I've changed. I hope I change back.

Seeing this black eye in the mirror makes me think of a panda bear, because it is shaped like a panda's black eye patch. Thinking of a panda bear makes me think of the Southpark episode in which the kids learn about sexual harrassment from Sexual Harrassment Panda. SHP had a catchy theme song which was meant to be so bad, it's funny, and it pretty much hits that mark head on. Unfortunately, it is now pretty much on a continuous loop inside my head.

Maybe it's thinking Southpark thoughts so much, maybe it's just me (okay, it's probably just me), but this black eye thing has also made me consider seriously for the first time in my life going to one of those Glamour Shots-type photo studios where they doll you up in big hair, heavy make-up, and red carpet-type clothes and take mantel-worthy photographs designed to make every woman look like a trailer park hotty. However, I want to go now, while at my most colorful, eyewise, and tell them to do my hair, throw all the pearls and feather boas they got at me, but don't touch the face. Let the rainbow beauty of my black eye show through. Wouldn't that be awesome?

That's what I was thinking.

A quote from Liam McEneaney's blog that you must read

RE: white suburban kids grooving to Public Enemy: "Fight the Power! After the Power gives me my allowance!"

My Doctor Gave Me a Black Eye

I'm really not that bad of a patient. I may ask too many questions in the 30 seconds allotted, or sit cross-legged on the exam bed, but I am careful not to tell them that their hair looks silly that way, or that I hope that's not somebody else's bodily fluids on their smock.

Nevertheless, I came out of my doctor's office on Wednesday with a beaut of a shiner developing under my left eye. Now, two days later, the swelling is subsiding, but the colors are just beginning to get interesting. It travels from the outside of my left upper cheek, tiptoes around the two stitches there, and spreads itself liberally over my lower eye-bag area using a palette of yellow, indigo and red, and ends in a purple exclamation point in the corner of my eye.

It started as all my visits to the dermatologist start - with the doctor zeroing in on some bitty mole or another and pronouncing it too suspicious to allow any further leisure time on my body, and calling for the mole removal tools to be brought from the dungeon designed just for such purposes.

It's been like this since, in a surprise case of beauty mark-turns-evil, my family doctor removed a mole on my arm (what - you don't have beauty marks on your arms?) that turned out to be deadly melanoma disguised as a friendly mole. This was when I was eighteen, and ever since, it's been, "Oh, no, doctor, I haven't been out in the sun without sunscreen. Why, with my history, that would be foolish. What, these freckles? I had these already. Yeah." And every time I go to the dermatologist for a melanoma safari, they find something to remove. I've had so many moles removed, I've lost count. Some have left scars, some haven't. I just assume that dermatologists are like zombies, only they prefer to dine on skin rather than brains. I go in every year and donate skin, like some people give blood. I guess it's for a good cause. I'd hate all the dermatologists to perish from hunger.

But I digress.

The tiny, yet suspiciously self-satisfied-looking mole on my face right where a beauty mark should be - right under the left eye, Marilyn-style - attracted her attention from the start. Yes, it was tiny, and if, in somebody's cruel mind, they may be correlating the tiny-ness of the beauty mark with the tiny-ness of the beauty in the face in question, then they would be breaking the rules of fear-the-telephone land and would be banished, and then we can continue our conversation in peace.

The tiny, yet suspiciously self-blah, blah, blah, anyway, she put that Worried Dermatologist look on her face and told me that I had two choices, either she could take it out now and get it biopsied while it was small and would leave a teeny-weeny scar, or we could wait and watch it grow, and then whack it off later when she would need a ladder, a chain saw and some staples for after.

Since she put it that way, I chose option one. Now the punchline: turns out that it wasn't an evil mole after all, but a blood vessel posing as a mole! Ha, ha! Those crazy blood vessels! As soon as she drilled into my face, it was like she hit a gusher, and then it was like, "you don't have any bleeding disorders or clotting difficulties, do you?" Well, I thought, isn't it a little late to be asking? And how clod-brained would I be if, I knew I had a bleeding problem, not to say something up front when you started talking about mole-drilling?

Yep, turns out no bleeding problem, just a broken main problem. It takes longer to clot when you hit the mother lode. I get my stitches out on Tuesday. Although it's felt a little, oh, uncomfortably conspicuous, walking around with a huge, galloping black eye, I kind of hope it's still rainbow-colored on Tuesday, just so she feels a little twinge of guilt. I'm assuming dermatologists have guilt. I don't know for sure.

Madison racing explained

I am a casual observer - no, casual is the wrong word, as when I am observing, I am usually white-knuckled and twisted stomached - let's say novice observer of velodrome cycling.

What you need to know about velodrome cycling is that it should be bigger than the NBA. It's way more exciting, has more crashes than Nascar, has the same wicked rivalries as professional wrestling, has better bodies than baseball (better everything than baseball), and is faster than crap. It's kind of like roller derby, but with bikes with one speed and no brakes, on a track with banked sides that a bike cannot stay upright on unless in motion.

I have become familiar with velodrome cycling, not by the usual means, which, I guess, would be watching the thirty seconds of coverage lovingly allotted it every four years by the wizards of Olympics television broadcasting, but through the actions of my son, who, as a bicycle racer, found himself more comfortable on the velodrome track than on roads (which tend to point up at uncomfortable angles much too often, and require one to climb up them, something he does not enjoy - no Lance Armstrong, he).

Crashes are spectacular on the track (let's quit calling it a velodrome now - it's hard to type and seems rather starchy, considering that everyone involved with the sport says "track" unless speaking to the uninformed). Racers are invariably going way fast, and crashes invariably happen on the steepest point of the bank, which allows for not only the crash, but the fall off the embankment, and the swerving and crashing of those behind the crashee. Even simple mechanical failures can be spectacular, as there are no brakes in which to stop a berserk bike. You can only hope for a skilled rider, who can take it in for a soft landing in the infield grass. When mechanical failures aren't spectacularly crashy, they are spectacular in some form or other - take the time I saw the enormous, Thor-like power of a sprinter's thighs snap the seat post and seat off his bike in the middle of a sprint race - and finish the race! That's skill for you. Mixed with a little fear of sitting down onto the splintered carbon fiber remains of a seat post with sensitive anatomy parts.

Now that I've set the scene, imagine that these crash-prone kamikaze types invent a form of tag-team racing in which one member of the team is actively racing while one member is taking it easy for a few laps and catching his/her breath. Then after a few laps, he positions himself right in the middle of the thunderous racing herd with one hand placed casually on his back. His team member then grabs this hand and uses the kinetic energy he has gained by racing like a demon with Tourette's Syndrome to fling the rested racer into the race in his place. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Not just with this one team, but with all the other teams (ten is a good number) on the track. There's racing. There's flinging. There's racers slowing down, there's racer being launched. All together. It's chaos. But this is where the angels come in: usually nobody dies. It is truly a sight you must not leave the earth without experiencing.

This is the Madison. It is named after Madison Square Garden, where it was conceived, long ago when track racing in America was as big and popular as the Garden. It's hard to imagine that a sport once so beloved could fall practically into oblivion. It's especially amazing that it has happened to this sport. It's everything Americans love: speed, cutthroat tactics, crashing, thus bloodshed, and drama. What's not to love? Europeans love it - they call it The American Race, since it was born here. And here in its birthplace, it is practically disowned. Criminal.

Here in the Portland area, the racers use a track that exists only by the grace of an amazing local dairy that lends out its suburban acres as a park for the community. There are baseball fields, a bmx track, picnic tables and lots of other stuff. It's a bit of community philanthropy that you just don't see much of anymore. Oh, I'm sure it helps ice cream sales, but who else would devote 57 acres of prime suburban hill space to fun? Here's to Alpenrose Dairy. If you want to see the track where Portlanders come to try not to crash, go here: http://www.alpenrose.com/velo.htm

There's a new track in LA. There's one in San Diego and one in the Bay Area. There's one in Redmond, north of Seattle, (it's kind of big, so there's not much bank to it - takes some of the yikes out of it). There's the big daddy in Trexlertown, PA. If there is one near you, check it out. The athletes are either unpaid or underpaid, so you won't have to pay much to get in (if anything), and they won't make you feel like a peon (like ____ fill in your least favorite professional athlete here). You won't be disappointed and you won't be bored.

And if you see my son there, pray for him. I have a feeling his angel is overworked.

The start of something mediocre

I am in a computer training class today. Since training classes go at the rate of the slowest learner in the class, I am left with some extra time. At one point, during the class, we were asked to write a sentence about Simone, who we learned was a very hairy cat. This is what I've written as of 10:50. This might be all I'll ever write about this particular subject. It might not.

Simone was a very hairy cat. She was so hairy we had to vacuum at least every two hours, sometimes more often in the spring. Once, we vacuumed too close to Larry the Chihuahua and lost him in the vacuum bag. When we pulled him out, he was covered with so much cat hair that he looked like a small, unkempt version of Simone. We call him Simonette for the rest of the day, which really pissed him off.

Now, a fancy business letter for your sales use:

Harvey Spongehelmet
Supah Cool Industries
100 Main St.
Vancouver, WA 98660

Dear Harvey,

We are letting you in on the beginning of a new era in widgets! We are jumping up and down with excitement and guzzling champagne as we announce the premiere of our new, improved widget! This new widget will revolutionize the way you order, produce and sell your product, live your life, and communicate with your dog.

Our new, patented Purple Widget will increase your production efficiency by 120%, help you lose weight, and give your customers a new way to view your product – through a relaxing, purple haze.

And now, for the best part! If you order today, we are ready to give you a special, one-time only, 15% discount on your first order over 100 units. Hurry, Harvey, because this offer is only good for 30 days from the date of this offer.

We believe that this product is so superior that you will want to start with twice your normal unit order, as your sales will inevitably skyrocket as a result of the Purple Widget.

Please call us today to place your order.

Animal Planet Owes Me $330. So Far.

I've tried to explain, or understand, my attachment to Animal Planet's series of shows about righteous cop-types saving starving, abused pets from bad guys, nurturing them back to heath and finding them new, loving, non-abusive homes so that they may live happily ever after, such as "Animal Precinct," filmed in New York and "Animal Cops," filmed in the wrecked streets of Detroit. (Detroit is my favorite, for the mangled cop-ese that the Detroit "Cops" use in describing their actions for the camera - lots of "I ascertained this," and "the perpetrator that," plus its fun to guess what the awesomely laid-back, corn-rowed dude is really thinking. He is deliciously inscrutable.)

I don't know why, I just find myself tuning it in, especially if there is no one else around to give me a hard time about it. I like watching a dog come in who is obviously down to his last calorie, ribs all showing, backbone sticking out, and then seeing him later - sometimes no more than a couple weeks later, all fattened up and shiny-eyed and frisky. The thing that really pisses me off about those poor little starving ones is that when they pick up the "perp" to take him or her down to book 'em at the station, they are always fat. Doesn't that just piss you off? It does me.

On the animal cop shows, they are always booking people for failing to get their dog or cat or iguana the veterinary care that they require. Dogs are running around with big open sores on their leg, or big ol' tumors hanging off them, or so much matted hair that it's hard to tell where the face is, or cats are going blind from poor nutrition. They was always gonna. Or their vet told them that Blacky's just fine with that tumor hanging off her. It don't hurt her none.

Now all that booking of negligent pet owners has cost me big time, and I want Animal Planet to reimburse me in full. I've become so paranoid about the animal police showing up at my house that I've taken my cat to the vet so that he can tell me that she stubbed her toe on something (cha-ching: $90), and now I've taken my dog to the vet for full hip x-rays, just to find out that she is a lazy-ass (cha-ching: $240). At least her teeth are clean now, since I had them throw that in while she was out (yes, they have to knock her out for x-rays).

I was so sure that she was suffering from the same arthritis and hip dysplasia that our last collie had (and suffered in manly silence, I might add, except for an"oy vay" groan when lying down for the night). She was really slowing down when I took her for walks, and on some longer walks, she would sometimes just find a nice grassy spot and lay down, and look at me like, "well, you can join me if you wish." You can imagine that this made me wonder if everything was okay. She seemed to be acting like a 12-year-old in a 5-year-old body. $240 later, my vet tells me her hips look great, and there's probably nothing wrong that a little Doggy Slim Fast wouldn't cure (which she took offense to, naturally).

The next time I took her for a long walk, she decided to veer off into a nice patch of grass and take a snooze, leash and owner in running shoes still attached. But this time, the Animal Cops were off my back - I had the veterinarian's receipt in my wallet as proof. I told her to get the hell up and walk. So she did. No back talk. Turns out she just thought she had the right to plop down when she saw an inviting patch of grass. Turns out I just had to let her know that she didn't.

Was it worth $240 to find this out? I guess it had to cost $240 to be able to tell her to get the hell up without feeling like an abuser of a hip-dysplasia-broken-down dog. It's not me, it's her. She's the abuser here! And I have the receipt to prove it! So get off my back, Animal Planet, and give me my money back!

Random Thoughts Part 3

Good names for rock bands:

Meat Bowling Club
Future Nostalgia
I dare you to name your band Supah Cool.

Bad names for rock bands:

Future Has Beens
The Trouble with Janice
Smart Guys with Glasses
The Bloggers

The name of the protagonist in my upcoming novel:

Orin "Orange" Dunlap (this stuff is copyrighted, right?)

My new favorite quote from a cartoon:

"This is the current world of the forever now!" (Agnes)

My favorite silly motel name:

The Alpine Chalets (At Otter Rock, Oregon, on the beach, virtually at sea level) - okay, they are pointy A-frames, but still, as far away from alpine as you can possibly get. I love to stay there. They have kitchens and lofts for the kids, and I can bring my dog. And it's fun to say, "Let's go to the beach and stay at the Alpine Chalets!"

Favorite recent newspaper headline:

"In Life and Death, the Gribbles Gather" This headline appeared in the Oregonian on May 31, 2005, over a story about a family that has their own cemetery.

And sorry about those haikus.

It's Haiku Day

Ode to My New Hummingbird Feeder

Drink up, Little Bird,
Little wee hummy creature;
you sparkle and dart.

Thoughts on a Sick Day Spent Watching "The Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel

Ride real rolling hills
that fall on slippery decks;
risking life for cash

I Need a Better Book to Read

I can't concentrate;
I'll trade this book for TV.
I blame the author.

How the Playlist Saved My CD Collection

This CD has one;
Two of twelve are keepers here;
Ipod saves the day.

My Book Shelf

Imagine I invited you over.

You ring the doorbell, noticing that the paint on my little porch looks like it has seen better days. I come to the door and let you in (being the gracious host that I am).

At that moment, the telephone rings, and I must leave the room to take the call, since it is an unidentified friend or relation having some sort of freak-out attack.

Having nothing else to do while waiting for me to finish the "listen, rephrase, sympathize, suggest alternatives to suicide/homicide/Krispy Kreme run" therapy cycle, you take a look at the book shelves in my living room. This isn't really snooping - the books are right there for anyone to look at, but you still feel a little snoopy, stooping over to read the titles. It's okay. I'll give you a head start now. Of course, that will give you little to do during my therapy cycle, but maybe you will be able to find the remote, or the National Geographic on the end table will catch your eye.

• Dave Eggers' A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius. Maybe I run in rarefied circles, but isn't this book kind of like the Frampton Comes Alive of 2000? In other words, wasn't everyone pretty much required to buy a copy? In both cases, there is a reason why they appealed to us. They were a good time. Dave Eggers is funny, and can be heartbreaking, especially when he has the life experience to back it up.
• Christopher Moore's Fluke. There comes a time in your author-reader relationship when you are so sure of his work that you show up at readings and buy hardbacks just because you know it will be worth the extra money not to wait for the paperback or even longer for your name to come up on the library wait list. Christopher Moore is one of those writers for me. Although Fluke wasn't necessarily my favorite. I like The Island of the Sequined Love Nun and Coyote Blue. Yes, I like funny.
• A couple of John Irving books. Another author I buy in hardback now. Back when I was poor, I would buy paperbacks or borrow from the library. I wish I had a hardback copy of my favorite, A Prayer for Owen Meany. I destroyed my paperback copy from overuse. A masterpiece. I like Son of the Circus too.
• Several Chuck Palahniuk books (when they are not lost in the horror that is my son's room). I not only buy Chucky in hardback and go to see him speak (when I can get in - he's a little too adored here in the Portland area nowadays - understandably) and watch DVDs of bad documentaries made in homage of his appearances at a writing workshop. He writes like no one else - dark, violent, self-loathing characters being placed in dark, violent, I-loath-you-right-back sort of situations, all with a certain blythe, pixyish, mischievousness that I just eat up. In person, he is so jolly and warm, it is hard to blend the written with the writer. It's just enchanting and so awfully entertaining. And his current fascination with his ability to gross people out is also somehow childlike and endearing, yet not without a little hidden malice? What's more seductive than that?
• Mark Twain. I like all Mark Twain's stuff. I love his more autobiographical stuff. My favorites in order: First, Roughing It, about his trip out west in his younger days, riding in a stagecoach out to Nevada, testing out his writing chops at the Virginia City newspaper, and setting unintentional blazes (so he says) at Lake Tahoe. If you didn't think you could laugh out loud at a 130-year-old book, this one will change your mind. Second, The Innocents Abroad; about Mark Twain's trip to Europe with a bunch of fussy conservative Christian types (yes, they had them back then too). Funny and enlightening re: how things change, and how they stay the same. Third, A Tramp Abroad; his follow-up to The Innocents Abroad - more of the same.
• A. A Milne, The World of Pooh. I've had it since I was six. Why get rid of it now? It's a classic that never ages. At least it wouldn't have if Disney had kept its greedy rodent paws off of it.
• America, The Book (by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show gang). Amusing enough for a while. Don't buy it, I'll lend you mine.
• Edgar Allen Poe. Like every other teenager who felt misunderstood, I was a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan. I still pick it up every once in a while, because the guy could write.
• JFK, Profiles in Courage. It's JFK so it's got to be good. I'll read it eventually.
• Gregory McDonald. He came to town last year to promote another in his Flynn series. I frankly didn't know he was still writing so I went to see him, and since I was one of about 15 there, I felt obligated to buy his new book. Mr. McDonald is a very good mystery writer (less so since he put his very good and very funny Fletch series to bed), but turns out he's a rather self-aggrandizing speaker.
• John Steinbeck. Grapes of Wrath. Love Steinbeck. Love every Steinbeck work. He is the best American writer. I love East of Eden. I love, love Cannery Row. I love, love, love Tortilla Flat. Read Steinbeck.
• Pearl S. Buck. The Good Earth. Good book. Left me with some much needed perspective. I believe highly in gaining perspective through the reading of superior books like this. And very readable, even though it is about a culture we don't really get.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. I bought this in hardback because I was thinking that if it was as great and life-changing as everyone said, I would want it on my shelf to re-read. I may re-read again, but only to find out what the big whoop is that I missed the first time. Some classics just seem to pass over my head. I will admit that.
• Gunter Grass. The Tin Drum. I bought this around the time that Grass (finally, he says) won a Nobel prize. It was pretty freaky. Definitely dense with symbolism. Very surreal. I don't think I really understood it (not being from Germany where the collective guilt must be intense and the history would be more immediate and local), but I understood the impact that it must have had. Worth the trouble.
• Herman Melville. Moby Dick. Another one that I bought because of the testimonials about how Melville is the bomb. Sorry, the prose is a little too purple for my short attention span. How long can you talk about whale whiteness, anyway?
• David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty Some Day. I love David Sedaris. In this era of cable TV coming out your ears, I bet you could write an episode of CSI or Still Standing in your sleep, but you could not replicate a Sedaris story. You can never really guess what Sedaris's next sentence will be. He can surprise me and make me laugh every time. I like his books, but his books on Audible for my Ipod are even better because his delivery is hilarious. Another best bet for your Ipod: Sarah Vowell, another This American Life (NPR) regular. Very funny, but with a sincere side that is charming and occasionally educational.
• Fire Engines in North America. Coffee table book given to my husband because, well, he's a fire fighter, I guess. (Note to relatives of fire fighters: volunteer fire fighters love this stuff. However, very few career fire fighters are fire engine history buffs).
• The Picture History of Painting. Garage sale coffee table book given to me by a dear friend. It's fun to pull out every once in a while, but the color plates are sometimes off a little.

There you have it. If I'm not back from my telephone call, make yourself at home with one of these books. I'll be right there.

Hey, Piglet, What's That on your Hands?

Hey, good question!

It's dirt! I've been in my back yard, turning over sod. Sound fun? You bet!

It's funny what age will do. If you told me 20 years ago that I would spend the better part of two days making perfectly good grass into about 150 new square feet of tabula rasa dirt by hand, I would have told you that you got the wrong chick. I'm sure that would have been accompanied by something about time is money, and my time is more expensive than that, or something about how I'm ever so petite and unfit for big shovel work (including batting of eyelashes) or just a lot of whining and procrastination.

What changed? I'm not sure where the idea of manual labor, or just menial labor, lost its disgust factor for me.

Maybe it has to do with my discovery of books for my ipod, or good programming on the local NPR radio station. That might help, but it's not the whole answer, because music works just as well as a good story.

Maybe it has to do with spending hours out on the road, walking and running. Twenty years ago, I thought about fitness in terms of minutes, not hours. That sure has changed. Maybe that has helped lengthen my patience span a little.

Maybe it has to do with painting as a hobby. The main thing I have learned over the years is that if there is a short cut to finishing your painting, DON'T TAKE IT. It will only ruin what you've done so far. Painting is a game of patience. If you just want a final product, take up another hobby. Like collecting troll dolls.

Maybe it has to do with my Theory of Constructive Fitness. If something takes manual labor, it's like a second workout, which automatically qualifies me for more chocolate. What's not to like about that? I call it a Constructive Workout(tm). You not only burn calories, you have something besides smelly clothes to show for it.

What I do know is that I don't gauge the worthiness of a task by how quickly and easily it can be accomplished anymore. I'm not sure if this is something that can be taught, or just comes as a bonus gift with wrinkles.

And no, I won't come to your house and turn over your sod.

A Low Point

What has been your low point so far?

Here's one of my favorite low points:

I'm 22, pregnant, living in Austin, Texas, in what used to be an addition to an old single-wide trailer, now long rusted away, barely making it from one of my husband's Air Force beginner pay checks to the next. This so soon after graduating cum laude from the University of Oregon, the former goal of graduate school fading, partly through my partnership with an Air Force Airman who didn't get to decide where he might live, but mostly through my own ambivalence to the final product - a PhD in psychology that I wasn't sure I wanted.

We had just moved into The Cottage (my euphemistic word for our rental "house") after the last affordable apartments in town went "condo." When the gas company came to do their pre-service check before turning on the gas, they "red flagged" the water heater, meaning that it was too old and decrepit to use safely. So until the old couple that rented The Cottage to us could replace the water heater, we lived there without hot water. This was less of a hardship than it might have been since it was summer, and the temperature and humidity were both over 90, and The Cottage had no air conditioning. We merely changed our shower time to the afternoon when we could do nothing other than stand under the cold water for relief.

Oregonians have long been called webfoots for a reason; the main weather system out here is rain. When forecasters say there will be a ten percent chance of showers, they really mean there is a one hundred percent surety of rain - they just want to give us a little hope. We are used to weather that requires our regional dress code: flannel, wool, and gortex. We are not used to day after day of 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity.

I was unable to move in the heavy, hot air. It was like a really uncomfortably hot extra gravity blanket. That is, until the tornado watches started. That got my heart moving like nothing else. I can still recall the tones we would hear on the TV as the Tornado warning would scroll across the bottom of the screen. For an Oregonian, this was like waiting for death to come - it was like seeing a crawl at the bottom of your TV that said, "Death is roaming the area southwest of Austin, moving in an easterly direction. Take precautions." Our Cottage was a square, cut into four squares with a small square in the middle that was our bathroom (no kidding - architects, take note), so during the closer tornado warnings, I would huddle in the bathroom, since it had no windows to blow in and stab me to death, although unsafe from the fact that The Cottage had, at one time, been associated with a trailer - that trailer scent that tornadoes are particularly drawn to - and could have chosen to squash the flimsy structure with a huff and a puff.

Where were we? Oh, yes, I was 22, pregnant, wearing one of two ugly maternity frocks (whichever one was not dirty), and scratching for change in the mattress cushions of the couch that we were buying on credit at usurious rates from the weasely furniture dealer who preyed on underpaid Airmen strapped for cash, and hoping I didn't pull out one of those big Texas cockroaches instead. I still shudder when I think of watching those cockroaches scuttle under the kitchen cabinets.

This day, I was feeling particularly pregnant and depressed (I can't imagine why), so I had taken money I couldn't afford to waste and bought a pack of those special School Boy (or something) cookies. They are those little rectangles of shortbread with a rectangle, just as thick as the shortbread, of pure milk chocolate on top. Oh, perfection.

I can remember sitting on the bed in my red plaid maternity frock, eating my first cookie out of the package and feeling a little better about the sticky, hot day, noticing the wind pick up a little bit in the landlord's cow pasture outside, and then opening the package a little more to get to the next cookie, and seeing movement inside the package, then looking a little closer, and realizing that the whole package is actually infested with tiny moth-like insects.

I cried and cried. Drew was sympathetic, but a little puzzled that a spoiled package of cookies could send me into such a fit of despair. But of course, it wasn't the cookies. It was everything. The Cottage. The hot water heater. The tornado of doom. The cockroaches. The heat. The humidity. The distance between me and my family. The fear that I would be a terrible mother. The fear that I would never amount to anything now that I was jobless, PhD-less, pregnant, and so damn afraid.

I guess this is where I say that I may have not amounted to much, but I'm no longer afraid, but that's not really true. I'm still afraid of lots of things. But at least I'm not afraid that I won't amount to much. I'm not much, but it's enough. My baby grew up without too much emotional scarring, and for the most part, outside of Texas.

So if you're at a low point, try to remember that it's a low point. And there's nowhere to go but up.

Who took Dennis Miller's brain? And show?

Wow, I am so not making this up when I say that when I sat down to write this, Dennis Miller's show on CNBC had not been canceled. When I went to Google to look up a fact for this very posting, I read the news that was released approximately five hours ago. This puts me in a relatively awkward position. Do I continue to complete my thoughts on the dumbing of Dennis Miller, or let him recover without my rant (although it is so backwoodsishly obscure and microscopic that it is virtually invisible to anyone within his posse)? Well, I already spent 45 minutes on it - hate to waste time and all...and if he wasn't such a Republikisser, it would never have come to this...

Remember when Dennis Miller was funny? And seemed to have read - and actually retained - the same books you were forced to read in college?

What happened?

He seems to be not only less witty and literate, but actually seems to be dodging actual facts - a true sign of a member of what has been cleverly termed the "neo-con death cult."

He says he "saw the light" after being in New York during 9/11, and felt that it was all important to put his faith behind the president's crusade - oops - I mean "war against terror." That's cool. Except now he seems to see the light on the president's war on Social Security - oops - I mean Social Security privatization plan, and the president's war on the United Nations - oops - I mean his nomination of John Bolton, and his war on Democrats - oops - no, I guess that's the right term.

I don't think the far-right wing is technically advanced enough to produce pod people. And they don't believe in using stem cells, so the evil clone idea is out. I guess I'm going to have to go with brain washing.

The question we have to ask ourselves is twofold: does brain washing cause enough brain damage to account for the obviously huge drop in IQ (come on, doesn't anyone remember those awesome Monday Night Football freak shows when Al Michaels and Dan Fouts couldn't follow one Dennis Miller sentence to its conclusion without their eyes wandering back to the game in a desperate search for something they could grasp? I loved that!), and two, does anyone remember him dropping out of sight long enough for the brain washing to have taken such a wildly obvious effect? Or can they do that by sneaking into your bedroom at night and wispering in your ear? Or replacing your Special K with Special W?

I don't know. It's just a thought. And I have really lost my appetite for the whole subject since the cancellation thing. Hate to kick a fella when he's down. I guess that's just the Democrat in me.

Annie is seeing things. 

Hallucinating Collies

My dog's eyesight has always been pretty iffy. She seems to have a lot in common with the T. Rex in Jurassic Park - she needs movement in order to spot something - either movement or a scent that she can pick up with her comically anteater-sized snout. Lately it seems to have gotten worse. Yesterday she ran into the back of a parked utility trailer. Usually she can avoid the parked cars along our walking route, but the low-lying trailer must have faked her out somehow (I guess they considered sidewalks an unnecessary luxury when they were building our neighborhood to house shipbuilders during WWII - see, there's a story everywhere.)

The reason I bring it up is because today her eyesight problem seemed to progress beyond the mere unseen into the realm of the imagined. This produced a much more animated walking partner (lately I've been doing a lot more leading and less following), but also a much more unpredictable one. I record our walking conversation as going something like this (mind you, memory being what it is, I have paraphrased some):

Annie: Hey look! Circus elephants and little dancing poodles! And a unicyclist! Ha Ha! Let's follow!

Me: That's a small white pickup. Sorry.

Annie: What's this! A spilled ice cream cone? My lucky day!

Me: That's bird poop. Don't lick it.

Annie: Hey look! A friendly man! Watch this, I'm going to pull on my leash until he extends a hand to me then I'm going to recoil in fright! Ha! Gets 'em every time.

Me: That's a scare crow.

Annie: (Whines). Scare crows are wily, wily creatures. Look at the way he's looking at me. Well, you may have won this time, Scare Crow Man, but your day will come! Oh, yes, your day will come, and I will be there to laugh heartily! (Annie is notorious for her over-use of the exclamation mark.)

Annie: Hey! What's that?

Me: A weed.

Annie: It smells funny. Hey! What's that?

Me: A weed.

Annie: It smells funny. Hey! What's that?

Me: A bush.

Annie: Are you sure it didn't move?

Me: Only the part that you hit with your nose.

Annie: It smells funny. Hey! Something's biting me in the but!

Me: That's your hip. You seem to be having some arthritis pain. Let's get you home.

Annie: Okay, but that arthritis guy better not come any closer.

Me: That's a garden gnome.

It's Ten O'Clock: Do You Know Where Your Garbage Is?

It's ten o'clock and I don't know where my son is.

This is not the dilemma that it may seem on the surface. My son is 20. He comes and goes as he pleases (within reason). However, it is garbage night: the one task he has been given as a member of the household, other than cleaning up after himself and keeping his room in, if not clean, at least a vermin-free state.

My dilemma is: should I take the garbage out myself, thus sparing myself the worry of whether he will come home, see my note, and take the garbage out before he drags himself to bed, or should I put the garbage out and sleep soundly, however relieving him once again of the one shred of responsibility we have left his sorry, 20-year-old, carefree, careless, oblivious self?

You know, he's 20. He's not going to learn much more from me. His next learning curve is going to have to wait until he gets a place of his own, with all that entails: rent, electric bill, water bill, food expenses, gas, insurance, and his own garbage day. He won't learn anything from my overfilled garbage can. That lesson will come with its own distinct aroma on his first missed garbage day.

If you need me, I'll be schlepping the recycling out to the curb.

Hormonal Lethargy with a Dash of Antihistamine-Glazed Eyes Produces Nostalgia-Palooza

I wrote this yesterday, but was too tired to check for errors (yes, I check. Shut up), so I saved it for later. I'm feeling slightly better today, thanks for asking...

I can't raise my hands above the keyboard. I'm cold. I'm hot. I'm cold again. Mostly, I'm holding onto the couch and eating chocolate kisses.

Other than being a little achy, I don't feel so bad. Just like somebody opened a drain in my big toe and let all the energy run out. And filled my head with cotton. No, packed my head with cotton.

Since I have no energy for anything else, I keep drifting over to the computer, and once there, not knowing what to do with it. So what did I do? I looked up my best friend from when I was a kid, and was shocked, no, freaked out to find that she was right in the Qwest telephone directory in the town that she was living when I last saw her twelve years ago. That was too easy. Now what do I do?

I guess the only right thing to do is to get back in touch with her. Calling her on the telephone is out (please refer to title of blog - an affirmation that is decidedly not working). I will have to write her a letter. How queer (definition 1: odd) is that? What do I write? "Hey, remember that time when we told each other we would grow up and marry Elton John and Roger Daltrey? Ha-Ha!" Who wants to be reminded of that?

I could write about my fascination with her gerbil "Tilly" (no, this was very pre-Jennifer Tilly). I can't remember where the name came from, but I thought it was a cool name. And Tilly was so small and cute. I wanted to take her out and play with her, but that was not something that was done, so I didn't. But I wanted to.

I could write about dancing in her family's big front room to her Monkees records when we were maybe 7 or 8. I still like to hear a Monkees tune from time to time. And I probably still dance like I did when I was 7.

I could write about our trips to my family's beach cabin in Florence (Oregon) (classy joint with an outhouse, complete with boogy man for nighttime trips). When we would roll into town, Mom and Dad would stop at the store to buy presto-logs for the stove and food to stock the icebox and let each of us buy a handful of candies, which would become our "provisions" for our expeditions to the beach (okay, we are not talking about beachfront property here - what, do you think money grew on trees? The beach was a quick 1/2 mile walk through huckleberry bushes and beach grass. This was no sissy cabin).

I could write about our trip to Canada a little later on, when we were probably around 13, wishing we were around 21, looking around 11, and feeling like hot, hot stuff. Oh, my poor parents.

I have a few pictures of a trip taken maybe a year later, when we went on an epic canyon tour, hitting Brice Canyon and the Grand Canyon and I'm sure many other hot spots where the two of us were much more interested in our looks than the scenery. That's the trip where I lost my contacts and had to borrow my mom's glasses whenever I wanted a glimpse of the world past my nose for a few days until a new pair could be shipped to me care of General Delivery, Podunk, Utah. My poor parents.

Our friendship withstood a lot of things that would normally end tenuous kid-bonds: first, her family's move to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood when we were six, and when I was nine, my family's move an hour away (if you drive fast on narrow windy roads). Despite the growing distances, we kept hounding our parents for visits and writing lots of what I'm sure, if I had saved them, would be thrillingly artful and clever glances into the lives of pre-teen girls. I'm sure we thought we were being artful and clever. I only remember one rule of letterhood, and that was that all letters must end with the phrase, "and my ol' lady, she don't care!" - a reference to a bit of an Elton John song that had at one time been the punch line of what I'm sure was a hilarious pre-teen joke, now lost to the fog of time.

But the high school years were a little too teenage, a little too melodramatic, to try to bottle up all the angst and freak into a letter or a weekly call or monthly visit. Our letters and visits slowed and eventually stopped as we resorted to friends closer at hand to be our sounding boards and/or shoulders to sob into. As we soaked in more of our own town's culture, we were a little puzzled at each other's differences. What we thought could never change, changed.

Now we are way old. What would our teenage selves think of us now? I'm sure they would be appalled. But it sure would be fun to sit down with my old friend and a bottle of wine and reminisce.

And my ol' lady, she don't care.

A One Time Story

Some of the worst - and some of the best - stories start with the phrase, "One time..." such as, "One time, at Band Camp...," which, I have to say, as an alumni of a particularly awesome Band Camp, I have actually uttered in all seriousness on, I'm sure, more than one occasion.

I shall now regale you with a "One Time" Story that has nothing to do with Band Camp.

One time, when I must have been around 5 years old, my best friend's family got a new dog. It was a cute (hello, obviously) ball of black poodle fluff with barely visible black shiny eyes and a little black wet rubbery nose and smooshy curly ears.

My friend had one brother; two kids, one dog. You can imagine the life that this poor living tug-of-war prop had to endure each day of its ill-fated puppyhood.

Oh, my God, I just read that - doesn't it suck? Sorry.

Anyhoo, although most of the battles fought over the little fluff died out once his captors grew a little and turned to other forms of entertainment, one particular scar of the dog wars left a pain that the dog felt every day for the rest of his life - his name.

Since their parents were unable to take sides on who would be the one to name the poor fluff, they allowed the children to each choose a name, and he was then forever tattooed with the tandem thoughts of a five- and a six-year-old. My friend, being a lover of a good word (usually one special word at a time - a One Time story for later), chose the word that best described the subject at hand: Blackberry. My friends' brother, not being able, at 6, to give up his dreams of having the sleek, smart, action-dog he had seen on TV, with all evidence of the sort of dog in view to the contrary, chose Lassie.

Blackberry-Lassie lived a very long time, and every day was coaxed in from the yard, or called to breakfast, or rounded up for bathing, or just petted, to the tune of that name. I can still see the look on that dog's face, in his later years, when called by his name. He would just look at me, saying (I'm certain) "Can't you do something about this?" Unfortunately, as his must have been many times during his puppy years, my hands were tied.

I have half a brain

I have been experiencing a creative frenzy...well, not a frenzy, so much as relief of a creative constipation, so to speak. However, the creativity has all come upstairs, in my painting studio, and not in the form of words.

All winter I had so much to say. I thought about great new subjects to write about, couldn't help but start them, come back to them, massage them and rearrange them. But I could not make myself start any new project in my studio. I had painter's block. Now, the sun is out, and I constantly think of new projects to attempt upstairs. I can't concentrate on a book for more than 10 minutes. I think about ways to fix yesterday's mistakes, go back upstairs to just fix this one thing, and realize several hours have passed in the blink of an eye.

Is it that my brain can only be creatively active on one side or the other? Was this past winter the season of the left brain, and has the spring pollen awoken (is that a word?) my right brain, and in the process, stolen its creative juice from the left brain? Can I only work one side of my brain at a time? And do I have to wait another couple months for my left brain to wake from its coma?

You tell me. I'm no good at writing today.

Things I've been wondering

Things I've been wondering:

Why don't they make velour jogging suits inside out? I would wear them all the time.

Why do I keep blogging when I seem to be talking to myself?

Why do they keep developing new TV channels when there is nothing on the existing ones?

Who is buying all those "bestsellers" that are written so badly and haphazardly?

Where does God live?

Why am I such a spaz?

"Craft 'til it hurts!" It hurts.

It's final - there are too many channels, all of which have to try way too hard to get you to watch. Today I stumbled on evidence of the above thesis: Craft Corner Deathmatch. This is real - as real as anything found on the Style Channel.

The premise of Craft Corner Deathmatch is to match two amateur "crafters" against each other in a contest to make something crafty out of a pile of craft resources. If you insist on a "meets" analogy, it's Martha Stewart Meets Iron Chef. With a touch of the wacky "anything goes" goofiness that has been seeping over from Japanese game shows like Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.

In the show that I watched today (yes, I watched the whole half-hour show, get off me. I just got back from the gynecologist. I deserve some veg time...), the contestants were challenged to build a wind chime with a pile of kitchen utensils, silverware, and some string. They had 10 minutes to work while the host nattered on distractingly. The time was mercifully edited for television. The resultant chunks of barely hanging metal were then rated by a panel of judges.

In the second round, the contestants were invited to embellish jeans with fusible webbing and assorted material. The big surprise thrown in half-way through the 10-minute round? They had to use material from the host's pants, which he gleefully ripped off to expose clowny boxers in a flag motif. Are you laughing uproariously, as I was? I didn't think so. Oh, well.

It's hard to tell why some game shows work and some don't. Iron Chef is pompously ridiculous, but it's slightly riveting television, at least enough that you find yourself rooting for a favorite and imitating the giggling actress/judge. Craft Corner Deathmatch, I'm afraid, does not reach such a height, as less-than-dazzling as that is.

Reasons?

Host: Although the host is loudly wacky, he is not funny. If you're going for wacky, it's important to pull it off. Otherwise, you end up being loud and obnoxious instead. Ouch. Hard to watch bad funny.

Contestants: The contestants for this show were rather personality free. For such a loopy-ass concept show, they have managed to track down some of the most stone-faced and humorless crafters imaginable. They begin by saying that they are the zany type, but then forget to pull it off. To make up for the seriousness of the craft-letes (you like my new word? thanks!), the host tries to dial up the goofiness single-handedly, with predictable results.

Lovely assistant: They have tried to infuse the show with a little boho irony with a "lovely assistant" whose character motivation could best be described as Pouty Goth Girl. On another show, it would have been clever and lent the glue-gun-and-pine-cone atmosphere a little cool, but here she just seems to have wandered into the wrong studio and is really pissed off about it.

Iron Chef Wanna-Be: The winner of the first two rounds gets to go head-to-head with the Craft Lady of Steel, an homage (I guess) to the Iron Chef, of which the show cribs more than just the Unsmiling and Formidable Super Chef. For the Craft Lady of Steel, they have kept the Unsmiling part, but seem to have jettisoned the Formidable part and replaced it with Scary, which the Lady so casted doesn't seem to be able to pull off. She seems a nice enough lady, who has been instructed not to smile so as to seem Scary.

Judges: Three judges - I suspect they have more wit in their collective pinkies then all the rest of the studio occupants. Collectively, they got to speak about a dozen words.

One of the wacky witticisms heard from the Host: "Craft 'til it hurts!" Well, it hurts.

Will I watch it again? Probably. I have no will power.

Bonus question: So, Janice, what is your favorite game show? The original Match Game, of course. Duh.

Cover That Up! Except Now.

I feel like I cheated on my family doctor today.

He always encouraged me to schedule an annual exam (gyno-euphemism for sticking a spatula up your vagina and poking around). He knew it had been several years since my last "annual," but I kept putting it off. Reason? Well, I suppose my three top reasons would be that, (1) see blog title. It's hard enough for me to pick up the phone, let alone for an uncomfortable medical procedure, (2) there is virtually no chance of my having contracted the Human Papilloma Virus, the main precursor to cervical cancer (the main reason for the spatula), and, (3) ick. I like my family doctor and all, and I know that I need to get checked and that there are more reasons to have an annual exam then just the pap smear. But I've managed to put it off for years nonetheless.

I finally decided that if I was going to be a responsible grown-up and not run the risk of dying of a treatable disease, I was going to have to find a way to make myself an appointment. I determined that if I couldn't do it through will power alone (I can't do much of anything through will power alone), I will have to find a way to remove a few road blocks to the goal.

Turns out, one big road block was all I needed to remove. Any guesses? Yep. Gender. Removing the male from the equation was immediately freeing. I made a call to a new gynecology office staffed by two experienced female doctors and made an appointment for today.

The office was new - barely out of the box - but it was warm. Literally, it was warm. I noticed the thermostat was set on 75 degrees. A tough temperature to deal with walking in from the street in sweat suit and rain coat, but extremely thoughtful once sitting around in a paper shirt and a paper towel lap robe. It was also very female. Not a male in sight unless you count the visibly uncomfortable husband in the waiting room.

This was unexplainably soothing - maybe not so unexplainable if you consider the portion of the anatomy being studied in this office.

We spend all our lives trying to protect our girl parts from the boy tribe. Then later on, you are told to open up and let a man look inside you - right through your most protected girl hole. Well, ick. Thank God for female gynecologists.

Today's experience wasn't fun, but it was as comfortable as can be expected and quicker - and with less organ squashing then I remember - from previous experiences, and I learned a few things.

The bad news: I've been made to set a mammogram appointment for next week. Oh, Lord.

I'm the one

A little confession, because I'm so tired after a long day at work and the gym that I've lost my ability to edit myself: I'm the one at the gym that bobs her head to the music, pumps her feet to the beat, and dances with her ipod on the elliptical machine while all the other, more self-controlled, gym regulars look on with either bemusement or undisguised pity.

Well, let me just tell you: I know what I am doing. I have control over my limbs (mostly). It's just that, well, without the music it's hard to get my feet moving at all and the couch at home starts to call to me. With the music, it's hard to stand still. And, I figure, if I am going to have to do this stupid workout at this germy gym with all these people I don't even know just to keep the fat at bay, well, let's just give them something to talk to their wives about when they get home. Why hold my head still and not sway back and forth violently, and not skip? I'll feel better, I will get a better workout, and everyone else will feel superior. It's a win-win situation, I say.

So if you would rather dance on the treadmill, or skip on the elliptical while listening to, let's say, Walk Idiot Walk by The Hives, you just go ahead. I'll bet it's better than the stuff they play in the step aerobics class, and you don't have to follow the leader. And you, and your gym mates, will all feel better as a result. Although my knees kinda hurt.

Random Road Thoughts

Although our week-long road trip produced some serious back-ache and a little digestive irregularity (as they say), it did not produce any blog-worthy breakthroughs. It did, however, leave me with some random thoughts.

• On the way down to Mojave-land, we stayed the night in a Reno casino, in a room that is best described as a small cell in a people warehouse.
• In the morning, we spent more money in the casino coffee shop (two coffees, one muffin, an order of french toast and a three-dollar glass of orange juice) than we would have if we would have moo'd our way into the buffet with all the cow-shaped people. Although we didn't save any money, I suppose we saved ourselves a few thousand calories.
• It's a good thing, too, because I happen to know of a great bakery in Carson City (just south of Reno) and used all the calories I saved on cookies for the road.
• Why does sitting around in a moving car make me crave snacks? It's not right and it's not fair.
• Okay, living makes me crave snacks.
• I learned that there's a place worse than Ridgecrest, California, which sits on the edge of a dry lake bed in the middle of the Mojave desert. It's called Trona. Trona would be a spectacularly bad place to choose to live, especially if you were not required to live there to work in the only (legitimate) industry in town - a mining venture that scrapes the adjacent dry lake bed floor for the borax and other minerals it gleans. This mineral sorting activity produces, along with a constant dry,white dust that coats the town and all its inhabitants, an odor that is sulphur-foul and chemical-sour. Turns out it's a great smell to camouflage the cranking out of a lot of crank, the other industry in town. This town is so soul-achingly ugly and smelly, it's almost endearing. Almost. I feel sorry for the inmates of Trona High School.
• Yes, on account of all the rain in Southern California this year, it is an outstanding time to visit Death Valley. Since I've never been to Death Valley before, it was a little difficult to gauge the amazingness of the vegetation and wildflowers blanketing the valley floor. Since I'm not sure how death-y it is normally, I don't think I can fully appreciate the undeath going on right now. But I can assure you, it is as unnatural as the warm, dry winter we continue to experience back here in Portland/Vancouver. On the valley floor, 282 feet below sea level, where there should be dry beds of salt baking in the concentrated heat of a sun bouncing off the steep sides of the big basin, there are actual lakes. There was even some dude paddling around in a canoe. Freaky.
• I can now say that I have seen the dreaded pupfish of Death Valley. Cute as a guppie, but I understand it's much more interesting to fish people. Lives in a pretty hellish bit of hot, trickly water most of the time, I guess. This year the pupfish is living large.
• At the Scotty's Castle gift shop, we played our usual game of looking for the tackiest souvenir possible. Rules: no rules, but you get extra points for: (1) use of plastic, (2) sparkliness, (3) use of the name of the attraction, and (4) pointlessness. Oh, and there is no real counting of points, and often, no consensus on a winner. However, my choice for winner this day (although the competition was abundant and varied) was a fake railroad spike with a tiny miniature choo-choo glued to the top, sprinkled with some sparkly mica (I guess to look like Gold Rush gold) and the name Death Valley stamped on the side.
• There's no accounting for taste.
• Drew told his little niece that there are fairies and Ewoks living amongst the trees in Vancouver. He's gonna have some 'splaineen to do.
• On the drive home, we upgraded our room. We felt much less warehoused and I found a new thing to aspire to: a jetted tub.
• Every time I go for a long drive, I remember why I hate long drives. I shall redouble my efforts to avoid them in the future.

This is about my cat, but read it anyway.

My son just popped his head into the office to deliver these reassuring words: "I just thought you'd like to know that I just attacked the cat."

My response: "Thank you."

This winter I was feeling sorry for the cat because my son was spending the winter in the New Zealand summer, and there was no one around to treat her harshly and give her the occasional sound thrashing, just like she likes it.

My cat (legal name: Coco, although never addressed as such. Known as "Kitty" or "the cat") will occasionally sit on your lap, but she makes it clear that she is there only because you have either (a) the only soft afghan in the room, or (b) her favorite fuzzy sweats on. She is not there to share affection or unnecessary touching. She may purr, but it will be a sort of quiet, involuntary sort of sound that fades away once she becomes aware of it. If you really want to make her purr, you must cause her some pain. Yes. She's a masochistic kitty. Masokitty.

Her favorite game in the morning is to get up on the table and flop down on the newspaper so that I am forced to throw her off. The rougher the throw the better. It makes her grin from ear to ear. Repeat twenty times and you get the morning coffee routine at my house. She is not allowed on the table if we are eating, so once breakfast is on the table, the game is over. She works hard at getting as many annoying newspaper flops in as possible before the toaster pops up. I believe she plays a game with herself, where she gets more points for landing on the very paragraph I am reading. She loves it and can't wait for morning to come, so she can (a) get breakfast and (b) destroy my morning news.

None of this newspaper fun escalates into the kind of trouble that she's looking for. I am no good in a fight. And no matter how much she purrs, I can't be mean to a cat. Drew will rough-house with the cat, which she enjoys blandly, but he doesn't have the sadistic imagination, or frankly, the time to spend to make her truly happy.

Dean, however, is different.

Dean will spin her in circles on slick surfaces. She purrs. He will pin her on her back with his hands in the strangle position, exerting just enough force to keep her claws from swiping at him (even if she is free to swipe, it's a pretty half-hearted effort - just enough to keep him in the game). She purrs. He will ambush her and flatten her to the chair, leaving her looking like an animal pelt. She purrs so loudly it's sometimes not clear whether it's her or a passing truck.

Her favorite mode of transportation is jumping up onto Dean's shoulders and riding through the house like a haughty, yet fluffy, black parrot. She loves Dean. She loves all men (and feels equally indifferent towards women - even the one that feeds her every day and keeps her litter box clean - lousy tramp), but she has a special place in her heart for her sparring partner.

That's why his three-month trip to New Zealand was so hard on her - no beatings for three months. I'm sure it was a long winter for the cat. Upon Dean's return (after a momentary shock, and then an obvious "is it really him?" second look), she was right back to her old ways, looking for trouble, inciting violence, and riding in true pirate style.

See You Next Week

I'll be traveling starting tomorrow and ending up back here a week from now (3/11 or 3/12) and will not be posting from the road. But when I get back, I will have gone places and seen things so will have plenty to talk about. See you then.

That's Tillamook Cows: One, The Man: Zip.

It just makes me feel like hugging myself with a goofy, satisfied grin on my face when the little guy takes it to The Man.

In this case, The Man was played (in a great casting choice) by mega-chem money mill Monsanto, already well-known for their anything-for-a-buck ways of selling designer seeds and agro-chems to farmers worldwide like thuggy drug dealers hooking farmers on the high-yield habit (ouch! so hate-y! and kind of early-Dennis-Miller-y! sorry. If you want more information, you can try a couple of these links: http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/ or http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html or http://www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/companies/monsanto.html or http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/genetics/commercialisation/monsanto.htm ) Anyhoo, the folks at the Tillamook County Creamery Association (the folks who provide the Tillamook Cheese people with their main ingredient, cow juice) recently voted down the interests of Monsanto Co. by confirming their decision to ban the use of Monsanto's milk-boosting hormone cocktail by Association members.

Yay! Monsanto had trotted out their lawyers, who tried to pit the few farmers who had been hooked on the stuff against the majority of the farmers who came to realize that the price of the hormone shots, together with the cost of the higher incidence of sick Bessies, and the increasing skepticism of the public of Monsanto's claims that hormone juice is probably not harmful, was not worth it in the end.

The Oregonian ran a gorgeous close-up picture last Sunday of a group of girly cows obviously hamming it up for the camera (or flirting with the camera man). They were all wearing their little plastic ear tags with their number on them. That's how they keep track of who produces how much milk and who is slacking off - their numbers.

If I were a dairy farmer, I would also have cows with pierced ears. However, I would not use plastic tags with numbers on them. I would give them all names (why not? why would names be any more difficult to keep track of than numbers? I ask you). Then I would make them nice silver ear rings with their names elegantly but legibly engraved on them. Imagine how they would glint in the sun while they are out munching in the pasture...

I'm all for efficiency and expediency and all that, but one also needs beauty. The cows might like it better too. Maybe a cow with better self-esteem gives more milk - or just better milk. If any of you dairy farmers want to give my ideas a try, feel free. I consider this as a kind of public service.

You're welcome.

Perspective and How to Know When You Need Some

One use of the word perspective is of the artist's tool - to help you create a picture with some believability, so that, as opposed to the picture you drew with crayons as a munchkin, the people in your latest work do not look as if they could destroy their house with a well-placed karate chop. It helps you to gauge the world, to place objects into your world so that they relate to each other in a natural and believable way. Houses are bigger than people. Things look smaller if they are farther away. Chances are, you can't see the front and both sides of a building at once.

Perspective is also a useful life tool. I like to use perspective when I start to feel whiny or just a little peckish for something, not sweet, but maybe salty. I like to remind myself that there are many, many people in the world right now who would have fought off their neighbor for the leftover spaghetti that I threw away last night. I don't know hunger, really, so why am I whining to myself about wishing I had a bag of those barbeque flavor Baked Lays in the kitchen? Does it work all the time? No. Otherwise, I would not be carrying around 5 extra pounds in Baked Lays and tortilla chips alone. But it's worth a try. I believe strongly in the power of guilt.

We could all use a good dose of perspective on occasion. Here are a few examples: do you have a flush toilet in your house? Congratulations! You are in the minority worldwide. Do you have a house? Congratulations again! There are many here in this country who do not. Are you a little pudgy around the middle? Congratulations again! You live in a country where it is far more common to be overweight than to starve to death! Can you believe the price of tomatoes? Well, can you believe we can drive to the store in our cars and buy tomatoes from Chile without selling any children? Boy, don't you feel lucky now?

Here are a few common phrases that, should you hear yourself uttering, might prompt you to take a Perspective Moment:

• I couldn't live without my cell phone/notebook computer/blackberry/huckleberry.
• I would never buy another car without heated seats.
• I don't think I can sit through another middle school combined band/chorus/drama club recital night (guilty).
• I have too many books to read and not enough time (guilty again).
• The arugula in this produce department always leaves something to be desired.
• Give me an extra-large tub of popcorn with extra buttery goo, and a Diet Coke.
• I need a new crank for my bike - the one made out of space age carbon-fiber-titanium-nitrate compound alloy. It's lighter than cotton candy and stronger than Bruce here's farts. My old one is making a funny noise when I go 92 revolutions per minute.
• I need a new manicurist. My last one kept talking about her Bishon Frise until I thought I was going to scream.
• If I can't get five more tanning sessions in before we have to leave for our cruise, the whole thing will be ruined and I'll have to stay in my cabin the whole time. I am so under the gun here.

Heard a good one recently? Add your own. It's fun!

I'm All About the Oscars

Okay, I'm not all about the Oscars. My cinematic choices usually stray closer to Will Ferrell and the Farrelly Brothers, rather than the Oscar nominated types. I think Sideways and Ray were the only two majorly nominated films that I have seen. I usually get around to watching them on DVD (unless they are big downers. There's no call for watching a movie that makes you feel awful.) But the Oscars is like a circus with really pretty clowns. Always something to see, and always good for a laugh. Here are a few observations from this year's Oscar hype-athon.

• Cheers to Chris Rock for being himself.
• What's it like to cheer with your arms outstretched because your new bazongas (is that what they call them? or are they gazongas?) are so enormous that you have to reach around them to clap?
• Why doesn't Robin Williams just free-associate into a camera for a half-hour each week and sell it to a network? Wouldn't that be 200 times better than 2 1/2 Men?
• If you wear a dress that hobbles you about the knees so that you are required to walk as though you are wearing prison shackles around your ankles, you should be required to wear a Miss America-type sash that says, "I forgot to try walking before choosing this dress." Or maybe, "Help! I'm being held captive in this dress by fashion terrorists!"
• The best acceptance speech was from Andrea Arnold, the maker of the short live action film Wasp, who likened the award, fondly enough, as they say in the old country, to "the dog's bollocks."
• I try not to do much "best-dressed/worst-dressed" business, but what was with Laura Linney's hair? It seemed very sharp, and not the snazzy sort of sharp, but the paper-cut danger sort of sharp.
• My role model for aging gracefully is Annette Bening (how many "n"s in that?).
• The Aviator garnered quite a few awards tonight. A bunch of firefighters I know screened this movie recently. They didn't like it, which is probably as reliable an endorsement as the awards it won.
• It's nice (well, expeditious) that this year they assembled the nominees for the less glamorous awards on stage, or at a mike set up in the audience, to save us the time consuming walking-to-the-stage business of the less gorgeous winners, but isn't it kind of dismissive to pick only these types of awards to treat like this? Although I'm sure they know who they are, and we know who they are, shouldn't we at least try to treat them as if they were as important as the cute ones?
• I hate to agree with People Magazine on anything, but Johnny Dep is, as Derrick Zoolander would say, really, really, incredibly good looking. He acts good too.
• Beyonce can make a really lame song sound good. (Of course, she's had a lot of experience at it.) I suppose that's why they needed to bring her out so many times tonight.
• It's a good thing Prince keeps that moustache. Otherwise he would be continually mistaken for a pretty woman.
• Why did Jorge Drexler have to re-sing his Oscar-winning song as an acceptance speech? Did he think that Antonio Banderas butchered it so badly that it needed a quick fix? Or was it just a good idea when you have to accept an award in a foreign language?
• Charlie Kaufman's acceptance speech (for co-screenwriting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) was satisfyingly Kaufmanesque.
• If I could switch bodies with anyone, it would be Salma Hayak. Unfortunately, I doubt if she would want mine in return.
• Speaking of bodies past their prime, it seems that Barbra Streisand has grown such a large decolletage, she must wear a necklace with enough metal in it to make a set of chain mail. Ooh, I feel bad about being so shallow and snarky. But I'm not deleting it.
• Jamie Foxx was, as well as the sentimental favorite, the right choice.

On that note, I must get out of this uncomfortable chair, curl up with a good book, de-hype, and try to remember what's important. Happy Oscar Night. See you tomorow in the real world.

Our American Stonehenge & The Possible End of the World

I just came back from a walk at the edge of the Mighty Columbia, which is presently calm as a cat in the sun - no wind, no choppy water, no rain, no clouds, just sun reflecting up into my eyes. In July I might be able to take such a situation with some pleasure, and a smug "as it should be" sort of smile. On February 24, it's just plain freaky, and makes all of us Oregonians and Washingtonians feel like we are getting somebody else's good fortune. This is literally true, as the winter jet stream usually aimed at us is currently aimed at Southern California with disastrous results, if you've been watching the news video of beachside properties sliding down onto one another.

It feels somewhat like getting free cable from the previous tenant's pirated cable split, or maybe like your mortgage company making a mistake and not billing you all winter. It feels great, but you know fortune's wheel is going to turn, and you are going to be required to pay back, big time. And yes, the Northwest will suffer some pay-back-type consequences, such as summer water shortages and a sizzling wildfire season.

However, the itchy, undeserving feeling is even more personal than that. Northwesterners spend a lot of time in the fall mentally preparing for the months of cold, dark, grey wetness that can penetrate the soul, let alone the layers of wool and Gortex we wear in hopes of at least some semblance of physical comfort. This year, God has seen fit to lift the burden of cold grey wetness from our lives for nearly the entire winter. We are happy, yet wary of the karmic consequences. We don't feel like we really deserve this, and deep down, we feel that it's just wrong. How can we truly enjoy our summer without experiencing its opposite? It's like good without evil, beauty without ugliness. How can we truly appreciate the good without deserving it by conquering the bad? If we wanted angst-free living, we would have moved to LA. Oops, except they are now experiencing our winter.

It's enough to compel us to keep making comments to each other like, "Is this the end of the world? Ha-ha..." spoken with a quick glance to the side, as if expecting our prophecy to come rolling through the clouds. Well, if this is the end of the world, we Northwesterners are certainly being treated to a nice last chapter.

Drew and I both had yesterday off, and the weather report was, monotonously enough, for beautiful weather, so we took off in an easterly direction for a change.

I had heard tell of a re-created Stonehenge in a small, once completely privately owned town of Maryhill, Washington, about 100 miles east of Vancouver, so off we went to investigate.

Turns out that on a bluff overlooking the Mighty Columbia River and neighboring Oregon, Samuel Hill, a railroad and land baron of the late 1800s to early 1900s, built a full scale replica of England's Stonehenge as a memorial for the soldiers who died in the First World War. The names of the 13 Klickitat County soldiers who lost their lives in the war are inscribed on brass plates embedded in the stones.

My first question was "why Stonehenge, of all things, to pick as your war memorial?" Turns out that Mr. Hill, a Quaker pacifist, was in England during the war and visited the original Stonehenge. He was told that (as some mistakenly believed at the time) the monument was originally used as a site of human sacrifice. This led him to make the connection between such ancient human sacrifice and the continuing sacrifice of human beings in the name of war. So there you go. Makes sense in that light.

Yes, it's rather surreal driving past some bored-looking cows, grazing on adjacent land, to find a full-scale Stonehenge around the next ridge. However, it's obvious from the start that this is an all-American endeavor for the following reasons.

1. It is complete. As in, it is how Stonehenge would have looked had time not taken its toll. All lintels are in place, as opposed to the authentic Stonehenge, where time has worn away the rock so much that the great stones once resting on and across the upright stones have tumbled down eaons ago. This Stonehenge not only looks practically roofed with the lintels spanning all the outside stones, but from inside, it seems practically crowded with all the huge inner arch stones, smaller secondary stones, and the big flat altar stone. (We started to think of all the cool end-of-movie chase scenes you could shoot while our hero hides from sight around the next stone, running from hidey-stone to hidey-stone...how American are we?...) anyway, Mr. Hill "improved" on the original by replacing all the stones that have never actually been seen by modern man. How American is that?
2. It is made of concrete. Really. Firstly, stones as big as those at Stonehenge are not easily found, quarried and carried with early 20th-century technology, let alone with stone-age technology, which makes the original so mind-blowing. Secondly, I guess old Sam Hill just loved, loved, loved this newfangled material called concrete. He used it to build an enormous chateau for himself as well as his Stonehenge. So I supposed it's actually a ConcreteHenge. Is there anything more American than the overuse of concrete? Hardly. So it only stands to reason that the American Stonehenge is made of smaller stones encased in tons of concrete.
3. It's got graffiti on it. I'm sure the Maryhill Museum (which the aforementioned chateau now houses) tries to keep on top of the idiots with spray paint, but the idiots often have them outnumbered. Lots of idiots with spray paint. Also very American.

For more information, you can go to http://maryhillmuseum.org/about.htm

Anyway, it was a beautiful day. Hope the world doesn't end or anything.

Band Name Update

This week's leading rock band name: Weasel Delivery System.

Your Thought for the Day: I was intrigued by a phrase that sort of hangs in the air after a particular groove by BT: Seven Thunders Uttered. It sounded to me like a good name for a rock band, so I googled it. Turns out it comes from the Book of Revelation (Rv 10 for you curious readers). Which makes it even more intriguing...I tend to stay away from Revelation, thinking that it is not really translatable by us mere mortals. Except maybe after the fact...

See, we can even learn from our dance music.

Learning About Life from Hunter S. Thompson (including a short ode to Johnny)

My son is mourning today, as he should. His encounters with Hunter S. Thompson's work are so fresh and raw. I suppose I should take a moment and think back so, so many years to when I learned a few things from the Doctor of Gonzo.

I grew up in Vernonia. What, doesn't ring a bell? Not surprising. It's a micro-town (then population 1,850, give or take) in the foothills of the coast range of Oregon, between Portland and the coast. The main reason for its existence was the forest surrounding it on all sides, ripe for the cutting by generations of loggers. I grew up there because my father was the corporate representative of the company that owned a lot of the surrounding timber, and had the job of managing the planting, growth, harvesting and replanting of the timber "crop."

Vernonia was surrounded by trees. On hills. Miles of trees on miles of hills. It was a wonderful, safe, friendly, small-town-y way to grow up, and of course, as a teen, I resented every minute of it. But through television, books and magazines, I tried to learn about the world beyond the trees and plot my escape.

Maybe I would write a great book, as hip as Studio 54, as funny as Saturday Night Live, and then I would be invited to appear on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and I would sit on that couch and shoot the breeze with Johnny and the other guests...any less of a life would be too boring, too drab, too average. That's the mind of a teen for you - thinking that what they see on television is the only important thing to possess. But I was right about one thing - man, it would have been cool to sit on Johnny's couch and shoot the breeze.

I went to college at the University of Oregon. Granola U. The University of Birkenstock. Berkeley North. There's where my education really started. And that's where I discovered, among other things, Hunter S. Thompson, and really started to learn about the world - and writing - from one of the masters.

Reading Hunter S. Thompson for me is like riding in a convertible with the top down, when the driver is going way too fast. I can feel my hair being blown back, and the nervous smile start to form, the pupils dilate, the laugh lurking in the throat. Writing that, I couldn't help but picture that car on the highway to (Fear and Loathing in) Las Vegas with no chance, knowing the state of the driver and passenger inside, of ever reaching their destination intact, but knowing full well they will - by the grace of - what? The patron saint of recreational drugs? The god of talented fools with a way with words? We will never know.

But man, for a kid from Vernonia, this was a new way to live. Holding on by the fingernails - to life, to reality even - doing whatever seemed the most outrageous thing at any given moment. Of course, I never (rarely ever) lived that way. Maybe I did take a few chances that I might not have. But the very thought that you can if you want is both freeing and slightly, but pleasingly, frightening for a piglet-y type like myself.

But Hunter S. Thompson was about more than fun with drugs and guns. By writing about his own reactions to the stories he reported (or occasionally made), he was able to burrow underneath the surface of the facts. Whether he was writing about a murderer, a porn star or a president, his ability to weave his way into the story often illuminated facets about people that they would have rather left in shadow.

Mark Twain used to say of his short-lived journalism career, "I never let the facts get in the way of a good story." Although you couldn't necessarily count on Doctor Thompson sticking to the facts, in fact you could rarely believe a word he wrote, by the end of the article, you knew the truth.

And in the end, that's what we're all after, isn't it?

Dogs: Good, Good! Owners: Bad! Bad! Bzzzt!

One short note before I move on to what will probably be an unreadably foaming rant:

The directions on my frozen pizza say, "Do not eat pizza without cooking." Thank God for directions. Who knows what I might have done.

Now on to my rant, lucky readers.

My back still hurts, so I am a little more crabby than usual. Just like my usual approach to fitness, I try to do too much and then pay for it. Like today after work, I decided to take the dog to a nature trail a couple of miles from the house. When I'm not lazy or when the sun isn't setting, we walk down. If either of the former conditions apply, like tonight, I toss her into the back of my snazzy new SUV (yes, toss her - she's too prissy to jump) and drive down.

If you are smarter than me, you are thinking, "you toss her? I just read your last blog about your back injury. Isn't that bad for your back?" Unfortunately, I am not smarter than me and it didn't even cross my mind until I had 50 pounds of dog in the air. Then it did cross my mind.

No matter. She's in the car, I'm still in the Homo Sapiens upright position, it's all good. I drive down to the park trying to find a spot in the car seat that isn't trying to impress me with its superior lumbar support, because that's exactly where the big painful lump is. This makes it look to the casual observer like I have a case of hemorrhoids, compounded by an unmedicated case of Tourette's. No matter. It's a short drive.

We arrive in the bumpy parking lot (ow), and I reverse the dog-tossing-in exercise (because she's too prissy to jump out too), and now I'm starting to feel the effects of the dog tossing.

Well, the best thing for that is a little walk, so we take off down the path, while I try not to breath too deep or pull too hard on the leash to avoid back pain. Here comes the rant.

What is it about dog owners that makes them think that they are above the leash law? Is it because their dog is so much better than other dogs, and will obey their every command, even when confronted by yummy girl-dog smells, ducks on the pond, and squirrelly squirrels? Well, I've seen him, and he's not.

Is it because your dog feels more deeply than other dogs the heartbreak of the leash, as if the leash is the only thing keeping him from really experiencing life? Well, you're wrong. Dogs are quite happy on the leash, as long as their owners aren't having weird little guilt trips and conveying their anxiety to their dogs.

Is it that your dog needs more exercise than you can give him by walking, so you are forced to pedal your bike while your dog runs (sort 0f) beside you? Than get your fat ass off your fat-tired bike and learn to run. Or get a basset hound. Come on - if you can't take proper care of your dog's energy expenditure needs, why did you get him? Don't you think you should have thought of how much exercise he might need before you brought home that cute border collie/lab/retriever?

There are off-leash areas for dogs. Find one. They are the perfect place to let your dog experience "freedom." My park is for leashed dogs only. Says so on the sign. Do not ruin my fun just so you can have yours.

Why are you ruining my fun, you might ask? Because your "well-behaved" dogs keep mauling my law-abiding dog. One tried to hump her. Luckily, she's spayed. Most just go for "drive-by" tauntings. One big sloppy puppy tried to climb on top of her. That one almost got a neck full of teeth. My dog may be prissy, but she doesn't put up with uppity puppies. And what if she did bite another dog for invading her bodily territory? Would my dog be punished for biting an unleashed dog? Would I be sued? I don't want to find out. I want you numbskulls to keep your unruly dogs off my dog. I'm the one obeying the law. I shouldn't have to be chased out of my own park because of you clods.

Leash your dogs, or stay out of my park! Or face the wrath of my crabby comments. That's all I got. I think the park officials would probably frown on my stun-gun idea.

Pain Hurts

Cautionary note: I am under the influence of pain killers that come with lots of advisories about operating heavy machinery, so if the following posting is a little less lucid than usual, please accept my apologies.

I missed my usual B-shift posting on Saturday due a major gravity storm. It was a real-life case of "I've fallen and I can't get up." It would have been extremely humiliating if it hadn't been so extremely painful.

And a note here: if you like watching bad movies, Road House starring Patrick Swayze is a must-see. My favorite line from that movie is often heard at our house because it's so ridiculously macho that it fits a lot of situations involving manly studliness. I can't even remember the context anymore. I'm guessing that he has been beat-up again, and some babe says "Doesn't that hurt?" or something. Swayze looks at her meaningfully and says, "Pain don't hurt." Despite my natural inclination to believe everything I hear in Patrick Swayze B movies, I would like to set the record straight on this matter once and for all: Pain hurts.

Here's something else I learned: the wooden steps out our back door to the patio (the patio itself consists of basalt rocks cemented together into a mosaic of pointy pain) get really slippery in the rain. I learned this at the moment that my feet were no longer underneath me. As I did not have the ability to hover in the air until I could re-orient my feet, my body returned to the steps, back first. Or, as Douglas Adams would say, I flew like a brick.

Luckily for me, Drew had the day off, because I think I was hollering for him before I even hit the ground. He helped me back inside where I lay on my bed, hoping the pain would go away so I wouldn't have to go to the emergency room. It didn't, so I did.

Once at the hospital, I was again pronounced lucky, because I landed about kidney height, which means I missed breaking any bones - missed the hipbones below, the ribs above, and the spine to the side. Which leaves me with a beaut of a bruise on my back and muscle spasms that send me screaming for mercy when I move. But those are treatable with the wonders of modern chemistry. A little Vicodin, a little Flexiril, and although it still hurts, I don't care as much.

Now it's Monday morning, and I am definitely making progress. Saturday, I was pretty much immobilized by pain. Sunday, I could make it to the bathroom by taking baby steps all hunched over, holding on to the walls for support, and going "ow, ow, ow." Today I've moved from Sunday's Australopithicus-style hunched-over gait, to a more Homo Erectus sort of posture. Tomorrow, with the help of modern medicine, I totally expect to be at Homo sapiens level once again.

Man, am I glad Drew had these days off. Without him, I would still be out on the patio in a crumpled-up ball of pain. He has fixed me ice packs, helped me to the bathroom when standing on my feet was nearly impossible, driven me to the emergency room, piloted my wheelchair all over the ER, filled my prescriptions, fixed me drinks, and cooked meals for me. I couldn't ask for a better Valentine. I know that as a fire fighter and fire captain, he has had the opportunity to be a much more glamorous hero, but he is my hero first and foremost for taking such gentle care of me this weekend. Thanks, Drew. You are my Valentine, just like every year. But especially this year.

A Church Lady Gone Bad

I love blogging - you (sort 0f) meet the most fascinating people. Today I've found an excellent blog by an Episcopal priest (http://thinkbenzen.blogspot.com/), who has a way with words and an unexpected reading list that goes from theological philosophy to sci-fi. My kind of Guy of God.

Side-note: My last two books aren't exactly in the same suit either: Bump and Run by Mike Lupica, and No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo by Redmond O'Hanlon.

It made me consider my own theological life, which has been pretty quiet lately. I usually like to hook up with a church when I move to a new town. I like to talk about God, drink bad coffee, eat potluck food made with hashbrowns and cheese, sing in the choir and avoid babysitting duty, so I usually fit right in. But past events have really dampened my enthusiasm for trying new churches, so since I moved from Tualatin, a suburb south of Portland, Oregon, to downtown Vancouver, on the other side of the Columbia in Washington (Washington state for you geography drop-outs), I haven't really bothered looking for a suitable church.

When I was just a little bug, one of the babysat, my parents went to a great church (and by great church, I mean the community, not the baby-blue building with the faulty locks - fodder for another posting) with a great minister. Great as in having all the requisite qualities of a true man of God: 1) a grasp of the Bible received through extensive education and not just from one-on-one conversations with the Big Guy, 2) a questioning, open mind, and 3) an aura of, I don't know, not holiness, but love - maybe just a genuine fondness for people.

An early memory will help illustrate my theological upbringing: I remember asking my dad once, when I was snuggled up in bed, about why the Bible says we came from Adam and Eve, and the books I was reading (okay, I was a little precocious) said we evolved over millions of years. My dad, bless him, said that the stories in the Old Testament of the Bible were told over the years to explain things to people in terms that they would understand. And just maybe the story in Genesis wasn't so much a news story describing the true events leading up to the forming of man as much as God's way of explaining true things about the nature of man. This is the sort of theology I was exposed to as a young'n, and one that has stuck with me ever since.

I, as I was a midget at the time, have only a murky vision of what went wrong at the church. What I know is that our great minister resigned so that the church would not fight over him anymore.

It seems to me that it is usually number 2 in the list of prerequisites for great pastors (a questioning, open mind) that usually kills the buzz that you can sometimes experience for a short time in a great church. There are always those in a congregation that equate a questioning mind with doubt. And doubt with a faulty faith.

Anyway, that sort of hippy theology has understandably narrowed my choices of churches over the years. When we settled in a town in Central Oregon, I found another great minister. He had all the prerequisites with a bonus of a wonderful way with a story. I'm telling you, that first sermon, when he both quoted parts of the New Testament from the original Greek, and then wove in an analogy using The Velveteen Rabbit, I was sold.

I joined the church, even though my liberal-tinged views did not always mesh with the views of the majority of the other church members. I learned a lot from the parson, and was happy singing in the choir and taking notes during sermons.

As with most of the protestant churches during this period, the congregation got older and started worrying about the death of the church. And instead of, oh, relaxing the rule about women's role in church services (the joke was "sure, a gal can be behind the lectern, as long as her voice is going up and down"), or maybe not singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" (scary and evocative of Crusaders galloping towards another successful slaughter) so much, they started talking about a youth minister to bring in a younger crowd. Knowing full well that our church could not afford both an "old" minister and a "new" minister, our parson took an early retirement. So much for learning at the feet of the master.

The new youth minister did not have the same educational background, or storytelling skills, or fondness for people. Church became a rather schizophrenic mix of groovy worship songs (use Cartman's recipe: take a love song and replace the word "babe" with "Jesus"), old organ music, old men, and sermons, energetically given, but thudding to the carpet like dead birds. I checked out.

The next church in Tualatin? A promising minister, but with a church community so clubby, clique-y and cemented in place, Drew and I could stand around for the full coffee fellowship hour without so much as making eye contact with any of them. It was excruciating.

So here I am, two years later and no church. It's just too risky. And church hunting has never been a team effort. Drew is one of those people who, maybe because of an early near-death experience, or maybe because he chats with God under his fire helmet, or maybe because he just doesn't think so much, feels so confident in his faith that he feels no need to sit in church and prop it up for another week. I do not have that sort of faith. Without a little weekly strengthening, my faith tends to slide, which usually leads to sleepless nights, thinking dark, ugly thoughts. But am I ready to try again? No. Maybe not for a long time. I don't know why going to the wrong church is so icky. It just is. So instead of dressing up and trying again, I will annoy you. Sorry. I'll stop.

In the meantime, though, I've found a killer sermon on a blog. Thanks, Ben. See you in heaven. I'll save you some brownies.

Super Bowls and Cellulite

I'm not much of a Philadelphia Eagles fan. I've never been to Philadelphia. I don't know anybody on the team. I do admire Donovan McNabb and love to see him kick ass, ever since Rush Limbaugh pulled up his pointy sheet long enough to slip his lily-white foot in his mouth to say that McNabb was over-rated due to his dark complexion.

However, that in itself is probably not enough of a pull to make me cheer so hard for them during today's Super Bowl festivities. The truth is that the New England Patriots were the heavy favorites to win, and had recent experience at winning. This is the key to my sudden Eagles fandom. I like to see the underdog win, and probably even more, I like to see the top dog pulled down.

This is not a unique trait. I call as evidence the cover of whatever National Ink-Liar or Weekly World Pooh that caught my eye in the supermarket yesterday. The cover story, splashed in big ink, was (and I'm so not making this up) Cellulite of the Stars - yes - with big, blown-up pictures of dimply thighs and sorry, saggy asses that I could have lived a long, happy life without being exposed to. But I bet it sells like hot cakes.

Once we crown somebody, we can't wait to dethrone them, and the bloodier the coup, the better. This goes for our celebrities (they're really ugly! and mean! and we're so much smarter! and happier! aren't we?), our sports heros (they're big dopers! well, okay, they are), and our politicians (okay, they usually deserve it).

I was reading a book review today about Lincoln - about the high regard in which we hold him, and especially his eloquence, in contrast with the poisonous ranquor spewed at him and about him and even about his finest speeches such as the Gettysburg Address when he was in power. Poor fellow never knew in his lifetime how his words effected the tide of the nation, and every American political orator since.

Okay, way too heavy. Back to celebrity cellulite. I would have liked to see the Eagles win. The last thing we need is an NFL version of the Yankees. But I guess it will just be that much sweeter next year (or God forbid the year after that) when the giant is taken down by the next little guy to try to whack him with a rock in a sling. Hope his name is David. Donovan would work too.