Forgotten but Not Gone

I've been really frazzled & scattered & screwed up all summer. My writing has suffered, my personal life has suffered, and my poor neglected blog has suffered. But with fall slowly decaying around me I feel freshly inspired. I replied to MyBestestFriend's email today with the following message and I think it sums up how things are going for me right now:

"I’m not sure what the hell happened this afternoon… I think my muse might be back. He’s been lounging around just outside the corner of my eye, teasing me while I’m trying to work, and whispering wonderfully brazen ideas in my ear while I’m sleeping. I’m thinking of trying to lure him out into the open with coffee, absinthe, and an old typewriter."

I'm still really busy, however I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be making the time to dabble with my favorite creative outlets very soon...

I'm magic!

I disappeared for 2 months!
I'm back. I'm still working harder and longer than I would like, but I have made a few decisions about how I am going to spend my time.

I have decided that if my BigStupidHero can work like a maniac and still have time to write a little, rant a little, and stay in touch with his friends via the IntraWeb ~ then so can I!

My Faerie godbaby, Puppy, is doing wonderfully disgusting things. His mother, MyBestestFriend, has a new blog, but I don't know if I'm allowed to link to it. I'll have to ask permission first ~ after all she's a MOM now so you ALWAYS have to ask permission first. I'm going to have to start taking the camera over when I visit. I'm pretty sure I can get some really interesting abstract art out of that little critter. By the way, I have decided that sitting and holding Puppy is really relaxing and fun. It's like playing with a kitten ~ a drooling, farting, hairless kitten with poor motor skills.

Myself, MyBigStupidHero, and three other friends went camping last weekend. We had fun. The lake was a little on the chill side, but a rousing game of "gently toss the nerf ball" kept the blood pumping enough to prevent hypothermia. It's been a while since I've actually had to sleep in a sleeping bag on the ground and that was not something I missed. I got smoke in my eyes pretty good while trying to start the fire. Couldn't light the damned brand new cook stove. And two (TWO!) of my fake "vegetarian" hotdogs fell into the fire. But there was great conversation, truly inappropriate humour, lots of food, and campsite neighbors whose only flaw was keeping a radio going all night just faintly enough that you kept trying to figure out what song was playing. I did not take this picture of our campsite, it was simply emailed to me after I returned home. I think Big Foot has a digital camera.

I'm So Smart I'm Stupid

I read. A lot. I'm a poet. So sometimes when I read something I'm thinking about other things... Ponies, kittens, sex, those geometric patterns left in drying mud. Anyway. I was looking up an address on RandMcNally.com (because MapQuest sucks) and I'm skimming the page trying to zoom in close enough to see what I need to see when suddenly I spot a word. A wonderful word. A word I think I know vaguely, but I realize with a fluttering heart that I've never seen it used this way before. Could it be? It makes perfect sense to me. I know EXACTLY what it's saying. "Recenter." And then I see it again. "Recenter maps on address." How original. How playful. I am feeling that same feeling as the first time I read Clockwork Orange.

Then I see the big picture. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything is as it was. The muck of mundanity sucks at my shoes and my brain plods slowly and deliberately back to work.

For those who care, there was a fleeting moment when the word "Recenter" filled my mind as the most beautifully off kilter way to state "More Recent." Now I feel melancholy and rather stupid. I don't even have the excuse of having been incapcitoxicated.

Bippity-boppity-booyah!

I'm a Faerie godmother!
My bestestfriend in the whole wide world gave birth to her life long burden Friday morning. He was a big baby-8lbs 11oz. Which means I won the bet and not only will I NOT be changing shitty diapers on our first Mall Crawl together, but I'll also be getting a fabulous prize (that DOESN'T come wrapped in a diaper)! I am so glad that everyone seems to be unscathed by the whole horrifying experience. I have crocheted a blanket, made a draft blocker for the scary closet door, tie dyed onesies & receiving blankets, made a sage smudge stick, fixed up a "Welcome Home" basket for the mommy which includes the first 2 seasons of Perfect Strangers, and found the perfect little buddha for Puppy's room.

I'm busy as hell at work, but I am soooo looking forward to being able to stop by and see the little gross bundle of poop after work. It will be so nice to watch him & play with him and then still be able to go home at the end of the night and have sex and drink and curse and then sleep late the next morning without any real worries. Yippeee! It's not my kid!

Spring and other things

I've been working my ass off lately, not sleeping very well, and just been generally pissed off at the entire world. It happens every fucking spring. I hate the color green, I hate pollen, I hate humidity, I hate warm weather. Spring has always reminded me of kudzu - this choking green cover that seems to smother everything.

And now for something COMPLETELY different.
This is what MyBigStupidHero had for lunch yesterday:

I ate the same thing minus the dead animal and broccoli casserole (I've always suspected there's something lurking in there I don't want... maybe chicken broth) plus a side of fried squash. Very very good. Well, okay, so maybe life isn't so fuckin' bad after all when a vegetarian can go out to lunch with her friends and have some kick ass southern cooking. Thanks for making me leave my little grey funk at the office, ThomAss!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth...

Though there have been times in the past few weeks when it would have been nice to have had that option. Work is HORRIFYING! I hate being a grown up! I hate having a job where I can't say what I really think about people and situations. I may be blunt and brutaly honest, but at least I am tactful and take other people's feelings into consideration! Have I mentioned I hate my job? I don't especially like living in a house with another human being at the moment either, but I really do love my Geek and would be lost without him so I just apologize to him every day for being so prickly and angry about stuff. I'm just frustrated. Frustrated! I could SO easily become a hermit. I would LOVE to be a hermit! A lonely old witch living off in the woods by herself. I like alone. I like not quite right. I like silence and darkness. I like reading out loud. I like a bottle of SoCo and bad movies. I like wine and Mozart. I like vodka and punk. I like quilts and cats and books. I like soft grass and warm sun. I feel like I'm losing myself. I'm just overwhelmed, that's all. It happens about every 2 years. I'll get over it. Probably by drinking and writing and reading and being a little more me. My apologies to everyone who has to put up with my melodramatic ass.

my addiction

Hello, my username on GoodReads.com is iammyself, and I'm addicted to books. I encourage all my friends (all 8 of you!) to also admit to this debilatating habit. Books have interfered with my work and personal life. Books made me neglect housekeeping and sleep. Books have made me go without food and eat things I shouldn't. Books have made me fall recklessly in love and thrown me into fits of rage. Books have been my crutch and my balm. I mix books with liquor sometimes and chocolate more often. I have feigned headaches to be allowed to finish a good book in peace.

Now I start a new chapter. I am going to try and catalog and then review what lines my bookshelves, rises in towers on my tables, desks, and dresser, rests in stacks on my spare room's floor, and hides beneath my bed. I will hold nothing back, I will show all my literary diet - even the smut and fluff and drivel. For we are what we read. I may not like my hair or my mouth and I might be self consicous about my various curves, but I will never be ashamed to lay bare my literary soul. Go look for yourself. I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.

Edit: Ye gods! This is going to take forfuckingever! It's 2:20 am now and I'm only through the stacks of books that were lying WITHIN REACH OF THE DOOR on the floor of my spare room, plus a few that I just happened to come across on the site that I knew for certain that I read in my younger years. I'm not only addicted to books, I'm apparently addicted to listing books. How did this happen?! I have work to do this weekend! I have a boyfriend and a dog and other obligations and at least ten times this many more books to go through and list. And that's NOT even reviewing them or pulling out qoutes! What have I gotten myself into? If I disappear off the face of the earth just look behind the stacks of books on my coffee table and you'll find me slumped on the couch typing away... My fingers are actually locking up on my left hand! I've never had that happen before. I have to stop before I hurt myself. I'm going to bed - but I guarentee I'll be back at it tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow...