She Just Slap-Shot the Constitution...

Thanks to everyone who shared this with me...
I love having a "Mocking Sarah Palin" section on le Blog. Fitting.

I'd Like to Phone a Friend...

Once again, SNL...hilarious.

"When cornered, you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?"
And, if possible, this whole impression has made me more smitten with Tina Fey. I want to buy her a BFF necklace or at least get her to blog about the debates. Or just have a blog. And be my BFF.

Ghosts

I finally got up the nerve to ask to whom my dad was referring when he used that vicious pronoun "us" and I was correct, it is my former step-mom. What broke my heart was the other guest my father mentioned that was coming along, "the ghosts of [their] relationship."
Great way to word it but it has crushed me today.
One of my good guy friends just broke up with his long-term girlfriend because of her infidelity and he has his own kind of crushing weight to carry, his own ghosts that haunt. Yesterday he said, "I love her and I'm terrified about what she may do to herself," fueling a conversation about rescuing and being rescued.
I don't believe that we can rescue those we love, we can't save them from themselves. We can love them, we can encourage, we can support but we cannot carry.
Sorry it's such a downer of a post; I blame the rain.

Gods of Gasoline

* I manged to get Rashard Mendenhall just as I found out Willie Parker is out this week. Whew. Also: just heard that Buress is suspended for the Week 5 game and guess who has him as their star WR...the team I'm playing Week 5. Obviously Fantasy gods smiling on me today. I did break my "never draft a Cowboy" rule this week and picked up Felix Jones because of all the Byes. I hope he sucks. I deserve it.

* All of AVL is out of gas...station after station has blank signs and pumps covered in bags. In the parking lot of the local grocery store I saw a worn, 1970s RV with a hand-panted sign in its window, searching for gasoline. "NEED GAS" it said in green marker. I drove by a dry station with a man just parked at the pump, waiting for the truck to show up, hoping that it actually does.
It's like we've suddenly developed an intense faith in the gods of gasoline; that they will provide in our time of need.
I wasn't alive during the gas crisis of the late 70s but this has a feeling akin to that. Part of me thinks, "Well, we deserve it," and I believe we do. But the other part of me worries how I can get to work, to the store, get to anywhere in a country where the infrastructure is built with the sacred emblems of Detroit in mind, in a town where incline is king. Thankfully this week I'm housesitting just three miles from work (with no way to bike there safely).
* My father sent me an email saying "they" were coming to visit next week and had rented a cabin an hour outside of town and inviting "us" out for a night. I don't know who "they" is. I'm kind of afraid to ask.

Weekly Ponderosa

Got my first speeding ticket ever driving from my sister's house in Southern Virginia up to my father's house in northwest VA. I mean I've never even been pulled over. To be honest I was a little excited; I didn't know what to do and I may have scared the cop a bit when I told her it was my first time and that I had been driving for 11 years. And of course she totally fined me (to be fair the speed limit kept changing from 65 to 60 to 55 to 65 to 60 and with the hills I had to keep turning my cruise control on and off, so my 73 in a 60 isn't that giant of a ticket as I couldn't keep track of the limit and I was going with traffic) but afterward we talked about weddings for a while. She was rather nice.

Historically I've been fairly open with some of the more private aspects of my life and so I shouldn't be surprised when that openness manages to find the very clearly marked path back and bite me on the bum as it has recently. Thus I decided to develop and maintain some boundaries and actually keep some private things private. How novel. This has been met with mixed reviews, but then so was “30 Rock” and we all know that it's the best comedy on TV.

Sunday was the very first wedding in which I've been asked to write and read something for the ceremony and I was a wreck leading up to it. The night before the wedding I had four different things I was thinking of reading. I didn't know what they expected me to say! What do I know about love and marriage; I mean look at me! I was worried they wanted me to write a poem and if there is anything I can't write well it's poetry. I'd love to, it just isn't my forte. Prose. Verbosity. Grammar. Love 'em. So in the moments leading up to my speaking I still had two in hand; didn't decide until I stood up and in hindsight I chose correctly.

Here's wedding sum up: Heels. Hair. Old Friends. Old friend's beaus/spouses. Old friend's parents/siblings. Good god it's my AP US History teacher from 10^th grade. Prettiest bride. Choked up groom. Waterproof mascara lies. Wine. Mini bottles of Scotch for the boys. “Hamburgler” used in best man speech. Hid behind wall when bouquet was thrown. Groom's college buddy is giant manwhore. Calves really hurt from heels. Bell ringing. Photos. Goodnight. See you at the next wedding.

I forgot I had a ticket to Brewgrass until the day I was leaving to drive up to VA and so in a panic I hopped on craigslist to see if I could find a buyer. I got hold of a guy in town, we emailed and got it set up, he asked to take me out for a beer in gratitude (I declined as I was leaving right then for a long trip which does require...umm...driving) so then he asked if he could make me a mix CD instead. I said absolutely. So when I met him that evening to do the exchange I got money, a sweet mix CD and possibly another friend to add into the fold. I love you, Asheville.

Wise decision on my part benching Kurt Warner this week. I did it because he was playing the Redskins and that just hurts my loyalties but then he had a crappy game so I looked like a genius. Willie Parker: you let me down.

Lately my head has been the most empty it has seemed in years. I don't know what that means. I feel like my writing skills are off, my thoughts are very shallow and I catch myself staring off thinking of absolutely nothing. I rather like that the constant humming in my head has wained yet I don't appreciate feeling anything less than on my game. Whatever game that may be (unless it's a game on my list). Regardless I'm sensing and reacting to everything at a snail's pace.

VA is no longer home. I've finally come to the realization of this. I love it, I always will, I harbor deep pride in being from VA, I love my friends and my family here, but my home is no longer here. It is in NC. My heart has finally moved south with the rest of me. I feel like when I say, “I'm going home,” all the parts of me finally know what that means.

CNY

Who drove to the Wegman's near Dulles Airport while home for a wedding to stock up on her CNY favorites which included Dinosaur BBQ sauce, State Fair Spiedie Marinade, Yancy's Fancy XXX sharp chedder, a six-pack of Saranac pale and a 30-case of Genny Cream Ale to save for the shiity beer contest?That'd be me.
Thank you, Wegmans. I miss you.
(Of note: I only lived in CNY for five years but I love their brands and food more than I do the ones I know from my 20 years in VA and two in NC)

Never Have I Ever

So sad the "Jesus is my Friend" video was taken down...it's quite hilarious. I'll try to fix that later.
Anyway, in college we used to play the game "Never Have I Ever" where someone would say something they hadn't done and if anyone playing the game had done it, then they drank (a game we also incorporated into the best drinking game ever: Kings.). It was funny and revealing. Not much to say, so here's some Never Have I Evers that I truly haven't done. Feel free to add:

NEVER HAVE I EVER....

• Learned to dive
• Liked Kristen Dunst
• RSVP'd promptly
• Been on a cruise
• Made out in an elevator
• Consistently pronounced "nuclear" correctly
• Eaten peanut butter and mayo together
• Listened to the Jonas Brothers
• Understood French
• Seen an episode of "Battlestar Galactica"
• Voted Republican
• Owned a mountain bike
• Kissed Dylan Kinsella (DRINK you people who have...ahem...)
• Known exactly what "The Hills" is
• Had a baby
• Driven a schoolbus
• Used a fake ID
• Drank at Maggies, Lucy's or Konrad's
• Had a mani or a pedi (I don't like strangers touching me)
• Gotten a perm
• Won a game of "asshole"
• Played strip poker
• Been to Mexico
• Fallen out a window
• Learned to French Braid
• Passed out on contruction equipment or in a field
• Owned any Soulja Boy
• Thought leggings were a good idea

He Is A Friend A Mine

I have no words.
Thank you to makejoefamous for sending this out.

Weekly Ponderosa

Back to the tidbits kiddies I'm beat!

(1) Tina Fey as Sarah Palin was clutch...it really is creepy the similarities. Why do only the comedy shows have the wherewithal to call out the BS? Why are the Daily Show/Colbert Report/SNL the shows that actually go, "Hey, you guys realize this is all spin and absolute crap, right?" No wonder we are getting more cynical. PS I looked up what a flerg was...just go to Urban Dictionary. It fits.



(2) Thank you Drew Brees for absolutely killing my fantasy standings this week. Of course the team I was playing in that league was comprised of many of my players from my other league, so I knew I'd probably win one and lose won, which I did. And in real life Brees was playing my Redskins, so sorta glad he sucked.

(3) Leave for VA on Wednesday right after work for a wedding (surprise! A wedding!) Another bonsai trip with another huge one sitting on the horizon. I love to travel but it truly does exhaust me.

(4) I watched "Snatch" again on Saturday night. I love that movie. It is such a guy film but also is so funny.

(5) Jonathan and I were speaking vaguely about our personal long-term plans last week and it made me realize how few of them I actually have. I made a whole bunch after college but they blew up in my face so fantastically that I haven't made many since then. I need to get over that and start thinking about what I actually want. Cuz I have no idea.

(6) There is a prank war happening at work. And it gets better and better. I love my coworkers and essentially disdain my job, but I guess it is the people that make the experience.

The Tuesday Void

“From her roost the water hen stretched out
Her purple-green neck
The kingfisher's quick glance
Shook water droplets from his crown
And I thought love would always be
That brilliant on the wing and wild.”
Ibykos, 6^th Century BC

Hey look it's a Thursday and I'm writing about a recent camping trip. La De Da. Jonathan and I went back to Black Balsam, the place where we first camped almost two months ago. It was late as we drove up and the headlights cut noncommittal swaths through the fog that laid heavy in every fold and crease; the tall spruces sharply protesting against the sea. Along the side of the parkway multiple pickup trucks with cages were parked and Jonathan said, almost to himself, “Must be bear season.” The hunters were out training their hounds to track in the Tuesday void.

Black Balsam was as beautiful and chilly as I remembered and the waxing moon held its groggy eye just above the treeline. The fog brainwashed the stars into submission. I stepped out of the van into a silence punctuated only by hounds. The howls were distant but hauntingly present; I thought of The Hound of the Baskervilles and I shuttered. Natural and yet foreign to the place.
The next day we drove to the southern terminus of the Parkway and did a short (yet vertical) hike up to an overlook. About half-way up the trail we stopped to catch breath and bearings and the flora was humming. Literally humming. Every single bush and shrub and tree was full of bees, beetles and insects pretending to be either and somehow all were singing to the same chorus. It was as if the sound came out of the earth; like rocks were humming along and we had stumbled into their sing-a-long. Remarkable.

On the way down the trail we picked over the last wild blueberries of the season and I found myself humming.

The One Who Knows

I haven't made it to Quizzo much lately (that sucking sound you just heard was the world catching its breath in hopes it doesn't explode all over your face out of sheer terror and shock); between trips and Labor Day, etc the weeks have piled up and Mondays have gone with them.
This week I missed most of Quizzo because something so much better came up: I got to meet my new favorite person on the planet...Miss Ena Genevie Farkas.

Ena was born on Thursday at 5:49pm to my dear friends and fellow LoCoers, Katherine and Andy and I can't believe how much I love her! Like get mildly emotional, tingly and all girly crap! I haven't truly felt that way about a newborn baby since my little sister was born nearly 15 years ago (to be fair I haven't been around when any of my nieces or nephews were born, so maybe I would have felt that way with them too, dunno. Still maintain I have the maternal instinct of a spider plant...maybe a can of soup). It helps that I've been friends with Katherine for over 10 years and so meeting this little one is a culmination of a journey through high school, college, jobs, marriage and beyond.
Anyway, I'm so proud and excited and happy for two of my very favorite people.

Open Letters

Dear Ice Cream Truck with "Accepts Food Stamps" spray painted on its side,
No.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Fantasy Football team owners who drafted Tom Brady and were smug about it,
Ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha.
Love,
Coach Spooner (record: 2-0)

Dear Sarah Palin,
Thank you for making me decide firmly against McCain. I was a little wishy-washy but the pick of you as a VP totally solidified that I will now be voting against you. Now go eat a mooseburger and teach kids that "abstinence is the only way". Way to go, new grandma.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Celebrities, VMAs and stuff read in gossip columns,
Thank you for once again out crazying yourself. And for allowing me to feel the same way I feel in Wal-Mart: like I'm the smartest, most stable, probably most normally attractive person there.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Washington Post,
Thank you for the Anti-Wedding story, complete with a scavenger hunt (with the theme "Death and Taxes") and a protest AS WELL AS an attempted wedding in Wegmans (BEST GROCERY STORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE) and a call to the ACLU. Way to fight the Wedding Industrial Complex.
Till debt do us part,
Spooner

Dear Saranac Brewing,
So glad you are back. I love you. Never leave again. Leave the burnanating to Trogdor.
Hug hug, kiss kiss,
Spooner

Dear Spellcheck,
Thank you for reminding me that "crazying", "Trogdor" and "burnanating" are not actually words. I was so sure I was right.
Bet you don't like bootylicious either.
No, no you don't.
Love,
Spooner

Sundays of Possibility

I think it's when I'm happy and stable and warm and safe and loved that I feel like I don't have anything to say except to note that I am all of the above. Could it be that I need to be itchy in order to scratch out my thoughts as if they were chiggers crawling just beneath my surface; words little red bugs keeping me up at night and never letting me settle in and simply be in a moment? I wouldn't be surprised. All that is to say I don't have much to say. My excuse for a post is a list of what has been buzzing through the headphones as of late. Lots of old and new...I just learned how to play "Hotel Yorba" on guitar which explains why it's back in rotation.

• Almost—Sarah Harmer
• She & Him’s “Volume 1” album
• The Moneymaker—Rilo Kiley
• The Greatest—Cat Power
• Hotel Yorba—White Stripes
• New York, New York—Ryan Adams
• Say What You Want—Rosie Thomas
• Heartbeats—The Knife
• There She Goes--Babyshambles
• Yankee Bayonet—The Decemberists
• "Escondida” album –Jolie Holland*
• Great Salt Lake—Band of Horses

* I dug out "Escondida" after a street busker was playing "Old Fashioned Morphine" while I was out to dinner and it got wedged in the head.

Football season is back and I am genuinely excited and not just because my fantasy teams are going to be asskickers; I love the Sundays of possibility. Hope springs eternal at least once a week during the season.

Hypo

My beloved friend Jeff was a rather serious hypochondriac and he'd be convinced that every malady was life-threatening, even if it was something like a splinter. In college it would make me laugh to watch him freak out at every sneeze, sure that it was SARS or monkey-pox. He was someone who should have never been allowed to watch any medical shows or movies.
Confession: I'm a hypochondriac too. Just about the wrong things. Like when I had the whooping cough back at the beginning of 2006 I was convinced it wasn't something serious and that some orange juice and rest would cure me right up until I stopped being able to breathe (btw I just went back and read that post...it has a lot of crap in it. Kelly Clarkson, Burt Reynolds and my decision to apply to Windy Gap...wow).
But then I could have a sore throat and I'll be convinced that I'm having an allergic reaction and that my throat is closing and that I need an EpiPen right at that moment. So odd. I just don't want to live in medical fear.
I should probably find a way to balance that out, recognize the serious and the benign before my arm falls off from leprosy and I'm convinced it's just a cramp.

Conventions

So I'm a bit of a presidential political junkie...I followed the primaries and previous campaigns with a feeling akin to watching a slow wreck where I don't want to watch but can't turn my head away from it. These conventions have been an experience, that's for sure. My friend from college, Jonas, works for CSPAN and has been sending email updates from both conventions and I thought I'd share a bit of what she is witnessing. It offers up a different view.

From the Democratic Convention in Denver:

Romney showed up at the Pepsi Center in Denver this week (he was doing analysis on CNN, who by the way, has a skybox bigger than most people's houses), and C-SPAN has video of him wandering aimlessly outside the gates, waiting for someone here to let him in. Priceless.

Also, The Crowd outside of the Daily Show has been about three times larger than the crowd outside of CNN.

Oh, and FOX news put their lights too close to the sprinkler system in their Skybox. FOX was safe, because they moved all of their stuff out of the way of the water, but the Skybox below them, which just happens to belong to PBS, was mysteriously not informed of the water raining down, and it shorted out their video fiber...so they went to black, LIVE on the air.

Just a few highlights from Denver...

And from the Republican Convention in Minneapolis:

Went to a party on Monday night held by what I like to refer to as the "gray area lobby" (i.e. Liquor, Prescription drugs, and tobacco subsidiaries, as opposed to actual tobacco companies). Drinks were, of course, excellent. Four floors of entertainment in downtown Minneapolis, including belly dancing on the third floor, and a cigar porch on the second, complete with former MSNBC personality Tucker Carlson holding court, surrounded by women. Went to grab a lobster puff (to go along with my "we swear they're not cuban" cigar) and ran into Rudy "I used to be someone" Giuliani.

Also, Republican boys are creepy. One shouted at me as he walked past holding his cigar "Try it, you'll like it" in a totally lecherous way.

PS. If you were wondering why all of the "handmade signs" that the crowd is holding up at the Republican Convention look uniform and beautiful, that's because each and every sign that is in the crowd was made by a single RNC intern with a colorful sharpie... I asked her.

On Tuesday, yelled at Joe Lieberman and Andrea Mitchell (NBC) for messing up my groove...

Oh politics...you could make a bitter cynic out of just about anyone.

John McCain is Buggin'...

Oh Huffington Post, I love you for things like this...
P.Diddy's take on the Sarah Palin announcement. I have no idea why he is spinning most of this video, but it's just great. He's crazy. Just go look up Diddy's Video Blog on Youtube and you will thank me. Specifically look up "Bitchassness Alert Level Orange"

God's World

It's the end of the summer, that time when football season fires up, new habits are promised and seem possible and I develop an insatiable desire to buy school supplies. I can't help it, I really do love the smell of Staples and Office Depot. It smells organized.

This summer flew. I don't know if it flew by necessarily, but it flew...flew into messes and storms, flew into vistas and sights both breathtaking and life-giving, it soared just as it was tossed. I loved it. Late nights, lack of sleep, lots of laughter...sigh.

As we start this season of the fall, when God's World can no longer be held in the swelter, when leaves give up their chlorophyll uniforms for the more colorful undergarments of reds and yellows, it is then that I am hope.

Fall is my favorite season.

Surprising since summer was one so blessed I can hardly fathom life getting better.

"Long have I known a glory in it all
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,--Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year..."
(E.St.V.M, portion of "God's World")