Safety
It just dawned on me that I could dance naked in my garden for a ritual, or sacrifice a New Jersyian snowbird, even, and none of my neighbors would know how to record it or upload it to YouTube.
Reprobation
Old Tumblr posts I want to save, and new random ramblings not associated with the other blog subjects…
Nevermore 6/17/2017
After my mom died in 1998, both Tracey and I would see cardinal birds that seemed to seek us out or engage us in some way, especially when grief became overwhelming, or when we were thinking about or reminiscing about Mom. Cardinals are considered by many cultures or belief systems to be spirit messengers, a bright reminder sent by a loved one that they are acknowledging you. T and I both noted these visits individually before comparing notes one day and figuring these cardinals seemed to be visits from Mom.
A few months ago we had to make the devastating decision to move Dad into a nursing home. I struggled mightily with reconciling myself to this (correct) decision. I know Tracey was suffering similarly. Around that time, a female cardinal started beating herself against the picture window in my bathroom. We live in SW Florida, so northern songbirds are rare. She would wake me daily with the sound of her flailing and pecking against the glass. I would go in and try to scare her away, but she would always give me a baleful side-eye look and resume right away. Pete installed a plastic mesh over the window to discourage her. She would land on the mesh and peer into the room. I took a photo of her giving me the side eye-
A few months of cardinal madness later, our excellent father passed away one fine June morning. T had called to tell me, and I was standing in the bathroom. My female cardinal friend had been visiting that window all morning. The moment T told me the sad news, a male cardinal joined her and they flew away.
The two birds hung around together most of that day. When I moved to the front room, they were in the tree together outside of the window I was looking out of.
I have not seen the male again since that day. But the female visits occasionally, pecking and flailing against that net on my bathroom window.
When my dad was a young man, he attempted to memorize the entire poem of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. As late as two years ago, through the haze of dementia, he could still recite the first stanza. Dad and I share a mild obsession with EAP, and I always comforted myself that as long as he could still recite that first stanza, the dementia couldn’t be that bad, could it?
I recently re-read the poem about the bird tap, tap, tapping at first the window, then flying in and taking residence above the chamber door, and never flitting, still sitting, sitting. A constant reminder to the protagonist that the pain he feels at the loss of his dear Lenore will always linger.
The cardinals need not flail against the window to remind me I’ll always carry sorrow from the loss of my parents. Female Cardinal needn’t punish her little body so hard. I get it. I wish that grief would take its form from off my door and take its beak from out my heart. Nevermore.
Air Forced 5/29/2017
Today being Memorial Day, and after reading the many posts on social media about everyone’s relatives proud military records, I am inspired to write about my dad’s time in the Air Force.
Dad, on the right, with his brother Joe, 1950-something
My dad, Evart Daniel McCullough (Dan) enlisted in the Air Force in the 1950s, near the end of the Korean conflict. Dad is the fourth-born in a family of ten, and all six of his brothers did their bit in the armed forces. He says he joined the Air Force to “see the world”, but ended up never leaving Tinker Air Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Which has to be preferable to being sent to Korea at that time. He was tested, and was given the job of B-29 (I think) Jet Mechanic, which amuses me because he was mechanically inept at home, rigging broken lawn mowers with wire coat hangers, and leaving most appliance assembly to me starting when I was about twelve years old.
He trained in Amarillo, Texas, where he laid in a ditch and willed himself to die rather than tolerate the constant whistle of the Texas panhandle wind roaring in his ears. He ended up falling asleep, waking in the ditch disappointingly still alive, and trudging his wind-blasted ears back to his barracks.
Being a middle child with three older brothers, he always disliked roughhousing and male rituals of ball-busting and horseplay. Another mechanic told him to go get a bucket of prop wash for him, and Dad obligingly went to find some, and when he found out he had fallen victim to the old snipe hunt type of trick that has befallen USAF newbies for decades, he insisted on fighting the mechanic, who was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath long enough to fight.
Maybe he did find some prop wash, after all. (Dad in AF barracks)
He got into a lot of fights during his enlistment. He also chose to poop in the bathroom of a theater across the street rather than listen to the running commentary in the communal barracks bathroom.
My favorite story, though, illustrates that I come by my rebellious spirit honestly. Dad was assigned third shift guard duty, and would sneak off and sleep in one of the planes. He got caught one night, and also was in trouble for another incident where he was out of uniform while on duty, having neglected to wear his hat. Dad was in danger of being dishonorably discharged. A meeting was arranged with his commanding officer to discuss his future on the base.
Dad went to the meeting wearing argyle socks. To a meeting where he was going to be disciplined for sleeping on the job, and being out of uniform. He claims those were his only clean socks. I like to think he wasn’t going to let anyone stifle his flair. His commanding officer sat across from him, trying to decide whether to give him a third chance or throw him out, and all Dad could do was sweat and try to will his pants legs to be longer.
Fate blinded the officer to the offending socks, and Dad got his third chance. I can only imagine if the socks had been noticed, the last sight Dad would have had in that meeting would have been the C.O. rolling his eyes.
When his enlistment was up, Dad sold his uniform to a pawnshop and shook the dust of Oklahoma City from his argyle socks. He despised every moment of his service, and has had recurring nightmares in which he “re-upped” for four more years. He always woke up in a cold sweat, he says.
I have asked him if he wants an Air Force hat to wear to the V. A., since a lot of the older veterans wear them, but he always says an emphatic “NO”. Hell, I should probably get him one to not wear on purpose. And a pair of argyle socks to go with it.
Sassafras
I found this handsome fellow at the haunted Opera House antique shop in Arcadia, Florida. I didn’t know what the trigger was, but I kept coming back to the shelf where he was sitting and picking him up. I figured out later that he reminds me of one of my first toys, a squeaky fish, and also my uncle’s stuffed donkey that had a rubber face and hooves that we would play with when we were little.
Reader, I bought him. And then a rubber beaver on Etsy from Russia. I feel a collection coming on…
Things that made me smile at Disney Parks this week(2015)
A white woman with dreadlocks getting attacked by a gull in Tomorrowland. She wasn’t carrying any food; I can only assume that her hair looked like worms or curly fries to the bird. It flapped at her head and she ran flailing like a granola extra in The Birds.
The Gaston character telling little tarted up princess girls to shine his boots.
The tidal wave taking out screaming tourists at Typhoon Lagoon.
Excited toddlers running so fast that they face plant.
The sadistic lifeguard that hid in a cave on the lazy river, squirting tourists with ice water from his water bottle.
My friend’s son predicting I would choose the red light saber “because it’s evil”.
A crow shitting on a outdoor dining chair at the Art of Animation resort.
The huge amount of hipsters taking photos of the hookah smoking caterpillar at the parade.
Space Mountain. It’s just a beautiful thing. Come on, I’m human. If you cut me, do I not bleed, then squirt the blood on a stranger?
Musings on a half day at a Disney park
Amusement parks have almost all the things that make my skin crawl, strollers, snotminers, “mama bears”, mouth breathing castrated dads. If they allowed bicycles, that would be my perfect idea of hell.
Life Holds Few Distinctions
There are two things you may tie to as far as my skills go. One- I can make a silky hand kneaded pasta. Two- I can hold my breath like a mofo.
I don’t know from what this stems from- my best guess is that I held my breath for purposes of not smelling farts, or that it was to stop myself from crying in pubic, but GODDAMN, I can hold if for eternity.
You may beat me at swimming laps, or diving. But at the end of the day, I will be underwater during a competition and hear you saying- “should we tell her we’ve lost, so she can come up?” Fuck ya’al , I have another 45 seconds of air.
I’m waiting for the day that this will become useful. Perhaps I’ve an Owen Meany once in a lifetime shot to make.
Who the fuck knows? Maybe it’s all for 30 more seconds of alligator belly stroking before I die. Either way is bliss.
Alligators and Me
I’ve loved alligators since I was a little kid. I had a plastic one on my desk at my first real job. Strange for a person who never liked Florida.
My frivolous wish for today is that I wish alligators were more willing to be cuddly with humans. I totally get why they aren’t, never trust the white man or you’ll end up being exploited or made into a handbag. But I wish I could cuddle with an adult gator, run my hand down their spiky tails and rub their belly and take a nap with it. I never heard of anyone being friends with an adult ‘gator. They just don’t have it in them.
Know this. If I ever fall into alligator infested water and get attacked by one, my last act of life will be to rub that fuckers belly as it takes me into the death roll with whatever appendage I have left.
Gingerphilia
A couple of years ago, on a turbulent plane ride, I had an epiphany. I was a little nervous, not that the plane would crash but that someone would flip out because they were afraid the plane would crash (whole other post for the mechanics of that phobia). Then I spotted a big fellow with glorious red hair a row or two ahead, and felt instantly better for some reason.
It got me to thinking, I have gravitated to gingers my whole life. Jason on the Walfons, Anne of Green Gables, Axl Rose, Bobby Flay, Ree Drummond, PRINCE HARRY, Abraham on The Walking Dead, lots more. My youth group retreat crush, ginger. My first kiss, a ginger.
I like gingers. I do not know why.
How to take a Terlet Selfie
Step 1- Try to do it on a day you actually wear makeup
Step 2-Be seated on Terlet of choice. I prefer to take mine at an interesting venue so I can tag it on Facebook. You should have your pants down. It makes you relax more. Just be sure the seat is clean and dry.
Step 3- Hold phone way up with your right hand. It will take practice to master the angle, you don’t want just your head in the picture. I don’t recommend the reverse camera, though. It takes the fun out of it.
Step 4- Think of the word “”Cookies!!” when you smile. It lights up your eyes.
Step 5- Snap away.
Step 6- Crop out your bare thigh or any panties that might be in the shot, and hit the little magic wand enhance tool to brighten up the colors.
Step 7- Share on social media with impunity!
Random
There’s a cashier at the Publix that I really like named Norma Jean. She’s probably in her late sixties, and we love to talk football, especially the Patriots, who she loves, because she’s from New England.
Today I got to go through her line to discuss the Super Bowl, we were both really excited about the Patriots win. She said during that last twenty seconds she had to pee so bad but didn’t want to miss anything. She said, in her Boston accent, “Those kegels really work, because I didn’t miss a thing!”.
I just hollered. And mentally made a note to do more kegels…
One sentence stories
I posted this once on FB, but here it is again for posterity, my favorite one sentence story of all time-
“When I was four years old, I told the clown at the Ground Round to get off my jock.”
Here’s one I wrote-
“Our cat Tigger decided he would rather live in the city sewer than with our family.”
Both are true stories.
How is a raisin like a writing desk? (2014)
Ok, so tonight I was on the phone with Dad, and his hearing is so bad that I do this thing I call “Porky Pigging”, where if he doesn’t understand the word after the second try, I use another one, for example he will say “Tim?” when I say “Kim”, so I say “Kimberly”.
So I was trying to tell him about these huge ravens in Santa Fe, we were talking about birds anyway, and I said there are ravens here so big they look like buzzards. “Like rubber!?” No, BUZZARDS. “rubber?” No, like vultures. “Oh, like vultures. Wait, from grapes?!” What do you mean grapes? “How are those raisins as big as vultures? How big ARE those grapes there?” NO, not raisins, RAVENS! Like you know, crows.. “Like cloves?! What?” OK dad, stop. There’s a football team in Baltimore… “BOSTON?” No, BALTIMORE! “The Orioles?” No, the FOOTBALL TEAM. “Oh, RAVENS! I was wondering how a raisin could be as big as a vulture!”
This exchange made dad and me laugh pretty hard. But it also made me think, what a strange, topsy-turvy, Wonderlandish world does my dad live in that he would accept, even for a moment, that the possibility of a raisin the size of a buzzard exists? Or that I have a friend named Tim that I am so close to that I talk about him all the time?
When we do have a lucid conversation on a good-hearing, not addlepated day, I should really treasure it, I guess. They are getting as rare as buzzard-sized raisins.
WooooOOOO Addendum
Before I stayed in those haunted hotels in New Orleans and Savannah, I purposely did not read any haunted history or any ghost experiences other people had. I didn’t want to be influenced.
Tonight, I was reading Haunted Savannah: America’s Most Spectral City by James Caskey. He is the authority on Savannah’s ghosts; he does thorough historical research.
In the chapter about The Marshall House, he mentions that guests often hear the laughter of children and the “pitter patter of little feet” running up and down the upstairs hallways. Check.
Theeenn, he writes that guests are awakened by a hand on their foreheads, as if someone were checking for a fever! Check!
When I got home, I did research what experiences people had posted on the internet and read that some had experienced their arms being held up like their pulse was being taken, (although I didn’t find any first hand accounts) but not that their foreheads were being felt! That passage gave me the willies!
When can I get back to Savannah??!!
WoooOOOO! (2014)
So, on a road trip with P for the past couple of weeks, we stayed at a couple of notoriously haunted hotels. Here is an account of our experience at the Marshall House in Savannah.
Soooo, last night at the Marshall House we were walking down the long hallway to our room, and noticed someone at the end of the hall had a camera in their hand and was sticking it out the door trying to record something. Didn’t think much of it, just thought someone was trying to capture an evp or something. Later, we were watching TV around 11-1130 and we hear kids running down the hall. It was LOUD. We heard it over the TV and the loud air conditioner, over and over. My first reaction was annoyance, because kids annoy me in general and it was late. I looked out the peephole, no kids. Happened again, no kids. Pete almost called the front desk to complain that kids were running around, but didn’t want to be “that guy”. He looked out the peephole and saw the room across from us open and shut it’s door real quick. We thought the kids must be in there, but a few minutes later I peeped and saw a young couple come out of that room. This morning, I asked the front desk if there were any kids checked in last night. The clerk said there hadn’t been any in weeks. Then she said “Are you on the fourth floor?” I said yes. She said “Oh yeah, you heard kids all right!” Happens all the time!
Ok so she said that “Casper” the little kid ghost likes to play with people in room 417 (our room, which she didn’t know it was) and that the last lady that stayed in that room was watching TV and misplaced the remote right after changing the channel. She looked everywhere on and around the bed and couldn’t find it. She stripped the bed and the remote was on the bare mattress! Under the fitted sheet! And also the little lamp pull chains will sway on one side and then the other!
The first night I woke up three times to what I thought was Pete thrashing his legs around and shaking the bed like he had restless leg syndrome or something (he doesn’t, and has never moved his legs around at night). I didn’t turn over and look at him, but I said what are you doing and he muttered something about “the horses”. I thought “whatever, he’s dreaming” and went back to sleep. It happened twice more, including what I thought was the headboard knocking against the wall and the third time was really crazy like he was running in his sleep like a dog and the bed was shaking and flopping like a sumbich and each time I asked what is going on and each time got and answer about “the horses”. Well, P had no memory of being awakened, or dreams about horses, or me asking him anything. And the headboard is attached to the wall so I couldn’t get it to make that banging noise so I can only conclude it was being knocked on! And what was moving the bed if it wasn’t him! I wish I would have not pansied out and looked over there!
Also, the first time I woke up the first night was to pressure on my forehead, and I thought it felt like three things. I then realizes someone was feeling my forehead, like checking for a fever.
Hey Lou, get off of my cloud (2014)
Today P took our last Jack Russell Louie to the vet to put to sleep. It was a very hard decision. He was incontinent, vicious and almost blind. It was really hard to watch the decline of such a badass little dog.
I am really glad to have P to do such things. I would have let him go on until he was dragging his hindquarters like Jesse on Family Guy.
He got a nice T-bone steak grilled just for him last night, which he ate, then promptly shat on the floor, a final salute to his owners. I think if he had a middle claw he’d have flipped it.
Right now he’s in doggie heaven, growling at Rory to steal his warm spot on his cloud.
Come up and see me sometime
My inner compass is busted. Along with my give-a-damn.
Pooh’s last line on this meme is how I feel when some superior wisenheimer says “don’t you mean ‘down’” when I say I’m “coming up” to someone’s house or a store or whatever and it’s south of where I am.
It’s just a figure of speech! It’s always “up” to me! I’m not going to waste my energy figuring out where I am direction-wise to my goal.
So, weisenheimers, what Pooh said.
One (or two) of us has to go.(2014)
Record breaking emissions day at the Lloyd Home for Geriatric Dogs. Despite repeated trips outside, Louie contributed 5 lakes of urine, one pile of shit and an unidentified pile of a russet-colored substance in his bed and a dolllop on the floor, which I stepped in. Didn’t want to smell it to determine whether vomit or shit. Sheba contributed her regular offerings of eye cheese and viscous drool pools. Then the bonus round began at 11pm. While taking Louie outside for his last and roughly 8th evening pee session, I stepped into a final puddle of urine while simultaneously noticing a blood spatter trail that spanned about eight yards. Sheba attacked Louie, unprovoked, you see, and his chin was dripping blood everywhere. I know if dogs could snot, they’d do it and round out a perfect score of emissions. I’d like to thank the Academy, Bounty paper towels, Swiffer WetJet, and Dancing Bull Zinfandel…
Pete and I both were bit multiple times trying to clean the blood off of Louie’s face, chest and chin. Had to keep reminding myself that I was dealing with a 15 lb blind, old dog and not the devil himself. I must admit, sometimes I’ve thought that “no one would know if I choke him out” crosses my mind. But it probably wouldn’t kill him, just make him emit something new…
Random
I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I just don’t get the obsession with Adam Levine. I think he’s mildly attractive, but to me he looks like he’d have a smelly, oily scalp.
I like goats. Here’s why.
I like goats because they are completely confident and unrepentant. You holler at one for eating the back off your magazine (while you’re reading it), and she just looks at you with those sideways pupils and if she could shrug, she would. If she could talk, at that point she would say “So? And now I’m going to stand on the roof of your car”.
There’s also not much in the world funnier than a goat eating a Dorito. In your living room.
Is my dad a psycho magnet? (2014)
He’s been in 4 relationships. The longest being his marriage to my mom, which was over thirty years.
Now, maybe I’m too close to the situation to judge, but I don’t think my mom was a psycho. Bad self esteem, maybe, but bright and seemingly normal.
Of the other three, I’ve met two. Both were after Mom died.
One was an opportunistic control freak with obvious Munchausen’s syndrome. Dad ended up living in his car after that one.
This current one is my age but swears she isn’t interested in a romantic relationship with him, despite his creepiest best efforts. She acts like she’s in junior high, calling me to get my opinion about my dad or to vent about a fight they’ve had. She wants me to know how much she does for him and is always tooting her own horn about what a nice person she is. I can’t figure out her angle. Probably just psycho.
So where does he dig these odd bitches up? I guess the fact that they’d want a relationship with a man that wears a sandwich board with bible verses printed on it about how you’re going to hell should answer my question.
Of COURSE he’s a psycho magnet!
Thank you, Tumblr!
Random
When one is on a haunted tour and sporting half-pink bangs and a Ouija Board shirt, it’s hard to seem credible when telling one’s personal ghost experiences.
Do we ever really get over high school? (2012)
Last night I was watching the movie 21 Jump Street and of course the plot was about two men who go undercover back into high school. Once there, the nerdy guy who got bullied in school became popular, and the popular jock guy became a nerd. This is a common theme in movies. Billy Madison, Never Been Kissed, etc. It got me to thinking, since this a popular and entertaining theme, there must be many people who have regrets about who they were and what they tolerated in high school.
There don’t seem to be a lot of movies or books about being able to go back in time and fix other regrets, such as a bad marriage, or fixing a relationship with a parent, or negative experiences in college, etc. What is it about the high school experience that is so formative? I’ve been out of high school for almost twenty-five years now, and still have nightmares about being back in school. It’s funny how those experiences stick with one.
One of my cousins posted a picture of me my freshman year on Facebook. It is probably the worst picture of me ever taken. Short, bushy hair, fucked up teeth, green complexion, popped polo collar. It is funny, and a lot of friends got a kick out of it and posted a few comments with a lot of “lol”ing. I didn’t really think much about it. A few months went by. Then someone was mining old photos on my page and posted another comment, which prompted a new chorus of incredulous laughing out loud. This time, to my shame, it kind of hurt my feelings a little bit. I was tempted to untag the photo. I feel sorry for that awkward, many-times-transplanted, bushy-haired girl who was bullied for four years at a school full of hicks. But then I put on my big girl panties and shrugged it off again. I am not that girl anymore, at least not on the surface.
I saw an episode of the television program What Would You Do a few years ago, (aside-I’m terrified that I’m going to someday be on the show”wrong” thing) and the situation they were trying to get a reaction to was high school girls bullying another girl at a park. As usual, women were the most proactive in helping, but it was interesting, as they confronted the bullies, they reverted right back to high school themselves, calling names and sneering at the bullies. Those old feelings are always right under the surface, it seems.
Do I wish I would have flipped the bird to the Bethel-Tate class of ‘88 at commencement? Definitely. Would that have affected who I am today? Probably not. Besides, karma is a bitch. Let the universe deal with the small minded.
Just some observations. No real point to the post. Now excuse me while I put on some parachute pants and rock back and forth in my closet. 😉
Cracker Barrel Challenge Goes Awry (2012)
A couple of years ago, my sister T and I took a little road trip to Hurricane Mills to see Loretta Lynn in concert at her ranch. Along the way, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, both of us having a penchant for beans n’greens we can thank our Mississippi forbears for.
Being influenced by the folksy assortment of extinct soda brand tin signs and spinning wheels dotting the decor, we had an inspiration. The Cracker Barrel Challenge was born. We would go to the clearance rack in the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and buy the cheesiest embellished shirts we could find. If they had built-in dickies, all the better. We would wear them in an ironic way to the concert. We chose matching styles in baby blue and lavender, complete with spring bouquet decals and built in modesty dickies.
So, we sallied forth to the concert, clad in denim shorts and our clearance finery. Our irony was kind of lost in the crowd. There are a lot of Cracker Barrels in Tennessee. The crowd at the concert was of the big hair and bedazzled chambray kind. I must admit, I felt a little uneasy, a cracker crusted atheist catfish out of water amongst the Bible Belt biscuit and gravy conservatives. The weird goth chick radiates off of me, and no powder blue glittery floral disguise can hide it.
There are a lot of preliminaries before a Loretta Lynn concert these days, they try to spare the septuagenarian too much stage time. In between sets consisting of not-so-talented relatives, the emcee made a negative crack about Obama and the crowd cheered in agreement. It angered me, but before I could react, there was T, clad in her lavender butterfly bedazzled shirt, all five foot two inches of her, standing and giving the double thumbs down and yelling “BOO! FOUR MORE YEARS, FOUR MORE YEARS!”
I could feel the rolling tide of disapproval, smell the Aqua Net and Skoal scented cloud of Bush-era indignation surrounding us. I thought “Not a huge brawl, not in THIS shirt! I KNEW I should have worn my Reverend Horton Heat devil tank under this.”
But you see, T is T, no matter what her surroundings or ironic garb may be. She is just as willing to enrage a whole crowd of conservative Republicans in Cracker Barrel garb as her Dr. Marten’s and a Rush tee shirt. She’s badass that way.
Of Strawberries and Bitches
I was watching a tattoo competition tonight and it was about pin-up girls. I started wondering what began my love of the pin-up genre. When I was in third grade my school went to Wright Patterson Airforce base. I thought all the planes were mildly boring until I saw her. A plane from the 1940s with a stunning GINGER pin-up on it called “Strawberry Bitch”. It was love at first sight.
Flash forward THIRTY years. My nephew Jake went on a field trip to Wright Patt. Guess what was the only picture he took? That’s right, my Strawberry Bitch. The Strawberry don’t fall far from the Bitch!
I’m not Evil, I’m just Drawn that Way (2012)
The other day I was chatting with my friend Carol about my next tattoo design. When I told her it was a devil girl, she asked me why I chose that. Funny, because most people don’t ask that question, either they aren’t interested, or just think that would naturally be a thing I would choose.
I’m not sure if being born with dark hair and eyes and thick black eyebrows was what started the evil ball rolling, or perhaps my reading selections early on (my first chapter book at age age six was The Wednesday Witch by Ruth Chew; my second was The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson), but it seems I was perceived as being “evil” at a young age. I’m sure constantly being reminded of my “sin nature” at church three times a week didn’t help me not feel they were right, either.
At school, even when I wore a uniform, I was called “weird” by people all the time. When I was transplanted to Hicksville, USA (Bethel) my freshman year, I bought all my clothing at the same place as the other girls, Eastgate Mall. Dressed straight out of Seventeen Magazine. Still got the “weird” routine, this time from fuckers that drove tractors to school.
So something clicked in my head. I had an Oprah “Aha!” moment. I thought, “If I’m going to do the time, I’m going to do the crime. I got your WEIRD right HERE, assholes!”. I started to wear black all the time, and garish red Wet n’ Wild lipstick. I embraced my evilness, if you will.
When I met Pete, I started to dress more mainstream and grew my hair out long. I wore “running through the fields” floral dresses and tried to act more “normal”, even though the chick he fell for was what they now call a “goth”. Didn’t matter, I still got labelled as “weird” at work and church.
Then something happened that really pushed me over the edge and made me stop pretending to be Mrs Sally Sunshine. I had helped write and perform the puppet shows for Vacation Bible School at our church for about three years. The third year I did it, a church member started a telephone campaign against me, urging fellow church members to boycott VBS because I was helping with it and I was “weird and evil” because of my home decor. Gargoyles went mainstream that year, you see. I had a few that I had bought at Kirkland’s at the mall. Thus, I was unfit to teach snotminers about Gawd.
Since then, I’ve learned to embrace the dark side and just be who I really am. A Rock Star in a Reverend Horton Heat tank top and Dr. Martens. So the devil girl symbolizes the misunderstandings of mouthbreathing conformist assholes, and people’s tendencies to be judgmental of people about whom they know nothing.
My Life According to Loretta Lynn (2012)
I just unearthed this from my old Facebook notes. I thought it was a fun exercise, so I thought I’d post it here:
Choosing only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions.
You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. Repost as “my life according to (band name)” This is hard but fun.
Loretta Lynn
Are you a male or female:
I’m a Honky Tonk Girl
Describe yourself:
Woman of the World
How do you feel:
Crazy Out of My Mind
Describe where you currently live:
This Haunted House
If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Portland, Oregon
Your favorite form of transportation:
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Your best friend is:
Blue Kentucky Girl
You and your best friends are:
Wine,Women and Song
What’s the weather like:
The Darkest Day
What’s your favorite time:
You’ve Just Stepped In
If your life was a tv show, what would it be called:
Story of My Life
What is life to you:
You Ain’t Woman Enough
Your current relationship:
Success
Your fear:
One’s on the Way
What is the best advice you have to give:
It’ll Feel Good After it Quits Hurtin’
Thought for the Day:
Ain’t it Funny
How I would like to die:
Rated X
My soul’s present condition:
Here I am Again
My motto:
Tomorrow Never Comes
Pride Goeth Before a Fall (2012)
Today I was carrying three parcels, my purse and a tote down my driveway. I was trying to get the parcels into the back of the Jeep, when suddenly I heard a loud “Son of a bitch!” and was on my knees. I slipped on some ice. I hurt my right foot, ankle, knee, rib cage, both knees, my neck and shoved my lip into my nose with one of the boxes I was carrying. Somehow I avoided tearing my tights, though.
You know what my first thought was? “I hope no one was filming this on their phone!” THEN I assessed my injuries (I’m just a little sore). I miss the days when if you fell, you had the onlookers laugh at you right then and you didn’t have to worry about going viral on YouTube.
A Lesson from Vegas (2012)
I woke up in my room at Caesar’s Palace with my nightgown on backwards and that singular feeling of “oh shit, the horrible things I’ve said and done, if only I could remember them”. Needless to say, I had gone out on a bender last night and could only remember about half of the night.
I dreaded meeting my cohorts for what by then, was lunch. But as we met, and the tales of debauchery unfolded, I had an epiphany.
I’ve always heard that how one acts when shit-faced drunk is the person one really is inside. I believe this to be true. Intoxication strips away inhibitions and the walls we all put up so our friends, families and co-workers don’t see the real people we are. I’ve seen mean drunks, super-affectionate drunks, really quiet drunks, nurturing drunks, and exhibitionist drunks, to name a few.
You see, I am a Fabulous Rock Star drunk. A real badass, stage-diver who can sing like a pro and plays a mean ukelele. Gleeful and rabid, invincible. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like my real-life insecure persona. This year I’m going to show more peeps of my inner reprobate. What would be wrong with letting these “real selves” out a bit in our daily (sober) lives, as long as no one gets hurt?
Peeping Gator 