Who wants to live forever?

Sunday is my day to work only one job during tax season. I sleep in, drink coffee all morning, listen to music and play on the Interwebs. I write blogs. I check my weekly horoscope.
Today is no different, but I’m under the influence of a little angel on my shoulder — albeit the evil angel — telling me to go out and have more fun.
It started yesterday when I met a free-spirited girl at the tax place who handles savings bonds. She spent the previous 12 years in San Francisco, and there is something bohemian I like about her. I took her home yesterday and we decided we had to go out on the town sometime. I felt hopeful. Like maybe someone can get me out of this rut… didn’t really know I was in one, but apparently I am. My aforementioned weekly horoscope got downright nasty with me, reminding me to have a good time, shake my groove thing, because it’s now or never. I realized I haven’t been out for unbridled, silly, who-cares-who’s-watching fun in a long time.
And to top it all off, I watched a biography on Freddie Mercury. I’ve always loved Queen and felt a special bond with Mr. Mercury. Don’t ask me why — I just think we share a few personality traits. That over-the-top extroverted personality that likes a lot of alone time, too.
Don’t laugh, but I always weep when I think of Freddie. The song “These Are the Days of Our Lives” has haunted me since its release in the early 90s. He died right after that, and you could see that his once-vibrant frame was shrunken and battered by AIDS. But you can still see this look of, “Yeah, I’m sick. Who cares, fuck you, I’m Freddie Mercury and I am a star.” He looks at the camera and says, “I still love you,” and I melt down. I don’t understand why I feel personally connected, and I’m not like ultra fan-girl or something, but I can remember asking my parents about him when I was really young. I didn’t know what gay meant, I didn’t know Queen had a gay connotation… I just liked him. I liked the songs. I remember being in my front yard when I was 7 or 8, FM rock radio pouring from my open bedroom window, and listening to “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” and being totally moved by it. My parents didn’t discourage my love of Queen, they liked them, too. But I can remember my dad saying they were “girly” or something. Regardless, my lack of care on someone’s sexual orientation was as present then as it is now — do your thang, I don’t care. And if you are persecuted for doing your thing, I will stand by you. And all that jazz.
So this isn’t the first Queen kick I’ve been on… I own several of their albums. But this kick seems to come appropriately-timed. While there is a serious undertone to many of Mercury’s songs, an undercurrent is definitely embracing the beauties of life: Love, fun, friends, music… joy. Something I’ve forgotten to seek.
I have been limited by lack of cash, self-induced depression and a general malaise so much that I’ve forgotten to have fun. For nearly two years it’s been this way. I let a banal, weak attempt at a relationship keep me under for a year. That subsided, but I was then faced with a personal financial crisis. That locked me in my house, kept me worried and panicked.
That problem is lessening due to my second job. But I can’t shake its effects. I am really trying. And I think all these celestial signs are map points along the way to me remembering to stop and… you know… listen to Queen while smelling roses.
As I’m typing this, my computer chose “Crystal Blue Persuasion” from the iPod. Wow. It’s a new vibration.
Thanks, whoever’s doing this. I needed that!

The Mighty Putty myth revealed!

I have previously blogged on my desire for the Mighty Putty. I think I’ve found something cheap and similar that I didn’t have to buy from this guy:

So I bought another version, JB Weld Stick. Those of y’all who’ve done some auto repair know the JB Weld mystique. It’s like liquid duck tape, with more staying power. All that stands between you and sticking to something is JB Weld. Here’s the liquid version, which every grease monkey or grease monkey-apprentice has used:

I digress. I Googled Mighty Putty, and every consumer report says it’s the same stuff as is available at your local Auto Zone, which also usually has nice guys working there who will humor your silly questions like “Is this the same as Mighty Putty?” or “Why is one wiper blade longer than the other?” So I bought this JB Weld stick and finally got my robe hook back up on my bathroom door. I have this crappy bathroom door that won’t hold screws. I’ll rehang it and then accidentally apply too much pressure a few weeks later and it will fall down with much clatter, scaring me, the cat and the dog and leaving my robes to pile up on various unrobelike places.

I got it home, opened the box and found a little gray wad of what looks like modeling clay. Same as Mays says, you twist off a piece, rub it so it’s uniform color (this stuff is gray and black sted green and white like on the infomercial) and it’s ready to go. It needs five minutes to set, an hour to seal and a day to “cure.” So I’ve made an everlasting bond with the door and the hanger. The only way it’s coming down is if I swing from it with 10 people on my back, or so the box says.

I’m just glad I didn’t have to buy something off TV. I probably wouldn’t have ever really had faith in it. I don’t know why. I can buy stuff off eBay from people in other countries, but I don’t trust TV advertising.

Fill your day with picture pages!

I never get to do picture pages at work anymore because we are so short on space. So on Sunday, with me doing inside pages on the night of the Super Bowl and my boss requesting “atmospherey” shots, I took full advantage.

I don’t think he expected three-fourths of a page of pictures, but I thought it was nice. And I didn’t get in trouble. Have a look-see here

Also today, I embedded 1 million pieces of recruiting news onto a no-peeky page on our website. It’ll be unveiled Wednesday, National Signing Day. (I keep almost putting National Singing Day, which would be a lot of fun). It’s got YouTube vids, bios of future OU, TU and OSU players and all the high school drama you could ever want. I can’t wait until it’s all over!

It’s going to be a full week for me — taxes, signing day, plus the usual Bouts of Laziness. Whew! Wish me luck!

P.S. Yay Mike Tomlin and the Steelers. You rock.

Sights and sounds of the Super Bowl

I’m not much of a Super Bowl fan. Maybe because I work in sports and we don’t have an NFL team in Oklahoma, and our adopted team, Dallas, has an idiot owner that can’t figure out how to make a good team.

Jerry, here’s some pointers:

1. First, make those spoiled players pay more than $100 if they are late to practice. Use to could, (sorry, that’s Tahlequah talk) you would be fined $5,000 for being late. Facelift threw this rule out, probably to be a Cool Dood to people like Tony and T.O. So therefore, there’s no reason to show up to practice on time. Why bother? Tony’s using 100-notes to write down grocery lists.

2. Get a coach with some guts, and leave him the hell alone. Or if you want to be more like Mark Cuban, put yourself in the stands and enjoy it.

3. Quit making the Cowboys the Raiders of Texas. We need more Troys and fewer Pacmen.

OK, that’s all the Cowboy bashing I’m doing. I just wanted to say “Happy Super Bowl Sunday,” and enjoy it. I wish it was college football playoff time instead. The weird thing about me is I’ll watch any — ANY — college football game instead of an NFL game. I have to have a stake in the NFL game, and it’s usually a bond I formed in my head with one of the players while they were in college. For instance, I like the Vikings for Adrian Peterson. I like the Falcons for Curtis Lofton. I like the Broncos for Tatum Bell. I like the Vikings — again — for Garrett Mills. I like the Jaguars for Paul Smith. You get the idea. But tonight, I’ll watch the Super Bowl.

I love the fanfare, the fact that it’s SUCH a big deal for everyone, regardless of sports expertise. I reckon many people will be asking those at the party with them plenty tonight, “What just happened?” and not because they looked away at the wrong time. Because they can’t tell their downs from their bases, their field goals from their 3-pointers. But hey, if they enjoy it, the NFL must be doing something right.

At least we get the hear the dramatic music one more time:

Fox:

CBS:

OR, the BEST EVER, Monday Night Football:

The suckiest, NBC Sunday Night NBC:

Now, my favorite all-time Super Bowl ad, the Cat Herders:

Enjoy your night.

My chairs

Above you is a picture I took on a cloudy day in the Big Sur area of California, right off Highway 1, at a resort called the River Inn. Even if you aren’t staying there, they allow you to sit in their Adirondack chairs made from twisted limbs of redwood.

My sister Anna and I sat in these chairs with our feet in the water for an hour or so, listening to the water crash on the rocks, a California native blueish-orangish bird family flitting from tree to tree — though I’d never been here, it was familiar. Maybe it had a bit of Tahlequah, but later, when Anna and I continued our trek up Highway 1, we saw Pfieffer Beach — like nothing I’d seen before.

I honestly have never seen anything more beautiful than this place, all of Big Sur, really. I close my eyes and imagine it, and I’m there. Anna and I discovered another area, the Marin Headlands, which overlook San Francisco. It’s an old military base (they get all the best spots) now an artist colony. So, so amazing. Anna and I felt we’d wandered into another era, someplace that didn’t even seem American. Anna’s been everywhere, the brat. She spent five months in New Zealand. And this was breathtaking even for her.

I went on this trip last year, and here I am, rattling on and on about it. It was just so inspirational, one of those trips that you can take again and again in your mind. Especially when life hands you stress.

So try to picture yourselves in these chairs, a Catbird Seat if I ever saw one. And if you’ve never been, take a tour of Highway 1. Someone who knows the area can later tell you about Marin Headlands. It’s kinda secret.  But below is another picture I took.

Taxing fulfillment

I am back to my part-time job of doing taxes. I don’t understand why I, someone who has fought to be creative and free her whole life, so enjoys menial data entry and the precision of taxes.

Probably because the computer does most of the work for me and really I just get to be nosy and compile character sketches of people while I sift through their most personal papers. I do taxes for people who don’t make a lot of money, and the first few days of the season are always stuffed with single moms and dads who get their W2s and rush to get their share of the earned income and child tax credits. I delight in giving these young, beautiful mothers a slice of the American dream. I’m not giving it to them, of course, but for a moment, they think I’m behind their giant refunds. I always ask what they’re going to do. The saddest answers are always, “Finally get a car,” or “finally get the baby a new bed.” It makes me realize how much I take for granted.

I would HATE being an accountant. My little editor brain might be somewhat analytical, but I have to color outside most lines or I go crazy. Being an accountant is just too dang straight-laced, I guess. But I get an all-out social worker buzz from helping people, even if I get paid to do it. I look forward to this time of year the most — when the people come in with smiles on their faces, cute babies in their laps and W2s in hand. I never saw myself doing anything that had to do with numbers, let alone enjoying it.

So come on down to CAP if you’re in Tulsa. I will do your taxes. And tell you your baby is cute. Even if you don’t have one.

And I thought I was green…

Did you know that if you leave your phone charge plugged in you waste a ton of energy?
I had no idea. But I saw a PSA (they work! Really!) and did a little homework.

Read this: http://amystodghill.greenoptions.com/2007/05/03/tip-o-the-day-unplug-that-cell-phone-charger/

I hardly ever have lights on at the house (I do leave one on for Leon when I go to work, but that’s just a lamp) and we keep our heat/AC almost too reasonable. The stack of blankets on the couch aren’t for looks. You will need them.

But I had no idea. We’ve got chargers all over the place just sucking up energy. What about camera chargers and iPod chargers? Weird.

Anywho, thought I’d pass that on, for my greenie kin.