The God of Dinosaurs

There is something truly magical about a home made fried egg sandwich.  I should know because I just ate two and got sticky yellow stuff all over my work clothes and I wasn’t even mad because you can’t feel anything but a sort of confused delight when you are ingesting a fried egg sandwich.  Fried egg sandwiches turn you into the human version of a yellow lab (because yolks are yellow, not black or chocolate).  You love everyone and a warm fuzzy feeling starts in your toes and makes you crinkle your nose.  And then you take a nap on the couch with a piece of burlap because if you touch anything warmer or fuzzier than that you will burst into a shower of confetti.  You have to be careful, all the kings horses and men can’t rebuild you from confetti.

The secret to the egg sandwich, the thing that takes it above and beyond all other sandwiches, even the BLT, is chili flakes.  I did not know this.  In fact, until I ran away to Tampa, Fl last spring I thought the fried egg sandwich was an abomination.  It was an act against god.  Consuming any kind of egg not hidden safely away in a prison of flour and chocolate chips was a sin on par with murder or not loving Transformers in my mind.

You see, when I was a wee young thing, I ate approximately 16 billion colored eggs one Easter.  I remember peeling the shell off and being delighted that I was about to consume something that was kinda blue a little bit.  At least it was blue where the egg had cracked because it had been dyed by a herd of shrieking 6-to-10-year-olds who had consumed their own weight in cheap, egg-shaped chocolate.  And then, as wee young things are wont to do after eating a lifetime worth of chocolate eggs and normal eggs, I spent the next 24 hours vomiting terrifyingly colorful egg scented vomit all over everything, everywhere.  

It was years before I could walk past the dairy section in the grocery store without reliving that sulfur-y nightmare.  Christmas parties with deviled eggs became protracted, glittery torture sessions.  Chickens became little satanic minions that left their horrible thin-shelled organic grenades strewn around my yard like little Vietcong man traps, but with less death and maiming and more irrational horror.  That is how much I hated eggs.

Until I had my first homemade fried egg sandwich during a particularly brutal hangover in Florida.

It was like being crowned by Aslan.  It was like Hagrid showed up at my door, handed me a sandwich and told me I was going to be a wizard.  This sandwich was all of my dreams cooked, seasoned with salt, pepper and red chili flakes, covered in cheese, and handed to me on a plate forged by the hands of God.  And now I can’t stop eating them.  I think I’ve eaten another 16 million eggs in the last 6 months.  My arteries are probably slippery with fat and cholesterol.  The doctor could scrape it out and form little chickens that would lay little eggs.  Little eggs that I would give to geneticists who would regress their little chicken chromosomes until they became dinosaurs and then I would be the God of dinosaurs.  And that is why fried egg sandwiches are awesome.

Oh hey, I have some news

As many of you may or may not know, I have been working towards joining the Army.  Why?  You may ask.  Or maybe What?  I don’t know, I’m not you (most of the time).  The point is, I've spent the last 2 years since graduation working a variety of miserable jobs and living the way that my guidance counselor told me I was going to live if I didn’t go to college, did drugs, and spent three years as a moderately priced escort in Tulsa.  Poorly, is what I'm trying to illustrate for those of you who find nothing particularly wrong with my previous sentence.  Sure, I could move in with my parents and live comfortably and quietly.  At least, it will be comfortable until I slowly go insane from lack of occupation and crushing sense of involuntary dependency which I'm not supposed to feel until my children move me into an old folks home at 85 because I keep forgetting to turn off the oven or I put the cat in the fridge.  Or really if I got a cat at all since I'm remarkably allergic to them.  But I didn’t pay $80,000 to GVSU for that nonsense.

I want to be a god-damned grown up, is what I'm saying.  A real one, like the kind they put on sit coms, who are awkwardly funny but ultimately included in more positive sociopolitical statistics than negative ones.  I want to be someone like Mr. Feeny, but younger and, you know, a girl.  Someone who would never appear on “Everyone Loves Raymond.”  Seriously, root canals are written better than the stunningly retarded crap that show still manages to spew into the air on a daily basis. 

I want to wake up in the morning with a schedule and the knowledge that my unique skill set is being utilized, valued, and improved upon, instead of ignored and occasionally actively discouraged.  Ahem, housekeeping, ahem.  I want to buy a car that I didnt find after three weeks of research on craigs list.  Maybe even one that is less than 15 years old!  I know its a lot to ask, but I've always been a big dreamer.  I want to buy gas and food on the same pay check.  I want to drink overpriced micro-brews.  I want my life to have a point, a purpose, something more meaningful than making sure little Suzy's rental clarinet paperwork is in perfect order.  Maybe its simply my perspective, growing up as a military brat, but the military offers that and so much more.

This leads to me to purpose of my post today, my reason for hopping up onto this dusty and disused soapbox I constructed over a year ago.  If you try to talk me out of it I will punch in the throat.  And you'll never be able to talk again.  It will be a punch to end all punches and your vocal cords will fuse together into a useless, but awesome, vocal rope.  (You will, however, be eligible to be my arch-nemesis after I gain superhero status from signing up for every possible weird CIA experiment they have to offer.)  First of all, telling anyone who has the balls to join the military that their choice is wrong is a shitty thing to do.  You wouldn't do that to a teacher, a cop or a fireman, don't do that to a future soldier.  It hurts my feelings and makes me doubt myself at a time when I need to be running around like I just won at life and my prize is the library from Beauty and the Beast.  Or whatever the super bad-ass equivalent of that library is.  

Unrealized fantasies aside, it is downright mean to look at someone who is telling you their incredibly personal, meaningful and life changing decision and treat them like they made this choice out of some weird blend of idiocy and misinformation.  Second, why would you do that to me?  I have a purpose again, a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and your first instinct is to sabotage it?  Some of you reading this know how awful it is to not have any meaningful reason to stagger across the floor in the morning.  Better yet, I've lost 15 lbs, and I'm going to lose more because pushups get easier with every pound that disappears.  I can see my abs for the first time ever.  Literally ever, even in high school I could not see my abs.  I have never seen my abs and now in the morning I can look in the mirror and there they are, existing and doing ab things.  

I'm becoming healthier, stronger, and happier.  The United State Army gave me a reason to do something with my body and mind beyond finding ways to tolerate work in between marathon pinterest sessions.  You can be afraid, I know that I’m afraid.  You can be upset that I'm leaving after finally coming back to Michigan.  You can hug me, you can high five me, you can buy me a beer because I’m pretty sure that once boot camp rolls around I’m gonna need some happy memories to weave into some kind of Drill Sergent repelling patronus.  But don't tell me I'm making the wrong choice.  Be proud that I have devoted myself to a greater purpose.  Be proud that I find you all such a wonderful group of people that I am willing to step forward and devote myself to your safety and freedom.  That is how much I fucking love you.

The Grocery Store Novel

I have decided to write a novel.  It will not be an amazing novel that moves heaven and earth.  It will not be the literary work of my generation.  It will not have long obfuscating passages of metaphor despite how much I use metaphors on this blog.

This book will be a book for the masses.  It will be comfortable on grocery store shelves and it will be at home on Barnes and Noble bookcases.  It will appeal to teens and women.  It will have a heroine who is archetypal enough to appeal to the masses, and be easy for most to relate to, but unique enough that her quirks make her charming and endear her to the reader.

It will be much cheaper to buy as an ebook.  Why?  Because for gods sake no one getting the ebook will be paying for the paper or the ink!  I will not rip off my readers because I love them and I want them to love me so they will buy the sequel.

I firmly believe that the grocery store novel is completely underestimated.  Think about how many people 'Twilight' has reached.  How many do you think have read 'Infinite Jest'?  I want to write on par with the greats, but I want to pay off my student loans more.  I want to pay off my student loans and live in a small and cozy white house in a rural area.  Grocery store literature is my ticket there.

I miss my dog

The other night, I had a dream.  Its was a good dream, probably because I was not all strung out on pain killers.  In this dream, something glorious happened to me.  I had a pet dog.  I know, its not like I was flying around on a golden dragon strafing the land below me with its fiery breath.  It was a more homely awesome, a more comfortable type of stupendous.  As nice as dragons are, sometimes dreaming about a dog and a nice house is more awesome than flying a destructive menace.

I was also growing lavender.

This dog was a great dog.  His name was Ben and he was probably the size of a large pony.  I lived with Ben in a little white house, and we took part in many awesome activities, including reading by the fire and sitting on the porch.  Ben also could often be seen standing in a photogenic pose.

Normally, this would not be something wroth mentioning.  Unfortunately, due to the sheer irrationality of my subconscious, I am taking the loss of my imaginary dog harder than I expected.  that’s right, I miss Ben.  I miss him like the desert misses the rain.  I am literally pining after the dog that I never really owned.

I can’t help it.  Ben was a great dog, he had many fine dog qualities and he was really handsome.  He had an expressive face.  He would sit on my imaginary couch with me, which was tastefully arranged with my other imaginary furniture in my imaginary house.  We watched the discovery channel together.

See how serious this has gotten?  I feel like I lived years of my life out in my dream world doing activities and stuff with Ben.  And now he’s gone.  What if he is sitting next to an empty dog bowl in my subconscious looking around for me with big sad eyes?  Who will water my lavender plants?  I don’t remember anyone existing in this dream world except Ben, so I’m going to go with no one.

I can’t believe I’m lonely for my imaginary dog.  This is ridiculous.

Holy cheese and crackers I cant stop reading.

I did something embarrassing, again. 

I went to the library and I got 4 TrueBlood books, and then I read them all in one sitting.  I know, it was bad enough that I got addicted to the HBO series sensation, but now I have started to read the borderline-smut associated with it as well. I cant stop.  I feel like Gollum, but with books instead of cursed jewelery.  I literally stopped sleeping and communicating, I lived like a hobo on the living room floor and my mother had to coax me to the kitchen for food with a trail of breadcrumbs and cheese.

I love it.  I haven’t found a book series that kept me enthralled like this one in ages and ages.  Okay, maybe not ages and ages, but at least like 2 months.  It may not be Paradise Lost, but it think this is the perfect book series for my retirement/exile to Virginia.  For one thing, my understanding of southern lingo is greatly improved, and I can hold it over Boyfriend's head that I know what happens next.

I like these books so much, I went to the library to get them.  And I hate the library.  I hate the library so much!  I am of the firm opinion that since I shared the womb I should never be required to share anything again, ever.  I should especially never have to share anything that I have read.

And I know its bad, this addiction, because not only am I going to the library now that I am unemployed and don’t have enough money to get my own digital Nook copies, I am now mad at the library for not being open on a Sunday.  (By the way, if I am not consuming paper, why does my copy cost as much as a paperback?  I am funding significantly less labor for my digital copy than I am for my paper one.  The price difference should be far greater than it is.  And for those of you who charge $12.99 for your digital book, you have obviously slipped down the slippery slope of Delusion into Fantasy-Land.)

My anger makes no sense, I know it makes no sense.  I would be less mad at my doctor if I broke my leg for not being open on Sunday than I am at the library not being open so I can read more TrueBlood novels.  If the library had a consciousness it would eject me like a snot wad because it would know how much disdain I have for it. Yet, like an addict, i am running back to the thing I hate just so I can have more of my drug.

I read so much yesterday, that when our company came over, I literally couldn’t talk.  My brain was so overloaded from 20 hours of constant reading that I couldn’t form thoughts.  Except for the thought that “I don’t want to eat dinner I want to read my book.”  I told one of my friends that if my parents interrupted me again for something stupid, like eating or feeding the dogs or moving for the vacuum cleaner, that I would murder the whole world and read quietly in the rubble and no one could ever bother me again.

That my friends, in the definition of an over-reaction.

Vomiting like I'm possessed. Not ideal.

I don’t get sick often.  At all.  So I am blaming this last year of illness on Boyfriend.  I'm being serious.  I had nearly perfect attendance all through high school, as well as freshman, sophomore, and junior years at GVSU.  I was untouched by the taint of disease, and I got to laugh at everyone when they got the flu, and then I would drive them to the Urgent Care and offer them crackers.  That's what friends do.


Until I got a boyfriend.  I knew I should have stuck with my premise that boys have cooties, but he tricked me with his James Bond charm.  And then, like an evil mastermind, got me sick all the time while never actually getting sick himself.  What a goober.


Boyfriend still contends that my sudden onslaught of illness was not his fault.  But, he is the only variable, so scientifically it is his fault.  Also, it is because I say so, and last week I tricked him into agreeing that everything I say is right.

Never did I have to have someone drive me to urgent care before.  Such a thing was unheard of.  But, this year, I was driven to urgent care by either Boyfriend, Melania, or Jessica on four separate occasions.  I caught everything, even the possibility of breast cancer.  Seriously, they thought I had it.  I got an ultrasound and everything, luckily it was just a cyst.  Probably triggered by the fact I had been non-stop sick for 6 months.  Or the stress of senior year.  Or the stress of thinking I have cancer (stupid body).  One of those things.

Anyway, my senior year I had strep, a sinus infection, the swine flu and cysts.  Not to mention a near constant cold.  I’m surprised I have friends left, I hated being around me, I cant imagine why they would have wanted to.  I was basically an unpleasant mass on the couch that made ‘snorfle’ sounds into tissues all winter, along with occasionally hacking up god knows what.

No one likes people who cough stuff up.  Especially me.  Spitting out my own toothpaste makes me nauseous, I have to leave the water on so it goes away ASAP or I will seriously consider gagging in the sink and never brushing my teeth again.  Coughing out unsterilized blogs of ick is even worse.

I bring this up because I woke up today with the pressing need to vomit like the girl on the Exorcist.  So I did.  And then I did it again.  And again.  And again.

Of course, this illness makes perfect sense because I hang out with… my mom, and well… I go nowhere?  Nowhere.  Why am I sick?  Unless the Perfectly Normal Man, sensing that I am onto his shenanigans, is trying to possess me there is no good reason for this.

Tumbling Down

One of my greatest talents is climbing up things and falling off them.  I know, everyone gets jealous, but I assure you, through these anecdotes you will learn how to gracefully clamber up anything only to awkwardly tumble off at a later time.  If you practice enough, you could develop this into a charming personality trait that will find you friends, acquaintances, significants, even youtube fame.  (I'm still working on the last one, but, like all truly great endeavors, its a constant work in progress)

One of my favorite pastimes, as a child and even now, was climbing up tall things.  I was the first one to defy gravity of my sisters.  Unfortunately, I didn’t really plan out my strategy as well as I could have, and I ended up trapped in a 4 foot tall apple tree, hanging by one stuck leg, sobbing, while Twin ran and got my mother.  To be fair, four feet is pretty high when you are only like 2 feet tall, and I was wearing a dress so climbing down was really hard. 

Thankfully, I did all of my early climbing in dresses, because I refused to pants until this kid in kindergarten (A ginger named Alex) made fun of me and I didn’t wear a dress again until I was 16.  I feel this made me much more confident in my skills, while actually making me less adept at climbing.

Regrettably, no amount of dress climbing could prepare me for a lesson I learned several years later.  I’m sure many of you have learned this lesson the hard way as well.  It is the dead branch lesson.  If you want your fall through time and space to make a truly magnificent impression, the dead branch fall is the way to go.  I was perhaps eight at the time, and climbing a tree that stuck out from a hillside.  I was a bold and daring adventurer.  I was discovering a new world as my sisters and father cavorted below.  I scoffed at them and their earth-bound natures. 

I scoffed my way right onto a dead branch that snapped and sent me plummeting 16 feet to the ground.  This was a fall so epic that my mother, in our apartment three floors up and 30 yards away, heard the crash and looked out to see her cherished oldest daughter sprawled out on the earth like a starfish.  Thankfully, by the time she made it down the stairs I had stopped gasping for air and was reasonably sure I would not suffocate on the choking lumps of hindsight that were clogging my lungs and whispering 'I told you so'.

You would think, after my epic failure to defeat the laws of gravity as an 8 year old, I would become somewhat more circumspect in my adventures.  You would be wrong.  Over the following years I have fallen face first, fallen of cliffs, tripped over string and fallen into holes in the ground, fallen of roofs, fallen of fences, fallen out of at least 30 more trees, and fallen out of my van.  I have perfected my art.

I did not know it at the time, but there was a reason for all this falling.  You see, once again I was frolicking carelessly about, this time in a snowball fight at college.  And, let me just tell you, all those years of war games with other military children paid off because I was winning.  I was Alexander the Great, if he was conquering an icy driveway in boots and a sweater dress.  And, like all tyrants, I fell.  I didn’t just fall, I bit it.  It was a cartoon character tumble, a feet-going-up-over-my-head epic spill.  And that was when boyfriend noticed how stupendous I was. 


Got out, little birds, and fall epically.  It's how you make friends.