Awkwardly Social

You guys? I sucked on this one. Partially because I crashed my car and sort of gave up, partially because I just didn’t have it in me this month, and partially because when it all comes down to it - I’m LAZY.

• BikerCandy did a great job - 10 out of 11.
• Jen (while pregnant!) also participated.
• Pam at BlogPressure has some lovely shots, too.
• EKG at Yet Another Librarian Blog accidentally participated. Heh.

So! Put your suggestions in the comments for next month, and I’ll add them to the long list, randomly select 10 for November and post them next Monday.

1. Something outside its natural environment.

Shopping carts’ natural environment is not the grassy decorative plants next to a pathway, I think. I walk by this every day on my way to the bus. I actually was worried this evening that it would be gone and I wouldn’t be able to get my picture. Thank goodness no one decided to live in it in the meantime.

2. Urban wildlife - I was going to take a picture of a squirrel or a pigeon or something, but being lame, I never did.

3. Something British - There was even a British guy at Louie’s Birthday BBQ, but guess who didn’t get his picture? Me. The answer is me.

4. White picket fence - I could have sworn there was a house on my block with a white picket fence. It’s a good thing I didn’t bet my life on it because I would be dead right now.

5. Food prep/cooking shot

I refused to clean the kitchen before I started baking and this is what happened. I only had two feet to prep in and it was mayhem and chaos, but no cookies were harmed. Except the ones that never made it into the oven because they made it into my mouth first. They weren’t en-souled yet, the little fetus cookies, so it doesn’t count.

6. A broken sign

This is right across the street from my bus stop. And movie trivia buffs might be interested to know that they shot the diner scene in Pulp Fiction here, while it was still a working diner. Now it is just a movie location, with a broken sign.

7. An interesting entrance/door - Again, I got nothing. There is this amazing blue door on my old driving route to work that I meant to take a picture of. Then I crashed my car.

8. A lit jack o’ lantern

Aw… so cute sitting right in their lawn. I hope no one smashes it. We have some new hipsters in the neighborhood, one was either dressed up as Jesus or just sort of looks like him, and they seem kind of like pumpkin smashers to me.

9. Autumn color

We don’t have many leaves changing, so this is going to have to do. It’s butternut squash and that is very fall to me.

10. Sunset

With all the fires, I thought we would have amazing sunsets. I guess one needs to be outside before it is dark to capture those…. I am lame. This was the best I could do.

• Bonus - A kid in costume - at the moment I am hiding in my apartment with the lights off and the blinds shut because I forgot to buy Halloween candy. I can hear the little munchkins trick-or-treating my neighbors.

I vow to do better next month. I mean, I can’t do much worse.

Eff.

I just signed up for that thing that everyone says they’re going to do then flakes on Thanksgiving because they drank too much wine and passed out in front of their 50th viewing of the taped off the television version of whatever holiday movie is popular in their family. I guess it means I’m supposed to blog every day? Since I’m already sort of failing at the x365 challenge, I thought I’d give myself more to do.

Someone from my past popped up in the comments section a few days ago, and after I quit freaking out hoping she wasn’t going to reach through the computer and throttle me, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Even though I defamed one of her friends, she was very kind and had only nice things to say to me. Her brother and my sister were in the same year and she was one year ahead of me. We knew each other because in a high school of 400 students, you pretty much have to be severely retarded not to know who everyone is, but we weren’t friends or really even acquaintances. It’s been interesting getting the low down on her and what her life is like now and, as weird as this may sound to those of you that grew up in big cities and went to big high schools, it was nice to hear from someone who shares the common experience of growing up in Camp Verde, even if that someone was next to the last person on earth I would have expected to have contact with 14 years later.

So for the month of November, I’m going to be writing every day and I think I’m going to try to get as many of those CV stories out of my head and into this blog as I can remember. I have to do it sometime, because at the rate things are going for me, I’ll soon be a lunatic in a mental ward screaming about trailer parks down by the river and no one will know what I’m talking about. This next month will be a primer for them. I have no idea how many I’ll be able to come up with, but I certainly have a lot of stories to tell about that crazy little town.

I met him in Tijuana on Valentine’s Day. He was an alcoholic, going through a divorce, had been accused (but aquitted) of rape and was a Marine - so of course I fell in love with him. When he passed out in his bedroom (which only had a mattress on the floor) and started screaming at his (not there) estranged wife, I really should have taken the hint and stopped seeing him. Despite all his problems, he was ridiculously funny and we had a great time together. After he got out of the Marines and moved back to Illinois, I cheated on him with someone I had known since 8th grade. I called him immediately to end our relationship. As it turns out, he was in the process of getting back together with his wife, so it all worked out. No hard feelings. Easiest break-up ever.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

We were set up by a mutual friend and the moment I saw him I fell in love with his sallow skin, sunken eyes and petite frame. On our first date (coffee in the Dinkytown dome) he told me he was getting back together with his girlfriend. BEST FIRST DATE EVER! (up to that point in my life) A few weeks later he called me again and told me he wanted to see me. Since I had been obsessing about Lord Tinyness since then I happily agreed. Two weeks after that I tried to seduce him in his childhood bed after he played his guitar for me. He refused to be seduced and told me I was an obsessive freak and I never spoke to him again. I did e-mail him several times after that though, I didn’t get a response. I wonder why…

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This post is part of the x365 project.

He touched my arm a lot today while he was talking to me about how kids today are too protected. How they should be allowed to take risks and get sunburns. From a dermatologist who was preparing to cut off my possibly cancerous thingy, I found that really amusing. He had white swirly hair and a really red face. I get to see him again next week. I’m excited about that. I love this guy about as much as he loves John Wayne.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

Mr. Bean (my high school principal) and I locked horns many times before I got caught wasted on high school property. I still remember the look on his face when he asked me what punishment my parents gave me and I told him it was none of his business. He told me that if I didn’t tell him, he would call my parents and have them tell him. I told him to go ahead. My mom came in to the principal’s office to tell him to his face that my punishment was none of his business. I got suspended for five glorious days. That meeting with my mom in his office is one of the defining moments in my relationship with her. I knew from then on that no matter how angry she was with me, she would always have my back. But fuck that guy, he was the spitting image of Carl Rove and acted like him too.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

I don’t know if he was so perky because he was in Up With People or he was in Up With People because he was so perky. He took us around the entirety of Estonia. I think he was in love with my sister because he introduced us to every single family member in Estonia and we stayed at all of their houses. The best was his grandmother’s dacha in the countryside that had an outhouse inside the house. He had curly blond hair and bright blue eyes. Because of him I think Estonia might be the most friendly country in all of Eastern Europe.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

1. My Humps
2. Bartender
3. The Thong Song
4. Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
5. Linger

One of my parents’ close friends when I was young. Tall and handsome. He was an artist who did paintings of southwestern wildlife and made a pretty decent living doing it. I remember walking into his studio when he was working on the painting he would later let my mom name, it was a mare and her foal. I knew I wanted to be an artist after that day. I didn’t know it wouldn’t be drawing horse pictures in my sun soaked studio.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

She lived in a hotel across a huge highway from me. I was strictly instructed to never walk to her house because crossing the highway was too dangerous. One day we discovered a giant storm drain that went under the highway and she convinced me it wasn’t really breaking the rules because we were going under the highway. I’m pretty sure walking through that storm drain with Jessie was my gateway to drugs, at least that’s what my mom thought at the time.

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This post is part of the x365 project.