So, I was just on Facebook reading all of my "friend's" and actual friend's updates and someone commented on a research article about texting and driving and I totally remembered that I forgot to tell you this funny thing.
It's not really funny in a big picture sort of way, but it was hilarious at the time.
Okay, so last week we were stopped in traffic at a red light. Pretty heavy traffic, not much movement even when we weren't stopped at a light. Three lanes - two going straight, one turning. We're patiently waiting, chatting...the turning lane gets the green light and the guy beside us (in the other NON-turning lane) steps on the gas and plows into the SUV in front of him!
He was texting while at the red light and caught the forward movement of the cars going in the turning lane, I'm assuming in his peripheral vision, and just WENT. Ohmygod! He hit that SUV hard enough to crumple his hood. Smoke was pouring out! And the light is still red and we're all still just sitting there, him in his smoking, now crumpled and undriveable car. Hee. Obviously nobody was hurt. The SUV didn't even have a scratch on it.
The guy's pride was hurt probably more than anything. And it was so damn surreal it was funny.
A huge pet peeve of mine is people talking and texting on their cell phones while driving. I suppose stopped at a traffic light is a little different, although clearly that too can cause traffic problems if you're really engrossed in a conversation.
I swear, everytime some driver is doing something dangerous or inconsiderate, they are almost ALWAYS on the phone. So annoying.
6.28.2010
6.16.2010
A Few Random Points of Interest (Or Not)
1. It might be June here in Nashville, but it feels like August...in Hades.
2. My friend Donna visited me and Daniel over Memorial Day weekend and in the middle of her visit, had to have an emergency appendectomy due to a ruptured appendix. She is the worst houseguest EVER! ;)
3. During her stay at a Nashville hospital, Donna was treated to not only Southern hospitality, but multiple infections which turned up as nasty abcesses 2 weeks later. She is now in an Erie hospital recovering from another surgery to her midsection.
4. If you come visit me, please make sure your organs are all in good working condition.
5. Daniel's birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday! I made him a birthday cake. From a box. And frosted it with chocolate frosting. From a tub. It was really all I could manage.
6. I bought three lovely hanging baskets full of purple flowers a few weeks ago. They are now mostly dead due to...??? I HAVE NO IDEA! I water the little fuckers. I make sure they have sun. I don't know what to do with them.
7. First step to getting nursery ready is underway. This involves getting estimates from contractors to fix the walls which are beyond our skill level.
8. Our neighbor's outdoor cat has become very fond of us (could be the treats we give her) and has taken to sleeping in our garage and meeting us at our back door every evening when we come home from work. Miss Razzy Fluffybutt. She does not like Addison one little bit, much to his dismay.
9. Anybody else out there a fan of Edy's Lime Juice Bars (Or popsicles - let's just call 'em what they are)? SO good. Just the right amount of pucker.
10. I have always wanted to fashion a hat like this for Gwendolyn. But I'm too chicken. She'll cut a bitch.
2. My friend Donna visited me and Daniel over Memorial Day weekend and in the middle of her visit, had to have an emergency appendectomy due to a ruptured appendix. She is the worst houseguest EVER! ;)
3. During her stay at a Nashville hospital, Donna was treated to not only Southern hospitality, but multiple infections which turned up as nasty abcesses 2 weeks later. She is now in an Erie hospital recovering from another surgery to her midsection.
4. If you come visit me, please make sure your organs are all in good working condition.
5. Daniel's birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday! I made him a birthday cake. From a box. And frosted it with chocolate frosting. From a tub. It was really all I could manage.
6. I bought three lovely hanging baskets full of purple flowers a few weeks ago. They are now mostly dead due to...??? I HAVE NO IDEA! I water the little fuckers. I make sure they have sun. I don't know what to do with them.
7. First step to getting nursery ready is underway. This involves getting estimates from contractors to fix the walls which are beyond our skill level.
8. Our neighbor's outdoor cat has become very fond of us (could be the treats we give her) and has taken to sleeping in our garage and meeting us at our back door every evening when we come home from work. Miss Razzy Fluffybutt. She does not like Addison one little bit, much to his dismay.
9. Anybody else out there a fan of Edy's Lime Juice Bars (Or popsicles - let's just call 'em what they are)? SO good. Just the right amount of pucker.
10. I have always wanted to fashion a hat like this for Gwendolyn. But I'm too chicken. She'll cut a bitch.
6.07.2010
34 and Pregnant
Alright, I’m coming clean with y’all. On December 1st, a brand new human being, entirely dependent upon Daniel and me, will emerge from my body. Assuming all goes as planned. Though some of you are already aware of this information, I’ve been dodgy about making a GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT, for reasons of which I am not entirely sure.
All my adult life, I have wavered in my desire to have children. One minute I’d be imagining building a treehouse with a dorky little curly-haired kid and the next minute I’d think “kids!? Oh heck no, I’ve got more important things to do!.” Everybody has kids. Being a parent automatically makes you typical. And if there’s one thing that really puts a knot in my underpants, it’s being typical. Being a parent suddenly means your days of selfishness are O.V.E.R. Travel, career, sleep, sex – lots of things you are able to enjoy and pursue with abandon as a non-parent, become difficult or even impossible once your status changes.
I guess something happens when you find that person. You know the one. The one with whom, impossibly, you connect on unimaginable levels. And the prospect of sharing a parenting adventure with that person and imparting little pieces of your selves into a new life is thrilling. And then you think, “there’s nothing more important to me than this”.
That’s when you look at yourself in the mirror and think, “whoa! Who ARE you? And what have you done with Cathryn?”
Then suddenly you’re pregnant and that’s when things get really freaky.
I have never ever fantasized about, or even imagined myself being pregnant. It’s like, my self-identity does not include being pregnant. Being pregnant is not a part of who I am. And yet, here I am, for another 6 months incubating a little parasite. The body you thought you knew so intimately, becomes very unfamiliar and frankly it’s unsettling, bordering on scary. Hormones make you exceedingly cranky and weepy. Nausea sneaks up on you for no apparent reason and punches you in the gut several times a day. Foods you’ve loved all your life now make you vomit. Your brain clearly remembers being able to stay up late into the night having fun, but now you’re lucky if you make it to 8:30. So far, pregnancy has been mostly disorienting and frustrating. I am impatiently waiting for the day my “glow” arrives.
Then 2 weeks ago we went to the doctor and she pressed this Doppler thingy to my abdomen and all I could hear was the strong steady heartbeat of the person developing beneath my skin and I was deliriously happy and beyond excited.
Bizarre and wonderful.
So even though I seem to be going through something of an identity crisis, and occasional deluges of self-doubt, and my body is not behaving as it has always behaved, FEAR NOT, Daniel and I are both tickled about this new adventure upon which we are embarking. Parenthood.
I think I’ll take a deep breath and go re-watch that movie now. I love the kid with the bucket on his head! – “he likes to butt things with his head”.
All my adult life, I have wavered in my desire to have children. One minute I’d be imagining building a treehouse with a dorky little curly-haired kid and the next minute I’d think “kids!? Oh heck no, I’ve got more important things to do!.” Everybody has kids. Being a parent automatically makes you typical. And if there’s one thing that really puts a knot in my underpants, it’s being typical. Being a parent suddenly means your days of selfishness are O.V.E.R. Travel, career, sleep, sex – lots of things you are able to enjoy and pursue with abandon as a non-parent, become difficult or even impossible once your status changes.
I guess something happens when you find that person. You know the one. The one with whom, impossibly, you connect on unimaginable levels. And the prospect of sharing a parenting adventure with that person and imparting little pieces of your selves into a new life is thrilling. And then you think, “there’s nothing more important to me than this”.
That’s when you look at yourself in the mirror and think, “whoa! Who ARE you? And what have you done with Cathryn?”
Then suddenly you’re pregnant and that’s when things get really freaky.
I have never ever fantasized about, or even imagined myself being pregnant. It’s like, my self-identity does not include being pregnant. Being pregnant is not a part of who I am. And yet, here I am, for another 6 months incubating a little parasite. The body you thought you knew so intimately, becomes very unfamiliar and frankly it’s unsettling, bordering on scary. Hormones make you exceedingly cranky and weepy. Nausea sneaks up on you for no apparent reason and punches you in the gut several times a day. Foods you’ve loved all your life now make you vomit. Your brain clearly remembers being able to stay up late into the night having fun, but now you’re lucky if you make it to 8:30. So far, pregnancy has been mostly disorienting and frustrating. I am impatiently waiting for the day my “glow” arrives.
Then 2 weeks ago we went to the doctor and she pressed this Doppler thingy to my abdomen and all I could hear was the strong steady heartbeat of the person developing beneath my skin and I was deliriously happy and beyond excited.
Bizarre and wonderful.
So even though I seem to be going through something of an identity crisis, and occasional deluges of self-doubt, and my body is not behaving as it has always behaved, FEAR NOT, Daniel and I are both tickled about this new adventure upon which we are embarking. Parenthood.
I think I’ll take a deep breath and go re-watch that movie now. I love the kid with the bucket on his head! – “he likes to butt things with his head”.
5.26.2010
Disconnected
Nearly 4 years ago on Yahoo, at the suggestion of a friend who lives far away, I started this little turd of a blog. My friend was convinced this blogging thing would be an effective way to keep up with each others’ lives and feel more connected even though, geographically speaking, we were very very disconnected. As a new arrival in Nashville, knowing absolutely NO ONE here, it seemed like a good idea to me; a seductive lifeline to keep loneliness at bay.
The blogosphere wasn’t completely foreign to me. I had been reading the two separate blogs of long-distance friends on Live Journal for a few months and it really DID seem to let me into their lives a little despite the fact that we saw each other face-to-face maybe once a year. I was convinced that reading about their lives, even though I wasn’t a participant, connected us in a unique way.
And yet, recently I have seriously considered the cessation of all blogging endeavors because increasingly it is making me sad and leaving me feeling ever more disconnected, the exact opposite effect for which it was intended.
Here’s the problem: relationships of any kind require two-way interaction. It’s not enough for me to broadcast my life to the world without any kind of feedback or exchange. If I read about someone’s life and do not comment, there is no relationship. Worse perhaps, if I DO comment on someone’s blog and they do not respond to or acknowledge the feedback, there is no relationship. I am guilty of all of the above.
While blogging, Facebook, and Twitter seem like reasonable solutions to the problem of loneliness experienced by a more and more mobile population, for me personally, utilizing these tools has made me feel more isolated than ever. Of course I actively participate in my own life – and I love my life – but through blogging and Facebook, I am merely an outside observer to the lives of my friends.
To say that blogging (and Twitter, Facebook, even email) is anti-social and enhances disconnectedness is to render the user(s) blameless. If someone tries to use technological communication as a sole means of maintaining relationships, they are probably using it in the wrong way. But that’s what it’s come to. I have never been a heavy phone user – just not my preferred medium. Never has been. Especially now with cell phones, lengthy long distance phone calls can be made cumbersome with fuzzy or sporadic reception. And I simply do not make time to really get comfortable and have a long phone conversation where I am focused 100% on the person I’m talking to. It’s dreadful, but it seems somehow decadent to laze around on the phone doing absolutely nothing but talking (I absolutely refuse to talk on the phone while driving).
I use to write extensive letters to maintain contact and relationships with long distance friends. Then I switched to email. It was faster. But with faster, came higher expectations. Replies should be quicker, right? But we all get so much fucking email every single day. And soon the email I intended to reply to has been lingering in my inbox for well over a month and I feel like I should respond but I can’t just type off a quick response, it has to be meaningful or what’s the point? So it lingers still while I try to find time to reply properly.
A year ago, after much deliberation, I finally bit the bullet and joined Facebook thinking this, at last, was the perfect way to be connected to friends. Alas. I despise Facebook. Obviously I’m in the minority. I guess I just don’t get it; I don’t appreciate it or enjoy it the way others seem to. Perhaps if I actually posted something, anything, to my Facebook page, I would feel more connected. The problem is that I rarely think I have anything evenly remotely interesting to post. Again, obviously I am in the minority in my thinking.
Anyway, I guess partly why I’ve lapsed in my blogging endeavors lately is that sometimes it just seems mostly pointless and only serves to make me feel even more disconnected than I already do.
Don’t think that I solely lay the blame of my isolation feelings at the feet of technology. I seem to go through hermit phases – some more lengthy than others – where I find it difficult to participate in anyone’s life but my own. I think it’s genetic. I suppose this blog post could indicate I am emerging from one of these phases. We’ll see.
The blogosphere wasn’t completely foreign to me. I had been reading the two separate blogs of long-distance friends on Live Journal for a few months and it really DID seem to let me into their lives a little despite the fact that we saw each other face-to-face maybe once a year. I was convinced that reading about their lives, even though I wasn’t a participant, connected us in a unique way.
And yet, recently I have seriously considered the cessation of all blogging endeavors because increasingly it is making me sad and leaving me feeling ever more disconnected, the exact opposite effect for which it was intended.
Here’s the problem: relationships of any kind require two-way interaction. It’s not enough for me to broadcast my life to the world without any kind of feedback or exchange. If I read about someone’s life and do not comment, there is no relationship. Worse perhaps, if I DO comment on someone’s blog and they do not respond to or acknowledge the feedback, there is no relationship. I am guilty of all of the above.
While blogging, Facebook, and Twitter seem like reasonable solutions to the problem of loneliness experienced by a more and more mobile population, for me personally, utilizing these tools has made me feel more isolated than ever. Of course I actively participate in my own life – and I love my life – but through blogging and Facebook, I am merely an outside observer to the lives of my friends.
To say that blogging (and Twitter, Facebook, even email) is anti-social and enhances disconnectedness is to render the user(s) blameless. If someone tries to use technological communication as a sole means of maintaining relationships, they are probably using it in the wrong way. But that’s what it’s come to. I have never been a heavy phone user – just not my preferred medium. Never has been. Especially now with cell phones, lengthy long distance phone calls can be made cumbersome with fuzzy or sporadic reception. And I simply do not make time to really get comfortable and have a long phone conversation where I am focused 100% on the person I’m talking to. It’s dreadful, but it seems somehow decadent to laze around on the phone doing absolutely nothing but talking (I absolutely refuse to talk on the phone while driving).
I use to write extensive letters to maintain contact and relationships with long distance friends. Then I switched to email. It was faster. But with faster, came higher expectations. Replies should be quicker, right? But we all get so much fucking email every single day. And soon the email I intended to reply to has been lingering in my inbox for well over a month and I feel like I should respond but I can’t just type off a quick response, it has to be meaningful or what’s the point? So it lingers still while I try to find time to reply properly.
A year ago, after much deliberation, I finally bit the bullet and joined Facebook thinking this, at last, was the perfect way to be connected to friends. Alas. I despise Facebook. Obviously I’m in the minority. I guess I just don’t get it; I don’t appreciate it or enjoy it the way others seem to. Perhaps if I actually posted something, anything, to my Facebook page, I would feel more connected. The problem is that I rarely think I have anything evenly remotely interesting to post. Again, obviously I am in the minority in my thinking.
Anyway, I guess partly why I’ve lapsed in my blogging endeavors lately is that sometimes it just seems mostly pointless and only serves to make me feel even more disconnected than I already do.
Don’t think that I solely lay the blame of my isolation feelings at the feet of technology. I seem to go through hermit phases – some more lengthy than others – where I find it difficult to participate in anyone’s life but my own. I think it’s genetic. I suppose this blog post could indicate I am emerging from one of these phases. We’ll see.
5.05.2010
High & Dry
Rest assured Joanna, Daniel and I (and the cats) survived the Nashville deluge. It was an unprecendented rainfall event this past weekend and many Nashvillians sustained devastating loss and damage due to the flash flooding. We were very fortunate and lost nothing. Not even power. Our house remained dry. Our yard and trees remained intact. And our vehicles are fine.
The creek on our property which is normally 3 feet or so across became a raging 15-20foot wide river and flooded out the bridge at the end of our street. A few of our neighbors had some serious flooding in their basements, but no one has been displaced like in some parts of the city.
Some of the low lying areas are nearly completely submerged. Still. Schools have been closed all week as well as many businesses and government agencies. Public transportation has been suspended. Many roads are still closed due to non-receding water or flood damage. We have been mandated to conserve water and use it only for drinking and cooking. There are suddenly hundreds of homeless folks living in temporary shelters across the city. Some people lost everything.
The volunteer efforts have been phenomenal (they don't call this the Volunteer state for nothing!). Despite the tragedies, it has been heartwarming to see the outpouring of kindness and compassion towards those whose lives have been dramatically altered.
If you want to donate to the Nashville Red Cross flood relief effort, you can do so by simply texting REDCROSS to 90999. An automatic donation of $10.00 will be made and will be charged to your next phone bill.
The creek on our property which is normally 3 feet or so across became a raging 15-20foot wide river and flooded out the bridge at the end of our street. A few of our neighbors had some serious flooding in their basements, but no one has been displaced like in some parts of the city.
Some of the low lying areas are nearly completely submerged. Still. Schools have been closed all week as well as many businesses and government agencies. Public transportation has been suspended. Many roads are still closed due to non-receding water or flood damage. We have been mandated to conserve water and use it only for drinking and cooking. There are suddenly hundreds of homeless folks living in temporary shelters across the city. Some people lost everything.
The volunteer efforts have been phenomenal (they don't call this the Volunteer state for nothing!). Despite the tragedies, it has been heartwarming to see the outpouring of kindness and compassion towards those whose lives have been dramatically altered.
If you want to donate to the Nashville Red Cross flood relief effort, you can do so by simply texting REDCROSS to 90999. An automatic donation of $10.00 will be made and will be charged to your next phone bill.
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