Crocus and Other Things You Can’t Unsee (Fair Warning)

My “To Do” List for the Next Four Days

1. Pay Bills 2. Do taxes 3. Get new car tags 4. Futz around in the garden 5. Go to Lock I 6. Work on Bridgett’s thing I call it “Impromptu vacation.”

Shoot, I Forgot to Tell Y’all the Best News!

One, I have crocuses blooming in my yard! I have to take pictures. They’re so gorgeous. Two, the story that I read to y’all the other night? With revisions, it got accepted to this awesome online journal. Woo hoo! (I’m not sure if this means I’ve revised my feelings on crocuses or not. I still [...]

I’m Going to Buy Susan Lynn a Large Gun

We’ll have to get some rules changed down at the state capitol. You may not realize this, but while they’re busy making sure you can carry a gun anywhere you like, they’ve left one large area at the top of the hill on Charlotte off-limits. Which is a shame, because, as I understand it, guns [...]

Massive Roundup of Interesting Stuff

1. I am going to this house. Soon. Very soon. I don’t know how soon, soon, but soon. 2. The last two lines of this are so perfect that I about wanted to applaud. You rarely see someone pull that kind of humor off that well. But when they do? It’s beautiful. 3. My town [...]

When the Truth is Blackmail

Good lord. This would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing. Or maybe the other is true, that it would be disturbing if it wasn’t so funny. There’s an bill mandating that all driver’s license exams be given in English and… well, I’ll let Jeff Woods tell you this part. When a lobbyist for Volkswagen, [...]

An Open Letter to the TNDP

Dear TNDP, Man, it’s a total gyp that you want me to go dutch with you on a lunch with Chip. I mean, clear to Rutherford County? Please. I guess I could probably jerry rig my brother’s car together in order to get there, but what if someone else welshes on their meal? Who’s going [...]

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

My seeds have shipped, which means that soon they will arrive, which means that soon after that, I will be sitting in my house, seed packets in hand, imagining exactly where I’ll put them and what they’ll grown up to be and on and on. And it will be all I can do to not [...]

Here’s What I Ended Up Writing for Pith

Basically, what I said here, but without the bone-crushing depression.

R.I.P. Corey Haim

One of my fondest memories, something I still tease my mom about, is going with her to the movie theater in Morris to see The Lost Boys for a dollar (or, I guess, two; one for each of us). This may have been my first R-rated movie in a theater. And it was so crappy! [...]

Women in this State Don’t Count for Much

I’m trying to write a post for Pith about the Governor’s proposal to close down the female juvenile detention center and throw those girls back in with the boys, into a facility where the sexual abuse of the boys is so rampant that it’s received national attention. I’m trying to write about how, because newspapers [...]

What’s in Your Heart

One thing I find utterly baffling in the whole Walt Baker thing is the amount of people who want to sit around and argue about what’s in Baker’s heart. Like we can’t know that what he did was racist, because we don’t know what’s in his heart. On the one hand, I get that this [...]

There’s a Dog Treat on My Dining Room Floor

People, I repeat: there’s a dog treat on my dining room floor. Something was very wrong with Mrs. Wigglebottom yesterday. Her gut was making all kinds of terrible noises and she was very, very tentative on the stairs during the millions of times we took her out to see if she was going to, oh, [...]

Haslam Tells It Like It Is

There’s this idea that you can’t win in politics if you tell the truth when the truth sucks. This is probably true, but it makes things difficult when the sucking truth is one we all need to face. So, I was heartened to read over at Kleinheider‘s that Haslam was willing to say this out [...]

So, This Stinks

I went out to the garage this morning to find my back tire flat and the front one on the way to joining it.  The Butcher put enough air in the back one so that I could get to the tire place where they informed me that I needed new tires, which, coincidentally, was what [...]

Lock II Park

People, that’s all I want to write about. It’s all I want to think about. I was having kind of a grouchy morning yesterday and then we went out there and it was like… I don’t even know. The river and the straight layers of rocks on the bluff and the big old trees and [...]

What if “Carroll” isn’t a Last Name But a Place?

As you may or may not recall, my great-grandma, Ina Mae gave her kids names that have provided me with awesome clues into that part of my family tree. My grandpa, Hildreth Heistand Phillips has family last names as his two given names. His sister, Viola Lucia, is named after a grandmother, Lucia Viola. And [...]

Lock Two Park Makes Me Wish I Was a Better Photographer

The Silsbees

Again, just pasting here what I posted for family members at Facebook so that I don’t lose it, should Facebook go somewhere. ———- As promised, I found out more about the Silsbee side of the family. This would be Avis’s mom’s mom’s people. Sadie’s mom was Mary Silsbee. Her dad was Anson Silsbee. He and [...]

Ghost Town

Did some gardening and went to Adams, home of the Bell Witch. It’s what’s happening in the part of town that’s not a tourist draw that is scary, though.

If I Had Money, I’d Be Blowing It On this

I learned about this from Newscoma. Don’t even get me started on its awesomeness.

Hiding in Plain Sight

There’s a lot of good discussion floating around the blogosphere right now about college-age rapists. I don’t have anything additional interesting to add. I’m still kind of processing it. I’ll admit, my idea of the “typical” college rapist has been the guy who has too much to drink and doesn’t take into consideration the willingness [...]

But I Don’t Even Want to Have a Douchebag of the Day on Saturday!

Damn it.

Douchebag of the Day Award

This was going to Walt Baker, the CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association, who sent his close friends an email joke the punchline of which is that Michelle Obama is actually Tarzan’s monkey, and then defended himself by saying, “It’s not a political statement.” As Trace Sharp says, “Alright Baker, we will call it what [...]

Moving On

I’m going to just say that I’m a little bummed to learn that John Hiatt moved on some dead folks from his land. If they’re there and they’re not hurting anyone and they’re not stuck, why can’t they stay? On the other hand, I’m delighted to learn that CMT.com has a tag called “ghosts.” We [...]