It's Snowing And,

I'm supposed to be getting ready right now. I'm on my way to another going away party, and it should be fun, and I've already said that I would go, but...

Here's the thing:

I don't want to go to another going away party.

I fucking hate going away parties.

Fuck.

Think-Make-Think

Via One Floor Up:

"Artwork and photo by Clifton Burt, inspired by a John Maeda quote."

November is Awesome.

November. I've always like November. Mostly because November is my birth month, but this November is monumental. Aside from being the month I turn a quarter of a century old, it's the month The Koppa Mafia (our kickball team) made it to the championship game. It's the month I finally write a novel as part of NaNoWriMo. And in the grander scope of things, it's the month the democrats took back all houses of government.

The shock if it all is preventing me from articulating myself, from expressing how exciting/relieved/proud I am. But as soon as I find the words, I'll be back.



Happy day.

WANTED FOR: Hooliganism

Sometimes I like to peruse INTERPOL's "Wanted" section, searching for the fugitives who are around my age, memorizing what they're wanted for.

I like INTERPOL, because they seem to have a policy against posting flattering pictures of the fugitives, and the unbecoming photographs make me slightly less jealous that these people have, at least, committed to some kind of life. That they know what they're doing with their lives. They're fucking running, trying not to get caught, and that's that.


Say what you will about the life of crime, but at least it lends itself to concrete objectives.

Captain's Log.

Stardate... Um... I don't know the stardate. What the hell is a stardate? Let's just assume it's 10102008. The Enterprise remains in standard orbit. Something about the Starfleet, yada yada yada. I don't know how the rest of it goes. My nerdiness never extended to Star Trek. However, the Enterprise does remain in standard orbit. And life carries on.

Anyway.

Last week, we acquired a washer and dryer, which made us all feel extremely grown up and responsible. However, our basement was (well... in a lot of ways, still is) terrifying-- crumbling concrete, water stains, deteriorating paint, so many spider webs that the ceiling and the walls appeared to have a sort of opaque sheen, etc. Soooo. We decided to "renovate" the laundry room, in an attempt to inspire a shared desire for cleanliness.

Ergo, we decided to paint the laundry room purple. Or rather, Louise and I decided to paint the room purple, completely ignoring Ryan's objections. So, after vacuuming the webs and planting a dozen or so spider traps, sweeping the floors, and scrubbing everything down with Lysol, I painted the room "Playful Purple" (or, as Ryan dubbed it, "Gayful Purple"). We added a side table, a lamp, a stereo, a chair, some frames and other miscellaneous shit.

The result?



A room I have a hard time leaving. I find myself washing things that don't necessarily need to be washed, just so as to have an excuse to sit in that chair and smoke and read my stack of retro self-help books the lady at The Bargain Corner ("Where you can corner the market on bargains!!!") felt inspired to give me (books such as The Cinderella Complex, Why Am I Afraid to Love?, and Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?)

If I could get internet in the basement, I'm pretty sure I would never leave.

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Speaking of The Bargain Corner. Somewhere between Louise and I deciding that the aforementioned laundry room should also serve as a Musée de Christ Kitsch and being given free self-help books, I stumbled upon this creepy little doll.



For some reason, I thought it was a man-doll, probably supposed to be a factory worker. Delighted by it's hideousness, I bought it. It wasn't until later (while using it in an impromptu puppet show I put on for Louise, meant to express my sexual frustration and resulting in one of the doll's arms shattering against the dashboard) that I noticed the man-doll had long eyelashes, shoes with bows on them, and... breasts.



I take this as a testament to my subconscious attraction to androgyny. Later, I thought of that character, Honey Huan, from the Doonesbury comic by G. B. Trudeau. Specifically, I thought of this strip:



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And lastly: if I had four or so thousand dollars to throw around, I would probably buy myself one of these:

My Body Lies Under The Ocean.

Because the internet has been good to me today (insomuch as I have not once, in many, many hours, sighed and said "I think I reached the end of the internet. Again."), and because I'm at The Oxford, and because it's five in the morning and I have nothing better to do, I've decided to share with you my new and improved living will (re: what I want done with my remains.) Now, my parents (who will most certainly outlive me) aren't going to be pleased with my wishes, but I am determined in this.

I want to be cremated. This is not news.

However, I decided today that I want my cremains to be 'buried' at the Neptune Memorial Reef. The NMR is an underwater cemetery,

giving our members peace of mind... cremation and placement in the Neptune Reef is a non-polluting process that consumes no above-ground real estate while reducing stress on other fragile marine reefs which actively support the continuation of life and aliveness on our planet. Done properly, this marine habitat enables life to thrive in the ocean. What better way to give back to the environment and our planet than this environmentally friendly way to replenish the coral growth.

I don't know that it's necessarily more eco-friendly than above ground burial, but it's a helluva lot cooler.






Basically, what they do is, mold your cremains into a cylindrical "placement," which is then inserted into a memorial column. As for column toppers, you can chose between a starfish and a shell (I want a starfish). After that, divers come and visit you periodically, and your ashes are forever lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds of the ocean (or, since they're underwater, the soothing sounds of pretty much nothing at all.)



This only slightly alters my previous request, in that now, you all must listen to "The Princess and the Pony" (and whatever else Ryan spins) while dancing around on a boat.

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In other news, owing to the fact that Autumn lasted approximately 72 hours this year, Ryan, Louise and I have decided to move to Barbados and become Tiki Bar bartenders. Anyone else in?

Movie Review: Dans Ma Peau

I'm a big fan of gore/violence in movies. No joke. While I may cringe, or hide in my hoodie, generally it's in mock-horror. In actuality, I find gratuitous carnage entertaining, even satisfying.

However, even I have my limits and "Dans Ma Peau (In My Skin)" (2002) is the first film I've seen in a long time that went beyond them.

"Dans Ma Peau" is about a woman named Esther (played by Marina de Van) who lives an ostensibly normal life, complete with a patient, understanding boyfriend and a moderately successful career. Her choice in friends is a bit off, but otherwise, she's doing alright. But there's something amiss, some sense of dissatisfaction, or perhaps ennui, as evidenced by her impulsive 'escape' from a work party her friend drags her to. While exploring a construction site (in the dark, by the way), she trips and gashes open her leg. We're to believe that she fails to notice the cavernous wound, until several hours later when she finally has to go to the bathroom. Instead of rushing to the hospital, she goes out for drinks.

The accident inspires a sort of fascination in Esther that leads her to self-mutilation via box-cutters, hinges, and steak knifes, and culminates in self-cannibalism. At one point, she tans a strip of her own flesh out of a sort of perverse sentimentalism.

The movie itself is an interesting look at mortality and vanity, catharsis and repression, belonging and alienation, pain, love, etc., etc., blah blah blah. And perhaps it would've been more tolerable with a different leading lady, but Maria de Van was, I guess, intent on being involved with every facet of the film (she also wrote and directed it.) Short of being difficult to look at, de Van seems like a bad character actor.

I will say this for the movie: it's disturbing enough to watch a woman, supine on a cheap hotel floor, sawing chunks out of her thigh, blood dripping all over her face. Or to see her gnaw on her arm, then pause, pull a nugget of her own skin from between her teeth, look at it... THEN PUT IT BACK IN HER MOUTH AND RESUME CHEWING. But de Van shows us all of this without offering us the relief of music. It's just her, her flesh, the viewer, and the sounds of self-mutilation. It's an uncomfortable silence. It adds an intensity that I can't recall experiencing in any other movie I've recently watched. And I watch a lot of movies. I felt the need to ask Louise to hug my head at one point, because tensing up in the fetal position wasn't enough. Ryan described the movie as inciting his Cremasteric Reflex. Louise actually left the room.

It was horrifying. But not the kind of horrifying that leaves you gratified, feeling like your suffering was justified, because there's no real payoff. In the end, I just kind of felt like I'd been held at Guantanamo for eight years, just for Googling "World Trade Center."

My body hurts just thinking about it.

The Right Side.

Click Here to See Active Image

Stumbled across this via What an Errant Knave Knows, and found it interesting. The active image turns. If you see it as turning clockwise, you're using the right side of your brain. If you see it turning counterclockwise, you're using your left side. It is possible to be able to see it turning both ways, but uncommon.

According to a study at Yale University, if you can see it both ways your IQ is above 160. Which makes you a genius. Only 14% of the US population can see her move both ways.



I can only see her turn clockwise...

[UPDATE: Nevermind. It's all a load of crap.]

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On a lighter note, here're three of a thousand and one images I'd like on t-shirts. Part of Randy Reddig's design project "I Like Your Face," via Shaderlab:

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I realize that the title of this post is squandered on a non-political entry. To remedy this, I will suggest that everyone read "Sarah Palin vs. 'Sarah Palin'" by Mo Rocca. It's a smart, insightful article about how Tina Fey's characterization of Palin on SNL differs from all other political impersonations, in that Fey's "Sarah Palin" "may very well end up defining a major political figure before that figure has defined herself."

Also, Mo Rocca is incredibly attractive.

And now, I must play something, some music other than what I'm listening to in my head, wherein "Captain Jack" by Billy Joel is on repeat. While I love the Billy Joel, I'm not a huge fan of that song.

The Shit I'm Listening to This Week.

[Update: Because Ryan decided to one-up me and post a Mixwit of his own, complete with commentary, on URFCKD, I've decided to add commentary to my track listing. Here it is.]

1. "Red Apples"-Cat Power
So, the other day I was covering a radio show over at KBGA, and had one of those moments where I realized I only had 20 seconds or so to pick the next track. Frenzied, I threw on Bill Callahan ("A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to Be a Man"). The thing about Bill Callahan is, I love him, but I every time I listen to him, I remember that I would rather be listening to Chan Marshall singing Bill Callahan's songs. So, naturally, the next track was "Red Apples," which led to me listening to "Red Apples" on repeat for the rest of the afternoon. It's not new. It's not really exciting. But it's amazing, and heart-wrenching, and worth listening to again and again.
2. "Song No. 6"-Ane Brun
I have a thing for Scandinavian pop musicians. I love ABBA, even after I learned this love gives John McCain and I some common ground. Lykke Li is on my short-list for my "Best of '08" selection, and the new (or new-ish) albums from Tobias Froberg, El Perro del Mar, and Peter, Bjorn and John have all had their turn this year as my "Most Played Album for the Week." Ane Brun is no exception. While this isn't my favorite song from her new album, I think it fits nicely between Cat Power and Winterpills. The album is eerie and fun, all at the same time.
3. "Broken Arm"-Winterpills
Winterpills' Myspace describes them as sounding like "four weeks of rain, two days of sun, and the voice of someone you thought you had lost forever." I think they sound like drinking coffee and surfing the web, while listening to music on cheap headphones and wishing you were smoking. I like them.
4. "Skinny Love"-Bon Iver
Fuck. Me. I love this album. I love this song. I can't stop listening to it.
5. "Whiskey Tango"-Tanya Donnelly
Also played this one on the radio the other day. I've never heard of Tanya Donnelly, but Louise promised me it was good. Generally, though, I like anything that mentions whiskey.
6. "No One Does It Like You"-Department of Eagles
Department of Eagles makes me wish it was summer. There is something bizarre about this album, but I can't put my finger on it... It's bright and dark, bouncy and haunting, summer-y and serious all at once. It's like a fucking carnival. There's a pretty dead-on review of the album here.
7. "Working & Drinking"-Jared Mees
I'm tired of adding commentary...
8. "Ampersand"-Amanda Palmer
Lyrically, I think this is an amazing song. "I'm not going to live my life on one side of an ampersand"? Brilliant. Palmer is a master of blunt, to the point lyrics that can be simultaneously jarring and empowering. Plus, she's a kick-ass pianist, and her vocals are exactly in my range, which facilitates singing along. Loudly. On an unrelated note, Palmer occasionally is a living statue ("The Eight Foot Bride", specifically), which is a life-long dream of mine, and has worked with Neil Gaiman (whom I want to adopt me), so she gets extra points for being awesome.
9. "Colors"- Portugal, the Man
The more I listen to this album, the more impressed I am. It's growing on me like a fungus on a dead tree.
10. "Nothing Can Come Between Us"-Obi Best
Space-y and candyesque. Good filler.
11. "Atlas"-Battles
I Have Battles in My Life. Fucking Eric turned Ryan and I onto Battles, and now Battles is the soundtrack to our lives.
12. "Little Bit"-Lykke Li
See my comments on Ane Brun. I will never get sick of this song. "I could be a little bit in love with you, but only if you're a little but in love with me." Oh, Lykke Li: I'm a little bit obsessed with you. And you're a little bit obsessed with Bon Iver. So we could be very happy together.

13. "Shattered"-The Trucks
The Trucks recently announced that they are disbanding to pursue individual interests. This is my version of their swan song.
14. "The Second Line"-Clinic
Ok, I've been listening to Clinic's new album a lot lately, but haven't really listened to their older stuff (despite having four of their albums). I'm trying to remedy this.
15. "23 Years Too Late"-Wire
Wire is old news, but it's new to me. I chose the edited version of this song, because the original is like, an hour long.

Household Wildlife in Suburban Missoula.

Black Widow (Latrodectus variolus )

Can be found throughout the United States. Preys on other insects by catching and wrapping them in their webs, "then bites and envenoms its prey. The venom takes about ten minutes to take effect; in the meantime, the prey is held tightly by the spider. When movements of the prey cease, digestive enzymes are released into the wound. The black widow spider then carries its prey back to its retreat before feeding."

Extremely potent venom.

Recently sighted on my windowsill, 5:00 am.



Unannounced Guests (Randomus Unwelcomus)

Can be found throughout the world. Typically arrives at one's door with neither invitation nor warning, occasionally after years of non-communication. Often searching for the former residents of one's house. More often than not, arrives with an open liquor bottle and lit cigarette in hand, drunk, and wanting to 'catch-up.'

Dangerously verbose.

Recently sighted at my door, 3:12 am.



Plumber's Snake (Toiletus Augerus)

This flexible auger (used to remove clogs in plumbing that cannot be loosened with a plunger) inhabits domiciles with frequent plumbing problems. Typically works like a corkscrew to break up clogs in plumbing.

Occasionally gets itself turned around and stuck in the siphon of the toilet bowl.

Recently sighted corkscrewed (and very, very stuck) in my toilet bowl, 11:15 pm last night.

Yeah.

Five by Five.

New house. Stocked kitchen. Job. Potential therapy dog, the third member of The First Wives' Club. Student loans and stimulus check on the way. Internet I can scam. Camel Filters. Eddie Izzard. School: an acceptable excuse for skipping social events. The Sleep Machine I've built on the floor. Falling asleep to Eddie Izzard, Eugene Mirman, Bill Hicks and/or Patton Oswalt. Questionable Content. Having a yard. Diet Coke. Vitamins. Vitamin Water. Showering. Shaving my legs. Clean unmentionables. And clean socks. "Ghostbusters II." The stack of vintage suitcases in the corner. Piles of books. Surrounding myself with piles of books. Storage space. Knowing that a Wii is in my near future. Also knowing that my N64 will soon be back in business, and with it, "Zelda: Ocarina of Time." Being over the bullshit. Being above the bullshit. Being part of a three-typewriter-two-record-player household. Having a bazillion wine glasses. Doing dishes. Writing, near constantly, be it in Microsoft Word or the yellow legal pad I've been toting around (even if I'm not posting any of it online). The ideas. Finding my muse. Rain. An August that isn't like being trapped in a smokehouse. The Beach. "Oh! You Pretty Things" on repeat. Spray paint. Dancing like an idiot to ABBA. Potential. Not being a freshman. Distance. Perspective. Hindsight. Old postcards, letters and souvenirs. Those memories that make me laugh out loud, smile to myself. Late night Walmart trips (even if Walmart sucks.) Vinyl. Yes, of course, singing in the shower. Singing all the time. Tips. Q=tips are nice, too. Coffee in the morning. Light breeze. Sleeping under a half dozen blankets. Sleeping in. Waking up happy. Not being stressed out. Smit. The Olympics. Things getting better, just like I've been saying they would. Getting inked on Sunday. Giraffes. Wayfarers. Kissing and handcuffs. Not doing jack-shit, and feeling ok about it. Painting. Not being addled by substances. Did I mention the dog?

Life is absurd, but totally worth it.

Chaos In Action.

A few years ago, my mom's family established a new tradition: when the last weekend of July rolls around, every Cranford (or nee Cranford descendant) within an 800-mile radius treks to Tongue River, WY for a family reunion-type event masquerading as a "fun-filled weekend chock-full of water sports, near-death experiences and BBQs."

This is all well and good. Except there are a shit-load--and I do mean a shit-load-- of Cranfords within said radius. And I understand the "The More, The Merrier" philosophy that everyone I'm related to seems to buy into, but it's all just a little... well... ridiculous.

To put things in perspective, I present:

An itemized list of persons and equipment present this year.



[Note: My youngest brother, my grandmother, my grandfather and his wife, my aunt and her husband, 7 of my cousins, and my first cousin once removed were in absentia, so it wasn't as crowded as it could have been.]


I'm not even going to try and list the number of bags of chips, hot dogs or Diet Cokes consumed. Or the number of sunglasses and shoes lost, shirts ripped, or bruises acquired. Or the number of fights over whose turn it was to ride the Sea-Doo. Or the number of times I had to steal a Sea-Doo or the four-wheeler to sneak away to smoke. Or the number of times I screamed "SON OF A BITCH!" in response to being bitten by a fucking horse fly. Or how many times I had to explain my tattoos. Or the number of Nurofen I threw back in an attempt to make the experience tolerable (I will say this for my mom though: she goes to Australia and brings me back Nurofen, which is an over-the-counter/non-prescription drug there, as a souvenir. Who else can say their mom brings them codeine as a present? Who?).


When all's said and done though, the trip served its purpose. I went because I was burned out on Missoula and needed a break. But after three days with my entire family, I'm not only happy to be back in Missoula: I am fucking excited.

M&M.

I've always considered myself closer to the Sadist end of the Sadomasochism Spectrum, with Masochistic tendencies. A social Sadist, fiscal Masochist, if you will.
However, I think I may be a little more of a masochist than I care to admit.
This statement is entirely based upon the state of my hands right now.
If bloody, mangled fingernails are any indication of masochism, then the proof is in the pudding.

And by 'proof,' I mean, 'mutilated, disfigured, scabby fingers."
And by 'in the pudding," I mean, 'all wrapped up in Band-Aids.'

Pictures of your kids.

Blogs are strange, strange things.

I utilized the "Next Blog" button found in nearly all Blogger blogs, just skimming through the proffered, random selection. If I had to, I'd guess that two-thirds of the blogs I was taken to were in a foreign language. A quarter were about sports. A fifth were about businesses. And more than half were about people's kids.

I kind of scrolled down these blogs about babies, brothers, and bottles, less than half interested but more than slightly curious about other people's lives, and you know what?

I felt real creepy looking at them.

I shouldn't feel creepy.

I'm not the one who posted pictures of my kid on the internet, where just about anyone can access them.

Right?

So, why do I feel creepy?

The One About the Bronco...

Family legends are interesting things. I think my perception of my mother, for instance, is heavily influenced by one particular anecdote from her teen years. When my mom tells it, she has to take long breaks to accommodate her own laughter. Maybe that's why I love the story so much; for the duration of my high school experience, my mom suffered from depression--which runs in our family, but evolved into a sort of postpartum depression for her, following multiple miscarriages--and so the sound of her laughter was a rare thrill. The only other story that could inspire that kind of laughter from her involved a tubing mishap that resulted in me losing my shorts. I think I can count the number of times my mom laughed in that four year period on one hand.

This particular anecdote took place in 1975 or 76. My mom, Viola Cherrie (pronounced "shuh-ree") Cranford would have been about 16 or 17. The Cranford's, at the time, comprised a large percentage of the population of Clearmont, WY (which, incidentally, influenced Ang Lee's portrayal of Wyoming in Brokeback Mountain). Intersected by US 14, Clearmont takes up .15 square miles of Sheridan County, and sits about 40 miles from Sheridan itself. Today, Clearmont's population (according to the 2003 estimate) is 117. 73% of its residents own their homes. It has one high school, Arvada, which serves 41 students; the student-teacher ratio is 7:2. Google image searches for Clearmont yield little more than ambiguous maps of Sheridan County, and pictures of the The Ranch at Ucross (19 miles SW of Clearmont), a sort of dude ranch which offers guests "fine dining, relaxing atmosphere, deluxe accommodations, an outdoor heated pool and ample opportunity to enjoy it's western hospitality." However, thanks to Google satellite and the wonders of modern technology, I can look down on the house and plot of land my mother's family grew up on, the dilapidated grain mill across the street where I used to raise hell while visiting my grandmother decades later, and I can almost pinpoint the solitary playground, who's main attraction was (for me, at least) the long-forsaken, single-roomed jail cell.

One could suppose that Clearmont hasn't changed a whole lot in 30 years. In 1970, Clearmont's population was a little larger--141--but I still imagine the sort of freedom the Cranford kids had as a result of living in a small, somewhat isolated cowboy community. 4H, Pep Club, and the Rodeo Club took up the majority of my mom's time. It was a different kind of adolescence, one I have a hard time relating to. For instance, where my parents used driving privileges and increases in allowance as incentives for better grades, my grandfather (Fern "Bud" Cranford) promised my mother a new horse for every yearly report card she brought home that read all A's. I don't know that he ever held up his end of this bargain, but I know my mom did her part (as I was reminded every day of my own high school experience.) These people--my grandparents, aunts, and uncles-- were Rodeo Queens and Kings, hunters, farmers, resourceful and self-efficient.

My Mom, at 17.

Due to my ignorance of rodeos and their events, I can't tell you definitively what is happening in this picture, but it's my mom, at 17 or so, tying up a calf. I think.


So, on some autumn afternoon in Clearmont in the mid-70s, my mother asks her dad if she can drive into Sheridan with one of her girlfriends after school. Being as how they live on a ranch, my grandfather tells her that she can--after she's finished her chores. One of these chores involved moving the horses from one field to another.

My mom is now 50, and owns a ranch of her own. She and my stepfather keep 11 horses, and I have, on many occasions, been called upon to help move horses from pasture to pasture. As with any part of equine maintenance, it is not a quick task, and involves a lot of patience (as I see it). However, Cherrie at 16 -- short on time, probably on patience as well, and inspired by a seemingly brilliant idea-- forwent standard wrangling methods. To speed things up, she says, she and her friend tie the horses' halters to the Bronco, with the intention of pulling them to the other pasture.

Imagine: a 1972 Ford Bronco, with a horse tied to each of the doors and two tied to the rear bumper, plowing along. My mom swears that it was going well, better than she'd expected, actually--until something spooks the horses. Maybe it was a snake, maybe not; regardless of what it was, the horses panic, buck, rear, pull, jerk, etc., until they manage to free both doors and the bumper from the frame, while my mom and her friend scream and swear and bawl in the front seats. (When she tells this part, she's usually laughing so hard that she's crying, sometimes gasping for breath.)

My mom's friend runs home, terrified of Bud, leaving my mom to handle the situation herself. Then the story ceases to be funny for a while.

"Mom (my grandmother) comes home from work, sees the car, then storms through the house until she finds me packing a suitcase," my mom tells us. "At this point, I'm going to run away."
"Why were you going to run away?" I remember asking as a kid.
"Because I thought my dad would kill me," she says, and--now--I don't think she was being hyperbolic. My impression of my grandfather is not a flattering one: as I see him, he was (is?) an abusive alcoholic. Murdering my mother for trashing a car is well within his realm of possibility.

My grandmother proceeds to ream my mother out for being irresponsible, and for a second my mom thinks that her mother is going to kill her. However, as soon as they hear a car pulling into the gravel driveway, the mood and alliances shift, and they're both terrified.

"Hide," my grandmother tells my mom in a grave whisper. "Hide under the bed. Do NOT come out from under the bed."

From under her bed, my mom hears her dad's car stop. He opens his door, but does not close it. There is a crunching of gravel and he walks around the Bronco, purveying the damage. She hears hear mother, slowly descending the wood stairs, walking tentatively across the living room, the kitchen. The screen door opens. The gravelly pacing stops.

The clamor begins.

"WHERE THE HELL IS SHE? I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL HER! FUCKING STUPID BRAT, I'M GOING TO KILL HER!" and so on. (Of course, when my mother tells me this, she edits his speech, so for years I imagined him yelling, "WHERE THE HECK IS SHE?" and "I'M GOING TO FLIPPIN' KILL HER!")

"Somehow," my mom tells me, "somehow, my mom talks him into going to the bar. I have no idea how she does it, but she talks him into getting a drink before dealing with me. So, dad goes to the bar. He has a couple of drinks, tells the story to a friend. Has a couple more drinks, tells the story to another friend. Eventually, he's seven whiskeys deep [Note: this was also edited when I was a kid--he was "seven Coke's deep"], and he's telling the story to a painter friend of his, and instead of being mad, he starts to think it's funny. By the time he gets home, he thinks its hilarious, and he's not really mad at all. My mom saved my life."

So my mom escapes the fury of my grandfather. She's grounded and burdened with a heavy chore list for the next couple of months, but no worse for wear. The painter friend of my grandfather's is so taken with the story that he goes home and paints the scene--my mom, screaming in the Bronco, the horses rearing and bucking while tied to three sides of the car, a snake poised to strike in front of it--in oils. He later gives the painting to my grandfather, and to this day, it hangs in my grandfather's house. Of all the family artifacts I stand to inherit, the only one I'm even remotely interested in is that painting.


My mom, two years ago, with then week-old Chica Oni.


5 of the 11. From left: Monty, Katrina, Indie (laying down), Igby, and Groovy.

Thirty some odd years later, my mom and stepfather own 70+ acres of land they've christened "The Blue Diamond Ranch." Located right on the city limit of Billings, MT, it barely qualifies as a legitimate "ranch," but it'll suffice. My mom--who now goes by Cherrie (pronounced "Sherry"), is the owner of a herd of horses too damn smart for their own good, clever enough to open each and every form of lock, latch, bolt, catch, fastener, and fence we devise, and we're constantly rounding them up, driving them back to pasture; I have dozens of memories based upon wrangling the horses back to their allocated pastures.

In one such memory, my mom is absent, and my brother and stepfather, atop four-wheelers, attempt to round the horses up without her. It's a disaster: Monty, the perpetually insurgent Moab, ends up flaying his left forearms and shoulder, lacerating his face and neck, in a mad bid to jump a barbed-wire fence; Lufford, the 23 year old Thoroughbred we bought for $75 at an auction (and, consequently, rescued from the glue factory), cuts open his haunches on a different part of the fence; Dancer, our baby, a year-old Anglo-Arabian, remains spooked for weeks, and won't let anyone touch her for months.

In another, my sister and I, visiting from college, come home late via the backroad (a tactic often employed by those of us wishing to sneak in undetected. This time, we've been driving around, smoking cigarettes--an act which could result in both of us being cut off financially if we're caught). By this time, my mom has split the herd in two, and one of the groups has busted out. Faced with the choice of rounding them up ourselves, leaving them to their own devices (which would probably lead to mom waking us up at six in the morning to collect them from various locations around town), or waking my mom up at a quarter to four in morning, my sister and I decide to just do it ourselves in her Toyota 4Runner. It takes over an hour, but we get it done. We turn in for the night, proud of ourselves and more than a little smug. Any complacency we've earned, however, is shattered the next morning when our stepfather spends over an hour, yelling at us for not only tearing up the plot of land he's recently leveled and sodded (he coaches my youngest sister's soccer team, and so he built her a private soccer field), but for driving through an alfalfa field a week away from being harvested. My mom, on the other hand, kind of chuckles her thanks, and politely avoids asking us how we happened to notice that the horses were out at four in the morning.


View from the front porch of The Blue Diamond Ranch.


A few years ago, when I asked my grandfather about the story of the Bronco, he scoffed. "Damn stupid kid," he said, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly as he remembered that day. And then: "Who needs a drink?"


Bud and me, circa 1983-ish, at the house in Clearmont.

The Story Behind The Semi-Colon.

On my right forearm, measuring about 1/2" by 1 1/2", I've had a semi-colon tattooed. Generally, upon showing it to someone for the first time, I'm met with the question: "So... Are you, like, a writer or something?" Or, "Let me guess: you're an English major, right?" Occasionally, I've been asked, "Are you into music then?" (I think those who ask about music mistake the semi-colon for a bass clef. I know they look nothing alike, but it's the only explanation I can come up with.)

And yes: I consider myself a writer. Yes, I'm an English major. And, while not related to my tattoo at all, I will admit that I'm "into" music.

However, none of these are the reason behind my choice to have it permanently inked into my skin. The reason for doing so is, quite simply, as follows:

The semi-colon, in a sentence, is used to link two independent clauses. What comes before a semi-colon is always directly related to what comes after a semi-colon. The semi-colon is often used to fluidly segue from one train of thought to the next, keeping the clauses separate, but part of a whole; though the clauses may be seemingly unrelated, they're both part of the same idea.

Thus, the semi-colon indicates a transition in thought.



And that is the reason it's tattooed on my forearm; it's a reminder of the constant evolution, progression, and transitioning of self.

A Turn of Events.

Due to the fact that my reasons for starting this blog are now obsolete, "Untitled Work in Progress" will now be focused on the non-fiction, memoir-y writing I've been meaning to get to, but haven't.