But Call Me Betsy

It is impossible to take a flattering picture of yourself using this so-called digital camera. But since my mom has requested a photo of my new haircut, I give you:

I have a temperamental relationship with my i-pod. Half the time, it doesn't work. It's acted funky ever since it got wet and so it sometimes doesn't shut off and then runs out of steam in the middle of an important walk, leaving my soundtrackless. I was thinking the other day how so many of the bands or songs that I have on it can be attributed specifically to certain guys I dated for either a short or long period of time: Lemonheads, Toad the Wet Sprocket: The Bartender with the Concave Chest. We went out a few times but he was too young for me and had super skinny legs. REM (Monster c.d. only), Cracker's "Low": The Other Bartender with the Drinking Problem. Flaming Lips: Not Over His Wife Yet. I said, I love you. He said, Oh, I think of you fondly! That was the end of that. Aimee Mann's "That's Just What You Are," Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me": The Poet Who Made Me Numerous Mixes. But who was also too young for me and...

Can't believe it's been a week since I wrote; mainly because I was out of town for a couple of nights to have Christmas at Jodie's brother's house, but also because I've been taking long daily walks and knitting and this has exhausted me completely. Since I never manage to keep my even most well-meaning resolutions for more than two days, I have decided to create a list that I am sure I can handle: 1. Gain at least twenty-pounds, mostly in my ass and face so that I am disproportionately large and will have to start wearing size 14 pants. 2. Drink more, preferably hard liquor such as cheap gin with tap water. 3. Have meaningless, unfulfilling one-night stands with numerous stupid men. 4. Read fewer books. 5. Stop taking vitamins. Consume more sugar and processed foods. 6. Drive everywhere instead of walking. 7. Discontinue recycling. Insist that produce and such be wrapped in extra plastic bags at the grocery store. 8. Procrastinate as much as possible. Pay all bills...

Yesterday was Joe's last day and he has spent the three weeks since giving his notice locked in his office trying to finish a feature and tie up loose ends. I did manage to drag him out to the dollar store where he bought me a Diet Coke (50 cents). Later, we all went to Lucky Strikes for a fare thee well hurrah and I had the lowest score, mainly because I can't throw the ball without spinning it or thunking it directly into the gutter. I discovered that Joe is excellent at recognizing movie quotes in like one line, particularly those related to Top Gun . He also got ones from Bull Durham and The Princess Bride ("As you wish.") Did not get the one from Pretty Woman. Joe wore a bowling shirt and approached the lane with his quiet confidence. Alberta, who claims to have never been in a bowling alley in her life, beat out Joe by a few points to be the surprise winner. I had secretly hoped I would be a natural bowler, but I was not. The only real casualty of the day was ...

Here are the most unhappiest Christmas dolls that ever existed, followed by the most ornate reindeer that ever existed. South Philly is the best place for finding superlatives. Find the kitty:

I am having some difficulty lately keeping my emotions in check, must be the whole dark weather thing and no sunlight and my toe hurts and also I really, really need to take a shower. I can't wait to get home to do that. But something that does make me laugh is this video that I finally figured out how to upload to blogger. This is what my cousin Steph, my Aunt JoAnne and I did on Friday night. We made lego constructions; JoAnne's was the most abstract. At one point, she said that we wouldn't be allowed to go to bed until all of the 5,000 pieces were used up. I like this video b/c you can see how often she uses her hands to express herself. Like, she didn't know I was focusing just on a close-up, but still, she's very expressive. She could be a hand model for QVC for sure. Here are two other photos of windows I passed in South Philly on my way to work and then on my way back. The first has a sign you probably can't read that says "God Bless America with a n...

I have made it home, though to do so, I spent sixteen hours at the airport before my flight was due to taxi down the runway. Mom's plane left at 9- ish from Omaha so we had to leave Giltner at 6- ish and then my flight to Minneapolis took off at 2:30. I finally arrived at 9:45 p.m. and was giddy to see the cats. Nothing of note on any of the flights, except that I sat next to a guy on the ride to Philadelphia who didn't bring anything to read or look at or do. He just stared at his hands. He tried to talk to me, but I'm not very friendly. He said, Did you go home for the holidays? I said, Yes, no. I mean, I went to Omaha but now I'm going home to Philadelphia. He said, Huh. I didn't ask him any questions. I pretended to be suddenly interested in my NY Times crossword puzzle. The woman on the other side of me snoozed most of the way, which was fine. Even though I had a long day, the flights seemed to go quickly--must be faster coming back to Philly, plus we had th...

Here is the pony who shall star in our film. Her name is Shasta. Is she not beautiful, for spacious skies? Now all we need is a Ken doll and we shall be in business. Tonight, we ate macaroni and Velveeta cheese and chicken nuggets. Even as I type this, Sam is putting together a train display for the holidays. He is meticulously setting up Lego tiers so that we can see all of the trains.

This is a quite blurry photo of the Virgin Mary that lives on my grandma's back patio. I tried also to take a picture of the trees in the back yard, but couldn't get them in focus. I was hoping that I would be really good at photography, you know, like some kind of instant prodigy, but I'm not. It would help if I would read the instructions that came with the camera, but why would I want to make it easier? In other news, my cousin Stephanie is going to help me with this stop motion photography project that Lisa Marie and I want to do. Did I write about this before? Can't remember. Well, my parents brought me my childhood dollhouse when they last visited and so I thought it would be fun t o use it to make a short video for YouTube or whatever. The song I want to use is Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know About Us" and it will involve these secret loves that each m ember of the family has. So Steph is finding me a rugged Ken doll and will also supply a plas...

I'm staying at my Aunt JoAnne's and she has some of the best food that I never get to eat such as Cheetos. I don't know how much actual cheese or real food are incorporated into Cheetos (I believe it's 1% cheese powder and 99% chemicals), but I really don't care because they are so good. I am leaving orange fingerprints everywhere I go. I must be careful not to commit a crime before I shower as they will surely be able to track me down. Yesterday, we went to the mall and Best Buy and got my Christmas present. Can you guess what it is? Are you wondering if from here on out you might be inundated by various photos of the cats doing really nothing exceptional? Over and over? You will. Pictured above, you will see a lovely photograph of my one and only mother. Below, please find my most artistic photo to date. Those are the legs of my grandmother. As you can see, I am a natural with the digital camera. Please note that it is 3 degrees above zero and she's wearing sa...

Oh, and cute little rabbit pawprints in the snow which I spotted last night in JoAnne's front yard. We also saw several pheasants dorkily running across the road and Grandpa's farm lit up with white lights. Very pretty and strange too to keep running into these achingly familiar yet distant things like the Hoffman's mailbox and the Giltner water tower and the long stretches of white dotted with cows and horses here and there and brown stalks of corn peeking out of the ground. My Aunt M. brought over a shoebox of old photos from when I was little and also my mom's childhood pictures and it's great and sad to see all of us there, particularly grandpa. There's a photo of him holding me, I'm one year old or so, and he's about to give me a bath in a tub in the kitchen and he's kissing my cheek and seeing it, I thought, Oh, he loved me so so much. How lucky I was to have that and also how hard it was to lose it. Today, we will go back over to Grand Island ...

After traveling for 72 hours yesterday, finally made it to Omaha and then on to Grand Island (where my grandma lives) and then to Giltner (population 204 + me now) . Oops, have to run. More later... A

Went with Lisa Marie and her bf John and my other friend Ingrid S. to a couple of art shows this weekend. For the occasion, I attempted to look more alternative by putting my hair in two side buns ala Princess Leia. I believe I looked slightly like a very special girl who should've also been wearing a crash helmet. At one place, we were crammed into a room with 1,001 hipsters and a man dressed as a woman who was the photographer. Please, please, please God do not let my photo appear on any art web sites; I don't photograph well when I haven't had five minutes to practice my fake smile. I always come off as appearing shocked and discombobulated as though someone has just told me that my skirt is tucked into my underwear. I couldn't tell you what the art was like; there were too many people blocking it. Then we walked 500 blocks to Vox Populi , this great loft space in Chinatown. They had a video installation on running loop; I only saw two of them. The first was a girl f...

We had our last painful graduate class with our theatrical teacher and the assorted cast of characters minus the angry lesbian and the dude who answered his cell phone during class, left to buy soup and slurped it up while we were discussing Lawrence, and checked his email from his laptop. Occasionally, he also said something. Who else? Agnes, whom I love because she has a beautiful accent and is shy and pretty and shares the same name as my grandmother. Molly, my friend and co-worker, who would never look at me during class for fear of bursting out laughing and several times unsuccessfully attempted to open bags of pretzels and failed because of the crinkling noise. The Jesus guy, and a few other people who tried very hard to pretend we were learning something and not just stuck in a show starring our loud, dramatic instructor who boomed out pronouncements in voice loud enough to induce Molly's migraines. On the last night, I presented my analysis of "The Death of Ivan Ilych...

I should not be surprised that instead of admitting any kind of wrong-doing or lying or bullshit or intentional cover-up for financial gain, the president responded to the knowledge that Iran has absolutely no nuclear weapons and halted production four years ago, by saying we should still be afraid. We must still blow them up. I cannot listen to this primate masquerading as a human masquerading as a leader speak. He sounds like an illiterate Southerner. We have a president who cannot pronounce words, you guys. Who sounds as though he's speaking through a mouthful of cotton or the haze of Oxycotin. I'm sure I've said this before, but how is it that we twice elected someone who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear" and instead says "newclur" every single time? I like Barak Obama but I am sure he won't win. I am not confident that Hillary will win either. I honestly don't think our country is progressive enough to elect a female president. We're s...

I swear to you that I never watch these prime time make-over shows, especially after I read that some of the families who had their houses made over later found themselves in big financial trouble because they couldn't afford the taxes on the much bigger property (I think this problem was resolved in later episodes). However, NPR was playing some kind of nerve-jangling jazz and Bravo had on a rerun of Criminal Intent and so I started watching this network show and I swear to God, within four minutes, I was in tears. And you know how I mostly only cry when physically wounded. But come on, this family was ridiculous; a wife and husband and their four adorable tow-headed children, all of whom were suffering from some life-threatening illness that would likely kill them before the end of the hour. It was some kind of blood disease or boy in the plastic bubble disease where they were allergic to oxygen and couldn't eat food but had to be fed through (discrete) feeding tubes. But of...

Instead of wearing hairnets and dumping instant mashed potatoes on plastic trays at a shelter, our office opted to give bodily fluids for the holidays. We all signed up, went to lunch at the Draft Horse beforehand, and then bravely headed to Liacouras Center where we were each asked in turn in three different ways if we had slept with prostitutes, had unprotected sex with someone who was HIV+, had the skin on our body replaced in the last several months, any new tattoos or piercings, or been partying it up in Africa. I held my tongue about my years in the early eighties turning tricks in Haiti while recovering from my heroin addiction brought on by difficult my kidney transplant. One of the best things about my job is the people I work with. Everybody is great in a different way; Greg is unbelievably funny, Alberta is calm and caring, Joe will answer any question you pose without pause or judgement (yesterday, I asked him if he thought he was born in the wrong time period. He didn'...