i heart lowered expectations!

I'm going to learn how to play the guitar. It's a critical piece of my most recent self-actualization day dream. In it, I sing somewhat out of tune versions of indie/punk rock favorites in front of real live people. Songs like The Sweater Song and Get The Time. People like real ones, possibly armed with rotting fruit. OH, and I'm wearing gloshes. And :A: is backing me up on the accordion. And I look really cute and stuff. HECK YES. That is a formula for success! Or SUCKsess! We'll see!

I love to sing. I sing ALL THE TIME. Mostly in my head. Apparently, I'm a wee bit tone deaf. But that's nothing some hard work and lowered expectations can't cure! I figure if I sing breathy enough no one will notice. Or maybe I could have Ashlee Simpson lay down a backing track for me.

I'm going to give myself a year to realize this dream. I gots myself a good teacher and that's like half the battle or something! I'll start drinking tea like Madonna. You know, for my voice. I'll do exercises to improve my diaphragm. The organ one, sillies! And most especially, I'll work on building up finger calluses so I can properly hold down the power chords !!! January 2006, open mic night at the Chatterbox Pub, baby. Prepare to be DAZZLED. *jazz hands*

rockin' in the free world

Back to work, and I’m not even itching to kill anyone! Thanks, Day Off!

I went to see M’s two band’s play their little hearts out on Saturday night at the way cool musician’s co-op. I was assigned the task of “Door Girl” which means I got to touch everyone who was there at least once. The hand stamp said PICK UP on it, like you were mail. Last time I was there the stamp was a pair of kissy lips. We stamped the lips on our hand faces (you know, the Mr. Bill hand faces…) and proceeded to make out with each other and feed them beer drinks all night.

I was way impressed with M’s bands, as always, but kinda more so this time around. Something about M looking so at home on stage, something about how his hands move so fast they are blurs, something about their music being really really good, something about where we were, too. I use to play violin, I like to sing, but I’m not a musician by any stretch of the imagination. But there, I was surrounded by musicians, people who were pretty skilled in their own right and in bands that didn’t suck and they were all in AWE of M’s bands, especially his baby. I over heard dozens of praise-filled comments on their level of musicianship and music ADD sound. It’s gotta feel pretty dang good to be praised so enthusiastically by your music-nerd friends. Good for him! He deserves it. It’s been a long road to there.

OH the other thing that impressed me – they didn’t go on until after 1am and the place was PACKED still. AMAZING. Usually the last band plays to a third of the crowd, if they’re lucky. They gots the sticking around power!

The co-op is BYOB, which apparently stands for "Get Drunk - Real Cheap!" in some other language – and OH - that’s what I did. I did whisky shots. I had lots of beer drinks. I was having to think real hard when people born in the 80s handed over their IDs. Don’t drink and do math, kids! It leads to no good.

Sunday morning was cartoons and pancakes just like I had wished for. Dreams really do come true! I guess the key to that is to start wishing for things like pancakes and cartoons. Mental note! No more world peace crap – I wish for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch! Hand it over!

The only plan I had the whole Sunday was attending the Women’s Expo with M and his sister, L. You know, cuz I’m a woman and all. Roar. I have never before been in a place so drenched in estrogen! We mostly waited in line for free things and each left with two fully stuffed shopping bags. Good people watching and more free samples of food stuffs then you could shake a stick at. You don’t believe me? We started keeping a list of all we ate – you’ll be in AWE! What’s even more impressive is that there was plenty we DIDN’T eat. Read on!

Things consumed at the Minneapolis Women’s Expo:
1 and a half nacho chips
Ice cream
FUZE green tea beverage
Pre-spooned spoonful of key lime pie
Roasted corn thingies
Nacho cheese protein chips
Brownie
Ritz cracker with soynut butter on it
Potato soup
Uncrustable grilled cheese (fucking DELICIOUS!)
Jam on a cracker
Diet Pepsi
RADIANT soda beverage
2 small pickles
Zesty ranch rice cake crackers
Bite of a oatmeal raisin Kashi bar
Honey glazed carrots
Taco pizza slice, wee
V-8 Splash smoothie
Apple chips
Turkey pepperoni
Banana
Pear wedge
Cookie
Jelly donut, tiny

No wonder we skipped dinner! SHIT!

The weekend ending watching Desperate Housewives under blankets in the blue light of the tv. Perfection!

I’m all happy inside and stuff.

next thing you know there will be parades!

I work a lot. Nearly all the time. I even sometimes dream about it which really makes me mad. But tomorrow, I have off! Believe it or not, it’s my first day off since CHRISTMAS. Remember that holiday way back when, when you got the fuzzy socks and ginormous popcorn tin? YEAH, that one. I’ve worked 20 or more days in a row and have only killed two people and eaten one toddler. So, good for me!

I’m pretty excited about my day off and was thinkin’ about all the fun things I'll do tomorrow. Fun things like lay in bed and watch cartoonz and eat breakfast without regard to crumbs and where they may land when the strangest panicked thought raced through my head - - I thought that I needed to hurry to the grocery store for the breakfast foods before they closed for the holiday at 6pm. The holiday? There is no stinkin' holiday! I have equated having days off with holidays. Yikes! Or yay! Or something!

Maybe we should all observe my day off and MAKE it a holiday. Hallmark can use another excuse to print up some cards. Everyone could use another excuse to make green bean casserole! So tomorrow, Sunday, is Haiku-girl’s Day Off Day. I will be celebrating by eating breakfast in bed and watching Invader Zim, Season II! So please everybody, raise your cereal spoons or orange juice glasses and toast my day off while still in your jammies! And who knows, maybe one day soon Congress or Dear Abby or General Mills or whoever is in charge of holidays will make it official!

imagine him in plaid

Last night I spoke of my idea for a squirrel quilt. Started out talking about a tree that was in the front yard of a house where I had babysat a skinny baby. The house smelled like mothballs and had a socially anxious brother-in-law living on the top floor. He’d come down to make lunch and slink around the kitchen like I would pounce on him at any second. He was in law school, too. Wonder how that’s gonna work out! I digress. So I said that in their yard was a tree that had a hole in it and in that hole lived a squirrel, I know because I saw him go in there without knocking -- which signifies that he lives there full time. And when I mentioned this tree and the squirrel house it contained, I said that I wanted to make this squirrel a quilt and stick it in that hole. I got strange looks! My mom said that when I was a kid I wanted to make squirrels clothes, so at least I’ve matured a little. I mean, a quilt is much more practical than a shirt. Especially one that would have buttons on it. But the strange looks continued. And when it came time for me to go, I walked to the car feeling like I was something special.

mine had a lemon on the end

I’ve been away, cornflake boy. Upside down in my tree house. With woodpecker roommates and a squirrel named Estelle. Dreaming of pirates and swashbuckling good times. Eye patches and peg legs. Red striped shirts. Or are they white striped? Come along Suzy Lee. And sit beneath the elm tree with me me me. We’ll read picture books and watch the kids roll by. Afternoon sun and blue blue skies. Guitar that I play in my sleep. I strum along and sing real loud in my awake. I am Milo. I am Isaac Brock. I am the girl who sings the roller-skate song. I don’t have no car. But I go pretty far. It’s covered in ice and unable to move. It’s creaky, squeaky, old time creepy. Like a Halloween night when you were 8. With a harvest moon hung low in the sky. Big. Orange. Ball. When the sun no longer shines. Running fast, you turned the corner of your block and it stopped you dead in your tracks. Moon so big and close. You reached out your hand and were surprised when all you felt was autumn night air. You would have bet bubble gum that you coulda touched it. Do you remember being third grade small? I remember my Dorothy Hammel bowl cut and navy blue jumper with the apple on the front pocket. I remember Free To Be You and Me. I remember being free to be me. Running on the playground, hearing "Red Rover, Red Rover" yelled at me from atop monkey bars and aluminum slides. 4 square and tether ball. Pop rocks and kabangers. Little kid legends about crooked houses and evil old women. I remember waiting for Ross LaHay to walk me home. He’d sometimes carry my books. Sometimes throw these hard orange berries at me from across the street. Chase me around the playground then kiss me in his basement. The berries: red-orange clusters growing on trees with bright green waxy leaves. The kisses: child like. I remember a lemon on the end of a black plastic loop that fit around my ankle. I remember spinning it around and jumping over it as it slid under my other foot. I remember wondering why it was a lemon. I remember wanting to grow up. I remember being afraid of the 6th grade boys. Imagine seeing 3rd grade you. Time machine. You are a playground volunteer and you go running past yourself. In the jumper you remember, with the apple. With the hair you’ve seen in your class pictures. You’d want to reach out and grab yourself by your tiny little waist and hug away. Say the few words that you think might right some of the wrong things floating around your sweet 3rd grade head. Things about being special. And smart. And perfectly you. Twisting topsy turvy tinkerbell tulips. Twilight tornado tuning in your radio. Tangerines and Twister. Right hand red. Left hand green. Twinkle twinkle turn around so I can see you in that dress. Treasure true truth think thought thunk. The end.

work and hour, get a dollar

It’s Saturday. I’m at the store. Knitting away like a child in a Malaysian sweat shop. Knit knit knit! Now that I knit here, in public, I have learned some things. One, I cast on incorrectly. Two, I knit “weird.” Three, I can’t purl. Four, given the weird way I knit, it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to purl. OH WELL. Texture and cables and ribbing is all sooooo passé anyhow. Right? Well, no. It’s not right. Good knitters are to be worshipped. Worshipped I tell you! If you know someone who can knit a sweater, go to them immediately and give a big ‘ol hug and a hand massage.

Most advanced thing I’ve ever knit: a striped scarf.

What I would like to knit: a womb.

We have accumulated a whole lotta debt in the last 7 or so months. Here is the story, short form, if you’ve been reading my pollyblog for any amount of time, you probably have the long form forever etched into your psyche… but for the newbies (awww, aren’t they cute!) here is the Cliff Notes version: Don’t buy stuff in just your name for you and your fiance to have like houses and coffee shops. Kinda can put you in a pickle if things go south.

So, my life is calmer now. I’ve made lots of good financial decisions the last month or so and I think that I finally have things to where we can meet all the monthly expenses going forward but that doesn’t really leave anything to pay off the bills we’ve racked up. Which is a problem. And a kinda big one.

How much funner would it be had instead of racking up lots of debt on what basically amounts to a really expensive bad taste in our mouths, I had spent all that cash on cool stuff. Like original art and 1950s lamps and liposuction and a pony! YES. A pony. Then at least when the mean mean world of bill collectors comes a knocking on my door, I could ride off into the sunset on my very own VISA charged pony. That would be so awesome.

But. I have no pony.

So here is the wacky idea. We're gonna start a website, and advertise it in the local alternative weekly (I use to work there and get free ads! Yay!) where we sell crafts for donations to pay off the debt. A combination of “Hey Dear Abby, if everyone sends me a penny I can go to college!” and a little elbow grease. Right now, all we have to sell are our glitter paintings and my knit wrist cuffs (which are super cool, mind you) and M’s jaw droppingly good acoustic guitar CD - - but we’ll build up some inventory and unleash this wacky idea on the world, or at least on the metro area. It’ll even have a swank Jerry Lewis telethon style tally board, except it’ll count down instead of up. Countin’ down the debt! Kinda like Sweatin’ to the Oldies, just completely different. Heck yes! I hope this evil plan is a good one.

What I have eaten for dinner 134 days in a row, or so it seems: vegetarian chili.

Who you don’t want to sit next to for a long time in a confined space: me.

wait, wait, don't kill your television JUST yet

Today, I was nearly catapulted to stardom. I would have been offered book deals. People woulda been contacting me for production rights. Big people, people like Oprah and Drew Barrymore. I would have received a really sweet e-mail from Isaac Brock saying something like "Saw you on TV and read your pollyblog and sure, I'll be your boyfriend. Do I have to work at the coffee shop?"

But I said no. I had to. I can't be interviewed for the local NBC affiliate story on Pollyblogging. No. I can't. I mention the sex, the drugs, the rock and roll in my pollyblog and all my lovely customers and M's awesome nephews and niece don't need to be reading that kind of stuff about the girl who makes them glitter paintings and knits them scarves or makes their morning latte.

But not wanting to let the opportunity go to waste, I offered to interview the interviewer instead. Gleam insight into this blogging phenomena from a pro who has researched it, who has a sense of humor and sports a nice smile. So without further ado, here are my questions and her answers to better understand this weird cyber world we live in.

Interviewee: Jana, Kare-11 News. An ACTUAL reporter. She does not just play one on tv.

1. Do you have a blog (excuse me, I had something in my throat...)?
Nope... I just learned what they are.

2. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being DORKY and 10 being UBER DORKY, where do you think most bloggers fall?
I'm a 10... so you all might be off the map.

3. Who's blog did you like the bestest?
Yours... of course I say that to all the girls.

4. Aren't girls better writers than boys?
Girls are better everythings (yes it's a word) than boys. Duh.

5. Of all the blogs (excuse me, I had something in my throat...) that you looked at, how many were Hot Diggity Blogs... if you know what I'm saying *wink wink* ?
Again, clearly, only your blog was diggity in my schmiggity.

6. Do you believe in love at first read?
Oh yeah.

7. What did you have for breakfast? What do you wish you had for breakfast?
Coffee. Sleep.

8. On your keyboard at work, which letter is the closest to being rubbed off due to heavy usage?
The ? key.

9. What's it like always having to look pretty and stuff when you leave the house?
I wouldn't know... I was going to ask you the same question.

10. On average, how many times do you slip and fall during a winter?
Before moving here, never... since moving here you'd think by seeing me I were a battered woman.