Forgive Me

If you know me in real life, here are a list of lies that I probably will or have told you....um...sorry about that.

Lie: I have a job
Truth: I've had interviews, a couple emails, and a potential Craigslist identity theft scare. I have no job.
Truth 2: I'll probably still tell you I have a job... even if I'm sure you have read this.

Lie: I just booked a flight to Utah
Truth: I booked a flight to Utah Jan. 19th. Got antsy, booked one for Jan 13th. Got nervous, moved it back to Jan 19th, Got nervous when the "doctor"* told me I had a herniated disc, canceled the flight. Booked a flight February 11th, after my surgery. Got antsy, canceled surgery, booked a flight for Jan. 29th.

Lie: I need surgery on my back
Truth: The surgery was just to get rid of my pain...which is partially legitimate but void because the decision on surgery was also based on another attempt to postpone my real life experience. Also known as unemployment, also known as bills.

Lie: Turns out I don't need surgery on my back
Truth: This lie was more like restitution for the previous lie. Again, the no surgery was really based on my restless desire to live with fun, symmetrical friends again.

Lie: Of course I don't care what my friends think of my life!
Lie 2: I've really got things figured out.
Truth: Read this post again.

Again... my apologies. If you're really angry you can email me at my new work address. I'll get it to you as soon as the tech guy, Sean, gets back from his vacation in Palm Springs... it could be a while. Sean loves Palm Springs! Ugh, tech guys.

*I don't think there's anything quite as condescending as quotation marks. Old Man Winter used them all the time. Bless that man's soul.

Colder than a Convict

When your father is a saint, sometimes it's cool because karma has a way of spilling out onto his demon seed for doing nothing at all. And I mean nothing. But then again, sometimes you end up giving rides home from Springfield to ex-cons.

Today my dad and I went 30 minutes from home to return a kitchen aid to a store in Springfield. Well on the way over we got a call from Tracy, the four-time prisoner of the state penitentiary** who used to go to our church. Tracy has been using my dad's altruistic heart for 11 years for help. This afternoon Tracy asked my dad if he could come to Springfield to give him a ride to Jacksonville to see some "friends." Well we just happened to be in the area heading that way. Lucky us.

We picked him up from work where he is a waiter (no not a dishwasher. I asked.) My dad says due to his anti-social personality disorder, he makes a great waiter. Which is weird because I would say because of his anti-social personality disorder, he would make a great murderer, but I guess I'm just a glass half empty kind of girl.

Anyway, as I'm in the passenger seat, listening to Tracy's stories, I got a rude awakening. He was telling us about the flaggers who stand outside Wal-Mart for $7.25 an hour. Yeah, I've seen them. Looks like the kind of job that would be fitting for Tracy. Go on. I assumed he was going to tell us he filled out an application, but what he did was get that guy some hot chocolate on the coldest day of the year. The guy told him no one had ever done that for him before. Well, after I had successfully judged everyone inside and outside the car (my dad for being too nice, Tracy for being a criminal (ok that one was actually deserved), the flaggers for looking like criminals, etc.), I realized that I was sitting in the car with a saint and a crook, but still managed to be the most insensitive person in the vehicle.

So alright, I'm more cold-hearted than a sociopath on parole, but what I'm hoping is that Karma is a little bit like my GPS. All it knows is that Tracy was in Springfield. The car I was in picked him up, and then the car I was in dropped Tracy off in Jacksonville. Good deed: attained. I also hope that the Jacksonville Police Department is a little less like my GPS. Accomplice in major drug deal: averted.

*Being the optimistic person he is, my dad said he hoped I wasn't too bothered and that maybe I could get a blog out of the experience. I said maybe but I didn't pay attention very well. He said that I could just make up what I don't remember because it's what I "usually do, right?" Great, now I'm cold-hearted and the saint thinks I'm a liar.

**For purpose of this blog, I asked my dad how many times Tracy has been to jail. He said 'four times. Wait, jail or prison? He's been to the county jail a number of times. He's been to prison four.' Well. I wouldn't want to be inaccurate.

Torture Me

I have this herniated disc in my back. I usually tell people it's from running a half marathon in June (and I usually leave off the half), but it's probably just because I ate something wrong and twisted. Whatever the case, I've been seeing the chiropractor for a few weeks now to try and correct it before surgery.

I've never been to a chiropractor before, but I've only heard success stories so I was optimistic. However, today it dawned on me why the success rate is so high.

I've been seeing similarities for a while between the chiropractor's office, and torture scenes I've seen on movies. I go in to a room, get electroshock treatment, and then go to another room to see the doctor who asks me lots of questions I don't have the answers to:
"how did you do this?"
"A marathon"
"You can't herniate a disc from running"
"I don't know then."
"More electroshock."

Except that all of these "torture" devices feel really good. It's not that they are torturing me, but they are torturing me in reverse. It's genius. I think they're ahead of the Chinese on this one. And it must be great for business.

When I first came in they asked me my pain level. I said 9. They said on a scale of 1 to 10. Oh. 9.5 then. My leg doesn't feel any better now, but it's like every time they torture me in reverse and ask me what level of pain I'm in they are saying, "we are doing all this nice stuff for you and you don't feel just a little better? Not even a little?" So these days I say my pain is a two and hop up on the massage table. I think they're catching on though because today I got the best treatment of my life: the hydrotable. It was like being water boarded by an angel.

They may threaten me with love, candy and big spine-cracking bear hugs from the doctor... but I'm holding out with the "I feel better" because I know they've got the big guns in the back: Dr. oh so sexy (and single) VanFleet, the surgeon I see on Friday; and I feel like if I'm really insistent that my back/leg still hurts, I might just get that doctor/torture love affair I've been dreaming of since the explosion of popular "sexy doctor" shows on tv.

The Greatest Sacrifice

Some might say that giving birth and raising a child is the most selfless thing a woman can do in this life. But I think something is getting overlooked here. A friend of mine from London (who is Australian) came to visit me in "Chicago" where I'm from for a few days. I understand that childbirth might be hard, but hostesses are certainly not getting enough credit for being a top competitor on the selfless scale.

You think you are losing sleep because of your newborn? Well try pretending like you're not the kind of American who sleeps until ten. How's that for a disrupted schedule?

Not to mention my social life. Maybe it's hard for new mothers to be able to spend time with their husbands but I have texts to answer! Very important texts from men who don't call or come around so I depend on these texts to provide me with false hope and potential emotionally abusive relationships (fingers crossed). And the life I am in charge of doesn't nap. I had to send the Aussie to find Velveeta cheese in the Super Wal-Mart buying me a guaranteed 15 minutes to squeeze in a few texts (God bless over-sized American warehouse shopping and foreign-to-Europeans synthetic cheese).

Don't get me wrong, I love my guest as much as any postpartum depressed mother "loves" her newborn, but I would like some credit for my selfless sacrifices. Sure diapers are expensive but so is driving back and forth to the airport.

So go ahead, mothers of the world, soak up all the martyrdom while "giving life," I'll just be over here, the silent American ambassador, making peace with the world by driving to Chicago for the third time this week.

When Old Satan Calls: A Tribute

Old Man Winter was right about two things: His clock was broken and his days were numbered.

He died Thursday, December 18, 2008. I went to see him in the nursing home he had checked himself into a couple of days before. Luckily he only had to stay there for about a week because the place stank of menthol and Alzheimer’s. Old Man Winter is better than that. It was different from the stench of his house: sugarcoated bastard with a hint of lemon. I think the lemon because of his dusting solution, and the bastard because of his attitude.

I talked with him for a while and the last thing he ever said to me was: “Dear, I never said any one bad thing to you. Just remember that when ol’ Satan calls” I think it might have been a threat. Actually, this is a lie, the last thing he said to me was, “see if that old lady is still in my living room. She’s been in there all damn day,” but it was the last coherent thing he said to me.

On the day of the funeral I had the flu but I went anyway, infecting all his old, old friends I’m sure in all my Anna Nicole Smith glory. It wasn’t weird seeing him in his coffin. I had seen him look deader in his chair at home. The weirdest part was seeing his estranged brother at the funeral walking around. It was old man winter. I realized it wasn’t Old Man first because the man was smiling, second because I remembered OMW was dead. His brother asked me if I was the girl Old Man had fallen in love with and I couldn’t help feeling one part sad, one part creeped out, but a larger part like one glamorous, not to mention successful, gold-digger.

The service was boring and missing a few key family members (like his only grandsons), but otherwise alright. If my body was capable of shedding tears, I might have even spent one on the day.

As I was leaving the building and before my mom asked if we should put my contact information in the guest book (for purpose of the will), I could have sworn I heard an old, crusty whisper tell me I have hands like a freak-midget for such a husky girl. But it must have just been the wind because like he said: Old Man Winter never did say one bad thing to me.

May he rest in peace, and may the clock shop not spend too much time fixing his clock.

Finding Jesus During Christmas

Yesterday my mom made me make a delivery to my grandma next door. My grandma wanted a nativity set for underneath their tree and my mom had an extra so I took it over. We set up the scene and saw that my mom had given my grandma everything but Jesus, Mary and Joseph. My mom couldn't find them but told me to tell my grandma it was fine.

It wasn't fine.

I was then commissioned by Grams to find a baby Jesus and find him fast the next day. I walked past one, two, three complete nativity sets in our living room alone when I got back home. "She's not getting any of my baby Jesuses! Those are special to me!" --nothing like my mom's Christ collecting (or hoarding) to bring in the holiday cheer.

I went to department stores, thrift stores, and discount stores. I found Jesus in a snow globe. I found him in an ornament. I even found Jesus, Mary, and Joseph rotating in a clear, plastic bubble, but I couldn't find baby Jesus in his manger, with perhaps his mother and father by his side. Not a nativity was to be found this close to Christmas.

Where did I finally find Jesus? Where most people usually lose him: couched in the greedy arms of low-discount, conspicuously consumptive, super Wal-Mart. Yes there was just one baby Jesus, one Mary and one Joesph.** A beautiful, black family just waiting for me to take them home. I bought the set and smiled a little longer at every White Anglo-Saxon Protestant for making this last-minute purchase possible.

I would also like to thank Wal-Mart for overstocking and providing our family with a darker, holier family for the foot of my grandma's Christmas tree... I would also like to thank my grandma's poor vision.

**Shepherd with staff ripped out of his porcelain hand.

BYU-Riot

I'm graduating Friday and there are just a few quirks and idiosyncrasies that I'll miss about this place. Both were coincidentally demonstrated on my way to, and then during my class this morning.

Way to class: Meek girl walking while reading Twilight. The ever-famous dragon series, Eragon was tucked under her other arm and archery arrows were coming out of her backpack.

During class: I'm grading a student's argumentative paper for my teacher about college drinking. His argument was that a national curfew should be implemented into universities nation-wide to eliminate (yes eliminate) college drinking. His sources? His parents and a bartender at Applebee's.

Where else will you find this kind of innocence?