like sands through an hour glass

Recently, almost every time I sign into Facebook, I get a round of names popping out at me from the past. Names I have not thought about in years, names that would never occur to me on a daily basis, or even a yearly basis.

There's a girl I had known since second grade when she appeared and became the best friend of a girl named Amy and they wore little, high heeled granny boots. I remember these boots clearly as day, as I wanted a pair quite badly but my mother said, "Little girls do not wear heels!" I had to settle for boots that had a heel, but not a high heel that made the clack, clack noise I wanted. Nor did my boots look Victorian, they look like boots. They were a poor, cheap let down from the granny boots this girl had. This was the same girl, many years later who had whispered conversations near by me about something so person I couldn't figure out why she was talking about it with someone in school and within hearing distance of me. The next year she had a total hissy fit and refused to speak to her "best guy friend" who sat next to me in English because he had made some sort of lude crack about her and her 'secret'. Two days later she had another whispered conversation with him, while I continued to sit next to him. I heard every single freaking word she had said.

I don't think she wanted me to know. But I do know. When one is writing, they can still hear.

By this point, I had realized that people thought I couldn't hear when I was writing. I could pretty much hear while I was writing, as I am one of those people who can do two things at once when I want to. By my senior year I was pretty sure I could write my stories and pay attention in class if need be. I usually would put away that stuff thought out of resecpt for the teachers. They had enough issues, I figured I'd remain the quiet, modle student people thought I was.

I alwasy knew more than most people figured I would know about the people at our school. Random bits of information keep popping into my head as these names keep popping up on the News Feed each time I sign into Facebook. I am also surprised by the amount of people my age who have children. As I told my husband last night, "I can bearly handle having a dog. I can't imgaine having two kids by now." He stared at me and made some off hand comment about kids that truely would only make sense if you knew him.

Each person, as their name pops up, I tend to click on their picture to see what it looks like. The profile picture tells me quite a bit. I can tell the high flying, still either single or dating types to the ones that have families and kids running around. The ones that still enjoy a good party, and the ones that would rather hug a kid. When I first joined Facebook, I remember scrolling through the people who graduated from high school with me in a search and being suprirsed when I saw there were people who were all ready married. Now that I'm married, I get shocked when they have kids. I guess this will only stop once I have a kid. Which won't be for awhile. As stated before, I can bearly handle having a dog.

Who is currently sitting in the doorway staring at me.

the grass is always greener...in the desert

When I was a freshman in college, I spent part of my spring break in Atlanta, Georgia. This was my first trip into the Deep South and I was sorely disappointed not to find people with Southern accents. They all sounded like me.

However, the grass in Atlanta was violently green. Seriously, I have never in my life seen grass that green. I freaked out and cried out, "OMG! Look at that grass?"

"What about it?" my friend who was driving me somewhere asked.
"IT IS GREEN! Like vividly green! Like, florescent green!"
"Yeah? You're point?"
"Grass is not naturally that color! But its all that color here!"

My friend logically rolled her eyes at this point and ignored me, but I could not get over the bright green grass. It was even sort of soft. (Yes, at one point I had to touch some just to see.)

In Scotland, the grass was also bright green, but it was a different sort of bright green, it was not blinding, it was just GREEN! Thus, I never got truely excited about it, plus after six months, I was as numb to the constant green as I was to the lack of sunshine and frizz free hair.

I was walking the dog today and as I rounded the corner, violently green grass caught my eye in the world of shades of yellow. It is spring time in the dirt hole, so there are tiny bits of dull green color coming to the few lawns being watered for 12 hours a day. There are leaves coming back to the trees, buds appearing on other trees.

As I walked closer to the violent green color, I came to realize the trees in this yard were also brilliant green in color, as well as certain sections of the front lawn (the side yard and back yard look like the rest of the yards here....yellow and dead). I came to a stop and the dog sat down.

"Basil Dog, look at that yard. How the hell did it get to be green like that? It hasn't rained in years," I said.

The dog stared at me blankly.

"It looks like the grass in Atlanta!" I exclaimed.

The dog continued to stare at me.

I resisted the urge to go over and touch the grass to see if it felt like the grass in Atlanta. One, because it would have been strange and two, the dog was getting impatient with me to continue her walk.

So we walked on, but I still couldn't get that vivid green color out of my mind.

Living through a dust bowl

About 6.30 it got oddly dark outside. At first, being a Midwesterner, I thought it was raining. Quickly, I remembered I lived in a dirt hole and it doesn't rain in dirt holes. I went to the window and gazed out and my husband said, "Wow, look at all that dust."

The sky was black. Seriously, black with dirt. The wind was gusting, things were blowing and it was dark. I took a few videos, but they failed to encompass the wrath of the dust storm. My husband turned on the weather channel and it claimed it was 80 degrees and sunny outside.

It was no such thing. Per the other weather sight my husband uses, it said the winds were 45 mph or higher and visibility was less than a mile. By this point, it was pitch black outside and it seriously sounded like a thunder storm outside. The power flickered off only once so far, but we'll see. During a bright, sunlight day we lost power (only on our street) for over four hours. It sucked and ruined by day. I'm holding my breath.

In other news, our dog has worms. We have no idea where she got them as I am positive she did not have them before we left her for the weekend, as I have a habit of watching the dog poop and never saw anything worm like before. Since this discovery of worms, I've seen worms in her poop several times. I never saw anything like them before. It is gross beyond all known reason. Since giving her the over the counter meds for worms, she's been super tired and lazy. I am not sure if it is the drugs or the worms doing this to her, but I guess before the meds, she was a happy puppy, dopy grinning and playing with the other dogs she was staying with. Since she got home she's been sleepy, jumping on the door constantly to go out. And she almost always goes to the bathroom when we take her out. Sick puppy. I got her a gentle leader to aid in walking her, but she's been so tired, we haven't gone on long walks. I did a ten minute training session with her today with it and after I started feeding her food, she stopped pawing at her face and walked with me. We're getting there slowly.

Tomorrow, my husband graduates part one of his training. I have no idea what to wear.

trying to be something it is not

This past weekend I ventured out of the dirt hole and went to a city and then another smaller town near this city. This town is everything the dirt hole wishes it could be but fails at life trying to be so. The dirt hole tries to keep businesses out of the city in order to keep its "small town feeling."

I don't think anyone who makes these decisions has ever been to a small town before. 30,000 people is not a small town. Once you have that many people, just give up the small town thing and embrace the fact you've managed to trap that many people in the dirt hole.

Another thing, small town usually have businesses they want to protect, you know, local businesses that other big stores would kill. Dirt hole doesn't have any of these for the most parts as they have all ready successfully managed to kill these places. They are also managing to kill their own mall, as I think the mall has maybe two stores now, all others have left. Look up the Beloit Mall. The Dirt hole mall will soon be just like it. Once the stores go, people will stop coming here to shop (except the Mexicans that go to Walmart for unknown reaons). They will get in their respective cars and drive three hours. Just like I did this past weekend. You lost my sales tax money because I LEFT.

This past weekend I watched Pearl Harbor. My husband is unsure why Alec Baldwin is a bad American, as someone made a comment they he should not have been playing the role that he was playing. I'm not sure why Alec Baldwin is a bad American? Because he yelled at his kid? I looked it up on Google News and just got that Alec Baldwin is an alien. That must be it. Unless I have been living under a rock for so long something else happened that I missed, which I am sure is exactly what happened. I'm just really curious about this bad American thing.

Oh well.

Dirt hole sucks. That is all.

my dog is barking loudly in my ear

the fluff ball dog that does not own a leash and just wonders the neighborhood is out and invading in Basil Dog's window territory. Dumb dog.

Earlier today, Basil Dog got tired of going for a walk and decided it'd be great fun to take a nap in the middle of the street.

In other news, I heard Stephan King thinks Stephanie Meyer can't write. Be warned, Twi-Hards will be hunting you down Mr. King. However, you might be okay, because the Potter fan will fight those Twi-Hards off of you as you said, JK Rowling could write.

Scars Tell Our Stories

We all have scars. They might be big, little, or inbetween. They might be somewhere for the whole world to see, or they might always be hidden. However, our scars tell stories about where we've been, what we have done. They fad over time, just like our memories of the events that gave the scars to us. Some scars don't fad and are forever with us.

I have three major scars on my body, along with many little self inflicted ones as I was a scab picker as a child. I did not realize my mother's threats were real until I was about fifteen and noticed that I tanned sort of strange (when I did tan) due to all the tiny white spots on my arms and legs. Now I just don't tan and no one can see those scars that I picked at as a child.

The first major scar is on my back and it is there from my picking at it. It was given to me by a fellow child who was pulling me in a wagon and flipped me out the back and proceeded to drag me half in, half out of the wagon up the street. I remember this happeneing, but I do not remember much about it other than hanging out the back of the wagon keeping my head up. I scraped my lower back up pretty bad. My mother was appalled that the child would do this to me. And later, she was appalled by the fact I kept picking at it.

"You'll never be able to wear a two piece because you'll have that ugly scar on your back!" she would yell at me. At the time, I was about five or so, she would not allow me to wear a two piece and in my wisdom as a five year old, I figured that meant she never would.

Two years later, I had a fake two piece (swimsuit that bared my tummy and back, but was tied together on the sides). I was at my grandma's house and my brother and I were playing in the sprikler on a hot summer day.

"What is that ugly thing on that child's back?" my grandma demanded of her daughter.
"She fell out of a wagon and picked the scab until it scarred. I told her it would be ugly."

I never was able to see this scar, thus I do not know if it is ugly or not. I do now that it faded and it pretty much gone. I was in middle school, now allowed to wear two pieces though I never did and asked someone if I had any scars on my back. No one saw anything. Later, when I was in college and wearing a two piece my dad said, "Hey, that ugly wagon scar is gone."

"Or she's just too pale to for you to see it," my mom commented, still bitter I had picked at it when she told me not to.

While I am not upset that that scar fadded, there are two scars on my body I would rather not have fade away. One is the scar from my appendix removal. The other is a small scar on my left hand between my index finger and pointer finger.

Most people would be happy to have appedix scars fade away over time. These people must not have paid 7,000 dollars give or take a thousdand to have theirs removed. This removeal screwed up a lot of things for me, as I had planned to use that money to pay off a student loan. Also, seeing the student loan was less than 7,000, I would still have the left over money and we could fix the air conditoner in my husband's car. However, no. My appedix decided it had to get infected to the point where they had to phsyically CUT it out and cause me to be in surgry for awhile, hiking up the price. Having to have it cut out of me, also left me with a long thing scar, not the tiny no show dots. The doctor assured me afterwards, I would still be able to wear a two piece swimsuit and it wouldn't show. I looked at him doubtfully, wondering if he had gotten out in the past ten years. The first time I put on a bathing suit after I had it removed, there it was, clear as day. I knew it would be due to the fact when I was still skinny and wore low rise jeans, it showed. Seriously. If long shirts hadn't been in, the whole world would have seen the ugly scar right above my hip bone.

The last scar I have is always visable to the world unless I wear gloves. It is tiny and no one has ever in my life asked me where it came from. I do not think anyone has noticed it. I know it is there and I know the story behind that little scar. It is all I have left, a physical reminder of my life in Glasgow, Scotland. I got the scar on my very last day in the city, New Years Eve. I was goofing around with my then boyfriend and somehow his toenail nicked my hand while I was sitting on the couch trying to read while he was doing something on my laptop. Or something like that. The moment was such a normal moment, my brain did not catlouge it as something important that I should remember. I just remember, suddenly my hand was bleeding between my fingers. I remember, a day later sitting on a train charging towards London, picking at it. By this point in time, I did not pick scabs like I used to. I hardly had any any more for one, and I was no longer fascinated by blood like I was as a kid. I sat there, sad to have my life in Glasgow ending and figuring I would never see that guy again, as I had gone into the relationship thinking it'd be a fling, but it wasn't.

I picked the little scab every day. I always kept a little bit of tissue on me to soak up what little blood would come out of the little spot. I spent five days in London picking at it. By the time I got on the plane to come back to the States, it was almost healed. I picked it one more time on the plane, knowing it would be a scar now.

It is a little scar. I look at it and smile, remembering all the great things about Glasgow. Remember all the great things that relationship did for me. It might have been a short one, a little one just like the little phsyical scar it left behind, but it did a lot for the emotional scars I bore from my past. I always knew it would not take much to heal me. That small amount of time spent in Glasgow healed me in such a way that I was ready for real relationships, I wasn't scared of guys, I knew there were actually nice ones out there that would not emotional abuse me and cheat on me.

And I found one. The ring he gave me sits a finger away from the tiny scar I got on my last day in Glasgow, Scotland. The same guy saw me through the hasself of getting the appendix scar and swears up and down I do not have a scar on my back. He has looked for it on numerous occassions, trying to find this ugly scar I was supposed to have my whole life from being dragged in a wagon. If he has ever noticed the small scar on my left hand, he has never asked me where it came from. If he did, I would tell him. I have noticed as of late it is fading. It made me sad to see the tiny scar fading after all these years of hanging in there. I do not want to forget. It is just that simple.

I can forget about the appedix, I can forget about being dragged in the wagon. I do not want to forget him and Glasgow. I simply do not want to forget.

Couch Launching

Last year's Superbowl, our friend A lunched himself off our couch at the end of the game as the Patriots lost. I have never seen a man launch himself off a couch such as A did that evening a year ago. I was really happy the Patriots lost, as I hate them for some unknown reason. I would have more than likely have launched myself along with A off the couch if I had known A better, but I had only met him a few weeks before and had yet to allow him to see me do stupid things.

This year, no one launched themselves off the couch, as in reality, none of us truly cared about either team that was playing. The only thing launched was Basil Dog, who launched herself on the couch at R once she re-entered the house after the game.

The Superbowl was a let down for many reasons. There were not a great deal of great plays. There were also a clear lack of really good commercials. My favorite one was the Millier High Life commercial, which was less than a second long and had the High Life guy just yelling HIGH LIFE! Earlier in the day, we had seen a commerical for Miller High Life, with the guy figuring out how much a second of air time duirng the Superbowl would cost and he could get his point across in a second. He did. He rules. If I drank beer, I'd drink Miller just for that one second commerical. The 3-D commericals were lost on us in the dirt hole, due to the fact I never saw the display that was supposed to be selling the glasses (or giving them away?) here in Dirt Hole central. No one else I was with had any idea what I was talking about with the 3-D commerical and glasses. No one believed me because there was a clear lack of red and blue swiggle lines all over the place.

When the Superbowl ended, that was all it did: end. I came home, gave Basil Dog water and cut my husband's hair and then we went to bed. I then had a dream that I had tickets to London, but was worried they wouldn't let me go because my passport had the wrong name on it. Evelyn called to have wine when I got to London and I freaked out and could not fit everything in my suitcases. I woke up before I reached customs.

Ireland and Video Games

Last night, my husband and I walked down the street to a different person's house than we usually walk down the street to go to. This couple is part of my husband's current work unit, or whatever you want to call it. We have never been to their house in a social setting. I have been multiple times to let their dog out to go to the bathroom. And my husband has been several times for various reasons. But, last night we went in a social way carrying a box of beer. Seriously, it was a box of beer.

We arrived and I stood like my usual awkward self for awhile before I went to subject myself to the cold evening of the dirt hole night. They had a fire going, but it did not do much to keep me warm. We sat out there for an unknown amount of time, eating and listening to pilot stories. A couple times, one of the other wives (known as P at times here) asked why they talk about pilot stuff when they are not there as they live it. Her husband (known as D here at times) said, "Because we can't talk about it like this there!"

After I lost feeling in my legs and my hands were blue (from my dark wash jeans, not from being cold but trying to keep them warm by rubbing them on my pants) we finally went inside with the offer to play Rockband.

I knew loosely what Rockband was. I knew it was a sort of video game that you played music or pretended you were in a Rockband. It was like Guitar Hero, only with drums and a singer. I knew this. I did not know how intense it was, or how much it took to be in this Rockband.

The first round of songs, we learned that D wasn't the best guitar player in the world and that J couldn't sing. (I am not sure if he was really trying to sing or he was doing it on purpose.) After another song of D failing out, Steele took the guitar and showed us all D really wasn't very good and he made it look easy. My husband took tips from Steele on how to play the contraption, which doesn't really work like a real guitar from what I could tell. D was amazed at the skill my husband managed to play the thing, and did not seem to understand that my husband just took tips from Steele for the first time he was to play the guitar.

I was avid I was not going to play anything in this game. I am an avid video game hater. I have been this way since I was 16 and my "boyfriend" and his best friend would spent precisous hours playing wrestling video games. I hated sitting there watching them play the stupid game when he could have been paying attention to me, who he did not see or speak to very often. (Bad relationship in the long run.) Thus, I hated video games. I felt they were stupid and pointless and I refused to play them. In college, I did not come across video games too often, and when I would I would refuse to play. I would state I was morally apposed to video games for myself, and people just accepted this. I had another "boyfriend" who was into video games (I even helped pay for an "air conditoned" video game controller...") He wanted to 1) finish the game he was playing before hanging out with me and would 2) say he would call me back after his game was done. He never called me back. He was the boyfriend who would say he had to go to the bathroom and would call me back and would never call me back. He spent two weeks in the bathroom once.

After I graduated from college, I knew my husband, who would play video games with his brothers. It seemed to be something he would do with the two brothers. If I called while he was playing, he would talk to me for a few minutes and then say, "Can I call you back?" He always called me back in maybe a half hour at most. I would sometimes go over to the house that contained the video games, but while I was there, they would almost never play. I would only hear stories of my husband to be playing video games.

Then A (our friend who lives down the street from us and has two dogs)returned from Indiana with his famed PS2 (he has claimed since he met us a year ago, he had this PS2, and even his wife did not believe it existed). They bought some games, and suddenly playing video games was something we did on a weekend night. The first time I was over there when this video gamming was going on, I thought I wouldn't play. I was never any good at video games to begin with, but they said, "You just push buttons."

So I did. I did okay. It was't anything like NBA Live96 I used to play with my brother at our uncle's house (my brother and I never had video games as kids. My brother did not get a video game unit until he was in high school and bought it himself). I was never any good at NBA Live mostly because I just like to run and shoot and make the guys look like they were dancing and flying.

Anyways, since the PS2 entered my life, I have played Mortal Combate and Dance, Dance Revolution a few times. Also, since the PS2 appeared, D seemed to have gotten a game unit and has Grand Theft Auto, which he and my husband play at times. I do not play because I think its more fun to watch than play (I used to do this to my brother when he'd play that game or one of his war games.)

Last night, when they all moved into play Rockband, I figured I'd just watch. Then, after P sang a song, she was like, "Ireland, you have to do it if I did. All you have to do is mumble along."

It was true during her song, I hardly heard her. She did not fail out at any point, so I was like fine. I'll give it a shot. I took the mic and after about five minutes of trying to find a song I knew well enough I wouldn't embarass myself, I began. I picked out No Doubt's "Sunday Morning." I went through the song, singing along thankful that Gwen's voice was louder than mine and it almsot felt like I was singing along with iTunes, only holding a mic and being watched by everyone. It seemed to be a big deal I was doing the singing, so there are pictures somewhere out there of it.

I finished and I was shaking. Just like after the time I sang my solo (forced mind you) for voice lessons. At that moment I vowed I'd never sing alone in front of people agian. I have now failed at this, as I did it last night. I am not sure anyone really heard me. I never heard me through the speakers. After I was done and everyone was like, "You did it Ireland, it wasn't that bad." D noticed, as the final scores popped up, I managed to get 100%.

Huh?

"I don't think I've ever seen that," K, the hostess, said, looking at me and praising me like she might praise one of her high school students. There was a chorus of contrags on getting 100% and my husband announced I had been in chior. I am not sure what this had to do with anything.

I did another song later, Linkin Park's "One Step Closer" which D could not believe I knew all the words to, but I did not see the score.

Once I got home, I realized I had managed to kick D's butt again at a game, as a few months ago, I kicked his butt at bowling, which seemed to wound him as I did not see him for weeks. I guess he did not see my 100% score as such, as he called wanting us to go to another guy's house for the Superbowl. However, we're going to A's house. We watched the Superbowl with A and his wife, R, last year and he launched himself off the couch when the Patriots lost. It was great.