no explanation necessary

It's been a busy week. The munchkins started swimming lessons and the sun and I are frenemies, so as you can imagine, it was just wonderful. It's very tiring and the sun gives me headaches, so excuse the sporadic postings this week. Hopefully I'll do better next week — the second week of swimming lessons (but I'm hoping to get the hubs to take the munchkins some, ha). So, I thought I'd throw in a miscellaneous post to simply amuse myself. This post is FaceBook inspired, from my status update earlier — I thought I'd replicate it with one-sentence statements, mostly things I've done — with no explanation provided. Just fun.

— I once cleaned my car out with a leaf blower.
— for no reason I know all the lyrics to "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off (to Have a Good Time)."
— the style name of the shoes I bought for my wedding was "Kerry."
— my high school substitute American history teacher called me "Melissa" for two months.
— I've had potato salad once in my life.
— in college I vacuumed up the cord of a pair of VERY expensive headphones, breaking both the headphones and vacuum.
— when I'm elderly I hope to resemble the fabulous Endora from Bewitched.
— I have no control over my reactive facial expressions when talking to people.
— I find things inappropriately funny.
— I'm a piler, not a filer.
— before a party, I've been known to take the piles I've created of books, cds, magazines, etc and put them out of sight in my car.
— I'm teaching the 3-year old the Barenaked Ladies song "If I Had $1,000,000."
— there are dishes in my sink, laundry in the dryer, and there is a typewriter on my kitchen island right now and I don't care.
— I'm going to name my next dog Sadie from The Beatles song.
— I used to be more of a cat person.
— I like to say "sweetie dahling" like Patsy and Edina in the best Britcom ever, Absolutely Fabulous.
— today I read that donkeys are the new owls.
— next they will say chinchillas are the new penguins.
— seeing the video of Martha Stewart getting attacked by a sugar glider is perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen.
— I hate the font Comic Sans and wish people would stop using it.
— being social is, for me, sometimes worse than torture.
— I remember dates like a walking calendar and conversations practically word for word going back over two decades, but don't know the math facts everyone else memorized as kids.
— my high school counselor told me I'd have to change my attitude if I wanted to amount to anything.
— there is no amount of money one could offer me to ride a roller coaster.
— or bungee jump.
— I was such a word nerd that when I learned to spell "encyclopedia" in second grade, I wrote it on a tree at recess.
— I'm a BIG gift-giver, but would much rather receive a handwritten card on my birthdays than anything else.
— the worst sunburn I've ever had was on day two of our honeymoon.
— around 9 pm if any children appear at the top of the stairs I start to talk to them like Bill Cosby.
— not only does someone close to me quote Dr. Phil frequently, they also once began a conversation with, "I do believe we go somewhere when we die," while watching Oprah.
— my parents would not let me get my drivers license until I was 18, but cosigned for a car for my sister after she blew out ALL of the tires of my mother's car on Youree Dr in Shreveport.
— I love the song "Cannonball" by the Breeders for summer listening.
— hearing Richard Marks makes me want to punch someone in the face.
— I will watch the movie Mommie Dearest every time I see that's it's on television.
— I think you need to watch the cheesetastic video of "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off (to Have a Good Time)" by Jermaine Stewart right now because we can dance and party all night and drink some cherry wine, uh huh.

self-portrait

For many reasons, I've never been one for self-portraits or seeing photos of myself. Mostly because I — like a lot of you — am highly critical of myself , my looks, my skin, my hair, my anything and everything. So, I'm usually the one behind the camera (or cameras, as the case may be). I'm quite the amateur photographer, you know. But when I'm the subject of a photograph, I see my round face and double chin, the two scars from when I had chicken pox in high school, and acne. I see the complete lack of color in my face and lips that point downward at the corners. I see eyebrows that must be dyed to be seen and barely-there eyelashes. And over the years I've noticed my freckles have faded and my nose is getting bigger at the end, which is par for the course, really, isn't it? At least I still have my sense of humor. Lord knows where I'd be without it.

So, those are the thoughts that are with me when I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself. And please, I've only listed the issues I have with my face. I'd go into the rest, but frankly, I have plans later this month and I don't have that kind of time.

As I've mentioned recently, I've been in a funk. The funk has lasted for a few weeks and I'm thinking of naming it. Maybe Fred, I'm not sure. Anyanxiety, yesterday I was having a particularly bad day. We all have them, but a bad day when you're in a funk is really bad. Among other things, I ran into the garage wall WITH MY CAR, the wall I've already dented and made a nice hole in. Pretty soon it will look as though the Kool Aid guy has run through it and into the laundry room. I realized what I had done, put the car in reverse, then park, closed my eyes and told myself to breath. At that moment "You Are the Everything" by R.E.M. came on the iPod and my scalp tingled like all my hair was standing on end and I exhaled and started crying. Now, I'm not one of those I-never-cry kind of girls, don't think that — but yesterday the dam broke and what started as a tear down one cheek and smeared mascara turned into The Ugly Cry.

The Ugly Cry is best cried alone. Fortunately, the three year-old bolted from his booster seat and into the house, leaving me to drench the steering wheel in peace. Unfortunately, I am nothing if not cognizant of my surroundings, bordering on clairvoyant, and I wiped my eyes only to see in my rear-view mirror that the UPS man was standing curiously behind my van, a couple of feet from the garage. Of course, I did what anyone would do in this instance and broke out into maniacal laughter, then got out of the car and got my package from Mr. UPS.

Once in the house, I stopped in the powder room to look at myself and saw that I had cried every inch of makeup off my face, except for my Pixi lip stain in the color Love — which looks very bright pink when you're not wearing any other makeup. For the first time in never, I was okay with my naked face. Pale skin, blonde eyelashes, out-of-control hair and all. I made myself some coffee and sat down to my laptop at my kitchen table, talked to a friend on Facebook, and took a picture with the webcam. I don't know why I thought to do this, it's not like me at all — and even less like me to share a photo of myself without makeup with you. After all, I was fully made-up when I was induced with all three babies, I don't leave the house without my eyes done and lipstick, and I sure as hell don't take pictures of myself without foundation, concealer, eye makeup, blush, and touched-up eyebrows.

I didn't think anything about the picture. I continued in my funk and forgot about it. Last night I was blogging about friends and made the photo mosaic on bighugelabs.com (great site to do neat things with pics) and today went back to that site to play some more. I love David Hockeny's work and his collages he's made with polaroids and thought I'd use the "Hockneyizer" and make my own. And maybe it's Honesty Week on The Kerry Blog, but I want to share it with you. Maybe I'm coming out of the funk, maybe I've finally lost it, I'm not sure — but here I am. Naked, with lip stain.

I'm hitting the "save" button before I chicken out.

pieces of me

Recently I've been pondering the things that make us who we are, what shapes us into the people we become, and for better or for worse — what the end product is. Of course, we are all still still changing and developing into older, wiser, or more enlightened versions of ourselves, but what's been on my mind are the things and people who influence us.

It's like the song "In My Life" by The Beatles,

"There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall"

The "some forever, not for better" part has been on my mind, because it's usually the negative that molds us and forces us to strengthen our character and defines us as individuals. The negative is different for each of us, but it serves the same purpose — and it's what you do with it that matters. Like all of you, I've had my share of bad times and I've shared some of those with you, but some things only my closest friends know about (until I spill it all on Oprah after the book deal, anyway). And it's those great friends who get us through those times and hopefully are there with you to see how you turned out in the end. I have some of the most wonderful friends a girl could ask for and I consider myself blessed to have them in my life. Some I've known for decades and remember me when I was just figuring out who I was, some are lucky enough have met me later on as the SAHM© I am today, who has it all figured out (wink wink, nudge nudge). And a select small number of you poor souls have known me the whole time and I can only ask that you one day be sainted one day (or get the room next to me in the crazy hospital, whichever comes first), and that goes for my poor hubs as well.

So, as I've thought about these events, places, people, and things in my life, I pieced together a couple of ideas and made a mosaic of photos that are pieces of me (past and present) that you will recognize are mostly parts that have been there all along. Here's a little something I made for you visual people.

Of course, my initials (do you love the typewriter key?). Then there is the writer-girl and The Beatles. I love my maryjanes — all 25 or so pair. I had to include my favorite flower — pink hydrangea. What would I be without music? I shudder to think! I'm ever-connected to my computer and have more cameras than any one person who isn't a professional photographer should own. You know girl loves a disco ball and lipstick (my lips haven't been without color since I was 11). And I'm never without a handful of pens or my coffee (my favorite mug, of course). There is the typewriter obsession — which could make me a very poor woman. And lastly, the beloved mix-tape. Isn't life one long mix-tape? I think so.

on summer and swimsuit season

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/someEcards.swf
It's summer once again. Oh, don't be fooled by the calendar saying summer doesn't start until June 21st — I'm here to tell you it's here. Yesterday was Memorial Day, and as everyone knows, Memorial Day is the kickoff of summer.

Now, it's been hot here in south Louisiana for a while — mid-80's — that's hot. As I've told you before, I'm not fond of the heat. Temperatures that make my makeup melt are not my friend. When I walk outside in the summer, I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on her, "I'm melting, I'm melting!" And I'm a girl who has to have her face on or I feel naked. Really, I'm sure in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve made their bikinis from fig leaves, Eve cracked open a pomegranate and made the first lipstick and rouge out of it.

So, summer is not my fave. Last year I decided I looked silly in shorts with my white as milk legs, so it's capris and bermudas for me all summer. I do not tan. I burn. Badly. I've had enough sunburns in my life to know I can be outside at midday for 20 minutes and have a sunburn on whatever part of my body that is exposed. I'm sure I will have skin cancer at some point from my own sun stupidity and the lack of knowledge my parents had about UV rays. I recall a statement from my childhood that was repeated more than once that went something like "you'll be fine, we used to slather baby oil on ourselves and bake for hours!" Which led me to develop my own philosophy "just because you did it, it doesn't make it normal or okay." Feel free to use that little gem in your own life with your older relatives, sometimes it works.

Besides the looking-like-an-albino-in-shorts thing, I also dread what most women do at this time of year: the swimsuit. I'm no different than any other woman, we all have body issues and hate the swimsuit hunt and hate the "get ready for swimsuit season" propaganda that we get from magazines, television commercials, and now on my Facebook homepage. You know, because I'm not good enough the way I look now, I have to prepare for "swimsuit season" like it's an Olympic event. Here's a headline for you, advertising peeps: we will never be ready, perfection only exists in magazines thanks to Photoshop.

Even though I hate it, I have to wear a swimsuit at the pool. I'd rather wear a caftan ala Mrs. Robinson with a turban and sunglasses, but I think I'd get a few strange looks at Franco's. And so, I've been shopping online for the right suit for about a month. Guess what? There is no such thing. And I'm not just talking about for us plus-sized girls. The online stores and catalogs all want me to think they have the perfect suit, but I know better. You know why? Because wearing a swimsuit is as close to public nudity as it gets for most of us.

And so, I started my hunt. Lane Bryant, Torrid, Fashion Bug, Macy's, Nordstrom, OneStopPlus, SwimsuitsForAll, Sihouettes, and the list goes on and on. The suit I wanted was at Lane Bryant (no, they do not have swimwear in their brick and mortar stores, don't get me started), a top and a swim skirt, but the top was sold out in my size. I can't tell you how long it took me to decide on that top, so I was pretty miffed that it was sold out. I went back to my old standby, Land's End and picked two tops and a swim skirt, deciding to go in a completely different direction than the Lane Bryant suit. When I went to pick my size category there were more options than I've ever seen: Regular Torso,
Short Torso, Long Torso, Plus Size,
Short Torso Plus, Regular Torso D-Cup, Regular Torso DD-Cup, Regular Mastectomy — holy Esther Williams! I don't know if I'm a short torso plus or just a plus. No idea. How do you measure your torso? Lands End, I'm a girl with ADHD, don't give me too many options or I'll go look at lolcats and forget shopping. I went with plus.

The fun part of shopping on Landsend.com is using their Virtual Model tool. I've used this before, but not for swimwear, so I thought this would be nice and virtually humiliating, getting to see what the virtual me would look like in the suit. Get a good look at this.

Meet Virtual Kerry. I don't know about her. Her hair is too long, but there wasn't another hair choice with curly hair. My real face is rounder and my boobs are bigger, but I think the skin coloring is about right. And she's standing like weird, but whatev. This is the swimsuit I decided on: top, skirt, and sandal. I went against my usual black suit, way out of my comfort zone, but the idea is maybe I'll feel better in the pink and won't look as pale as I would in black. Really, I just like pink. The Virtual Model thing is pretty interesting. On the site you can click the arrows to see what she looks like from the side and the back, which is helpful (and funny) to see what my virtual butt looks like.

The other weird thing about shopping Lands End is you can shop by your figure shape. The choices are triangle, inverted triangle, rectangle, and star. The link to see the descriptions for these shapes was broken, so I guessed that since I'm not the first three, that I must be a star, since a star is big in the middle (and so am I) — so that's what I went with. Usually, when I've seen a figure shape chart in a magazine or wherever, I'm a circle or oval or an apple, if the choice is a fruit. A celestial body has never been a choice, but it's kind of neat. Pointy, but neat. Just for my amusement I went to igigi.com to see their shape categories, and of course, I'm an oval. Here's the description:

The Oval Figure type has the following characteristics:

Shoulders are prominent or average and slightly sloped
Face is fleshy with the fuller jaw and cheek area
Neck is shorter with the inclination toward fullness at the nape and shoulders
Back is broader and fleshier; wider ribcage
Bust is ample; usually larger than the hips
Waist is undefined, carrying the weight in the front midsection
Flat buttocks
Hips are usually proportionately slender
Thighs are relatively thinner and only tend to have a slight fullness at the high hip.
Legs are very shapely and lower legs are proportionately slimmer to the overall body shape.

Firt of all, man, she looks tall.

I'm so going to use "fleshy" as THE adjective to describe myself from now on. Does "fleshy" sound better than fat? That is the question of the day.

And thank you, Igigi, I know I do not have a giraffe-like neck, nor JLo's derrierre. I'm surprised they didn't mention my skinny ankles when describing my lower legs. Seriously, the Igigi people must have been stalking me to get this info. It's scary accurate. Why they just didn't name this body shape "Kerry" is beyond me.

So, that's the history of summer and me. Just one big heatwave of sunburns and body image issues. Hey, I'm working on it. Here's to a great summer for all of us — be you a rectangle, triangle, inverted triangle, or star. Shine on.

350

Dear Friends and Readers,

Here's hoping this day is treating you especially superfantastic and you're having a good hair day, you found five bucks in your pocket you forgot about and you did that cool look you give to the mirror when you know you're looking cute (oh come on, you know you do it too). Why? Because you're my interwebs friend and we spend a couple of minutes together a few times a week and I want you to know that I appreciate you coming here. You could be off reading the news (bor-ring, kidding, y'all know I'm a news junkie) or looking at lolcats (love me some lolcats), but you're here and that's great.

So, why am I all mushy and thankful? Because it's a special post day in The Kerry Blog world. I suddenly feel the urge to write "tonight on a very special Blossom." Girls my age will get that. Anyway, this post makes 350 posts on The Kerry Blog, Scraps & Lagniappe. That number comes from the WordPress entries I migrated over to Typepad, combined with the Typepad posts. That's not counting the first two versions of the blog (I'll go into that shortly). Y'all know I can't do math, Typepad shows how many posts there are on the dashboard, I didn't count anything, don't worry — my head isn't going to explode.

35o.

That's a lot of words, pictures, random musings, lists, rants, music, letters, videos, and a whole lot of TMI. I'm not fond of the acronym TMI. I tend not to like anything in all caps, plus it makes me think I'm trying to spell Tim, but I got dyslexic for a second. I'm not dyslexic, but my brain is faster than my typing (and I type pretty fast), which explains all the mistakes and ommitted words you've seen in this blog. ADHD is something else, obviously I can't stay with one thought for more than two sentences. See, I did it again. Back to the subject of too much information — in "real life" I'm not one to over share, save for a few close friends and the hubs, but for some reason on the blog, I tell you people semi-personal things that in a day or so after I write, I've forgotten about. Then someone stops me in Target and says "that was funny about your bra sticking up past your shirt." And I'm all, "yeah, that was funny," trying to think of why this person knows about my bra issues (of which there are many) and wondering if I have multiple personalities, one being a stripper. Then as I walk away, I realize it's from the blog. I'm guessing this kind of thing doesn't happen to most of you.

The funny thing about this blogging thing is you may start out blogging about one thing, and end up with something very different.

I started my first blog on Homestead back in in 2002 when the hubs' job brought us to Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a way to easily have one place for our family back in Louisiana to see what we were up to, pictures of Molly (and later, Katie), pretty normal mom stuff. In October of 2004, I found myself bored. We'd moved to Mandeville, where the hubs grew up, and his job once again sent him out of the country. This time it was Afghanistan. It was the first time our little fam was living apart and I found myself pretty depressed and emotional, which wasn't fun. I'd joined the MOPS group at our church and started scrapbooking again with some friends I'd made in MOPS, but I was missing the hubs terribly. Then two weeks after he'd left for the Middle East, I started thinking maybe I wasn't just a little emotional and lo and behold, the EPT test didn't lie. I was put on light bedrest and grew very addicted to the computer, since I couldn't do many of the things I was used to doing, and so, being bored out of my mind, I started a blog on Blogspot. It was a very family-oriented blog, lots of pics of the kids, a few funny stories, and for the most part, short entries, nothing big. The pic is from the era of the Blogspot blog taken at the Audubon Aquarium. Molly's running out of frame and Katie is attached to my hip. I was rockin' the twinsets as you can see (y'all know I don't post many pics of myself — goodness, and full length at that, so enjoy).

As moms do, I got busy with the things of life, neglected my blog and pretty much abandoned it. When I attempted to start blogging again, I found the Blogger platform a little limiting (this was two years ago before the new Blogger rolled out) and switched to WordPress, deciding I would focus on having a scrapbooking blog. Scrap & Lagniappe was born. The name meaning it would be scrapbooking and a little something extra. That lasted a whole 8 posts before I read about a woman who was suing Victoria Secret because a rhinestone or something popped off her thong and hit her in the eye — this was clearly something I needed to contribute my thoughts to. That was the day I found my blogger voice, so to speak. Sure, it was to expose the tackiness/ridiculous in the world (and make fun of it mercilessly), but someone had to do it. Occasionally I post scrapbook layouts, but it turned out this blog became more about the lagniappe. And that's fine with me.

Apparently it's fine with you too, because I have more readers than ever. Last week's Grey's Anatomy Finale post was a record night, with over 870 hits in two hours — that's something I never expected when I started this little blog. And it's still my little blog. As you may have noticed, there is no sponsor of this blog, no advertising, no PayPal tip jar — this is my outlet for sharing (and over-sharing) part of my day with you. Many of you are friends from childhood, high school, college, and so on. I think most of the family stopped reading long ago (irony, man). Many of you are friends of friends. Many of you I've never met, will probably never meet, and that's okay, I appreciate you stopping by just as much as my bestest friends. What's still not okay with me is that the comments aren't working, but I've gone on about that enough in other posts, I suppose.

I thought that since this is a post about you, I'd share some things I find interesting about you. This week there have been as many of you in Melbourne, Australia reading as in Shreveport/Bossier, LA where I grew up. You have no idea how much that makes me laugh. The hometown is almost getting beat by the Aussies. Somehow, I always knew I'd be big in Australia (that's a joke, yo). I've been visited this week by people all over the interwebs: from Modena, Italy to Mountain View, CA from Tokyo to Murfreesboro, TN and everywhere in between.

This week's top keyword searches that brought some of you to this blog were:

Brandon Flowers INXS
TJ Maxx co
mmercial redhead
Skymall happy feet
why does hank williams jr always wear sunglasses (yes, I mentioned this once)
vampire scraps (I don't even understand that one)
"i miss you i miss you i miss you" 80's song (that would be "Cut Here" by the Cure)
what not to wear dr appointment
Anna Bess Simmons (shout out to AB! woot-woot)
and
sky scrap for ceiling (I don't get that one either)

So, that's the ins and outs of The Kerry Blog. That's the past and the present. So, what's for the future? Your guess is as good as mine as life goes on this long and winding road. I can tell you that as long as wacky things happen to me, I'll write about them; and as long as there are wacky things happening in the world, I'll write about those too. After all, someone has to be here to tell you about her crush on Anderson Cooper and the stuff that passes for news. Someone has to ask the hard questions and live-blog award shows. Someone has to tell you what tunes you need on Tuesdays and give you a Sunday rewind to the 80's. But, for the immediate future, here's a heads up: the blog will get a complete make-over at the end of June. That's right, people, I'm taking it bigtime. Or something like that, since I've commissioned a real blog designer to do it. And in July, the month of my birth, I'm predicting high anxiety as I turn the numero 35. I am not happy about this, because I don't feel 35, whatever that feels like, and I'm pretty sure that's officially thirtysomething. Last year on my birthday, I wrote the 34 things I know, this year it will be 35 things. I'm hoping I've learned a few things so I'll have something to write about, 'cause at this moment, I got nothing.

Once again, thank you for reading. I'll see you back here tomorrow or the day after with something new. Be good.

xxxooo,
Kerry

Georgia on my mind

When I heard Scrap Etc.'s event was going to be held in Atlanta, I knew I wanted to go. Atlanta is one of my favorite places. The hubs and I lived north of Atlanta when we were newlyweds back in 1997-98 in Gwinnett County. It was a great place to live and we had heaps of fun each weekend exploring the area.

This weekend some of my favorite peeps and I will be exploring the Crowne Plaza Resort for Scrap Etc.'s "Wishful Thinking: the art of creating memories." I couldn't be more excited to be spending the weekend with my girlfriends (even the fabulous Lisa is meeting us all the way from Connecticut) and we will see lots of scrapbooking friends we've made over the years. This event is much different from ScrapFest! in the way that we will be in classes from 9am 'til 5:30 each day with cropping at night. Most of us are used to the open-crop sort of retreats, so we're hoping to learn fun new techniques from some of the best in the industry.

We're also hoping to get some good shopping in on this trip as well. Can I tell you how much I love Phipps Plaza and Lennox Square? Bloomingdale's, Nieman Marcus, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, Crate & Barrel (my favorite), Burberry, Nordstrom, Vera Bradley, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Tiffany & Co. Y'all. Oh, and Teavana — it's like tea heaven. Love that. And Perimeter Mall is close to our hotel, where there is a Nordstrom, so I may have to get the Mrs. Robinson dress. And we can get an Orange Julius too. Is there anything better than a scrapbooking weekend, fab shopping, and an Orange Julius? Okay, dinner at The Melting Pot. I'm pretty sure we're going for some fondue. It's going to be a good weekend.

Check out Scrap Etc.'s site to see the instructors and their blogs for some creative inspiration.

I’m just saying

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/someEcards.swf

As you know, there is no judging on The Kerry Blog. Just love and acceptance. And a little judging, but mostly love and stuff.

the eff-it list

In reading Shapely Prose yesterday I came across a new brilliant idea, the F*ckit List, which is the exact opposite of the Bucket List, the list of things you want to accomplish before you die. I love this idea, probably because I'm truly a pessimist. I've always called myself an optimistic pessimist, if that makes any sense (it does to me). I try to see the silver lining around each cloud, but I tend to the think silver is most likely lead. It's a gift I have.

So, here's my F*ckit List, things I have no intention of doing before I die:

learn a foreign language — I haven't finished learning English
bungee jump or anything "extreme" enough to kill me
get a "real job"
get into a bikini by summer — apparently lots of magazines in the check-out line want me to do this
go back to school
go on "Survivor"
give up coffee — that's just laughable
try to get along with everyone
be criticized by Simon Cowell
go camping
see another Kevin Costner movie
ride in the Tour de France
learn to ski
ride a roller coaster — haven't been on one since I was a kid and threw up
drive a stick shift
learn to like fruit — I like 3 fruits and that's enough
give up chocolate
make a cake from "scratch" again
wear really high heels
mow the grass
become a bee keeper
scuba dive (sorry, hubs)
run a marathon
have a wardrobe malfunction at the Superbowl.
go to the Superbowl.
go to the Waffle House again
go to Japan
do yoga
have a rock garden — I think they're stupid, I can't help it
climb Mt. Everest or anything else made of rocks
ride an elephant in the circus
wear pantyhose again — no, I'm not kidding
go to the Turkey Creek Water Park
participate in a Civil War reenactment
see the Taj Mahal
see Celine Dion in concert (or in Target or anywhere else for that matter)
watch Top Gun again
go hunting
roller skate
go ice fishing
try to be perfect
watch what I say
become a vegan
like country music
appreciate opera
become a storm chaser
ride a bull
have 8 babies at one time
join the Flying Elvises
fight Mike Tyson

a Valentine story (or one reason why Kerry doesn’t drink)

Once upon a time when I was a young 19 year-old at Louisiana Tech, Scott and I had been dating for almost two months before Valentine's Day and I was looking forward to the big day with my boyfriend. Scott had planned the whole evening — ordered great Italian take-out and had driven to Grambling to buy champagne. For those of you unfamiliar with the town of Ruston (home of LA Tech), it was a dry town — dry, damp — I don't know, you couldn't buy booze, just beer. And drinking definitely wasn't allowed on campus. Oh, well.

Anyliquor, Scott turned his dorm room into romance central and I was pretty impressed. He poured champagne into fluted glasses and we had a wonderful dinner. He gave me a book of Shakespeare's sonnets and roses and poured more champagne, it was a great Valentine's date. I had never had champagne and didn't have a clue that drinking a few glasses (or 5, I wasn't counting) would be so potent. I'm not sure what Scott had planned for the rest of the evening, probably something wholesome like playing Scrabble or watching The Sound of Music, but his plans were dashed when I passed out.

I have been inebriated twice in my life. Valentine's Day 1994 was the first instance.

The dorm rules required girls to be out by midnight, so Scott woke me up at 11:55 and drove me to my dorm. Let me illustrate this for you: his dorm was on the 3rd floor and he helped me walk downstairs and put me in his Maxima, then drove me 50 YARDS to the back door of my dorm. I was so drunk I couldn't walk 50 yards, y'all. Sad. I remember sitting in Scott's car and him talking me through how I would walk to the second floor of Dudley. I don't know how long it took me to make it to my room, but I know it took me a long time to figure out how to work the lock on the door. I don't remember what I did after opening the door.

My roommates were gone for the weekend, which turned out to be a good thing. I woke up the next morning feeling like crap and looking like death. I sat up in my bed and wondered where my pajamas were because I was only wearing undies and my eyelashes were glued shut from sleeping in my eye makeup. It was a proud moment. I put on my robe, got my bath caddy, and took a shower, hoping to wash off some of the effects of champagne, but pear bodywash was no match for cheap champagne. While I was washing my hair I realized I wasn't wearing my watch, which I never took off (still never take off my watch). When I got back to my room I saw what a weird disarray it was in. I started looking for my watch and the jewelry I had worn the night before and couldn't find either. Eventually I started to feel a little more myself and straightened up the room, started studying, talked on the phone — but I felt naked without my watch, so I went back to the great jewelry hunt. I found my watch, earrings, bracelet, and pearl ring in the little trash can by my desk area. Who doesn't come in from a hot date and throw their jewelry away?

And that is the tale of Kerry and Scott's first Valentine's Day together and my first experience with alcohol. It's not earth-shattering, but it's mine and I think it's kind of funny.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope you spend today with someone you love or thinking about the one you love or something. I'm going to take the kids out to eat, since Scott's out of town, then I may get wild and watch the Valentine's marathon on Oxygen! Hope it doesn't get too rowdy and no one calls the cops! xxxooo — K

it’s not about you, it’s me. but not really

Dear Readers,

It's not that I don't love you, I do — really — I've written Mrs. Dear Reader in Sharpie on my Trapper Keeper a dozen times, it's Typepad's comment thingie that's preventing you from leaving comments. The truth is Readers, I've always loved you and I always will. You're like a cat, Readers.

Why a cat? Well, you see, I'm allergic to cats, but I love them. I am allergic to most everything, if you want to know the truth. When I was a little girl, I had just been given a tiny white kitten and on Easter Sunday my mom, sister, and I were waiting in the blue station wagon with wood paneling on the sides for my dad so we could leave for church. From the car I saw my dad open the front door, my kitten come out onto the porch and then — the worst moment of my childhood. My dad stepped on my kitten. I remember this all in slow motion. I was devestated and cried all the way to church.

We had dogs all through my childhood, but I wanted a cat. I didn't care that I was allergic to them, I wanted one. So, when I was almost 18 and my bff asked what I wanted for my birthday I asked for a cat. And my cat was the best cat ever. Sure, I was allergic to him, but we co-existed happily, I loved him, he loved me — great relationship — even with the issues, not unlike our relationship, Readers.

I've always wanted to write. I write for you. You come to the blog and attempt to leave a comment, but the comment thingie is not behaving and you can't leave a comment and that makes you mad. I understand. It would make me mad, too. It's a crazy Typepad thing and I can't do anything about it, much like my cat couldn't control being a walking, meowing allergen. And so Readers, we will have to live with Typepad being crazy and y'all emailing to tell me it won't let you leave a comment to say whatever it is you want to say. It's a love/hate relationship, we love each other and hate the issue, but love wins out in the end. And no allergy shots!

xxxooo,
Kerry