wiggles/walks

I have gotten into the habit of going on a walk in the park the minute I wake up. I started walking to get my wiggles out. Listen, I have a lot of wiggles in the morning even before my coffee. Listen, I can be a 30-year-old and still use the word "wiggles," okay? Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. Telling me just what a fool I've been. I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain. And let me be alone again. Those last four sentences were song lyrics not written by me. Name the song and the group and I will give you the prize of immortal life.

Anyway, my walk. So I walk around the park by my house while reading The New York Times and War and Peace because I am pretentious like that. I initially start out welcoming the world. The sun! The breeze! The trees! The new day! Hello! And then people happen. Yes, Camus, hell is other people. Granted, I am the other for others -- in other words, I am no peach pie for some folk. I disrupt their world just as much as they disrupt mine. Okay, I am being a tad hyper-sensitive, I know. Most of the time people at the park are just minding their own business. Walking their dog (but does their dog really have to poop in my path?), getting their daily exercise (but do you have to run with your stroller the size of a mid-size SUV?), catching up with their friend (but do you really have to have such an idiotic conversation about your juice cleanse?), and so on. Occasionally some gem-of-a-human will drive by me in their pick-up truck equipped with a Duck Dynasty bumper sticker and gun rack in the back and honk and/or shout incoherently out their window and/or politely ask for my opinion on Tolstoy's Christian anarchist views. Well, maybe not the last one. But the first two? They happen far more often than they should. They should never happen, actually. And it pisses me off. And it also scares me a little. It may seem odd, but being harassed first thing in the morning isn't exactly my favorite way to start the day.

So I come home from my walk, which was supposed to relax and refresh me, but instead I grab a large cup of ice and chew away my anxiety and anger. Something has to change and I hate to say that it's most likely my attitude that needs an adjustment. Yes, it would be nice if the harassment stopped, but it won't. Yeah, if the dog poop and the stroller moms and the mind-numbing conversations I can't help but overhear would disappear life might be easier. But then it wouldn't be life, right? Life comes with annoyances, interruptions, and too many wiggles to successfully erase. It's learning how to handle these situations in a way that doesn't add fuel to the asshole fire. It's learning how to send out good vibes for the sake of the world and, maybe more importantly, the sake of your psyche. Hell may be other people, but I can create heaven within myself.

IN THE NAME OF COFFEE AND TOLSTOY AND CUPS OF ICE, A(WO)MEN.

outermost (the post about aliens and ice and smoke)

Greetings! Welcome to my blog! Welcome to Internet Land! Where all of your dreams will come true, all of your time will be wasted, and all of your naked photos will be hacked and sent around the world and maybe even into space. Aliens might see your boobs! But then again, aliens have probably already seen it all. X-ray vision and whatnot. What? Is this not a good beginning to a blog entry? Well, pish posh. Whatever. I've forgotten how to blog. Is blogging passé? Should I be Snapchatting and/or Skyping instead? I think I should probably be sending out smoke signals for the extraterrestrial creatures up there in the celestial skies and tell them to stop being perverts. Maybe I should also chew on some ice.

Yes, I've been chewing on a lot of ice lately. This could mean one of about a dozen things. I could be sexually frustrated (HELL-O!), anemic (OH CRAP), dehydrated (WHO ISN'T?!), or anxious (DUH). I guess those are just four things, not a dozen. Look, I never said I was good at math. But guess what? I'll say it now: I am terribly wonderful at math. Not even joking for one damn second. I was the top student in my COLLEGE math classes! I even went on a date or two with my math professor AFTER I was out of his class! I know that last thing has nothing to do with my math skills, but it does have something to do with my dating skills, which I do not possess. I possess little to no skills in the world of dating. But man oh man, I am more than capable of plotting ordered pairs on a coordinate plane. Sexy? Uh, yeah. I don't blame you if you want to chew on a bucket of ice after reading about my mathematical skills. I don't blame you, but I won't kiss you. Yet.

Hmmm. So I guess my blog has abruptly shifted from being a place where I write vague and poetic musings to a forum for my descent into madness. Let it be! And so it shall be! And I will lose followers by the post, but I will gain lost time. Weird how you can gain while you lose, huh? Weird how time is just a construct and numbers are erotic and I am neurotic and aliens are paying attention to my smoke signals. It is strange, though, because I do not know how to start a fire. How can I send the message without a flame? Apparently I am. Apparently someone out there is reading this. Apparently madness is still expressed in a sane way through the tidiness of words and (mostly) complete sentences.

So will you, aliens of the Internet (whom I love), continue to read my smoke signals? I can almost promise you that I have more coherent things to express. I will have to express those things at a later time, however. I have to go to recess! Seriously. I get paid to play with 5-year-olds. If there's one thing I've learned from working with children, it is that they too are aliens. Aren't we all? But heaven help me if they ever read my smoke signals. Pssh. Like those goofballs can even read anything beyond the word "cat." Give me a break. (And give me a chance?) (Also, while you are giving me a chance, will you also give me a very large container of chewable ice? Thanks, you adorable space inhabitant you.)

the return

Hi, Reader! I say "reader" instead of "readers," because I'm skeptical of there being more than one person who reads this blog. Okay, there are probably three of you suckers, maybe four. But definitely no more than five.

Time has passed! I have disappeared! I did not actually disappear -- unless we don't quite know when we disappear until we look into a mirror and realize we are missing not only a face, but a head and a body and maybe even our arms. Our feet and hands, however, remain. And our smile. We have turned into the Cheshire Cat while at the same time being curious Alice and the aggressive Queen, looking for a head to chop off.

I did not stop writing. I guess I exist if I write? So I've been existing, not disappearing. It's just that I've been writing FICTION and PRIVATELY. Privately fiction. Private Eye fiction. Not private eye. I am simply private about what I write when I feel like I may be on to something... Not that I necessarily believe that my idea(s) will be stolen, but because I feel like I have to keep the sauce in the pot boiling before I take it off the stove and show it off to everyone in the dining room. Keep it in the kitchen until fully cooked.

Other than marinating/sauteing/frying/baking/filleting the strange and surreal stories that seep out of my brain, I have been doing a lot of walking. And reading. I read while I walk, which makes me the weirdo in the neighborhood who reads while she walks around the park in circles. Who is this odd blonde creature with over-sized sunglasses and a shocking shoulder tattoo? Why is she such a nerd? I wonder if she is secretly a drug dealer and is going to the park to give children candy laced with cocaine? Kids don't need cocaine. That last sentence will be the title of my second memoir. My first memoir will be titled, "Do Kids Need Cocaine?"

So I read, walk, whisk up words in a mixing bowl (yolks included), and push around a kid in a wheelchair. Oh yeah, I now have a job. And it's a "wheely" good job! Kidding, it's not good. At all. Okay, so helping children is wonderful. They are ill-behaved germ bags who are on rare occasions amazing humans. Overall, though, I look at this job as very super incredibly temporary. For one thing, it doesn't pay well -- and we all know that it's all about the, uh, scrilla. I also feel like I am not "utilizing my talents." But seriously. I have this English degree and I can whip up an Ionesco-like one-act play in seconds flat, but put me in charge of a dozen 6-year-olds and I become the dumbest person in the room (which is pretty bad because 6-year-olds are pretty dumb). I'm beginning to realize that I don't give myself enough credit. I settle for what is easy and safe because it is, well, easy and safe. I don't have to worry about being crestfallen or groundless. But oh how I've forgotten how much I value vulnerability and bravery. Vulnerability IS bravery. It's time I take a chance on something and go after what may seem impossible, yet soul-fulfilling. If there's anything I've learned from teaching kids, it's that the impossible usually ends up being possible and worth it. I've also learned that kids hate vegetables and love sneezing into the wind.

I don't have a point with this post other than to update you on ALL THINGS MEG. Meg! The girl who sneezed her dreams into the wind and ended up infecting the world! Get ready!