breast strokes in shallow bandaids

some things bring me back to a very magical time of my life. freshman year of high school. i'd like to recount some of them for you now.

i heard a strokes song today and i flashed to playing "this is it" on repeat while we floated in an above ground pool on jon street in neenah. When I say we, i refer to the dynamic duo of roxanne ashton agusta patty butler and myself. (her discovering that she had 3 middle names is still a highlight of my life).

i have never in my life participated in more innocent shenanigans than in that time. prank calling gym teachers was old news, so we called KISS FM when their recording device was broken and said something inappropriate about Nelly liking little boys in our best "candy man" voice. don't worry, we have an audio tape recording of the DJ giving us a stern talking to.

i don't think i was ever cooler than i was that year. staying late after school with a tape recorder, pretending we had to do interviews for a class was a wonderful excuse to mingle with the odd assortment of individuals left after the bells rang in the menagerie that was neenah high school. magic players, STAND members, unfortunate teachers (and that hot boy who didn't shower much).

riding the bus and buying a bag of regular and cool ranch doritos, watching requiem for a dream, little big man, or say anything at least once a week was required. some days we'd skip the movie and lay on the floor listening to the strokes, or radiohead...maybe a james taylor album for good measure instead.

we made our own morbid music videos to alanis and rescued a litter of bunnies found where the above ground pool was being put. slowly they all died--lt. dan, simon birch, and others named for their maladies. one was released into the wild...we'll never know if that one made it.

we strapped her cats into her paralyzed brothers stair machine. and i learned about the "real world" from that machine and the brother that used it. her mother was usually naked when i'd come over. perhaps in the company of some interesting fellow she met at an AA meeting.

we both failed CPR certification due to our inability to preform rescue breaths without making our dummies talk to our poor mister kreiger. he hated us, but i made him smile once. he got me back by making me practice strokes on the pool deck, among dirty bandaids.

i peed in my pants at least 8 times because of her. one time in my choir dress, alone on the bus. i have never laughed so hard in my life. except for maybe the drunk ewoks on the today show video. that is good.

my dad said we were kindred spirits. two peas in an "unromantic pod". she's off living the life of a vagabond on the west coast and i'm living the life of a vegetable in my parents home. our pod is stretched, but i'd like to think we're still peas.

coming soon: my personal ad and a reflection on a 6 year relationship. these posts may or may not be related.

timez r hard 4 dreamerz

i haven't had sugar in 10 days. perhaps, an accomplishment many could boast, but almost unthinkable for this lover off all things refined and syrup'd. my ideal meal would be heapings of fresh fruits and vegetables, followed by a jug of dew and 15 pounds of gummies from the candy aisle of cub foods.

the first three days i was a monster. i swear my eyes were green. i found some caramel corn in our pantry and put a piece in my mouth "to remember what sugar tasted like" and in a rage spit it into the garbage, screamed, tore my clothes and beat my breast. what is pushing me on? lack of dental insurance and a cavity prone mouth. dr. joe, this one is for you!

last night was purely torture as i helped reprice all the candies at VandeWalles. i made it without licking or smelling anything. PROGRESS. YES WE CAN.

the weather is hurting my feelings. i crave sunshine and bugs. warm days and camping adventures. the ability to go days with unkempt hair and soccer shorts while eating everything good and beautiful from tinfoil tents put in the fire pit.

thinking of camping made me think of the single most terrifying moment of my life. it happened in yellowstone national park. driving up a windy road high above the tree tops, greeted by a SUV on one side and a raging buffalo running straight towards me. i let words out of my mouth i never thought i would. in front of my mother. i apologized immediately and i knew it was ok when she said "i think it was situation appropriate." thanks annie.

i'm moving to montana.

me and my dog soul-gazed today. while laying in my parents bed.

i'm not actually moving to montana, although i wish i was. if i had a friend there i would take advantage of their hospitality and live on their couch until i got an hourly job at some restaurant named "the fry'n pan" or something of unfortunate similarity.

a girl can dream.

ganglion dedication

last night i couldn't sleep. my dog had a bad odor about him... but i still wanted him near me. in revelation, i thought to myself "this must be what it's like to have a husband! they smell horrible, but you still want them close." since i've already perfected my needlework and fruit preserve techniques, sleeping next to a stinky dog is the obvious next step in preparing me to be a wife. i'm all about preparation.

well, my giant ganglion cyst makes typing slightly uncomfortable. look at how i suffer for my craft! (or "i have nothing else to do" hobby.) I hope my dedication leaves you in awe until next time.

ROTFL

my 3 day trip turned into a 7 + 3 day trip. I knew it was time to go home when I couldn't button my jeans. Nothing says "turn back" like those judgmental pink teeth marks of shame around your belly.

i love salt. i've loved it since i was a child. i have fond memories of pouring handfulls of table salt in my hand at hardees, or sneaking out to the garage to lick my bunnie's salt block. my sweetest (or should i say, saltiest) memory is when my dad would bring a bag of water softening salt home from fleet farm. ready to burst with excitment, i would sit at the top of our basement steps waiting for him to bring me a big crystal of affirmation. nothing says "i love you" like a big hunk of sodium chloride.

nothing says "unfortunate" more than a wet hair middle part.

nothing says "lame" like this blog.

i apologize. i promise to be better next time.

holding on to a piece of frozen metal

my dog caught my illness. he works hard as my companion and how to i repay him? by giving him some sort of human/dog virus. i showed my love to him by cleaning up his vomit. it wasn't that bad at all, compared to picking up his poop on the living room floor.

he's still cute. i love watching him "casually play" around our property line, waiting for his girlfriend to come out. i think the cool, coy attitude works--she let's him sniff her butt whenever he wants. you can learn a lot about relationships from dogs.

late at night, dog by my my side, my mind comes alive with hypothetical conversations and situations. i can be up till daybreak having 12 different conversations with the same person about something that could possibly never even happen. is it positive stimulation of my imagination or the beginnings of schizophrenia? eh, whatever. same thing.

i do not recommend watching "the way we were" if you are slightly emotional about a relationship. i also do not recommend watching the oprah show babs and redford reunion either. there is no way to feel stable while crying as you watch 70 year olds hugging and talking about the way they were on set.

well, you can start sending your combo congrats/sympathy cards my way. i'd rather hear "no" than "we chose you for the position but then the girl who left decided she wanted to come back." silver lining? no unflattering suit jacket for my ample top.

looks like i'll be searching for employment on craigslist. i mostly use it for "casual encounters" so it might be a hard switch, but i'm willing to try it.

i'm ashamed, but sisterchrister had to remind me of a very special birthday today. way to go, harry houdini. to celebrate, i will go to his museum downtown and pay an absurd amount of money to do magic tricks and see how long i can hold onto a frozen piece of metal. if i sound cynical, i'm not. it really was some of the best money i've spent in the valley...next to buying every flavor of kenny's licorice at woodmans and hanging out at funset blvd.

harry houdini died from appendicitis. coincidentally, ever since my aunt pam had her appendix out when i was 10 it has been my hypocondriatic nightmare. webmd page is bookmarked and memorized.

tomorrow i'm hitchin up the ole' wagon and headin' to the big city. ma, pa and mary are stayin home to see if Doc Baker can help cure mary's blindness. maybe they'll go buy some candy sticks from nelly at the mercantile. i would be jelly, but manley promised to introduce me to his sister, miss beadle. (and this concludes "the only show i ever watched until i was 14 was little house on the prairie.")

when the snow hit the ground, i found myself in a pickle. part of me was angry, and the other part...the student representative for bethel university's green council and the haphazard president of creation restoration felt very very guilty for having such negative thoughts towards mother earth. im so sorry-- how can i prove my love to you creation? maybe i will try to organize a school wide rummage sale with profits going towards a new composter, but the night before the big event someone will take down all the posters and tell us that they do not allow for any type of "money making" sale to be held on campus. maybe i will think of something better.

improving your handicap

man, i'm on a roll with this blog. it could be due to the lack of effort it takes to not capitalize or properly punctuate anything, but regardless i'm proud of my self and my diligence in publicly shaming my family and self!

i asked an old professor to write me a recommendation letter. she said yes and that i would be "great, but scary" at the job. trying to figure out if she meant hanible lecter scary or scary spice scary is not worth the effort. either way, i'll take it as a compliment. i always thought anthony hopkins was cute.

my 401k lump sum check is floating around somewhere in the USPS system. if you find an envelope that has at least 4 different forwarding addresses for me on it, please contact me and i will offer you a hefty percentage for it's safe return. you're looking at four or five bucks my friend . in hard times, every dollar counts.

i read espn's "everything you need to know about march madness". i'm still as lost as ever. i like college basketball (as long as it's not womens) but there is just something about sir charles barkley's commentary that leaves me questioning everything i ever knew about the sport. i don't know much, but i get so distracted by his slurred and incoherent speech thinking he must be having a stroke that i can't enjoy a simple game of putting a ball in a hoop. march sadness.

i love cinderella stories. my friend meg might think i'm talking about disney. that's understandable because when a barnes and noble employee suggested she get her golf loving father the book "improving your handicap" she had to let them know "oh, no. sorry, my dad isn't disabled."

natural casing wieners

ABC wanted to compete with college basketball, so they played a movie that every demographic would enjoy. Norbit, obviously. i'd liked to check out the neilsen ratings for tonight! i would bet the fee for withdrawing my 401k early that more the viewing audience tonight + the number of people who actually saw it less than 401

super moon was tonight. i texted five people and one responded. im sure the other five were busy looking at the moon that didn't really look that different.

i got a "call back" today for an interview i had yesterday. it was exactly the same as yesterday except i had sweatier pits. (i'll blame it on the mildly attractive middle age man.)

have you ever listened to a cd and felt like every song was written because someone secretly drugged you and did futuristic tests that could determine what you feel and think? adele's 21 is that for me. i've never been so tempted to make a copy and send it to "someone special"... but that would go against everything i believe in and support everything i've made fun of for the past 10 years.

i've been doing really poorly at making fun of people lately. maybe i'm becoming nicer or maybe i've been sick and shut inside my house for the past 2 weeks.

tonight my dad made us beer brats. the beer was found under a park bench in lutz park in appleton. an old let them know they could take them because they had been there "for a few days". they were one step up from the hot dogs chuck made a few days ago. i was concerned they were the "gross, slippery kind...possibly made from actual dogs" but he scoffed and proudly whipped out the package. "i got da natural casing wieners"...as if that made them sound any more appetising. i still ate them...i'm into natural things.