These two present-unwrappin’ darlins are having a little darlin’ of their own. His name will be Henry and he is due in March. He will be one awesome kid, I’m sure, because he’s got two awesome parents. I love these guys a whole lot and have all the confidence in the world that their baby will be amazing.
I’m not in that photo in any form (wouldn’t it have been smart to take one of them opening my gift? Eh. Hindsight, you know what they say about it). I’m hoping some other shower guests will post their photos online and I can swipe one that’s got my mug in it. But for the sake of Project 365, just in case, I took one in the mirror of the hosts’ swanky bathroom.
Truth be told, I had trouble getting into this shower. Don’t get me wrong. I love Alissa and Jonathan and Henry so much. I plan on loading them up with gifts whenever I can. Rock-n-roll onesies forever. But, two other things happened today.
One, I learned at the shower that our friend Zach left today for Paris to live with his (French) girlfriend and see the birth of his first child next month. They may move back here in a year, or he may never come back. I’m glad he’s willing and able to start a life with his new family, but I would have liked to see him before he left. I’m sad to think I might never see him again.
I took the surprise news badly because I already had departure and sadness on my mind. Coincidentally, the other thing that happened today is a mirror image of the first. (see what I did there?) Another friend, another baby, another year. Today my brother-in-law Andrew left for a year-long tour of dangerous front line military duty in Afghanistan. Their daughter, my niece, is four months old. Andrew is practically a baby himself; he just turned 24. Like Zach, I would have liked to see him before he left. I can’t type the other sentence.
I’ve known today was coming for months. So did my family. Clarksville is next to an Army base, and we’ve known tons of people who went overseas for military reasons. Even family members. But this time is so much harder. I made it through the day with a manageable sadness, but the shower walloped me in a way I didn’t see coming. All that baby stuff and all those baby stories. All the happiness and hope and union. All the good fathers there. Great fathers, in a time when they are scarce. Great like Andrew. Andrew is a great father. I thought all evening about Amber and Andrew and Avan. The photo of Avan sleeping on Andrew’s chest in a frame that reads “I found my prince, and his name is Daddy” that made Andrew cry when he opened it on Christmas morning, which made my sister cry, and which makes me cry just thinking about. Their lives, what they’ll miss and what he’ll see, how much they mean to me and to each other. How goddamn scared and sad I am for them, and how it could never compare to how scared and sad they must be. How it breaks my heart and there’s not a damn thing I can do except send care packages and vote for people who say they’re going to get him out and mean it.
I didn’t tell anyone at the shower. I didn’t want to dampen the mood. Instead I tried to be funny and told awkward stories about other babies, even a story about a three-month-old that might have to temporarily wear a baby helmet that ended in me cheerily telling Jonathan, “I hope your baby has to wear a helmet!” Not the Best Wishes. But, hindsight, well, you know what they say about it. Also, just now, I realized the frightening irony of me wanting a baby to wear a helmet, given the circumstances. That hindsight thing again.
Alissa told me there were so many shower guests, she worried she didn’t have enough time to talk to us all. “Don’t worry, we’ll all still be here tomorrow,” I tried to say, but didn’t. Then we hugged and I left the shower early.
I cried all the way home.
There’s always computer trouble.
This afternoon, something in this here machine sounded like a weedeater chomping on a metal trash can for about twenty seconds. Then all the drives took a nap. My computer genius friend (Hi Dan) troubleshot until I ended up with this configuration, which is my main (working, thank the little baby Jesus who looks like a muscular trapeze artist) drive and nothing else. No CD drives, no floppy (yes my computer has a floppy drive). No slave drive. But, bonus!; the card drives work, which is downright convenient for this whole blogging thing I got going on on the side.
My latest hardware fail might be the power supply. Maybe. Or maybe it’s the cord connecting my power supply to my drives. Or maybe it’s my motherboard. And probably also my slave drive crapped out for the last time.
Despite all this, I shed only one tear and cussed way less. My previous hard drive crash and data loss was only four or five months ago so you can perhaps envision my seething, veiny-eyed rage when faced with the prospect my brand new hard drive had gone to Tahiti. Again, hello and thank you Dan for saving my files and my sanity.
What was supposed to be a zombie walk planning meeting turned into me getting far drunker than I meant to and being put to bed on Lindsey’s couch. So I guess I kinda ended up zombie-like. Here I am waving my arm around for some dumb reason.
Ain’t Jack cute.
So last night’s shenanigans have left me feeling like this today….
Astute viewers will notice that I am still wearing the same clothes. At 8 p.m.
Oh it’s back and oh I love it. Since I will be working on the nights it airs, I’ll have to watch the episodes on my computer the next day. So here’s a staged version of what I will look like at least once a week for the rest of the season. I will probably stay this close to the computer screen too.
Tonight’s episode? OMGLOSTWTFSMOKEMONSTERLOCKEPLANECRASHSPOILERSISLANDDESMONDCHARLIEJACKBLOOD!
I saw this sunset when I walked out of training (an hour early, no less). I can get used to THAT. Man, Memphis has been pretty the past few days. Anyway, how do I feel about my first day of work?
Sometimes I look at photos I’ve taken of myself and think I aged a decade in two years.
It’s the last day of January. On one hand, I’ve had a good month. I lost some weight. I did some fun stuff. I saw my friends more often. I cleaned the house more often. I got a job. On another hand, I gained the weight back. I didn’t see my friends or clean my house as often as I’d meant to. My job is the exact kind of job I tried to get away from. And I still have times like these, when even with a cat in my lap, a monthload of progress and a new job to start tomorrow, my self-portraits reveal a sad, tired face.
Right now, it’s 4:58 p.m. and the first sun I’ve seen in days is blasting through the picture window in my back room, making my office furniture cast long shadows and lighting my neighborhood’s icy trees up like glass skeletons.
It’s the kind of natural beauty I like to take pictures of, and I’ve done so a few times (It’s kinda a bitch that I think frozen trees in light are so beautiful but I don’t like snow and ice). Specifically I remember a day several years ago when the sun and ice put on exactly this light show. I was driving from Clarksville to Memphis on I-40 on the day after Christmas and I was happy, having freshly given and received, eaten and drank, hugged and loved. I smiled a lot during that drive, even when I was hopelessly flailing with my first-ever point-and-shoot digital camera, waving it around out of my open window with one hand and steering with the other. Don’t worry, I was safe; I’m left-handed and I drive an automatic. I still have those photos.
I’d be outside flailing around right now, too, if I hadn’t just come in. Yesterday I refused to do a snow photo for the blog, but today I gave in. The sun wasn’t out when I went outside. I took these photos. My backyard was cold and gray and desolate-feeling even in the middle of urban Midtown Memphis. I felt alone and stranded, like I was on an alien planet. These buggers didn’t help.
Alien bird head? Mucus-encased alien pod? ARE THINGS GOING TO START COMING OUT OF THOSE HOLES?!?
Something living and not of this earth is forcing its poisonous antennae out of a mucus pod and trying to kill me, I swear to God.
I took a photo of my reflection so when the authorities find my broken camera later, they’d know what I was wearing.
But then? Then the sun came out. And things started to look like this instead…
…and everything was OK again. There was no ice alien invasion. I went inside to warm up and watch the rest of the sunset in the comfort and safety of my decidedly un-icy house.
Yesterday my uncle posted this on my Facebook wall with a message to me saying “Something to balance out the recent trip to the shooting range… C’mon Punk, make-up my day.”
And first I was all, ‘why did he tag me?’ and then I was all “ohhhhhhh because it IS me.’ And then I was all ‘why does it look painted?’….and then I was all ‘ohhhh, because he put a filter on it” and then I was all “What does that say? RuPaul? Dragulator?” and then I was all “HELL YES.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I fell in love with www.dragulator.com. The affair has been torrid and steamy, and dare I say it…FIERCE. But don’t worry. I’ll share my hot little tramp of a lover. Go on, get yourself dragulated. Be sure you keep your sound on, because RuPaul talks to you as you glam up. I promise you will chant “Face face face I get face beauty face,” like, at least six times in the 24 hours after you hear it.
Although I built several drag queens today, my favorite is my first. The site suggests naming your befrocked and bewigged alter ego after your first childhood pet and the street you grew up on. So, may I now take the pleasure in introducing you, you glorious bitch of a world, to my friend, my confidante, she knows me like I know myself, the esteemed, the fabulous, the svelte Bingo Liberty.
And if she’s not flamboyant enough for you, here’s Bro Monroe.
So, our targets had a logo for www.zombieammo.com on them, and it turns out you can buy these targets (which are poster size) for super cheap. You can choose from multiple zombies, like my guy and big-boobed girl zombies and a Nazi zombie. But let’s be honest here, if given your choice, who wouldn’t pick this guy? I mean, he’s called Meatcake! AMIRITE?
So I was pretty much against the idea of shooting guns, even at paper targets…
…until I found out you can shoot zombies!!
Range USA in Bartlett has zombie targets. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to shoot a zombie? Diana was the first to clue me into this awesome little-known fact. And soon I hope to shoot with her. She’s a natural. Watch out, bad dudes, because she can take your eye out from, like, a super far distance. But turns out I got to the range for the first time another way.
A knowledgeable and kind friend with Range USA experience graciously included me in his “Lunch Special” (yeah, the range has a “Lunch Special,” where you get lunch, a lane and a target for $15. More on that later) to usher me into my first gun-shooting experience ever.
I’d shot a few BB guns as a teenager in the woods behind my neighborhood in Clarksville, but for all intents and purposes I was as newbie as they come. I filled out some paperwork while my friend got the targets. The childishness of “Do you want a boy zombie or a girl zombie? OK, sir, give me two boy zombies” in the middle of the seriousness of the weapons cracked me up. After we’d gotten on the range with our ear and eye protection, my friend gave me a quick rundown of gun safety, gun handling rules, how to stand, how to hold the gun, all that stuff. I took photos and watched him shoot for a while, because I’ll admit it!, I was kinda scared. I had, and honestly still have, no idea how to handle a gun properly and safely (you check if it’s loaded by looking down the muzzle, right?) and would have frozen in my tracks if I’d been alone or with someone who didn’t have a lot of experience. I also did not expect the casings to be ricocheting everywhere and pinging off my head, but I guess I should have expected it. I’ve seen enough action movies to know the casings go flying. But soon I quit shooting with my camera and starting shooting with a .22. And then I got real crazy and shot a .357 Magnum.
I shot about 50 bullets, all told, I guess? It wasn’t the empowering, orgasmic “HELL YEAH I AM ANNIE OAKLEY, LARA CROFT, AEON FLUX AND JENNIFER LOPEZ PLAYING A REVENGE-OBSESSED ABUSE VICTIM IN ONNNNNNEEEEEE!!!!!!!” feeling I thought I might get. But I enjoyed it. I was alright for a beginner with the .22. He told me that a shooter’s doing fine if they can cover their scatter of bullet holes with their hand, and then he covered all my shots with one of his hands. Hooray! I am not grievously cross-eyed or pathetically awful at shooting a gun at a stationery paper target seven yards away! I can tell looking at the photos from today that I seem to be leaning backward, I don’t know if that’s good or bad. And take me and that gun out of a sanitized range and into a criminal situation and I would be completely useless. I’d probably give the gun to the attacker and ask him to load it for me. And dear lord help me if it’s anything heavier than a .22. The .357 Magnum was heavy and my shots were way off. Once I completely missed the zombie altogether. I got a little better the more I shot, but my friend was way better. He took the Magnum and blasted several well-placed shots through the brain in the corner at 15 yards away.
Then he aerated our zombie with a .45.
And then we settled down for a hearty lunch of fried zombie thighs.
Just kidding!, I had a turkey sandwich.
So yeah, the food! When I was invited to the range for lunch-and-guns, I was as excited about the range’s cafe as I was about the target practice. Ever since the CA ran an article about the cafe’s surprisingly good menu, I’ve been interested to try their food but I thought “it’s in the gun range, I will never go there.” But then I did. Funny how stuff works out. Anyway, the sandwiches are quite good and very reasonably priced, I can now say in full confidence. I was a bit disappointed so many of their sandwiches involve pork or beef, but they have a handy “build your own sandwich” section that saved the day. You can also sit in the cafe and watch the shooters, which is surprisingly interesting once you’ve been out there yourself. At least I thought it was.
Closing thoughts? I would do this again, but only with someone who knows what they’re doing and won’t mind if I’m a major wuss about doing pretty much everything involved in target practice. Except eating afterward. I was great at that part.
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OTHER PLACES I SCRIBBLE AND SCRAWL
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO…RIGHT NOW!
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