I was a happy camper...

This time of year always makes me feel like I should be just getting back from sleepaway camp in New England (school started later when I was a kid), sunburned and hoarse from crying because I will miss my camp friends because they're my BFFs and my school friends suck but I know the camp girls will be my true friends forever because we shared everything.

Yeah. Never saw them again. I did run into a camp counselor once at the mall, but I called her by her camp nickname (Sniper) and then was all embarrassed because that wasn't her name and it wasn't camp and she wasn't supposed to be at the mall, she was supposed to be teaching us how to make god's eye crosses on popsicle sticks and singing rounds of "I Wish I Was a Buzzard."

The first time my parents sent me away to summer camp I cried for a week and they made a special exception to let me talk to my mom on the phone every night (I was SEVEN, for crying out loud. A seven-year-old WEENIE). But then I made friends and the counselors all liked me and let me sit with them and listen to their grownup (teenage) secrets so I knew all about who liked whom and who did it with whom (this is back when I thought "did it" meant kissing).

The next year or the year after that, I was happy to be away from home and the kids who returned from the previous year had a bond that wasn't shared by the new campers and we were mean to them, just as others had been mean to us for our first week. The food was disgusting, the Kool-Aid was called "bug juice," and I hated forced recreation with a mad passion, but I loved the cliques and allegiances and the whispering in the middle of the night after lights out. I loved the drama of screeching hello on the first day, and of sobbing goodbye on the last.

Even a month after school started, I'd still get a lump in my throat if I happened to pick up a pair of shorts with my friend Shelley's name label sewn in (the real BFFs traded clothing) because I missed her and she hadn't written me like she promised. I hadn't written like I promised either, but she promised first.

I wish there was a sleepaway camp for grownups.

Sing it with me now (molto adagio):
Hmmm, and come September
Hmmm, I will remember
Hmmm, our camping days and friendships true

Hmmm, and as the years go by
Hmmm, I'll think of you and sigh
Hmmm, this is good-night and not good-bye...

Because pink is my signature color...

And because I don't feel like writing about my latest episode of Car-ma (getting tagged by a speeding vehicle while backing out of a parking space...no one was hurt, car will be fixed, no big...), tendonitis (getting better, thank you), or how close I am to turning into a complete and total recluse, I give you: My new pink bedroom.


"I have chosen two shades of pink, one is much deeper than the other." ~ Shelby, Steel Magnolias

This was last weekend's home improvement project (with MK's free labor and Erin's paint color advice). The color is called "ice pink" (Lowe's American Traditions), but I prefer to call it "blush" or "bashful." I originally intended to use existing decor (deep red quilt, caramel drapes, etc.) but when Michael decided he didn’t want the Jonathan Green print that used to hang in our living room, I decided to take a risk and use the print as a décor guide (I’ve talked about decorating around it for years…the color combos are weird and I love them). More photos (including a few taken with flash so you can see the paint color in bright light) on my Flickr page.

The raspberry duvet cover was a Big Lots (!) find for $15 and I don’t mind telling you that I looked up the brand online later and it retails for about $200. No rips, no tears. I also got the curtain rods ($3 each) and the brushed metal lamps ($24.99 each). Love the Big Lots. The dark chocolate pillow shams and bed skirt are from Target and the side table on the right was a Habitat store find from a few weeks ago. Including paint, I think total cost of redecoration was about $200. And I love the space now, particularly being in the larger bedroom. I look good in pink.

Next project was going to be fixing up my old bedroom to be guest room/sitting room, but I think it’s going to be fixing my two-year-old car now that it has lost its accident virginity.

I saw a man...

...this morning on my way to work. He was jogging in the pouring rain without his shirt on - wearing just a (smallish) pair of running shorts, socks, and running shoes. I could hardly see out of my windshield because it was raining so hard, but he ran by me while I was stopped at a light and I saw that he was smiling. Or grimacing, I'm not sure which. Still, I wanted to pull over, take off my shirt, and join him.

Being naked in the rain is awesome.

I'm still here...

But tendonitis is winning and my good typing time is for the paying job. I'm looking for a quick cure (as usual), but my doctor's advice and everything I've read says patience is the only remedy. Patient (or a good patient) I am not!

Until I'm all the way back, my on-my-mind one-liners for the day:
My BFF Amy is wonderfully weird.
I seem to be really good at Making Fiends.
I love when music and lyrics are at odds.
One of my long distance friends is moving even farther away.
M. and I went to see this movie last night and I laughed through the whole thing.

Love you, mean it.

Yoshimi, they don't believe me...

Listening: I have been revisiting the wonderful weirdness of The Flaming Lips all week. If I didn't live alone, I would be driving someone crazy with the over-and-overness of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part I.

Reading: Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World by Davy Rothbart, founder (and finder) and editor of FOUND magazine. And Instant Love by Jami Attenberg.

Feeling: Better. Off the steroids, so less crazy. And my wrist feels better, but I have to keep my typing time down so I'm alternating between handwriting in my Moleskine and the keyboard.

Worrying: There are workmen at my house right now removing a gigantic sick oak tree that is most of my corner yard shade and I'm worried that I won't like being there anymore because the light will be wrong. Also that another big oak tree in my side yard might be sick too. A bald yard will make me sad. I must have foliage and shade.

Wondering: If my jeans are tight from steroid bloat or water weight and if it will go away. Why my mother won't return my phone calls. If there is a big black hole where my heart used to be. If boredom can kill you.

Last kitten post, I swear on a stack of pancakes...

I really have to stop looking at cuteness on the Internets. Video via Cute Overload: Little sleepy kitten. It looks almost exactly like Miss Kitty when she was a Baby One.



Somebody stop me. Could this be my biological clock? Why don't I feel this way when I look at human babies? OK, that's it. There will be no more cat or kitten-ness here for a long time. Unless I let Nina get a kitten and then she will have her own All Kitten All The Time blog.

Who AM I? And what have I done with the real me?

Must stop self from becoming cat lady...

This is making me so weak. It's the same place I found Ninotchka (a.k.a. "Nina," a.k.a. "Miss Kitty"), so if I got one it would be distantly related. Like fourth or fifth cousins. But I promised I would stay a one-cat person because once you have two, why not three? Why not four? 20? Before you know it, you have 63 cats roaming all over the house and yard and they're shuffling you out of the house in robe and slippers to be "evaluated" in the mental ward.

So I thought of a way around it. I don't get a kitten, Nina does. I buy the kitten for Nina, and it is hers and not mine. She can name it and everything. When people come over to visit and say, "Oh, you have two cats?" I can say, "No. Nina is my cat. The little one is hers." I think she'd probably name it Rawwr. Or Mower. Or Mowow.

And that's my two big scoops of crazy for the day.

When reality takes too much exertion, fiction steps in...

The day after he left the light over the kitchen sink burned out. Two days later, the wrought iron standing lamp in the living room. Yesterday, the yellow bulb on the front porch. She couldn’t remember a light burning out the whole time they had lived there. They must have – he must have changed them when she wasn’t paying attention – but she couldn’t even remember ever buying light bulbs. She wondered if she had taken some strange electromagnetic charge into her body that was causing the bulbs to burn out, if he had always held the illumination when he was around, or if together they had produced enough energy to keep them from going out. She had already decided not to replace them. She was going to let all of the bulbs in the house burn out, one by one, even the tiny one in the refrigerator. She liked the idea of a dark house, of not even being able to navigate the kitchen at night by opening the door to the fridge. She liked the idea of learning to see what wasn’t illuminated. And now that he was gone, she could.
~Excerpt from a short story I wrote in 2003 called "Losing Sleep"

(I'm still trying to keep mouse-and-keyboard time to a minimum...can't remember how I survived before Copy and Paste.)

How to f*ck with your cat...

Wait for the usual 5:30 a.m. wake up attempt in a completely dark room, grab camera from nightstand, point, and shoot.

Before I took this, she had already dragged one of her toys (a bunch of feathers on a stick) onto the bed and dropped it on my face. The feathers were wet with cat drool. Gross. Usually, after she knows I'm awake, she hunkers down and pretends like she's asleep. If I don't at least make an attempt to pet her, she scooches up by my head, smushes her face against mine, and makes "biscuits" in my hair. Usually I just roll over and go back to sleep. Bu this morning, I decided to take advantage of my alertness (I think it's the steroids I'm taking, but I was awake at an hour I haven't seen since it used to be my bedtime) and I snapped a flash photo. Miss Kitty hates a flash photo.

When I left for the office at 8, she was still pissed and chewing on my spider plant in the bay window. I'm probably going to come home to cat sh*t in my shoes.

This hand is your hand...

Not really. It's mine. The bad news is that I have tendonitis in more than one tendon in my right wrist. The good news is that I don't have to have surgery for it. The bad news is I am typing with my left hand and have to wear a brace 24/7. The good news is that my career isn't over because it will heal.

I thought about doing a "best of Microfamous" so my blog wouldn't stagnate, but decided against it. You can read the archives if you feel inclined. I have lots to say about the past week and how my mind jumped from "my wrist freaking hurts" to "I'll be homeless if I can't work," but because I have to limit computer time I'm going to have to tell you all about that later. So expect shorter posts for the next week or so....that is, if I don't go insane from taking steroids, sleeping with a splint on my wrist, or not being able to write by hand.

And Universe? Thanks for being so understanding about my bitching and moaning. I know this is nothing in your grand scheme and could be a million times worse. You must know I adore you and would never take you for granted. Once again, Universe, I owe you one.

I'm living for giving the devil his due...

How did I ever miss this? I love Zippos. The heavy click and clack of opening and closing, the smell of lighter fluid, the flint, the wheel, the weight of it...

I'm inexplicably attracted to men who use a Zippo. It must be a subconscious childhood thing, but I never saw my father smoke. He was in a car accident shortly after I was born and quit smoking while he was in the hospital with his jaw wired shut. He did have a Zippo, though it was relegated to the drawer where he kept his military medals and crap. Some of the men I dated had Zippos. But the one I really fell for is the one I used to have with my name engraved down the front (not just "Kelly," but "KELLY LOVE" in all caps). It was weighty, stainless steel, and it felt so good in my hand I used to light the cigarettes of total strangers without being asked. Then I lost it and it's been downhill ever since.

Scraptacular Friday...

Even though I have an abundance of notebooks specifically meant to record thoughts, lists and important information, I can't seem to shake my scrap habit. Every week I have a pile of scribbled-on random bits of paper collected from pockets, car, bag, and stuck inside the pages of the llama notebook I bought at the Gap 10 years ago. I write on anything I can get my hands on - sometimes while driving - band-aid wrappers, post-it notes, old receipts (my accountant is always amused), envelopes, cancelled checks, check stubs, other people's business cards, and pages torn from magazines. This is my scrap pile from this week. I haven't made sense of it all yet (I save that chore for a quiet Sunday), but here are some of the random things I wrote down:
*I'm worried about real life. (Overheard, but I am too).
*"We get to choose who we let in to our weird little worlds." (during a Fresh Air interview with Robin Williams; the quote is from Good Will Hunting).
*Angry alpha, stealth alpha, evil alpha. Gamma? (for an essay I'm working on).
*Candy Jernigan (she's an artist who was married to Philip Glass before she died of liver cancer in 1991).
*Call Anassi (and a phone # on a post-it. I don't know who that is).
*85, 3pm. 93, 7pm. 115, 7am. 89, 11am. 65, 1pm. (blood sugar readings on a day when I skipped breakfast).
*Once got rid of a hard-to-break-up-with boyfriend by "accidentally" leaving a pregnancy test in the trash for him to see. Too careful, never even had a scare, but the idea of me having his child was enough to send him running... (also for an essay I'm working on).
*Tyler Florence's email address.
*A recipe for baked "fried" chicken that a friend sent me.
*momastore.org (there was something there I wanted, but now can't remember what it was).

Crooked little soul...

I've said it before: listening to sad music makes me feel happy. As twisted as it sounds, dwelling on disaster and heartbreak and tragedy uplifts my soul and fills me with joy. It's been a long time since I changed that play list, so I'm updating my soundtrack for sitting in the dark with teddy bears and knives. Links to free MP3 downloads included; wallow at your own risk.

KLo's Joyful Noise Mix
Tomorrow Never Comes, Juliana Hatfield
Hold On, Tom Waits.
I Want You (Costello cover), Fiona Apple
There Was a River, For Stars
The Greatest, Cat Power
Honk if You're Lonely, Silver Jews
Hate Me, Blue October
Breathless, Better Than Ezra
Too Much Space, Lisa Germano

On the way home you feel it there
Cause your heart needs to be somewhere
But you wake up
To too much space again.
~Lisa Germano