Baby Bird and the Nest

(Pre-Script: This song is best paired with the song, "Blackbird," #14 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

When I hear one child say to the other child, "Do you want to fly?" I get concerned. It's not that I don't believe in them, or support their dreams. It's just that I know that the metaphorical apple does not fall far from it's metaphorical tree. In this case, the metaphorical apple is My Children and Their Genetics (MCaTG), and the metaphorical tree is Me and My Genetics (MaMG). I am pretty sure that my genetics do not include an Ability To Fly (ATF) gene. Which means that my children really will fall far and hard from the actual non metaphorical tree if they attempt to fly from it. However, I have never actually studied my own DNA under a microscope, nor would I know what an ATF gene looked like were I to see it. So I can never be 100% sure. It is possible that the children are right, that they really can fly, and I am just holding them back due to conventional wisdom, and my belief in what I learned in the Physics class I took twice in Junior College. Yes, you read that correctly, I said "twice," and I still floundered.

Bite me.

Ahem.

You know, Physics class, where they teach you things like Gravity, and that it is a FORCE that pushes down on all of us here on this planet. And where they teach you that Einstein came up with all of these theories. And where they teach you that you are an idiot. And that you really don't want to date your lab partner even if he is man enough to bring you a red rose at work when you had no idea he had ever thought of you that way. So it was a lot of lessons for the agony and time of memorizing all of those formulas and crap. Or at least, writing down on notecards all of those formulas and crap and trying to remember when to apply which formula to which problem...and now that I think of it, that is the summation of all of life, what I just said right there.

Ahem.

Still, maybe the kids are correct and they really have flying abilities yet to be explored. But it is my own fear that is keeping me from letting them find out. Because the risk of them being wrong is too great of a price to pay, at least on my dime and heart medication. Let them practice their own flying skilz once they move out and can afford their own Emergency Room Bill.

-XOXO,

Missing

(Pre-Script: This poem pairs best with the song, "Keep Breathing," #62 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

If missing things was easy,
then we'd all handle it well;
we'd all behave properly at every moment
and never lose our grip on ourselves every once in awhile
and never cry or fall on the floor
in a pathetic mess of body heaving sobs and sniffles
we would never ever do that
and not doing that would be the most natural thing in the world
if missing things was easy
then I would not be compelled to look at the clock
and the calendar
so often
or turn off the radio when the song is explaining exactly how it feels
and I am not yet ready to feel so directly.

If leaving were easy,
my feet would not ache
from the steps you took the other direction
when you had to go
somewhere you had to be
that was not right here in this spot
next to my feet
where they stood and took up residence on this earth
just another moment before

If grieving were easy,
my hands would always stay open
would never tend to clench and cling
like a coiled up dead fruit that never dropped from the tree
when it should have released itself
and I could let go of even the smallest things
and even the biggest things.

(and when i talk about missing, it is like
missing an arm or a leg
where it is gone, but I can still feel it,
or
a vertebrae in my spine

deep beneath skin and muscle

to help me stand taller,
and to hold up the core of who I am,
or
a rib in my ribcage, so strong,
the keeper of the place where I breathe,
and the place where I bleed-
my lungs and my heart.)

-XOXO,

SUV Nation

(Pre-Script: This Post will have you squeezing in and out of places you might not actually fit into when you read it as the song, " Everybody's Changing," #52 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

A lot of parking lots were made before the people all decided that their vehicles were too small, and that they should drive around in tanks instead. I think when people heard there was a war in Iraq, they decided to buy large tanks to drive around the bay area and Cleveland in. a lot of oil comes from Iraq, so better to get the gas guzzlingest thing a person can find to drive to the grocery store and back, just in case we run out of oil anytime soon. Best to feel tough and higher up on the road than anyone else, too. This is the line of thinking that goes into such purchases.
It really makes it hard for a girl to park her medium sized vehicle anywhere, especially if she wants to open her car door without chipping the paint on the vehicle of mammoth proportions parked next to her. Especially if she wants to actually get out of the car after she has parked it.
It is really a motivating factor to keep enduring grueling workouts. Like if I ever want to get out of my car again, I had better not gain an ounce. Otherwise I might park, and then be stuck in my car forever. But the novelty of parking and just sitting there, delighted to have found a parking spot, has at this point worn off for me. This is because of the Law of Diminishing Returns. The L.O.D.R. can be summed up by way of example thusly: if you start to spend any time with me, I will be fun to have around at first, just to blink at, and talk at, but then you will start to require me to do more and more entertaining things, like juggling, if I am to remain as intensely fascinating as I was when we first started to hang out. Then you will get bored of my juggling, and require me to sing and juggle at the same time. Then you will get bored of even that, and require that I spin in circles while juggling and singing, and eventually, rearranging your bedroom furniture, too, and HOW MUCH MORE interesting do you think a girl can become before you have to find someone new and newly interesting to you, without all the juggling spinning and singing and room redecorating?! Give me a break, people! Do you have any idea how hard that sort of thing is on my shoulders, not to mention my balance and sense of self worth?!?
And so it is with parking in parking spots. The novelty of parking in a parking spot has worn off; In order to again feel the thrill as the adrenaline begins to course through my veins, I need to actually be able to get out of the car. I need to be able to properly remove myself from the car without inadvertently flashing anyone, or dinging the side of the dark colored tank which rest on tires that come up to my shoulders parked next to me.

Blink.

(...But I am only 5'4.5" with a relatively short head, so that is not saying much...)

Blink.
...and then if I ding your door, I will have to leave a note on your windshield, "I am so sorry, I just dinged your door with mine, too bad you had to get the hugest vehicle on the block in order to feel okay about yourself. Here's my phone number and insurance policy and the rights to the third rib from my second born child's body."
You will read this note, and call me, and I will end up paying for the repairs, even though the ding I left matched the dings of all of the cowards around it who did not have the strength of character (Let the record forever show) to leave you a note on the envelope she scrambled up from the bottom of her purse. I'm just saying. Because really, if I could afford the repairs on your car, I could also afford to drive my own tank, and we could have it out at the same height at least. I'm just saying. It's just that I hate battle, and did not realize we were in our own inner and inter personal civilized war, until I saw you driving around in that tank.

-XOXO,

Quick Lube

(Pre-Script: This post will bring you great relief when read as the song, "Going the Distance," #50 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I went to the Quick Lube to get an oil change today, because their sign said "10 minute oil change," and that's what I was hoping for. But when I pulled up, the mechanic told me that there were 2 other cars that had just pulled up before me, so it would probably be 20-30 minutes until mine was complete. I said, "Fine," and "do you have a bathroom," and he said "inside-you can go through that door or go around the front." and he pointed somewhere, but I could not tell which way he was pointing. So I left my keys in the ignition, grabbed my purse and got out of the car, and walked around to the front and into the waiting room through the front door. The bathroom door was just inside the front door of the tiny lobby, to the left, only it had 2 signs taped to it, both with the words, "Customer bathroom out of service" written on them. What the heck. How's a person waiting for a 10 minute oil change that is probably going to take 20-30 minutes, and who drinks a lot of Enviga Green Tea, supposed to endure the wait with no bathroom availability? So I walked across the parking lot to the nearby gas station and Quickstop. I noticed the man who works there looking at me, then pretending not to have been looking at me when he saw me seeing him. I said "Do you have a bathroom?" He said, "No, no public bathroom, sorry." I shook my head, sighed, "UNbelievable" under my breath as I walked out the door, which I was careful not to let hit me on the way out, but at that point I think a good door whacking would have been apropos, don't you?

I walked back to the 10 minute Quick Lube, thinking, "All of these dudes should be so fortunate as to allow me to use their various bathrooms. Gosh." I walked right to where the mechanics were working, and asked, "Is there a bathroom?" I was instantly pointed to the mechanic's personal bathroom, and told that the light was just outside the door. I smiled, thanked them, because I would have never found the light on my own once I was in there alone with the door closed, suddenly all encompassed in darkness. I flipped the light switch on and closed myself into that den of filth. Oil splatters were everywhere around the sink. I tried not to look anywhere else, or to touch anything, but for all I knew, there were vipers in there, as well. I squatted over the toilet, ("Girlfriend! OH no you di-n't" oh yes, I did; I went there. I said that. Snap.) and when I was done, I considered washing my hands, but did not trust the germ content of the faucet enough to touch it. Oh, the irony; do you turn on the sink to wash your hands from various possible bacteria and germs that may have collected there, even when said faucet is possibly the worst germ offender you will have touched all day? Especially when you know you will have to touch it again to turn it off, AFTER you have already removed the previous germs from your hands? Then I remembered that I hadn't actually touched anything in that bathroom, so I just walked out. I thanked the mechanics again. Really, I think they should have thanked me for that moment of girlness in their all too boyish den of filth, oils splatters, and quite possibly, live vipers.

When a girl's gotta go, a girl's gotta go, even one with a tendency to drink a lot of Enviga Green Tea, and she should not have to go to such lengths to ensure that she can. Quick Lube Oil stops should always have a functioning customer bathroom, especially when the advertised 10 minute oil change is actually going to be 20-30 minutes.

-XOXO,

If God Had Wanted You To Have Holes

(Pre-Script: This post will pierce you any place you do not have a naturally occurring hole if you read it as the song, "Suddenly I See," #32 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I did not get my ears pierced until I was 16 years old. This is how long it took for my father to relent. The fact that he ever allowed it was monumental, considering that he had until that moment said he would never give me permission to pierce anything, not as long as I lived under his roof as his only daughter. His logic was that, "If God had wanted you to have holes in your ears, He would have created you with holes in your ears."
Blink
Blink
Looking back I really could have used an older sister or two to mellow him out so that by the time I came around, he would just sigh and sign the permission slip I pushed under his nose to get his consent. With a sigh included, sure, but a consent is a consent, and I would have respected the sigh, none the less, and never ever flaunted my (beautiful) pierced ear lobes in his sight. Heck, I would have worn ear muffs every time I was in the house if it came to that. But as it was, I had no older sister, I had to be my own older sister, the older sister that paved the smooth path for the younger sister who was never to follow me. You see, as the oldest sister, you have to walk through a dense dark forest, and you have to chop a way through all the foliage and dampness of growing up, sometimes getting a scratched face or arm along the way, sometimes falling into a deep ditch you did not see coming. The whole time you are singing some old miner's tune or ancient spiritual that has been passed down for centuries from oldest sister to oldest sister. And then the younger sister can walk straight ahead on the path you have already etched out for her. She skips down it hummingly, never once considering what the oldest sister endured to make such a glorious, bright path possible for her. She will also never have developed the muscle and character strength and creative thought that you, the oldest sister gained, by all of that hard work and figuring it out as you went along. She will also not have the cool scars you have to show for it.
Ahem
So there I was, a 16 year old who for 16 years had always heard, "If God had wanted you to have holes in your ears, he would have created you with holes in your ears." and for about the first 4 years of my life I accepted this, believed it, but then I thought about it, and realized that it made no sense. I also knew that Candace Cameron and Alyssa Milano had pierced ears, and I really didn't think that God was holding it against them.
Not to mention the Very Conservative Pastor ( Or, V.C.P.) 's daughter.

Can you imagine having a father who is more conservative than even the Very Conservative Pastor? Think about it.
My desire for pierced ears did not diminish, for though I was a dirty tree climbing grass stained fast running child, I was also a girl's girl at heart, even in a house full of brothers who did all they could to try to run it out of me. As the saying goes, "you can take the girl out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the girl." *

So it pained my heart that every year, the pool of friends I could relate to by way of "not having our ears pierced" got smaller and smaller, until eventually, I was the only one.

This made me feel rusty and old, so that when I was eventually allowed to walk into the Et Cetera store to get my ears pierced, I felt more like a 6 year old baby then all of the wise, dark brooding 16 years of life which I had actually lived. But it was worth it to finally have holes in my ears, I mean besides the ones that I was yes, born with, that God did, yes, indeed create upon my naturally occurring body.
I got a second set of holes pierced into my earlobes at the age of 18, when I was old enough to make important decisions on my own, including voting for the President of our entire country, and also ear piercing. Then I got a 3rd hole in each earlobe, for by then I had become addicted. However, my raging need to pierce was forever cured when I went in to consult about getting a possible 4th hole in my earlobes and was informed that any more holes in my ears would have to be poked through my cartilage. I was not willing to suffer that much for beauty.
Now, I am not picking on my Father, by any means, he was the man, and had a right to make his decision. However, my own daughter has pierced ears, which she had to have pierced three times because the first two times they got infected, even though we diligently washed and twisted the earrings twice a day as per instructed. (Don't judge me; don't you judge me...**) The third time she had no problems with infection. And so if my Father had come up with the Possibility Of Infection (Or P.O.I.) argument as to why he didn't want his only daughter (with no older sisters to mellow him out) to pierce her ears, I would have had a greater respect for that decision. As it stands, though, that is not the argument he came up with, let the history books collecting dust on the vast bookshelves of my memory forever proclaim.
I did learn a valuable lesson in all of this, though, and touche to me, because if my own daughter ever asks me if she can get her nose pierced, I will have to tell her: "If God had wanted you to have holes in your nose, he would have created you with holes in your nose."
Blink

Blink

-XOXO,

*If you do not recognize this famous saying, it's because I made it up entirely for this post.

**One of my favorite Kelly Ripa quotes of all time.

Crazy Talk

(Pre-Script: This post will restore your belief in humanity if you read it as the song, "FIreflies," #60 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

There are lists with words on them, and they tell what to do and what not to do, and apparently, everyone around me has a copy. The problem is that the words have a tendency to swap lists, depending on who's hands the lists are in. I used to let this make me feel crazy.

Then I had an epiphany.

Crazy people always make you feel like you are the crazy one. They are good at this. You can know you are not the crazy one because you say to yourself, "am I crazy?" when the crazy person does a crazy thing, but acts like it wasn't crazy. But if you were really crazy, you would not ask the question, "Am I crazy?" the crazy one does the crazy thing with self confidence and no second thought. This is how we can tell who the crazy one is in the scenario...the one who stops and asks him or herself is not crazy. The one who does the crazy making thing which causes the other person to ask "am I crazy?" is the crazy one. It's a simple formula, and that's just a head's up for anyone who has ever wondered about his or her own personal sanity.

Blink

Wink

(But don't just take my word for it...I am completely crazy, at least 72.7% of the time. Who's to say it wasn't at one of these times that I wrote this, or if I wrote it during the other 26.3%.)

-XOXO,

Dilution

(Pre-Script: This poem pairs well with the song,"Here In Your Arms," #47 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading...I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

If you water a thing down until the water is clear
and all the colors have flowed down the drain
and you have rinsed the color from around the rim
of the drain, then no one
will ever know the difference
was it blood or paint that rinsed off
and down your skin, was it-
did it go all the way deep, or just
sit on the surface, and had it dried
or was it still wet, fresh and vibrant
or was it like a scab, dark and set on the outside
fresh and bright once the top layer was removed
the evidence of what still pulsed

as always

just beneath the surface.

-XOXO,

My Dented Sidewalk

(Pre-Script: This post will smack you like a faceplant on the sidewalk when read as the song, "32 Flavors, #21 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

When I was a median aged child, I used to ride my bike around the block, over and over, while singing made up songs and imagining an imaginary life with imaginary friends. The best places on the ride were the small hills and valleys that would occur where the sidewalk had been pushed around by the underground roots of nearby trees. The roots continued to grow, under ground and under all that sidewalk, thereby inadvertantly creating bike jumps I would have otherwise not had, while the nearby tree provided shade and coolness.
The Grown Ups did not appreciate this. Many grown ups would look from their lawns at the sidewalk and say preposterous things like, "That tree needs to be pulled out, it is ruining the sidewalk." As a kid, I wanted to protest; every cell in my body was jumping out and exclaiming, "RUINING the sidewalk? NO, the tree and it's growing roots are actually IMPROVING the sidewalk!" but I kept quietly whizzing around and around in circles, hoping that this Grown Up Talk (or G.U.T.) was another one of those things that grown ups say they are going to do, but never actually do. If I could just hold them off for one more day, and another, and another. Grown ups often recognize things they would like to change, say they are going to do something about it, then don't do it. What they do instead is just what they did the day before, and every day before, completely forgetting the "need to do" things, then, at the end of the day, walking on their lawns or looking out the window at the tree on the sidewalk and saying, again, "Oh that tree is ruining the sidewalk, we need to get that pulled" but by then they are too tired to do anything more for the day.
How many grown ups have you ever actually seen riding around the block on a bike? How many take the time to enjoy the shade of a tree that has the absurdity to allow it's roots to continue to grow, develop, and push up the sidewalk, even while confined to a dark, air tight space just below the surface? None of the people deciding on the fate of the trees and my tree root bike jumps were people who actually spent any of their lives on them. Whereas I spent countless hours riding over, mentally acknowledging and appreciating and relating to a thing that would grow and shape the world around it even under all that cement.

Yet I had no voice in the matter.
I have come to realise that for my entire life, there will always be people who don't appreciate my various cracks and dents for what they are; who stand on the sidelines focused on the surface of the thing, but never consider what may be going on underneath, what might be growing, even, except to try to cut it out. There will be those who take the shade and shadow spots for granted, only focusing on if the surface looks smooth or not. And also, there will always be people who don't appreciate the value of a large tree. But this is my life, and what looks like a mucky mess to someone else might just maybe be the most thrilling parts of my daily journey.
If there were no cracks in the sidewalk, it might just mean that everything underneath had stopped growing and reaching and pushing and expanding...

(...but I prefer to live on a tree lined street...)

-XOXO,

Son of Seuss

(Pre-Script: This post best suited with the song, " Unwritten," #5 on the playlist, So go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I have read books that tried to imitate Dr Seuss, or sequels to books he wrote which were written by other people. They all stink. No one but Seuss can write Dr Seuss, only Dr Seuss could. That is repetitive because it bore repeating, and bears repeating still, but I will refrain. Just know I am still thinking it. No one else gets the rhythm, meter, and made up words just right. All those other imposters made up words sound like they are trying to imitate Dr Seuss and make up words. Now, I am all about the making up of words, are you kidding me, I do it all the time. The difference is I don't do it to try to be somebody else. I do it because I am trying to be me, and the only word I can use to describe the feeling or thought I am intending to convey is one that Webster has not yet listed in his vast book of words yet. This is sort of what Seuss did, too, so you see, there is a time and place for made up words, and that is when you are genuinely being yourself and are at a lack for a better word, but most certainly not when you are trying to imitate Dr. Seuss. Or me. Or anyone else.
Now, the only person who might have a genuine shot at sounding at all Dr Seuss like would be his son, if he ever did have one, and if that son had the correct DNA passed down; the "Write Like Seuss" gene, or "WLS" gene. I don't know if they have been able to exactly pinpoint that one yet. I bet if you studied Dr Seuss's DNA, it would be obvious which gene that was, I bet it sits in the middle of his genetic code in a highlighted color, and even with out the highlighted color, it would still be obvious to Genetic Code readers for it would be different from any genetic code they had ever seen. Much like the wise men who were so wise they knew what each star looked like in the sky, so they knew when a new star appeared that they had better follow that star to find baby Jesus, who wasn't such a baby after all by the time they found him.

That's all I have to say about that, except that

If Dr Seuss ever had a son, I hope he would have been named "Hey." then he would be called "Hey Seuss."

"Hey, Seuss, go get me a beer."

"Hey, Seuss, want to toss the Frisbee?"

and, most importantly:

"Hey Seuss, you don't have to live up to your father; he already lived up to himself. You just be you, okay? Hey, Seuss, you okay?"
Yeah, I say call the kid Hey Seuss.

Why, you ask?

because the name "Jesus" would be too hard to live up to.

-XOXO,

Youniverse

(Pre-Script: This poem is brilliant when read as the song, "Superman," #9 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

There are

brilliant spots of light

that pierce through your black unknowable sky,

but what
do they show me of the universe
that expands forever beyond them?
Once I looked up at the sky, far out to the left, I think,
at a small reddish something I could see

from the parking lot of Carl's Jr.
I was told it was Mars.
Another time, you let me look through the lens of your telescope,

pointed it up and in some direction,

spun me around,
and told me I was looking at Jupiter.
I just stood on the firm ground below us and took your word for it,
it looked like a star to me,
what could I tell from so far away-

a speck of red, or blue,

interspersed with beams

of brilliance
don't even begin to show me the beginning
of the universe inside you.

-XOXO,

Share the Love

(Pre-Script: This post to be shared with the song, " How To Save A Life," #31 on the playlist. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

Sharing is completely overrated and is getting out of hand.

There, I said it.

I have always known this, but it was never politically correct to say it. It still is not politically correct to say, I just stopped caring if it was on not. I have decided to step out on a very shaky branch and proclaim the truth of the matter because of an issue that has come to my attention which I would like to publicly denounce. I know what you are thinking, "Nothing like living on the edge!" and you are right, there is nothing like it, which is why I prefer to live IN THE MIDDLE. Even as a child, when my brother's wanted to sit near the windows in our station wagon on the way home from Sunday School, I would always happily concede, the only sibling who actually preferred the middle seat. I felt cozy there. But can someone please explain to me why big huge brothers have to spread their gangly legs all the way out as far as possible in that relatively short car ride from church to home, when 4 of us had to squeeze back there? Why couldn't they sit cross legged like their angelic sister, instead of insisting on squashing me every time we had to drive anywhere?

"But Michelle,"

My dear Imaginary Reader is asking,

"Michelle, um, you seem to have gotten off of the topic, you were about to go off on a limb and live on the edge and denounce some horrible thing you see happening in society, which may or may not have to do with sharing, but then you got off on that rant about the backseat when you were a child, and your brother's long legs."

Oh. You noticed.

Blink.

That was my stall tactic. Ha ha, so as you can see, I am still trying to squeeze my way back to the middle. Somebody get me a glass of water with which to clear my throat.

Thank you. Ahem.

here it is:

Whoever thought up the concept of "Share the Road" was obviously on crack or more likely on some sort of natural high, and it was probably someone from Santa Cruz or Berkeley, CA, those Nature Lovers who are all about "Going Green." (on, NLWAAAGG) Now, I am all about preserving the natural world, in realistic , "But I still exist in 2010" ways. Bikes and cars sharing the road is not one of them. Bikes should not be ridden on the road, unless they remain in the bike lane. But the minute I think that, some fancy padded butt shorts wearing bike riding maverick maneuvers his way into the very lane where I am driving my huge metal bullet with things like an engine that can go from 0-120 in, I'm not sure how long, I have never actually driven that fast, but it gets me to 35mph in no time at all. Plus, if we crash, it will be worse news for one of us than the other (hint-the one it will be worse for is most probably *not*me.) Biker dude is a single rider, completely able to focus on his natural endorphin high as he pedal powers up to 15 mph, and the rush of the wind in his ears, and perfecting his hand signals. I, in my vehicle, most likely have a few children in the backseat, squawking about who wants to sit in which seat.

Please understand, I am not dissing your bike and matching helmet. I just don't see how we can share the same lane on the road; it's not right to expect me to drive at human leg force power, when this car was built to drive at several horse powers of speed.

My plea: Please, Bike Master 2000, keep your bike in the bike lane. Yes, you are skilled and excellent, and flush with good health and fresh air. You just make me nervous, that's all. You make me very, very nervous.

-XOXO,

Cake: It's what's for dinner.

(Pre-Script: This post will mask your unmet needs and disquise that for which you truly hunger when read as the song, " Good Intentions," #19 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I think I would be so happy for all of the people who have no vices, really, I would, if only that knowledge didn't make me feel so BAD about myself. I have so MANY vices. SO many that it's hard to pick just one. So many vices, so little time. What to do, what to do. I like to eat a healthy meal as much as the next guy, for instance, don't get me wrong, as long as I have a Diet Coke or Coke Zero to go with it. That way, at least I can be sure to I am getting my daily calorie free chemical intake; so there is that. I mean, think about it: What good would all of the antioxidants I get from eating the healthy meal and taking a multivitamin be if there were no free radicals and toxins also going into my body?

Hmmm?

("Wow, Michelle, I never really thought of it that way before.")

(No, no, I guess you never really did.)

I do work really hard to get a proper amount of vegetation in my daily diet. Harder than most, I'd say. I say Vegetation, not Vegetables, for I assume Vegetation to mean anything that grows on the world, which is not just limited to vegetables. My thinking is that anything that grows on the earth is good for you, not just the kind that make you gag. This includes nuts, fruits, all my relatives, and grain.

Don't get me wrong, I like vegetables as much as the next guy, which means not all that much, for most guys don't like vegetables all that much, and I consider corn to be my favorite one.
"But Michelle, excuse me,"

OH, would you look at that, it's my Imaginary Reader, interrupting again. Yes, Dear Reader, what is it?
"Michelle, everyone knows that corn is not a vegetable, corn is considered a grain."

Dear Imaginary Reader, what is this you are telling me? Hog wash, it is!! Corn grows on an ear in a green field, it is a vegetable, as sure as I live.

"Grain."

Oh, why, you are just saying that now because if I were a corn fed chicken, I would soon be fat and happy and clucking my way to slaughter, only so that I could be made into non natural food substances such as chicken nuggets, and chicken tenders, and chicken apple sausages, and chicken and spam, and...

"Yes, Michelle, that is exactly why."

Serious?

"...as serious as the heart attack from which I am trying to keep you."

Ahem. Well.

Now it seems I will have to come up with a new favorite vegetable. But I know what you are thinking here, you are thinking, "Favorite Vegetable?!? Isn't that an oxymoron?"

yes, yes it is.

Still.

I have to choose one.

Okay, I choose chocolate.

blink.

blink.

(Don't judge me; don't you judge me...)

-XOXO,

Hollaback Girl

(Pre-Script: This post will wrap it's tale around your heart if you read it as the song, "To Find My Way To You," #26 on the playlist, plays in the background. So go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

*Warning*:

This is the tale of a time when I was blinded by love. Some would call it "puppy love," due to my age and vulnerability, but those with a more keen insight will choose, instead to simply call it...kitty love...

Once upon a time, an orange tabby cat showed up on my doorstep unannounced. He was given food and milk, so from that moment on, he was mine, and I was his, and I loved him to death. The jury is still out on if that last statement was literal or not. I mean, technically, no, I was not driving the car that hit him, but it is possible that he ran out into the street to avoid yet another hug. I just wanted him in my arms all the time, is that so wrong?? But I am getting ahead of myself.

Is it possible to be whipped by a cat?

If you believe anything that happened to me in my 6th year of life, you will believe that it is.

I believe that it is, because I actually lived my 6th year of life, and remember it.

I was whipped good by my cat Jake, and let me tell you,

if being whipped by a cat is wrong, I didn't want to be right.

My Cat Jake was as comfortable commandeering my pillow out from under me while I slept as he was commandeering my heart out from under me while I did everything else, and he not about to budge, and I, in my scrawny 6 year old girl self, was not strong enough to push him off of either place.

he knew it.

I was his holla back girl.

He only scratched me a time or two.

*Let the record show that I no longer hold cats in such a fashion.

-XOXO,