Drill, Baby, Drill!

Just can't seem to get this chant (and image) outta my head. Go on witcho catchy sound byte-prone selves, RNC!

Sunday brunch banter

Him: This [live] lesbian acoustic jam is not getting me closer to fine.

--------------

Her: You remember Sonique, right? When her mom found out she was pregnant with her, she went on this drinking and smoking binge for like the first trimester to try to get rid of it...I mean Sonique's not mentally screwed up or anything, but she was like born with no teeth.

Him: Oh my God! No teeth?!

Him2: Well, most babies are born with no teeth.*

Him: Oh yeah! That's right, huh?

*I know, technically babies are born with unexposed teeth. And this footnote pretty much reveals me to be the speaker of this line.

A change is in the air

The latter half of Labor Day weekend served as a reminder that while warm days are not gone forever, they will increasingly become the exception, not the rule. In the meantime, our garden is producing a bounty of tomatoes and vegetables, and tell-tale signs of summer's end: the sunflowers are in full bloom and every night brings a cricket's symphony.


Luckily, last week Lucy and I spent some Q.T. wandering aimlessly in the backyard and soaking in the late August rays. Paul's done a bang-up job on the yard, and though it's hard to capture on camera, our recently created flower bed looks kind of like a vivid Mario Bros. 3 level: strange flora I've never before encountered--a bouquet of colors, textures and shapes. One in particular makes a great Asian-inspired hair accessory and you don't even have to pluck it from its 6-foot stalk:


I can't say I'm really looking forward to the change of seasons. I try to enjoy fall on its own merits, but ultimately it's just a reminder of the winters I find increasingly insufferable. I'll be flying solo for three total weeks during a one-month period, so maybe it's just that I'm not looking forward to transitioning into a, shall we say, introspective (and insular?) experience. My stagnant fall wardrobe probably has something to do with it as well. But any way you slice 'n dice it, my lil' autumnal ginger snap will be with her (second-favorite) daddy, taking time out to watch the sun set and keep on the lookout.

Fitting the bill

There is a supreme level of intellect on display in my work parking garage. Case in point:

Memory Lane Monday: Troll Mates

Growing up in a family where my only brother was a basketball star and my dad's hunting/fishing/drinking buddy, I didn't find it appropriate to ask for Barbies. But I did make up for lost time at my cousins' house in Bountiful, probably much to their bore. Like a fat kid at a pastry buffet, I had to stockpile my Barbie time to get me through the dry spells. Luckily, blocks and Matchbox cars kept me entertained until I returned to the glory of the miniature fashions, the be-spackled Barbie motorhome and the teal '57 Chevy.

I did, however, try to abide my Barbie longing by, shall we say, more gender-neutral substitutes. Like Trolls (insert laughter sound byte here). I was a fairly worldly child-- interested in other cultures, languages and, of course, ethnic costume. So when I started collecting Around the World Trolls (to loosely correspond to my rival collection of mini flags of many nations), I found the perfect symbolic fusion of diversity and unisexual normalcy (again with the sound byte).

I kind of repressed, er, forgot about my 15 trolls that I shoved in a shoe box and buried in the closet when I hit junior high. This was until mother dropped off my Rubbermaid-encased childhood a few weeks ago (her 6-bedroom, childless home just didn't have room). I was pruning the excess memorabilia yesterday and there they were. I adorned the box with colored markers, listing each Troll's origin, lest I forget.

As I was finishing up my organizing, The Olympic closing ceremony was just beginning upstairs. Paul and I clocked in some record Olympic viewing this year (we calculated it at around 40 total hours), and I thought, "What a fitting tribute to a briefly unified world celebrating our similarities. Here I am, 15 years later on the other side of shame...that's it, you're making your comeback, Trollies!"

I headed upstairs and staged the Trolls atop our wine cabinet. I had to do a little primping, but the Trolls were essentially in mint condition. Paul and Billy walked in just as I was putting the finishing touch on placements, and of course found another source of mockery which I clearly anticipated and totally welcomed.


But I can take it now. My Trolls were, are and always will be with me. They've weathered shame, denial and outright neglect. But they'll always be in that shoe box (I put them back before bed) with a friendly smirk, over-processed and extremely dry hair and their trademark jewel bellies.

And that comforts me.

Separated at birth

I love the boundlessly talented Tracey Ullman. I love her Tracey Takes On character Linda Granger, the has-been network star of "VIP Lounge" and recovering alcoholic, sexaholic and cult gay idol. She's 100% glamorous, and her twin happens to be my eldest sister, Holly.

The gift that gift gave

Ok. Fine. I'll just admit it. I was a gifted child.

I don't talk much about it because there are only a few gifted children born every generation. Plus it makes ungifted people feel awkward and treat you like a freak even though it's masked gift envy.

As far as my mom's concerned, I was always gifted. But I do remember at about age 4, I recognized the gift. It didn't come in ribbons or bows; gifted people are able to see beyond the tangent obvious. Often what separates ungifted from the gifted is the gift of abstraction. It was definitely a figurative gift. A Child of God? I pondered the (unlikely) theological possibility at like age 6. But definitely a Child of Gift.


Through brief empirical observation, I concluded I was the only gifted child around in small-town Utah. I then used my exceptionally developed aptitude for a priori reasoning to speculate that I may be the only gifted child in America. I definitely sensed there were Japanese and Korean children of gifted extraction. But they attended school like 13 hours a day, so in the end it was probably hard to distinguish the gifteds from the hard workers.

Then in 2nd grade my mom volunteered to lead a group called Odyssey of the Mind. Turned out, there were like 8 gifted children in my class alone, which is extremely unusual to have such a concentration of gift in the same topographical region. They (the Gift Guiders) would separate us an hour a week and we would outperform each other with crosswords, cryptograms, deductive reasoning puzzles and trying to get objects disentangled by using our advanced sense of geometry and spatial reasoning. Another activity involved ping pong balls too, but I don't remember the specifics. I think I was too gifted to actually waste energy excelling at that particular "challenge."

After an hour of touching the gift (that's the day single, 30ish but oddly-living-in-a-small-town Mr. Brown subbed), we would return to the normal class and breeze through rudimentary spelling exercises, laughable times tables and your run-of-the-mill art projects that would consume those without gift.

Of course, gifted children turn into gifted adults, with or without the capitalistic education model formality (though I did go on to excel in college, my gift wasn't recognized by the Ivy League. But I've come to understand their Myopic predisposition). These days, I've learned to relate on a surface level with the non-gifted.

And see, you probably didn't even notice (though I'm sure in some ungifted way, you did).