NAME OF THE YEAR

So, there's a few names out there which are worthy of Name of the Year.
Not the official blog operated by the people who go to Yale or anything, but just a bunch of weirdo names we've encountered this year, which are hilarious.

In no particular (ok, some randomly particular) order:

Conklin Fangman
Chauncey Barfkencht
Joy Pancake
Denise Dickover
Richard Swallows

Thanks for letting me share these names with you.

Breakfast & a morning run

Yesterday, I did something that feels like a habit but I still can't really believe it's me.
I woke up, put on running clothes, and went for a light 5 mile jog.

With my doggie, who sniffed an old man's hand and consequently got the old man to scream at us about how rude we are and to say that he didn't like being sniffed.

Old man, you suck. But hey, you made me run a lot faster to get away from you and it made my run a lot better. You still suck, though. I don't often yell at strangers, but I yelled at you. I don't often feel like beating people up, but my adrenaline got me and I'm pretty sure I wanted to beat you up. Suck it, old man dude.

At any rate, I usually plan the run in advance or talk myself into it or stare at the scale in desperation and then run. But this time, I just looked at the clock and felt I had enough time to do it. So I did.


Tina and I took our first Iron Man pre-training photo. She has an iron man coach and I have....somehow been dragged along to potentially do a triathalon iron man in 2013. Ummmm, ok! I said I would do it as long as I wasn't pregnant, and I think by now we know that's probably just not going to happen. (Which is actually OK, because the alternative of adopting is much more likely!)

At any rate, today is a 10 mile run instead. Miles 1-3 are the worst, but once I get into a nice groove, it feels great.  I ALMOST want to run another marathon--but that's an ALMOST.

Wedding 4

So I think a date has been confirmed, making my mom's wedding the 4th wedding of the year. :)

In July, I'll have a new daddy.

Dan just came downstairs, he just read the "Red Wedding" part of Game of Thrones book 3.

Confession

A few weeks ago, when we were staying in our cute little hotel in Cedar Falls, I noticed they had a bunch of books for guests to read. This was preferable to the DVD share-thing (Spiderman 1) so I stole 3 books from them for the two day stay and realized that perhaps I was going to steal a book for a longer period.

Stealing books is bad! So I will return it the next time I'm in Cedar Falls, years from now.
The Thorn Birds.

Epic romance, not plausible, but somehow entirely better than I expected it to be, and of course, my expectations are low.

I really should find some quality literature. Any suggestions?
I'm looking for modern fiction only.

A spoken word evening

We went to an author-reading the other night. 5 authors, 5-10 minutes of them sharing their work, and a huge, crowded packed bar.

I live for nights like that. It was crack to me. It's possible to be a writer, it's possible to still be human.

Proof

What does Proof mean, if you can't change the facts or the circumstances or the end result?

Sometimes it means you can sleep at night.

Regardless, I found out or confirmed my suspicions today that my dad was not the person sending me emails from his account, nor has he been that person for awhile.

The Happy Father's Day, Happy Birthday, etc, none of those made it to him. The photos of the Philippines did not make it. All of the emails that I posted earlier were not written by him at all.

He knows that his wife checks and reads his email without him and he does not stop it and does not bother to stop it. He says he prays for reconciliation. He knows he missed family weddings. He is still waiting for an apology, he says.

I tell him there's an alternate way, that it's not this no-give-no-take situation. I insist that he is missing so much of our lives that it doesn't possibly seem worth it.  He says his wife receives threatening anonymous letters in the mail. I literally swear on my life and the lives of my family that it is not me, my sister, my brother, my mother sending these anonymous letters. I repeat it over and over, as earnestly as possible. I wish the truth could form clear raindrops and pelt him with their existence.

He does not say anything.

I shrug, saddened, and remember these words, from something I read in highschool:

Ignorance is not bliss, it is oblivion.

Enjoy your oblivion, Dad.

A Poem

Tornado in Iowa

You lost yourself gradually, folding into her bonnie blue eyes

You’d never seen Gone with the Wind to know the final result.

She first stole your arms,

So we could no longer hug you—we could only speak—and stare

With your arms now windmills, turning the breeze, we censored our voices around you, watched our words change

You sucked them away into your torrent of wind, manipulating

After this, she came for your voice, we could no longer hear you speak, but you were there, the wind swirled faster, licking up the dust from our childhood, our past.

I tried to call it out to you—“Don’t you see, that doll you gave me?” It blew up into the wind, shredding it into the tunnel, and it was scattered

Existence, of course—it is not always temporary, I knew the doll existed in my universe, even if it was now of the past, an alternate time capsule. I remembered who gave it to me.

You were gone, though, your eyes had melted into hers, you were her all consuming blue beast , we could not even come to you—to visit.

And you were so very hungry, whirling yourself into a panic, unsolvable and inexplicable problems popped up out of nowhere, things we did not do, Doppler warnings we did not ask for, weather beacons we lost the key to read

Later, the rest of us planted ourselves into the ground, we would become perennials. Our ribosomes were untouchable, storing so much energy that our return was inevitable.

We planted ourselves in the dirt, in the fertile soil, turned our leaves up to the sun and waited for the tornado to return.