The clock's a-tickin'

On my 25th birthday three years ago, I blogged about the last decade of my birthdays. I ended this ramble with a list of things that, at the time, I wanted to accomplish before I turned 30. Now, having just turned 28 last Friday and being increasingly unsure of what I'm doing with my life, I figured that there's no time like the present to revisit my list:

1. Use the word akimbo in a game of Scrabble.
WOW. I can't believe that this was the top of my list and that I've had this goal for three years...and I still haven't been able to find that perfect harmony of Scrabble tiles to enliven this dream. I do, though, regularly talk about playing this word; I now select friends based on whether they know the meaning of "akimbo."

2. Get something other than my work-related articles published.
In my staff bio that I wrote two months ago, this was my goal for the year. I'm glad to see that so far I'm being consistent...I still have these same goals.

3. Figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Ha, I've spent the last three years doing serious research into what I DON'T want to be.

4. Find wuv, twoo wuv.
Now more than ever. Actually, I might be happy getting laid just a few times, then finding wuv after that.

5. Wash my dishes.
[Looking over to the sink...] Yep, still need to do that. Luckily, they're different dishes than they were three years ago, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

6. Change the template on this blog (I'm trying, Jenna!)
Jenna was someone who read my blog back in the day and thanks to her I DID change my template. I can cross something totally inconsequential off my list! Yay!

7. Pay off a credit card (god, I am funny)
I'm getting closer...it would have helped me in the last few years if I didn't have a slew of health problems, if the hard drive on my computer didn't die, and if my car didn't catch on fire -- I could be a lot closer to paying off my balance if not for those hiccups.

8. Buy a car cooler than my minivan
I don't even have a car now. The minivan, post-fire/post-me-accidentally-hitting-a-bank-with-it, was not worth bringing to Cayman. So, I would be happy to have any car right now, even if it were a minivan.

9. Visit family in god-forsaken Ohio.
I did this! I accompanied my mom up there for a weekend in April. Now I just need to see the other half of my family there; sadly, they live in a less cool area (I know -- "less cool than Cleveland? Is there such a thing?"), so I think I might continue to be a bad granddaughter/niece/cousin/person for a little while longer.

10. Finish all the knitting projects I've started this year.
This will never happen. Ever -- especially now that I live in a country that doesn't sell yarn, knitting needles, or related notions.

I actually don't have anything to add to this list, which is good because my combined various to-do lists are long enough. Someone else might say, "be a kinder person," but I'm in touch with reality and know that I'll need a lot more than two years to make that happen.

Long time, no blog

In the time since I last blogged, I moved from Montana to Fort Myers Beach, Florida, then to Clearwater, Florida, then to Pigeon Key, Florida, then to Fort Myers, Florida (my third move there), and then finally out of the country to Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands six months ago. It's been an eventful last two years; I hope never to have another two years like the last. I'm totally beat.

So, what's Cayman like? It looks a lot like south Florida -- beach, palm trees, strip malls, abundant lizards, zero topography. Our highest point on the island is "Mount Trashmore," the landfill. I don't find the island terribly scenic, but then again, I've been living almost exclusively in beach communities for the last six years, so I'm hard to impress. The water is better here, though; it's freakishly clear. The first time I went swimming here I found the water clarity alarming, as in, "Oh, shit -- what's that underneath me?!? Oh...it's my feet." The Caribbean Sea is like a really big salty swimming pool...with stingrays.

There are some really inconvenient things about living here. For one, no one from the States ever calls me because it's too expensive. So, that leaves calling friends and family up to me. Instead of paying 50 cents a minute to call from my cell phone, I use Skype and call from my laptop. Call clarity is inconsistent. I just had a tantrum and hung up on my friend because she couldn't hear me, though I could hear her perfectly. I've been craving the sound of a familiar voice and it irritates me that communication is such a pain in the ass. It makes me wonder: do people move to the Cayman Islands and just sever ties with everyone in their home countries? The longer I'm here, the more I realize that seems to be the case... That or they came here with someone -- boyfriend, wife, group of friends -- and they don't feel the need to maintain regular contact with people at home. I came here alone. I don't even have my beloved little dog with me. When I get home from work, either I have a frustrating conversation with someone in the States on Skype or I talk to myself. Neither is very satisfying.

I could bitch more about living here, working here, making really inexplicable decisions about my life, but I've got to save something for later, right? I just wanted to get the ball rolling with writing again. I found a blog today called "Miss Britt," which weirded me out because that's what kids call me (...because it's my name...) and because this blogger was born in 1980 like me and moved across country to Florida like me. Unlike me? She's married with kids and was featured in the Hot Blogger Calendar. I realized today that if I would ever like to be in a Hot Blogger Calendar, I need to actually blog again. I have lofty aspirations.

Some butterflies may be dead, but I am not

It's been a busy June over here in Zoo town. For one, I've moved out of the house where I was house-sitting. I've struggled with the wording to that sentence. Did I move out of the house I was sitting? Or did I move out of the house I sat? Both of those sound incredibly strange, so I moved out of the house I was house-sitting and into a room -- yes, a room -- in a house across town. As I've said before, this is not where I wanted to be at this point in my life, but I took a big-ass pay cut to come here, so this is all my doing. Damn my doing.

Things at my new museum are q-u-i-e-t. It's very different from the Nature Center -- and I'm not just talking about the sudden absence of toad urine from my life. Everyone I work with is in their 60s or older, we have very few kids visiting (hence, they hired me), and, oh yeah, I'm supposed to teach people about local history now. Needless to say, history is a tougher sell than snakes, alligators, toads, oh my.

The most exciting thing going on at work is that the woman who I replaced -- who was fired a year ago -- is suing us and everyone is giving their witness interviews this week. She has no case -- which is one of the reasons three lawyers have quit on her -- but she also has no life, and so the case persists. I wouldn't put it past her to walk in the museum with a gun one of these days. However, that would be the most proactive thing she's ever done regarding the museum (can you tell I'm worn out from cleaning up her messes?).

I've got to cut this short as I have to go on over to Lepidoptera Lady and copy and paste my posts into a Word document. So that I may print my blog and frame it for all posterity? No, not so much. I'm going to try to cobble together a 5-10 page sample "manuscript" for my application to an environmental writing institute that will be held at the U in the fall. Sharman Apt Russell, author of An Obsession with Butterflies (also goes by the subtitle: "The Book that Changed BPW's Life"), is leading the institute, so I have to get in.

So, I hope that things settle down enough one of these days so that I can write a proper post and let you know all about my agoraphobia and other fun things. However, the weather is FINALLY warm, so that day may be a long time coming. In the meantime, I ask you this:

Ted: Why do you know so much about Meat Loaf? I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed.

Lily B: Your husband downloaded the long version and made you listen to it? Does he not like you? (and, yes, Hemingway's lack of punctuation is plenty reason not to like him. In fact, The Old Man and the Sea is plenty reason not to like him)

JMB: Not so much a question, but, hey, July 5 is next week! Woo hoo!

Did anybody know this?

Meat Loaf's "I Will Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" clocks in at an astonishing 11 minutes, 54 seconds. I had no idea.

(Toe Sucker recently directed me to "fan radio" on Yahoo Music; I am currently on the Journey fan channel. That Meat Loaf song came on and it seemed to go on for hours. In the time it played, I ate lunch, sent some emails, made plans for moving, played with my split ends...that is a really, really long song.)

Okay, now go find out why I wore a lampshade Friday night.

Just a typical Friday night in Missoula, wearing a lampshade on my head

Friday really kicked off the weekend in a semi-specactular way. Wait -- let me rewind to Wednesday, when I received an email from my Purple People-Eater friend in the photo. Her crazy (no, really -- she's nutty) neighbor roped her into modeling in support of an art auction benefiting Living Art, a nonprofit that tries to improve the quality of life for those facing illness and loss through creative expression. The auction would be featuring unique, artsy lamps and mirrors. The models would be a kind of walking advertisement for the show, parading around the preview area dressed in fun outfits and evening wear...and wearing lampshades for hats.

When my good friend Barney the Purple Dinosaur sent an email looking for others to join her and her shady ways, I, of course, had to say yes. Not only was I getting to wear a lampshade for a good cause -- and not just a drunk cause -- I would get to wear evening wear, possibly from the collection of Crazy Neighbor. The purple dress on my friend? A highlight of Crazy Neighbor's collection.

Crazy Neighbor (or CN, for short) is an older lady, probably in her 70s, who lives in the apartment above my friend and shares an entryway with her. CN has loads of stuff on their front stoop...a small wooden rocking chair, wreaths, old magazines, tables, shelves, an altar of sorts. Since she leaves her front door open most of the time, I had previously been able to get a peek at the stairs leading up to the apartment. Like the entryway, her stairwell was just cluttered with stuff, random, random stuff.

Wednesday afternoon, I went upstairs with my friend, two other neighbors who were participating in the lampshade escapade, and CN herself so that we all could select outfits for the Friday night event. What I saw at the top of the stairs was not to be believed. It was seriously the most surreal experience of my life. If I tried to describe in detail what I saw, you would not believe me. For once, I'm not overstating my claims: CN's apartment was pretty freaking weird.

We're pretty sure CN has that compulsive hoarding disease. For one, she's seen all over town carrying bags back from Goodwill, weekly, if not daily. For another, holy crap -- her apartment is about to explode at the seams! Everywhere you look, there are old Barbies, shoes, hats, dresses, scarves, candleholders, more dresses, beads, plastic lizards, lampshades -- and, oh my god, is that an entire 6-foot-long rack of clothing in the center of the kitchen? -- glassware, clocks, coats, gloves -- just total sensory overload. No exaggeration: she had an 18-inch wide aisle in her living room in order to navigate amongst the stuff; otherwise, the stuff was piled to the ceiling.

So, that was weird enough. Adding to the bizarre atmosphere of our "shopping" expedition in CN's apartment was the couple we were with, who, to be fair, are a typical Missoula couple. I mean, what woman in Missoula doesn't know her husband's dress size and women's shoe size?

Anyway, my purple friend definitely got the prize among the dresses available to us. I tried on one of CN's dresses -- a tight, short, sequined purple number with a scooped back -- but I just looked like a prostitute, which really wasn't the look I wanted to go for. Luckily, I remembered where I put my fringed dress and satin gloves, last worn on Halloween 2000. For some reason, I packed those in a very accessible place when I moved; I was just dying to have a reason to wear them again, I suppose.

One of purple friend's joined us Friday evening -- in a lovely gold dress that made her look like an Oscar wearing an itty-bitty lampshade hat -- and we stood around the preview area Friday night, making small talk with people who were there to preview the auction. After a bit, we moved out onto the street, where we had a number of pictures taken of us by complete strangers. It was a really nice time -- people were happy to see us and curious about why we were wearing lampshades, which got them into the auction preview area. Of course, one snotty little group did make a snide comment when they were passing us: "I thought they were drag queens!" Drag queens wish they could look as good as us, buddy.

The strangest part of the experience for me was the fact that we were stone-cold sober. Who wears a lampshade sober?

***

And to completely change gears...the comments section here has been all wonky for me this week, preventing me from posting a reply to y'all's comments. I don't have anything huge to say, just that I think we should start an Anti Catcher in the Rye Society; I, too, think it is one of the most overrated books out there. I think that one irritates me most when it's named as someone's favorite book (celebrities are often guilty of this; perhaps they identify with Holden's self-absorption?); I have yet to find any redeeming qualities in it.

I, too, have re-read some high school books as an adult and discovered that I actually like them (rather than just feigning affection to please a teacher). The list is a short one since I'm not much of a fiction person to begin with -- The Awakening, The Great Gatsby, and, my favorite, Heart of Darkness. You know what's not on there? Hemingway, in any way, shape, or form. Gah. Another Esteemed American Author I cannot bear.

Speaking of high school books, what high school class reads Lolita?!? What is that in-class discussion like??? You know what else Nabokov wrote about? Butterflies -- something I should do one of these days. He even got a species of blue named after him. There aren't any insects named after me. :( One day, one day...

***

P.S. to JMB -- I've been meaning to ask for the longest time about Spring Fest -- how was it? Had you been to Live Oak before? Did you camp? My exboyfriends used to go to Magnolia Fest together every year -- that's where they discovered Seth -- but they couldn't ever go to Spring Fest because it was smack in the middle of tourist season (same for me). Tell your brother-in-law that he needs to play Western Montana!

BPW takes on Mother Nature, To-Do Lists, and Esteemed American Authors

Mother Nature is making it awfully hard to feel good about my decision to move back to Montana. Everything else is great -- there are always events going on around town, sometimes so many that it's hard to choose what to do; people are nice; I have a social life for the first time in a few years that is not dependent on some stupid man; and the scenery is awesome. But, gawd, this freaking weather...

I know, I know: 40 degrees and rainy at the end of May? What's not to love about that? It's just that we had grand plans this weekend, to get out of town, do some car-camping and, possibly, some beer-drinking, but then it was just too darn cold -- even for my Montanan companions. Plus, the road to the camping area washed out this week and is now closed "indefinitely." Add that to the threat of snow at our destination, and we had ourselves a little camper damper.

Staying in town this weekend, though, gave me the opportunity to be somewhat productive. I use the word "somewhat" loosely; where someone else's "somewhat productive" is crossing off an entire item or two on their to-do lists, my "somewhat productive" is more like putting an asterisk next to a couple of items, as in "started on this task, got bored, played with my split ends instead."

For example, I started moving into my new place this weekend. After much searching, crying, panicking, and visiting only one house where the shower was full of vomit, I found a place that will do for now. I'm renting a room in a house, which means, yes, I will have roommates, which, as you can probably guess, is not quite where I wanted to be at this point in my life. But I didn't really have a choice. Finding a place where having a dog is not strictly verboten proved to be no easy task. I feel like I would have had a better chance saying to potential landlords, "No, I don't smoke, but I do plan on running a meth lab in the spare bedroom," at which point they would nod, hand me some keys, and say, "Hey, remember: no pets."

When I looked at the house, I clicked immediately with its occupants, The Climber and The Nurse. They're dating and The Climber owns the house. I like that the owner of the house actually lives there; if something in the house breaks, then it may be more likely to get fixed, an attractive notion to someone who lived in an apartment without air conditioning for 8 months in Florida. I'm on the fence about the whole living with a couple thing; on the one hand, hey, they're the ones who were looking for someone to live with them. On the other hand, I just listened to one of my married friends bitch about how much she wants their roommate -- the one to whom she's not married -- to get the hell out. I don't want to be that person.



The house is adorable, though not quite on the level of Che, yet. The Climber just bought it in December, at which time it was something of a "fixer-upper." It's coming along, though; just today when I brought over my special teak patio furniture (which, if counted as separate items, constitute the second, third, and fourth items I have brought to the house over the last two days; I wasn't kidding about the "somewhat productive" bit), The Climber was putting the finishing touches on the paint job in my bedroom. The new color can best be described as "creamsicle-esque."

In other "somewhat productive" news, I have gotten a tremendous amount of reading done on this crummy weekend. Again, take "tremendous" with a shaker of salt; I finished a book I started a week ago (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People), read the Steve Martin novella Shopgirl (a not-so-tremendous 130 pages, but a good read nonetheless), and finished three articles in the New Yorker, which took me two days. I'm a member of the MTV generation -- we don't have much of what one would call an "attention span" (although we can tell you all about how VJ Adam Curry's hair styles always mimicked that of Jon Bon Jovi; ah, the things that the mind chooses to hold on to...").

One of the New Yorker articles, "Big Bird: A biography on the novelist Harper Lee," has changed my outlook on life; I now see the world as a place where I am right all of the time, rather than just most of the time. What a fine world this now is.

So what if I'm given to a little hyperbole now and then? Overstating my claims gives me so much more conviction when stating my claims!

Anyway, the article is ostensibly a review of the new book Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields, but the article's author, Thomas Mallon, really gets into a review of To Kill a Mockingbird, a book I read in high school and a book which makes me cringe whenever it's mentioned as someone's favorite. Mallon articulates what I couldn't as a 15-year-old in my English class: reasons why the book's popularity is a little unwarranted. Had I articulated these thoughts on the book's improbable dialogue, Scout's grating precociousness, the too feel-good-edness of it all, I would have been kicked out of Mrs. Burnette's class faster than you can say, "What the hell kind of name is Dill?".

Now, why is this? Why would my English teacher gasp with dismay at my criticisms had I the command of the language that I so obviously possess now (all hail my mighty ego! It's hyperbole again, people) to say what I was thinking about the novel? Because To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those books in the canon that is just beyond reproach, one of the books that are placed on a pedestal simply because they have been critically hailed for so long. Woe be unto the high school student who dares to question the book's real value. Why, that's straying from the instructor's curricular material and we simply cannot have independent thinking in a high school English class, of all places.

This very elevation of certain pieces of literature has always driven me mad. In high school, students are forced (yes, forced) to read certain books (fun fact in the Mallon article, "by 1988 the book [TKaM] 'was taught in 74 percent of the nation's schools'"). I'm not arguing with the books on these lists ... well, maybe I want to argue about that a little bit, but not now. Rather, the real worthiness of these books is never really questioned. I found the same thing as an English major in college. Do the titles in the required reading for Brit Lit Through the 18th Century vary much from semester to semester? Nope, never. Just accept and revere the books on face value alone and regurgitate your professor's words extolling the virtues of the books in question so we can keep the cycle going.

Is it painfully obvious that I endured a tortuous semester as an English major under the tutelage of a former editor of The Chaucer Review?

Anyway, Mallon's article grabbed me because it took a critical look at a book we are taught not to look at all that critically. I suppose you can credit the book with starting conversations on racism; I had the pleasure (?) of reading the book during the O.J. Simpson trial, so some of our in-class discussions were punctuated with the occasional "What similarities do you see between Atticus and Marcia Clark?". I wish I were kidding. Still, the book is too easily lauded. I particulary like Mallon's summation, "...readers returning to the book after many years may find themselves echoing the film Capote's ['Capote' as in Truman, Harper Lee's childhood friend] boozed-up muttering about To Kill a Mockingbird: 'I frankly don't see what all the fuss is about.'"

Tru dat, Truman.

Too Much Information Vol. V: Not about my comma or my semicolon...

I've been having my period every day for about the last seven or eight weeks. Ladies, I know what you're thinking: "Wow, BPW. That sounds like a blast! I don't think I spend enough money on tampons. How can I, too, be on the rag every glorious day of the year?" I'm sure you men are thinking the same thing: "You're saying that I could have a girlfriend or wife with PMS every single day? That is AWESOME! Where can we sign up?"

Friends, it's easy. Just readjust your birth control in a way that is supposed to make your monthly visitor come four times a year rather than 12. That way, you are guaranteed to never stop bleeding ever -- with the added bonus of getting to spend more money on birth control throughout the year. Why isn't everyone doing this???

My odyssey with neverending menstruation began back in March when I decided I didn't want to deal with Aunt Flo while moving cross-country (<--ha! I've often made fun of that euphemism, but after typing it, I don't think it's all that bad. Still, I would never say it out loud. Just so you know). Sitting in a car all day, every day for a week with bloating and cramps? I think I'll pass. After some research (check out The Well-Timed Period) I learned I could skip my ring-free week -- the week when I would menstruate -- by putting in a new ring for another three weeks. I could continue skipping the ring-free week two more times before actually having a ring-free week -- meaning that I would only menstruate once every 12 weeks. Sweet.

I know the birth control pill Seasonale exists for this very reason -- to reduce the number of times one menstruates, but I'm not organized enough to remember to take a pill every day. Dude, when I was looking at houses I forgot I had a pet rabbit, for crying out loud -- and I've had him for four years. (When people asked if I had any pets, the rabbit totally vanished from my mind. I'm such a bad bunny mom.) Yeah, there's no way I could take a pill daily (at the same time every day, no less).

Anyway, skipping the ring-free worked the first time: no period, no break-through bleeding. Then a few weeks later, on my second day in Missoula, all hell broke loose...in my pants. Too graphic for you? Tough taters, honey -- I've cleaned out the grocery store's stock of Playtex tampons and I'm pissed.

Two weeks ago I had a Saturday morning pap smear (note to self: do not get so loaded the night before your next annual exam. The speculum only intensifies the feeling that your insides are ganging up against you to rectify the wrongs you inflicted on them with all that vodka and tequila). I was a little nervous that the doctor wouldn't be able to do the exam, what with all the madness in my nether regions, but, luckily, she was able to get a swab; lord knows I would like to limit pelvic exams to a once-a-year extravaganza. (On an unrelated note, I was at a used furniture store yesterday where they had an old gyno's table, complete with stirrups, for sale. How would that be for a conversation piece in your living room?).

I asked my doctor if it was okay to skip my ring-free weeks; she said that the FDA has not approved the practice...then she whispered, "But all the OB-GYNs who work here do it." She said that they all had issues with breakthrough bleeding, but it ended up working for them. That gave me hope. Maybe I won't be surfing the crimson tide until I qualify for AARP after all.

However, I am still crossing my fingers that a kind and benevolent god pulls a little switcheroo and allows men to experience the joys and wonders of menstruation for a few months -- or for all eternity, I'm cool with either.