Dee’s Dumbass Thing of the Week.

I’ve decided to dust of the old blog. I haven’t done anything remotely interesting, or worth writing about since, oh, umm, I think, April. Things are startign to pick up so here we are.

So here it is:

Last night I was preparing for my trip to Traverse City by checking the fluids in my car. I checked the oil, and sure enough, due to a slow leak, it was low. I filled her up and things were good. The whole entire trip north, I had a nagging feeling something was wrong. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember putting the cap back on, you know, where the oil goes in, what ever it’s called.

I don’t have a radio in my car  so the whole trip there was an argument going on in my head. Yeah, you put it on.

No.. I don’t know. I can’t remember.

Yeah, it’s on there.

I remember putting the oil in; I remember checking the oil again; I remember cleaning the funnel off; I remember putting the oil jug back in the truck, but I don’t remember putting the cap on.

Yeah. It’s on there. It has to be.

I really don’t know.

It’s was not as simple as just pulling over and looking, because  and my car’s latch cable is stretched out and actually needs two people to open the hood.

So, onward ho! The whole approximately 200 miles.

Sure enough when I got there, I could definitely see the cap was not on without even opening the hood. There was oil dripping down the side of my right fender. Oops.

After finishing the job I went to do, I had to embarrass myself and ask one of the guys on-site to help me open my hood. Something I couldn’t do without telling him why I needed help with my car hood. DOH!  He didn’t laugh too hard. Well, not to my face anyway.

In spite of the dumbassedness, and after a crash course of me teaching myself how to use a phone line tester (affectionately known as a “butt set”) the trip was a smashing success!

P.s. Where’d all my images go? <shrug>

A Horse of a Different Color

My sisters horse just had a baby.

<–Isn’t that just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?

The best news though, is well get to see the little horse, in person, next month.  We are going to a road trip to Montana where my sister lives.

I haven’t laid my eyes my sister in almost a decade. Her boys a practically adults. We are going for Ethan’s graduation. The youngest is nearly 16. How times flys.

Speaking of time flying my baby is going to be 18 in 9 days!  She was pouting around the house Monday, because she is on spring break but we cannot do anything, when my sister told her we are going to Montana next month.

She cried.

She stopped pouting though.

D’s Mystery Question of the Day?

Why does it seem like every unimformed and/or misinformed asshat in Muskegon County, and a few from Ottawa county, congregates on Mlive Muskegon forum?

Paper Towns Crinkled by Whitman

Several months ago I attended a John Green book event at the Spring Lake District Library. A dozen local teens were given advance copies of Green’s book, Paper Towns. A common compliant from the teens was the second part, of the three part book was too long and drawn out. After reading the book i’m going to have to agree with the teens.

Part one is an overnight adventure between the main character Q and one of his childhood friends. Part three is a manic 21 hour road trip. And part 2 is two weeks of pouting, whining, complaining, and extremely slow detective work.

Two things really bothered me; these kids were supposed to be brightest and brilliant kids of their class but it appeared they couldn’t find their way out of a refrigerator box. It took them an excruciatingly long time to figure out clues that would have been obvious to anyone with common sense. It really irked me it took these supposedly intelligent boys, one who wrote computer programs, two weeks to figure out that if you put a map where it’s formerly been you can match up the pin holes for relative locations. The other thing that bothered me was the going on and on and on and on with the never ending Whitman. It didn’t make me want to actually reread or study the poem, it made me want to take my copy of Leaves of Grass and run it over with my Toyota.

Overall though it was a pretty good young adult read. I’d give it 3 and 3/4 stars out of 5 if I were one that did that sort of thing.

AA Daily Reflection – 1.2.09

FIRST, THE FOUNDATION

Is sobriety all that we can expect of a spiritual awakening?  No,
sobriety is only a bare beginning.
As Bill Sees It, p. 8

Practicing the A.A. program is like building a house.  First I had to pour a big, thick concrete slab on which to erect the house; that, to me, was the equivalent of stopping drinking.  But it’s pretty uncomfortable living on a concrete slab, unprotected and exposed to the heat, cold, wind and rain.  So I built a room on the slab by starting to practice the program.  The first room was rickety because I wasn’t used to the work.  But as time passed, as I practiced the program, I learned to build better rooms.  The more I practiced, and the more I built, the more comfortable, and happy, was the home I now have to live in.

I’m having trouble with the house analogy above. Mainly because sobriety, for me, is more about knocking down walls and letting people see the real authentic me. I understand we all need a foundation and that foundation can be found by practicing the principles of the program and interacting with other program people, but building a house is just another excuse to hide. Perhaps I’m taking the analogy to literally, becasue all I can see is myself buliding rooms to keep people at bay and isolate myself. We all need a place to call home and roof to protect us from the elements, but recovering alcoholics like me need to step outside and see the real world, breath the fresh air,  interact with other people, help others, and learn to be real. We can’t do that by building more walls and squared rooms.  

Wonders Never Cease

  Shelby, my non-reader, has been reading ALL DAY today!

    Thank DOG for Twilight.

A New Year and I’m Not Myself These Days….

 

http://joshkilmer-purcell.com/

I didn’t do anything for NYE but go to a movie, and I spent some time reading Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s memoir I’m Not Myself These Days. It’s a year in the life of an advertising agent by day, drag queen, Aquadisiac, by night,  and his high priced hooker boyfriend Jack.  While Kilmer-Purcell tells his brief story in a funny, heartbreaking voice, the sober person in me can’t help but think it’s a 200 page drunkalog, virtually soaked in Absolut vodka and crack cocaine. I kinda felt like I needed to dry out after reading. It is a good reminder why I like my sober, drug free life.

 

After reading I went on a Kilmer-Purcell search, mostly because I was hoping to find pictures of Aqua (one posted <–). Aquadisiac’s gimmick was she had clear orbs with goldfish in them for breasts. For some reason that sparked and interest in me that I had to see. Call me a La-z-boy voyeur. In my pursuit if fish breasts, I also found a podcast interview with Kilmer-Purcell and Shirley Phelps on Feast of Fools. Interesting interview. Kilmer-Purcell also started a website called Phags for Phelps because he thinks the Phelps and the Westbero Baptist Church is a good thing for the GLBT movement, because they are so good at giving homophobia a bad name.

Even though I was getting  contact buzz while reading I couldn’t seem to stop and I finished the book quickly.  It also made me curious enough to want to read his first novel, Candy Everybody Wants.  Dana? )

An Abundance of Fugging …..

  Just as I was ready to write a really annoyed review of John Green’s book An Abundance of Katherines - he went and ruined it for me. I was so annoyed with his use of “fug”, “fugging”, and “mother fugger”! It  was just at the point of driving me FUCKING crazy, when he explained the reason for such madness.  Apparently, when Norman Mailer wrote one of his war novels it was loaded with f-bombs so the  publisher sent it back and said it was unpblishable as it was. So, Mailer, like any other crazy author went  through and changed every single “fuck”, “fucking”, and “mother fucker” to “fug”, “fuggin”, and “mother  fugging”. For some reason after reading that perfectly sensible explanation, Green’s use of those words stopped bothering me. 

I also have a hard time fathoming how an 18 yr old can not only know so many Katherines but also have his heart broken by all those Katherines. I’m 44 years old and I don’t think Ive know 19 Katherines. I even have a sister named Cahterine, spelled with a C so she’d be disqualified. I guess his going to smart camp every summer would up the odds, but 19 really doesn’t seem possible. Maybe Katherine’s were an extra popular name in that time period. Shrug. 

Other than those couple annoyances the story was pretty good as road trip stories go. And Hassan, the best friend, was hilarious. He should be the leading character of his own novel.

Good Morning Little Elf!

 

 

  Opening the store to find this little dude/tte is like    unwrapping a present. I think it needs a name.  

D’s Question of the Day…

  

During my down time, should I study for my final or read Son of a Witch?