Nana (maternal grandmother) was born in Brooklyn, NY and raised, for the most part, in Florida. Grandpa’s (maternal grandfather) family was from North Carolina though they came to East Tennessee for some stupid reason that is still kind of touchy to talk about (put a pin in that). Papaw (paternal grandfather) is also from North Carolina. Mamaw (paternal grandmother) was born in Cades Cove. So in order here we’ve got Irish, Irish, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish.

So, for the most part… Not From Tennessee. Also, really poor. < / genealogy-lesson >

My relatives that are from here, that would be the aunts/uncles/cousins that married people from here and had kids here…talk like a bunch of weirdos. It’s not just the accent either, they’re just…ignorant and happy about it. This is what I hate about Tennessee. It seems like nearly everyone here is just like this. Reveling in their intellectual poverty and proud of it.

Yeah you can say there are people like this everywhere and that’s probably true… One of my favorite customer stories involves a family that moved to Maryville from somewhere in Oklahoma. The mother of the family and I talked and she assumed I was not from East Tennessee. She was surprised when I told her I was “born and raised” then asked me what is wrong with people here. I wish I knew.

Another thing about this place that drives me up the wall is the fascination with all things “country.” I’ll use music as my example because a relevant blog post over at pribek.net got me to thinking about this. These people are bloody well enthralled by something if you make it seem like it’s part of some sort of “Hillbilly Culture” which has been contrived from a bunch of bullshit nonsense that has nothing to do with anything. Sing a song equating your woman to a sweet little country dingleberry stuck on the back of a 4-wheeler tire and every stupid skanky “country girl” between Knoxville and Memphis will say it’s their favorite damn song for six to nine weeks and you will sell MILLIONS of…somethings…iTunes singles? I don’t know much about the music industry in that regard but I do know how to spot and steer clear of stupid chicks with pink real tree seat covers that hang around redneck bars and holler “Oh, this is my song!” while dragging their equally vacuous and obnoxious boyfriend/husband to the dance floor.

I do not find this garbage the least bit entertaining nor do I find that mindset/lifestyle/mess even casually interesting from the outside. This is probably one of the reasons I have ONE female friend outside of internet acquaintances. She, as it so happens, is actually country. I would happily and proudly define her as such because she’s a good person and I love her and she’s not a completely vapid dipshit. (Jess if you ever find this you know how I mean it. ♥) She listens to classical music, has a degree, and she reads books…with chapters.

(Taking the pin out of it now) Grandpa’s people are in the Boone, NC area. I’d never met any of them until this past summer when I got dragged out to a family reunion. Grandpa’s dad apparently upset a few folks when he up and decided he didn’t want anything to do with the kind of life he was living and moved to TN. I wondered what they would think of us. I wasn’t worried about it but I am vain enough to let those kinds of thoughts drift around in my consciousness for a bit.

As it turns out I come from some pretty fabulous country folk. They were kind and welcomed us as part of the family, fed us, explained who was who about 9 times. Among them, more than ever, I was able to really see the difference between real country people and the bottom-feeders of TN. And yeah, there are probably other places (Pensyltucky, anyone?) than TN these type of cretins live and breed but I know TN so…write what you know, yeah?

They all had degrees from App State. They lived on land that’s been in the family for a long, long time. They were decent, intelligent, hard working, respectable, pleasant-to-be-around people. To say I’m disappointed I wasn’t raised there among them is fair and understated.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

portishead radio on pandora has been a balm on my soul. it goes from rjd2 to bill withers to hybrid to etta james to air and on and on. if they ever design an implant that allows me to have this piped to my head any and everywhere, i shall buy one. one day i’ll be able to trick someone into believing i need a smartphone.

also, i would like an adrien brody (or reasonable facsimile) of my very own. please and thank you.

in the footsteps of my father, i have been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder … which doesn’t change anything for me. yet another line item to add to the litany of words and noise that sometimes serve to define (excuse) ourselves. i feel very indulgent and western by going to a psychiatrist and i continue the trend here. how exciting for you.

it may be that because i am staring down the barrel of age 30 and have yet to do a good godsdamned thing with myself that I am getting even more introspective than usual. (perhaps i should add narcissist to my list of diagnoses.) i feel like such a twit. like there aren’t a million better thoughts than "have i fulfilled my potential as a citizen of this dirt heap in the backwoods of the cosmos?" right. twit status confirmed. i’ve wasted almost all of my 20s…and the snarky nihilist in me shouts back "GOOD," while the myopic 10 year old that still resides inside me, she who read the encyclopedia for fun one summer, rolls her eyes, shoots me a petulant look and then the bird.

although silly and painfully socially awkward, i am a grounded sort who was born 40. i can be calculating and cunning but more importantly i worry every issue from all possible angles. impulse control is only lacking when books or electronics are involved. unlike my brothers who have about as much common sense and guile as 8 week old puppies. my parents have always felt that i’ve got plenty of common sense, that i would always land on my feet and they would never have to worry about me. it mostly felt like disregard on this side of things but it’s nice to be appreciated, i guess. at the very least no one is losing sleep over me, goddess forfend.

i’ve been writing fiction but it’s not what you might imagine. mostly porn and entirely on paper.
i’ve shocked you, haven’t i?
paper??
what the hell???
i know.
it seems the keyboard makes my brain seize. an assortment of pens and a .25 notebook and i have written more in the last month than i have in years. now if i can just learn when to use who/whom i’ll be set, but i suppose that’s what editors are for.

the osama death celebrating really bothered and angered me. the fact that there were people in my immediate personal space doing it bothered and angered me more. remind me again why i know you? how did i get here?

and now a list of things (because really, no entry of mine is complete without a list) that i have under the heading of *smiley face* (to be interpreted however you want)

• fountain pen with ebony green ink
• pocket watch
• waistcoat
• churchill chair
• book strap
• gauged ears
• canada
• safety razor
• bicycle
• leather

obviously, i am turning into a gentleman…a mostly antique and queer one.

we were watching videos of storms last night. they were frightening and as huge as the whole sky while they rolled in off the ocean, over mountain ridges, and across the plains. my mind wanders to explaining weather to aliens (the intergalactic traveller variety). i think of our ancestors. imagine looking up and seeing the dark and morphing faces in the clouds as they cover blue skies. the wind picks up. giant limbs throw light from the sky that burns the earth. a strange tongue begins mumbling in the distance and then booming, demanding as it gets closer. it’s come for you. cower, mortal. these are the moments that invented god.*

i wonder what it must be like to not think these thoughts. to sit quietly and listen as someone tells me what they’ve been told which loosely relates to something in a really old book which someone a long time ago interpreted from an ancient tongue. not to use the brains or the guts that thousands of years of evolution and fucking blessed them with. to not see divinity in science. to not see soul and the spark of consciousness in the eyes of our fellow non-human earthlings. to pass on cherishing the present moment and each other or forsaking our mother earth for a “more perfect” afterlife. to not adore our bodies and our home as a player in a magnificent stardust orgasm, scattering the darkness at the speed of light for the last 14 billion years, put into motion by forces outside space, time and our illusions of physical form. it gets me hot just thinking about it.

some people take this knowledge and wonder why they should be in awe of, what boils down to, ALL of this being the unwanted, yet interesting, product of a cosmic one night stand that has, with statistical certainty, happened elsewhere in our multi-verse. me…i’ve experienced enough hurt and disappointment during my tour our “insignificant” little world. i want to and will believe that we’re all cherished… even if it’s just my imagination.

* that’s not to say that i think deity is a hoax because we can explain, and sometimes control, these and many other phenomena. i think the more we know, we realize how much we don’t know.

Most persons with any style or substance knows that the final match of the World Cup is right around the bend. I’ve been dumbly watching conversations about fútbol, fotbal, le foot, fußball, podosfero, sakka, football, and good old soccer. One of my friends, whose blog I read on a regular basis, is a HUGE fan of the sport. Me? I’m a fan of outcomes. There are three reasons I’ve never watched a sports match, from start to finish. The first my attention span is total crap. If you look away, you’ll miss something (thank goddess for highlight reels and instant replay). The second, I cannot take the stress of the ups and downs of a match. They’re winning! They’re losing! Oh god THEY’RE HURT! Even if my team is obliterating the opposition, I can’t stand it because I feel bad for the other team and can’t bear to watch. Heh. Third…the rivalries. Oh god. They tear families apart and make newborn kittens cry.

Anyway. The US team was knocked out fairly early (but at least they qualified, right canada? ) so I have been without country for the better part of the games. I asked my Dutch friend who she was rooting for, (ORANJE OF COURSE.) which is kind of a dumb question, I suppose. Apparently only Americans cheer on teams outside of their own country for the cup. All my european and american friends understand since the US team kind of sucks, but they held on a little longer this year than normal so… NICE TRY GUYS!

I was complaining that I COULD NOT watch the matches (for the above reasons) but my IRC friends were having *none of that nonsense* and they found me a stream so I could watch the Spain v. Paraguay match. I’ll interject here that the only sports I’ve ever attempted to watch have been basketball and American Football. Two of THE MOST boring sports ever. but this…was exciting. This actually held my attention. If you don’t know anything about american football…they can’t move 2 feet without stopping, resetting the field, and starting the clock again. It seems like a single game takes eleventy hours. but this…when it was over i was left feeling like it hadn’t gone on long enough.

So. All this to say: SOCCER… I LIKE IT! Like it enough to watch it year round…probably not. For starters, I wouldn’t know where to being. I’m only able to watch the world cup matches because AT&T signed an agreement with ESPN so I get to watch it online for free. Anyway, I’m rooting for ORANJE for the cup. We’ll see.

A consult was performed, a procedure was scheduled, a puppy was sedated. Now, a week later, I am finally calm over the situation. We brought her home with stretchy purple thing wrapped around her, a few pieces of gauze, and a bottle of death-inducing pain pills (that we did not administer). The *giant* suture she came home with was bad enough to make me want to cry. The way she was listlessly wandering around the office, as if she were in a very strange dream, made me coo and rub her head, telling her everything was ok and i loved her. She laid on a nest of dog pillows i made for her in the floor of the office and whimpered softly as the anesthesia wore off. Needless to say, I felt pretty bad about putting her through all that.

Then the infection started. I knew it would happen. I mean, she’s a dog. She walks through the grass, she lays on the floor, she licks her own butt and she licks her own wounds. You’ll note that while the vet did send us home with the death pills, he did not send us home with antibiotics, an e collar, or a drainage tube. I thought this was a little strange but what do *I* know. I didn’t go to animal doctor school. At 3am, early Tuesday morning the area under the suture had gotten so filled with fluid that it was starting to resemble a fraying baseball. She was panting pretty heavily and pacing. I woke Hugo up to confirm my diagnosis (“It’s fscked up, right?” … “Yeah. It’s fscked.”) and made a phone call to the animal ER.

This makes my third trip there and I like their team quite a bit. While we were there something finally gave way and the fluid started seeping out of my poor dog, all over the floor. She had a fever which pointed to an infection which means our vet is a retard and I need to learn to speak up. A credit card swipe and 45 minutes later, they wheel Coco out on a metal table with wheels. She now appeared as I had expected her to when I picked her up the first time. Totally stoned with a very well bandaged side (stretchy blue this time!), a drain tube stitched in place, an e collar, and antibiotics. It took 3 of us to get Coco, a 90 pound, dog shaped lump of spaghetti, into the back seat of my 2 door coupe. Coco is a rock star though and she managed to stand up and walk out of my car after a little encouragement. If she hadn’t done that… we’d have probably taken a nap in the car until the sun came up.

I finally got in bed and asleep sometime around 7am. At 1pm I pulled off her dressings and it looked 100x better than the night before. It’s looking even better now, almost 24 hours later. As for me, I’m looking for a new vet. I don’t know why I don’t trust my own instincts more. That’s something I need to work on.

Girl & Cow by KCzarzasty

I have contracted…what feels like…a chest cold…or it could be wicked allergies moved south. Either way, there are cinderblocks where my lungs once were.