i haven't yet decided.
either i'm going to quit blogging or this thang will become password-protected in the very near future.
i was driving home from clinton, north carolina last night just before sunset. i saw two dogs running full-tilt across a field, one chasing the other. they were so happy, running as fast as their little legs could take them. they looked like black labs to me, but i could be wrong about that. i'm not good with dog breeds. they were relatively big dogs, though, and looked so carefree.
they were galloping across this field and heading straight towards the two-lane state highway i was on. i was going 60mph, watching these dogs get closer and closer to the road. it was clear they were intending to cross the highway and keep on running, running, running into a similar field across the pavement. as i watched them get closer i thought, "oh, jesus... dogs, don't run into the road." but that's exactly what they did.
the first dog, the one being chased by his friend, crossed the oncoming lane safely and i slowed down a bit to avoid hitting him as he crossed my lane. the second dog, though, ran into the road right in front of an oncoming SUV. that poor dog died a violent and instant death, under and around the tires of that vehicle.
i covered my mouth with my hands, gasped out loud and looked in my rear view window to see if the SUV was stopping. all i saw was an 18-wheeler bearing down on me; after watching that dog get hit i had apparently come to an almost full stop in the middle of the highway. i hit the gas and tried to speed up to keep from getting rear-ended. i looked back into the rear-view mirror and i saw the dog lying, still, between the two lanes.
crying, i kept driving. i knew there was nothing i could do to save the dog. i had heard the brutal impact --some 50 yards away, inside my car-- and knew, just knew, that poor creature was dead. so i kept driving, and the further i went the more awful i felt. a mile down the road i almost turned around. maybe i could check and see if the dog had a tag, i thought. maybe i could call the owner. maybe i could just move him off the road. but i kept driving, that 18-wheeler right behind me as i sped down the highway.
i keep replaying that moment in my head. the moment where the dog got hit, how he so violently tumbled under that SUV.
also, the moment when i chose to keep driving. i relive that horrible moment over and over and over. i am haunted by it.
"my kid fought in iraq
so yours could party in college"
when i saw this bumper sticker my heart boiled with anger. perhaps it's the liberal in me, but what would have been wrong with ending that sentence after the first phrase?
"my kid fought in iraq" -- that phrase makes me feel for you. i can imagine what a difficult time your family endured. i can even understand your pride. that phrase alone is a statement that promotes awareness of just how many people around us are touched by this war.
but the second phrase... what is its purpose? it serves solely to divide us. i am better than you -- that's what that phrase says to me. i can't even begin to comprehend why that person bought this sticker, except to intentionally piss people off. this is a person i don't want to know. (forget that the sticker was adhered to the bumper of a very large SUV.)
thank god for jon stewart. his humor is the only thing that keeps me sane on days like this. i laughed out loud during his recent response to bill o'reilly's contention that 'comedy central' was actually 'secular central' -- o'reilly was pissed, i guess, about the show's facetious attack on christmas and implied that there was no moral code at the network. stewart said, "that's right, bill... i hate christmas, and i will not rest until families everywhere gather together on december 25th at 'osama's homo-'bortion pot and commie jizzporium'"
where can i get a sticker that says "your kid fought in iraq and i stayed home, sat on the couch, and laughed with jon stewart as he poked fun at your moral superiority"?
i invented a recipe last night that came out surprisingly well.
while boiling some low-carb penne pasta in a pot, i sauteed in a skillet some shrimp in olive oil. when the shrimp was heated through, i added a few spoons of pesto sauce and bit of fat-free half and half. i also tossed in some green peas.
after the pasta was cooked and drained i added it to the skillet with the shrimp & sauce, tossed it around, and topped it with parmesean cheese.
yummy!
music plays constantly where i work. music i love and enjoy, of course, but i feel no shame in admitting that i choose not to listen to this type of music in my free time. it just ends up feeling like work. it's like going to work for nestle because you love chocolate; after a while you lose all desire for sweets. all you want to eat is vegetables.
(for the record, i don't know if i could ever eat only vegetables. but you know what i mean.)
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i've been listening to archived episodes of "this american life" on my daily commute, and i crave being transported into that world. i forgot to update my ipod last night, though, and i had no episodes to listen to today. so instead, i pressed "shuffle songs" for the first time in godknowshowlong and i had an amazing time.
last 10 songs heard:
willie nelson - texas
otis redding - look at the girl
seu jorge - rebel rebel
luna - astronaut
magnetic fields - long-forgotten fairy tale
kraftwerk - spacelab
david byrne - why
wes whitener - rpm
betty hutton - i've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night
m. ward - lullaby + exile
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today is sammy davis jr.'s birthday. i'll be doing a small tribute to him tonight on divaville, 6-8pm.
i woke up this morning feeling pretty well-rested, which of course made me immediately suspicious that something was wrong. i looked at my silent alarm clock and it read 9:29. apparently i had set the alarm last night for the correct hour (7:00), but forgot to actually turn the alarm on.
normally this wouldn't be a terribly upsetting situation, but on tuesdays i drive an elderly volunteer to the station with me -- and she meets me at my house at 9:30.
so i tumbled out of bed and looked out the window. there she was, sitting in her car, looking more than a bit confused. i guess she'd come to the door and knocked, and when she got no response she just returned to her car and waited to see what would happen.
in my pajamas and with an extreme case of bedhead, i ran out to her car (brrr!) and offered her a very unfocused explanation of my situation. i invited her inside, where i plopped her on the couch and tuned the tv to TCM while i showered and shoved a granola bar into my mouth.
we were on the road by 10:10, which i consider a major accomplishment. i arrived late for staff meeting (shucks) but the trip itself went surprisingly well.
starting the day off in a state of panic, though, in my experience, usually affects the rest of my day, so though i made it through lunch without incident i figured something else would probably go wrong.
and it did: i started the first piece of music for my airshift, and as i went to eject the CD that just finished i accidentally ejected the CD that i just started which, of course, resulted in sudden, deafening dead air. not good. all of the engineers came running into the studio, thinking something piece of equipment had broken, when in fact it was just my brain.
right about now i really want to be at home, in a soft room, where i can't cause further harm to myself or others. because i can't leave for a couple of more hours, though, i'm just going to sit here quietly, in the studio, and concentrate really hard on not screwing anything else up.
you know, i think i forgot to put deodorant on this morning, too.
i have been crafty mcgee these last few weeks, and i'm dying (DYING, i tell you!) to post some photos of my creations. alas, i cannot, because some of the gift recipients read this ridiculous blog and i don't want to spoil their surprises.
argh!
i will say this, though: yesterday i showed one of the items to the girl who sits next to me in the durham symphony, and she was mightily impressed.
i now believe myself to be a craft genius.
well, i went back and exchanged the taupe clarks for the coveted proxy tutors. these are a little big, but with the "toe tap" cushions under the balls of my feet it isn't so bad. the folks at the wide shoe warehouse said they'd call the manufacturer to see if they could track down the smaller size, but to not get my hopes up because these shoes are hard to find.
still, even though the tutors are just a tad too big i love them WAY more than those clarks.
so, yay!
after that i ran a bazillion errands, both starting and finishing my christmas shopping. i do have one little secret-santa gift to pick up for a co-worker, but since it has to be under $5 it barely counts. i'm making most of my gifts again this year (tightwad) so a lot of today's shopping was for supplies. but still, it's great to be done.
so, to reward myself i went clothes-shopping. my system thus far seems to be: try on a size smaller than i think i wear, and if it fits buy it. so i bought these jeans after doing a dance of joy in the dressing room.
blackbird, for show & tell this week, wanted to see our cars.
well, i blogged a photo of that last year when my CRX turned 200,000 miles, so rather than bore you with another exterior shot i thought i'd blog a photo of the interior.
i really like this photo for some reason. i took it while i was driving (ooh! danger!) so i didn't have the opportunity to properly focus the shot. i just held the camera up by my head and pushed the button.
i rely on that digital clock. i have it set to the exact minute and i probably look at it 10 times during my 40-minute commute. i don't wear a watch, so given how much time i spend in my car this is really one of my principal timekeeping devices.
as for the temperature controls, the A/C button was neglected for about 7 years but since i got the entire system fixed it has now become my favorite button on that panel. driving home from the beach in the rain, it made life so much easier acting as a defogger. A/C rocks!
the stereo is piece of crap. it worked well for about 4 years, then the tape player got fubared. it constantly thinks it is playing a tape, and when i press eject (though there is no tape inside) it goes through this spastic mechanical process that doesn't stop unless you jam a pen into it.
the radio works fine, though i rarely use it to listen to AM or FM broadcasts. instead i transmit my ipod's audio through an FM channel with an itrip. the ipod rests perfectly upon the open ashtray. i've got a charger in the car constantly, both for my ipod and for my cell phone.
i drive a manual transmission. i love manual transmissions. i will always choose manual transmissions in every car i purchase. vroom vroom.
and finally, i try to maintain a relatively clean car interior, though some trash does accumulate in that weird slot below the radio. (it currently contains a hair barrette, instructions on how to change the itrip station, one pen, and a wadded-up straw wrapper.) my floor is always fairly covered with dirt and leaves, too.
updated to add: the encouraging view out the window
last night, in a fit of paycheck giddiness, i decided to stop by the wide shoe warehouse and check out their new stock. they had a lot of cute winter shoes and i found myself torn between 3 or 4 pairs.
i decided that i didn't need the cute black ankle boots. i already have a pair of black knee-length boots, as well as some bootish shoes. i'm good on black shoes. i can have willpower when it comes to black.
but i really, really, really wanted these brown proxy tutors, and they didn't have my size in stock. these shoes were so comfortable (with an amazing arch support for a 2" heel!) and snazzy, with the perforations and little bow. it killed me that i couldn't leave with those shoes. i wrote down the style and what size i thought i'd need, and just figured i could maybe buy them online.
so i kept walking around the store and these round-toed red clarks caught my eye. now, i'm coming around to the whole round-toe idea, but these round-toes seemed too bulbous-looking. they felt clownish. the geometric opposite of pointy-toes.
so i ended up buying another pair of clarks that were nice. i have to admit, though, that i'm not in love with these shoes. i kept saying to the friendly sales lady, "i wish these came in a snazzier color, like blue or red." these are kind of a taupe/gray, and while i don't have anything like it in my shoe collection there's probably a reason for that. aside from the color, though, there is nice detailing on the shoe that i do like. plus, i've never owned a pair of clarks before, and i feel like that is something i must do before i die. but i've also got this niggling notion that the toebox felt a little too small when i put the shoes on for that photo this morning. i'm feeling pretty conflicted about these shoes.
but i bought them anyway. which makes me wonder if it's physically impossible for me to visit the wide shoe warehouse without purchasing something. i think it's a sickness.
when i got home i did a quick search on zappos and found out that the taupe clarks i bought do come in other colors, and now i'm wondering... should i take mine back? and maybe buy the same shoe in a different color (probably red) online?
to further complicate matters, i also googled those proxy tutors and can't seem to find anyone that sells them. and i cannot stop thinking about these shoes. if i want them, i apparently need to get them at the wide shoe warehouse and have them special-order order my size.
so... maybe i should do that --take my taupe clarks back to the wide shoe warehouse and exchange them for a special-ordered pair of the proxy tutors in my size-- and then maybe, if i decide i really like the style of these taupe clarks enough, i can buy them in a new color from zappos later (even though zappos' price on those shoes is about $20 more than the wide shoe warehouse's).
so the questions:
* should i keep the taupe shoes? are they cute despite the taupe? do i like the taupe? i do not know.
* should i exchange the taupe clarks for the proxy tutors, which i clearly like better?
* should i buy the red version of the clarks online? have i decided whether the style is cute enough?
i don't know what to do.
but listen... if zappos sells gift certificates, you know what to get me for christmas.
