We've Got Bush

Did anyone see Katharine McPhee's wardrobe malfunction on American Idol tonight?

Was it my imagination or do we now know too much about McPheever's hoo ha?

Update
Lon TIVO'd it and purely for sociological purposes, her husband studied it for a few hours and concluded that what we see when the buttons fall off is.....yellow panties.

IrRATional

I know I'm supposed to be working on the research paper.
I'm waiting til the last minute because that's just how I roll.

I have an irrational fear of anything in the rodent family. That would include rabbits (yes...even cute little bunnies! Those bastards will scratch your eyes out), raccoons, rats, mice, ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters...you name it, I hate it.
I also hate possum. I don't know where the fuck they belong in the animalus genus but my skin literally crawls when I see one.
I imagine their long, sharp talons and their evil razor teeth biting into your flesh.
I hate their strange wiry hair and their long pointed muzzles.
Seeing a possum while I'm out walking the dogs will throw me into a complete panic.
It's crazy......it's irrational...it's me.

Yesterday, I was sitting at a redlight coming into town and I was several cars back.
I was right next to the median that separated the two directions of traffic. The state (or city, who knows?) felt it necessary to plant pretty hedges to soften the look of litter and concrete.
I was gazing into the hedges, deep in thought, when I noticed something moving under the hedge.
I focused in and saw a very large rat, sitting on his evil back legs, nibbling on something with his sharp, evil teeth between his evil front paws.
His large eyes peered into mine. I shivered, momentarily frozen.

Then I checked my doors....you know, to make sure they were locked...

Hi

I know, I know....my reader wants more.

I'm working on a research paper right now so what little creative energy I have is being used on that.

I also called in sick to work today. I've been a little sickly for several days now and can't figure out what's wrong. I think now I've concluded that it's allergies.
I don't know why but I've never been able to tell the difference between a cold, a sinus infection and allergies. They all make me feel like shit.

I kind of wanted to go into work today incase we had a rolling blackout. I love being at work when the electricity goes out.
It's like a snow day or something.

Once, while sitting at my desk, I heard what sounded like a gunshot right outside the door followed by complete darkness.
After changing my pants, I realized ithe transformer outside blew up.

We quickly packed our shit up and went home.

I was hoping for that again today but I made my own snow day by being sick.

More good stuff coming soon...

Adventures in Childhood

Our families were members of the neighborhood baptist church but when we were really young, Lon and I were the only ones who attended semi-regularly.
It was pretty hypocritical for our parents to kick us out of the house on Sunday mornings to attend and then stay in their robes and pajamas but I guess it was the only way to guarantee having the houses to themselves for at least an hour.

When we didn't make it to church, we were sure to have visitors from the church at our houses on Monday.
Most of the time we saw them coming; the church was so close that they would walk to our houses. If we spotted them, we'd bug out to someone else's house or hide outside somewhere.
All we'd have to do was scream "CHURCH PEOPLE!" and everyone would scatter.

If we did get caught by the Church People, we fell victim to an hour of "You need to keep Jesus in your life if you want to live in the house of the Lord." and shit like that.
This was not fun conversation for 8-12 yr olds.

One particularly hot afternoon, Lon and I found respite from the unbearable Gulf Coast summer heat in her grandmother's house, who happened to live next door. She was probably filling our bellies with cookies and lemonade when we heard a knock on the door.
Not expecting anyone in the middle of the day, she peered throught the window and said, quietly, "Church people!".

She was a cool grandma and she knew we hated to get cornered by these Bible thumpers, so she allowed us to hide in her bedroom while she entertained the holier-than-thou.

Who knows how long we sat in her tiny bedroom, perched on top of her granny-like bedspread but we started to get a little stir crazy.
A little teasing turned into a nudge, which turned into into a push, which turned into a shove, which turned into an all out fight.
We wrestled each other trying to make the other person yell "uncle" but we were both stubborn as hell and we weren't giving up.
There was hair-pulling, arm-twisting and shoulder punching but finally I was on top of Lon on the bed. I had her arms pinned on each side of her head and I KNEW I had won but that little shit was flexible and somehow, she got her ankles around my neck and just as the fight was about to get serious, her grandmother opened the door to see what the HELL was going on.
We froze in our awkward positions, me on top, holding Lon's arms to the bed and Lon with her legs wrapped around my neck.
We didn't think about all the noise we must have been making but it must have sounded like two wild animals turned loose in her house.
Behind Lon's grandmother, peered the dreaded Church People with lips pursed and disapproving looks on their faces.

Her grandmother said nothing and quietly closed the door.

We attended church that Sunday.

In a previous entry I wrote about my best friend, Lon, and my adventures in playwriting.
She mentioned I should write more and I think I will. We were busy kids and we found ourselves in some funny or adventurous situations throughout the years. It would be a shame to have those stories die with us.

I was 8 when Lon and I met. My grandparents lived just 3 houses down from her, my father grew up with her stepmother and our grandparents had known each other for years.
I guess we were destined to be best friends.

Her story of the day we met differs slightly from mine.
She swears that she and another girl walked past me on the sidewalk one afternoon and I said, very cheerfully with a wave, "Howdy Doody!".

Now, listen people; I will admit that I probably wasn't the coolest 8 year old on the planet but I am 100% positive that I would never EVER say "Howdy Doody" as a greeting, especially to two other kids that I didn't know. I just wasn't that much of a dork.

She is so convinced of this story that for the last 26 years, she has given me Howdy Doody memorabilia as gifts.
I have freakin Howdy Doody cups and Christmas ornaments!

I think it was a few days later that Lon and a bunch of other neighborhood kids were playing ball in her yard when I walked by. I didn't know any of these kids but Lon said "Hey, d'ya wanna play?". I said, "Sure." and now, 26 years later, we're still the best of friends.

So, for you Lon:

Howdy Doody!

Happy Birthday

To Rick:

On this day, 25 years ago, I became the luckiest little girl on Earth because I became your aunt.

I watched you go from a tiny baby, to a sweet chubby little boy and then to a gorgeous, strapping man.
The one thing that never changed was your heart. You were always amazing and the person everyone -including me- looked up to.

Wherever you are, I hope you are partying for your birthday because I'm celebrating your life down here....today and always.

Happy Birthday, Rick. I love you and miss you very much.

Your "Favorite" Aunt

Have You Checked The Passwords?

Friday, my Yahoo Messenger was "hacked". Someone got my password and went in and changed not only my password but my security information.
The odd thing about this was the fact that my scammer actually IM'd me before he signed me out.
It was sort of like the killers in the movie Scream that would call their victims and tell them if they answered the questions correctly they would live, knowing the entire time that there were no right answers and they were going to die no matter what.
Instead of asking me movie trivia, my scammer tried to extort naked webcam pics from me.
He DEMANDED I turn on my webcam and show him my ass or else I'd be sorry.
Being the eloquent gentlewoman that I am, I asked him, "Who the FUCK are you?" because, I do have a LITTLE class and I'd like to know who I was showing my ass to on my webcam.
He didn't like my attitude and told me that because I was such a bitch, I was going to lose my Yahoo ID.
He then showed me my personal information AND my password.
That was a bit of a shock.

I sat there, stunned for a moment, trying to figure out what I should do next.
In the deep recesses of my brain, I knew I needed to access my account and change my password but for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to do that.
I was chatting with a friend on YM at the time so I pasted the conversation to him and said "I can't think! Help me!".

It was too late, though. The evil dude had signed me out and there was nothing I could do to change my password.
It took me a while to figure out how this happened. Another person on my friends list must have been a victim too and that's how *I* got scammed.

I sent the information to Yahoo's security center and hoped they would help me. In the meantime, I emailed everyone I could think of on my list to warn them of the danger I just experienced.

It was such a strange feeling, though. I felt violated. I felt like someone had come into my house and rifled through my things.
What's worse is that I had a conversation with this guy. How many people get to have a relationship with their scammer?

Luckily, Yahoo keeps all original security information on file and I was able to answer all the questions, plus, I was emailing them from my original alternate non-Yahoo email address.
They reset my password on Saturday morning and all was well with the world.

Fortunately, I don't use Yahoo for my email service so I didn't have any person information in my email folders.

All this loser accomplished was wasting my and Yahoo's time for a few hours and also teaching me a valuable lesson about password security. A lesson I already knew and a lesson that I preach to people everyday but now I'll be EXTRA careful and VERY paranoid!

Also, I won't be showing my ass on my webcam for a VERY long time now! Who knew there were such weirdos out there? ;)

Astrodamus

A friend of mine works for the Astros organization and he was sweet enough to give me some really great tickets for Saturday's game against the Nationals.

I invited my mom and Sister #3 who is a HUGE Astros fan.

Our seats were fabulous. We were behind homeplate, just to the left in the Club seats.
Right before the game started Mom said "We might just get a foul ball up here." My sister and I doubted it. We started going over the science of the foul ball and what would have to happen for it to be hit in our section.
He'd have to be a left-handed batter and he'd have to hit a fastball really low.

A few innings later, one of the Nationals was up to bat and he was a lefty. I said to my sister, "Oh it's a left-handed dude, we should watch for a foul ball!" She snorted and said "Yeah, right!".
He took a few balls and a strike and then I said "Wouldn't that be funny if he hit one up here, right now?". I shit you not, that VERY moment we heard *crack* and there is a foul ball headed right for us.
Mom ducked and my sister dove but the guy two rows right DIRECTLY in front of me caught it.
My sister and I just stared at each other for a few minutes, our eyes wide. Then we collapsed in our chairs, laughing so hard.
The lady sitting next to her heard me make my semi-prediction. She kept saying "I can't believe that!"

The very next inning, Oswalt allowed two guys on base. When the next guy came up to bat, my Mom said, "It's ok, we're going to get a double play, right now."
*Crack* A grounder to short stop. He tosses it to second and then he fires it to first...a double play!
About 3 people turned to look at my mom in amazement.
We were on a roll.

Next, I said, "Ok, now I'm going to predict a homerun for Jason Lane since he has a .000 batting average so far."

Guess what? Jason hit his first homer of the season!

Unfortunately (or fortunately), we did NOT predict Chad Qualls handing the game over to the Washington Nationals and Houston's subsequent loss.

We can only do so much, you know!

And I found a gray hair yesterday

I hate it that I've become old enough to say things like "When I was a kid things were different." But the fact of the matter is; things WERE different.
When my friends and I were running the streets (on our two feet or our bikes) we didn't have the internet, cell phones or PS2.
If we wanted to write to someone we had to get out paper and pen. If we wanted to call someone we were confined to the few feet the cord would reach. If we wanted to play video games we had to go down to the corner store and play either Ms Pac-Man or Defender and sometimes Frogger.
Yes, we had television (in color too!) and even cable but I don't remember spending large amounts of time watching it.
We played "outside" with our friends.
I know to kids now days that's a foreign concept. Our parents threw us out of the house in the morning and didn't expect us back until right before dark.
The streetlights were our alarm clocks. If that streetlight came on, I knew my mother would be coming down the alley to find me so I better get my ass home!

We had a whole neighborhood at our disposal. My best friend, Lon, lived on the corner, her grandmother lived right next door. Three houses down, lived MY grandparents. Our friend Mona lived on the other side of Lon, on the next corner and I lived several houses up from Mona. Anywhere from my grandparents' house to my house we claimed as OUR domain.

We made up our own games. We played touch football with our own rules; we played four-square, stick ball and keep-away.
We also made up pretend games; like little dramas.
The one that I remember vividly (and I know Lon does too) was when we played out this scenario with characters, a plot, action and drama.
We recruited neighborhood kids and pretended we were a family having a picnic in the park (Lon's yard) when a blue cloud of smoke blew over us and knocked us out. When we awoke, we found ourselves on another planet and we spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get back to Earth.
We literally played that game ALL day. We were emotionally exhausted when it was time to go home.
It cracks me up to this day to picture these kids in their goofy early 80's clothes, realistically acting out this mini-drama and getting so into it that they were actually SPENT at the end of the day. Who did we think we were...miniature Meryl Streeps?

I spent more weekend and summer nights at Lon's house than I did at my own.
We would hatch up these crazy schemes in the wee hours of the night. They would always seem like great ideas late at night but in the harsh light of day, we would realize how silly we were.
But one Easter weekend, we came up with this idea to write an Easter play. Late one night, we grabbed our pens, paper and the Bible and we wrote a play depicting the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Who knew we were such good Christian girls?
Boy we sure squashed that virginal image of ourselves a few years later, didn't we, Lon?
We were up until 2 am writing this play, casting our friends as different characters.
We had props, we had costumes, we had locations, and we were fierce.

The next morning, we handed out scripts and instructed these wayward actors to the way we expected their roles to be played.

I can't remember if we had a rehearsal or not but we invited some family members to come see our Easter play.
I don't think my mom showed (she might not have been invited! oops!) but I remember Mona's mom being there and Lon's grandmother.

The play ended with the resurrection of Jesus and since we didn't have the special effects or the equipment to actually have a person rising into the sky, we threw a rope over a tree limb, tied a dark robe to it and pulled the robe up using the rope. Now that I think about it, it was more like a lynching. Dear God, we lynched Jesus Christ!

But for 10 yr olds, it was pretty imaginative, we thought.

When it was over, we waited for the thunderous applause. We beamed at our audience, waiting to take our bows but we were met with silence. Then we heard from Mona's annoying little sister, "uh! Lon! DeAnna! That was SO stupid. That's just an empty robe. That's not Jesus!"

Our little play-writing careers were crushed. We weren't just off Broadway, we were off the mark.

Short Attention Span Blogging

Ugh! Writer's block!

• So Katie Couric is moving to CBS and Meredith Viera is moving to the Today show. I've seen that story ALL OVER the place.
  I've seen THIS story once.
  Is it ok that I care more about who is going to replace Meredith on that Cackling Henfest?


• A college student co-worker offered me $50 to write a research paper for her. Would it be wrong if I did?


• Even though I knew Mandisa would be voted off AI last night, I'm still bummed for her. I was hoping it would be Paris. I just don't get her.


• I'm SUPER excited for next week's AI. They're going to be performing with Queen! QUEEN!


• My mother is out of touch. When she heard that the AI contestants will be performing the songs of Queen, she said "Queen Latifah?". At least she knows who Queen Latifah is.

That's all I've got.

Hey, look at me! I'm blogging!!

I live in this alternate universe that takes place inside my head.
When life becomes too much, when problems or issues start to overwhelm me, I retreat to that place inside my head.
When I lay in bed trying to sleep and I keep thinking about work, bills, family problems, etc; I go there.
I remain in my alternative universe until I fall asleep or I realize that I'm NOT going to sleep and I either turn on the TV, pick up a book or hop online.
I don't face my issues. I do that in the alternate universe or AU.

I think if it weren't for my alternate universe, I'd have given up a long time ago.
My life isn't always fun or interesting but I have a ball in the AU.

The knowledge that I have been able to sustain an AU for these many years causes me to realize how powerful our brain is. Our thought processes are so unique.
It is our thoughts and ideas that make us who we are. They are what make us individuals.
Our dreams (asleep or awake) make us special.
Our brain powers all of this.

Some brains aren't as powerful as others, I know this.
Inside my head are millions of alternate universes, ideas, thoughts, and dreams. I am overwhelmed by my intellectual potential.
I'm overwhelmed...and stuck. My brain isn't powerful enough to translate those many thoughts and ideas into word (or Word).

Somedays I do better but in these last several days, I have been empty. My brain has been working like crazy but I've been incapable of articulating it.

Is this normal? Am I unusual?

I'm unhappy with the direction my blog is going. I wish I could write about something more intelligent or be funnier.
I think I've lost my edge. Shit..or I never had one!

There was a time when I wanted to write about politics but the waters have gotten so muddy now that I've turned my back on it.
I was becoming increasingly unhappy and as soon as I stopped writing about it and studying it so closely, I felt better.
So, what does a person blog about and still be entertaining and possibly informative?

Why do we blog anyway? There are the instapundit-type guys that want to inform us, to keep us knowledgeable but the people who blog about going to the store for milk...why are they blogging?
Are we desperate for someone to know we exist? Are we trying to say "Hey! I'm here. For God's sake...NOTICE ME!!"?

It's true, though. I fear dying without anyone remembering I was here.

Maybe we all do.