Here’s what happened: I got this e-mail the other day, which I still haven’t responded to (because I am just as pathetic as ever about answering e-mail unless you’re my mother or my future mother-in-law in which case you’re probably going to wait a day or maybe two but not much longer since I am lazy but not stupid) asking if the site had died and/or was ever going to get updated, to which I almost replied “Yes” and “Maybe”, but then it occurred to me that that’s a pretty snippy and sarcastic response to some poor soul who’s not had the misfortune (but you LOVED it) of direct exposure to my smart mouth so I thought I’d just shut up and be nice and respond later when I was feeling a bit less KC-ish and just quietly update for now and pretend I wasn’t about to be unnecessarily rude to someone. Yep, I’m afraid in lieu of being haunted (which he always swore he would do, nyah nyah didn’t work) I am instead apparently doomed to channel the only person I’ve ever known that’s a bigger smartass then me at some of the most inappropriate times.
AND I also have become a really big fan of a few web writers (I’m sorry, the words blog and blogger are just like trying to pull teeth without anesthetic for me so I guess I really am old and grumpy now) and I was really wanting to drop ‘em a couple of lines but I was too embarrassed at how pathetic I have been updating here so, you know, I’m attempting to save face and not embarrass myself totally. Although I suppose I should be disturbed that I have kept this on AOL for this long but you know what - I am paying PENNIES for FREAKING TONS of web storage and I have never once had to be preoccupied with the word BANDWITH, not EVER - so, you know, I don’t really care. There’s better ways I reckon but after having dealt with these files on here and all the major renovations and whatnot for getting pretty danged close to ten years now the thought of moving them is as tiring and trauma-inspiring as the thought of moving me after 17 years in the same place… and more on that shortly (heh)…
AND I also killed another computer (of course) in the interim since I was last here and my files are all being held hostage on the old hard drive and I haven’t retrieved them yet, but once I resolved my technical issues with AOL (it was the freakin’ stupidest thing in the world and I can’t believe it took me four years to figure out what was wrong and was by far worse than the 18 hours straight I spent one weekend trying to repair a sick 486 only to find the drive cables were hooked up wrong, tho I swear I checked them a few dozen times and which was my previously most stupid computer geekette f-up in the world ever)… so there was that…
AND Paul Westerberg is on tour again which doesn’t mean a whole lot here since I’m not updating that page tonight anyway but he’s ACTUALLY COMING TO MEMPHIS THIS TIME and I have no one - N-O O-N-E - that can go with me so I just felt like bitching about that.
So anyway I figure there are maybe 4.5, maybe 6.5, people in the world who will show up here eventually and mutter a shocked expletive or two or three under their breath (something along the lines of “daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum…” - and yeah, if you’re from down here it’s pronounced pretty much just like that) at the fact that I have actually updated after two years of silence. Heck, I don’t even know why I’m here updating when I’m just about dead exhausted, other than the above and the fact that I have extreme stress-induced insomnia at the moment and am sitting here typing, seeing as how I’ve run out of names and other stuff to Google and useless junk to look at and all the other dumb things I have a habit of doing when I’m bored, when I really should be in bed. But, all in all, that’s beside the point. Plus anyone that knows me at all knows I don’t go to bed at a decent hour ever anyway. Nope, some things never change.
But truthfully and seriously… even tho this Graffiti stuff started as an experiment (of some sort, what I couldn’t say) and I really could have cared less who read it or didn’t at the time (eight freakin’ longass years ago)… when I lost my biggest fan (and foe) and his sidekick I kinda lost most of the urge to purge my brain of all thought, intelligent and otherwise, publicly. I dunno, after a while as years progressed here on the Wall, there got to be this cycle where I’d upload a new update, there’d be some smartass (or sometimes downright nasty, or sometimes just a great big laugh) comment in my mailbox the next morning, I just got used to it. Call-and-response, or what have you. So the last couple of times I updated, now lo all those two years ago almost, when I knew that response wasn’t coming ever - I really just kinda started feeling hateful about the whole Graffiti thing. Plus I got busy - real busy - and stayed busy. Busy enough most of the time that now I could use about a dozen clones of me, instead of just the one I was begging for previously…
Then lately - here’s the rub - I’ve been finding myself, when I do have a little spare time - or I’m eating dinner or something, which this is really kind of pathetic but now instead of flipping on the TV while dining, when I do manage to eat which is almost never, I’m liable to go catch up on my reading at Reality News Online (Ken Kellam and Phil Kural ROCK!!) or some such instead or something (since I continue to be a reality TV addict but have become much much much more choosy about what I get into these days) - anyway, I’ve gotten to where there are several personal websites I’ve become fascinated with and read daily. Again as per above - I know, I know, these days they’re called blogs, and now that blog has actually been officially recognized as both a noun (as in, this is my blog) and a verb (as in, to blog), I should be saying that what I’m doing is blogging rather than the ancient dinosaurish updating my Graffiti Wall because the latter now sounds so old-fashioned - but give me a break, I’ve been doing this for eight years now so, yes, in the world of personal weblogs I suppose that makes me old-fashioned. I am old and I’m grumpy, leave me alone.
So anyway, I am highly addicted to reading up on a few, like that of former Real World-Miami cast member Dan Renzi (who was hilarious back then on MTV and is even more hilarious on a daily basis now - I adore this guy), whose blog in turn introduced me to one belonging to this cool chick named Brittney, which at first grabbed me because of the Sparkwood & 21 reference and then when I realized where she is, I find myself somewhat reliving my own disaffected pissed-off youth of my twenties in downtown freakin’ Nashville through her misadventures, which seem to be at least somewhat less debauched and deranged than my own were. Well, unless all her friends turn out to be strung out drugged-up musicians hanging naked off balconies in West End at 4 in the morning and sleeping twelve to a one-bedroom flat. In which case I’d be worried that she is actually my doppelganger walking around the N-town, just 15-20 years younger… it’s already kind of scary that she’s from a small town and obviously dearly loves Twin Peaks. However, she’s not a blonde so probably not, just maybe walking in my ghost’s footsteps from time to time. If it’s true that parts of our spirits sometimes get left behind in places where there was extreme trauma and/or emotion, I’m sure the ghost of 20-21 year old me continues to walk around Elliston Place, pissed off about one thing or another as usual… anyway, I should probably drop her a note or something but then she’d probably think I’m some crazy almost-middle-aged woman obsessed with lost Nashville youth for some strange incomprehensible reason and she’d be right, so I won’t. Ah, the City Without A Subway. Wish for the thousandth time I’d never left.
By the way, I actually had to go up there a couple of weeks ago for a family funeral and that was the first time in a long time I’d really driven right in and around town, not just passing thru, and that was pretty freakin’ weird. I can’t tell you exactly what was so weird because I have given up incriminating myself over past misdeeds for Lent this year, but for those that care driving south on Nolensville Road was not fun and my old route to work down Harding Place was no less sad than it ever was.
Anyway, so back to people that keep their websites updated… then there’s my other new favorite, dooce, run by an expatriate Memphian (well, Bartlett anyway - Bartlettian? Bartlettonian? What exactly do people from Bartlett call themselves anyway?) named Heather who is also somewhat younger than me and is such a fabulous writer I am in tears of laughter and joy and shrieking daily. It’s a total hoot and I luv her daily photos. And her dog looks suspiciously like he might be a relative of Dobie, but I don’t think she got him in Memphis so I guess not…
Well, so anyhow, I got to reading other people’s stuff on a regular basis and kept thinking about this here Graffiti Wall and finally just gave in and came back. Lucky you, huh? You know you missed me…
But really the really disturbing thing tho, now that I’m here, is there is just not THAT much new to report. Oh, I’m sure if I think real hard for a while (which I can’t right now, I’m too tired and too delirious) there are some dormant rants just waiting to be let out and maybe I’ll get to some of that soon, but really, as far as what’s new since 2003… well, not much.
But I guess there is some… for one thing, I have a new job, for the first time in 14 years. It was kind of a have-to situation - no, I didn’t get fired - my boss more or less retired to do something else so I had to by default. I had three months’ notice almost, but the job market was so crappy down here at the time that by the time those three months rolled around, I still didn’t have a new job to go to - but I had two interviews the day after my last day. I stayed unemployed for almost a week this past summer (which of course threw me into a state of near-panic), but by the next week I had two job offers and that was weird - that was the first time in my life I have EVER turned down a job! And, of course, took the other one… still in healthcare but somewhat of a different position than I have ever worked before, and much lower key, less responsibility. Frankly I was ready for it as I was verging close to burnout in the field and, well, sick of dealing with people, patients, doctors, insurance companies, co-workers, etc., about to go postal and all that cheery stuff - so this felt like a good move (and I was right). Lower pay, but only because I had gotten a raise in January of last year - my salary at my new job is the same as it was before I got the raise, so no big deal and frankly - because of this next part - I could have really cared less if it was even less…
Now, here’s the part where you start to hate me (it’s OK, everyone does, even my mother and isn’t there a law against hating your own child, especially when it’s your only one?!?!?)… because… I work at home! Hahahaha! Oh yeah, baby, make noooo mistake - I LOVE IT!!!! I get up in the morning, I take the dogs out, I fix my coffee, I sit down and go to work. Sometimes I even work in my pajamas. It’s really awesome, I love my job and I love the people I work with, and I am spoiled forevermore about traditional jobs, I will never want to have to “go into” work again anywhere ever. The good thing is I can probably stay at this job indefinitely no matter where I may go, since 99.99% of it is over the Internet anyway. And, though I do work a set schedule and have to be online working when I’m scheduled… as far as extra and overtime I can work anytime of the day or night, naturally. I just love it. Very very happy with this. Best decision I ever made and I totally lucked into it coming up when it did.
There are some strange unexpected things about working at home, though. Like, for instance, I find that most days at the end of the day working I feel like I need a shower again… but that’s mostly because I have four almost 10-month old puppies at home that are constantly rolling around in the dirt and mud outside (often dragging each other by the tail thru the mud) and they are usually getting their muddy paws on me during our outside breaks. But that’s been a nice perk - we can have our little outside breaks through the day, which has been a godsend with young ones around again (more about that later). I also actually, even though I work only four days a week (I work 10 1/2 hour shifts), feel like I have even LESS spare time than I did when I worked five days a week, which seems strange. But it’s still really killer to have that third day off every week - would be nicer if it was a Monday or Friday so I could stretch out the weekend a bit, but maybe someday, for now I’m just happy to have what I have. Since I interact with my boss and co-workers mostly via e-mail and the occasional phone call, and the boyfriend is currently residing about 450 miles southeast of here, I sometimes spend days on end where I don’t speak to any living soul in person other than canines and felines, but that’s OK, I kind of like it that way. Were KC here, he would be torn between deeming me regressed into total and complete social retardation and being beside himself with glee that I was now available at his EVERY beck and call and whim 24/7 and he and Greg and I would be on 10.5 hour IM all day every work day. It would have been fun, now it’s just sad, but that’s okay now.
Anyway, that’s some of the biggest news since March 2003 when I was last here… other than that, what else have I been up to, oh, I don’t know, just things. I still work a part-time job I always have had (always worked at home there but that was just “extra” work) which is getting harder and harder to keep up with lately but I’m managing. And I have the equivalent of another full-time job because I am one of three senior administrators of a rather large (almost 40K members) international website that I have been involved with for a couple of years now… not really at liberty to say what or where but it’s about a cause that’s been pretty near & dear to my heart for some time now. I guess that’s probably another reason I haven’t been here messing with the personal site for a while… I get most of my techgeekchick urges out there, playing around in the back end techie stuff on the site. From a techie aspect, it’s really awesome, man… 14-15 years ago when I was running my little BBS in Memphis, I never dreamed there would one day be the kind of stuff like the software we use on site now. I get to playing around with the buttons and switches just to see what stuff will do. And haven’t crashed it yet… I don’t think it’s really crashable unless you have direct access to the server tho (which I don’t - yet) and the server’s located in Texas, soooo… I might be a little more careful flipping switches when I have server access, heh. Anyway… as far as my work with the site, it’s not that I’m not proud of what we’ve done - I’m very much so - but that leads to some personal issues that in this day and age are best not publicly divulged, at least not at this point in time. I’ll just say that I spend the majority of my spare time pouring effort into this cause and we have already seen many, many positive changes and improvements just in the little over two years I have been involved in it, and it’s nice to be able to witness direct results of something you have worked hard towards and given so much effort like that. Plus - we have annual conferences/conventions/what have you! Last year was spent in sunny Florida, this year headed to San Francisco (I hope, still not positive I’m going to be able to go) - I visited SF when I was 14 and have been wanting to go back as an adult ever since so I am really, really looking forward to it and hoping the trip will pan out for me. (UPDATE - since I originally started writing this a while back the conference has been cancelled so no SF for me, not this year anyway.) Anyway, what an awesome thing and force in my life this has been… and having now met most of my colleagues in person and many have become friends for life… including my adorable French friend who would just give me his car - his car!!! - if he could ship it over here to me because my current one is so old and pathetic (apparently one doesn’t have much use for an automobile in Paris, but I would certainly make use of it going to Paris, Tennessee, hahaha…). Damn shame too ‘cos it’s one of those funky little bitty European cars with some kind of animal name like Panther or something. Shoot. Free car and I can’t even get it… which is, as usual, my luck…
For a long time I was out of town more often than not, though not so much anymore… part of that in recent months anyway has been because of the influx of very young canines, as previously mentioned, tho they have finally gotten old enough I can leave them overnight once in a while thank goodness. I have lost some and gained some in the past year… my beloved 11 year old lap dog of a Doberman, Baby, finally left us last fall after having spent a year of her health deteriorating and having gone blind the year before as well. Less than a month later, a black Lab mix I had wound up with - and not unlike how I wound up with Baby who begat Dobie, because the neighbors really couldn’t keep them and unbeknownst to me at the time she moved in with me Baby was pregnant with Dobie - so too was Satin, who was a very young thing who’d become my buddy after moving in next door. She had gotten lost for a couple of weeks and I had told her owners if she showed up, she could stay here - they’d been having trouble with her indoors and outdoors and she had been practically living over here with us anyway. Well, on her little two week “vacation”, she got knocked up, which I found out for sure several weeks later, and on Memorial Day weekend last year gave birth to five pups - none of whom looked anything like her. They were about the biggest newborn puppies I’d ever seen - and, they were (another very unexpected surprise) white with black spots, except for one. Tho the white with black spots would lead one to think “Dalmatian” - nope, that wasn’t it. I wasn’t supposed to keep any of them, then everyone who was going to take one but one wound up backing out at one time or another - so now, ten months later, I have four young dogs who do not look like Labs and I have NO clue what their paternal parentage could have possibly been. They don’t even look alike, other than the white with black (and two with brown) markings. In short, their paternal parentage has been about as clear as Dobie’s ever was (though I have some better guesses about him these days at least). But they’re all adorable, especially my one little perfect girl (the only girl) who when her intended home backed out I knew wasn’t going anywhere. It’s like living in a nursery school 24/7 - and I was NOT intending to ever acquire more dogs, ever - but you know, things happen. Their mama, however, unexpectedly passed away less than a month after Miss Baby, an acute onset of what I could only figure out must have been hemorrhagic gastroenteritis and which happened so fast she was gone before there was time to do anything, which I hated not only because she was a really good dog, but she had been only a baby herself, just 15 months old. So now I only have Dobie, who just turned 10 (!!!!!), and my great big fat huge Beagle-Dachshund, Lulu, who is also elderly…. and these four little brats. And of course the cats, all of them still, no new additions and no losses there. So still a houseful… we manage. I had just been looking forward to eventually having one day only cats, because they are so much more low maintenance… but obviously it wasn’t in the cards and I’m frankly not all that surprised. By the way, I also think one of the puppies is either retarded (really) or autistic, Bruiser - he poses a bit of a challenge sometimes, but he’s a sweetie. Daisy is, again, my perfect little girl, who is cute and prissy but don’t let that fool you ‘cos she can beat the crap out of all of her brothers even tho they’re twice as big as her, and she also thinks she’s a vicious guard dog (the boys are too lazy to care). Buster with his white body and black head, I kind of intended to keep all along and he very oddly has always kind of looked like a pot-bellied pig when he’s laying on his side on the floor sleeping. Then there’s Petey, who is HUGE and has this GREAT BIG HEAD and was born with a big (now much smaller tho) white question mark on his black head and minds me perfectly and is so gentle even tho he’s the biggest, and is allllll about food. Anyway, yes - it’s very active around here these days. Pictures soon on the site I hope, one thing at a time right now tho…
My father, who as most know had been sick for a long time, passed away in September 2003… miss him, hated it to happen, but on the other hand was glad all that suffering and pain was finally over. You would think that at 38 years old you wouldn’t feel too terribly orphaned, losing a parent like that… but I have decided I don’t think it really matters at any age, except it probably sucks worse when you’re still a kid. I guess, I’m just theorizing there. And of course I’m no stranger to death, having lost nearly two dozen of my friends at this point… but yeah, it’s different.
And on a final note of news… I nowadays am what one would call, um, betrothed… yes, such an ancient and biblical word courtesy of my VERY Catholic significant other… anyhow, well, couldn’t be happier, story’s been 16 years in the making, right under my nose all those years and didn’t even know it, and so on and so forth, yada yada. Don’t mistake my flippancy for lack of enthusiasm - I’m just tired plus I can really only say so much. Call it crazy, here I am pushing 40 but still feeling just a smidgen (not much, ‘cos the truth is I really don’t give a ****) of guilt at having violated one of the cardinal rules of small town girlhood, one of the ten commandments if you will, that being thou shalt not get in a serious relationship with one of your best friend’s boyfriends, even if it’s been 15 or 20 or more years, by god. If you didn’t grow up in a small