A Pit Bull named Blue

I've waited,

Like you,

For someone to understand me

In every day I see everyone who hurt me

In the cold ground I sit on

The callous fence

The duty-bound care taker.

I know how I got here,

Left alone, wandering the streets.

I try not to be bitter, so I just stay quiet 

I am broken, and judged unfairly

It almost makes me want to live up to it all but,

I'm better than that.

I'm just waiting for someone to see it too.

I know you see the down turn of my smile

But don't fear my temperament,

For that is just the way my mom's turned too

And my jaw is strong, I know

But that came to me through evolution,

Just like your thumbs,

Your Achilles

Don't fault me for my history

But don't you see my eyes?

I try to share what's left of my soul through them.

A young women came to see me and the others,

And I know she knew.

She let me smell her fingers and the way she smiled at me, she knew.

I stood so nicely and made eye contact so she could take my picture.

But still, 

I know she won't take me home,

She just looked too nice, too clean.

I'd never fit in with her.

I'd mess up somehow

And I know she'd be too responsible to accept any threats.

I sat so calmly

I dispelled my demons and gave her the best smile my downturned mouth could muster.

I saw her move on down the row.

Those silly nuts,

Jumping and barking

Catching their feces in their paws...

She won't take y'all either.

So foolish! 

They think the more conspicuous they make themselves the more attention they'll get.

The more noise, the more she'll notice. 

But guess what,

After she went down the line, she came right back to me.

She kneeled down eye to eye and started to talk to me. Just me.

I saw her eyes go moist,

And she said, "I'm sorry."

I don't know why, 

She has nothing to be sorry for,

Not even the intangible pain of false hope.

She looked at me like she knew me and who I was,

And I, in turn

Looked back, and I knew who she was. I could tell, in her eyes.

It was like that unrequited love,

We may have been best friends but in the same acknowledged moment,

We knew we wouldn't.

Another good one gone.

I wish I could speak.

I'd tell them I'm not a bad dog.

I'm not like the bad stereotypes say I am.

Yeah, I've seen some stuff,

I've been hurt,

But all I want is someone to love me wholly from paw to flopping ear.

And I'd be so good to them! I'd try so hard!

Man, I really think I could do it!

I want to be accepted as a pit bull,

It's who I am,

But for how I carry my self as such.

For how, despite presumed destiny, risk, generalizations, fear...

That I am a good dog,

And I am worth it.

Violin

I was running and listening to my iPod. With the combination of the mental-cloud-busting endorphins and the music and surroundings, there are times I find myself reflecting, day dreaming, but overall just feeling good. 

A song came on that was written by Ray LaMontange, a folky rock singer, but the version I was listening to was covered by the Zac Brown Band, a country group. The violin is so melodic and engaging in this song, I ran along and lost myself in it, bowing my arms in my mind. 

My daughter plays the violin so we have a little sized violin in the house, and I am tempted to pick it up. But that darn instrument takes a lot of practice and finesse. I started playing the guitar and I am slowly learning to sound like something decent. I've held back when that desire to pick up the violin overcomes me, because you can only try so many new things before you become the jack of all trades and the master of none. 

I realized then and there that I don't need to be that music to fully enjoy it. I don't need to play it and learn it. I love it for what it is and that is all I need. Why do I have to have the idea to take my appreciation to next level? The beauty of that instrument is there to give me joy and it does. And that is its reason for being, for me. No more.

The song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ospPO9DKABc

Reflective run

I live in a historic southern city with a big federally landmarked military park. I have never been there since I got here, though they have had races, events there and tons of parents I know go running or walking there. 

There's a relatively short race coming up and if I want to train, I can only run so far through my neighborhood, so I ventured over there. It's beautiful and huge with monuments and cannons every few feet. I opted for the 3 mile run, and aimed to work up to the longer ones. Well, despite attempting to remember the map in my head, I took the wrong road and ended up covering nearly 10 miles. The runners high can only get you so far, then you start wondering "when is this three miles going to end?"

The park has some serious terrain, hills and turns all over, so this turned out to be a run/walk for me and I'm pretty beat! 

So with life's mishaps, I ask myself, "what is this trying to teach me?" 

Physically, I was tired, my glucose ran out and I was tapping into my glycogen reserves. I could use a drink and a carb. I was also uncertain about when I was going to see the starting house again. I surmised that my lesson was empathy. As I acknowledged my hunger, thirst, fatigue and uncertainty, I passed the monument of a fallen leader, a troop surrender, a brotherhood of soldiers. What must they have been feeling? I chose to run there that day and give my body an intentional and manageable stress, but the whole reason for the park to exist is because these soldiers were put through so much more, worse and longer circumstances, and uncertainty. I am not feeling guilt for my symptoms, but I believe there was no better way to come to a place of empathy with something from decades ago but to acknowledge just a piece of that they went through, unexpectedly, but ironically in this setting. 

Here's to a scenic, reflective, and exhasting run through empathy!

Beautiful sky

This southern sky is just beautiful. So many times I've felt compelled to take pictures of it- the dusk, the night, early morning, the middle of a Sunny day, an impending storm, I've even recorded the sunrise straight out my window. So I'm going to put some photos here to pay tribute to this beautiful sky. The colors are REAL.

A double rainbow- halo around sun from ice crystals reflected in the sky

Tornado in MS 2014

My first night here- stunning, though blurry

The sky goes on for miles...

A beautiful southern sky song: 

http://youtu.be/GqrWbOCe2Jg

Track memories

When I was in high school I ran track. It started as something to do in the spring season that could help both the soccer and basketball that I played at other times of the year. But it turned into the sport I excelled at and eventually held state ranking in. I was a sprinter and ran the 100m and 300m hurdles, the 400m (hell race, so he put me in the 4x400 relay too) and the high jump. But hurdles were my thing and I focused most on them. 

When you have meets, several high schools come to each meet and you see the same competitors multiple times a year. The way it panned out was I came in first several times, but whenever these two sisters from a school 40 minutes away were there, the old McCloud would come in first, and I'd be second. Every time. I never could quite catch her. The younger sister McCloud got better and would be threatening my standing a few times too. In fact by my senior year, younger McCloud came in second at the state open, I was fourth and the older sister was fifth. I guess that one time, I was able to beat my nemesis, but of course, the sister took her place ahead of me. 

So my dad, who like me loves spreadsheets, sent me all these track scores from back then, and I get to wondering what those girls are doing now. The had a smooth poise about them, the ran with a mature focus, there was no gritty rivalry because they were better than that. I remember once, after really IDing her as my "person" who I couldn't beat, I cycled through thinking of her as that damn wavy haired bitch to, surrendering my feistiness and thinking, she's just good. She's consistent and clean and just good. I'm pretty good, but she's better. So I told her so. After one race that she beat me, I told her afterwards that she ran a good race and she's a good runner. After nonverbal acknowledgement of this girl for so long, I never heard her speak, didn't know if she was a bitch or not, but she stopped and genuinely told me I did well too and I was awesome. You really have no idea what people think of you until you say something. Who knows, maybe me tailing a hair behind her all the time kept her pushing herself. I always wanted to reach her, she always wanted to escape my pursuit. 

Of course later, it wasn't just her, her darn sister was hot on my trail. If it wasn't one it was the other, trading off around me. 

So I looked them up because you can google anything. The older one went to Dartmouth and has a PhD in behavioral pharmacology from Johns Hopkins and works there now. Friggin slacker. I found that the younger one went to  Barnard at Columbia University and is the Director of Worldwide Training for Subway restaurants at their headquarters in Connecticut. She married the love of her life and had a daughter in 2008. I knew they'd make something of themselves, they just seemed to have that focused maturity about them. Their parents did a good job. 

But I went back to google the younger one and I found an obituary. Young McCloud passed away a year and a half ago, at the age of 29 from breast cancer. I was shocked, dismayed and downright sad. She was diagnosed at 26. That is crazy unheard of young. She went through some rough treatment and was clear for maybe two years then it came back and took her life in 6 weeks when her daughter was 4. 

I remembered her as the attractive, vibrant young runner. And now she's dead. When I was 17 and running along side these girls, all of us adorning our school tank and shorts, spiked shoes, toting our blocks, stretching on hurdles, punching our chest out over the finish lines, we were competitive, determined and thought only of the next race. And after coming back to our bench out of breath, we reflected on the race just passed - we were lit up, pissed off, humbled, proud... and either way, so very alive. We held an assumption that went without ever saying or being conscious of- that all these young people around us would be alive later on. We'd all grow up, do something, have some job, maybe have kids, maybe meet a mate, but we'd be alive for goodness sake. And after one simple google mission, I've knifed the scene in my head and decapitated that assumption. 

I ache for her husband because I'm a wife of a cancer survivor. I ache for her daughter because I have my own little piece of magic packaged up in a girl I bore. I ache for her mom because when I told my own mom this story her first response was, "oh, her poor mother."  And her father, for 

when I mentioned this to mine, he felt an unheard of sense of guilt for his fingers over a decade and a half befor that typed her name on those spreadsheets, noting the unfairness. Aside from that I feel for her and her family as a human. I don't really google these random people from the past, so what drew me to seek these sisters is a curious thing, but as I was reading "It's Always Something" Gilda Radner's autobiography, I learned of another woman who has died too young, too unexpectedly, and I know that although there is abundant tragedy, I still have my husband. We shouldn't feel guilty for that, I should be greatful and joyful. Because if I ever lost my husband, the last thing I'd want is for every other wife to be depressed they were still with the mate they loved. We should honor what we have because others aren't so fortunate. Here's to Greatfulness. And god bless the selfish, short-sighted teenagers who are thinking about the next meet, party or test - it can be a beautiful time!

Maya Angelou

"I am a woman phenomenally. Phenomenal woman that's me."

I remember the first poem I ever read by her- she exuded a boldness as well as an acceptance that could nudge along any seeking soul. From the books in my younger years to interviews in my mature self, she reminded us all that we were phenomenal and capable of greater love. 

RIP Dr Maya Angelou!

I remember her for all the snippets of moments. I didn't even know her but she allowed me to better know myself. I remember one time listening to her at a down-trodden time in my life and she made me realize where I stood to improve and how I could move forward with grace.

I remember reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and since then, I've held this picture of her outside sitting by the fence. No, I did not share the same experiences that she did in the book, but I've sat at a fence and thought about my life too. I've shared the same sentiments, the same intangible feelings she has. 

It's almost as if I regard her as a friend. As if she were a part of me. But actually she helped me to understand my life better; I understood the world better because of little certain things she said and for that her influence is without measure to me

Her poems gave confidence to the timid girl they gave intent to the bold. Her thoughts on motherhood were words that were beyond a writer or a poet. They were heart sounds. 

And her views on faith...Are those that, to this day, I can only admire and hope that one day I can find that type of relationship with God.

So why am I teary for somebody who I didn't even know? I guess because I fear that she possesses another nugget of wisdom, or has some other thing to say that would be a help or an eye-opener in my life, except now, I will never know it.

So I guess I'm crying for myself. Isn't it always about onesself? Things she said helped me to navigate life better. And now I'm sad because I'm lost for understanding the potential understanding because she's not there to deliver it to me.

After saying this shouldn't I realize that she only touched in me whatever I had in me already?

It's as if you go to a lake and while looking at the water you have an epiphany. And suddenly you live a better life after that. Years later you come to find out the lake has been drained and the wooded area has been burned. You're sad for the memory and location of an important moment and an integral moment. You're also sad for the potential of more moments and deeper understanding that the lake could have given you. As she said, you may forget what they did but you'll never forget the way they made you feel.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

I also realized that she was able to rewrite her own stories, so to speak, enough that she no longer blamed those who had done her wrong. She wrote her final book in her eighties honoring her mother, all about her mother. One could say she had a crappy mother- she was abandoned, hit, exposed to inappropriate surroundings for a child, but Maya didn't begrudge her so-so mother. She acknowledged her mothers shortcomings as part of her, but honored her strong points as the prominent story. She didn't regurgitate her own injustices, but danced in her fortunes. 

Maya stood tall. God bless her.

My Dog

My dog is almost 15 years old. In dog years, as they say, she's 105. She certainly has slowed down and declined in the past two years, but steadily over the past 5. She is probably 75% blind and has the same amount of hearing left. We've moved her half way across the country, and she took about as long to adjust as our children, and in her own way she is comfortable and acclimated. 

She has always been a bit neurotic and holds onto her aversions like a true stubborn Italian- but you can tell it's not stubborn pride that is the root of her behavior but pavlov's fear- petrified from the initial incident that cause the aversion. One is her fear of bathrooms. All bathrooms. She won't put a paw in a bathroom- no ball, no food, no loved owner can lure her in. This is because of her dislike of getting a bath. The word bath does it too. When I plan to bathe her, I speak in Spanish, or cryptic phrases while avoiding eye contact with her. I close all the doors first, get the stuff ready, hours before, because she'll know there is strange activity going on in the bathroom and sense something is up. I have to one up her mind games. I'll carry about my day for a couple hours, the she gets the sneak attack- I'll be casually singing to myself, or munching popcorn and swoop down to pick her up, bring her up the stairs and plop her in the bathroom closing us both in. 

All of this being said, my dog will now, after having moved into this new house, saunter into any bathroom. Sometimes when hubby or I are getting ready in the morning, in she'll come and lay down on the bath mat like it's totally normal. After years of being petrified of tiles and toilets, she's past it. Is it that she can't see what she's doing, or with two faculties half gone, doesn't discriminate much any more, is she too old to care? 

One time, another house ago, we moved in and after a week or so, I decided I didn't want the dog bowls to be visible any more. They were unsightly and  I wanted them hidden. So I established the place for her food bowls to be near a laundry room, still part of the kitchen flooring, but around a corner. She refused to eat. I thought, "sucks for you" and "she'll get over it eventually" I'd hear her feet in the middle of the night, hungry, but equally traumatized by the corner she'd have to turn to get to her food. She'd finally muster enough courage to make it to the bowl, grab some nuggets in her mouth and run back to the known landscape of the kitchen. There she'd drop the food and eat it from the floor where she stopped. Some nights she'd get through most of it, some not. And on and on it went like this. I didn't want to give in. We had the bowls in the kitchen in the last house and I didn't like it- slobbery food bowls, spilling water... But I must say, in the end she won. Her neurosis won out over my stubbornness. Because what I was trying to avoid was happening, since she'd bring her mouthful back to the kitchen, she was getting her slobber on the floor anyway! And the whole ordeal- walking a couple feet to the corner, retreating under the table. Then a couple inches further, retreating. The a foot further then retreating. Then she'd give up, come into my bedroom for 10 minutes, and later try it all over agin. I couldn't fall asleep listening to this go on. The consequence of what I had to listen to and observe from me standing my ground became more aggregating than just giving in. I didn't get it. I thought it was rediculous. I even compromised and moved the bowl out of the laundry areas to the corner of the hallway, now visible from the kitchen. But nope. Still traumatizing. So I gave in and put the darn bowls right smack in the kitchen where she could not have a panic attack every night and we moved on. Morale of the story: If someone's irrational, don't fight or try to change them.

But what is the kicker for me now is one night I'm half sleeping, and I hear her nails click clicking through my bedroom, and turn down the little hallway to our master bathroom. Then click click into the bathroom, further in and stop. Then I hear a lapping of water. That geriatric, half blind, half deaf dog of mine was drinking out of the toilet! Well I'll be damned. I have no explanation for it (there was in fact plenty of water in her bowl) but that her inhibitions and mental indigestion were gone momentarily and she was taking something for herself for once in life. The dog that needs to look back over her shoulder and check for approval befor taking a shit. She's obedient to the point where it threatens my sense of feminine self worth. She was thirsty and figured she'd try something new. When I recounted this story to my mom, she was inspired, and decided she too was going to drink from the proverbial toilet now that she is older. Well, here's to you pup! And here's to drinking from the toilet- I am truly proud of you, and I'm honored on behalf of all woman kind!

Weather you know it or not

The news is bias, as we all know, and it's actually not that informative. In NY I'd hear who was shot in the bronx, who tried to jump off the tapan zee bridge and what's happening in lybia. 

Now I hear who's still flooded in Jackson, who murdered their girlfield in the trailer park and what's happening in Ukraine. 

It's locally depressing and wordly detached. We don't get much about the day to day in other parts of our own country- and I realize now the south has, and always did have, some crazy fickle weather. 

We get ice storms that are impairing but beautiful.

We get lots of flooding when the rain is relentless. This was a park like front yard of my son's classmates house. Now with 4 feet of water, a flowing river took over their yard. I dropped my son off for a play date and after 2 hours of pummeling rain, I saw this. I told the mother, "you have a river in your yard." She said, "yeah, it happens every time there's a lot of rain. We we have that hump there so it never reaches the house." Ok. If you're ok with it, I guess I'll be. 

This is our back yard. The volume is much more profound in person when your used to just grass being there.

And we get tornados. Random, unpredictable- it's like practicing medicine, they tell you that conditions are favorable for the possibility of the development of a tornado. We are not diagnosing one, but we're not ruling one out. 

There was one small but destructive tornado since I've been here, about 30 miles away. The emergency broadcast system interrupts the radio stations indicating the location of these favorable conditions, or the location and speed of powerful thunderstorms. They add a scroll to the tv, all the while I tell my kids, don't worry. I actually like the thunder, I find it amazing!

The country

I don't know what image gets conjured up when you think of the rural south, the one stop towns. When someone tells me they live "out in the country" I often picture a dinky house on a dirt plot with some dusty farm next door, far out from anything. I never like to be too far out from stuff- grocery, stores, friends, etc. But there is a simple beauty to the country. 

I went in a field trip with my boy and his kindergarten class to a petrified Forest "in the country" and this involved about a 25 mile ride after getting off the interstate on a two lane country road. 

Houses, rolling hills, horses, farms... there were so many opportunities to stop and take a picture, just because of the simple, God given beauty. I didn't because 5 miles off the highway, my gas light went on and I had no idea how far it would take me on this country road or if there was a gas station ahead. I passed probably three cars on the whole journey, if that. 

As I took in the beauty, one undeveloped mile after another, I said screw the petrified Forest, and put a gas station into my iPhone. 

I came upon a wide farm and passed a huge green farming tractor riding along the shoulder. The guy in the cab was talking on his smart phone. What an amusing scene- the basics of historical food production coupled with the top of technology, all in rural Mississippi. 

It was quiet, the air was clean, the sky was blue and freckled with puffy clouds, the horses seemed happier. 

These horses itched their backs on the ground, hoisted themselves up flicked their manes, looked at me with an air of displeasure. These were some animated horses. 

The wildflowers are quite lovely and everywhere- purple, fushia, yellow.

This is my kids picking some flowers. And believe it it not, this is right next to my house.

Us New Yorkers and northerners have to get out of the congestion, the poor air quality and embrace the country sometimes. Even a ride up the Taconic north of peekskill, or removed Connecticut like north of New Milford, Litchfield and on will do it. Especially in the fall...

And yes I did get gas when the back road intersected a bigger back road. I also found that the ride was better than the petrified Forest. A number marked one big hard piece of tree after another. I liked the gift shop and flaming was cool. 

Had I sped along at 75 cause I could and not taken in what was around me I would have missed a big part of the gift of that day. Sure a picnic with my son on my birthday is priceless (with 40 kindergarteners around) but you miss so much when life is taken as an event, and not the whole of the adventure. 

Human

This quote, since I first heard it, changed the way I thought about people, things and life, and has resonated with me for years.

"I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me."

Terence 

A16 year old stabbed some people in a school in Pennsylvania the other day and while the story played silently on the tv at the gym I was at, one girl said they were reporting he had bad acne and was taking an acne medication and it can cause psychosis. 

A few moments of silence passed, and debunking the group-think that could have ensued from the tone and manner in which the comment was proposed, another girl said, "I was wondering what excuse they were going to come up with for this one."

I laughed, knowing that's how it goes. 

But then the quote floated back to my mind and I remarked, "that means that if you trace back enough, every one of us has some factors that can be identified that would cause us to stab, shoot or go all Michael Douglas in Falling Down on people." 

I could be viewed as questionable for saying that, or stripped down insightful.

We've all got the ingredients to do the abhorrent, we as humans have the potential or capacity to do all things human- good and bad. Voluntary or involuntary. Psychologically, physically. 

How can that quote not foster empathy for others?? 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-eREiQhBDIk

Black Boy

I am reading Black Boy by Richard wright. Coming off black history month and living just about an hour from where Wright was born in Mississippi, I was moved to read this biography. And it is captivating, as any good bio is- shocking, deviating from what is considered a "normal" upbringing, filled with injustice, poverty, illness, prejudice- this is well written, introspective but simple. 

After I read this passage below, I had to read it over several times, it's dense with both reflection and foreshadowing and tells of the conflicting sentiments of one who empathizes with another's pain but burns with his own. I found no good way to chop it down to post it on social media so I put it here. It took my awe and I felt I needed to share.

"At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the suffering of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.

It made me want to drive coldly to the heart of every question and lay it open to the core of suffering I knew I would find there. It made me love burrowing into psychology, into realistic and naturalistic fiction and art, into those whirlpools of politics that had the power to claim the whole of men's souls. It directed my loyalties to the side of men in rebellion; it made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life."

Black Boy, by Richard Wright

Dirty South

Imagine yourself in a church of a religion you are not, in a part of town you don't frequent. You feel conspicuous, and utterly out of place. You don't know the songs, the mantras, the gestures... Your worried about your car. Are you supposed to park there?

You just follow along as much as you can, try to blend in and hope that you'll observe enough to "get it".

That's how I feel. I just moved from New York to the Deep South. The two places are pretty opposite. 

I am paranoid that my kids seem rude, with their sarcasm that has become casual in our family and their lack of proper formalities that the southern folks have had banged into their heads. Ma'am means, "what did you say?" and a formal "Mrs/Miss" and "Yes" and most times it's just like a verbal period at the end of a sentence. I wonder how they view me if I don't say it? Do I just say it all the time and feel like a jack cuz it's not natural for me? 

The people here run the gamut- from the uppity southern lady with the finer things who has big rings and a guarded, exclusive neighborhood, to the guy who lives in a shed that he made and burns mattresses in his front yard. (Yes I've seen both)

And as foreign as it is to a New Yorker born in the 80s, people here are prejudice- from both sides I'm told. Whites outwardly segregation-minded, and blacks verbally disrespectful to whites. 

The library is proud to be desegregated since the mid 70s, as their main web page states, and the Cracker Barrel has a framed disclaimer in the lobby, and as a foot note on all the menus, about how they accept and allow all people in their restaurant. 

This blows me away.

Now, I haven't witnessed or felt any of this first hand, but it is a unanimous account from the residents here. 

And as I overheard in a coffee shop, many people just don't want to change. This is what they know, this is what they like, and this is how it should stay. 

And, let me tell you, as a dietitian, it is very difficult to eat healthy in this town. I got a flyer from a place called  Bumpers that serves, for $4, a meal called: grilled cheese sandwich and chilli pie. A chili pie, from the ad, looks like Fritos with chilli and cheese on top. For only $4! I went into the wrong grocery store one day, and it is amazing how cheap you can eat, and how crappy the food is. This ghetto supermarket had wrinkled fruits and vegetables- weather because they don't turn over enough, or because that's all the clientele is able to pay for, I don't know. And kool aid, boxes of grits, and sugar cereal. And every store has pork chittlins. I still don't know what that is, but I don't like the looks of it. One man who provided a service at my houses said, "if it ain't fried, it ain't good."  He is on a diet now, per his doctor, and he suggested if you want to eat healthy, you gone have to cook it yourself.  

There are signs, I swear in any southern town noting that Bubba will will buy your junk, or sell you fire logs, or clean your pipes.

Everyone loves camouflage. (I actually do too) And man do they have a thick accent.

This all isn't meant to be negative, just honest. But the beauty of the south is that's there is no traffic, mild winters, very nice people, and a LOW cost of living. Bell peppers were 0.69/pound and that wasn't even on sale. Gas is a buck less than NY, and cigarettes, if you choose to hasten your death, are HALF the price. A $9 pack up north is $4 here. Maybe it's Bloomberg. 

They love beer and foot ball and everyone from Bubba in the shed with fire wood or Greg and Betty Sue in the housing association regulated neighborhood have an American made pick up truck. 

And I'm stuck here with no tv for the Super Bowl, what an atrocity!! I don't know what to do- there is a Rent-to-Own on every block so I thought about rentin' me a tele-vision for one day, but I don't know... 

But I got beer.

The nice things about the south are REAL nice, and the unfamiliar parts are REAL foreign. All in all it's ok.

I live in a beautiful home with a garbage disposal in the sink, in a beautiful neighborhood with neighbors who will probably be stopping by with their loafs. My house is one open floor with a big master closet. The weather is nice. The catfish is wonderful and there is Blue Bell ice cream.

It's ok.

Y'all.