So…

Um…

Here is the thing…

Redneckmommy nominated me for “Hottest Female Blogger” for the “Hot Blogger Calendar” of 2009. And I published this blatant, whiny plea for all of you to go vote for me because that is just the way I roll.

So…

Um…

Here is the OTHER thing…

VOTING DOESN’T START UNTIL AUGUST 25!!!!!!!!!!

So..sorry about that.

I’ll nag you at another time.

P.S. Stop bitching and whining. It was either this or write about back-to-school night (tonight) and the first day of school (tomorrow) FOR TWO POSTS IN A ROW. I mean, I know that this is no post about my ta-tas or hoo-hoo but wouldn’t you rather have a blurb about my internet stupidity instead of THAT?

I thought so.

P.P.S Are you still bitching and whining?

P.P.P.S You ARE?!!!! Do I have to send you to your room without dinner? Seriously? Because I will! AND I will take away the Wii AND make you not wear your brand new school clothes for TWO MORE WEEKS! So, I am going to count to three and then you will wish you had made a different decision, mister! I mean…What? What was that? You’re not my children and you haven’t inflicted any stress and hell this week on me by perpetually locking your little brother out of the changing rooms at the mall or chasing him around with the shopping cart while screaming, “YOU’RE LACTOSE INTOLERANT” and you should stop bitching us out because we are your faithful readers and really you are just a LITTLE bit crazy at this point and we are all beginning to wonder if you’ve been sniffing your kids rubber cement from their art supply package so stop bitching, rambling, and being an all around cuckoo person and get to the damn point already?!

FINE, THEN! See if I care!! GO ahead and keep using that tone with me! Because of that little attitude you have just officially made your life miserable!!! You will be 30 before you are ungrounded!!!! You are going STRAIGHT to your room the minute your backpack hits the damn door and I am going to personally read and review every single heart-covered note I find from Audry in hour 2!!!!!

Plus, I am refusing to buy you anything but tighty-whities until you graduate from high school!!!!!!

NEVER CROSS YOUR MOTHER.

P.P.P.S. I would just like to take this opportunity to state that you will not be voting for a SANE and hot blogger ON AUGUST 25th. Just hot.

P.P.P.P.S Now go vote ON AUGUST 25th, dammit.

P.P.P.P.P.S (I’m so embarrassed.)

I live in marriage central.

Weddings are BIG BUSINESS in Utah.

I’ve been married twice (twice is more than enough. Trust me.).

I’ve been married a total of 12.5 years.

9.8 years of them have been with my husband, Jonathan.

I’m 33-years-old.

The average marriage age here is much younger than the national average. I attribute this to the majority of this society considering out-of-wedlock co-mingling of hoo-hoos and peepers to be a metaphorical stoning offense.

Heck, there are still a few doe-eyed young couples here whose first kiss is on their wedding day.

I married way too young. I was a 20-year-old idiot who was far too immature, indecisive and YOUNG to handle something as complicated as a marriage. I am not surprised it failed;there were too many factors that went against it. Besides the mismatch of the two of us, I had very little relationship experience that was positive. I didn’t have enough life experience*.

*I really kind of wish I had been all sorts of trampy in my younger years and gotten it out of my system. I have this feeling that I should have just nailed anything that would have screwed my Shamu-sized self back then and just been a slutty ho of a teenage girl.

(I wasn’t, despite WHAT everyone thought.)

I mainly spent my teenage time with my best friend doing lame photo-shoots in her basement. I did occasionally sneak out with my high school boyfriend and let him feel my boobs but that was about it.

It’s easier to forgive the sowing of wild oats than when you are a wild teenager than when you hit your 30’s and 40’s and freak-out with a mid-life crisis.

I kind of regret not doing it.

Of course, I was such a SERIOUS, MELANCHOLY thing as a youth. I was a THEATER PERSON! I wore BLACK! And CRYSTALS! Which were held by a DRAGON’S CLAW around my neck! I was never without my COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE!

So, the whole “Girl’s Gone Wild Thing” may not have exactly jived with my high school personality. Although, I suppose I could have just glued a wooden sign on my locker that had “Ye Olde Whorehouse” burned into the wood or something.

Where was I?

Oh, yes…weddings.

No offense to anyone who has married here in my home state or the predominant religion (Mormonism), but Utah weddings have some very deep cliches associated with them.

Like having bridesmaids and flower girls when, um, there is no use for them in a Mormon ceremony. Or having the same-old, same-old food like a nut cup, mint with the local temple printed on it, dollar sandwich served with the pre-requisite non-toxic slush punch and mini-eclair on the side. Or having the wedding in the local ward house gym with balloons or streamers put up in an attempt to hide the basketball hoop. And let’s not forget the blown glass temple wedding cake toppers and tiny scrolls by the wedding book that have the “This day I marry my best friend” poem on it.

It’s all too precious for words.

There is also no dancing at Mormon receptions. Not because it is outlawed, it just isn’t done. Which is a good thing because dude…most people in my state cannot dance and end up looking like complete asses when they attempt to do so. (Ehem. They also apparently cannot spell “BLATANT” for the life of them.)

Now watch, I am going to piss off someone who had their reception in a church gym or served mini-eclairs and non-toxic slushy punch at their wedding. Or that loved their wedding poem tied up with curling ribbon, coordinating bridesmaid dresses and the like. I’m not a hater;I had almost all these things between both of my weddings, so there.

And I would do it differently if I could go back.

Now that I think about it…maybe my big problem isn’t so much about the weddings as it is about the marriages.

I love that my first marriage gave me my son but I was in no way prepared for that level of “BIG”.

My second wedding was pretty chill.

While I don’t know if I was any better prepared, I had a good wedding. I knew that I had a better chance of making it work with Jon than I probably deserved. He is a good balance for me and I love him. I had a great wedding dress (Made by one of the best seamstresses on the PLANET. Go buy an apron. You know you want to.). My buffet had good food and people had a good time. I had a bag piper and it was fabulous. It WAS in a ward house gym, but I could have cared less. I wanted to elope, but Jonathan had never been married and wanted a reception. I was glad to give that to him. He’s a sweetheart and man…Have we been through a lot.

To hell and back, really.

Over all? I am not sure if I am good at being married. I try my best (and often not even close to my best) but I often wonder if I am just too damaged.

Too full of baggage.

Too full of bad memories and disappointments.

Just too…TOO.

I have a lot of regrets. I have hurt and crushed people. I have been hurt, crushed.

Sometimes I feel so broken and bitter I don’t know if I will ever be whole again.

Normal.

Fixed.

I know that people that love me would give a lot for that to happen; I just don’t know if it ever will.

Now that I think about it, maybe my big problem isn’t so much about the weddings or the marriages as it is…

ME.

A blogger sent me an email asking if I would participate in a project she was doing on her web page, saying that it would spread blog love and let other bloggers have exposure to new blog reads. I decided those are good things and I agreed to play along.

When I considered my guest list for Aud’s Barking Mad bloggity dinner party and who I would want to invite, my first thought was “EVERYONE! DUH!”.

Then I started thinking about what a pain in the ass that would turn into. The guest list would have hundreds of people on it and I would end up communicating by semaphore to people at the other end of my big-ass table.

It would also mainly be women.

That is a radical and interesting concept, no? A huge room packed with amazing bloggity people that are mainly women with everyone trying to talk all at once?

Umm…I just did that. It was called BlogHer, thank you very much.

As amazing as BlogHer was, I don’t want to have a repeat experience quite so soon. (Besides, even if I was the one throwing the party I would probably STILL manage to miss She Likes Purple in the crowd, dammit).

No, I am ready for something different.

For my dinner party, I am going to be hanging out with the dudes. The men. I will be the only female invited. An isle of estrogen in a sea of testosterone. The lone hoo-hoo in a forest of peep-peeps. (What? Backpacking Dad did the same thing. Ok, fine. I’ll admit that he may have had different motivations, but if he can have an all-penis party with his guest list, so can I. Heh.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love my female readers like you (ehem) CANNOT IMAGINE , but the MEN! Oh, the men. They hold a special place in my heart because dude…men can comment like nobody’s business. There are some amazing, hilarious, kind, lovey women around here that I love, adore and need, but sometimes having a guy pipe up and ZING through is a totally welcome thing.

In the interest of fairness, I made a freaking long list of every guy I could think of that I read and who comments here and I put them in a generator to help me pick. I couldn’t help it. I have so many favorites it was the only way to go about it. (And don’t think I didn’t think about fudging it to include Black Hockey Jesus, because I totally did.)

My dinner party of ten (in alphabetical order):

Adam of “Shadows on the Wall”:Maybe it is that his Twitter handle is “Adam the Mediocre”. Maybe it is that he is very real about his struggles staying clean and off drugs. Maybe it is because when he linked to me he said he was hesitant to do so because he wanted to keep me all to himself. Maybe it is because he dressed up his dog Floyd in a babushka and posted about him winning the role of “Tzeitel” in “Fiddler on the Roof”, who knows. He intrigues me. His comments make me laugh. (And he needs to post more freaking often.)

Backpacking Dad:Without question one of the most intelligently chivalrous bloggers on the planet. Sometimes I fear that this blog is in peril of becoming the “I pink puffy hearts love Backpacking Dad” blog. I can’t help it. Wouldn’t you love a man who confessed to garnering the moniker “Tight pants Shawn” in college?

The guy is RAD. I made a comment on Neil’s site about how I worship my male readers and he showed up with an email and internet flowers (or whatever) saying he was ready to have his feet kissed (or something) and it’s been true, platonic bloggity love ever since. He is the wind beneath my wings, yo.

Craig of “Banter of a Blond Republican Couple”: Craig co-authors a blog with his lovely wife, MacKenzie and until last week, they both resided in my town and were members of “The Cache Valley Illuminati” (Which is basically a bunch of people who like to go to lunch together and talk about geeky things like blogging platforms). As I’ve gotten to know Craig (and MacKenzie)I like him more and more. He writes comments that just make me chortle. Like this one he made on a post that I wrote about what products I would and would not purchase in a generic version:

Craig says:

…I try to get MacKenzie to buy generic feminine products, but she refuses. So selfish.

February 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Dad Gone Mad: I mainly lurk over at his site (unless it is to pipe up and chime in my nickname for a penis on his post about wanting to find employment as a “dick spam” author. (My contribution? “Mighty, purple-helmeted warrior”. Like this surprises ANY of you.).

He is someone I click over to when I want to read exceptionally good writing that almost always includes some guffawing and snorting on my part. Since the guy doesn’t know me and out of respect for his “Hot wife”, I will refrain from flashing my “Magical boobies” during the evening’s festivities.

Besides, I already did that when I crashed Backpacking Dad’s party. (It was magical, indeed.)

DOUGIE!

Dougie! author’s Doug’s Rants and Raves. I ‘met’ Dougie! through Erin of Grad School Knitter and was completely smitten by him. Any gay man who thinks I am too hot for words gets an automatic pass, in my book. (And yes, I alway think of him as Dougie! with an exclamation point in my head.)

Dougie! is not the most consistent blogger/commenter on the planet, but I’ll take him any way I can get him because he says the funniest things:

“Why do I come out looking like a fat axe-murderer in all of my photos? Seriously, I’m so cute in the mirror, which I constantly stare into. This is why I don’t take random photos of myself. Everything must be carefully orchestrated.”

Froyd: Froyd has been a reader since the wee baby days of my blog and he’s pretty much a genius. He also looks nifty in Viking horns. He is one of the fabulous Bemidji State Alums that were the first fans of this blog. He does not pipe up here very often but when he does it is freaking hilarious. (Like this GEM yesterday? I about peed myself.)

Once I posted a photo of my silverware drawer after my boys took all the silver out of the diswasher and just DUMPED it in the drawer with less than zero attempt at organizing them into their respective slots. This was his comment:

Froyd says:
I’m not sure I see the problem there…is that not a silverware drawer?

Is it not filled with what appears to be, in fact, silverware?

Looks to me like a job well done!

March 2nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm

Jon Deal

Owner of the best Twitter Avatar on the planet, Jon Deal also authors “Ransom Note Typography”. His comments and Tweets crack me up. I link to him a lot because, well…I like him a lot. And he is hilarious and writes me fashion and makeout tips to prepare for BlogHer and goes to dinner with me on my occasional jaunts down to Salt Lake. We like bouncing ideas off one another and often ask each other to read copy before we hit the publish button.

Plus, because I am notorious for editing my posts AFTER I hit publish, he wrote what I consider one of the funniest posts of all time appropriately titled, “Edited”.

Plus, he’s heard a good deal of my crazy and it somehow doesn’t stop him from liking me.

It’s a beautiful relationship.

Kevin Charnas Are you serious? Why wouldn’t I have a guy who is unafraid to don a wig and hot pink dress and show off his man cleavage? He is a newish find for me, but am I ever exited to get to know him better.

Laid off Dad: Everyone knows the man is funny but what they may not know is that he also has one of the most lovely speaking voices out there. It’s rich, deep baritone sound. As a vocal snob, I was very pleasantly surprised at his community keynote speech. Don’t make me choose between him and Mike Rowe. It may get ugly.

Lou Ceel “Uncle Lou”. Creative-types always make my heart go pitter-pat. And Lou definitely falls into that category.

I have a total confession here. The very first time I saw “lceel’s” comment my head translated his name to “ICE-EEL”. He has a lovely tag on his blog explaining the accurate pronunciation and all that, but I am afraid that the damage was done. Even though I realized that was an “L” and not an “I”, I still have to really restrain from thinking “Ice-EEL”. Which kinda sucks because dude, how cool is the moniker is that? Although, on the down side, I always start humming ‘Ice, Ice baby” within ten minutes of reading one of his comments, which are usually hilarious.

So, there you are.

Pretty rad guest-list, no?

Why don’t you show the peepers some peep love in my comments? Who are your some of your favorite male bloggity people?

This weekend, the unimaginable happened.

I deleted my Google Feed Reader.

ON PURPOSE.

I have been pondering this decision for a long time. It’s been jumbled up in conversations that I have with myself regarding balancing my life and the internet. You know which conversations I am referring to. They are very like the conversations that you have with yourself all the time about the exact same thing, right?

Right.

It started in earnest quite some time ago, when I read that Whoorl accidentally deleted her reader. I started thinking...”Hmm…would I freak out if that happened to me or would it be a good thing?”

I found myself thinking about it. Revisiting the situation. Quasi-wishing that I would execute one of my infamous technical blunders that would wipe all my subscriptions out without me “Really” being responsible for it. I hemmed and hawed, discussed it with other bloggers and examined my own motivations until my examiner was sore.

And then I took action.

I am not even sure what happened. I was just sitting in bed on my laptop discussing a medical issue with Christine on Google Chat. She told me to hold on for a minute and I was left staring at my reader with 1,324 unread messages in it. By the time Christine came back on…POOF! My hundreds of subscriptions built up over the last 2.5 years were deleted.

Gone.

Just like that.

Most of you just took a sharp intake of breath, didn’t you? Ok, let me qualify that-those of you that use a feed reader on a daily basis just took a sharp intake of breath, didn’t you? Not surprising. This is a really big, huge move for me. (And don’t think that I don’t feel a little ridiculous to copping to that.)

I am torn between feeling BRAVE! FREE!! LIBERATED!! and SCARED! WORRIED!! NAUSEATED!!!

It’s just that lately, my reader has seemed less and less like a friend and helpmate and more and more like a hostile enemy or bitching spouse that is also suffering from severe Erectile Dysfunction Syndrome. In other words, it wasn’t doing much good and was leaving me feeling highly unsatisfied.

The whole blogging thing isn’t really working too well right now. And if I have learned anything, it’s if something isn’t working you shake things up, change the equation and try to see if it helps. I think that there are positives and negatives that come with this deal.

The GOOD:
I feel free. I really do. Like I am free of never-ending guilt, at least for a time. After BlogHer I realized that as much as I enjoyed meeting new people, new reads, I felt totally powerless to read them because my reader was overwhelming me. I am a pretty loyal person and I am also an avid talker. The combination can be quite a time suck, believe you me.

I also want a more personal, organic blogging experience, if you will. Blog the Recession started by Motherhood Uncensored really resonated with me. People put a lot of time and effort into their web pages. I feel that they deserve to be visited instead of viewed through the sanitized view of my reader. Everyone likes traffic and revenue and I should be doing my part to spread the love around.

The BAD:
I know that there are blogs I was subscribed to that I will lose track of. Despite my best intent. Especially those blogs that only update very infrequently. I just don’t have the brainpower to keep track of them all. Did I mention my reader had hundreds of feeds in it? Even if I like you, even if I really don’t want to lose track of you completely. I’m human and I have a tiny little brain.

I also worry that not having a reader will actually mean I am on the internet MORE and not LESS. I am disorganized by nature, so I worry that I will spend a lot of time checking to see if my favorites are updated and blah, blah, blah.

The (possibly) UGLY:
Hurt feelings. Which is the last thing I want, but I am sure that there will be. Which really sucks a duck because being on the other side of the owies a lot of the time, I really hate hurting people’s feelings.

I want to be clear about something upfront: I DIDN’T DELETE YOUR FEED BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE YOU. I feel that the whole “It’s not you, it’s me” line in relationships is the perhaps the biggest craptastic copout on the planet, and yet that is exactly what I am asking you to buy-lock, stock and barrel.
Yes, it was probably time for me to re-evaluate some of my subscriptions, but for the most part? I really love all y’all.

So, what now?

Well…I dunno.

I didn’t really have a plan for all of this. I find that the longer I blog the more interested I am in the PEOPLE behind the blog rather than the blog itself. Is it weird to say that there are bloggers I LOVE, ADORE, and ADMIRE that I read rarely or not at all? Well, it’s true. And that may make me weird, but it seems to be how I roll, people.

I have a feeling that my main sources of browsing from this point on will be via Twitter, comments, emails and the shared items from Google Reader (I didn’t delete those because I have LOVED the gems I have gotten from people like Sizzle, Marilyn,Angella and Megan.).

My main source of browsing, though?

MY LINKY LOVE PAGE.

If you aren’t on here and want to be? Leave a comment or email me! I’d be more than happy to add you.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this little experiment of mine. I may hate it and go back to the reader. I may love it so much I will want to make out with it and have little babies together. I also think that there is a high probability that I will feel ambivalent about it and end up thinking, “Meh”.

I just hope I don’t end up regretting it, because regrets suck. And I have quite enough of them in my life without adding “Google” to the list. I know that they are taking over the country, the world, and quite possibly the universe, but they don’t have to invade THAT corner of my life, thank you very much.

Any which way the cookie crumbles? It’s going to be interesting trying to figure it all out.

What about you? Have you had thoughts of Feed Readercide? Have you done it? Do you regret it?

Dear children: YES. You have to do the dishes AND clean your rooms today. I am about to take you and your friends to the “Fun park”. Do you know how much your average adult likes going to the “Fun Park”? About as much as getting a yeast infection with a chaser of hemorrhoids. You’re lucky it’s just doing the dishes and cleaning your rooms and that I’m not renting you out to The Triangle Shirtwaist Company for underage slave labor in exchange for this little outing.

Dear “Fun Park”: Please, please, please be cooperative today. Do not have change machines be perpetually “Out of order”, don’t take my kid’s ski ball award tickets don’t have your mats out of place in the inevitable place that my child will land and bonk his head, and if there is any way that you could somehow rid me of feeling like I need to hose myself down with Lysol the minute I walk through your doors, I would appreciate it.

Dear Body: You haven’t been too bad lately. Sure the non-appetite thing has been annoying and bland, but dude…We’re in the 140’s now, which doesn’t suck. And? Is it weird that I feel better eating a lot less? I mean…I should feel worse, right? It’s kind of cool to not really need the food crutch I’ve had for oh, my entire freaking life. I’m assuming it will come back but for now I am having a moment of empowerment.

Dear VW Passat Wagon: Please for all that is holy, STOP FREAKING OUT ON ME. Please? Because even though I know that the problem with you is just a “Sensor” issue, when you scream “STOP MOTOR!!! OIL PRESSURE PROBLEM!!!! YOUR CAR WILL EXPLODE IF YOU DON’T PULL OVER RIGHT NOW!!!” I just CANNOT IGNORE IT. I will keep pulling over, in the dark, at midnight, in the middle of a canyon when I’m exhausted from doing a show and I will HATE YOU FOR IT. So? Get your act together, yo.

Dear Gretchen:Your rolls are about the only thing I am looking forward to today. You are the Goddess of Yeast. (Not in a bad way. Ehem.)

Dear Husband: You realize that when you tell me that you “don’t really think you want to see it THAT bad” when I tell you how much it will cost to see Wicked, you are really hurting my feelings, right? Because I am trying to give you a GIFT with MY hard-earned money. I don’t want new clothes, shoes, makeup, kitchen gadget or even my much LUSTED after SLR camera. No, I want to take you to see a show that means a lot to me, that I know you would lov,e and do something special with just US. We rarely do anything or go anywhere together. And you don’t want to go because the tickets are a little more than you thought they’d be? Ouch.

Dear Credit Card: I am so pissed off that I miscalculated your limit by a measly 2.50 and got whomped with a big, fat overage fine. I’m also pissed that when I pay you off, the money comes out of my bank account almost immediately and yet it takes DAYS before it posts to my credit account. It’s really not cool. It’s not like you have to use The Pony Express to get the payment to and fro, ya know?

Dear Friends: It has been so good hanging out with and seeing you. I love my computer but sometimes I need to be reminded what the outside world actually looks like, you know? Love you all more than you know.

Dear Voice: THANK YOU for last night. You were awesome and you didn’t let me down in front of my friends, Chelle and Heidi. This goes in the scrapbook as one of our best performances. Even though I use and abuse and bitch about you a lot, I love your guts.

Dear Oregon Trail and Rockband: YOU ARE MY BITCHES.

Dear Creativity: Could you please, please, PLEASE get your act together? I’m dying here. I mean, I know that you do your best, but look at this post and how much we struggled to write it. And it’s just kind of…”Meh”. You’ve been kinda, “Meh” for a long time. Get your proverbial panties out of a twist and behave, ok?

Dear SoapNet Dude. Please stop playing re-runs of Melrose Place. I seriously do not want to be sucked back into the early 90’s but the pull of Allison/Billy/Amanda/Brooke, Jane/Michael/Kimberly/Sidney is just too damn much! MUST. KEEP.WATCHING! GAH!!!

Dear Twitter: Not now. I’m busy. You know…Watching Melrose Place.

P.S. This is me, HORKING DOWN THE DELICIOUSNESS THAT ARE GRETCHEN’S ROLLS.
Mmmm…Totally made the stupid Fun Park bearable. (Yes. I took the whole damn box with me. Perfect accompaniment to an Ipod and a Martha Grimes novel.)

I blame my husband.

It’s so unfortunate. He’s been so good about knocking since “The talk”..

Poor kid.

He’s going to need therapy after this week.

And possibly some new retinas. I think they are probably seared off from being subjected to his parents *macking like wild sea otters.

*”Macking like wild sea otters” is a term to describe sexual mating. It is often confused with the term, “Macking like wild sea sea lions”. The two are entirely different. While both are polygynous, the mating pattern of Otariinae, or sea lions, is initiated by the female. Mating behaviors may or may not include female texting male to come home because the female is dressed up like a Catholic School Girl and has “American Woman” playing in the background.

“Macking like wild sea OTTERS” , or enhydra lutis, is entirely male dominated with the bulls aggressively mating with females that enter their territory. Basically, if a Tylanol PM hung-over female simply scoots over to warm up her feet on the male and snores a little bit, this will be taken as a sexual green flag and the male will go to town while the still half-asleep female lays highly dormant (although there may be an occasional lifting of the cranium to indicate a posture of ‘WTF?!”) until the mating process is completed and she can just go back to sleep already.

Dear Oregon Trail computer game,

Remember how I spent hours and hours in junior high trying to conquer you? I would skip lunch and spend day after day in the library trying to get my little covered wagon 2000 miles to the promised land of Oregon?

(To those concerned about putting a computer game before lunch, now would probably be the time to confess that lunch usually consisted of one Cherry Coke and two ice cream sandwiches. There was a REASON I weighed 300 lbs. at one point, people.)

Despite all my dedication, I wasn’t very good at The Oregon Trail.

I always seemed to run out of money, suck at shooting buffalo for food when I was lucky enough to have them appear, and the damn Columbia River at The Dalles always managed to swamp my wagon. I knew I should opt to take Barlow Road, but that damn river was a challenge, so I rarely listened to reason. Most of the people in my party usually drowned.

When a member of your party dies, you make a tombstone for them and attend a funeral. There may have been one or two, “Accidental deaths” of my party that may or may not have been fueled by a desire to make juvenile captions on the headstones like “Here lies Anna, a poor, sweet flower. Perished of heart break cuz of stinky Bobby in 2nd hour.”

(Hey, I SAID I was in junior high at the time, ok?)

Needless to say, I attended a lot of “funerals” my 7th grade year.

Death is rampant on your trail, Mr. Oregon: Death by rattlesnake, drowning (the underwater tombstones you can make ARE pretty sweet. I refuse to think that this may be the underlaying reason why The Dalles river wading option was so appealing), starvation, and my personal favorite-dysentery. I find it rather unfair that with my excrement issues I had to die of rampant trots all the time.

From Gaming Fashion courtesy of Taste Like Crazy via Twitter:

Your little AppleII game was the nemeses of my 7th grade year. I find it unbelievable that with all the hours that I played you I only actually made it to Oregon a handful of times. No matter how hard I would try, my party would always perish and I rarely saw the screen shot with the beautiful river and meadow of flowers that was the finish line.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE!

Do you know WHY?

Because in the middle of all the applications that I find confusing and the pointless Mardi Gras beads and beers that get thrown to me, I have discovered (thanks to a fellow cast member of the musical I am in) that FACEBOOK HAS AN OREGON TRAIL APPLICATION!

So, prepare yourself, Mr. Oregon Trail.

You are about to be my bitch.

“Son, before we finish eating, Mom and Dad need to talk to you about the rules regarding our bedroom door. What is our rule?”

“That we have to knock when we come in.”

“Yes. YOU MUST KNOCK BEFORE COMING IN. Now, you have been having a BIG problem keeping that rule. You almost never knock and it’s gotten to the point that we need to talk about it. For example, tonight when Mom and Dad were laying down, and you kept coming in, did you knock first? Even after we reminded you?”

“No, but I am always just tempted to open the door and come in. Knocking takes a long time.”

“Well, here is the thing, son. I need to find a way to explain this so you will understand why it’s important to knock. So, I’ll be blunt. A lot of the time that Mom and Dad are in their bedroom, they are NAKED. Not only NAKED, but Mom and Dad also like to KISS while NAKED. We like to KISS NAKED A LOT. If you are going to keep barging into our room without knocking, I need to let you know that there is a very good possibility that you are going to see a lot of NAKED KISSING. Unless you knock. Then we have time to not be NAKED and stop KISSING. So…what do you think?”

(Blink. Blink. Blinkity-blink-blink.)

“I don’t think that I will ever be tempted to come into your room ever again.”

“Good plan. Finish your carrots.”

*I’ll announce the “McWhoorlalee” contest winner on Sunday (Monday at the latest) there were so many freaking awesome entries I need a bit more time and I have back to back shows today.