pharmaceutical cornucopia

this week i have been suffering from yet another ear infection, which again makes me feel like i should be in elementary school. when i was little i had ear infections CONSTANTLY, and was practically nursed on banana flavored amoxicillin. i eventually had tubes put in my ears (holla at a girl if you are a fellow tube warrior), and this cured the ear infection epidemic. so i THOUGHT. a couple months ago i suffered from my first ear infection in, oh, 16 years. if you search, you can probably find where i blogged/bitched miserably about it at length. well, i guess my right ear was feeling a little left out of the fun and games so it decided to start its own trouble. negative attention is better than no attention at all, right? my right ear, though, really out did herself and put on quite a show. i couldn't get in to see my pcp, so i went to a doc in the box, which was a big mistake. big. mistake. she put me on pretty much the weakest antibiotic that they make, apparently not understanding that my ear was ROTTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT. nice image, right? she also put me on some liquid antihistamine/decongestant, i'm not sure the purpose of that, except to make me feel even more like shit. here is how our conversation went:

morgan: did i mention that i am in really excruciating pain?
not qualified healthcare professional: i see. well, you can take 600 mg ibuprofen every 8 hours.
morgan: that is what i would take if i had a splinter in my thumb that was mildly irritating.
not qualified healthcare professional: you can also take a tylenol in between the ibuprofen.
morgan: dumbfounded silence.
not qualified healthcare professional: i need to collect your co pay now.

needless to say, i did not see marked improvement after several days, so i called and pled for an appointment with my pcp, who tends to treat INFECTIOUS DISEASES with a little more aggression. my appointment was yesterday afternoon, and when i woke up yesterday morning with **black** discharge coming from my ear, i decided it was probably appropriate for me to go ahead and seek further medical attention.

i cried pretty much the entire time i was in the doctor's office. as a result, my lovely doctor who i love, she prescribed antibiotics that come in really big big pills (i take that as an indication of their power and effectiveness), along with $50 ear drops (AFTER INSURANCE), a shot in the ass (haven't had one of those in awhile-- it is always good to keep your ego in check by baring your cheek to a stranger), and some nice friendly narcotics. thank you mr. lortab, that will do just fine. i was also instructed to take 800 mg ibuprofen in addition to my little hydrocodone friends. my doctor, who i worship now, she did not seem alarmed at the black discharge, which surprised me, as i was sure i had developed gangrene in my brain.

i think i may be ready to come off my strict diet of crackers and ramen, and as i write this i am making my first public appearance (outside of a doctor's office) in nearly a week.

81/19

it isn't that i'm surprised that the amendment passed, it just amazes me that MORE THAN A MILLION PEOPLE in tennessee voted in favor of it.

it wasn't as if i could get married to my partner before the amendment passed. nothing has changed.

it just baffles me that so many people even give a shit whether or not i can get married. i guess they can discern our secret agenda to ruin traditional family values and piss all over the sanctity of marriage.

i'm allowing myself to be really hateful and bitter towards the whole world for the morning, and then this afternoon i will attempt to return to hopeful optimism.

in which i will complain more about the work load which is CRUSHING MY SOUL

when i feel like i only exist to write papers and study for tests, i begin to feel a bit depressed.

and while i love portland brew, and would be lost without it, it surely does not please me when i am at more than one portland brew location during the course of the day, doing school work, drinking tea. also, the divinity school library? starting to feel like i live there. IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY WINDOWS.

julie has just begun a new program for me, in which i get a prize for every time i get an a. the extraordinary amount of time i spent studying the hebrew bible in the last couple of weeks has finally come to fruition in the form of the new indigo girls cd. happy. i like it so much that i finally decided to pry the kt tunstall cd out of my cd player, where it had been living consistently for...i'm embarassed to admit how long.

the great thing about school, the truly beautiful thing that really sets it apart from the work world, is the GLORIOUSLY long holiday break. my eyes roll back in my head with pleasure just THINKING about it.

and on that note, i return to writing a paper.

say it isn't so

the following link was sent to me by a fine young lad who i hold in high esteem, some of you might know him as "nathan," in an email this morning. the subject line read "omg." the only text included was: "the y chromosome is fading fast."

i wish i could make my links work, but blogger has really been letting me down lately. i guess you'll have to cut and paste (horror!)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15488905/site/newsweek/?nav=slate

my little helper

billie the kitten really likes to play laptop, and if i step away from the ole computer without closing the screen, i can be almost certain that when i return, she will be sitting on the keyboard. she is still small enough that she can curl up and fit her entire body on the keys. that is cute, but troublesome, as little kitty paws are, in fact, able to press the keys.

today, i returned from my little study break of toast and jam -000ty (see there! she just walked across the keyboard AGAIN!) and found she had left me a message on the screen. i copied it, in hopes that maybe someone will be able to interpret her unusual language.

so here it is, billie's first blog:

7777777777777777777777777777777////////////////////////////////////////////////\]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOOO






N 99N 4SDXXXXXXX *tyt,

**ahem**

it has been pointed out to me that bacon does not come from a cow.

and yes, i am in graduate school.

disappointed

really? nobody knows what mush is? i guess we will just have to WAIT and see who DOES know.

BUT.....if you want to come to my house tomorrow morning at 7ish, i will be making it. aunt momo making mush. not something you want to miss.

did i mention that at my house, it smells like bacon? it kind of makes me want to throw up a little bit. this morning i made pancakes while julie made bacon, and when i went to put my pajamas back on tonight (because yes, i wear the same pajamas a number of times before i wash them), they smelled like BACON. my pajamas did. i put them in the dirty clothes. yesterday, i had to go family grocery shopping in anticipation of the arrival of the in-laws, and i had to buy things like milk from a COW and bacon from a COW and cheese from a COW and lunch meat from....NOT A COW. i got stuff for sandwiches, but then today julie had to go back to the store becaus apparently the kind of bread we eat isn't good for people with difurticulitis. i'm sure that isn't how you spell that. but it is some kind of intestine problem, where you can't eat....bread? i don't know. i guess not 9 grain bread. so julie went and got some colonial brand white bread. how is that bread so squishy and soft? it just baffles me. my bread is not gooey like that. i vaguely remember eating that kind of bread in my past, and having it stick to the roof of my mouth.

here at our house, the food cultures they are colliding.

a wee bit of food trivia for you

hello? internet? do you remember me?

i'm the one that used to have a life that included things like having free time to blog aimlessly, having friends (that i saw face to face!), and having a well-balanced diet.

now my diet mostly consists of jesus. and hot tea. at the same time. every. single. day.

and now, i present myself in my time of need, as the moment in which julie's family arrives at our house draws ever nearer. i like them, i really do like them, but i'm feeling a little neurotic about having them at our HOUSE. what will we do to entertain them? what will happen if they look in the strategically placed suitcase at the foot of our bed? what will i FEED them? they all seem kind of scared of the food that i eat. usually we visit them in indianapolis, and i bring a lot of food with me because otherwise i would have to last the whole weekend on carrot sticks. so it is not unusual for me to dig around in my purse and find something to eat, while they look on with utter horror and confusion. always when we visit them, we go to the "riley house" for breakfast, which they fondly refer to as the "old cracker barrel." it is your classic small town greasy sppon -- the place to see and be seen. the place to eat cholesterol laden foods and lotsa animal products. BUT they do have something on the menu which i am QUITE fond of, and which i have never seen down here in the sooooouth. fried mush.

you win a prize if you know what fried mush is, without having to google it. or ask someone. or call riley house. NO CHEATING.

and she's done

nearly an hour has passed since the completion of my FIRST DIVINITY SCHOOL TEST. my eyes are still kind of glazed. i feel like my brain had diarrhea for the entire duration of the test. and now it is tiiiiiiired.

but now, i get to think about something besides christology. like, laundry. or dusting.

quicken

quicken is one of those programs that i love to hate, and hate to love...it satisfies my inner nerd, as well as my not-so-inner control freak...at the same time it draws my attention to alarming things, like for instance how much we spend each month on the damn menagerie that lives here.

when you play budget, it all looks like it is going to work out so nicely. and theeeeen you need new tires. and your girlfriend needs dental work. and another damn animal needs to be spayed, so that there aren't any more damn animals running around on the side of lebanon road for julie to PICK UP AND BRING HOME FOR ME TO TAKE CARE OF. and yeah, you are supposed to budget for those "unexpected" expenses....but really? does anyone ever succeed at that?

anyways, quicken and i had a heart to heart today, because it is looking more and more like we are about to become a single income family, with yours truly as the primary breadwinner (SCARY). i'm afraid that julie's mental health will not withstand many more days at her job. and her mental health coverage, while decent, might not suffice in the case of the breakdown which is currently pending. so really what it boils down to is that somehow, someway, one of us has to bring home $343 to supplement what i am currently making. and yes, that number is precisely accurate. and my projection of our expenses is fool proof, and fail safe.

how many nights would i have to strip to make $343? lets hear some projections.

tuesday's reflection

quitters may never "win," but the idea of winning is so subjective that really, that phrase is meaningless.

moreover, quitters don't have to make to do lists. and right now, that really tips the scale.

and then i realized that i am aging

so picture the scene:

julie and i, after a long saturday of chores (new mums!) decide to venture into public for a big outing. saturday night excitement, right? so we get in the car (a family sedan) and drive to maggie moo's. it is, oh, maybe 10:30. we pull up to maggie moo's in our family sedan, windows down, radio up, and look around to notice that we are among a crowd of younger "cool kids." my awareness is soon brought to the fact that julie and i BOTH, unbeknownest to each other until this very moment, are singing along with phil collins -- "you'll be in my heart." belting it out. the crowd looks on, with distaste.

i didn't think i would have this feeling until i was in, say, my forties. maybe school is aging me at an accelerated rate. i think maybe the situation is exacerbated by the fact that i spent a good deal of friday night reading exodus. it makes me feel like i need to go do something really irresponsible and dangerous. like play with fire. or sleep past 7 am.

something alarming and gross

yesterday i had lunch with two dear friends (hi guys!) who are also in recovery from almost being completely brainwashed by the crazy evangelical conservative brand of christianity. they reminded me of something that i had repressed so far back into the recesses of my mind, i probably would have never remembered it without prompting.

does anyone else remember JUDGMENT HOUSE?

well in case you don't, the basic idea is a "christian" alternative to the haunted house, where they act out these little scenes where people die and then GO TO HELL. like people who, say, commit suicide, or have abortions....or die in a car wreck while they were having sex with a transgender prostitute while they were smoking crack and killing little babies (that last one wasn't actually one of the scenarios). but the whole idea is that if you don't do EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO, you will burn in hell for eternity. and these little ditties are sponsored by CHURCHES. there is apparently a documentary about these wonderful evangelical tools of god called "hell house." i can't wait to see it.

my dear friends saw this documentary, and apparently there was one church one time (one time, at band camp...) that did a re-enactment of an earthquake in asia, in which a lot of people died....and the church managed to use ACTUAL BODIES from the asian earthquake, which were frozen, and shipped to america (land of the free, home of the brave), to show how all these people died and wound up in hell because they were buddhist. jesus.

so i'm going to get the documentary, and see for myself, and then i will report back about whether or not i am more, or less, appalled than i am right now.

wowza

when i thought that i would be able to go to school full time and work full time and still have a life, i was wrong. so wrong. and just when i thought things might be settling down:

most people only get stomach bugs -- or food poisoning, or whatever ailment makes you think you are going to die from throwing up -- every so often. this is not the case for me. this morning around, say, 3:00, i awoke with the sudden realization that i was going to be ill. julie was woken by my retching, and came to my rescue with the most important treatment method for vomiting -- the wet washcloth. the cats paced around in the bathroom, looking concerned (or confused) -- the dog started to whimper in her house with the realization that WE WERE DOING SOMETHING WITHOUT HER. little codependant shit. my violent illness began to subside around 5:30...an hour and a half before the alarm was due to go off.

julie INSISTED that i not go to school today. but it is still early enough in the semester that i am worried i will certainly flunk all my classes if i miss a single lecture. so i ignored her protestations, and crawled out the door looking my absolute best. it is also early enough in the semester that i hadn't yet gone to class looking like shit. well, there goes the illusion that i shower regularly and wash my hair. ah well. they were bound to find out sometime.

i'm nursing myself back to health by eating dry clifford crunch (please note: if you haven't ever had clifford crunch, you have not experienced true pleasure). i might treat myself to some vegetable broth when i get home.

i heart 15 hour days

i suck at updating my blog, and the reason is that i have hardly had time to blink this week. when you take a full-ish time job and combine it with a full-ish time course load, and you multiply it by a house to clean and FOUR animals to take care of (if you are clever, you will have deduced that we kept the kitten), you get a schedule packed so tight i have to be mindful that i schedule time to potty and blow my nose. which i have been doing a LOT (nose blowing) since they started pouring chemicals all over the church parking lot next door. did it need to be blacker than it was? because it looked fine to me. but obviously there must have been a really good reason to fill the air with noxious fumes.

i just finished writing my first div school paper! with the help of only ONE glass of wine.

and don't expect any updates this weekend because i'm going to indianapolis.

the kitten's name is "billie." but she also answers to "little."

oh hell

well there are a lot of things i could write about, as it has been an eventful week. the most PRESSING topic, however, is this:



julie brought her home today after picking her up on the side of lebanon road.



what are we going to do with her? is she actually really that small? are we crazy cat ladies if we have THREE cats? will mercy succeed in consuming her face, as she has been trying to do since the kitten crossed the threshold? will kitty stop hissing at bean and moochie? (not that i want her to, because when she hisses it is pretty much more cute than i can even tolerate.) stay tuned for the answers to these questions, and more!

really, we cannot have another pet. really. SERIOUSLY.

but, but, but.....look at her. seriously. no, really.

stop, drop, and roll bitch!

i have to say that i am kind of surprised this has not happened until now. i mentioned this to julie, and she said "well morgan, you just started cooking on gas. you didn't have an open flame before." she does have a point.

nevertheless.

i started a fire in the kitchen today. at first i thought it was just a little flare up from the burner. it turned out to be a kitchen towel ON FIRE. my first thought was "oh shit! i need to go get julie!" so i turned around, as if i am going to run outside to tell julie, who is mowing the yard, that she needs to come extinguish the FLAMES COMING FROM THE STOVE. then my inner dialogue said "jesus morgan! you can't go get julie! THERE IS A FIRE IN HERE!" i was trying to think real fast about all the things you are and are not supposed to do with a fire....all i could think was that you aren't supposed to use water, and then i remembered something about baking soda, or baking powder or something, but while i'm doing all this thinking the flames are growing and are about to engulf my HEAD.....so i took the lid off one of the pots on the stove and beat at the fire until it went out. all the while saying to myself, "jesus christ morgan! there is a mother fucking fire in the mother fucking kitchen! christ!"

anyways, not that much damage was done, except to the kitchen towel. and to my poor psyche.

oh, and the smoke alarm? it does work. it works really loudly.

hotlanta

when i come back from visiting big cities (most recently london, paris, and atlanta), nashville makes me feel a little forlorn. for a few reasons. not necessarily in this order.

1. big cities have more vegan food. there are whole restuarants devoted to vegan and vegetarian cuisine. even normal restaurants usually have something to offer. i can go to restaurants and have *multiple* choices on the menu -- choices not confined to salads, steamed vegetables, and rice. i can have things like cream sauces. i can eat CAKE. that i didn't bake myself. i can also ask if something is vegan, and the server will know what i am talking about.

2. there are more gay things to do in big cities. nashville, god bless her, has a pretty limited glbtq scene. if you don't like really loud dance clubs that play techno, well i hope that you weren't counting on going to some other kind of gay establishment in nashville. this weekend in atlanta we went to a gay country bar that was PACKED, and SO many people were on the dance floor except it actually looked fun because they were two stepping and line dancing. all kinds of people...all ages....it was the kind of bar where you could actually have a good time without getting shit faced. and there WASN'T A COVER. i **begged** julie to dance with me, because really i think that two stepping can't be THAT hard, but she insisted that we must take dance lessons first. which i am pretty much more excited about than i have been about most things, including getting my new refrigerator and learning to knit. big. stuff.

3. you can walk places. and if you can't walk places, you can take public transportation.

4. there are good places to SHOP. had my first experience at ikea this weekend. wowie.

i could continue, but it is making me more forlorn. i love nashville, i think great things are happening in nashville, i especially love east nashville...but sometimes the draw of big cities starts to get to me....

grandpa

over the past several months, my grandpa has been in the process of dying. his health has declined over the last years, and his quality of life now is really not good. he has moved from assisted living, to the hospital, to 24 hour nursing care...meanwhile my mom has largely been responsible for being his caregiver...it has been hard to watch, and i think the time has come when it really is time for him to go, but he is still hanging on, and it is a struggle for everyone involved. sometime i will have to get around to telling some grandpa stories, because there is plenty of hilariousness to be had, but i wanted to post some things that i have been reading...in this book called "conversations with god" by neale donald walsch...that have been really useful and have changed my perspective. they have changed my perspective about death in general, about grandpa's death, largely about the death of my biological mother. it has offered a lot of comfort and healing. this passage is written as though "god" is speaking to the author...

"the person who has the 'faith to move mountains,' and dies six weeks later, has moved mountains for six weeks. that may have been enough for him. he may have decided, on the last hour of the last day, 'okay,, i've had enough. i'm ready to go on now to another adventure.' you may not have known of that decision, because he may not have told you. the truth is, he may have made that decision quite a bit earlier--and not have told you; not have told anyone.

you have created a society in which it is very not okay to want to die--very not okay to be very okay with death. because you don't want to die, you can't imagine anyone wanting to die--no matter what their circumstances or condition.

but there are many situations in which death is preferable to life--which i know you can imagine if you think about it for even a little bit. yet, these truths don't occur to you--they are not that self-evident--when you are looking in the face of someone else who is choosing to die. and the dying person knows this. she can feel the level of acceptance in the room regarding her decision.

have you ever noticed how many people wait until the room is empty before they die? some even have to tell their loved ones--'no, really, go. get a bit to eat.' or 'go, get some sleep. i'm fine. i'll see you in the morning.' and then, when the loyal guard leaves, so does the soul from the body of the guarded.

if they told their assembled relatives and friends, 'i just want to die,' they would really hear it. 'oh, you don't mean that,' or 'now, don't talk that way,' or 'hang in there,' or 'please don't leave me.'

the entire medical profession is trained to keep people alive, rather than keeping people comfortable so that they can die with dignity.

you see, to a doctor or nurse, death is failure. to a friend or relative, death is disaster. only to the soul is death a relief--a release.

the greatest gift you can give the dying is to let them die in peace--not thinking that they must 'hang on,' or continue to suffer, or worry about you at this most crucial passage in their life...

...now at this point everything depends on how badly the soul wants to leave. if there is no great urgency here, the soul may say, 'alright, you win. i'll stick around with you a little longer.' but if the soul is very clear that staying does not serve its higher agenda--that there is no further way it can evolve through this body--the soul is going to leave, and nothing will stop it--nor should anything try to.

the soul is very clear that its purpose is evolution. that is its sole purpose--and its soul purpose. it is not concerned with the achievements of the body or the development of the mind. these are all meaningless to the soul.

the soul is also clear that there is no great tragedy involved in leaving the body. in many ways, the tragedy is being in the body. so you have to understand, the soul sees this whole death thing differently. it, of course, sees the whole 'life thing' differently, too--and that is the source of much of the frustration and anxiety one feels in one's own life. the frustration and anxiety comes from not listening to one's soul."

shew. so i'll leave that for you to digest.

the results are in...

...and the lightbulbs are changed, and i HATE them. i feel like i'm in an institution. or worse, my old high school. WHERE IS MY SOFT WHITE LIGHT? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COZY ATMOSPHERE??? but see the thing is, now that i know that high energy swirly whatever lightbulbs are so much more efficient, then i feel like i can't change back to the old PRETTY ones because they are killing the earth. and plus, because we spent almost $100 at lowe's replacing all our lightbulbs. this really redneck woman was our cashier, and she was so snooty about the fact that we were replacing all our lightbulbs with energy efficient ones, like that was the most IGNORANT thing she had ever heard. i wanted to tell her that SHE is the reason that all the polar bears are falling off into the ocean because they don't have any ice caps to sit on anymore.

julie says that i will get used to the new light quality, but i think she is out of her mind.

good gawd

just found this website: beeraw.com

naturally, an obsession with honey accompanies my obsession with tea. i was flabbergasted at all the varieties of honey in europe, several of which i brought back home with me, which are DWINDLING more quickly than i care to acknowledge. up to this point, right now, today, i have not found any honey in 'merica that i am even half as excited about as the honey in europa. i CAN'T WAIT to order honey from this website. it makes me so happy i could burst. and all my gooey sweet insides would make a big mess.

and i know that some really strict vegans do not eat honey, so do not even start barking up that tree, because it is already barked. and yeah, honey is bee throw up, but who CARES? especially if you are supporting small bee keepers. who are nice to their little buzzy friends.

haha, buzzy friend -- first time i've ever used that phrase to refer to anything other than my vibrator.

advertisement

i have previously spoken of my intense love for portland brew, and i wanted to revisit that.

see, i was kind of devastated because the portland brew on 12th used to be about 5 minutes away, but then after moving to the east sieeeeeede it was not so easy to just pop over there.

THANKFULLY, there is a new portland brew open in east nashville now! it is on eastland, next to rosepepper. they are open from 7 - 6:30, but once business starts to pick up they will be staying open later. i couldn't be more excited that there is a portland brew within WALKING distance of my house. not that i walked here today, because it is hotter than nuts and i was lugging around work stuff and i probably would have had a stroke on the way over.

so, if you are an east side bunny like me -- rejoice!

the theme for today is:

diarrhea.

we seem to be having a recurring problem with the poopy princess making stink happen on the ALL WHITE guest bed.

i know she is sick, and can't help it, and looks miserable like she wants to die, but for christ's sake. on the bed? more than one time?

oh, and plenty of times on the floor. got a little barefooted surprise, yes i did.

i was also exceedingly pleased that she shat on the quilt on our bed, which is dry clean only. because it is so cheap to dry clean a quilt.

and julie had the immense pleasure of mercy wiping her diarrhea covered ass across her jeans.

it doesn't smell that nice in here.

terrifying

last night julie and i went to see "an inconvenient truth." i feel like i was pretty aware of how humans are managing to completely trash the earth, but this movie was absolutely horrifying. and so, so, so deeply sad.

i have a tendency towards despair when it comes to issues surrounding global warming, deforestation, etc...but one thing about the movie was that at the end, during the credits, they listed a BUNCH of things that individuals can do to help. there are some that i do already, some that i don't do -- and should. like replace all my lightbulbs with those new swirly looking ones. or buy a terrapass (www.terrapass.com) for my car. and insulate my damn attic which i have been putting off for months now. but i think something that i tend to forget is that i don't have to change everything at once. and it isn't going to make a sizeable impact for me to drastically reduce my energy consumption -- but it will make a sizeable impact if a lot of people make a few changes to reduce their energy consumption. i am not advocating for being apathetic or not doing as much as you can to change your environmental impact, but just do something. to start with. OR, alternately, we could start a commune. a naked one.

to learn more about the movie, and to see all the things you can do, go visit www.climatecrisis.net. and GO SEE THE MOVIE. seriously. please see it. or we won't be friends. kidding.

ear infucktion

for the past, oh, week, my ear has been hurting. not constantly...sometimes worse, sometimes not so bad....but thursday night and friday it was obviously worse, and too late to get into my dr. before the weekend.....

so today i went to the walk in clinic. keep in mind, my ear is not really comfortable, but is certainly, easily managable. it kind of felt, and sounded, like there was an ocean in there. dull pain, you know, things you would expect with an ear infection. in comes the dr., yadda yadda pleasantries etc....oh i think what we will do is IRRIGATE your ear. didn't sound particularly fun to ME, right?

me: is that going to hurt?
dr.: no, no, not at ALL.

right. irrigating something on my body? and it not hurting? so she leaves and comes pack with a pressure washer and full body wetsuit for me to put on, and a dish for me to hold under my ear for when the water -- and my brain -- comes gushing out.

dr.: this will feel and sound a little funny, but won't cause any pain. let me know if it is uncomfortable.
me: ok.....
**pressure washing commences**
moments later:
me: that hurts.
dr.: oh, it does? let me look.
**looks in my ear with excavation light**
dr.: it will stop hurting in a minute.
**pressure washing resumes**
me: that still hurts.
me: no, like i mean it REALLY hurts.
me (eyes rolling back in head from pain): JESUS CHRIST, LADY! MY GODDAMN FUCKING EAR IS FUCKING KILLING ME, YOU SHIT ASS HO MOTHER FUCKER!

so while i sit there in my wetsuit trying not to fall to the floor writhing in agony, she explains that maybe it would be better if she gave me a prescription for some ear drops. REALLY? I WAS HOPING YOU COULD TORTURE ME AGAIN. let me know if this is uncomfortable. right.

me: my ear hurts very much.
dr.: that will let up in a minute.
**moments pass**
dr.: is it feeling any better?
me: no, bitch. it isn't.

off to the pharmacy we go, i grit my teeth and grimace and try to convince myself that i am not actually going to die from this. get the ear drops, get in the car, tilt head to side, insert ear drops. which are reputed to have a pain reliever in them. driving driving driving, ear filled with ear drops, which clearly are just sitting in my ear and not going anywhere. also, pain relief? not experiencing that. and THEN, oh THEN, my fine friends, i learned what it means for your ear to hurt. when i said my ear was hurting before, i had NO IDEA that my ear had the capacity to hurt this bad. julie looks at me with concern, while i silently pray for the world to end so that my ear will not hurt. along about the wedgewood exit, as the pain continues to intensify, i begin to cry. feeling kind of like a five year old, i sob pretty much all the way home.

who gets ear infections, anyways? because i thought once you got past the age of 6 you were pretty much done with all that hocus pocus.

the pain has subsided enough that i don't feel like i'm going to vomit/pass out/die...but it seems that at any moment, KABAM, it will start to hurt again. dr. said to take three ibuprofen every 8 hours to "help with the discomfort." kidding, right? you aren't going to give me a morphine drip for this?

if you have any illegal substances that might alleviate my AGONY, please feel free to send them over to the east sieeeeede.

you're gonna laugh at me

remember a couple of posts back when i wrote about how i was freaking out because my car smelled like diesel? and i'm poor as shit? and i was assuming i was going to have to put in a new engine?

well it wasn't diesel, it was gasoline. and it wasn't because there was something wrong with my car. it was because i had a tiller in my trunk. imagine that, a gas powered tool that smells like gas. go figure.

nighttime thrills

i have been told, by a reliable source, that i talk a lot in my sleep. i talk a lot in my awake, too, so i don't see this as any surprise. julie (aka relaible source) usually gets a great kick out of my midnight mumblings. but apparently, my nocturnal habits have taken a turn for the worst.

two nights ago, julie woke me up from a DEAD sleep. the lamp was turned on, and she was looking at me with enormous green eyes as if she had just witnessed some horrendous atrocity, right there in our bedroom.

me (alarmed): what's wrong?!???
julie: i'm scared.
me: what are you scared of?
julie: while you were sleeping, you just reached over and picked up that candle on the bedside table, and then put it back down again.
me: and?
julie: you're scary!!

she wouldn't let me go back to sleep until she got unscared, so i had to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks and pat her bottom until the terror had subsided.

i'm not sure, exactly, why this was scary. did she think i was going to light the candle, and burn her with it? or inflict some kind of blunt trauma to the head? the way that she was acting, you would have thought i had reached over in my sleep and proceeded to clean and load the assault rifle in my bedside table. or sharpen my sword that i keep under my pillow. she couldn't really give me a logical explanation as to why she was so upset....i can only attribute it to the fact that she is a little fragile when she wakes up. and by a little fragile, i mean that when woken in the night, she is pretty much on the very brink of complete emotional collapse.

a little disclaimer: i don't have an assault rifle. or a sword.

and in case you needed a silly picture

mirror mirror, on the wall, I AM THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL.

camping + thunderstorm = tired

worn out. no funny or original thoughts.

julie is threatening to write a guest post! be on the look out. i think it might be about our neighbors: the baptists. a whole congregation of them.

in the meantime, if you want to buy me something, and i know you do, you can go to steep.com. the tea subscription will do nicely, thank you.

fruits of summer

if you haven't been to the farmer's market on 8th, you need to go.

though i feel as if the heat may be causing my brain to melt, i am already dreading the days when summer draws to a close and the produce starts to dwindle.

the peaches right now are so good it is absurd. i can't even count how many pounds of peaches we have eaten so far. i have yet to come across a peach this season that has been anything less than perfection. and when my peaches ripen faster than i can eat them, which is not often, then peach cobbler sets the world right again.

next, lets turn to watermelon. watermelons are a little more of a gamble than peaches, but well worth it. i can't think of a single thing in the world that is more satisfying on an oppressively hot night than cold watermelon. sometimes i eat too much watermelon and it makes me feel bloated and i fear that i will wet the bed.

canteloupe is a close runner up for favorite melon. watermelon is a better night fruit, canteloupe, i find, is better for the morning.

TOMATOES. hang on while my eyes roll back in my head and i groan with pleasure. a couple weeks ago i found these little itty bitty wee tiny ORANGE heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market that are the new rockstars in my salad bowl. the neighbors also have several varieties of tomatoes which they have been sharing....there are these reeeeeeally ugly pink tomatoes they are growing that are HEAVEN. the insides are so red it looks like somebody took some red dye 40 to them. made some fresh salsa tonight. if you haven't taken the seeds out of a fresh tomato by squishing your fingers in it, your life hasn't started yet.

next i will be introducing the love of my life, peaches and cream corn. julie insists that i can get worms from eating it raw, but i don't believe her at all. i think that it is a sin to boil corn for any longer than 2 minutes.

green beans have been frequenting the table....often alongside wee tiny new potatoes. but i like to cook green beans and new potatoes for a looooong time and when the stove is on for very long the kitchen can be used as a sauna. same situation with fresh black eyed peas....need to simmer long time, could salt them sufficiently with the sweat from my brow.

let's see what else.......oh BASIL. also growing in the neighbor's yard. by the bushel. also growing in my garden. not by the bushel. got a little bit of a late start, so our bushes are not so bushy yet, but i have bright hopes for the future. how many pounds of pesto do you think i can fit in my freezer? and do you think it will be enough to last me until next summer?

let me also mention that at the farmer's market i can buy, literally, more produce than i can carry on my own, for less than $20. it is absolutely worth going out of your way. DON'T BUY YOUR PRODUCE FROM THE GROCERY STORE. if you really want to see the best of the best, go fairly early on a saturday morning. it is an experience that is not to be missed.

new job, and also story about how abusive julie is

my new job title is "aftercare case manager." this means that when women leave the shelter, if they have safe/permanent housing and employment, they get to play with me. or really, i get to play with them. for six months. at their houses. today i had a session with a lady who is already in the program and who i will be meeting with once the current aftercare case manager leaves. last year this client's batterer pushed her off of a third story balcony. she finally decided to leave him when he tracked her down in another city hundreds of miles away. on christmas eve. and tried to shoot her in the head. but the gun misfired. heavy. shit.

maybe i shouldn't complain so much. julie only sometimes threatens to kill me but has never wielded any weapons against me. she isn't particularly violent. except this weekend she got mad at mercy and meant to push her so that she would get off the couch, but in her blind rage she didn't so much push her gently off the couch as fling her little five pound body across the room. mercy looked like she might cry, and julie actually did cry. when mercy gets sad, her eyes get so big she looks like a precious moments doll. her eyes also look like that when she is being manipulative.

oh yeah and one more thing:

i'm employed now.

nieces sleep over, episode 2

i think it was about 45 seconds after my oldest niece, makinzie, age 8, walked in the door, that she asked (pointing to mine and julie's love nest): "who sleeps in that bed?" i replied (to my sister's horror): "julie and i do." silence.

the only time i had any kind of serious heart palpitations was when jadelyn (younger niece, age 4) started an expedition into our bed side table. which i should have thought to put a child lock/DEADBOLT on before she arrived. i am NOT going to be the one to teach her, well at this age anyway, about sex toys. of any kind. she is going to have to be at LEAST 10 before we have the dildo conversation. kidding, guys. only kidding. maybe 12.

my big triumph for the weekend was when i had both of them drinking soy milk WITHOUT EITHER OF THEM REALIZING IT. i will triumph over the dairy demon, i will! next time i'm going to mash some tofu up into jadelyn's sippie cup.

jadelyn is having her tonsils removed on tuesday, which is a good thing because i was kind of concerned she was going to suffocate in her sleep last night. her adenoids must be bigger than my face, and clearly all of those unnecessary organs are blocking her oxygen flow because she GASPS for air between every sentence she speaks. she is wee-tiny extra small (julie's nephew just turned 1, and he weighs 2 pounds less than jadelyn who, let me repeat, is 4). the reason that she is tiny and looks about the size of the disney cartoon version of tinkerbell is because she burns so many calories at night trying to BREATHE. i may have stumbled on a brilliant weight loss strategy: obstruct your oxygen flow at night! watch the pounds melt away! i've heard people say that they panic sometimes because they can't tell if their sleeping kid is breathing or not, this would not be an issue with jadelyn. it's a good thing we have new storm windows because she snores loud enough that they might otherwise rattle out of their frames. it will be amazing to watch her gain weight once she can breathe....i bet she will expand like that blueberry girl in willy wonka.

i like to play mommy, but never for more than 18 hours. my weary soul just can't take the strain.

new problem.

yesterday when i got in my car, i was overwhelmed with the smell of diesel fumes. i don't mean that i just got faint whiff, i mean that it smelled like somebody poured diesel all over my front seats. i have this sneaking suspicion that this could be more than a little minor car trouble.

let's review morgan and julie's finances.

morgan: unemployed.
purchases since morgan has been unemployed: new refrigerator. new tires for julie's car. new laptop.

did you want to come balance my checkbook? because i don't.

POOPIE

it smells like dog poop in the house but i can't figure out where it is coming from. i know for sure it has to be somewhere, because i haven't seen mercy shit since this morning, which was a long time ago when you are mercy's large intestines, which are really small intestines because she only weighs 5 pounds.

and in case you want to keep track: no, mercy is not housetrained yet. is she close to being housetrained? no not really. how long has she gone without an accident? about a day. how old is she? nearing 7 months. how many more milligrams of wellbutrin can i take in a day? that remains to be seen. it is a good thing that mercy and i aren't related by blood, because if my own children have this much difficulty learning to poop in the pot i am going to feel like i passed on some shit-ass (pun intended) genes.

new toys

its funny (well not funny, but bad) -- the less income i have, the more money i spend.

last weekend: refrigerator. this weekend: macbook.

my new computer makes me kind of wet, thats how good it is. how i ever lived without it, i'm not sure. pc? what? i've never heard of such a thing. the 2 finger scroll, my god.

julie and i amused ourselves for -- oh, about an hour -- with photo booth.

julie is like sponge bob square pants except square head.


and i, actually, just got a new hair do today.



stay tuned, i might post pop art pictures of our boobs tomorrow.

these are my confessions

i think that i may have joined an online cleaning cult. i don't know if i'm ready to reveal the exact nature of this cult, but it is pretty much great. i was already a little bit fanatical about cleaning, and now i have found the ultimate way to feed this addiction. and i know that you all (whoever you is) would never stop making fun of me if i gave you details about this new part of my life. and i will admit that i am not exactly the target audience for this particular program, which is more directed towards heterosexual soccer moms.

but here is a hint.

i shine my sink.

income option number one

i was thinking that stripping would be a good way to bridge this little financial gap between me losing my job and, um, well, me losing my job.

i do not, however, want to shoot ping pong balls or fountains of water out of my hoo-ha.

i only see two potential complications. the first is that i think most strippers have long ass fake nails. i do not have those. and i could get fake ones, but there is a pretty compelling reason why your average lesbian does not have long nails.

the second is that i think most strippers wear really high high heels. i do not walk in high heels. they make my feet and my legs hurt too much, and life is too short to totter around and risk breaking yourself because of teetering shoes. i mostly just walk in birkenstocks, and i don't know how well that would go over with the lunchtime business crowd. i guess i could be crunchy granola stripper girl. one of a kind.

i'm going to start practicing my pole tricks. as soon as i get a pole. installed in the kitchen.

new family member

so last thursday i lost my job.

on friday, right before i started to iron my own face to distract myself from my financial woes, i discovered that the inside of the refrigirator was about as cold as the inside of my car. god knows that what i really wanted to do immediately after losing my job was to buy a new major appliance. because we have soooo much extra money sitting around in the bank right now, and i don't have my first mortgage payment due or anything. off to lowe's we go -- luckily just last week i gave them the rights to my firstborn child in exchange for discounted home improvement wares.

our new refrigirator, she is big. and pretty. and our new refrigirator, she was expensive. in the neighborhood of, oh, the pay i take home in a month. well, the pay i used to take home in a month, back when i was gainfully employed. but by god, she is cold! there is a little digital read out on the front that tells me what the actual temperature is in the refrigirator AND the freezer. so yesterday i sat in front of her after the lowe's men installed her, and watched the temperature drop. thankfully, all the food in my freezer had to be thrown away. what better time to throw away food?! thats what i said. and i may not have any food to eat, but i'll be damned if i don't have cold, filtered water and crushed ice right at my fingertips! huzzah!

and the verdict is:

i got laid off.

it is a relief to know that federal money is being poured into global violence, rather than spent trying to do something about domestic violence. way to go, budget cuts.

panic sets in

6:12 pm: morgan's work phone rings. it is morgan's supervisor.

morgan's supervisor: i wanted to call you before it got too much later. since the new fiscal year starts july 1, the managers and supervisors want to meet with people individually to talk about some agency changes. we need you to come in tomorrow morning at 7:30, we will be meeting in the director's office.

morgan: is this something that everyone is being asked to do?

morgan's supervisor: we need to talk to people individually.

morgan: is this regarding the legal advocacy program, or the agency in general? is this something to be concerned about?

morgan's supervisor: i really can't talk about it. we can discuss everything tomorrow morning.

6:14 pm: morgan hangs up, and immediately develops an ulcer.

oh.
my.
god.

false advertising

you know that show on tlc called "design on a dime," where they redecorate a room and the budget is $1000? well i don't think it takes any kind of special resourcefulness to redo a room with a thousand bucks. i could probably redo the entire east precinct with a thousand bucks.

a thousand bucks, i do not have.

what i need to know, is how to decorate a room with, say ten bucks. or five, even. maybe i just need tips on breaking and entering so i can loot other people's homes for shabby chic treasures.

i got this email today with little word play somethings or others, cleverisms, i don't know, and one of them was cashtration (v): the act of buying a house, which leaves one financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

fer yer viewing pleasure

i am moderately concerned that all the dry wall dust poses some sort of threat to our health.

nevertheless, watching julie work, and listening to her curse, provides me with endless hours of amusement. hopefully you all will be equally amused.

monday.

so far today:

i started my period for the second time this month.

i discovered the bookshelf i decided to paint white this weekend is going to require not one, not two, but THREE coats of paint.

moochie vomited in between the washer and dryer.

oh goodie.

yesterday in the car

we were going the wrong direction.

julie: what do we normally turn on?

morgan: your mom.

late night home improvement/catch up

i still haven't gotten around to day 2, or day 3, of the family reunion. it went something like...sit around with family members and talk about things that happened a long time ago, and people that died a long time ago. look at pictures of people that died already. explain, again, "no, i didn't say we were neighbors. i said we just bought a house together. and we fuck each other." (not really that last part, but you know). the only thing i could eat -- at all -- was the raw vegetable platter that somebody brought from kroger or some such. i felt like a rabbit. meals were mostly meat, meat, a sidedish with meat chunks, and something smothered in mayonnaise. it was really good to see some of my family, though...there is just something different about being around people that are related to you by blood and saw you do things like poop your pants. on the way home, julie drove the first half and then i drove the second half...it pretty much was like a flash flood for the last 4 hours of the drive. luckily, we only had to pull over 3 times, and we only almost died from hydroplaning once.

tonight we have some kind of fiasco going on in the house that involves the bathroom ceiling, and julie sawing a hole in it...and me getting distracted and reorganizing the tool box. there are a lot of rusty nails on the floor, and i'm pretty sure i haven't had a tetanus shot, oh, since forever. what got this project started is the fact that we haven't been able to take showers, only baths, since we moved in. thats because we have a clawfoot tub, with a shoddily hung shower curtain ring, and no place to put the handheld water thing. the problem has really turned out to be much more complicated than we once imagined, like it maybe would have been easier if we had took a match to the bathroom and started from scratch. i still haven't ruled this out. don't tell allstate.

but when i say home improvement, really what i mean is home making-no-progress-and-getting-cranky-because-it's-past-my-bedtime.

family reunion, day 1

friday, june 16

4:35 pm
morgan and julie depart for kansas city, with mercy in tow.

4:37 pm
morgan begins her first snack: banana chips.

5:02 pm
morgan has her second snack: a fuji apple.

6:36 pm
morgan and julie have dinner in the car: curry tofu and salami sandwiches, respectively.

8:17 pm
morgan takes over the driving.

8:32 pm
traffic comes to a standstill, along about st. louis. the typical progression of any roadtrip julie and i take is that julie drives the first leg, which goes quickly and easily. the moment i assume the driver's seat, however, one of three things happens -- horrendous traffic, monsoon style weather, or road construction that lasts for hundreds of miles. this trip was no exception.

11:12 pm
though it may not seem like a late hour, i am so sleepy by this point that my eyes are starting to melt. i pass off the driver's seat.

1:30 pm
we arrive at the comfort suites in kansas city. we are met at the door by my cousin, who is a heavy smoker and an insomniac. he suffers from a number of acute mental health issues, which are too lengthy to mention here. he promptly confuses julie for me.

1:33 pm
we smuggle mercy into the room. god forbid we have to pay $5 extra to have a pet in the room with us. obviously sleuth-style is the only way to go.

1:34 pm
coma.

barfy bunny

would write a long, amusing update on the weekend/family reunion, but i can't keep my head/ass out of the toilet bowl for long enough to say much. food poisoning? stomach bug? deadly illness? too soon to tell.

i'm on a steady diet of saltines and room temperature gatorade. i keep trying to get julie to dress up in a nurse outfit but she has refused (stubborn little shit). she won't dress mercy up either.

i'm going to go take to my sick bed.

and it was dolly parton's character -- truvy? -- in steel magnolias. thanks for playing.

hint

here is another line from the same movie, in case you are stumped.

"the older you get, the sillier you get."

"yeah well, the older you get, the uglier you get."

movie trivia

newest line from a movie that i plan on hijacking:

"now you know i would rather walk on my lips than criticize anyone, but..."

one point if you know which movie the line is from...

two points if you know who said it.

in need of new music

i am in a big time music slump and i need some new stuff to listen to. my most recent purchases were maria taylor (really good), and jenny lewis and the watson twins (also really good). i have played these to death, as per my usual habits, and desperately need to broaden my horizons. julie and i are driving to kansas city this weekend for a **family reunion** (i'll come back to that later) and we need some fresh material, because we can only entertain each other with your mom jokes for so long. not more than, say, 6 hours at a time.

and now for something you might not know about me.

artist whose voice i want to have sex with (don't make fun of me): kd lang.

domestication

it is fun, getting acquainted with the new neighborhood...settling into our new house...spending a lot of time and money at lowe's...

pretty much all we do on the weekends is nest. and go to lowe's.

we have really smashing next door neighbors who are becoming fast friends. they have a dog named otis, and mercy is the love of his life. we chat across the fence (with the neighbors mostly, but also with otis). ms. neighbor brought us a **vegan** chocolate pie last week that was stupidly good. and they aren't even vegans. we ran into the neighbors this weekend at lowe's, they were shopping for a toilet.

another member of the neighborhood of whom i am becoming quite fond is hungry the cat. hungry has apparently been the neighborhood stray for quite some time. hungry used to have a companion cat, who was named thirsty, but one day thirsty stopped coming around. we can only surmise his/her whereabouts.

oh YAY!

it is always good to visit tom's blog to find things like this. my little lezzie car!

one other thing, not related...i just figured out that i can change the settings so that anyone can comment, instead of just blogger users...so comment, goddammit!

six feet under finale

i don't have cable, because i have netflix, which is even better. and because i have netflix, i don't watch tv shows when they are on tv, i watch them when they come out on dvd.

which is why i am just now watching the last ***the last*** season of six feet under. and why i had to hide under a rock and not talk to any of my friends when the last season of six feet under was on tv, because god forbid i find out about any of the story lines prematurely.

and last night i watched the season finale. i think my eyes are still puffy today from how much i cried. the moment between claire and ruth, where claire says she isn't going to new york so she can stay with ruth, and then ruth tells her to go to new york and they both cry............there just aren't words. and then watching ruth's transformation/liberation/exhiliration...i'm just so proud of her. so if you are one of those friends that i haven't talked to because you had seen the last season of six feet under and i hadn't, well we can commence communication now. and maybe start a support group.

a little mercy timeline

first, she was just a little nubbin.

then, she opened her eyesies.

she was cuddly.

and small.

then her ears stood up and her legs grew real long.

and now she is such a big girl. she weighs 4.6 pounds. her favorite things to eat are cat food and panties. her favorite place to poop is in the living room. her favorite place to have diarrhea is on the guest bed. her hobbies are shredding toilet paper (which she learned from bean) and napping under the covers (which she learned from julie), and running away from us when we call her (which might get her killed).

but she'll always have her looks.

mister

i keep getting junk mail addressed to "mr. morgan watts." this does not compel me to open it.

to be fair, though, today i do sound like a man. a man who is hoarse. went to the doctor, who (reassuringly) told me that she wasn't sure what i had, and then prescribed antibiotics. the most interesting sighting today was the crinkled up old nun in a wheelchair, waiting at the doctor's office. her habit kind of looked like a cream colored sweat shirt. and speaking of nuns, here is another vignette from my european vacation. let me set the stage.

julie and i are walking down the street on a sunny afternoon in camden, and a woman is walking towards us, pushing a baby stroller.

julie: morgan, look, its a nun!
me: that isn't a nun. that is a muslim woman.
julie: ...

god love her.

home again home again

...and with a european sinus infection as a souvenir! i think my body is punishing me for the cheese that i ate....

so much to tell about the trip, but that pseudophedrine does a number on me. that, and the jet lag.

i only lost julie one time on the whole trip. we had just gotten on the metro (subway) en paris, when i realized -- ahoy! -- we were headed the wrong direction. i exclaimed to julie: "this train is going the wrong direction!" and then i hopped off, just in time for the doors to SLAM SHUT behind me. a trainful of parisians observed with amusement as my mouth dropped open in horror while julie hurtled away from me into the big black subway hole. it was our first night in france, julie had no money on her, and doesn't speak a word of french (except i taught her how to say "bonjour" on the way there, and i didn't feel confident that she could approach somebody and say "bonjour" in just the right manner so that they would know to direct her back to our metro stop, place monge). so i did what any reasonable person would do: i sat down on a bench and cried. luckily, julie came sailing back into the station shortly thereafter, and we ran into each other's arms like in a kleenex commercial.

more highlights to come.

world traveller i am

...i made it to london, all by my big girl self! the flight went well, thanks to a couple of valium, and i'm mostly over the jetlag, thanks to a lot of black tea. did i mention that i love tea? because i am in the right place for being a tea lover. today we went to bouroughs market, where they have so much beautiful food it kind of looks fake. i would move here, based solely on the market. and the flowers.

luckily for julie and i, the dumb americans that we are, they have written in big block letters on the sidewalk "LOOK RIGHT" and "LOOK LEFT" so that we don't get smashed by big black taxis going 500 mph. julie asked someone where to find a bathroom and they looked at her like she had asked where to find a donkey that lays eggs.

i feel like pounds and pence are play money, too bad they cost me a FUCKING fortune. i went to the atm and withdrew 100 pounds, which cost me 186 usd. love that, so much i love it.

tomorrow its off to stonehenge and bath.

horror

i should have kept my mouth shut about mercy peeing on the bed because that was NOTHING compared to the latest.

she. had. diarrhea. all. over. the. bed.

it soaked through the duvet cover, the down comforter, the flat sheet, the fitted sheet, and into the mattress.

i've been performing pagan rituals to try and banish the smell of puppy diarrhea from the house.

i can't even talk about it anymore, it was so traumatic.

mercy is a bad dog

i have always wanted to do a bedroom all in white/ivory, but didn't really want it to be my bedroom. so now that i have a spare bedroom to decorate, all my wildest linen dreams can come true.

in preparation for the house blessing today, i went shopping on thursday. i found purrrrrrfect sheets at target, from the shabby chic line with which i am obsessed. at old time pottery, i found a great quilt for the bottom of the bed, and happy little throw pillows. julie also made a trip to target (a different location) and found an embroidered, all-white **gorgeous** duvet cover and matching shams.

last night we washed everything to put it on the bed. it was quite a late night, and the bed got made somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:30 this morning. pretty and fresh and white and fluffy and the yummiest clean looking bed you've ever seen. we went about our business, doing things like ironing bedskirts and painting and etc, until i went back into the spare bedroom somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:30 this morning. where i found that mercy had TAKEN A PISS in the middle of the bed. not a little dribbly like you might think a 4.6 lb dog might make, but a big big yellow puddle that soaked nicely through the duvet and the down comforter. my memory is kind of blurred because of the late hour and the sheer force of my rage, but i think my head spun around a few times while my ears bellowed smoke. because mercy, though far from being housetrained, very rarely has pee pee accidents. and we leave a puppy pad out so that when she does have accidents, she at least goes on the pee pad. she hasn't peed on a bed since the first week we brought her home, and that one was our fault because we brought her up in bed with us while we were sleeping and didn't wake up when she needed to go and she was too little to get down by herself. and there was a pad IN THE SAME ROOM with the beautiful white bed. she was just being a little SHIT and with the crazy precision that children have, she knows exactly which button to push.

see, the thing about mercy is that she thinks that her good looks can get her out of any situation. and around here that may be the case, but i bet it is a whole different story in the puppy penitentiary where i will be taking her, now that she has been found guilty of peeing on clean white linens. those big brown eyes will get her NOWHERE with the seasoned criminals who do things like eat shoes and destroy furniture. nowhere. jailbird.

technical question

for those of you with some blogging know-how, i need some assistance.

on the screen where i create my posts, i no longer have the option on my toolbar to change the font. i can make it bold or italicized, but i can't change the size or style. how do i fix this? please help me.

...and we're back!

it has been just silly how long it has been since i posted anything. you know it must be bad if i haven't even found time to BLOG. so here it is.....i'm a homeowner!!! we closed the whole she-bang on may 12, i signed 948543985 pieces of paper (i was kind of stressed and i kept messing up my signature because i was all shaky and plus my hand was getting tired because i had signed 2938439284 pieces of paper and then it made me more stressed because i was thinking that they were probably noticing that i was messing up my signature and thinking that i was forging it or some foolishness like that). and it was a done deal. i didn't read ANY of the papers i signed. purrrrrfect. one other side note: i went to my bank to get a cashier's check for roughly 4x my annual salary, and they did not ask to see id.

the house is wonderful. the animals love it, though the cats are pissed because we aren't letting them outside yet. they need to acclimate. every waking moment is spent painting or unpacking and i have so many bruises on my legs i kind of look like i need to call myself at the shelter for some help. julie is outside mowing the lawn (cute!) and we have our millionth trip to home depot planned for this evening. i love my new gas stove and the clawfoot tub makes me wet. in a couple of ways.

changes on the horizon

at the staff meeting today, our director announced that they will be considering male candidates for the management position that just opened up.

if you don't already know, i work at a shelter for victims of domestic violence. right now our staff is entirely female. the person in this position would have a lot of direct contact with residents.

this has nothing to do with how i feel about men, but i just don't know what to think about this. i completely agree that men need to be on board with the movement to end domestic violence, but i'm not sure i think this is the right place for that involvement. the shelter has a certain energy that, i think, is the result of it being an all female environment. it is a sacred space of sorts. i think there are a lot of caring and compassionate men that would probably do the job well, but i wonder how it would change the atmosphere.

interestingly, no one in the room voiced any dissent. i asked if anyone had spoken to current residents, or to our survivors advisory committee (which is a committee of women who are former shelter residents), and the answer was no, interestingly enough. it makes me sad that nobody sought their feedback before making this decision. so i'm interested in hearing some input about this. maybe i need a different perspective. maybe not. i don't know.

warning label

i took a quiz to find out what my "warning label" is, which actually wasn't taking a quiz it was just typing my name, but i can't BELIEVE what the result was. so irritatingly accurate.

THIS WAY UP: MORGAN HAS FRAGILE CONTENTS WHICH MAY BREAK.

whatever.

contains graphic content

i don't talk about the cats much, and i don't want it to seem as if i love them less than the puppy. the truth, actually, is that i love the cats all the time every day, and i only love mercy when she isn't shitting all over the house.

the cats love me too, so much so that they got me a special gift last night and left it on the front step for me. it was a dead bird.

this brings to mind two stories that i will share.

one morning, very early, i awoke to strange noises, and julie making cries of distress. there was something going on behind the dresser, and it soon became clear that moochie had managed to bring a bird in the house but had not killed it all the way. the bird was seeking refuge, and moochie was trying to finish what she started. julie was trying to intervene. she banished the cat, and got the bird out from behind the dresser. the bird is clearly not doing well, and though it does not have visible injuries it isn't really moving. julie then tells me that we have to EUTHANIZE the bird because it is suffering. she is devastated, but sees this as the most humane option. it is 6 in the morning. we take the bird outside. julie considers how she is going to KILL the bird. her first idea is to crush it with a rock. her second idea is to back over it with her car. she decides on a stray brick as her instrument of choice. she has the brick lifted high overhead, with the poor birdie lying helplessly on the back porch (picture jacob and isaac -- very similar situation) when, by a miracle of GOD, the bird is magically revived and flutters off, away from its alter of death, into the bushes.

the second story, also involving moochie, is a little more graphic. consider yourself warned. julie and i come home one night, and she spies something on the floor behind a chair in the bedroom. she inspects, and finds what appears to be blood. upon further inspection, she finds there is more blood. she follows the trail (much like a detective would do), which is getting increasingly bloody. she follows, and follows, until she finds a MASSACRED BUNNY. it was exactly like in a scary movie where they show the grisly shot of the murdered person all chopped up with the psycho music playing in the background and then they show the shot of the person who discovered the chopped up person with their face all aghast. and it really did look like someone had been murdered, for the amount of blood that was pooled on the floor and SMEARED on the WALLS. upon this discovery, julie squealed and ran into the bathroom and got in the bathtub, and closed the shower curtain, where she would obviously be safe from the killer. as it turns out, moochie ate the bunny's neck. it tooks us almost half an hour to clean up the carnage.

i want to add that, contrary to what these stories might lead you to believe, moochie is the most docile cat i have ever met. she sleeps all the time and is so floppy that sometimes i wonder if she has a skeleton or if she is just fluff and whiskers. she loves to be massaged and sometimes when you cuddle her she gets so relaxed that she drools. she can't help it that she is a killer. bless her heart.

we aren't sure who was behind last night's special gift, but we certainly know who has more experience with killing little cutesie animals. and it isn't bean.

why portland brew is my coffee shop of choice

today i am working from portland brew on 12th, because my house is a train wreck and everywhere i look there is shit piled to the ceiling (the packing has begun). i'm in one of the little cubbies which i love so much, but it is FREEZING back here. so i went up to the counter a few minutes ago to get another cup of hot water (because you can brew green tea more than once, and my first cup of green tea is frozen solid from the icy blast of air coming from above) and i mentioned how it is snowing back here, but curiously, warm in the front (apparently due to the ovens). just now, one of the guys brought a SPACE HEATER to my cubby and plugged it in for me. i could have cried with happiness.

things like that don't happen at starbucks.

overwhelmed

it seems to be getting increasingly hard to keep my head above water. i feel sad and anxious and stressed and panicky. this is the quote that hopefully will get me through today:

"in this life we cannot do great things. we can only do small things with great love."
(mother teresa, as quoted by jack kornfield in a path with heart)

left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.

grocery goodies

going to the grocery store is one of the things in which i delight. i love to get new foods.

i l-l-l-l-l-love cereal. i can't say enough about it. sometimes i get excited before i go to bed, because i know that when i get up in the morning i get to have a bowl of cereal. and sometimes i eat a bowl of cereal at night. lately i have been having a pretty steady relationship with kashi autumn harvest, but sometimes i see cinnamon harvest or raisin bran on the side. but TODAY i got a brand new cereal. it is called "good friends," also brought to you by kashi, and the picture on the box is horrendous. but the FIBER content is even more absurd. one serving provides 47% of your daily fiber needs. and it TASTES SO GOOD. i'm real happy. can't wait for morning to come. please also note that if you like honey nut cheerios, you should certainly try kashi "heart to heart." lurv it. also please note that i will only eat cereal with soy dream soy milk, because it is the best soy milk there is.

i've also decided that i need to eat more greens, branching out from spinach and romaine. so today i got some kale and arugula. vegans are supposed to eat a lot of kale, and i've never really made friends with it. i used kale in my "dragon bowl" dish i made tonight, and it turned out well. it was some serious healthiness i had happening in my bowl, what with the kale and the tofu and the brown rice and etc etc. julie wouldn't even TASTE it. i made her some vegan chocolate chip cookies as a peace offering.

in other grocery news, watermelon is on sale and is GOOD. strawberries are also cheap. the produce stand is open and the silver queen corn has given me a new lease on life. can't wait for blueberries to be ripe so i can go pick them.

and my novel snack for the week is wasabi roasted peas.

visions of plastic storage bins danced in my head

i have descended into a hell that is sorting items into four categories: yard sale, goodwill, trash, keep. i had no idea that our combined belongings were so extensive. did i say earlier that i thought it would be a good idea to move? i don't know what i was thinking.

if you used to be my friend, but are now wondering if i've been kidnapped or killed or otherwise incapacitated, or if i just hate you...well the answer is none of the above. i'm just a shut in, and the only people i talk to are my real estate agent, my mortgage guy (who is my new best friend -- did you want to know his number? because i have it memorized), allstate, and myself. oh yes, and julie. god bless her, it actually IS a wonder that she hasn't killed/incapacitated me by now. **julie smiles devilishly from the couch** by the time i go to work tomorrow it will have been 40+ hours since i last left the house.

bed. time. bunny.

kitchen timer

let me give you a little background about my relationship with my kitchen timer.

when i was in school, there were sometimes days, usually around exam time, that i had absurd amounts of work to do. so many pages of reading it made my eyes roll back in my head and my hands start to quiver. my schedule was such that i had long long days of classes tue-thu, then 4 day weekends. but monday and friday were WORK WORK WORK days. so i would wake up, knowing that i had a whole DAY of schoolwork ahead of me, and i would sometimes be in tears before i even put my feet on the ground. i would feel so overwhelmed that all i wanted to do was pull the covers over my head and cry. needless to say, i also have a wee-tiny struggle with depression. which i usually manage well. with drugs. which i love. maybe i'll write about that tomorrow. BUT. back to me being in bed with the covers over my head and countless hours of schoolwork to do.

i started to figure out that if i gave myself little incentives, it made things much more bearable. i would cut deals with myself. like if i work really hard for awhile, then i can take a break and do something fun like eat. this became too ambiguous for me. i needed more structure. and so -- the kitchen timer idea was birthed. i would decide on little increments of time with assigned tasks, and in between them i would get rewards. another thing you should know is that i also wet my pants with excitement any time i get to make a to-do list. so i would make little schedules for myself. here is a really non-specific example:

30 minutes: outline paper
20 minutes: reading
15 minutes: piddle around
20 minutes: reading
10 minutes: laundry

please keep in mind that my lists were IMMENSELY more specific than this. like i would decide in which time segment i was going to read which article, etc etc etc. and one of the stipulations was that once i started the kitchen timer, i had to turn it around and not look at it so that i wouldn't watch the minutes tick by. this worked for me. extremely well. saved my academic life.

now that i am not in school, i am still a big big fan of kitchen timer time. i work from home and have an immense amount of flexibility which sometimes kind of overwhelms me. and i really cannot stand to write case notes for more than about 20 minutes. so now my list might look like this:

20 minutes: case notes
20 minutes: read book of choice
15 minutes: check voicemail; return calls
20 minutes: clean
20 minutes: catch up on email
15 minutes: make grocery list
10 minutes: unload dishwasher

also if i have a task i am particularly dreading (right now it is sorting through everything in the attic) then i do 20-30 minute intervals -- a couple each day. julie says that when she comes home, she can tell what i've been doing during the day by where the kitchen timer is.

today, while browsing for things that i want to fill our new house with (i know, i know, materialism bug is sticking around for a minute), i came upon a kitchen timer that took my breath away. behold.

it is made of heavy duty cast iron, with silver painted numbers. it is available for $32 from anthropologie. if it wasn't the end of the month and if my budget for the month wasn't already so fucked, i would have bought it immediately. i've gotten so inspired about it i kind of want to start collecting kitchen timers.

materialism

while i think that america's consumer habits and wanton wastefulness are truly absurd and unethical, i sometimes get bit by the materialism bug. now i will show you things that i want.

this is just great. lately i have been lamenting the fact that things made for pets are really ugly and detract from the aesthetic quality of our home. problem solved.

this would undoubtedly add that certain je ne sais pas to my wardrobe. you can buy it for me, if you want.

i already know what you are going to say. "but morgan, you don't have any kids! and what happened to your commitment to forego rigid gendered standards when it comes to kid's clothing?" to you i say, commitments be damned! because these outfits make me swoon, and ovulate, at the same time.

i feel pretty, oh so pretty.

i have been really mournful because i want a smeg refrigirator, and cannot find them in the us. only europe. but this makes me feel hopeful again. i would also settle for this. too bad i would have to sell my soul to pay for it.

that is all for now. thank you.

anxiety

it isn't good for me to read things like this (april 20 and 21) when i am 19 days away from buying a house. horror stories. give me bad dreams.

i want to say, however, that dooce.com is hands down my favorite blog ever and sometimes reading it is the only thing that gets me through the day.

resolutions

julie and mercy and i went to earth day at centennial park yesterday, and i've made a couple of decisions based on what i saw there.

the first is that i will never EVER allow my child to go into a port-a-potty barefoot.

the second is that any female offspring i produce will frequently wear big floppy wide brimmed hats during their childhood.

the last is that any male offspring i produce will wear overalls with no shirt during their toddlerhood.

useful vw fact, and other car talk

did you know that volkswagon was the only german auto manufacturer that did not use jewish slave labor during the holocaust? yeah, me neither....until yesterday! another reason why i'm so happy happy happy that i drive a jetta. love my jetta. her name is millie. she's silver. and sassy. i went all the way to wisconsin to buy her, because i think buying new cars is silliness, and used diesel jettas are hard to come by because they last for about 9348573984573984539 miles, so people typically don't get rid of them. and yeah, her little engine purrs slightly louder than your average, but i think it is kind of cute. and the gas mileage just can't be beat. plus, the hole where you put fuel in her is EXTRA big to accomodate the big diesel nozzles like truckers use, and i think it is hilarious when i fill up at a truck stop next to a huge semi.

julie's current car of choice, over which she has been lusting for quite some time, is a volvo station wagon. good cars, those volvos.....except their little emblem thingie that goes on the front of the car is the man symbol. don't believe me? go to their website. julie would look cute as hell driving a volvo station wagon.......but the man symbol? i don't know if i can reconcile with that.

homeownership pending

they accepted our offer. we have a contract on the house. our closing date is may 12.

we are accepting cash donations and home depot gift cards in any amount.

if i talk to one more goddamned lender about origination fees and points and interest rates and tax deductions, my next entry will be written from a padded cell.

bubble bubble CREEPY

i've been reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides as part of a budding new book club, which currently has 2 members (one of whom is me, and both of whom are fabulous so you should obviously want to also join this book club and read with us). i don't want to go into the whole mess of providing a context for this next thing i'm going to talk about, but bear with me. in the book, its in the 1920s and this couple is living in detroit, where they immigrated to from greece. the husband, lefty, works at henry ford's factory and is taking english classes. for their graduation ceremony, the class is putting on a play, and lefty has been asked to be in the play. he has his wife make him some kind of get-up that is "like from the patridha." (patridha = homeland). also, lefty goes to by a blue suit. so the wife goes to see him in the pageant. on stage there is a big cauldron that is labeled "ford english school melting pot." one by one, the men in the pageant come out on stage, each representing their country (italy, poland, norway, etc.) and go into the cauldron. then lights flash and the cauldron bubbles and etc. etc. and then the orchestra plays "yankee doodle" and the men climb out of the cauldron, all dressed in blue and gray suits and waving american flags.

.......

how fucking CREEPY is that?????????????????????? why would we want everybody to be the SAME? why would we take beautiful and unique individuals and MELT them all together and take away their individual identities? why would you put people in a cauldron ANYWAY?

on a seemingly unrelated, but actually really relevant note, julie was telling me today that she doesn't like the mechanical pencils i bought her because they are kind of fat. she doesn't like to write with fat things because it reminds her of when she was little and they put this contraption on her pencil to make her hold her pencil a certain way, with her thumb and second finger, instead of the way she naturally held it (with her thumb and third finger). not that she was having any trouble writing, they just thought it was obviously reeeeally important for her to hold her pencil like everyone else. because it matters. so. much.

why are we so uncomfortable with people being different? why does there have to be a right and wrong way to hold a pencil? as long as you can write with the damn thing, then you aren't holding it wrong.

i wonder how many of the world's problems would be solved if people didn't see things strictly as black or white.....if people would acknowledge that sometimes there is more than one right way to do things.

i'm going to start holding my pencil with my damn toes. and i'm going to stay away from cauldrons!