Gotta grow me some fur.

Holy Hanna BarBera and big men in little tights- first I'm whiny cause it's 70 degrees in November, then I'm covered in goose bumples and "Brrr..."-ing all over the apartment because the heat is too expensive to turn on and I'm wearing only one sweatsuit!

P.S. I wish someone would bring me a steaming plate piled high with buttered and syruped blueberry pancakes! Does IHOP deliver? Shouldn't they? For a bribe?

I am not surprised.

You Are the Swedish Chef

"Bork! Bork! Bork!" Your happy and energetic - with borderline manic tendencies. No one really gets you. And frankly, you don't even get you. But, you sure can whip up a great chocolate mousse

The Muppet Personality Test

Karen's Confessions #12

I love raw batter and dough- which means running my finger along the inside rim of the pancake batter bowl, repeatedly, and licking it off througout the pancake making process- then doing the same with the ladle and the almost empty bowl when the last pancake-worthy batter has been dumped into the pan.
It means saving one or two uncooked specimens from every container of Pillsbury tube biscuits, for eating cold and squishy and gloriously tongue-bitingly yeasty while the rest go about their merry cooking.
It means sneaking back-end pinches off risen bread dough, so chewy between my teeth before sacrificing the loaf to the oven.

Autumn Cleaning

Well I have deleted a few of my previous posts, and turned others from published back into drafts- sometimes I throw out old journals, crumple and toss therapeutic letters I wrote never to send;
so here I occasionally toss away what I no longer wish to see.
I do truly apologize if this should inconvenience any one, as I do have readers who are kind enough to not only read but even enjoy my writing week after week and I am so glad you keep coming!

an evening's walk

It gave me goose pimples walking the boards when the horizon was purple, the dunes rustling East, and the church bells chiming off 6 '0' clock.


I looked up to find dust bunny clouds on top soaking up the color of raspberry popsicles from the spill of a good-bye sun and the shyest slice of northern moon barely making itself known.

11/02/02

When there was nothing but the sky and the silhouettes of you and I
I remember the dark and the jagged pine branches along the horizon ,more stars than ever I'd seen and puffing our breath out misty into the cold where it floated and died absorbed into the night. And it was only us in the cold in the black with the stars over our heads and our voices that wandered and faltered and fell silent again heads turned up as we cuddled the very first time.
Just you and me and your breath on my face

Say Satisfaction

The wind whipped up this afternoon after the sun came out- sitting in the car in my scrubs facing West at a red light on my journey home from another day's work I smiled with pleasure at the breezes coming forcefully through the driver side window cooling my face and ruffling my hair; looked straight up and smiled again at the macrovisible speed of the clouds- cumulus? never got that quite straight- across the sky somehow against the wind.
It certainly all changed the tempertature in the apartment. At 7PM I closed all the windows, stood my goose-pimpled, white fingered body under shower water so undeniably hot it sent sparkles of shiver from my scalp down my spine.
And I grinned some more.

A little estrogen goes a long way.

I am terribly cranky today.
Dropping the bag of recyclables into the bin whose top edge meets my chin, I tipped the bag too far toward gravity spilling empty glass and plastic containers into my face. I mostly behaved- the previously-mayonnaise jar clanged satisfactorily after being whipped top speed at the bottom of the dumpster; I did not wing it at the asphalt though I craved the sound and impact of shattered glass.
My driver side door lock finally turned under the key, after I kicked the side panel while my three canvas bags and 25 pounds of groceries worked at sliding off my shoulders.
Groaned at work when the 3PM showed up at 3:45 and all my nauseous tummy wanted was to go home two hours ago.
Just plain grouchy today- Princess Irritable. Wherefore art thou, Prince Valium.
I am blaming it on normal monthly hormonal cycling. Some months I weep over Anderson windows, others I restrain myself from putting my foot down hard on the accelerator and annihalating the elderly woman who took the right of way cutting me off on the traffic circle then, once on the circle afore me, stepped on her brakes and- Stopped. In front of me. In the middle of the circle. At rush hour. As traffic rushed up behind me. I behaved myself and though my teeth were grinding satisfied my homicidal urges with two toots on the horn.
I don't menstruate without a uterus, but it is the third week of the month, and my boobs are snugly filling up my bra, sweet chocolate is unsufferingly calling to me for the third day in a row (I nearly went out in my pajamas in the rain at 11PM last night on a Hershey's quest), I had a headache today, and yes the urge to strangle basically everyone, unwarranted or not, is strong.
I'm blaming it on the hormones.

Ode to a Charlie Brown kind of dog

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

Your Daily Get Fuzzy
http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20061017.html
http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20061018.html

Get Fuzzy is one of my sweet addictions. Though it has lately waned some in the giggle soliciting factor, I still read it religiously. I adore these little cartoon guys and I never know when an entry is going to crack my grin wide open.
I have nearly all the books, except for the anthologies- because, I have all the books. Some were gifts, one of them a Christmas present from Harold who so patiently and lovingly answered my pleas of "Hey (Harold), Come 'ere!" and left what he was doing on the computer over and over on single nights just to stand at my bedside and read yet one more Get Fuzzy cartoon that had me in stitches. I devoured each book in a matter of hours, unable and unwilling to put it down even though it meant staying up past my self-appointed bedtime.
He liked them, too. At one point I would sit in his lap and we would take turns reading the comics out loud with me doing the voice we were sure must belong to Satchel, and he handling the role of Bucky. With Rob, we just took turns.

Roll 'em

I have avoided blogging lately because, let's face it, my life these past six months is monotony on a roller coaster- strapped myself into stupid and the lapbelt jammed.
I have four modes now- into some new guy who is shooting babies and white picket fences out his ass and is going to make me Donna Reed with plane tickets; missing the living bejeesus out of Nate and whining about such; done with men and Nate and finally on my way; or avoiding blogging about it all.
In other news my posture was evaluated earlier this week- to put it mildly, if I don't start straightening the fuck up when I walk, my next career move will be ringing the bell in the tower and frightening village folk.

What my little heart desires

Am I dangerous just now or ripe for the picking?
I had a personal trainer assessment tonight and at several points he touched my body- to take my measurements, to point out particular muscles- fingertips along my back, hands against my waist, the palm to palm of a handshake- and I reveled in it all, the sanctimonium of touch.
I am not truly worried about slipping and having sex with someone I barely know, (I'm actually more worried I'll never surpass the gut level cringe when a date tries to touch more than my lips): it's a greater risk I'll snuggle a near stranger.
Because that is what I always miss the most being single, in a way I often don't notice until I'm having a crappy day and two arms holding me tight would make it all better if only I could find someone to hug me; until someone absentmindedly or companionably touches my body and every muscle relaxes in a way that makes me realize how tight I've become all over.
Someone who makes me feel peaceful, someone warm and snuggly who holds no sexual threat as I am oddly threatened by sexual advances these months- to come and curl up with me for a few hours.
Go hug a single person today!

Irony

When I was 15 my parents separated (to later divorce and bitterly scorn each other to this day)- and my father left, among other things, his rowing machine which I began to use while watching television in our finished basement.
I had to sneak.
Because my mom would yell at me, telling me as she so oft has through my life what I did and didn't want for myself.
"Karen, I want you to stop using the rowing machine- it's ridiculous. You don't want to have big developed muscles."
At age 25 I started to lift free weights, and continue til this day. Last spring a mandated college fitness course arose and of the choices available I opted for weight lifting. Finally my trepidation in the weight room, so predominately a man-populated area, began to wither. Now I feel like I belong there as much as the often 100% male population that surrounds me on the benches. Guess I knew my own mind on that one.

When I was 14 it was suggested by one of my many revolving psychologists - my mom is also big on diploma'd psychology, and no one could figure out why Karen had such low self esteem (my guess is natural shyness and introversion coupled with ostracism at school and in public) or diagnose my tics- anyway, it was suggested I volunteer at the hospital as a candy striper. The duties of a candy striper were explained to me by this therapist, and it all sounded fabulous to me. Please, Mom!
An absolute NO. Because, like so many others things I've wished to do and done, it would be too dangerous for me. Too many germs.
I never got to be a candystriper, but I am a nurse now; clinicals done in the hospital, work days in various longterm care centers and physician's offices. I've worked around flu, pneunmonia, hepatitis, AIDS.
So much for protecting my from the world and myself, though she still tries.

I did not choose nursing or weight lifting to spite my mother- rather I found myself involved in these things before remembering her wishes against them; just two more veins running naturally through my life.

Excerpts

(from The Mininster's Wooing, "The Sea"; Harriet Beecher Stowe.)
"And ever and anon came on the still air the soft, eternal pulsations fo the distant sea,- sound mournfullest, most mysterious, of all the harpings of nature. It was the sea- the treacherous, soft, dreadful, inexplicable sea."

(from The Chimney Corner, "Conversation"; Harriet Beecher Stowe.)
"Real conversation presupposes intimate acquaintance. People must see each other often enough to wear off the rough bark and outside rind of commonplaces and conventionalities in which their real ideas are enwrapped, and give forth without reserve their innermost and best feelings."

pearls and caviar

I was reading This Fish archives (http://thisfish.ivillage.com/love/archives/2004/08/my_confession) and reminded of something- I am a high maintenance friend, always needing cleaning-up-after.
I'm flat broke, my love life is dead, my car is falling apart, I'm having an identity crises- it's always something again.
But I know I am high maintenance and thank the good people who persist in loving me no matter how often they have to step in and put me back together.