D i e n u

(since i can’t share this day with my mom, i thought i’d share a little bit of my mom with the world. she wrote this poem when i was a freshman or sophomore in college.)

Our TV blew up yesterday,
Now Maurey has nothing to say.
The Price isn’t right,
X-Files no fright,
Our TV blew up yesterday.

A quiet’s descended our house
No Scooby, no Rugrats, and no Mickey Mouse
There’s no Highway to Heaven,
No film at eleven,
Our TV blew up yesterday.

The rain hasn’t let up for a minute,
Life’s hard when there’s no TV in it,
I’ve stared at the screen,
Wished it into being,
Our TV blew up yesterday.

Did Courtney and Beth get married?
Or is their boyfriend still harried?
Oh what I wouldn’t give
For just “One Life to Live,”
Our TV blew up yesterday.

Our TV has gave up the ghost,
No game shows and no talk host,
There ain’t no Marshall Dillon,
Oh I’d give a million!
Our TV blew up yesterday.

The warranty must have run out,
To the day, to the second, no doubt.
I’m mad as a hatter but,
What does it matter?
Our TV blew up yesterday.

The screen just sits there so black,
There’s no “Murder, She Wrote” back to back,
I can’t stand it no more, no
COMMERCIALS GALORE!!
Our TV burned up yesterday,

I say….
Our TV blew up yesterday.

The End!

(Happy Mother’s Day!)

I’ve joined my friends and fellow improvisers/author extraordinaires Nick and Jeremy in what is one of the coolest things I’ve ever been part of.

It’s called Name Your Tale. And the idea is just what it says. Go to http://nameyourtale.com and submit a title. Any title. And one of us will write a 100-word story based on your title. 100 words exactly. (Count ‘em if you want!)

As you can see by the range of titles on the site right now, there’s no limit to the kind of title you can send in.

This project has been exactly what I’ve needed in my life: A creative outlet that gives me the motivation to write again, just for the sheer fun of writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. And it feels really good to be back.

So what are you waiting for? Come on by and name your tale!

It’s been a long day and I need a little reminder of how awesome it is to be me. That’s why I’m making this list.

• the sound of a kitty purring in my ear
• girl fights on america’s next top model
• reading a book in the bathtub
• crossword puzzles that are just hard enough
• holding hands with randy (until my hand gets clammy)
• magic hat #9
• listening to this american life and fantasizing about the day when i get discovered as the next npr superstar
• talking to cooper in a baby voice
• the sound of my ukulele on a quiet morning
• margaritas, on the rocks, with salt
• e-mails from lili
• e-mails from jerry
• comments on my site
• singing in the car
• singing in the shower
• singing on randy’s work voicemail
• knitting needles clicking together
• cleaning my room
• sunday brunch
• netflix instant watching
• taking pictures
• my new typewriter from able and julia
• talking on the phone to my sister
• turning over the compost in our compost pile
• reading a novel in the hammock
• watching family guy reruns
• a super-cold can of diet coke
• a few uninterrupted hours and an open armchair at barnes & noble

What makes you happy?

I am happy to announce that, if the apocalypse comes, Randy and I are preparing for being prepared.

We’re starting our very first vegetable garden. Right now, it’s just some chopped-up dirt in our backyard, but come summer, it’s going to be a luxurious, verdant 8′x6′ patch of awesome.

Check out the ground-breaking ceremony:

 

 

Is there anything sexier than a skinny white guy with a pickax? I don’t think so!

Almost as exciting as our chopped-up pile of dirt that will someday be a lush garden is our custom-built compost bin:

 
You never saw two people get so excited about eggshells in your life. I have a feeling for the first couple of weeks, Randy and I are going to be fighting over who gets to go out and turn the compost. I can’t wait until we get some usable mulch!

(Yes, I am eagerly anticipating mulch. I think this makes me an official grown-up.)

I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I could understand calculus.

The type of person for whom all those numbers and letters and weird squiggly symbols actually make sense is, in my mind, a superior version of human than I am.

Same goes for people who seem to intuitively always know which way is north, without even looking at a map. Sometimes to get a cheap laugh, Randy will ask me to point in the direction I think something is in, like Durham from Chapel Hill or the taco shop from our house.

I’ll do my best to point in what I guess is the right way. Then Randy laughs at me.

It’s good times.

Anyways, the whole point of this entry was to say that I’m intrigued by how many ways of being smart there are in this world.

I’m pretty good at stringing words together into a sensible form. And I’m not too bad at crossword puzzles.

But I suck at math. And I hate that Tanagrams game with a furious passion.

I have no problem following line-by-line directions, but the weird Ikea instructions with just the pictures and arrows and shit make me want to jab my eyeballs out with the disposable allen wrench they always include.

I’m a crappy artist. I’m a terrible cook. And I’m not intelligent about those day-to-day things that usually fall under “common sense.”

But I can read a 200-page novel in a couple hours. And for some reason, I have an uncanny talent at completing multiple-choice tests. I’m a “No Child Left Behind” dream student. But that sure doesn’t help me when it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t for the life of me figure out where the fuck slot A meets tab B.

Earlier this afternoon, people were talking about IQ tests. It got me thinking about how there’s not really any one test that can really capture everyone’s unique intelligences.

Like I don’t know if my dad knows calculus or physics. But I do know he can fix his own car and can build stuff and is an amazing artist and naturally good at geeky stuff.

Why the hell I didn’t get any of that, I’ll never know. I guess I just take more after my mom.