updates. (don't get too excited)

it has been a few months since i've visted ye olde blog. nothing earth-shattering has happened in the interim, regrettably and thankfully. the husband is now gainfully employed. so you know what that means:

my dogs are still entertaining as ever and create dust bunnies that i'm pretty sure could kick those bunnies' asses from 'watership down' if they ever met in a dark alley. and it would be a dance fight judged by david bowie, himself...but i digress...

dust bunny

vs.

scary 'watership down' bunny

speaking of the great one, in may, i finally lived out one of my bucket list dreams of becoming ziggy stardust for one night of glammed out splendor.

not only did i festoon a ziggy-inspired silver lame (that's lam-AY with an accent aigue, not "lame," because there was nothing "lame" about this ensemble!) jumpsuit with cape and futuristic shoulder pads, but i also had the ovaries to sing "ziggy stardust" on the karaoke machine for no less than 50 screaming fans.

well, they weren't exactly screaming, and i'm not quite sure they were fans, either, since most of them had no clue what song i was singing. i could have taken the easy route and gone for "changes," since most people know the chorus, and the song is easily identifiable as a david bowie anthem. the problem is that i was born with greater estrogen stores than testosterone, and my voice simply will not go that low. "ziggy" is more in my range, as well as being a superior song, in my opinion.

with that said, it takes a lot of chutzpah to wear full-body lame. admittedly, it wasn't the most figure-flattering look and the actual david bowie circa 1972 was skinnier than most anorexic runway models:

but the appeal of doing an hommage to my idol drowned out my self-consciousness. i *became* bowie, even if only in my own head. and it was glorious.

oh, and i won 'best costume.' i think bowie would have been proud.

to be a southern xx.

why is it that my day is ruined if i my hair doesn't do what i want it to do, i feel fat, or, as in today's case, my makeup remover malfunctions and continuously removes my eye makeup throughout the workday so that by 3PM, i look like i've been on the losing end of a sketchy 3AM bar brawl? or alex from 'a clockwork orange'?

according to my daily affirmation, i am good enough, i am smart enough, and gosh darnit....

why should something like external appearance carry so much emotional capital?  why does my self-assured feminist self run and hide under a stack of cosmos and inferiority complexes whenever i look in the mirror? (women's magazines are garbage, by the way. but i will save that for a future rant...)

i know in my head that i have more to offer than a rosy complexion, shiny hair, or a 'perfect' body...(not that i have any of these three coveted assets--just examples).  it's the internalization of this concept that is the more difficult task.  could it be that i have begun to believe my own self-deprecating humor?  now, there's a frightening thought. (see, that was even self-deprecating.) 

does this self-belittlement come as a result of growing up a 'southern lady' and having to apologize for any success?  being a southern 'xx' is full of contradictions and unspoken limits: you can be smart, but not too smart - that's nerdy. you can be pretty, but not too pretty - that's snobby.  you can be funny, but not too funny - that's obnoxious. or you can be successful, but not too successful - that's intimidating. most of adolescence and young adulthood is spent navigating these unwritten rules and walking social tightropes.  yes, folks, i am a product of this southern fried circus.

so, back to the issue at hand. the horrible makeup job that i am presenting to the world. sure, i could wash the makeup off and face the rest of the day with a bare face, but why do that, when i have a spare makeup bag in my office for mid-day touch-ups?  furthermore, why do i feel the need to do mid-day touch-ups, let alone plan for them?? 

this post is particularly whiny, and none of you are getting paid the big psychotherapy bucks to hear me ramble, so i'm going to cut it off.

cut. fade to black. mascara black.

delusions of grandeur.

so, i thought i would slack off today and post a note that I had already written regarding "25 utterly fascinating things about me." this note was in response to a facebook phenomenon. i had to limit the 25 things to remotely insightful and amusing anecdotes that i would tell just about anyone - not just my therapist.

i realize that, like a blog, the idea that someone would read through 25 anecdotes about yours truly is rather self-indulgent, and, rest assured, i have no delusions of grandeur. if you haven't noticed, i hate capitalizing the pronoun "i", and the idea of beginning 25 sentences with that pronoun gives me chills. "i, me, mine."

so, here goes!

25 utterly fascinating things about me

1) i like the way old books smell. when i was doing research papers, i would get secretly excited if i had to check out a book published before, say, 1980…not necessarily because of the smell, but, rather, because it was like holding a part of history.

2) when i go shopping, i have to touch everything in the store. several people have observed this habit. the items at tj maxx, thrift stores, and macy's suffer most from my compulsion. I am drawn to bright sparkly things, textural things, and things that remind me of those i already own.

my nickname is “magpie” because magpie birds are known for stealing sparkly bits and baubles for their nests. confession: i also have a weird habit of hiding items in stores. the compulsion to hide things seizes me in just about every shopping situation(except the grocery store). even if i have no plans to purchase the item at a later time, i will stash it away in another section of the store. every time you find a random purse in the cooking section, think of me.

3) from 1995 to say, 1998, i went through “my beatles obsession” phase. thank you to all of my patient friends for their support and minimal amount of teasing (considering)...this was a pretty extreme obsession, compounded by the release of the beatles anthology. My friends annie, katie, and grace were complicit in this phase of my life - each of us had our favorite beatle – and I was actually the big ringo fan – saw him in concert in atlanta for my 16th birthday!! my parents let me decorate our attic room in full psychedelic regalia – neon green carpet, beatles and dylan posters, fiber optic and black lights, a giant black leather sectional, and each wall painted a different color corresponding to the sgt pepper cover. my parents took me on two trips to england to indulge the obsession, resulting in an acute case of anglophilia and my eventual marriage to an englishman.

i could tell i was over this phase when i lived next door to the beatles store in london for a summer and only visited once.

4) i am an only child. when i was little, i used to beg for an older brother, not realizing that the sheer logistics of my mom giving birth to an older sibling would be quite impossible. around the age of 4, however, i realized that i had a good thing going on, so i stopped asking for a sibling and began to get really upset whenever the topic would arise. now that i am in my late twenties, i kinda wish i had a brother or sister for support and friendship, and i am jealous of those that have them.

5) i have webbed toes on both feet. my mom had the option of having them surgically separated when i was born, but she thought they were cute. i have never known any different, so it is not a big shocker every time i happen to glance down at my feet. when i was a kid, however, other kids used to make fun of me and call me “duck,” but that’s relatively innocuous in terms of nicknames that i have suffered…having webbed toes does not help me with swimming.

6) both my parents worked outside the home, so i grew up with a nanny, even though i never thought of her like that. her name is ada, and she still looks exactly the same at age 84 as i remember her from when i was 3 years old (my earliest memory). ada was at our house from the day i came home from the hospital until the day i graduated high school. she came to my wedding. she was one of the most joyful, loving, and strongest women i have ever known. her fried pork chops were out of this world, as were her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. we used to take walks every day when i was little and pick “flowers,” which were really just dandelions and other weeds. we did arts and crafts in the afternoons. she had 10 kids of her own, and she included me in that number. she was like a second mom to me.

7) i love being surrounded by fresh produce, but that doesn’t mean i eat enough fruits and vegetables. i think i just like the pretty colors and textures…i used to eat mushrooms from the produce aisle when i was little because i thought they were free samples.

8) i am somewhat of a hypochondriac, which has worsened since i got my degree in public health and have gotten violently ill on several international trips. sitting in my “tropical infectious diseases” course, i convinced myself that i had at some point contracted at least three of the intestinal helminthes…i have also been a long-time migraine sufferer, and the fear of having a brain tumor emerges with each headache.

9) my most embarrassing moment involving fecal matter happened in 6th grade when a lady from the ruffner mountain nature center came to visit and brought several snakes for us to pass around. “notice how snakes are not slimy,” i remember her saying. of course, as the snake gets passed to me, its sphincter relaxes and it poops/pees all over my new *white* jeans, unleashing the foulest smelling excrement ever pooped out of a woodland creature. this probably wouldn’t be that embarrassing now, because, let’s face it, the animal poop + human situation is pretty comical, but in 6th grade, smelling like snake poop is mortifying, and i took it as a personal affront.

10) i don’t like roller coasters or free-fall rides at amusement parks because i worry that i will pee my pants. i prefer nerdalicious epcot to disneyworld. i am usually the stuffed animal holder.

11) tattoos are fascinating. i have often thought about getting one, but i have commitment issues. i love the idea of a pin-up belly dancer, but that would require a rather large tattoo, and i don’t know if i want to devote that much of my skin to something that might shrivel up with childbirth or old age.

12) i spent 6 summers at an immersion “french camp” in the north woods of minnesota. think ‘outward bound’ with a french twist. this is a very nerdy admission, i realize. the camp was concordia language villages, which we found out about from a newspaper article about chelsea clinton, who had gone to concordia’s german camp. since i was really into languages and loved being outdoors and all things summer camp, this seemed like a perfect fit. i learned a ton of great french vocab, hung out with some of the coolest, most diverse people i’ve ever met, and gained a lot of self-esteem. camp also sparked my interest in french-speaking africa, as some of the counselors were from cameroon and niger. it was a great experience. my only regret is that I never got to live the dream and be a camp counselor.

13) i used to be painfully shy when i was growing up, and i still come out as an* infp* ("the idealist") on the myers-briggs. i also had a penchant for hiding from relatives. one time, i hid from my grandparents in one of the circular clothing racks in wal-mart. they thought i had been kidnapped, so they got the manager to put the store on lock-down. i popped out with a “ta-da!” about 30 minutes later.

14) My parents used to tell me they were aliens. When they would start to “remove their faces,” I would begin to cry. Instead of comforting me, they would say, “okay, you’re not ready to know the truth. We’ll wait till you’re older.”

15) i love watching period films. time period, not menstrual period…i adore the costumes, accents (when applicable), elaborate sets and props, and the idea that the events of the story really happened, even in fictional films. they are pure escapist bliss.

16) I have always been jealous of people who classify themselves as “runners.” I have never been able to get into it, despite my ill-fated attempt at cross country in 7th grade. I will admit that I don’t really know how to run, and that I imagine that I look rather ridiculous while doing so.

17) i love to sing and make up songs, sometimes creating my own melody, sometimes borrowing from others. i didn’t say i was very good at it, but i entertain myself and my two indulgent dogs. i always sound better in the shower, bath, or pool. i have a fantasy of rocking the karaoke bar with my red-hot rendition of bowie’s “rebel, rebel,” complete with badass glam-rock outfit, but i worry that i would be too shy to attempt such a feat. that’s where alcohol comes in.

18) i feel warm and fuzzy in flower shops, thrift stores, bakeries, grocery stores, and record shops (vintage, not best buy).

19) i buy myself flowers often because it cheers me up and makes me feel like a divalicious, independent, powerful woman.

20) i love watching dog shows – but mainly the terrier group. i pride myself in knowing a lot about different types of dogs and being able to name the breed, country of origin, and original purpose, i.e. killing rodents, retrieving water fowl, etc. when i was little, we used to show our schnauzer, wolf, so “best in show” really hits home…dog people are so wonderfully eccentric.

21) i used to collect dinosaur models from the british museum. there was a store in town called the “dinostore,” and my dad and i would go there every week to see if there were any new dinos to add to my collection. i had most of the dinos pictured here:

22) i love languages. i aspire to be able to communicate with everyone on the planet in their native tongues…at least to be able to say, “hello,” “thank you,” “i love your country,” and certain choice swearwords.

23)i met my husband in a bootylicious bar in dakar, senegal. i promptly threw up on his floor after our second meeting, and he didn’t care.

24) i love planning parties with themes. oh, to have unlimited funds!!

25) i always try to make friends with strangers. this is a relatively recent phenomenon, as I am an introvert at heart. lately, i have found myself talking to cabbies, fellow grocery shoppers, gas station attendants, fellow airplane passengers, fellow obama-philes, as if we share a certain camaraderie/life history through our mutual love for honeycrisp apples, regular unleaded, etc. overall, this has been a rewarding experience, and i will probably continue my small-town banter as long as people continue to respond positively.

the sexy side effect.

i love being sick. let me qualify that statement - i love being minimally sick. basically, i don't mind being sick to the point of a mild cough and sore throat, just enough to garner some sympathy and perhaps a free meal. i don't, however, think there are any benefits to gastro-intestinal invovlement, except for maybe temporary weight loss and all the lemon-lime gatorade one can drink.

today, my voice is bordering on raspy and unwieldy, which probably sounds a lot sexier and more like marlene dietrich in my head than it actually is.

i imagine i am a sultry, brooding smoker (always brunette) writing poetry in a coffee shop in some magical metropolis that i have never actually experienced, like boston. i am cool and aloof, and quite mysterious. my cigarettes smell like cafe mocha, (instead of ass) as i survey the room pensively with every elegant inhalation. i am a perfect combination of indie rock goddess and retro pin-up girl.

this sexy phone sex-esque raspiness only lasts for a day or so. then my voice starts sounding like a man. i just hope that voice is only in my head.

of groundhogs, hedgehogs, and boss hogs.

the fact that there is a useless national 'holiday' devoted to the behavior of groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, land beavers (hehe) or whistlepigs (wtf?), makes me proud to be an american, or, more appropriately, a wasp-american. think about it...would any other ethnic group besides white people dream up such a crazy reason to get up early and play with a rodent? and, furthermore, look at the 'official' groundhog celebrants, who are predominantly male, might i just add- since when did curly handlebar mustaches come back en vogue? where do these people come from, anyway? like the groundhogs, they emerge from their holes once a year for their 15 seconds of fame and groundhog glory. has the groundhog ever not been afraid of his shadow? i see this as a misogynist, mustachist, right-wing conspiracy meant to perpetuate the state of fear in america...

hedgehogs, on the other hand, are glorious little nubbins of truth. if i didn't have two dogs with rodenticidic tendencies, i would have a pet hedgie in a heartbeat. upon further research, i discovered that there is an underground hedgie community in the us, canada, and uk. did you know that hedgehogs are bred for temperament? how could something that small and deliciously cute have an attitude? i would hate to get on the wrong side of a cranky hedgie...

speaking of cranky, imagine my shock yesterday when i noticed that one of our fellow street people (i.e. neighbors) decided to proudly display the stars and bars in their front room window!! what the eff?? i am not a big fan of flags taped to windows, in any case, but the rebel flag? this isn't even trussville! (haha - that was an "in" joke). so, my current dilemma is, besides writing a letter to let them know that this is, in fact, 2009, year of the ox, should i

(a) leave a flaming bag of poop on their doorstep, or

(b) hurl insults at them while driving by with the window rolled down.

for option (a) i would need to either poop in a bag or find someone to poop in a bag (quite unpleasant either way), light it on fire, and possibly get caught, tried and convicted for vandalism, and get lesbian raped in jail. now that i think about it, option (b) is probably more my speed. i will write the letter tonight and post in due time.

happy g-hog, day!

frak you, i'm a dork...

so, i watched the final episode of 'battlestar galactica season 4.0' last night, and i enjoyed it wholeheartedly. the sheer sci-fi ecstasy i experience when i watch this show begs the question, am i a sci-fi geek? have i always been one and not realized it? like the final five cylons who were unaware of their internal machinery until a switch turned on in their heads as the galactica passed through the mysterious nebula? ha. okay, that previous sentence just confirmed my booking on the nerd train...

i think i have always had a secret fascination with sci-fi...i have the entire collection of 'star wars' action figures (original, mind you, not re-issues), which are kept safely in a black and red star wars collectors' case made especially for action

figures. i have two luke skywalkers because my dog dutifully chewed the arm off of one of them. so, i have pre- and post-clash with vader luke...the only figure that i am missing is princess leia in white, which was always printed on the back of the box as part of the "collect them all!" advertisement that was both a challenge and a suggestion. my collecting took place in days of yore, pre-internet and ebay, when one actually had to travel to exotic locales, like nashville and jackson, find the one missing action figure. no matter how hard my parents and out-of-state relatives looked, they could never find princess leia with the white dress. curse you, hasbro!

i was also fascinated by the star trek movie - 'star trek iv : the voyage home.' i think this was mainly because spock and kirk came back to earth to save the humpback whales, which is the only real thing i remember about the film. this movie made me want to be a marine biologist for a few years.

i love 'the x-files.' i love '12 monkeys.' those are relatively mainstream, the latter starring a psychotically disheveled brad pitt, and are not considered as geeky as star trek.

the book, 'the hot zone,' made me really afraid of ebola and hemorrhagic fevers when i travel to sub-saharan africa. this fear reared its ugly head (love that cliche, and what the hell, this is my blog) when i was traveling in ghana, near kumasi. not that this region has ever had an ebola outbreak, but i have always been somewhat of a hypochondriac about exotic diseases,

including pregnancy. i have never been as

sick as i was in kumasi. i was so sick and pitiable, that the hotel owner took me to the clinic and paid for my care. nevermind that the previous day, my travel buddy, peter, and i had been in close contact with primates of various ilk -

going as far as touching them and receiving a few scratches...the following day, the day of my hospitalization, i wake at dawn with violent vomiting, diarrhea, and a nosebleed. not to mention, that it is also my time of the month.

**flashback to 'the hot zone'**

review of ebolaesque symptoms and epidemiology- contact with monkeys (check!), vomiting and diarrhea (check!check!), bleeding from every orifice (check! just about...). oh god! i have ebola!!

as you may have already guessed, dear reader, i didn't have ebola, and i am here to tell the tale. but, i credit 'the hot zone' with informing my decision to go to the doctor in a strange country.

oh - and i almost forgot...in my 13th year, i went to space camp. yes, the space camp in huntsville, alabama. this experience convinced me that i wanted nothing to do with space. not that i didn't have a blast (pun fully intended), but i got really motion sick on all the simulators. the fact that one of the main astronaut training activities includes taking a ride on the "vomit comet," was enough to keep my career options terrestrial in nature. also, so much of space travel is about calculating your weight in anti-gravity situations, and i'm against any activity that forces me to calculate my weight, even if it is on the moon, where one weighs significantly less. i totally dig dehydrated food, though, especially astronaut ice cream, neopolitan flavor, and i still wear the sweatshirt when i am having a schlumpy day.

so, maybe it is a geekery gene that has expressed itself throughout my life that i have chosen to downplay and ignore. maybe, had i known all along and embraced my dorky tendencies i could have had a prosperous career in science....nah! either way, i love me some exotic intestinal diseases and the idea of sex in space...

daydream number one.

i thought since work is particularly mundane this afternoon, causing me to reflect on the glamor of paths not chosen, i would delve into one of my daydream careers - ceo of a non-profit organization benefiting the mangy yellow dogs of africa.

*cue 'dreamweaver' music a la 'wayne's world' and soft-focus lens.

the arf for africa! headquarters would be in dakar, senegal, since this was the city where i had my formative experiences with dirty street dogs. for those who don't know, yellow dogs appear to be hemorrhaging from every alleyway in west africa, as with most of the developing world. these dogs all look pretty much the same - lean, often skeletal, mangy, flea-bitten ears, ticks-a-plenty, and a wiry coat that ranges in color from a deep yellow-brown-amber to a light yellowish white that might even be white after a few well-timed baths and flea dips. they all have the same vacant gaze that is unlike that of domesticated dogs. they look past humans with a wary indifference. the yellow dogs of africa travel in packs and can usually be found lazing under a tree or the eaves of a neighborhood boutique in the daylight hours or scavenging trash bins, fighting amongst themselves, or hunting rodents in nocturnal revelry. in senegal and mali, which are both predominantly muslim countries, dogs are considered unclean and a nuisance, unless they are owned with the purpose of guarding the home.

whether in mali, senegal, or ghana, i take it upon myself to befriend the mangy yellow street dogs. i like to pretend that i am the dog whisperer, the pied piper of canines, the only person that these feral dogs will recognize as a pack leader and friend. i sneak them crusts of bread and remnants of my evening meals. i pull engorged ticks off of their necks and scratch their mangy ears. needless to say, this is not always appealing to my travel companions. once, when i was playing pack leader, i had twelve dogs following me through the streets. it was unlike anything i have ever experienced.

so, why benefit yellow dogs, when there are people in developing countries that don't have food or clean water? couldn't the resources go to a better use?

yes. they could.

however, there is really nothing being done to help these dogs and to control the animal population. since these animals live so close to humans, it only makes sense to keep them healthy and control their numbers. arf for africa! would do just that. since most locals do not keep dogs as pets for cultural or economic reasons, the chances of adoption are slim to none. however, creating a clinic to help spay and neuter dogs and provide vaccinations might be feasible. of course, some of the dogs would be adopted and kept as examples of the program's success.

eventually, the scope of arf for africa! would expand to include beasts of burden, as well as more metropolitan areas, and eventually, countries. we would partner with veterinary schools in europe and in the us so that we would have a full veterinary staff at all times. we would also work with veterinary students across west africa to train them in domestic animal care and community outreach.

so, that's one of my dreams. reading over this, it sounds like a grant proposal, so i apologize for boring anyone along the way. but i have big plans for the yellow dogs of africa.

if they only knew.