"I'm just a symptom of the moral decay
that's gnawing at the heart of the country"

The The, Soul Mining

That's me. Morally decaying, and apparently unable to update my own website. For which I have several excuses from which you are welcome to select:

Excuse #1 - aka Time
Oooh, that old tick, tick, ticking thing called time. Where exactly am I putting all of it? While the big, giant, project 'o fun is finished (or at least the actual labor part is on my side), I'm playing catch up on the things I spent four months ignoring. Like the other 80% of my job, and, well, sleep.

Excuse #2 - aka Privacy
As a full-on cannibalistic writer sort, I tend to look to my own life for writing ideas. Unfortunately, a couple factors have combined to make that a bit tough lately. First off, there isn't alot exciting that happens when one's day is spent getting up, going to work, coming home and going to sleep - repeat, repeat. Odd quirky moments are at a low and most of my recent intellectual discourse has taken place with my cat. "What do you think about this bo-hunk we ponied up the White House keys for, Chet?" "Mrow." "OK, fine. I'll pet you then."

Second, as happened a few months ago, the things in my life that bring out the strongest emotions are also those I don't feel comfortable sharing publicly for various reasons. And I realized recently that a) my name was made public during the convention we held last fall for work; b) you can easily find this website by plugging my full name into a search engine; and thus c) anything I say could conceivably come back to haunt me in a very public way.

I haven't decided how to address the second point. Maybe start a new site somewhere else stealthily.

Excuse #3 - aka Girly Pursuits
It's true. No matter how I try to hide it. I do have a girly side. It tends to pop up at the oddest moments, but there it is. And sometimes, it makes me do crafty things like, uh, cross stitch. So when I'm busy not updating the site, I'm likely counting squares and sewing little x marks. And swearing a lot when I mess it up.

So there you have it. Pick one. Pick two. Or pick all three. But at least you know I haven't fallen off the earth.

Anyone think that perhaps I should have seen it as a portent of doom that as I rushed out of the house this Monday morning, the CD I grabbed to listen to was the aptly named, "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC?

Watching Headline News this morning while readying myself for rather gray and drizzly Valentine's Day, I found this study rotating as a "top-of-the-hour" story. A quick summary for those of you who don't feel the urge to follow the link: a substantial scientific study was recently completed that came to the conclusion that falling in love makes adolescents more depressed, prone to substance abuse, and prone to delinquency than if they'd never fallen in love.

They needed a study to prove this?

In light of this little study, take a moment. Think back to your first love. The first boy or girl who set your heart racing, your stomach flip-flopping, and stood your hair on end.

Was it traumatic? Was it a big buffet table heaped with emotions that you had no idea how to use, nor even knew if you wanted? For those of you that imbibe, did it drive you to booze it up on a Friday night with your friends as you bemoaned the existence of pure, true love? Was it tragic? Melodramatic? Filled with moments of anxiety over kissing and pimples and parties and proms? Glorious and depressing? If you had a choice between study hall and a stolen half-hour with your beloved, would you have ditched the books for the boy (or babe) in a hot second?

I thought so.

Me too.

My first love was all those things.

And would I trade the experience in for a well-adjusted adolescence where my heart was never broken, my tears never fell, and a tossled black-haired boy never shivered as he kissed me in the moonlight on a humid Iowa summer night?

Not in a million Valentine's Days.

From a messaged conversation held earlier in the evening:

"Help? I need a topic to write about on my website."

"Spain."

"I don't know anything about Spain except that the rain falls mainly on the plane."

"I think that's 'the plain'"

...

"Oh. My. God."

"What?"

"Since I saw that movie for the first time when I was probably seven, I've thought it was "plane." And I think you're right."

And thus was another belief of my childhood brutally dispelled in the course of random conversation.

On the way home from shopping this morning, I pulled into a nearby Wendy's to grab a quick sandwich in the drive-thru.

In front of me... was the General Lee. Straight from 'Dukes of Hazzard' land, apparently. It was the right color, painted with the number on the door, the Dixie flag on the roof, and "General Lee" detailed on the side of the roof.

I found myself watching the guy driving it, wondering what he was thinking tooling about town in a car like that. And whether he thought he'd score more chicks than a guy driving "KITT" from "Knight Rider."