I Know the Meaning of Every Word

Preface: This is totally dumb but it was fun to make up. Call it a strange writing exercise. I decided I'd take words, break them down into other words then base the definition of the original word on that. So now I can know the meaning of every word, even as they are entirely wrong. Happy weekend.

Original word: Determination.
Deter: to discourage or refrain from acting
Min: little
at: preposition, used to indicate a location
ion: type of a molecule with unequal number of electrons and protons

Thus Determination means: “the small discouragement expressed toward charged particles.”
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Original word: Lifeline.
Li: Ancient Chinese word for ritual
Feline: Cat

Thus Lifeline means “the cat ritual”
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Original word: Turban.
Tur: type of pea or bean
ban: to not allow, to restrict access to

Thus Turban means “disallow access to a pea”
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Original word: Destiny.
Des: code for diethylstilboestrol, a synthetic estrogen known to cause vaginal tumors
Tiny: small, minute
Thus Destiny means “Small synthetic estrogen samples”
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Original word: Fundamental.
Fun: joyous, enjoyable
Da: slang, meaning yes in German
Men: adult male of the human species
tal: rain or dew

Thus Fundamental means: “Joyous males say yes to rain”
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Original word: Incumbent.
In: within or contained by something
Cum: male sexual discharge
Bent: crooked, not straight

Thus Incumbent means “Male discharge contained crookedly”or by its common name, penis.
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Ok, that was fun to make up. Stop rolling your eyes at me. I work from home now, remember? I have a lot of time to just sit around.

Poppin' Pills

I was briefly back at my father’s house the other week, between the business trip in DC and Natalie’s memorial service in Loudoun, and within twenty minutes of arriving I was out on the back deck with my dad and a BB pistol. We didn’t have any cans to shoot but we did have some old prescription pill bottles which we subsequently massacred.


Sometimes my memoirs write themselves.

Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe, Madonna Edition

Time to do another edition of "Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe" but this time I feel the need to focus on one specific artist, the Material Girl herself Madonna. I found a dearth of little nuggets; here are the first few. There may be more. Enjoy.
(older lists may be found here and here)

“I just think of you and I start to glow…” (Lucky Star)
Really, Madonna? You glow? Do you mean glow as in sweat, because that is fairly disgusting to admit. I'd maybe use "glisten" or "dew". Do you mean glow as a pregnant person glows? Do you just think of someone and you are knocked up? Wow. I'd say cover your eyes. Or do you mean like ET glow, like his creepy red heart in his chest thing? Do you have an uncanny urge to eat Reese’s Pieces and “phone home”? Do you see where this could be an issue, Madonna? None of these sound too appealing. ET might be cute and all but no one wants to sleep with him.

“You can turn this world around
And bring back all of those happy days” (Holiday)
Who the hell are you dating, Madonna? Who is this that can turn the world around, does this mean they can go back in time? Do we all go back in time when he decides to turn the world around? Do you mean “Happy Days” like the show, because by the time it ended we had the phrase “jumped the shark” for a reason, Madge. It sucked. Do you mean he can turn the world around as in make days, because I hate to tell you but he isn’t the one making the earth turn that way. That’s gravity doing all the work and you are a moron.

“Been saving it all for you
'Cause only love can last” (Like a Virgin)
Madge: you have obviously never heard the whole “Twinkies never rot” theory. I hear they can last for a long ass time. Hope the “it” to which you are referring is your massive stash of Twinkies or that guy is gonna be wicked disappointed.

"Yeah, your love thawed out
What was scared and cold" (Like a Virgin)
The words “love” and “thawed” should not go together. Love is not frozen peas, Madonna. You don’t grab a box of love out of the freezer to make a complete meal out of some fish sticks. Nor is love a microwave. Love is not where one puts a frozen breast of chicken to thaw it out. Well I guess they could but that seems to be stretching a vague metaphor a bit.

“Gonna get to know you in a special way
This doesn't happen to me every day” (Into the Groove)
Madonna: I beg to differ….somehow I think it just might happen to you every day. I’d love to see your day scheduler. Wake up, breakfast, shower, getting to know you in a special way, jog, adopt a baby, lunch…

“I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing” (Like a Prayer)
WTH is an angel sighing for? It sounds like the angel is exasperated, or in a mouthwash commercial. Does this angel have asthma? How does one know how to adequately compare a voice to an angel’s sigh? I looked it up on the Google and I could find no audio. Do you get a lot of angel’s sighing to you, Madge? You might want to get this checked out.

Beauty's where you find it
Not just where you bump and grind it (Vogue)
Is this a revelation to you, Material Girl? Most people say beauty is found out in nature, or in the smile of a child, or, I don’t know, in puppies and kittens and rainbows. You know, at the very least, that it isn’t just where you bump n’ grind it. Well done. In the game of 20 questions about where one can find beauty, you've knocked out one crucial question. I actually believe this point you’ve made, I just want to make fun of you for making it. Progress comes with age, Madge!

"I'd like to express my extreme point-of-view
I'm not a Christian and I'm not a Jew" (American Life)
Just because you are not a Christian or a Jew does not make your point-of-view “extreme”. It makes it pretty common actually. You gotta find more extreme points-of-view. Like if you had mentioned the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Birther movement or something I might say, “Wow that Madge really does have extreme points-of-view,” but no, I don’t think that when you tell me you don’t like the Bible.

"We only got 4 minutes to save the world...." (4 Minutes)
Several questions….first: really? 4 minutes? I didn’t know Armageddon had a snooze button. I didn’t know that when the world ends, we were going to be given a rough estimate of its timing. How long has this been counting down? And you thought when we were four minutes away would be a good time to tell the rest of us? This isn’t New Years Eve, Madge, this is the end of the mutha-loving world. And who told you anyway? Was it supposed to be a big surprise? And Madonna, somehow I don’t think you are the person the world would elect to save us. That Timberlake bloke: maybe. He's cute.

More Thoughts on the Barn

The time at the Big Blue Barn blessed on many levels.

It reminded me how much I love my friends; how they let me be my nerdy self and just accept it; that they too are nerdy and highly intelligent but still can sing all the words to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and will willingly spend at least an hour racing along a hardwood floor in socks, seeing who can slide the farthest.

It was carte blanche to temporarily be the Lost Boys from Neverland. We ate what we wanted, didn’t go anywhere, invented games and adventures and knowingly threw ourselves down steep icy hills toward fences and cows. We slept where we fell when we grew too tired to move.

Most of the time, I want to feel more grown up. I want my own place; I want to nest and shop for the week and make dinner for someone I love. I want to be part of a pair (2010 is the year of finally admitting this).

But during that snowstorm I got to live in a little microcosm of community as part of a posse—I wasn’t a single entity on my own—I was standing with loves. It was fleeting but so sweet to me and will be a time I recall fondly for years to come.

(photos stolen from Jenna, who, unlike me, has actually uploaded her photos)

Whoa Dolly

I met Dolly Parton a little over a week ago.
Cool, I know. There we are. Me, Dolly and a few coworkers.
Best. Job. Ever.

He's a Race Fan

As seen at the NASCAR race. This is their actual license plate. They love Mel that much.

Start Your Engines...

Every now and then I get a few days of outlandish.
It takes on several forms, be it impromptu trips to the beach (for a day), brew tours, a caving trip gone wrong by rednecks or just Waffle House at an ungodly hour. Yet each and every time I am struck with the same feeling of hilarity and awe—hilarity at the characters and situations, awe that I get to live it.
Two weekends ago the outlandish took the form of a ½ mile oval track called Bristol Motor Speedway, which is, I have now learned, is one of the more revered NASCAR tracks out there. Nathan and I first had to stop at Wal-Mart to pick up various sundries for the journey: ear plugs, size-specific coolers, tailgating chairs and the most ostentatious shirts we could find emblazoned with our token driver upon it. After fifteen minutes in Wal-Mart we were both itching to leave as quickly as possible. It was the people...that's when we realized how snobby we were. And how we were judging people by their clothes, their weight, what was in their cart or the rowdiness of their kids. I was sort of OK with snobby because of the stigma of Wal-Mart, the great homogenizer of the US. Hypocritical? Absolutely.
So after our forays into Wal-Mart and our subsequent judgmental rantings we met up with Cara and Anthony, who were coming off of a stay at a cabin near Hot Springs for their anniversary. Anthony's family has property and connections in Bristol and graciously let the four of us crash on various couches and air mattresses.
Saturday night we stayed out much too late at Anthony's cousins house, drinking PBR in cans and smoking cigars in the frigid night. One of the guys kept assuming I was married to Nathan and I/we didn't know how to tell him otherwise. I was keen to go along with it and would have probably made up a fantastic story about our wedding if I was assured the friends who knew better would have gone along with it.
We began tailgating around 9am at a campground less than a mile from the track. We fired up the grill and began to cook our brats and drink our beers and quietly play our music, like every other person there. I was laughing internally because though we were looking mighty redneck, the music we were blaring was bluegrass, not country. Our brats were from the organic grocery and were called things like “bison chiorzo”. Even our beers were microbrewed porters or organic ales. It was like we were just playing dress-up.
What can I say about the race? It was mighty loud, it was dizzying, it smelled like oil and rubber and my driver won. There was no conversing with the people around, no trash talking, no cheering on a team. The crowd was silent. Eerie to be in a stadium of 170,000 people or so and have it sound so ambivalent to the goings on. We did nothing but spectate; it might as well have been on TV.
Would I go again? Maybe not to a 'short-track' race. I have heard that longer track races allow time to actually speak to those around you, and that would be exactly the experience for which I was looking.

Weekly Ponderosa

Haven't done a weekly ponderosa in a while so sit back, relax and enjoy the buffet.



A redneck cashier in a fabric store correctly used the words cantankerous and minutia in a conversation with me that lasted less than two minutes. That is awesome.

Monday night Katie and I really wanted ice cream but the grocery store was closed. I stopped by a quasi-sketchy BP station and found they had three kinds of Ben and Jerrys. I picked up two pints and placed them on the counter. The cashier rang up the first then looked at me and muttered, "rich lady." I don't know either.

Ani Difranco is playing at the Orange Peel in March. Anyone? She's always good...

Friday night I met Cara and Margarita at Zambras for tappas, dessert and Spanish wine. A chill girls night out was necessary. Then Margarita and I stopped by the shop and drank moonshine with Adam and Brad while we talked about travel, pranks and whistles. Quite the jump in conversations and environments.

Women talk to themselves. A lot.

This is what my high school principal looked like. Seriously.

Now that I have my Sundays back I'm relearning them. I'm rusty at Sundays.

In a world so full of gadgets and high tech stuff, I love how much bright sunshine still has the ability to change things. So simple and yet so powerful.

For some strange reason, strangers feel the need to ask me what size I wear and then scoff, mock or make a snide comment when I answer them. I've actually had people become offended. Recently I've actually thought about lying and saying I'm bigger than I am. I don't understand this. I am the way I am, leave me be.

Yesterday my IT guy was wrapped in syran wrap by my coworker and they were giggling like little girls. Thank you for that.

Paris (For Now)

Bonjour!
I'm in Paris, drinking Heinekens at the computers in our Hostel, singing "Runaround Sue" with Hatcher...all day I have been saying, "I am in Paris!?" and laughing. Spent the day with Hatch and Derek, our new Canadian friend that we decided was our friend on the metro and made it truth at the Arc de Triomphe. That's another story for another time! What a great guy, that Derek/Jeff/Michael! I will post photos of this fabulous trip soon enough, just know that London and Paris have brought life to a soul already stuffed to the gills with zest.
Some notes:
I have great friends. Seriously, How am I so lucky to have these people?
My friends also have great friends, I love my friends' friends.
Liz now has possibly the greatest sister-in-law ever in Jess, whom I want to be my sister-in-law.
After a wedding nothing is quite so soothing as champagne and a soaking footbath.
Escargo: pretty tasty.
I think there is an FAA regulation that any and all flights longer than 2 hours within and from/to the US must screen at least one episode of "Everybody Loves Reymond"
Alana: shout out for the ride in the monsoon to the MARTA stop. So necessary.
Viva!
Back to the states tomorrow!

GAMES!

In honor of the graciousness Leslie showed me with the gift of Trivial Pursuit, 20th Anniversary Edition (and the smack talking from Kelly and Emilie) I've decided to take a long hard look at the games in my life, those I love and those I don't. It's an important thing to reflect upon.
And so, dear readers, a list.

Games I do not actually enjoy:

Settlers of Cattan. No offense to Marystuart or the McGlades but I seriously don't like this game. Maybe it's because I only tried it once, but I have the attention span of a goldfish...can't handle something this focused. Don't give a crap if I have enough wood or rocks or whatever to build whatever I'm supposed to build. To help with this point, I'd like to reference Robin's blogpost (scroll down, it's funny) about our experience trying to play Settlers last summer. It was when I knew Robin and I would be good friends, and when "bible joke" became a, well, joke.

War Games. Maybe it's cuz I was too young, but come on, Matthew Broderick, it's a computer. It can't be worse than Windows Vista.

Mind Games. Not the kind like "Simon" where you had to push the colors and remember the "beep boo bah beep beep" noise and color combo, that game...kicked its ass. I spanked that sucka. No I mean the kind people play on each other. That'll drive you nuts.

Monopoly. Why must this game take 47 years to play? Can't it just be quick? Can't my sister not be the banker and steal money and property when I wasn't looking (oh wait, I did that. Pays to be the less ADHD person in the fam)? Can't I not end up with Oriental Place and instead get something nice, like Indiana or Kentucky? Why does my sister get to be the scottie and I have to be the boot? This game sucks. Anything involving math or finance isn't fun.

Foolish Games. I'm sorry Jewel, but you are annoying as crap. I mean I owned "Pieces of You" just like everyone else, and Foolish Games isn't nearly as bad as "Hands" but still, that song sucks. Why is taking a coat off and standing in the rain "crazy like that"? Maybe he was hot. Maybe it was a leather coat. He's got reasons. Leave him be, Jewel.

Reindeer Games. Can't remember who was in this movie, but I think it's Ben Affleck and therefore it probably sucked. I have a sort of love/hate thing with Ben Affleck. It's complicated.

Twister. If I wanted physical contact from strangers I'd offer them tequila. Point is, I don't want physical contact. I don't think having some guy named Steve's armpit sitting on my eyeball is a "good time". That is not fun. I don't want Steve's socks anywhere near my face, no matter what the friggin' spinner is telling me to do.

Operation. If I wanted to play a game that would show me how not right I am for a certain occupation I'd play Risk or Guitar Hero or Sim City. This game just says, "Hey shaky hands, I got something new for you to suck at!" Listen, Operation man: You are overweight, you got shit stuck all in your body, your bones are remarkably disproportional and judging by the color of that schnoz of yours you've probably been hittin' the bottle a little too hard. I ain't helping you, jackass. I'm keeping my shaky hands to my self.

The Game. I think you were some member of 50 Cent's entourage. That's all I know, and that's all I want to know. Entourages shouldn't step out from entouraging.

The Game of Life. This game always pissed me off because I was a tiny pink stick person in a convertible who had to get married and have lots of babies and then go around to giant plastic houses and deal with money. If I wanted to play that game, I'd grow up.

Sabbath

Sometimes 'weekends' need to be a long sabbath and that's it.

After an extremely long and surprisingly stressful week at work, my weekend (Tuesday and Wednesday) needed to be a time to decompress, sleep, get the kink out of my neck and stop my eye from twitching. I'd say that's pretty ambitious.

So I skipped Quizzo on Monday (I know, shock, I actually skip Quizzo. I love it dearly but I was exhausted and in pain and didn't want to use my brain) to go to bed early and get rather intimate with a tube of Ben-Gay. That may have sounded weirder than I meant but I'm leaving it in. My blog, dammit. Mine. I haven't been sleeping well, as when I go to bed my room is a sauna but around 2:30am it is more fridge-like so there is a lack of consistency that is necessary to get to that blissful REM state.

My friend Katherine and I decided to abandon downtown Asheville on Tuesday and high tail it to the hills; Hot Springs to be exact. We spent most of the day laying in the cooling waters of the French Broad; small rapids doubled as cooling jets on our skin and we considered it a success when we both got goosebumps in August. Awesome. Perfect amount of sun and wind and water for a day.

(Katherine and her 8-month pregnant belly and the pretty heat rock she found to give Andy, her husband. A "Hey I played in a river all day but I got you a pretty rock" sort of present.)

We got back into town around 4, enough time to take a quick nap and shower before I drove south to Brevard and the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest. I met Jonathan at the Ranger Station and hopped in the infamous VW and we drove up to the parking lot for Mt. Pisgah where we made dinner, sipped wine and watched the sun set over the Smokies.

We had great plans to do a night hike up Pisgah but a big bowl of pasta and two glasses of merlot will do wonders to hiking ambition. Instead we talked til the moon was setting and pulled out the pop-top mattress and laid it on the ground to look at the stars, which took up every spot in the sky. Jonathan has a computer program that will show the exact night sky based on coordinates and so we were able to identify constellations I've never known. I fell in love with Vega last night. It was cool enough for a fleece and when we finally went to bed around 3 the sleeping bags were necessary warmth. Oh blissful altitude. Wednesday morning brought a brunch at the overlook for the Cradle of Forestry, a meal including coffee, pancakes and, of course, the Diane Rehm show. I'd say it was the best Sabbath I've had in recent memory. How I love my times to live in kairos.(the Cradle of Forestry made me think of ESF and want to shout out to the foresters I didn't know and the forestry classes I didn't take. But approximation is a powerful thing from 14 hours and five years away)
(There was a vernal pool full of bull frog tadpoles. I loved the self-importance of their world)

Good Times

I don't have much else to say about this photo other than this: I love my friends, I love JotW and I can't imagine loving life any more than I am right now.

Songs We All Know

When I was went to visit Lizzie in the UK last year we made a list of songs that people our age know all the words to; those songs that can be played in confidence that people who were in high school in the 90s probably know all or part of. This is not a complete list, feel free to add more. It's just funny to think about. And Leslie wanted to know what we came up with, so really this is just for her.

Runaway Train—Soul Asylum
No Rain—Blind Melon
Shine—Collective Soul
Basket Case—Green Day
Closing Time—Semisonic
Undone (Sweater Song)--Weezer
Daughter—Pearl Jam
One—U2
The Freshman—Verve Pipe
Only Wanna Be With You—Hootie and the Blowfish
Smells Like Teen Spirit—Nirvana
Possum Kingdom—Toadies
Santa Monica—Everclear
You Outta Know—Alanis Morrisette
Under the Bridge—Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cumbersome—Seven Mary Three
Two Princes—Spin Doctors
Blister in the Sun—Violent Femmes
Stay—Lisa Loeb
Santeria—Sublime
Run-Around—Blues Traveler
Wonderwall—Oasis
Mr. Jones—Counting Crows
Ants Marching—DMB
Interstate Love Song—STP
Spiderwebs—No Doubt
Hey Jealousy—Gin Blossoms
Lightening Crashes—Live
Today—Smashing Pumpkins
What's Up—4 Non Blondes
Only Happy When it Rains—Garbage
Glycerine—Bush
Dreams—Cranberries
Losing My Religion—REM
All I Wanna Do—Sheryl Crow
These Are Days—10,000 Maniacs
Lovefool—Cardigans

In addition to this mix there is also the Mid-90s chick mix, which was made in college and includes songs by Paula Cole, Meredith Brooks. Poe, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, etc. It's a funny flashback as well.

Pirates on the Coast

So here are some photos from our trip to Charleston a few weeks ago. There was this pirate statue, and Lord knows I love me some pirates, and then there were these 5 old ladies who ended up with the tablecloth bandannas on their heads like pirates, and it just got us thinkin'. And a few gin and tonics may have been involved too.


Ok that last one is more thug than pirate, but I had been trying to teach the old ladies how to spell BLOOD with their hands. Like the gang. Don't mess with me, I got thug in my veins.

Wild Weekend

Sorry haven't posted in a while. Here's a quick breakdown of the weekend that was:

Friday: Downtown after Five, free concert by Yo' Momma's Big Fat Booty Band and subsequent dancing-->quick bite at Bier Garden-->Salsa dancing at Mela's with Nate, John and Jane (don't be impressed, I didn't dance) --> booty dancing at Temptations til past 1. Note: I was in a tanktop, brown carrharts and old dirty rainbow flipflops. Total dancing outfit.

Saturday: Slept in--> “community festival” with Jane and Nant for hotdogs and people watching-->read, fretted, read, fretted-->downtown to meet up with Jess and her posse of drunk friends after their day at Brewgrass. I'd say 75% of downtown was Brewgrass patrons--> Dinner at Mamacita's-->decide to nix cabin camping plans with Jess and the crew. Too tired to deal with the really drunk-->On way back to car, meet up with Nate, Katherine and Andy-->French martini bar and best dessert EVER--> booty dancing at Temptations til past 1. These two occurrences I blame directly on Nate. He's so bootylicious he just has to dance.

Sunday-->Slept in-->met up with Jess and gang at Laughing Seed to say goodbye-->Get to see old high school friend Emily for the first time in, oh, 6 years or so-->wander downtown to peruse the shops--> Go home, change clothes, head to Nate's-->walk to Bier Garden to watch Redskins game with Nate, Anthony and Kara-->'Skins lose. I hate everyone-->all take cab to Ian and Tammy's for homemade piea night with whole gang-->Ride back to Nate's in the back of Katherine and Andy's station wagon-->watch episode of “Blackadder” with Nate-->booty dancing at Temptations til past 1 (no wait, that part I made up. I went home around 12:30 though.)

Beer Tours

What a great weekend! Wow! My friends Jess and Helen drove down from VA to visit. I know them from AL and was literally giddy with excitement to have them in the Ashevegas. Chuck and Kelley, two other ALers, live in Brevard so the five of us had a weekend in the big city. Friday night we went out to Mayfel's for some down home dinner, then over to Jack of the Wood for pints and Sons of Ralph (with Ralph!) before slogging back to my house for some much needed sleep. Saturday morning I made bagels while they went out to the farmers market and we had a substantial (and carb heavy) breakfast. We had talks of climbing and hiking but our friend Tim was meeting us so we decided to stay in town til he came around. First stop: right down the road at French Broad Brewing Company for a tasting and a growler fill of the Wee Heavy-er. Then downtown to show off more of this great city. It was a PERFECT day weather-wise to be walking around—cloudless, mid-70s, breezy—idyllic really, and we walked everywhere, including stopping to get Chuck a cigar. Took a rest at Laughing Seed for a late lunch, where Tim met up with us (and Jane stopped by with Nant). Our full stomachs drove down to Dirty Jacks for a pitcher of their cask porter outside in the sunshine. At this point we thought we might as well visit as many breweries in town as possible, so we walked around the block to Asheville Brewing for pitchers of the Scottish Ale (a personal favorite) and some serious games of Cornhole. The sun was setting, so back to my house to pack a bag and caravan to Brevard. We made a big dinner of veggies, rice and peanut sauce, all got in our mummy bags and watched “Bourne Supremacy” (Jason Bourne is my future husband and I wanted to show him off) before crashing mightily onto our respective thermarests. And then came the giggles. Out of control. Everyone. I was choking from laughing. This morning my stomach muscles hurt. Love it.
Kind of goes along with the previous post—being with your people can make all the difference. Outdoor educators are a motley bunch but they get each other, and it is a mighty feeling, being understood.