This is the soap box I promised last week. If you haven’t read where I’m going with this, you can do so here. By the way, if you think everyone deserves a participation ribbon, this post is NOT for you. You’ve been warned. Continue reading
Category Archives: No-Take-Backs
Scripps Made Me Laugh – Then Cry
During the 5th grade spelling bee, I went out on the word flamingo. Two m’s. I had made it to the final three or four. Jonathan Stair picked up my slack, having spelled flamingo correctly, and ran with it. He may have won the whole thing, I can’t quite recall. So having participated in at least one bee back in the day, I appreciate the preparation and the stress that goes into such an endeavor. I watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee blips on the net here and there and am so stoked my spelling bee days never made it beyond the New Paris Elementary gym floor.
So when this popped up into my Twitter timeline this week, I nearly spit out my drink. Continue reading
Lib Goes To The Library – Part 3
A continuation of Lib Goes To The Library and Lib Goes To The Library – Part 2
I renewed it again. I will read a book dammit. I will read THIS book. It’s going to happen – mark my words.
The Art Of The Rolling Stop
I’ve had it mentioned to me on more than one occassion – “That wasn’t a stop.” My response is always the same. “Yes, it was. It was a rolling stop.”
I was born into a life of breezing through two-ways and all-ways and everything in between. Being raised on back country roads lends itself to a slightly wider berth in the interpretation department of vehicular rules and regulations than it does for the average urban Joe.
Here’s the thing, a true rolling stop takes finesse. Some may call it sloppy driving or poor judgement , but I call it art. A real rolling stop is a form that should be celebrated for the Venus de Milo that it is. It’s not a pause, or a brief moment of looking all ways. It is a stop. If you believe it, the cops will believe it, too.
I should know.
3AM on a dark island road somewhere in Savannah. I rolled. Immediately after the turn, the blue lights glowed in the rearview. I pulled over, knowing full well why I was being pulled over, and admitting so the moment the window went down. The police officer and I had a wonderful chat. I explained the virtues of a rolling stop for a young 20 something female driving home at 3 in the morning on a dark island road in a dangerous city all by her lonesome. Sold. There was no ticket given, no warning either. I think I may have even received an apology for him possibly scaring me at such an hour in such a desolate area. In hindsight, that was the only nice cop I ever met during my time in Savannah. Maybe I’ll share my other cop encounters next week.
Anyway, no matter the approach, the key is to have plausible deniability. Either you witness the indicator brush the top of the 0 mph ever so slightly before moving forward, OR convince yourself the speedometer is broken, OR go the organic route by closing your eyes and feeling the stop in your bones. Though don’t keep your eyes closed. Do like a long blink. Seriously, don’t drive with your eyes closed. Any of these techniques can work, but you have to practice. The best method is to possibly combine all three at a given time. It’s a delicate balance and it’s not for the faint of heart. I feel very confident in my ability to pull it off, but few could truly perfect it as I have, but then I also feel 96% of the population that have been granted a license should have it revoked.
Aunt Lee
It was my first trip to Atlanta with Clifford. His folks were throwing a party. I don’t recall the occasion. For them it could have been to celebrate a momentous life event or to simply celebrate the friendships they’d cultivated in their years since immigrating to the states. See, when I first met Clifford, his family had only been here for four years. They had no immediate family when they first arrived stateside, so the friendships they built were important to them. There was one group in particular, however, that went beyond the box of “beloved friends”. Family isn’t always blood, and that’s what they were. They were family.
So when people started arriving and being introduced to Clifford’s female friend, I had already heard a lot about them. The Orffs – they were a package deal so it seemed. Three boys, the folks, Uncle Bob and Aunt Lee. They were New Yorkers that had somehow found their way down South. I didn’t have to understand it, but as I longed for Northern conversations, I quickly accepted it (says the Hoosier umpteen years later still living well below the Mason-Dixon line). They were loud. They were funny. And they knew how to drink. I liked them immediately.
This is them (and Scott).
There was one standout among them, though. She had me at “Darlin”. Aunt Lee became my favorite person on the planet that day. Though married, she was an independent woman. She owned her own business when she didn’t need to work. She was smart, gorgeous, and so full of love – for everyone. It radiated off her in a way I can’t describe, but the moment she walked into a room, the energy changed. There was light. It was a bright light. Her smile was so sincere and her laugh was so contagious. She had everyone’s attention and we were all wrapped around her finger, yet she had no idea. That’s what made her so special.
Sisterly love.
Through the years she would offer me words of wisdom about sisters, spouses and stuff. She had a faith in Clifford and I that warmed my heart. She took me to pick out our wedding bands. She welcomed us to our new home. She suffered losses but became all the stronger for them. She was a selfless and steady rock for others over and over and over again. She never met a stranger and she loved with her whole heart. Aunt Lee was the type of person everyone should strive to be. I can only hope to one day have an ounce of the compassion and the love this woman expressed and exuded on a daily basis.
We lose people throughout our lives. It’s just what we do. Some we lose because of distance. Some we lose because of pride. Some we lose because we change and grow. And some we lose because it’s simply their time to go. The latter forces us to evaluate our lives a little more closely. It forces us to reflect on who we are now and compare that to who we once were, all while contemplating who we could be. I met Aunt Lee 17 years ago. My life was changed for the better for having had her in it, no matter how short that time was cut. We could never have enough Aunt Lee in our lives. Take a moment today, tomorrow, soon, to contemplate who you could be. Sieze the day, darlins. She always did.
A Conversation With Clifford II
I learned something new today and it made my Friday. I was so excited, I called Clifford right away.
Me: OMG! I didn’t know the liquor store opened at 8AM!!!
Clifford: So?
Me: Well, I just thought, I don’t know. I just thought it’d open later in the day I guess …
Clifford: And why would you think that?
Me: You know … because of the bums.
Clifford: Or maybe because of the alcoholics like you who are still bending from the previous evening?
Me: …
Lib Goes To The Library
I’ve been obsessed with television and movies since I could crawl to the dial flipping it back and forth between The Electric Company and The Brady Bunch. I’ve binged watched with the best of them, but it is time for me to expand my horizons.
I’ve decided to read a book. This is huge for me. This is me adulting. For those who know me, and as I mentioned above, I’m a TV and movie kind of gal. I’m visual. I prefer sequentially moving images to that of the printed static word. Every book assigned in school got the sufficiently skimmed treatment to complete whatever essay, test or quiz was assigned. I never actually took the time to read from beginning to end, cover to cover. I even cheated at Choose Your Own Adventure Books. To be clear – I CHEATED at CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE BOOKS. My attempts at investing in the written meanderings or machinations of the published variety have been limited to Cosmopolitan, Mad and Highlights magazines over the years. So, as you can see, I’m not a reader.
That said, there are a select few I’ve read through and through, and in most of those cases I read them more than once. Unfortunately I could likely count that number of fully read books on two hands.
1. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire – 8 times. Because I was living in Italy and everything else was in Italian.
2. Pride and Prejudice- 6 times. Because it’s Pride and Prejudice.
3. Catcher in the Rye - 4 times. Because I HATED IT THAT MUCH.
4. A Brave New World – 2 times. Because WTF?
5. The Princess Bride- 2 times. Because who wouldn’t?
6. Revolutionary Road – 1 time. Because Kate and Leo totally sold it for me.
Now these are just the through and throughs. Not one missed word or page. Other than that, I’ve fake-read MANY books. All skimmed in some way, shape, form or other. Sometimes I just outright skipped to the end or read the book wrapping to gather the general idea before BSing my way to good grades and teacher’s graces. And for the record — straight A’s in all of my English classes since always, so apparently my half-read-general-gist method works. No cliff notes or Google summaries back in the day. Just pure glancing and guessing earned me those A’s. Books were time wasters in my opinion. I had tennis to do, friends to see and Dawson’s Creek to watch. I’m ok with that.
I renewed my library card last week, because, well, apparently libraries still exist. So I checked out a book. I suppose in these days of Amazon Prime and bookstores every other block I could have purchased the book, but I’m also trying to de-clutter my life. Who needs more dust collectors lying around? Besides, if I really love the book, then maybe I’ll purchase it. Unless this is one of those instances of why buy the cow if I’m getting the milk for free…or is that just a sex and marriage idiom and not applicable to library checkouts?
With all the pop-culture and podcasts I’m invested in these days, Chuck Klosterman has come up the lucky winner. Shortly I will be embarking on Killing Yourself To Live. I would have preferred Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs from what I’ve gathered online, but the library only had it on Audio CD which would negate the whole me reading a book thing in this instance. Beggars, or stubborn people, can’t be choosers so Killing Yourself To Live it is. We’ll see how it goes.
A New Era Is Dawning – Maybe
I didn’t start this blog because I’m a writer or because I took that one creative writing one-off in college and suddenly needed an outlet for those ideas to be released. I started this blog as an experiment with social media. Prior to it, I followed 15 people on Twitter, didn’t have an Instagram, and intentionally hid from people I knew on Facebook (I still kind of do that, though). I didn’t even know what Tumblr was. I hated the idea of people I don’t know knowing what I’m doing or saying or thinking. I didn’t understand hashtags or why people would take a selfie, but now I do. The one thing I did understand back then was that social media is important whether you love it or hate it or are completely indifferent to it. It’s how we communicate today. So, I needed to be a part of it. This blog forced me to be a part of it. It forced me to share me with others and the funny thing is, I’m an extrovert, yet, I still had qualms about people being in my business and knowing personal things about me. A girl who loves to travel and will talk to total strangers pretty much making friends anywhere and everywhere had issues with documenting her life for the world to see. It’s been a good run and I’ve grown tremendously because of it.
So I’ve been thinking long and hard about my blog lately. It is my blog, so I can pretty much say or write whatever I want. I know this, but since the beginning I’ve been limiting myself to throw-back little ditties or exciting adventures I’m having right now. Maybe I’ve thrown in a music challenge or themed related section for a short time, but they’ve been limited topics all the same. I keep telling myself that the people who read what I write want funny and routine. Maybe. But it shouldn’t be about them. As any Millennial would say – “It should be about me.”
Over the last several months, I’ve realized this has caused me to not post as frequently. I’ve been pressuring myself to share a funny story of way-back-when or something super cool I’ve experienced recently that my readers would enjoy. But what happens when I can’t really remember anything because I’m getting old and my mind is a great big fog and my recent life experiences have been likened to that of a crabby cat lady who’s shut-in her shabby chic laden home? I created a box and forced myself into it. It helped me get this blog started because I had a formula, a plan. I put my flag in the ground and declared “this is what it’ll be”. Now, I want it to be more. Or rather I want to be more.
I want to share my thoughts, theories and points of view – something I rarely do. I’m not planning on going all political or anything, but what if I want to review a TV show? What if I want to interview someone? What if I want to talk about being a Hoosier? What if Iwant to share top ten lists of things I like? Or, what if I want to talk about sports? I LOVE sports! I’ve never used my blog as a forum to just spew whatever it is I’m thinking, but I’ve noticed that that’s kind of what people do. So maybe it’s my time to do so and by exploring more topics or expanding more deeply, I can continue to grow. It’s selfish not thinking about my readers and only thinking about me, I know, but it began as an internal project and it will continue to be so. Don’t get me wrong, I love you for taking the time to read what I write, just know that it isn’t because of you that I write it, if that makes sense.
I say all of this to let you know that some of my posts may look a little different moving forward. This doesn’t mean I won’t be blogging about things I’m doing or throw-backs that happened a while ago, but maybe my posts will be a little shorter or just about different things. Maybe they’ll be questions I have that I want to throw out to the masses. Regardless of the form they take, I am hoping to get back to a somewhat regular posting schedule. I’m hoping this expanded blogging experiment will at the very least help me with my brain block. I want to be unbounded in my process and approach because I’m not a writer with a goal or motive in mind. I’m just a girl, sitting behind a computer dipping her toe in the worldwide water of the interweb hoping to survive. And hoping that the water isn’t too cold. I hate cold water.
See you on the flipside.
One Perfect Childhood For Sale
FOR SALE
One perfect childhood in New Paris, Indiana.
Every memory was carefully selected and quality crafted. Highlights include a large backyard with sprinkler amusement, capture the flag contests, star gazing, campouts, football pick-ups and lawn mowing thrills, a full basement for hide and seek, a spacious playroom for Barbie’s Dream House and Star Wars schemes, epic ping pong battles and large yet comfortable tornado cover, a lovely den perfect for Commodore computers or long Atari nights, a driveway with the state’s seemingly mandated Hoosier hoop and double car garage for tapping tennis balls till all hours of the night, beautiful trees that capture TP just right, the smells of fresh cut grass and burning fall leaves, and glorious corner rooms that overlook cornfields and back country roads.
Entertain in grand fashion in a living room graced with a wood-burning fireplace for cold winter nights, toasting marshmallows and warming feet, perfectly ornamented by a delicately hand-decorated Christmas Tree to celebrate the holidays in style. The chef’s kitchen is clad for washing dishes, popping corn, making drinks, cooking comfort food, impromptu dance parties and teaching old dogs new tricks. Sliding glass doors in the living area showcase fields of dreams and soft pillowy snow drifts depending on the season while opening up the home to even more light and the smell of fresh made burgers being brought in from the grill.
One dramatic hall on which little girls draw in carefully chosen crayon leads to sibling rooms for game playing and make believe, including a roomy bath equipped for makeup applying, hair crimping and those Calgon moments that take you away. Though the master bedroom is the ultimate retreat for daddy/daughter sports watching and mother/daughter movie marathons complete with beauty makeovers.
Built in 1977 as a home for five that grew to seven, 18844 CR 142 is perfect for those wanting to experience that quintessential piece of Americana on one of the most picturesque streets in the quaint little town of New Paris. If you want to create the best memories in the best place in the best town, look no further. She could be yours, and she won’t last long. Buy her today!
Sprinkler Amusement
Football Pick-Ups and Camping Out
The Hoosier Hoop
Delicately Decorated
Old Dogs, New Tricks
Calgon Moments
Picturesque Street
Quintessential
Piece
Of Americana
