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:

I mean, it exposes the real truth about the Easter Bunny, right?

Lookit

Talked to my sister earlier, and she told me two things: 1) that our friend Opie and his darling little girlfriend are engaged, which is like the awesomest thing EVER, and 2) that a mutual, very heterosexual male acquaintance of ours (who's NOT this idiot) has been WEARING MASCARA, or at least has in the last 12 months. In public. What makes this uproariously funny is that if you were going to think about some dude wearing mascara, this guy would so. NOT. be. it. God, I hope I don't run into the poor bastard, because I'm not sure I'll be able to walk away without seriously making fun of him.

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.

Couldn't happen to a skinnier, nastier bitch: Lookit

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

Ain't nothing like using the anticipated hope of looking good as revenge while pedaling one's bike; I did the trail part Poppy and I did before she left on vay-kay today, and I didn't stop once to take a breather or rest my legs. I won't be able to walk tomorrow, but I'll have done my body good at least. (I've been reading Pop's copy of that book by the Oprah doctor, and it says you need to put in an hour of exercise a week to keep healthy; anything above and beyond is really superfluous and possibly harmful, to which I'm like, "See!?? Bet y'all with your six pack abs feel like a buncha suckers now.")

Did I mention that I'm going to the Madonna concert June 15? No? B-Dubs got tickets ... for BFKAS, himself and me, plus two other people. (SC can't go because she'll be on vay-kay with her fam.) Yep, I'm going to see Madonna with the bio-fam -- ain't THAT some shit? No, I'm not the hugest Madonna fan in the world. In fact, even when I did like her 20 years ago, I absolutely hated some of her songs ("La Isla Bonita" and "Cherish," anyone? Ew.) Love her or hate her, though, she IS a legend, and I guess for that alone it'll be fun to see.

The problem is, I told Mother about it, and she's already gotten it into her head that because I'm going with them to ONE THING, I've become one of them and have forgotten who raised me, etc. etc. etc., never mind that I got to hear yet aGAIN the story about how she went to meet BFKAS shortly after I first met her, but Dad didn't want to go. (In the interest of proving how either I must have nerves of steel or my drugs are devil good, I should really start a chart mapping out how many times I hear these things over the course of a month just to show I'm not kidding.) You know, it's like what I suspect about how SC feels about me and my relationship with them: Just because I may have some sort of thing with these people, whatever it is will NEVER be the same as what I have with my family or what SC has with the bio-fam, so what's the problem? I mean, anyone who's in my inner circle knows that I'm about as inclusive as they come -- my friends are your friends, we're all one big, happy family and all that rot. In fact, I used to imagine my wedding at Marquette Park's Bath House (when I thought I actually wanted a wedding) as one where real fam and bio-fam alike were there celebrating the day with me, but yet I've got Mother who thinks I'm going to get stolen away by those people and SC who (I think) thinks I have designs on stealing her family away. I don't get it. And it's not like I can reassure anyone of my intentions, because they're going to think what they're going to think, and I've long ago given up the notion that I have any sort of sway when Mother gets a bat in her belfry. It's like a dog with a bone, man.

In other news, the Monte Carlo showed up the other day, running perfectly as far as I could tell. The apartment building the offender lives in, however, now has a crib up for rent, so I wonder if this means Homie had to put all his money into getting his car out of hock. That'll learn ya to leave your shit unattended on the street, though, won't it, motherfucker!??

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.

Another year, another having to sort through my receipts to see how much I'm going to get butt-raped by the guvmint. Thankfully, Greta's going to help me through it, but still, Gah.