Femblog

My friend, Carrie Kirby-Purins, is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Click to read her front page story about women who blog.

Moving Right Along

This week, my parents moved out of my childhood home and struck off for a warmer climate in their U-Haul. It was filled with what is left of my physical past. As they lumbered along the freeway, I can envision my long-ago treasures bumping around in the back of the truck... my cowboy Barbie doll getting repeatedly pummeled by heavy picture frames and brass candle holders of my youth.

So it is... the end of an era. The bedroom where I used to sleep will likely be turned into part of a master suite that the new owners are, apparently, planning to create. The thin wall that separated my parents room from mine will be demolished. No more nights of listening to my father snore or my mother get up to let the dog out. Of course, these things haven't happened for over a decade. I've not lived in that house for 13 years. And still, it was my room. Even after they painted it beige, instead of the purple it was when I was a child.

Now, it is a hard fact... I will never again lie on my grape-colored carpet staring up at my shelves full of high school junk and collectibles, while talking on the phone with my friends for hours. I will never again try to coax my parents' cat out from under my bed before closing the door and turning out the light. I will never again wake up to the sun coming through the lacy, white curtains of my childhood bedroom and know that I am safe, and that everyone I love is nearby.

That is what this sadness, this melancholy, is all about.

The house was a good house, with much nature nearby in which to romp. I went to a good school. We had a good grocery store and good neighbors. The weather was mostly good. My life was good. But my family... my family was amazing. I was always safe. I was always supported. I was always loved.

The memories we created in that house... that is what makes it so hard to say goodbye to a jumble of bricks and boards. Those slabs of wood and blocks of concrete contain the best of my childhood. So much of my learning and growing happened there. So much of me developed and solidified there. So much of that space will remain with me forever.

It's hard to picture someone else living in our space.

And yet, even as I sit here late at night, in my apartment in San Francisco, I know that it wasn't the house that made my world so wonderful. It was my parents, my brother, our pets... And it makes me scared that someday I will lose them. They are such a huge part of what I am and who I strive to be. And I miss them, even now, because they live so far away.

Christmas at the Old House - 1999

Sometimes, I wonder if our society has made a mistake in becoming so self-sufficient and distant from one another.

Uncyclopedia

Today, while looking for something completely unrelated, I stumbled (in the internet, cyber sense) upon a truly funny website. Check out the Uncyclopedia. Click on the links on each page to explore the site further. You can also search for words on the left side of the page.

Girl Etiquette #1

Apparently, a tea length bridesmaid's dress is one that is hemmed at mid-calf. A cocktail length bridesmaid's dress is one that is hemmed slightly higher, at the knee.

This distinctness in terminology is, no doubt, meant to differentiate between the respectable, modest women who drink tea and eat harmless biscuits, and the shameless hussies and harlots who drink cocktails and don't mind showing a little kneecap now and again.

Also apparent... I will soon find myself standing under fluorescent lights before a three-way mirror (the cruel kind where you can come face to face with your own butt) and trying on many variations of both types of dresses. I'm betting I end up with cocktail length. I am truly a hussy and a harlot at heart.

Sigmund

I just adopted an online pet. You can feed him toast by clicking on the more button at the bottom.

Good Ol' Boys

Even back in the days of braces and Barbies, I loved cowboys. Perhaps it's the bad boy + gentleman factor. Or maybe it's the boots. For this reason, The Dukes of Hazzard was one of my favorite shows as a kid. In the ancient times, long before my family had one of those top-loading VCRs, I would sit very close to the TV and audio tape the shows. I would, then, listen to the antics of my favorite cowboys over and over again in my room. Just sitting there on the floor, staring at the old tape recorder, cherishing every scratchy, badly recorded word.

I used to wonder how they got their car to jump over rivers and cows and fences like that with no visible ramp leading up to the spectacular feat. I established in my mind that there must be some sort of special button on the dashboard... one simply labeled JUMP. After all, if you can weld doors shut in order to look cool climbing in and out through the windows, you can most certainly install a JUMP button.

And I wonder, to this day, what those Duke boys were doing that pissed off the law enforcement so much... seemingly on a daily basis. Were they drug smugglers? Did they run a prostitution ring with Daisy as head ho? Or were they simply incorrigible youngsters, just out having some good, clean, cowboy fun? Perhaps I'll never know.

(Okay, I could get the DVDs and watch the show from a more adult perspective, but that would ruin the whole thing. So the mystery remains...)

Red Masking Tape

This is a tragic day, not only in London, but all over the world. My heart goes out to those affected by the recent bombings in London. It is a sad circumstance when feel we have to worry about our loved ones who are on vacation or simply taking a train to work.

Tony Blair commented on the bombings:
Blair, flanked by fellow G-8 leaders, including President Bush, read a statement from the leaders. "We shall prevail and they shall not," he said.

My reaction to this statement is one of anger and dismay. It's not like the nations of the world are playing 'cowboys and indians' in our backyards with brooms as horses and twigs as guns. This is real life, real injury, and real death. I would argue that it shouldn't be about who prevails, but instead about who is saved by peace-making and the resolution of a dirty war, which is affecting increasing numbers of innocents all over the world.

The article goes on to say:
The U.N. Security Council was expected to pass a resolution condemning the blasts later Thursday, an official said.

This statement boggles my mind. Have we gotten so far away from the reality of the situation that we need a resolution condemning a bombing that kills fathers, mothers, siblings, grandparents, tourists, workers, aunts, and uncles? Is it really that up in the air? It seems that the governments of the world have to step back so far from the reality of the carnage in order to continue justifying its purpose. By creating a system that requires a meeting to propose a resolution to condemn a bombing that kills real live people... changing hundreds of lives directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly... they have turned it into something that might be a TV mini-series or a really badly written action movie. The reality is masked by the red tape. It's simply ludicrous.

Super Ticket

It is the end of an era... and one that I rather liked, in fact. Yesterday, I received my very first speeding ticket... ever. I was driving my superbert-mobile down to the penninsula to catch some summer sun instead of San Francisco fog on the Fourth of July. A rookie police officer and his beer-bellied partner pulled me over. I wasn't worried, since they usually check my license and find that I have no previous offenses. They generally figure it's a one-time fluke and let me off with a verbal warning. This has happened dozens of times.

As it turns out, these two didn't so much care about my squeeky clean driving record. I think it might have been the How to Write a Proper Ticket training day for the youngster. sigh. Traffic school, here I come. But, FYI... I will be throwing spitballs and giggling when the instructor says "throttle".

I suppose now that I have a sporty, little conbertible, I will get pulled over more often than when I was driving a janky, old Volkswagon. I have a friend who always drives like a grandma because he doesn't want a speeding ticket. I made fun of him for it. D'oh! If he's reading this, I hope he's laughing.

The good news is, I usually go about 90mph on that road. According to my citation, yesterday, I was only going 80mph. Hooray for sad country music, slowin' my driving down.