Huh?

You start to wonder about your blog when one of the links that refers to you is entitled "College Fuck Fest".

I heart Tivo

Tivo has saved my reputation as a with-it, happenin', cool type chick.

Ok, maybe not, but it really has helped me get in step with the pop culture type things that are going on in our world.

For most of the late nineties, I didn't ever watch television because I threw it over my balcony around the age of 22. Long story.

Anyway, I did end up getting another TV because I missed watching movies. So I got the TV, but had no cable or satellite or antenna. Basically it was me, my TV, and the handy dandy VCR. I could not get a TV station in to save my life.

This went on until September 11th. THE September 11th. The feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world with their instant access to 24 hour news channels got me to break down and get DirecTV.

I could almost keep up with people and their pop culture talk now. I was no longer a freak of nature who didn't know why people were laughing about Ross's foray into the self-tanning world. Hell, I didn't really even know what Ross they were talking about. I thought it was the Electrian named Ross at work, and trust me, I really got some opened mouth shocked people staring at me when I asked if that's who they were talking about.

Yeah, I was useless at the watercooler at work. It's a good thing I knew how to fix all their puters or they probably wouldn't have liked me very much.

So I now had all these channels and shows and programs. Being a closet nerd, I spent most of my TV time watching Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, and The Discovery Channel.

This was not helping matters in my pop-cultured-challenged world. So I took a the mother of all crash courses in pop-culture-The E! Channel.

You could find out anything there about pop culture. The E! True Hollywood stories showed me how the celebs crashed and burned. The Fabulous Life of....showed me that these people have way to much fucking money.

As a writer I guess it is kind of important to know what is happening in pop-culture, but it really, really bores the holy hell out of me. I don't care who is doing who, don't really care for reality TV, and found that most of the shows on prime time TV were about lawyers, forensics, or cops.

*Yawns*

So I really wasn't getting a whole lot for my 40 and some odd dollars I was dishing out for satellite. Yeah, I still watched the news channels and my beloved educational channels, but I found the others were a bit lacking.

Then I got Tivo.

Tivo is the best invention of this new millennium. Ok, so it wasn't technically made in this century, but that's when I got it so there.

I heart Tivo. I mean, I really, really heart Tivo. It finds things for me. I can punch in keywords or director and actor's names and it just shows me everything on them that I can watch! It is wonderful!

My life is very busy. I was missing out on a lot of good shit just for the simple fact that I worked nights. Not all TV shows were spin offs from Law and Order and CSI. There were others that I found, that I really liked a lot.

Shows like Medium, Intervention, and my beloved Project Greenlight. I actually found out that I kind of dig Friends and Will and Grace. My Tivo made sure I never missed an episode. I could record both Jay Leno and David Letterman, watch the monologue, and delete them if the guests sucked (hello Paris Hilton! Good bye Paris Hilton!)

So I ask the question....What's on your Tivo wish lists? What season passes do you have?

Rather Disturbing Indeed

I read this article over at CNN Money today.

After trying to avoid anything written about the infamous (and I do mean infamous, not famous) MJ, I finally clicked on like the only link that was wasn't about him. Ok, maybe there were a couple more, but this one perked my interest as it declared to have the "Top Five Most Dangerous Kid Careers."

Funny, it didn't have the entertainment industry in it, and with all the hoopla over MJ, I would think that might be #1.

But I digress...What I found rather disturbing about this article was it proclaimed mowing yards as one of the most dangerous jobs for a kid.

What the fuck? How many other jobs can a kid get?

Here it comes...I feel it, and I really don't want to say it, but it's going to come out of my fingers anyway.

WHEN I WAS A KID....Fuck I'm old...

When I was a kid mowing yards was my main source of income. In fact, by age 10 I owned my own lawnmowers, and weed whackers. My brother was my partner, and we had two kids that worked for us.

I figured out that I probably raked in about $150 a week as a ten year old. $150 of profit mind you, as my Dad painstakingly showed us economic reality by requiring us to purchase our lemons and sugar and cups for our first lemonade stand. He threw the water in for free though...What a guy!

$150 was quite a bit of money for a 10 year old, and it really was a lot of money in what 1981, '82? In the winter the money slowed down a bit, but we still made pretty good money as global warming hadn't changed the snowfall in Chicago yet and people were always willing to pay more for snow shoveling then mowing.

So I was a pretty rich little kid, and my parents decided we needed to learn how to save money, so most of it went into the bank, whether we wanted it to or not. As a result, I bought my first new car 6 months before I had a drivers license, and I paid cash for it. Hey, Ford was running a special. It killed to have it sitting in the driveway, but I saved a buck or two getting it early.

I just wanted to let anyone else who read that article know that I mowed yards and survived to tell the tale. I also learned the value of earning money, saving money, and being responsible. If you are willing to put your child's life in danger, I would highly recommend this occupation for children.

Now probably a lot of people will take these dangers seriously, so maybe these types of people should let their kids into the entertainment industry. Look how good MJ, The Culkins, and Lindsey Lohan have turned out.

At least you'll know they'll never go to jail.

Oppps. Did I say that out loud?

My Blog Birthday

So today is my blog birthday. I've been writing here for a year today.

Wow, a year sure goes by awful fast...

I started writing a blog again because I needed a creative outlet. Work was complete hell, and I was probably putting in around 80 hours a week at the time.

Then I started discovering other blogs that I really loved. Most of them are over to the left in the daily reads section. I was pleasantly surprised to find these wonderful blogs, and they all in their own way sparked some type of creativity in me. This is why I've kept them in a separate section from my other links, just because they are special to me in their own way.

I also "met" some of these bloggers, and have "talked" to some of them a lot outside of the blog and comment world. Without this blog I never would have started talking to Poppy, Annie, and Gus. For this I am truly grateful, as they are all wonderful people!

I've really seemed to put myself in a state of reflection on my life so far, as I've examined many aspects of my life through this medium. I've told you all about my body issues from childhood, my ghosts of boyfriends past, and my bestest friends ever.

I even told you when I got arrested and also when I was almost arrested.

Yes, I've shared a lot of myself in this last year. You all have really stepped up to the plate and shared right back. I know I've had a lot going on lately and having been blogging like I used to, but believe me, I am way to fucked up to not have a whole lot more stories to tell.

So stay tuned, and thank you so much for staying tuned all this time...

7th Layer of Hell

So I found myself in the 7th layer of hell today. In other words, I was in a high school parking lot on the last day of high school.

My "little" nephew, who is 6'1, 190 lbs, and 17 years old called me because his truck had died and needed me to come pick him up.

So there I was, in the parking lot with all these graduating seniors and three years worth of kids who were just happy to be the hell out of school.

It amazes me how much things change, but how they stay the same. I could easily pick out the weird kids, the popular kids, the smart kids, and the stoner kids. A whole bunch of them were smiling, and a whole bunch of them were crying and holding on to each other for dear life.

I remember my last day of high school like it was yesterday. It was the same scene in the parking lot, except that the cool kids had big hair, the weird kids had mohawks, and the stoners wore MegaDeath shirts. That to this day was the longest day of my life.

The clocked ticked slowly all day as I couldn't wait to get the hell out of that place. I really didn't fit any of the circles-I did have big hair, but most of the popular kids annoyed the shit out of me. I was a brain, but definitely not a geek. MegaDeath wasn't my fav band in the world, but I did appreciate some Aerosmith or Metallica, and let's face it-I was and am pretty fucking weird, minus the mohawk...

This equation equaled the fact that I had a lot of acquaintances. I wouldn't call them friends, as most of them I never saw after we walked down the isle to get our diplomas. I did have a fairly large amount of these acquaintances that would call me to go to this party or that party, see what I was doing that night, or just want to hang out.

The circle of soul mates were my bestest friends then, as they are now, and R and I were the only two left in high school. Prolly why I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there, as high school wasn't a big horrendous experience, I just wanted to move the hell on.

So as R and I stepped into the parking lot that day for the last time, we had many people come running up to us, crying, giving hugs, swearing we'd always be friends. R and I didn't cry, because we knew we would see those people again that meant the most to us, and I have stayed in touch with those people, even 16 (holy shit!!! 16 years???) later.

Those kids that were crying-I didn't understand why. I mean, we were FREE! We were gone from that place, gone from teachers telling us what to do, how to act, what to wear. I knew college would be a much freer (is that a word?) environment, and I couldn't wait to get there.

As I got behind the wheel of my 1985 & 1/2 Escort piece of shit, I looked over at R. "Let's blow this popsicle stand!" as we tore out of there as fast as a 1985 1/2 Escort piece of shit will go. Hey, it was 1989 after all...

The funny thing is, as I sat in the parking lot of this other school, 16 years later, I really understood the whole deal much more then I did then. When I graduated, I just wanted to move on, get going, get out of there. Now as I look at the kids crying and hugging I realize they are maybe a little sad, a little scared that their safe world is coming to an end and that they are entering a new and possibly scary time in their life.

If I were to graduate today, I probably still wouldn't be one of those kids crying and holding on for dear life. I would probably still be trying to get away as soon as I can, thrusting myself forward into the next stage of life.

Any shrinks out there? I quite sure this means I'm fucked up or sumfin...

Life just kicks ya in the ass...

So I had all these plans for my blog...I was going to put a little pic up of Gus's book, and I really wanted to join in on RDD's book club discussion on it. I also had a couple of good posts screaming to come out of me...

Then my Dad got sick. He's battled pancreantitis (sp?) for a couple of years now, and he had went awhile without an attack. A couple of weeks ago he had one of the worst ones he's ever had, and the pain was so great he actually had a "stress heart attack." Don't ask me, I have no clue what that means except that there is nothing technically blocked or anything, but he still had a heart attack.

So I've spent the last couple of weeks worrying and driving back and forth 600 miles, which has left little time for anything else.

I've been very fortunate in my lifetime. The people in my family just live to be like 99 or 100 and die in their sleep. I've never been around sickness before. No one in my family has ever had cancer or any life threatening illness besides diabetes. I think my Grandma is the only person I can think of that died before 90 of physical problems (I did have an Aunt that died in her 40's because of a drunk driver), and she was a very naughty diabetic that didn't exactly take care of herself.

So besides being my Dad, who has always been so strong, I've just never had to deal with hospitals and sickness and the like. It has been a very tough and emotional pill to swallow, which was not helped by the fact that all of it was going on so far away while life continued where I live.

He's home now and out of the woods. He's going to Mayo clinic FINALLY, and hopefully they will be able to find out more of why the attacks are getting worse and worse with his pancreas.

So once I get off this damn emotional roller coaster I've been on and get my land leggs back, I've got some stuff in store for my little piece of blogdom here. June 13th is my year anniversary, and I have something special planned!