May 2004 Archives

Last night was The Scooter Store's annual Gala. This year had a fiesta theme.

My dear friend Kristen crumbled a purple cascarone over my head, and confetti floated down into my margarita. Party foul. Alcohol abuse. When we got home, I realized that several specks of purple confetti and purple eggshell had stuck to my slightly sweaty chest and the color melted there. On the way to the truck, we got lots of kisses and hugs from people, including my boss and boss's boss, and boss's boss's boss, who probably noticed all those purple pseudo-hickies. I can't wait to show my face tomorrow. Like I say, you're never fully dressed without confetti.

Today, like one-third of the aisles at the grocery store seem to be self check-out counters. Those aisles are why I left Radio.

Tonight, in one of the proudest moments in my life, I surpassed half a million on my all-time high Tetris score. Since there is no one around to be amazed, I printed the screen. I must go outside now.

I'm pretty sure this is a brainscan week headache. This kind of anxiety happens to me every year. Could be a tension headache, for I work really hard and I play pretty hard and the Comal River rocks had their way with me and my cousin just died and I'm not there and I'm trying to figure out how to deliver a powerchair to this tiny old woman in Virginia who can't breathe.

It may be something of a sinus headache too. I never had allergies before moving to Texas, but oh, what a way to go.

I don't think it'll go away today, but tomorrow, maybe watching two hours of Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom in skirts will help.

I adore my baby brother sooo much. And I'm so proud of him for graduating from NDSU, and I'm so pleased that he went to NDSU, because I'm really a geek about that kind of stuff. Trav, did you decorate your mortar board?

The week of my college graduation, I got together with Little John and Carl to decorate our mortar boards. John did a silver glitter with Sigma Nu on his, Carl had a green and gold "Go Bison," and I had a yellow winking smiley face with blue glitter.

I called the president's office to make sure that was okay. Tom Plough himself said it would be fine, because a lot of people do that, as long as it was nothing inappropriate.

The morning of graduation, 1200 black robes were milling about in the bowels of the Fargodome, and some woman (apparently a new person) from the registrar's office whipped my cap off my head from behind.

Whoa. Hello! No one touches the hair...!

Bodies gathered around as she asked, "Wanna go change your cap?"

The University photographer was snapping action shots. I told her I'd gotten permission from Tom Plough's office.

Obviously you don't know who I am.

And so that my mother would be able to pick me out from her seat high above all the graduates on the Fargodome floor, the blue glittery cap made its way to the stage.

When I'm surprised, I get silent. So today when my next-desk neighbor at work downloaded and showed the team the Nick Berg video, I don't think I spoke to anybody again until I left at 5:30.

That was somebody's baby boy.

He was probably a lot like my adventurous friend Ryan, globe-trotting to keep radio stations on the air the world over. I envision him as a laid-back, helpful kid. But it's not my place to speculate what kind of person he was or what kind of terrorists they were, for my dad told me long ago, even bad guys have mommies.

Hug somebody.

CAUTION: WEAK SWIMMERS EXIT NOW!

Puh. A) I've never been a weak swimmer and B) Don't nobody tell me I can't do something.

So a few seconds later, I was caught in a Comal River undertow, inhaling water and not sure which way was up. Forty-five minutes after that, we climbed out, still coughing and sputtering and a little sunburned, but that was the point of the afternoon.

We then waited 20 minutes for the tube shuttle, got back to the truck, and do you know that my Revlon Colorstay Constantly Coral lipstick and Victoria's Secret Very Sexy Mascara were PERFECT. After escaping the drooling jaws of death, my makeup held up.

So the short story is, we're alive and tired. Praise God.

I'm so glad this is the last night of class for Erik.

I'm super scared of the dark and of unknown sounds in darkness when I'm alone. I'm not afraid of anything but the purely illogical.

I fear vampires. I fear zombies' arms reaching out between steps and grabbing my feet as I ascend staircases. I fear falling down on an escalator and my hair getting caught and being all ripped out of my head. I am very afraid of drowning to die or being buried alive, although Ive gotta tell ya, dying doesn't last long. Then it's over. So I'm not afraid of dying, just the method by which.

Stuff that's real doesn't scare me so bad. I have an MRI Tuesday. When the all-clear whistle blows, I won't be scared of that again until the next one.