Two minor points

1. There's a decent amount of farming going on where I live. This is not terribly new to me, Oregon has a lot of rural areas. Of course, what's different is what's grown. Oregon's all about seed, really. But you'll also see a lot of fun crops like strawberries and grapes. Here, I have tobacco fields growing literally across the street from my house.

 

The other day I decided to check the plants out, despite my fear of maybe being shot. Tobacco plants are really kind of pretty, with giant, crepey leaves. And since Bath and Body Works makes that really lovely fragrance called "Tobacco Flower," I assumed the pink flowers would smell good. They didn't smell like anything. I was pretty disappointed.

2. There are a few things that people out here say differently. Roomie says "cut on," in addition to saying "cut off." As in, "will you cut on that light for me?" This makes no sense to me, but he says it's a totally normal thing to say. They also use not just double negatives, but double-positives. As in, "how will we handle this situation? Well, we might could handle it this way ..." Well, maybe the "might" isn't a full positive, but a possible positive. Does that mean a "might could" is, like, a positive-and-a-half? Am I even making sense anymore?

Anyway, that was all a lead-in to one really adorable thing southerners say: they use the word "buggy" instead of "shopping cart." Isn't that cute?

They also, really, genuinely call people "yankees." I mean, I guess I knew that they did, but it still makes me giggle every time I hear it.

Wagon: The thing that I get off and on depending on my mood.

Yesterday was day one of not being a lazy-ass whiner chubby-bunny face-stuffer.

Really. After more than a week of sleeping 10-12 hours a night, and evenings spent in the company of my couch and a bowl of spaghetti (Really, at one point a friend stopped by, and I was watching Sex and the City in the dark, eating a bowl of spaghetti, in a filthy house. He asked, "Where's Roomie?" I told him, monotone, "He's out of town." My friend looked around the room and said, "So, are you just pissing and shitting yourself where you sit, too?" "Uh huh. I'll clean it up before he gets back.") I've decided it's time.

Yesterday, I did my first pilates class in ages, and discovered my that one of my instructors' sister is a poet. Now, when I heard that, I thought, "Oh, poet. Uh huh. Sure. I'm sure she's a real good poet." But it turns out she recently won a prize I was familiar with, and was recently published in Poetry, the journal I have a collection of going back to 2007. She's a real muthafuckin poet, y'all. Not sure why that matters, except to think that there are real poets out there who are related to real people I know somehow lets a tiny light into the black-ass darkness that's descended over my head, Eeyore-style. (Poetess also apparently went to college with a close friend of mine, who doesn't know the pilates instructor. It's all very strange in my world. Everyone knows everyone. Especially ex-boyfriends.)

Then this morning a good friend came and met me and Margaux to walk That Damn Butte, as I decided to name it. "Somehow, today, they made the road to the top extra long and extra steep," I thought all the way up, as my friend's ass disappeared ahead of me as the road curved around the butte. I think it may have had something do do with a) Only getting about 5 hours of sleep last night b) Did I mention all that couch time? All that delicious, wonderful, yummy nummy snoozy couch time? God, I could go lay down right now ... and c) All those cigarettes I've been smoking.

Gasp! Cigarettes! The horror!

You're telling me. I am starting to get wrinkles, people. And even though I quit smoking for almost five months recently, my stupid face decided to start the shadow of one of those heinous smoker lines around my mouth. The thing is, I have a real purdy mouth. Or at least I used to! Wah!

Anyway. One self-improvement project at a time.

Orthopod

Oh, orthopedic boot. I want to write a sonnet for you. If only I remembered how to write sonnets. Maybe Google can assist me … I think iambic pentameter is involved.