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Song Lyric of the Day:

Come on and we’ll sing, like we were free / Push the pedal down watch the world around fly by us / Come on and we’ll try, one last time / I’m off of the floor one more time to find you

Mat Kearney / “Nothing Left to Lose”

10:00PM.
Wow. Where to begin? I guess the most logical place to start is to say that I just haven’t been up to blogging lately (like you hadn’t already figured that out). The insomnia-fueled exhaustion, day-to-day stress, and inevitable illness all took their toll on me. But really, if I’m going to be honest with myself, my 9/11 tribute post completely took the wind out of my sails. I mean, how could I go back to writing about the mundane details of my day-to-day life after writing myself through the emotional ringer? I also felt like it would have been disrespectful of me to go back to my usual blathering immediately after that post, so I held off. And held off. And then life got so busy I found myself without time to think, much less write. To wit:

• I’m now another year closer to death – I celebrated my birthday on September 17. Rich successfully pulled off a surprise party for me at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Casa Don Gallo. Thanks to my parents, Samantha, Benjamin, Curry, Jonathan, Tamara, Doug, and Carol for making my birthday so memorable and fun. Thanks to Mom for seasons one and two of Rescue Me, Dad for the Kohl’s gift card, Momma Carol and Papa Doug for the moolah, Benjamin for the Best Buy gift card, Tamara for season one of Prison Break, and Jonnie and Curry for the Target gift card. Extra special thanks to Rich for organizing and pulling it all off, as well as for the gift certificate for dance lessons, The Ninth Gate DVD (the gift of Depp works year-round), and the divine cheesecake. You rock, babe. And even though Vanessa was only there in spirit since she was home in Clarksville, special thanks to her for mailing me my gift: season three of my all-time favorite comedy series, Arrested Development. I’m enjoying watching favorite episodes all over again.
  

• My little monster baby, Caleb, turned four on September 22. Rich and I celebrated by ordering a bone-shaped birthday cake from River Dog Bakery (reminder: no human kids to spoil), complete with peanut butter trim and lettering saying “Happy 4th Birthday, Caleb.” Snoops very happily helped her little brother work on and finish the cake off in under three days.

• I got my other baby sister married off. After hosting her bridal shower at my house in August, I was Samantha’s matron of honor at her wedding on October 8. I’m thrilled for her and my new BIL, Shawn, and wish them all the best. I’m honored to have been a part of their wedding (despite having gotten as sick as I could get without actually dying by the time the big day rolled around).

• I took a writing class – I finally lit the fire under my ass. My friend, Stephanie, and I signed up for UT’s Intensive Writing Fiction Workshop. That book idea that’s been floating around in my head for a while? It’s finally been committed to paper and is on its way. Not only did I realize an epiphany – writing fiction is fun – but, more importantly, I got what I needed – writing support and encouragement from people in the same boat as me. (Not to discount Rich’s support/nagging). Better yet, even though our six-week course ended on Tuesday, we’re going to do our best to meet up at least once a month (starting after Thanksgiving) and continue our writing support group.

• I spent a day shopping with my friend, Caren, and spending my birthday loot. A few Sundays ago, Caren and I met up for lunch at McAlister’s Deli before embarking on a day-long shopping trip. I had birthday cash and gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, so it was particularly fun for me, especially with a good friend accompanying me. Caren helped me spend my Kohl’s gift card by encouraging me to pick up a cool, brown velvet jacket; she said it was definitely me, only girlier. I spent some of the birthday cash from Momma Carol and Papa Doug on some great sale items (white tee, Editor pants) at Express; I spent the rest of that cash on the books The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. After four solid hours of shopping, this old lady went home ready for a nap.

• I enjoyed Happy Hour at Casa Don Gallo with Kelley and Camille after work one night. All I can say is, you haven’t truly lived if you’ve never heard a Mariachi band play “The Chicken Dance.” Seriously.

• We got our missing furniture from IKEA Atlanta – our bedroom set is now complete. Which is why Rich and I have been immersed in home improvement and furniture assembly projects (new CD towers, coffee table, entertainment center). We’ve even gotten an estimate on new carpet for the bedroom. Two words about our potential new carpet: shagadelic purple.

And now I’m trying to get things in order for my trip to New York City. Rich is flying out tomorrow morning; he’s going a couple of days ahead of me since it’s easier for him to ask off since he’s still freelancing for our company. Also, this way he gets an extra two days since I had my two days back in May when I flew up for Aunt Bea’s wedding.

I’ll go ahead and say thanks ahead of time to my wonderful parents and wonderful friend, Nan (and Caren, Nan’s backup), who will be caring for the poochkins and kitties, respectively. Nan’s even biting the bullet and driving me to the airport to catch my 6AM flight Saturday. Now, that’s a great friend.

So much to do, so little time…

Song Lyric of the Day:

As I lie down / Sore and sick

Breaking Benjamin / “The Diary of Jane”

10:32AM.
Life’s really kicking my ass again. Not only am I still trying to find an extra few hours every day to do everything I need and want to do, but now I’m sick. I woke up Wednesday morning with a raging sore throat, and it’s been downhill since then. Honestly, I don’t know whether to be offended by or impressed by how much phlegm my body has the capacity to produce. I think I might qualify for a Guinness World Record at this point. Really, though, it’s just gross. I’m going through tissues the way former Rep. Mark Foley went through male pages.

So what would make me happy right now? Breathing freely and not having a sore throat and chest and a rubbed-raw nose. Being at home, chugging orange juice and sleeping.

For now, though, I’ll settle for Weird Al’s video “White & Nerdy.” I love that man.

And to be fair, here’s the original Chamillionaire video, “Ridin’,” on which it’s based (I couldn’t find the original on YouTube to embed here).

Short and sweet: My baby is writing… woohoo! For those of you regular readers, you’ll remember that Pattie often mentions my nagging her about writing, right? Well now I’m in withdrawal because I can no longer say any of my oft uttered sayings, and it tugs at my naggy husband instincts… it’s rough out there folks 🙂

Stay tuned for her own explanation. (she does plan to blog again soon, she keeps swearing it to the cats…)

Song Lyric of the Day:

You’re casting opinions at people who need them / All sparks will burn out in the end / Well be careful angel, this life is just too long

Editors / “All Sparks”

12:51PM.
Where the hell have I been lately? Sleeping, that’s where I’ve been. Rather, what I’ve been doing. As I’ve mentioned before, I have insomnia. And these last weeks, boy, has it reared its ugly, sleep-depriving head.

Besides wasting precious, potential sleep time on blogging, among other things, I’ve done nothing lately. Seriously. Even my TV watching has significantly scaled back, largely due to the fact that most nights I could barely keep my eyes open past 8PM.

Since Monday, I’ve finally started to regain some daytime alertness, which is a wonderful thing. I’ve been so fatigued up until this week that I would doze off during the day (at work, home, wherever), I couldn’t make it through the 6:30PM World News Tonight broadcast without passing out, I’d get drowsy driving, I’d be in bed by 9:30. Forget about doing anything remotely productive–that takes energy and focus, two things which I’ve been sorely lacking lately.

My problem is officially sleep maintenance–I can fall asleep pretty easily, but I wake up often throughout the night. So my eight hours of rest in actuality nets me only about five hours of actual sleep, which I can’t function well on.

In the hopes of regaining the ability to sleep like a normal person, I underwent a sleep study last week at Baptist Sleep Institute and have started seeing a psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (referred by my sleep doctor). Long story short, the good doctor is going to teach me how to let things go and better deal with life’s ambiguities–he’s going to “retrain” me on how to sleep. Let me just add here that during my initial sleep doctor consultation, the phrase “type A personality” came up a couple of times: Your word to spell is “insomnia.” Insomnia: a-n-x-i-e-t-y. Insomnia.

So to dear Anonymous, I haven’t forgotten about earlier posts I need/want to finish, add pictures to, etc. I’ve just been too tired up until now to deal with them. But I’m finally feeling like I’m starting to get back on track this week. And waking up.

Song Lyric of the Day:

In a sky full of people, only some want to fly / Isn’t that crazy?

Seal / “Crazy”

I am now without portable music: my iPod Shuffle is dead. Deader than a doornail. And this was the replacement Shuffle I received back in February when my original Shuffle went belly-up. This sucks.

Song Lyric of the Day:

Beware / I bear more grudges / Than lonely high court judges / When you sleep / I will creep/ Into your thoughts / Like a bad debt

Morrissey / “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get”

10:28PM.
I was in the process of updating my blog last night (even commenting throughout the Emmy telecast) when–bam!–the power went out. As it happened, it went out immediately after Rich and I saw an orange-yellow flash behind the trees across the street. We’re talking a spaceship-must-have-just-crash-landed-holy-shit-the-whole-sky-lit-up kind of flash. Caleb hauled ass downstairs, because if that dog knows one thing, it’s that the electricity is not supposed to shut itself off. Certainly not everything in the house and the whole neighborhood at the same time.

A minute after Rich said, “What the fuck was that?” the power blinked back on. Okay, we had power again. Good. A minute after it came back on–bam!–there was that creepy, end-of-the-world-is-upon-us flash again. This time I called 911 to report a possible fire and/or crash (we’d heard a weird, unidentifiable noise before each outage). I told the dispatcher that yes, we had power at the moment, and asked if I should call KUB instead. He told me not to, that he’d send a car out our way to check it out. I hung up and Rich and I continued lighting candles, just in case. We heard voices outside and walked down the driveway to see if we ran into any of our neighbors; it seems others had seen the flash and were also wondering if we should start to panic. Deciding to go ahead and call it a night, we headed back inside. Rich had just filled the dogs’ water bowl and I had a flashlight in hand when–bam!–that creepy flash and a third power outage. We pretty much hightailed it downstairs for the night after that.

And that’s why I haven’t finished my weekend posts. Which I plan on doing tomorrow night after work, since I have plenty to write about, as the last few days have seen the gamut:

• a lunch outing that involved attempted B&E (that would be me) and the fire department
• Yum Yum’s movie debut
• Samantha’s bridal shower
• demolition of our Florida room
• Vanessa’s birthday

As you can guess, I’m wiped. Which is great timing, since I finally have an appointment at the Baptist Sleep Institute tomorrow (I’ve had to reschedule about four times). The last several weeks have seen my insomnia rearing its ugly head, with me waking up at least three times a night, the first time only two or three hours after I first fall asleep. I’m essentially the walking, talking epitome of “tired of being tired” right now. It would be great if the doctor could just wave a magic wand that will grant me endless nights of quality sleep and the wonderful feeling of being rested for once. I can hope.

Song Lyric of the Day:

You want me / Come find me / Made up your mind?

Evanescence / “Call Me When You’re Sober”

10:54PM.
Sharing the Love of Good Music
I’ve spread the gospel of OK Go at work. I sent out a link to their “Here It Goes Again” video (which I linked to in my Monday post) as a Monday morning pick-me-up. Since then, I’ve had three people ask me about their album, Oh No (it’s really good–very retro 80’sesque in places), as well as gotten more requests for the link. I’m telling you, it’s an instaclassic.

The Fire Under My Ass Is Officially Lit
My friend, Stephanie, and I signed up for a fiction writing class yesterday. Lately we’ve been discussing how we really need to put our noses to the grindstones and finish the stories and novels we’ve started writing. Aside from putting the pro in procrastinate, we’ve got tons of stuff in common, to the point that we’re starting to suspect we got separated at birth. When it comes to our writing (lack of), I told her we needed to light the fires under each other’s asses, and now we have. Class starts September 19. Time to get writing!

Working to Please Bridezilla
I picked up some really nice decorations and party knickknacks for Samantha’s bridal shower on Saturday. I think she’ll really like everything I’ve gotten. Now I just need to make sure the house is absolutely spotless. Howardina Hughes will only truly be pleased if she knows that the floor is clean enough to eat off of. Not that she would ever, ever deign to do that. Nor would I recommend it.

The Latest Hollywood Divorce
So Tom Cruise got dumped by Paramount. I can’t say I’m surprised, and I can’t say I blame Paramount. The man is almost as toxic as Mel Gibson at this point. While discussing the topic with Nan and Don at work today, Don commented that no one in Hollywood wanted to work with either actor anymore. So I suggested they join evil forces and form their own, independent production company and name it Religious Nuts©. Don and Nan liked the name, with Nan amending that it should be Religious Nutz©. Why? Because it’s funnier with a z.

Bloody Mary, Captain Marvel, and a Killer Cat in the Making
Speaking of Nan, you may recall that she is currently filming a horror movie, Bloody Mary-Lite. She’s having a blast and is regaling us with set stories on the days after she films her scenes. Today’s revelation? Turns out the movie’s director is Jackson Bostwick, aka Captain Marvel on the TV show Shazam! How cool is that? After Rich talked with Nan today and heard about Captain Marvel, he stopped by my cube to call me to task.

“You knew about Captain Marvel?”

“Well, I just found out about it a little while ago. I was–“

He shot me an accusing stare.

“Mmm hmm. Captain Marvel.”

What’s really exciting is that after my workout tonight, Nan called me on my cell as I drove home.

“The producer wants to know if the little master cat will be available to shoot his scenes after dark tomorrow night.”

“They’re ready for Yum Yum? Sweet!”

So my sweet black kitty and I will be meeting up with Nan tomorrow night and heading to the
set for his scenes. How cool is that? I’m going to take his stash of Cosmic Catnip just in case I need to get him pumped up for his killing scene.

The coolest part about being on set? I might get to meet Captain Marvel!

Song Lyric of the Day:

Show me what it’s like / To be the last one standing / And teach me wrong from right / And I’ll show you what I can be

Nickelback / “Savin’ Me”

7:52AM.
I’m not sure if you know this, but VH-1 plays music videos for a few hours every morning during Jump Start. That’s right–a music channel that actually plays music videos. And, I have to say, there are a few videos worth checking out. Here are a few of my favorites.

“Here It Goes Again” by OK Go – This is my absolute favorite video at the moment. Known as “the treadmill video,” this quartet takes a handful of treadmills and some clever choreography and turns a low concept idea into sheer genius. Watch the video, and you’ll never look at a treadmill the same way again.

“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley – The duo of Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse take the concept of Rorschach test inkblots and turn it on its head in a trippy, optical illusion-heavy masterpiece. It’s impossible not to watch.

“Not Ready to Make Nice” by Dixie Chicks – Brilliant art direction gives substance to a song about the rejection and threats the group went through after their Bush-bashing comments a few years ago. Visually stunning.

“Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake – Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, and a spy caper mini-movie set in Europe, complete with a femme fatale and a big explosion. And did I mention Justin Timberlake? Enough said.

“I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! at the Disco – Wedding meets circus and turns into a carnival. Helping stilts make a comeback.

“Savin’ Me” by Nickelback – A man’s life is saved, leaving him with the ability to see exactly how much time everyone around him has left to live. Simple and dramatic. (Check out this video set to footage from X-Men: The Last Stand and this one set to the “Out of Gas” episode of Firefly).

“Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers – The band pays tribute to everyone from the Beatles to Elvis to Nirvana in this fun clip.

*YouTube recently announced that it would like to someday be home to “every music video ever created.” I, for one, absolutely love the idea. Which video would I revisit first? “Take on Me” by A-Ha.

8:00AM.
Season two of Prison Break kicks off in 12 hours (8PM ET). Woohoo!

9:11PM.
I won’t go into details right now since a couple of friends who read this haven’t watched Prison Break yet, but OH MY GOD!!! I can’t believe the last five minutes!!! I can’t believe they did that!!! I think it’s safe to say that, like with the first season, anything will go for the second season. Season two is definitely off to a roaring start.

Song Lyric of the Day:

Dream of better lives the kind which never hate / (You should see why) / Dropped in the state of imaginary grace / (You should know better)

Modern English / “Melt With You”

10:27PM.
I drove to Bristol, VA, yesterday (259 miles round trip) for the bridal shower Samantha’s almost-mother-in-law threw for her. I enjoyed meeting all of Shawn’s extended family–the female contingent, at least–and chowing down on good food (the spinach finger sandwiches were faboo). I left a bit earlier than I’d planned on thanks to the hellacious thunderstorm that started rolling in around a quarter to six. I managed to get ahead of the storm after about 45 minutes or so, and only encountered drizzles and light rain the rest of the two-hour drive. Thanks to a Best Buy run with Rich earlier in the day, I had a new CD mixed in with my usual rotation, One by The Panic Channel. Nothing like good music to make a solo drive more fun.

I got home right at 8PM, used the bathroom, changed my shirt, and headed out with Rich to meet Jonnie and Curry for dinner at Bravo. It was nice catching up with them since it’s been a few weeks since we’ve really gotten to spend any time with them. Unfortunately, the headache that started during my drive back from Bristol became a full-blown migraine by the end of dinner, so we had to postpone seeing Snakes on a Plane until later this week.

Today I met up with Jonnie, Curry, and Tamara for lunch at Ruby Tuesday in the mall. I’d been out running errands in the vicinity and they braved driving in a thunderstorm to meet up with me, which I appreciated. After lunch, I finished running errands, came home and vegged for a bit, and then set about doing housework. You know–same old, same old.

11:34PM.
The TV gods are smiling down on me–Prison Break‘s second season begins at 8PM tomorrow night. Can’t wait!

Song Lyric of the Day:

Well after all that we’ve been through / Would you still call this love baby? / Cause love’s the only proof / That the ugly could be beautiful

The Real Tuesday Weld / “The Ugly and the Beautiful”

1:18PM.
True Crime
Like everyone else, I was stunned to hear the news late yesterday that after almost 10 years, a suspect had been arrested for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Teacher John Mark Karr was arrested in Thailand on unrelated charges; he essentially confessed in front of a throng of reporters while being escorted by Thai police. Will his public confessions hold up in court? Doubtful, but hopefully there is enough evidence to substantiate his claims. Time will tell. It’s been reported that Karr knew details only the actual murderer could know, facts that were never–and have still not been–made public.

I’m happy the Ramsey family may finally see justice in the case, although it’s bittersweet in that JonBenet’s mother, Patsy, didn’t live to see an arrest made. Reports say that at least before she succumbed to ovarian cancer earlier this year, Mrs. Ramsey was aware that a suspect was being investigated.

I confess–this case has fascinated me from the beginning. With a murdered 6-year-old beauty queen at the heart of it, compromised forensic evidence, and the media-fueled public condemnation of the victim’s family (specifically, her mother), how could it not? I have to admit–early on, I was one of the many who was very suspicious of JonBenet’s family’s involvement in or knowledge of the crime. I changed my mind after seeing a documentary about the case on A&E that illuminated numerous facts that were not publicized, facts that would have helped substantiate the Ramseys’ denials, facts that were either twisted by or omitted altogether in the mainstream media. Since then, I’ve wondered if the real murderer would ever be found. And now, at long last, it seems he has.

2:19PM.
Celeb Court Date
MSNBC just reported that Mel Gibson is due soon in a Malibu court on drunk driving charges. Here’s hoping he gets a Jewish judge.