Yeah no one likes a smartarse but we all like stars/that wasn't my intention, I did it for a reason/it must have got mixed up/strangled beaten up

Today we went to Crestwood Mall (or whatever the sad thing is called these days) to meet Steve's family for a Mother's Day lunch at a rather bad restaurant called Fletcher's. (Steve found a bread wrapper twist-tie in his pasta...we didn't know it was a bad restaurant beforehand.) I haven't been to a mall in months and it's always a little bit fun to look into the stores even though I have pretty much learned to hate shopping.

Since the heyday of last spring/summer, I've neglected my search for found objects. Well, I don't guess one actually searches for found objects, but you know what I mean. On our trip out of the mall, I spotted something sitting on the outside window ledge of the Disney store. It was this:


I'm only slightly ashamed to say I hurried over to the ledge and snatched the horse up before its rightful owner could reclaim it. There was no question in my mind that I had to have it. Check out that face! That suspicious horse eye, just like the real thing. As a self-proclaimed (laughingly so, I assure you) horse whisperer, I have been given that stink-eye by many a horse.

But it is that time of year for found objects and I hope to keep adding to my collection in the coming weeks.

After scoring the horse, we wandered into Forever 21, my favorite age-inappropriate mall store. I managed to find a six dollar blue track jacket with double white stripes down each arm, stand up collar, ruching along the bustline and an adorable silver heart shaped zipper pull. On a blue streak, I also got a cute short blue dress with handy side pockets for a ridiculously cheap 12 bucks. Gotta love the F21.

We hightailed it out of the mostly depressing mall after that and headed towards the warm weather mecca of St. Louis: Ted Drewes. Yum. Carb and sugar overload, but so good. Not exactly warm weather today though; in fact it was rather horrible out what with the gloom and cold and rain. The sun is now trying to peek out from between the clouds and I can't complain about that. I'm so tired of this gloom. More than a couple days of cloudy, dark weather and my mood plummets. I'm hoping for blue skies, sunshine and warm temps tomorrow.

On the Michael front? He's given me a challenge: find him a serious boyfriend before the end of June and he'll stay. He's mostly joking, but I'm now accepting applications. Seriously.

Where were you/Hope to chain this memory/We could have been the last time/Show me a sight in the side of chance/Hold tomorrow/One foot in one foot out

It seems the universe is playing a cruel trick on me. Or perhaps I've accumulated some really bad karma (is there a point in promising not to mock any more customers?). By putting it out in the collective consciousness (more on that subject later) just how much Michael's presence in my life means to me, it's being taken away. Yep, he's decided to move away to the east coast. By the end of June.

Of course I want him to be happy and if moving from here is what will do that, then he has to do it and I won't begrudge him. But fuck. I don't want to be selfish and only think of myself, but FUCK! He's become a daily part of my life. He's my gay boyfriend. He's my only real ally at work. I can be a reprehensible human being around him and he will not only not judge me, but say something even worse himself. Nothing I tell him about my life shocks him (and I can and do tell him just about everything). Nothing he tells me about his escapades shocks me (though I won't say I'm not a little concerned about those Mr. Goodbar moments).

I know his decision to move away from St. Louis has little to nothing to do with me. Yet I can't help but be affected by it. Saying I will miss him understates the matter ridiculously. I will feel a gigantic hole in my life once he's gone. Work could, and most likely will, become unbearable without him around to help me deflect the craziness. He even said himself, a few weeks ago, that if I quit he would have to leave too.

How could life be so unfair as to give me something so special only to whisk it away so quickly? Can cliches help me? What doesn't kill me makes me stronger? If you love something, set it free? Everything happens for a reason? So much bullshit.

I'm not angry -- I'm really not. It's just this sense of losing something before it could really blossom that is making my heart ache. I know that we will stay in touch, but it won't be the same; I won't have him here with me to exchange disgusted glances, to share knowing looks and barely stifled laughs.

At this point I'm reduced to nothing but base profanity. Fuck.

I will show another me/Today I don't need a replacement/

I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant/My heart going boom boom boom/"Hey" I said "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."

Inspired by my friend and co-worker Michael, I hereby swear to blog every day for at least seven days. Now I just have to figure out what to write about. Perhaps I'll start with a general state of the union address.

I've avoided my usual bitching and whining and ranting and raving for some time, not because I didn't have anything to rant about, but because it was getting tedious, even to me. Work has had its ups and downs; downs so low that I was thinking of desperate means to be able to leave it. Things got better, mostly, immediately after the apex of misery. I'm inherently lazy and very disinclined to go through the agony of a job search, so I've decided to stay put and wait until some other opportunity comes to me (hey, it could happen!). And then there's Michael. I don't make new friends very easily or very often. When it happens at work, it's kind of extra special to me. I mean, I have to be there, I have to go to work -- having someone there I actually love spending time with makes the job so much more tolerable. Knowing I'm going to work most or all of a shift with Michael makes it feel more like a social event than work. That's invaluable to me. My point is, as long as Michael is there, I'm most likely not going anywhere. [I will deal with the possibility of him moving away soon...never.] And there are other people there I enjoy spending time with, so I'm hanging in there, trying not to take the little insanities and inanities that surround me personally.

Which leads me to my general state of mind these days: Happy and contented. Maybe it's the onset of spring with its warm temperatures and longer days that has boosted my mood and my energy levels. Maybe it's my very regular diet of real time and virtual time sex that has conspired to make me a calmer, happier person. Or is being a calmer, happier person why I'm having more sex? Honestly, with the results what they are, do I care which came first? I think not.

Tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight, I will write about Iron Man and my renewed lust for Robert Downey, Jr.

Nude!

I found more photos, so it's an excuse for another lazy post all about me me me!

Me, naked as a jaybird, somewhere between one and two years old. Check out the Early American decor! I just realized those chairs are the same ones I currently have in my dining room. Funny.


I'm pretty sure the top portion of that dress was red velvet. Isn't it lovely? Here I am perfecting the fake smile.


The essence of me? Perhaps on my more manic days. And shit, I had that frakking double chin when I was three. No wonder I've never been able to get rid of it.


My dad was getting a little artsy in his photography at this point. I'm digging that shirt and my hairdo. I had recently turned three when this was taken.


I love this photo. It's very different from most of the photographs my dad took. For some reason, it reminds me of a '60s psychodrama kind of movie. Specifically this crazy Carol Lynley thing I saw recently called Bunny Lake is Missing.


These two pictures were taken either by my mom or my brother Kenny in Germany. Near the end of my third grade year my mom and I traveled to Germany to see Kenny get married. For three weeks we drove all over Europe visiting Switzerland, France, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Germany, of course. In Munich I gazed at the Olympic grounds pool, dreaming of Mark Spitz. I don't suppose I thought too much about the terrorist events that went on as well. We were at a petting zoo when these were taken. That day I saw a goat being born which I remember as being disgusting and exciting and terribly interesting all at the same time. Perhaps my true love of goats was born this day! I think this was also the place where I discovered vending machines that sold FRESH FRENCH FRIES (or frites as they were known). How did that brilliance never come to the States?


A newspaper clipping of me and my cousin Judi, hanging out in the public park in good, ole Dexter, MO, home of my grandma and grandpa, and three aunts and their families. I still love tube tops and flip flops.


This was taken the day of my eight grade graduation/dance. My mom made the dress for me and it was fabulous, in a Gunne Sax tradition. The straps were satin ribbon and the same ribbon was used to wind through the ecru cotton lace trimming the top ruffle. If only you could see the brown leather strappy sandals with the four inch wooden heels. God, I loved those shoes.


Here I am at 15, perched on Sugar, my sister-in-law Lynn's cousin's horse (is that complicated enough?). My brother Bobby and Lynn lived in South County in this great log house on a big piece of land shared with Lynn's uncle. It was one of my favorite places to gather as a family. Actually probably my favorite place. I was really sad when they moved away from that house and the horses. This is my Rod Stewart sticky uppy shag growing out.


And here's a self portrait of my dad, Ken Alsobrook. I assume this was taken somewhere in the mid to late '60s.

No time to look for relevant lyrics -- I managed to make things today!

Since I only seem to be able to make new things with the promise/hope of dirty lucre, Subterranean Books' request for some new cards lit a fire under my lazy, uninspired ass. Finally.

When I found the photos of myself, I also came across a little stash of vintage pictures we had scored at an estate sale last year. I decided to scan them, then print them out on transparency sheets. Perhaps because we need to replace our black ink cartridge, the photos came out a sort of eerie dark purple. I attached them to the cardstock with some teeny brown brads I bought months and months ago with no idea what to do with them.

While I was card making, I also found a number of my sock monkey photos. So, the dirty sock monkey cards have been resurrected. "Back Door Bear" is still my favorite...

All the cards:


A couple of close ups of the vintage transparencies cards:

All through the day/i me mine/i me mine/i me mine

I was pulling out some art materials today and came across some photos I had been meaning to scan and post. Yes, they're all me me me. About when I was born, my dad took up photography, setting up a darkroom and all that jazz. Thus, there are lots of photos of me when I was a tot. So these first two were taken by my dad. The rest, of course, are school photos.



I think this one is from 2nd grade. If only I could get my hair that color again...


Fourth grade, I believe. Check out the lesbian-chic hair and shirt!


Fifth grade, I suppose, sporting my version of the Dorothy Hamill hairdo.


I think this one is my eighth grade photo. While there was some nice accessorizing in the previous shot, I was coming into my own as a fashionista in eighth grade. I was voted Best Dressed in my class. Note the turquoise ring used as a scarf holder. And I wish I still had that scarf. The colors were gorgeous and it had a print of flapper girls and those wavy cloud-like graphics all over it.

That love is all/And love is everyone/It is knowing/It is knowing

The other day I walked into the living room to such a sweet scene. Steve, surrounded by Foxy Brown on the floor, Olive on the back of the couch and Lydia next to him. He was so engrossed in what he was doing, I don't think he even knew I took this photo.

You realize your fantasies are/dressed up in travesties/enjoy yourself with no regrets

I'm not in the habit of documenting it when someone says something nice about or appreciative of me. Everyone, of course, loves compliments, and I'm no exception, but even if you greatly appreciate the sentiment, you don't necessarily write it down or think about it later or share it with anyone else. Well, today I'm going to throw modesty (or whatever you want to call it) to the wind.

A friend with whom I have an intimate, albeit primarily written, relationship told me something extraordinary today. In a small discussion about my tendency to conversationally be, um, too much for some people, he said this: "You're like a sun...and too much exposure burns them up...now me...I like it when it gets hot."

An offhand comment maybe, but since it was in writing I guess it took on more gravitas than if it had merely been spoken. Whatever the intent, I consider it one of the best things anyone has ever said about me. It struck me dumb for a moment. Like a sun. Damn.

In a string of days in which my workplace has made me feel like I'm in a place where my personality is completely unwanted, it was extra sweet to be reminded that I don't rub everyone the wrong way, and in fact, a few people do like me for me.

So thank you, T.Rex.