I Hate How We Do Tornado Sirens

I drove home from downtown up here under the blare of tornado sirens. I was searching frantically on the radio for news, to see if I should stop at Fisk and take cover. The rotation was way south of me. I feel like I freak the fuck out about weather, but I have to tell [...]

Two Things

Ugh, I’m in the middle of some madness, but here are two things to consider. 1. Rachel’s post on SJR 127, which is back up for a vote today and which, of course, is going to pass. This is one of the reasons I don’t give a shit about term limits. David Fowler isn’t in [...]

Cats are Annoying

I swear, if a dog misses breakfast, you know it’s time to turn out the search party. Dogs do not miss breakfast. I mean, even think about it. The idea that you’d do something at a set time pretty regularly and a dog would not at least stick his head in to see if it [...]

One Thing Left on the To-Do List!

Man, I kicked this weekend’s butt and took names. I have a place to stick my vegetables. I have a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom. I’m hardening off my veggies so they can go into the ground next weekend. The tomatoes are already ready to go. I always forget how tomatoes are like “Doot-doot-doot. [...]

I Need to Find My Sandals Before the Weather Turns this Way For Good

Hard Lesson Learned

Always open the god damn bag at the pharmacy, especially when the price is wrong. Don’t just sit there being like “I’ll fight with the insurance company Monday,” because Monday there will be tornadoes and you’ll forget and then, when you go to open your new birth control package, it’ll be the wrong damn thing. [...]

A, V, O, I, D, I, N, G! A Cheer for Writers

We tried to fix the washing machine so that we could at least say we had. No luck. I went to Lowe’s and got a toilet seat. I’m now about to go clean the bathroom. That’s right. I am cleaning the bathroom rather than looking at my novel. I may even do some dishes. Fertilize [...]

Weird Panic

I was going to spend the evening working on the novel, but I about had a panic attack about it today, so when the Redheaded Kid came over to hang out and tell us all about random text messages he gets from people he doesn’t know, I spent the evening doing that instead. Get this! [...]

Mike Turner’s Wiccan Controversy Explodes!

This morning, on WPLN, Mike Turner was featured making a hare-brained comment about Wiccans in the debate about the “teaching the controversy!” science bill. “What we’ve said here today, is that you can teach something else, but we haven’t actually defined what they can teach. And I think that’s dangerous. I think it’s dangerous if [...]

Holy Cow!

I don’t remember having an iris this color before. I wonder if this is one of the ones we pulled out from under that tree, where they came up but never flowered. Edited to add: Ha, this is what I get for trusting technology. In real life, that iris isn’t blue. It’s purple. But I [...]

One Interesting Thing about Tennessee Politics that Doesn’t Make Me Want to Weep

So, yes, of course it’s hilarious to hear the Republicans claiming that they’re all about jobs in the same week they’ve admitted that no one believes they’re doing anything about jobs. And I laughed and I laughed when I read that Tennessean article. Because it’s not that they’re not taking up social issues. They’re just [...]

Most of Us are Not Real Tennesseans

I have to say that I see Tennesseans making a mistake I used to make back in the heyday of feminist bloggers. There’d be some discussion or other about things “us Feminists” or “we Feminists” do or say or feel or think and I’d be all doot-doot-doot reading along and all of a sudden it [...]

And Yet, The Pear is Going to Live Another Year

The cedar is slowly dying in the yard. It’s kind of depressing to watch it go limp. It’s hard for me to believe that trees don’t have some kind of… supernatural oomph, you know? Obviously not a consciousness, maybe not quite what we’d recognize as a soul, but in those moments when you turn your [...]

Oh, Dad

My dad called me up this afternoon to tell me that he and my mom had decided that, if we couldn’t get the washer fixed this weekend, they would just buy us one. I wanted to turn him down, but, well, I also really want to be able to wash my clothes. The thing that [...]

I Think People Are Being a Little Hard on the Candie’s Foundation in Regard to Bristol Palin

Okay, yes, they are a non-profit to which people donate. And yes, they did pay Bristol Palin over a quarter of a million dollars while distributing only $35,000 in grant money to programs designed to actually help prevent teen pregnancy, the ostensible purpose of the Candie’s Foundation. But people! Is not Bristol Palin a teen? [...]

Can moles swim?

The dog and I had to check out the tree on our walk, of course. We discovered that birds do not give a shit that their old home is now horizontal, they were happy in there until we got right up close and then they all came pouring out. The other thing I noted is [...]

New Things

I’m trying to post from my iPhone, because we still don’t have Comcast at the house. I’m trying to be understanding, but really, come on, Comcast! I did finish DEATHLESS and it is exquisite. I may have more to say about it later, when I’m not pecking on this thing. I kept thinking that it [...]

See?! This is What I Mean

It’s not even going to be that big a pain to cut down into burnable size. It wasn’t a very old tree, even if it was pretty tall. So, it’s like we’re having a bout of okay bad luck. I’m ready for it to be over. I’ll admit, before lunch, I was feeling a little [...]

I Have Been Cursed by Someone Inept

People, for some reason, my hair smells like stale pee. I can’t locate the portion of my head that fate fucking peed on, but believe me, the smell is real and I can attest the peeing on has happened. Let us just start with this morning, when I woke up to a painful and weird [...]

Tornadoes are Serious Business!

We had some tornadoes go through town here a little bit ago, so we all had to stand in the bottom of the stairwell, I guess so that, if a tornado hits our building, they know to look for a big pile of dead people under the stairs. So, I get down there and there [...]

The New Washing Machine Plan

So, our other brother convinced me that, if I’m not smelling any electrical burning smell coming from the washer, then there’s a chance the washer can be saved, even by two fools who know nothing about fixing washers, because the problem might be the belt, not the motor. And so, next weekend, the Butcher and [...]

It’s Been a Weird Weekend

I’m pretty sure the washer is broken. Like “gone to meet its maker” broken. Which, you know, is not good, considering I just spent all our money on a hot water heater. I also suspect, since they went out at the same time, that the same thing happened to both of them, which I’m going [...]

How the Devil Came to Wear Papa Limba’s Hat

“Oh, well, then,” he raised his eyebrow, “here’s a story. The Devil—that’s me—was known to hang out at crossroads, it’s true, just waiting to steal someone’s soul. But the soul of a musician? Please, those things are so easy to come by I don’t have to get out of bed to get them. “Yes, I [...]

The Butcher’s Adele Biscuit Theory

Did I ever tell y’all about the Butcher’s belief that the video for Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” is an elaborate metaphor about making biscuits? You have the flour, the water, the elaborate towers of shortning, and the heat. I asked about the salt and baking powder, but he says they could already be in [...]

The Shape of the Book

Y’all, just as a relevant side-note, I have been trying now for two days to learn what settled on term there is to describe the religious person in a non-Christian, indigenous community who uses altered states to communicate and work in the spirit world. The problem with “shaman” is that it is a term specific [...]