DLand - Talk To Me While I'm Listening

I talk to myself. I have done it all my life. In my room as a little girl. In the car. When I'm out walking the dogs. In the grocery store. In the office when Bossman is not around. Sometimes I get embarrassed. I pretend that I'm singing a song. I kind of bop my head back and forth like it's some rant in a pop music anthology. I speak softly and look around so people won't hear me.

But there is something to be said for voicing what's in your head. To hear the words come out of your mouth. I replay conversations that I've had. I talk to those who aren't there with me. I tell them all the things I've never said and never may.

Sometimes I can just write it all down. I look back on it, digesting the words and moving them around 'til they scratch the itch in my brain. But other times I have to hear them. I have to know what my voice sounds like when I stammer out the words. I have to hear myself suck my teeth in irritation or sigh in anticipation, biting my lip.

This time of year is the best for talking to oneself. My warm breath carries the words out in front of me into the cold and I watch them float over to the person who isn't there - the kind listener who I can't see.

My father told me when he was a child on the farm that they could pick up radio stations from far off cities at night. The air was thinner then and the sound waves could travel farther. I always thought it was because there was less clutter at night in the air and therefore more capacity for sounds that would normally get congested and lost during the day. I imagine that the things I say carry better at night as well. There is more space in the atmosphere for a few thoughts from Genie to float away. Perhaps like radio waves, they continue on forever. They can be heard in far off cities or outer space or even other worlds. Perhaps it only matters that I can hear them.

Hey, it's me. Can you hear me?

DLand - Merry Christmas!

We had one of the best Christmas dinners last night at the house of Sweetpea. There was duck l'orange (pronounced with the snooty French accent) and oyster stuffing. We wrapped gifts and then immediately took them downstairs to tear them open. It was grand. They are some of the best family I could have lucked out to gain in a marriage. My mother called me today at 1:00 pm to ask why we had to leave and were messing up her Christmas. I suppose it was my family's turn to be aliens during the holidays.

But my sweet and I had a fabulous Christmas and I hope that all of you are having the same. I love you all.

DLand - What I'm NOT Going to Talk About

So, I'm not going to talk about my father's computer. I'm not going to talk about how he installed and uninstalled the same program so many times that the whole machine broke down. I'm not going to talk about how I tried everything in my power to get them back and connected to the world, while constantly listening about how he never gets any help and he's all alone and drowning without any computer help. I'm not going to talk about how I spent $992.74 to get him a new computer while he puttered with his really old one only to have him say he doesn't like it and want me to take it back. These are all the things I'm not going to talk about because it would just irritate me. So Wednesday night I gave Sweetpea one of his Christmas presents. I let him stay at home in his sweatpants and watch television while I braved traffic and other holiday shoppers to pick up some more of our last minute presents. I let him eat leftover chinese food (damn you, Rich) while I went out for pho. So he got a little present of being a slug while I went out for the both of us.

I have become addicted to pho. I should get those patches like they have for smokers to put on my arm only with cilantro instead of nicotine in them. Any given night if you ask me what I could eat for dinner, I'll happily answer pho. The Vietnamese dudes know me by name there. My main problem has been that for like two weeks I haven't had much appetite. Don't know if it was work or the computer that we're not talking about or the weather or what. But I would eat almost nothing. So the fact that pho appealed to me was a miracle in itself.

The greatest thing about Pho '79 where I get my fix is that it's across the street from Krispy Kreme. What follows up Vietnamese noodle soup and peanut sauce better than a hot glazed donut and a pint of milk? Nothing, I tell you. Absolutely nothing.