Table legs

Cartoon-classic moment today:  My sister joined the high school color guard, so she got to take home one of those wooden rifles they spin.  Naturally, Mom told her not to throw it around in the house, and just as naturally, she did.  From the next room, I heard an incredible crash as the butt of the giant baton came thundering through the glass top of the livingroom table.  This is her displaying her handiwork.  My parents might have been angrier if the table hadn't been so darn ugly to begin with.  Now we have an excuse to use one from my grandma's old house.

They say horses can be therapeutic. Bollocks! I say they have the healing power of angels.

If the horse had a MySpace, this would be his profile picture.

The Dora the Explorer bandaids Kat gave me aren't big enough for my booboo.

The other night at my uncle's birthday party I took a misstep--into a black abyss of concrete.  Here's my battle wound.

I feel like knee scrapes are little-kid injuries.  This scab is identical--same knee and everything--to one I got at approximately the age of seven.  I was at Newark airport, recently landed to visit my grandma in Park Ridge, having big time on one of those moving sidewalks.  I took an untimely spill at the very end of the line, and the hem of my dress, as well as the skin on my knee, got trapped in the crack where the conveyor-sheet-thing meets its mysterious disappearance.  A kind Samaritan, an older man whose face I'll never forget (although the memory is probably far from the real face), pulled me up by the armpits, rescuing me from certain doom.  I was sure that if he hadn't appeared just then, I would have been sucked down into the Dr. Seuss world of darkness, fluffy-neon monsters, and farcical rhyme lurking on the other side.

As it happened, my fate was to grow up on this side of the walkalator, to learn that it's no less nonsensical or frightening than the inverse.  I would venture that ours is not as cleverly metered and rhymed, but with better and more varied cuisine.  Green, pink or purple, ham isn't kosher.

A hankerin' for wireless

Along with, of course, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, I crave free high-speed internet.  Is that so wrong?

I'm at the Christian bookstore/cafe conveniently hidden behind McDonald's and the Verizon Wireless store.  The coffee's decent, the connection is fast, and no one bothers me because the place is empty.

I don't often get internet at home, so for the past couple of hours I've been clicking and scribbling to my heart's delight, fudging all the days and times.  My camera keeps track of all that, so they're pretty accurate, but I guess you can never fully trust me again.  Good lesson, though: never fully trust what you read.

The public library system: one of the last standing institutions upholding American democracy

Today Rebecca and I went to the town library.  As you can see, I got a new library card.  Being a legal adult and all, I've been upgraded from my juvenile account!  Now I can check out videos, but the best part is that I got to sign my own card.  It annoyed me that I still didn't get to print my own name; the librarian did that for me.

Three cheers for equal access to information and safe spaces for education and self-betterment!

It finally rained today.

Brown is better.

My sister got back from summer camp today.  Right outside the camp is this crazy organic dairy farm.  It's tradition to stop there for chocolate milk when we pick her up.  I didn't go along on the trip this year, as someone has to hold down Fort 417, but they brought me a bottle of my own.

I don't drink cow's milk anymore, but who am I to stand in the way of tradition?  At least such a delicious one...

By request

This is the chair I bought.

Germantown Pkwy

These horses are everywhere around East Memphis, different colors and designs.  Nashville used to do something similar, but with catfish instead (not making it up).  I'll never forget the one outside the Boyscouts of America building...  I wish I had been taking pictures back then.

We were fresh out of blue suede.

I asked for a couple of days off to visit Kelsey before she went to Texas to be a counselor at a camp where they make you choose a code name so the campers never know your true identity.  I hope I didn't just blow her cover.  Anyway, I like driving to Memphis, for lots of reasons, not least of which is this rest stop, at which I always pee.

The bulk of my short stay was spent decorating five-dollar shoes from Wally World.  In case you can't tell, we put the Eiffel Tower on Kali's!  No, they're not railroad tracks.

Secret affair/lunch elsewhere

This is a cafe downtown, empty except for Emily, me, and a quiet bald man (not pictured here).  Emily and I talked about gruesome art and the quandary of living/participating/not in a society in which pretty much everything we encounter (touch, eat, hear, etc.) is the result of somebody getting the brutal shaft of history.  No solutions yet.  But I talked her into trying fruit chutney and got some juicy--I mean, depending on your perspective--details of the Hannah Montana movie shooting in Franklin.

Colors that rhyme with 'urple'

We did a private party at 417 today.  I'm supposed to be learning how to tend the bar, but mostly I run errands for my parents, like packing up spinach dip and chips for the girl who tends bar next door.  But check out these frosted grapes!

Below: Mom.  Isn't she cute?

Historic Downtown Lebanon

I went antiquing today.  Since it's Sunday, Cuz's wasn't actually open.  But it's my favorite, partly because of a tenth grade field trip we took there to study all the Afro-Asian artifacts, but mostly because of the mysterious, squished alien/goat head they have in a shadowbox in the front window.  Classic Lebanon roadkill.

The only place open was across the street.  I bought a chair for my new apartment, which I won't find/move into until January.  Wooden and painted with someone's interpretation of the Starry Night.  So worth it.

This message is not necessarily approved by Haywood Barry.

Sabbath

Today I went to services at Micah.  Dad didn't get to stay because of restaurant crap, but I'm sure glad I did.  I ended up meeting a lady who had wanted to go to Ghana her junior year of college, but didn't because her parents thought is was unsafe (lame!).  But now she knows some professor who invited her, and she can go any time she wants, but hasn't yet.  I think meeting me may have given her a good, easterly push.  It all started because people liked my earrings.  Somebody said they must be a "great conversation piece."  Not usually, no.  Except for today, but I think it was all guided by Someone Else, besides the jewelry.

But speaking of adornment, going to temple made me want a tattoo for the first time in my life.  I must have said the prayer fifty million times, "and you shall bind it as a sign upon your hand."  But suddenly, I looked down at my left wrist, and I wanted to bind "It" there, some symbol of God's sovereignty and love.  We'll see how that pans out, considering my mortal fear of all things pointy enough to penetrate my skin.

New Pet

Upstairs window at 417.  Yesterday there were babies, but I thought it would be too creepy to get out the camera, especially because we had just met.

And this is the emblem of suburbia.  Suggested survival strategy: brew your own fruit tea in the sink at home and challenge Brian to a game of checkers instead. 

Best Graffiti Ever

Above: Union Street, near 5th Avenue, Nashville, Tenn.  See title.

Below: a salt shaker.

The Gray Mile

I took Aurora to the airport today.  This is me facing the long walk from my empty car to the empty house of my parents.  I miss my friend.

Preface

I've decided to take at least one picture every day for the next year.  I don't yet know what will come of it.  So far just this blog...