Moonbeam McQueen

Dearest Readers, Friends, Blog Brethren and Sisteren,

I’m afraid that for the time being, I’m going to have to take a little break from this little corner of my world. Frankly, I’m running low on energy, and the cells that reside in the tiny little container that is my brain have keeled over and are panting from exhaustion at the base of my skull.

It’s the commute, it’s the job, it’s the fibromyalgia. I have much to write about, but at present, my zip is zapped, my pep is pooped, my creativity’s crashed and my typing fingers are tuckered out.

Someone at work forgot to request that I be pink-slipped at the end of the month. It was an oversight– no one’s fault really, but it looks as though my contract won’t be ending as soon as I’d anticipated, and I may be continuing this commuting thing for a month or two longer. Some days are great, some are a bit difficult. I’m hanging tough though, and am determined to see this through.

In the meantime, I’ve been having to do some re-prioritizing in order to conserve the small amount of energy I have these days. l’m eking out the brain cells two or three at a time, so I have to be sparing. If the rest of the brain cell posse decides to suddenly jolt back to life, I’ll be right back here to supply you with more thrills and chills– okay, more gloom and doom, and more random crap. I’m still reading your blogs when I’m able, though these days, I’m often too wiped out to leave comments. Better to keep your fingers off the keyboard and be thought a fool, than to type some stupid brain goo and remove all doubt.

I just wanted to explain the silence, and to let you all know that I’m thinking of you. Oh, and those of you who are professional worryists (like yours truly), please don’t practice your craft on me. I’m fine. Seriously.

Thanks for the wonderful comments and e-mails. You’re all the bee’s knees, and I can’t wait to return to my regularly scheduled programming.

Love,

Moonbeam

Here are a few of the forty zillion things I’ve been mulling over during this week’s commute:

I’m extraordinarily grateful to have a paycheck coming in these days. Woohoo!

Amy Winehouse is starting to bear an eerie resemblance Endora from the television series Bewitched, which is sort of a shame because Agnes Moorehead was 64 when she started that role, and Amy’s only about 24.

I hum this tune a lot while I’m driving. Anyone remember it?

I think about my blog friend Kaylee an awful lot. If you have the time, please remember to pop in and say hi to her and offer encouragement. She has Meebo, so you can even do a bit of live chatting with her.

I’ve been considering this creative visualization thing, and the theory that in order to get what you want you simply have to imagine it. It seems like such an ethnocentric thing to me. I can’t make this process work, because I start feeling selfish and guilty and soon all I can think about are people who are starving, or living in war torn countries, or being kept as slaves in their father’s basements. Then I start to imagine that maybe I should creatively visualize saving the world.

My energy levels are low and I’ve been feeling rotten that I haven’t had more time to visit my blog buddies. Things’ll be back to normal at the end of May, and I’ll start lurking and leaving snarky comments again soon, I promise.

I’ve been thinking about all the outraged posts people have been writing about Miley Cyrus and the Vanity Fair photos, and I just want to say to all of them, “I agree with you completely.”

Remember how outraged Wal-Mart was when Vanity Fair featured Demi Moore, tastefully nude and pregnant, on the cover? They pulled the magazine from the shelves faster than you could say, “Bruce Willis is my baby daddy.” Eventually, they started carrying the magazine again, but hasn’t their lack of response to this one seemed a little strange? Oh, never mind– they’re the ones who carried pre-teen panties with “Who needs a credit card?” printed on the front. I guess it’s okay when it’s an underage girl.

I dream about the little doggie in my future. I’ve been pricing little teacup pups and they are so damned expensive–$600 to about $1200 for a teacup chihuahua works out to about $200-$400 a pound. I think I’m going to have to go for a cheaper brand, something in the $50 a pound range.

I was thinking about Peter Parkour, and what a great idea he shared about taping random thoughts. Last week, I logged over 90 minutes of mental meandering on my tape recorder, and although I’m only using a small portion of what goes through my head while driving, it’s wonderful not to have to try to remember all of the weirdness that flows between my ears during the week.

1-800-BAD TATS: I think there’s a desperate need for a tattoo hotline. Say you have an idea for a tattoo floating around in your head– cockroaches marching across your neck or a swastika on your forehead, for example. You’re just not sure if it’s a good idea or not, so you call the toll-free number to discuss your idea. The phones would be manned by otherwise-unemployable people with face tattoos and other regrettable ink, who’ve been specially trained to talk you down from your bad idea. They could even offer alternative tattoo ideas, such as a small, tasteful blade of grass hidden in your chest hair, or a tiny ladybug on your bee-hind. I see this as a win-win, complete with employment opportunities and a decreased chance that others will have to bear witness to unfortunate skin art.

Isn’t it weird, this need we have to categorize everything? We divide things by border, religion, sexual orientation, political party…The bleeding heart liberal part of me dreams of blurry lines, and “love one another.” When I rule the world, there will be no “us versus them.” Of course, some dumbass will immediately blow us all up.

For a couple of decades now, the Violent Femmes song, “Blister in the Sun” has made me bouncy and cheery every time I hear it. How can a song about some derelict, drugged out guy make me so dileriously happy? Just think about those first few notes at the beginning.

You’re bouncing, aren’t you?

I used my handy dandy tape player to record the license plate of a complete idiot who was tailgating me (once he passed me, on the right, on the shoulder, on the highway). Instead of reporting him, I’ve decided to dedicate my commuter bumper sticker idea of the week to him:

Many people in Dayton talk to themselves. I see it all the time while I’m driving. A few days ago, I drove by this fellow who was yelling and cursing at some invisible being. A week or so ago, we passed a woman who was having a heated conversation with herself while standing at a street corner. I watched her cross at the light and back again a few times, never ceasing to hold up her end of the conversation. I see these monologues going on almost every time I leave the house.

I think about how much I love Tom. The other night, he let me act out my entire morning ritual at the house where I stay while I’m in Columbus. Really. He let me describe the deck, how I counted the trees in the yard (forty-five), the different species of birds I see (numerous), and the sound of the frogs singing in a nearby pond at twilight. He let me go on about the morning sun, my stretching exercises, the two busy anthills whose progress I’m measuring… I adore him. He understands my love of this stuff, and he not only lets me ramble on about it, but he lets me perform it too.

While driving, I reminisced more about Memphis– about this phone number I used to call constantly. The phone number connected children to what was called “Dial and Smile.” An old guy named J.C. Levy, who possessed a kindly southern accent (I pictured him looking like Colonel Sanders), would recite silly poems about the animals at the Memphis Zoo. He’d written hundreds and hundreds of them, so that each time I called, there would be a new poem. At the end of each masterpiece, Mr. Levy would gently say, “Keep dialing and smiling– bye bye now.” Hearing those poems comforted me to no end.

As kids, we got to watch children’s programs hosted by guys with names like Happy Hal and Cap’n Bill. It seemed to me that Cap’n Bill may have had a bit of a drinking problem. He seemed perpetually hungover, and never seemed that fond of the children in his audience. He would chew on a pipe while drawing these terrible pictures with magic markers, then he’d mumble a bit and show some cartoons. I much preferred Happy Hal, an affable sort who had puppets and gave away toys.

There was also Dick Williams, who was not only a local news anchor, but who also hosted what the Guiness Book of World Records says is the longest running magic show in television history, Magicland. It ran from 1966 to 1989. We kids never missed an episode, and we were awestruck when a friend would actually get to appear in the audience on these shows. Mr. Williams lived in my apartment complex when I was a little girl. A few of us knocked on his door one day, and he very nicely did a few little sleight-of-hand tricks for us. I don’t think we ever bothered him after that.

While on the road, I thought about how much I heart The Smoking Gun. I’m a maniac for their photo galleries of mug shots. Sigh…they remind me of our little ‘hood.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the lack of originality in advertising these days. There seems to be some horrible bargain that ad agencies strike with aging rock stars, a pact with the Devil where a commercial now consists of little more than random images of a product with some old classic rock song used as a soundtrack. You can almost hear Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton shouting, “Cha-CHING!” every time they turn on their TVs.

If you are a young person, and you’re reading this, please know that this was not always the case. There used to be actual jingle writers who wrote catchy, original tunes to sell products, and they were so good that many of us old codgers remember them to this day. To me, that’s a component of great advertising.

McDonald’s, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Oscar Meyer, Cracker Jacks…they all had jingles, and people my age can probably sing them to you note for note. We still remember them, because they were great. Even smoking cigarettes and drinking beer seemed like incredibly life affirming activities, because the jingles were so catchy. Sometimes, they even threw animation in there too, which made it seem like even MORE fun!

Now when I see unimaginative commercials, I want to throw my shoe at the screen, but in the olden days, when hippies ruled the earth, they had great songs like this one:

I think that’s a nice way to end this one. More next week.

My friend Trailer Park Barbie, that paragon of all that is redneck and wonderful, tagged me for this six things meme. I’m in a moody mood, so it’s not the greatest.

Here are the rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you. 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites. 5) Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

1: My childhood was rough, and I used to bide my time dreaming of my eighteenth birthday and the day I could get out on my own. My early adulthood was spent learning how to undo the damage and live happily. At forty-seven, I think I’m finally figuring it out.

Whenever I’d hear people talk about their “inner child,” as I considered mine I always thought– Yuck. I hate that kid. She was truly such an awkward mess, always disheveled and often badly-behaved. In my mind, I kind of thought of her as a little ragamuffin, like the one pictured here, and I hated thinking about her. As time has passed though, I’ve learned to appreciate her and the tremendous strength she had. I made it through, I’m here, and I’m happy.

2: The greatest gift I’ve ever been given were my children. Really, they were just loaned to me, as all children are loaned to their parents, but the years I spent raising them were some of the most beautiful of my life. My admiration for them is unending.

3: The human experience moves me deeply. I see fascinating stories in almost everyone, and I often wonder about what lies beneath the surface when meeting people, hearing conversations or witnessing events. I have been accused of empathizing too much, being overly loyal to those who don’t deserve it, and finding something positive in almost everyone. I can be gullible, and I often overlook the bad and concentrate on the good. I wouldn’t change this, although it has been detrimental at times.

I love humor and kindness and the way people band together during tragedies. I admire people who overcome hardships. I adore people who are themselves. I have a built-in bullshit detector, and I love people who are genuine– warts and all. I tried to teach my children to scratch beneath the surface when determining a person’s character– sometimes the people with the sweetest smiles bite the hardest, and the ones with gruff exteriors possess the greatest hearts.

4: I love art, literature, diversity, the beauty of nature, and music really does soothe my savage breast. These things have helped get me through life. Ironically, I have a hard time integrating them into creating a peaceful, warm environment for myself, and I’m only just beginning to learn how to nurture myself. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I’m getting there.

5: Some dislikes: ♦ bigotry ♦ small-mindedness ♦ hatred ♦ substandard advertising campaigns ♦ greed ♦ shallowness ♦ snobbitivity ♦ high fructose corn syrup ♦ the fact that I’m aging ungracefully ♦ those who take advantage of others ♦ misplaced apostrophes ♦ the fact that wealth is distributed so unequally in the world that a very small number of people could feed the hungry, house and clothe the poor and help provide health care to those in need and still have plenty left over for themselves ♦ the Thomas Kinkade Empire ♦ child abuse ♦ spousal abuse ♦ abuse of power ♦ Old Spice aftershave ♦ Wendy’s french fries ♦ gossips ♦ meanness ♦ a hell of a lot of folk music ♦ people getting into other people’s bidness, and determining how they should live their lives.

6: I love ethnic restaurants, and have yet to meet one that didn’t have something on the menu that I liked. My very, very favorite is sushi. I love the way it’s prepared, the gentle ritual of eating it and the variety. It seems to do nice things for my brain too. Unfortunately, Tom gets a little queasy watching me eat fish eggs and eel, so I’m on a quest to find a Dayton sushi buddy.

I’m not tagging anyone for this, but I would LOVE it if you shared six things. If you do, please let me know, so I can go snooping around into your private life.

P.S. Please me note here that yes, I realize I’m HORRIBLE at meme’s! I agonize over what I’m going to write, and when I visit other people’s blogs, and the memes that they’ve shared, I’m just completely humbled and embarrassed by my own. But what’m I supposed to do? It’s a sacred commitment to the tagger, and I must honor my sacred commitments. So, to everyone who reads my memes,  I apologize from the bottom of my blogging heart.