Dirty, dirty boy

And now, a haiku:

i do love mike rowe
dirty jobs, he is the man
so pretty messy!

Dirty Jobs on The Discovery Channel is probably my favorite show on television right now. Mike Rowe is an absolutely gorgeous guy, with no shame about taking his shirt off, but better than that, he's funny! In a past life he used to pimp Diamonique® on QVC and once sang with the Baltimore Opera! Wait a second. Hmm. He's from Baltimore. That might mean he's a Ravens fan. Well, nobody's perfect.

What I love about the show is that it champions those nasty jobs nobody wants to do but still have to be done. Most of us are lucky and get to be reasonably clean throughout the day. Mike lets you know that it's only dirt (or bat shit or tar or fish guts or whatever) and it WILL wash off. Nothing wrong at all with good, honest, dirty work.

Also, I'd like to go on record right now as volunteering to give Mike a good scrubbin' any time he needs it.

The Ghost in My Room

I have a problem. I'm a skeptic, but I'm a skeptic who wants desperately to believe. The fact is, I do believe in ghosts, try as I did to explain the experience some other way.

When I was a teenager, I lived in the attic of my family's home. The attic was half finished and half simply storage. My room was huge and perfect. It had nooks and crannies. It was another world. It was my haven.

One night, after returning home from a date very late, I prepared for sleep. I was about to draw the curtain around my bed when I saw a man in the far corner of the room near the stairway. He was large and he said nothing. He was dressed in rugged work clothes and had a hat with a wide brim. He was either a black man or a white man baked dark in the sun. I never knew which, and neither does my sister, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Needless to say, I was immediately frightened. It was very late though, and I imagined that I was dreaming or drifting into dream. I quickly shook off the vision. But a few weeks later I saw him again, this time in a different part of the room. He was still distant from me, but I could not shake him off so easily this time. That night I just closed my eyes and wished him away and never looked again until I was asleep.

After that, I saw him in the daylight also, but only a few times and only glimpses. Even so, I began to feel like he was always lingering. Finally one night I woke up to see him at the foot of my bed. He was obscured in shadow, with the brim of his hat low ever his eyes, but it was the closest he'd been to me. I sat up and addressed him directly. I said, "you can't be here. You can't be in my room. You have to leave here!" and he vanished. I never saw him again. In time, I assured myself that, despite my desperate desire to believe in all things magic, I had merely made my visitor up from thin air.

Years later, my sister remarked offhand that there was a ghost in the attic. The attic room became hers when I left home, and she said there was a ghost there. A man. He was either a black man or a white man baked dark by the sun. She couldn't decide which.

"Did he wear a hat?" I asked. She nodded.

"Was he a black man?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "His hat covered his face."

"And he was always in shadow," we said together.

After further discussion we found that we both saw our visitor when we got our first serious boyfriends and dated a lot. We thought that he might be jealous or maybe just protective of us. He was real though.

Misfortune

Yesterday I had lunch with my husband at the local Chinese restaurant. The spring rolls were excellent, as ever, but the fortunes in the cookies continue to reach an all-time low in quality. Mine said, "Enjoy the weather." His said, "Hard work is its own reward."

"Enjoy the weather" is not a fortune. It's an order. And while I am a big fan of the gloomy, rainy, thundery weather we had yesterday, and did, in fact, plan to enjoy it, this cookie gave me neither insight into my future nor a shred of inspiration.

"Hard work is its own reward," is not a fortune either. One might call it a proverb or a maxim if one wanted to to sound fancy, but essentially it is merely a comment. And not even an original comment.

A good fortune, whether from a cookie or a tarot card reader or a palmist, is both cryptic and possible. One of the best fortunes I ever got said, "Now is a good time to explore." Hmm. Explore. Right away, the mind runs to what, exactly, should be explored and even with whom it should be. The possibilities are near endless, and yet nearly anything could qualify.

There are those true believers who seek out mystics with the full conviction that they will learn something true. The rest of us play such games for a different purpose, I believe. Because we want the glimmer of prospect. In this life, for so many, enjoying the weather or being satisfied that you've put in an honest day's work may be as good as it gets. But it's that glimmer of prospect that keeps us going.

Men

I love men. I can scarcely tolerate the company of women, partly because, as I've said before, women are hateful, and partly because I have enough feminine silliness of my own to more than suffice for a gathering.

I suppose men are just easy. Simple, direct. When they aren't working, they like food, sex and sports. I can relate to all of that.

Men also make me laugh. I particularly like it when they imply that their buddy is gay. The most homophobic man in the world will think nothing of telling his friend to blow him or worse. It's kind of like that ceremonial humping that monkeys do in the wild to establish the hierarchy of power. And in the meantime, if you're lucky, you get to sit aside and watch and laugh. It's a pure delight.

And all men are the same regardless of age. Once they have reached puberty, their mentalities are fixed forever. You can count on it. It's actually comforting. With men, you get potty humor, belching, occasional celebratory destruction of lamps and sundry, and someone to reach the high shelves and tote the heavy stuff. And all they want is food and sex and to watch the game. It's really quite fair.

Football ramblings

Quinn...when?
Just my luck, Derek Anderson has turned into a quarterback. I'm never gonna see Pretty Brady Quinn take a snap this year. Not that it would matter anyhow, since the TV conspires to never show a Browns game in north Alabama.

My stiff-arm needs work
My left arm is sore. I stiff-armed a running back Friday night when he got forced out of bounds on my side. This might be a good time to say that I cover high school football for the local newspaper on Fridays even though I don't work there full time anymore. Anyway, he was gonna run me over. I turned slightly, put out my arm (to hopefully protect my camera), and now my arm, from elbow to shoulder, is "stove up" as we say in the South. He didn't knock me down though! He checked up a bit I have no doubt. Last season when I got hit, my flash was broken off the camera. That sucked.

Bicep band mystery solved
I have been wondering about those narrow bands I see a lot of the players wear. Some wear just one set, right at the elbow, and others wear a pair on each arm, with one above and one below the bicep. Their purpose is similar to the classic sweatband, but made more narrow and better fitting. However, as I suspected, they are mostly meant to look sexy-cool. Nike, which manufactures such bands, even calls them "gun flaunters." Here's a link to theirs: http://www.nike.com/index.jhtml?l=nikestore,pdp,_pdp,gid-110404/pid-110403#l=nikestore,pdp,_pdp,cid-1/gid-110404/pid-110406&re=US&co=US&la=EN. I'm searching the internet frantically for a picture of Alabama quarterback John Parker Wilson in his bicep bands, which looked more than acceptable. Fear not. I shall persist.

I've got the music in me

Not exactly. I'd like to think I have the music in me and can just play an instrument without much effort. It doesn't work that way for most people, of course.

It's not like other "arts." It's not like being a writer. You know what you have to do to be a writer? Write. It took me about five minutes to set up this blog, and since it is technically "published" when I hit that orange key at the bottom, there ya go. I'm a writer. I do have some experience at writing though. All my life, writing stories, diary entries, manifestos, confessions, complaints, poems or other such nonsense has been natural for me. I studied English and journalism in college, and I spent 12 years in newspapers. But still, writing is only writing. You can always write even if it isn't particularly great in somebody else's mind.

Music isn't like painting either. I do some painting too. Van Gogh said, "If you hear a voice inside you saying 'you are not a painter,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." Painting is just that easy. And who cares if it's "good?" Just like writing, whether good or bad, you can paint for your own pleasure and that is its greatest value.

But music requires talent and discipline and some training for most people. You can't just pick up a guitar and turn into Eric Clapton. If you could, I'd be an orchestra by now. I have a bunch of instruments, each one purchased because I thought "this should be a snap to learn." To date, I have purchased a harmonica, recorder (flute), bongo drums, ukulele, dulcimer, electric keyboard, guiro, tambourine and accordion. I have even constructed an Australian lagerphone from a board, a hoe handle and beer caps (Here is a picture of one. Mine isn't quite so fancy. http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3063082 ) In spite of this array of instruments, I have yet to play a single song fit for even my own ears.

I'm getting a guitar next. That's the one. Hell, everybody plays guitar. It'll be a snap.

The Trouble With Women, Part 2

I have the good fortune to teach a substance abuse curriculum called Too Good for Drugs. Instead of beating kids over the head with anti-drug messages and a lot of "just say no," the program teaches life skills like goal-setting, stress management and choosing good relationships. One of the best lessons is on being assertive. Most kids are not assertive; they're aggressive or passive, which is the extreme on either side. I find that most women never seem to get out of that habit even after they have reached adulthood.

I have always been passive. The result of that, if you've read previously, is a simmering resentment. Primarily, though, I can't be angry with anyone but myself. I am learning to assert my will and stand up for my needs. That sounds like not a good thing for the husband and son in my life, or my friends or strangers in general, but it really is good for them too. When I reach a feeling of being heard and being respected I can return those same favors without any of the resentment that is so often apparent. It isn't easy to get there though.

A lot of women are like me, but the rest tend to be aggressive. They'd like to think they are assertive and merely emulating the confident qualities we find so attractive in men, but I have rarely met a woman who actually pulls it off successfully. Instead, they adopt the Bitch persona. It's a false facade. It isn't assertive. It's insecure. And do you know what embracing the Bitch personal makes you? It doesn't make you clever or assertive or strong. It makes you a Bitch.

So what can we do? Somewhere in the middle is the right spot, but how do you get there and maintain it? And why does it seem so easy for men? The same men, I might add, who can't match a pair of socks or remember a three-item grocery list to save their lives.

Revenge is a dish best served electronically.

I'm suffering a week-long ban from the Browns forum. It's self--imposed; I lost a bet. Last week I posted boldly that the Browns could actually beat the Patriots, however unlikely that might be. I had faith, you see. I believed! I was on the bandwagon.

Then one of the founding fathers of the Browns forum said, "wanna bet?" That was my undoing.

This betting is a forum tradition. They do it all the time. The typical terms are, if you lose, you stay out of the forum for a week. You can look, but you can't post. This was my first challenge, and it was a sucker bet. I couldn't lay off or I would have been labeled nutless. And worse, I was so keen on protecting my figurative manhood that I didn't even ask for the points! As it turns out, the points wouldn't have helped anyway. The Trickster knew I wouldn't be able to say no. So this week he's posted 10 times more than usual, knowing I can read it, reminding everyone how miserable I am.

But ah, revenge. Every time I read something I can't post back to, I just send him an email vent about it. I think I hit him 17 times yesterday. Can you hear my soft, satisfied chuckle?

Uh oh...

I'm torn. By writing, pursuing my muse, creating my {coughs} art...I've pushed Pretty Brady Quinn down the page. I kinda liked him up here with me. This could send me into a serious downward spiral if I don't do something fast....

{makes note to shop Dollar Tree for tchotchkes ASAP}

Crazy is as crazy does (not).

Me: "You reckon I'd qualify for a 'crazy check?'"
My friend the lawyer: "You? Absolutely."

I still don't know whether to take that enthusiastic response as good news or bad, but it's probably true either way.

On my father's side of the family you find the serious depressives: multiple suicides, alcoholics, abusive types and the generally morose. My mother's side holds the eccentrics: the "cat lady" types (except without the cats), the annoyingly histrionic and the hermit-like pack rats who seem to live in the middle of a rummage sale with all their life's treasures surrounding them. I have some of all of that, which leaves me often on the verge of tears yet strangely comforted by the mountains of do-dads, kitsch and swag that make my life complete and meaningful.

I have not yet resorted to defrauding the American taxpayer by applying for mental disability compensation. It's a thought, but truly, as I have remained honest in my present job, I clearly don't have the lack of scruples required to scam. Maybe I'm just not smart enough. In my two years (so far) as a bureaucrat, I have seen enough to leave me disgusted, bewildered and, yes, slightly crazier than I was to start. When I total up the "administrative fees," the folks getting paid $25 an hour to do nothing and the exorbitant prices government agencies are willing to pay for junk (yea kitsch!), yet only in chunks of $5,000 so you can't get a discount, it leaves me wondering if I'm the last honest person (read: idiot) left in the country. Of course I'm not. There are plenty of other people here who are just as crazy as I am.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the occasional Sharpie marker multi-pack hasn't accidentally made it's way to my house once in a while. I just don't have 15 cousins on the payroll earning a living playing computer solitaire and surfing the net all day. Hell no! That's my job!

Romeo, start Quinn!

People, is it not time to put Brady Quinn on the field? Don't we all pretty much agree that Derek Anderson is a solid "back-up" quarterback? Hasn't he been inconsistent enough? If we're going to see rookie mistakes, let's see them from the rookie, huh?

The Cleveland Browns have two creampuffs coming up in the schedule. Miami and St. Louis are consensus 31 and 32 in the power rankings, respectively. BUT, after that we've got Seattle and then travel to Pittsburgh and the Ravens, our two biggest and most hated rivals.

When are we going to see what Quinn can do in a real game? Wouldn't it be nice to have him game-tested so he can be an option at Pittsburgh and Baltimore? If it's me, I'd give DA the first half at Miami so he can work out some of his obvious kinks, and then Quinn gets second half and ALL of the Rams. Otherwise, we've got another gun in the cabinet but we don't know if it's loaded.

As to the assertion that Quinn is just "not ready," the boy is not a hothouse flower. He had 46 starts at Notre Dame, and even though we SEC fans are not terribly inclined to put on our knee pads for the mighty Golden Domers, I know that there are only a handful of schools that EVERYBODY thinks of automatically when they think of football. Notre Dame is one of them, if not THE one. The pressure to succeed there, I'll lay odds, is more intense than the pressure to succeed in Cleveland, and he withstood that pressure as an 18-year-old freshman. He's a grown man now.

Besides that, look at him? Ain't he pretty?

Pussy

Well, you paid attention to THAT, didn't you? Since it's October and Halloween is my favorite holiday, here's a pic of my sweet kitten. She's a little black witch's cat named Persephone.

The Trouble With Women

In my last post, I found power by talking tough in some of my favorite male accents. I could have opted for strong female voices like Demi Moore or Kathleen Turner, but I really just don't like women.

My mother tells me I preferred the company of men from the second I was born. My earliest playmates were almost exclusively male. My closest high school friend was female, but the majority of my friends were boys. As an adult, the ratio of male friends to female friends is probably 5 to 1.

This doesn't mean I'm macho or anything. I'm "one of the guys," but still plenty girly. I own at least a million handbags, I wear a tiara in the bathtub, my cell phone is pink, I sleep with teddy bears and my fingernails have sparkly flowers on them at this very moment. I don't mind femininity; I just can't stand most of the fems involved in it.

Women are mean. They carry on vendettas FOREVER. The girl who hated you in seventh grade still does. Men may fight, and it may even come down to fisticuffs, but when it's over, it's over. Seldom will men engage in a long-running spitefest, unless it's in an internet sports forum.

Women feel a constant need to compete with each other. This isn't the way men compete either. When men compete, they force themselves and each other to excel. When women compete, they force each other to overdramatize small things, minimize significant things and turn their lives into nothing more than a shallow facade. Women demean themselves and each other.

Take childbirth. It's not a contest, ladies. I could tell you that I was in labor for 36 hours (TRUE) in an effort to make myself some kind of procreative heroine, but the truth is I barely remember it. Only that I was exhausted. When I listen to other women describe the agony of their labor, the misery of their pregnancy, the horror that was the most common thing in the world, frankly I just want to kill them. You had a child. It wasn't the easiest thing you ever did, but wasn't it great? Aren't you glad you did it? THEN MOVE ON AND STFU instead of turning your moment of joy into a war story and your child into an attempted murderer.

It's in our nature to be this way, otherwise we wouldn't do it. I wouldn't anyhow, but I find myself despising my fellow women as interlopers in an otherwise perfect world. I'm as bad as any of 'em.

Perhaps in my next life I can be a dude and settle my differences in mature ways, like arm wrestling.

Everybody Doesn't Have to Like You

I have to tell myself that a lot. It's hard for me to remember because I'm a pleaser by nature. It has always been my habit to do what people expect, defer to the plans/needs/ideas/whims of others, and to keep my complaints to myself. Matt Damon has a line in The Departed: "I'm fuckin' Irish. I can live with something being wrong for the rest of my life." That's always been my way, which is probably why my therapist says I am "simmering with resentment."

But she's right. I am simmering. If I don't learn to vent, this pressure cooker is going to blow the roof outta the kitchen. {smiles sweetly}

So, I came up with a few affirmations. Some mantras, if you will. I say them out loud. Sometimes with different accents. Say them along with me if you're simmering:

"What? I'm 'too friendly?' Go to hell you fuckin' snob."
I'll just stick with Matt Damon's Boston accent for that one.

"Sorry I don't worship your uninformed opinion. Try back next week."
Try that one in a sort of dry, Jerry Orbach, Lenny-the-cop voice. OR, if you're feeling particularly sassy, you can do it in his Lumiere voice from Beauty and the Beast.

"This time, we're gonna do things my way."
Nicholson. Without question.

So I say these and similar things a few times a day, and it at least makes me feel better for the moment. Fake it 'til you make it kind of thing. I'm open to other empowering suggestions, short of criminal acts. {smiles sweetly again}

Doing My Part for Innovation

I saw author John Kao on the Colbert Report the other night. Funny fellow who could really hold his own on a show like that. Anyway, his book is Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back. Naturally, he talked a lot about how we need to learn more math and science in America and how my generation needs to stop being a bunch of slackers. Agreed. To do my part I will share some of my recent innovations.

* Lifting gloves. Normally you'd use these when bench pressing. (check out Brady Quinn benching like a lineman in the NFL Combine this year here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPVur-kSlwE ) My innovation is to use the lifting gloves when I have to shoot football on Friday nights when the weather is cold. You can't operate a camera with gloves on, but lifting gloves leave your fingertips exposed for ease of camera use! This also allows your manicure to remain visible, and that's important.

* Speaking of manicures, get more use from your clear nail polish by using it to stop a run in your hose, waterproof/smudgeproof labels, get rid of warts (a week or so you will see the difference) and protect the eye paint on your child's action figures.

* Did I mention panty hose and knee highs? First, they make good ropes. Second, I have restuffed many a teddy bear with worn out nylons. Knee highs can be cut into circles and used as ponytail holders. These are great for girl athletes because there are no hard metal parts (which are prohibited in competition often) and the nylons are gentle on hair.

How's that for innovation? I am doing my part for America's future.

CLEVELAND BROWNS, HELL YEAH!

You've seen me mention the Browns in a previous post and it might have occurred to you to wonder why a gal born and raised in the South would be a Browns fan. It was an accident. I got banished from a different football forum for fraternizing with a couple of renegades from the Browns forum. When they realized I was a poster without a country, they invited me up to the Browns forum and there you have it.

I love football and I'm a sucker for the underdog, so it was just a match made in Purgatory. If you're a Browns fan, you know why I said that. I latch on quickly and I'm faithful, so I will bark for the long haul. In fact, I only started this blog because I'm on hiatus from the Browns forum after losing a bet that we'd beat the Patriots last Sunday. I know. That was a tough bet. But that's how mother-effing faithful I am! Go Browns! Woof!

Walt Whitman, Catch-22 and Winnie-the-Pooh

"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find."

That's Walt. Isn't it beautiful? I mean, I realize it doesn't rhyme at the end of every sentence and it isn't written in iambic pentameter, but it's poetry nevertheless. My friend the Judge and I disagree on this point. He's married to rhyme. He insists Walt writes prose. I asked, "are you saying a dirty limerick is more of a poem than Whitman?!?!?!????" Nearly won him over with that rhetorical question. Meh. He can think it's prose. The most poetic prose written. Pick up Leaves of Grass.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is one of the best books I've ever read. It's hysterical black humor. One page will have you laughing so hard at the most absurd thing, and then in one sentence (spoiler alert!) Nately is dead and your guts are ripped out. Give it a shot if you haven't read it.

Winnie-the-Pooh is also hysterical in its own way. I laughed at those stories as a kid, as a teen, as the parent of a baby, toddler and "tween" (ugh, who invents these words?), and again just as a grown-up. I'm quite fond of author A. A. Milne's use of profound capitalization. Read 'em again if it's been a while.

I have a fat ass.

Well, I may, as far as you know, have a fat ass. I don't try to hide the fact (much, anyway) that I'm a big girl. Always have been. If I can stand it, so can you. What I can't stand are other people's views on the rightness or wrongness of my fat ass.

A fellow I post with on the Cleveland Browns forum (http://www.cleveland.com/forums/browns/index.ssf) likes to draw attention to my proportions by calling me "chunky butt" or "heavy check" or, my favorite used only once, "double stuff." He does it with love, I feel certain, as he is quick to defend me against malicious trolls and frequently reminds his fellow fellows that "you don't want to be stuck with a size zero chick with winter on the way." In fact, he's even told me that when he comes home to Alabama to visit his relatives I can work some of my "pelvis crushing magic" on him. Naturally, I'm flattered. The fact is, MRWILKS makes me laugh because he never misses his shot for a shot and because he only jests with me because he knows I can take it.

Apparently, I'm wrong for this. My other group of friends thinks MRWILKS is an asshole and that my "desperate need for attention" prompts me to take his insults, much like an abused child takes a beating from his drunkard of a parent, because any attention is good attention.

They could be right.

On the other hand, they could be pushing their own body-insecurity issues on me, not to mention their own brand of political correctness.

The fact is, just like you, MRWILKS has no idea whether I actually have a fat ass or not. For all any of you know, I could be a size zero chick in danger of hypothermia at the first frost. That being the possibility, just let me laugh at what I think is funny, if you please, particularly when I can laugh at myself. People don't do enough laughing at themselves these days.

Besides. When I giggle it makes my big butt jiggle in a sort of ticklish way.

Who the hell am I?

Hmm. There's a question. Who the hell am I, at 37, writing a blog? I'll figure that out eventually, but here are the basics: I'm married, mother of one, born and raised on the South. My friends recently voted me "Most Likely to End Up Dismembered in Somebody's Freezer." My "friends" are quite cynical sometimes, which is why we haven't gotten along lately. I take Prozac. I love football. I want to have sex with Brady Quinn just once (TRUE). I believe in ghosts and magic. New Orleans is my favorite place so far. I have a Thomas Jefferson action figure, I collect teddy bears and elephant carvings, and I'm addicted to Diet Sunkist Orange. I call it Diet Crack.