WanderingAmylessly 2.0

I love NewsoftheWeird.com. As reported in the Tampa Tribune, two gym teachers in Pensacola, Fla., were arrested recently and charged with bribery. Their alleged crime? Police say they allowed students to avoid gym classes by paying the teachers money. They were collecting $1 per student and one teacher admitted to making at least $230. I think those students are brilliant. I'd have paid at least $5 to skip gym. In fact, I do that now. I pay $40 a month to the gym, yet rarely go. Yet another reason to make fun of Utah. Station KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City reported that a high school student who was bitten by a rattlesnake had been warned by his friend to avoid it. This student's quote? "Even though she told me not to, I picked it up anyway. I'm not too bright that way." Ya think? And another. A jewelry designer in Salt Lake City has begun offering jeweled brooches featuring brightly colored Swarovski crystals affixed to a live, 3-inch-long Madagascar hissing cockroa...

Some judge in Lincoln, Neb., should get a dumbass award. She sentenced a man to probation instead of prison for sexually assaulting a child because the man was too short. District Judge Kristine Cecava said Richard Thompson's crimes deserved a long prison sentence. However, she said, at his height he was too small to survive in prison. So how tiny was this man? Was he a dwarf? An elf? A smurf? No, ladies and gentlemen, he was 5 feet 1 inch tall. That's tall enough to ride rides at an amusement park. That's tall enough to drive a car unaided. That's only three inches shorter than me. This 50-year-old who had sexual contact with a 12-year-old should have gotten up to 10 years behind bars for his offenses, according to sentencing guidelines. Prison system officials scoffed at the notion that short guys can't hack it in the pokey. And State Sen. Ernie Chambers pointed out that "if shortness is an excuse and protection from going to prison, short people ought to rob...

'Tis the season for bridal bliss. 'Tis also the season for the accompanying reception dance. And what's a wedding reception without that most unique of all marriage celebration dance numbers: The Chicken Dance. You know the drill. Polka starts, beak-quacking hand gestures, flapping, butt shimmying, and clapping ensue. A fun time is had by all (especially if there's an open bar). What you may not know is that: 1. This oom-pah song's origins rest with a Swiss according player named Werner Thomas who wrote it, most accounts say, in the 1950s. It originally was called the Duck Dance. 2. It is NOT German or Austrian, despite the images its roll-out-the-barrel-ish feelings it might conjure up. 3. A fellow named Norm Edlebeck, who was a bandleader from Wisconsin, introduced America to the Chicken Dance on TV's PM Magazine in 1982. 4. More than 140 versions of it have been recorded worldwide, including Walt Disney Records, together making more than 40,000,000 records (o...

I don't know if Blogger readers ever noticed, but there's a link on every blog that leads to the writer's profile. And within the profile, there's a feature that generates random questions or comments such as the one that has been on mine for months: Unlike a dog, how can a turtle ever be naked? The writer is prompted to provide a response. Mine for the dog and turtle show was, "We're all naked when we expose our souls." Whatever that's supposed to mean, I'm not even sure. So I decided to update my profile's random jibberish. The feature's addictive. I clicked through 13 before I came to The One. The rejects: When you spilled the milk, did it look like the moon? Create a tagline for a new line of plastic bedsheets. If there's no "I" in team, why is there meat? You're in the grocery store with a broken cart. How will you ever be that hungry? Foxes are clever and tigers are cunning. So, what's your cat's safety schoo...

The following are just a few random thoughts regarding my new bit of healthy eating: 1. I just ate a diet peanut butter cookie that tasted like neither peanut butter nor a cookie. 2. I understand why people say eating carrots will make one see better. Yes. I see now that I really don't care for carrots. 3. If a beverage is caffeine free, sugar free and calorie free, and has the word "diet" in its name...why can't I count it as one of my eight glasses of water a day? 4. Am I going to get fired for not doing my job at work because I'm running to the bathroom 17 times a day, due to that water consumption? 5. The tofu in my prepackaged diet meal of Thai Noodles in Peanut Sauce has the texture, flavor and consistency of the hot dog slices in Spaghetti-Os with weiners. I'm sure there'll be more to come.

Wondering where to go on your summer vacation? Tired of the cultural activities of summer, such as Shakespeare in the Park, outdoor concerts and gallery walks? I found the perfect 180-degree turn for you. The Summer Redneck Games, East Dublin, Ga., July 8 I'm not making this up. Honest. Frommer's , the publisher of guidebooks and products to help budget-minded travelers since 1957, lists this as one of its unique summer activity picks from throughout the United States. Frommer's describes this event -- which started as a backlash against the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, as a "pearl of trailer trash spectacles." And it's celebrating its 10th anniversary! Among the activities are Mud-Pit Belly Flop, Hubcap Hurl, Bobbing for Pig's Feet, Dumpster Dive, watermelon seed-spitting, bug zapping by spitball, big-hair contest and the Armpit Serenade. There's also the O'Conee River Redneck Raft Race, which features a flotilla of homemade rafts made from rathe...

He was a congressman, a senator and a treasury secretary. He even won a Senate seat in 1970 by beating George H.W. Bush. But what I will always admire most about Lloyd Bentsen was his moment of glory during the 1988 presidential campaign. He may have been running on a ticket that got creamed in the election, but nevermind that. Democrats everywhere cheered as Bentzen, during a vice presidential debate, put somewhat-illiterate Dan Quayle in his place. (Google "Lloyd Bentsen Quotes" and you'll find 10 pages of results filled with with mentions of the moment.) Upon witnessing the dimwitted Quayle compare himself to former President John F. Kennedy, Bentsen fired back: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Bentsen died of natural causes at 8:45 a.m., today, at his home in Houston, Texas.

Gibson. Williams. Couric. Could they be the next powerhouse trio of evening news? Could they be the next Jennings, Brokaw and Rather (who, now that I write that out, sounds a lot like a law firm)? ABC just announced that Charles Gibson will leave Good Morning America this summer to become the new anchor of struggling news show World News Tonight. He replaces Elizabeth Vargas, who soon will be on maternity leave and then who knows where after that. She was to be paired with Bob Woodruff at the anchor desk, but a month after the deal was announced, Woodruff got blown up in Iraq and sustained serious head injuries. Injuries from which ABC claims he's recovering nicely, thank you very much. But has anyone seen him in public? Has he done any on-camera interviews? In a news release, Woodruff supposedly called Gibson a mentor and friend, and said: "I look forward to contributing to his broadcast as soon as I am able." Now really, is that the way normal people talk? I'm think...

I think the last time I weighed what the charts said I should way was about...birth. 7lbs. 3oz. Perfectly average for a full-term baby. And then something went entirely awry. Remember Sears' "husky" size? If you don't then you never wore it. We who suffered through that remember it all too well. Elementary school, junior high, I just got chunkier and clunkier. Teenage years are awkward enough without being fat. I hated every minute. In junior high, after my doctor sat me down and basically told me I was a pig, I went on my first diet. Lost 30 lbs. Still needed to lose more. By junior year in high school, I needed to lose another 30 lbs because I was sure if I did that, some dreamy boy would ask me to prom. Second diet, second 30 lbs., lots of starvation moments, no date. The weight started returning. My first year in college...those freshman 15...I'm sure I doubled that. From that time on, I dieted, starved, binged, tried every goofy new gimmick for weight loss. A...

After all the hype, all the protests, all the buzz, I wasn't sure I'd even bother. But I did it. I saw The DaVinci Code. And my thoughts? Good, but not the best movie I've ever seen. Some nice action, engaging cinematography, solid acting. By everyone except Tom Hanks. He tried too hard. In portraying Robert Langdon as a reserved professorial type, he went too far and seemed distant and bored. I didn't buy the chemistry between him and Sophie Neveu. And he didn't look anything like I'd pictured in my mind. I think it's an example of bad casting. They wanted a big name, a box office draw. But this movie could've worked with an unknown actor. It's not like no one would've gone to see it. This book has been on the bestseller list (or many times topping it) for three years. Second in sales only to the Bible itself. I hate seeing terrific books made into mediocre movies. There have been many. Bridges of Madison County. The Horse Whisperer. Angela...

Shoot me in the head. Please. I can't take it anymore. In a late-afternoon meeting (which no one should call, by the way), I heard the following corporatespeak: Leveraging Branding Operational Excellence Marketplace Solutions Benchmarking Processing Elements Empowerment I may have blogged about this buzzword hell before. Today was an all-time low to which my colleagues have sunk. I wish I'd had one of THESE to keep me occupied. I'm living in a Dilbert cartoon. Only without the humor.

When the people talk, the U.S. Government listens. That may be a flippant takeoff on the old E.F. Hutton ads, but it's looking more and more true -- and sinister -- each day. First, government officials said that calls from America to foreign lands were being monitored in the war against terror. Then we read in USA Today that tens of millions of Americans' phone call records were given to federal officials covertly so that "patterns could be detected". Then ABC journalist Brian Ross learns from an unnamed senior federal official that he and another reporter, Richard Esposito, had had their phone calls monitored by the FBI. One FBI official even remarked that Americans should get new cell phones. I once again ask, WHAT COUNTRY ARE WE LIVING IN?! We just "liberated" Iraq so that the people can live "free" and have the same rights that we enjoy here. Iraqis, you too can "freely" live with the government monitoring you, spying on you, harassi...

Fundamentalist, polygamy-loving, child-raping ex-Run-of-the-Mill-Mormons have hit the big time. At least in the eyes of the law. Leader of the polygamist sect Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and prophet to about 10,000 followers, Warren Jeffs (whose middle name is Steed, if you can believe that)has landed himself on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. He's wanted for two counts of sexual assault on a minor (one of his underaged "wives") and one count of conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor (one of the underaged "wives" he wed to another freakoid horny follower). One of his occupations is listed as "private school teacher." Yeah. Wonder what he's teaching. He's also listed as accountant...which translates from the world of cults as "book cooker." If they could charge this fugitive fundamentalist with 10,000 counts of brainwashing, I'm sure they would. Interestingly, there's another leader of a group of unlawf...

I am confused. On my way to work this morning, a story on NPR caught my attention. The topic: border security. It seems that not everyone is thrilled with President Bush's latest attempt to stick his ladle in the pot and stir up trouble. Here's the gist. Mexico's president Vincente Fox calls up Bush and says whoa, you're really proposing putting National Guard units along the border? Bush says, it's to protect the American people from terrorists. Or undocumented motel-room cleaners. Or whatever. Fox says, that's not a good thing. What are you doing? Militarization of your borders? And Bush insists he's not militarizing the border. Just putting National Guard troops there. Ok. Nevermind that the National Guard troops have been jacked around since this Iraq war started, being taken from their families and shipped to a place where they get shot at and blown up and killed. Nevermind that they have been stretched so thin, if we actually had an emergency in the U....

I just read a story that made me think, perhaps, someone "up there" has grown quite tired of the family's escapades... Plane carrying Sen. Kennedy struck by lightning BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A plane carrying U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from western Massachusetts to his home on the coast was struck by lightning and had to be diverted to New Haven, Connecticut, his spokeswoman said.

Not like I'm counting or anything. Or dancing in the streets or planning the next inaugural celebration during which the Democratic Party will make its glorious return to the White House (as it should be. always.), or any of that. I'm merely noting the news headline. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's job approval rating has hit a new low, with 29 percent of the U.S. public saying he is doing an "excellent or pretty good job," down from 35 percent in April, according to a Harris Interactive poll in The Wall Street Journal Online.

The trivia was fun. But the most amazing thing I've experienced related to Mother's Day was opening a card from my H-man last May. My husband made it, including a photograph of me with my son at a parade. He also included a famous quote. I'd never heard it before, but I'll never forget it now. Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face. -- George Eliot

I did a little quick research on tomorrow's holiday. Here are the highlights: -- The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. -- During the 1600s, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday" on the 4th Sunday of Lent. -- In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. -- In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day and by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. -- President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.

Former President Bill Clinton, an accomplished speaker, has given commencement addresses at such prestigious institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Columbia University, Notre Dame and Dartmouth College. Today, the current President of the United States (with an all-time-low 31 percent approval rating, I might add), George W. Bush, has the distinction of becoming the first sitting president to give a commencement speech at a junior college. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Just have two thoughts: 1. Was that the only institution that would have him? 2. I wonder who their first choice was.

I'm not here to bash men. I'm not here to bash the system. I'm merely here to point out that I'm worth a lot more in theory than in reality. Or is it reality than in theory? A story in the Boston Globe recently revealed findings of a study by Massachusetts-based company Salary.com. According to that study, a mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 a year on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home. And a full-time stay-at-home mom would earn a whopping $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, which the paper pointed out is an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge. To find these rather shocking numbers, the survey determined the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely make up Mom's role in the household: -- Housekeeper -- Day-care teacher -- Cook -- Computer operator -- Laundry machine operator -- Janitor -- Facilities manager -- Van driver -- Chief executive -- Psychologist I...

I caught a couple episodes of the satirical news shows on Comedy Central today. I can't remember whether it was The Daily Show or Colbert, but one of them featured a short news clip with Donald Rumsfeld. The discussion involved the fact that Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense of the United States, wears a pedometer everywhere he goes. Like a good, patriotic, healthy American, he tries to walk those 10,000 steps a day. However, on this particular day, he was lamenting the fact that he'd only walked a few hundred steps past 1,000. Oh golly. The turmoil this must cause him. That he's somehow failing by falling short on his exercise regimen. Definitely something worthy of a news story. Can't believe more people aren't documenting this. No one, though, brought up the fact that while he slacked off on his stepping with fewer than 1,500 steps taken in a day...there have been 2,426 Americans killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Which number are you more concern...

They own everything else. Why not the patent on a smiley face, too. It wasn't enough for Wal-Mart to destroy Main Street American business, to commit racist and sexist injustices, to turn itself into the world's largest retailer by selling cheap shit (probably made by 7-year-old child laborers in rural Pakistan) at even cheaper prices. (Go to http://walmartwatch.com for more examples.) Now Wal-Mart thinks it owns the exclusive rights to the round, yellow smiling face it uses in its ads. You know, the smiley face blatantly stolen from the icon of the '70s, which became plastered on everything from bumper stickers to beer mugs with the slogan, Have a nice day! I'm guessing the Wal-Mart ad campaign began sometime after that. The company commenced plastering it all over stores and associates in 1996, in fact. Yet Wal-Mart feels compelled to snatch from the world the very symbol of happiness...deface it, if you will. Just because it can. Doesn't make me very happy at all...

The missing anchorwoman, whose body was supposedly buried on some guy's property, according to the guy... The search turned up nothing. Poor guy. He didn't solve the crime. He's not being hired by the police. And now I think he might need some of my meds.

There's this guy, Duane, who has been insisting to police for nearly 11 years - a big, fat decade, mind you - that a missing KIMT-TV Mason City, Iowa, anchorwoman is buried by his Eagle Lake cabin, near Mason City. Year after year, they p'shaw'ed his information. Meanwhile, the Jodi Huisentruit case grew ice cold. Now, this 74-year-old man, Duane, had no connection with Ms. Huisentruit -- other than believing someone ditched her on his land and having briefly met her once in Mason City, where TV anchors are akin to movie stars. But he went and hired an engineering company recently to study the area, doing some high-tech sonar radar digital imaging heat seeking missile sort of examination. Finally the police say they'll dig there for clues. What exactly have the Mason City Police and Hancock County Sheriff's Department been doing with their time since 1995? What could it have hurt to placate this guy, and possibly solve one of the most famous missing person cases in ...

I just planned to write a pithy, insightful piece on something quite globally relevant and intellectually stimulating. And then my kid screamed and needed a new diaper. Oh well.

I feel like my blog is one big "Oh great, here she goes again" after another. I feel like my life's like that, too. Like if one more person has to hear about, or be subjected to the consequences of, my illness, I may be kicked out of the club. Whatever that club might be. Friends. Family. Coworkers who don't even know I have a mental illness, they just think I seem sad and unstable, possibly prone to flipping out and climbing a clock tower at any moment. I cry. I yell. I fight. I say inappropriate things. I isolate. I sleep. I run away. I hide. A lot. Too much. Everything to excess. Last night, at a special group therapy meeting for families, our instructor said something that makes me elated and annoyed and confused, all at the same time (me? really? surely not.) He said that those of us who have emotional intensity disorder "feel" too much, too strongly, too loudly. Too intensely. But while that may be destructive on the negative end of the spectrum, it...

I'm 34. I'm 16 years out of high school. I'm 11 years out of college. And I'm still asking the same questions. Who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to be when I grow up? My therapist asked me similar questions during our last session, and I didn't have an answer. I know what I don't want to do (because I didn't enjoy it the first time around). I don't want to work the night cops shift at a podunk newspaper, making $7 an hour and dodging lewd comments and suggestions from middle-aged detectives. I don't want to work in an office where supposed professionals throw office equipment at me and write scathing information about me then post it to the World Wide Web. And, at the moment, I'm not real thrilled rewriting articles and press releases into paragraph-length bits for an employee newsletter. Or penning a perfectly appropriate and acceptable e-mail memo for a middle-level manager, only to have it come back to me looking like some eighth-g...

I just read an MSN article by some doughhead named Matt Schneiderman who wants readers to believe that he has six secret turn-ons for guys that he wants to declare to the world. I would like to know who these guys are, what kind of scientific poll they participated in, and where on earth they live. Botswana? The south pole? Guys, tell me. Are these really turn ons, or is this guy getting paid to blow the so called smoke right up our posteriors. Our well-padded posteriors, as you'll read below. So Matt says hair flips and batting eyelashes only work some of the time. "You'd be surprised," he says "at the things guys really can't resist about women." 1. He loves that you indulge at dinnertime. Guys love girls who love to eat—not girls who say they aren’t hungry and then pick at their date’s food all night. Oh really. Are these the same girls who run to the powder room to puke it all up ? 2. He loves your occasional obscenities. You may worry that it’...

Never know what will happen during a day that will bring a smile to one's face. Today, it happened for me. While checking out at the grocery store, the employee proceeded to scan my items one by one. He might've been in high school. Maybe college. Certainly no older. If I'd had an unexpected "accident" in high school, my child might've been his buddy. At any rate, this young man went to scan the bottle of shiraz I'd picked out for my husband (my nectar-loving days being over at risk of screwing up my lithium levels...since they're oh-so-effective at present). And the young man said the most glorious phrase a woman approaching 35 can hear. I laughed. I thanked him. I may have blessed him. I might have reached right over the scanner and kissed him, if it wouldn't have caused a scene. Those words? Can I see some I.D.?

We went to a birthday party for a 1-year-old this afternoon, and it was pretty much what one expects of a young child's birthday. Cake, smeared frosting, sticky ice cream, sugar-induced hyperactivity. What intrigued me, though, was the ice cream flavor: "Birthday Party" by Blue Bunny. As described on the company's web site, Streamers of creamy blue frosting swirls and sequin candy confetti decorate a delectable white-cake flavored ice cream. I was pleasantly pleased. Any flavor of ice cream would send me into a delectable dessert coma. The frozen treat might be considered a vice. The part of this ice cream contemplation that had my head swimming in corn syrup and chocolate goo though is the endless possibilities. Seriously, how many possible flavor concoctions can there be? Is it limitless? Baskin Robbins used to tout its 31 flavors. Not anymore. Why stop at 31, aim for 311 or 3,111. Or more. Dairy companies have dozens and dozens of flavors beyond vanilla and chocola...

Hang in there. Three words that people say when they mean well but don't know what else to say. I'm sick of hanging in there. Hang in there until what? Until your grip gives and you plummet to whatever's below? Until the branch breaks? Until the noose tightens? I want to cry and scream and throw things and run away and throw more things and hide from everyone. I don't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. I don't want to sit here at work and pretend I'm doing fine and make small talk and write a bunch of meaningless drivel that people who aren't trained writers rewrite anyway. And I certainly don't want to hang in there. I'm not doing a very fine job of it, anyway.

1. Car wreck 2. Intoxication 3. Cover-up 4. Kennedy Deja vu? At least no one died. At least no one we know about. Yet.

slipping on blue plaid flannel pajamas, sliding between soft cotton sheets, nestling into extra thick pillow fluff, curling compact, feeling invisible, and sleeping. for hours. for days. forever.

numb A. verb 1. benumb, blunt, dull; make numb or insensitive; change; alter; modify, desensitize B. adjective 1. petrified; so frightened as to be unable to move; stunned or paralyzed with terror 2. asleep, benumbed; lacking sensation 3. not showing human feeling or sensitivity; unresponsive; dead

I appreciate everyone's words of support. I really do. But no matter what sort of pep talking people do, it doesn't change the following: - Every time I have to answer my work phone, I have to let it ring three or four times so I can clear my throat and blow my nose and try not to sound like I've been crying for an hour. - I feel like throwing up. All the time. - I'd rather be just about anywhere but in my office. - 9 hours is a horribly long time to be somewhere you don't want to be. - My therapy session isn't until Friday. But I need her now. - Life is feeling pretty pointless at the moment.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to throw up. I've had a splitting headache and a knot in my stomach all day. I closed my door and took a nap on the dirty floor for 45 minutes after lunch. Every time someone looks at me, much less talks to me, I cry. And then it takes me 20 minutes to recover from that. Just about enough time for the next person to come ask me how I am doing. Is it 4:30 yet? Is it Friday yet? People tell me to take it hour by hour, minute by minute. At this rate, the week will feel as though it's three months long. Life has moved on here. People have their work to do. My life has moved on, too. In a very different direction. I feel like a completely different person than the one who sat in this chair on Feb. 23. I am a different person. And it's like the chair and the job and the company don't fit anymore. Or maybe I don't fit. I've never felt so alone.