Em Thomas

My Average Joe ~ Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T12:32:00.003-04:00

Today is such a bittersweet day for me. Father's Day. I see messages sent out by my friends into cyberspace - wishes of a happy day for their own dads, and they make me smile and they make me so very sad that I no longer have my own dad to send my wishes to. Rather than allow myself to sit and feel sorry for myself, I am determined to focus on the positive.

My dad came into my life when I was 12. I knew him for 2 weeks before he and my mother decided to make our family official by getting married. As I slipped into my angsty teen years, my dad gave me everything I needed - he was there for me when I was upset, he yelled at me when I got out of line, he took interest in my artwork and I took interest in his fishing. We sat on the couch together and watched National Geographic and This Old House, and we jammed out to Queen and Aerosmith and Elton John. When I moved out of my parents house when I was 17 and refused to talk to my mother for over a year, my dad was the one that showed up to try to smooth things over. When I needed to be driven to the hospital, he drove me and held my hand as I cried in the passenger seat. He made me feel comfortable in my own skin, and he allowed me to find the humor in myself - to not take myself so seriously, while always being free to speak frankly about whatever was on my mind.

While I miss him intensely today, and every day, I am thankful for the lessons I was able to be taught by someone who came into my life late, but was there at every crucial step afterward. I am thankful that I have someone to look back on that let me be myself, while still making an impact that allowed me to choose to be like him, too. I'm thankful for the example he set as a father so that I might judge other men to see if they measured up as potential husband and future father of my own children, and I'm thankful that he instilled the strength in me to call things as I saw them, and to fight for what I was entitled to, even when it meant we butted heads.

I remember him telling me for the first time that his name was "just Joe," and today I know how much more than "just an average Joe" he was. To the only man who could have possibly been capable of being the father I needed; to the one who forever fills that space in my heart; thank you for taking the job. You are missed.

[p.s. - yes, those ARE acid washed pleated jeans tight rolled at the bottom. don't hate. lol.]

I don't think that means what you think that means

2010-06-11T01:07:00.000-04:00

I know people that work really hard at being relevant on the internet. They retweet the latest gossip, the latest news, the latest trend; they have thousands of followers and admirers and fans. They are the elite. They blip and twitpic and status update; rehash every single minutia that everyone else has already presented to the unwashed masses in hopes of gaining fame, however small.

There's something you need to know about me.

The term "social media" makes my skin crawl in *most* cases. I grew up "social by circumstance, not by choice," which is a lot longer phrase than that which you may be familiar with. So long, in fact, that it never really caught on with the rest of the world. I'm sure you'd probably NOT be surprised with the number of people like me out there on the internet virtually patting your back. It's not that people like myself are so few in number, but I believe we've just adapted. We are the Darwin Fish of the ethernet, swimming through the bits that gain us legs and voices and .. perhaps, guts. Who knows?

It's not that I am anti-social.. well, in most cases. I thought for a long time that I really just didn't like people, and that was that. But it turns out that I DO like people... the ones that have the courage to be genuine, to reach out, to speak their minds fearlessly, to wear their heart on their sleeve; the ones that aren't trying to sell me their product, whether it be their idea or their body. It's not real if you have nothing to lose by exposing it, yes? And yes. If you have nothing to lose by my gaining it, it's not worth having, and I give you the same.

And that's it, really. I'm not a special little temperamental snowflake, not if you know me. Because if you know me, then you know a lot more like me, too ~ my fellow speakers of the heart. We aren't casting our nets into the murky depths of "maybe"; we have a definitive opinion, like it or not, and we aren't odd for voicing it. Liked or disliked, accepted or not, we are the "oddballs" that are courageously speaking our minds with little to lose. We are "scary" and "hypersensitive" and "mental" and "intsense". Only insofar as you are "scared" and "numb" and "unthinking" and "superficial."

That you could be so free in being yourself, and speaking your own mind; how I wish that for us all.

Time wasted is lessons learned

2010-06-04T23:20:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I'm one of those that puts my whole heart into a thing when I've decided to. Whether it's getting my hair done up exactly the way I intend to, or marketing my latest photography endeavor, I am "me", hear me roar. Or don't. And lots of times people don't; they choose not to. I expect it... most of the time. I've always found, for example, that most of my favorite photos that I want to promote don't get the recognition that I wish they would ~ perhaps I have quirky taste; I've come to accept that. My least favorites get all of the praise without any effort on my part, and my most valued treasures are dismissed.

I'm finding it's the same with ... other things. I'm finding that going to bat for people that I believe in is equally futile, and, as equally baffling, it's being dismissed by the very people I'm going to bat FOR. What? Of course this has completely revamped my thought process once again; why go to bat at all? Short answer is, I won't. Being the most ... vocal of the bunch, I will now become one of the most quiet, because I see that the very people I go to bat for aren't capable of taking is as seriously as I do. And that's okay. It makes me feel like a giant idiot and wonder why on earth they waste their time while hailing my name in the process, but outside of that, I have... my name to lose.

ah yeah, that.

"we want community, but not much that community," and "we want your feedback, but we're tired of hearing about that, even though we have no solution," and "we're here to show you our pretty faces, but uh, yeah... just make us look good. That's all we really appear to want." I suddenly feel like I've slipped down the rabbit hole for 10 months and am coming to with a room full of Auntie Em and the Wicked Witch of the West peering in through my window. I have never been a fan of The Wizard of Oz, and The WWW is one nasty little beast.

Internet, I have lost faith in you. From designers that paint prettier pictures than they know how to conjugate the bond they try to form with me, to people whom I respected that let me down again and again; what's a girl to make of it? Eat me? Fuck you? Which pill to choose.

Goodness, this entry is much too full of literary and cinematic garbage.... just like the rest of the world.

I guess it comes down to this: I am through with you. Maybe for now, maybe for ever. I've eaten your garbage and swallowed your swill, and won't make that mistake again. I may love you, but watching you use me to scramble to your imagined "top" is not a view I ever care to repeat. Good luck with it.

Miss Tiny Dog

2010-04-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

http://twitter.com/EcoChicagoIL - on @EcoChat tonight you said you wanted to see some pictures of my tiny little girl, so here you go! She's Jack Russel and Chihuahua mix, and about 3 pounds. The clothes she wears are XXS! ;) I present, Miss Isabella. <3 She'll be a year old at the end of next month!

^^this is a 6 year old girl's shoe.. to give perspective <3

^^half a cow rib. yumyum. thanks, dad!

^^ this is her this past Easter. still tiny! :)

Finding "the one." A guest post from Jeff Howard of Adoptapet.com

2010-04-15T11:56:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week I was contacted by Jeff Howard, the author of the blog at adoptapet.com. He'd read my post about Craig's List; more specifically the pet part struck a nerve, and he asked me if I would be interested in hosting a guest post from him on the subject that he is passionate about. Pet adoption is important to me, as well. I have been an avid animal lover my entire life, bringing strays home from a young age with the proverbial, "can I keep it," spilling from my mouth. My first ever career aspiration was to be a veterinarian, which obviously didn't pan out, though my love of animals has continued and grown.

The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of pets in need of a good home, living in a small cage in some animal shelter that often doesn't have the resources to give these wonderful pets a chance to find a home; often they have 3 days. Let's look at some statistics for a second. In 2001 in Carroll County, GA, there were 7,710 animals impounded. 345 of those were reclaimed by their owners. Another 1,006 were adopted out to new families. 6,332 were euthanized. That's 82%. These are animals that may have been ill or injured, but more often than not, were happy, healthy little furfaces just needing to find someone to love them the way they deserved. Of the 53 million dogs in the U.S., about two-thirds come from backyard breeders. They are the single greatest cause of the pet overpopulation crisis in this country. They either intentionally breed their animals to sell off or "accidentally" end up with litter after litter of puppies due to their failure to spay and neuter their pets. The most responsible thing that you can do as an animal lover is to spay or neuter your pet. Buying a pet from a backyard breeder only encourages the breeder to continue on with their deplorable practice of the equivalent of animal abuse.

So, let's talk about pet adoption. For this, I will let Jeff Howard take over!

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Common Questions About Pet Adoption

Q: Although there are literally millions of pets in shelters, pounds and other ‘temporary housing’, many pet-owners-to-be don’t think about pet adoption when they’re looking for their new four-legged friend. Why do you think this is, and what can be done to turn that around?

A: Many people who want to get a pet just are not aware of how many pets are available at shelters. They might also have the misconception that pets in shelters might be there because there was a problem with the animal. In fact, most pets end up in shelters not because of any problem pet behavior, but because an owner died, moved, or simply didn't have the time or money to care for the animal. In some cases animals are lost and never found by their owners. These animals are healthy and very eager to please. Rescues pets are wonderful- just ask anyone who has one.

Some people are seeking purebred animals or puppies and think these are not available in shelters. In fact, nearly a quarter of all animals in shelters are purebred. Often someone buys an expensive purebred animal and then attempts to breed that animal to recoup their money. Often these puppies or kittens are not placed in homes, and end up in the shelter. Puppies and kittens often up in shelters as well, but it is important to note that your animals, especially puppies, require a lot of work and training and can be quite destructive (peeing on the carpet or chewing shoes). Puppies are great but often people are much happier getting a dog who is older, and whose size and temperament is a known quantity.

With Adopt-a-Pet.com and without even leaving their home, people can search all their local pets and see pictures and descriptions of the animals. This way, they can find the exact pet they want, call the animal shelter or rescue group, and get information on how to adopt that specific animal.

Q: What are the 5 most important things a potential adopter should consider when choosing their new pet?

A: We actually have a blog post on this highlighting the top 10 things we believe are important when adopting. Here are five, the rest can be located by visiting this page: http://www.adoptapet.com/public/guides/permanentpets.html

1. You need to make a real commitment to care for your pet for its entire life.

2. Verify in advance that you’re allowed to keep a pet where you live.

3. Never adopt a pet on a whim or because you feel it’s love-at-first-sight

4. Provide sufficient exercise and stimulation during the first few weeks, this will help the pet adjust.

5. Make any necessary modifications to your yard and fence to provide for your pet’s safety.

Q: What are 5 positive aspects of pet adoption, and why it’s a good option?

1. When you adopt an adult animal, you can see his/her size and temperament. This helps ensure that the pet is right for you and your family.

2. It feels great to know you have saved an animals' life and everyone you meet will give you kudos for that for years to come.

3. Adopted pets are very loyal and know they have been given a new home.

4. Adopting a pet can be an important lesson to teach your children-- both about the value of life, and also about civic responsibility and even recycling- in this case recycling a living and loving animal into a new home.

5. Choosing a mixed breed animal can help avoid many of the genetic health problems that have developed in purebred animal due overbreeding and inbreeding.

Q: If someone reading this isn’t in a position to adopt a pet right at this time, but still wants to help homeless pets, what are 5 things they can do to get involved?

1. People can do Social PETworking! They can run a search on Adopt-a-Pet.com, find a pet they want to help get exposure for, and use the share tools on our site to post the pet link on their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or other social network page. Or, they can email the link of a pet in need form our site to their friends.

2. They can place a link/grpahic or even a search widget for Adopt-a-Pet.com on their personal website to encourage they users to see pets in need at local shelters. http://www.adoptapet.com/public/links/index.html

3. People can add their info to our volunteer database so shelters who need volunteers can find them. http://www.adoptapet.com/volunteer/signup

4. People can search Adopt-a-Pet.com to find a local shelter, and make a cash donation to that shelter to help them with the costs of housing, feeding and medical care of shelter animals. http://www.adoptapet.com/animal-shelters and https://secure2.convio.net/sap/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1023

5. People can encourage other pet owners to spay or neuter their pet to help prevent unwanted births. http://www.adoptapet.com/public/spay_and_neuter/index.html

The following is some more information about http://www.adoptapet.com/ and where you can read more from Jeff Howard:

What is Adopt-a-Pet.com

Adopt-a-Pet.com is the world's largest non-profit pet adoption website. We are like an ad agency for shelters and shelter pets. Sadly there are 4 million healthy adoptable companion animals killed in shelters each year due to overcrowding. We do our best to relieve that problem and put pets from shelters in the homes of pet seekers all over the country.

Our website makes it easy for anyone with an internet connection to find profiles and pictures of adoptable animals by location, breed, gender, age, size, and color. Over 8,000 shelters posts pets on our website displaying over 125,000 pets available for adoption at any given time. We also help volunteers connect with shelters, and currently host over thousands of people listed in our volunteer database for shelters.

What Makes Adopt-a-Pet.com Unique:

- On our website, people can use something we call “Search Saver.” This feature will notify users by e-mail when a particular pet of their specifications in available for adoption. For example, I can tell “Search Saver” where I live, and what type of breed I am looking for. When that animal is available, I am notified the next time a pet matching my search is added on Adopt-a-Pet.com.

- As of this summer we have now made it easy for our visitors to find pets and then recommend them to friends and family via Facebook, Twitter and other social applications. We are calling the idea “Social Petworking.” Here is how it works; once you have searched and found a pet in need, on the pet details page simply hover over the button labeled “SHARE,” there you can send the pet details page to any of your friends. For more information visit this page http://www.adoptapet.com/socialpetworking/signup

- In addition to dogs and cats, we now feature all kinds of pets for adoption, including rabbits, farm animals, ferrets, hamsters and other small animals, horses, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and even fish. This was a major initiative that took many months to research and program into the site, and it is being well-received within the shelter community.

- By teaming up with the renowned street-artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the iconic Obama "Hope" image, we have available a number of stylish ways to promote pet adoption. Shepard was able to translate his work with Obama to an image that can be used to represent pet adoption support. Merchandise can be found at http://www.muttslikeme.com/

- We have begun blogging and created a Twitter Page along with a Facebook Page. Our blog is located at http://blog.adoptapet.com/, there you can join our Facebook Group, or follow us on Twitter.

Blog Highlights:

Adopt-a-Pet.com has recently begun blogging, and every week we publish posts from two separate columns. On Tuesday we blog about pet care tips, and on Fridays we do our best to find heartwarming stories about adopted pets all over the country. Here are a few highlights from our blog:

10 Ways To Help Homeless Pet, Even If You Can’t Adopt

What To Ask Your Veterinarian

Good News In Pet Adoption – A Weekly Post

10 Things To Consider Before Adopting

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Thanks for all that you do, Jeff, and I am honored to be able to help spread the word for the good of petkind!

My Heart Belongs To Muscle Cars

2010-04-14T01:39:00.001-04:00

Hi.

Let me introduce you to my very first car; the 1979 Pontiac Trans Am. Sundance Yellow.

Sweet, right?

Yeah. this is what it was like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTv81ilCgWo

except with better music.

This car happily got me to my very favorite drag strips at my own whim, and was more than eager to take on my high school buddy in his corvette. I'm not saying I won, but just being challenged by a corvette was pretty cool. In fact, being challenged by a corvette, keeping my shit on the road, and still being quite *in the race*, was pretty cool. Not being caught by the police while racing at 90mph in a 55 on a curvy highway was also pretty decent.

So. How can you top a "first car" like that?

Like this:

[red one in the middle]

HELL YEAH. 1978 Pontiac Firbird, red and black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SarIj1U9FM&NR=1

Sort of like this, whith a pretty girl driving. Black leather interior.

I got pulled over for the very first time in this car. Cruisin' the strip, taking off from the red light - didn't see the cop off to the side - but I burned rubber as I watched the speedometer because I know that little trick to make lots of smoke and noise while you go pretty much nowhere. yeah. Blue and red flashing lights and I'm pulled over. The cop says, "do you know how fast you were going?" I respond with a calm, "yessir. 45 miles per hour. [coincidentally, the speed limit. lucky me.]" I was left with a warning and a smile and no ticket. I think maybe the dude was just wanting to check out my car. This car overtook another on a different night -- my boyfriend at the time had a 1968 black camaro with white racing stripes. Lucky bitch. I loved his car more than my own, but mine was clearly the winner.

So. How can you top a second car like that?

Oh, I'll show you.

My roommate at the time took my car to work. He was on his way back to the house when some asshole was digging through her purse as she drove right into the side of my beautiful car in a parking lot. Insurance totalled it out, and my heart was crushed. Roommate, doing the only respectable thing he could think of at the time, signed over the title of his car.

Hello, beauty.

1982 Smoky and The Bandit Pontiac Trans Am. T-tops, ws6 suspension, VROOM motherfuckin' VROOM. What this basically means is that I was, [and in fact DID, on a daily basis] driving 65mph up a curvy ass mountain road that had a 30mph speed limit. I scared the hell out of my friends and was absolutely thrilled doing it because this thing drove like it was hooked up to a sectret rollercoaster system in the road. You haven't lived until you've made a big strong boy's asshole kiss the seat for dear life. Just sayin'. This car was a dream until mysteriously the rear main seal died and I ended up having to put 4 quarts of oil into the engine every day in order to get anywhere. Bummer.

I traded it to another car enthusiast for this:

welcome to the 1986 Buick Grand National.

Sweet car. I had it less than a year before I got annoyed with it. I don't know; one morning I woke up in a hotel room and my antifreeze was all over the parking lot. It was too damned square in general, and I was not impressed.

Besides, by then, my heart definitely belonged to Pontiac.

These days I am driving a 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser, Touring Edition. Eh. Don't think for a minute I don't still get girl wood every single time I see a muscle car. One of the first thoughts in my head is usually, "I bet I can drive that better that you." ;)

10 Things I've learned on Craigslist:

2010-04-11T12:41:00.002-04:00

1]. People buy some really ugly furniture. And when they have finally tired of seeing the monstrosity in their home, they want you come take it off their hands, usually with the hopes of having you pay full retail price that they paid 20 years ago. If it's a couch, it will be dubbed "vintage", and will come with the added bonus of the stench of cat pee. Because even the cat was offended by the hideousness of that ugly thing.

2]. There are, sadly, way way too many homeless pets being produced by backyard breeders. And no, I do not think a fair "rehoming fee" for the baby mongrels your mutts have produced is in the neighborhood of $500. I don't care if your female dog had to have surgery and you think everyone should chip in to recoup your costs... no one asked you to make more unwanted pets, and you should have a basic grasp of the concept that a german sheppard is NOT going to fit easily through the birth canal of a freakin' chihuahua. dumbass.

3]. Conversely, there are way way too many people that think their pet is actually worth every penny they have ever spent on the poor critter that they "can no longer keep" because they're pregant/moving/can no longer be arsed. It's the equivalent to selling your car and expecting the new owner to retroactively pay for every oil change, tune up, tire, or spark plug you've ever put into it. Not happening. You spent your money because you chose to do the right thing; no one owes you for that.

4]. People still have the naughty french maid fantasy. And actively seek someone to fill the roll. While their wives are at work. Alternately, some people still seem to think two same sex people getting off together is not anything but normal "straight" sex as long as they include the disclaimer that they are not gay and don't want any of that "gay stuff" going on. I'm sorry. If you are a man seeking the enjoyment of going down on another man, you are "bi" at the least. Just something to consider.

5]. Missed Connection = can't handle saying hello in person. Can you imagine what it would be like to really make a connection after having missed one? I imagine it would be much like two people sitting across a table from each other, frantically typing into their iPhones to each other about what a great time they're having.

6]. On the forums, pet people and parents and political discussions all rapidly escalate to an equal degree of crazy. Proceed with caution. I suggest wearing a helmet. You can have a perfectly nice conversation with someone for a whole day, and the next day that same person will tell you what an asshole you are for not feeding your baby or pet the same thing they feed theirs. And well, politics. You know how that goes.

7]. People will try to get you to work for them for free, whether it be photography, plumbing, or hauling their trash off. "We're having a wedding on _________, and need a photographer. We will need 6 hours of coverage, a cd of all of the images, and are willing to pay $300. Please send us a resume and portfolio!" *headdesk* also: "I am moving from _______ to _______ and need someone with a box truck to load all of my stuff, haul it to my new house, and unload it. I'll give you $100." [Which, of course, would barely cover the cost of gas.] Or this response to one such ad: novel editor wanted by an idiot.

8]. Bartering is awesome.

9]. People don't think the rules should ever apply to them, and when their ad is subsequently flagged and removed, the inevitable follow-up post with much foaming at the mouth and explanations as to why the rules don't apply to them. You may not sell your animal on Craigslist. Please see numbers 2 and 3 above.

10]. And finally, there are some really funny, creative, ingenious people floating around. And a lot of really scary ones, too.

The Walking Wounded

2010-03-30T17:44:00.000-04:00

Hello, Blog; it's been a long time. [You're just as lovely as you used to be! *ugh, get out of my head, Conway Twitty! out out out!*]

I guess I've had the winter funk. And other things. I met a friend, I got a dream job, I mourned the loss of something I've never had [hell, I'm still mourning], and I also lost my dream job. Pretty much all in the same little month time frame; it's been a lot to deal with, all in all. I learned that there is still some wounded little girl living inside my head that has the ability to distinguish playground rules from bullshit, and willingly shrieks out 'THAT'S NOT FAIR!' when something stupid happens. I'm trying to find a way to get to that little me and tell her to run along, as seldom is life fair, and grown-up me is growing weary of intensely feeling every injustice through the eyes of mini-me. The truth is, the world isn't made for wounded souls.

"My therapist says..." that I need to go shopping. I need to go buy a little doll, and that this doll will represent mini-me. That when I am feeling totally freaked out by life, I need to figure out what mini-me needs, and give it to her; be her mother - only then will I be able to heal grown-up me. She also said that she's fully aware that it sounds like she's condoning schizophrenia. I don't know... I'm not down with buying a doll; I think I'd be better suited to just using my own imagination, though I'm still not quite there. I'm getting closer. Hell, it's only been a week, so I'm cutting myself some slack, despite being all about facing things head on and getting on with it with a minimum of fuss. No one really enjoys being the walking wounded, right?

I have been reading a lot. Like. A LOT. A novel a day keeps the baddies away. I've had to throw in the towel on my most favorite new year's resolution, which was that I would not re-read anything this year that I've already previously read. Oh well. This year's finances are a joke, a continuation of previous years, and reading a new book every time at my current level would be bank breaking, even if that were a remote possibility. I need to go pay my library fines and just plow through their inventory.

It's finally looking and feeling like spring outside, though, which I hope will at least soothe away the winter funk. A little warmth, a little breeze, a little color on the landscape; surely there is medicine for the soul in that.

What's In A Name?

2010-02-01T21:46:00.001-05:00

I have been thinking a lot in the past couple of months about this strange dynamic I seem to have in my life between my name and "making a name for myself," in all of the literal senses of that phrase. I have not ever really felt connected to my birth names, and still find myself going by something different with each different or new aspect of my life. It's sort of like some wierd schitzophrenic process, which actually makes me nervous because my maternal grandmother is clinically schitzophrenic. I don't think I'm schitzophrenic, though! Maybe I am a bit too compartmentalized....

I was born as Michelle Courtney. There's nothing inherently wrong with either of those names, but I just don't feel, have never felt, like a Michelle or a Courtney. I went by Michelle from birth until 9th grade. I tried on Courtney in gymnastics, dance, and karate classes. In 9th grade, we moved, and it gave me the opportunity to chop up my middle name and become a Courey. I have stayed with that one ever since, though I now find myself feeling disconnected from that name, too. It feels like I have outgrown it; it is childish and has been spoken by too many. It's my mom's boyfriend's cat's name, and coincidentally, another nickname of mine for the past 10 years is "coureycat." Mom's boyfriend finds it all hysterical [and it is pretty funny]. Since my legal name is Michelle, that is the name I use in an "official capacity," for bills and driver's licenses and clients. Family members have been pretty gracious about the whole thing. I have been "trying on" Em since this past summer. It's just the phoenetic spelling of the letter M, which I'm sure you can figure out on your own. Some assume I'm an Emily or an Emma. A friend of mine says Em stands for E minor [and yes, that's true, too].

For me, Em also stands for a new begining. It's only fitting, for me, that since I am finding out who I want to be, I should also be allowed to make a name for myself - one I identify with, and one that lets others identify me. Michelle is a girl who walked through hell, who never thought it cute to have The Beatles song sung to her, who hated that the first part of her name could sound like "mush" [seriously, "Mush - elle?" There's a name that inspires confidence in yourself], who did not ever appreciate that her first name and her last name rhymed, and who wouldn't ever dream of having the nickname "Shelly." Courtney never really stuck. Courey is someone who's walked further through hell and finally woke up to find that what hadn't killed her made her stronger [and stranger]. Em is the woman who has the strength, wisdom, humor, and courage to learn from the past and keep putting one foot in front of the other; no longer just for survival's sake, but to finally harness and enjoy life. Em can be anyone and anything. Just as each chapter in a book may have a name, each chapter in my life can, as well. Em is also literally what I type when I try to type out the word, "me." Dyslexia can be a funny, useful thing.

I won't be changing my name legally [what if I grow out of Em in another few years?] - it feels absurd to do so. I don't even remotely expect to be addressed as Em by anyone that has known me for any length of time. It would be just as strange as if my husband decided he wanted to be called by some random name. [Besides, he already has a great name, first and middle. Actually, I might fancy calling him Eric from time to time. *wink*] I do wish I had first stumbled upon Em instead of Courey, though. I mean, it *is* a little pretentious if you know Em only stands for one single letter, but that's also what I enjoy about it; it's silly as hell, while still managing to sound ordinary. It's like a giggly, whispered secret. It makes me happy, even if only for now.

Sometimes what's in a name does matter a great deal.

The ghosts of my life, past.

2010-01-22T23:49:00.000-05:00

I don't know if you've ever found yourself to be in the position of *that kid* that finds themselves uncerimoniously uprooted from their lives one day, through whatever circumstance. Through whatever crisis that excised itself through your days, you constantly look back at the *before*. Before x, y, z happened, I was ______. I was miserable, or happy, or knew where I belonged, or knew I would get through, or at least had an anchor that held me to the mooring of the tiny vessel that is wholly me. And then there is the x, y, z that bisects the you that you know. Maybe it's a death, or a birth, or a moving away, or a ... no, that's all there really is, isn't there? The death of one thing, or the birth of another, or a moving away in another direction entirely. Whatever the reason, you *do* look back.

I looked back today. I gave myself permission to look back and reach out to some people that meant something to me. Some, I couldn't find, not yet, but some were there at the ready, and it was a day of "where have you been," and "do you remember so and so, and where ARE they," and "this is where I'm at in my life and it's so STRANGE that you and I are still on the same page after all of this time," and most of all, just a sense of belonging to something that I didn't think I had. When my x, y, z happened, I was told I wasn't allowed to have a past anymore; I was reborn, prodded to assume a new name, cut off from everything except the future. I was a 13 year old girl with a room full of ghosts to keep me company until I found a room full of live bodies to start over with. Today I gave myself permission to find my ghosts and let them breathe life back into themselves, into me, into my past. My ghosts remembered me without much urging; remembered me like tracing names carved into a tree, and I will never forget what that has felt like. I am grateful and surprised and relieved. I meant something, too. I am a swirl on the fingerprint of youth.

My therapist said that I have to mother myself, and at first I knew immediately what she meant, but also had no idea how to do it. Mother myself. Well, I don't have time for that. I'm an adult, with adult responsibilites and expectations, and who the hell has time to wait through their childhood hour and do it all over again? But I'm finding ways. I'm returning things that belonged to me all along, like permission to belong to something bigger than myself. Friendship; such a simple thing. My past, which I'm owed all along; it's mine; I earned it. I lived through the smiles and the jokes and the tears and the hands being held. They are mine, as much as the lines of my face that have grown from those experiences. I am a weed that grows in the crack of pavement, begging for life - insisting on it.

I do matter, because I am. Me.

When all else fails, aim for the stars.

2009-12-22T12:06:00.001-05:00

In knee deep snow on Monday, I found myself hanging out laundry to dry. The wind-chill was 27 degrees, but the sun shone brightly for the first time in a week. The kids were running out of warm pajamas to wear, and I thought I'd see what I could do about it. My little hair-brained idea worked quite well! I should actually be out there again today doing my own; this promises to be our last sunny day this week, with some sort of precipitation, as yet to be decided, heading for us again in time for Christmas. The weathernerds can't seem to make up their minds; maybe snow, maybe rain, maybe ice. I now thoroughly understand why, one year, one of the weathermen showed up on tv with what looked like a busted lip, which he never conveniently mentioned. He was the same guy that, during the blizzard of '93, swore we would only get two inches of snow. Twelve hours later, we had 3 feet of the stuff.

Instead of dashing out into the snow to do more laundry, I find myself staring restlessly off into space. I look over at our modem every few minutes to see if all of the lights have come back on; I pick up the phone to see if there's a dial tone yet; I check the weather program on my netbook to see if it's stopped displaying that hateful "Not Connected" message. Monday at 10am, there was a recording saying they hoped to have our services restored within 2 hours. Turns out, the recording was out of its' mind. It's all still very much dead, with no estimate of when we will have use of them again. I called at 4:45 yesterday to see if there was an update, and one very unhelpful lady suggested I reboot my modem. I pointed out that I hardly saw how that would fix my phone, and besides that, I had already tried to reboot the modem and router; I'm not that inept; something is broken. This is who they have for tech support? I had my husband call back, and someone else told him that the woman I'd spoken to was out of her mind, as well [in fact, I came very close to telling her that, myself]. It is madness. Our satellite tv has worked beautifully the entire time, including when the snow was pouring down on Friday with no end in sight; that we also have satellite internet is quickly becoming a dream of mine, even though it's too expensive and not fast enough. At least it's reliable.

I feel entirely, unwillingly, cut off from the rest of the world. I guess I essentially am, and going stir crazy as a result. Every time one of the dogs bark outside, I fly to the window to see if there is a repairman out there, come to rescue me from my secluded hell. Have you ever noticed how most repair trucks are white? Yeah. White trucks, and the guys wear steely gray uniform shirts. I have come to equate this with a knight in armor riding up on his white stallion. I am a needy, dependent, damsel in distress with a dragon that needs slaying. Today would be a great time for him to show up... maybe even a whole team of them. I will try not to hold my breath, though; it's been 4 days already, and the dogs have decided to bark at anything that moves, or simply for no reason at all. Perhaps they have taken the notion that they can bark the snow away. It *is* finally starting to melt a little.

I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The children have been glued to video games since yesterday, having lost all interest in the snow outside. My youngest may even be looking forward to it melting; my daughter hasn't said anything at all about it. They both spend endless amounts of time creating endless streams of chatter, each vying to be heard over the other. This has pushed my "Happy Hour" up by an hour or two in order to cope. My husband has gone back to work since Monday night; he said our own driveway and main road are still trecherous, though the roads in town and even other back roads in other towns aren't so bad. I'm trying not to take it personally, as if my town were conspiring to keep our little road trapped for some little sociology experiement. I spent my alone time last night playing piano, watching tv, reading, [staring at the modem, picking up the phone], and combing every inch of our house for the rare Bermuda Triangle of cellphone reception. I found one tiny spot, smashed up against our bedroom wall next to the bathroom, that waivered anywhere from between one to three bars. It meant I didn't have to go outside at 10:15 at night to call my husband. It was the highlight of my day. Really. Well, that and the discovery that I could get clothes to dry in a 27 degree wind chill. The approaching storm promises to take those things away, and who knows what else it'll take; the electricity again? Will the phone and internet be repaired in time to be taken out again as soon as things get ugly, if they do?

I would love for the highlight of today to be that steely gray clad repairman driving up in his white truck to fix my portal to the outside world. I believe, for my own sanity's sake, it has to happen soon. Yesterday I found myself clicking the "work offline" button, and reading cached pages. So close, yet so far away. Some day my repairman will come.

Surviving The Storm

2009-12-20T16:42:00.002-05:00

The phone rang at 6:07 on Friday morning. I was in bed, and the phone was in the other room; I let it ring while I snuggled deeper under the blankets, and try to let sleep enfold me again. I figure that it's the school's robot calling to say there was no reason to get up out of bed that early to get the kids off to school - there was a snow storm coming; hell, it was already here. I always find it frustrating that they would call that early to wake you up and tell you not to bother waking up. I guess most people would be about to wake up for the day at that time, anyway; I am not most people though, and the irony isn't lost on me. I distantly hear my children stumbling around the kitchen about 30 minutes later; a while after that, I hear our car pulling into the driveway - my husband returning from work. At some point, I feel him snuggle into bed with me, and I drift off to sleep again.

By the time I do crawl out of bed to the musical sounds of the children destroying the house and fighting with each other, there are about 3 inches of snow on the ground. The kids have eaten breakfast, and then some, played some games, and are restless to go out into the cold, white world beyond. My youngest pulls on his snow suit, hat, and gloves; our tiny dog follows him out wearing her sweater. She lasts about ten minutes out there before I hear her whining to be let back in. The snow steadily pours from the sky. It's bittersweet for me; gorgeous, but has also cancelled my plans for the following day, which were kind of important. There is nothing that can be done about it, though. By 2pm, there's almost 6 inches of white blanketing the world outside our home, and still it pours down. The power flickers incessantly and I find myself restless and annoyed, unable to just enjoy the beauty of the snow, which is uncommon for me.

I was finally able to get my mother on the phone to ask if she could take my place on Christmas with my 15 year old. He lives closer to her, and they don't get the weather that we do - maybe an inch of snow over there towards the middle of the state; an inch that quickly melts into slush, and then dissolves into nothing. I say that I will send her money to take him shopping, because the weather has not only cancelled my plan to do so the next day, but promises to dump more snow and ice on us Christmas Eve through the day after Christmas. The 15 year old is going to be extremely disappointed that I won't be showing up, however I know that it will cheer him up to see his grandmother and still be able to go shopping. My mom agrees to this arrangement, says she's happy she can help. I feel relieved, though still not looking forward to hearing the disappointment in my child's voice when I have to tell him that I can't be there as planned; I am pretty disappointed about it, too.

I don't get the chance to tell him, though, because the electricity dies dramatically at 5pm. My husband had just measured out the snow - a little over 9 inches by then - and as soon as we post our update to our friends out in cyberspace, a tree bounces off of the transformer out our back door. It sounds like a bomb goes off, twice, and the white world outside goes purple in time with the booms. The house is plunged into darkness as the sun sets. My first thought is, "oh damn...," followed closely by wondering if something has caught fire. My husband goes outside to check and doesn't see anything so I think, "thank god we have charcoal so we can still make dinner." We set out to do so; I wrap chicken in aluminum foil with some brown sugar, onion, and barbeque sauce while the children contemplate the situation. We play games like, "How Many Christmas Songs Can You Sing," and when their excitement gets to be too much to bear, we play "Please Don't Make Me Send You To Your Room; It's Dark." My husband gathers batteries while I gather candles and a book. My book light is bright enough to illuminate part of the living room all by itself, and the kids decide to try to do a puzzle, and then color a bit, and then finally read, as well. My daughter reads books to her brother, and he actually sits still for the duration.

At some point we realize that we don't actually own a manual can opener, so we wrap up some potatoes to throw on the grill. The food takes forever to cook, and by the time it's done, the kids are both asleep and refuse to get up to eat. The house is still relatively warm; it's only been about 3 hours since the lights have gone out. We have a small radio playing - the only two stations it picks up are country and christian, and they could be local stations, or not; we don't normally listen to either. No one is really saying anything about the weather, and we give up looking outside to try to gauge the snowfall. We let the kids sleep in the living room with the radio playing, and my husband and I go to our own bed - me, with my trusty book and book light and mp3 player. We say that the next day we'll let the kids pick out a movie, and all go sit in the car together with the heat on, with our portable dvd player plugged in. I read until I can't keep my eyes open, flip off the book light, and sleep. I fall into dream after dream of being stuck in the snow, of being somewhere in our car with the battery dead, of being cold and lost, of being terrified for my children.

I wake up at some point, it's still pitch black, my husband is awake. He leans over to kiss me and I jump because he's scared the hell out of me. He says it's ten 'til five - our cellphones have become time-telling paperweights. We curl back into the covers and sleep.

When we wake on Saturday, the house is decidedly colder. You can see your breath puff out into the air with each exhale or spoken word. We are all bundled up in layers of clothes and blankets. Our tiny dog stays glued to my lap under the blanket to keep warm. I'd left her uncrated so she could sleep with the kids during the night and share the warmth; I'm repayed with clean-up duty as she watches on, tail wagging and head cocked to the side. My husband shovels our road, roughly 500 feet of it, before realizing that the town hasn't plowed our main road, 5 miles out from town. We are stuck in a little over a foot of snow, and ill prepared. We have a miniscule amount of charcoal left, and the steaks we lay out for dinner don't have a chance to thaw because we're basically living in a refrigerator at that point. We contemplate trying to wash our dirty dishes in the snow outside, and I'm simultaneously revolted, even though it's a plausible idea - we do have soap, afterall - and also terrified of the thought of all of that cold on my already frozen hands. At around 2pm, my husband says he is going to try to make it to the store in the car. I am instantly terrified for him, for the possibility that none of us will ever see him alive again, but do my best to swallow my terror; we have to find a way to get supplies and keep our children safe. A can opener, and more batteries, food that doesn't have to be cooked, and more charcoal. Water [plain - both to wash hands, and to give to our dog to drink, and maybe even find a way to make some tea] - we have plenty of bottles of flavored water, but never thought to get some straight up plain stuff. Disposable goods we can eat with. A kerosene heater and some kerosene, if it's to be found. Booze, if we're lucky! I write down a list, and scribble the phone number to reach my 15 year old so my husband can tell him what's going on, and why I didn't show up, and that it will be okay.

By the time 5pm rolls around again and my husband isn't back, I start fighting off full blown panic. I pace the house, peering out through the windows, looking for headlights or a flashlight or any sign that he is coming home. It takes him another hour, and by then I am weak with worry. He walks in the door and I cling to him as he tries to catch his breath from hiking up our road; the car can't make it up. He starts the charcoal for me while I prepare the steaks, and then he makes several trips back and forth to the car to bring up most of what he has bought. There's no heater - Wal-Mart doesn't even sell them [*headdesk*]. He's exhausted, and cracks open a beer as he sinks into a chair. He'd spent about 4 hours digging a foot of snow off of a very long road that is all hill, and then another 45 minutes walking up and down that hill to bring up our desperately needed supplies. He is my hero, and we would be lost without him. There is a knock at our door; our neighbor says the car will have to be moved [yes, it is blocking our one lane road - we didn't expect anyone would be going in or out at night, and we only have one neighbor that shares the road]. The neighbor's father is trying to get through... as is the electric company. My husband says he will have to shovel more snow, and I feel horribly for him, yet hopeful that we will have electricity back soon. He's gone for another hour; when he comes back, he said the electricity guy said not to be too hopeful about the power tonight - they've spotted the tree that bumped the transformer.

The children have fallen asleep again about 30 minutes before dinner is done. It's about 7pm, and it's hellishly cold in the house; all you can think about is the numbness in your toes and fingers, and the endless shiver your body is doing to stay warm. It hadn't reached the teeth chattering stage, as of yet, and I am loath to even think of getting to that point. We try to wake the kids up, beg them to eat the warm food so they can keep up the warmth in their little bodies. This rational plea is met with their cries to be left alone so they can sleep. My husband and I start to freak out a little. He asks me if I think they'll be okay, and I lie and say yes [saying no is not an option in my mind, something I refuse to even contemplate; it's like pondering what to do should the sun happen to implode and you have enough time to give it consideration]; I'm fighting off panic again, and wracking my brain to come up with a plan of action. I breifly think of our car down at the end of the road; we have plenty of gas, and if we run the car with a window cracked a little, we will be warm, even if a little cramped. I imagine the shrieking protests of my frozen children being walked, or even carried, all that distance in 30 degrees or so. We decide that we will all bundle up in the same bed with all of the blankets and keep them warm. This seems like it will work, at least for the night.

About ten minutes after my husband carries our son to bed with him, I am still on the couch reading. I've nearly read the entire book - Cleaving, by Julie Powell. My daughter is curled up on the chair beside me, buried to her nose in blankets, and I contemplate curling up with her while I finish reading to keep both of us warm. Two chapters left. The lights come on, and I sit as still as possible, hold my breath, wait for it to flicker back out or hear more thundering booms from the transformer outside. It stays on, and I jump up and turn the thermostat up to 75, and go smile at my husband, and try not to cry with relief. We have made it through 28 hours of cold and dark and many moments of panic and fear. Contemplating your children both hungry and literally freezing to death, or your husband sliding off the road in the car and into the creek, trying to get back home through injury and hypothermia; these are things I never want to have to think about again.

Our phone and internet are still out, and our car is currently buried in snow again in our neighbor's yard, but we have heat and food and satellite tv and video games. And each other, which is most important of all. I won't lie and say I don't miss the internet, though! Our internet and phone both are through the same company, and they have no estimate of when it should be working again. We don't even have reliable cellphone service at our house because we're just that far out in the woods on the side of a mountain. There's only one spot you can stand in the yard on a clear day and get 2 bars of signal... and that's if you're lucky. There's no one else's wifi for my netbook to steal. I'm also hoping we can dig our car out of our neighbor's yard and get to town before the next storm hits later this week. We will need more stuff, and I'd like to get that heater, if there's still any to be had... at the least, get the one from our landlord, just in case. I am crossing my fingers that we won't have to use it. But our power is already flickering again.

Confidence is ... only something someone else can give you?

2009-12-10T22:34:00.001-05:00

I have been to college 3 times, and a correspondence school once. I have one diploma from high school; no degrees, no certificates. My therapist says I didn't "quit" - I merely stopped doing things that I didn't want to do in the first place. I have been taking some time to mull that over; she said it three weeks ago, and I'm still wondering if she's just said it so she wouldn't have to say, "congratulations, you're a failure!"

The truth of the matter is that most of the time, I feel like I am a bit lost; as though I am just mediocre at the things that I am passionate about. It's true that I am a perfectionist, and that plays a big part in how I feel about myself and my endevors. I look at any sign of success as a fluke, and praise is just stumbled upon through dumb luck. I told my therapist that I feel like I haven't accomplished anything in my life, and she said, "well, that's just bullshit." Who do I believe? Further, what sign do I need to see in order to be able to accept that I haven't failed at life? I don't need to be the center of attention - I actually cringe from that situation; however, I would like to feel like I have done *something* of note in my life. I think we all do.

This pervading sense of insecurity and mediocrity has, of course, spread into my photography. It strikes me as funny, really. The first time I read through a photography contest's entry rules and I saw the criteria defining the difference between amateur and professional, I actually laughed. "If you have ever made money from your photography, you are not allowed to enter as an amateur." What? So, suddenly I'm a "Professional Photographer"? Huh. I guess somewhere along the way that did happen... I ended up with a business license, forms for tax write offs, phone calls from the IRS wanting to know why I wasn't filing taxes ["uh, I am not making money."], and finally, my very own people that I could label "clients." It is just strange, surreal, the way it kind of just happened, and I cobbled it all together into some sort of descriptor of what I do during the day, some days. I remember sitting in the office filling out the paperwork for my license and staring at the line that said, "Business Name." Ffft. I hadn't even considered I'd need one! They should make mentors for this kind of thing. Actually, they probably do; I just don't have one. I do portrait sessions for people, I get paid, and then I sit here and wonder if I lived up to my title, or if my clients suspect that I am the fraud that I feel most times.

My most recent portrait session, my client called me two weeks ahead of time; she resides in another state 13 hours away. She said she hadn't had portraits done of her kids and her fiance in years and wanted me to do some while she and they were here on holiday. I knew I could do them, but the moment that we hung up the phone, I began to question everything. Do I have the right equipment? No. Do I have the creativity to come up with decent poses? No. Do I have the talent to even do this job the justice it deserves? No. Do I want to run screaming down the hill? Yes. Yes indeed. But I didn't run; in fact I had a fabulous time photographing my clients as they played together as a family, and they even took the hard job of coming up with the poses they wanted. Whew. I edited the photos and smiled at the job well done and then when everything was ready to be seen, I emailed the link to the proofs, and waited. By the time the third day passed with no comment, I was already at the point where I was positive that they hated the job I'd done and were contacting their lawyer to sue the pants off of me. "Fraud," the charges would be, and possibly "Ruining The Family Vacation."

I guess it may be needless to say, but a watched pot never boils. As soon as I gave up waiting around, my client contacted me via email and said in all capitals and with many many extra exclamation points that she loved them. We spoke on the phone and she said if she lived in my area she would be singing my praises from the rooftops. To say I was relieved is a huge understatement. But I wonder why I do that to myself to begin with - I know the photos were good, yet I immediately went to the self doubt schtick until someone else told me what I already knew. It is one more thing I need to work on, but the "how" of it is probably most daunting of all.

I do wonder if I had a piece of paper, you know.. that thing called a degree.. if I would feel more confident in myself. Considering my track record with higher education, I don't think that's going to happen, and I also know that going into debt for that same piece of paper has left many of my collegues sitting in the same boat I am, being unsure of their decision to persue their particular careers. At the end of it all, we do what we must in order to get through the day. Mine happens to be taking pictures right now. I do a good job, but I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that. I need other people to. I guess it's healthier than being overly-sure and sadly mistaken, right?

Dirt and Destruction

2009-11-30T00:23:00.004-05:00

I survived the week.

I started cleaning last weekend in preparation for my guests arriving for Thanksgiving. Somehow, my house managed to get filthy since the last time we cleaned it in earnest; places and things you generally tend to overlook during the day, or perhaps you might actually look at it every day, but the filth becomes sort of mundane instead of openly repulsive. Dust bunnies and smeary fingerprints, little crayola scribbles via the two small feral children you share your home with. All of these things must be hunted down and erradicated when company is coming, including the wild streak your children have cultured in their small beings.

The cleaning took 5 days, and by the end of it all, I started making compromises. "Okay, this can stay a little grungy looking, IF I can get this other thing spotless." I never even considered looking into the kid's rooms with any sort of hope that it would be presentable. My own bedroom became the dumping ground for all things that company shouldn't be subjected to, yet didn't have "a place," or couldn't be thrown away. I think we got very close to living in a clean home by the time Thanksgiving Day arrived, because while my guests didn't exactly remark about how clean everything was, they didn't run screaming from the house, either. If they'd come on, say... Monday, they would have, and I would have gladly run with them, adding my own screams to the chorus of disgust. We are now three days past "clean," and it's starting to show again. Apparently "clean" is a fleeting thing around here.

Also momentary seems to be the viability of my kitchen appliances. Last Christmas our oven died right in the middle of my trying to bake the ham. My mother and I stood in the kitchen as I cursed, and my husband assured me that we could just finish off the ham in the microwave. It is one of those giant convection oven microwaves. We'd never used the convection part of it - mainly it's used for reheating food, making my water hot for my morning cup of tea, popcorn, and frozen pizza. My mother purchased the microwave in 1996, and had forgotten how to use the convection part of it, as well. It smoked. It stank. We turned if off as quickly as possible, and just nuked the ham in the microwave like normal people trying to salvage a holiday meal. This year, as I was standing in the kitchen chatting with my mother while I made Thanksgiving dinner, the microwave died as I was zapping the last of the sweet potatoes. "BZZzzzzzzzft." There was a little puff of smoke from the back of the thing, and a smudge of black on the outlet itself. We sort of laughed about the coincidence and then continued on into the lovely meal that awaited us. My mom's friend said it was the best turkey he'd had in years. The new recipes were a success. Brilliant!

I have my eye on Christmas. I am not sure I can afford to replace another appliance should our new trend continue. Besides, a lot can get dirty in a month.

Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow you die.

2009-11-21T10:41:00.001-05:00

It is said to be the philosophy of Epicureans; it is also an amalgamation of scriptures from The Bible. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die." Surely this quote is also an apt descriptor for America's first Thanksgiving Day, and every Thanksgiving Day that has followed, with much thanks to the joys of the dysfunctional family. We gather to break bread, and end up wanting to break someones neck; snap it like the wishbone on the turkey. Happy holidays! Well, that's another oxymoron for another time.

A day of giving thanks; nice idea. In a eutopian world, or hell, in a world where you may have even grown up in an above-normal family that may actually enjoy each other's company, that alone is enough to be thankful for. For the rest of us, it's often a month long excursion into the pits of hell of menu planning, agonizing over the various scenarios that will ruin the day, planning the seating arrangement to lessen the chance of a screaming match among guests, hoping Great Aunt Ethel won't notice that she wasn't invited because last year she got so drunk that she started hitting on your little brother, and yes, many many evenings spent with your BFF Chardonnay. It's kind of like a wedding, except at the end of the night instead of a new bride and groom, you pray that there are no new black eyes. You don't even have to be Hungarian or Jewish to have the busted china and wine glasses.

Okay, maybe that's truly worst case scenario, but will give you a good idea of where the mind will wander and latch on in times of duress! I, myself, have already ended up having to send my own mother an email in which I totally freaked out on my own worst case scenarios; luckily I was able to be talked down from the ledge of hysteria. This time. With only five days remaining until Thanksgiving, I wonder what else will go wrong. I haven't even started the cooking; first comes the mad dash to make sure the house looks presentable [currently, it doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination]. That's another perk of having company over; no matter how much you clean, it's pretty rare you end up feeling like your house is truly "clean enough" once the guests start showing up, especially when at least one of those guests is a self proclaimed neat freak.

I decided this year to try some new recipes. Tired of the same ol' dishes we usually do, which consist largely of canned goods, and a pretty strong aversion to watching the cranberry blob sliding out from the can once more, I scoured my favorite recipe place and found some dishes that promise to be tasty. For my own sanity's sake, I hope they live up to those promises! I'm sure that not doing a practice run on these new items is a Very Bad Idea, but frankly, I don't have any inclination to have the same food twice in the same week. My dinner guests will also serve as my guinea pigs. I feel this is a fair exchange, all things considered! I don't even like cranberry, however this year, I will be experimenting with a cranberry chutney. My husband has already looked at a picture of the finished product with a little skepticism; I can't deny that I'm a bit worried, too. We will also be trying out a recipe for sweet potatoes with an orange flavoring influence, served in a half an orange, no less. I'm worried most about these, as they have to sit in water to bake. How does one keep a rounded surface from tipping over? Ah, the madness! The stuffing and pies, however, will be coming courtesy of Stove Top and the local bakery; I just don't have the energy to do that much cooking all at once.

As if the cleaning, menu planning, cooking, seating arrangements, and worst case scenarios weren't enough, the rest of the world still moves onward. Not only do I have a portrait session to carry out for a client and her family, I have a meeting the day before Thanksgiving [aka, the day I hope to do at least half of my cooking, also the day my mother and her friend arrive in town], and will have my two small children underfoot since they will be out of school most of the week. Thanks, holiday! It's not like I didn't have enough on my plate as it was! My husband only has the day of Thanksgiving off, so I am going to be on my own here. I'm so looking forward to it! *smirk*

Ah, well. I take solace in knowing that I am not alone in my anxieties - people all over the country are going through exactly the same nightmare I am this month.

In that vein, I propose a toast. Here's to no one dying before their time; to food that turns out the way it's intended; to children and adults on their best behavior; to sparkling surfaces everywhere; and the endless river of alcohol we will consume to survive the holiday!

Cheers!

My squealing inner fangirl, let me show you it.

2009-11-17T00:18:00.004-05:00

If you've read my profile, two random factoids you may know about me is that a] I am a photographer and b] that I am a music lover. I am not a musician because, even though I have heavily flirted with the piano since I was about 2 years old, I was gifted with short, stubby fingers and a basic lack of the ability to keep timing. I am intensely jealous of those who can play the way they're supposed to, but also thoroughly awed by their talent. I am always toying with the idea of learning guitar, but then I balk at the idea of calloused fingers. *shrug* I can't have my cake and eat it, too; I have come to accept it... for now.

The first time I was introduced to Imogen Heap was at the closing credits of The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe one. I felt my jaw drop as the credits rolled ever upwards on the screen and I listened to the most amazing, breathy voice sing "Can't Take It In." I waited through the entirety of the neverending list of names in order to get to the music credit section and - I'm sure you've all had this moment - frantically scanned the names rolling by for the glimmer of a song title that might match the lyrics. Thankfully it was quite easy to pick out, and from there, I ran to my computer, typed the name into my search bar; et voila - a fan was born. I think I listened to nothing but Imogen Heap for months whenever I was in the car, driving and belting out the lyrics to my newest musical love. My children began to plan their outings around which cd I might be listening to - Frou Frou or Speak For Yourself. Imogen may have even grown a tiny fan in my daughter, who was 4 at the time. I definitely heard a "can you play that again" more than once from the back seat. A friend and I were supposed to go to her concert when she came near our town - it happened to be a couple of days before my birthday that year! - and it ended up not working out. Oh, the regret I feel to this day!

Earlier this year, I found out that Imogen was holding a photography contest for her newest album, Ellipse. She wanted entrants to submit photos based on their own interpretations of a line from each of the songs on the album; twelve songs, twelve chances to win, with the prize being your photo incorporated into Ellipse's album artwork in some way. The idea was that she would be projecting the photos onto her and various parts of her house, which would then be re-photographed and placed into the album's artwork. Of course I knew immediately that I would not pass up the very slim chance of winning, and I spent a day sweating over which photos I might submit. Decisions made, I entered my chosen twelve into the competition, and waited. And waited.

The closing day came and went and a week or two later, a notice was put up that all winners had been notified, though a couple hadn't responded. I was a little disappointed at having not been notified of anything - but there were a lot of really good entries, afterall, and only 12 songs. I was bummed out for a couple of minutes, but decided to focus on the fact that very soon there would be brand new Imogen Heap music to listen to - new lyrics to learn and fall in love with. Who could sulk in the face of that, right? None of the winning photographs were officially revealed, but a few of the winners couldn't help but shout from the rooftops that their photo had been chosen, and provide links. Congratulations to them, I thought, and looked forward to seeing the end product.

On July 13th of this year, I recieved an email entitled "Urgent - re Imogen Heap Competition." I stared at the title blankly for a couple of seconds before clicking on it. What is this? It read: "We managed to miss you off the list of people we contacted and Imogen is finalising the album artwork as I type, so if you could get back to us ASAP we'd really appreciate it! Cheers, James"

Yes, commence total nervous breakdown! I wrote back, "Hi! That's me! Please give me about 5 minutes to stop shaking!! I'll get right back to you, I promise!" During that five minutes, I fought off nausea, nearly passing out, a brief moment of smacking myself across the face to see if I was dreaming, an interlude of complete disbelief [okay, where are the cameras.. who's pulling my leg here], and finally, just slack-jawed amazement that it was really for real. Once I'd gotten past all of that, I realized that I would need to send the fullsize file of the photo in question that they'd requested "ASAP" [as in, hi, we're printing the cd in 2 days], and I had no idea on which of my cds the photo might be located. That led to approxamitely 15 minutes of cold sweat, self-loathing, the search of the three computers in my home, more nausea as I imagined myself sobbing as I composed an email saying that I couldn't find the photo and they'd have to choose someone else, swears that I would organize my entire life if I could only find this ONE PHOTO, and then another moment of nearly passing out in relief once I'd located the thing. "Right," I told myself, "you can react however you need to, body, AFTER I get this taken care of." I spent several more hours printing out, signing, scanning, and then faxing the paperwork requested of me, and when I was finally able to call the thing "done," my body revolted on all of the stress and adrenaline I'd just put it through by having a horrifying migraine for the rest of the night. Even the migraine couldn't wipe the smile off of my face.

Have I mentioned that I live in a small town? That's another thing you may have picked up from looking around this blog. Population around 10,000andsomething. Deep south, Bible Belt. I don't ascribe to the hype of it all, myself, but it definitely has its perks; low crime rates, stunning country views, peace, quiet, and lots of outdoor activities, not to mention quite a few things in which to point my camera at. However, one thing we lack? Banks that will cash foreign currency. Miss Janet Wood sent me a check in payment for my photo, and I spent the next TWO MONTHS trying to cash, deposit, or generally get the funds into my bank account. Nothin' doin'. It was a nightmare in which I struggled with many, many of the humiliations and frustrations that small town life can bring. I was sure Janet was on the verge of calling me a crazy hillbilly spastic at any second, despite her being completely cordial in every email we exchanged over the two month period; I mean, we all have that inner dialogue at times, and let's face it - Imogen's cd was being launched during all of this fiasco. Not exactly an opportune time to deal with backwoods banks and their view that Great British Pounds come from Uranus.

When the album was released, I ran out and bought my copy. I had no idea what the final album artwork was going to look like. It was all kept very hush hush so as to provide maximum surprise for everyone. I bought my copy from our local Best Buy store; they had 4 whole copies on the shelf. Christ, I thought; this town doesn't know what it's missing. I paid for the cd, got out to the car, and peeled off the wrapper. Cracked open the case, extracted the booklet, and couldn't find my photo anywhere. I sat in my car and almost had a panic attack, thinking of all of my online friends I'd told to look for my photo, and WHERE WAS IT??! The photo of mine that was chosen had been entered into the contest for the song Bad Body Double, and the photo in the album for Bad Body Double was definitely not mine. I found the credits section that listed the song title and photographer for each song, and was not listed for Bad Body Double. How did I have a check that I couldn't cash if I had not actually been chosen afterall? I read through the credits again and found my name. "2-1", it said, and I flipped back to the photo and, with a huge sigh of relief, thought, "how cool is that?" 2-1 had actually started out being my favorite song on the album! Imogen had streamed the entire album from her website, and I fell in love with that one immediately before I even saw the physical cd.

In the end, I mailed the check back to London, and we settled for a money transfer through Paypal. Janet, for the record, has the patience of a saint. I would tell you that, after currency conversion, that I bought a lot of really awesome things for myself [as well as a gift for my husband], because I did do that, BUT, that would be tedious. What I want to tell you is that, in the midst of 2009 being a horrifying year, Imogen Heap rescued me. I have called her "distressingly adorable" on many occasions, and I mean every syllable of that, but also, the music she makes is exactly what this soul of mine needs to dance to. Being able to say that my photography is even remotely associated with her brilliance is ... well, I don't know what to say. It's been four months since I was informed, and I am still speechless. I am still a total squeeling fangirl; I follow her on Twitter, I sit in on every webcam chat session, I listen to her music regularly, and I am officially blogging about it all.

On September 21st, I opened my mailbox at the end of my very quiet, secluded small town country road, and pulled out a giant envelope that was postmarked from London, England. Inside was an autographed copy of the delux version of Ellipse, as well as a signed [pretty large] print. I've never had an autographed anything from anyone. I think I'm hooked.

My favorite author is Stephen King. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something equally awesome will happen in 2010!

We don't do F2F anymore.

2009-11-10T22:40:00.002-05:00

My friend Kari recently made an entry in her blog about how people just aren't talking on the phone anymore, as in - the internet is the new all-encompassing social hub. I have to admit, I didn't really think about it much because I am not a phone person. I'm not even really a "face to face" person, to be honest; every relationship I've ever had outside of my husband and my kids, I have let slip through my fingers. It's not that I'm not interested [well, in lots of cases, I'm sure], but ... uhm, I don't have a therapist just for kicks. I have issues - probably more than your local magazine rack. I have them for valid reasons, but I have reached a point in my life where it is time to put those issues on a shelf and get on with things.

I want someone - hell, a group of someones - I can pick up the phone with and say, "Can you believe my mother sent me another Jesus book for my birthday? Let's meet for lunch and rag on people." Because that actually happened today, and not for the first time I might add, and here I sit, totally indignant and hurt, and no one to share it with except for my husband and my online world. It is funny, in a not nice way, that one of the things I've always wanted in my life is a big family, or at least a big group of friends. I grew up with none, grew up without a safety net, grew up being a loner because that's just what my life told me I needed to be. That's irony for you!

I met with my therapist today and we discussed further my lack of face to face social interaction - it's been a defense mechanism, along with being convenient, and having afforded me with a wider pool with which I can cast my net and find the people that I click with. However, it's left me with no one to have lunch with; no one to discuss a book with over a steaming cup of coffee in some indie shop; no one to even laugh with over... anything! I do not have a family outside of my husband and kids, and as sad as that statement may be, I don't even have my own made-up family of people that I can invite to Thanksgiving or whatever reason I need to be surrounded by a group of people that I get and who get me in return. My birthday is quickly approaching, and the last time it was a "big deal" to anyone, I think I was 12. I wish I were exaggerating, because even reading that makes me sad.

So my "homework" for therapy this week is to join a group that isn't online. More irony is that I am looking for this mysterious group...ON THE INTERNET. Hey, it's convenient. What am I supposed to do, go door to door? So, I'm using my very best kung fu google skills because I have been on the internet for 10 years, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Google is my friend. But you know what I've found? Either Google is a hateful liar that is hiding these groups I want to join, OR they do not exist. In a good solid hour of searching I have found one group an hour away that has 109 members, but only apparently allows 15 members at a time to participate [cooking group] and is also not at a really convenient time, and a prefabricated Writer's Group hosted by Barnes & Noble [also an hour away] that may or may not have more than one member and no description of what they actually do or talk about, but the time they meet is generally okay. That's it, kids.

Am I going to have to start groups myself in order to find friends? Me, the no phone contact having, not so good with the face to face, doesn't really know how to keep a good relationship kind of person?

I love to cook, I'm a total bookworm, aspiring writer, and pretty decent photographer. Please won't you be my neighbor?

Where'd you get your driver's license, Kmart?

2009-11-09T01:12:00.005-05:00

My mother put me behind the wheel of a Jeep Cherokee when I was 15. I'm not sure what year the Jeep was, but the peeling brown metalic paint allowed us to dub the thing "Coppertone." To a 15 year old girl, it was a massive behomoth to maneuver through the backwood roads of our county. Couple that with the impromptu tiny wooden bridges without railing, and well...a girl could imagine driving herself and her mother into the most convenient creek bed or cliff side. The radio cranked out whatever handy tune was snatched by the satellite, and this girl tried to keep the brown hulk of peeling metal between the lines.

My first driving lesson happened much earlier, actually; I was probably 12 and I ran down the pine tree sapling we'd planted in our yard in commemoration of my birthday that year. Perhaps that's why I truly do not care for pine trees to this day. We won't discuss that further at this time.

I did go through the driver's education program at my high school. It's required, and I did it during the winter of my senior year. The teacher was "the cool football coach." Coach Hefner was the kind of totally awesome teacher that had his finger on the pulse on the entire school, from drama nerds to cheerleaders to golf nerds, and of course, all of the football nerds thought he hung the moon; how he ended up with the driver's ed postition, I will never know outside of guessing he had a death wish. I climbed into the silver Ford Taurus and listened to him sing under his breath to the radio. I didn't want to kill the coolest teacher ever to grace the face of the earth, however, there was ice on the road, and he wanted me to learn how to drive on it. Through the grace of God, we both made it through that experience unscathed. Imagine if I'd manage to off the coolest teacher on the face of the planet in my senior year...? Yeah, no pressure there.

When I was 17, I moved out of my parent's house, and into my best friend's house, with her family. Her mother was an elementary school math teacher, and her father was the captain of our county's sherrif's team. Jim bought a sky blue Chevy S10 and dubbed it Papa Smurf. He carted home a deer he'd shot, and I watched him skin the thing in the back yard one day. He asked me if I was going to get sick, and I said "nope," and continued to stare, slack jawed and feeling green around the gills, despite my saying that I was fine. I mean, have you ever seen someone peel the hide off of an animal? UGH.

Jim showed up one afternoon at my job. He pulled up and handed me the keys to Papa Smurf and said, "see you at home!" He pulled his bike out of the bed of the truck and smiled in complete trust as he set off for the house. I, on the otherhand, was a completly wasted ball of nerves; sure that I would not only die on the way home, but manage to wreck the truck - not necessarily in that order. There was about 6 miles distance between my job and my current front porch, and I was driving the captain of the sherrif's team's Papa Smurf. Did I mention that I didn't actually have a valid driver's license at that time? YEAH, NO PRESSURE. It wasn't very hard to imagine myself strung up in the tree in the back yard, being skinned for destroying the truck.

I made it home in one piece with Jim's truck in one piece. It was miraculous, and I felt a surge of pride as I saw the grin on his face as I pulled into the driveway. But then there was his riding lawnmower, out of the middle of nowhere, and a moment of panic turned into a scratch the length of the truck as I parked. I saw his face crumple in symphony with the paint that peeled from the side of Papa Smurf. Shit.

One night he took his daughter and I out to a deserted parking lot and let us have our way with his poor scarred up Papa Smurf. We squeeled rubber on that thing.. trying to find the clutch. He gave us about a half an hour before he decided to call the local police to tell them he'd run across some joy riders. Imagine my horror as police sped into the parking lot, blue lights blazing and sirens howling as my best friend was pulled over in a freakin' parking lot. I could hear her screaming "DADDY!" across the blacktop, and I crumpled into laughter along with her father.

Years later, when my husband and I moved into another house, I ran into our neighbor - the coolest coach slash driver's ed teacher on the face of the planet. We met at the mailbox row one afternoon, and I bragged to him that I had never had a ticket or an accident in the [then] 13 years that I'd been legally driving the roads of our state. I left out the incident with Papa Smurf, and one other when I'd managed to leave a massive dent in the side of some brand new plastic car, thanks to the surprisingly LONG front end of my classic Chevy Impala when I was backing out of a parking spot at Burger King when I was about 19. He smiled and said he wished he could say the same about his own son, who was 15 at the time.

About a month later, karma caught up with me, and I nearly ran down the coolest coach slash driver's ed teacher on the planet's father-in-law with my car. The father in law slash other neighbor came up to help my husband jack up our car so we could change the tire that had gone flat. We had a stick shift, and I'd accidentally left it in neutral... it ended with an $1800 insurance coverage, and a near miss of epic proportions. My husband actually tried to chase down and stop our car as it collided with the neighbor's truck - I imagined squashed people and lots of jail time as I stood in our driveway and gaped.

A little after that, I found myself getting onto the highway. A maroon Cadillac was behind me on the on ramp, and passing me before I even got onto the highway. I had to slam on my brakes and enter the highway behind the Cadillac, and the driver of the Cadillac was gifted with many foul words and flown birds. I was behind the car all the way to the grocery store, and coincidentally, the very same Cadie cut me off as I was trying to park. I threw my hands in the air in the universal "WHAT THE FUCK" gesture, and finally found a place to park. I got out of the car at the same time as the Cadie driver and we met face to face - Jim's wife and I. The road rage immediatly drained from my veins and turned into pure shock and wonder.

Not all teachers know how to drive, apparently.

I was temporarily out of order.

2009-11-06T11:33:00.003-05:00

I used to be pretty good at saying the right thing when someone needed to hear it. I have been the go-to girl for advice, anecdotes, a shoulder to lean on. But, my friends, I saw all of that change last night. I sat, horrified, as I saw my fingers type all of the wrong words, incapable of shutting the fuck up. After I apologized, I ended up slinking off to bed, feeling like a giant asshole. I still feel like a giant asshole this morning over it, and hope that my friend will forgive me for scaring her worse instead of being the rational voice I usually am, or try to be.

I freaked out, though, not because I was in a spiteful mood, or because I just couldn't be arsed to put in the effort to remain positive, but because this year I have seen a lot of people go through a lot of terrible problems, some of those people are even good friends of mine, and my first thought was that I can't handle sitting idly by while another friend gets sucked into the randomly murderous grip of 2009. Not again, can't do it. This person is important to me, you know, and I freaked, and made myself the worst possible person to talk to about the situation. I became one of *those people* that must blurt out worst case scenarios and suspicion about the intelligence of the medical field and the whole 9 yards. I even said "the c word." What an asshole.

I need one of those yellow and black "CAUTION" tapes tied around my mouth [or my fingers, so that I can't type]. "Caution: this person is temporarily out of order, and may be hazardous to your mental health." Or perhaps a name badge, instead: "Hello, My Name Is Temporarily Unhelpful." Maybe just something scrawled across my forehead, like "BEWARE." Something to properly illustrate and forewarn the people in my life that I am having a, hopefully, brief moment of oafishness.

I hope that I am well enough soon to again be able to properly use my mouth at the same time as my brain, but until that time, please accept my apologies.

I need to get a life.

2009-11-04T13:49:00.004-05:00

I am the proud new owner, for the second time in my life, of the phrase "my therapist told me...." Actually, it's kind of the reverse; I sit in the chair and tell her everything for an hour every week. On the mornings of "therapy day," I wake up with a giant knot in the center of my stomach and an overwhelming urge to have a panic attack - the symptoms of a hardcore, long-term "do-it-yourselfer" that is coming to grips with the fact that I can no longer do-it-myself at this time. Someone who has awoken in the cold sweat nightmare of discovering that, despite my insightful and honest approach, I have become a victim of aimless existence rather than kicking ass and taking names. I have become accustomed to allowing things to happen instead of making them happen.

How did that happen?

I realized that I have no goals in life that are tangible; nothing to work toward and draw strength from; nothing to put x's on the calender to count down to. I fill my time with abstract concepts instead of concrete joys, as if my time were short enough that I can only dream instead of do, and have finally discovered what a giant mess I have made of my life by doing nothing. So I have a therapist and I tell her about me and she gets me to listen to myself; points out the answers that I already knew but couldn't face on my own.

I need to get a life. I need to figure out what I want that life to look like, and then I need to live it. I feel like a child, trying to decide what they'll be when they grow up; full of possibilities, but also a little overwhelmed by those same possibilities. It's no easy task to invent yourself when you're already a 30something with a husband and 3 kids. Just the thought of the situation is depressing, shocking, sickening - how could I have allowed this to happen when I work so hard to ensure that my own children have a good life? The short answer is that no one has ever done that for me and I suppose I didn't know how to do it for myself, or that I even could. I remember a great deal of "no you can't do that," but seldom was there support for my dreams. In fact, I'm still told by my mother to "go out and get a real job," when I talk about writing or photography, which are both true passions of mine. My husband has been the only source of support, which I am grateful to have, and to which I should have been listening to much more than I have been.

So this is it, as cliched as the phrase is; the first day of the rest of my life. It's a work in progress, which is still better than an exercise in futility - doing nothing and going nowhere. I am looking forward to being among the living, though!

There's Nowhere To Go

2009-10-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

My children are on "fall break", which is some random point in time roughly 2 months after school starts in which everyone decides that it is time for a four day weekend. I don't know if this happens all over the country, or if it's just us, but I think it's a relatively new occurance; I certainly don't remember being gifted with arbitrary long weekends. Even if I had, there would have been not much to do anyway, except sit at home and make a nuisance of myself or spend the weekend at a friend's house if their parents were braver souls than my own.

That's another thing about about living here; there isn't much in the form of entertainment except nature and golf. When I was a teen, we had a skating rink - it was actually the first job that I had. It was located in a very out of the way spot right off the highway in a part of the county that not many people have a reason to travel to, and therefore the skating rink only lasted for a couple of years. Having a video game console, and even a personal computer of some sort, in your home was still an exception, and not a rule. Being largely a rural county, the majority of us were scattered across many miles, and walking to a friend's house wasn't [and still isn't] safe or practical. There are also no bike trails and very few actual sidewalks except for the ones in the heart of downtown. What are the kids to do?

There is an acquaintance of mine who opened up our town's visitor's center. A handy place where the droves of tourists we get during the various seasons could stop and get information about our town and perhaps purchase wares from the local artisans who consigned with the visitor's center. The shop owner and her husband ran the visitor's center and had a hand in organizing, and indeed, revitalizing, that particular area of downtown - it's the seedier part of town, or I guess I should say, more historic. Most of the buildings were vacant and the homeless shelter is sandwiched right in between the lot of it [which is also probably why most of the buildings were vacant]. The homeless are often found hanging around outside the shelter, and who can blame them - they don't have anywhere to go, either. It is a little odd seeing them hang around outside of the upscale shops that moved into the area once the visitor's center livened the place up. The homeless aren't the panhandling kind, however, they are pleasant enough and keep to themselves, though they usually ignore the polite society's rules about alcohol consumption.

The family that ran the visitor's center have several various school-aged children, and also lamented the lack of activites for kids. Being the proactive bunch that they seem to be, they decided to convert part of the visitor's center into a club for teens. There were pool tables and video games, a snack bar, and places to just sit and hang out. A safe, supervised environment in the heart of downtown, where many of the junior high kids could easily walk to. Brilliant! It was a great idea, a great asset to our community, I thought. However, the building owner wasn't as happy about it. After thousands of dollars spent by the family to remodel [with permission] the interior of the building, the landlord abruptly gave them notice to vacate the premesis. He'd decided that he didn't want kids hanging around and he didn't want a snack bar in there. The family lost their business in one of the worst economic periods in our history. To add insult to injury, a month later not only did they find out they were bringing another child into the world, but the landlord of their previous building rented the space out... to a cafe. A few of the upscale businesses closed shop, and now that most historic district of our town is looking worse for the wear again.

I think the moral of the story here is that our sleepy little town needs to wake the fuck up. If it's fine for the homeless to hang out and the area still thrives, then it should be equally fine for the kids to hang out, as well. There was police observation and adult supervision, so there wasn't a question of safety. It seemed more like the building owner just had a thing for hating on kids. They're only most troublesome when bored and unsupervised, in most cases [I should know, I have three of my own], and that teen club was a great remedy for both. Now we have come full circle, though; the kids are bored and unsupervised and have nowhere to go again. And the guy still ended up with a stupid little cafe in his building.

Book Stores Mean Civilization

2009-10-22T20:52:00.000-04:00

You know what I would really appreciate having in this town? An honest to God national chain book store. We have NONE. I can't think of a single one in our entire county. Who thought that would be a good idea? The only places to shop for new books are Wal-Mart, Kmart, random grocery stores, or the Christian book store on Main Street [if, indeed, it's even still there]. Then we have a used book store behind Main Street which is basically just a very small hole in the wall with books lined from floor to ceiling - you literally have to walk sideways to get through various parts of this place. I think it was built and stocked based on Stephen King's book, Insomnia; more specifically, Atropos's underground haven, crammed to the gills with the magpie-like collection of objects from random people that crossed his path. It smells musty and vaguely of night sweat. Other than that, we have the various county libraries. They are quite small, needless to say; we only have a population of a little over 10 thousand residents. But I am not one that likes borrowing, anyway; I am a chronic re-reader, and need the option of selecting any number of books at random off of my own book shelves. I may read it in a couple of days worth time, or it may take me a month--I don't care much for deadlines or late fees.

I want a "real" book store. I want a Borders or a Barnes and Noble, even if they are giant, soul eating corporations. It's not as if they have a Mom and Pop store to put out of business around here. I want wide isles and pretty displays and a little coffee nook because, even if I don't drink it much, the aroma of coffee and books just goes so well together. I want to be able to look up a book online and drive 10 minutes downtown and walk into the book store and pick up my book. I am tired of having to order online or, heaven forbid, drive two hours both ways to the next county over to pick up a $10 or $20 book. I shouldn't have to travel two hours for a book; the very idea is absurd. Also absurd is waiting on the mail for a book. There are too many possibilities awaiting the fate of those purchases, and the handy little tracking numbers don't always work. I recently made a purchase online and the tracking information I was given insisted that my order didn't exist. Even though the company assured me that my order was en-route to my house and it actually arrived several days before promised, I spent many spare moments wondering into which rabbit hole my hard-won titles would appear. I still get other peoples mail who don't have the slightest resemblance to my own name or address, and I've lived in this house for almost 8 years [and who knows how much of my own mail has shown up in stranger's mailboxes]; clearly I have reasons to doubt the mail system.

I just want a book store here in my town. It's a simple request and seems like it would be quite profitable, all things considered. Perhaps someone decided that country really does mean stupid, and we don't read the things. The big Ingles grocery had a fairly decent selection of books once upon a time, but the last time before today I went on an earnest book hunt, last month, I found that the book section there had been halved in size. Further, half of that half are always romance novels. *wrinkles nose* Not my type of reading material. It is the same with the selections at Wal-Mart and Kmart - you get one double sided row to peruse in both of those stores, and half of their inventory is of the romance genre. A quarter of the remaining books are dedicated to YA, which is okay by me, but then the majority of the rest is SPY NOVELS, or what have you. Those books that everything on the cover is written in bolded capital letters. I guess that is the only way they ever catch anyones attention otherwise. Again, not my kind of late night fodder. I like my books to be fairly smart. That's not to say I haven't read [and thoroughly enjoyed] V.C. Andrews, Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, and even my beloved Stephen King, who falls into the realm of "crap." But they are enjoyable crap. They offer something other than bodice ripping [well, maybe not the V.C. Andrews stuff] and espionage [well, maybe not the Dan Brown]. I have noticed that these authors are readily available in my area, but the Audrey Niffeneggers of the world are few and far between. Indeed, I had to travel to four different stores [not actual book stores, mind you] to track down The Time Traveler's Wife. I'm sure Her Fearful Symmetry will be just as difficult to put my hands on.

Perhaps the reasons why these kinds of authors are so overwhelmingly absent from my town are precisely why country has come to be synonymous with stupid and we aren't allowed to have book stores. We have gotten too used to reading crap, or not reading at all; complacent with what we have, or what is lacking, rather. We are the literary living dead. As a friend has suggested, maybe there is a correlation between the small town civilians and their Bible-hugging ways; it's the one book we have readily available.

My town is a beautiful little town, but BYOB [bring your own book] if you come for a visit.