'Dear John' Blog

I've strung you along too long with empty promises and hollow words. Perhaps you were right all along, and I have been trying to push you away. You are young and so special that you should be out there reading other blogs - other blogs that are more responsive and attentive to your needs. Right now, with grad school and work, I just can't be the blog you deserve. And for that, I am truly sorry.

Don't worry, this isn't "goodbye", I will still be here, posting from time to time so if you want to check in every now and then, it would be good to hear from you and to find out how you are doing. I just don't want you to be waiting for me to be the reliable, caring, emotionally-available blog that you need right now. Please know that I do want to be that blog for you, and I have tried. I just don't think that it's in the cards right now.

I still care for you, and I always will. And maybe, some day, down the road, when we are both in a different place - maybe we will come back together and everything will be different. But until then, know that you are worth better than I can offer you.

And remember, we'll always have Jokestown.

OH MY GOD!!!

The Giants just won the Superbowl.


Did you hear me??? I said that the Giants just won the Superbowl! It's the craziest!

I adopted the team as my own before I moved to New York because I think that Team Manning is the cutest and I love their story. And then they beat the Patriots and that jerk Tom Brady who doesn't love his baby.

I can't believe it. It's the craziest. I even said during the fourth quarter that it shouldn't be this stressful. I expected the Giants to be done by that and yet, they WON!?

Unbelievable. And Eli escaped the sack and completed the pass!!! Did you see that!? Did you yell like I did?! I mean, COME ON?!

Best time ever.

Kim & Amanda Go 'Splorin' (Part 2)

Well, as it turns out, River was already dating a delta, a confluence, and Tara Reid. So, obviously, that didn't work out. Kim and I were both fairly depressed but decided that we had to move on. We symbolized this bold step forward by creating a miniature replica of River and crushing it under our proverbial "Island o' Love."

"Take that, River!"

"I'm really proverbially squashing you, River!"





Burying our pain deep within, we opted to become cat ladies. Still wanting to keep those close to us at arm's length, we chose a cat with well-defined barriers.


But again we had fallen in love with the same person. And we all know what that spells: T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

(to be continued. . .)

Kim & Amanda Go 'Splorin'! (Part One)

To celebrate the New Year* my roommate and I went out and about to explore our new** neighborhood. We decided to make a photo-journal of the event. "Where did you go, Amanda, and what kind of things did you see?" You ask. Well, follow me, and I will take you with us on our adventure!!

Kim greets 2008 with ecstatic optimism.



Her optimism is immediately paid off when we find gemstones in our front step.



We then realized that being a national holiday chances were slim that any of the stores we were planning to visit would be open. We took to looking at signs and the garbage in the street.

We found these lists of books we should've read in 2007. Between the two of us we had read none. Dejected, we cling to our discovery of the gemstones.

We wandered over to the East River, which - as it turns out - is protected by Polish ninja spies with hi-tech "chain-link" fencing guarding its banks.



Us both having a penchant for unattainable men, we both immediately started "going steady" with the river. (Sigh.) We were so happy then. But then, every relationship between two roommates and their river hit their rough patches, right?


To Be Continued. . .

*Happy New Year, everyone!
**It can still be our "new" neighborhood after 2 months, right?

Diagnosis: Bodygitis

I am kind of a lazy hypochondriac. This means that I imagine that I have all kinds of awful ailments, but am too lazy to be proactive about going to a doctor or finding the source of said illness. And being of the dramatic ilk, my diseases are always fairly major, life-changing ones. My most recent ailment: Meningitis. At least, it started out as meningitis - mostly because my neck was really stiff, and I had a headache. A headache, which I, of course, attributed to the excess of fluid my meningitis-covered brain was sloshing around in. However, as the days progressed while I was still able to touch my chin to my chest without any pain, I decided I must have mis-diagnosed myself. I considered legal action for a brief moment, but then once I realized the effort I would have to exert, I changed my mind.

So now I've decided that I have discovered a new strain of meningitis - Bodygitis! Where your entire body hurts! It's the awesomest. I haven't decided how the science of it works yet, but I'll get there. I think it is something to do with the excess fluid in your brain draining to more open areas and pooling - or something.

All I know is, I got it, and it's bad. Or, at least I think it's bad, but I'm not about to make a doctor's appointment so really it's anybody's guess.

'Tis the - eh, who cares?

I think that I might've become one of those people who is depressed by the holiday season. Which sucks.

I don't know - I have been loving the scent of pine distributed all around the city lately by the onslaught of northern coniferous-dealing gypsies. I enjoy all the little twinkling lights. I was tickled to see that my new neighborhood decorated the streets with old-timey-esque lights and garlands. And yet, overall, I am left feeling fairly "ehn" about the whole thing.

After we had our first semi-significant snow I switched to my Rat Pack Christmas on my iPod, but I only made it through Frank's "Christmas Waltz" and Dino's "Baby It's Cold Outside" before I went back to my Diane Rehm News Round-up podcast.

I am flying back home this week and am honestly very excited to see my family, friends, and pets. One might even think that would be enough to pep me up, but so far - nuffin.

I am going to try to head over to Rockefeller Center before I head home to see if an over-sized bedazzled tree surrounded by mass-capitalism can get the ol' holiday-cheer a-flowin'. At this point, I feel like I might need more of a Christmas miracle. Where's Linus and the gang when you need 'em?

I Can Even See my Gold-Diving Swimsuit

My roommate and I just finished watching the DVD of "The Secret" which is the latest feng shui-esque way of thinking sweeping the world (and by "world" I mean the rich, lucky, healthy, happy people), and I couldn't be yellier. Out of respect to my neighbors, I stopped yelling when it was finally over, but if I could still be guiltlessly yelling, I would.

My employer loaned me the DVD a little over a week ago telling me that "The Secret" was all about receiving back the energy one puts forth from the universe. (And, by the way, I refuse to provide a link to any information "The Secret" since I will not boost their readership by the - what, how many of there are you? - 2 readers of my blog.) When she told me this, I couldn't really argue with it since, I sort of agree with it in that I do believe that once you begin to look for the positive in the situation, the positive is more apparent. Likewise, of course, with the bad. Much in the same way that once you start to pay attention to yellow cars you suddenly see them all around you. So I reluctantly took the DVD and put off actually watching it since I would then have to return it only to be forced to discuss it with her. However, since she likes to watch bits of it fairly frequently, I had a set amount of time before I had to get it back to her. Expecting it to be pretty bad, my roommate and I armed ourselves with a bottle of wine and popped in dreaded DVD. And now 91 minutes later I am left not even angry as much as disheartened with the human race.

Basically, for those of you who don't know, (or, as I like to refer to you, "the lucky ones"), The Secret is all about how becoming schizophrenic will solve all of your problems. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a wee bit with the schizophrenia, but it is about how if you actually visualize yourself as a better, healthier, happier, and, most importantly, wealthier person, you will become one.

So the first issue that I take with this is that I am pretty much a person how lives in her head - imagining all sorts of happy, awesome things happening in her life. Therefore, according to The Secret, I should be diving into pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck with hybrid boyfriend Michael Showalter/Joseph Fiennes/Groucho Marx/Disney's Robin Hood telling me how funny I am with my pets, Ralphie, Toula, and an adorable panda bear cub named Inc., by my side. And yet, I am sitting in my tiny room, alone, broke, with cheap wine on my breath. So far, so good, right?

I mean I could almost forgive them the crazy of all of this if it wasn't so obviously based in materialism. There is even a bit in the video of a little boy looking longingly at a picture of a new bike. Of course all he has to do is think and see himself owning the bike long enough before he actually receives it.

Oh! and there is this whole bit about how The Secret works on a time delay - so just in case a couple of good nights of you imagining you spooning with the celeb of your choice doesn't work out, don't worry! It will. . . at some point. Just keep on imagining- sorry, realizing it and buying The Secret merchandise and it will come. For example, we do see the boy mentioned above does eventually get his bike, presented by his grandfather - but I couldn't help thinking it was like that old "Werther's Original" commercial where we see the initial kid's present grandson played by the same actor as the original young boy in the past.

Then, which elicited the most yelling, there is their whole thing about how if you are sick, it is your own fault since you were, obviously thinking unhealthy thoughts. They even go into a story about a woman with breast cancer who cures herself simply by "Secreting" it away. She claims that it was the funny movies that she watched that cured her in three months. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a touchy issue. And anyone who knows my late, beloved grandmother knows that, even in the toughest times, she was never without laughter so I call BULLSHIT!

There is also a whole portion of the 91-minute-long DVD (did I mention that it was 91 minutes long?) where all these rich and successful individuals (including one of the authors of "Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul") talking about how, clearly, there is more than enough riches/happiness/love to go around, since not everyone wants the same things. For example, in regards to relationships, not everyone "wants the same person." True, but quite a lot of people want to marry Brad Pitt and/or Angelina Jolie and I am pretty sure that polygamy is still illegal or, at the very least, frowned upon in most areas.

There is more that I could say - much more - but I need to start switching gears to how I am going to put some kind of positive spin on my seething hatred for this before I have to discuss it with my boss tomorrow.

Then again, I am going to start visualizing a fat raise, because, I mean, it couldn't all be bullshit. I mean, look how well it worked out for that “Chicken Soup for the Soul” guy.

Hopefully my 15 Minutes Aren't Up

I recently found out that the "Amanda" featured in a question in The Princeton Review's ACT prep textbook who makes a call to Chicago is actually inspired by ME!! Since I worked for TPR for, like, my entire life, I have had various people ask me about it, but since I am nothing if not insecure, I was sure that it was based on the Amanda* who held the lowly dewey position before me. Luckily for me, however, a good friend recently spent some serious Q.T. with one of the main writers of the manual who informed my friend that the inspiration came from none other than li'l ol' me!

As much as my former job drained the life and soul out of me, and made me fairly depressed, this news somehow made me pretty pumped. I mean, if they aren't going to bother to reimburse me at least most of the money they owe me, the least they can do is make me pseudo-famous, right?

I mean, right? True - they could've put me on a shirt, but I can settle with this.


*Not only was there an Amanda before me at TPR, but when I went away to college my position was taken over by another Amanda Smith who went to the same high school. Ah well. . .

I do know the word for "a case of dough filled with a savory filling"

The neighborhood in which we now live consists mostly of Polish families and young hipsters. I feel that in order to fit in I either need to start dressing way better or learn Polish. Seeing as my 5 plus years of French never really stuck, I'm thinking that outfitting myself might be my best bet.

In an effort to pick up tips, I've been watching people in the subway and on the street, but I'm concerned that I just don't have it in me. I'm not saying that I dress horribly now; I would even say that I am able to pull myself together more times than not. It's just that the full-on hipster look seems complicated and layered and requires an ability to throw together seemingly random pieces while making it all look effortless and almost accidentally. I tend to find a good outfit and stick with it so that I have maybe 4 or 5 really good outfits to choose from, all of which pre-planned and fine-tuned down to the jewelry and attitude to accompany it.

The pre-planning of the thing adds further complication to the whole process since I can't pull off the effortlessness that these urban hipster seem to bathe in. When I wear one of my pre-constructed creations, I feel like I am just screaming, "This took me 2 days and 20 outfit changes to come up with - not including the countless advice and reassurance from friends and family!!"

Which of course bleeds into a whole other hurdle: I can barely ever dress myself. I mean, I have the actual mechanics of the process down (one leg into pants at a time, make-sure to align buttons before commencing buttoning and so on), it's the confidence in trusting that what I think looks good actually does that I'm missing. And I just can't imagine that the 20-somethings that I end up studying go through those same apprehensions before leaving the house ("Are you sure the crying-Indian-in-front-of-rainbow t-shirt with the Harry Potter scarf and army boots with leg-warmers comes off as ironic and not as a mentally-challenged 11-year-old?")

I had dyed part of my hair purple in hopes that would make up for just wearing jeans and a black sweater for the 12th day in a row, but having transplanted myself to the hipster mecca that is Brooklyn, I feel like I have to start working a little harder and start layering up the irony. Taking a look around my room at the frog rainboots, pink Hedwig the Owl hoodie, and frankenstein-hands gloves, though, makes me feel like I'm going to end up much closer to the 11-year-old end of things.

Maybe I should go ahead and order some Berlitz Polish tapes online.

Even the Russian Judge Gave Me a 9.5

Part of the deal with me moving to New York was that I take over babysitting a three-year-old for my aunt since she will soon have a kid of her own on which to sit. The kid is totally awesome. He has also clearly learned already how to judge the help.

While giving him a bath the other day, he told me me, and I quote, "You really did an excellent job with rinsing my hair. I mean, you didn't get any soap in my eyes."

He then went on to score the rest of my bath-giving skillz by saying, "And the water temperature is perfect since it is not too cold or warm. Really it is just warm enough - very nice."

I feel pretty damned accomplished right now.

I'm Going to Hell for this Post, I'm sure.

When we first moved into our sweet new apartment the only real downside was that our heat wasn't working. After a day or so the maintenance man and a radiator repairman showed up. They were both very nice, but only the radiator guy really spoke English. As they were packing up, he said to me, "“At least you’ll be warm tonight. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.”

“Thanks, you too!! Thank you so much,” I said.

Pause, pause, pause.

He then says to me, “You have a smile like superman.”

“Oh – uh, Thank you!”

“I mean, You could be his sister. Uh, what’s his name – uh, I can’t think of it – he died, right? Oh! Christopher Reeve. You look like him” (motioning to his face)

It took everything I had not to respond with, "So I look like I'm paraplegic?" But I bit my tongue and responded instead with, “Oh! Thanks. I mean, you guys are my supermen fixing my heat and everything.”

He then, literally looks me up and down and says, “I wouldn’t mind being your superman." Which he then quickly follows with, "I mean – no disrespect, miss.”

I kind of stumble through, “Oh, no – I mean, thanks!! You have a wonderful Thanksgiving!”

He reciprocates the sentiment and leaves.

Is it wrong that since he followed up his come-on with a quick, "I mean no disrespect" that I found it a bit charming? And in fairness to the Christopher Reeve comparison, I was breathing into a tube in order to move through the apartment at the time.

Chapter 5 & 6: Zombies Can't Solve All Our Problems & Success, the 2nd Time Around!

So, amazingly enough, I finally found a place to live! And it was totally easy this time around. When I first went back to St. Louis, I was waiting to hear back from a guy about a roommate situation in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I didn’t blog about it because I didn’t want to jinx it. However, in the end, he didn’t pick me anyway so it really didn’t matter. I was sure that I was going to get it since, when I first met him, he got totally stoked about the idea of living with a life-size animatronic zombie. He ended up narrowing it done to me and a couple of other people. He then interviewed me again over the phone when I was back in St. Louis. We talked for at least a half an hour in which time we discussed everything from my sleeping habits to my religious beliefs to my taste in music and film. I felt really good about the interview since he and I seemed to be on the same page with everything. So I was pretty let down when I got the email that he went with someone else. I beat myself up about it for a while trying to figure out where in the interview process I went wrong. Was listing Radiohead as one of my favorite bands too mainstream for this po-mo hipster? Did my mentioning that my cat happens to be fairly fat come off as too judgmental? Was I doomed when he said that he couldn’t live with someone who would sit around talking about angels and I didn’t then immediately say, “Yeah! Angels, who needs ‘em?”

Eventually I began to let it go. I focused on what would have been the downsides with living with him: Even though the building itself allowed dogs, he didn’t want to live with one so I would have been without Ralphie, at least, for a few months. One of the major draws of the place for me, other the sweet claw-foot bathtub, was that in the initial meeting he had made it sound as though he would be moving in a few months – thus leaving me the apartment so that I could bring up my little dog, but in the second interview he sounded a bit more settled-in. I wouldn’t be able to ask him for directions ever since when Liz and I went to see the place he gave told me to get off at completely the wrong station which landed us literally in the middle of some cops arresting a man but then it turned out that the “right” directions had us having to walk over 15 blocks when we could have simply taken a different train that would’ve landed us only 4 blocks from the apartment. And I would have to deal with his dumb name, which I won’t say here, but I’ll just say that it was totally dumb.

In the end, it all worked out for the better. As it turned out a friend of mine from college decided to move and so we started looking for a place together. She had recently helped her brother find a new place in the city and had found the whole process to be almost as bad as what I had gone through in my initial search so when I got back into town for us to start actually viewing places, we were both fairly discouraged. After being back in New York for two days, we went to see our first place. We entered into the whole thing with our expectations set very low, but when we walked up to the building, we were totally impressed. And even more impressed when we saw the actual apartment. Two days later, we were signing the contract.

The place is totally great. It’s the 3rd floor of a house that has now been converted into apartments. It’s a 2-bedroom, each with a door opening directly to the hallway (so that if we ever end up hating each other we can manage to pretty much completely avoid one another). It has a good-sized living room and separate kitchen and bathroom, hardwood floors and lots of closets. It also has plenty of windows (a couple with a semi-view of Manhattan and one of the major bridges). It is just steps from the subway and is surrounded by lots of restaurants and shops. For now, I can only have my cat. I say, “for now” because I am being optimistic that I will be able to talk them into letting me bring up Ralphie later since their only concern is for potential noise. (The ad said that small dogs were okay, but that apparently meant under 10 pounds, which my mutant beagle is not.)

So all in all, we totally win. My head has finally stopped spinning from how fast it all worked out so that I am now left only to figure out how to get all my stuff up here from the ol’ STL. And hopefully, next month I will be able to win them over with how attractive my dog is. I mean, could you say “No” to this?:

I do still long for that claw-foot tub though. Oh well – I guess you can’t have it all.

A Cry for Help

The other day I was catching up on some older episodes of the new Dr. Who, which my aunt and uncle recently got me watching. In this particular episode, the Doctor was reunited with his old companion Sarah Jane Smith who, as it turns out, still has one of the Doctor's most faithful companions, K9. (I've included a picture for those of you not familiar with this hilarious-looking tin robot dog.)

Honestly, he really only barely resembles a dog at all. He is more of a toaster with a vaguely dog-like head attached. And probably the best thing about him (other than the fact that he can shoot lasers) is that he speaks in a total robot voice. So, again, not really dog-like at all. And yet this didn't stop my emotional reaction to the following scene:

K9 tells the Doctor that he is going to sacrifice himself to save them. After arguing with K9 for a moment, the Doctor kneels down by K9 and resignedly says, "You're a good dog," and pats him on his head.

In response K9 wags his antennae "tail", spins his satellite "ears", and says in full-on robot voice, "Affirmative." And I immediately start weeping - yes, weeping - while thinking what a truly good little tin dog he is.

Can you say, ridiculous?

Since I am now back in New York and Ralphie is still in St. Louis, I would like to be able to blame it on the fact that I miss my dog. But I have to admit that I probably would've cried even with Ralphie sitting next to me, because, I mean, K9 really is such a good dog.

At Least He Stopped Answering his Cellphone During Speeches

All I'm saying is that nothing good can come from this partnership, and I think this picture proves that.

Better than a Box of Chocolates and a Dozen Roses

Well, it seems that, after all that, Halloween and I have decided to work things out. Granted, things aren't perfect for us. We are still working through the slutty baby costumes, but he gave me these baby costumes, which are the most adorable:

If I ever do have a child, I would pick a costume like one of these and make he or she wear it continuously until they out grow it. Because, let's be honest, who couldn't love a little wolfette or octababy like these? Halloween also won me over with my own baby cousin's SUPER cute turtle costume, which wasn't the least bit slutty.

So he won me over, initially, with these cutes, but I was still upset with him for what he did to Harry Potter. Finally, after I gave him the silent treatment for a while, he showed me this:

What can I say?  He had me at "Baby Hedwig".

Then, on top of all of this Cutesville, Halloween went on to prove that he was willing to go that extra mile to make me happy. Halloween put a real, live owl perched on an one-way sign about 6 feet away for me!! It was freakin' awesome! So right now, he and I are riding a relationship high, but we'll have to see how he handles the other holidays coming up. He tends to be pretty jealous.

"Happy Whore-o-ween" or "No Wonder People Hate our Freedom"

Now I am a Halloween-lover. In fact, if Halloween was a dude, I would totally date it. Hell, with its troubled past, tendency to be cold, and fear of commitment (okay, so maybe that one doesn't relate to Halloween as much), it sounds a lot like most of the men I've dated. In fact with Halloween's recent propensity for young and slutty witches, french maids, and devils it sounds almost identical to, at least, my most recent beaus. That being said, I am a little upset with Halloween's most recent trend.

Let me say I do not tend to be the type o' lady who uses this great holiday to slut-it-up, however I am not totally opposed to those costumes for those who choose. (Well, not as opposed as I am to pre-made costumes like these, which remove any chance of one's imagination having to be used.) If grown-ladies want to use this fantastically spooky day to break out the sexy-construction worker costume, so be it. But I have to draw the line on kid's costumes like these:

I don't even know what this last one is - except that I am honestly terrified of this kid. Look into her slutty-evil eyes! Yike!! I also found this one, but I felt it cruel to post the image and make you look it since it is so disturbing. I'll just say that this is probably close to what Anna Nicole was hoping her baby girl would look like. Consider yourself warned.

What happened to you, Halloween? I know that what we had wasn't the best relationship ever, but when have I ever had a good relationship? But now I just don't know that I can be with a holiday that supports evil, baby, robot-whores like these. I would like to put the blame on Diva and Bratz dolls, but then I see what you've done to Harry Potter and think it might be too late for us.

I'm willing to give you another try, but I just don't know anymore. Maybe if I get to see Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin, I will change my tune.

Maybe She Didn't Notice We Were all Standing There

I was standing in line for check-out at The Dollar Store today when I was left with no choice but to listen to this woman scream the following into her phone:

"Listen, you are not using holidays against my son! We have already planned the whole thing and have it worked out!

No! You listen to me! You're not his mom! You're a stepmom -- Hell, you're not even his actual stepmom 'cuz your ass is too skanky for him to wanna marry!!"

Then she walked back over to her son, who was like, maybe, 6 and was standing 10-15 ft. away during the call, to help him pick out some candy.

I doubt that, alone, his mom letting him overhear this conversation is going to lead to his inevitable, future penchant for and/or extreme hatred of skanky women. It will probably be more to do with the fact that she did so in front of the crowd at The Dollar Store.

A Day With Gram!

Yesterday my father and I accompanied my 87 year-old grandmother to her 70th high school reunion lunch at a Ryan's Steakhouse in Jefferson City, MO - our state capital. It was . . . well, a day with my grandmother.

The day started out with her yelling at my dad for something completely random while I flipped through the paper. Once that died down we were faced with her disappointment and resentment when we explained that we could be not be using the convertible to make the 2 hour long drive since the forecast for the day was rain with a high of 50 degrees.

On the drive, Gram did a great ode to Marcel Marceau by pretending to have wind blow in her face from the far air vent on my father's left and tried to reach over the wheel to close it. After a moment or two she found that the wind was coming from her blower on the far right. As we pulled off into Jeff City, she erupted into a yelling rant covering the topics of driving, the absurdity of us not thinking she knew her way around (which was stated directly following her calling out that she had no idea where we were), and ended with her angrily stating that she had to pee.

Ryan's Steakhouse turned out to be a Ponderosa-esque buffet which upset my dad, but was kind of a relief to me. You see, almost all of my meals with Gram reach some point when she proclaims to the wait staff that I am a vege-tarr-rian (which she always manages to pronounce as if it were a rare, potentially contagious disease). Then she usually breaks off into a little rant about how she "just doesn't understand it" and "what could I possibly eat?" With the buffet I was able to get my own food without discussing it.

As we walked past the seemingly hours-old buffet, I also realized that I kind of like going out with her to eat at these places every now and then because it gives me a total excuse to be a bad vegetarian and eat what there is for me to eat: french fries, mashed potatoes, cheese, fried okra, and soft serve ice cream. (For example, when she went on her anti-vegetarian rant while we were in France, the confused and good natured Frenchman smiled and handed me a plate of french fries while my grandmother turned to complain about my diet to another customer at the table.)

The attending class at the reunion* was a total of 4 people. After only a few minutes of everyone sitting and eating, Gram launched into her "Back when I was in Japan and I had servants, my maid said to me, 'Missus, can I have your left-over grease?', and I said, 'Of course!' The poor dear was so grateful!" My dad and I discussed whether or not this was a new record time for her to launch into this story.

Most of the rest of the conversation consisted of who was dead and who was in a home. One of the other surviving members discussed how he came to the decision to have himself cremated. "I don't want to have no bugs eating through me!" That was about the time I pushed my lima beans away.

After lunch we over, we decided to drive past the capital building. On the way, Gram told us about how my grandfather knew someone who in the war was, and I quote, "shot between the eyes" and survived left only blind. My dad and I both kept asking her how this could be possible. She ignored us and went on to tell us about the day when a German soldier had come into the same medical area as the blindman. The blindman wondered if it was the soldier who had shot him. I asked if the German was shot in the heart but only left deaf. Gram continued to ignore me.

Once we got to the capital building, we pulled over for my dad and I to inspect the statues in the fountain out in front. The statues are crrrrrazy. There is a huge centaur-esque figure on either end, each holding some kind of sea-life. One battling a huge sea-snake. The other seeming to prepare to kiss a huge catfish. I say that they are centaur-esque because only their front two legs are like those of a horse; their hing legs are more like two water serpents. The other really curious thing was that their front hooves are webbed! Webbed!? After studying them for a minute of two, I then noticed HOW anatomically correct they are. After pointing it out to my dad we made some jokes about how Ashcroft must have missed these while he was still in town.

On the drive back, I heard only bits of a story that Gram was telling my dad. It was about how someone was telling her about how, back in the day, some black men told women that they were Indian. I made some quiet jokes in the back seat which made my dad crack up and, consequently, Gram yell at him for laughing.

*Her graduating class is the oldest "active" high school reunion class in the country.

My Creative Energy has been Going Elsewhere

I haven't posted recently because I've been too busy making these boxes with my mom. We are trying to get them submitted into an art show so we'll see. Mine are the two with the lady and the couple riding the scooter. I've made a couple of other ones that aren't shown here.

I did want to take a minute and point out some hilarious things I have overheard in public and/or seen on the TV lately.

• I was sitting at the airport in New York waiting for my plane back here when a woman next to me made a call to someone. From what I overheard, the call consisted of her trying to explain to someone how they can get around paying taxes on child support. At some point, though, she lost the call. She did the obligitory "Hello? Hello?" bit before hanging up. Then she turned to the complete stranger sitting near her and said, "You just lose people like that - it's just like that commercial! Ha! It's so true!" The stranger just kind of nodded and half-smiled in return. (I love that this woman was so wowed by this truth in advertising. Those cell phone commercials really blew her mind with their realism and honest, barebones depiction of an epidemic we of the 21st century are facing.)

• The other night I was watching Antiques Roadshow with my mom. This older gentleman brought with him a little carving that his grandfather made while he was a P.O.W. When he was explaining its history to the appraiser he said, "Yeah, it's a great example of Folk Art and Prisoner of War Art!" (Now, I was an art history major in college, and the last time I checked there was no such category of art as the Prisoner of War category. Was there some kind of P.O.W. artist collective that I don't know about?)

• Finally, I was out with my mom visiting with some of her friends. I was impressively holding my own in a conversation about Billboard regulations and sewage treatment when the main speaker said, "So I marched into City Hall and told them they need to literally get their shit together." (I mean, the misuse of literally always bothers me - but this one was just so unfortunate. It took me a while to get the image out of my head of the various elected officials gathering up their own poo into a big pile and presenting it proudly to this man upon his return.)
  

Meanwhile, Back in St. Louis

Right now I am back in St. Louis - spending time with my pets, packing some stuff up, getting ready for a yard sale. I will be here for around two weeks. Last night I watched an episode of everyone's favorite: Law & Order SVU. Usually my mom refuses to watch this show, but she let us watch this one after seeing that eye-candy, Aidan Quinn, played a major role. The storyline featured the daughter of Aidan Quinn's character as a girl with a rare mental disorder which causes her to quickly read people's facial expressions. When she came into the squad room, she ended up asking Ice-T for a hug (because, apparently this condition also makes her unbearably over-acted when she in her "happy" phase). The scowling Ice-T grunted and spat-out a brusque "No!" Then went onto briefly lecture her. Later, after hearing the effects of the girl's disorder, Ice-T blurted out, "And that's why she could sense that I was angry earlier."

Oh yeah, Ice, it wasn't the grunt or barely-restrained slap you almost gave her. Or the fact that the only emotion you ever bother to convey on that show is anger. No, no - it's her mental disorder. Way to put the pieces together! That man is such a good detective. I felt like the Cap should've just responded with a "Ohhh, yeah! That is why! Good detecting, Finn! Goo-ood detecting!"

Later in the episode someone makes some joke about Finn (Ice-T's character) dating this other guy on the force and it looks like he almost broke the guy's arm. It was adorable.