The Black Cat

One More Thing

2005-08-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

THE WHITE STRIPES...TOMORROW!!!!!!

Shameless Self-Promotion

2005-08-22T20:28:00.000-05:00

Attention Bloggers:

Blog Oklahoma is conducting the Okie Blog Awards and Look@OKC is nominated for Best Commercial Blog. I needn't remind you that yours truly has a Look@OKC blog. (Two-Headed Blog, in case you haven't checked it out yet.) You must be an Active Okie Blogger to be eligible to vote, so if you fit this description, please vote for us and get everyone you know to do so, also. It's imperative we beat Phil and Drew. Click here for more details and to cast your vote. OK...I'm through pimping myself out now.

Fifty Drinks

2005-08-17T16:54:00.000-05:00

So, I go outside of my building at lunch to read a book. I don't have any cigarettes on me or I would be going outside of my building at lunch for a cigarette while I read my book. BTW, I'm reading James Frey's A Million Little Pieces which is already making me feel disgusted and paranoid with my own physiology. I find a place in the shade next to a tree and turn page after page. The end of the lunch break arrives and I head back to my cubicle. There's a few minutes before I have to return to the real world, so I decide to read on at my desk. A few more pages as I devour a couple of graham crackers. I feel a tickle on my head. I swipe at my hair and something falls to the desk behind my napkin of graham cracker crumbs. At first, I don't see anything and assume it is nothing. I continue reading. I continue eating. As I crumble up my napkin of graham cracker crumbs, I notice the small spider that is lurking underneath. The small spider that that crawled on to me while I was outside under a tree reading a book. The small spider that camped out in my thick hair as I ate graham crackers. The small spider that then scampered to the far edge of my desk. After a little cat and mouse, I finally killed the son of a bitch with a broken number two pencil. Now I feel paranoid and disgusted. I need a drink. Or fifty drinks.

Latest Embarrassing Moment

2005-08-15T11:47:00.000-05:00

OK...so Friday night I got wasted. COMPLETELY SMASHED. Now, don’t get me wrong…I enjoy booze, but I’ve learned by now, for the most part, what my limits are and when to say when. I’m generally not out of control. But Friday night, for some reason, was different. Maybe it was because I was upset by a hateful comment we received on Two-Headed Blog, and by the possibility of a family rift as a result. Maybe I just forgot how those fishbowl-sized drinks at Hawaiian Don’s tend to sneak up on you. Deadwords and I went there after work to have a drink or two and to discuss the child-bearing-related drama on Two-Headed Blog. One shared fishbowl-sized, fruity drink turned into three. Then we, rather randomly, decided it would be a good idea to go to Bricktown Brewery and see the Reverend Horton Heat show. I don’t remember much else of the evening, except running into my ex-friend. (We'll call him Mr. J. Or Friend B.) He actually said “hi,” but that was it. First word I’ve heard from him in over a month. My drunkenness actually proved to be an asset in this situation, as I was too in-my-own-happy-world to feel awkward at all. I dragged Deadwords closer to the stage and danced like the world was ending. Don’t make me describe it to you. Then we left at some point and I don’t remember much else.

This morning I’m e-mailing a fellow Look@OKC blogger. He asks me if we were at the Horton Heat show Friday night. I said we were, and jokingly said that I was the girl in the Boise St. t-shirt and pigtails, dancing drunkenly up by the stage…so if he remembered making fun of anyone who fit that description, it was I. I said that Deadwords would have been the embarrassed-looking guy next to me. (I should mention that we’ve never met this other blogger in person before.)

A few minutes later, I get an e-mail asking if the t-shirt was orange and was I wearing Chuck Taylors? (Yes and yes.) I’m horrified. There were hundreds of people there…never in a million years did I think I’d be spotted. I admit that yes, that was me, and he said he had been standing right in front of us. He said the Chuck Taylors gave me away (we’d discussed the joys of Chuck Taylors a couple weeks ago, I’d mentioned that mine were army green) and that he picked out Deadwords from his photo on our blog.

So now I’m mortified. I’m mortified that I got that drunk and likely made a complete fool of myself. I never dance in public. I like to think I’m too cool and composed. At least I’m pretty much just a happy drunk…it’s not like I started any fights or got thrown out of anywhere. I didn’t do anything illegal or indecent. I just danced and maybe slurringly repeated myself in conversations. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, but I just think I’m far too old for this kind of irresponsible college-kid behavior. I suppose this whole incident isn’t nearly as dramatic as it is in my head, but I hate that someone’s first impression of me would be that I’m just some drunk girl. I think I may impose a temporary alcohol ban on myself.

The Passing of the Jeebus

2005-08-15T08:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally did it. I saw it. Last night, over beers and cigarettes I finally screened Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. I was obviously never going to be a typical reader of this film. I was going to come to it more as a film critic than someone looking to find inspiration, guidance, or truth. But, I felt compelled to see it. See what the hype was all about. See if it was good filmmaking. It was not. To me, it just felt like a hyper-extended re-enactment scene you might see accompanying a History Channel program (but with plenty of torture and blood thrown in for good measure). It felt kind of hollow. I mean, if you flog anybody long enough, they're going to eventually become a sympathetic character. And, if they become sympathetic enough, then direction, cinematography, and originality cease to become all that important.

Rubber Johnny

2005-08-09T19:41:00.000-05:00

Check out the trailer for the new short film by Chris Cunningham...you know, the guy who directed that creepy Aphex Twin video? Or, click here for more of the film. Disturbing, disturbing stuff. It even ended up on Snopes as an urban legend. Why can't I come up with stuff like this?

This Is So Great

2005-08-09T15:24:00.000-05:00

Finally, we have Cliff Notes for R. Kelly's urban operetta, "Trapped In The Closet." Thank you, Something Awful, thank you.

Study up, kids...there will be a quiz tomorrow.

My Christian Gene Is Turned Off

2005-08-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

I was having a religious conversation with a friend today…she’s a Christian, I’m an atheist. We usually have some pretty good discussions, despite our differences, but she CANNOT understand how I can’t believe in God, just like I cannot understand how she can. I suppose I should make the disclaimer that I’m more of a soft atheist. While on the one hand I feel it’s as arrogant to say there is no God as it is to say there is a God, I personally find it very difficult to believe there is. And so I started asking myself, why am I an atheist? Why do I have such a hard time with a concept others seem to believe so easily and so unquestioningly?

I propose there is a gene somewhere in our DNA that determines whether or not we have that vague, elusive quality we call “faith.” In my DNA, that gene has been turned off. I’ve been called lazy because of my lack of belief, but really…isn’t it the other way around? How is it lazy to question everything you’ve been raised to believe, as opposed to just doing what you do because that’s what you’re “supposed” to do or because it’s the way it’s always been done? I would give anything to have a bright, sunny, Christian existence. I would love to believe that “everything happens for a reason,” and that there is some beautiful, peaceful, eternal afterlife. It’s unbelievably depressing to think that when you die, that’s it. Nothing follows except slow decomposition. But that’s what I believe. Of course, I obviously don’t know for sure, but I have a really hard time believing I’ll float away into some light-filled tunnel. It just seem like a lot of hokey bullshit people tell themselves so they can cope with the idea of death. I guess my way of coping is to try and make the most of every moment I have, to appreciate everything to the fullest. I’m not really scared of dying as much as I am sad about not getting to live anymore. There’s kind of an irony in that…I’ll be dead, completely unaware that I’m dead. I won’t be sad or scared then. These emotions only influence me NOW, when I’m alive...so I guess it’s really pretty pointless to even concern myself with. I still do, though…obsessively. Humans are the only species who can foresee their own deaths…if there is a God, he’s got a twisted sense of humor. I like that.

Anyway…I’m not an atheist because I think it’s “cool.” I’m not an atheist to rebel against my parents. I’m not an atheist because my husband or anyone else “turned” me that way. I’m not an atheist because I’m too lazy to go to church and want to continue, consequence-free, with my sinful lifestyle (which I don’t believe I have). I’m not an atheist because Satan or some other entity has taken control of my soul. If I don’t believe in God, then I certainly don’t believe in Satan. These are all things I’ve heard at one time or another. No one seems to be able to understand why I would “choose” to not believe, most of all myself. That’s why I don’t think it’s a choice at all. I think either you believe or you don’t. You can’t force someone to believe, and you can’t force someone not to. I have never believed, not even when I was going to Mass every Sunday and bible study every Wednesday night. I suppose I may have believed when I was very young, the same way kids believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I’ve prayed and questioned and spent many, many years really, REALLY thinking about issues of religion and God, and came up short every time. I’ve never gotten an explanation that satisfied me. When discussing these matters with a believer, you eventually run up against this wall where the answer to your question is “Because that’s what the Bible says” or “You just have to have faith that this is the way it is.” That’s not good enough for me. I CAN’T accept things on faith. This is why I think there has to be something in our genetic makeup that predetermines your ability to have faith. I know I can’t be smarter than EVERYONE who is a believer. So what is it?

And why is there SO much stigma attached to atheists? I’ve met gay atheists who have said it was easier to come out gay than it was to come out atheist. Why, every time this subject comes up with my mother, does she cry and moan about where she went wrong with me, and I wasn’t raised this way, etc. It’s as if I said I enjoyed slaughtering small children and eating their flesh. I just don’t understand. I never tell her (or any other Christian I may encounter) how stupid they must be for believing in a zombie myth…I mean, if any reasonably intelligent person could step outside themselves for just a second and look at what it is they believe, how could it NOT seem completely absurd? But that’s beside the point. It’s even worse when you live in this part of the country, where people assume that everyone not just believes in God, but is an evangelical Christian like themselves. Where if you dare question or disagree with the majority on any topic, you’re told that if you don’t like it, you should go move to France. Or New York. Or Canada. Believe me, I’ve considered it.

Well, that’s my pointless rant for the day, that I don’t dare post on Two-Headed Blog because people may find out that I’m (gasp!) an atheist. If you don’t like it, you can move to Oklahoma.

The Black Cat's 100th Post

2005-08-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

Meeeeeowww.

R.I.P.

2005-08-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

Nate F
Peter J
Hunter K
Keter B
Ibrahim F
Kathy D

I don’t really know death. I certainly don’t know how to talk or write about it. And, I don’t know how to live with it. I don’t dwell on thoughts of my own death. Thankfully. But, of course one must think about it or life ceases to mean anything. So, even in sad times (much sadder for others), I have to reaffirm for myself that life is about making the best of it. I’ve not always been good at that. Or, sometimes, maybe I’ve just been a little too good at it. I don’t know. It’s a game that you either win or lose (a destiny you can experience but not necessarily determine) but which always ends.

Five Minutes Inside My Head, Or Stream-Of-Consciousness

2005-08-05T20:40:00.000-05:00

I am here to make an excuse for my lack of posting, if anyone cares. Deadwords has been away all week and it has fallen on my shoulders to keep the Two-Headed Blog chugging along So if anyone wants to know what's been going on recently, go check it out over at newsok.com. Per Delta's website, Deadwords's flight has just taken off from Salt Lake City and he is now somewhere en route to OKC. This has been a strange week...while he was off galavanting at his fabulously interesting tax conference in Boise, I'm left here to spend the entire fucking week alone (well, with my dogs). This is the longest we've been apart in nine years, if you can believe that. I miss him so much. I'm practically counting the minutes until I can leave for the airport to get him. Since I'm channeling Margot Tenenbaum today, I made a big sign that reads, "Stand up straight...let me get a look at you." (If anyone else out there has seen The Royal Tenenbaums as much as I have, you'll recall the scene where Margot picks Richie up at the pier.) Some people are Star Wars addicts, I'm a Tenenbaum addict. Takes all kinds. Different strokes for different strokes. I'm very relieved that I didn't get murdered this week. I left the porch light on all night, every night. I just heard about a bomb threat on a Southwest airline. Between that and the plane crash in Toronto a few days ago, this has been a week where I am NOT watching the news. I did, however, just catch up on the last couple of Six Feet Under episodes. I can't believe Nate died. Just when I think I'm too cynical to cry at a T.V. show. I've been blogging like a real motherfucker this week. So much writing, most of it done just to pass the time...like now. About one more hour until I can leave for the airport. I'm going to go have a cigarette now. I hear thunder. If you know me, you'll appreciate the randomness that is me. If you don't know me, you probably think I'm schizophrenic. You would be incorrect...I'm actually a self-diagnosed bipolar with narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder and a dash of anxiety disorder for good measure. Oh...and don't forget the addictive personality. Glad we got that out of the way. Peace out.

I Want A Flash Mob

2005-08-02T13:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I'm cross-posting for the second straight time...believe me when I say I feel like shit about it, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of the loyal Black Cat readership (all two of you). I just put this on the Two-Headed Blog this morning, and have already gotten some response. I have a few ideas for potential flash mobs, so anyone out there who might be interested, let me know. I predict a flash mob to occur in OKC sometime in the next few weeks.

A flash mob, according to Wikipedia, is “a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual or notable, and then disperse.” Participants are notified and given instructions via e-mail, or are told to meet in a staging area (such as bar) where they are given their instructions. Starting in New York and spreading all over the world, flash mobs are considered everything from performance art to sociopolitical statements to merely bizarre, random events. Imagine being in the right place at the right time and witnessing (or even better, participating in) one of the following events:
Manhattan: 100 people storming the rug department at Macy’s and telling the sales associate that they all live together in a warehouse commune, were searching for a “Love Rug,” and made all their decisions as a group.
New Zealand: People show up all at once in front of a Burger King, moo for a full minute, and leave.
Rome: A large crowd materializes at a bookstore and demands copies of books that don’t exist.
Am I the only one who loves this idea? I think the sheer randomness of it is what appeals to me. It’s somehow beautiful…this mass of humanity that for one brief moment, is interconnected in some common task. And it’s just funny as hell. It can make a point, or mean nothing at all. As far as I know, OKC has not yet experienced the wonder of a flash mob. Come on, people…let’s plan one.

That’s Right, I’m Pushing 30: Diary Of A Slacker

2005-07-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying this: I will never lie about my age. I’ve always felt that those who allow themselves to age gracefully are extraordinarily brave and admirable, especially in our current, Botox-obsessed society. It seems wonderfully defiant to say “no” to this shallowness, to give a big middle finger to this youth-worshipping culture of ours. Accepting the inevitable march of time with style and humor is still my goal, but that’s not to say I don’t have a few issues with the whole getting older thing.

For the last hour, I’ve been shamefully obsessed with the thought that I have exactly six months, one week and two days left before I turn 30. Birthdays have always been maybe a little too important to me, and 30 in particular seems to be a milestone in its own right. 30 was always this mythical age to me. So far away, so impossible to really conceive of. Here are just a few of the “When I’m 30” fantasies I assumed would someday be reality:

When I’m 30, I’ll be rich and successful.

When I’m 30, I’ll have found my “dream job.”

When I’m 30, I’ll be married with a couple of kids (Yes, this one is so completely bourgeois…I’m embarrassed to think I ever succumbed to such a predictable, white-picket-fence vision of my future.)

When I’m 30, I’ll be living in New York or Boston or some other fabulous place.

When I’m 30, I’ll have everything “figured out.”

Well, in just over six months I’ll be 30, and none of that has happened, except for getting married and getting older. I’m grateful that I don’t have kids, mainly because the older I get, the LESS ready I am to have them. I’d be lying though, if I said I wasn’t a little sad none of the other things have happened. I look around and see all these people younger than myself with all these goals, and all this ambition, and I feel kind of ashamed. What have I really done with my life? What impact have I made? Not much, is the answer I come up with. I’ve spent the last decade of my life drifting aimlessly around, my only goal being to have a good time and have fun. Yes, I graduated college, got married, and found a job in the “real world.” I guess that’s something, but my job isn’t one I want for the rest of my life. It’s not something that interests me. It’s “something to do until I find the perfect job.” Which supposedly should’ve happened by now. I know that 30 is still considered young by most standards, and that “30’s are the new 20’s,” but I’m beginning to have the smallest seed of doubt that it will ever happen. When I look back at how my 20’s have flown by, with each successive year shorter than the last, I can start to see myself at 40, or even 50, still stuck in the same dull job…not having come closer to achieving my goals, or even identifying my goals.

I don’t feel my age. I don’t feel a whole hell of a lot different than I did at 24 or 25, except maybe a little smarter and a little more cynical. People are generally shocked when they find out how old I am…for that, I credit many years of vampire-like avoidance of the sun. I’ve taken a lot of crap for being so pale, but I would rather have my porcelain doll complexion than look like someone’s leather handbag. But I don’t feel any closer to having ANYTHING “figured out.” Maybe I never will. That’s really depressing.

I know I have no one to blame but myself if I’m not where I’d like to be. The hardest thing is pinning myself down enough to have a direction. I’ve never been good at the whole goal thing…I’m more of a dilettante, jumping from one obsession du jour to another. I can’t understand how some people can be so focused and single-minded…it’s impossible for me to relate to that kind of mindset, as much as I admire it. Maybe I just need to accept that I’m not that way and never will be. And maybe that’s OK. Maybe my goal should be to just find a way to be happy with myself the way I am.

Motto For The Day

2005-07-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

Mundane is the new punk.

Losing and Making Friends

2005-07-27T08:23:00.000-05:00

(I had orginally written this post for the Two-Headed Blog, but after some thought, felt this would be the more appropriate forum. Not like anyone mentioned in this post will read it, anyway.)

The Saga of Mr. J.

First, a bit of background. I’ve never been one to have hordes and hordes of adoring friends, but I have, at several times in my life, been lucky enough to have a few really good, close ones. Most recently it was a guy (we’ll call him Mr. J.) and another female (we’ll call her Captain Cookieboots). We all met at work. Mr. J. and I were actually friends for awhile before we met Cookieboots. We were very, very close and had an interesting, sometimes complicated friendship.

For a couple of years, the three of us were inseparable. About a year ago, Mr. J. went through a painful divorce. He cried on my shoulder, went out drinking with us, and crashed in our spare bedroom. Eventually he pulled through the rough spot, and started dating. It was about at this time we started drifting apart…but so gradually that it was hard to notice.

During this time, I had been feeling really upset with myself for not having any hobbies, or anything I was really into. Cookieboots had become obsessed with long-distance running, and Mr. J. had long been an avid bowler. We would go out and support each other in various endeavors. (During one of Mr. J.’s bowling tournaments, Cookieboots and I donned our trashy best and deemed ourselves “Bowling Bizzles.” We held giant foam fingers and signs that featured vaguely inappropriate, bowling-related slogans, i.e. “Three Fingers For Three Holes.” Our goal was to distract the other bowlers as much as possible. Similarly, for one of Cookieboots’s first 5K’s, Mr. J. and I painted ourselves blue and held cryptic signs, i.e. “Fleugelhorn or Fahrfeneguen?” while ringing cowbells.) I never thought twice about doing either of these things, I considered it my job as a friend. However, I was still struggling to find MY thing…and soon found it.

Earlier this year, I suddenly realized that I loved to write. I began blogging with a vengeance, and wrote an autobiographical piece detailing one crazy week in April that was filled with night after night of great live music and copious amounts of booze. I was so proud of it, and wanted my friends to read it. Cookieboots read it right away, and was always supportive and encouraging, but to this day I don’t believe Mr. J. ever read a single thing I wrote, or ever spent even a minute on one of my blogs. That hurt. I felt completely irrelevant. I would ask him (rather pathetically, I admit…I suppose I shouldn’t need his, or anyone’s approval) about it, and he would always say he was “going to read it…he’d just been busy” or some similar excuse. I never understood why he had so little interest in my new hobby. I didn’t expect him to paint himself blue and ring cowbells while I sat at my computer, but it would’ve meant so much to me for him to just read some of my stuff.

A few months ago, Mr.J. got a girlfriend, which predictably marks the kiss of death for any pre-existing friendship, this one being no exception. I began seeing less and less of him, communicating mainly by a few e-mails at work. Then I got a new job. I’ve seen him maybe twice since then. Then he suddenly quit e-mailing me. It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve heard even one word from him. I’m confused and bitter and angry. I feel almost BETRAYED. This is someone who just a year ago, said that I was his best friend ever, and now suddenly seems to not even care that I exist. He’s too wrapped up in his own life. I know that’s entirely normal and to be expected, but it still hurts a little to feel dumped. OK…it hurts a lot. I wish him all the happiness in the world, but I think our friendship is pretty much over at this point. I can’t trust someone who would just completely ditch me once I was no longer of use to him. I felt the need to blog about this just once, and then put the topic out to pasture. It’s done. Over. Fin.

The New Friend

On the flip side of this coin, I made a new friend last Friday night, most unexpectedly. I went out with a girl from work, and she brought her friend Megan along. I was a little worried about this, for several reasons. One, I can still be pretty shy and meeting new people is always anxiety-inducing for me. I feel much more comfortable baring my soul in the vague, semi-anonymity of the blogosphere. Two, the way Megan was described to me made me nervous. 5’11”, wants to be a model, etc. One of my worst character flaws is my tendency to jump to conclusions about anyone who looks like she may have been in a sorority in college. But Friday, I was pleasantly surprised…the three of us had a great time. We bought some booze, mixed it into our giant Sonic drinks, and headed off to see Moon Mission Death Squad and Goodwill at Book Beat & Co. Megan is a photography student, and suggested afterwards that we go to a cemetery to take pictures. I thought it was an unbelievably terrific idea. Not since my high school Goth phase have I hung out in a cemetery. I’ve always enjoyed the peacefulness of it. We took some photos, and talked about random, semi-philosophical things. Like how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things, etc. etc. Then I found out that Megan likes a lot of the same music I do. I have such a hard time finding anyone who’s even HEARD of my favorite artists (and a lot of them are really not that obscure), much less someone who likes them. I also found someone who enjoyed watching hours and hours of the Food Network as much as I. Definite friend potential.

I really wanted to end this post with some profound truth about the nature of friendships, but I’m drawing a blank. I guess I’m not feeling all that profound today. I’ve lost my two best friends, Cookieboots having moved out of state, Mr. J. having found a new life with no place for me in it. But today I’m feeling almost optimistic about the whole thing, which is rare for me. I’m beginning to realize that friendships can be born when you least expect it, and that’s a pleasant thought.

Semi-Coherent Ramble

2005-07-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

I feel really, really boring today. I have absolutely nothing to write about, but I felt like writing anyway. Don't know why. I suffered through a mild hypochondria/anxiety attack this morning. Not really sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the rut I find myself in already. I haven't been at this new job for two months yet, but I feel like it's been years. Talked to my coworker who started the same day I did...she feels the same way. Everyone seems to think that I know what I'm doing at work...everyone but me. I'm confused and stressed out all the time, and everyone else seems to be the same way. I pick up on this and feed off of it, fueling my own anxiety level. There's just been this horrible vibe the last couple of days which stresses me out. We had another meeting this morning, which basically consists of everyone trying to figure out what's going on. Usually ends with everyone talking over everyone else...voices becoming shrill...mass chaos all around. I hate working with so many women. I gazed at the edge of my notepad and wondered if it would be possible to slit my wrists with the edge of the paper. I fantasized about slicing a big gash in my arm with some sharp object that would just suddenly materialize out of thin air. Not deep enough to die, just deep enough to stop the meeting and get myself out of there. Somehow, these meetings always end up with me wanting to cause bodily harm to myself. Or just to take a nap. I felt in a daze all day. I hate ruts. I wake up in the morning and it's the hardest thing in the world to get out of bed. I shouldn't be feeling this way already. I will never find a job I actually like...work just doesn't suit me, I'm afraid. I wish I could be a stay-at-home-mom, without the mom part.

Thinking about a movie I watched over the weekend called In My Skin. It was some arty French film, and as Deadwords dubbed it, the ULTIMATE cutting movie. It went beyond cutting. It was about a woman who cut herself, lapped up her own blood like a cat and ate large swatches of her own flesh. She would lock herself in a hotel room for bloody, orgiastic flesh-feasts. She carried pieces of her skin around in her wallet. The film ended with her cutting off her leg. I'm not really sure what the film was trying to say...maybe it was just a commentary on self-mutilation, taken to the extreme. I'm not sure. But it stuck with me...with my own propensity for making little cat scratches in my thigh or arm with a razor or Exacto knife whenever I feel fat or just hate myself for some reason or other. I know I'm too old for this kind of thing, but I've been doing it since high school. Old habits die hard. And the self-cannibilazation aspect struck a nerve, too. I've never done anything like what was depicted in the film, but I've had a thing for chewing on my fingers for as long as I can remember. I don't know why I started, but I think I was around six or seven. It's a complete and total compulsion...I'll rip off pieces of skin with my teeth. It hurts like hell, but I guess that's part of why I do it. I've always been so ashamed of this habit, hiding my nasty, scabby, chewed up fingers...but just lately I'm hearing about other people who share my bad habit. Makes me feel a little better about the whole thing...Deadwords still hates it, though. He's always slapping my hand whenever I start picking and gnawing.

Well, I don't know how I got on that topic. It's fun just to ramble sometimes...I just finished off a bottle of pinot noir, so I'm feeling rather loose in the inhibition department. I've pretty much lost any degree of self-consciousness about anyone potentially reading this post. Maybe subconsciously (or not so subconsciously) I want everyone to know my shameful, self-destructive secrets. The ones that go beyond my publicly evident self-destructive behaviors of drinking and smoking too much. I'm actually kind of surprised I've never written about this before. I don't think Seddy would be Seddy without her self-hatred and self-punisment.

I'm going to go take a bath now. And go to bed at a decent hour. I'm sick of being tired all the time.

Seddy and Deadwords Get Slammed, The Follow-up

2005-07-26T13:10:00.000-05:00

OK…once again, maybe I was too quick to judge and assume the worst about someone. This seems to be my downfall…probably my fatal character flaw. Today I received an e-mail from Joel, the blogger who I felt slammed our use of pictures on our blog. I left a comment on his blog yesterday about the song “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem. (There was a mini-conversation about Daft Punk…I felt compelled to throw it in. It’s a good song.) He responded today with an e-mail about how he’d check out the song and that he enjoyed reading our blog. It was so very random…makes me wonder if he happened to stumble across this blog and my bitter rant from yesterday. I’m so paranoid. But seriously…why do I always assume that everyone is out to hurt me? It takes up way too much energy. I just can’t seem to give people the benefit of the doubt.

The funny thing is that I just wrote a potential post this morning (haven’t put it up yet…can’t decide if Black Cat or Two-Headed Blog would be the more appropriate forum) about my former friend. I wonder now if I haven’t jumped to conclusions yet again, but in this instance I doubt it. There are months and months of hurt feelings involved here. Maybe I’ll go ahead and post it, for I still have much rage.

Seddy and Deadwords Get Slammed

2005-07-25T09:57:00.000-05:00

I hate myself so much right now. I don’t get why I have to be such a pussy and care so much what people think. Over the weekend, the Two-Headed Blog was sort-of slammed: One, by some commenter on another guy’s blog, telling him to update it more often because it’s the only Look@OKC blog they enjoy reading. Ouch. Two, by the guy whose blog received the comment. He slammed us in a post for putting pictures on our blog. “Words are so yesterday,” he snidely remarked. What is this guy’s problem? Why does he care if we put pictures on our blog or not? Is that so wrong? It’s not like our blog is oozing with unnecessary, gratuitous photos. Sometimes, it just adds a little something extra, another dimension, to what we’re writing about. For example, if we’re writing about Daddy Woos, is it so inappropriate to post a photo of the exterior, and maybe a photo of the sushi I ordered for dinner? My first reaction was to make a new post on Two-Headed Blog, with nothing but completely random pictures and the title, “I Believe The Pictures Are Our Future.” (Sing along with me.) Completely childish, I know…but the thought gave me some small amount of comfort. But then, I realized that the issue would be better served by no response at all. We’ll just keep on keepin’ on…after I post a little rant on the matter here.

Regardless, I really despise myself for caring so much what these asswipes think. I guess I don’t take criticism well, especially when it’s completely unconstructive in nature. There’s nothing to learn from either of these comments. So someone doesn’t like our blog…it would be nice to know WHY they don’t like it, for starters. And someone else thinks we’re stupid or lazy or whatever for posting pictures. Well, I disagree. Pictures, when appropriate, are not evil, dear Joel. So once again, nothing to be learned. I guess the lesson here is that unless it’s constructive criticism that I can learn something from, I should pay it no heed. Not everyone will like me. There’s nothing I can do about that. I’ve been so sheltered, and my life so private up until now…this is all really new to me. I’ve never been really “out there,” in a position where people I don’t know are going to read what I write. Yeah, it stands to reason that not everyone is going to like it. I just wish I knew WHY they didn’t like it. Hell, I wish I just didn’t care. I know I’m a complete amateur, and my writing mediocre at best, but unless you’re going to give me advice on how to be better, then SHUT THE FUCK UP.

John G. Roberts, Jr.

2005-07-19T20:09:00.000-05:00

Is this the new face of SCOTUS?

Associated Press photo

Fun Facts About John G. Roberts, Jr:

** Currently sits on the District of Columbia Circuit of U.S. Court of Appeals
** Born in Buffalo, NY (1955)
** Clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (1981-82)
** Worked in the Reagan Justice Department
** Part of a three-judge panel that recently ruled that the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals could proceed
** Stated in 1990, as deputy solicitor general, that Roe v. Wade should be overturned - NARAL has already announced its opposition to his nomination

Senate confirmation hearings will likely be held in September...should be an interesting few months. The Black Cat weeps, but not with tears of surprise.

...and the nominee for SCOTUS is...

2005-07-19T17:28:00.000-05:00

"Hot Karl" Rove!

Just kidding...we at The Black Cat will be tuned in at 8:00 this evening, eagerly awaiting the announcement. As long as he or she is pro-choice, The Black Cat will be mostly appeased. I have some trepidation regarding this announcement, though. I don't trust Bush, so by extension, I don't trust the nominee (whoever they may be). It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

I’m Goin’ Back to Memphis on Interstate 40

2005-07-18T13:07:00.000-05:00

Deadwords and I just returned from a weekend in Memphis. Today is our anniversary…seven years married and ten years total. (We got married three years to the day of our first date. Thought it made sense to keep the same anniversary, and the date happened to fall on a Saturday.) I can’t believe we’ve been together for so long. I think before this, my longest relationship was six months. Go figure.

Anyway…we always go on a little road trip or something to commemorate the day, and this year we chose Memphis. It was actually our third choice…we had wanted to go to Chicago or New Orleans, but due to a big project at work, I was unable to get any time off. So, we had to find somewhere interesting we hadn’t been before that was within driving distance for a two-day weekend. Memphis it was. I’d actually been once before, on a band trip in college (yes, I was a band geek and proud of it), but I was only 19 at the time so it’s like I never really went. I got to march in a parade down Beale Street, but never got to go to any bars.

Since I’m a glass-is-half-empty person, I have to get the complaining out of the way first. Memphis has some cool stuff, but overall…I hate this city. I’ve driven in a lot of cities, many much larger than Memphis, and this is by FAR the worst city to drive in. There is no interstate or anything that runs directly through the city. Instead, there’s a Loop that circles the outskirts. To get anywhere, you have to jump on the Loop and circle around until you hit your exit. If you happen to exit at the wrong place (which we did, several times), you can forget about finding your way back to the Loop in any kind of timely manner. Memphis streets are not laid out in any way that would make sense to your average, logical person…like say, for instance, in a grid pattern. No…that would be too easy. Instead, streets are set out at these bizarre angles, and entrances to the Loop are in the weirdest places…like in the middle of neighborhoods. Add to this the massive amount of construction and construction-related detours, and the fact that there were near-constant traffic accidents, and you have a night-sweat-inducing traffic nightmare. Oh…and I forgot about the pouring rain Friday night, courtesy of the last remnants of Hurricane Dennis.

Next complaint: We finally arrived Friday night, soaking wet, exhausted and cranky from having circled the damn Loop twice trying to find the hotel, we were greeted by a lobby full of hyperactive teenagers. Apparently the Hilton was this weekend’s prime destination for church groups, cheer camps, softball teams, you name it. I hate teenagers. (Yes, I’m a curmudgeon and proud of it.) We had a reserved a smoking room, and were told at check-in there were no smoking rooms available. We were pissed. When we got to the room, I called the front desk to complain and to ask if there was any way we could have a smoking room for Saturday night, since we had booked two nights. No, I was told, the hotel was booked up for the next night as well. However, he would have housekeeping bring us a couple of ashtrays. We waited, needing a cigarette and growing increasingly cranky. No ashtrays ever arrived. So we made our own out of a glass of water and lit up.

Now, I have to say this: the hotel was incredibly cool. I’m not sure how to describe it other than it felt like I was in a Dr. Seuss book. No bland, ordinary hotel décor here. Everything was done in bright colors and curved lines. There was a giant red velvet throw pillow on the bed that I wanted to keep forever and ever. I became freakishly attached to that pillow. I’ll post a picture or two of the room and the lobby. Glass elevators ran up and down the outside of the building. We took them up to the 27th floor (our room was just on the 11th) on our last day and I got some serious vertigo. Vertigo’s kind of fun…I got dizzy, my stomach felt funny and I felt like I was going to pee my pants. I don’t know why I thought that was fun, but it was.

Friday night we went to a REAL blues club that Deadwords had read about on the internet. None of that gentrified, touristy Beale Street shit tonight. Wild Bill’s was located in a strip mall in the middle of a neighborhood, somewhere in the middle of Memphis. They served only 40’s of beer and fifths of liquor. Long tables ran the length of the club, so you had the opportunity to get up close and personal with whoever was sitting next to you. For the first couple hours we were there, Deadwords and I were the only white people. Then some frat boy types showed up. The band was great, the beer was cold, and we had a great time. I want to write so much more about this place, but I’m scared that even with the purest of intentions, anything I write will sound racist. So I’ll just leave it at that. I love you, Wild Bills’s and I’ll see you again soon.

Saturday we went into full-blown tourist mode. Went to Stax Records, where we did the tour and bought an album featuring some of Stax’s greatest hits. Highlights of the tour included Issac Hayes (a.k.a. Chef)’s teal blue, gold-plated, white-fur lined Cadillac, and the Bob Dylan photography exhibit.

Then it was on to ribs at Rendezvous, a downtown barbeque place located off a back alley. This being Memphis, the ribs were covered with a dry rub that was just incredible. No barbeque sauce necessary. We bought a jar of the rub to bring home. The slaw was also amazing…I normally hate slaw and wouldn’t eat it even if it contained a life-saving antidote, but this was GOOD. It was light and spicy and refreshing…almost more of a tabouli than a slaw.

Now on to Beale Street. Deadwords and I both had kind of an attitude going into it, being typically off-the-beaten-path-type travelers. We especially hate the thought of what used to be a run-down yet historically important area becoming Disneyfied and gussied up for the white folks. (Sort of like the Deep Deuce district here in OKC.) Yes, Beale Street was everything we anticipated, but once we manged to get in the mindset that we were just going to bar-hop ourselves into an alcohol-induced coma, we had a great time. Beale Street is not the place to go for authentic blues clubs, but it’s a GREAT place for drinkers. Two blocks are completely blocked off to traffic, and outdoor vendors sell giant beers that you can just walk around in broad daylight with. It’s amazing. We also discovered that Memphis is somewhat of a Smoker’s Paradise. Every place we went to allowed smoking. Slipping even further into tourist mode, I bought a cheesy pair of Elvis sunglasses and fake sideburns, which I proceeded to wear around for the next hour, much to my own amusement. I always seem to crack myself up more than I do anyone else, for some reason. Oh well…as long as I’M amused. Deadwords and I took multitudes of bizarre, drunken self-portraits with our new camera. Good times had by all.

Got home about 9:30 last night (Sunday) and I had to come to work today. So tired. I wish we could’ve had just one more day in Memphis, Loop and all. It was a fun weekend. I’m sure I’m leaving stuff out, but these are the highlights as I remember them.
Oh and Memphis…please enjoy the lung and half a liver I left behind. Do with it what you will.

Goodbye, Cookieboots…Goodbye.

2005-07-15T11:25:00.000-05:00

The dreaded day has arrived. My dear friend is now en route to her new life in Tucson, Arizona. I said my tearful goodbyes last night. My best girl friend of the last two years is now gone. There will never be another Captain Cookieboots. I wish you the best of luck, and I will begin my hunt for cheap flights to Tucson. We’ll meet again soon.

Hot Karl

2005-07-14T14:34:00.000-05:00

I had to rip that title off from Tuesday night’s The Daily Show. It’s been cracking me up ever since. I wish I could get Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert to guest-post on the Black Cat.

So I’ve been wondering lately where my political outrage has disappeared to. Ever since the 2004 election, I think I’ve kind of given up. I’ve watched much less news…my main sources being a quick check of nytimes.com in the mornings, and the aforementioned Mr. Stewart in the evenings. All the anger and frustration I felt was doing a number on my blood pressure, so I made a conscious decision to bow out for awhile. My fury had been replaced with sort of a grim, world-weary resignation. Protest was futile. Everyone seemed to have bought into the Bush bullshit…my kind was obviously outnumbered. Thought briefly about moving to Canada.

But this Karl Rove fiasco has renewed at least some of my interest. The situation is so impossibly convoluted and twisted, it’s fascinating. There’s the issue of reporters becoming the reported. One journalist (Judith Miller) sits in jail, while the journalist who actually REPORTED on Valerie Plame (Robert Novak) walks free. I still don’t understand why he’s gotten off so easily in all of this. Can someone please explain it to me? Did he cut a deal?

Then there’s just the whole shadiness of the thing. I, for one, tend to think Hot Karl knew EXACTLY what he was doing. It all ties back into the shameless way the Bush administration misled the country into the Iraq war. Joseph Wilson had the audacity to criticize the reasons given for invading Iraq, and was promptly retaliated against. (Or rather, his wife was retaliated against.) The tunnel vision of the Bush White House is truly terrifying. With them, there is only one way to do things, and they seem completely unable to consider any other perspectives. Even worse, they seem to actively attempt to QUASH the other perspectives. Scary.
The impending Supreme Court nominations keep me up at night.

Jack White Transforms Me Into a Horny 14-Year Old Girl

2005-07-13T20:05:00.000-05:00

OK. So I'm a little bit drunk and a little bit horny right now. And this is MY blog, so I can say whatever I goddamn want. No censorship at the Black Cat. My intention was to write something about the whole Karl Rove fiasco...I haven't posted any political rants in awhile. But that's going to have to wait until tomorrow.

I would sell my left nut for another cigarette...I just smoked the last one out of the pack. Promised Deadwords an HJ if he ran to 7-11 for another pack. He just walked out the door. Cigs on the way. While I'm jizzing over another man. I'm such a cunt.

Anyway...what distracted me from my inner anti-Bush diatribes was the live White Stripes performance I just watched on MTV2. It was from a show they did in Brazil on 06/01/05. Now is the time I should probably mention that I've had, not just a crush, but a full-blown, psycho-stalker obsession with Jack White for the last four years. I want to bear his children. I want to lick the sweat from his body. I want to be his guitar. Even despite his new, what-the-bloody-hell-were-you-thinking facial hair, I jizz in my pants when I see him perform. This man is raw, dirty, fuck-me-on-the-bathroom-floor, HOT.

And from a rational, intellectual standpoint, a brilliant songwriter. He writes songs that sound like they should have been written already.

Hold on...have to go fix another drink and smoke one of the newly-arrived cigarettes. I hear Deadwords packing away in the living room.

OK...I'm back. One of my dogs just licked my eyeball after eating our cat's poop out of the litterbox. That was sobering. Thankfully, I have a fresh vodka-and-something-or-other drink right here within my reach.

Jeebus...I miss being able to swear in my posts and ramble on, drunkenly and incoherently. I can't do this on our other blog. While I enjoy the challenge of constraining myself to a particular format, I never feel like I can really be my loutish Seddy self.

But back to Jack. I'm thinking now about our FRONT ROW CENTER tickets to the Stripes show in KC next month. I want to be bathed in his sweat. I don't even care if he still has that Jonathan-Davis-as-a-pedophile mustache.

Tomorrow I'll write about your friend and mine, Hot Karl. Gotta go wank off now.

Our Kids

2005-07-11T19:59:00.000-05:00

It's long overdue--pictures of our pets (Nanook, Grizabella & Dexy):

I've still got a long way to go in perfecting the art of the digital camera and manipulating the images afterwards. So, this is just a rough beginning. Hopefully, the quality will get better.

The Secret Tumor of Grover Cleveland...

2005-07-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

...will be the name of my future rock band. I love it, I love it, I love it.

So I'm slipping rapidly into a self-confidence crisis. We just started our new blog over at Look@OKC and naively, I assumed we would have the best blog. I was mistaken. There are a couple of really good ones. Then there is the thirty-something male that posts pictures of hot chicks and comments on nothing but Maxim-style articles about how to get girls. It's repulsive, banal and utterly pathetic. Deadwords and I hope his blog is not long for this world. I so desperately wanted to leave a strongly worded comment on his blog, but Deadwords stepped in to restrain me. I want to start a Blog War with this asshole. But I digress...

I'm starting to feel a little in over my head. I know it's just a dumb blog, but I'm kind of intimidated. Who was I to think I have anything worthwhile and remotely interesting to say? I worked myself into such a state that I became almost paralyzed by fear. I couldn't write. I couldn't even think of anything to write about. Our blog is doomed to fail. Plus, I have a cold. Each time I cough my back hurts a little worse and another blood vessel pops in my brain.

Deadwords says that this can be a learning experience...that we can learn from these other (better) blogs and improve ours as a result. I suppose he's right. I just liked coasting along on a feeling of smug self-satisfaction for awhile.

Our First Post

2005-07-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

Click here for our first Two-Headed Blog post.

Two-Headed Blog

2005-07-11T14:59:00.000-05:00

It's up! You can now check out our community blog over at the Look@OKC portion of NewsOK.com. Go to the blog section and click on "Two-Headed Blog." Only one post so far, but many more to come.

i'm a looker.

2005-07-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

Seddy and I met with the NewsOK people Friday for a sort of blog orientation. There was only one other blogger at the meeting (there are 3 others)...a girl who I suppose will be writing about being single in the city. The other three are a single guy writing about music, a girl with two kids, and a comedian. Anyways...we ate Hideaway Pizza while they introduced the blogging software to us and went over some basic legal guidelines. They really played it up by saying how these would be no normal blogs...they would actually receive some traffic. I'm excited. I'm curious. But, we'll just have to wait and see how this all really turns out. But, I do know that this is something that fits Seddy and I like a snug glove. It'll be fun for us regardless. Plus, we've already gotten free t-shirts.

Well, we were going to go camping Saturday morning. Chickasaw National Recreation Area or Lake Murray or just Lake Thunderbird. But, this whole blog thing changed our plans. We had too much celebrating, planning, and tinkering to do to be able to spend too much of the weekend in the outdoors. Still, we managed to set up Camp Dick once again in the backyard. Burgers, grilled sweet corn, and frozen margaritas. Oh, and we got a digital camera, an Olympus D-545, so expect to see more pictures on this blog and the other.

"8 Days of Rock" Now On The Black Cat

2005-07-07T18:21:00.000-05:00

From "8 Days of Rock" --

After a several-month drought of interesting shows in the OKC area, Deadwords and I suddenly find ourselves faced with several…all in the next 8 days. Of course, they’re all on weeknights, which is going to make this an incredibly challenging and physically exhausting experience. One of the many bad things about OKC is that when we do manage to get a good show, it’s almost always on a weeknight, as the band is likely stopping by on their way to a weekend show in some bigger city. However, I can only complain so much…I’m grateful to have the opportunity to see these bands in the first place.

My calendar has filled up rapidly: with four shows, a showing of the Flaming Lips documentary, The Fearless Freaks, and assorted other social events. My own personal SXSW, on a somewhat smaller, less jam-packed and less cool scale. Keep in mind that I head off into this adventure already exhausted from a weekend trip to Shreveport with Stacey and Jason, where there was enough not-so-hot casino action to last me multiple lifetimes.

The idea occurred to me to chronicle these event-filled days as a way to preserve all this fun, fatigue and rock-and-roll madness for posterity. Maybe by keeping a diary of these events, it will force me to pay closer attention to some of the smaller details that are easily forgotten, but are no less an essential part of the whole experience…and maybe it will serve as a cautionary reminder to never spread myself this thin ever again. Am I too old for this kind of lifestyle? I guess we’re about to find out. The way I see it now, though…as I head into the abyss with the highest of hopes, I am ready to lay myself at the altar of the rock gods.

Clickto continue...

Strange Comment of the Day:

2005-07-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

My coworker and I were walking back from lunch, when a woman of about 60 approached us in the hallway. “It’s so nice to see young ladies wearing skirts,” she remarked. (We were both in skirts.) “Not like us old women who always wear pants,” she continued with a chuckle, and then made her way down the hall. My coworker and I kind of laughed with her while looking at each other in confusion. It was such an odd thing to say.

I love my jeans, but I do love wearing skirts.

Camp Dick / Deep Impact / Interlopers

2005-07-05T09:57:00.000-05:00

So much to blog about. Saturday night we camped out in our backyard (newly christened “Camp Dick”) with some friends. Ever try city camping? It goes a little something like this…we pitched tents 15 feet or so from the air-conditioned comfort and indoor plumbing of our house…toasted marshmallows over the open fire of our propane grill…drank a lot and told ghost stories. (More accurately, we re-hashed our favorite urban legends.) Since it was the 4th of July weekend, people were shooting off random fireworks, much to Nook’s (our lab/Great Pyrenees mix) chagrin. He seemed so offended and just generally PISSED OFF that people would have the audacity to make such racket. (Yes, I anthropomorphize my dogs.) He nearly bounded over our six-foot fence on a couple of occasions, and at one point reared back on his hind legs for several seconds, like a small, white stallion. He ultimately became such a problem barker that he was banished to sleep indoors alone (stretched out on the sofa). Dexy (our black lab mix) slept in the tent with us…curled up at our feet, keeping a vigilant watch over the backyard. We fell asleep to the surprisingly loud chorus of crickets, and woke to several different bird melodies. Who would have thought that the middle of Moore could sound so NATURELIKE? Goodnight, Camp Dick…

Sunday night, Deadwords and I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning glued to our e-machine. We stumbled across a live feed into NASA’s Mission Control and had the good fortune of watching the exciting climax of the Deep Impact Mission. Spacecraft #1 was sent on a suicide mission to collide with a comet, while Spacecraft #2 was poised to capture the whole event on film...all at 23,000 miles an hour. One NASA scientist likened it to hitting a speeding bullet with another speeding bullet, while a third speeding bullet is at the precise location to witness it all. Everything went perfectly, and it was kind of cool to watch Mission Control erupt in applause and cheers once they confirmed the collision. It was surprisingly dramatic, almost like a movie in real time. We learned some interesting NASA factoids, such as the tradition of passing around a bowl of “good luck” peanuts at every mission. It was so incredible to see the transmitted images at the same time the people at NASA were seeing them. The spacecraft that was ultimately vaporized managed to capture images of the comet’s surface within A FEW METERS’ RESOLUTION. If that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is. What a shame that our media is so Tomkat, Michael Jackson and missing-white-girl-of-the-week-obsessed that it can almost entirely overlook a story like this. Poor NASA. The only time they get any press is when they fuck something up. They even gave the mission a sexy name…”Deep Impact.” Still, no media love at all.

Yesterday was the 4th, so we decided to check out the Celebration in the Heartland (hee-hee-hee)/Arts fair at the 12th St. Park in Moore. As was to be expected, this being Moore, it was pretty lame. We were swimming in rednecks and country music. One delightfully unexpected twist was the discovery of a Grape Ranch-sponsored wine tasting tent. For $4.00, Deadwords and I sampled six different wines and got legitimately buzzed. The wine wasn’t the best, but for the price of an overfried, glued-to-the-Styrofoam-plate funnel cake, we got fairly smashed. In MOORE. We came back later to see the fireworks display. We haven’t been out to see fireworks in years, and this was actually a surprisingly decent show. Not bad, Moore. I begrudgingly give you a thumbs up.

In an interesting blog-related development, I discovered this morning that we received our first stranger comment. I noticed a comment from a G. Smith stating simply, “Nice blog” posted after the Poetry, Art and Mastiffs entry. I traced him back to his blog, and realized that he’s the editor of the Red Dirt Review, which was mentioned in the PA&M entry…I also included a link to David’s pieces published in the magazine. My best guess is that this G. Smith fellow traced back to our blog from that link. That’s right, I’m a super-sleuth…Harriet the Spy, eat your heart out. The coolest part is that after visiting his blog, I noticed that listed in the “Blogs We Dig” section was a link to The Black Cat. I am speechless. But now that a stranger has visited our blog, I find myself strangely unnerved by the whole thing. I’ve been bitching for months about no one reading it, and now that someone has, I feel almost creeped out. I suppose despite my whining, I took a certain comfort in the fact that no one read it, and that I could just put up whatever the hell I wanted. I know I still can, but now I feel the need to make more of an effort to come up with clever, well-written entries, and not just post whatever stream-of-consciousness bullshit comes to mind. Hhhmmm…what an interesting paradox. Don’t get me wrong…I’m really jizzing over the fact that we’re linked to a cool, interesting blog. It’s just going to take a minute to get used to being slightly less anonymous.

New Job / Stacey

2005-07-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

I'm posting the two poems I read at my spoken word debut the other night. Here they are:

New Job

It’s such a charade whenever you start a new job
Everyone is so pleasant and jovial
But there’s a falseness about it all.

You’re paraded around and introduced to every Tom, Dick, and Milton
Knowing you’ll never remember their names
And they’ll never remember yours
They watch you,
Sizing you up
Wondering if you’ll make them look bad
Or if you’ll just be one more burden on their workload
They say to ask them if you have any questions
But you know if you do, they’ll complain (behind your back)
That you ask too many
That “you should know this already.”

Your bosses appear friendly and helpful
But you wonder how many days, or weeks, it will be
Before you get fucked over for the first time
You hear over and over “what a big happy family we are”
It’s all bullshit
You’ve been through this before.

It’s just a matter of time before you discover
All the dysfunction lurking beneath the surface
Of this fake solidarity
Just a matter of time
Before the abusers are revealed
And the backstabbers
The ones who will fuck you over in a heartbeat
If it will make them look good.

On your second day
The stupid, unoriginal jokes begin:
“So you came back…we didn’t scare you off!”
They think they’re so clever
You smile and laugh politely
But all you really want is for them to take their tired jokes
And leave you alone
Because you have a new language to learn
QAT, PIT, DSD, PPM, OPR,
“Acronym” should be a four-letter word
Even the seemingly obvious terms
Like “scenario” and “script”
Don’t mean what they should.

But the very worst is when you feel yourself playing along
Acting perky and chipper
Like someone you’re not
Like someone you would despise if you met them in the break room
But you want to make a good impression.

You wonder what they would think
If they knew the REAL you
The one who drinks too much and throws tantrums
The one who hates people just like them
And who hates herself even more
For slowly becoming one of their kind.

Everyone goes out to lunch together
And act like they do this all the time
But you know it’s just for show
The lunches will stop
The shit will begin
Just like at your old job.

Stacey

I’ve never had many female friends
Guys have always been easier to get along with
Less backstabbing, cattiness, competitiveness.
I remember the first time I met Stacey
On her first day at work
I admit I was a little wary at first
She was small, tan and blonde
I admit I made some assumptions
She was probably stuck on herself, a former sorority girl
Someone I would probably hate.
Definitely NOT someone I would have anything in common with.
I was assigned to train her
In some boring, mindless, child support-related task
We started talking
And discovered we shared the same weird sense of humor
And a love of Wes Anderson movies.
We quickly became friends
And were joyfully amazed to discover
That we were both liberal atheists
Fellow blue-state interlopers, hiding out in a very red state.
Despite our obvious physical differences,
I often wonder if we were separated at birth.
She knows things about me no one else does
And I know the same about her
We’ve seen the very worst sides of the other
And the very best
She’s lectured me on the nutritional wasteland that is pappas con chile
And I’ve projected my insecurities on to her.
We’ve spent many a night drinking too much, playing Mille Bornes
Filling our pan d’essence with goat cheese and pinot
Hitting some of the trashiest bars in the city,
We’ve indulged in a shared guilty pleasure - karaoke.
Building cities not on rock and roll, but from bricks and mortar.
Now she’s moving away to Arizona and I’m really pissed.
But road trips are being planned
I want to go camping and see the Grand Canyon
I want to go to Mexico
I want to see my best friend again
You’d better keep in touch, bitch.
HOVA OUT.

Poetry, Art and Mastiffs

2005-07-02T12:25:00.000-05:00

Last night was so great...I think we may have gotten a couple of ideas for our new blog. After work we went to Hawaiian Don's for a couple of giant fishbowl-sized drinks. (Potential blog topic #1: Favorite Hole In the Wall, OR Best Drink Value.) On the way home, we suddenly remembered there was an event celebrating the premier issue of the Red Dirt Review, an Oklahoma literary magazine. David, a man we met through my Friend A, was reading some of his work featured in this issue. (Click here to read his stuff.) This guy is so great...he's a regular at Galileo's Spoken Word Night, and probably the only person I've met who is more atheist than myself. He's a lot of fun. So we stopped by Book Beat & Co. where this event was being held. (Potential Blog Topic #2: Coolest Place South of I-40, if not in all of OKC = Book Beat & Co.) This was the first time we've been to BookBeat since they changed locations...the new one is much larger than the old, and somewhat ironically appears to have once been a church of some kind. It is now Seddy's Church of Cool. It ended up being one of the best evenings I've had in awhile...we browsed some cool books and vinyl, heard some live music and spoken word, got a poetry shout-out from David, bought some cool art, and scored a kiss from an 11-month old, 160-pound mastiff named Todd. I was so excited about the poetry shout-out...I guess I think so poorly of myself that I'm amazed when anyone remembers my name. I just assume most people forget about me once I leave the room.

I'm Blue

2005-07-01T16:03:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I had to go to a training/seminar as part of work. The "workshop" was supposed to be about building and maintaining business relationships. By the time it was done, I had a deep need to fill my body with poisonous chemicals. The actual content of the course wasn't too bad. Like most other trainings, a lot of it was common sense stuff you just sort of have to suffer through. But, once in every while, there will be some tidbit of information that may come in handy, either at work or in your personal life. No, the thing that made this training horrible were the speakers. One was a guy who owns a few restaurants around town and works on the Marriage Initiative. Learning this information, red flags and blaring alarms immediately went up in my head. But, actually, he was the much better of the two. The other speaker was a perky, overly dramatic woman (who kind of looked like Loretta Lynn...the other guy looked like a pudgy Lindsey Graham). She was the perfect wife (married to a neurosurgeon), the perfect mother (one of her kids had written two books by the age of 13), and the perfect speaker (16 books published and her own group of websites.). And, of course, she ended the workshop with a lovely "God Bless." Needless to say, this training was not going to stick with me for the right reasons.

Look@OKC - Dawn Of A New Blog

2005-07-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

Deadwords and I have a new blog! A few posts ago, I wrote about how we applied to be bloggers for newsok.com. Apparently, we still qualify as young adults…we were selected to be one of the bloggers for this new thing they're doing, sort of a cultural, entertainment-type thing. We and the other bloggers have a meeting next week with the managing editor of newsok.com to go over the software and blog guidelines. Pizza will be provided. Yes, the irony of blogging (albeit indirectly) for the Oklahoman is not lost on me. I’m a little nervous about the meeting. What if we’re the oldest people there? I’m still really excited, though. I didn’t think we would be chosen. The validation feels good. I just want to tell my friends who never read this blog (where I bare my soul with every entry), “Hah! My writing IS worthwhile! See what you’ve been missing?” I know this isn’t exactly the ultimate in life goals, but it’s an opportunity to exercise and improve my writing skills, and do so in a fun way (with maybe a few people even reading it). We’ve come up with a few potential ideas for blog topics…this is so perfect for us, it’s ridiculous. We love to go out, we love to write, now we get to write about going out.

Seddy's Spoken Word Night Debut, Part II

2005-06-30T09:51:00.000-05:00

I am so glad that’s over. Never have I been so terrified. I thought I was going to piss myself when I got up there, but it went pretty well. I went up to the mic fueled by many a Bass ale, and a couple of Mind Erasers for good measure. I read a poem about my new job, and one I just wrote about Friend A leaving. My hands were shaking like crazy, but I somehow managed to get through both my poems without tripping over any words. Nor did my voice tremble and crack, like I feared. Actually, I enjoyed it. You kind of feel a sense of power up there, reading your poetry. Everyone listened and laughed in the appropriate spots, and it felt really cool. I want to do it again. It feels so good to face your fears. It might sound hokey, but I’m really proud of myself. A couple of spoken word regulars even came up to me afterwards and said I did well. Friend A liked my poem, and said she almost cried. She read a farewell tribute poem to OKC, and I received a very nice shout-out in it. That made ME tear up. Sappiness and hugs all around, etc. etc. I just wish she wouldn’t move. She’s headed to Tucson now instead of Kansas City, which sucks because it’s even farther away. But she’s not moving for another couple weeks, so that’s a good thing. After the poetry, a few of us went back to the Pillow Room at Isis. I love Isis, and its incense-filled, dimly lit, parachute-ceilinged interior.

Awkward experience of the evening: Much of the poetry that was read last night was extraordinarily anti-Christian in nature. This is something that normally wouldn’t bother me in the least, in fact I’d likely be cheering at much of it. However, a girl I work with at my new job came to see me read last night, and brought along one of her friends. You guessed it, they’re both…CHRISTIANS. I was watching their reactions throughout the night, and both looked pretty uncomfortable. All the while, I’m thinking about how one of my poems contains a line about Friend A and I being “liberal atheists, fellow blue-state interlopers in a very red state.” For one very brief moment, I considered removing that line, but I’m old enough now to where I need to stop pretending to be something I’m not in order for people to like me. So I left it in, and outed myself as an atheist, once and for all. I wouldn't have respected myself in the morning if I'd compromised my principles. Surely the Christians can appreciate that. I’m not used to hanging out with Christians.

Runner-up awkward experience of the evening: Some guy who read before me had a line about “grown women wearing fishnets.” I was wearing fishnets last night. So then I had to go up there, in my fishnets. I made some comment about it, and the guy laughed. But then I started thinking about it…”grown women wearing fishnets” implies that they shouldn’t be, right? It’s along the lines of “grown women wearing pigtails.” Like it’s something only little girls should wear. So is he saying that only young girls should wear fishnets? That’s creepy. Now I’m just confused.

i love little pussy

2005-06-29T16:25:00.000-05:00

Check out these creepy Christian childrens songs. There's Lil' Markie's "Diary of an Unborn Child." And, Little Marcy has a selection of equally creepy songs. "I Love Little Pussy" is hilarious for reasons unintended. (from Boing-Boing).

Seddy's Spoken Word Night Debut, Part I

2005-06-29T16:20:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm reading poetry (my own) at Spoken Word night...in front of Deadwords, several of my friends, and a bar full of strangers. I have never been more terrified in my life. I look at this as an exercise in building intestinal fortitude. I will not pussy out. I may be pounding back a few shots of Crown, though. I'll post Part II tomorrow, when I'm likely making plans to flee the area in shame. People are going to make fun of me...I just know it.

I've started walking on my breaks at work instead of smoking, and have noticed a disturbing phenomenon. My ankles pop, snap and crack embarrassingly loudly when I walk at a brisk pace. It doesn't hurt, though. Wonder what causes this...I'm not THAT old.

City Girl Goes Camping

2005-06-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

Went to Greenleaf State Park with Deadwords and his family this weekend. Had a surprising amount of fun, despite the heat, sun and bugs. Wrote a series of haikus to commemorate my foray into the wilderness.

roasted marshmallow
crispy pillow of sweetness
brief flare of blue flame

divebomber of pain
the wasp is out to get me
i will kill him first

"you should come and swim!"
no. i have my period.
clear water turns red

so many bright stars
like the planetarium
but i am outside

it's my time of the month
can bears smell my menstrual blood?
i guess i'll find out

emaciated
deer invites herself to lunch
and eats all your food

(As an aside, this was written about an actual deer who would come right up to you and eat out of your hand. On several occasions, I witnessed her hanging out at someone's picnic table like a member of the family. She was severely underweight and appeared to have scoliosis.)

what time is it now?
"no service" on my cellphone
but i have a fan

covered in bug spray
and 18 hours of sweat
i want a shower

dogs barking at squirrels,
deer, people, everything else
just eat a pig's ear

nook can't take a poop
because he hasn't eaten
too busy barking

And now, for a random collection of camping-related thoughts:

Last night I took the best shower of my life. Not only was I sweaty, I was DIRTY. Literally covered in grime. And sunburned. I've been obsessing over the amount of sun damage done to my chest, arms, back and face. Sun = 1, Seddy = 0. I'll win the next battle. In the meantime, my beloved alabaster complexion is now pink and freckly. Gross.

Paddleboats are hard work. I felt the need for a bizarre follow-up experience to my riding a four-wheeler awhile back, so I convinced Deadwords to rent a paddleboat for an hour. It was fun, but OUCH. I believe this is where I developed my sunburn...sitting out in the middle of the lake, I was a prime target for those evil rays. Between this and our multiple dog-walking excursions, up and down hills, every muscle in my lower body ACHES.

The strangest experience was waking up shortly after dawn Saturday morning and feasting on a campfire breakfast of eggs, bacon and unintentionally blackened biscuits. Then deciding that it seemed like the best idea in the world to take the dogs for a walk. For nearly the entire day, I had no idea what time it was, and I didn't care. It was really kind of liberating.

My biggest complaint was when the family members with kids showed up, and it turned into that family-type atmosphere that I'm not the biggest fan of. All I really want to do when I camp is drink beer, smoke, not have to watch my language, and listen to my music. All everyone else seems to want to do is talk about kids, feed their kids, change diapers and make goo-goo sounds at the kids. Bleccchhh. It seems like once you have them, your ability to have a serious adult conversation is gone forever. Suddenly all you talk about is what your kid did the other day, etc. etc. I wonder if there's something wrong with me since I'm nearly 30, and still have no desire for these alien creatures called kids. I guess the batteries are dead in my biological clock. Or maybe I'm just a heavy sleeper. I just want no part of this kid thing. Kids are NOT cool. Especially when I'm standing there, feeling slightly awkward around them like I always do, and overhearing snippets of conversations about "church homes." As childless atheists, you can imagine how Deadwords and I have kind of a hard time with these situations. I just end up hoping everyone will leave (taking their kids with them) and I can then drink some beer, chain smoke, play my music loudly and say "fuck" about twenty times in a row.

Deadwords and I scored a tent from his parents, and plan to camp again soon. I might become an outdoors girl yet.

No Mas Sex Poems, No Mas!

2005-06-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Last night was Spoken Word night at Galileo’s. Deadwords and I went with some friends to check it out, and decided that lines like, “her juices were like sweet honey” must be immediately and irrevocably banned. My Friend A read some poetry about her dead-end job at the liquor store and found it well received by the crowd. Well done, Cookieboots. You’re my hero. Afterwards we sat in a Paseo park and had a little poetry slam of our own. Dirty limericks about Abraham Lincoln were on the agenda. Drank vodka out of a Sprite bottle and stayed out until midnight. Good times. Decided next week that I’m going to find some balls and read something. It terrifies me in a way that karaoke never has, but I have to do it. It was a New Year’s resolution of mine to read something I wrote at Spoken Word night.

Next week is Friend A’s send-off party. It’s going to be held at Galileo’s on Spoken Word night, of course. I’m working on an Ode to Cookieboots…working title is, “We Built This City Out of Bricks and Mortar.” Long, karaoke-related story. I’m really throwing myself into planning this party and working on related projects, so as to distract me from the reality of one of my best friends EVER going away. It seems so impossibly unfair. We won’t even go into the growing absence of Friend B, who is so busy with his girlfriend and with mowing lawns, that I expect to see him no more than once a month. I did meet him for drinks last week, and we had a nice time, but I expect these evenings to dwindle even further in number.

This is going to be a rough week. I plan to do a lot of writing. Sigh.

Existential Crisis of the Week

2005-06-22T13:26:00.000-05:00

I’m in a rut again. It’s sad, really…I haven’t been at my new job for a month yet and I’m restless already? I’m not sure how much of this is the job, though. My supervisor told me the other day that I can’t take any personal leave until our impending project is completed (mid-August?) which disappointed and infuriated me. I live for my days off, and Deadwords and I were hoping to take a long weekend for our anniversary next month and go to Chicago. Now that’s scrapped. Our consolation trip is to Memphis, which we should be able to do in a regular weekend. The thought of nothing but five-day weeks for the next two months makes me want to vomit and cry.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about turning 30 in February. Someone asked me today if this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I was like, hell no. But then I thought about it and realized that this is how it starts. The older you get, the more you begin to settle, sometimes without even realizing it. You take a job that you don’t like “just until you figure out what you want to do.” Then, before you realize it, five years have gone by and you’re still doing pretty much the same thing. Then it starts to make sense to stay there, because you discover that there is potential to move up and into better-paying positions…even though you’re probably going to hate those jobs, too. Then your idealistic, naïve standards start to slip…instead of your dream job, you start telling yourself that all you want is a well-paying job you don’t totally hate. The compromising has already begun, and you’ve been too busy sleepwalking through your 8:00-5:00 days to even notice. I’m already almost 30, and I still haven’t had a job even remotely close to what I want, nor are there any terribly interesting prospects in the foreseeable future. Even worse, I’m not a hell of a lot closer to knowing what exactly it is I want to be doing. I just know this isn’t it.

But it goes far beyond just the job aspect. My Friend A (the one who’s moving to Kansas City next week) is something of a nomad. She never seems to stay at a job for more than a few months, and seems to move to a different city every few years. When I first found out she was moving again, I got really angry…partly because I was upset one of my best friends was leaving, and also because I was just angry at this gypsy-like existence. But when I thought deeper about it, I realized how jealous I was. Like always, it wasn’t about her, it was about me. Oklahoma City is not where I thought I would end up living. It’s like the job thing…it’s OK for the time being, but the only thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge that it’s “just for now,” you’ll move soon enough. As the years slip by, though…”temporary” becomes “permanent.” Granted, I may move somewhere else, realize I hate it and miss Oklahoma City. That could very well happen. But I really, really resent the fact that with each passing year, it becomes less and less likely that I’ll ever get the chance to find out. I’m becoming ENTRENCHED. I don’t know how to dig myself out. I’m an ADULT, and I’m kicking-and-screaming, temper-tantrum mad about it. I have responsibilities. I have a husband, dogs, a mortgage, car payments, student loan payments…it goes on and on and on. I can’t just pick up and move on the spur of the moment. I can’t run off to Europe for a couple of weeks, putting it all on the credit card and worrying about the cost later. I feel like I’m suffocating. I want to be delightfully irresponsible and spend the rest of my life regretting it. I know that’s the only way I’ll ever get to do the stuff I want to do. I could be responsible and save diligently for years, but one, I don’t have the patience or self-discipline for that (I still think both are overrated qualities, anyway) and two, I know what a sham this is. Something will always come up (unexpected medical bills, broken hot water heater, etc.) and delay the Europe vacation or the move for even longer. You’ll never do anything that way except keep surviving.

I look around at the other people who work for the state…they’ve always seemed like such a sad group of people, and I’ve always felt vaguely, smugly superior in that “I will never be like that.” I’ll ESCAPE. But now that I’ve been here for five years (technically, I’m not a state employee anymore, but contracted by the state…practically the same thing though, for the purpose of this blog) I see things differently. I still haven’t abandoned all hope of escape, but I’m starting to realize that these people were once like me, probably thinking this was a stopping-off point on their way to something else. No one dreams of being a DHS employee as a small child. These are all people who have settled. It’s the same thing with living somewhere you don’t want to live…the longer you live there, the more difficult is becomes to get out. I’m realizing that growing up is all about settling. It’s about giving up your dreams for your sensible, practical reality. What’s the point of living if life is just working some boring job so that you can pay your bills? It really seems like you’re not really living…merely existing, taking up space, until it’s your turn to die. It all seems so meaningless, and I should just go ahead and kill myself now if all I have to look forward to is 40 or 50 more years of the same mind-numbing boredom. It turns into a big existential crisis…what’s the meaning of life, blah, blah, blah. I think I feel a panic attack coming on. Or a crying jag. Too bad I’m at my sensible, practical job. I’ll have to settle for scowling at my cubicle wall.

Skinny Girl With Bad Hair

2005-06-20T08:33:00.000-05:00

Saturday was an interesting day. I drove home to see my parents (alone). As bad as it may sound, I enjoy going home without Deadwords sometimes. It's an entirely different experience. For one, the stress of trying to divide the weekend equally between both sets of parents is removed. Secondly, I'm somehow able to more fully regress into a kind of childhood. You know how you always feel like a kid again when you're at your parents' house? Sometimes, when Deadwords is there with me, I feel caught somewhere between married adulthood and the childhood that's so tempting to slip back into. It can be an unpleasant sensation, and sometimes I resent the whole feeling-like-a-kid thing, anyway. Saturday was different, though. I embraced it. One of the reasons I had gone to see my parents was to go through boxes of my things from when I was growing up. I think that had a lot to do with my expereince being the way it was. I went through box after box of nostalgia. It was like the Best of the 80's. Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Pound Puppies, slap bracelets, Rubik's Cubes, Cabbage Patch Kids, banana clips, and many, many pictures of me with very big hair and very bad clothes. Kind of depressing to see how skinny I was as a teenager. (Even Deadwords pointed to my collarbone in one picture and asked, "What's that?") What a sad, stomach-turning tub of lard I've turned into. (I'm going to start walking at work, though...on my breaks. Decided to replace smoking with walking. I've been smoking entirely too much lately.) Anyway...back to Saturday. I went to lunch with my parents and my brother at this great new Italian bistro in Owasso. Yes, Owasso has a great new Italian bistro...who would've thought? Realized that I was my father's daughter when he and I were still eating away long after my mom and brother had stopped. No wonder I've become Tubby McTubbs. I was surprised to find that my dad has turned into a bit of a "foodie." It's so cute. He would close his eyes, savoring the flavors in the orange-honey sorbet we ordered for dessert (one of four desserts we ordered). I like to see my parents branching out beyond Goldie's and Taco Bueno. All in all, it was a good day. I know I have more to say on the subject, but it just might have to come later.

To Young Adulthood and Beyond

2005-06-17T12:42:00.000-05:00

What exactly is the definition of "young adult?" Deadwords and I applied to be bloggers for some new OKC website...they're seeking the aforementioned young adults to be the "eyes and ears" of OKC or some such thing. We submitted a proposal for our intended blog, as well as a couple of sample blog entries. I think our submission was good, but I just wonder if at 29, they'll consider us too old. I hope not. That would really depress me. I don't feel old...I don't feel much different than I did at 21 or 25, truth be told. Deadwords and I still do a lot of the same things that early- to mid-20's people do. I still consider myself a "young adult." Really, what's the next step past young adulthood...middle age? I'm definitely not that...I consider middle age to begin maybe in your 40's. Is there a term to describe the people who fall between "young adult" and "middle aged?" Or are you just an "adult?" It's all so confusing. I guess it's all a matter of perspective...I just hope whoever is picking the bloggers for this website shares mine. I really want this blog. Maybe a few people might actually READ that one.

Still on my neverending quest for attention.

Musings of a Manic-Depressive Narcissist

2005-06-16T10:32:00.000-05:00

So now I'm on the inevitable downslide after my White Stripes-induced euphoria. It always happens...every time I'm really happy about something, I remain cogniscent of the fact that a crash is imminent. Today is one of those days where everything (and everyone) seems to be conspiring to make me sad. One of my two best friends is in Kansas City today interviewing for a job and looking for apartments. So she will soon be upon her transient way, after a brief stop in my life. I wish her the best, and hope she finds what she's looking for, but I'm sad for me. My other best friend was lost to me awhile back, once he became involved in a new relationship. I know how it works...everyone promises not to drop their friends for their lover, but it always happens, despite everyone's good intentions. Case in point: I worked with this particular friend, and since I quit that job over two weeks ago, we've not seen each other once. There have been a few e-mails, but that's it. I doubt he's even given me a second thought since he's taken up with his New Person. C'est-la vie, I suppose. For the first time since the beginning of college, I had a couple of really great friends, and now it's all slipping away. I realize how whiny and crazy this all sounds, but forgive me for being a little depressed by this. I just wish I wasn't so self-centered all the time. I wish I could be thrilled for Friend A for getting a new job and getting to move out of this hellhole, and I wish I could be equally as thrilled for Friend B for entering into his first real relationship since his divorce last year. But in typical Seddy fashion, it's all about me and the effects these events have on my life. All it does is make me a sad, angry and bitter person.

Your Southern Can is MINE

2005-06-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

By some stroke of grand karmic fortune, Deadwords and I managed to score FRONT-ROW CENTER tickets to the White Stripes show (Kansas City, Starlight Theatre, August 23, 2005). I've never had front-row tickets to ANYTHING before, let alone to my favorite band! They were expensive as hell, but will be worth every penny once I am bathed in Jack White's sweat. A very long two months stretch out before me.

Must think of cool White Stripes-related slogans to put on t-shirts. Suggestions welcome.

deadCENTER (Saturday)

2005-06-12T02:18:00.000-05:00

This was a full day. We started off at Stage Center (Tolbert Theatre) for "Admissions." This film starred Lauren Ambrose. I kind of liked it...even if my opinion is shaded by my fondness towards Ms. Ambrose. Seddy thought it sucked. Oh, well...It was still light-years better than a couple of the horror shorts we saw the night before. Next, we went to Untitled to see some short films. "Don Gorske: MacDaddy" was the best. Produced by "Super Size Me's" Morgan Spurlock, this documentary focused on a man who's eaten a McDonald's Big Mac every day for over 30 years. "Tuffy Low-Low," which won a festival award, was a pretty good narrative short. "Tone of Voice" was pretty funny. "Leap Day Project" was kind of lame. There was another one, "In the Mind of a Writer" or something like that which was pretty good. All in all, much better than their horror counterparts. We left before all of the shorts had been screened so we could get to the next film. At Noble Theatre, we saw "The Edukators." This was one of my favorite films of the festival. A film with multiple layers...my type of film. Afterwards, we grabbed a sandwich and some beer and headed down to Kerr Park. After giving away a few awards, they screened "The Fearless Freaks" on the outdoor screen. I love that movie...and I love The Flaming Lips. Awesome. Once that was over, we scooted over to Bricktown for the Closing Night Party at Nonna's Purple Bar. They had some good (and free) appetizers and a free drink per person. Luckily, our waitress scored us three additional tickets. So, we had cigarettes, drank red house wine, and reflected on the films and the weekend. It was such a great weekend. I can't wait for next year's festival.

deadCENTER (Friday)

2005-06-10T23:57:00.000-05:00

Day 2 of deadCENTER. We started out at Harkins Theate in Bricktown. The first film we saw was "The Aryan Couple." Not too bad...but it's hard to do an original holocaust movie these days. We stayed there to watch the documentary "The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat, and Beers." A bunch of rednecks drinking beer and trying to out-macho everybody else. Funny stuff. Seddy and I skipped out on the Q & A session that followed so we could get to IAO for the horror shorts. This was the worst part of the entire weekend. Lame films, lame food, no A/C and expensive drinks. "An Evening with Ivan Gorsky" was probably the best of the horror shorts...a humorous vampire short. "The Doll Collector" wasn't the best...but it only lasted a minute. "There's Something Out There" was pretty good as well. A murderous garden gnome is guaranteed to be good. And, then there was "Coiled Soul." This was probably the worst of the shorts. And, on top of that, there were video problems with this one. About 3/4 of the way through, the dvd started skipping. They tried restarting it a couple of times, but it still skipped until it froze. Seddy and I hoped they'd just skip to the next film...but, unfortunately, the filmmaker arrived with a second copy of the disc, so we were subjected to the conclusion. "She Sank on Shallow Bank" was more of an art film. It would have been better--more enjoyable--had the sound been good. The speakers kept going on and out, on and out, making the film very hard to follow and stay with. "My Skin" was another really bad film. "Gotham Cafe," which was based on a Stephen King story, was kind of campily funny. Not the worst. After the horror shorts were finished, we went out to check out the Okie party. The "free food" consisted of a block of cream cheese covered with salsa. High class. This night was too hot and too lame, so we decided to make it an earlier night rather than hanging around for the midnight shorts.

A Night at deadCENTER

2005-06-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

Last night, Seddy and I attended the opening night of the 5th annual deadCENTER film festival here in OKC. Being a couple of film buffs, a weekend-long festival of all types of film from Oklahoma and beyond was right up our alley. The opening night kickoff was held on the roof of the OKC Museum of Art. Normally the night for the museum’s Cocktails on the Skyline, the festival reception included an open bar and appetizers. (Check out the Museum Café if you ever get the chance, esp. for the goat cheese kisses and Sunday brunch). The rooftop was spectacular. A view of the city, filmmakers, and fellow OKC’ers who give a damn about film. After the reception, “Mad Hot Ballroom” held its Oklahoma premier in perhaps the best screen in OKC--Noble Theatre. Although Seddy and I don’t have children, this film almost made us want one. The feature length documentary was focused on NYC public school children who learn ballroom dancing in school and go on to compete in a citywide dancing competition. It was both funny and sincere in a way that sometimes only kids can be. It’s probably my favorite movie of the year so far. After the film, we headed down to Maker’s Cigar Lounge in Bricktown for the after party. Free cigars, a jazzy cover band, and mingling with filmmakers and fans. Likely the perfect date for the two of us…we can’t wait for the rest of the festival!

Writer or Tester?

2005-06-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

Whew. Today was INSANE. I started my new job today as a tester/technical writer for the University of Oklahoma. We're contracted by OKDHS to update and improve their computer system. Today was filled with orientations, paperwork, PowerPoint presentations, and introductions to a billion people whose names I'll never remember. By the end of the day, my head was spinning horribly. All I wanted to do was settle in to my cubicle and get my stuff up on the walls...and maybe take a minute to breathe. I'm still not sure what it is exactly I'll be doing. Something about paradigms (haven't heard THAT word since my college experimental psychology class), scripts, scenarios, criteria, systems, processes, it goes on and on. I think I'll be writing scripts, but like I said, I'm still not exactly sure what that entails. The bright side is that I'm making about 20% more than at my previous job, and...THIS IS THE REAL KICKER...I get a 50% discount on any future tuition at OU!!! Seddy's getting a Master's! Now she just needs to figure out which program. It would be absolutely criminal to ignore this opportunity. My only hope is that I enjoy this job...then this would officially be one of the best things to ever come my way. Would that be pushing my luck?

See Ya, Suckers

2005-05-31T16:23:00.000-05:00

Today was my last day at my current job. I start my new one tomorrow. So, so nervous...but that's another post. What's strange is how melancholy I've felt today. It felt so odd to clear out my desk and take all my things down off the walls of my cubicle. It felt weird to say goodbye to everyone. Even though I know I'll soon see again the few people I DO care to see...I still almost shed a tear when I walked out for the last time. I've fantasized about quitting for years, so why do I feel so goddamned sentimental? It's been a crazy three years there...some good memories and some not-so-good ones. I was taken out to lunch and received a cake, flowers and a $50.00 gift card to my favorite store. I'm excited (and a bit trepidatious) about starting a new job, but I can't quite get my head out of the past just yet. I'm going to go have a drink and try to straighten myself out.

My Poetry Rhymes

2005-05-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child.
What drives me to you is what drives me insane.
I still can remember the way that you smiled
On the fifth day of May in the drizzlin' rain.
---Bob Dylan, "Isis"

Last night was simply beautiful. Seddy and I met some friends at Galileo's for drinks, Cinq fromage and poetry. Most of the poetry seemed quite substandard, at least to my (high?) expectations. But, a few poets were quite talented. "Coffee" & "Tapestry" were the best; one with her honest and humorous rants on society and sex, the other with his intensely intimate portraits of personal ugliness we often refuse to confront. In addition to their weekly poetry night, Galileo's was hosting the Oklahoma finals for the National Poetry Slam. Seddy was a judge for the competition--she was cheered and jeered.

After the poetry concluded, we all adjourned next door to the Isis Cocktail Bar. Eventually, we made our way into a small pillow-filled room at the back of the establishment. It was a beautifully comfortable space. An intimate place to lounge and talk and confess. This was the most "strange" part of the evening...and my most favorite. It was strange in a way that I cannot honestly describe. It was comfortable and intimate in a way that I suppose I haven't been immediately familiar with in some time. As the night grew longer, it began to feel like a familiar moment in early love. The moment when you're lying with your lover in her bed and as she drifts off to sleep you are unsure of what to do next--fall asleep with her, continue or escalate the intimacy, or get up and go home, work, etc. What does she want you to do? Will you ever get back there again? Will it ever be this good again? How long can you hold on to the memory? Falling in love is full of these sensorial fleeting moments. For a moment last night, it felt just like that. It felt so wonderful, yet still so incomplete. If only there was a bit more time to make things better, more complete...to say or do one more thing. Unfortunately, the bar closed at 2am and my choice was made for me. It was time to go home.

Ghost Town, Part II

2005-05-24T12:57:00.000-05:00

I decided to embark on a mini-road trip yesterday afternoon. After researching an atlas of Oklahoma roads, I discovered that there existed a real-life ghost town about an hour and a half away. I grabbed my CD's and my cigarettes, and hit the road after trading cars with Deadwords. I had intially intended to go to the National Lighter Museum in Guthrie (which seemed like the perfect, kitschy way to spend some time) but after discovering it was closed, decided to hit the Ghost Town. After traveling first down a two-lane highway, then two miles down a red dirt road, I arrived at the remains of Ingalls, OK. There was an old hotel, saloon, livery stable and general store/post office. It was absolutely incredible. I sat on a bench in front of the hotel and wrote the following:

"I'm sitting and having a smoke in front of the Ingalls Hotel in Ingalls, OK. This place is so creepy. I feel like behind the boarded-up facade awaits a nightmare of Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like proportions. A rooster crows in the distance. To get here, I drove two miles down a red dirt road, my little Kia kicking up clouds of dust behind me. It reminded of going to a rave back in the day. I've never been to a real Ghost Town before. The weirdest thing is, people LIVE here. There are three or four mobile homes in the half mile or so that I can see around me. Occasionally a car will drive down the dirt road and some redneck will peer curiously out the window at me. I step outside of myself and imagine how strange I must look, sitting here on a Ghost Bench in this Ghost Town, writing and smoking. I don't trust anyone who would live so far removed from civilization. I just took a picture of a dead bird with bugs crawling on it. It gazed at me with its dead, soulless eyes. Seems to be a fitting image. I can't believe this place exists. It's so great."

Ghost Town

2005-05-24T12:47:00.000-05:00

I wanted to go the National Lighter Museum.
It was closed.
Instead, I went to a Ghost Town.
I sat in front of a boarded-up hotel and smoked a cigarette.
There was a hitching post.
I almost had a panic attack while crossing a wide river on a rickety old bridge, and-
I found out that my car can accelerate quickly to 100 mph when I want it to.
I took pictures of giant crosses and church signs.
I wondered why anyone would choose to live so far from civilization.
I looked death in the eye and walked away.
I came, I saw, I fled back to the city.

Jesus is the Force

2005-05-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

Is STAR WARS the Tool of Satan? Hmmm....I wonder.

...and boredom sets in

2005-05-23T10:01:00.000-05:00

So I start a new job in about a week. With my current job, I don't get paid for any unused sick leave...it's "use it or lose it." As you can imagine, I'm taking lots of sick days in the meantime. Unfortunately, I'm running into the problem of becoming very, very bored. The first couple of sick days were great, and even being home alone and bored is ALWAYS better than being at work. But I've gotten to the point where I'm actually becoming starved for human companionship. My e-machine and DVD player can keep me entertained for only so long. I'm e-mailing everyone I know, but for some reason, whether it be the fact that they're legitimately busy, or that they just don't care to talk to me, no one is replying. I feel so cut off from the world. I think about all the times I've fantasized about being a recluse and wonder now what I was thinking. I couldn't handle it. I think I'm a more social person than I would ever care to admit. My options for the day are these...do laundry, send more e-mails to people who won't e-mail me back, surf the internet, watch the Blue Orchid video a few more times, watch TV, watch a DVD, watch porn, wank off, clean the kitchen, sleep. I want to do none of these. I want to get in the car and drive somewhere. That sounds fun. A road trip by myself. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the less reliable car that has no CD player. Nonetheless, I may have to give this some more consideration...

05/18/05 (Another Perfect Day)

2005-05-18T22:50:00.000-05:00

Today I got a new job.
I get to write, and get paid much more for doing so.
We finished our pub crawl.
I bought a bottle of lotion that, per my request, smells like coffee and is tinted (inexplicably so) lime green.
I ate sushi (again) and a crab/goat cheese quesadilla which I want to rub all over my body.
I drank a pint of Bass for $2.75.
A bartender asked the following question of Deadwords: "Boss, you ready for another?"
We ate a bowl of free popcorn.
I saw a t-shirt that read, "My girlfriend wants me to kiss her where it stinks."
I got ID'd because the bartender questioned whether I was 21 (when I'm really 29).
I had a few glasses of bad wine.
I congratulated myself for being cool.
I had another perfect day.

05/16/05

2005-05-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

I didn't have to go to work today.
I bought a beautiful skirt.
Deadwords picked a rose for me.
I drank pinot noir and ate spicy smoked salmon sushi.
I rolled around on the grass at OU.
I ate pizza I want to have sex with.
I took a vacation in my own backyard.
This was a perfect day.

Your popsicle's melting

2005-05-13T17:40:00.000-05:00

OK...so I've done nothing this afternoon except find cool new music. My latest discovery is T. Griffin Coraline. Heard one of their songs, The Year In Music, on KEXP (my new favorite Seattle radio station) and the first line of the song ("Whatever happened to Sassy magazine/Now what the hell is a girl like me supposed to read") just killed me. I should add that this is sung by a man. This is how their website describes their music: "...hushed, intense story songs wrapped in spaghetti guitars, crooked beats and ghostly samples. We call it 'porch techno'." Be sure to check out Broken Bird, The Year In Music and Starfucker.

I used to read Sassy magazine. It was way edgier than Seventeen.

The Mountain Goats

2005-05-13T14:16:00.000-05:00

Check out The Mountain Goats...this is probably my new favorite band. Well, it's one man, actually. Incredible songwriting. Make sure you listen to my new Favorite Song To Listen To While In A Really, Really Bad Mood, No Children (off the Tallahassee album). Beautifully, wonderfully dark.

If you like what you hear, and want more MP3's, travel here. Highlights include Jam-Eater Blues, Commandante and I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink (Merle Haggard cover), as well as a nice cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's Two-Headed Boy (this song is most ubiquitous).

Now if I could just find an MP3 of The Best Death Metal Band In Denton from the 2002 album "All Hail West Texas." That has to be one of the best song titles I've ever heard.

Labels, antifolk and otherwise

2005-05-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

I really hate labels that try to characterize art and place them in neat little genres. Punk, alternative, indie, action, drama, comedy, whatever. If it's art, then it is what it is. It should be appreciated independently of its categorization. Once you slap a label on a song, group, film, etc., then you've immediately pigeonholed it. Can it at this point even be capable of defying the chosen category? Still, I understand a need to describe the art in some familiar way, if only in order to share it with others. Take country music for instance...99% of what can be heard on country music radio features talentless, pop idol wannabees...nothing like their predecessors of the not so distant past. But, if I want to hear or share a good country song, then I must use some sort of label in order to delineate between the crappy country music and the good stuff (e.g. old, original, real, Cash). Still, any successful use of labels can really only be accomplished with those who are familiar with your definitions of the terms. If a song is "punk"...what does that mean? What is punk? For me, punk music is defined as the music originated in the late-70's by groups like The Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash. Other things may come along today that share the attitude, the sound, the style of punk music, but in my opinion they are at best simply "punk-esque." And, that is certainly fine--I don't necessarily hold punk music above music that is punk-esque. To somebody else, punk music may mean something completely different. What is alternative music? What is indie music? If we must throw around these labels, then it seems that we might want to know what they mean.

So, that brings me to the "antifolk" label. According to Wikipedia, antifolk is music that "combines the raw, abrasive, and frequently politically charged attitudes of the punk scene with the sounds of American folk tradition." It is suggested that antifolk was pioneered by Beck with his early albums, and now includes such artists as The Moldy Peaches, Adam Green, Ani DiFranco, Kimya Dawson, Nellie McKay, and Regina Spektor. I've been into this sort of music for a while now, way before I'd ever heard the term "antifolk." Its sensibilities some how just meshed with my own tastes. Now, I will likely use the term antifolk to discover new artists. Somebody will have made a list of musicians that he deemed classified as antifolk artists. I will use such lists as a starting point in my discovery. Certainly, not all musicians characterized as anitfolk will sound the same and I will not like them all equally. Thus, while I dislike the use of categorizing labels, I find their utility quite necessary. Still, the use of labels must be done wisely.

Down With the Sickness

2005-05-13T11:06:00.000-05:00

I can't remember the last time I've been this sick. It's probably been a year, at least. I've been home from work most of the week with a cold/sinus infection. I'm pretty sure my boss thinks I'm faking it, but I'm not. I've been achey and had the worst dry, hacking cough. Yesterday, my entire respiratory tract just ITCHED. Now it seems to be all settled in my sinuses. The infection has set up camp somewhere behind my eyeballs and is now cooking beans and weenies over an open fire while singing Kumbaya. OW. The bright side is that it's made quitting smoking pathetically easy. Haven't even wanted a cigarette (or a drink, for that matter) all week. I guess if I were to get sick, this would have been the best week imaginable for it. It's made the transition from drunken party girl to boring, lame homebody rather easy.

P.S. Happy Friday the 13th! I’m having fond memories right now of the Friday the 13th parties we used to have in high school. My friend Chester the Vampire would drive over from Fayetteville in his hearse. We would all pile in and drive around Owasso , freaking people out. (This was a good little Baptist town, keep in mind.) Once we took the hearse through the Taco Bueno drive-thru, ordering a dozen tacos. That was fun. Then we would go to someone’s house and watch Faces of Death until the wee hours of the morning.

THE TOFU HUT

2005-05-12T09:27:00.000-05:00

For the budding musicbloggers out there, check out THE TOFU HUT for a massive list of websites and audioblogs containing free, downloadable music. It seems to be the perfect STARTING point to find out about all kinds of obscure music (until the R.I.A.A. shoots themselves in the foot again).

How to Blog by Tony Pierce

2005-05-11T14:08:00.000-05:00

Winner of the 2005 Bloggies: Weblog Awards in the category of "best article or essay about weblogs." This is a must read and can be found on Tony Pierce's blog here.

ah

2005-05-11T13:01:00.000-05:00

it will never end, there will be no
help, no mercy, no living thing,
it will all go on, uselessly, through
fabrication and old habits, it
will continue, a headless body
of life, walking old walks, doing
old tricks, dreaming old dreams,
it will be as alone as a mountain,
and despite billions of beings
there will not be one real being, there
will be everlasting waste and only
the animals will be real, they will have
the pureness of eye and the grace,
they will be the last, the simple,
pure, the ember, what it meant
truly, the wolf will have the heart
and the panther the lungs and
the eagle, the eyes, and the last
war will be one man sitting in a
chair, laughing at it
all.
---Charles Bukowski

Pope Palpatine?

2005-05-11T11:55:00.000-05:00

The new pope bears a frighteningly striking resemblance to Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films. What does it all mean?

Why Do I Blog?

2005-05-10T16:23:00.000-05:00

From "8 Days of Quitting Smoking" --

4:14 P.M. - I am so tired of thinking. I don’t even feel like writing anymore or posting to my blog. I’m pretty sure no one reads it, anyway. When I started the blog, I’d somehow convinced myself that I was just writing for me, and that I didn’t care if anyone ever read it or not. I’m realizing that was a bunch of horseshit. I WANT people to read it. Is it because I need to feel like someone thinks what I have to say is important and interesting? Is it because what I write on the blog is most often what I really feel but maybe am too scared to say TO someone? Is it that I hope one day I’ll find a comment posted on there by someone saying that they understand how I feel and that I’m not alone in my madness? Or is it just pure, shameless exhibitionism? So...in some kind of weird display of post-modern ( or post-SOMETHING, anyway) self-awareness, I’m going to post this journal entry on the blog. Then I’m going to sleep. Or maybe just watch something mindless on T.V. No more thinking.

Quit Day

2005-05-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

So, here it is. Quit Day. I began my new journal project this morning, "8 Days of Quitting Smoking." It's a follow-up to my "8 Days of Rock." It will document the process of my getting cleaned up from the aforementioned rock lifestyle...and also my steady mental breakdown throughout. I've been through this before and I need to be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies qutting smoking cold turkey. Then again, I'm pretty much on an emotional rollercoaster most of the time anyway.

A Brand New Day

2005-05-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

O.K. It's the next morning. Time for a new start. I am ready to begin. This is the first day of a more responsible, healthier, and more fulfilled life. I'm not under any delusion that I will instantly and forever change with the snap of some fingers. It will be a difficult road ahead. I will stumble, but I will succeed. Today, Seddy and I are quitting smoking. I know it will be tough...I've "quit" a couple of times before. But, hopefully, this time will be forever. Today is a brand new day.

A New Day (Or Another Failure)

2005-05-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

I just got done throwing the last of our cigarettes down a flushing toilet bowl. Once again, Seddy and I are attempting to quit smoking. I hope to whatever there is to hope to that I don't smoke again...or don't pick it up again. I feel close to the end at this moment. I know this "end" could be much worse...and cigarettes are far less detrimental than other things could be. But, the cigarettes are not my only problem. There's alcohol and irresponsibility. Certainly, all these things are related. But, nevertheless, I feel once again that I'm at my "rock bottom." I've been there before...I know what it looks like. It's like deja vu. I'm just thankful that this bottom never saw heroin or hookers or a barrel of a gun. I have hope. I do have hope. I have hope for better days. More sober days. I want to cleanse myself. I want to rid my body of toxins and unhealthy thoughts. But, as they say, that's so much easier said than done. Or, maybe you just give it a valliant effort only to fuck it up in the end. I can stop smoking. I can stop drinking. I can even be loved. But, I'll still always be unimpressed with myself. I probably can change, in the sense of mitigating certain behaviors, but I am not so sure that I can change in any fundamental sense. I am scared by this. Que sera, sera. The future's not ours to see.

4-Wheelers and Golden Retrievers

2005-05-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

Deadwords and I went to Owasso today to see the family. I always have the strangest sensation when we go "home." As soon Highway 169 takes us into the Owasso city limits, I feel like I'm back in high school. Everything looks the same, but different. Owasso has probably doubled in size since I graduated. New shopping centers and restaurants everywhere. Brand-new housing additions in areas that used to be nothing but overgrown fields. A Target on the way...Owasso's becoming the Perfect Picture of Suburbia. I barely recognize it. But then, when I look past all the development, I see the Mazzio's where my band-geek friends and I used to go hang out after Friday night football games. The roller rink (now closed, sadly) where I shared my first French kiss with Jason Glenn, raddest skater-punk in the sixth grade. In the most sublime juxtaposition of the old and the new, Deadwords's parents now live right next to the old, overgrown, hilltop cemetery where I used to go with my boyfriends to make out (and bite each other, during my Goth vampire-girl phase). One of these days I want to walk up there and hang out for a bit. Maybe bite Deadwords on the neck.

We finally met Buddy, my in-laws' 7-month old Golden Retriever. He's probably the most beautiful dog I've ever seen, except for my Dexy and Nook. He chewed on the sleeve of my hoody and on the bottom of my jeans. I seriously, seriously thought about dog-napping him. I think Deadwords did, too. Mainly, it just made me want to come home and cuddle with my Muznies.

Shortly before we left to drive home, my brother-in-law asked if I wanted to drive his 4-wheeler. I don't think anyone (including me) expected me to say yes, and at first I didn't. But then I thought about it for a second, and in a moment of insanity (or clarity) I decided to do a very un-Seddy like thing and give it a go. I've never been on a 4-wheeler before. I was curious, and felt I should do at least ONE crazy thing this weekend. My brother-in-law showed me how to change gears and brake, and I was off. A jerky start, but once I got the hang of it, I was blown away. I wanted it to never stop. As I sped through the neighborhood, I suddenly felt so free and so peaceful. All I could hear was the roar of the engine and the wind in my ears...even the constant white noise in my head was quiet. I was all alone. I swerved off the road and tore through a field, feeling every bump and jostle throughout my body. I was ONE with this 4-wheeler. I howled. As I was flying through the neighborhood, I saw a large family outside with kids and dogs and camcorders. They reminded me of Deadwords's family. This is when I started having even more un-Seddy like thoughts. Suddenly I wanted to live here. I wanted a big house out in the semi-country, with a huge yard and lots of open space. I wanted kids and dogs and lots of family around to have cookouts with. I wanted to stay up late playing board games. I wanted quiet streets, and as-yet-undeveloped plots of land where I could tear around on a 4-wheeler, howling at the top of my lungs. I climbed onto that 4-wheeler a staunch city girl with a strong distaste for children and family, and climbed off desperately wanting everything I'd always sworn I'd never want.

I really needed to have a day like this. It felt so good to escape OKC and put all my issues and problems of the past week away for a little while. I knew they'd still be there when I got back, but for one day I was in a different area code, so I didn't have to think about them. I was at peace.

I'd like to start a movement to bring Quik-Trips to the OKC area. It's an absolute travesty that we don't have them here. QT's are by far the most superior convenience stores.

Another Black Day

2005-05-06T16:15:00.000-05:00

Spent the entire day at work listening to the Dresden Dolls and Nine Inch Nails. Sort of reveling, almost, in my depression. Is it weird that I sometimes ENJOY the dark, meaningless little universe I've created for myself? Sometimes I really get a little TOO into the whole tragic, dramatic, throwing-my-arm-over-my eyes-in-despair, existential crisis kind of thing. I like to see how far I can sink into my almost-bottomless pit of depression. I like to listen to dark music and obsess about death and life's little ( and not-so-little) injustices. I like to think really hard about how fleeting life is and how it could all be over in the blink of an eye. I like to think about the utter insignificance of my stupid little life. My depression is comforting to me, almost. It's been a part of my personality for so long that I don't think I would really be myself without it. I don't want to be happy and perky all the time. I hate those people. The thing that really blows though, is when I'm ready to feel well again and find that I've sunk so far I can't pull myself out.

42

2005-05-06T13:45:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the unabridged audiobook version of Bill Clinton's My Life. It took me portions of 24 days to listen to it in its entirety, including a solo road trip to Dallas. More than 48 hours on 42 compact discs. I don't know how I did it. But, it is done.

Thought For The Day

2005-05-05T14:23:00.000-05:00

Today I feel like the selfish, greedy little girl we all remember from our childhoods, the girl who hogs all the toys and refuses to share. The girl who throws a temper tantrum when anyone encroaches upon her territory. The girl who has to be the center of attention all the time, and have every toy, even the ones that don't belong to her. The girl who whines and pouts when she doesn't get her way.
I'm in a pretty dark place today.

Put Some Gravy on It!

2005-05-05T10:27:00.000-05:00

Check out The Snackmaster...

...[who] dangles his tasty snacks for the underage girls in the parking lots of 7 Elevens by day and terrorizes wrestling audiences by night.

And, don't dare neglect the other Incredibly Strange Wrestlers.

Lame, I Know

2005-05-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

I just want to take a moment in my drunkeness to say how absolutely elated I am that the Round Mound of Sound (a.k.a. Scotty the Body) was voted OFF American Idol. Woo-fucking hoo! He had no business being on there as long as he was. This is a joyous moment. I hate him with the hatred of a thousand men. I know how totally lame it is for me to watch American Idol, but I so don't care. Scotty the Body is a fucking SNACKMASTER. That's right.

616: The New Antichrist

2005-05-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

According to Tom Anderson of The Independent:

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and aleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. He said: "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."

E-Mail Nation

2005-05-03T11:50:00.000-05:00

Found in Newsweek (05/02/05):

"This is a very real and widespread phenomenon. We have found that this obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness." Dr. Glenn Wilson, on a study that found that those who tried to juggle work and e-mail experienced an IQ drop more than twice that of marijuana smokers.

If this is true, then many of us are in deep trouble.

With Teeth

2005-05-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

Tonight we went to a NIN listening party at Venu, sponsored by the Buzz (94.7 FM). The Buzz is pretty much a lame radio station, but this was seriously a lot of fun. I thought Venu was well, an interesting choice of venue. This is normally your typical trendy, meatmarket dance club-type place. Not our scene at all. That's why it was so interesting to see it over-run by NIN fans. They played the new album, With Teeth, and showed live footage from the accompanying DVD (I assume). The main reason we went was that you could enter to win tickets to the Austin show later this month. (Side note: this is the show I spent exactly 38 minutes trying to buy tickets for, over the phone and on-line simultaneously. It sold out after those 38 minutes, and I cried like a baby. I should also mention that besides, being a NIN show, which I would jizz over on its own merits, the opening band happens to be none other than the Dresden Dolls. I consider my failure to get tickets for this to be one of the most devastating losses in my life to date. I cannot impress upon you how much this was my Dream Show.) So I considered this to be my last chance to get to go. Needless to say, we didn't win, but there was an amazing consolation prize. Deadwords won a prize pack inclusive of a Budweiser ballcap (lame), the new NIN CD, a NIN 12" vinyl consisting of three re-mix versions of the first single, "The Hand That Feeds," and a NIN poster. As we were sitting right by the Buzz setup, I spied the vinyl as soon as we got there. If we couldn't win the trip to Austin, the vinyl was what we wanted most. I love that we got it. NICE consolation prize. There were several assholes who entered anywhere between 30-100 entries into the drawing box...we were watching them. We were so happy when Deadwords won something with his ONE (honest) entry. In your face, motherfuckers!! Also interesting was the fact that we saw a guy who was in the Threepenny Opera (which we saw a few weeks ago.) Dwight talked to him. I applauded him for his balls until he made me go talk to a guy whose identity was driving us crazy. I did it, being a little drunk...I was convinced he was local music writer George Lang. This guy turned out to be no one, and he was kind of unfriendly. So much for that. Incidentally, the chick he was with was the one who won the trip to Austin. At least it wasn't one of those people who entered like, 50 times. Oh! And their was 94-cent beer...that was one of the best parts. I'm completely wasted right now, and having to go to work early in the morning. I attribute the poor quality of this post to my inebriation. Listening to With Teeth right now and I have to say it seriously ROCKS. Infinitely better than The Fragile, more reminiscent of The Downward Spiral. I LOVE IT. Trent still rocks my world, and even at 40 years old is so, so fuckable. Grrrrr...signing off.

Freak Humper

2005-05-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

I don't even know what to say about this. Just listen. It's Kimya Dawson, El Paso Hot Button and the Pharmacy. I laughed out loud...cackled, in fact.
http://www.ephb.com/freakhumper.mp3

My Name is Seddy, and I'm a Narcissist

2005-05-02T12:46:00.000-05:00

So I just created my user profile. As I am an insufferable narcissist, I listed "myself" as one of my interests. Out of curiosity, I perused some of the other profiles that had listed themselves as an interest. Three out of the first ten were Aquarians. Now I don't believe in all that horoscope bullshit, but I thought it was mildly interesting. Do Aquarians tend to be more self-involved than other signs?
I just wanted to make my first real post on the new blog.
Long live Le Chat Noir!

Infiltrating the Disco

2005-05-01T10:59:00.000-05:00

Check out lcd soundsystem right now. Besides Daft Punk is Playing at My House, check out Movement, Disco Infiltrator, Tired, and Yeah (crass version). And, be sure and check out the video for Daft Punk...

Subterranean Dance Party Blues

2005-05-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Seddy and I just finished watching MTV2's Subterranean on our new emachine. A couple of good, fun dance videos on this episode. LCD Soundsystem's Daft Punk is Playing at My House and Saul Williams' List of Demands. Certainly, something to delve into further. But, more importantly, this is the inaugural post to our brand new blog...The Black Cat. Much more to come...

"Fat" Girls, Wake Up!

2005-03-14T14:18:00.000-06:00

Flip through any magazine, watch any television show, and you’ll see her. The size-four, tan-skinned, porcelain-veneered ideal of female beauty. Even so-called “reality” shows tend to feature participants who fit this image. This image is inescapable, it’s everywhere, and it makes me wonder – why do we buy into it?

It’s no secret that the weight-loss industry makes billions of dollars every year by making us feel inadequate (or over-adequate, rather). Statistics indicate that the number of teenage girls opting for plastic surgery is on the rise. Eating disorders are rampant. At the same time, more Americans are overweight and obese than ever before. I suspect that these thin, beautiful people are fewer in number than we are led to believe in the media. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we, the non-thin, the “non-beautiful,” are the ones in the minority, and to also believe that we what see represented in the media is how we should be. We’re made to feel that there is something wrong with us if we don’t fit this specific, idealized image. We’re made to feel that if we were thinner, or if our hair were a different color, or if we only had a smaller nose, then maybe we could be worthy. Maybe we could find someone to love us. We’re always striving to change ourselves, be someone else, be this perfect fantasy woman…and for what? So some diet guru or cosmetics company can be just a little bit richer? So men will flirt with us?

The problem extends beyond the media. Unfortunately, even if you manage to resist this brainwashing, many other people haven’t. I have been thin and I have been fat. I’ve seen the difference in how I’ve been treated. If you’re fat, especially a fat woman, you start to get used to being ignored. You get used to feeling like you don’t exist. You get used to having men buy your thinner friend drinks while you sit there like a very large bump on the log. You get used to your friends looking at you when someone tells a fat joke, watching anxiously to see how you react. You get used to shopping with your thinner friends and drooling over the cute clothes she gets to buy while you’re stuck with clothing items of a less-stylish nature. (Apparently if you have the nerve to gain weight, you forfeit your sense of style as punishment.)

Sure, I could lose weight and force myself to conform to how people I don’t even know think I should be. But why should I? I’m intelligent, interesting, well read and passionate. I have great hair, adorable feet that look amazing in sandals, and I know how to dress to flatter my best physical features. I have a wonderful husband who thinks I’m beautiful at any weight, and terrific friends to whom my weight is the least important thing about me. Why should I have to be a cookie-cutter clone to be a productive, happy, worthy member of society? The way I see it, I’m not the problem. Our culture is. I realize the health risks associated with obesity, and I’m not advocating weight gain, but there is a definite problem when healthy, beautiful women are judged as “fat.” Kate Winslet, and Bridget Jones-weight Renee Zellweger, are perfect examples.

It’s time to wake up and face reality. There’s something sick about a society that thrives on making people feel bad about themselves. It’s time to stop judging ourselves (and others) based on how we stack up to Paris Hilton. It’s time to accept ourselves for who we are, not what size we are. It’s time to realize that beauty comes in many, many sizes – not just size-two’s. This is an incredibly difficult task, these ideals being socialized into us from the beginning. It’s taken me nearly 30 years to get to this point, and I still have a long way to go. Some days I look in the mirror and feel terrific about myself, other days I want to crawl under the bed and cry.

So what is there to do about it? We need to advocate for each other and ourselves. There should be more representation in the media, especially if there are more of us than are Heidi Klum clones. We should stop being complacent and demand it. Seek out and support entertainment that features more diversity in general. Write letters. Support stores that offer fashionable plus-size clothing, and encourage the ones that don’t to carry lines for us. Fat women buy clothes, too, and if statistics are any indication, we make up a fairly sizeable (no pun intended) segment of the population. That’s a lot of money waiting to be spent at your store, if you’ll just give us a reason to shop there. We should not laugh gamely when some redneck comedian makes fun of us, and we should confront anyone who makes an ignorant, hurtful remark. However, we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. We need to de-stigmatize the word “fat.” It’s just a descriptive word, much like “brunette,” or “tall.” It’s we who have given it such a loaded, negative meaning. We need to loudly remind everyone that we exist, and that we’re interesting, smart, funny, cute, sexy women who are also fat. Most of all, we need to look deep within ourselves and examine who we are. We need to realize what makes us unique, and that we are so much more than how we happen to look or how much we weigh. We need to stop killing ourselves in order to be something pretty for men to look at. We need to stop this ridiculous competition with each other to see who can be the thinnest or the tannest or the blondest. Every woman, fat, thin and anywhere in between, is affected by our culture’s obsession with beauty. It’s time to stop buying into the self-destructive myth that bombards us each and every day - it’s one of the most subversive things you can do as a woman.

Separation Of Church and State (as appeared in the Oklahoma Gazette)

2004-12-29T08:51:00.000-06:00

After reading Jason Reese’s commentary in the December 22 issue [of the Oklahoma Gazette], I feel compelled to address a couple of points. As one of those rogue liberals who find themselves in what feels to be an increasingly hostile red state, I’d first like to make the point that political and ideological differences exist within states, not just between states. There are plenty of non-conservatives in Oklahoma, and every other red state for that matter. We may not be the majority, but we pay the same taxes, vote in the same elections, and deserve to have our opinions heard and respected as well.

Secondly, Mr. Reese brings up the issue of separation of church and state, using the example of the Nativity scene controversy in Mustang. He may find it surprising that some individuals (even in Oklahoma) may actually consider the separation of church and state an important concept, and are not expressing the opinion merely for fear of a “disapproving glance from the courts or the ACLU.” I am not religious myself, but I enthusiastically support the right of others to express their faith in their place of worship or their homes. I have no desire to deny religion to anyone. I don’t, however, understand this apparent need to have one’s religious beliefs plastered across public schools and government buildings. Why is it not enough to practice one’s faith in your home or place of worship? Since those who are religious (specifically Christian) appear to constitute the large majority in Oklahoma, it’s intriguing to me that many seem to be so threatened by a few in the minority who have no intention of depriving them of their right to practice their faith. No one is saying that religion should be abolished, all we ask is a little respect for our beliefs, or lack thereof, and the common courtesy of not having it shoved down our throats. Because it would be incredibly difficult to represent every religious affiliation in public school holiday pageants and on government property, it seems the logical conclusion to avoid all overt references to religion in the public sphere in order to avoid the appearance of favor for one faith over another.

Help Me! I'm Trapped In a Red State!

2004-11-24T21:48:00.000-06:00

Wow…I can’t believe the last posting was so long ago. Much has happened since…yet another Presidential election has come and gone, with disappointing results. The country appears to have been hijacked by that non-thinking segment of society who we now know and love as “values voters.” Not only do we have the dubious privilege of retaining our current President, we have increased the Republican majority in Congress. The implications this could have on the Supreme Court are terrifying. Hello, coat hangers. Hello discrimination. Hello, mandatory (Christian) prayer in schools and at all public events. Hello, Canada. However, after the initial blinding rage and torrents of tears, I indulged in a couple weeks of serious reflection. First, I seriously entertained the idea of moving…if not to Canada, then at least to a more like-minded blue state such as New York or Massachusetts. No words can adequately express the frustration one experiences as a somewhat intelligent, cultured, diversity loving, politically liberal person trapped in one of THE most conservative states (Oklahoma). My head is perpetually lowered in shame at the ignorance, bigotry and downright STUPIDITY of my fellow Oklahomans. Not to mention my despair at the thought of being lumped in with these people just because I happen to live here. Eventually I came to a decision. After the whining and self-pity had run its tortured course, I decided that I am not going to seek blue state refuge after all. Instead, I’m going to stay here and fight. I’m going to try to show (beginning with this blog) that not every citizen of this state is a bible-thumping idiot. I’m going to try to show that this state is not a cultural wasteland. So welcome to the latest reincarnation of this blog, entitled,
“Help Me, I’m Trapped In A Red State!” – A Survival Guide For Displaced Blue Staters

KSPY RIP August 23, 2002 - June 25, 2004

2004-06-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

It was too good to last. Oklahomans like to take something good in and spit it out on the pavement. No, it's not Oklahoma only. Our stupid mindless culture has become expert at it. Well, thank God for The Buzz and their corporate brand of "alternative" music. There's nothing but the internet and recorded music left. Damn. Rest in Peace.

escondida - Jolie Holland

2004-06-03T12:55:00.000-05:00

A follow up to her demo-esque debut, Holland goes beyond simple eclecticism to evoke the greatest in American "roots" music. You can put headphones on and close your eyes and listen to this album and not be quite sure whether you’re in a smoky jazz club or on a Delta stoop or lost in Nashville. Her music lies somewhere between and among jazz, blues, country, and folk. Somewhere on either side of mischievous and reverent, but not at all obsolescent. Her exaggerated twang is simply mesmerizing. Check out “Old Fashioned Morphine” and “Goodbye California” and then fall in love with the rest of the album.

Hot Or Not?

2004-06-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

Hot or Not?I’ve been hearing lately about certain websites that are becoming increasingly popular, like hotornot.com. Basically, people (mostly under 30) post pictures of themselves on the Internet and have total strangers rate them based on nothing more than physical appearance. There are even meaner sites, like bangable.com, and howmanybeerswouldittake.com, where people are rated on the basis of how many beers it would take to find them attractive enough to go home with. I don't know what intrigues me about this. I guess it's partly this disgust and shock that people would degrade themselves like that, and set themselves up for so much potential humiliation (but you only have to look at any given reality show to see this phenomenon, if you can call it that, in action). It's kind of sad to me. But then again, I can also relate to that narcissistic desire for attention and to know what people really think of you. However, the idea of posting your picture on a website and having total strangers rate you on nothing more than physical appearance makes me sick to my stomach. What a sad, shallow society we are.

Internet Radio

2004-05-27T16:59:00.000-05:00

In reaction to Seddy's recent album reviews, I thought I’d offer my own ideas on music. I’ve also recently gone through a musical re-awakening--a rebirth I mostly attribute to Internet radio. I’m lucky enough to be able to stream music where I work. As a result, I’ve collected a handful of websites that I visit with regularity to get the best in music.

KCRW’S Morning Becomes Eclectic
From Santa Monica, California public radio station, this show delivers a wonderful mix of music across all genres. They also feature frequent live in-studio interviews and performances. See The Flaming Lips cover of Radiohead’s Knives Out featured on the Fight Test EP.

KEXP
This time from Seattle, another public radio station offering the best in new/indie music, with a wonderful web presence. They partner with the University of Washington and the Experience Music Project to provide educational features. The station also features many live performances, including The Flaming Lips cover of Kylie Minogues’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head also featured on the Fight Test EP.

All Songs Considered
The musical companion of NPR’s All Things Considered, host Bob Boilen offers a handful of new or off-the-radar musicians.

John Peel
On BBC Radio 1, the British icon Peel offers his selections as to what’s great in music. A little heavy on that British garage/techno sound in my opinion…but maybe I’m just behind the times. Otherwise, a brilliant show.

AccuRadio
AccuRadio This is the place to go when you want to listen to a particular genre. Their channels include “A Flock of Eighties,” “Twang,” and “Broadway.” See “High Fidelity” for the best in indie music.

I Heart Jack

2004-05-25T12:51:00.000-05:00

Van Lear Rose – Loretta Lynn

This I learned about from my status as obsessed White Stripes fan. Anyone who loves the White Stripes knows that they have long had an enormous respect for Loretta Lynn, covering her “Rated X” as well as dedicating “White Blood Cells” to her. I became a Loretta fan sort of through the White Stripes, and bought Entertainer of The Year on vinyl. I read some time ago that Jack White was producing her new album, and bought it the day it was released. This is truly a work of art. Every song on this album is amazing, and they all seem very personal. It’s impossible for me to pick a favorite song on Van Lear Rose. I really like “Portland, Oregon,” a very rockin’-country duet with Jack. I love the title track…it’s one of those songs that make you smile and cry at the same time. “Mrs. Leroy Brown” is another favorite…it’s a total ass-kicking song. Van Lear Rose manages to be every emotion, and every musical genre, at once. It’s rock, it’s country, it’s folk, and most of all, it’s honest. I can’t say enough about this album. Fortunately, I’ve read that Jack has signed on to produce two more albums for Loretta. I can’t wait.

Thought Of The Day: “Ball and Biscuit” is still the sexiest song ever recorded. I love Jack White.

Astronomical Pontifications

2004-05-24T12:42:00.000-05:00

Phantom Planet – Phantom Planet

This one has been out for awhile. I first heard “Big Brat” on The Spy (our local what-some-people-call-alt-rock-but-what-I-call-just-good-music-you-can’t-hear-anywhere-else-station) on St. Patrick’s Day. I remember it like it was yesterday…I was driving home from celebrating with friends. Having recently kicked the smoking thing, I found myself in a horrible mood due to a desperate need for sweet, sweet nicotine. Anyway…I digress. When I heard the song, I thought it was super-cool and quickly became obsessed. Soon after that, I saw the video, a cool homage to cheesy zombie movies, directed by the genius Spike Jonze. I was obsessed with “Big Brat” for a couple of weeks. I still think it’s a fun, cool song but I’ve moved past the obsession. As for the rest of the album, it’s pretty good. It’s easy to listen to, but nothing really sticks out on it.

Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Fever To Tell

Again, an album that’s been out for awhile. I had been reading a lot of great reviews about this band, so I finally bought the album. It’s a little different from anything else I’ve heard in awhile. I guess the best way to describe their sound is art-punk. It’s punk with something slightly pretentious about it that I like a lot. My favorite tracks are probably “Man” which has a cool, kind of funky, bluesy feel, and “Modern Romance,” a very mellow track which reminds me of early 80’s Blondie. Karen O. is so super-cool. I want to be her.

Thought Of The Day: If a planet were phantom, would it even exist? I don’t believe in ghosts, so I don’t think it would.

Hornby or Hornsby?

2004-05-21T13:19:00.000-05:00

I was struggling to find a clever way to begin, as I just read an amazing op-ed piece in the New York Times by the incomparable Nick Hornby. Since I am no Nick Hornby, I will begin with a simple declarative sentence that will nevertheless get my point across.

I love music.

I’ve wanted to write about something more upbeat than my disgust with bigotry and right-wing politics for some time now. A recent series of mini-obsessions with new (or at least new-ish) album releases provided the catalyst for my sudden shift to the sunny side, and I feel compelled to share how wonderful I think the following albums are. Keep in mind that I’m not a professional music reviewer (although I think that would be one of the most kick-ass jobs in the world)…these are just one music lover’s opinions. Well, I guess that’s what all reviews are anyway, even those written professionally. Hhhmm…

Good News For People Who Love Bad News – Modest Mouse

Modest Mouse have been around for years and years, and I wish I could say I’ve been a fan for as long. I bought this album on the basis of the single “Float On.” I fell in love with this song immediately after seeing the video on MTV2. The video suits the song perfectly…sort of sadly optimistic. “Float On,” and the album as a whole, reminds me somewhat of the Flaming Lips, (who mixed and appear on the last track “The Good Times Are Killing Me”). The album is very eclectic…it pretty much encompasses every mood imaginable, yet there is a common thread of optimism connecting everything together. This is an album that I fall more and more in love with each time I listen to it. I plan to buy Modest Mouse’s earlier albums as soon as possible.

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Once again, my first exposure to this song was on MTV2. I had been hearing buzz about this band for awhile as “the next big thing” but had not actually heard anything from them until the video for “Take Me Out.” I bought the album the same day. “Take Me Out” is probably the most perfect dance-rock song I’ve heard in a very long time. The laid back, poppy intro, which sounds kind of like something the Strokes might come up with, segues after about 45 seconds into this rocked-out, New Wave-ish type hook. The album as a whole is pretty good, if you judge it more as a fun party record more than a work of art. The other track I really like is “Michael,” in which the narrator finds himself drawn to a “beautiful dance whore” - very “Queer As Folk.” Their sound sort or reminds me The Strokes meets The Cure meets New Order. If you like “Take Me Out,” you’ll like the rest of the album.

Thought of the Day…I sure would like a sweet, sweet Hornsby right about now. In a frosted glass.

DISBANDED!

2004-02-27T16:17:00.000-06:00

In response to President George W. Bush's proposal of a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Seddy and I have decided to take a symbolic stand. Yesterday, we removed our wedding bands as a protest to this policy of hatred. We have vowed to not wear them again until the current climate of hatred towards same-sex marriage has changed for the better. We strongly value our marriage and the rights that it entails. We also feel that other committed couples, regardless of sexual orientation, should have those same marriage rights.

R.I.P. Dean

2004-02-18T16:35:00.000-06:00

Today Howard Dean’s campaign came to an end. It just goes to show that sometimes the losers are winners and the winners are losers. R.I.P. We still support Dean’s message but we will support the eventual Democratic nominee.

State of the Union?

2004-01-21T09:33:00.000-06:00

As I watched George W. Bush's State of the Union address last night, I was sickened by many things he had to say. It confirmed the fact that I am essentially this man's ideological opposite. I just want to briefly comment on the one segment of his speech I found most laughable. Bush spent a few minutes on the gay marriage issue, and he, of course, is opposed to it. He talked of maintaining the "sanctity of marriage" and how we should preserve marriage as God intended...between a man and a woman. He then spoke of how it should not be up to the courts to decide the issue...the "voice of the people" should be heard. I couldn't believe he actually said that. First of all, it seems vaguely unconstitutional to me to try and limit one whole branch of the government when they might disagree with you on an issue. Secondly, how exactly does he think he got elected in the first place? It damn sure wasn't because of the people's voice being heard then. I thought one of the whole philosophies behind conservatism was that the government should stay out of people's personal lives. Never have I seen such a massive attempt to thoroughly INVADE people's lives by legislating morality. It makes me sick. Why are so many people apparently OK with the government telling them how to think and behave? It's scary. And don't even get me started on his obsession with abstinence-only sex education...

2004-01-15T10:49:00.000-06:00

Spent last night volunteering for the Dean campaign. Sarah made some phone calls. I helped put together some signs and literature. Although it’s not much, I feel like I’m actually doing something. I don’t want Bush back in the White House. Now, instead of just complaining, I’m doing a little something to take back our country.

On a related note, The Club for Growth ran an ad last week attacking Gov. Dean and his supporters (the text of which follows):

Announcer off-screen: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HOWARD DEAN’S PLANS TO RAISE TAXES ON FAMILIES BY NINETEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR? Husband: WHAT DO I THINK? WELL, I THINK HOWARD DEAN SHOULD TAKE HIS TAX HIKING, GOVERNMENT-EXPANDING, LATTE-DRINKING, SUSHI-EATING, VOLVO-DRIVING, NEW YORK TIMES-READING . . .

Wife: . . . BODY PIERCING, HOLLYWOOD-LOVING, LEFT-WING FREAK SHOW BACK TO VERMONT, WHERE IT BELONGS.

Husband: GOT IT?

Announcer: CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT OF THIS ADVERTISING.

So, in response, some Dean supporters have developed parody ads in response to these negative attack ads. Here’s my attempt:

Howard Dean

2004-01-07T10:33:00.000-06:00

Speaking of Howard Dean... If you’re at all concerned with the direction our country is headed, I urge you to inform yourself about the available alternatives. Alternatives to George W. Bush. It is my opinion that Dean offers the best alternative to Bush. Check him out and learn a little more about him: If not Dean, then another Democrat. Green. Whatever. Just please help us to save our country. We must take back the White House AND our country.

A Got a Backyard

2003-12-23T12:20:00.000-06:00

O.K. The return to the blog after too long of a hiatus. First off, I have redesigned this section in order to facilitate easier updates. Nothing spectacular…it just makes it easier for me. Second, some personal updates. On November 15th, Sarah and I bought our first house. Here it is:

Since that date, we’ve been getting adjusted to our new digs. Doing some decorating, minor repairs, and all of that. We’ll try and have some interior photos up in the near future. Maybe some before and after decorating photos. And, to go along with our backyard, we got a dog. Her name is Dexy’s Midnight Runner…but she goes by Dexy. She’s a handful (i.e. still a puppy), but I’m still in love with her.

Hold My Hand, Please!

2003-11-12T16:18:00.000-06:00

OK... so deadwords and I are buying our first house. We close in less than two days, and I have never been more terrified in my life. It all happened so suddenly...just a little over a month ago we were still in the "thinking about maybe getting a house" stage. Literally within the span of about six weeks we've gotten approved for a mortgage, found a house, made an offer and had our offer accepted. Never did I think it would move so quickly. We found our house the first day we looked with our realtor...it was like, the fourth house we looked at. It's a great house, with a two-car garage and a big fenced-in backyard, but things started to go wrong. Our inspection revealed some structural issues (specifically, stem-wall rotation) and a broken furnace. Supposedly these things are fixed now, and at the sellers' expense, but I'm so worried that maybe they weren't fixed as well as they should've been, simply because the sellers don't want to pay anymore than they have to. What if as soon as we move in, something goes horribly wrong and we end up having to pay thousands of dollars in repairs? It hasn't helped that in the last few weeks, seemingly everyone has felt the need to share horror stories and make sure that I realize just how much a "money pit" owning a house is. I've heard everything ranging from the sellers leaving the house a total mess when they moved out, to people having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on foundation repairs. Anything that can possibly go wrong, someone has pointed it out to me. What's really terrifying is all the things that can go wrong that I haven't even thought of. I've always been a negative person who expects that anything that can go wrong will, but never to this extent. I've always thought of it as being a realist more than a pessimist, things do go wrong. But for some reason, buying a house terrifies me more than anything I've ever done in my entire life, including getting married. I'm just starting to feel like maybe I'm not ready for the responsibility that home ownership entails...maybe I'm not mature enough. My mother's been the worst, as far as the negativity is concerned. I've figured out now where I get my negativity from, but I really don't need anyone else's right now, when I have more than enough of my own. Like a coworker of mine said, until she contributes to the deadwords and Seddy House Fund, she should only be allowed to say positive things about the house, and show only happiness for us. But I'll write more on this at a later date...