How to Dismantle a Birthday Cake: by Cute Niece Rachel

On Gas

Dear Nashville and surrounding areas,

Please calm down. The only reason there is a current gas crisis is because you, dear friend, are in a panicked panic running around filling buckets and travel coffee cups and trash cans and lawn mower gas cans with whatever gas you can find. I saw you at the Spring Hill Shell station, in your gold Lexus, filling as many gas cans as your spacious trunk would hold. It's your fault that my friends can't make it home from work. Please take a moment to step back from yourself and realize that we are all in this together. If you're out of gas, by all means, fill up. If you still have half a tank, take a deep breath and CHILL OUT. You're starting to get on my nerves.

Jo

P.S. If you do manage to find a working gas pump and choose to wait in the long line, here's a tip. Once you pump your precious gas PLEASE DRIVE AWAY FROM THE PUMP. Do not park your car in front of the only working gas pump in fifty miles, go inside the station and buy yourself a candy bar and a coke, take a bathroom break, buy a lottery ticket, and then stroll every so casually out to your car and finally drive away. The good people of Nashville cannot be held responsible for what happens to you.

I Love This Guy

Because I Have A Life, That's Why

TV shows I obsess over and must watch the day they air:
Lost
Heroes
Project Runway
The Office
Fringe
24


TV shows I tivo and am excited to watch:
Biggest Loser
Grey's Anatomy
American Idol
30 Rock
Private Practice
Mad Men
Samantha Who?
American Gladiators
Top Chef
Chuck
Flipping Out
Rob & Big
Jon & Kate Plus 8
Pushing Daisies


TV shows I tivo and might watch if I have time but sometimes I don't:
Ace of Cakes
House
Oprah
Ellen
Man vs. Wild
The Soup
Best Week Ever
Ice Road Truckers
Hell's Kitchen


TV shows I tivo but I don't want you to know that I do:
The Bachelor
America's Next Top Model
Rock of Love
Dancing With the Stars


TV shows I HATE and ABHOR and IRRITATE ME SO but somehow I continue to watch no matter how many times I declare that never again shall I watch:
The Hills

Hit Me Baby One More Time

In a recent fit of trying to be nice a friend said to me, “Try not to think about it!” She was referring to babies, of course. I smiled and said OK. Then the following true story happened:

I spent the weekend attending a one-year-old birthday party complete with pregnant party goers, the third such party in several weeks. Then Monday I got to work and opened two emails from friends containing cute photos of their cute babies. Then an IM popped up on my screen with a cute icon – baby photo. Then I went to lunch with a friend and her cute-as-a-button baby. While we were chatting another friend came by to say hi…with her brand new baby. After lunch I got another email chock full of precious little baby photos when my phone rang – pregnant co-worker asking if I remembered something she couldn’t remember since she was having a “pregnant moment”.

The six o’clock bell couldn’t come soon enough.

That night I decided to watch Medical Mysteries on TLC, sure that it would be safe. Baby free. Turns out it was about a woman trying to get pregnant. I sighed and channel surfed stopping on a TBS re-run of Sex and the City thinking Yes! These women are never going to be talking about or having babies! Turns out Carrie had a pregnancy scare. I watched long enough to see a commercial for First Response HPT and the release of Baby Mama on DVD before I looked for something new to occupy my cluttered thoughts. I found an old episode of Will & Grace on Lifetime and new I was home free! Finally a baby free moment! Turns out Grace was knocked up and Karen was jealous so she hired the make-up counter girl to be her surrogate.

My friend was right. Maybe I should try not to think about it.


Baby.

I Cannot

Weld
Launch a boat
Watch the Olympics without crying
Drive an 18 wheeler
Skip a meal
Turn a cartwheel
Play the banjo
Surf
Concentrate
Style my hair
Do sushi
Dance
Play chess
Speak Maltese
Pee standing up
Own a cat
Wait

Even Though Tomorrow I'll Change My Mind

On the way home tonight I pass by a champagne colored, 90s-ish, Buick/Chevy/sedan/something driven by a tense looking young woman. The car and the young woman are entirely forgettable except for all the I'm Sorrys - bright orange I'm Sorrys written on every window. Nothing more, just I'm Sorry over and over. Obviously a desperate (and no doubt unwelcome) attempt at an apology from what I presume is now an ex-boyfriend. I imagine this outburst was preceded by hundreds of unreturned emails, phone calls and texts. There were probably a few late night visits to her door. Maybe even some calls to her best friend to plead his case. Obviously the young woman wouldn't hear it. Wouldn't answer. She's deleted him from her iPhone, her email contacts and her Facebook. She is DONE with him. So he steps it up a notch, or fifty. He forces her to deal with him by painting her car with his grief, splashing his desperation publicly and maybe even permanently. She's humiliated. When she walked out of work to go home the words burned into her, twisting the pain deeper, and now she's driving straight to the car wash hoping for washable bright orange paint. He doesn't know it yet but this last ditch effort has merely driven her further away from him.

I smirk thinking only an idiot would go to such lengths. Thinking there's no way such desperation could ever win her back. Duh. She's strong and confident. She knows she deserves better. But as I drive, my thoughts towards him begin to soften. This poor guy is trying to make amends. Trying to move forward. Trying to heal something terribly broken. No matter what went wrong, he’s trying to make it right.

He is sorry.


My old self has started quietly resurfacing - scattered emails from fans of my first book, old friends who ask what I'm working on these days, questions about my "writing career" (ha!) and what my new book is about. I usually stutter and stammer and say something sarcastic, unsure of how to respond, how to explain these past few years in a casual reply. The only thing that comes to mind is I'm Sorry.

I'm Sorry to my old life, the life where the words flowed out of me. Back when I had something to say. Back when my general disposition was hilariousness and fun. Back when I was on the brink of being a real writer.

I'm Sorry that I lost my publishing deal and then sort of drifted for a while. I'm Sorry I wasn't able to get my crap together. Sorry that my blog is boring. Sorry I don't write hilarious and poignant words that continue to get better instead of slowly getting worse.

But before I take a spray paint can to my heart and declare that GEEZ I'M SORRY ALREADY, I have an announcement.

I'm.
Not.
Sorry.

Sure, my life hasn't gone the way I believed it would and, dare I say it, maybe not even the way it should have gone. Things have happened that have stunned me silent. The course of my life shifted and I never did regain my balance. I’ve blathered on and on about some of these things to no end. No real writing, just a general “life sucks” every couple weeks. But all in all, I’m still here. I've survived. Am surviving.

And I've decided that I'm not going to care anymore. I’m not going to care what the words are; just let them come as they will. I’m going to read again without the pressure to write. Write again without the pressure to perform. Be who I am instead of worrying about who I could have been.