the truth. So another generation of "scholars" continues this legacy of the status quo. The professors are not interested in listening to something different that might challenge them to readjust their thinking. It's pathetic, all of it. People who think universities are supposed to represent the open markeplace of ideas are sorely mistaken. The thinking here is just as closed as any other sector of society. They pretend they're open, but dare to disagree on a term paper and you're looking at a big old F. It's just another level of conformity.

Dine and Dash.

Sorry, this has to be a quick and relatively empty post. I actually had work to do today, so no time for nonsense. I was trying to think of something raunchy to report but, nothing really good is coming. So I'll give you one of Angela's raunchiest: Dirty Sanchez she calls it. Apparently, after anal sex, the man wipes his shit-coated penis across his partner's upper lip, drawing one smelly mustache. That is kind of disgusting. In general, I don't get people that want to have anything to do with bodily waste and sex. Like those guys who want to piss on women. What the fuck is that about? That's just messed up.

Free lunch.

In about 45 minutes, I'm out of here to enjoy a free lunch. Woo hoo. Went to a reading last night for Sean Keith Henry who just published his first novel, Limbo. He is a graduate of the MFA program and he seems like a really nice guy. Not only did I buy a copy of his book, I bought a copy for my friend Jenanie because I think she'll really enjoy it. At any rate, he was much more generous a speaker and presenter than Michael Collins. I have to chair a session for a conference going on here. It's starts at 9:00, which means I won't be able to sleep in tomorrow morning. That's so harsh. Saturdays are really the only day I have to sleep in because we have to get up Sunday for church. I hope they have a good menu at the Morris today so I can PIG OUT. Naw, I'm just joking. I don't really like to pig out because I feel sick the whole rest of the day. That's all I have for today. I don't feel much like talking.

Can someone tell me what it's all about?

My husband and I were lying in bed last night talking and discovered neither one of us knows what we're supposed to be doing. I'm 35, he's 41, and we still haven't figured out what we want to be when we grow up. That's jacked up. It makes me wonder does anyone ever hit that point where they think they're right where they're supposed to be in life? I am so restless lately. I feel something churning inside of me that wants to get out and I don't know what to do about it. I hate that feeling. I'd chalk it up to middle-age malaise, but I think I'm still too young for that. I'm still waiting for that big thing that's supposed to happen to me. I know I'm supposed to be famous, for sure. :-) But seriously, I am supposed to be famous. I think a lot about what life will be like for my daughter when she grows up and I'm concerned. I'm concerned about where this country is heading and whether or not people still know what's supposed to be important in life. People concentrate too much on material gains and don't pay enough attention to what's going on under their own roof. I'm afraid she'll be an adult in a world like Blade Runner or something, where everything is dark and desolate and overcrowded and dirty. Then I think about her children. I can't imagine what life will be like for her, so it's almost surreal to try and imagine my grandchildren's lives will be, and what kind of world they'll be forced to navigate.

I also find myself wondering about this human fiber. We have all this potential and don't seem to be able to figure out the best way to apply it. Following Marx's theories, we're headed toward socialism because we're right on track for reaching a state of ripe capitalism. It's at that stage, of course, when man is so isolated from himself and absorbed completely in the material world that the revolution will occur. I'm not much for Marx and I think any of those type of world-order theories tends to forget the essential human element. We're animals. We're driven to survive just like any other animal. People will never be content to sublimate individual gratification for the greater good, and that's our primary flaw. You look at all the socialist and communist societies. None of them operates under a communal willingness to share the wealth. The masses are forced to live that way by a select few. I don't know how I ended up on this line of thought from trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Anyway, I think someone should give me a talk show. I'd be good on a talk show. But I'd ask real questions. I wouldn't care if I insulted the guest or not. I'd get the real truth out of them, squeeze it out like the pulp from a lemon. That's what I want to be when I grow. A talk show host, no, really an interviewer. I'd be happy just sitting there interviewing people and making them reveal all their secrets.

You're it on a stick.

I'm sitting here working on layout and it is what it is. My friend Lynn and I were IM'ing each other this morning. (That sounds dirty, doesn't it?) We were talking about things on a stick and how everything is made better by being put on a stick. So I decided there should be dick on a stick. But then I realized they already exist, they're called dildos. And I was so close to making millions with that particular brainstorm. Damn. Although, really, dildos are sticks as dicks, but not really dick on a stick. So maybe there's really something there after all. I'll have to mull that one over a little more. I saw once on some travel show that they sell fried macaroni and cheese on a stick at the Minnesota State Fair. Why not just call that heart attack on a stick? I mean, good lord, what will people come up with next?

Anywho, I'm putting together a website for my brother right now, which is a little bit of a secret, but not really. Once it's ready, I'll probably link to it from here so you can all feel the love. I'm listening to Hall and Oates right now, off the streaming radio station I listen to. What ever happened to them? They were pretty big in their day, and now they're just gone. I've got to chair a session at a conference on campus this weekend. I'll have to dig through my closet and see if I have anything that can pass as professional. I finally broke down and gave away all my "work clothes" from DC because they were out of style, for one, but also because I realized I would never wear any of it again because no one sees me at work so I don't have to dress up. Which I love, by the way. I hate stockings. They make my thighs sweat.

I'm too sexy for my shirt.

Apparently, I am sexy today. That's what my daughter told me as we were walking out the door this morning. I'm wearing jeans with chuncky boots and this is my "sexy" outfit. At least, that's what she says. "You look sexy, Mom, with those jeans and boots." But she pronounces it in a way where it sounds more like she's saying saxy. Sassy and saxy, that's me.

BTW, here's raunchy story number two. It's not really a story as much as it's an anecdote. Anyway, when I was a teenager and lived in Utah, a friend of mine who lived on base told me she knew this guy--who was gay--who had anal sex soooooo much that he had to wear tampons up his ass because of the bleeding. I was fifteen when I heard this and it seemed to have a pretty high eeew-factor at the time. Now, it seems to make sense in that if you're bleeding from the ass, how else would you stop it? Of course, he shouldn't be having sex so much that he bleeds. How could you even have sex if you've got that level of damage in the rectum? I can't imagine it would be very pleasureable, but maybe he was one of those guys who likes to ride the fine line between pleasure and pain.

The road less travelled.

My husband has begun saying we will be moving to Montana in four years. He's restless, as am I. I'm an Army brat, so I get edgy after being in one place a few years. We've been here for seven years now, which is the longest I've lived in any one place my entire life. The wanderlust has been loudly ringing in my ears for the last few years. When we were driving to church yesterday, he asked our daughter, "Wouldn't you like to move to Montana?"

She said, "But I've lived here my entire life."

"You could play with your cousins anytime you want if we lived in Montana."

"Dad, don't you know that when kids live in one place, they want to stay there?"

"But you should go someplace different. You want to see something different."

"Dad, I will when I go to college because I'm going to go someplace else for college."

So that was the end of that conversation. We were in Montana visiting my sister for a couple of days when we went on our road trip in August. There is something about the West that breathes life into you. I love the mountains. That was the one thing I really loved about living in Utah. I loved hiking the mountains. There are no mountains in Indiana. In general, there's nothing to climb on here. That's the kind of hiking I like, climbing something. Getting to the top of something so you can look down and remember how small we really are in the whole scheme of things.

Because I lived a life on the move as a child, it's hard for me to comprehend the life my daughter has had so far. She knows this one place as home. She can claim a place as home in her mind. I can't do that. When people ask where I'm from I say, "I'm an Army brat. I'm not from anywhere." So it's hard for me to understand how she loves this place as home because it's just another pit stop in my mind.

I am, like, soooooo cultured.

Went to a reading and book signing last night. Michael Collins was the author. I can't really say it was a reading, because he didn't really read. It was very last minute, so there weren't many people there. Anyway, I don't know Michael Collins from Adam, but they talk about him a lot here because he's an alum and fairly well known. It was probably the most unusual reading I've ever been to because of, as I mentioned, the lack of reading. It was basically an hour and a half of listening to him rant on a variety of topics that I'm sure are all interconnected in his head, but just came out as spew. Got his book, had him sign it. Maybe I'll read it.

Can I get that with a side of raunch?

K, I am so not into work today. Just found out that my brother has been suffering partial renal failure due to some medication he was taking for back problems. That's scary. Anyway, he was only taking it for about a week before he started feeling like crap and he's off them and already starting to feel better. It's just another reminder of how fleeting good health can be. One day you're fine and the next you're sicker than sin. I'm not be being nonchalant about this--it's really scary that something like that can happen. The thing about medicine, and that's medicine with a capital M, is that it's really just a big game of trial-and-error. People expect absolutes and they just don't exist. This is how medicine works: Oh, so you've got a problem with whats-in-whats. Well, it sounds like a case of whose-in-whats. Let's give this a try. Next week: Oh, that treatment didn't work? Well, then instead of whose-in-whats, you must be suffering from this-and-this. Let's give this a try. This goes on until you're symptoms are gone and then the doctor says, "Oh, well, I thought it might be that after all." Medicine is a crap shoot. Science is only as true as it is until they discover something else that's more true. And that's the way it is. Don't take this as a condemnation of the medical profession, because it's not. I think doctors would be the first to tell you the culprit is not always obvious and it takes time to figure it out. However, the layman thinks it's quick and simple and is disappointed when it's not. Of course, there are also a lot of doctors out there who really don't give a shit and are just looking for the path of least resistance rather than taking to time to really figure out the problem. They're not doctors in my mind, just hacks with a medical degree. Sad to say there are no requirements that you be moral or compassionate before becoming a doctor.

But I promised something dirty for you in my last post. I've got several stories that are pretty raunchy. I have a real appreciation for the lurid. Now, most of the stories I have are word-of-mouth kinds of things, but I like retelling them because they're either A.) Gross, B.) Hilarious, or C.) Will make the listener really, really uncomfortable. So with that...when I was in college, I was a little sister in a fraternity. When it was time for our initiation, my pledge class was told to supply a certain list of items. One of those items was a porn mag or our choosing. My roommate was already a little sister and told me they'd be asking for the magazine, so I immediately volunteered to get it. I figured the brothers asked for a porn mag because they figured it was an easy way to get an issue of Playboy or something. But that's not what I had in mind. I went to a newsstand that sold a solid collection of blue magazines. I chose one called Uncut, which is for gay, uncircumcised men. It was a very interesting magazine. What was most interesting was the readers' forum section where people could write in about their favorite sexual/erotic experiences. The one I llked best was written by a man explaining how he and his boyfriend had a completely new way to enjoy their foreskins. What they would do is stuff the foreskin with foodstuffs such as peanut butter or cream cheese or something of similar consistency and then eat it out from each other's dicks. Now, I thought this was totally hilarious. I laughed really hard and long on that one. But what makes this story particularly funny to me is that I then told my big brother (from the fraternity) about the letter one night at a party at the house and he very calmly looked at me and told me that I was never, NEVER, to ever tell him anything that gross again. Then he walked away. So that's raunchy story number one.

I'm on the night train, ready to crash and burn.

No, not really. I'm a all better now. Mask is firmly back in place. I am the ice queen once again.However, I am still somewhat bothered, but nothing compared to my emotional breakdown of the other day. Anyway, emotional breakdowns are like crying, you need to let it out every now and again. And what have I been thinking about over the weekend? Despite all our best intentions, sex sells. People really aren't interested in much more than that, are they? It's a little disappointing to realize that we're all as base as bunnies. Anyway, I've got a couple of raunchy things tucked away in the back of my brain, so maybe I'll tell you some of the best things I've come across. But not right now. I'll do it a little bit later in my other office.

Breathe deep.

What is it about a shock to the system? Jesus, I can barely think straight, here. I am going to speak in code now because this post is more about my emotions than the specifics of what I'm talking about. Sometimes you find out something you never really thought you'd know. And it's shocking. I'm saying that because I think I am now freaking out. My heart is beating FAST, and I feel short of breath. I consider myself a pretty together kind of person. I don't freak out, not in the real sense. I've got a pretty tight rein on my emotions. Some people would go so far as to call me hard. But, every once in a blue moon, something happens that I don't expect (which is life after all) and my hold slips a little. The problem with these reality checks is that they force me to realize I am a fraud and that everything I put out there to the rest of the world is a farce and I'm not nearly in control of myself as I'd like to think I am. How do we ever really let go of the things that have hurt us? How do we ever really turn away from the disappointments in our lives and let them live in the past where they deserve to be? Somebody give me the answer to that one, will you?

Where's the tailgate?

It seems the first game of the season is this weekend. Just goes to show you how little attention I pay to football. I don't even know who we're playing. Don't care, either. Of course, it's not my team. I just work here, and although I'm also an alum, I just don't think of it as my team. The great Nittany Lions will always be my team. Now, next year or the year after, I'll be excited because it will be a return to the great showdowns between PSU and ND. That's when I'll start getting the season tickets. I used to love the start of football season when I was an undergrad, though. Of course, it involved a lot of drinking, so I don't know which I was really looking forward to. But, there's just something about walking to the stadium for that first game of the season. We'd all usually end up with sunburns after the first game because it's still pretty hot at the beginning of the semester and then we'd all drag our drunk asses back to the dorms to nap until it was time to get up and drink some more. Those were some great times, man. Sniff, sniff. Brings a tear just thinking about it.

For as passionately as I talk about drinking, I don't do it much anymore. Not since I discovered how much it SUCKS to be hungover when you have a baby/small child/kid. They don't care that you feel like shit and that the room won't stop spinning. They just climb all over you anyway. And ask you to make them their breakfast and turn on the t.v. and play games with them. You get the picture. The other reason why I don't drink much anymore is that I am strongly affected by alcohol. I can only ever be tired or drunk. If I don't drink enough to be drunk, then I'm really, really sleepy. So what's the point? SInce I can't be drunk anymore without it costing me way more than I get out of it and drinking only one or two knocks me out, why do it? I'm fine with the water. Also, I've only ever been a social drinker. I don't ever drink at home. It never even occurs to me to have a beer or a wine cooler at the end of the day. It just seems weird to drink unless you're planning on hanging out and having a good time with friends.

Mmmm. Mmmm. Good.

I just had soup for lunch. I know, the excitement just never ends around here. There was news report on the radio this morning about two teenage girls who killed themselves. Apparently, they were practicing witchcraft; although, they weren't Wiccans. They threw themselves in front of train. Wiccans, as you might or might not know, practice Wicca. Wicca is basically a pagan religion that worships the natural world, the earth. Their ideas fall more in line with the druids than with satanic devil worshipers. When I was in college, I interviewed a coven of witches for a newswriting class. They explained to me that Wiccans don't even acknowledge the existence of the devil because it's basically a Christian creation. It's not possible for them to worship something they don't believe exists.

Anyway, getting back to the two girls who killed themselves... The authorities believe their involvement with witchcraft had something to do with their suicides. I found the way they killed themselves interesting only for the fact that girls don't usually opt for the violent death. Which is why they don't succeed with suicide attempts as often as boys do. Boys do things like drive their car over a cliff or shoot themselves. Girls do things like slit their wrists or take sleeping pills. So, I find myself wondering how they decided on the train route. If I sound somewhat cavalier about the whole thing, it's because I consider suicide one of the dumbest things a person could carry out. A lot of times it's a result of serious mental illness, which is terrible, of course. But with teenagers, it probably has more to do with normal teenage angst that just gets really out of hand. I remember suicide entering my mind once or twice when I was a teen, but it had more to do with being angry with my parents than being miserable with life. The thought usually left my head as quickly as it entered. And in my life I've experienced mental distress of a nature strong enough to make me feel like I was losing myself to something I couldn't understand, but I never considered killing myself as a way to fix things. So I do wonder what makes a person go through with it.