full disclosure and why i fear it

so.. how do you tell your sorta boyfriend that even though all your friends are reading it, (because it totally rocks) you can't send him a link to your blog because you already wrote a long post about his fake hair complete with pictures of dogs and babies wearing wigs. and you're afraid that once he reads it he'll never speak to you again, which might be okay, but the not speaking to probably also involves not having sex with you, which is not okay.
mommy has needs.

i don't have the balls to tell him; i like him too much to take a chance and just send the link, but i'm a stubborn fool, so i also refuse to take it down. even if he doesn't go all the way down to his post, i'm guessing the wig ads along the banner will clue him that something's going on. at least my mom has the good sense to choose not to read me. she hates even the thought that i cuss and talk about sex. (your writing doesn't need to use those kind of words just like bill cosby doesn't need to use them to be funny) i think she still sees me as the girl in cable-knit knee socks lecturing kids at my baptist school that i can get high without alcohol or drugs. ah, those were the days.

however, my guy doesn't mind the occasional shit or fuck in fact, he loves fucking. and he's asking about the blog. a lot. i don't know how adept he is at googling, but come on; it don't take a genius to find what you're looking for if you're willing to click around for a while. and he's no genius.

here's what i've got on tap just in case he comes over tomorrow night and says "i read your blog. put your bra back on."

but honey....

1. when i wrote the post this summer, i had every reason to think that you would be nothing more than a blurry memory and maybe a potential drunk dial by the time the new season of Ugly Betty started... but on the upshot: now that it's been four months, you're definitely on the short-short list for the "Stuck Around the Longest" plaque i'm forging out of all the watches and glasses left behind by those before you...

2. even if by some lapse in rational judgement i would have thought that you would be long-term (anything after 2 dates is long term to me... yes, i've been to therapy. shut up.) i certainly would have thought that by now my abrasive, albeit charming personality would have forced me to say "hey, will you take that hair off so i can see how it's put together and also check out what you look like bald?" because that just sounds like me.

3. i was talking about someone else. YOU have a hairpiece too??? wow, i never noticed.

wasting wednesday

i have hurricane fatigue. i am sick of hearing about it. sick of talking about it. sick of seeing piles of tree limbs and fencing along my streets. sick of people texting me "Got Power! woo hoo". i'm done. i'm an insurance agent. you do the math. i started working about 17 hours after the storm blew in. i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

so i made a goal.

that goal is to sit at this desk today and read blogs. play games. google lovers--potential and past. and generally waste this wednesday until i can leave this hurricane hell-hole and hit happy hour.

thanks be to god that the children leave tomorrow for three days. i have a mountain of laundry. a sink overflowing with dirty dishes and toys, DVDs, PSP crap, shoes. all kinds of shit piled up all over my house.
i only hope that while the little darlings are gone i can stay sober enough to get it cleaned up and fill the refrigerator so that next week i get back to some kind of normal-ness.

art or not

hi. my name is jewels (hi jewels) and i am a word snob.

an editor lives in my brain. she corrects or approves everything i hear & read from the latest oprah novel to the menu at Chili's. i proof-read junk mail. i find mistakes all the time. i take my liberties with punctuation; capitalization and the occasional incorrect word usage, but it is for EFFECT. i misuse because i know the correct usage and want you to be dazzled by my quirkiness. dazzled yet?

however. the average jane can't spell or write her way out of a myspace page. usage is pathetic and spelling is a freaking joke.

which brings us to our blog...

for purposes of this blog, the term "writing" refers to the art of stringing words together in a creative, effective and inventive way. it does not mean writing in the benign definition of putting letters into words on paper and/or another source of material onto which one may write.
so: "writing" means a form of craft. not just scribbling stuff to say.
Writing: What Counts?

1) is texting writing?
i am a mad, crazy texter. love the texting. with hurricane hysteria at it's peak the past few days, texting has been the most efficient way to communicate. i know you've got limited space in the text communicae, but seriously people--don't abbreviate things to the point of confusion. my guy is the king of the too little text. he sent me a typical text yesterday. all the screen said was "b". now, (and this is the really scary part), because i'm so used to his crazy abbreviations, i knew that he meant "beer."

I, on the other hand, (depending on the potential impact of the text) will take half a morning to work out exactly what i want to say in a text, saving it in the draft-box to come back and tweak it until i feel ready to send it out like a little bird to it's intended phone.

here's what i sent him back : "hv i ever told you ur text shorthand mks me crzy? i taped news 4u. purple cow not good." the purple cow was a beach-side cafe where we had a first breakfast-date...ike ate there. now it's gone. i try to use just the right sprinkle of shorthand with words-you-can-use to relay my message. in a related note, i've been tweakin a breezy, break-up text to him all morning--still sits in the draftbox. just can't decide where on the tacky scale a text break-up might fall... internet, is the text blow off classless and unacceptable... ? comment please.

for me: texting is not writing. but it should be readable.

2) is blogging writing?
if you're sitting there reading this, you probably think that blogging is writing. i think blogging is writing, but there is a line. and being the novice blogger that i am, i'm not sure where the line becomes too bold to cross. i'm speaking, my anonymous internet readers, about editing.the red-penciled lady that sits at a desk in my head, reading and marking up everything.a million times.

* once i post it, can i still edit; then repost? ?tacky scale level?i'm a quick turn-around blogger. i get a thought, maybe have a few pictures in my mind to wrap words around and i shoot. but then, a few days (or hours, or minutes or months) after i hit -Publish Post- i start to dissect it. tighten it up. 

so,

* what is the rule on pulling down a post?

i would think that once it's out there, it's out there. especially after you have comments, or at least know it's been read. you can't unring a bell. you can't unshoot a bullet. you can't pull down a crappy post.or one that blew up in your face. or can you? it kind of feels like cheating somehow.chickening out. i'm no yella-belly. but then again, i didn't know he'd be my boyfriend. i thought he was just a date with a good blog on his head.and "hurricane chubby" might be a little dirty for the oldsters in my audience checking on my IKE coverage. maybe i should edit. or maybe i shouldn't. is blogging writing? yes.no. sometimes.

3) are emails writing?

personally, this is a definite yes. i don't care if you're responding via your blackberry, take 5 seconds to spell "the" correctly. i have conducted intimate and semi-successful relationships based in totality on emails (see singapore). a well-written email can be every bit as effective as a touching hand-penned letter. emails are the written correspondence of the modern age. i know handwritten thank you notes are the gold standard, but think about it: a well-worded and sincere thanks in your inbox means as much as one found in your mail box. and be honest, how often do you check that mailbox compared with your inbox. i would like to go on record at this point firmly against the "touching" email that plays kerplunkety music with pictures of dogs wearing sunglasses and kittens hanging off of tree branches with a cute look on their face. but i don't shoot off emails flippantly. (that'll blow up on you. i promise). one of the 73,456 things my divorce taught me was, don't pop off pissed off emails. it feels anonymous, you feel sheltered and strong, but words have power. and like a tattoo, emails never go away. it there. someone's got it somewhere. and chances are, if you pissed him off enough (or her) it's printed.and in a file.in her attorney's leather bag. email is writing. sucker.

ridin the storm out

welcome to the other side of the storm.

ike was a trip

leaves started blowing off the trees early, around 7:30 or so. it was really cool; there was a swirl of clouds around the house with this view from my front porch.

and black, scary clouds swirling from the back of the circle behind my house. (pic didn't come out on that... sorry.)

i've heard some people lost power as early as 8 o'clock, but ours played possum surging off, then back on for several hours until finally at midnight we heard the loud groan and clunk of the transformer just give up on the whole idea.. .. and we were in the dark. i had a battery-powered television, but wanted to reserve battery life. so we went to bed.

i slept pretty soundly until the wind woke me up around 2am.

the really serious business of ike started around 2:30. the craziest thing i'll remember about the experience was the sound of the wind. i had a chair on the front porch where i sat and watched the trees whip around in the wind and the rain. then i'd go inside for a while to listen for breaking windows, drips and also to check the girls. who were frothed up in a panic from my bed.

more than a few times i got a tight chest when i opened the door and walked in the house because it sounded like someone was in my backyard yelling (like WOOOO HOOOO or YEEEEE AHHHH) and--like a dumbass--every single time, i would go running back there, thinking some looter was roaming in my yard acting like an idiot only to figure out it was the wind. it sounded human. that was freaky.

also freaky was the darkness. the house was dark, but not like usual when the lights are out, because ALL the lights around me, street lights, neighbor's bedroom lights, everything was out. and i was continually suprised by the deepness of the darkness. i ended up hanging the strap of my flashlight from my wrist, because if i set it down anywhere, it disappeared and i was left groping around for it like a blind woman.

once the storm was in full swing, i kind of set up a command station at the kitchen counter.

by 3:30am i had a small circle of texting buddies which included my dad and my brother-by-choice, t-vak. i'd flip on the TV every 20 min or so and send out "eye-location" texts and also any big news i could find... jp morgan chase buildng hit bad.desk chairs flying out brokn windws....i think brennans is burning down :( ...eye over galvstn now.about 40m wide.goodlord....

i crashed at 4:30am. between the 2 shots of vodka and the fact that i'd slept maybe 2 hours in the last 24, all the sudden i felt like dorothy in a field of poppies. couldn't hold my eyes open.

my cell rang at 7:30am. ex-mother-in-law calling to get gossip check on the girls. with just a modicum of composure, i would have let it ring. but dumbass me answered. by some natural disaster-induced miracle, we had a few words conversation then i slept in the now noticable sticky non-airconditioned bed until about 9:00am. we got on some shorts and headed out to survey the damages

neighbors were out in the streets. two doors down had a lost a tree in the front. i had two fences down (no big whoop) and other than that no damage at all. the street was green with leaves as if it had snowed big green flakes.

by mid-afternoon, it was obvious that God had covered us up during the storm. neighbors had trees uprooted a street away from us.

a house just around the corner lost half their shingles.

we were more than 60 miles inland. the coastline is a destruction zone. these pics are from chron.com of the boliver pennisula about 72 hrs after ike paid them an ugly visit

Power was restored at our house by 3pm Saturday. as i write about 40% of sugar land, including many friends in this neighborhood, are still without power. we have friends in the woodlands, spring and conroe that aren't expected to get power before next wednesday.

this was my first hurricane as a single mom and i'm pretty proud of myself. i was a little over prepared--we didn't sleep in the closet bunker and the piles of towels i had ready on window sills ended up being put on the entry floor to catch leafy, muddy flip flops, as i had a steady parade of friends and neighbors who still sat in the dark. it was awesome to be able to hand them my stock-pile of ice and batteries, let alone television and air conditioning. my girls are still out of school and it's yet to be seen how (or if) they'll make up the time lost. lord knows there's no getting back the sanity i've lost with them underfoot and at my office all week.

i'm glad to be on the other side. a little wiser, a little sleepier, but a lot more grateful for the little things like a cool breeze from the vents, a light on in the darkness and a secure roof over my family.

just bear w/ me

i'm working on a post. ridin the storm out. it's coming.

for now
i'm still in road to recovery mode.

here are some random things that i'm thinking ... out loud.

i was outside sitting on my driveway tonight. (indian-style, but now i understand that reference is racist, so my kids know it as "criss-cross-apple-sauce".... if you don't know what indian-style is, then just freakin move on...you're too young to get me.) sitting outside, smoking a cigarette (keep up) and my neighbor was walking his dog. his name is ray. the guy, not the dog. not sure what the dog's name is. he walked past me, on the other side of the street and glanced over at me. sitting in the dark. smoking. indian style. in my pajamas. as i do. he didn't speak. his dog is a big yellow lab. good dog. barks sometimes. not too much for me, tho.
about 18 seconds later, his wife followed him, with this tiny little dog. i don't think i've ever noticed it before. it was too dark to identify, it wasn't a chuahua...but it was a wiry little piss of a dog.she glanced. didn't speak.
they walked into their driveway across the street from me. he waited minute for her. the motion flood light came on over their garage. i felt a sweetness for the scene.
his and hers dogs.
.cool.

moving on....

sometimes even great cooks have crock-pot nightmares.

this is cream peas... fresh last month, attempting a last ditch save from my step-mom's freezer. i forgot i had the crock on, then left for work. i came back 10 hours later.
time of death: 5 hours before i got home.

i swear this smelled like dead cat. one day i'll tell you how i know this with absolute certainty. let's just say: junior high. mom going through divorce crazies. kitten. warm dryer. you do the math.

speaking of math... how long does aftermath last. ... just wondering.

who knew electricity was so freaking fanfuckingtastic? that would be me.

Shelter In Place

listen cowboy, when's the last time you had a big steamy bowl of texas hurricane hysteria? Well then, that's too long.

as i write, Hurricane Ike is swirling it's magic concoction in the gulf .... and Galveston sits there like tina turner just waitin to get smacked.

we live in ft. bend county. suburbanites nestled in our planned community about 60 miles inland, it is one of the best places to live in the US... but we'd suggest you make your visit another week.

i spent 7 hours on the road in the nightmare that was
running from Rita back in 2005

we're not bugging out for Ike. sometimes you gotta hold your ground. we're done runnin.

the really horrific traffic experience of Rita motivated the cities to rework a hurricane gameplan, and it does feel like the politico had a decent meeting at some point (miracle) and made a good plan. Unlike Rita, where they told us evacuation was "voluntary," (and we see how well that worked out) this time, everyone from the police chief to rick perry was telling ft. bend county not to leave. we are a designated Shelter In Place community. stay where you are. get some water, huddle in your closet. hunker down. btw..if i'm supposed to be hunkerin down, where is my hunk?

so me and my girls are hunkering. we're sheltering. we are in place. and like all good texans, we are prepared for a party. seems assured we'll lose power, so i've got provisions. there's pop tarts back there. oh yeah. desperate times call for serious sugar.

here is our liquid refreshment. my kids are happy with the dr.pepper. but mom needs something a little stronger if she's going to be sleeping in a walk-in closet with two hyper-nervous children. you can see i've stocked a variety of possible beverage needs from a casual pre-storm long neck to the stiff belt from my great friend Tito's during the brunt of the storm. and what says kick back and relax like a glass of wine? white or red. i've got that.

So what to do while we wait? we're chicks, man. when we're nervous, we cook. i rocked the crock to use the roast for sandwiches and also it's the only thing in the freezer that can't go on the grill.

this is what is supposed to look like. eat your heart out bejewell.

also we bake brownies.

we play computer.

we paint.

we wait.

we laugh at the weatherman with his hurricane chubby.

we're boarded up.

filled up.

cleaned up.

(and you will never see my backyard this clean again, short of a category 4...seriously. never. ever.)

and now we're ready. lay it on me ike, hit me with your best shot.

as we say in sugar land: shelter in place. i'll see you on the other side.

dropping a dime in the memory bank

Forgive me, anonymous readers, for i have sinned. it has been over a month since my last blog. during that time, i have thought of myriad cool and awesome things to blog about that would have totally blown your mind. these words of wisdom no doubt could have changed the course of your life and put your feet on a path to realize your most adventurous dreams. unfortunately i was too lazy (or drunk) to write them down and now they're lost in the great abyss that is my remaining 745 brain cells. sue me. now onto the blog.

my baby started kindergarten this year. since i had my production lines clogged at her birth, she is the last fruit that will drop from my loins. praise the lord. i'm not a helicopter mom that hovers over her kids, wiping their noses and chewing their gum for them. still, i had to fight back a tear or two that morning at school when my very capable five year old trotted off with her tinkerbell backpack rolling behind her and said, "you can go. i'm fine from here." i assured her that i was expected to walk her to class the first day. "whatever." she said, and left me to follow behind. it wasn't that i was worried about her, or even sad that my little baby-magic fresh bundle was becoming just another sweaty wet-dog smelly kid... it was saying goodbye to an era. closing a chapter.

two weeks before my baby (see above) was born, my marriage fell apart. On april 12, 2003 about 10:30pm, i was hit in the gut with details of prince charming's torrid cross-country affair and the newsflash that he never loved me and would be leaving that night for colorado to be with her, as he could not stand another minute outside of her glow. oh joy. new love.

after we screamed at each other through a locked bathroom door and i threw his cell phone at his forehead, we each retired to our own corners. he passed out (three bottles of wine will do that to you). i sat up all night in bed, waiting and praying for dawn. something about driving around crying in the middle of the night seemed wrong. but driving around crying at daybreak: that seemed like an acceptable plan.
over the years that followed my baby was the mile marker of my road toward sanity and away from wifery. ... in the crazy times (which most all times were those first few years) i would comfort myself (in my drunken stupor) by saying things like "once the baby eats regular food things will get easier" ... or "once the baby starts walking.." or once she gets out of diapers..." or "once she can talk..." things will get easier. Now, five years are in my wake. she walks, talks and is diaper-free. and things are easier. and i am no longer crazy. (legally, i mean).

as i watched my little red-headed bundle get comfortable in her miniature chair around her tiny round table in the kindergarten class, it hit me: i made it. i didn't lose the house. i didn't lose my mind--legally. i didn't beat the children or abandon them to run away to cancun, (it was a plan... ill-conceived and flawed but a lovely plan for several years).

i made it.

i'm single, a little lonely, sometimes bored and occassionally resentful of being the only parent,

but gawl dangit : i made it.

so fuck you prince charming..... and thanks. i could have never realized what a capable, awesome, creative and tenatious chick i am if you would have stayed.