I Think I Saw a Ghost, Some Enchanting Suppositions (Not to Be Confused with Suppositories)

February 16, 2015Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

What are the odds of encountering one’s best friend from high school (who I’ve not seen in at least 10 and more like 12 years) in a Certified station/ Subway on the way home? Probably dismal, especially considering the only reasons I stopped there were a.) because I had to take a wicked crap, and b.) Jerry had wanted me to bring him a specific footlong from Subway, and I figured I’d combine errands.

I am really crappy at recognizing people, (even people I see all the time, I might remember the face but not place the name) and I am not at all surprised she had to call me out. Then again, I see people who I think I recognize all the time- who in reality either I don’t know them from Adam’s housecat and/or they don’t know me from Adam’s housecat either. So I make bloody sure I know who I’m talking with before I assume anything. Most people who knew me in high school would probably not recognize me now since I did away with the Big 80’s hair, but yesterday I was probably even less distinguishable since I was wearing the big black rimmed cat eye glasses (the ones in my avatar pic) and a hat.

When I did finally affirm to myself who she was, I swore I had seen a ghost. And I don’t believe in that stuff.

But people who know you still know you. Even when time has not been kind to either of us. There are incidents in my past that I would rather leave there, and revisiting old friends also means reopening old wounds. I’m not saying all my memories of back in the day were bad. Some were funny. Some were difficult. There was a lot of partying. I stopped binge drinking many, many years ago- 1993 to be more or less exact- so that sort of thing doesn’t really have any charm for me now. I’ve moved into a different sphere than most of my old friends. I doubt if we have much in common, but then again, I don’t have much in common with too many people.

I know that my friend has had problems with drinking and addiction on and off, as well as myriad health concerns, which makes keeping in touch even more difficult. She has been used and abused by men. She has spent most of her life painfully poor. I don’t say that as a value judgment, because I could have gone down those paths just as easily. The wear and tear just looks different.

I almost felt guilty. I’m not a wealthy woman by any stretch, but here I am with my late model car and smart phone, and she’s asking me if I know anyone with a cheap, crappy used car because she’s been without a car for six months. Her youngest son is in trouble and has been in and out of the joint for stealing her credit card and for other things. She’s living in a redneck trailer park. It could be worse, but it could be a lot better, too.

I can’t think this could be even remotely aesthetically pleasing. Bubba pissin’ out the trailer door at 3 AM…

What can I do to help? I wonder. Would it be condescending to offer what scant help I might think I can give, because I know she is the type to be fiercely independent?

At least we did exchange phone numbers, and maybe I’ll have the courage to call.

Maybe I’m afraid that in getting back in touch with old friends I would be tempted to go back to my old ways- hot boxing cigarettes and getting butt drunk- but I highly doubt it. Perhaps I just don’t like being reminded of my own mortality yet again, and I don’t like facing the reality that there is never really a way to get back home. The spheres are forever changed.

Why is it that some stupid dude getting nutted, especially in a stupid way, is ALWAYS funny?

There are a number of TV shows that seem to capitalize on traumatized testicles as entertainment. I can’t say I know why it’s funny, but it always is. Maybe it’s funnier to me because I don’t have nuts.

I think the biggest temptation for me when I meet up with old friends is to get embroiled in the details of their lives again and to make myself too available. It’s one thing to shoot the shit and hang out with someone from time to time, but quite another to become so caught up in trying to help someone else that I get caught off balance and get my priorities screwed up. When is it appropriate to be a friend and when does being a friend become being taken advantage of? Back in the day I provided everything from transportation to cigarettes to even clothes and money at times for my friends, (and they kept me from getting my ass kicked) but I’m not in a place where I can readily do that now.

I think my first endeavor at subversive cross stitch went rather well.

I just have to mount it in the frame.

Speaking of cats, we are probably soon going to be back at four cats. The cat rescue people managed to capture the three legged all white cat that has been living on the body shop lot. I thought it was a male, but it’s a female and she’s recovering from being spayed. Jerry calls her Tripod (not a terribly nice name) because she’s missing most of her right rear leg. That cat has been missing most of her leg since she was a very small kitten.

I have had a few all black cats. I’ve never had an all white cat. I’ve also never had a cat missing a leg.

It’s going to be interesting.

Things Not to Do in a Communal Showering Environment

February 6, 2015Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I go swimming at the “Y” in the mornings before work- partially for health reasons and partially for sanity reasons. It’s a stress relief most days, and gets my joints moving.

Most of the time I have a quiet and uneventful morning. I get there at 5:30 when they open so I can do my laps and strength training in the pool. Then I shower, dress and get ready to go to work all right there in the locker room, which keeps me from having to deal with babysitting Jerry in the mornings instead of getting my own stuff done. It’s a lot more efficient than trying to go home and shower and put makeup on while Jerry is doing his morning shitting, showering and shaving in the same bathroom.

Most of the time I am one of the first ones in the shower. I try to be very conscious of those around me. I try to take my shower quickly, efficiently and with the least amount of distraction. All I want is to get clean, get dressed, and get out. I do dress behind the curtain as I believe there are some things no one wants to see in the light of day, things which include my unclad ass hanging out of a towel.

We do have a few rude girls in the showers though, and there are things I observe that I consider to be very poor shower etiquette.

The Moaner:

I know it feels good to take a nice hot shower. The problem is when you choose to articulate your satisfaction with the hot shower by moaning like the girls’ gym teacher in that scene from Porky’s. Did you bring your dildo to the shower? It sure sounds like it. Does being in a communal shower with others of the same gender turn you on? That is creepy beyond words. I have to wonder- but please- keep those kind of noises to yourself.

The Doucher:

Some people do rinse out their hair with vinegar, which to me is sort of weird, but it’s even weirder if that vinegar smell from the next shower over is from someone doing the douche. If your nether parts get that skank nasty just from a morning work out, there is probably something funky going on down there that Summer’s Eve is NOT going to fix. I’m all about feminine hygiene, but that’s one of those kinds of things that should get done at home. Better yet, if in spite of regular bathing, the old cooter keeps on smelling like last week’s catch was left out in the sun,

you might want to seek medical attention of some sort.

The Streakers:

I don’t want anyone in the locker room to see me naked. It’s more courtesy than anything else. I don’t want to see any female naked. I would make an exception for hot, buff dudes. I would assume that most women really don’t want to see other women naked either, and if you are one of those women who like to stare at other women naked, I don’t want to be the one giving you a thrill. So the courteous thing to do is not to run around the locker room “clad in naught but air,” or with nothing on but a towel that leaves your ass hanging in the wind. The little cubby in front of the shower with the curtain is there for a reason. Get dressed behind it after you shower, so nobody has to see you naked.

Of course, bodily noises in the shower are always in bad taste. I know sometimes farts slip out, but it is possible to take a shower without cutting a few big, lusty, long, juicy rippers all during it. It also is possible to get through a shower without hawking up a lung, or blowing one’s nose (that is just a nasty thing to do in the shower.)

The last thing I want to worry about in the shower is sliding around on someone else’s snot. I wear shower shoes, but still.

A Common Sense Guide to Household Warnings

January 20, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Hell yes, it’s hot!

Ever since that deal with some ass pilot suing McDonald’s over hot coffee, manufacturers have been going nuts with the warning labels. Now I’m all about household safety, but the things you’re most likely to get injured with usually don’t have warning labels.

The first warning I would hand out is that: Alcohol Complicates Everything.

I can say this not only as a former binge drinker, but as a frequent drunk watcher. I get to witness the consequences of drunken stupidity far more often than anyone should. I see how one could put the cat in the fridge (thankfully Isabel, when she was living, had a loud voice- and was none the worse for her few minutes of Arctic exploration, as she lived almost 16 years) or run outside doing the St. Vitus Dance in one’s whitey-tighties because one is out of beer. I’ve witnessed a grown man take a piss in a cat box, in a closet, and on more than one highway berm. I’ve witnessed a grown man do a lot of things that no one over the age of toddlerdom should do.

Need I say, “Don’t Drink and Mow, Shithead”?

(hint: yes I do!)

I am not completely absent from the annals of drunk and stupid behavior either, as I probably will never know if I was clothed or not when I answered the door to that hotel room to pay the pizza dude. I just know I woke up about 3 AM stark naked in a bathtub full of freezing water and a half-eaten Domino’s pizza on the ledge. To my credit, this incident occurred in 1993, and this was the last time I was ever really shitfaced, as in forget-it-all-drunk.

Even today, I like a very occasional glass of a decent Merlot every now and then, so I’m not on a mission to encourage people to be tee-totalers. There is a huge difference, though, between a small before-bed nip of wine and quaffing down a fifth of Wild Turkey in the middle of the afternoon.

Sharp things are pointy. Pointy things can draw blood.

I have to say I’ve been party to sharp things/pointy things misadventures. I’ve put knives through my fingertips and palms (not intentionally of course) and have had more than one losing encounter with a box cutter. I am not generally a “bleeder.” I don’t bruise easily. Some days I have to poke my fingertip several times before I get enough blood to feed the meter (diabetics know what I’m talking about here) for my sugar checks. So if I’m dealing with cutlery or other things with points or blades, and I see blood, I’ve probably inflicted a pretty decent wound. It will leave a scar, and it will take awhile to heal.

Normally I wouldn’t think twice about my own dogs. I respect the fact that they are the same species as the grey wolf, although dogs somewhere along the line figured out that the humans with their opposable thumbs and ability to cultivate crops and livestock could offer them a far more cushy existence than scavenging around in the cold tundra for rodents and carrion.

Dogs have 42 teeth. Clara’s (even at age 12) got a formidable set.

The only thing that would give me pause regarding my own dogs is their reaction to strange or unauthorized human activity in their space, and even then, the fear in that situation would not be for my own person but for the blood stains and gory mess left behind on my property. I do have some concern that should I drop dead in the house alone that they may decide to consume the 145 or so pounds of rotting carrion that my carcass would provide. However, if I’m dead, will I really care if I become doggie dinner? I doubt it.

Now I don’t have pit bulls- my girls are primarily herding breeds (GSD X Malinois and GSD X Chow) and Lucy is not a herder at all but a harmless bulldog/beagle mix who just wants attention and doesn’t care who it comes from. But I will agree with guns and dogs as home defense. I hope to never have to utilize either for self defense, but it’s one of those situations where when you need something and it’s not there it could be the difference between life and death.

Now I know why the local Buick dealerships have defibrillators in the service department waiting room.

‘Lizbeth, I’m comin’ to join ya!

Holiday Survival, Still Remaining Vertical, and Pragmatic as Usual

December 30, 2014Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Winter. Pretty, but it kinda sux. At least the holidays are almost over.

I survived.

I purposely avoided making any holiday commentary this year, because I’ve been there before. I’ve seen and photographed endless tacky Christmas light displays. I’ve already dished on the annoying relatives I’d rather avoid. I’ve said my peace regarding the big gropy gatherings where someone always thinks that 800º F is an acceptable room temperature, as I’m sweating to death in the corner, wishing I’d left hours ago. I smile and put on my best behavior when Jerry is channeling his inner asshole for the yuletide festivities, and as usual, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I make myself scarce while he gets blitzed and feels sorry for himself.

I should do this the next time Jerry passes out- so I can keep the mess confined to one place.

Jerry doesn’t interact well with my family, and I feel obligated to go hang out with them on holidays, so I choose the lesser of two evils. The house is positively untenable when Jerry’s ripped and on a rant, which is guaranteed during the holidays. My family are mostly loud and obnoxious people, and it’s generally not pleasant being surrounded by their noise and bickering, but they are mild compared to Jerry when he’s going on and on about how much ____ sucks or how I don’t “do enough” for him. Most of my family, with the exceptions of Steve-o and Dad, get on my nerves, but they drink a lot less than Jerry does. I really didn’t want to hang out and watch Jerry go the zoo on his first Christmas without both his mother and his best friend Bob. That’s an experience I was good to do without, and since I’m sure he doesn’t remember much beyond the first 12 pack, I see it (even though I loathe sports analogies) as no harm, no foul. Jerry’s lonely drunk-and-stupids remind me of that age old quandary: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, was there a noise? If he’s drunk and stupid but I don’t have to hear it, then it didn’t happen, no?

The pink tree complete with the buzzard on the top will stay lit up in the living room until New Year’s, then I will put that stuff away for another year. Then I get to settle in for two months (or so) of Februarys- dark, dismal and blessedly (hopefully) quiet, until about the middle of March. I can only hope in the mid-to-late winter funk that somewhere I will find time to read and think and just be. I’ve been scattered in so many directions lately that I really need that ivory tower time in a bad way.

I need solitude, but I can never seem to get enough of it.

This year wasn’t as depressing as Christmases go. I actually had the resources to gift people in a reasonably acceptable manner, which is a big deal to me. I like to treat people well when I can and be generous if I can, and I am thankful for having the means to do so at least in a small way. I am not a wealthy woman by any stretch of the imagination, so nobody got anything really awesome from me, but if nothing else they got a little something useful.

So another year bites the dust. Another day (year) closer to death (if I may sort of paraphrase Roger Waters and Pink Floyd) and not too much to show for it. I can, however, take solace in the truth that I can’t take it with me. The inevitability of death isn’t as depressing knowing that I’m not leaving behind a mansion, pool boy, or a garage full of tasty performance cars. That attitude is pragmatism at work. All I can do is try to do the best I can today.

Extra Early White Death! Yay!- And Don’t Smoke on the Bus!

November 18, 2014Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

I don’t mind winter as much as some people do. The cold really doesn’t get to me that bad, but I do get wigged out by the dark. Dark when I wake up (but then again, it’s always dark when I get up, usually between 4:15 and 4:30,) dark when I go to work, dark when I get home. The only time I see daylight is on the weekends between November and April, and that is depressing.

November 17th is quite early for a first significant snow in beautiful Central Ohio. Usually the greater Columbus area is spared from the White Death until at least mid-December, because we sit in a valley and most of the weather goes either north or south of us, but not this time. We got about 4″ of snow, which isn’t as bad as further north, but it’s not typical this early. It doesn’t break my heart that we miss most of the epic snowfalls that occur in Northeast Ohio. Cleveland can have it.

Just another public service announcement from the 1940’s.

Wrap that rascal, bub!

I have to wonder about the state of this crazy assed world. I still wonder why they let school buses stop on the major thoroughfares during rush hour when there are parking lots close by where the buses can pull in and pick up kids without a.) stopping traffic, and b.) endangering kids by having them wander out close to the major thoroughfares. I don’t see where stopping traffic for miles is a time saver for anyone.

I do remember that when I was a little kid and had to ride the bus that the bus driver set the rules. Period. I had no problems at all while I was on the bus. My problems with riding the bus were before the bus got there and after the bus left. That’s when I ended up either head first in the bushes or head first in the trash barrel. When I was on the bus and in my place in the geeky-nerd-kid-with-thick-glasses-and-bad-clothes-seat- directly behind the driver- I was fine. Big John was the driver, and he didn’t take any crap from any kids. If you misbehaved on Big John’s bus, you got thrown off. Literally. As far as I was concerned, the seat behind the driver was the Safest Seat, and the one I took every time. I wasn’t going to have any conflict with Big John.

One morning two of the older boys, neither of whom were terribly bright, and both of whom were known trouble makers, decided to sit in the very back seat of the bus and fire up their Marlboros. This was a highly unwise move. I no sooner smelled a faint whiff of smoke than Big John slammed the brakes, flipped down the aisle, opened the back door and tossed both boys right out the back of the bus. Then Big John turned around and addressed the remaining kids on the bus with, “You smoke on my bus, I throw you out. Get it?”

Go take your cigs anywhere but Big John’s bus.

Today that would be a lawsuit. Someone today would stir up some kind of horse shit about the two boys being learning disabled (they were, but even they had enough upstairs to understand the bus rules) and therefore completely unaccountable for their actions. Back then, whether you were in the LD class or not, there were consequences for breaking the rules. Those two boys, to my knowledge, never rode Big John’s bus again.

But I think it is perfectly OK to throw miscreant boys off the bus for lighting up a smoke.

That was a much simpler world.

Now the rest of society is stuck having to pander to this or that special condition or bullshit excuse as to why person X doesn’t have to adhere to the rules that are applicable to everyone else.

I know I’m not “normal” or anywhere close to it. I’ve always known that. I’ve also discovered that it’s on me to adjust. I’m not the one running the train, or the one ringing the bell.

If I have a dietary restriction, then I need to bring my own meals, or make do with the available edibles. Being diabetic I am well aware of that. Either I bring suitable comestibles or adjust my dining experience accordingly. If I know my friends don’t have diet soda, for example, then I’ll either a.) bring my own, or b.) drink plain water or black coffee. I’m not going to pitch a fit because someone didn’t make an exception to accommodate my need for sugar free drinks. I don’t expect people to go out of their way to have Tab or Diet Dr. Pepper just for me. The same principle goes for people with dietary sensitivities or allergies. If you know it will kill you to eat peanuts, then don’t go diving into the cookies and desserts unless you know ahead of time what’s in them- or bring your own peanut-free ones.

Just don’t eat it if you know it might kill you.

I know I’ve gone on and on about the entitlement mentality, and the whole concept of special privileges for the mollycoddled few, and it really pisses me off. Now I get to deal with parents with young kids who think that other people should do their work for them while they stay home with their kids and get paid to do it. What makes their kids more special than my son? The kid I had to leave with a sitter (on my dime, of course) or in daycare for 8-12 hours a day, 5 days a week (or more) from the age of 8 weeks until he was about 13 (unless he was in school), because I had to work? I’m sorry, but that torques me. Why are your child care issues my problem? Either stay at home with your kid and suck it up, or do what everyone else had to do- put your kid in daycare and drag your ass to work. You can’t have it both ways. I sure didn’t. And I’m not (willingly) going to cover for you.

So, if you’ve decided to breast feed until the kid hits puberty, sorry about your luck.

Unless you are independently wealthy, that is.

Simply Unpredictable, and It’s Not Nice…

November 7, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Frequently I am accused of either changing the subject or coming up with weird stuff out of the clear blue sky. Of course the connections make sense to me, but my particular road map doesn’t have the freeways routed in the same places as yours. I can get to the same places- some faster, some slower, depending upon what freeways I have available to ride.

Oh, cool, there is an I-69! But, why, oh why, is it in Indiana? In the middle of the flat cornfields? Wonder how many of those signs have been stolen? Then again, truckers are probably the only ones on that road, and those boys ain’t stoppin’. Judging from the number of trucker bombs I see along I-270 (this is the Columbus outerbelt, where there are all kinds of exits and usable bathrooms) I can imagine the truckers out in BFE aren’t stopping for anything.

This is not apple juice, Mountain Dew, or lemonade. It’s PISS.

I am trying to curb the temptation to engage in a sort of mental victory dance regarding the Republican sweep of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Obama is now muzzled to a degree, which is definitely a plus, but my worry is whether or not the newly elected Republicans will stand their ground and do what the American people want them to do, which is to stop Obama’s insanity. Republicans should not in any way “cooperate” with the moonbats who are actively destroying this country with overregulation and over taxation. They should close the borders immediately to illegal immigration, and end taxpayer funded payouts to illegals, as well as to terrorist harboring countries and the perennially lazy. They must revitalize and strengthen our military, and put an end to insane political correctness. We who voted for them have to hold their feet to the fire. These affronts to the Constitution and to American people need to be addressed, rooted out, and corrected NOW. Even so, as much as I loathe Obama and what he stands for, and much as I would love to see him rode out on a rail, now he sits as the ultimate poster child for “Why Not to Vote for Democrats.” At this point it would be better to let Obama ride out his term pretty much impotent and toothless and completely bonkers than to impeach him. Hopefully the rancid taste Obama has left in this country’s mouth will extend to Hillary and Obama’s other moonbat crazy cronies in 2016. I have a very strong hope that it will.

I know I engage in sarcasm. All the time. It’s one of the things that keeps me somewhat sane. I am not politically correct. I would not even consider myself to be particularly “nice.” Most of the time, if I’m being overly nice, it’s because I hear my mother (sort of like a Jiminy Cricket) telling me I’m being rude, or that I’m staring again.

I know I’m not nice. Neither is anyone else, should we all be honest about it. That age-old human conflict of good vs. evil is always there, even when I pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done.” “Thy will,” is very seldom “my will,” save for divine intervention.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…

I know it was mean to let him keep on shoveling in the cat food, but it was funny. And he wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.

I haven’t been trolling in the postmortem pics a whole lot lately, but I know how wildly popular old pictures of dead people are, as creepy as that is. I had one sitting in my personal archives that I am still sort of wondering about:

Let’s play “Spot the Dead Dude.”

I think they’re both dead, which makes this pic extra creepy. Dude on the right is most certainly dead, or else he’s really, really stoned. As you can see, he’s being propped up on one of those Keith Richards guitar stand type frames. The dude on the left is a bit harder to determine. If he’s not dead, he seems to be way too pleasant for standing that close to a dead dude. Either that or he’s being held up by a broom handle stuck up his ass. You decide.

Trolling for Meaningful Discourse, but Finding Off-Color Cartoons Instead

October 16, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Shame on me for indulging my more banal impulses- in a way.

Have I mentioned that I’m no paragon of virtue?

I should be more worried about any number of more important things, including various and sundry deadly contagious diseases. I’ve never had any respect, love, admiration or anything but animosity toward the current Squatter-in-Chief aka: Obama the Ebola King, (all Hail to the Thief, heh-heh) but now I’m convinced that Obama really does have nothing but malice toward the American people. Why in the flying hell have we been allowing flights to come in from Ebola-harboring locales? Why in the flying hell haven’t our borders been secured a LONG time ago? If B.O. thinks he can executive-order his way through governance, one would think that creating a no-fly list would be a no brainer. Then again, B.O. doesn’t have much of a brain- or his aim is to destroy this country.

If his aim is to trash this country, he’s doing a damned fine job of it. The sad thing is that he’s not alone in his efforts.

The more I stew and steam about Obama’s extreme ineptitude (malice?!) and those in collaboration with him the more I realize that there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. I can wish in one hand and shit in the other and we all know which one will fill up first. All I can do is vote the right way and hope that the lame-ass Secretary of State and Attorney General of Ohio (both supposedly Republicans) have done something to prevent the rampant voter fraud (that I witnessed with my own two eyeballs, but that they both swear up and down didn’t happen in 2012) from happening again.

Now that rant’s over, so I can start on the trivialities.

Such as my current favorite cartoon, Brickleberry. This is classic.

It’s probably not a good thing that I find the concept of farts that smell like Christmas funny, but it could be worse.

A Tenuous Equilibrium, The Way of Mercy, and Screwed Again

October 8, 2014Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

I shouldn’t be so nice.

Nor should I confuse “nice” with “moral” or “Christian.”

But sometimes I do.

I had three days of much desperately needed vacation (sanity!!!) time scheduled. So with my luck, according to Murphy’s Law, one of my co-workers had to leave and will be out the rest of the week because his Dad died. There went my Brickleberry DVR marathon and road trip to points TBA.

I could literally watch these episodes all day. And I was going to.

Granted, death sucks, and realistically, you can’t expect someone to care about work in that situation, but mustering up sympathy is pretty hard for me when I’m stuck covering for this same guy through his kid’s endless sports events and various other frequent bullshit call-offs. It’s like crying wolf.

This is how I feel about this guy:
Now you have a valid reason to be gone, but you blew both your vacation time and my patience a long time ago. Save the calling off and pawning off your work on me for real emergencies – and maybe I’d be more understanding when you have an actual crisis. Your kid’s ball games and your conflicts with Time Warner and your cable boxes, and whatever other stupid shit you come up with to get out of work shouldn’t be my problem. Then again, I am not the boss. If I were, there would be no calling off for bullshit- if you wish to remain employed. It’s simply not fair to everyone else.

Technically, I could have went ahead and taken my vacation- but it would have put other people in a bad spot as well as giving me a first class ticket on the guilt train.

But there is a bright side. If I’d decided to go ahead and take my vacation time, I’d have been trying to escape from Jerry and his endless to-do lists, and pain in the ass micromanagement- all while feeling miserable that other people have to do what I should be doing anyway. Even so, I’m screwed again.

It’s almost sort of sad when one is better off just staying at work. Then again, it beats running Jerry’s errands. I’ve not forgotten the 20 mile (one way) road trip to score him KFC in the middle of the night whilst in the middle of nowhere, WV. If only I could just get paid for it, but not actually take vacation time, that would be moderately OK with me. Unless of course, I can take an actual solitary vacation, which I don’t see happening.

I know, forgive and forget, and know that I’d have been strongarmed into forgoing any attempts at rest and solitude anyway, and it was better to volunteer for the inevitable. It either makes me look “nice” or just affirms that I’d rather avoid conflict than stand my ground. Either way, the outcome would have been the same.

This One Goes Up to Eleven, Reality Bites, and the Diesel Beast

October 1, 2014Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

For those not familiar with the wisdom of Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap, he claims that his particular Marshall amplifiers are better because they “go up to eleven.” I guess I need that “little extra push over the cliff” myself.

For what it’s worth, Marshall amplifiers are both classic and choice, for both guitar and bass. Back in the dark ages when I played bass, I had a 400 watt full stack that pretty much never got turned up past three. That’s probably more of a commentary on the fact that I never got very far in the rock and roll endeavor than the quality of the amplifier. I had the power to play in large venues- but not the opportunity. Success in the performance business is based on a number of factors, and actual talent isn’t terribly high on the list. Stage presence, one’s connections, and just being in the right place at the right time matter more than how well one can play or sing.

I have no stage presence, I am not well connected, and when my ship comes in it’s guaranteed I’ll be at the airport. I am not going to claim that I am or was the best thing in the world since sliced bread either. I was a decent singer and a pretty good bass player, but who cares when you are female and have the body of a mutant troll? It worked for Angus Young, but he was both British and a dude. For women in performance and music it’s a “damn, she looks fine, but can’t sing a note,” world out there- and the staircase matters more than what’s upstairs and/or what kind of voice projects from said staircase. There are plenty of talented people out there that the world will never see or hear. Cronyism and nepotism remain alive and well in many spheres, and a pretty face trumps a good voice, musical talent and/or a brain every time. Vapid, marginally talented (or even no-talented) beauties have far better odds of success in this world than talented homely people, which partially explains the Kardashians.

Pretty, but a combined IQ of 12.

Suffice to say that I don’t have the pretty face. I let the rock and roll dream go when my son was born because I had to get down to reality sooner rather than later. It’s fun but (with the exception of a very elite few) it doesn’t pay the bills. It was a lot of work and time and money that I didn’t have to spend.

On a brighter note, the POMC bought his very first new car Saturday. He went to the dark side a long time ago (he’s enamored of the Germans, even when I won’t drive anything unless it’s built by Toyota) so I wasn’t surprised by his choice. After endless research, test drives, perusing online reviews and three hours going back and forth with the poor finance guy at the dealership, he bought a loaded out 2014 VW Jetta- diesel.

Black on black, very conservative…but still the German performance thing.

I can’t blame him at all for wanting the fuel economy. 50MPG+ is enticing, even with the knowledge that maintenance on a diesel is both more frequent and more costly than on a gasoline car. The car doesn’t sound like a diesel and doesn’t stink like a diesel, but my frame of reference on diesel cars goes back to the old VW Rabbits from the early ’80s that rattled to beat hell and stunk to holy high heaven. Over all he ended up with most of the same features as my Corolla (including the obligatory manual transmission), only I have a bit better navi unit and I have automatic climate control. He has a cute little sunglass holder over the rear view mirror and a bigger trunk. He also ended up with about a $7000 higher price tag than the Corolla- but he has a turbo and more low end torque, which means his car has more power. Then again, when the German stuff fails it does so in a blaze of expensive and inconvenient glory. The Japanese stuff doesn’t have quite the performance edge, but it’s generally more reliable and easier to maintain over time.

As I told him, it’s about trade offs. For me the Corolla has plenty of power. After all, I live in Ohio. I usually see at least three cops every morning just driving the three miles from my house to the Y. I can’t afford to speed.

~”Not one state of the fifty has the death penalty for speeding . . . although I’m not so sure about Ohio!”- Brock Yates

Not me. Not in a little black Corolla. Not ever.

So when he was finally done torturing the finance people at the dealership and he was satisfied that it was OK to sign, we made a little road trip in the diesel beast to try it out. On the WV turnpike, of course. I must say in this car’s favor that this was the only time I’ve been down the WV turnpike without being scared shitless from Charleston to Beckley. Even at 70 MPH there’s no body roll whatsoever on those curves and grades. I have not driven the WV turnpike in the Corolla for comparison (yet) but the Corolla did surprisingly well on I-40 in Tennessee and NC with similar grades, curves and speed limits.

He’s happy with what he got and I’m happy with what I got. Different strokes for different folks. Now if he’d been eyeballing a Kia or a Hyundai, Mommy and the POMC would have had to have a sit-down heart-to-heart regarding why we don’t buy shitty cars, but he knows better. Way better.

Coping Mechanisms, Dark Pragmatism and More Postmortem Pics

September 23, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I did draw hatchets, skulls and heavy metal band logos in my extensive high school boredom doodlings. This is why I know not to do it now.

When I get bored, I scribble and doodle. Sometimes I do it in a more figurative sense- typing is so much faster than writing long hand, at least for me- but drawing can only really be done the old fashioned way, with pens and pencils and markers.

The psychologists and guidance counselors had a field day with me in middle school and high school because of my rather dark themed scribblings and doodlings. When your primary emotion is “terror,” the secondary is almost always “rage.” (Repressed anger, anyone?- and this was decades before Columbine.) I would buy plain notebooks (even better if they had a canvas finish) and then I would draw macabre scenes all over them in a variety of colors. If the discussion went too slow or I got bored in class (pretty much every day) then I would write little snippets of prose or poetry along with whatever notes I was pretending to take inside the notebook. I didn’t have the advantage of having a laptop or a tablet or a smart phone in school. I graduated in 1986, when the entire school had three computers, all of which had a cassette player serving as a hard drive. By comparison, the Note 3 smart phone I have today would have been a supercomputer.

I should have learned my lesson regarding concealing incriminating evidence of my twisted thought life when I was in 8th grade. One of the boys decided to appropriate one of my more risqué notebooks and share its contents with the other boys. This was Not a Good Thing. The notebook got confiscated by a nosy teacher who wondered what the boys were laughing about. I ended up in an extremely awkward and embarrassing meeting with the guidance counselor that led to several months of camping out in the psychologist’s office every Tuesday afternoon. Since my mother worked for the school system and knew every single one of the teachers and staff, the repercussions of that indiscretion really sucked.

I still kept my funky notebooks with the outlandish scribbles on them, but I was more careful about what I wrote in them in high school, just in case someone would dare to screw with them. No one ever dared to. In high school, I found that when I ended up with large friends, who took a special delight in beating the daylights out of people who screwed with me, that my confidential items remained that way. I didn’t receive any unauthorized touching, spindling or mutilation to my person either, not after one unfortunate thug got her head shaved for spitting Skoal in my hair. The Skoal Incident- which took place toward the end of my freshman year in high school- marked the end of many years of harassment and beatings from my cohorts in school.

Some of my friends liked to fight. I didn’t. But by the time I had a car and smokes, I didn’t have to fight.

Granted, I was probably buying friends, (often with cigarettes) which isn’t a healthy thing to do, but it did save me from more than one ass-thumping, I’m sure. I was in survival mode back then, and it was refreshing to be able to go to school without being dumped head-first into garbage cans, having my hair set on fire, or being shoved up the stairs. The thought of being shoved up the stairs (concrete stairs with metal caps on the edges) makes my knee caps hurt even now.

Survival is what it is.

I probably shouldn’t have such a fascination for postmortem pics and/or the plight of the unfortunates of Walmart, but I do.

Pictures are expensive- sooooo- jump right on in there with the stiff!

She doesn’t look terribly fresh, but then again, she’s DEAD. How fast can the photographer get there on a horse?

The Victorians did pathos and high drama in a way that we just can’t stomach today, but as I’ve said before, back in the times before flush toilets and Clorox, death was in your living room. Death was your bunkie in more ways than one.

Maybe I should consider it an improvement in my emotional health that my primary emotion is “fear” opposed to “terror.” That might just be the mitigating effect of Prozac. I’ve noticed that my secondary emotion- “rage” – has sort of settled into a pragmatic anger. I try not to get angry unless that anger will do some good, but there are times when I just plain get pissed for no apparent reason.

I actually have some ivory tower time scheduled, although it seems sort of shitty that I have to schedule it in advance rather than just being able to drop off the planet for awhile, unannounced. This time I hope Jerry leaves me alone for at least a day or two. I could really use some peace and quiet with just Clara as company for a few days (months…yeah right) but I know Jerry too well. If I go to the campground he will feel compelled to follow me so I can fetch beer and make trips into town for KFC and so forth.

Man, that sounds good.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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