things at which i am randomly pretty good for no apparent reason

i can sew. and this flies in the face of my fundamentally uncrafty nature. i mean, i like crafts, and appreciate people who are crafty, it just generally requires a level of manual dexterity which i am painfully lacking. but for whatever reason, i can sew. tiny perfect stitches. and no one taught me this skill. i’ve just always been able to do it.

also, horseback riding. i’ve been on a horse maybe 2 dozen times in my life, but every time its been easy and natural and great. and people who know more about it than i do tell me i’m remarkably good at it for such a novice.

this point was made in a rather exciting fashion yesterday when i took hodie and her little friend up to my cousin’s farm to do some riding. i hadn’t planned to mount up myself, and so was dressed in shorts and flip flops, but on a whim climbed on good old Durango and decided to take a canter around the pasture. it was better to go without shoes altogether than with the thongs, so i got into the saddle barefoot, with no helmet, and took off.

my cousin warned me Durango was a bit of a lazybones, so after we trotted around the fenceline once he dropped to a walk and seemed determined to plod along at what i can only characterize as a less-than-scintillating pace. i was not having it.

so i gave him a bit of the business. he ignored me. i am not one to be ignored. so i gave him a little MORE of the business, with my bare heels. and he responded. we broke into a canter for about 3 strides, at which point he decided he had had enough of my instructions and pulled hard to the left to flee the pasture and run back to his buddies in the paddock. when i pulled up to slow him down and correct him, he liked that even less and ATTEMPTED TO BUCK ME OFF. he put his head down and lifted both back legs to try and get me to topple over his neck. gripping with my thighs for dear life i snapped back on the reins and grabbed the pommel. he gave over bucking and stood there as placid as can be. my cousin and her trainer who had been watching me take him around the pasture both ran over in a panic. apparently it was a freaking miracle of some kind i’d managed to stay on the horse. so, yay for that. i mean, as much as i fall down for no good reason, being tossed would probably be exponentially less awesome.

i cant think of any other skills i have for no apparent reason. everything else i’m good at, i have to try pretty hard. but this random facility for pony-rides came in handy…

 

being wrong can be a good thing

i mean, i like to think i have it all figured out, but in some cases, what i think i have figured out kinda sucks. and in those cases, it’s really nice to be wrong.

so, here’s to wrongness today, in all its glory.

to celebrate i’m going to go out after work and play a little game i like to call “thwak…sh*t…thwak…fu&K!”

more commonly known as tennis. i am no good. but i love it. plus also, i look super hot in the tiny little skirt.

p.s. surprises are not always nice, but they are almost always pretty interesting.

 

i might splode

i guess when i think about what qualities define me, i’d be reluctant to admit that “creative” ranks up there pretty high, but it seems to be true. i say this because i know when i’m not playing music, pasting things as my own weenie attempts at art, taking (poor) photographs, or something in that vein i get pretty antsy.

and things have been kinda tough in that respect lately.

i’ve been singing for longer than i’ve been talking, but never one for formal training, i hadn’t bothered to learn an instrument. about two years ago someone thought it worth my while enough to press an acoustic into my hands and suggest i take a shot at some chords. once again thank you caseyface!as such, since then, its been my primary creative outlet. and i’m proud of what i’ve been able to create.

and usually i do my best work when i’m sad. my musical catalogue is pretty heavy on the boo-fuckin-hoo end of the emotional continuum. but, for some reason, in the last little while i’ve been too sad to even play the guitar, let alone try and write anything. i even have a really good songlet chasing itself around in my head. but every time i’ve tried to start work on it, i begin to cry so hard i get Livingston all wet. he doesn’t really thrive in the high moisture and salt environment of a crying jag, so i put him away, if only for his own good.

i have been blogging like mad, reading like they’re getting ready to go Fahrenheit 451 on the library, working out with more regularity than i’ve ever mustered before, and trying to absorb myself in things that tend to focus my considerable attentive powers completely enough to keep me from going completely bonkers. but none of this feel particularly generative and it’s starting to get to me.

so, i’ve decided to take a stab at writing something longer than a blog post. i used to fancy myself quite a writer. i came in second in a poetry contest in 5th grade: a truly atrocious offering about how freedom came with responsibility or some such tripe. the prize was a trip to the opera, my music teacher made me do it. in the wake of which  they sent me to the “Oregon Writers Conference” and told me i was a prodigy. and i was vain enough to believe them. i don’t have any such pretentions anymore, i can write a mean wedding toast, but i’ve read enough miserable novels to know just how easy it is to think you can write something decent, and how much easier it is to be wrong. but i do want to give something fictionish a try.

i have to do something and so, its either this, or sedatives…

 

you can’t catch me

i work in a doctors office and we have a handful of books in the reception area for the childlings to enjoy while they’re waiting. one of my coworkers picked up “The Gingerbread Man” and started flipping through it. glancing over at the pages a wave of nostalgia washed over me as i realized: this was the first book i ever read.

well, not this book. not even this version of this book, but it was The Gingerbread Man. i remember because much was made of this feat. i was not quite three, and pronounced a prodigy. my sister, who was three years older and had stage-mother syndrome and lots of time on her hands was the primary motive force behind this marvel, but i was happy enough to bask in the temporary glow of admiration being a smarty pants conferred.

who remembers their first time? of course, it doesn’t literally have to be the very first thing you ever read, but maybe, the first thing you read that left you with that sense of triumph (you know the one i mean) that you had read a whole book by yourself!

 

but i am le tired

i have been noticing lately that i have a strange reflexive reaction to say, like a litany, certain phrases that i’ve picked up over the course of my life.

they’re embedded in my consciousness. there are a bunch of em. they are lines from movies, commercials, things my friends or lovers have said to me, generally the verbal detritus of life. and they slip past my lips with virtually no active effort or awareness.

par example:

from The End of the World: “but i am le tired”

i say this all the damn time. most net savvy people get it and snicker. my child, on the other hand, just assumes this is how one announces one is done in. when she’s ready to crash, she is always “le tired.” ha.

from Natural Born Killers: “holy shitfire Leroy!”

this is an all purpose expletive. this one comes into play when i am feeling particularly incredulous. i find it comes in handy in an array of situations.

from my former spouse “fuckow my cigarettes”

this one may make less sense, overall. basically, whenever anything went wrong, my ex would say “fuckow my cigarettes.” and for some reason this seemed to sum things up pretty succinctly in most cases. i generally adapt the phrase for more specific purposes; “fuckow my tattoo,” or “fuckow my uterus,” occasionally “fuckow the black toenail of doom”

from The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon “you can do it Duffy Moon!!”

when i was in middle school we were forced to watch this bizarre after-school special style commentary on self-esteem. our hero Duffy Moon is confronted with no end of difficulty in his daily life, and he suffers the concomitant self-doubt. every time he begins to question himself a chorus of high-pitched celestial voices chime in and say: “you can do it Duffy Moon!” and he is thus reassured. so, more than a decade later, i relentlessly hear this same chorus of voices whenever self-doubt rears its head. but knowing Duffy Moon can do it doesn’t really tend to make me feel better about myself, somehow…

from Super Troopers: “(holy) mother-of-god”

ok, to be fair, i kinda got this from my friend steph, who said it way before, but as i suspect people may be more culturally aware of super troopers than of, well, steph, i’ll give them the credit. as a fairly irreligious person it always seems to stun people when they hear this one come out. however, as a person who customarily curses like a drunken belligerent sailor with an angry rash, i find sometimes it behooves me to express my consternation/anger/shock/pain/etc in some way that is unlikely to cause mothers to cast foul glances in my direction. the “holy” is optional, when added emphasis seems appropriate. it often does.

i know for a certainty there are more of these rattling around in my head, but i can’t bring any more to mind at this moment. this one is likely to turn into a series… as they come up, i’ll be adding them to the roster.

and you? what’s snuck into your vernacular?

 

its been a plunky plunky day

First Willie Nelson all morning. Soulful, lovely, winsome. I forget how deeply vintage country touches me. Now on OPB I’m watching Pete Seeger and he’s so wise and intelligent and political and gifted. It really does make me want to learn the banjo and sing heartwrenching songs about something light and true.

 

in the event of the apocalypse

turns out, i’ll be well fixed for shampoo.

i think this is weird.

i’m not especially fussy about my hair. i kinda hate it actually. by which i mean to say, we have a very adversarial relationship. it wants to curl, though i wish it was straight. it grows where i do not want it to and will not grow where i do want it to. it’s not really the color i’d like it to be… blah blah blah.

that being said, i seem vaguely obsessed with the acquisition of products to pamper, train, or otherwise interact with said adversary. i cleaned out under my sink recently and came up with no less than 18 different kinds of shampoo. not just additional bottles, no. because whenever i am in the store, and i see shampoo, i think to myself “huh, i could use some of that…”

so, i figure, everybody has something they hoard. and i’m not talking about a collection. or something, like, useful or worthwhile in its own right. instead i mean some grooming product, cleaning supply, household item that no matter how much you already have, how many varieties already have tried, you cannot resist the chance to try again, to have a little more.

maybe between the lot of us we can avoid the drugstore for the next decade or so….