It's the Grey's Anatomy season finale, and I WILL NOT ANSWER. So don't even think about it.

Yeah yeah, I know I've gotten out of the blogging groove. It's not intentional, exactly -- part of it is boredom, sort of, and another small part has to do with what The Universe sent me today:


So yeah, I'm kind of in mourning, sort of. Not like the-curled-up- on-the-couch-unshowered-and-convinced-that-my-house-is-bugged kind of mourning I'm prone to. It's more like the horrible dread you feel when something or someone you've loved and respected for so long disappoints you for the last time, and with that final action you can't go back to the way it was no matter what. You're not sure what's worse -- the hurt over the action, or the anger over thinking that you had something to do with it even though it wasn't your fault and never was, but yet you've still got this feeling inside your head that maybe if you just did something different, it wouldn't be like this. Doesn't make for real interesting conversation, that, as Snidge can attest.

But I AM having fun feeding my iPod -- just gave it some Barenaked Ladies and The Police.

The new machines apparently don't interface well with the old machines, so all the totals need to be hand-tallied is the word coming out of the guvmint center. And all I can think to myself is, "Y'all couldn't have tested this shit BEFORE THE PRIMARY, MAYBE!?? Just a thought." Dumbasses. So now, the paper will have to spend another entire issue devoted to results, which is, like, whatever.

All I covered tonight was school board stuff, which was fine because it was my last official story on the one school board I covered with regularity. And since I refuse tono longer cover them, I feel no compunction in saying that today was a sad, sad day in Highland, because the town just reelected the man who was in no small part responsible for running the district into the ground. No small wonder since he spent the last 3 1/2 years bad-mouthing all the efforts of the current board, of course, but that's how they roll over there. This is not to say that the current board was puppies and sunshine; it handled things very badly, especially in the beginning of its tenure -- the proverbial bulls in a china shop, if you will. And I'll be the first to admit that bought into the hype put forth by the old guard. But then I saw the financials of the board on which the guy who was reelected sat -- the shoddy record-keeping, the allowing the assistant superintendent to take off for ISBA business that just happened to coincide with her daughter's college basketball games, the way he and his former board members fought so hard for LIFETIME INSURANCE BENEFITS from the school town for elected positions that they don't even pay into, the insane attorney fees with an attorney that didn't have a contract with the school board -- and I learned real quick that thpugh the new board might not be the most charismatic and touchy-feely, it had a lot of cleaning up to do. And anyways, I'm sure the old guard would've been crabby, too, if every one of THEIR meetings turned into an ugly spectacle like they made the the current board's for 3 1/2 years. Point is, I will continue to tell all my friends with school-age kidlets that they need to get the hell out of dodge before the kidlets get to middle school.

[And as a sidenote to Mr. Jackass Attorney who accused me of impartiality when covering the board debates and most likely the board as a whole over the last 3 1/2 years a couple weeks ago, I have this to say: Contrary to popular belief, reporters unequivocally do have opinions about the things they cover; if they say they don't, they're lying, myself included. The true craft of being a reporter, however, is to be able to report the facts no matter how infuriating, nauseating and offensive those facts may be to you, and I will be happy to sit down with you to go over every single story I've ever written on the School Board and compare them to every single minute of meeting tape to show you just how impartial I was. Name the date and time, and I'll be there, though I don't expect you really would because I know you were just lashing out after I asked you if you were bankrolling the one candidate. But the offer stands, my friend.]

Anyway.

My 'hood is now infested with stupid people who yell and scream like morons all the time. Most of the time, it's celebratory yelling and screaming, but I expect the "You done me wrong, Cletus, and now I'm going to throw the toaster at yew" yelling and screaming to commence at any time.

You know how I've talked about music making me all weepy, especially depending on the time of the month!?? Apparently, it happens at art unveilings, too. I was at the Lubeznik Center for Art in Michigan City earlier covering the unveiling of the new South Shore Poster, of which I happen to have a small collection, and when the blanket came off, I literally gasped and started tearing up. I know, right? What a goon. Anyway, it's entitled "Power," and it's an Art Deco depiction of these guys hand-powering a turbine at the MC generating station done in blues, purples and pinks. Just breathtaking, especially if you're a closet gearhead who kinda gets turned on by big industrial equipment. AND it'll work in my bedroom, which has yet to be decorated after eight years of living here. Just got to make sure I flatten out my copy where les chats can't sit-walk-otherwise destroy it.

Have any of y'all been watching Nashville Star? Did you know that a Region Rat, Nicole Jamrose, has cracked the Top 4? She flew in for a charity concert at her former high school tonight, and I covered it.

Now, I'm not a country fan by any stretch, but this girl!?? Is the shit, man. She got the looks, the talent, AND even though she may be in your typical NWI bar band, Nick Danger, she doesn't pick the usual covers, instead opting for Lucinda Williams and Susan Tedeschi, which can I say thank GOD!?? And I know her husband; I've chatted with him about cop stuff because he's a County Mountie.

Anyway, because I threw my ol' press pass on, I got pretty much unfettered access to the floor, and here are my pics. If she makes it, then you could say you saw her balancing on the cusp of greatness here first.

Wow, so there really were no takers to my posting my inanimate wang collection. Huh. Am I losing my street cred, here? Because jeez, if inanimate wangs can't get y'all back, I don't know what can.

How about this:

Picked up my thank-you gift for watching the animals from Poppy and her husband earlier. One of the gifts was a t-shirt from the famous Senor Frog's. The other you'll find pictured below.

to fill up my fucking gas tank. That ain't right.

Poppy and her hub are on vay-kay in Cancun, so I've been babysitting her menagerie, including the ferrets, Stushdon and Shnockies (I think, or that might be the other ferret she had). And I gotta tell you, if they didn't reek to high heaven, ferrets are a pretty good time. I let them run around in their room, and they chirped and wiggled and tussled and tried to get in the leg of my yoga pants. Good times on a Friday night.

Their one dog, on the other hand, hasn't been as easy. He's an old guy with bad hips, and once you let him out, it's a crapshoot whether you'll be able to get him back up the stairs. Last night was one of those nights, and after about 45 minutes, I decided I'd leave him on the stoop between the upstair and downstairs, thinking he'd be so exhausted he'd just hang out there for the night. He didn't, of course, so Hub's mom called me in a panic this morning because she in all her 100-pound soaking wet glory couldn't get him upstairs to go outside. We eventually got him up and out, but I left him in the house tonight when I went over there. If Hub's mom doesn't hate me for this morning, I'm sure she will if she walks in to a house full of dog crap.

But you know what I noticed last night? Even though I yelled at the poor bastard once thinking that might startle him into moving, my patience never waivered into DefCon territory. I'd kinda like to attribute that to Dad, because as we all know, Dad had to be a patient man lest he ended up burying Mother in the backyard, and we also know that I tend to have a rotten temper when I want to. Maybe it's something he left me when he went. Or maybe it's the drugs.

one day, you watch a tow truck dump off a white, later-model Monte Carlo on the street between your apartment building and the one next door, and it just sits there for weeks on end with no one doing anything about it, so you call code enforcement to tag the motherfucker because you're sure as hell not going to let your 'hood turn into the place where people leave their cars to die; it cheapens up where you live, and code enforcement got right on it when you called them last year about the burned out car left on the other street. And then you do a joyful pee-pee dance when a big ol' tow truck -- possibly the repo man -- comes out on a Sunday night to retrieve the dead car, and you think, "I wonder how they knew to come get it!??"

Sometimes, it takes so little.

No, no -- no such luck. (Shut-up, you.) But I did do something almost as exciting: The Popster and I jumped on our bikes today and rode about four miles. (By the way, did I mention she's going on 11 weeks knocked up? She sure is. Much too soon to know what the sex is, but we do know that it's no longer an embryo and is instead a fetus, which of course I've knicknamed Cletus because c'mon.) So anyway, yeah, got on the ol' bike and rode, and actually really loved it. I mean, the weather was just phenomenal today, and instead of riding around in the industrial complex that surrounds my crib, we rode the trail, and that was nice. And I felt really good doing it, too -- not too much sweating, had good clip going ... plus, I left my bike in her garage, so now I can just go to her crib and get it whenever I want to ride instead of having to haul it down my stairs and going through heavy traffic to get where I want to go. Who knew exercise could be so invigorating!?

Of course, now that I've found my groove, it'll become ass cold and rainy again.

Whooooooooooa ooooo-oooo/whoooooaaa-ooo-ooooo!

Your earworm for today. Y'all can thank me later.

Got a call from Tara this morning: Her dad's colon cancer came back after 11 years. No word on how advanced it is yet, because the doctors still need to do all the tests and shit.

Good thoughts, por favor; prayers are good, too, if you're so inclined.

It's been my weekend to hear about stupid boys and how they suck sometimes, starting with Mer's new ex-love.

Yup, that's right, Mer and the normal boyfriend are no more. Wanna know why? Because he dumped her. Why did he dump her? Because he said she was too insecure and clingy and he came to realize that even though he wants a family, he's not sure she's what he wants, but hey! he really likes hanging out with her and can they work out a compromise? Oh yeah, and she's too passionate about issues that she shouldn't care about, like, oh, colonization in Northern Ireland or the plight of the Slovenian gypsies and other oppressed Balkan people, for example. HE, in the meantime, is a self-proclaimed liberal and passionate about the issues too, you know, such as LITTERING (I'm not making it up y'all -- that's what she said). But yeah, he still wants to see her because they have FUN. Mmm-hmmm. I'll bet. Well, Mer, with the pride befitting a Leo and half and much, MUCH to her credit, tore a couple strips off the poor bastard and fed them to him without the benefit of cooking them first.

While all that was going on, Poppy rings in and tells me her brother and SIL are pregnant. Which is cool, she's happy for them and so on and so forth. But she and her husband are also trying to get pregnant, and she feels like little brother beat her to the punch, unintentional though it was since he doesn't know there were punches in the first place. So she was telling her hubby how she felt, and he was all like "God, I can't believe you're competing with your family." And it's like, Dude, that's not even it. I mean, people CAN be happy for other people while feeling sad for themselves. They're mutually exclusive -- what's so hard to understand about that?

Oh, and one last thing: I've been reading at a couple different sites that there's a site out there where the author is giving out her own awards and that it's turned rather snarky. What I want to know is, why is it that the bloggers who're bitchy like that are the ones that can't either punctuate or spell for crap? Seriously.

There's this dude who covers for the competition one of the munis I've now been covering regularly for the past few weeks, and can I just tell you about the pants this guy wears? He has a pair of brown polys and a pair of what can only be described as blood-red polys that have been washed many times since the '70s, when he no doubt bought them. And these pants are so tight, you can see his underbundies in them -- and they're NOT boxers, and I doubt they're tighty whiteys. I'm guessing they're colored briefs, and that scares me. A lot. Because he's, like, in his late 40s, and no homie should be wearing colored briefs, but especially in his late 40s. (shudders)

So, how many of you have been wondering what's been going on with the immediate members of my bio-fam lately? Anyone? It's been ... not unpleasant. In fact, it's been downright cordial. Tenuous, certainly, but cordial. And are you ready for this? I even got a birthday e-mail from the woman formerly referred to as ****. (Continuing to call her that wouldn't be in the spirit of reconcilliation, I reckon so I guess I'm going to have to come up with a less-negative pseudonym.) It was belated, but I still got one, which is, like, HUGE. Seriously. And I can't say I'm not unpleased by this turn of events, but y'all knew that already, didn't you?

There's no doubt that some of you are downright puzzled dubious freaked the fuck outconcerned about this turn of events, and you're not the only one; more than once has it crossed my mind that there's an ulterior motive to this change of heart. But I'm tired now. However, you know what y'all didn't do for me for my birthday? You didn't put yourselves on the map. Go do it.