Word to the wise

I saw William Sledd profiled on 20/20 and decided to share a clip from YouTube. I know most of the people who read this so I'm not worried about y'all, but for those of you that might have questions...take heed.

Who knew?

Now I don't want to go home. I have put off leaving twice, but I absolutely have to return on Saturday. I guess I am just not interested in getting back to real life. Good things are not waiting for me, so why would I want to going back? I like have no responsibilities here. Although it is annoying having to deal with my dad's nagging, I can put up with it. Oh well. I suppose I will post once I am back in Bham. Whenever that may be. :(

Home For the Holidays...

Ahhh. Every year I look forward to coming home and celebrating my favorite holiday of the year. Typically by the end of the first day I am home (I might note that it is not a full day) I am ready to get back to Bham. My father and I clash repeatedly. Tonight I received the most troubling news...that my father and I are very much alike. What?!! My Republican, right wing conservative papa and I are alike? Wow. The reason I find it so disturbing? Because I know it's true. Sadly, we are alike we just have very different beliefs and we feel very strongly about them. He hates Colorado. I hate West Virginia. He hates Nancy Pelosi. I hate any number of Republican dumbf*cks. He hates Christmas. I love Christmas (as much as he hates it). My father. Myself.

Should have stayed in bed

A change is a comin.'

Monday was one of those days where all things that could go wrong did go wrong. Am I going to rehash it for you folks? Nope. I'm moving past that.

Christmas is a week from today. I am promising myself not to get caught up in the same ol' b.s. at home. I am going to do what I want when I want and ignore the bah-humbug mumblings of Kenny G. He will not steal the Christmas spirit. Even if I have to lock him in a closet and throw away the key.

Happy Holidays!

The Picture Post

Sorry some of these pictures are turned to the side, I couldn't get them to rotate. I would like to note that the first tree is the teeny tiny one that the roommie had in her bathroom and adorned with 180 lights - that could be controlled by a remote. I. Sh*t. You. Not.

Notice the fireplace? No, our apartment doesn't have one with a little collaboration from me, the roommie created it!! I say it is made of love since the three boxes we used to put it together are weighted with close to 100 romance novels.

Updates

Christmas Party was a success! We ate delicious food, played charades again and generally had a fabulous time. The trees (six in all) looked fabulous and we just enjoyed hanging out with everyone that came. That's the beauty of good friends, right? I am going to post pictures of the decorations in the next couple of days. I am pretty sure they will inspire you to do great things this holiday season. Oh, and best charades clue this time around? That would have to be KY Jelly. Our team cheated and used it as a clue (you're really supposed to confine it to Movie, Book, Song, or TV titles) and it was totally worth it.

As for the Teddy complaint...I spoke with the leasing agent and she said that the person was not really implying that I mistreat him (which I think is B.S. b/c saying that I don't walk my dog would be saying I don't take care of him properly). I still think it's creepy that someone has been watching me, but the truth is - I couldn't give a flying f*ck what this person thinks of me. I know the truth and so does anyone who's opinion I value.

Fed up.

It has been a stressful few weeks...and if you are keeping track I would say it has been a stressful few MONTHS. I just got a letter from the apartment complex citing complaints about how I treat my dog. Yes, Teddy. The prince of apartment 8. I will readily admit that I stand in the doorway and let him pee in the mornings and at night. That is addressed in the letter. Fine. I won't do that anymore. Not a big deal. The big deal is that the letter goes on to say that I don't walk my dog. As in ever. WTF? I am so angry right now that I could tell pretty much anyone who gets in my way to just fuck off. I dare anyone to come to my house and see how my dog lives. He is a happy dog that has plenty of attention and that I actually walk him. It is impossible to have a dog and not walk them unless you have a doggy door and a fenced in back yard. I hope that whoever this (or these as the case may be) person is continues to enjoy such a blessed life. I feel it must be blessed that they don't have any real problems and have enough time to watch me and study how I treat my dog. I could go on and on, but it would be redundant. I am going to talk to the leasing agent tomorrow and straighten this out. I should bring Teddy by so they can see how abused he is.

It comes in threes

Isn't that what they say about death? Peyton's dad passed away the Saturday after Thanksgiving. My cousin Julie passed away Saturday. And my best friend from home lost her grandmother this morning. No more. Not one more person. Does everyone hear me? Be careful out there.

Party of the Year

Sorry I've been out of touch as of late. I was out of town for the funeral and pulling some important friend time. You know who you are and you know I love you and will answer my phone at anytime...even 6 am.

On another more cheery note, next Saturday the roommie and I will be throwing a kick-ass Christmas party. If you read this and live in the vicinity then you are invited. We are definitely thinking the more the merrier. Lots of decorations, great food and perhaps a rousing game of charades? We played charades on Thanksgiving night and I don't think I have laughed that hard in years. It took a pretty naughty turn with very descriptive hand gesturing to "Slob on my knob" - the classic tune by Three 6 Mafia. Well, I didn't say it was a classy game of charades.

Until it's gone

I just wanted to remind everyone to call your loved ones and let them know how much they mean to you. I received news that a very close friend lost their dad last night and it just puts everything in perspective.

Have no fear

The spirit is back...and it looks like I won't be spending Christmas with just my dad. Things are looking up.

I may have lost my Christmas spirit.

(to preface - this post is not meant to offend anyone or make them feel bad, it's just me venting)

Truly. I just talked to my brother on the phone to find out what he and his wife are doing for the holidays and it looks like they will be out of town to visit her family. This is disasterous! Here's my deep, dark secret about Christmas: Christmas Eve and Day are usually days that I cry and I am miserable. Weird, huh? It's because my father is scrooge - which I am sure I have mentioned before - and we bicker incessantly on the day before and the day of the major holiday (not to mention all the days I am home in general). I love Christmas in theory. I love it all the way until we get to the finish line and then...and then...and then I hate it. So here's the problem: without my brother or anyone else at the house it will just be my dad and I. My brother and his wife are the buffers. It used to be my mom, but she's gone now and dad is so negative about the holidays it is hard work trying to stay in the mood. Now I won't have my buffer and it will truly be a depressing time. It's not like I resent my sister-in-law for wanting to go home. She has had to travel on Christmas for the past several years and this would mean she could already be there to celebrate with her family like everyone else. It's also not like Chris hasn't been lashed to the house for the past ten years (and as she pointed out over the phone that they don't see my dad at least EVERY OTHER DAY). I get it. I would want to go home too. It just sucks for me. I feel so selfish. Although if they can go to visit her family I would encourage it. Someone should have a nice Christmas. People - it's just a hop skip and a jump to Christmas by myself.

I've seen the future and it doesn't look pretty.

Early signs of the holidays....

The Lego house (as requested) and our fabulous alternative Christmas tree...

Be sure to click on the tree. Yes, folks. That is a pink feather tree. With pink lights. And silver glitter balls. Siegfried and Roy would be proud (and jealous)

Earlier every year

I am that person you hate. The one that loves to celebrate Christmas incredibly early. I am the person that retailers cater to the week before Halloween when they have pulled out their Christmas wares. Oh yes.

I am going to try and stretch out the decorating this year. We have a lovely (albeit small) Christmas tree up and I also strategically placed a tiny arrangement of lights on a Lego house I built over the summer (there is no reason plastic people cannot enjoy the yuletide festivities). I'll have you know I am downright chipper right now. Oh the joy!

Leaving on a jet plane

Off to North Carolina to see Lee. We have a full weekend planned, including tailgating! Of course, there will be no sports watching just drinking and eating I hope. No need to ruin it by watching men run around grabbing ass and throwing a ball. Blah, blah. I will fill you in once I get back and let you know about all the fun things we get up to.

For those of us who value the right to read whatever the F*ck we want to read.

Eloquent letter to the editor from author Pat Conroy. It's a little long, but worth the read. This was originally published in the Charleston Gazette (You have to realize it is really well written as I have generally taken a public stance against promoting anything from within the state border of West Virginia) :)

Pat Conroy’s letter about Nitro High's book suspensions

Author scolds censors, praises teachers and students


A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Gazette:

I received an urgent e-mail from a high school student named Makenzie Hatfield of Charleston, West Virginia. She informed me of a group of parents who were attempting to suppress the teaching of two of my novels, “The Prince of Tides” and “Beach Music.” I heard rumors of this controversy as I was completing my latest filthy, vomit-inducing work. These controversies are so commonplace in my life that I no longer get involved. But my knowledge of mountain lore is strong enough to know the dangers of refusing to help a Hatfield of West Virginia. I also do not mess with McCoys.

I’ve enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn’t have any money, either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.

In 1961, I entered the classroom of the great Eugene Norris, who set about in a thousand ways to change my life. It was the year I read “Catcher in the Rye,” under Gene’s careful tutelage, and I adore that book to this very day. Later, a parent complained to the school board, and Gene Norris was called before the board to defend his teaching of this book. He asked me to write an essay describing the book’s galvanic effect on me, which I did. But Gene’s defense of “Catcher in the Rye” was so brilliant and convincing in its sheer power that it carried the day. I stayed close to Gene Norris till the day he died. I delivered a eulogy at his memorial service and was one of the executors of his will. Few in the world have ever loved English teachers as I have, and I loathe it when they are bullied by know-nothing parents or cowardly school boards.

About the novels your county just censored: “The Prince of Tides” and “Beach Music” are two of my darlings, which I would place before the altar of God and say, “Lord, this is how I found the world you made.” They contain scenes of violence, but I was the son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot who killed hundreds of men in Korea, beat my mother and his seven kids whenever he felt like it, and fought in three wars. My youngest brother, Tom, committed suicide by jumping off a fourteen-story building; my French teacher ended her life with a pistol; my aunt was brutally raped in Atlanta; eight of my classmates at The Citadel were killed in Vietnam; and my best friend was killed in a car wreck in Mississippi last summer. Violence has always been a part of my world. I write about it in my books and make no apology to anyone. In “Beach Music,” I wrote about the Holocaust and lack the literary powers to make that historical event anything other than grotesque.

People cuss in my books. People cuss in my real life. I cuss, especially at Citadel basketball games. I’m perfectly sure that Steve Shamblin and other teachers prepared their students well for any encounters with violence or profanity in my books just as Gene Norris prepared me for the profane language in “Catcher in the Rye” forty-eight years ago.

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in “Lonesome Dove” and had nightmares about slavery in “Beloved” and walked the streets of Dublin in “Ulysses” and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” I’ve been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.

The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You’ve now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but writers and English teachers do.

I salute the English teachers of Charleston, West Virginia, and send my affection to their students. West Virginians, you’ve just done what history warned you against — you’ve riled a Hatfield.

Sincerely,

Pat Conroy

Just not a good day

It was one of those days. You know the kind - it just starts a little off and keeps going in that direction. I messed up a couple of things and felt like an idiot. A little boy peed in one of our chairs...and I got to disinfect the site. I am off for the next few days and I am hoping to regroup and enjoy my time away.

Oh!

I forgot. I'm going to the Christmas Village that is at the convention center. That will surely cheer me up!! Yay!

P.S. - checkout my new Christmas Countdown ticker at the bottom of the page. Now you will know exactly how much time you have to shop.

Here's a rant

If you insist on riding the back end of my car then I will insist on driving slower than Morgan Freeman escorting Miss Daisy around town. I am not intimidated by your big bad lights in my rear view mirror and no matter how many times you throw your hands in the air I will continue to drive slower than CHRISTMAS ITSELF.

On another note, I feel it is important for me clear up a few misconceptions about my profession.

I am a librarian...this doesn't mean...
...that I read all day. I wish.
...that I am barely able to string two sentences together and anyone can do what I do. I dare you to find a book when someone tells you they don't know the author, title and they "think maybe it had a blue cover, but it could have been green and it had a dog in it."
...that when we don't have a book you want it means that the library is "pathetic." I am sorry that we don't have every tome known to man. Move on to another library.
...that I look like your maid. That it is okay to come to my place of work and wreck the place and expect that I will gladly hop to it and clean up after your lazy ass.
...that your ill behaved children are nearly as charming as everyone else has assured you they are. They are living embodiments that Beelzebub is roaming the earth and wreaking havoc through tiny hands.

Just a few thoughts for your day.

The talent is astounding

Some of you have met my friend Roach. Here he is in all his dancing glory. Enjoy

Sweet, glorious heaven on earth

Am I discussing Disney World? Nah. I am discussing the fact that my roommie made homemade Ranch Dressing from a recipe that her chef boyfriend gave her. Dear Jesus, it is good. I got home and found it waiting in the fridge. I had not a cracker or chip in site, but I scrounged up some pretzels that were in the bottom of my Cheez-it Party Mix (which, btw, had been left over after a certain someone came to dogsit for Teddy and ate all the good stuff out of the box...) and tasted some of the most delicious dip ever. As soon as she gets home I am going to implore her to marry this man. Clearly anyone who can conjure up this deliciousness must have more up his sleeve. This man will not remain unhitched long...especially in the South. You know what they say about a southern girl and BJ's?