For some reason, this song is especially apt.

"Killing the Blues"
John Prine

Leaves were falling ..Just like embers
In colors red and gold they set us on fire
Burning just like a moonbeam ..in our eyes

Chorus:
Somebody said they saw me
Swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud.
Killing the Blues

I am guilty of something
I hope you never do because there is nothing
Sadder than losing .. yourself in love

Repeat Chorus:

Repeat Chorus:

Now, you ask me Just to leave you
To go out on my own and get what I need to
You want me to find ..what I've already had

Mom updated her cable service and got the local channels instead of the national channels she had before (like CBS West, ABC Central, etc), so now...I'm in the living room watching Maury for the first time in forever.  This man says the baby is not his because his private parts are too white.  It's crazy!  I'm loving every minute of it.  I think I'll make french toast in a minute, which'll be yummy. 
I was reading a Tom Stoppard play at work yesterday called _The Coast of Utopia_, and one of the characters said that the soul needs to be realized as an object.  No.  No, it doesn't.  Because that makes me think of how we act upon objects.  I don't know about souls, but I'm sure we don't need to objectify them.
Tomorrow is my day off. 
I wonder if Megan's electricity got shut off?

Okay, so I have two questions for ChaCha, but I can't get verified online yet to ask them.  I will, though, when I get reception and can get the passcode to link my online account to my phone.  I want to know:
~Are there any contemporary Kentucky-made Cuckoo Clocks?
~Are there any Minnie Adkins (or other folk artist-made) Cuckoo clocks?
For some crazy reason, I've been gaagaa about contemporary Cuckoo clocks lately, and I just have to have one.  Someday, of course.  I either want a white one or one in crazy colors, like electric green!  Then, there's a feng shui one that's about 500.00 that is so totally, wonderfully me.  Ahhh, to dream!

Dee will be so proud of me.  Mike and I filed our taxes online today on our own!  We still went through H&R Block, but we didn't have to pay except for filing state, and that was less than 30.00, so I think we did okay, and I'm actually confident that we did them right!  Eureka!  And, we were able to get both federal and state to directly deposit into our checking account in about ten days.  Whoo-hoo!  My plan is to take our refund and put it into a savings account at our bank and add to it each payday since it doesn't look like we're going to get to move out until Mike-o gets a job-o.  You always said I could do it!  And I did!

I've had a blissful day on my day off.  I was supposed to go get Megan, but because of the weather, I stayed home. The day started with pancakes for breakfast.  I played online a little while.  I wrote a little bit.  We had lunch/dinner.  Mike and I looked at the snow and cuddled up in our flannel bedding and watched a disk of Tyler Perry's "House of Payne."  We're on Season 2, Disc 2.  I just had a good bath with Mike's all-man Vive-Pro ultra-masculine man body wash, and I loved every sud of it!  When Mike gets clean, we're going to watch another Tyler Perry or "Brideshead Revisited."  We'll probably watch Tyler Perry.  If I could tell him anything, it would be that his characters and families are so exact to life, and I just relate to them like I've not related to any other televised family.  And there are characters of all sizes, which is such a good, healthy thing to see. 

I have a new manager at work.  She's kind of nice so far.  I had two really good calls yesterday.  I don't know if I got observed by Quality on them or not, but they felt good to work on.  One of them was a woman who had a bill over 500.00, and she didn't know how it got so high, so I went through all of her bills from 08/2007 until now and wrote down all of her usage charges (internet, text messaging), monthly bill, and past due amounts.  Unfortunately, she had a past due that kept rolling over since 01/2008.  I wasn't able to help remove the bill, but I was able to be understanding for her and calm and explain her options to her without being as ugly as some of my co-workers can be to people.  At the end of the call, she was going to pay 200.00 then and the rest next Thursday, but I couldn't turn her phone back on until the whole amount was paid.  She said she might need that money until then anyway, and I could hear her talking to her husband about it, so I told her that I realized that it was a large financial commitment, and that if she would like to step away from the phone for privacy, I would remain on the line.  I think that she appreciated that because she was really trying to get some help.  I really couldn't do anything more, but I just felt like I was the right person to talk to her.  And the other man I talked to was blind, and he had the ATT GPS system on his phone, and his phone operated on a voice recognition system.  He had gotten a new phone and couldn't get the GPS to work.  He had taken it to the store and everything, and it would be difficult to troubleshoot the phone over the phone, but I was able to ask him if he could perform certain functions if I walked him through them and all.  Surprisingly, we worked it out.  He had been to the store even, and they hadn't helped him.  Granted, I talked to his sighted wife and her son, but we all got it worked out.  He just hadn't registered on the GPS website.  That was the whole problem, and nobody before me had been able to help him.  I like it when I have good days like that where I end a call and feel like I've made a difference for someone.  Then, of course, there are other days, but I like the good ones. 

I'll be posting something from my new story soon.  I'm so involved with it, and I'm thinking about it so much.  I hope it works out. 

That's all for now.  I just felt like talking to somebody, and I know that eventually Deedee and Misty will get around to reading this and will appreciate what I have to talk about, so I'm talking.  Much love to both of you.  Enjoy this beautiful, wonderful snow!  What a blessing. 

 On top of all the ugly going on in my life right now, there is this wonderful blanket of snow on everything, and it's all covered over by this thick sheet of ice, and I got off work early because they wanted to close the call center, and i drove carefully, but it was all beautiful everywhere!  I called Dee today just to say that my heart was happy!  It is gorgeous!  I'm not even going to talk about all the ugly stuff.  Right now, there's snow.  It's beautiful.  And Biscuit wants to kiss my nose.

this is a little old, but it's still cool.
p.s.  mike said dad told him to stop eating so much because he didnt need to get fat.

Love Words for the Past Few Days:  Sassafras, Sand Piper

 I finally got somebody to respond to a post!  It's been a while since that happened, but I just had to share those pictures, especially the one with the questionable tattoo on the member.  
I also actually saw that Deedee has posted some stuff recently.  Sorry girl, but you haven't posted in so long that I gave up on looking for your posts.  So, needless to say, it was nice to read some of your thoughts.  
Also, I want to tell Misty congratulations on the engagement.  I'll help out any ol' how if you let me know ahead of time.  Also, I don't want this to sound the wrong way, but I like how you talked about the funeral of your great-aunt.  It really mirrored some feelings that I had about my mom's death, and it seems like you put the feelings I had into words, which I haven't ever been able to adequately do.  Funerals are tough sometimes.  I know that sounds like an understatement, but sometimes tough is just the right word to use.  If you need a spritzer or a slow gin fizz, you know where to come.
So, it's just been me and Mike here lately.  We've been working a lot, so we're both pretty tired when we get home.  He comes to work with me after he gets off work, which is nice, but that means that he is just as tired as I am when we get home.  I work until eight, so by the time we get home and have some kind of dinner, it's time to go to bed.  I was reading about how good Dee feels about John, and it made me want to talk about how much Mike and I are doing well here lately.  He has ceased to be selfish about most stuff.  In fact, we've not had an argument over him being selfish since the spring, I guess.  He still has made no attempt to talk to Dee and Caleb, and that's a big deal for me, but beyond that, he is as devoted to me as when we first got together.  He does chores without my having to ask him, and he doesn't complain about having to do stuff.  I have learned to compromise some, too.  Last night, for instance.  We cleaned up the kitchen, and I had a clog in the kitchen sink.  Well, I plunged it out, washed dishes, Mike dried them, put them away, etc.  A little while later, we were going to make dinner, and when I went to get a pot, well, all the water that I had just plunged/used had come out of a pipe under the sink, so I was having an "I'm totally aggravated" breakdown, and Mike was like, "let's just go eat out."  I left everything lying and went out.  When I came back, I was calmed down, and I washed and dried while Mike dried and put away.  
I absolutely HATE our apartment.  Mike does too.  There is still a continuous drip in my upstairs bathtub, and the landlord just got the air conditioner fixed, but we're still afraid to take it off 70 for fear that it'll freeze up again.  Also, I have been sick almost continuously since we moved in, probably because the house is eat up with mold.  I figure that if it was all up in that closet, then it's all up in the rest of the house.  Also, there's the issue with the stairs.  At first, I thought I could handle them, but now I see that they are a huge mistake.  I loathe having to crawl upstairs at night to go to bed.  I hate going downstairs to answer the door, etc. 
Plus, they're a killer for my back.  Mike and I took last Friday off and snuck down to Gatlinburg for the night so I could buy a pair of Z-Coil shoes.  They are a total lifesaver.  I can actually stand and not bend over with back pain.  I'm hoping I'll be able to get active because of them.  Wish me luck.  I'm walking on this big, huge coil, which is cool, but these are great shoes.  I feel like I can actually walk in them.  What a notion!
Pikeville drama-mama is shit.  Megan is becoming a dead-beat.  I had to "wire" her fifty bucks just so she would keep Sarah while Pricy went to be with Freddie for his surgery.  She doesn't have it together.  Megan doesn't have it together.  I just want to wash my hands of the whole mess.  In other news, I'm going to get Sarah on the 30th because I promised her that I would let her spend a couple nights when this job ended, which is good for Pricy because she wants to go back to Cumberland.  I absolutely hate feeling used.  And that's how I feel.  Pricy doesn't believe me when I say I can't do something, and then she takes advantage of Megan when Megan actually agrees to help her.  I've never met someone who feels so entitled, but I'm more mad at Megan for this than I am anybody.  She's a deadbeat.  That's all I can say about her.  Pricy is always talking about how Megan doesn't want to watch Philip, but I always kind of didn't believe her.  Now, I do.  I heard it in Megan's voice.  She was like, "I have to keep Sarah 'til Thursday, then I get Philip Friday.  Shoo, I ain't gonna have time to do nothin."  After I told her I would mail her a check for watching Sarah, she called me bitching until I agreed to wire it to her so she could have it right then.  It was supposed to go for Sarah to go to school on.  Sarah needed 12.00 one day and 3.00 another.  She bitched because she couldn't send Sarah to school because she didn't have the money, but after she got the money, she never sent her anyhow.  And, I haven't heard from her since.  
Then, there's Dallas.  Whew.  
I just want to run away and sleep somewhere that it's rainy, quiet, 63 degrees, and clean.  With Mike.  And Biscuit.
Also, after Friday, I'm unemployed again.

i found this on a bad tattoos website.  it says:  "fyi:  this is her profile pic."

uh, i think that is sperm with a face tattooed on his penis.  poor tweety bird.

 This weekend, I went to my second wedding in a month.  It was modest and fun, and I got to reconnect with the abnorms--a.k.a., my group of friends that I've not seen in a couple of years, and we all haven't been together in forever beyond that.  We were as immature and juvenile as ever, and it felt so good to just cut loose.  I'm talking sex jokes about sex jokes--is Culver stil hair dryer drying his balls kind of stuff.  It was great.  I know I keep talking about rain, but we had the most incredible ice cold hail storm today.  All kinds of trees are down, and it looks like lightning hit everything.  I'm at the public library in the middle of getting stuff done.  Mike's mom won a $1,000 shopping spree online, so I'm going to go check it out.  I think she gave it to us, but I think maybe I feel bad about taking the whole thing.  I'm going to check it out, though.  Ahhhhhhhhhh.

How do you talk to a little baby goat?  Mike just got me a new baby.  That's what we call 'em.  It's a little stuffed bullygoat.  Bully?  Billy?  
It's raining, and I love it.  I'm gonna stay holed up in the house.  I might make french toast.  Right now, I'm parked behind the library thieving internet while Mike figures out his workstudy in the library.  It's cool because I get to hear the big fat raindrops plopping on the car metal and window.  I'm like in a glass rain cocoon.  I wonder what kind of creature I'll emerge from here as?  
I've been away from LiveJournal forever.  I've not had internet at my house for those of you who don't know, so I'm rarely online unless I'm looking for the proverbial, non-existent job.  I'm really, really, really hoping to get the job teaching out at the prison.  I think I could connect with the prisoners and teach them things.  I think it would be really rewarding.  People deserve to live up to their full potential no matter where they are or what condition they are learning in.  I think that I think that.  I used to be pro-death penalty, and I think I might still be in some situations, but I know that I was disgusted the day (not so long ago) that I realized it made me sick to think that I ever supported the war--any war.  I don't know if I'm moving over to the dark side or not, and you know how I'll resist that, :), but I think my opinions on things are changing.  I think I need to vote now for what's going to help me, not further an idea of what something should be idealistically.  I totally just put a comma after the happy face.  I think it counts as a clause.  :).  Sentence?  
I kind of feel far away at my new house.  It's really cool, and I still have a few projects that I need to get going and finished by friday, but it just doesn't feel homey yet.  I don't know what the deal is.  I know I need a rug and table for the kitchen, but who knows?  
Megan's on the phone.  She said that Robert just broke up with Ashley.  After he went down to Lexington with her when her baby got into her methadone, she felt the need to tell him that that wasn't his kid and there wasn't no sense in him acting like that.  So the welfare came and took her two children away from her and gave custody to her mom.  She isn't allowed to be around them, but she was watching them the other day Megan said.  And, she said she's getting an abortion to get "rid" of Robert's baby.  Her brother told her that if she got an abortion, he'd beat her like a man.  That's the exact wording.  Crazy, huh?  
Well, Megan's on the phone, so I'm gonna go.  She wants me to look up the symptoms of ADHD.