Momnesia

AUGUSTA, GA. - So, because I'm a genius, I told this story to my supervisor while we were out on sales calls. Now she thinks I'm psycho. I'm sure we'll be taking separate cars from now on.

When I was wee retarded lass, fresh off the short bus to college, I had a roommate in the tiny house in the Amityville Horror of Georgia known as Milledgeville (sorry, Josh. I know you'll be there for a couple of years. At least TRY to soak up the spirit of Flannery O'Conner). Actually, I had several roommates, from frat kings to goth queens... and one regular queen (Hi, TJ!). My favorites were, of course, Tonya and Penny, two of the most fantabulous chicas ever to grace the earth. I'm a better person for having known them.

But in a transition between dorm contracts - or maybe it was summer... or something... it's all a little hazy now - I had a short-lived cohabitant named Gibran Something-or-Other. He was an Illinois native whose parents had moved down to Georgia shortly after he graduated high school and he'd come with because he was 17 or 18 and it was the thing to do.

SIDE NOTE: Holy Crap! I just randomly googled him and here he is! He's all normal and Cosby-sweatering up the planet, NOT scrubbing gas station toilets like I'd imagined! Of course, he looks totally different now. But so do I. (sigh) Ah, Botox and Liposuction. Would that I knew thee.

So, anyway, he was homesick and we made plans to drive to see friends of his in Bloomington-Normal after exams, with the caveat that we spend just ONE DAY in Chicago. I had some money. He didn't have much. The deal was struck. We set off with my parents' gas card and a few hundred dollars (and by "a few," I mean about $200, a fortune to me then).

In Carbondale, we stopped to stay with his friend, Tom, at Southern Illinois University. We ended up at a rave in East St. Louis. I don't remember how or why. But I do remember climbing some statues on campus and watching "Fright Night" on Dorm TV. The makeup artist in that movie had some kind of dental fetish. There's no way even a vampire - even a vampire played by Chris Sarandon, who can, of course, track a falcon on a cloudy day - can fit that many teeth in his head.

Anyway, when we woke up, I went out to the car and got our rations of peanut butter and bread. When I went to replace them, the car was gone. Towed away. Apparently, you can't back your car into a parking space on the SIU campus. Would have been good to know that. Instead, since no one we knew or had met seemed to have a car, we hoofed it five miles to the garage, where they were very happy to sell the rights to my car for a mere $80. Awesome.

We went back the all-guys dorm where I took a short and rather uncomfortable shower, and then napped for an hour or two before we were to leave for Bloomington-Normal. When I woke up, I discovered that one of the two boys had taken the cash out of my wallet and given it to some douche to buy acid. As in, LSD, not the glycolic peel kind. No "underground" spa treatments in this scrungy dorm full of stoners. The plan was to sell it at a profit at our next stop.

Well, that wasn't MY friggin' plan. After hours of waiting and a big no-show from The Dude, I practically dragged the two boys over to The Dude's dorm room. There was much discussion among the drug-users about when "the guy was going to bring the stuff" and how it "was not cool" that he wasn't here. I swear I had to battle a contact high and grit my teeth through what I swear was 10 minutes of a Cheech and Chong routine somehow mixed with Who's on First before I butted in and said very plainly: "Look, either fork over the stuff or give me my money back. It wasn't theirs to give away in the first place. Pay up or I'm calling the cops." I was pretty mad by then. Tom and Gibran whined about how I had embarrassed them. I told them to shut up and stop taking stuff from my purse - unless they needed a tampon - which, judging by the pitch of their whining, would not have surprised me.

Four hours late, we reached Bloomington-Normal, where yet another booze-laden party was roaring. Everyone was carrying a 40-ounce and saying, "Yeah, I'm a pimp!" while slamming into each other to the dulcet tones of Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine. (Oh, shut up. It was 1994) To be polite, I mingled as best as I could, which mainly involved shouting, "What?! WHAT is your name?! BUG?! Oh, Cool!" over deafening music and doing a couple of shots. Hey, I was of age. Finally, I cornered Aenitia, proprietor of our free accommodations, and explained that I was fug-tired. She showed me to a bedroom. I fell into bed fully clothed...

... and woke up a couple of hours later to find two guys crawling into bed with me. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"

One of them raised his hands in a placating gesture. "It's cool! It's cool! We just need somewhere to crash!"

I was tired. It was a king sized bed. "Fine, whatever."

Then we started talking and made each other laugh like crazy until 5 a.m.

When we got up at 10 a.m., Gibran didn't want to go to Chicago.

"Dude. One day. That's all I asked," I pleaded.

He was weird and wouldn't make eye contact.

"Fine. I'll go by myself."

"You can't go by yourself," Guy 1 said.

"Sure I can."

"Where will you stay?"

"I dunno."

"Where are you going?"

"Downtown."

"Where downtown?"

"Uh... the down part of the town?"

"You have no plan whatsoever do you?"

Seeing as how that's pretty much the way I lived my life, I didn't see any reason to get all worried about it now. Of course, with a plan, we might not have had to walk 5 miles to pick up my rockin' Ford Escort hatchback in Carbondale, but that was a minor problem, I thought.

"Look, we're going to visit his mom," Guy 1 said, indicating Guy 2, whose name was David, I think. "Why don't you come with us?"

"Uh... hell. Okay," I said.

There. That was a plan... sort of.

To be continued...

It was such an easy weekend. We picnicked and spent hours on both Saturday and Sunday climbing rocks and swimming at Aquaduct Park. Emmie gained almost measurable confidence and surefootedness as we explored Saturday and Sunday.

"Look for good steps," I told her. "Try to find dry, flat rocks." She nodded enthusiastically: "I be cawefull."

Yeah, she slipped and fell a couple of times, once sliding on her butt down the slick rocks of the waterfall into a shallow pool. She picked herself up and laughed - a little nervously. And later, she did take a hard fall onto her hip, but she cried it out and went on about her business.

Twice, she actually jumped off the rocks into the deep water with me. Of course, I was holding her... and the second time, she was none too happy about the experience. But it was a reminder that while my 3-year-old is not fearless, she possesses a spirit of adventure that I adore. I, however, managed to twist my right ankle and had to sit out a couple of hours of fun with a book while Scott and Emmie tromped around in the trees, battled pirates at the waterfall and tossed a beach ball back and forth. Oh, well. It feels better today.

And when she got whiny and tired, we came home and dried off, snuggled on the couch and popped in "Toy Story 2," a movie that I got at Goodwill... along with five paperbacks, two children's books and a new dress for Emmie, all for $11. That was the most money we spent all weekend, except for the weekly trip to the grocery store.

It was such a refreshing change from the neverending mental involvement of my previous position. Granted, I was on solid ground and I loved every minute of the job - including the constant composition that went on in my head at all hours of the day and night. But this new position in sales, well, there are benefits I hadn't realized until Sunday night, when we tucked Emerson into her bed and she actually went to sleep, happily exhausted by the weekend's activities. I didn't step foot in the office all weekend.

more graph humor and song chart memes

Despite the fact that I shelled out the money to have my car detailed, and then I hosed it down with Oust, it has developed a never-before-smelled odor. It's the unmistakable scent of wet dog - despite the fact that we have never brought a wet dog with us in the car anywhere. So... phantom dog? Or olfactory hallucination?

I would like to point out that despite my initial reluctance, I am the ONLY person in our office currently using Twitter. Fooey on you guys.

Had a long day today. Pitched a lot of ads, sold nothing. Wondering exactly why they hired me for this. I'm sure they are, too.

AUGUSTA, GA. - I can't remember what a "normal" Saturday night is like. Dinner and a movie? Videos and popcorn? Snuggling in with books and conversation? I don't think I've done any of those things in years. Usually I get Emmie into bed after a long day of parks and such, then crawl into my jammies and curl up with a book, only to fall asleep 15 minutes later. Cause I'm a rock star.

Saturday night was no exception. The one time Scott and I have adult plans - dinner with the Cheeks at their home in North Augusta - there is drama.

"Dinner's ready," Terri calls, and we go out onto the front porch to retrieve the smokers.
"Look at that!" Andy points. It's a blue and white hot air balloon, and it's coming down fast. "There's nowhere for them to land," he worries, and takes off running across yards to see if he can figure out where they're going.

"There's not a field there or something?" I call.
"No. That's all forest," he shouts back.

They're landing, but in the middle of the woods? We figure it has something to do with the thunderheads massing above us.

"Honey, shouldn't you call public safety?" I ask Scott. He is visibly reluctant. But the balloon goes down so he calls. There's no way for us to get to them, and we don't see a fireball or hear screaming, so we leave it to the pros.

Then, Terri spots a red and yellow balloon less than a quarter of a mile away: "God, there's no way they're going to make it," she exclaims.

The balloon drops, hovers, is buffeted by rising winds, and drops again. They're down, and it doesn't look good. She and her mom, Eileen, and I take off after it. Andy steps inside to grab a camera and call the police. Eileen's still carrying her glass of Pinot Grigio. She stops to down it and tosses the glass in the bushes as we cackle hilariously.

We round the corner into the next neighborhood and there it is: a fully inflated hot air balloon resting perfectly at the intersection in a quiet little neighborhood in North Augusta. A corp of workers has already surrounded it, some wearing t-shirts that say "Chase Crew" on the back. They tell us that they had taken off from Hammonds Ferry when rain began coming in from the West.

"You can't fly a balloon in the rain," one of the workers drawls.

In less than 10 minutes, they have the entire structure down, deflated, and packed in a bag not much larger than a suitcase. Terri helps them by sitting on it. I borrow a camera from some teenagers in a truck and snap photos. If "Sutton" e-mails them to me, I'll post them. But she hasn't yet.

It was pretty incredible. A pinpoint landing in rough weather, backed up by carefully coordinated spotters in radio contact. They knew the other balloon was down, and a team was helping them, too.

By the time we got back to eat Terri's delicious salmon - retrieving Eileen's discarded wine glass along the way - the food was cold. Delicious, but stone cold.

It was worth it.

I've never been certain of how personality and intelligence are developed in childhood, but I'm leaning toward the tabla rasa view at the moment. Toddlers have to be taught everything. Tonight is a prime example.

Things it Would Never Occur to Emmie Might Somehow Kill Her:

• Running into a road
• Examining a snake that is two feet from her face
• Bringing me a spider 3-inches across that she found in her room
• Pulling the dog around by its tail
• Eating after the dog

That last one was classic toddler. She had a corn dog on her plate tonight (what? corn is healthy) and wandered away from it - because unlike her "curvy" mother, Emmie is indifferent to food until shortly before she passes out from the lack of it. Enter Scrabble, the Rat Terrorist. He swooped in and snatched it, pulling it under the coffee table.
"NOOOOO!" Emmie screeched, and yanked it away.
She stared at it intently, and then shook it: "I get the dirties off," she explained.
Then, as I watched in horror, she dunked it in her cup of lemonade.
"What - what are you doing?!" I asked, disgusted. She put one hand up to stop me.
"I jus cleaning it," she said, and then took a bite out of the dripping breading. "Mmm. Iss goot," she nodded.

Dear God.

B.O.: "Have you guys heard of Twitter?"
Me (laughing): "Yeah!"
B.O.: "What? It's brand new!"
Me: "No, it's not!"
B.O.: How old is it?"
Me: "Like, three years."
B.O.: "Yeah, but nobody used it, you geek."
Me: "Okay, fine, bodybuilder.com."
A.C.: "Oooh!"
SS: "What's twitter?"
Me: "It's micro-blogging."
B.O.: "So do you use it?"
Me: "No. It bores me. I don't like it."
B.O.: "Well, I want everyone in the office to start using it. So look for your invite."
Me: "See, what I meant to say is I LOVE Twitter!"
B.O.: "Yeah, whatever."

By KEN SUGIURA, TODD HOLCOMB
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

One pitch.

One controversial pitch. What happened in less than two seconds during a high school baseball state title game on May 31 has engulfed a northeast Georgia school in a heated debate that rages online and has reached major-league baseball.
More on ajc.com

Captured on video, that one pitch by Stephens County High School's Cody Martin has been played more than 400,000 times on YouTube alone.

Because of that pitch, the school has been warned and fined, the umpire it hit has retained a lawyer, and a college banned the catcher involved from playing there next year.

All because of one pitch.

What happened is clearly visible on the video: Stephens County's Martin throws a pitch that catcher Matt Hill does not come close to catching. Hill ducks, and the ball strikes umpire Jeff Scott in the face mask. Read the rest of the story here.

Watch footage (including slo-mo) of the pitch below.

The newest economic indicators on Friday said that unemployment was up this month. President Bush blamed it on "new job seekers." That's frickin' genius. If they weren't looking for jobs, they wouldn't be unemployed! Man, I wish I was smart like that.

I should have been suspicious from the start.

"Where are you going?" I asked Emmie as she trotted past me out of the room. She had been eating her lunch and watching (yet another) princess movie as we cooled off from our morning excursions to the Canal and the park.

"I go to da kitchen," she answered blithely.

"Oh."

I continued to type an answer to an e-mail. No, Mom, those shoes you found are not a pair I left behind on my last visit. But if you come across a $100 bill, heh heh, definitely mine.

Emmie sprints past me, disturbing my plans for annoying the crap out of my mother with a sense of humor she sometimes finds disturbing (search this blog for "sport tampons"). I glance over my shoulder. She's entranced by the entrance of Prince Edward: "I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss..." Blech.

"Mama!" she commands.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can I hab sum i cream, pwease?" she asks sweetly.

"We don't have any ice cream, honey, but maybe we can get some when we go out later," I blow her a kiss.

"Oh. Okay," she answers, a definite note of disappointment in her voice. After all, Nona ALWAYS has ice cream.

Not 20 seconds later, she's dragging her blue plastic chair across the wooden floor. "I beed dweameed ub a twue wuves kiss..." she sings softly along to the DVD that I don't hate as much as other princess movies.

"Whatcha got there?" I ask, amused by an anecdote about my precocious daughter - currently dragging a chair past me - that I'm relating to my mother.

"I got a chair," she answers, not looking at me as she drags it through the doorway.

"Where you going with that chair?" I ask, amused. Of course I see that you have a chair. Now how will that help you to implement your evil plan is what I want to know.

"I going to da kitchen," she scoffs at me.

"What are you doing in the kitchen?" I ask, and then I am distracted by a sudden blast of dragon fire on the television. I didn't know the volume went to 11, geez! I walk over to turn it down, and begin gathering the detritus from her lunchtime jamboree. How does she make such a mess?! I toss a half-eaten bit of string cheese to the dog, gather the scattered escapees from raisin land, and walk the crap to the kitchen.

I see her. She sees me. We both freeze. She is perched on top of the back of her chair, leaning across the kitchen counter with one hand in the sugar canister.

"Hey!" I exclaim.

So quickly that I swear I feel a mini-sonic boom, she stuffs one fist in her mouth and scrambles for another handful from the container. I toss the crap on the counter and sprint over, dragging her hand from the container as she reaches in with the other. I grab that one as she stuffs the other one in her mouth, giggling so hard I'm afraid she's going to inhale the sugar into her lungs. I grab both wrists and pry her off the counter.

She stands, laughing like a maniac and licking her hands while I survey the damage. Looks like the aftermath of a night at Studio 54. Sugar granules crunch under my bare feet. Awesome. As I clean the mess and Emmie tries to explain: "I sowwy, mama. I jus' look at flourcoffeesugar. I jus' looking."

"Baby, you look with your eyes, not with your hands and mouth," I explain, sighing. "No more of this crap, Emmie. If you want something sweet, ask Mommy. We don't eat sugar out of the jar, okay? Let's go have a time-out. You count to 30 and when you're ready to apologize, you can come out."

She goes dutifully to her snowman pillow in her room and sits down with a frowny face, still trying to explain what is clearly a misunderstanding on my part. "But I jus' looking at da flourcoffeesugar," she insists, hands raised in a universal sign of understanding. I close the door and return to sweep the kitchen floor.

How much did she eat?! I wonder. I find out soon. And all afternoon.

There is no nap. No reading time. No quiet time. Nothing. Even when I sit her down with a plastic plate of paint and plenty of brushes and paper, it's like she can't focus even her eyes long enough to accomplish anything.

"Mommylookatme?!" she shrieks, puts one arm up over her head, the other behind her back, makes a goofy face and hops on one foot. "Bleeehblehblehblehbleh!"

She giggles hysterically.

"Wow, that's great, honey. Would you like to help Mommy do some dishes?"

"No!NoIdon'wannadodishesIwannagoowside! Lesgoowsidemama! Lesgo! Lesgo!" she grabs my hand and we careen out the door. She spends 30 minutes alternately playing tag with the fence and climbing up and leaping off of her Little Tykes slide set. Our neighbor comes out of the other apartment, sees us, and observes the crazed monkey I've unleashed in the open air.

"Wow," she says. "I've never seen her like this."
"Yeah. We forgot her the medication," I drawl. She looks at me askance.
"I'm joking," I explain. "She got into the sugar."
"Ohhhh," she nods, grinning. "Well, she'll crash soon."

Actually, she spent most of the afternoon alternately chasing and poking me with her "arrmatey," and when I took that away she got the broom, which set the dog to barking (he hates the broom). All in all, I think I burned more calories yesterday than I have in the last two weeks.

Scott found out today that WGAC swept the GABBY Awards. Out of the 10 awards they were up for, they won all 10, including station of the year for the 7th year in a row. Scott won a Merit Award on top of all that, so we're really proud. It makes up for him having to witness that execution last night in Columbia.

However, to show what a dork I'll always be regardless of how well we're doing: the phone rang a little while ago.

"Hello?" I answered. There were what sounded like cars and someone fumbling for something. But no one answered.

"Hello?" I tried again. More of the same. I figured someone had accidentally dialed a number while the phone was in their pants and they were driving.

"Hellooooooo, is it me you're looking foooooooor?" I launched into Lionel Richie.

"Hello?" a voice responded. Ahhhh! I scrambled for somewhere to hide before realizing that they couldn't see me. "Is Scott there?"

"Uh. Uh. Uh.... No, he just left."

"This is Commissioner Joe Jackson..."

(sigh) Of course it is.

Augusta, GA – The June 7th Arts Weekly Radio show features an interview with DK Bhaskar a key organizer of the Augusta Photography Festival. Arts Weekly is your guide to arts and entertainment in Augusta GA and the CSRA. Hosted by Brenda Durant, the Executive Director of the Greater Augusta Arts Council, the show pulls back the curtain on art, artists and the people who work hard to make your playing easy. Arts Weekly is broadcast on Perry Broadcasting’s Smooth Jazz Station 92.3 every Saturday morning from 9:30-10 a.m.

Check out the Augusta Photography Festival.

AUGUSTA, GA. - Conversations like this is how you know you have a problem:

Me: "Oh, guess what? Scott went to Borders last night to get a book and a movie with his gift card."
A.C.: "What'd he get?"
Me: "I couldn't believe it! He brought home 'Dawn of the Dead!'"
A.C.: "Oh, how sweet!"

She wasn't joking. She knew how delighted I'd be. Zombie films are awesome. I don't know why. They scare the shit out of me, but I love them. So when Scott came home and said, "We'll watch this after the baby goes to sleep," I thought, "Hmm. I wonder if she's too young for Nytol?" Yes! I know she is! I'm kidding!

Anyway, he popped it in the DVD player and I curled up on the couch and watched it through the blanket I used to cover my face. It was so scary! But one day I'd love to watch a zombie movie in 3D. BADASS!

The problem is that I spend a lot of my spare time worrying about zombie infestations. I don't go in the basement of our offices at The Metro Spirit because I'm convinced that's where the uprising will begin. It's the creepiest place ever. So, either zombies or 700 Broad Street sits on top of a "Hellmouth", a gateway to demon realms.

Either way, Augustans should keep a wary eye out for government cover-up of zombie activity. It's important that we stay alert.

How can you tell from the news if a zombie outbreak has happened near you?

1. Homicides in which victims were executed by head shots or decapitation. It has happened many times: People recognize an outbreak and try and take matters into their own hands. Almost always, these people are declared murderers by local authorities and prosecuted.
   
2. Missing persons, particularly in wilderness or uninhabited areas. Pay careful attention if one or more of the search members end up missing. If the story is televised or photographed, watch to see what level of armament the search parties carry. Any more than one rifle per group could mean this is more than just a simple rescue operation.
3. Cases of "violent insanity" in which the subject attacked friends or family without use of weapons. Find out if the attacker bit or tried to bite his victims. If so, are any of the victims still in the hospital? Try to discover if any of these victims mysteriously died within days of their bite.
4. Riots or other civil disturbances that began without provocation or other logical cause. Common sense will dictate that violence on any group level does not simply occur without a catalyst such as racial tension, political actions of legal decisions. Even so-called "mass hysteria" can always be traced to a root source. If none can be found, the answer may lie elsewhere.
5. Disease-based deaths in which the cause is undetermined or seems highly suspect. Deaths from infectious disease are rare in the industrial world, compared to a century ago. For this reason, new outbreaks always make the news. Look for those cases in which the actual nature of disease is unexplained. Also be on alert for suspicious explanations such a West Nile virus or "mad-cow" disease. Either could be examples of a cover-up.
6. Any of the above in which media coverage was forbidden. A total press blackout is rare in the United States. The occurrence of one should be regarded as an immediate red flag. Of course, there may be many reasons other than an attack of the living dead. Then again, any event causing a government as media-conscious as our own to clamp down merits close attention. The truth, no matter what it is, cannot be good.

Taken from The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks (Page 26)

A.W.: "So what do you think the twist is going to be in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening?"
Me: "Idunno. That it's all taking place in Andy Warhol's Factory?"