I don't even know how to feel about THIS... But I'm sure it's some flautist's revenge for all the crap they get from the drumline during marching season.

Catching Up

So it's been 3,047 years since I've updated my blog. Time flies when someone else is in your life.

You go from sitting on the couch like a lump watching football and contemplating leaving your clean clothes in the basket next to you and just dressing from there all week to ... Hey, you're up too? Great, let's go have breakfast. Wasn't that yummy? Too bad the cast of The Hills, a.k.a. the teens next to us, were so obnoxious. Ooo wanna go to Ulta, I hear there's a sale! Let's split this variety pack of teeny nail polish. That gloss smells num! I need to stop by Home Depot and get hardware for those shelves we're going to put up in your closet. Lord, we need to go home and clean. What in the name of Christmas have those cats been eating to make that smell come out of them?? It's like cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic herd. I need to pack my dinner. Aaand I've got to go to work while you're home for the evening, so we can swap tomorrow and I'll be home during the day while you work.

The latest ULTA acquisition, OPI's Toy Box of baby bottles of sparkly Christmas colors: Glamour Game, Brand New Skates, Little Red Wagon, Don't Toy With Me

That's not all that goes down, since Christina and I have also gotten a live Christmas tree, a first for both of us, and made several runs to storage sheds and vacuumed countless times because of the Catherd we've got (more about them in a minute). But it's a slice of how packed your day gets when there's someone else in it that causes you to live less like a teenager with a credit card and no curfew.

I've also started cooking again. I stopped when I moved to Austin and no longer lived with my best friend and her hungry boy, because one thing my grandmother didn't teach me about cooking was how to do it for one. Very quickly into my relationship with Christina I realized despite how appealing it sounded, we could *not* go to Chuy's 24/7, and I also realized very quickly that Christi does *not* cook. She can clean a kitchen in 10 seconds flat, though, so it's been working out great. The only thing is that I'm a messy cook, and sometimes dirty a lot more stuff than I should, so she sometimes finds herself loading the dishwasher and wondering aloud, "How the hell did the lawnmower figure into making chili???"


We've also gone through being sick at the same time. For those of you who have not experienced this with your significant other, let's just say the romantic veil that surrounds him or her in your eyes gets suddenly torn off and set aflame, and you see that person for everything he or she is, phlegm and fever and all. You don't judge, though, because you're just as disgusting, and you can't believe this person still wants to kiss you and love on you considering how funky you've gotta be looking at this moment.

Being sick made me realize I'm at my best when I'm in a relationship. And Amy Zerba, before you completely rotoate into the ground over that statement, lemme explain. By myself, when I was sick I whined and complained a lot to my empty house, didn't get out of bed except to go to work, and didn't really eat right in order to get better. With Christina, I really sucked it up and tried to feel better so I could take care of her since if there was gonna be cookin' I was gonna do it. I was motivated to get food that was good for us and keep up with our medicine intake, as well as preparing the infamous whiskey-honey-lemon nighttime cocktail. Essentially, when I was concentrating on making her better, I got better because I felt like I had to. And I think that's a small facet of how a relationship makes me better: it takes me outside of myself, outside my head (where I can sometimes live) and lessens any crises or worries I have. And that's pretty cool.

So I know I was gonna talk about the cats, but that's really another entry all to themselves. And you'll understand why. Plus I need visual aids to help you understand the dynamics of our Catherd.

So I'll leave you with this, the hardest-rocking little kid that ever knew the words to "You Give Love A Bad Name" and attended a Rutgers game:

Question and Answer with Critia

Due to some confusion, bewilderment and surprise at the new love in my life, I have prepared an FAQ to assist some my friends and chosen family. For those of you who haven't heard, or haven't met her, I'm dating possibly the most wonderful girl in the world and her name is Christina. Email me for details...

Christina hangin' with Elaina and some of the kids from The Company

1) So, was your dating life with guys such a disaster that you just switched to girls and gave up?

Well, yeah it *was* kind of a disaster, but a lot of it was I wasn't finding what I was looking for. I honestly believe that people are like puzzle pieces: you can bang them together to make them lock up, but in the end you damage both pieces and the fit isn't good anyway.

When I met Christina, the fit was perfect. I had this secret checklist that only God and I knew about, and I honestly thought I'd never find anyone that met everything on that list until I met her. I really struggled for what seems like forever with this conundrum: if I've found what I'm looking for in a person, am I going to let society dictate who I'm in a relationship with because she's a girl? Should I pass up a shot at happiness that seems surer than any other so far because people like Fred Phelps think it's wrong?

Yeah, y'all know how I feel about society anyway.


2) Wow, I kinda don't know how to act around you now. Will you get offended if I talk about hot guys, or want to get pedis, or go shopping?

I promise you I am the *exact* same person I was two weeks ago, two months ago. I still think some men are attractive (Gerard Butler), effing LOVE pedis at Maximum FX, and can't wait to drop 30-40 lbs so I can fit into some hot designer labels. You don't have to edit yourself around me, in fact, I highly discourage it. I don't like my friends edited, I prefer the director's cut.

3) Isn't this a bit sudden?

Well, I've never been one to be patient, plodding, wait around for a sign or a course of action. I was told once by someone I admired to "pick a star and follow it." I could list all the signs, portents, and coincidences that led me to believe this is the right path, but no one would understand them but me, because that's how those things are, highly specific to whatever person is supposed to get the message.

The upshot, kids, is that at the core of my being I am confident that this is what I need to do. Plus Katy Perry and a catchy beat told me to do it. :-)

4) So are you gonna stop wearing makeup altogether, chop your hair and wear flannel?

Yyyyyeah, right after I chuck it all and become a trucker. Admittedly my appearance has taken a serious downturn because of my general attitude toward my vocation and my life, but that's going to change, and it started last night. I even got hit on by the valet, so apparently the "cougar" stamp is still on my forehead.

And mullets are so over with.

5) I'm your friend and I'm a girl. Will you at any point hit on me?

YES. Expect that any time now. Seriously, a hug's still just a hug, a compliment is still just support from one sister to another. Nothing about how I feel about my friends has changed at all. Honestly, I'm just attracted to Christina, and not anymore anyone who'll buy me tequila.. :-P

6) I'm your friend and I'm a guy. This is kinda hot.
Yes, Scott Foil, I know. Now please let some other people ask some questions...

7) Do you no longer have a reflection?
We've been over this, Phil, it's a partial image...

8) I think that being gay is morally and/or biblically wrong.
Who let Sarah Palin in here? ... Yeah, then I'm not sure why you were my friend to begin with. I mean, you *know* me, right?

9) Can you help me fix my car?
Unfortunately dating a girl didn't automatically give me the lesbian superpowers I'd hoped for, like furniture construction and auto repair. And according to Elaina and Phil I still have the music tastes of a gay man.

I HEART Amy Poehler

Jesus, gawd:

Top Sports Phrases I Never Want to See Again

Working in the sports department and being a sports junkie, I've come across some really ridiculous verbiage in my time. Here's the Top 10 phrases that are driving me crazy right now.

10. "(Team name) dishes out some home cookin'." It's played, it's old, people were saying it in the '50s. None of those boys can cook anyway.

9. "When you talk about the Cowboys, you talk about a team that..." Troy Aikman is terrible about this; of *course* you're talking about the team, Troy, that's the purpose of your sentence. I've seen this creeping into print.

8. Mixed terminology: "The Texas Longhorns' defense pitched a shutout against quarterback Chase Daniel." It's not cute, it's just inherently wrong. Stop it.

7. "... the Southlake Carroll product's record..." He's a guy, not a product. No wonder there's so much commercialism of athletes.

6. "put on a clinic" ESPN pretty much killed this one. The first time I heard it, I said, "..huh, I've never heard that before.." The next 357,294 times, it made me crazy. The lameness factor counts double in print, triple in display type.

5. A "pitching duel". The pitchers never directly compete against each other, idiot. Don't make up impossible scenarios because your copy's weak.

4. "Youth is served." As what, dinner? What does this even MEAN? I've never seen this outside of sports copy.

3. A star player being described as a "stud". Don't be a jock-sniffer. Squelch the hero-worship.

2. Abbreviated nicknames. A-Rod, Man-Ram, K-Rod, D-Mac, JoePa, T.O., L.T., just stop it. Spend a little more effort, and you get the Nigerian Nightmare (Christian Okoye), the Splendid Splinter (Ted Williams), Andre "Bad Moon" Rison, and The Fridge (William Perry). Come on, sports writers, pick up your game.

1. Gridders, cagers, thinclads, spikers, grapplers, harriers, hurlers, and tankers. If you're writing for a small-town Texas newspaper in 1950, go nuts. Here in the century WE live in, nobody knows what the hell you're talking about except that 80-year-old guy who comes in for Friday night football to take scores.

This particular speech resonates with our current situation:

"Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live."

These are not the eloquent words of speechwriters employed by Barack Obama or John McCain. These words come from the inaugural address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, in his first term as president in the depths of The Great Depression.

In his second inaugural speech in 1937:

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad and ill-nourished.... The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

We should be so lucky if our newly-elected president heeded the words of FDR.

Good God, y'all

Proof positive I'm not the most warped crayon in the box. Witness: