6.24.08

Category: dribblings

so yesterday the guys came out to my work to fix my windshield. so i was all proud of my new windshield until my li’l bro called and told me he’d bought a new car. i mean, what can you say about a new windshield when someone calls with a new car? NOTHING. a windshield sounds dumb as hell next to a new car.

“hey, you should see my new windshield. it sparkles.”

“you should see my WHOLE NEW CAR it sparkles more.”

“what? when did you get rich?”

“hey listen, if the bank calls, tell them i’m good for the money.”

“you gave them my number?!”

“you’re my reference.”

“i’m your sister.”

****

i’m supposed to blog about the beergrimage, but i can’t really think of anything to say about it. we went to a bar in b’ham and sampled many brews. i tried the Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan, a Shiner Bock (one of my all-time faves), and a Harp. well, by the time i got to the Harp i was so full i couldn’t drink so much of it. it was kinda grapey too, like wine-grapey not like bubblegum-grapey. carol, i would suggest that one to you since you’re more of a wine drinker than a beer drinker.

my favorite was the Southern Pecan, which didn’t sound that good to me, really, but i’m glad i tried it cos i would totally get it again.

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6.21.08 pre-july

Category: dribblings

it seems as though July’s reach is longer than i expected. two weeks ago my A/C unit decided to stop blowing out cool air and instead wheeze it’s hot breath into my house. on a weekend of course.

this week? a mysterious crack in my windshield that keeps on growing. it moves. i’ve got a guy coming out to replace the whole damned windshield on monday. this is a new one on me. i’ve never had a windshield problem before. thanks for branching out, July, you ass-raping money eater.

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6.18.08 Teal Sha’nille, the Real Deal works it on WTF Wednesday

Category: dribblings

gross.
today at the ‘brary this older lady asks me a question and it confused me cos it was very busy today what with the summer reading program going on. kids were everywhere and the phone rang nonstop. so she says to me, “how old are you? i’ve got a son.”

and i’m not thinking on all cylinders here because i’m trying to get the right dates on her books and the phone is ringing, and the next person in line is looking at me all, “can we get on with it? why is she still talking to you? doesn’t she know it’s busy as hell in here?”

so i’m thinking, son? what the hell’s that got to do with anything? so i say, “i’m thirty.” with what i’m sure is a confused face on my face.

so then she’s makes a face and says, “oh, you’re much too old for him.”

what the- oh NOW i get it, and i’m all, “hey, i’m married, lady. next!”

weird. i mean c’mon. what kind of mom tries to pick up chicks for her son? so i’m skeeved about it. and i tell mr. fleegan about it when he gets home from work and he says, “well really it’s kind of flattering.”

“what?! really? which part, the part where she tries to pick up a chick for her kid? or the part where ahe sneered at me and told me i was too old.”

“well obviously she sees something in you that she likes and would approve for her son to date.”

“oh.  i’ve turquoise hair. who tries to bag the chick with the hair for their son?”

“see?”

“i guess. still, she needs to be letting her son do the talking. else he won’t learn nothin’.”

so, possible flattery aside, isn’t it weird for moms to ask girls personal questions for their sons? oh! and what’s even weirder is this isn’t the first time this has happened. when i worked at the sign shop i had pink hair and this lady i had to deal with several times asked me how old i was. i answered, “i’m 23. why?”

“oh. i have a son…. but you’re too old for him.”

again with the oldness. so now it’s years later right? and that lady’s son has been dating this girl i know for several years WHO IS THE SAME AGE AS ME.

THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR AGE SNOBBERY.

but now that i’m thinking about it i guess it is okay that they think i’m “worthy” of their sons (you know how southern moms are). until the whole bit about my age anyway.

 

 

 

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6.18.08 Teal Sha’nille part the second

Category: dribblings

update: after talking with LBC, we decided that Shenille should be spelled Sha’nille.

okay, even completely sober i’m not really steady with holding the camera backwards and lefty.

at least i managed to get one in focus. and i took like, 13 photos, most of which i would only get the side of my head instead of, y’know, most of my head.

but we all know you only come here for the free pictures of roxy!

 

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6.17.08 Teal Sha’nille, the Real Deal

Category: dribblings

so today i went and got some Moxification. and then i went to work where one of my coworkers was kind of upset about my Moxification. everyone else was kinda, “meh.” except my boss who was kind of, “you… really did it.” and many of the patrons were all, “i like your hair.” and so far i still have a job.

meanwhile in my parents’ backyard i got cheers and “about times” and a new nickname. mom came up with Teal Sha’nille while dad came up with the added The Real Deal.  and now they want me to answer the phone at the library all, “This is Teal Sha’nille, the Real Deal. May I help you?”

and i would try to take a better picture but i had beer for dinner (not recommended) so i’ll try for a better pic on the ‘morrow, fool.

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31. A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

Category: 50 Books

31. A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

This guy is pretty much known for writing memoirs. And by the title and sinister book cover I was expecting a tale of abuse.

Now, I don’t want to minimize anyone’s pain here, and I do believe that the author’s dad was probably a total sumbitch, but the way he describes his dad and his abuse is totally, melodramatic… to the point where I didn’t really care. Isn’t that awful of me? But I truly think that if the author had written the book differently, if he hadn’t been so dramatic, I would have believed it more. As it was, I sometimes had the thought of, “maybe you were kind of a pain in the ass as a kid.”

I have no doubt that Mr. Burroughs had a tough childhood.  I can’t imagine growing up in a household where my mom was sometimes crazy and my dad was sometimes psycho. However, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he was imagining some of the stuff that happened in the book, like in a James Frey A Million Little Pieces kind of way. Maybe stretching the horribleness of the truth a bit.

I just hate that the author himself makes me doubt the book’s authenticity. I would not recommend this book.

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30. Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

Category: 50 Books

30. Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

Okay, here’s the description from goodreads.com:

Sarah Walters is a less-than-perfect debutante. She tries hard to follow the time-honored customs of the Charleston Camellia Society, as her mother and grandmother did, standing up straight in cotillion class and attending lectures about all the things that Camellias don’t do. (Like ride with boys in pickup trucks.)But Sarah can’t quite ignore the barbarism just beneath all that propriety, and as soon as she can she decamps South Carolina for a life in New York City. There, she and her fellow displaced Southern friends try to make sense of city sophistication, to understand how much of their training applies to real life, and how much to the strange and rarefied world they’ve left behind.

When life’s complications become overwhelming, Sarah returns home to confront with matured eyes the motto “Once a Camellia, always a Camellia”- and to see how much fuller life can be, for good and for ill, among those who know you best.

 

It’s sounds good, huh? Perhaps it might even be funny?
Well, it wasn’t funny, and the back cover lies about how funny it is. But humor isn’t everything, and I could’ve over looked it’s unhumorousness if I could’ve at LEAST liked the main character, Sarah. She was pathetic, and then, when she gets older and knows that she’s pathetic and remains pathetic? Well, I don’t like that. The book even ends on that note, she’s starting a new relationship to a good guy and she knows she’s going to lose interest and screw it up cos she’s always been into bad guys.

Plus I didn’t like how these important things would happen in the book, for example, her sister goes off to college and is going to marry some guy from Madagascar who is kind of abusive and then, you never hear about what happened with that. But it’s years later and she’s at her sister’s wedding (not to the Madagascar guy) and then you never hear about the sister again. Or like where her pal Charolotte, who was her roommate and best pal for years, has a heroin problem. But it’s only flippantly mentioned in a, “and that’s why i haven’t talked to her in years.” There were several plot points like that that should’ve either been fleshed out more or eliminated from the book completely.

There was one part, a really small part, where all of a sudden the book is being told from someone else’s point of view. And I mean, I got it, right? I understood who it was supposed to be and all, but since she didn’t do that with any of the other Camelias (that I ever picked up on) it seemed really out of place. But that one part would have made a good short story, just you know, not a good chapter in this book.

So I dunno, the main character was just so selfish and self-destructive and it doesn’t seem like she will try to change, and I would’ve like to have seen some personal growth is all. Lesson, is all I’m sayin’. But that’s what I get from choosing books by their covers.


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6.12.08 Marconi plays the mamba

Category: dribblings

i saw this video this morning.

 i like it a lot, it looks like it was done in one take, but with all the jump/skip frame (i dunno what ‘technique’ you call that. i just remember it from the ol’ Sledgehammer vid.) i guess you could cheat and it would still look like it was in one take. i’m not sure if the band is called Vampire Weekend or if that’s the song title, and i don’t have to know, because i’m old.

so then i changed the channel to VH1 classics and watched some videos that they used to play when MTV was great. mr. fleegan was eating breakfast and i was drinking coffee and watching steve winwood and chaka khan sing about higher love. jimmy says to me he says, “let’s learn a second language.”

“okay.”

“what language do you want to learn?”

“funk.”

“jaimie, you can’t learn funk. you’re either born with it or you’re not.”

“… i suppose you’re right.”

“george clinton would bitch slap you right now.”

“well, what language do you want to learn?”

” *mumbles* whitebread.”

“hey!”

 

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29. All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg

Category: 50 Books

29. All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg

I checked this one out for my dad to read cos it sounded like something he’d like. Everyone at the library said they had loved it and wasn’t he a good boy for buyin’ his momma a house? I think he’s really popular here because he’s from Jacksonville (or maybe Piedmont?) and people like to read about familiar places, and it’s always nice when a local boy does something good like, win a Pulitzer.

My dad loved this book and read it in two days, and my pops, he’s not a really fast reader. He just couldn’t put the book down. So I figured I should give it a go.

It took me weeks to finish this book. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good book. I just didn’t enjoy the reading of it. The first part of the book is Mr. Bragg talking about growing up poor (really poor) in the ’60s and ’70s in Alabama. This part of the book I did not enjoy. It was hard to read because it just wasn’t a happy story. Of course, stories and lives can’t always be happy, I get that. But the things that happened to the family gave me a stomach ache and I couldn’t read it for any length of time. So I’d read a couple pages here and there, and that’s why it took me so long to read it.

Dad would talk about how funny the book was, how the guy could really tell a story. It never seemed that funny to me. Even the parts that were supposed to be funny were overshadowed by the rest of the story to me. The book does end on a happy and hopeful note, and it wasn’t all sad. The last third of the book the author talks about his job being a newspaper reporter. This was, to me, the best part of the book. And this part seemed to have the best writing in it. So the last part of the book I was enthralled with and I totally read it in a matter of a few hours.

So like I say, it was a good book, but I did not enjoy it. And yes, he is a good boy for buyin’ his momma a house.

I would recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the south, or who enjoy biographies/memoirs.

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6.10.08 more roxy, anyone?

Category: dribblings

the right side of the house (if you’re looking at it from the street) is the part of the house i never see.  there’s nothing good over there; just the A/C unit… and some giant, teenage mutant ninja flowers. apparently my A/C unit leaks out a floral growth hormone into the soil.


these things are as tall as me. granted, i’m not tall, okay? but still, they’re growing taller than the fence.


i don’t know what kind of flowers they are. probably something like the Common Alabama Purty Flower. they’re the kind of flower that you stick your nose in to smell, and your nose comes out covered in yellow/orange pollen, and it looks like your nose has been eating cheetos.

the house next door (it’s empty right now) also has flowers growing on the same side as my A/C unit and i think they are benefitting from the FGH as well.


‘at’s a yaller’n.


‘at’s a red’n.

i’m amazed at these flowers that grow on their own. i didn’t plant them and i don’t water them or weed them or do anything to them. i did try to cut the bushes back from Anna’s Rose Bush (on the creek side of the house), and this spring the roses did bloom. but now the brush has grown back through the roses and kinda choked it or something. it looks like hell now. i’m going to have to cut that junk out at the ground or something. it’s just too hot to do it now. maybe by december.

oh but who cares about stinky ol’ flowers? we all know you came here for the roxy!


cookie, you come pet me, okay?


aw, she’s trying to sniff your hand.

 

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