For All Soccer, Rancid and Branden Steineckert Fans Out There...

Branden wrote a song for Real Salt Lake.

Check it out.

There's a Hole in My Stocking

(dear Liza, dear Liza)                                     

Seriously.

A big freaking hole right above my right ankle.

I planned my outfit out last night just before bed.  The green skirt my sister gave me that is above the knee, but in no way a ... ahem ... a mini.  The long sleeve green cotton pullover with a white cami underneath.  My sensible brown Pappagallos.  And the brown patterned tights that are just right underneath all this green.  (note to self:  I own waaaaay too many green articles of clothing!).  I was a bit shy about wearing it, but as I slipped it on, I felt a little flutter of pleasure - this skirt and tights combo felt right.  Something I haven't felt in my clothes/body in a long damn time.  Thrills!

And then I noticed the hole.

Oh, piss.

Then I channeled my inner Agatha Christie, took a black Magic Marker, and colored my skin.

The Pledge

is kicking my ass.

I spent my entire drive home Tuesday listening to the sounds of silence.  My mind wandered all over the fricking place and I noticed things and I thought cool thoughts and I had ideas and it was wonderful.  I went in to pick Josie up, and I forgot everything. 

Silence. I need some.

The world is too much with us: late and soon,

I think that's Emily Dickenson.  No, wait.  It's Wordsworth.  That's what Google is for, right?  Eliminating the need for rumination, filling the void of thought with e-certainty, putting the facts at our fingertips.  In .003 seconds or less.

Been feeling a little overwhelmed lately.   A little frantic.  Unable to concentrate.  Seeking, seeking, seeking.  Always seeking.

Google is my enabler.  Twitter, Facebook and the Elvis Costello Fan Forum as well.  Just learned via Twitter that the amount of data shared online per week tops what the Hubble telescope collected in 20 freaking years.  Don't need to actually read the article - the headline says it all.  I never have one web page up anymore.  It's always 4.  Or 6.  Or 8.  And I never finish reading one before I jump to the next. 

Everything is so instant and available that it lacks urgency, yet still commands attention.  Bits want bits, I suppose.  Don't quote me.

So, I'm taking a vacation I mean, pledge.  No more than two pages up at a time. Facebook once a day.  More blogging, less drowning in a tidal wave of trivia.  I don't need to know anything else about Kim Kardashian.  I don't need to compare ways to overwinter geraniums, I need to do something with the damn things before the frost gets them. 

Back to meditating also, before the brutal stew of thoughts gets wound too tight.  Practicing some MINDFULNESS, which I know think I have a sense of - it was just a stupid flavor-of-the-week word that I failed to get the gist of.  This may be the step backward right before the breakthrough.  I hope so.  I've been drowning My Little Voice for years.  Years.  Really!  Years and years and years I've been turning the music up, the tv on, grabbing a book, starting a conversation (or a fight), anything but listening to myself, because myself was not something worth listening to, if you follow me.

So, this begins a Pledge of Self-Care.  I will walk, I will do my morning pages, I will meditate.

Hope to see you soon, Unknown Reader(s)! 

That One Thing

Everybody's got it.  That one thing they don't leave home without.  That one thing that you just don't feel dressed sans*.

(Smartasses, I am not talking literally here.)

For me, it's mascara.  I may be unshowered and unkempt, but I'm going to have the illusion of long lush lashes whenever I venture beyond my own mailbox. My hairdresser told of a client who could not leave home without polished fingernails.  For some, it's earrings; others, a baseball cap.  For a lot of us these days, it's a cell phone.

What's your thing?

*Pretentious French word tossed in to avoid using "without" twice.  Spent 5 minutes trying to think of the word "pretentious" and finally located it catty-corneredly through Thesaurus.com!

The Ides of August

well, technically that's over, but it's a grand summation of the growing sense of dread I feel today.  Or A summation.  I'm not terribly articulate and prone to exaggeration.

What I mean is, it's almost September.  And that chills my heart.  LITERALLY.  Weather-wise, this is a beautiful time of year:  warm days, cool nights, the humidity largely gone.  Psyche-wise, it sucks donkey balls.  Rancid donkey balls.

And I can't quite put my finger on why.  The end of summer, sure.  That's depressing.  Getting back in the rigid routine of the school calendar.  Fall - and winter - on the horizon.  I just feel so in flux, like everything is changing but in those old familiar ways.  I always feel a little reborn and new in the spring, so I guess this is the bookend - feeling a little bit dead and most def a lot old.  Yeah, I have a birthday coming up.  And it's going to turn cold and the days are going to get shorter and shorter until the night lasts forever and I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark and everything is black and gray and ugly.

Très dramatique, n'est-ce pas?

Oui.  I know, I know.  C'est vrai.

Stop me before I light up une Gauloise and look pensively out the window.

As much as I tell myself not to be silly and to get a gosh darn grip on it and to think sunshine and lollipops and other happy thoughts, I still feel it.  Despite the hostile environment, it persists.

Onwards, into the long dark teatime of the soul, peeps.  Onwards.

Why I Always Walk With My Head Down...

because I sometimes see things like this little dude here.  From this angle he looks like some sort of cartoony sea creature who would no doubt speak in a very deep and possibly British voice.  180 your monitor and you can see that he is a moth.  A Polyphemus moth, to be exact.  Apparently, I was lucky to see him, as they live only for a few days.  Those few days are spent searching for mates, not food.  I'm guessing that this was near the end of his - I assume it's a he, just because he looks moustachioed - time on earth, because he was alone and not very energetic.