I need to go swimming in a pond of realism, because I live in a land of make believe

I decided this weekend that I needed to begin going through all my junk and start packing for the big move. I began with things I had stored in the basement. It was there that I found the time capsule from high school. The box I only look through when I am moving. This time was different though. I went to a wedding shower for a friend I have known since the 2nd grade this weekend. It was attended by the usual array of people who I never see, but get to have really great forced conversation with on the occasion that one of us gets married or has a baby. At this wedding shower I was told that this guy was marrying this girl who used to go to our high school, she was a senior when I was a freshman. Which meant I needed to find my freshman yearbook pronto or I would have to live with the misfortune of never knowing who that girl was who married that guy. I found it alright. The yearbook, and a lovely assortment of teen beat posters. I am so glad I had the forethought when I was 15 to fold up the posters that had graced my walls and store them in my yearbook. I think I was the only person who didn’t cut out the pictures of JTT, but instead chose the underdog, Jonathan Jackson. He was so hot right then. I think it is clear there is still a connection there. The days of dream phone, and girl talk are over, but I will never give up hope that one day I will be mopping the floor and Jonathan will come and wisk me away to some exotic locale, Branson perhaps, and profess his undying love. That which has been so obvious to me since we first met that day in ym.

For some reason all I can think of is Mary Kay Letourneau and her child groom...strange, but also pretty attractive...oh was that wrong? crossing boundaries?

***special thanks to shalinn for all the photo help***

Not even go-go boot wearing British women could get us out of that one

This weekend marked my mom’s 24th mother’s day. In honor of her bringing 3 vivacious, brilliant, and shockingly beautiful girls into the world my grandparents decided they should talk about sex with her in front of us. Their conversation was mostly surrounding a local bar’s decision to allow girls to dance on the bar (a little late to get on the coyote ugly bandwagon, but it is T-town), but strayed in to sex and strip joints on occasion. Classy, I know. Hearing your grandma yell “they might as well make it a strip club!!!” is not the most comforting thing in the world. My sisters and I managed to stay out of the conversation barring our looks to each other until my mom felt the need to include us when she loudly with the kind of conviction that would make OJ Simpson scream for his mommy proclaimed “I know you girls probably don’t think this is a big deal (dancing on bars), but I just don’t like it!!!” Explain to me how sitting on a couch watching Spice World of all things makes us guilty of being fine with going to strip clubs on the weekends? Did you hear me friggin' Spice World! If that is indicative of anything it is that there is no way we have friends…She should be ranting about her daughters’ lack of social skills. I obviously chime in with “You’re right, after you guys go to bed we go out and strip, even Whit (who is 17). I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Somehow I managed to get told “Happy Mother’s Day” 3 times by people who know I don’t got no chittlins'. Apparently Mother’s day is now for any woman of childbearing age. Soon the name will be changed to “Happy Post-Puberty Woman's Day!” Next year I better get some sort of plant potted in a teapot or I will be pissed!

A long explanation of something that could be written in 2 sentences.

If I could go back and be a part of any era of music history anyone who knows me knows I would pick the period of time when “new” country began birthing such acts as Alan Jackson and Diamond Rio. Right. Chattahoochee. I knew how much that muddy water meant to me…absolutely nothing. (If you don’t get that sentence do a little research, you’ll figure it out.) I hate country music with the fire of a thousand suns. I would rather be tied to the wheel of a tractor and slowly driven over a cliff than have to listen to an hour of that rubbish…okay that may be a little extreme. If I really got a choice and a magical time machine (that is probably bedazzled, because this is my dream so my time machine can come in any form I want) took me back to a day before the music died and was reincarnated as 15 year olds who dance around in bustiers. I would pick the age of Classic Rock. Actually right before it became huge. When Lynard Skynard was still a bar act I could catch for $3. A time when the 60’s and the hippie movement were giving way to a new era, a time where feathered hair and macramé were all the rage, a time before Aerosmith sucked. Can you imagine…It is a dream world I know. A close second to the age of classic rock would be the early to mid 90’s, a time I actually existed. I am not discussing Vanilla Ice or the humpty dance, for obvious reasons. Great music to make fun of, even dance to on occasion, but solitary confinement with nothing to listen to but “the humpty dance” would be nothing short of torturous. I am talking Nirvana, Pearl Jam, I am talking my 8th grade year, and lots of flannel. I have been listening to Nirvana's greatest hits a lot lately. I forget how much I love them, and how disappointing it is that there will never be any new Nirvana. Sorry Foo Fighters you just don't cut it for me. There is, however, new Pearl Jam, the reviews are really good, but I have yet to go and pick it up. Ultimately, I am sure it will be added to my collection. I have a couple of bootlegs from a show they did long ago, it only further confirms my belief that in order to be an elusive talent in the music industry you must be exceedingly weird. Eddy Vetter mentions something about a bean burrito and I laugh everytime because I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell he is talking about. It reminds me of the Ryan Adams show in Lawrence a couple of years ago when he talked about his soup tasting like darkness...Maybe I should take back what I said and insert addicted to drugs where the words exceedingly weird are. All of that to say, I love music. Well, I love good music, don't try and pawn off your Aqua cd on me I will probably chuck it at your head if you try.

If you need a reason to avoid drinking things that come out of a barrel...

HERE is a superb one.

Where smells can take you

Summer is almost here!!! I was driving around last night with the windows down blasting whiskeytown and was so content it isn’t even fair. I don’t see how anyone can be unhappy when the weather is perfect, it smells like cut grass, and Ryan Adams is singing in your ears. You need to have yourself checked out if that can’t make you happy.

I don’t know if anyone else has scent memories, but the smell of cut grass reminds me so much of the neighborhood I grew up in. It reminds me of the disgusting pile of “outside shoes” that were covered in mud and grass stains and usually had at least a couple of insects inside of them that sat out side our garage door. It reminds me of the time I captured 200 “pet” minnows from the creek down the street and then promptly killed them when I tried to transfer them to chlorinated water. (I may have played outdoors, but that doesn’t mean the clean freak inside of me didn’t want everything to be as sterile as possible.) It reminds me of the baby chicks my parents got us for Easter one year, that we later gave to a farm, that then got eaten by coyotes.(Can you believe my parents gave us farm birds?) It reminds me of the time my friend Annie and I went hiking behind the creek to see the Indian grave and instead found a bunch of people running around in towels…we told her mom, she called the owners of the land, we found out later…much later that they were making porn. It reminds me of the girl across the street that ate flowers. Man after rereading that I am very disturbed by my childhood. That sounds like the prologue to a book that ended with…from then on Tiffany spent the rest of her 48 years at the center. She devoted her life to building to scale replicas of dinosaurs with popsicle sticks. She only ate some of the glue.