Another beautiful sunrise, yesterday. I had to get to work, no time to run back in the house, so I just stood and stared for a moment, to let it all sink in. Purplish-black clouds to one side, fading to peaches pinks and yellows, before breaking up in silvery-white puffs to the east and letting the turquoise sky shine through. The air was infused with green, almost heavy with it. I'm sure a camera couldn't have gotten all of that. Moments like this make me glad to be alive.

Wednesday, Nick and I capped our wonderful day with a movie. We watched Fright Night, which is one of those great, cheesy horror movies from the 80s. Fright Night is notable in my mind, because it was claimed among some Jehovah's Witnesses to be a direct gateway to demons. Even my friend Erin swore she had watched the movie when she was younger, and woken up later that night with an unseen force pressing down on her chest so that she couldn't breathe. My older sister Lisa claimed the same thing about The Amityville Horror. I was skeptical, but the very idea of accidental demon possession through cinema scared me away from most horror movies until I was well into my 20s. I still haven't sat down to watch any of the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

Erin's brush with the supernatural didn't deter her from road-testing new horror movies, or me from watching Erin-approved horror movies whenever I spent the night. We just steered very clear of past offenders. We watched the Hellraiser movies instead, along with such notables as Night of the Comet and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The cheesier, the better, and not so bad when watched in broad daylight on a Saturday morning while eating cereal with one of your best friends. I even graduated to watching the USA channel's Up All Night series by myself, catching such masterpieces as Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. USA usually cut most of the gore and inserted hilarious edits for swear words. I'd sneak downstairs after the parents went to bed, and keep the volume on the kitchen's 13" set whisper-quiet so I could catch a movie and Saturday Night Live without any hassle.

When Nick suggested Fright Night, I went with it. I didn't tell him about Erin's narrow escape from certain murder by demons. I decided it was time to kick one of my last remaining fears to the curb, and see the movie for myself and judge accordingly. All I had to do was wake up alive the next morning.

So we watched. Seriously, Chris Sarandon? He does play a good evil guy. I remembered him from The Princess Bride. And Marcy Darcy, huh, and the guy from Herman's Head? No, no demons here, people. I laughed, I admired the props and makeup artists and special effects, I breathed a sigh of relief when the main baddie was turned to goo by the sun and giggled nervously at the last scene. I went to bed, and notice with some alarm how much our folding closet doors looked like the ones in the boy's bedroom. I fell asleep anyway (after all, they have to be invited in by the true owner!), secure in the knowledge that Nick was right next to me (I'm sure I would've had a rougher go of it by myself), and woke up the next morning feeling perfectly fine.

Someday, I may tackle The Amityville Horror. Maybe.

I ended up with a free day, due to schedule shuffling and the hospital not wanting to pay us double on Friday (the observed holiday). Nick and I worked all morning, finishing errands and to do list items, and then we hit Bloomington Beach for an afternoon of sun and sand. We slathered ourselves in 55 SPF sunblock, Neutrogena makes a wonderful sunblock that dries quickly and doesn't feel greasy. It's waterproof, so you really have to scrub with soap and water to take it off once you're finished. I brought 70 SPF as backup, but we didn't need it.

The drive was beautiful. Once there, we realized how wonderful it would be to have inner tubes. We need to buy a couple the next time we have extra cash. We bounced back and forth between swimming in the lake, sitting in the shallows and lying on the beach, finally calling it quits when the teens with coolers showed up. On the way back, we popped in to the Clinton store for drinks and drove through the campgrounds looking at potential sites. I'd like to go camping at least one weekend before Labor Day. As much camping as I was subjected to as a kid, and my boys haven't been? It's a sin.

We had burgers at Dempsey's and checked out movies from the library. It's been a wonderful one-day vacation with Nick.

Don't feel too sorry for Dominic that he missed out, he spent the day at the pool with his friends.

P.S. Since we're relatively close to the fireworks display once again, we're having a cookout Saturday night. You bring what you want grilled and we'll provide the sides and some beer and pop. Bring more drinks if you're feeling especially drinky, and bring chairs to park your butt upon. If the trees are really blocking the view, Constant Park is three blocks away and we can all just troop down there.

This morning, Nick and I walked down to the farmers market, to find some fresh peas and choco rolls.

At the entrance, a woman (whom I voted for to represent my voice in local government) asked us if we would care to sign a petition asking for health care reform. We both said no, that's too broad. After all, I'm sure Republicans want health care reform, too, and I bet I wouldn't like their idea of reform. I'm not signing anything so broad. Next you'll be asking me to sign a petition against using dihydrogen monoxide in consumer products.

So then she asked us to write letters to congressmen and do more. And I was thinking, "What I did was I voted you in to be my representative. That's what representative government is about. YOU petition the congressmen, ma'am. Meanwhile, I'll contribute to the economy by purchasing some peas. And I have this full-time job and these children to care for, which precludes my sitting down and writing letter all day to various members of the government. Thank you and good day!" Because that's the kind of non-activist civilian I am. Activism is a slippery road to nutter status and tinfoil hats, anyway. And I have choco rolls to find.

On the way home, we walked past the House of many Felines. There was a brave squirrel who was kicking back with the five cats who were lazing about on the sidewalk and front porch. It's either too hot for squirrel meat, or there is an agreement in place. There was also a Siamese kitten who dove under the front porch as we passed. We coveted. Honestly, just when we think we don't really want another cat, we see these things, and then we WANT SIAMESE KITTEN!!!

I wondered why I was feeling cranky and mean, restless and twitchy, getting really frustrated with Dominic. Then I realized I haven't been running since we got back from Chicago. The heat wave started that Monday, and I've been stuck indoors ever since. After a few minutes on the mini-trampoline, my aggression went down quite a bit. Then I hopped off and did some kickboxing and jumping jacks. I'm feeling a lot better now.

Does this mean I'm addicted to exercise?

The Creature Comforts reunion show was a blast. Yet another show where I found myself jumping up and down and singing along next to the same guy, only now he was my husband instead of a new friend. Seven years goes fast.

Sons of Great Dane and Dead Girls opened, and at one point I found myself saying, "I want pizza before Dead Girls. I'm really hungry." Which doesn't sound good, and got some looks. No, the Record Bar serves food, and I'd just been informed that the food might take a while to find me. The lone waitress, as I found out later, was working her ass off. She hooked me up, however, and I finished the last bite just as Dead Girls were going on.

The guy who was standing behind me and who intro'd the Creature Comforts looked familiar. I couldn't place him, but I'm bad with names. I knew his cover story wasn't right, that it had to be a joke, but who the hell was he? And why was he being the guy who wears the shirt to the show*? I asked Nick afterward, and he told me it was Jason Sudeikis. Oh, duh. Sorry, I have NO facial recognition when people are not where I expect to find them. Like in the Record Bar instead of on my television screen, for instance. I forgive you for being that guy. I'm now also glad I didn't playfully punch you and say "you're that guy", which I usually do. That's kind of funny.

I got the show poster, which looks like this:




and will be framing it. I'm thinking of making our stairwell the new show poster gallery.



* http://www.eachnotesecure.com/the-concert-t-shirt-etiquette-guide/

Flying carpenter ants are trying to colonize our home, but the good news is that our A/C is working again. Boric acid will take care of the ants, hopefully. I will not be colonized. I like to think of myself as an animal person, but not at 3:30am when ants are crawling all over me.

We're back from our trip to my homeland. Already, I'm pining for the pines.

Nick took many, many pictures. We had many, many adventures. We parked the car for four days in Chicago and got around by foot, bus and train. We saw the sights and ate the foods. We then headed up north, drove the highways and byways, hiked the bluffs, breathed the air and lived outside of our daily routines for a little while. It was refreshing, and the boys and the plants seem to have grown in our absence.

Stealth must have thought we were gone forever; he looked heavier, his coat was scruffy, his nose was dry, and he was an irritable mess when we came home.  He perked up after we'd been home a few hours, and spent the rest of the night within a foot of me. Last night and this morning, he jumped on the bed, made sure he had my attention, balanced on his front paws, tucked his head and tail in, and gave me a perfect forward somersault. I think he was overcome with joy.

"I ate the sticker once. You can eat paper, just not a lot of it. It won't kill you."

Half the fun of throwing down wildflower seed mix is guessing what's a weed and what's not, a few weeks later. I have my work cut out for me when I get back. I need a Terminator thing I can just point at it and get a readout: WEED=TERMINATE.

I need to pick a happier icon for traveling.

Nick and I are heading back to Chicagoland for 10 days or so of Midwest fun in the sun. Circus World Museum, House on the Rock, Edwards Apple Orchard, Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and so on and so forth. Davenport truly is the gateway to paradise. We don't like driving any longer than five hours at a time now, so Iowa is always our first and next-to-last stop any time we head east. Nick has also issued a "no-chains" decree, so the eating will be interesting. I need to hunt down my copy of Road Food.

I'm currently making my way through language books by Bill Bryson. Right now, I'm reading The Mother Tongue while Nick covers a show at Starlight and Dominic plays with the hoodlums across the street. Man, I used to be punk rock.

Judging by the calls I hear, we have orioles nearby. I hope one gets bold enough to show itself.

Facebook has an odd knack for suggesting I become friends with people whom I've no intention of ever speaking to again. Today, it offered up yet another girl who made my life a living hell in junior high school. I had to laugh, because this is the memory that always pops up when I think of her:

In seventh grade, I had a special gang of girls. Not my minions, no, these were girls who lay awake most evenings planning ways to torment me at school the next day. I should have been flattered that they'd devote so much time to me. I wasn't a particularly mean girl, but one day I decided to conduct an experiment. I wondered what would happen if I treated someone else the way I was treated. Maybe they'd leave me alone once they understood how wrong it was. I was curious, too. Maybe it felt good to fuck with people for no apparent reason.

One of the girl's friends had a locker next to mine. She never bothered me, but her friends would walk by and slam my locker door shut whenever possible, which meant I'd have to run through my locker combination to get it back open, wasting precious time between classes and making me late. I tried this on her one day. I must have slammed her locker shut at least three times before she gave up trying to open her locker and just walked away. I couldn't see what was so much fun about it, but she definitely had a shocked look on her face.

She must have told her friends. One of the bigger girls, Beth, came up to me during the next class change and started screaming at me in the hallway. She screamed that I should meet her out by the railroad tracks (the official BJHS fighting grounds just off campus) at 3:30pm, that "your ass is grass and I'm gonna be the John Deere lawnmower that mows all over it!"

I probably would have been okay if I hadn't laughed out loud. The picture that was painted in my head was ridiculous. "You mean like a big riding mower with a rotary wheel?" I asked, incredulous. For some reason, that thought struck me as pure hilarity. First, she'd have to knock me down. Then, I'd have to stay on the ground while she mowed me. I guess that's Asperger's literal thinking for you. Add to that my complete inability to focus on the matter at hand and instead become distracted by a metaphor. My laughter was not the expected response. She just got more pissed off and the crowd of kids surrounding us were equally disturbed. I wasn't showing the proper respect, I was breaking caste rules, laughing at one of the higher-ups. My ass was grass, indeed.

She never kicked my ass. I never made ANY of those appointments at the railroad tracks. It's not like I forgot over the next five hours, I had appointments made for me on a twice-weekly basis. I just refused to fight anyone, ever. For one thing, my parents would have beat my ass six ways from Sunday if they heard I'd been fighting, even in self-defense. "Turn the other cheek" was their motto, especially when they were the ones doing the hitting. They were of the firm opinion that if someone wanted to hit me, I had done something to deserve it, even if that something was just being alive and breathing. I had to endure these kids for roughly seven hours a day, but I had to LIVE with my parents. Another reason to not fight: I knew that the first thing the other kid would do was knock off my glasses, rendering me blind. I wouldn't have a chance in hell. And THEN I'd have to go home and face my parents. Eff that.

I had strategies for being called out. I'd stop at my locker before the last class, and get all my stuff ready to go. This was back when backpacks were still allowed in the classroom. When that last bell rang, I'd haul ass and be out the door before anyone could catch up. I had twenty different ways of getting home that didn't involve a straight line ( I lived five blocks up the road from the school). Apparently, I wasn't even worth chasing. No one ever bothered to follow me home to administer justice. Sure, I'd be called a chickenshit the next day, but that wasn't any worse than any of the dozens of names I was called while at school. And I was a chickenshit who lived to (not) fight another day.

As an aside, this is why sometimes I giggle to myself while mowing the lawn. Well, one of the reasons.

Today, I weeded ALL of the new beds. It took me four hours to get through everything, because I methodically went over every square inch and plucked every damn cupgrass and nutsedge seedling out of the ground by its hairy little root. I filled half of a five-gallon bucket with weed seedlings and grasses. It sounds crazy and OCD, but it will pay off by this time next year.

The thing about keeping shrub and perennial beds over lawn is, you have massive amounts of weeding that first year, but then the workload takes a huge dive by the next growing season. All of the beds I made over the last two years are mulched and damn near weed-free. I spend a few minutes, tops, pulling out stray grass and weeds every other Saturday or so. It's worth those few minutes to be able to sit on my porch and watch birds, squirrels and bunnies run around in the new playground I made for them. I want to giggle when I see a baby robin perching on the baby branch of a four feet tall birch. That wouldn't be happening if my yard was still 4,000 square feet of grass.

And best of all, people grin when they walk past the house and see the trees, shrubs and flowers. Our yard makes people happy!

I'm not a big sports fan, but that was an enjoyable game to watch, last night. It wasn't a pretty shot, bounced off everything before it went in, but it was a lucky one.

I am the queen of this. I live on the staircase. I'm glad there's a name for it. I have these moments daily. Thank you, inborn social awkwardness.

The best came-too-late comeback I ever had, never actually happened. But I have a personal form of therapy which involves reliving scenes from my childhood and finally telling people what I thought. Telling them they couldn't do the things they did to me. Telling them that they were miserable, rotten people and that life would exact revenge in a way I never could.

And then I go for a long walk and pound the dredged-up misery into the sidewalk with my shoes. I generally come home feeling a little better. I don't know how the sidewalk feels about all of this.

I need to find that perfect time of day, when I'm not at work, the sun isn't too brutal and the mosquitoes aren't flying around, so I can keep up with weeding the beds. I think it happens for five minutes every 12 hours, approximately 7am and 7pm. Oh, well.

Nick and I saw the midnight showing of the new Terminator movie. It was decent, a lot of nods.

Last night, Anthony called and told Tony there was a hangup with getting the child support issue squared away, but that he was doing everything in his power to get it going. I contacted CSE to see what the hold-up was. They told me Anthony is contesting the validity of the order and refusing to turn in proof of income. Way to go, slugger. If you don't mind me saying it, you're a sadistic son of a bitch.

Birds love my house, now that they have places to hang out. I need to get a bird-watching book so I can identify what I'm seeing and hearing.

Andrea gave me the invite, because I picked apart the spelling of 'their' on a forum for a music group we both liked. She said I was mean but funny. We've followed each other through many adventures, and I'm grateful to her for giving me the key to finding my voice and the opportunity to post half-nude pics of myself online and describe my many deviant escapades in vivid, nauseating detail to a captive audience. But I'm a married woman, now. No more half-nude pics. Love ya, princess!

I Heart NY. Now More Than Ever.

Young woman: Do you need help crossing the street?
Elderly woman: No. It's fucking red.

--96th & Broadway




Crazy, loud hobo on train, repeating: "Jesus" is a six letter word! "666" means the devil! So, Jesus is the devil!
Fed-up passenger: Hey asshole, "Jesus" is 5 letters, not six!
Crazy hobo, pensive: Well, shit, there goes my whole argument.

--5 Train


www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Eight square feet of sod left to pull on the last flower bed connecting the east and south sides of the yard. I was forced to stop when the sun went down, I could no longer see where I was sticking the pitchfork (makeshift sod lifter) and the mosquitoes started feasting on my ankles. By tomorrow, I will have a beautiful canvas for more native plants.

In other gardening news, someone or something has eaten the green strawberries and uprooted one of the bare root witch hazels. I'm thinking either a bird, squirrel, random vandal walking past, or a curious 4th-grader who lives upstairs.

My gift to myself, after my landscaping project is finished (sometime this fall, hopefully), is to get a tattoo of a beautiful flower  lacyunderall drew. This fall, I will have a permanent orange lily on my upper back. I really should slap it on one of these awesome upper arms I've developed from pulling weeds and hauling dirt for the last three years.

Do you think Nick and I will be the first people to wander around the House on the Rock with a copy of American Gods, giggling and pointing? Uh huh. I'm so excited to show him the places that made me what I am today. And what I am is unabashedly weird.

Even though I generally don't eat at KFC, I was just as disappointed as Nick when the coupons failed to print because "you have already printed the maximum number allowed". From our printer at home, which we bought a month ago, and to our knowledge has never printed anything other than homework assignments from Nick's sociology class. We also think the website put some spyware on our computer. You suck, Oprah.

I am realizing I can be just as much of a bigot as anyone else. I recently referred to a gathering of people as being 'full of d-bags in khaki shorts and polo shirts". I later found out some people from work were there. Said people are not d-bags. Honestly, some of my best friends are frat boys. Okay, not really. But I am realizing that if I invite people from work to my husband's graduation party, a knife fight may break out. I don't know if the Johnson County Republicans are ready to meet the Douglas County Anarchists. I don't even know if the Douglas County Wealthy Liberals are ready to meet the KU Hipster Trash or the Douglas County Working-class Moderates.

I don't always wash my hands after I use the bathroom at home. For one thing, I don't pee on my hands. For another, it's usually the middle of the night when I'm half-asleep. I will wash my hands after anything other than pee, though. Except barfing, I don't think I wash my hands after throwing up unless I got some on me. I'm usually too miserable to care. I also wash my hands before preparing food and any time I use the bathroom at work. In fact, I tend to wash my hands AGAIN after I exit the bathroom at work because I go into hyper-clean mode when I'm getting paid and I'm afraid of the germs on the door handle. Maybe that's why I'm so cavalier at home. Some kind of subconscious protest.

I'm a big fan of the Anti- Records sampler and I'm going to blast it today at work.