BRAVE NEW WORLD
Current mood: blessed
Category: Friends

A year ago, I didn't know many of you. Those I did know, I'd known for 5 years at a relatively safe (i.e., not dating/social networking) forum. Most of you were women. Except for Ian and Donald and Mark and the monk. My father and Kyle both thought it was wonderful that I had an internet friend who was an honest to god monk. So did I. He eventually disappeared...apparently monks are supposed to keep their lives more private.

12:24 AM - 6 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

WORD SALAD
Current mood: amused
Category: Life

When did everyone start dropping the "ed" on words? Surely, not everyone holds Bob's conviction that they are saving up the letters for later.

Iced tea has become "ice tea", waxed paper "wax paper", corned beef "corn beef". But the worst I've seen so far is "toss salad" for tossed salad. What's next, "fry chicken" and "scramble eggs"?

Probably our friends across the pond are still waiting to see what we're planning to do with the dropped letters in "aluminum".

I started off thinking about the above this morning....I know, but it's rainy and cold, and I'm still in my flannel nightgown here a little after noon. Got nothing better to do. So I googled for "word salad", and skipping briefly over about a hundred hits for Sarah Palin, I found myself over at Wikipedia's Glossary of Psychiatry entry. Only to discover that I have a bona fide disorder:

Knight's Move thinking, a phenomenon similar to derailment of thought or loosening of associations, is characterized by odd, tangential associations between ideas that lead to disruptions in the smooth continuity of speech. The name for this disorder likely derives from the odd movement pattern of knights in the game of Chess.

5:15 AM - 13 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

SISTERS IN LAW
Current mood: happy
Category: Life

Yes, I do in fact have more than one. Three in fact. Anna and Molly and Penny. And, almost, Marion.

2:05 AM - 8 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

ANY DAY YOU CAN RUB A HORSE’S NOSE IS A GOOD ONE
Current mood: happy
Category: Life

This may be one of the best Thanksgiving holidays ever.

As Mark emailed me yesterday (and Mark NEVER emails me) "yesterday was very special.

9:44 PM - 6 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

ADOPTED?
Current mood: loved
Category: Friends

My late husband had a good friend from his (generally misspent) youth in Chicago. The friend fell in love with Kyle's sister Penny when they were in their teens. Over the years Kyle and Penny lost track of Mark, until one day maybe 15 years ago, on what Penny refers to "as the worst day of her life" (her second marriage had just crashed and burned and her job situation was nearly intolerable) , her phone in Sarasota rang and there was Mark on the other end, calling from Tampa, only an hour away. They have remained in touch. The two of them drove up to Chapel Hill a number of times to spend long weekends with us, so I got to know Mark fairly well.

7:55 PM - 12 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

TWO HAIRS PAST A FRECKLE
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Life

Well, this piece is not going to write itself. It seems to be waiting for me.

I have a number of vivid memories of my childhood between the ages of five and ten years old. Most are brief vignettes; some a little more filled out, but there is one that makes no real sense to me. A new house was being built on a vacant lot at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and Gardner St. As fond as we neighbourhood kids were of our vacant lots, new construction offered a number of possibilities. One of my favourites was playing in the fresh pile of sand after the dump truck delivered it.

I clearly remembering making winding roads up the "mountain" and pretending that stones were cars. What I don't remember is who I was playing with on this particular day, but I associate the activity with the phrase "Y'all know what 'hit is? No? Hit's Briarhopper Time! Keep that dial on WBT AM 1110!"

I won't go into details about the radio show Briarhopper Time except to say that it was very popular in the early fifties in Raleigh and was on in many homes around dinner time. I won't go into details because, honestly, I don't remember much of them and don't feel like looking them up. I think there was a lot of banjo picking involved.

Now there is no way we would have had a radio with us. I'm not sure portable radios had been invented then. Hell, I'm not even sure BATTERIES had been invented then. I've been pondering (clearly, I have too much time to think) the strong association my memory makes between the phrase "Briarhopper Time" and playing in the sandpile that afternoon and the only thing I can come up with is this:

Someone must have asked what time it was, and the response was "two hairs past a freckle", or another one of those silly answers children used to be so fond of. The answer, in case you don't remember, to the question "What time is it when it's two hairs past a freckle?" is either "Time to put your watch on" or "Eastern Elbow Time".

Hardy har har. Big yucks all around.

And then someone must have said "Briarhopper Time"!

My short term memory may be shot, but I just know I'm going to be the life of the party at the assisted living center.

8:41 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

SHORT HAPPY RAMBLE
Current mood: blustery
Category: Life

 I'm cooking a leg of lamb, and fixing to get stupid and tell everyone I know how much I love them. Could be worse; I could be a mean drunk.

It's been a good day...I crawled under the desk and tackled some things that make me nervous and successfully conquered them. I've got internet music again, and don't have to rely upon the station on the little radio. Saves me from football and Nascar reports. Half the house is still without electricity, but it's not a half that matters much. If this continues, I may eventually stop trying to flick on the light switch in my bathroom. Habits die hard.

And some things have been patched up. They were more important than I realized....sorry, that's not true. I knew how important they were. I just didn't know what to do about them. Some other things may be about to get ragged, but they are things that need to end. They served their purpose, better than I can ever explain or could have ever wished for.

The lamb is perfect. Somewhere between rare and medium rare. A real treat.

And I love you all. Someone remind me not to overcook the Brussel sprouts.

G'night.

10:46 PM - 15 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

HIGH SCHOOL, AGAIN
Current mood: grateful
Category: Life

 Okay, aided and abetted by a friend I had lunch with today, I had a plan. Was going to write about Terrell (accent on last syllable), our server at Chili's today. I might still do so at some point. Terrell has working for tips down to an art, except that he called me "young lady" about three too many times. We still overtipped him outrageously.

But when I returned home (to a note from the house cleaners, informing me that the lights in the bedrooms and bathrooms are not working...hey, they were working when I left the house, you goofballs), I got involved in looking for an old picture of Jim B. (You have to have read my last blog entry for that one). And ended up looking through my high school annual, the Latipac. Our high school teams were the Raleigh Capitals: Latipac is capital spelled backwards (how clever were we..."Clever, you're so clever, is your cleverness enough?")

Sorry, it's the weekend, and I allow myself a little extra latitude on weekends. Especially weekends which start off with a YouTube video of a grandmother kicking her grandson off the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming locomotive. If you don't know my young friend Ernie, you might want to check him out. He's not for the fainthearted, but he is a treat. And Kris is an excellent read as well.

Couldn't find Jim's picture in my desk, but the picture in the 1960 Latipac is the same one. The same incredible dimple. Very clean cut, no slicked back hair or cigarette pack tucked in his rolled up sleeve, but the dimple worked every time. We were all very mainstream middle class/blue collar at the time. Except for Travis whatshisname. About thirty years ago, I ran into an OBG/GYN turned psychiatrist from the class behind me who asked me if he had been the only one who had been terrified of Travis.

Somewhere along the line, I've lost my graduating class Latipac, when I was the co-editor, but I may have had some input into the 1961 one which describes Jim as "Lover, Mr. Ipana, and Playboy".

You think maybe I wasn't the only one to benefit from Jim's talents?

If any of you are feeling envious of my high schoool years, don't. I hated the pressure to conform to something I wasn't, trying to fit in. I managed. But it took a tolll I never want to experience again.

There is a damn good reason that I will never, ever, go to a reunion.

12:05 AM - 8 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

3 AM WHEN YOU’RE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
Current mood: sassy
Category: Life

 Sondra had the best slumber parties. It may not be any wonder that she is now a Jehovah's Witness.

This must have been in high school, because I didn't know Jim B. (not THAT Jim B. anyway) in junor high, and at least one of us  had a driver's license. And Mary and Libby both had cars. Sondra's mother was a model at Belks department store. I don't know what Belks models did, maybe just wander around at lunch time, turning this way and that. Her father was, I think, some sort of political somethingorother. That didn't matter, except for the time that Jane and I spent the summer volunteering for Terry Sanford on his behalf. While we did have some sort of mythical ideological investment in Sanford, the real reason we were there was to rub elbows (would that it had been more than elbows) with an incredibly good looking political aide of his whose name escapes me at the moment.

Aha. Phil Carlton. Knew I had it logged in back there in some old brain cell. Teenage lust tends to hang around. Especially when one has spent a summer licking envelopes. Jane may have had a shot at him....one never knew with Jane, and the older guys liked her. I, on the other hand, have always appealed to younger men looking for a mother figure. Got the mothers' day cards from almost complete strangers to prove it. I've learned to live with it.

Back to Sondra's slumber parties. Her parents were almost never home. They'd agree to let her have us over for slumber parties on the condition that her older brothers would be home by midnight to "chaperone". Oh, come on. They were probably around 19 and 18 when we were 15 and 16. You can imagine how well that worked.

Most of us had very little experience with alcohol of any kind. Things weren't happening in the early 60's in Raleigh like they might have been happening in other places. As I remember, we had to sneak around to watch Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show. Sondra's parents had a well stocked liquor cabinet. And it wasn't likely that they would remember what was in it by the time they made it home from the country club in the early dawn hours. Though I've often wondered if they questioned why they never seemed to have any marichino cherries...because that's what we mainly drank, whiskey sweetened with marichino cherry juice and cherries to kill the taste of the whiskey.

At any rate, the older brothers would eventually come home, teach us how to french kiss, and at some point around 3 a.m. , we'd eventually call Jim B. and tell him to meet us in front of his house. I have no idea of what his parents must have thought about those early morning phone calls, but he'd always be out there in the street, waiting for us. He was a master blow job trainer. Saved any number of us from technically losing our virginity for years. In my opinion, he filled a much needed niche in our adolescence.

Jim B. was no fool. Assuming he is still alive, he'd be at least 67 now. I hope he remembers those times as fondly as I do. I'm kind of betting that he does.

On the other hand, I can barely look a marischino cherry in the eye to this day.

11:27 PM - 17 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

ON BEING SHORT
Current mood: envious
Category: Life

Or, alternately, THE MOST EGOCENTRIC BLOG POST EVER

I haven't always been short. In the 6th grade, I was perfectly normal, height-wise. Then everyone else started growing taller and I stopped. I'm the same height now that I was then.

I've never been able to figure out what part of me is short. Sometimes I think it's mostly my legs, especially the part of my legs between my knees and my feet. I had a pair of Wellies once, bright red ones, that I loved but seldom wore because the tops of them hurt the back of my knees.

Then other times I think that I am short all over. Until they started making those wonderful little one-size-fits-all stretchy gloves, it was almost impossible for me to find gloves that didn't stick out about an inch on each finger. My feet are sort of square. If I find a pair of shoes that fit comfortably (bless you, crocs!) I buy several pairs of them at once, in different colours. Mostly children's sizes fit me best, as kids' feet tend to be wider. My neck is practically non-existant. I buy mock turtleneck tops and I'm still tempted to roll them down.

From the time I was about 8 until maybe 17, I rode horses. The only way I could mount up was to find a tree stump or something to stand on. And then the stirrups were often too long even on the shortest notch. I have kitchen cabinets full of heaven knows what because I'd have to have a step ladder to reach them. The worst thing about going to the dentist is that they never adjust the head rest correctly and my neck gets stiff lying there. And speaking of stirrups, don't ask me about OB/GYN exams.

I guess it's a little late to hope that I might one day turn into a swan.

5:37 AM - 15 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

MY MUSE IS IN HIBERNATION, APPARENTLY
Current mood: bored
Category: Life

So this is what you get tonight. (It could have been worse... I gave some serious consideration to writing about how cold it is here this afternoon.)

10:34 PM - 20 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

DO YOU REMEMBER?
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Life

The plan, up until a little while ago, was to start a new blog entry with the following words from the General Confession in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:

"We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent..."

I'm not sure exactly where I was planning to go with that, but then the phone rang. Caller ID showed me an unfamiliar Chapel Hill number. I know people in Chapel Hill. Most of them are fairly harmless.

Me: Hello?

He: Kay? This is Alex. (said a voice I haven't heard in 23 years)

Some of you may know him as the Brasso guy, others as the Christmas Eve in Turkey and Kavala, Greece guy, others as the co-owner of the $200 car in Europe with the fuses that blew every time we turned on the windshield wipers. But, most recently you would recognize him as the guy in the student union soda shop listening to "Lay, Lady, Lay".

He and his family are going to spend Christmas in France, and he's just gotten the itinerary. Turns out they are renting a car at the Barcelona airport and driving right through the very small border town where we finally got rid of the damn car  by pushing it over the side of the road.

He: Do you remember that place where we stayed up all night singing Christmas carols?

Me: Hell, yes, I remember. Where we ate ham sandwiches with only butter for the bread. But it couldn't have been Christmas carols, because that was the time in Kavala.

Played the old "Remember the time" game and laughed for 20 minutes. Turns out that he still has an old Dave Olney cd.

Funny how life sometimes comes full circle.

5:19 AM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

MAY THE WIND TAKE YOUR TROUBLES AWAY
Current mood: betrayed
Category: Life

Generally speaking, I'm a morning lark rather than a night owl. Some of you know that I don't drive at night. I also won't ride with anyone who has been drinking. What this means is that I am very seldom out after dark, especially during the winter months. For close to a year now, I've had a lukewarm relationship with someone who doesn't drink and doesn't mind driving at night. And he's an excellent driver. So I've become less of a white- knuckled passenger with him at night, and can pay attention to what's out there.

LIGHTS! Lots and lots of lights. You wouldn't believe (well, perhaps you would, but still) how many lights. And around 10:30 last night, there was an almost full moon and stars. And wind.

We'd been to an excellent performance by an entertainer whom I hadn't heard since the late sixties. There were around 70 people in the audience in a small room, and even though, as always, there was someone about 7 feet tall sitting in the folding chair in front of me, I could easily read every expression on the performer's face. And while David has changed in many ways (all for the better), he is still extremely expressive.

Between the music and the lights and the wind, I was feeling so exhilarated that I didn't get to bed until close to 2 a.m.

Unfortunately, someone neglected to inform the rooster next door of this fact. So I'm operating on very little sleep. I offer this up as a lame excuse for

A.Why this piece is so disjointed and can't seem to find its center;

B. Why I got creamed in a Scrabble game this morning; and

C. Why I just became so hurt and angry that I'm sorely tempted to delete my MySpace account completely.

 Deep breaths.

8:42 PM - 23 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

ONCE AGAIN, YOU ARE IMPORTANT TO SOMEONE
Current mood: vibrant
Category: Life

What a hodgepodge of friends I've made here. My real life, and even other online, friends, tend to be more of a complete piece of cloth.

So. He made a difference.We've even spoken on the phone. It just didn't quite seem to make sense for us to meet in person. Not sure why, but it didn't. Probably because as far as I can tell, he's never read any of my blog. And he doesn't really keep one himself. I have appreciated his messages though. He's one of the good guys.

11:19 PM - 9 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Dylan
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Life

Oh man. Listening to "Lay, lady, lay". Haven't heard it years. 1969. Studying in the reading room at the university library while in graduate school. There were still ashtrays in libraries back then. Imagine.

12:03 AM - 13 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment