Too Damn Hot

It’s hard to find the incentive to write when your brain feels like it’s been wrapped around a Twinkie, dipped in Coke, and deep fat fried.

I just sat and stared at that sentence for five minutes. 

I also might have drooled a little.

It’s been that hot.  And when I say hot, I’m not kidding around.  I grew up in the South.  I know what it feels like to step outside and feel like you just inhaled an entire bag of hot, wet cotton.  A few years ago, shortly after moving to the Midwest, I was scoffing at co-workers who were standing around outside on their smoke breaks complaining about how muggy the twenty percent humidity was making things. 

That’s like dipping your toe in a pool and then bitching about getting soaked.  It’s not muggy.  It’s maybe, kinda, sorta…moist.

But this summer…

This summer I could swear weather gnomes are fucking with me, dragging the southern temperatures over here when I’m not paying attention.  It’s  been bad.  It’s been hot.  No… it’s been REALLY FUCKING HOT.

I take the puppy outside to do her thing, and while I’m waiting for her to sniff out the perfect spot in the yard to crap on, and then the second most perfect spot to finish off the crap, my face melts into a bubbling pile of glop, which proceeds to sizzle away on the deck.   I feel like I’ve sweat the equivalent of a small child off of my body weight, but to add insult to misery, all the heat is doing is causing me to retain water and bloat.  So I weigh more.

It’s also been too hot to boot the children outside to play, which means my sanity has been pushed to the very edge of its limitations.  They start school on Monday.  One of them is going into kindergarten and if I cry, it’s only because I’m relieved.  I eyeball the baby on a regular basis, and calculate just how much longer before we can start shoving his ass on a bus every morning.  I start to feel a little guilty for fantasizing about getting rid of all of the children.  Then the eldest slams her bedroom door in the middle child’s face, the middle child shrieks and cries for being abandoned, and the baby reaches into his diaper and uses the contents to perfect his sculpting ability.

The guilt fades away pretty fast. 

It’s too damn hot to feel guilty.

Brain Atrophy (Blame It On Facebook)

This is what happens when I get really motivated to start blogging again.  I’m totally there for one, maybe two, posts.   Then I wind up sitting at the computer staring at a blank page in Word for an hour, thinking to myself, “Self?  What the fuck are you trying to do?”

The answer to that question is always, “I don’t know.  Shut up and go get me some more caffeine.”

So I shut down Word and go wander off to greener, more fertile pastures.  Such as Facebook.  Or the sofa.  All the while wondering if the creative part of my brain that controls language has turned into pile of cola soaked goo.  It’s as if I am no longer capable of thought that goes beyond 420 characters.

Yesterday, through a series of clicks and turns, I found myself sitting at the pages of a blog I kept back before such things were even considered blogs.  Back then, if it had anything to do with your personal life, you were an online diary.  Or a journal.  And I’m sure there were a whole bunch of other technical terms bandied about to lay out clear and concise rules of self-publishing onto the internet, but it all boiled down to the same thing.  You were putting your thoughts out there, all bright and shiny, for all the internet to see.  And I used to do that.  A lot.

It was fun to sit and read what was going through my head seven years ago.  I held that blog for almost exactly one year, and had over 150 posts to it.  Clearly, I was motivated to write.  I had things to say, even if they were only entertaining  to me and a handful of other people.  And all of that was done at a point in my life where I almost literally had nothing going on.  It was me and my daughter, and nothing else.  Then I moved, and started to have a life again, and my writing became more and more erratic, eventually petering out completely.

I like to tell myself that this is because I just don’t have the time anymore.  That real life gets in the way of doing the things I was once so passionate about.  But, we all know that’s a steaming load of bullshit.  When you enjoy doing something you find the time to do it, you don’t just toss it to the curb and leave it there to wither away to dust.

I want to start writing regularly again, but that part of my brain feels atrophied.  But, I also know it won’t ever stop feeling that way if I don’t force it into motion.  Much like how sitting and staring at my thighs, willing them to get smaller, is never going to produce results.  And since I am clearly not able to motivate myself onto the treadmill, maybe this is the better place to start.

Do you hear that, self?  Wake up, and go get yourself some caffeine.  We have writing to do.

Her Name Was Rio

The local oldies station has taken to playing Prince.  And Duran Duran.  I even heard Money for Nothing by Dire Straits the other day.  How can a song that references MTV be sandwiched in between The Monkees and Roy Orbison?

This is what it sounds like when doves cry, you bastards.  It sounds like the slow, gurgling death of some poor, hapless soul’s youth.

Don’t even get me started about kids today.  What do you mean, Depeche Who?  Before your time?  Listen, you little shit.  The Beatles were before my time, but you’ll never hear me asking, Ringo Who?  It’s Depeche Mode, you snot-nosed brat, and they’ll kick the ass of any Emo-haricut-wearing pansy boyband singer you put in front of them.  Blindfolded.  With their hands tied behind their backs.  Bruce Lee style.  Now get the fuck off my lawn.

I know, I know.  I shouldn’t talk to my children like that.  The only thing I can say in my defense is that endless reruns of Hannah Montana will do that to a person.  I will, however, give her credit for being loads more effective (though probably not any cheaper) than any therapist in helping me get over my bitter resentment towards my parents and their stalwart refusal to let me listen to my Tiffany cassette tape during car rides.

…

What’s a cassette tape?  Are you serious?

Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you don’t know what a Betamax is…

…

That’s it.  You need to go. 

Now.

Missing Rick Moranis

I don’t sleep well when it storms.

This is what happens when Mother Nature drops by in the middle of the night to say hello by way of strong winds blowing your dead-bolted back door (conveniently located in your bedroom!) wide open, and then steps inside to invite your house to dance the jitterbug all around you.  Memories of getting down to the basement are mostly a blur, though I do recall cowering in a corner and thinking, Shit!  I left my glasses upstairs!  And then looking down at my fuzzy bare feet and wondering where my clothes were.  Oh, yeah.  They’re upstairs, too.  In a pile next to my glasses.  But, hey!  I remembered the children!  If I have to, I’ll fashion a robe out of them using rope and a roll of duct tape.

That was two years ago.  We survived, of course, but the storms that have been blowing over the Plains the last week have left me in a state of sleep deprived slap happiness.  My husband laughs as I pace the house, wringing my hands and looking out the windows , just waiting for Mother Nature to pull up in the driveway.  It makes me wonder what the hell I was thinking when I abandoned Louisiana to live in the Midwest.  Sure, Louisianans get made fun of for their lack of education and proclivity for eating small rodents and crustaceans fished out of bayous, but at least their major weather events have the decency to call before stopping in for a visit.  

Anyway, all of that is to say that last night, as I once again sat in front of my computer, slack jawed and bleary eyed, twitching with every flash of lighting and crack of thunder that vibrated the house, I had a question bore its way into my brain and set up camp. Since then, it has blatantly refused to leave, instead choosing to rattle around my head in an annoying fashion, digging through the trash and rooting around in the medicine cabinet.

Whatever happened to Rick Moranis?

IMdB tells me he worked in 2006.  Google tells me he is retired.  But, where is he?  How does a short, goofy looking  funnyman go missing?  Did we lose him?  Did Canada finally get fed up with our aboot jokes, total refusal to acknowledge Canadian football as a legitimate sport, and tendency to use their system as a scare tactic to thwart healthcare reform?

Fuck you, America.  We’re taking our Rick and we’re going home!

Which also begs the question:  If John Candy were still alive, would he be missing, too?  Can someone do a quick check on Eugene Levy and make sure he’s still with us?  We should probably go ahead and put out an APB on all SCTV cast members.  Just to be safe.

Or maybe it isn’t a Canadian conspiracy.  Maybe, just maybe, Patton Oswalt killed and absorbed him Highlander style.  I’m sorry, Moranis, but the world isn’t big enough for two short, goofy looking funnymen.  THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!  And if that’s the case, someone really should go warn Ricky Gervais.

Does he think we haven’t forgiven him for Honey, I Shrunk a Dead Horse and Then Beat It To Death?  Did they ever get around to making that one?  Rick, you should know that you don’t have to sequester yourself away in shame.  Your work in Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors and Spaceballs can more than carry you through the tough times.  I, for one, am bearing no grudges.

No matter the cause, it’s sad when one of the comedic icons of your childhood up and vanishes.  It leaves a hollow, empty place inside; a void no other actor could possibly fill.  It feels like some vital part of your soul has been ripped away from you, disappearing into the mist while you weep bitter tears.  It feels like a really bad case of…

Then again, I haven’t been sleeping.  And I did forget to have breakfast this morning.  Maybe I just need to take a nap and eat some bacon. 

Canadian bacon.