Thursday, September 3, 2009

My 500th Wiggle!

Well! It is my 500th blog post! Can you believe it? I certainly can. I feel every single one of those 500 entries deep within my bones. To celebrate, here is a cheerleader thing that I made:

She is cheering me on to victory. This craft came from a kit that cost $1. Apparently, if you spend $1 on a kit, then you get a bunch of yarn and felt and instructions that say “Make the thing look like it does in the picture.”

Anyhoo, I thought since it was the 500th blog we could look back in time a little bit. I started this blog in Seattle on Jan. 2, 2007, which probably aggravated me at the time cause I’m the kind of person that would have preferred to start on the first. Ah well. For the first five or so months, only my dear friend Matthew knew about the blog. Things I wrote about when only Matthew read my blog: books, spam email, things I ate for lunch, beverages I consumed, my horrible knee injury of 2007.

Matthew eventually told me that being the only reader was creepy, and so then I started telling other people. When other people started reading it, I started writing about other things, such as concerts and readings I went to, things that happened that day in history, Bryan Adams music videos, movies and television. Plus, the introduction of special guest bloggers! And I learned how to put pictures up!

Hey! Then do you remember when I decided to up and move back across the country? Oh, man I do. Cause I blogged all about it, from my annoying landlady to going to post office 25 times to mail all my books to the big drive cross country. Then I lived in Candler for two months, answering phones at Dad’s office, so I had plenty of time to blog blog blog. Mary Henry and Brad helped get me to my goal of 200 posts in one year, setting a deadly dangerous precedent for the next year.

And speaking of the next year, that’s when I got a job and moved to Atlanta! In Atlanta, I’ve pretty much blogged about things I’ve always blogged about, such as concerts and books and trips and award shows and pictures and whatnot, but in Atlanta I’ve had the additional advantage of writing about Chick-fil-a and its wondrous and creepy bad spelling cows.

Hey, speaking of the Chick-fil-a cows, yesterday I went to Chick-fil-a for lunch, and a guy dressed in the cow costume was in the store! He made a small child cry. A middle-aged man got really excited though, and whipped out his fancy phone for pictures with the cow. I was in a hurry, so I couldn’t stick around and give that cow a piece of my mind on his spelling habits, but that’s okay. I think if I had gotten much closer to that cow I would have cried like the small child. That cow was very big and wanted hugs.

So, several weeks ago, I realized that I was coming up on my 500th Wiggle. And I thought to myself, what sort of special thing should I do to celebrate this occasion? Immediately, the thought came to me, as if from somewhere outside my body: “That’s the post where you quit the blog. That’s your last post.” And I was like, whoa, that’s weird, I wasn’t even thinking about quitting the blog. But really, as soon as I had that thought, I knew it was the right thought. This is the last post.

Let me explain why this is the last post. When I started this blog, I was somewhat frustrated in my job. I was in a funk and needed a creative outlet. And the blog filled that need and became something special and fun in ways that I could have never imagined. It’s nice to hear that other people have enjoyed it, but at the end of the day, I didn’t really care if anyone read it. I wrote all the entries as if only I would read them, and I think that experience made me more creative and observant and disciplined in ways that I would be lacking in if I hadn’t kept the blog.

However, I am in a much different place now than I was when I started the blog For one thing, I’m like 33 months older. But I live in a different city and I have a much different job, one where I write something daily. It can be really hard to read and write for 8 or 9 hours and then come home and muster up the energy to read and write some more. But lately, when I do come home with that energy to write and create, I’m not inspired to pound out a blog entry. I’ve been trying to do the kind of writing that eventually becomes a short story or a book. I don’t know if any of it will ever become a proper short story or a published book, but that’s what I’m working on now.

I just tried to find a blog I read once where a writer explained why she quit her blog – it’s like, you start a blog because you love to write and see it as a gateway drug to bigger and better writing. But you never get to the big stuff because you’re so distracted by the blog. So that’s basically why I’m quitting the blog. Also, I find the internet more and more disappointing every day and it’s probably best I stay off it.

Anyhoo, I have no idea who reads the blog anymore. But thanks for reading. And please know that you can always email me or pick up the phone and chat. In some ways, that would be a really nice thing for me. When you write a blog, people kinda know what you’re up to, but you have no idea what other people are up to. It’s a very weird one-way mirror. But again, thanks for reading.

And now, to symbolize the end of the blog, here is a picture of me on a bulldozer, symbolically running it into the ground, but also digging up the fresh dirt that symbolizes a new beginning or something like that.

And here are some posts I consider my greatest wiggles:
First blog: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-bloghouse.html

Knee injury: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8
Bryan Adams: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6

Why I am warped, Part II: Interviews with family: Dad, Mom, George, William, Dad again


Special guest bloggers/guest: Brad and Mary Henry, Matthew, George #1, George #2, George #3, William

Popetacular: #1, #2, #3, #4

Fun with stuffed animals: #1, #2, #3, #4
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Monday, August 24, 2009

books and pictures

Today on CNN, it was reported that Barack Obama took 5 books totaling 2300 pages with him on vacation. Well, I don’t know how many pages my books totaled, but I ended up taking 12 books and 10 magazines with me on my vacation. And of course I didn’t read them all. I just wanted to have the luxury of lots of choice. And I suppose it’s kind of a poor showing that I only read 2 books out of the 12. But what can I say. The activities schedule was pretty packed.

What was weird about the books I read on vacation was that they both ended up dealing with childhood sexual abuse even though I had no idea that that’s what either book would contain when I started them. So that may also be why I only read two books. Perhaps I was scared of starting another book that somehow also involved childhood sexual abuse, because then I would have had to question why I was buying all these books that somehow featured childhood sexual abuse without my knowing. What’s up with my subconscious?

Anyhoo, the two books I read were:
--Book #15: Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck
--Book #16: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

I chose “Leaving the Saints” cause I wanted to read about some crazy Mormons, and this memoir did not disappoint on that count. It’s about how Martha Beck, the lady who I hear appears on Oprah sometimes, relocated from Cambridge, MA to her childhood home of Utah. Her father is a bigwig in the Church of JC of LDS, so she re-explores her family’s religion while trying to come to grips with her own spiritual beliefs. It’s interesting enough as a memoir of faith. But then you have to throw the aforementioned childhood abuse in there; Beck alleges that her father molested her when she was young, something she repressed until adulthood. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, they’re pretty divided on whether this book is truthful or not, which seems like kind of a weird thing for strangers to debate but oh well. I can’t say I want to hang out with the lady, but the book was interesting enough to me.

Well, after reading the Mormon Memoir, I decided to switch over to fiction. I chose “Case Histories” because I’d heard it was a real page-turner. Eh, it was okay. It didn’t wow me. Basically there are three sets of characters and all of them have a decades-old mysterious death in their past and a private investigator tries to solve everything so that the families have closure. There was sexual abuse in this one too, as well as multiple families in which one child was loved way more than another one, which is not exactly a fun thing to read about at a family reunion. It really wasn’t a mystery as described in all the blurbs, though the characters that were wandering around the book were interesting enough. Even though when perspective changed, the author’s style didn’t, meaning that all these characters expressed their thoughts in parentheses (which made it hard to distinguish the differences between people). Just alright.

Hey, are you kind of depressed after reading about these sad books I read on vacation? Me too. Let’s look at vacation pictures to cheer ourselves up.

Abe Lincoln's boyhood home:

Lincoln birthplace memorial:

Lincoln statue in Hodgenville:

ZOOOM in:


Rough River Lake:

More of the lake:

Holding Mickey Mantle's bat:

Stealing some chicken from the colonel:
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Sunday, August 23, 2009

getting lucky in kentucky

Two weeks ago I was in the state of Kentucky, enjoying a big ol’ family reunion and vacation. Having spent the last week in that daze you experience once you get back from a vacation and have to re-enter the real world, I’m finally ready to write about this amazingly relaxing and refreshing week.

The ultimate destination was Rough River Dam State Resort Park, in western Kentucky, where we were meeting up with the Iowa branch of my dad’s family – my uncle, aunt and my two cousins, along with the spouse, two children and significant other that those two brought along (I guess for accuracy’s sake, my cousins don’t live in Iowa anymore. But they shall always be my Iowa cousins. Anyways). But the Candler branch of the family decided to take their time getting up to the state park so we could hit some Kentucky attractions.

First up: Maker’s Mark Distillery, which is in the middle of nowhere and has very limited visiting hours, which made getting there practically a race. Not helping matters, in my opinion, was my father’s new GPS system, which was named Greta. Anyone in my immediate family can probably speak for an hour about how much I hate Greta. Here I was, sitting in the back, with printed directions that were as good as Greta’s, and yet whenever Greta did something correct, like tell us to turn right, everyone was just amazed. I CAN DO THE SAME THING! I WANT COMPLIMENTS TOO!! And if I was wrong, man, I bet they’d really let me have it. Whereas when Greta was wrong or off, it was just chalked up as an endearing fault. Ugh, I hate this technology and I really don’t think we should become too dependent on it. But I digress. That is a lengthy topic for another time.

Anyways, Maker’s Mark was fun and located in a pretty spot. After a family argument about lunch that I shall not discuss here, we ate at a little café on the distillery grounds before our tour. We heard about the Maker’s Mark recipe, saw bourbon aging in the barrels, and then we had a little taste of the white dog that comes out of the barrels, before it’s diluted with water. My sister-in-law Courtney claimed it smelled like alcohol poisoning, and it didn’t taste much different than that, either. I think that burned off my tastebuds, leaving me unable to appreciate the Maker’s Mark. Or, it’s possible that bourbon just isn’t my drink. But it was cool to watch my brothers dip a bottle of Maker’s Mark in that distinctive red wax.

After Maker’s Mark, we headed off for another distillery called Heaven Hill. The tour at this one was a bit more informative as far as Kentucky Bourbon goes, and the place as a whole was a bit more swanky. But the bourbon still tasted gross to me. Oh well. All the other things I tasted that were made with bourbon, like candies and barbeque sauces and beer….those were all delicious!

After Heaven Hill we headed into Bardstown for the night. The only thing open in Bardstown past 5 p.m., it seems, is the Old Talbott Tavern, which is probably one of the coolest places I’ve eaten. The place was built in 1779, and all manners of famous people have been there, including native son Abraham Lincoln. There, we tasted Kentucky delicacies like Burgoo (a stew of sorts) and Kentucky Hot Browns, which is a sandwich dipped in like gravy sauce and topped with bacon. You know, healthy stuff!

The next day was all about Abraham Lincoln. From Bardstown we drove to his boyhood home at Knob Creek Farm. Well, it’s not actually his boyhood home, it’s a replica/reconstructed cabin, but the Park Service seems to think it’s in the right place and you can walk down to the creek where Abe almost drowned. A little further down the road is the more impressive birthplace site, which had a tearjerking introductory video, a massive monument built to enclose the cabin, and yet another little cabin, which again, is not the real, actual cabin but as close to the real thing as possible. This state has a lot of fake cabins, but you do get a real sense of what it might have been like to grow up in a tiny cabin with nothing around you, if only because the land is still so undeveloped.

Then it was off to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville, which has got to be the best three bucks I ever spent. The life story of Abraham Lincoln is depicted in dioramas featuring wax figures! I won’t put the pictures up here because I fear it could get me sued, but suffice it to say that it’s both awesome and creepy. We had to drag Dad out of the gift shop.

After loading up on some supplies at Wal-Mart, it was off to Rough River, where we spent a few days. I won’t go into detail on all the days, but most involved some combination of the following: yummy meals, sitting by/swimming in the pool, walks through the park, mini golf, real golf, card games, board games, swimming in the lake and riding on boats. One day, we headed to Mammoth Cave National Park, which, like the Lincoln Museum, was awesome and creepy, but in a different way of course. The two-hour tour we took was a real workout, cause we had to practically crawl through these tight spaces and then climb all these steps to get back out. I can’t imagine being the first person who decided it was a good idea to go into a cold, dark, underground cave.

Overall, the reunion was just great, a relaxing fun time, and it was nice to spend so much quality time with that side of the family, as I don’t get to see them that often. Plus, Kentucky is a beautiful state. I was very impressed with it.

On the way back to Candler, we attempted to squeeze in a few more Kentucky attractions. We drove to Louisville to hit up (pun intended) the Louisville Slugger Museum. We went on a tour to see how they make the bats, and it was pretty cool. They show you all the choices that a player can make, and then they put a piece of wood into a machine and boom….there’s a bat.

On our way out of town, my family very patiently indulged me as we stopped at my beloved Half Price Books, which has like 10 locations in the greater Seattle area yet NONE in the south. Please, Half Price Books honchos, if you read this, please please please come to Atlanta. That Louisville one is the closest one to me and I really think that’s unacceptable. I think I can guarantee that if you come to Atlanta, my purchases alone will keep you in business.

Once I had bought enough to keep me in books for the rest of the year, we made the long drive back to Candler, stopping one last time in Corbin, KY, the site of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m not a huge fan of KFC, but I can tell you that if you eat at the one in Corbin, it will taste better than all other KFC you’ve ever had in your life combined. The ghost of the Colonel must hover overhead, ensuring that the chicken, biscuits and sides are just extra delicious. And that concludes the account of my Kentucky vacation.
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Monday, August 3, 2009

Book #14: Infinite Jest

Alright, so people have started to notice that I have not posted in a good long while. Hopefully this post will explain why, in part. The thing is, I have been very busy reading “Infinite Jest,” which is a book that has more than 1000 pages if you count the endnotes. Lots of people have been reading “Infinite Jest” this summer thanks to the online book group at Infinite Summer. Well, as you likely know, I can’t stand not having read a book that many other people had read, so I decided to join in. But I decided to make it even harder on myself—while the Infinite Summer readers were taking from June 21st to Sept. 22nd to read the book, I wanted to go a little faster. I made it my goal to read “Infinite Jest” in just one month: July 1 to July 31.

To do this, one has to read about 30 pages a day, and woe unto me if I skipped a day because of like, a social life, because then I was attempting to read 60 or so pages a day. And these aren’t the kinds of pages you read real fast; there’s a lot of contemplating and trying to figure out what’s going on. Now, I didn’t have to do it this way, but I wanted to, so I’ve been reading a lot and that’s part of why I haven’t been blogging lately.

Well, I’ll just go ahead and admit that I didn’t finish the book til last night, August 2, two days off the goal mark, but oh well. I’m still glad I read at the pace I did, because I think that if I hadn’t set aside such large chunks of time to read this book, I might have given up on this book like so many others do. But because I kept going at quite a clip, I think I got to a place of acceptance with it faster, and it became like this dedicated mental exercise time, when I sat down to read. A recent blogger at Infinite Summer likened it to yoga, and I completely agree.

And I ended up really loving it, and being absolutely in awe of how David Foster Wallace’s brain worked (and of course, at the same time, sad about how his brain worked, as he committed suicide last year and lots of the book deals with awful awful depression, but that’s not what I want to focus on). Some days, this book made me want to write my own book, and some days, I felt it was useless to even call myself a writer because what could I ever produce that would match this? It’s such a weird, funny, scary, heartbreaking world he created in this book. The plot is impossible to summarize, but it involves a tennis academy, alcohol and drug addiction, filmmaking, depression, alienation and Quebec separatists.

“Infinite Jest” seems like one of those books that people think they’re not smart enough to read, but all the intro posts to the book posted at Infinite Summer were a big help. Then it was nice to see what other people thought, but then, thanks to my advanced reading schedule, I zoomed ahead of everyone, and stopped checking the internet for what people thought. Then, last night, after I finished, I finally checked the internet again to see if my understanding of the book was remotely close to what I was “supposed” to think, and it seems like I did okay in terms of understanding everything, which is good, I guess, but I suppose that’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to worry about, and the fact that I’m even giving myself the intellectual pat on the back now seems kind of weird. But I guess what I’m saying is that if you’ve ever been intimidated by the book, you shouldn’t be. The things you’re supposed to understand, you do, and the things that aren’t addressed or resolved, well, they’re good in their own way too. I think I’ll be re-reading passages in this book for days and months to come, if not re-reading it altogether, which is an impulse I very rarely have about a book; usually I consider re-reading to be a waste when there are so many other books to be read.

So that’s what I’ve been doing: reading a really really long book in a short timeframe. And if that’s not enough for you, I’ll show you something else I’ve been working on in the last few months. It’s a cross-stitch of Pope John Paul II!!!!!!


At the top you see what it will be one day, and at bottom you see where I am with it now. I have a headless pope. But this is what I like to do while I watch junky tv, when I wasn't reading Infinite Jest or at work or hanging out with people. So hopefully now all my time is accounted for. And as a warning---I'm going on vacation starting Friday where I will be blissfully internet-free, so hopefully this post can tide y'all over for awhile.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

animal cruelty

Today I was driving home from work, and there was a truck going in the opposite direction. The truck driver stuck his head out the window and let loose a big old gob of spit, which landed right on my windshield. It was so gross. Grosser, I think, than having a bird poop on the windshield, because I have higher expectations from humans than I do from birds.

One time, I was walking down the street in Seattle, and this guy walking past me let loose some spit. I guess he was aiming for the ground, but since there was a slight breeze, the spit stayed aloft and hit me right on the arm. Neither the dude nor the lady he was with thought it was that big a deal, if the half-hearted apology I got was any indication. I suppose it's possible they were on drugs. People spit all over the sidewalks of Seattle. There's not as much walking around in Atlanta as there is in Seattle, but today I learned that even if you don't have to see everyone's deposits of spit on the sidewalk, then you still might have to see them on your very own car.

Look, I didn't mean to get off on such a spitting tangent. I am tired. The whole reason I started to blog was to share this picture of how I was cruel to my fish this past weekend. I thought it might help keep the little guy in line if I put a package of tuna fish right next to his bowl. As you can see from his body language, of keeping still and facing straight ahead, he was not amused. I probably made a bigger deal than I should have in making and eating those tuna fish sandwiches.


Geez, now that I am writing about what I put poor Alvin through, I feel I kind of deserved that spit globule. I am the worst fish owner in the world. I am sorry, Alvin. I promise to never chunk you up and mix you with mayonnaise, dijon mustard, onion and relish for a sandwichy treat, no matter how hungry I may get. Please don't spit on me.
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

images of america

As I mentioned in my last post, I went dishwasher shopping with my parents this past weekend. When we were walking up to Home Depot, on the day before the 4th of July, I was very struck by this image:
I think this picture encapsulates the American Dream, which to me, clearly, is flag + tractor. Actually, it's about owning a home with a yard that requires a tractor, and a trip to a nice American-owned business like Home Depot means you have the financial security to acquire such an item. Or something like that. I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, because taking pictures in a parking lot is quite a dangerous thing to do.

What other images of America did I capture over the holiday weekend? Well, here is a picture of a grill with all sorts of meat on it, along with some spiced pierogies:


What, you think that the grilled meat could be made more American by the addition of a beer, some french fries and a little ketchup? Me, too:

And last but not least, here is a kitten playing a video game:

You may notice that even though this is a post full of images of America, there is only one American flag. Well, that is because everyone in Candler, NC was violating the flag code, which I read up on as preparation for the 4th. You have to take your flags down at night if they're not properly illuminated, people!
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Monday, July 6, 2009

important life lessons

Well, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that it was tough to go back to work today, after a nice, long, holiday weekend. I spent my 4th of July in Candler with the family. Though our activities mostly involved eating, I was still able to learn lots of things on my trip home. I decided to blog about all the things I learned, each day. Here we go.

Thursday: In which I drive from Atlanta to Candler, eat at Mellow Mushroom with my brothers and go to a Jenny Lewis concert with my brother George.

I learned that…..
….Atlanta traffic is not that bad if you get to leave work at 1 p.m.
…..Ronde the cat is still impossibly cute
…..Tiki the cat is still rather grumpy when I am around
…..my brother William is starting to look and act eerily like my father.
…..waitresses who show up for their Mellow Mushroom shift directly after “gardening” are often too spacey to be very effective in serving.
…..the Mellow Mushroom in Asheville was out of nearly every local beer.
…..my brother William has some frightening sort of mojo or reverse psychology that can make me agree to eating Hawaiian pizza when I really want to eat White Pizza.
…….it’s better to just compromise and order two pizzas, particularly if one of the pizzas is a White pizza.
….short people who are pissy about having to stand behind taller people at a concert should get to the concert earlier
....the Heartless Bastards are a good opening band, and the lead singer of that band looks like a Muppet.
….a new stylish look, as worn by Jenny Lewis, is a cut-up white t-shirt with a black bra underneath.
….Tecate is a tasty beer suitable for performers, as evidenced by Jenny Lewis’s enthusiasm for it.
…..Jenny Lewis posters are nigh-impossible to get, as they sold out just before I was able to buy one for my brother, and none of the staff members were willing to get the one out of the locked marquee for us.

Friday: I ate coffee cake, cold cuts and chicken, went shopping with my parents and sat on the porch.
I learned that……
….Sara Lee coffee cake is delicious
…..I might be allergic to Ronde the kitten
….shopping for dishwashers is difficult
….dishwasher salesmen might be creepier than car salesmen
….trying on hats at antique stores is fun
….if Hardee’s is out of lids for their medium-sized cups, they will upgrade you to a large.
…..a large soda at Hardee’s is way more soda than any person has a right to drink
…..sitting out on the porch, in weather that was at least ten degrees cooler than Atlanta, is delightful.
….Ronde can climb trees
……my mom used to win roller-skating competitions and win a giant Hershey’s bar for her efforts
….if you let the boys cook, they will come up with something delicious, thus meaning that they should always cook while the ladies sip drinks on the proch
…3 adults can easily polish off 3 bottles of wine.

Saturday: A day to celebrate America by eating and watching things.
I learned that….
…..Tecate is more delicious than I remembered. Thanks for the tip, Jenny Lewis.
…..pierogies with spicy seasoning cooked on the grill are delicious
….how to make ribs from my brother’s father-in-law. Sorta.
…the renovated movie theater on Hendersonville road is awesome, because it has all these big comfy couches and footrests.
…The Hangover is an immensely funny movie
…..when you hear a rustling in trees near the house, it’s best to assume that it’s a bear.
…fireworks that emit a loud boom without also emitting any beautiful sparkles are awful fireworks and should not even be sold.
…..there was much I did not know about our nation’s first sixteen presidents, thanks to the History Channel’s marathon of “The Presidents.”
….the History Channel thinks that Jimmy Carter succeeded Abraham Lincoln in the presidency, if the way they ordered the episodes of “The Presidents” is any indication.
….I get too tired to stay up til 4 a.m. to watch the entirety of any television marathon, even if it is about the presidents.

Sunday: I ate some things, read some stuff, and drove back to Atlanta.
I learned that….
…..my mom can make a mean breakfast sandwich
….the show “Rome Reports” is a must if you like popes, and if you get that channel about Catholics, which my parents do.
….reading “Infinite Jest” while your parents watch the Wimbledon finals is kind of weird.
…ribs are delicious
…..it’s best to shower after you eat ribs
….though you may be expecting heavy traffic on the last day of a holiday weekend, it won’t come in the spots that you expect.
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