Thursday, September 20, 2007

Andy Walo Group Updates for September 19, 2007



Ok OK, I know I spend a fair amount of time writing about how fantastic, wonderful, and talented I think the Andy Walo Group is. Beyond the fact that they supply me with most of my live music fixes when they are playing around where I happen to be on a given day, they have some really cool things happening in their near future so I thought I might take a minute to share. I will of course be updating these as some of these items get closer.



The first two are the monthly shows at the House of Blues Las Vegas. Yes, It’s that time again. Appearing live Wednesday and Thursday at the Mandalay Bay. If you are in Las Vegas be sure to check these shows out at the House of Blues Cross roads room. There is no cover charge.


Wednesday Night, September 19 - House Of Blues/Las Vegas @ Crossroads Room (Mandalay Bay Hotel) 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas, Nevada 89119 "Nuthin But The Blues Series" 9 PM.


Thursday Night, September 20 - House Of Blues/Las Vegas @ Crossroads Room (Mandalay Bay Hotel) 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas, Nevada 89119 "Unplugged Showcase Series" 10 PM.



The next one is a little bit further out but may require some planning if you wish to attend. You may or may not know that Andy Walo used to play at Harvelle’s Santa Monica “back in the day”. The Andy Walo Group has recently started playing there again and they are going to be recording LIVE during their show on the 27th of this month. At this time I am not certain if they will be recording sound only or sound and video but if you want to be involved consider yourself invited (note: this was a joke, the show/venue is open to the public). Please be aware that tickets are required for this show and can be purchased for $5 from Harvelle’s website.



Thursday Night, September 27 - Harvelle's in Santa Monica; 1432 4 TH Street 9:30 PM. 310-395-1676



Also there are heavy rumors of a show coming up at the LA CO Fair. It seems that the Andy Walo Group may be performing between events at the FreeStyle MotorX event. If they DO perform there, these sets (nine songs total) will be TELEVISED on CBS!! Not sure what the details are and all that but will keep you all posted on this one. Again, if you want to go, be aware that tickets are required (for both the fair AND the event). Let me know and I will guide you for discounts etc.



Saturday, September 29 - FreeStyle Motorcross Event at The Pomona Fairplex




Lastly but not leastly Andy Walo has three of his original songs in the upcoming film, Two Tickets to Paradise. Directed by D.B. Sweeney, which stars Ed Harris and John C. McGinley. The songs are all off the Crunchtime CD and are “Told You So,” “Flamenco Blues,” and “What Happened To My Power.” The soundtrack from this movie looks to be fantastic! It will have songs from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, U2, Del Amitri, and Emmy Lou Harris as well as Al Kapone, American Minor, Andy Walo, Bowling for Soup, and Kim Kline. This movie has been shown at a few festivals to rave reviews so watch for it to come to a theater near you.




Note that all pictures are from www.andywalo.com except for the one from Harvelle's Website which is http://www.harvelles.com/Harvelles.html and are subject to copyright.


Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Kurious About Karma

My religious leanings have never been a secret. I am pretty open about my beliefs and things but this might get a little hairy in spots so….if you might be offended by religion or disturbed by words of illness you might want to skip this blog.


One of the things I am a firm believer in is karma. I have talked about it before on more than one occasion. On this occasion it is a very specific instance and one about which I am curious to know other opinions.

Um the scary illness part. Many of you were around back on that fateful day in June last year and others of you read about it. For summary and those who weren’t here.

On June 6th last year I woke after a few very restless hours sleep. I was seriously disturbed. I was not sure why but I was certain that something was about to go very wrong. As was our way back then, I woke The Man and he jumped in the shower. He was always concerned with my sleep habits so insisted that I always stayed in bed until he was ready to leave. This never flew. I hopped out of bed, made coffee, got things ready for the day, and then hopped back in bed. I lay there trying to get a handle on the feeling I was having and couldn’t. The Man finished his shower and got dressed. He came and sat the edge of the bed and same as every morning I wrapped myself around him and across his lap for a hug. We kissed and cuddled there for a few minutes and then he had to leave. He went to the kitchen and got his coffee then headed for the door. Unable to stand it anymore, I dove out of bed and chased him to the door. I stopped him and hugged him again. With a few more kisses I urged him to be very careful and watched as he walked across the yard to his truck. I stood there uneasy and waved as he pulled out of the drive. I tried to put my concerns out of my mind and get on with my own day. I didn’t have much to do those days as I was still trying to get my leg to work so I could go back to work outside the house. I was just about to get in the shower when I heard my cell phone ring. I picked it up and saw that it was one of The Man’s employees. This usually meant a parts run for me but not today. As I answered the phone with a hello I was greeted with those words that would change my life forever.

“The Man is dead”.

A long story ensues here but as you probably all know by now he was only mostly dead. I prayed as I rushed to the hospital. I prayed as I held on to him for dear life. I prayed as I followed the ambulance that moved him from one hospital to another. I sat there alone in the ICU as I prayed one more time for guidance on the crucial question. You see The Man had always told me he had a living will. He never wanted to be kept alive on life support and yet here we were. The hospital told me he wasn’t going to make it. They told me he might be a vegetable the rest of his life on that damn machine that still to this day makes its erratic clicks, hums, and whistles in my nightmares. The last prayer I made before I gave the OK included a little bit extra beyond the please let him live I had been praying all day and night. There were the added thoughts of I am already sick, If you have to take someone please take me and let him live. Then I gave the Ok and they turned it off. There were a few heartbreaking seconds before he heaved up off the bed and began to breathe on his own. He had done it, he beat the death sentence.

Why is that important? It was while driving him around during his recovery that I began to have trouble seeing. I started to see what I describe as halos. I have always seen auras so don’t be confused. I mean that light began to break up into orb light halos. Polarized sunglasses became a necessity. Driving at night meant trying to avoid traffic to avoid the headaches.

Once The Man was stable I scheduled a physical just to be sure since MS has a symptom of visual disturbances. My doctor started testing that would eventually lead to the discovery of Maxwell. My second “terminal” issue. People often comment on my calm acceptance of this diagnosis. This is why, it is the price I paid to save the life of the man I love and it is worth every bit of price paid even today.

The karma issue comes in next. The Man eventually recovered. He took this illness almost eerily in stride, in fact he ignored it for the most part. He would become irate if you mentioned it. As I got sicker, he got better. He would eventually leave me. There were a whole lot of things that happened in that leaving. None of them were good for me. In short I was unemployed, dying, and he wanted the house which meant I would have to move elsewhere. Shortly thereafter things began to go badly for The Man. He developed an illness of his own, he lost a massive contract that crippled his business, and a variety of other things all bad. One night I mentioned to him that he seemed to have acquired some bad karma. He doesn’t believe in karma and was annoyed I would suggest such a thing. It has persisted over the months. I finally got a job and started working again and helped him with some bids and things that finally started to get some business going for him but not anything big. He accepted that I needed time to get my feet under me before I could move.

He has not held up on some promises he made to me. Notably, he promised to stay my friend and to be there for me. He hasn’t, in fact every time something has happened he has been notably absent. I got very very sick when I did that round of chemo. I had some problems with it to understate things. One night I called him and tried to talk to him. I told him I was very sick. He said he was at the grocery store and asked me about cauliflower. I told him I was in the parking lot of the hospital about to go in to the IC for help. He suddenly told me he had to go and would call me back and hung up. He didn’t. I was nursed through that initial bad reaction to the chemo and sent home. I went and tried to call him with no luck. I toughed it out as best I could. One night I didn’t show up somewhere I was expected and a friend got worried and came to check on me. I was alright but not by much. He made sure I got taken care of and made it a point to check in with me. When The Man found out, he became quite irritated and almost jealous it seemed. He began to call this friend “Big Friend” instead of just “Friend”. It became quite clear that every time I mentioned this friend The Man became jealous. This confused me more as if he had left me, how could he be jealous?

Recently The Man got irritated about something and in a fit of anger told me to go get laid. I got upset and just left the house. The next day he was quite the jerk to me then he disappeared for the weekend as usual. The following week he didn’t come around at all and well into the next week. Then he surfaced one day. Cranky, irate, and surly. He made some smart remark about “Big Friend” that included a reference to sex. I was puzzled and made that clear. He told me that he had heard I was sleeping with “Big Friend”. After I stopped laughing I told him that this was so far from the truth as to be almost hysterical. He finally believed me and things returned to almost normal. I say almost as he still periodically makes jealous sounding statements when the subject of “Big Friend” comes up and will not talk about him or acknowledge he exists.

One day he defended something by “I am your friend and being really nice and understanding with you. I promptly made a big deal about how he had NOT been there for me and how he HAS not been at all understanding or done any of the things he said he would. He was very upset at first but then called me later and said I was absolutely right and he apologized. He made what seemed a sincere effort to try to be better. Things finally began to pan out with the contract bids I had helped with and he got what looked like a potentially huge contract out of one.

I went out of town and upon my return he was again cranky, irate, and surly. Finally I got it out of him that he heard “about my trip”. I knew instantly but ignored the comment but made it clear with a few well chosen trip stories that “Big Friend” had not been involved in my trip and things calmed down again. But he again stopped making an effort to “be there” for me like he had promised. Just last night, I came rushing through the house after work. I was meeting an internet friend for the first time and was running late. As I pulled in the drive I saw The Man’s truck. I parked and rushed in. I said hi as I passed him, I fed the dog, and asked him to make sure she went out before he left. As I headed for the door he asked where I was going. Knowing that mentioning meeting an internet friend would spawn a fight since he disapproves of the blog media, I said the fateful shortcut words, “I have a date”. I trotted out the door and forgot about it.

When I arrived home later, I noticed I had e-mail. I opened it and it was from The Man. It was a list of things he wanted done and wanted done now. It was short, snappish, and not very nice in fact it was pretty horrible. He complained I had not done something the weekend before which was true because I had been sick in bed all weekend which he knew but he was angry anyway. He threatened to make me move even though I am still not yet able to. He questioned if I was even really sick or faking it on order to take advantage of him. I was upset by the nasty tone of the e-mail but sucked it up and replied to each question as if they had been nicely asked and then I went to bed. My phone rang shortly after and it was a friend asking about my day. I lost it and spent the evening crying and talking to him about The Man. I finally fell asleep exhausted and slept for about an hour before waking and having to go to work. I cried all the way to work before getting myself under control.

I came home tonight and rushed around to get ready for a meeting. As I left the house, he was blocking the drive. I asked him to move so I could get out. As he walked to his truck he asked me over his shoulder “so how was your DATE?” in a rude tone. I shrugged and mumbled something as I got in the car and took off. I got back from my meeting a mere 45 minutes later to find three e-mails in my in box. They were all from him ranting about how he lost that big contract today. I can’t help but wonder now.

I find it interesting how when he was loving and kind and with me things were great for him. When he left under such horrible conditions, things went south for him in a big way. As he made an effort to make things right and do what he promised things came around again. Then when he STOPS things go south again….

I think karma is in action, what do you think?.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Wild hair on Wednesday July 18,2007

honestly have to say, I can’t think of one single dang thing to write about today. My mind is jumping all over like a needle across a scratchy old LP. I am trying to just sit and type and hope something coherent comes out. Most likely not but maybe I will hit something if I just start blabbing about what is on my mind because I really need to get some of it off my mind.


Some of the material that is on my mind, makes me feel the need to use the little disclaimer thingy….


I am going to hedge my bets here and rather than field comments later here comes the disclaimer.


1) I am talking about myself and MY OWN opinions here. I am not even remotely suggesting that I feel the same about anyone else nor that anyone else should feel the same.

2) This blog might contain “language”

3) This blog might be viewed as offensive or poking fun at handicaps or disease…see #1.

4) Some of you may have heard some of this before. For you I say, thanks for the practice reminding myself and allowing me to vent or describe to you.

5) Please no one freak if this is the first you have seen these sorts of comments from me.



Death and dying: It happens, in fact it seems to be all around me these days. I find it amazing that people seem to have very weird and diverse thoughts on the subject. I actually saw one today where the response to “my dad died” was… “oh, such a bummer” and another elsewhere was “Death is tragic and so sad!”. I find it amazing many times that people preface a condolence with a religious type comment and then go on and on about how sorry that they are that the person died. Maybe it is my own personal weirdness but I find that confusing. If you are a religious person (and some who aren’t) don’t you believe in an afterlife? If you believe in an afterlife of any kind, isn’t it a good thing that some one “moved on to their reward”? I honestly believe that the only sadness to be associated with death is for the ones who are left behind. They are the ones who suffered and lost after all. The should be no sadness in death only loss to this mortal plane. The definition of the “afterlife” and stuff should be left for another day cause I am rather pissy about it today.

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TV and Radio: What ever happened to quality TV programming? I miss all those old shows (Schoolhouse Rock, electric company… anyone?). I seldom find anything these days that makes it worth even turning on the TV. People get cranky when I say that. That’s right, I don’t watch TV, it is not anything other than lack of interest in what is on, nothing more, no message. Along these same lines I love music and yet hardly ever turn on the radio. Why? The commercials and the format drive me insane. Why do I need to listen to four thousand commercials for every ONE song? For that matter, why do I need to listen to some YAAWHo blabber on endlessly about crap in between the songs? And with all the tons of fantastic music out there WHY OH WHY do you only play the SAME thirty some songs OVER AND FREAKING OVER….. Here is what I want out of a station. Pick a genre, put every song in that genre on random play, and let ‘er rip. If you HAVE to talk, when the song is over, tell me who it was, the title and if you really have to still say something give me some thing about the song….then shut up and play the next one. Keep your dumb commercials to yourself…. I would listen to a station like that… Oh wait. I already do. Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE Sirius radio? Yeah, I do, almost as much as I love my CD changer.

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Dogs and pets: They are annoying, they sure can rack up the vet bills, they are like perma-children, and they sure can destroy a home…but they also sure are great. They are always happy to see you, even though you can’t always tell with some cats, they listen without ever arguing or complaining, they really don’t care what you look like, and they love you unconditionally.

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Flirting: I have seen this subject around a bunch lately too. From my perspective there have been two common themes about it. One is the theme of “shame shame you shouldn’t be doing that.” And the other is the theme of “oh sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”. The first theme of shame shame; whats up with that? When did flirting become naughty or shameful? Flirting is a fun banter of a slightly “sexual” nature. AND????? It does not mean that you are going to run off and actually HAVE sex with the person. Sheesh. I flirt with quite a few people and some are married, some are single, some are male, some are female, some are older, and some are younger. It does not mean that I have any interest in these folks other than fun banter. Those of you who were yelling shame, just have dirty minds or something. Flirting does not equal sex. Flirting does not equal INTENT. Flirting is words, nothing more and nothing less. Get over it there is nothing wrong with flirting without intent. Now, to those who feel the need to apologize for flirting…. Why? Are there people who actually get upset if you flirt with them? If so I am in trouble. I flirt with pretty much anyone, randomly, and without asking… oops. I flirt with a lot of folks and I further confess that I have no interest in “sexual relations” with most of them (sad I know, stop crying). Some folks are just good flirters. Some flirters are kind of low key about it and some are downright blushy about it. I am not very good at it sometimes, but I try. Some folks just make it easier to flirt with them or bring that out better than others. Flirting is fun if it is kept CLEAN. Flirting is NOT fun when it becomes pornographic so please don’t send me pictures of naked bits, please don’t tell me in graphic details what you wish to do, and for goodness sakes, keep your clothes on. Other than that, please feel free to flirt. If I think it is a problem I will let you know, until then, don’t apologize for it and please don’t tell me how “wrong” it is.

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Truth: why is it that people will ask you something and NOT want to hear the answer? Or worse yet those people who INSIST that you be “brutally honest” with them and then get angry when you are? Why ask a question at all if you don’t want to know the answer? Why not simply say, “hey lie to me and tell me this looks great on me!” Or “Pretend I just asked you how your day was and pretend I listened intently.” “feeling down today, blow air up my skirt and tell me how fantastic I am..” I mean seriously. I would much rather someone simply be honest with me. I might not LIKE the answer but I want to know the truth. I have certain friends who I won’t go shopping with no matter how many times they ask, beg, or plead. Why? Besides the fact I HATE shopping, I hate going shopping with people who insist on dragging over to the fitting room while they try on stuff and ask your opinion. Then when you reply “yes honey it is a great dress but it doesn’t work so well on your body style” they blow a gasket. I’m sorry I missed the class in “girl school” where you are supposed to let your friend walk around looking like an idiot rather than politely say… “not for you dear.” More than that, I really hate when people will tell you ANYTHING looks great on you. Don’t laugh, I have tested this theory with some SERIOUSLY out there weird stuff and there are certain people who if they go shopping with me, I completely ignore their advice. The same holds for serious stuff too not just the fluff. Ever try to tell a friend that their significant other has a “bad habit”? Regardless of how bad the habit is, they get mad at who? Yeah, you. Still battling this with several family members DESPITE the fact that they have since told others “yeah, she was right” and I have NEVER EVER gone up to anyone and gone “told you so…”. Truth is truth. And once said, it is never grounds for gloating, nor is it something you should take lightly, nor is it anything that should ever be used against someone. Truth is not always nice but it should be treated nicely. You don’t have to be mean to be honest. Likewise you don’t always have to blurt the truth every second either sometimes the best answer is still to simply shut your mouth.

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Religion: Ok so I said I wasn’t going here, but I am anyway… I want someone to quote me CHAPTER and VERSE of where exactly it says in the bible (a REAL one, not necessarily a Christian one but ANY real one as opposed to a “modified one”) that if you do not follow a SPECIFIC RELIGION you are not going to heaven. I have read a lot of different bibles in my time. I went to parochial schools so I read in entirety both the King James and the New Revised Standard version. I also read parts of the “translated” Torah, I have read the catholic version, the Living Bible, as well as the Vedas. I have read bits of the religious texts of almost all the eastern religions. Religion and the understanding of the similarities and differences is a HUGE deal in my family. It has been for generations so I have a fair understanding of lots of them. The one thing I have NEVER seen in these texts is any sort of note that says, if your practice these beliefs in a different manner you are more (or less) holy and therefore will (or will not) go on to the afterlife. It simply IS not there. All these religious books have ONE very clear point: The NATURE of GOD and how you should and should not act. There is nothing in them that outlines all the rites and other things that make up organized religions. Those things are all WAYS of worship that were devised by MAN. That is not to say that they are right or wrong just that they are NOT the will of god. I want to point out as well that ALL these books also have something else in common, they are all the retelling of things by MAN. They may have had divine inspiration but none of these works was penned by God himself. To those “Christians” who believe that ANY non-Christian will not go to heaven, I would like to remind you…Jesus was a Jew, how do you explain that he sits on the “right hand of God” if non-Christians don’t go to heaven? Is it really so difficult to see that all religions are essentially the same? The rites and traditions vary as does the terminology to describe things but underneath it all they are ALL about the same thing, faith in a single higher ultimate power.

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Alcoholic Drinks:…. Perhaps I will have one tonight…. I have a top five list of drinks and it includes Margaritas, Daiquiris, Gin and Tonic, SoCo (or B&B depending on the season), and Gin Maritinis (sad that you have to add the “gin” these days). I love margaritas….on the rocks, light salt please…. I never used to order my margarita with light salt. I like the salt but not a lot of it in my drink even though my doctor tells me to eat more salt. Funny thing is that one of the FEW ways my dad and I are different is this one. He LOVES salt on his and can never seem to get enough to last the drink so he has a funny habit of reaching over and stealing a lick off my glass then drinking his own. It works for both of us. If he is not around I have to remember to ask for light salt or wipe it off. I also love daiquiris. They are yummy in all their wonderful flavors. I was quite sad to find this weekend that the ONLY good daiquiri shop around here is no longer owned by the NOLA institution of the Giacomo family. It is now owned by someone else and the daiquiri machines that used to line the walls are gone. In fact, they don’t even sell them anymore. I was sad. It had become just another yuppy bar. Maybe someday I will buy a bar and have my own herd of daiquiri machines along with all the old traditional drinks that are getting more difficult to order these days. They are actually advertising “classic” bars as a selling point so you can walk in off the street and not have to explain how to make a gin and tonic to the bartender. No offense to bar tenders, when all you get asked for is kiddie cocktails, that is what you are going to know how to make best.

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Ok, Now I really NEED that drink because it makes all the rest of this stuff easier to deal with…or at least you feel that way…. (kidding, sheesh, call off the intervention)….

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Defunkified for July 10, 2007

Yesterday while I was still deep in my funk, Haley pointed out the number of words in her tag cloud that she used MOST often and how some of them had serendipitous and entertaining connections. I had it in my head that I should take a look at my own tag cloud. I got as far as copying them down before the mood left.


I didn’t blog my original blog yesterday, I wrote some nastiness that hopefully will NEVER leave my e-mail, and failed yet again to follow through on a promise. Then today, Haley (dang her and her like-mindedness) blogs about the effects of procrastination…..


Meh, trapped, hoist on me own petard, and forced to walk me own dern plank…. Fine, finkle finger of fate….. Here, happy now?




These are the 40 items in MY Tag Cloud that get used the most often and are therefore in large type…. I am going to expand a bit on them in much the manner that I do with my friends list… because, well, it is my blog and I can do what I want to in it.


alien: How can I not spend a fair amount of time on these guys, they are my two closest friends and a huge part of my life.


andy_walo: What can I say, give credit where credit is due, this guy is a fabulous musician.


bands: Yeah well, I love live music. I try to encourage it where I can.


california: It is my home, I can’t imagine ever living elsewhere again…but am sure I will.


challenge: I have a lot of this in my life. I blog it for “posterity” in case my family ever wants to know and to hopefully inspire others….also used for those “writing challenges”.


cheese: Some days, you just need to have cheese. You can’t always be all serious and stuff.


date: I find a number of things are date related…some are even interesting.


death: Yeah well it IS the final outcome of life. It will happen to us all eventually.


Dog: I love my dog, she loves me back.


family: You can’t choose them, you have to go with what you got, or make your own…I do both.



friends: These you can chose…and some of mine make the jump to the previous tag.


happiness: Some days it is more elusive than others but it is the second strongest emotion in my arsenal.


hermosabeach: My spiritual home.


history: I have NO clue how this got to be such a big category…. I am TERRIBLE with history.


humor: yeah well, it keeps me going. You HAVE TO have a sense of humor in this life… in order to keep your happiness alive…


illness: See Aliens.


injury: It happens, it took a large chunk of my life….it gets written about.


jimmy_buffett: Oh man, this guy has the BEST lyric base. I can always find something to suit my mood. He has been one of my favorite musicians at every stage of my life.


life: Life is what happens while you are busy making plans…don’t let it get away from you… it is all well and good to plan for tomorrow as long as you still LIVE today you only get one shot at today.


love: It is a huge part of life. It is also a huge part of MY life.


me: It is MY blog, generally things here tend to reflect that…sorry if it is selfish.


music: There it is again…you would think it was important to me or something.


opinions: I have them and I am NOT afraid to use them.


perception: I have a very weird point of view. I am aware of it. Sometimes it gets away from me. I point it out sometimes.


pictures: I LOVE PICTURES! They are like little chunks of time saved forever!


quotes: I use a few I guess. Many people inspire me with their words.


sad: It happens, I try to keep it to a minimum but you need some to balance out your life.


self-belief: I have a hard time believing in myself sometimes. It comes out here…


self-image: Goes right along with the previous one. I simply can NOT see myself the same way you guys claim to.


series: I have written a few…they get upgraded automatically because well by definition…there is more than one...der.


sister: I have a few. I talk about one more than the others.


soul: I believe firmly in the power of it…


tag: I get tagged from time to time. I don’t like to do them because they get out of hand fast….but once in a while there is a good one…


theman: Yeah well…what can I say, I love the guy.


unfiltered: a recent addition that seems to be getting a lot of use….it means I tried to be brutally honest and not filter.


weather: It is a hot topic I tell ya.


weatherwithyou: It was a series….it is also a fantastic Jimmy Buffett CD.


weird: By my very nature, I find a lot of things weird, including most often, myself.


work: It takes up a large chunk of my every single day, it ends up getting written about.


writing: It is WHAT I do after all…first and foremost it is ME.



As for that promise mentioned up there, since it coincidentally matches the tags I will include it here: A while back I was given a gift from a buddy. My buddy, who goes by the name of Dick Deluxe gave me a copy of his CD ,Don't Borax the Borax Man. I told him I would give it a listen and tell him honestly what I thought of it.

I listened almost immediately and have not had a chance to talk to him since to tell him what I think of it. I like it. It is not my “normal style” of music (as if I have one) but it fits my “if it has a beat and you can sing to it” criteria so it passes. I could not POSSIBLY even begin to describe the type of music. Even HE can’t really describe it and says: “I'm describing as alt country, Americana, alt blues and country soul. What do I know?” As for ME I am going to simply describe it as “good” and tell you to go listen for yourself. Dick, buddy, if you are reading this….thanks for the CD, it gets a fair amount of airtime and a thumbs up from me.

When I Finally Grow a Pair on July 09, 2007

So I have had one of those days that just makes me want to write a nasty blog and in fact I did. I wrote a great spoof on that tag going around and called it "10 weird things that really hack DeeAnne off". I didn't post it because as with most controversial things... I gave myself a cooling off period and e-mailed it to myself. Good thing I did because I came home and my entire DAY changed… I arrived at the house to find a PACKAGE on my door step…
































So now, I am reclining nekkid on my bed playing with the contents of it. I have the feather boa wrapped around my leg so I don’t get cold and I am feeling kind of happy and good playing with my new pair….of nuts. Oh yeah I am a happy camper…..and I gots me some GREAT friends.....

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Sense and Sense-ability on Sunday July 08, 2007

This subject keeps coming up on blogs here and there and it also came up on one or two of those 20 questions surveys thingies that go around. It has been phrased in a number of ways but all pretty much come down to the same thing which is your favorite sense and why (one survey asks it as if you could only HAVE one and another asks which one you could give up)?
School children are routinely taught that there are five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste) so I am going to focus only on those for the purposes of this discussion.

Smell is probably my least favored of the senses and most likely the first I would give up under duress. Most likely because growing up with allergies smell is the first sense to go during some seasons. I do have a very good scent memory and can pick out very subtle scents on a good day. Other days, I can’t smell a darn thing. That to me makes the sense of smell already disposable. I do have several scents that to me are very special. I can generally recognize a loved one by their scent and it feels like a close hug. The smell of mums takes me immediately to the feel of one tucked behind my ear by my mom in those fall mornings on my way to school. The scent of coffee makes me long for the warmth it holds. The smell of certain lilies and roses brings immediately to mind the silky smoothness of their petals.

Taste would be next on my list. It is actually sort of a toss up as to if it is first or second and a tough call but I am putting it second for now. While I enjoy a flavor as much as the next guy I have never been one of those folks who will go crazy describing a flavor in nearly sexual graphical detail and wonderment. To me a flavor is a flavor. I enjoy some, I don’t enjoy others, and some flavors bring back pleasant memories and some don’t. I have to say that there are some very pleasant flavors out there that rank high on my list like the fiery warmth of a spicy curry, the ticklish taste of honey, the silky feel of fresh ice cream, the smooth caress of a fine bourbon, or the salty sting of sweat on skin.

Sight is a touchy one for me right now. Having spent most of my life in and out of glasses or contacts I have always felt vision was temporary anyway but it also is one of the senses we use a lot. This has obviously come up for me more frequently lately with the issue with Maxwell the Alien deciding to take up residence between my eyes and shove those pesky optic nerves out of his way. I have been losing sight rapidly in my right eye and slower in my left. This is a bit scary as living HERE where I do I can do most things without my vision. I already do most of my day-to-day getting around on foot but certain things require I drive to them. Public transportation would work for SOME things but others seriously require a car. Work could be dealt with (with the advances in software for talk to text) it would be almost a non-issue assuming I could GET there. For the most part I already don’t rely on my vision. I seldom turn on a light in the dark to get around preferring instead to simply get through on memory and feel. I have some favorite visual memories that bring back a place and time and the feeling that the place brought with it.
Hearing is obviously one of my favorite senses. No one here I am sure has ever noticed that I have a thing for music. I love the lyrical turn of phrase that comes along with good music, I love the rhythm of the notes, and the up and down flow of the chords as the verses pass by. Yeah, yeah I could go on and on about music but you get the point. I also love the turn of a phrase, the accents that people have in their speech, and all the different words people use to express themselves. There are certain accents and voices that just really get to me. I have certain people in my live to whom I could just happily listen to forever. There are certain voice types that I hear that just make me happy, the deep rumbly bass of a “James Earl Jones” type voice, the rough whiskey and cigarettes of a “Sam Elliott” type, or the lyrical lilting turn of almost ANY European accent. I am huge fan of the contact high to be had from having a conversation with a loved one while one ear is pressed up against them. Mmmm hearing….but it is not my favorite.
Touch has got to be my favorite sense. I am by my very nature a touchy person. I move through life touching everything around me. Sometimes it is as subtle as the simple act of placing my fingers on something other times it is very obvious as I come to a full stop to stop pick up and explore every surface of something that has caught my attention.

One of my earliest childhood memories centers around my Baba (my dad’s dad, my grandfather). Back in my youth most fabrics were painted with designs or used plain. My Baba was working with some experimental dyes and colorings. There are great family memories about this time including one about having a green spotted dog for a while but my favorites are from the times where I would be taken to the textile mills with him while he examined some new thing. I would often fall quickly behind as I stopped frequently to touch all the fabrics hanging off the looms or hanging off the ends of the tables. I can close my eyes to this day and just feel the rough woven fabric most commonly used for pants and skirts back then. It was a cotton but almost a burlap or rough twill and for women’s skirts the lower edge was painted in silk screened images one color over the other to make a design. I spent many happy hours running my fingers back and forth from the rough material to the ever smoother layers of paint to the total smoothness of the top layer. This would be the place where my lifetime fascination with textured fabrics started I am sure. It follows me to this day. I have a friend who has what has to be the world’s greatest shirt. It literally almost drives me insane. It is woven in some very unusual style where it actually has stripes of different textures. A smooth stripe is bordered by a raised edge and followed by a rough stripe….yow. A deadly combination that is nearly impossible to keep from touching. It makes me feel like a cat with catnip, I can’t resist and want to just roll around on it…….
Quick change the subject…..touch plays a huge role in my other love that most people who have been around me know about. Rocks. I have a fascination with them too. The ever changes textures and temperatures of rocks… I love them. I have quite the rock collection even though I TRY to keep it under control. Certain rocks are just irresistible. I love how a cool rock can be warm on the other side. How a very smooth rock will just slip right through your fingers like silk. The grabbing feel of a rough rocky surface. I can spend hours with a single rock and have been known to find one that strikes my fancy and carry it around all day just to keep touching it.
Actually I am that way about anything I find myself fascinated with the feel of. I find it not uncommon to catch myself unconsciously touching something. The incredibly soft almost too fine to be real fur behind the bunny’s ears, the smooth fur on the top of the dog’s head, the burr cut hair down the sides of The Man’s head, hair on smooth skin, muscles (not the overbuilt Arnold kind please), wood grain, tile, glass, a textured pillow, the gel pad in front of my keyboard, the difference in texture of the keys on that keyboard (some worn smooth while others still have their original roughness, the small ridge on the F and J keys)… My friends all have over time become used to this irritating habit of mine. My BMF has long since given up trying to keep me from messing up his hair (incredible baby soft curls) and just learned to live with it. Likewise my friend with the incredibly smooth soft skin has become used to me stroking her arm. I have several friends with very strong rough hands from working with them all day who patiently sit while I run my hands over theirs for hours.
I have another sneaky obsession. This one is so sneaky that I think most people are not even aware that I am doing it. Most often when caught (not everyone can feel me do it if I don’t want them to) people tend to think I am actually touching them and then are surprised to see my hand hovering OVER where they feel me (if I tell them what I am doing instead of simply moving my hand away). I love to touch auras. The silky smooth yet electric tickly feel of an aura draws me in. From there they all feel different and I love to see what people’s aura feels like. It is indescribable and I get more information from the FEEL of someone’s aura than from the mental picture that comes with it. There is my secret… I am an aura-o-phile…. I sneak a touchy peek at people’s auras…. Kidding mostly. I do have a habit of touching people’s auras but I don’t generally do it to random folks just to those who are close to me. Funny thing is some people very close to me are so in tuned to me doing it that they have been known to tell me without even looking… ”stop touching my aura”.
Touch, yeah, touch is my favorite sense. Actually if you look at the descriptions about in all my OTHER senses you will see a common thread. Almost every other sense to me is describable as a FEEL. The only one that has a component that is NOT a feeling is sound. It DOES have a part that is very definitely “touch” and I have been known to be where I can’t HEAR something and put my hand on a surface and simply FEEL it. I also catch myself sitting with my foot on a speaker or another surface where I can “feel” the music. I think actually this is part of the draw of live music, it is both the music itself and the actual FEEL of the music in a more surround than surround sound fashion. So in the final analysis, I like having all my senses but the one I think I can’t live with out would be touch.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

I am definitely awake NOW....


Thursday:
Five AM came WAY too soon….So this morning I was sitting in my office half asleep going over the notes my boss left scattered across my desk. Ok half asleep is an understatement, I was well into my second cup of coffee and pretty much still asleep but that is not the point, let’s just say I was less than present. I have on the “usual” office attire that is a skirt, blouse, my everyday shoes, and my long fuzzy sweater(cold in my office). I am trying VERY hard to concentrate on the papers in front of me when something extremely large crawls up my bare leg. I am not ashamed to say I squealed like a girl as my leg shot out and hit the bottom edge of the desk HARD. I saw something large and brown get catapulted off my leg and under the drawer section of the desk as my chair shot back.

It is this moment when the sudden movement attracts attention from the hall. My chair is a good three feet away from my desk with me still in it. I am bent over hugging my wounded leg and trying to get an angle to SEE what it is under my desk. This apparently is not at ALL concerning as the co-worker who stuck his head in says calmly “so how was your day?” I spare “J” a glance long enough to say “yesterday was fine, today so far not so good.” It is at this point my pose seems to register with him. “you ok?” I share the story with him and we share a laugh.

Then “J” too begins to wonder what EXACTLY IS under my desk. He comes around to the other side and tries to get an angle to see. No luck. He rattles the LAN cable to see if he can get the thing to move out of the shadows. Nope, it won’t budge. He glances around then gets on his hands and knees and crawls under the desk! He crawls around and tried to get an angle and suddenly I hear “dear god!” and he shoots out from under the desk. He quickly peruses the top of my desk and grabs the paper towel that I normally set my coffee on. He goes back under the desk and I see his arm reach into the dark space carefully. He makes a quick grab, yells “sweet holy jesus!” and flies out of the space. He throws the towel in the trash and does the whole shivery, wiggly, creepy crawly dance. I raise an eyebrow at him as he twitches and moves to the doorway. Then with a shudder and one more “dear god” he trots down the hall to the men’s room.

I glance over into the trashcan and find myself face to “face” with a very dead, very large cockroach (yeah the picture was a spoiler). This thing is massive. By massive I mean over two inches long. Needless to say, I left my office very quickly. I wandered to the back and found my very brave coworker. He was in his own office still twitching and mumbling. I thanked him profusely and we had a nervous laugh about the whole thing much to the amusement of my other co-workers. They are not used to such girly behavior from me and my description of my girlish reaction amused them….right up until “J” described the SIZE of the thing, then the crowd dispersed rapidly.

I finally made my way back to my office and after scouting the area under my desk very carefully (from a distance) sat back down. Needless to say, my legs are NOT going under that desk for a while. I will have a huge bruise on my leg and a complex about putting my legs under my desk for sometime... Currently cross-legged in the chair turned sideways so no part of me is subject to further attacks.

The feeling of something THAT large unexpectedly walking up your bare leg is indescribable.

My coworkers are now trying to spook me by making scurrying noises on the walls around my office.





So that’s the highlights for me so far…how is YOUR week going?
OH BTW....picture from google image search for big nasty cockroach....found multiple sites so no idea who to credit for it.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Reblogification for July 03, 2007

A whole lot of Jimmy and just a little tiny bit me….
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Hey good lookin' brown eyed girl,
My lovely lady, because of you I’m down on the knees of my heart, my school boy heart, and I feel like I have found me a home with you. You are my perfect partner, honey do you know how happy I was to hear you love me too? Here’s to love that is bigger than the both of us. So glad you decided to come back baby!
I hope you know that I had to try my love and luck one more time, you know, play my ace card, and tell you all the ways I love you in that last letter. Our love in decline had made me an altered boy because I really thought we would live happily ever after. I know you call it jogging, but why you wanna hurt my heart? Please don’t leave me ever again? I know I acted like a dork when I was a brand new country star and you spent your time waiting for the next explosion. I am coming around to the fact that it’s my job, I can’t let the city turn me into god’s own drunk again, I have to fight the good fight, because the good guys win, and some day I will be the last man standing, if I just keep making music for money.
Shoot, all this big sea of heartbreak, just because we are the people our parents warned us about when they were growing older but not up and looked out their secret window on the world. Sorry I can't be your hero today, but There's nothin' soft about hard times and I don’t know and I don’t care what I was thinking when I helped the canecutter, the wrangler and the 12 volt man commit “The Great Filling Station Holdup”, but maybe it has nothing to do with them it was just a Cuban crime of passion or something But I made a turnabout and found my truck stop salvation at Dukes on Sunday there at the domino college. I cashed myself out of the bank of bad habits.
Whoop de doo, yeah the wino and I know that won’t matter when the wild life betrays me like the last time. But don’t chu know, they’re sending the old man home now and I am traveling clean because I want your respect. Lady I can’t explain but I know some times you think I am a cultural infidel too so I’m coming home only when the coast is clear and you know why you are with me and we understand why we do the things we do. Otherwise it is apocalypso time and we will be in the barometer soup. Please by pass the heart unless you can take it back, that thing you said, let your spirit fly because life is just a tire swing, don’t just pay me lip service, bend a little and show me you have the great heart I know you do. Then together we can bring back the magic of our boomarang love, breathe in, breathe out, and move on with living it up.
This baby’s gone shopping with my spending money and I have some presents to send you, the hang out gang, and sweet caroline. For the little mademoiselle I got the prince of tides, for you there is a diamond as big as the ritz, and for the gang I have their x-mas bonuses.
So when I get home to our little beachhouse on the moon, why don’t we get drunk at the tiki bar? Then we can go out and get some grapefruit-juicy fruit, boat drinks and a cheeseburger in paradise at the club volcano. If we have enough drinks I know I will wake up and Wonder Why We Ever Go Home because my head hurts', my feet stink and I don’t love Jesus anymore but it would be worth it.
Last year, I spent Christmas in the Caribbean, on a slow boat to china with this lady I can’t explain. She was kind of a Jamaica mistaica and then she gave me the Jamaica farwell. Anywa, It was a sea cruise on a steamer, called “off to see the lizard” and Man the stories we could tell! At first it was nothing but a breeze then the captian was pointing out the Bama Breeze as we passed and he got us stranded aon a sand bar! Fortunately for him a big banana wind came up and pushed us beyond the end before he was barefootin down the gangplank! Anyway it was a great cruise! There were people making love in the library by the time we got to mexico. there were a bunch of elvie imitators on board and they had a show called elvis presley blues. That is what living is to me! I had brought my blue guitar and we made some homemade music everytime I would say “tonight I just need my guitar” and it would become a carnival world! There was this couple named Frank and Lola who would sing a love song. We would do some six string music like the ballad of skip wiley, blue heaven redevous, and the ballad of spider john, Then this lady in a west Nashville grand ballroom gown would show up and sing the wind cries Mary before she would just disappear again. She was morris’ nightmare! He was convinced she was one of the Werewolves of London! He was a little freaky about werewolves, vampires, mummies, and the holy ghost. The people would scream don’t stop and we would play until the dawn was pacing the cage. It was overkill and we were like gypsies in the palace on the far side of the world, and by the end of the cruise they were complaining that nobody speaks the captain no more but it had a happy ending if I could just get it on paper.
So while I was traveling around, I stopped in at reggeabilly Hill, Autour de Roche, I went back to England, and to our island. It got you on my mind which was a good mental floss I guess. Kind of like seeing a mermaid in the night, it leaves you thinking things that only time will tell.
Anyway, string bean, I have been writing this note in quiet villages here and there as I tour around. I have been riding in style. I borrowed the Uss zydecoldsmobile from Uncle John’s band. You know the one with the hood ornament that says “math sux” and shifts like its got fifteen gears? He told me just to be sure to treat her like lady and she would run like a wheel within a wheel with Silver wings whatever that means. Today is a lovely day, a sunny afternoon and Dallas Livingston is going to meet me in Memphis and take me out to the ballgame. Afterwards he says he is going to take me someplace called Dixie’s diner for popeyes and hubigs. I don’t kow what that means but he says it is a lot of eating with your fingers and that if it all falls down I can just get a dreamscicle. I dunno, I will burn that bridge when I get to it. For now, I wish lunch could last forever. I mean since livngston’s gone to texas to live at rancho deluxe like a remittance man I haven’t seen him much. The last time I saw him he suddenly yelled “Wait, who’s that blonde stranger over there? She reminds me of someone I used to love and it’s making me go incommunicado, so come Monday, if the phone does not ring it’s me.” I looked around and Everybody’s on the phone staring at him. Next thing I know they got him locked up in the hospital talking about false echoes. He was yelling I am just a flesh and bone hula girl at heart, Jimmy dreams he’s the king of somewhere hot, delany talks to statues, and Desdemona is building a rocket ship as they dragged him down the hall. He seems a whole lot better now.
Anyway, last night I was in Rockefeller square watching the nautical wheelers dance. It was kind of cool though the natives got restless towards midnight. Then this bell started ringing, ringing, and ringing like it would go to the middle of the night. Then I noticed this fountain the reflection in it looked like the stars were on the water, my lucky stars. Some real smart woman in a real short skirt said it was the southern cross but I am not sure.
I am sure you survived without me on California promises from Ellis Dee, that guy with the pencil thin moustache. I remember when he got Tampico trauma and ran off to the Banana Republics. It was bound to happen because when a pirate looks at forty he only sees a son of a son of a sailor. Then the next thing you know he ends up halfway between the Captain and the kid and thinking he’s freaking Captain America. Got people thinking Ain't he a genius spouting off about the death of an unpopular poet? I had heard he went to Paris but then he made landfall in the shelter of Biloxi because he thought the stars fell on Alabama. I think he lost his last mango in Paris but that just me. He must miss you so badly now that you’re Havana daydreamin’ without him.
Man, I had this hotel room, a mile high in Denver, that sucked. It was decorated with Scarlet Begonias and had walls so thin so you can hear every big rig go by outside and there was a woman goin crazy on Caroline Street screaming “the railroad lady knows there is something so feminine about a mandolin and the whole Peanut Butter Conspiracy”. That whole place was loaded with fruitcakes. I swear I can’t take another Livingston Saturday night so I am gonna move on down to the coast of Marseilles. I can hang out for a bunch of mañanas and become just another cowboy in the jungle. I am changing channels I know, but I have an offer o a job catlle trucking at “Rustlers that’s us”. It means countin the cows everyday and living some gothic ranch action but it is good money if I can get over my brahma fear and maybe I can get enough to get my barracuda out of impound. There’s a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling huh? I know she was pre-you but losing her left me with a nail to drive.
Maybe after that I can look up my African friend. You remember him he’s the Christian, you know, Richard Frost, the missionary? He’s a real piece of work and he’s got boats to build but he gave me a license to chill with him on the coast of Carolina some holiday. Anything, anytime, anywhere he says, come make some coastal confessions and we’ll go listen to the jolly mon sing and play his saxophones with Bob Robert's Society Band. Maybe I’ll wait until the next trip around the sun because it is simply complicated. I really enjoy playin' the loser again hanging out and conky tonkin' with him but down there, they don’t dance like Carmen no more do they or so I heard it on the coconut telegraph, I don’t know.
Well, I need to kick it in second wind because it’s a ragtop day and I heard I was in town. I’ve been defying gravity and trying to reason with the hurricane season. You know what they say, changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes. I’m gonna make one last migration to do the Pascagoula run or maybe take another road and see some fins at Lone Palm. Hang out and watch barefoot children sing the “Chanson Pour Les Petits Enfants”. Maybe even dance the desperation samba with some senoritas. Then again, everybody's talkin' about this one particular harbour in Creola. Either way I have to tell you it’s been a lovely cruise, but it is time to sail on sailor.
I can’t remember when I slept last, I think it was in the back of the bus on the way to Florida for Floridays after the cinco de mayo in Memphis. I remember having some really bizarre dreams and I was coming down slow from the party at the end of the world. Anyway I dreamed I was telling savannah fare you well, I am going down to bourbon street. And while she is going out of my mind, I am playing that game show Money back Guarantee, can’t choose a door (a typical high Cumberland dilemma), finally I opened door number three, and this strange bird jumps out. It is wearing oysters and pearls. And it is dancing the funky Kingston while it sings, come to the moon, the everlasting moon, Everyone has a cousin in Miami, and while they are distantly in love, they can’t be the Frenchman for the night as long as death valley lives! It’s a semi-true story, When you take your first look you will know why god doesn’t own a car. It’s a gravity storm and today’s message is when the weather is with you, while you are wondering where the lions are, when Salome plays the drum, you will realize that it is five o’clock somewhere and think what if the hokey pokey really is what it is all about? She’s got you, she’s got you!! Ever since that night I have been trying to figure out what it all means.
I plan to be back for the High Cumberland Jubilee if I can. I hear there is no plane on Sunday but I can work around that. I am not sure if I will have a paying job there yet or not. I talked to my manger who told me I will never work in this business again but I used to have money one time and at this point I will play for gumbo. I mean I love the now but it is midnight and I am not famous yet. Who knows, maybe I ruined my chances the night I painted the sky, quietly making noise, somewhere over china. I don’t know, maybe I just have those Perrier blues wondering where’s the party at.
Well, little miss magic, I promise this is the last line of clichés cause I am gonna push the fool button and go back to the island to hang out in Margaritaville with my tin cup chalice. That is my story and I am sticking to it. Je manque la vie dansante et l'air de la Louisiane mais c'est pourquoi l’age nom ai.
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*with sincere apologies to Jimmy Buffett...

Monday, July 2, 2007

Running for June 30, 2007

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
Its a death trap, its a suicide rap
We gotta get out while were young`cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
Well run till we drop, baby well never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire`cause baby Im just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real
Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hardThe amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you wendy on the streets tonightIn an everlasting kiss
The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybodys out on the run tonight but theres no place left to hide
Together wendy well live with the sadness
Ill love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I dont know when were gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and well walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run
~~Bruce Springsteen Born to Run

I was never much of a Springsteen fan. I lived through that time where everyone thought the sun rose and set on his rump. I was there when every TV set had the “new” MTV blaring out his music videos practically every other song. I have to confess though that I DID have a secret affection for the song born to run. To me, it was never about the illicit love on the outskirts of town that all the girls of my age thought it was.

To me, it was more about the wind in my hair, tearing down the road as fast as the motorcycle could go, looking forward as far as my eyes could see to get the first look at what was coming up. It was about knowing that whatever THIS place held, somewhere out THERE was a place that held the answers to all my questions, was where my heart could be found, and where all my dreams would come true.

Over the years, I have come to know that this ride and this place is not so much a physical one as a mental one. We find this place in a lot of places but it is ALWAYS the mental connection that really does it for us. I had a pretty crappy week, I won’t deny it. It must have come through in more ways than I thought because again as always, my friends, stepped forward and offered me a hand up of the floor, a well timed hug, a giggle or twelve, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing you are loved. Oddly enough, I was thinking of this song today when one of my dearest friends popped it in her blast. I smiled when I clicked it and saw what it was. She would later e-mail me and tell me she had done it FOR me, with me in mind, and that she felt the same way about the song as I did.

Why was this song in my mind today? Without going into personal details it came to mind because last night I was talking to a friend when his mind went to somewhere incredibly painful. I saw the pain surface once briefly, then he got “control” again and then later it would suddenly return in a huge way. It was so sudden and so huge he simply signed off.

I wasn’t in a position to help much myself. I did what I could before my eyes gave out and I went to lay sleepless in the dark. Whether or not we, any of us not specifically my friend, admit it, holidays are extremely difficult.

For those with family there is the usual angst of preparations both physical and mental for the day. There is the build up and let down of unrealistic expectations. For those of us who may be far away from family, without any, or without specific members there is the pain of being alone or feeling alone. For many military folks, both present and past, the “military holidays” and the remembrances they bring are extremely difficult as well. For still others there is the pain of not being able to FEEL happy like they FEEL they should and this brings and added FEELING of isolation and aloneness that simply can not be eased. For me it is a combination of them all to one point or another. I find myself thinking of friends and family lost, of military friends and the sacrifices they make both mental and physical for us, and because I find that these things leave me more melancholy than feeling the urge to celebrate. For whatever reasons there may be for others, and I am certain that there are multitudes of reasons I have not listed, I know that holidays are just freakin hard.

For my part, I can no longer simply hop on that motorcycle of my youth and go screaming down the highway hair whipping in the wind chasing towards that place and away from the demons that haunt me. Instead today, for my friend, I plan to go out, put the top down on the car, and go screaming down the highway at least once. Then I will be heading for the beach where hopefully the roar of the waves will drown out the sound of my alien infested voice singing along to this song. Once completed, I plan to hit blues night in your honor, not because I actually have any desire to go today, but because you told me how you felt it made me feel. I hope that somehow, through some means, I can pass that feeling along to you. Because you mean the world to me and I want you to know that……

What the heck do I want you to know? Do I even know? Not really I guess. I think I want you to know that I am thinking of you, I want you to know that somewhere out there that place IS there. There is a place where the physical and the mental come together. In THAT place, the physical limitations of this world are gone, we are unhampered by them and more importantly all those who are lost to this world are unhampered by them as well. This place does exist. It is in our hearts, our souls, and in the spirit of our love and in that place no one or nothing is ever lost to us if we could just find it.

Because we WERE born to run…

Monday, June 25, 2007

Motivating Passion for June 25, 2007

I was going to save this for another day but you know…..once it starts bugging me….I have to say it so…it will be another two blog day. Read Passion first or this one might not make much sense.

I mentioned in a comment on my passions blog today about someone who was giving me grief on more than one front. I said….

“I think the person was TRYING to make me feel like I only LIKED people based on what they could "give" me. It was someone I have recently cut down my time with finding that their "new personality" was not working for me...in fact was causing me more trouble than it was worth.”
This person who we shall call Doesn’t Fool Me Anymore (“DFMA”) used to be a fairly close friend of mine. We have known each other a long time. DFMA is one of those people who has a passion or perhaps I should say had a passion. He has been squelching his passion for a while now and I think it has begun to warp his brain. He has become moody, irritable, and down right cranky sometimes. Normally it would not be a problem. In fact, he has gone through similar cycles before without it fazing me in the slightest. This time is different.

Always highly analytical I used to look forward to our conversations. They were always highly charged, informative, and exciting. Sounds like one of those passion things huh? Well it was. He was passionate about understanding, learning, and sharing views. It was fun to be around.
Then things changed. Suddenly all analysis was directed AT me. Not as in I was the one to converse about these things with him, as in DFMA became obsessed with analyzing me: my every movement, my thoughts, my actions, and my motives. Normally this would not be a problem. I am pretty much an open book as those of you here know. I tend to just say what’s on my mind and remain open to what other folks may have to say about it. I ask for and listen to opinions. The difference was that this person was not doing it in the “normal” way. By normal I mean, I say something, they give me their opinion. Not at all, DFMA was doing what I call the whisper. He was a “whisperer” .

I think to some extent we all have “whisperers” or have had them. They are the folks who are or become the one of the little voices in your head. Sometimes these are good voices, like the one that sounds like your mom that says, “maybe you should look both ways before crossing the street” and other times they are the bad voices that say” you aren’t good enough”. When I call someone a “whisperer” I mean that the person is in a position where their opinion carries some weight. They are more or less “trusted” voices in our life. A true “whisperer” is not a person who has your best interests at heart all the time…they have a MOTIVE. The motive may be good or as in this case, it may not be good.

As far as DFMA goes I am NOT 100% certain of his motive. I am certain it was one or two things and neither is good. The end result of which was that he had taken to making commentary on every single thing I did. Bad commentary. Making me hypersensitive and over-analytical of my every move. More than that, making me suspect the moves and motives of those around me.

You all know I have not been in a good place lately. In fact it was pretty much a bad place. I am not going to pretend that my life has been all sunshine and light recently but I can say with 100% certainty that normally it would NOT put me where I have been either. Need proof? Go read my “personal amusement” blog….nothing EVER gets me down like I have been. I was extremely sick as a child, I think the main thing it taught me besides how to amuse myself was how to laugh at myself. That carried me though my entire life. I was rarely ever sick after the age of 10 but the lessons learned carried me through lots of other stuff…hard to feel sorry for yourself because you broke your arm when you are busy laughing at what a klutz you are. This further carried me through some seriously scary stuff with my ex. Hard to be scared when you are laughing right?

A few years back, when I got hurt at work things were pretty much the same. I mocked the wheel chair, converted a mechanics creeper into my personal “DeeAnne sized work wheelie”, and generally was my normal self. Over time I noticed things start to change. I wasn’t able to laugh at myself so quickly and things began to get me down. I put this down to the drama with my sister. She was always so quick to tell me how sorry she was for me and how bad she felt for me that after awhile you start to feel like maybe you are pretty pathetic and you are bringing others down with you….it is a downward spiral from there. After our little blow up and her subsequent disappearance things were different for a bit. I thought it was because she was no longer whispering. I now know it was because I had also cut myself off from another more deadly “whisperer”, DFMA, at the same time. It wasn’t intentional. I was spending all my time doing the surgery and associated recovery. Then the contact started up again and slowly so did the personal questioning I was doing.

At first it was minor stuff just me questioning choices I made and the like. It was never obvious more like introspection. Then like I said recently all that changed and DFMA changed. Everything became a question, everyone around me was questioned, and every action was analyzed. At first I thought it was a protective thing. Honestly just now it occurs to me that this is EXACTLY the same behavior as my ex. Scary. On the surface protective but a deeper motive, one slightly more sinister. His motive was simple. He could not drive people out of my life but he could make ME do it. He could make me worry, wonder, and question those around me until I either was so convinced of their ill will that I would cut off contact with them or would make me question them so much that they would cut off contact from me convinced of my ill will.
It took a bit to figure it out. It took a lot more to make me accept it. I first noticed something was amiss back around late January early February when he made some comments about his less than pure motives and I actually cut of contact with him for a bit. Then I decided that everyone deserved a second chance so I gave him one still not really understanding what was going on. Then it came up again in April when he said some things I was not so sure about his motives for saying. Those things cause me a lot of trouble by making me even more insecure about my position. I put it down to my weird situation and again let it slide. It came up again recently and I really questioned it. This time it almost cost me a friend before I caught myself and explained everything to THAT friend. After much explaining, over-explaining, and finally simply asking and trusting I was relieved to have that friendship back on track but the whole thing made me take a good hard look at Mr. DFMA. I talked to some friends who could be trusted, I talked to some family, and finally had to accept that he was in fact not being a friend. I was hurt. I tried to justify it, find reasons for it, and excuse it. In the end I couldn’t. This person was in a position of trust, he knew what was going on in my life, and he knew what harm his words were doing. He simply didn’t care. I finally had to accept that this was how he was going to be and so I am severely limiting my conversations with him. I make huge attempts not to have any conversations with him when there is not another party involved.

I don’t like being guarded with people but I am finding that sometimes you have to….does this mean I am finally growing up? Probably not, but I can say that I feel a whole lot better since I have been doing this. I feel more…like me again. I am finding myself laughing more, feeling happy more, and able to see the good in me. It is not perfect but it is a start back to where I was. I am not sure I will ever get all the way back there to where I was but I am also not so sure I want to either.

Even still limiting my contact still allows certain things to slip through like the snarky remark about my friends and my motives for having them but the difference is that now the NEW me is learning to not question myself about them but to instead recognize the motive behind that comment and simply allow me to stand up for what I believe and quietly say what’s on my mind.

Motivating me to regain some of my old passion… hmm maybe I am growing up just a little, I kind of like it.

Passion for June 25, 2007

Someone said something to me the other day that sort of struck home with me. I carried that comment around with me for a few days as I mulled it over and over. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and just knew I had to blog it….

The comment was….You are always bragging about your friends and how talented they are. Do you feel like you are better than you are because you hang around with people like that? Or do you just pump your friends up to be more than they are?

The comment hit me sort of sideways at the time and I simply let it go. For one thing I didn’t feel like getting into the argument I knew the person was looking for but more than that, I knew that no matter what I said I also knew that this person was NEVER going to understand my answer. I actually felt kind of bad for not saying anything…but whatever.
So my answer is actually that I brag about my friends because each and every one of them has something worthy of bragging about. They span the spectrum of skills and abilities from the obvious to the obscure but each and every one of my friends has a unique and amazing skill or talent. I do not overstate their fantasticness, They rock, EOD.

The rest of the question is somewhat more complex and can not be understood if I were to simply answer without explaining. The answer simply is yes, I do feel like I am better than I am because of the people I hang around with. I DO get something from them but it is not what you might think.

Let’s start with how/why these people become people I want to be my friends. First of all it is not the talent/skill/whatever that draws me to them. It is what is BEHIND that which intrigues me. You see all my friends draw their talents and skills from the same pool. The end results are widely varied. What is it that all these people from so many different walks of life have in common to make them all so special to me? The pool they draw from is passion. Every single one of my friends is special because they draw their skill from something that they feel passionately about.

What? Passion? I don’t get it. Why is that interesting? Isn’t everyone passionate about something?

No, not at all. I would guess that probably most people feel strongly about SOMETHING or other but I am talking about passion here. There is a huge difference. When I am talking about passion, I am talking about the kind of people who when they talk about something, their whole BEING lights up. That is what draws me to them. People who not only HAVE but EMBRACE that kind of passion have a special gift. Their ability to feel that kind of passion translates to everything that they do and everything around them. They know the joy of doing/feeling/living that which inspires passion in them and that makes them a unique personality.

Let me give an example. For instance, I have worked with many engineers over my lifetime and to be honest most of them are pretty skilled. I mean you sort of have to have some kind of skill in that field. You spend years in college working on it, honing the skills in your jobs, and just repetition itself. They don’t really impress me. The engineer who really does impress me is my friend Rick. He was describing a new machine to me one day. It was something we were about to start work on and he was finalizing the concept. As he described it to me his whole face lit up, his body became more animated, and he described it in glowing terms. He sensed at one point that I was grinning at him. He stopped mid-description and smiled sort of bashfully. “What?” He asked, “I can’t help getting excited, isn’t it sexy?” I had to agree that it was. Seriously you can not BUY that kind of enthusiasm. You have to feel it and it can not be faked. Sexy indeed. Don’t get me wrong I am not talking about the desire to toss him down and have my way with him, far from it, I am talking about the overall appeal of it. They get excited about something and by association you can not help but get excited by it too. I am not surprised that one of my all time favorite jobs was working for Rick…the entire job was fun, exciting, challenging, and face it, sexy. It was not without its challenges, it did have days that just plain sucked, and it ended badly when we got bought and closed but I still can’t deny it was one of my favorites still simply because of Rick. He not only was LIKE that himself, he tended to hire people who were like that as well. You can enjoy your job or whatever it is that you do but those who feel passionate about what they do take it to a whole other level.

The same thing I have noticed applies to non-friend things as well. I find myself drawn more to music when the musician is passionate, more able to relate to the movie of the actor who does it because they love it, and so on regardless of how “mainstream popular” they are. I think this is why you will find me more likely to show up at certain concerts than others. It is not JUST that I am cheap, it is because you are more likely to find the truly passionate folks there. I mean you really have to love what you do in order to deal with doing it for very little financial reward so generally those who are looking to make it big won’t hang around long. Likewise I have seen some very talented and passionate folks LOSE that passion once the thing becomes a “job”. I knew some fantastic musicians who became famous only to find that suddenly when everyone begins to put demands on you and tell you how to do it, it loses its appeal very quickly and they lost that passion that made them special. Oddly enough some of them dropped out and got “day jobs” for a while only to find that they quickly re-found that passion. I believe this is what drives the “comebacks” in some cases and I know in some cases it is what keeps them doing the “small stuff” and careful to avoid getting so big and out of control again.

Lest you think that this is limited to JOB skills let be quickly stop that thought. In some cases this could not be further from the truth. The discussion has come up around here more than once about stay at home mom’s and their “value”. I have several friends who chose to be stay at home moms because they felt passionately about it. In some cases these are highly educated and highly skilled women who gave it all up to stay home and raise their kids. Someone once made the mistake to call that a “Waste” in front of me. I disagreed almost violently. Why? Because doing what you feel passionate about is NEVER a waste. These women would have been sad, frustrated, and unhappy to have someone else raise their kids while they “worked” out side the home and THAT would have translated at home. Instead by doing what they felt strongly about they BRING that passion to the lives of their spouses and kids. These “non-working” friends of mine have a gift and a skill to be fantastic homemakers simply because they are passionate about it. Likewise someone who did not WANT to stay home and care for their kids and felt strongly that they SHOULD be working outside the home SHOULD DO SO because to deny that passion is wrong.

The same is true about many others of my friends and in many cases it is not the OBVIOUS thing either. I have who is a very talented singer. She has a passion that drives her and that passion is what draws me to her. It is NOT singing. What drives her is a desire to honor a legacy. Her uncle was a quite famous musician. He taught her everything he knew before he died far too young. She feels strongly that it was meant to be that he should teach her these things before he died so that she could fulfill HIS destiny. She honors this with a passion that colors her life that translates into her singing but it is NOT the singing itself.

The passions vary as widely as the friends do. God, lovers, nature, acting, playing, home, travel, kids, family, politics, art, music, writing, business, science, and work are just a few and there are many others.

Each and every person who touches me in a way that causes me to want to be their friend has some kind of a passion that drives them. They have a certain kind of “Joie de Vivre” that flows around them that comes simply from this one passion… no matter what that passion is.
I said before I DO get something from that but what. Is it importance through association? Is it the “talking” value of friends in “high places”? What exactly do I get from that? That is simple. I get the joy from being around the glow of happiness that flows off such people. I enjoy being surrounded by happy people and people who feel that kind of passion and live it are happy people. This does not mean that they don’t have sad days, blue moods, or moments of unhappiness or anger; it just means that more often than not they are prone to happiness and I like that.

Take a good look around you. Those of you here that I call my friends are all passionate about something and it makes you happy people. So is the guy next to you, the one commenting before or after you, and the one who isn’t commenting because they don’t feel it applies to THEM. You can feel it, it surrounds you and make this a very happy place even when it’s sad.
Drugs for June 23, 2007

Today is one of those days that poets and songwriters use for inspiration. It is a perfect California day. It is sunny and warm and a gentle breeze off the ocean stirs the air and lifts my hair ever so gently to tousle it around my face. Perfect in fact. One could not ask for a more perfect day.
I think perhaps today is also indicative of my own personal weather. I have talked incessantly about ones own personal weather and how you take it with you everywhere you go.
Jimmy Buffett says it best in “Weather with you”
Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather
At Fifty Seven Mount Pleasant Street
Well, it's the same room but everything's different
You can fight the sleep but not the dream
Things ain't cookin' in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky
Well there's a small boat made of china
It's going nowhere on the mantle piece
Well do I lie like a lounge room lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you

My own personal weather seems to be changing again. It has absolutely nothing to do with things going on around me. I have no new news on the Aliens. I have no exciting developments in my life in any aspect. I am still struggling with the drug treatment and its side effects. I am still struggling to find my “worth” and value. I still have issues from out side interferences (and oddly yet again today after having my life messed with once again…

What is changing is deeper than all this crap though. What is changing is that personal weather. The ebb and flow of my spiritual weather has made its way back towards high tide….or at least away from the record low tide it has been residing at.

I have been feeling, well, happy lately. I have no particular reason to be happy, but I am just feeling it. I am sure a lot of it has to do with a large infusion of love and affection from my friends. I am sure that a lot of it has to do with a lot of things. It is a hard road for a little bit of happy to travel to get past all the ick that seems to clog the roads these days….but that little bit of happiness has kicked in the four wheel drive and is making serious tracks these days.

I am more than a little sure that a lot of this has to do with music. Everything in my life has to do with music. My life has its own personal soundtrack and it drives my moods.

I have mentioned being musically moody before. It is not just that the music I chose is directed by my current mood. It is not just that HOW I hear a song is driven by my mood. It is more about how music can DRIVE my mood. Well maybe not my actual mood but how it can drive something else.

No matter what kind of mood I am in music plays a part. Most recently I have been spending a lot of time inside my head doing battle with the aliens. I have been fighting turf wars daily struggling to hold on to as much real estate in my head as I can. There are simply too many living in my head. Like all good tenement buildings this means it is loud, crowded, and messy. There is seldom any peace and finding privacy for anytime is neigh on impossible. I need a vacation from this craziness. How on earth can anyone be expected to function with all this noise? How can one sleep when the building is never quiet? The answer to that, at least for me, is music. Music is my vacation. I find peace in it.

This effect is amplified with LIVE music and more so with GOOD live music. I show up and the voices in my head are chattering like old ladies at the bingo parlor. They nag about what I should be doing instead, they harp on the rest I am missing, they winge about time wasted, and all manner of things that simply must be paid attention to. The music starts and I find myself shushing them. They are reluctant at first. Then slowly I find myself listening to them with half an ear.

As the music works its magic I find myself concentrating more on the feelings if arouses in me and less on those voices. The music finds its way into my blood and is flowing through out my body like a drug. I feel it first in my extremities. It is slow to be recognized but then from somewhere else in my head my subconscious notices a finger tapping on the table in time to the music. Slowly the conscious mind recognizes it as mine. Then the finger tapping becomes a hand moving in time to the beat. As the drug continues to take hold of me I soon realize that my foot is now moving. Intermittantly at first it taps along with the music. Then it becomes more constant. A movement not to be denied, it switches from one foot to the other and back then to both. I feel the effects more strongly now. My hands and feet simply unable to be still as though shot with a massive dose of adrenaline. My brain is slow to recognize that I am now on my feet. Dancing along to the music. Once it does it also recognizes that the voices have finally shut up and a smile crosses my face.

The effect of the drug called music is slow to wear off. I carry it with me the next day and longer depending on the quality of it. The various tenants in my head lay spilled around the floor doped almost catatonic, quiet. Music is not only a drug for me it is one that builds up in my blood. It is the drug that is for now turning my weather sunny again…..on that note… it is a two-fer night tonight (on a three-fer weekend) so I am off to part one of two of Blues night…singing like a bird released…..

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Wednesday June 20, 2007


Wacky Wednesday, Happy Hump day, and mid week mind games.
Stream of consciousness coming….brain is pre-blues night mush (I SOOO need my fix). Where, oh, where to go from here… Let’s see.
They changed my treatment levels again today so I am again wandering around in a fog. Ears are ringing, head spinning, total so far today four nose bleeds (ugh) and aliens kicking = two. Good news is this means I am one week away from maybe POSSIBLY being done with this treatment.
UPDATED: I forgot that I had intended to mention this here....
The nose bleeds are the least weird bit of this treatment. For your amusement...some of the odder side effects:
1) craving VERY unusual stuff. Things I NEVER eat most recently potato chips.
2) Suddenly discovered that my TONGUE is ticklish...(via the textured edge of my coffee cup you PERVS)
3) VERY VERY weird dreams. Suddenly very odd, real, and vivid (or Yvonne is getting out a lot at night)
4) Nights where I can not get enough sleep (never happened...I am usually good on a few hours)
5) Feeling very snuggly...anyone want to cuddle?
6) Easily distracted...(hmm What? Was I, Oh yeah)
7) Incredibly thirsty. I usually drink about 8 glasses of water during the day (not counting other beverages) I am up to about 15.
8) MUST PEE (see #7)
9) Hair falling out (thankfully not in huge patches except for where it was MOST visible)
10) They mentioned "female" hormones with relation to the pill....I wasn't worried, I don't take it....DID THEY MENTION IT IN RELATION TO BEING FEMALE? NO. In relation to OTHER drugs I take NO.. HELLO?!?!?!?! Those MIGHT have been good to MENTION.
11) oh yeah just remembered...I suddenly am typing like I have dyslexia. I am switching most all letters and have to FOCUS or retype everything...Ask poor Acid who must translate my weird words on the IM.
Let’s see Wacky Wednesday weirdness….I saw some amusing ways to trick your body yesterday…there are lots of these around and only a few were new to me but I find them amusing and worth passing along… If you have a tickle in your throat, scratch your ear. Did you know, your right ear hears speech better and your left music(this explains a lot about a guy I know)? Ever find yourself in the car and needing desperately to pee? Think about sex, it relocates the urge…for men. Pressing on the roof of your mouth clears your sinuses, this is no news to ANYONE with allergies…you eat, your nose runs. Running and get a “stitch”? Switch your breathing so that you exhale as your LEFT foot hits the ground (bet you didn’t even KNOW you naturally do it the other way). Stop a bloody nose by putting a cotton ball inside your top lip under your nose and pressing on it. Party trick….ask a friend to hold one arm out palm down. Tell him to hold it there. Press down on it with two fingers…he should be able to hold it there….now make him put one foot on a phone book. Press down again and watch him struggle…he will NOT be able to stop you pushing his arm down.
Mid-week mind games….Have you ever noticed how certain people can bring out a very different side of you? I have been having a good giggle at how one friend recently seems to bringing out a VERY VERY uncharacteristic side of me. I have no clue why but it is both funny and unusual (and shocking to him, hehehe). I am trying not to analyze the heck out of it and just run with it….but it put me to mind of another subject.
Anyone who has been around my blog at all knows that I was raised in a rather old-fashioned and typically Indian way. While this is not a BAD thing, there is a draw back to overly sheltering your kids. One was that I had some VERY rude awakenings along the way. I think perhaps the worst (that’s relative I guess) was the culture shock I experienced upon being exposed to the “big bad world” for the first time at the same point as being out of the house for the first time. Yeah. I went from a very sheltered home and private schools to living in the public dorms of a major US university….. Let’s just say it was shocking. I quickly found myself lost and confused. Fortunately I had one VERY good friend around. B took it upon himself to keep a watchful eye over me so I would not get in too much trouble but also to help guide me along into some semblance of reality. Anyway, they used to have a running joke that whenever I would do, say, or understand something beyond my normal “reality” they would quickly claim it was the work of my alter ego “Yvonne”. It became so prevalent that when I made the major step of getting my very own first place to live….they hung a sign on my door announcing it as Yvonne’s.
Curious huh? That avatar up there…that is Yvonne. She still hangs around and sometimes surprises me. Lately some friends of mine have been channeling their own alter egos and I feel Yvonne stirring sometimes. She has made appearances from time to time. She usually appears long enough to do something out of context for me…then quickly departs leaving ME here blushing like an idiot. Anyway, I rather like her. She is like that weird friend you have who is SO dissimilar and yet so close to you that rather than run from her wildness you grin and shake your head. I have been trying to let Yvonne have a bit more freedom these days. I have no clue if it is DOING anything other than giving me reasons to blush but hey, it is a change. Change is good right? You see her handiwork in some of my more embarrassing blogs…THE DRESS!!!, the butt’s for Bob blog, and many others. I am also trying to let her run amok more in my day-to-day life. I try not to second guess her when she chooses my clothes, says blushy things, or flirts with disaster in many ways. In a way this is a struggle for me. I have spent far too many years living in my sheltered little shell. Every single venture outside my shell was always proceeded by an in depth study of the pros and cons and every potential side effect. Yvonne has a habit of just jumping in the deep end. I rather like it sometimes. I hope she doesn’t get me in any big trouble but I am trusting her to at least bring a bit of unexpected happiness to my life or at least some new experiences.
She is trying to get me to wear these pants to blues night….so far I am not that brave (though I DID accidentally wear a leather skirt the other day)..but I did put them on and take this pictures…that is a start.










From Harmie’s Blog… Answers by Yvonne.
Your First Reaction (copy and paste the original, delete other person's answers and replace it with your own first reaction to the word)
1. Cigarettes: Ick, no way 2. Sex: Is fun, damnit.

3. Relationship: long-term with that dork DeeAnne

4. Your Last Ex: loved, very much, still today

5. Football: used to be pretty good they wouldn’t let me play though.

6. Crack: plumbers

7. Food: just ate yoghurt

8. President: We don’t talk politics here

9. War: not as seen on TV

10. Vehicles: necessary evil

11. Gas Prices: out of control

12. Bon Jovi: meh

13. Fear: Motivator

14. Beyonce: great voice.

15. Blondes: There is one special one in my life (B)

16. Brunettes: that would be me

17. Politics: We don’t get that here.

18. One Night Stands: Are you kidding? DeeAnne would KILL me….

19. Cell phones: T-Mobile forever.

20. Vanilla Ice Cream: only the old fashioned kind

21. Porta potties: EEEK

22. High School: I don’t know what to say.

23. Pajamas: T-shirt and maybe flannel Boxers or nothing.

24. Wet Socks: Worst feeling ever.

25. Alcohol: In moderation.

26. Hate: no one even though I SHOULD

27. My best friend: is too far away

28. Heartache: Is felt daily

29. Love: rare and should be treasured EVERYDAY

30. Divorce: I don’t believe in it but I did it to save my life.

31. Parents: you can’t pick them….unless you are very LUCKY

32. Trees: Heaven on earth.

33. Coffee: Trader Joe’s hazelnut please.

34. Music: Soundtrack to my life.

35. Soccer: you mean football right?

36. Pot: WTF do you really think incense hides the smell?

37. Strippers: MeCl works best.

38. Work: can be fun or can simply be a means to an end your choice