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.

It's just another, it's just another day.

Do you ever wake up wondering why does this day seem exactly like the day before and then you realize because it is exactly like the day before. I think more people would be satisfied with their lives if they could at least expect something different from day to day. You know, something outside of the normal routine, which would still happen, but there'd be something really different that could define the day. Like,

Monday: Greeted and welcomed alien life form that landed in the backyard.
Tuesday: Ran into Jude Law and he took me to lunch.
Wednesday: Received nomination for Nobel Literature Prize. (I still find it ironic that the world's most prestigious peace prize is named after the inventor of dynamite.)
Thursday: Hosted MTV Summer Beach House and bumped tooshies with Usher.
Friday: Challenged Iron Chef Morimoto to shrimp showdown and won.

See? Now that's a week I could remember. So the questions arises: How can we inject something really, really different into our everyday lives? If you've got the answer, let me know.

For instance, if anyone out there can get me a makeover session with a celebrity hairstylist and make-up artist, that would be something really different for me. Or, if anyone can get me a VIP tour of a major publishing house, that would also be something really different for me. Use your imagination. Spread those wings and fly.

By the way, if someone really can hook me up with Jude Law for lunch, feel free to make arrangements.

Hey, ho, let's go.

Sooooo, it's another Monday. If you've all been awaiting Angela's return, she is back. Angela, do you have anything to say about your summer?
AH: No.
KC: Why not?
AH: Oh that? (turns back to reading manuscript.)

Such a sad day when the innocent become jaded. Had to take the child to a birthday party over the weekend. It was OK. Spent the entire day yesterday cleaning the house, and that sucked in a major way. I hate cleaning, but I hate a dirty house even more. The husband is home sick right now. I think he's really just playing hooky. Actually, he probably took off sick to watch the Republican convention. Ha, ha. (Private joke to myself.) I don't really have anything to say, which really is saying something.

Shoot that poison arrow.

I'm just sitting here waiting for my grad student helpers to come in, so why not blog a bit. I was listening to the radio on the way to work and they were doing a little segment on how one of the local high schools is getting funds from a state homeland security council or whatever to help prepare the school for potential attacks. Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't be prepared, but I don't understand why they think terrorists will attack a high school in the middle of the Midwest. Am I not getting something? Airports, yes, I get. Federal buildings, yes, I get. NYSE, yes, I get. But a high school in Michigan, no, I don't get. But you never know, look at Red Dawn, if it weren't for those kids, all of America would have fallen under communist rule. In general, I don't think any foreign power can take over America in a land war because we're too freaking big. There is always going to be someplace to hide. I mean, think of how much of this country is still pretty wild. There's a lot, just in case you haven't paid attention. They can possibly cripple our economy and whatnot, but they cannot take control of this country. Too much land, too many people.

Does she or doesn't she?

I don't know if any of you have taken the opportunity to go to the Postmodern Courtesan link I've got off to the side, but if you haven't, I should explain that in addition to her daily thoughts sort of thing, she also gives pretty graphic recountings of her sessions with clients. The only reason I'm really bringing this up is because I am amazed by the amount of pleasure she seems to get from these encounters because, I am sorry, NO ONE has sex that good. I don't care who you are or what you're doing, it's just not possible. First of all, every night with a client seems to leave her with multiple orgasms, and as we all know, multiple orgasms are a bit of a fantasy. I, myself, have only experienced as many as two orgasms from any single go, and after having had many, many conversations with female friends, two is pretty much the max for anyone. Understand, those two in a row are extremely, extremely rare. As a matter of fact, getting the single orgasm can be a bit of a trick at times. So, if anyone out there claims to easily have multiple orgasms or has been with a woman who claims to be having multiple orgasms, you and they are LYING or FAKING IT.

Would you like fries with that?

So yesterday was the parish picnic and I pretty much spent the entire time flipping burgers. I like to grill, I really do. I like to start the fire and listen to the meat sizzle. There's something hypnotic about it to me. Maybe I am a closet pyro, but I love watching those flames lick the sky. I especially like the small expolosions that occur when I spray lighter fluid on fire. My daughter kept saying, "Again, Mom, again," whenever I did it. She said it was like watching a volcano explode. Then one of my committee co-members said in a really annoying way, "Oooh, that's so dangerous. I saw a special where they said how dangerous doing that is. The flames travel right up the flow of lighter fluid and catch the whole bottle on fire. You really shouldn't do that." I said, "I'm a professional. I know what I'm doing. Stand back kids, we're gonna fry up some meat. Yee Haw."

The above mentioned committee member bothers me a lot because she doesn't do anything. She just stands around and talks to people, but doesn't do any of the real work. The cleaning, the setting-up, making arrangements, running around getting crap. She somehow thinks face-time is all that counts. I just don't have respect for it because everyone else is working and they have to share the credit. It's not right in my book. She's cheap, too, which is another black mark. I'm not talking about being thrifty, I'm talking about not paying her fair share. That steams me pretty good. No one is dripping with money, we're all pretty much in the same boat, but she always finds a way to get more than she gives. I know, it's not very nice to talk about someone on a church committe so harshly, but I'm not particularly nice, so it's OK.

Curse of the Blogger.

I had a really good interview online with my daughter yesterday. We talked about her first day of school. Then she pressed some button on the keyboard and it all disappeared into thin air. Poof. There really needs to be some sort of idiot-proofing on blogger so people don't lose their shit so easily. She crawled under the desk and huddled like a hunted rabbit muttering like Rain Main, "I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to do it." Fuck you, Blogger. See what you did to my baby? I'll bust you up. She's all better now, though. She tends to be pretty melodramatic, so it passed in about five seconds.

Anyway, we've got our neighborhood yard sale tomorrow, which is usually a pretty big deal for the residents. I've got to go through the basement tonight and haul all my junk up so I can sell it to some unsuspecting sucker. "Yeah, it still runs like new." My husband said I have to sell all my cassette tapes from high school and college. I told him to go take a flying leap. Those cassettes are the soundtrack of my youth. I CANNOT get rid of them. Each one is special in my heart. Especially the sex mood tapes, of which I have dozens, that set just the right mood, ahem, for studying. Yeah, studying. I still like listening to those tapes. :-)

I will, however, be hawking all my old trashy romance novels. They're my comic books. Don't need to pay any attention to read them and they tax brain power at almost a negative rate. I think I'll put them up for fifty cents each. I have to go to a department meet and greet later this afternoon to say, "whazzup homeys," to all the new students. There will be free food, so that makes it worth it. As I've mentioned before, I like free. Beginning of the new school year is always fun because there's so much excitement and anticipation in the air. It's fun to watch all the freshmen come and see the fear in their eyes. I want to stop all of them and tell them to have as much fun as possible because their four years is up before they even know it. Why can't college last forever?

Sleepless nights.

Getting back from vacation seems to have really messed up my sleeping for some reason. I got no sleep last night. I was falling asleep in the shower, with my eyes rolling back into my head. I'm on the social life commission at church and we're throwing our summer parish picnic on Sunday. The reason I am on the social life commission is so I get brownie points for being an active parishioner and can, thus, pay the active parishioner rate for my daughter's school. As it turns out, I enjoy the other women on the committee and we end up having a pretty good time. (To date, we have managed to destroy all incriminating video tape so no one else knows just how good a time.) However, the members of our parish tend to be really uninvolved with church life and a lot of times we feel like we're wasting our time trying to organize events over the year because the turnout is usually low. Add to that the fact that our priest seems to only care about increasing the number of contributions rather than increasing the number of saved souls. Not surprisingly, his attitude is turning a lot of people off and away. What I find interesting about this is that people then blame the church for not fulfilling their spirtual needs. I always find it amusing when people transfer the human failings of clergy to the church. I don't feel particularly chummy with the pastor, but the assistant pastors are good guys and, generally speaking, I find the parish a comfortable place to be. I just tune-out the pastor since I know he's not going to inspire me in any way and get on with it. The church has not failed to be the church. The pastor has failed to be a competent leader. I think people forget the roles that free will and personal responsibility play in their lives and they think someone's got to hold their hand every step of the way. I just think that's lazy.

Speaking of school, tomorrow is the first day of school for my daughter. She's starting first grade and says she's nervous. I don't know why, though. She went to fulltime kindergarten last year and is going to be right across the hall from the room she was in last year. She'll be with the same kids and knows the teachers. But, she says she's nervous regardless. I remember my first day of first grade. I was sooo excited. I had to walk to the bus stop and got to carry a book bag. I couldn't wait to start because I really wanted to learn how to read and write. I talked to my mother about it once, how excited I was to start school, and my mom says she remembers because it made her so sad that I was ready to leave and go out into the world and do something on my own. She did walk me to the bus stop that first day so I knew where I was supposed to go. I'm not sad about my daughter being in school. It seems in so many ways to me she's been spending every day of her life breaking away from me in some way that school is nothing new. She wants to do everything on her own now, too, except wiping her butt after she takes a dump. I don't know what that's about. For some reason, she thinks this is not a task she can quite handle to her satisfaction. I think it has something to do with a severe aversion to skid marks. Anyway, skid marks aside, she wants to do all the things that qualify as being a big kid in her mind. She likes to walk to her friend's house by herself, even though someone stands on the corner and watches her the entire time. Sigh, kids.

Poor Me. Feel My Pain.

Great! I've got a big, ole honking cold sore. I'm not surprised, though, because I usually get them when I'm exposed to a lot of sun or don't get enough sleep. And seeing as I had plenty of exposure to sun and not enough sleep over the last two weeks, I should have figured it was coming. So I'm popping acyclovir and hoping I managed to catch this one before it blows up too much and makes me look like I just got punched in the kisser by Rocky. I've gotten them my entire life, but they definitely get more bothersome the older I get. My glands swell and I have zero energy. I just want to sleep, sleep, sleep. Zzzzzzzzz. Snort. Hmmmm, whazzit? Although, I wonder if this one was triggered by the microdermabrasion treatment I got while visiting my sister. It's the first time I've ever had it done and it may have proved enough of a trauma to the lip area to trigger something. I don't know. All I know is it sucks. At least now that I'm an adult, people don't tend to say anything when they see my mangled lip. Unlike high school where stupid boys would come up and say, "Eeeew, you have herpes," as if it was a funny or original thing to say. Once in college, I had two really huge cold sores, one on each lip and it looked so terrible I really cried over having to leave my apartment to go to class. Seriously, it looked like someone had really socked me one. It was disgusting. And there was this other time in band camp......heh, heh, heh. Just seeing if you're awake.

I don't know if any of you out there have ever had microdermabrasion, but I really didn't know what it would involve at first. In my mind, I was thinking of it as a sort of chemical peel, but really it's just a super-powerful vacum that sucks all the dead skin cells off your face. It doesn't hurt or anything, but you come out looking a little pink. I know some people who get chemical peels end up scabbing all over their face, so I didn't want that to happen. Luckily, that is not a concern with the dermabrasion. It makes me wish I could live closer to my sister so I could get them more often. On top of that, my sister gave me an entire bag of skin care products, which I really like. It's the stuff they sell in their office to the people who get the treatments. If I haven't mentioned it already, my brother-in-law is a plastic surgeon and the dermabrasion is something they offer in his office. So it wall all free, free, free for me. I like free.

I never thought I'd be the sort of person who'd consider plastic surgery and whatnot, but now that I'm in my mid-thirites, it enters the mind quite often. At this point, sucking off dead skin cells is about as extreme as I'm willing to go, but it's like marijuana, it's the gateway drug. Next thing you know, I'll be getting four inches of skin pulled up off my face so tightly that I'll look like Joan Rivers. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'm pretty lazy nowadays when it comes to make-up, but I'm really paranoid about looking old. I don't know why. I don't mind being my age. I just don't want to look like it. I know, completely vain, but what's a girl to do?

The Conquering Hero Returns

Well, we're back from our two-week trek across America, and I am tired. But it's a good tired. We saw a lot of stuff. It was cool. I'm looking at the pile of stuff on my desk that I have to go through. That's the only part of vacation that sucks--having to catch up when you come back. My husband told me he thinks I swear too much in my blog. I told him it's my true voice on the blog and he said he didn't think that was the case. I said, "Don't you know that inside my head I'm incredibly vulgar?" He didn't answer me, but he knows I am. The audio books we listened to on the trip were Eragon and A Hat Full of Sky. They were both really good. I recommend them highly. After listening to Eragon, my daughter decided she was going to write a book. Surprisingly, it's a book about a brother and sister team who discover dragon eggs and become dragon riders.

Same bat time, same bat channel.

Here we are in Littlerock, WA visiting my husband's highschool friend Bret and his wife Debbie. We had a great time today at the Thurston county fair. We saw lots of farm animals and that's always a treat, if you know what I mean. Then we came back to the house and had bangers and mash. (Debbie is English.)

KC: Debbie, how has Tim lived up to your expectation of him?

DR: I haven't thought about my expectations.

BR: You've had no expectations so he's down wonderfully?

DR: Yeah, he's alright.

KC: Brett, what is the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen Tim do?

TM: If we were walking about Darrell it would be easier?

BR: The only thing I can think of isn't very funny. It's when we put a "kick me, I'm a pinko" on Bill G.

KC: Is anyone interested in making any sort of political statement:?

All: No.

KC: Anything anyone's wanted to get off their chest?

All: No.

KC: Come on, surely somebody's got something bothering them?

BR: I'm afraid we're really quite boring people.

KC: OK, this is a bust. I'll have to try and figure something else out.