Unhinged? Me? Never!

It's been a long time since I've shared my horoscope here, but following a somewhat less than stellar morning I read mine over lunch and lookie what I found:

Your friends may think you are like a loose cannon today, but hopefully you are wise enough to maintain your natural stoic demeanor. It's just not a good idea to allow yourself to become unhinged now, as your spontaneity isn't as effective as your premeditated plan. But don't try to stop your thoughts. Just put extra time and space between the flash of awareness and speaking your mind.

Yes. Must stay wise enough to maintain stoic demeanor. That's my mantra for today.


And you know, I'm sure that none of my current attitude problem has anything to do with PMS. Really. It doesn't. Shut up!

The Onion Meme

Once upon a time many moons ago, I was tagged for a meme by my friend Fusion. It was so long ago perhaps he has even forgotten he tagged me, but elephants never forget (self-deprecating fat joke) so I've still got it on my To Do list. Today it comes off the To Do list and onto the blog.

I don't know what the official title of the meme was, but I like calling it The Onion Meme because it has layers. (A gold star for the first to identify the movie reference.)


LAYER 1: Tell us your...

* Name: Trueself
* Birthday (month, day): April 22
* Birthplace: hospital in ST1, a crappy small town in the heart of redneck country
* Current location: LNJ, a lovely small town in the heart of the Midwest
* Eye color: Depends on who you ask and what I’m wearing. I’m most commonly told Blue or Hazel and occasionally Green.
* Hair color: Brown with a bit of gray now that I can’t afford to get it colored anymore.
* Height: Five foot, seven inches.
* Righty or lefty: Lefty.
* Zodiac sign: Taurus.

LAYER 2: What's...

* Your heritage: I'm a combo of English and Scottish heritage.
* The shoes you wore today: My black comfy Dr. Scholl’s flats.
* Your weakness: Procrastination.
* Your fears: Not being a good enough mom to N.
* Your perfect pizza: Papa Del’s pan pizza with mushrooms, black olives, green olives and extra cheese.
* Goals you’d like to achieve: Health, both physical and mental.
* Your first waking thoughts: Shit, it’s another day.
* Your best physical feature: My nose. Really! It’s cute.
* Your most missed memory: Names of people from my past. I remember things that happened and who was there except their names escape me. Very frustrating. . .

LAYER 3: Do you...

* Smoke: Not for many years.
* Cuss: Yes. More than I probably should, but very rarely ever around N.
* Sing: Absolutely.
* Do you think you’ve been in love: Yes.
* Did you go to college: Yes to the Best University in the Big Ten.
* Liked high school: Most of the time.
* Want to get/stay married: Don’t want to stay married to W. Probably want to get married again.
* Believe in yourself: Sometimes, still working on it.
* Think you’re attractive: No freaking way.
* Think you’re a health freak: Not even close.
* Get along with your parent(s): Way more than I used to and not as much as I’d like to.
* Like thunderstorms: Hate them with a passion.
* Play an instrument: Five of them, not at the same time though, and currently only own two – piano and flute.

LAYER 4: In the past month have you…

* Drank alcohol: Yes.
* Smoked: Nope.
* Done a drug: Nope.
* Made out: Yep!
* Gone on a date: Yes.
* Gone to the mall: No.
* Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No.
* Eaten sushi: No.
* Been on stage: Depends on if being at the lectern at church counts as on stage. If so, yes. If not, no.
* Been dumped: No.
* Gone skating: No.
* Gone skinny dipping: No.
* Stolen Anything: No.

LAYER 5: Have you ever…

* Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes, strip poker.
* Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: That would pretty well describe my college years.
* Been caught “doing something”: Yes.
* Been called a tease: Many times.
* Gotten beaten up: No.
* Shoplifted: No.

LAYER 6:

* Age you did get/hope to be married: Married the first time at 27 and was still too young. I hope I’ll be married again before I hit 55.
* Numbers and names of children (either you have or want): Have 1, N; kind of want 1 more, a girl, but that’s highly unlikely.
* Describe your dream mate: Someone who will do everything my way all the time. (Hey! A girl can dream can’t she?)
* How do you want to die: Go to bed, fall asleep and never wake up.
* What did you want to be when you grow up: At various times during my childhood: hairdresser, teacher, president of the U.S., beauty queen.
* What country would you most like to visit: England, and if I ever do I’m gonna look up Freebird and Seeker and invite them to tea with me.

LAYER 7: Now tell...

* Name a drug you’ve taken illegally: Smoked weed twice in my lifetime. That is all.
* Name a person you could trust with your life: BJ.
* Name a favorite CD that you own: Dan Fogelberg, Netherlands.
* Number of piercings: Ears, one hole each.
* Number of tattoos: None, yet. . .
* Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: Many times when I was a student what with performances and achievements and such, once when I wrote a letter to the editor
* Name a past experience that you regret: Letting fear drive me into quitting my first real post college job.

Sunday Stealing: The Mud Meme

This week's Sunday Stealing is called The Mud Meme. I don't know why it's called that, but it is. Come up with your own rationale for it by reading the questions below or by checking out the Sunday Stealing blog. It may have been explained there and not noticed by those of us zooming in to grab the meme and get out quickly before work computer time was wasted.

1. What are your current obsessions? Cleaning and organizing (not that I am necessarily doing them just obsessing over them)

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often? Black pants

3. What's for dinner? Vegetarian Hot Dogs, Waffle Fries, Broccoli, Mandarin Oranges

4. Last thing you bought? Coffee

5. What are you listening to? Coworkers discussing a work project

6. If you were a god/goddess who would you be? Wilhelmina, goddess of caterpillars and butterflies (I totally made this up, any resemblance to actual goddesses real or fictional is unintended and purely coincidental)

7. Favorite holiday spots? Anyplace warm, preferably with a basketball tournament in progress

8. Reading right now? Blogs (when I can sneak time on a ‘puter somewhere)

9. 4 words to describe yourself. Healing, brave, fat, searching

10. Guilty pleasure? Watching “All My Children” daily. (I think I answered this before recently. Oh well, at least I’m consistent.)

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak? Myself. In spite of the arrogance of this statement, I think I’m pretty damned entertaining when I want to be. In an alternate universe I would’ve been a stand up comedienne.

12. Planning to travel to next? Seattle

13. Best thing you ate or drank lately? Papa Del’s pizza on my birthday. You can’t get better than that.

14. When did you last get tipsy? Probably when BJ and I went to Chevy’s and watched one of the NCAA tournament games while we had dinner accompanied by (for me) a delicious margarita. It was good that BJ was driving us home after.

15. Care to share some wisdom? Um. . . sure. . . if I had any to share. Thinking. . . thinking. . . thinking. . . Ok, here goes. If you are going to be outside in the middle of the day when it is sunny, warm and windy, put on sunblock and wear a light long-sleeved shirt to help guard against sunburn.

16. Nicest thing anyone’s ever said to you? Actually, it wasn’t said directly to me but to someone else in my presence during my being introduced to someone new at church. The woman introducing us referred to me as “my friend.” With as much difficulty as I have making friends I was thrilled that she thought of me as a friend. We remained friends and grew pretty close until her untimely death in her mid-40’s a few years later.

One and Only

While visiting my friend Val's blog I came across the following. I found hers interesting and thought I'd try it out myself.



Well, I took the quiz above using the name given to me by my parents. In addition to learning that I'm a possibly real, possibly mythical, possibly misunderstood sea creature, I learned the following:

Your 'Numerology' number is 9. If it wasn't bulls**t, it would mean that you are multi-talented, compassionate, and impartial. A humanitarian, you seek opportunities to help others.
According to the US Census Bureau°, 0.001% of US residents have the first name '[bizarro first name]' and 0.0079% have the surname '[English origin last name]'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name [my real name].

Yep, I'm an original alright.

I checked out a few other variations of my name, like using the first name that I go by rather than the one my parents bestowed in combination with my current last name (W's), my original last name, and for jollies even with BJ's last name. Interestingly enough I preferred my original results to any of the others. Go figure.

Something in Common

Isabella I was Spanish queen of Castile and León from 1474–1504.

Immanuel Kant was a German metaphysician and one of the greatest figures in philosophy in the 1700’s.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American physicist who made important contributions to the development of atomic energy for military purposes and later became one of the foremost proponents of civilian and international control of atomic energy.

Charlotte Rae is an actress, best known by many for her role as the house mother on the TV series Facts of Life.

Jack Nicholson, a venerable movie actor and avid Los Angeles Lakers fan, has starred in many memorable movies from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to The Shining to The Bucket List.

Peter Frampton is a singer. I listened to his music a lot in my high school years. Wonder what ever became of him.

Ryan Stiles is an actor who appeared both on The Drew Carey Show and Who’s Line Is It Anyway? He’s a funny, funny guy and reminds me a lot of a guy who went to high school with me.

What do all of these people have in common with each other and with me? We all share today, April 22, as our birthday. All in all, it’s a pretty damned good day to have been born. Just ask any of the following people, also born on April 22:

Actress Estelle Harris (Seinfeld)
Singer Glen Campbell
Singer Mel Carter
Country singer Cleve Francis
Director John Waters
Actor Chris Makepeace
Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy)
Actress Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks)
TV personality Sherri Shepherd (The View)
Actor Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty)

Sunday Stealing: The 40 Meme

1. My uncle once: took me to a dinner at his church because my aunt was agoraphobic and wouldn’t go.

2. Never in my life: have I gone skydiving.

3. When I was seventeen: I thought J and I would be together forever.

4. High School was: AWESOME!! Best years of my life, although I feel I’m on the cusp of even better years right now.

5. I will never forget: all the marching band trips we took in high school and all the making out that happened on them.

6. I once met: N’s birthfather, and listening to him regale us with stories of his street life as a gang banger and drug dealer scared the crap out of me.

7. There’s this girl I know who: spends far too much time worrying about the impression she makes on others instead of just being happy with whom she is. I wish I could help her understand that being authentic is the better way to live life.

8. Once, at a bar: I danced with my boss.

9. By noon, I’m usually: ready to start my day.

10. Last night: I got home around quarter to ten after a very long soccer weekend.

11. If only I had: the energy I used to have before the depression knocked me down into the black hole I would be able to get some things done that need doing.

12. Next time I go to gym/church: Huh? Do I pick one, either gym or church? Are these equivalents somehow? Strange. . . Well, since I never go to the gym I’ll choose church, and say that the next time I go to church I will smile and chat with people in my never ending attempt to overcome my shyness.

13. Susan Boyle: is who, and I care because?

14. What worries me most: is that I will not take proper care of my house and property and cause it to lose value.

15. When I turn my head left, I see: the bulletin board on the wall.

16. When I turn my head right, I see: a picture of N on the wall.

17. You know I’m lying when: I talk about how much I love my brother FU.

18. What I miss most about the eighties: is the music.

19. If I was a character in Shakespeare, I’d be: Hamlet.

20. By this time next year: I will be divorced.

21. A better name for me would be: Jezebel

22. I have a hard time understanding: Republicans

23. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: get my law degree

24. You know I like you if: I answer the phone when you call

25. If I ever won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: my parents

26. When I compare 80’s rock to 90’s rock: I like 80’s rock better.

27. Take my advice, never: let anyone else dictate how you lead your life.

28. My ideal breakfast is: Crunchy granola bar, Banana, Lowfat Black Cherry yogurt

29. A song I love, but do not own is: Beyonce’s Irreplaceable

30. If you visit my hometown, I suggest: you don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

31. My favorite Beatle is: Ringo

32. Why won’t people: just do things my way? ;-)

33. If you spend the night at my house: I will make you a home cooked breakfast in the morning.

34. I’d stop my wedding for: an Illini basketball game. Anything else, probably not.

35. The world could do without: rude people.

36. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: admit to my failures.

37. My favorite blonde is: Marilyn Monroe

38: Paper clips are more useful than: staples.

39. If I do anything well, it’s: academics, particularly math.

40. And by the way: standing in the cold rain for an hour watching your son’s soccer team win the tournament championship is less fun than it sounds.

Just When I Think My Life Sucks

I read the following article online at one of the many newspapers I read online when I get the chance. (Ha, everybody else left work early on Friday so here I am reading newspapers. I'm such a rebel.) I just found out today that my weekend is totally trashed. Somehow reading about this guy made me feel better.

Forklift stolen, driven from Champaign to Urbana, wrecked
By Mary Schenk
Friday April 17, 2009
URBANA – A Bourbonnais man who police say stole a forklift in Champaign and wrecked it in Urbana is due back in court next month to face felony charges.

Daniel Wedig, 38, was arraigned Thursday for possession of a stolen vehicle and theft over $10,000, both Class 2 felonies, alleging that early Wednesday he stole a Sky Trak fork lift belonging to an Urbana construction company, from the 700 block of South Neil Street in Champaign.

An Urbana police report said about 3:20 a.m., Wedig drove the fork lift to the 100 block of West Park Street, where he hit a street sign and a telephone pole before the equipment ran out of gas. He then got off and walked to the hospital to be treated for drug and alcohol intoxication, the report said.

The report said Wedig admitted he had been using drugs and was intoxicated when he wrecked the fork lift.

Wedig had no proof of insurance and his driver's license was expired, the report said.

Judge Richard Klaus set his bond at $2,500 and ordered him to return to court May 26.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Find this article at:
http://news-gazette.com/news/2009/04/17/forklift_stolen_driven_from_champaign_to_urbana_wrecked

Farewell Little One

Update:
For those who want more info about Maddie and her short life visit her mom's blog. It's a heartwarming and heartbreaking story all at the same time.

And in case you'd like her dad's perspective I've included that link too.

Perhaps I should mention, don't head to either of those sites without tissues at hand. Only the hardest of hearts will be able to read these parents' stories of Maddie without shedding a tear or 200.

Sunday Stealing

Just discovered a delightful source for memes at Sunday Stealing where they steal memes from all over and publish them on Sundays for all to steal. This one appeared on Easter Sunday. I’ll probably try to do these on a somewhat sort of regular basis (until and unless I tire of them or otherwise decide not to do them anymore).

1. What is your current obsession? Trying to break free and be the real me.

2. What’s a good coffee place? Dunkin’ Donuts. No, really. If you want good hot strong black coffee Dunkin’s the place.

3. Who was the last person that you hugged? N. Before that it was a whole bunch of people at church on Easter morning.

4. Do you nap a lot? I wish. Even when I try one of two things inevitably disturbs me: the telephone or N.

5. Tonight, what’s for dinner? Something yummy at Noodles and Company, not sure yet exactly what.

6. What was the last thing that you bought? Butterfinger and a Diet Coke.

7. What is your favorite weather? Sunny, light breeze, temperature around 85 Fahrenheit, humidity around 20%.

8. Tell us something about one blogger who you think will play this week? Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I have any readers left so I’m not sure I can count on any of them to participate in Sunday Stealing with me.

9. If you were given a free house that was full furnished, where in the world would you like it to be? Exactly where my house is now. Just do the whole “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” on it.

10. Name three things that you could not live without. Air, water, food.

11. What would you like in your hands right now? BJ’s hand.

12. What’s one of your guilty pleasures? Watching “All My Children” every day.

13. What would you change or eliminate about yourself? About 200 pounds.

14. As a child, what type of career did you want? Hairdresser or professional musician.

15. What are you missing right now? My sanity

16. What are you currently reading? Mostly magazines as my attention span is suffering.

17. What do you fear the most? Pain.

18. What’s the best movie that you’ve seen recently? Push. I walked in knowing absolutely nothing about it other than N wanted to see it and walked out blown away by it.

19. What’s your favorite book from the past year? False Memories by Dean Koontz

20. Is there a comfort food from your childhood that you still enjoy? Macaroni and Cheese made with shells not elbows.

No, I still don't have a computer at home, but I wrangle a little time here and there from others. Sigh. . .

In Memory of Maddie

The last time I blogged here about death it was because a close personal friend died. It was devastating to me. It hit me hard.

Today I am again blogging about death. This death is someone I don't know, someone whose mother I've run across on Twitter now and then, nothing more. Yet this death is devastating to me and hits me hard too. Not in the same way Curt's death did but in the way I hurt anytime I learn of a child's death. Too many children are dying. The one to whom I pay tribute here is but one of far too many children dying for far too many reasons.

There are beautiful posts on many blogs today in memory of Madeline Spohr. To name just a few I've read posts at:
Redneck Mommy
Her Bad Mother

and just now I found the best of the best at:
A Mom Two Boys

Go. Read. Take tissues with you. If you can, please donate to the March of Dimes in Maddie's memory.

So Much to Say. . .

so little time to say it.

I am monopolizing BJ's laptop this weekend after spending the last couple of weeks in withdrawals after the death of my laptop. I can't tell you the number of times I've thought "I should blog about such and such" only to remember I have no means for doing so. Well, I shouldn't say no means, but very limited means. Due to a crackdown on internet usage at work I'm limited to just a small amount of time on the 'net which I mostly use to try to keep up on news and sports and blogs I like to read.

Of course, now that I'm actually here, keyboard at the ready, my mind is a blank. Okay, deep breath, relax, let the thoughts flow. Random updates as they flit through my mind.

• My birthday is coming up. I'm hoping my parents give the usual "universal gift certificate" (check). If so that's how I'll pay for the summer camp N wants to attend. If not, I may be back here begging for donations so N can attend summer camp.


• I'm enjoying being part of the liturgical team at church. I get lots of compliments from people about my speaking voice and how easy it is to understand me when I speak. I gotta admit it, I do have a few positive qualities, and it's nice to use them in a productive way.


• W is no closer to paying child support than he ever was. Apparently, he's made payback arrangements with the credit card companies at much less than the total owed. However, with the payments he's making to them plus his living expenses he just can't be bothered to support his son. It just isn't a priority for him, and he has no sympathy for me because I chose to divorce him. I just love how people can use their children to punish their ex. It's just lovely.


• I have had both the cold from hell and the period from hell this last month. Of course this had to happen when work got extra busy too so I took no time off to be sick. I just went to work and was as productive as I could force myself to be.


• I become extremely frustrated when people won't listen to me when I know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure if it is the way I present information that leads them to ignore me or what, but I sure as hell would change if I knew what to change if it would get people to listen to me.

That's it for now. I may try to sneak one more post in over the weekend sometime. When BJ and I aren't. . . otherwise occupied. . . you know.