So this weekend I took another step back in the direction I was headed about 3 years ago, and then proceeded to let myself get derailed by love. This time though, I'm going to be both thinner, and married. I got the bike out of the storage area, and put it on the damn training rack, and got a new smooth tire, set it up in the bedroom (because we have no other space) and proceeded to ride it. Now, I only got through 3 Severna Park songs (I used to do the entire record, or the whole Sicko "You are not the boss of me" LP) before I thought my heart would explode, but I did it. and I have done it every night since. Already I feel 100 percent better, just sweating for 12 minutes. I'm anxious to get back to where I was - doing the 30 minutes and not thinking twice about it. Because THAT is what got me out of my rut before. No matter how little I eat, I only lose weight if I sweat. Walking 3 miles a day doesn't even cut it - my body is so used to that as a daily routine sort of thing that it doesn't even register as a workout anymore, it is just part of my day. Which blows. But anyway, I'm stoked that I might return to that mindset that I had a few years ago - I remember going with my mom to Vegas while she visited with friends, and I was so freaked out by not having a bike to ride, I just started walking around the frigging desert - walked from the MGM to the Hard Rock, and back around...almost in a fit about not burning calories. Sure that sounds nutty, but for me, it was a big improvement over simply not giving a damn.
The weird thing this time is now I share my life with someone, so I sort of feel obligated to behave in a somewhat normal manner (no dinners of air-popped popcorn for me) eating-wise, which with any luck will mean I will actually create habits that will stick, and I won't slide into a rut again.
It's strange though, sometimes I feel like SMRGE thinks the whole idea of sweating is silly. It's easy for him though - he has that massive cancer to feed, and it keeps him rail thin. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once again, a whole week slides by and brings us to the Friday Five
1. Explain why you started to journal/blog.
Because I had/have an overwhelming desire to write. The journal provided me with the one forum I always wanted, which is basically a daily personal forum to ruminate on all types of subjects, both personal and non.

2. Do people you interact with day to day or family members know about your journal/blog? Why or why not?
Well, this is actually my second blog. I started with a journal at another site, which was very honest and sometimes bordered on rabid. Some of the stuff I wrote about was pretty damn funny/insightful (or so they tell me; it's still out there - though the most recent entries are admittedly lame). I covered everything from daily walks with my dog to current world politics. I initially pointed a lot of friends who lived far away there so they could sort of keep up with me as if I was still physically writing letters all the time. Beyond that, I was unattached when I started journaling online (talk about adding fuel to the fire) and then started going out with the guy who I eventually married - in fact, when we first got together, I pointed him to it immediately, figuring it was the best way for him to get to know "me" fastest. But as we spent more time together, I felt more and more uncomfortable writing about us and as I grew more aware of how many people were reading, it seemed like I couldn't come up with the same quality of writing...so I blogged less and less, until finally, I'm pretty sure, no one checks it anymore. I moved here, in an effort to regain the anonymity of before, in the hope that it would move me to write more often, because ultimately, I miss writing everyday.
Oh, and only one brother knows about the journal, and I'm pretty sure he never bothered to check it out. The rest of my family is either not online, or haven't been told. I have had people find my journal via searches, and sometimes, since they haven't talked to me in years, have gotten all ganked up about things they've read. It has led me to edit a bit, and write less - but things have changed in my life a lot, i have less free time to just write in general - i used to do a lot of it at work, and that just isn't as doable as it was before.

3. Do you have a theme for your journal/blog?
Is honesty a theme? Ranting? Mindless drivel?


4. What direction would you like to have your journal/blog go in over the next year?
I'd like to regain the more immediate tone my previous effort had. I'd like it to be thought-provoking.

5. Pimp five of your favorite journals/blogs.
Okay, but my favorite blogs are oldschool, that is they were online journals before "blogging" was *cool*. Some don't update very often, but when they do, it's always worth it.
Heather
Lance
Mary
Gus
Ceej

In a desperate attempt to avoid the reality of having fucked up my marriage...how about 5 inane questions from Friday?

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn't have breakfast, why not?
english muffin with cranberry jam i made at xmas, and a banana.

2. What's your favorite cereal?
Post cranberry nut crunch.

3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change?
not often enough. yeah, it'd be cool if we went out more to eat, though i do like to cook, so it's not too big a deal.

4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that?
Uh, gonna roast a chicken...yeah, i've got a recipe. Probably do brocolli and potatoes with.

5. What's your favorite restaurant? Why?
Golly, i don't go enough to have a favorite, but i really enjoyed bandaleone when we went there once, and i always enjoyed hana sushi, and the mashiko sushi place over in west seattle was nice as well.

So, yeah. He gazed across the table and broke the silence (not an uncomfortable silence, just a comfy hey-here-we-are-at-the-local-mexican-joint-for-grub silence) with "So, how about those Juno boys, eh?"
To which I replied the only way I know how "They are a most talented group of guys." To which I added, "And they rocked the fuckin' house Saturday, and the bass player, that Jason guy, owned those songs."
I said that, because the man did, and it was no small feat.

One of the first webjournals i ever came across (while surfing on Xerox/Microsoft's dime) was Musings of the Gus - which I found through some random search for punk rock sites back in the day (that'd be '95 or so, for those of you keeping track at home)). Anyway, I still read Gus fairly often, though I took a long break from his rambling stuff while he was in LA; as I found he had become boring, and the inclusion of adventures with his girl were not just boring, but poorly written. But he's back on the East Coast now, and with a new girl who obviously indulges his sardonic side, which is nice to see. Occsionally he writes something and I feel like he's beaten me to the punch. Tow wit:
"For those of you who are religious and wonder what message God was trying to send with today's disaster, hold on to your Bibles and fret no more, I think I have this one figured out! The problem seems to have been with the Columbia's left wing, which either broke off or otherwise malfunctioned while the shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere. I'm thinking that God was fed up with the continuing marginalization and oppression of the Left by the present American administration, and in His own inimitably mysterious way, decided to send our nation a message by smiting the left wing of its most famous and flamboyant of wing-ed craft, thereby demonstrating an important fact: you cannot fly without a left wing."
Nicely done, Gus.

Well. I had big plans to post over the weekend, what with all the action, but it (as usual) got pushed back. I wanted to wax rhapsodorically (you like that? yeah, me too.) about the wonder that is the local band Juno, as I don't think I've done that in this venue (and it'd be a nice break from the constant braying about my lost punk rock youth. Although it seems that that is what my internet presence has become, merely a sounding board for my inability to cope with not being part of the scene anymore). However, the space shuttle is on my mind, as it is many people's lately. Though I'll wager my thoughts aren't like theirs.
Here's why: I am one of those freaks who wasn't terribly upset by the explosion of the Challenger. I'm assuming here that there are some - though I have yet to come across anyone who doesn't go on and on about how it impacted them. I was in college, a freshman when it happened. I remember it quite clearly, because it was still so new that the launches were still regularly broadcast on TV. Being the speed demon that I was at the time, I was routinely up at 6am on weekday mornings, usually at Mike's apartment, watching TV before hitting class. Generally, I enjoyed indulging in Jim & Tammy Faye (it's a long story, though fairly humerous, it's too long to go into here, now, but rest assured I wasn't a member of the GodSquad) - but that morning, we were indeed watching the Today show (as I recall) and the liftoff. I do remember being amazed that I was actually seeing it happen. I remember thinking "Wow, it really did blow up. Live, in front of the world." Because at that point in our country's sordid little history, we didn't have a long list of public deaths to choose from: you had JFK, RFK, MLK, and uh, oh, yeah, Lee Harvey Oswald. Beyond that, not a lot going on in that area. It had been a long time since we'd seen heroes go down. Certainly it was my generation's first experience. But here's the weird part for me: I didn't dwell on the deaths as unfortunate lives lost. Naw. It hit me then, as it does now, that part of the risk in being an astronaut is the danger of what you are doing. Seriously. You are shooting a tube full of people into space. Not just the sky (I mean, if you concentrate on it, airplanes are just begging to be smacked down by Nature) but into space away from the earth. With big, explosive rockets. It's a dangerous gig my friends. Just because the Space Shuttle looks like a plane doesn't mean it is one. But I'm digressing (obviously). My point is that part of what (I think, though the the loved ones' of the dead seem to concur) attracts people to being an astronaut in the first place is the danger. The risk. Because the payoff (being in outer space) is awfully fucking cool. Have you seen the video from the mission? Do you see anyone bummed out? Sad? Bored? Hell no. Every person looks totally into what they are doing, and if there is one thing that I know, it's that when you are living in the moment, fully enjoying what you are and where you are, that is what makes life worth living. They train for the mission. They are aware of the risks, and they choose to do what they do because at some point your will to do it supercedes everything else. If they had second thoughts they would stay on the ground. I furmly believe that. Which is why I'm sickened by all the weepy bullshit around America. It's NOT some horrible loss - it is in fact a great example of the courage and daring that makes some people truly inspiring. I can't see it any other way. I can' t mourn for those people, because I don't believe they lost their lives in vain, or due to some sort of preventable issue. Yeah, I realize the explosion is most likely due to a malfunction, but those happen. Risks are there. Statistically, we're gonna lose some shuttles. We are going to crash cars, planes are going to crash, generally, bad things happen in life. But to get all weepy does no one any good. Plus, let's all pull back and quit teaching our kids to be so goddanm morose. Grief counselors are a growth industry. It's time we as a nation frigging bucked up. To wit, I offer Hunter S Thompson in today's salon:

So yeah, the Friday crutch returns with:
1. As a child, who was your favorite superhero/heroine? Why?
Really wasn't all that hip to superheroes - they all seemed like dorks to me. I just never bought it. However, I did watch Shazam! pretty regularly, so whoever that guy with the red+gold outfit and fist in the sky who travelled in an RV with his dad, or grandpa or whatever Uncle Curmudgeon character there was...that'd be it. Or maybe Underdog. Or Bullwinkle. Is Bullwinkle a superhero? Maybe only to me.

2. What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got?
Ooooh! I had often hoped, early on, for one of the giant art kits...but never told my parents (I don't think, anyway) but really the only thing I ever really hoped I'd get was a new English saddle (yeah, we had horses) - the folks came close though. One christmas I did wake to find a brand spankin' new (and quite wonderful) western saddle waiting under the tree - but i have to admit to being disappointed. I wanted the English, and I wanted a red bow. Ah well. I gave up the dreams of jumping, and went ahead and started barrel racing. Which i ended up liking...go figure. And it was a really nice saddle.

3. What's the furthest from home you've been?
Ah, favorite question ever. I think, milage-wise, it's Serbia. I think the furthest east was Novi Sad. Or North to Os, Norway. Or south, Sicily. One of those though.

4. What's one thing you've always wanted to learn but haven't yet?
Well, obviously, what I'm supposed to do with my life. Oh, and French.

5. What are your plans for the weekend?
Juno, baby, Juno. Gonna go bask in the glow of Arlie & Co. Yay.

The little croat still hasn't written. whatever. you'd think i'd catch the clue, but no...whatever.
how strange that i'm listening to NPR this morning and they're running a story about the remaining Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, and interview people in Novi Sad, Serbia. How bizarre that I've been there. I played a show in Novi Sad. What the hell? HOw many people can say that? How many Americans? Like a dozen of us, tops, yeah? I've done some wacky wacky shit.
Speaking of wacky shit - I ran into a ghost from my past (though I'd been sliding past him for months now - I was just waiting for him to have the nerve to say something to me, and yesterday, he did). Shay. What a sad state of affairs. Sad but funny, and all too satisfying in most respects. Especially when he suggested going to get a drink and I said no. But not for the reason he expected. Heh. Hell yeah. The rest of you may remain in yer little pit of doom, but me, i'm moving on - sure, it may be a trench of doom, but nonetheless, it's a trench, not a hole.

i've dug him ever since we pulled up by the side of the road outside of Rome and picked him up to begin our first european tour. back then, he was just a cute, foreign punk rock boy who liked my band enough to book us shows. who knew within 10 days he would have proven himself such and arrogant bastard that i was deriving glee from hocking green loogies (loogies? is that a word? and if it is, did i really just use it? yikes.) at the back of his long, lanky pant leg as he strolled ahead of me down the streets of Postonja. Yeah. Although we parted not so happy that first tour, it wasn't so bad apparently - he booked us a 2nd tour 10 months later, and that's when it got worse.
Though it started off well - me making nice, being pleasant, thinking that this time, I was gonna make him realize how rad i was. Besides, I was so pissed off and tired after the month spent with the Norwegians that I was thrilled to be around someone I knew.
Wow - suddenly i remember Marc, and that first stay with him at Crazy Pierre's. Ah, crazy Pierre, who literally was "postal". Those were the days...
Anyway, I bring up the long-legged freak because his lack of email response has once again bummed me out.
I'm really, really not in a good place right now. I keep doing nice things for him, and he blows it off.
Am I that - what?
I thought we were friends, but obviously i think more of our friendship than he does....and it depresses me to no end. We built this friendship back up, and he used to confide in me and now it's totally bland, and it bums me out. The email thing always pisses me off. And i shouldn't let it, i know.

So yeah, it's friday, and i'm trying to keep in the writing habit, hoping that it will settle in again...anyway, here are five that are a little uncomfortable...
. What is one thing you don't like about your body?
Ah, see, it used to be my stomach, or even my lack of cleavage, but now, in my mid-thirties, it's my back. It bums me out in a myriad of ways...

2. What are two things you love about your body?
Right, well my big brown eyes, even with their big ol' circles under them...and my legs. Strong, and muscular, they aren't at their peak at the moment, but they're still worthy of admiration.

3. What are three things you want to change about your home?
I would like to be in our own house, bigger, with a basement to practice in.

4. What are four books you want to read this year?
Ack. I want to read Steve Martin's other book(s), I'd like to get ahold of The Making of a Chef, and finish the Cometbus Omnibus. If it wasn't so big, I'd bring it on the bus.

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself?
Five? Crap. I haven't been very good at that lately - though one crucial promise i made involving tolerence i've been practicing pretty well. that's good.

ten years is such a long time; and yet, it's not. there are things from 15 years ago that i can remember perfectly, and then whole years seem to have vanished in the last decade. last two decades. hell, i've been back in seattle 10 years now. what the hell am i thinking? i'm way past my pull date...
now the time i spent in dc is more than ten years ago. no wonder i can't remember it. i might as well be trying to remember what happened in 7th grade. agh. it's not that i'm trying to remember, it's just that it seems like so little has happened in the last 10 years. even thought that's not really very true. it's just...not stuff i can talk about easily, because it seems like it's just been one big long 10-year slap upside the head. not that i didn't need a good solid downward spiral to get me wised-up and to figure crap out...but still.
man. 10 x 365. i should be skinnier by now. i was there for about a year. what happened to that? sad.

ok, so i haven't done this before, but this is keeps me making current entries at the very least:
(from the Friday Five)
1. Where do you currently work?
at a reprographics company.

2. How many other jobs have you had and where?
yikes. a dozen or more, probably. off the top of my head, jobs that provided paychecks started with Taco Time when i was in high school, then a photography company, the college library while i was in college, the Wiz records in dc, common concerns bookstore in dc, a buyer at Tower Records in scenic Rockville MD, uhm, shipping & reciveing at Olssons Books in dc, then the color graphic design extraveganza began on the graveyard shift at a Kinko's in Eugene. From there it was a Kinko's in Seattle, another indie repro house as a color specialist, then XBS, Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, and then bringing me current to yet another indie repro company where i make graphic designer's junk look good.

3. What do you like best about your job?
location, location, location. also the limited autonomy. and an office with a door to the outside and a door between me and the rest of the building. oh, and not wearing an apron. that rules.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Ironically, the repitition. I get tired of asking people for fonts and explaining proportion and percentages, links and cmyk.

5. What is your dream job?
ultimately, photographer for National Geographic magazine, though i'd settle for any magazine.
smaller scale: personal chef is looking really good right now.

What a weird week it's been. Infinitely tired every day. At the same time, it looks like i will be at least trying to start a band again. Or, better said, I will be part of starting a band again, as i'm really just the...what? The person who brought others together to do this. Which means I want to, right? The really, really weird thing that is keeping me a bit off balance is that literally, the day i bring people together to start a band they identify a killer in Mia's case. It's true that I'm not in the inner circle of that entire crowd - but I was sort of in the circle next to that circle (same roomates, played gigs with them, hung out and drank at all the same places, and even turned down romantic advances from a certain member (ahem), etc, etc) and it hit me harder than I ever expected it to, and I didn't partake in any of the coattail-grabbing because, well, I thought it was in poor taste. But now, after ignoring the one thing that has always brought meaning to my life (that being punk rock, and you may think that's weak and sad, but you don't know what you're talking about) largely because of all the bullshit that started happening when everyone either decided that they immediately had to own punk rock; or, more tragically, they abandoned it because suddenly our trustworthy, hardworking, insular little dreamworld ((imagine a dreamworld where you survive travelling in a van on $5 a day and loving it)) had been breached - I'm ready to go back to being in a band. It just seems so strange that the two things happen at the same time. If I believed in fate, I'd figure something is up. But I don't, really, especially in the case of a band, and this is clearly not gonna be a punk rock band, so it won't be all I want - but maybe it'll be close.

Some things you just don't expect to happen after a certain point: you don't expect the Berlin Wall to fall after 50 years, you don't expect Nelson Mandela to be released (much less become President of South Africa) after 25 years, and you (or I) don't expect Mia Zapata's murderer to be tracked down by DNA evidence 10 years after the fact.
Seriously. I can't approach the sort of emotion I'm sure some of my old housemates and *friends* in the punk rock scene are feeling at the moment, but I can tell you that it hit me like a ton of bricks, because, like most people, I had accepted that we just weren't ever going to know who did this spectacularily evil thing. Then you see the mug shot up on screen and in print and you go: holy shit, there is a guy who, yeah, could have taken one of the smartest, strongest women voices of our generation out. It's chilling. Last night I was hanging out with some women, formulating a plan for a band, and while two of us were of that generation and that era of knowing (or knowing of) the Gits, one wasn't. And it was hard...so hard to communicate the urgency that this was a big, big BIG deal. That Mia's murder was one of those things that makes me shake my head in disgust when people lament the loss of Kurt Cobain. Fuck that Cobain shit. We lost a shining, active, compassionate, powerful woman because some violent predator had an itch. Until the day I found out Mia died, I walked through my life on streets around the world without fear, confident I could take care of myself, that I was big, strong and tough. That I wasn't some cutesy little girl target. It couldn't happen to women like Mia or me. I was wrong. And seeing a picture of the guy who apparently did it...makes me realize how many guys are out there.
It's better knowing, but it doesn't change the reality of the world I live in. I don't get back that confidence I had. Neither does anyone else.
But they caught him, in what I would consider to be the only constructive use of that sort of information networking.

No good movies to speak of. We did rent the animated (as if there could be a live action version of) Plague Dogs - but it was an old tape, sound was bad, and the Yorkshire accents make you feel like you should have prepped by watching 8 hours of "All Creatures Great and Small" ), and worse, the story is severely trunecated from the book. Of course, thanks to Peter Jackson, we can all appreciate the hardship created by trying to cram a heavily detailed novel (which the Plague Dogs is - much of it consumed by descriptions of places - crags, bogs, streams, mist, all of it to enhance the leading character's perspectives: being dogs, they primarily depend on their keen sense of smell above all else, and that translates into the descriptive ambiance of the novel) into an hour and a half (or is this case, 88 minutes). My disappointment though was with the grim ending that was tacked on the end of the movie. At any rate, the book is a hard, long read, full not only of enviornmental detail, but tough dialect, but well worth the time. Easily one of the best, yet saddest books I've ever read. If you own a dog, you must read the book. Insights into animal experimentation, the role of the media in society, the mindset of "simple farm folk" and above all, the sentiment that the world is a bad place for dogs - will resonate for weeks.
Yeah. So in a complete 180 from that, I picked up and finished "Shopgirl" by Steve Matrin (yeah, the wild and crazy guy one) this weekend - what a great novella. Nicely crafted, wonderful pacing, and above all: the man knows how to write an interesting paragraph. I love that I had to pick up a dictionary no less than 5 times while reading a 180-page book: better yet I surmised the meaning of all but one of the words (and on that, I was close, just unsure of it's usage), which means Martin used them appropriately (at least in my mind). I'm such a vocab geek that I actually respect that if a writer can use a word in passing without it standing out (that is as a noun) and I don't recognize it I like it.Anyway, a fine, bittersweet read balanced by witty prose and cutting humor. Will read his other book as well.

this isn't the first time: i've had this dream before, only this time he was serious. No, really, how punk rock must I be if I've got Ian M coming to me in my dreams and discussing how I'm not being creative and wasting my talent? WTF??!!?? Holy shit. And it's bad enough that this happened, but this is the second time, and he seemed very serious. So, my subconcious apparently can only come up with a major punk rock icon who i have major historical misgivings about (not to mention limited personal interactions with) to drop the "get off yer ass" bomb? Jeez. It was like the dream I had with Brad years ago (the one that slapped me awake and made it clear that mooning over your highschool crush for 10 years is ridiculous and sad. Of course, meeting back up with him helped as well. Best Use Of A Reunion Meeting Ever). And then the one with MCWDITW, where he too laid it out (but see, we know that it's not them laying it out, it's me, laying it out for me. nice Smeagol...right) in clear terms that it just wasn't going to happen that he and i were ever going to be friends again. though admittedly i enjoyed the dream where he was giving facilities tours in a dress better, but what are ya gonna do?
meanwhile. listening to cassettes because the cd player has gone belly-up, so it's a punky-weird mix. Bob Mould, Black Sheets which is fab - and old old OLD googoodolls. which rules in a jawbreaker way. forgot about that. and soon up: black market clash. though i wish the cd did work, cause i'd rather hear the live album, but whatever. a little joe is better than no joe.

yeah, books and movies.
although, i suppose you are supposed to log things as they happen. but if i can be retro for a minute, and start at the end of the year - wait, only movies i go to, or all the movies i see? hrmmph.
must think that one through. But I can say that at 3.30 on Wednsday the 18th of december SMRGE and I attended the Two Towers, and were shoved in row 2, all the way at the edge - but still liked the movie.
except for the Farimir part.
And the Aragorn-over-the-cliff-part.
Ah well. We're going to give it another go tomorrow, hopefully with better seats (11am at the cinerama, one hopes that will lessen the push for seats) and maybe we'll exit with a better taste in our mouths.
Hopefully.
Gotta buy a bus pass. Lose 20 lbs (again) and...write more letters. And send jam.
List books I've read too? Wish I'd done that this last year, as I read more than I have in a long time - right now, reading "the plague dogs" it's good. sad, but good. i like dogs.

The sad part is, if you don't have the p-rock in yer heart, you just don't get what I'm feeling on days like this (and the day Dee Dee Ramone died, and the day I found out Tim Yo died as well). Sure, you can email me links to silly news articles written by people who barely know anything about the Clash beyond the armadillo-in-the-video stuff, but you don't know what it feels like. It's like when people (and not many do, but there are a couple of well-meaning folks who do) try and tell me that they miss their old job/boyfriend/dog the way I miss punk rock. No. No you don't. You don't frigging get it. Because I barely do. At times like this I really miss having a punk rock...place to be, I guess.
Not that it's ever helped before - and it'll never be as bad as finding out about Tim Yo, but probably that was painful mostly because I had actually interacted with the man, that time, that place was very specific.
Argh. Who knew?

And now there's no more Joe Strummer. I'm sad, and not even from a fan-based sadness, but from a general feeling of losing one of those icons from my youth - one of those people who had a hand in bringing to life the reality of the culture I consider myself a part of. Say what you will about hte Clash (and plenty of people do) they still were the Who of punk rock, and they left an indelible mark. People like this dying makes me really aware of what's ahead...all the people I know (or have known) in the scene, what happens when they eventually "leave the bar"? How sad will that be? How sad will I be?

So many new walks with Scraps - it's hard to keep up with them, and so far nothing spectacular. Yet. Oh, except for the fire truck that pulled up as I was taking her for the early morning one block circuit - a woman met the five fireguys who were striding importantly across her junk-strewn front yard ( I imagine she is the bad sheep of the block, as all the nearby homes are all tidy little brick things with happy porches and festive gardens right out of the Sunday Magazine Insert) on the porch declaring that they were called for her, but she had "only been drinking beer and had taken some Excedrine, those guys are drinking and tripping downstairs, you don't have to stay." Meanwhile, Scraps watched carefully as a cop car pulled up to the house, but the cop didn't immediately exit the vehicle as we passed (perhaps he knows to let the Cattle Dog have the right of way)...anyway, all this excitement at 5am on a Tuesday, woohoo!
Also. On the bus (my ride is almost twice as long, though I'm traveling half as far - a moment of silence for the memory of my old route (and ST bus, by the way, which are soooo very posh!) the 570. Now, I'm a victim of Metro again, held captive by the 70-something routes, none of which run an express bus before 7am. WTF? Anyway, my point was going to be to try and capture the dismal scene that played out (like they do) on the bus this morning. Literally, the classic blonde-haired white trash mom and her little boy, about 6 or so, traveling to Renton (nope, dunno why) on their way to the bus tunnel because once Mom gets in the bus tunnel she "knows exactly" where she is.
Well, one would hope so, since everything goes the same way in the tunnel, and it's just a matter of waiting for the bus with the appropriate number to pull up. No pesky streets to suss out, no confusing blocks to navigate...ack.
Sadder still was the story Mom was telling on the bus to her friend across the aisle (the one whose two kids were sitting in the rear of the bus and who claimed ownership of not 2, 3 or even 5 kids - no. This woman claimed to have 8 children. How is that even possible in this day and age in an urban setting and when you are single and unemployed? C'mon now...people, people people.
Right, so what I was saying. Blonde WT Mom was relating about how her son's (whose name was Trevor, it appeared. Ah to be saddled with that nom de jour, ick) father wasn't paying child support and was a deadbeat, and "obviously doesn't care about his child" and she just kept saying it, over and over, while the son was shifting uncomfortably around. I just was so sad for this kid - and not in a "poor guy, no dad" way. But in a "poor kid, he must be sick of listening to his mom bitch and moan". If I learned one thing when I had custody over a kid who grew up hearing nothing but her mom's problems - it's that you shouldn't unload in front of or onto your kid. You just shouldn't do it. They don't deserve that pain or that burned. They aren't your friends, they are your kids. Kids who hear that shit day after day grow up thinking the world is out to get them, and it's up to them to comfort their parents. It is not the kid's job (when they are children) to comfort the adult. Goddamn, I wanted to slap that woman just to shut her up. Her kid seemed bright (I was watching him examine the bus and watch as we passed stuff - he wasn't just staring blankly like I've seen most kids do.
Must run now.