In other news

I got my hair cut.  She took about four inches off it and I think it looks really cute.  I’ll have to do it a couple of times before I decide for sure, though.

Mrs. Wigglebottom likes it, but I think that’s just because it smells different.

Also, we got my cousin’s college graduation announcement and it says

Western Michigan University_TM

Now, I don’t mean to knock Western Michigan University, but please?  Why would you stick that ugly ass TM on your graduation announcements?  Do you really think that, if you don’t guard your trademark at every second that some enterprising soul in, say, Grand Rapids (city of my birth), is going to open up another Western Michigan University?

You’ve ruined my cousin’s perfectly nice graduation announcement with your tacky insecurity.

A Little Note to Kleinheider

Dear Kleinheider,

We have an unspoken arrangement–you post asinine things; I point out why they’re asinine; you try to point out how I’m wrong; I school you in the ways that I’m right.  For better or for worse, that’s what works for us.

But this? 

No.

This I cannot stand.  I can’t just be flipping along through new posts on Bloglines and be brought up short by shit you post.  It ruins my sense of how things work.  And aren’t you conservatives big on “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?”

This broke my heart.  It made me want to drive over to WKRN and bring you a pie. 

I also don’t have a hometown.  Probably that accounts for part of my awkward ungroundedness.  I don’t know what it’s like to belong to someplace full of people who know me and my people.  Am I missing out on something vitally important to my humanity?

Maybe.

“A Kleinheider From Nowhere.”

I about can’t stand that, though.

So, I say, be from right here.  If you can’t feel comfortable throwing your allegiance to a physical community, make this your neighborhood and I will be your neighbor.  I will remember how you were before you got all professional.  You can think of me as the crazy lady in the house you tell your kids is haunted.

Just don’t say you’re from nowhere.  That makes me cry. 

Neighborly,

B.

A Day for Sun Dresses

Y’all, it is so nice out that I really just want to put on a sun dress and spend the afternoon twirling around and lifting it way out so that the fresh breeze can get up under it.  If I still had ’em, I’d be hiking my dress up and showing everyone my cool Wonder Woman under-roos.

Ha, days like today are exactly the reason we all had to wear shorts under our dresses when we were in first grade.

In Case I Get Run Over, Here’s What Likely Happened

We seem to be having perfect plant weather–lots of rain, lots of sun when it’s not raining, warm, but not unbearably warm–and so everything is this vibrant green.

So, Mrs. Wigglebottom and I go out for our morning walk and I don’t know if I just never bothered to look up before or if turning thirty-two has suddenly imparted upon me super vision, but holy shit, folks.  The tops of the trees in our neighborhood catch the early morning light like it’s tangible, like the sun is just drizzling over the tops of the trees.  I just can’t keep my eyes off of it.

And then when I look down, I’m distracted by all of the shapes in the green.  It seems like everything is just one massive wall of dark green, but then you notice the prickly needles and the jagged edges of some leaves and the ovals of others, the shine of the magnolia leaves, the fuzzy green of grass gone to seed.

Anyway, all of this is to say that if you see me and Mrs. Wigglebottom out wandering around the neighborhood, please give us wide berth.  She’s never been one to pay attention and I’m strangely distracted lately.  If you’re not looking out for us, we might not notice you.

H ebl-o-

I love old words. You use a word every day, think nothing of it, and then come to find out it’s thousands of years old. It’s sturdy. It still says what we need to say. It still conveys things that are important to us.
It makes me feel at ease in the world, knowing that some words have been with us as far back as we can go.
H₂ebl-o- is one of them–apple. Oh, apples. Always with us. Always tempting us.
*kwon is another. I’ve got a *kwon at my feet–Mrs. tark-*b^hud^h-mn- (Though, technically, that’d be Mrs. Twistbottom, not Wigglebottom, but you get the gist.)
I suppose you can tell a lot about us by what words are ancient and still in use. If you look over the list of proto-Indo-European roots, you’ll quickly see we were concerned with counting and identifying animals, body parts, and family members. You’ll also see that we seemed to be quite preoccupied with nakedness.
Not much different than now.

In Which I Whine Just a Little

I have two goals for this evening: 1.  Take some stuff real people said and make it flow; 2.  Write something that sounds like real people would say it.

Fuck me.  Two is hard.

Okay, that’s all.  I’m done.