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Maybe I should get a tattoo instead

April 30, 2009 by shaggerty

After completing my latest exam this past weekend, I gave serious thought to stopping my pursuit of a master’s degree in English. I have, after all, completed the graduate certificate in technical communication that I returned to school to pursue. I signed up for the master’s program on impulse, the way other people get tattoos, only I wasn’t drunk and this sure is costing a lot more.

I plan weekends and vacations around school, and I don’t even have kids. Years ago, I managed to get a undergraduate degree in journalism and history while taking only ONE upper-level literature course, meaning I have to take a few undergrad courses now.  I obsess. I ponder. I worry. I wonder why I’m doing this.

Then, the fall schedule makes an appearance. I glance at it in spite of myself, and of course see a class that I would love to take. Coincidentally, the company I work for will pay most of my tuition starting this fall.

So now I’m feeling all Clash: Should I stay or should I go? I guess if I have to ask, then I already know the answer.

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Pocket full of stop it

April 27, 2009 by shaggerty

Each of the past three mornings, I’ve awakened with a different song running through my head. They are, in order:

  • The theme from Spongebob Squarepants
  • Celebrate Good Times by Kool and the Gang
  • Pocket Full of Sunshine by Natasha Bedinfield

Explanations? Do I even want to know?

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Return of the blog

April 17, 2009 by shaggerty

Semester’s end approaches, meaning more time for blogging and half-price margaritas on Thursday nights. In the meantime I’m exploring a new category of tag questions for a linguistics project.

A digitized collection of old photos from Scancafe is on its way to my mailbox, meaning plenty of material for summer postings.

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Outrunning a thousand things

April 3, 2009 by shaggerty

Speaking to a friend from Texas today, I noted that Southern families, or maybe just farming families in general, seem to have tragedies woven into their histories, generation after generation. This probably isn’t a fair assessment – Northerners have plenty of dysfunction, too, no? – but it’s what I know.

Southerners can be shockingly straightforward about the past. An uncle dies, you hear the story of how he accidentally shot another man while hunting in his youth, and barely escaped jail time. Again and again you hear about the aunt who died decades too young because a pompous doctor refused to perform a life-saving hysterectomy. You learn about an old family friend who lost his hearing and hand to a careless dynamite accident.

Cancer. Alcoholism. Diabetes. Car accidents. House fires. Thwarted love. Mental illness. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. There are a thousand things that can go wrong, and a thousand things that do go wrong.

When things go right, there’s not so much story, but isn’t that the story that should be told?

My brother, raised by a father whose own father abandoned him before he was even born, a man whose love for us in the end couldn’t overcome what he had missed growing up, has been an unbelievably good father to his two daughters. He may be a natural, but I suspect he is purposely railing against the past.

I’m married to the sort of man that my mom deserved, a man who actually wants to be married to me, and isn’t just filling the role that society dealt him.

Having spent my life outrunning dozens of potential unhappy endings, it always shocks me a little to think that my brother and I may actually be OK, that we’ll stay happily married to our respective spouses, that he’ll always be the guy who really deserves the No. 1 Dad coffee cup, that we’ll pursue careers we don’t despise and maintain hobbies that we love.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop running. But the idea that I might win lets me catch a breath every now and then.

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Michelle Obama’s right to bare arms

March 27, 2009 by shaggerty

The idea that people have gotten worked up over Michelle Obama’s decision to go sleeveless on occasion amuses me to no end.

There are so many bigger things to worry about. And frankly, her arms look GOOD. And I’m not even going to follow that up with “for a woman her age,” because they look GOOD for a woman of any age.

The “First Guns” even have their own blog.

I’m always a little excited to see the first lady’s guns on display. I’m hoping they inspire more women to join me in the weight room at the gym, building bones and toning muscles. Right now it’s just me and a bunch of firefighters and policemen, who I’m sure would be happy to have a single lady or two in there.

It seems like some Americans want their first lady to be dowdy (Laura Bush) but not too dowdy (Barbara Bush). Hillary Clinton dressed the part, but because she didn’t spend her years in the White House quietly hosting tea parties and deftly avoiding podiums, she caught flack anyway.

I voted for Change. I want to see a sleeveless first lady behind a podium flexing her mental muscles. A little flash of a totally ripped bicep wouldn’t hurt my feelings, either.

In the meantime, though, I guess I’ll settle for casual discussions about weekend plans with buff guys in between sets. Seriously, ladies. The weight room can do good things for your physique AND your dating life.

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Marry the weird girl. She’s fun.

March 3, 2009 by shaggerty

Soon after we started dating, my future husband and I were walking around the local mall when we spotted a three-sided dagger in the display window of the tobacco/knife/dreamcatcher store (every mall used to have one – it was written in city codes). He said something like, “Weird knife, huh?” So of course I said, “Yeah. It’s a three-sided dagger. It makes a wound that doesn’t close.”

He laughed a little and led me into the store, where he told the salesman, “My girlfriend says that a three-sided dagger makes a wound that won’t close. Is that really what it’s for?”

The salesman dropped to his knees and asked for my hand in marriage. Or at least he should have.

Seriously, he looked at me a little cockeyed and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they do,” he said.

The boyfriend paled only slightly, and we continued our mall rounds.

It’s still an episode that both of us remember in detail. He found out that I knew more about knives than perhaps a proper young lady should, and I learned that maybe you don’t blurt out all the weird things you know.

Maybe.

(Note: I have since learned that a three-sided dagger doesn’t necessarily make a wound that doesn’t close, but instead makes a wound that is more difficult to close than one made by a single- or double-sided blade. Also, please note that my knowledge of knives comes from a few years of D&D play and more than a few sci-fi/fantasy books. I have never stabbed anyone. Unless the dice told me to.)

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King Cake Fail

February 26, 2009 by shaggerty

Revenge of the King-Cake Babies

I was positively stoked my first year in Huntsville when I discovered that the local Publix carried king cakes. Having spent the last 10 years in Mobile, I expected the days leading up to Mardi Gras to involve at least a couple pieces of this delicacy, which is pretty much a giant cinnamon roll covered in colored icing and sugar.

The king cake carries with it a great responsibility: Whoever gets the tiny plastic baby hidden inside is obligated to buy the next cake.

Upon opening the box for this year’s king cake, I discovered what has to be the biggest plastic baby in the history of king cakes. It’s probably three times the size of a normal plastic baby.

Obviously, some chowhound either chipped a tooth or choked on a tiny plastic baby in the last few years, causing corporate lawyers to advise Publix to go for the big-boned, more easily discovered plastic babies. And there’s the rub: How do you hide a plastic baby that’s the size of a dessert fork in a piece of cinnamon roll?

No common sense, corporate policy run amok, blah blah blah. The best part of this post was going to be the awesome photo juxtaposing the emergency backup king-cake baby (yes, I have backup king-cake babies) and the family-size king-cake baby. Unfortunately, I had forgotten how nearly impossible it is to take a good picture of these oddities.

Several years ago, while helping co-workers plan a Mardi Gras photo shoot, we got the bright idea to spread a ton of king-cake babies out as a backdrop. Turns out a couple hundred king-cake babies make for a scene that really tests the definition of creepy. Plus, their pale pink, shiny surfaces makes them a chore to properly light.

So I have no idea that you can even see how ridiculous this humongous king-cake baby is. But at least you know where to find a few tiny king-cake babies if you need them.

Posted in Photographs | 7 Comments »

25 Things I’ll Admit to in Order to Make the Tagging Stop

February 8, 2009 by shaggerty

Fine. I gave in. Here are 25 Things About Me. If Facebook can suffer through it, so can you.

  1. I love coffee. I drink more coffee than anyone knows.
  2. I drive my dream car, a Mini Cooper S. It’s cute, fast and fun, and more affordable than most people seem to realize.
  3. I work out with free weights three times a week. A former co-worker who calls his muscle-bound arms the “pythons of death” used to call my arms the “blue runners of death.”
  4. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can go caving again. I have never felt stronger and more dexterous than I do when scrambling over giant piles of rock.
  5. I always thought I’d have dogs, but I have two cats instead. They’re hilarious.
  6. I judge people based on how they treat animals.
  7. I’ve always had more male friends than female friends. I may be from Mars instead of Venus.
  8. My husband is the kind of guy I would be friends with. I’m pretty sure this is why we’re still married.
  9. I’ve been to England, France, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico.
  10. I have no children. This is neither an accident nor a tragedy. I’m cool with other people having kids though, and love my nieces and nephew.
  11. Hurricane Katrina flooded a third of my house. It’s barely worth mentioning compared to the damage other people had. That said, rising water and high winds still give me a little punch in the gut.
  12. I’m still pissed off about what happened to the people of New Orleans.
  13. Since childhood, I’ve had a recurring dream in which I had to walk across a yard while avoiding snakes of every type and size every few feet. That dream has been replaced by one in which water is rising in my back yard and I’m trying to move things higher in the house.
  14. I’ve never told anyone about No. 13.
  15. I had a casual smoking habit for about six years in high school and college. Nasty habit? Sure, but I miss it and wish cigarettes weren’t so bad for me.
  16. I miss clove cigarettes the most. A friend tells me it’s because I’ve always aspired to be Eurotrash.
  17. I’m really proud of my little brother for being such an awesome husband and father.
  18. I’m not sarcastic ALL the time.
  19. I decorate with objects that I love, which range from an old Royal typewriter to tea tins.
  20. The first concert I ever attended was Bon Jovi.
  21. I’ve seen Metallica in concert six times.
  22. I exhibited multiple signs of OCD when I was a kid. I remember wishing somebody would notice so that they could figure out what was wrong with me AND hoping that nobody would notice that there was something wrong with me.
  23. I think that my remaining obsessive-compulsive tendencies make me a better copy editor, writer and coder.
  24. I took Spanish in high school and French in college. When I try to speak either language I end up with a mishmash of both. Sacre gato!
  25. I’m pursuing my master’s degree in English mostly because I really enjoy the classes.

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And these boots are made from oliphaunt skin

January 31, 2009 by shaggerty

If you tell people that the fake-fur winter vest that your mom sewed for you is made of Yeti, approximately 75% will laugh. You’ll want to keep an eye on the 25% who nod knowlingly.

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Countdown to rock

January 27, 2009 by shaggerty

This weekend’s forecast calls for an AC/DC concert and a trip to Trader Joe’s in Nashville, among other awesome activities. I’ve put up with a good deal of bad weather over the past few years, Mother Nature, so be a doll and keep your ice storms to yourself. KTHNX

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