Met my sister for the sibling car swap in Mid-Mich today. I have been driving around her little scooter for a couple weeks so that people will think I am a commoner. And apparently she has been parking my ride under a tree that drips tar and alien waste. Thanks, sis. I don’t even feel bad that you haven’t been able to donate plasma because you have iron poor blood.

Maybe I have iron poor blood – my eyes hurt from reading. I still read regular old books but I find some of my most favorite things to read are on the web. Not only in the brilliant word sprayings of Bethany or Kim, or in PDFs of Spin articles from BM (wait, I’m going to need a middle name that starts with an A or a U– those can’t be your initials) but also in the form of comment/feedback posts from anonymous people on giant websites. I especially identify with the minds that troll IMDB.com and Amazon.com.

I was researching a film and came across a post some tween girl had thrown up about how she wanted to meet and marry some actor, let’s say Clive Owen because that is the only sensible choice as far as actors to meet and marry because Mark Ruffalo is way to indieobvious. Well the rest of the IMDB let her have it with comments like “Just because your birthdays are in the same month, your parental situation is similar, and you both used to be fatties doesn't mean you're remotely meant for each other. At all.” Some guy called LiberalsSuck84 posted that. It was far more cruel in context and I couldn’t stop reading all the RE: Re:s! I felt so bad for her I wanted to go get Clive and get hitched just to show her dreams do come true.

Amazon reviews are the best. I know all about the cattiness and controversy about writers posting their own amazon reviews and then their jealous ‘friends’ from writing group snarking back – it makes for ok reading but who wants to hear smart people argue? Does anyone check the product reviews for things like door alarms and pizza stones? Well, because I am considering moving the south (lifelong dream: Yazoo City, porch swings, and sweet tea) I was researching hot rollers and I came across this: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1XJ6V2P76KQ6W/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

I’m not even sure which part of the video is a legitimate review or if it is just a cry for help from a drugged and abused women living in the back of some guy’s 18 wheeler. I do love fake eyelashes.

Does any of this reek of procrastination? Yeah well, I’ve got way too much to do. My entire life is hanging on by a thin thread - can I finish this project? I need to go find some apples and ephedrine and then research Mark Ruffalo. Maybe he isn't so bad.

Ladies, I miss Oinkster - first OOB when I get to LA. (OOB = Order Of Business)

If I knew as much about money as I do about boxed wine I would be able to get my name to the top of the Chevy volt waiting list. DB calls boxed wine 'mom crack'. If I had a lot of lot of money I would name a bench after myself and my future dead husband, a civil engineer and known philanthropist, on huntington beach or maybe in DC near Ford's Theater, it would say "forever young" and maybe I would start up a county fair fuchsia ribbon award for sewing named after my 4H sewing teacher B Tanner. E says that the stupidest question someone can ask is, 'hey, what's that you're reading?' I was personally asked to leave the library tonight because they close so early and I didn't know, I ignored the announcement. I was listening to brazilian folk music. I love folk music and folk art and country folk and folk dancing. B thinks that Rob Bresney is on to her. J is in NYC, she should meet up with K. K makes me think of things I miss terribly. If I didn't miss things I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I suffer from sentimentality and a mild dog allergy. I can't decide what I miss the most - walks around the 'voir, the Olympics, or the curtains and photocubes I left behind. Dodger Stadium for sure. That place and Chichen Itza make me feel like cutting someones heart out and putting it in a decorative bowl on top of a very large hill or smallish mountain. If the leaves don't start turning colors here as promised I will feel duped.

That is the second time in a few weeks that I have mentioned cutting out or removing a heart. I'm going with it though. I had a dream the other night that I had two purple couches. Kierkegaard says the only people afraid to revisit things are robbers and gyspies.

It can't really fit in your hand.

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I'm full of shame once again. Emma and I just got back from the Michigan State Fair where we paid a dollar to get into an exhibit to see the worlds smallest woman. It really was a real live woman from Haiti. She was watching tv and wearing sandals sitting cross-legged in a white box next to a sign that said she was born in 1977 and only knows a little english. The sign outside said you could talk to her and I had an overwhelming urge to ask her my future. I didn't though because I already know the future of people that pay money to gawk at people. And it is very bright indeed.

My favorite fair exhibit was the chick hatchery. We saw a little baby turkey beak-busting out of an egg. It totally tops that god awful 'Miracle of Life' human baby video we were forced to watch in science class. Egg births are far more civilized.

It's storming like a wench without beer here. Like a dozen dragons breathing fire on their crying dragon babies. Like like like, well I don't know, this isn't my weather blog. I'm suffering from heatarexia and Renaissance Festival sunstroke on top of having to drive in midnight torrential downpour on these skinny Michigan two-lane highways with all those butthugging SUVs! Lay off people seriously. You can have your friend punch your time card for you if you're a little late to third shift. I only say that because I know from experience and I have read Rivethead.

I don't know if Renaissance Festivals would thrive as much if they took place in area where people live a more affluent and leisurely life like say, Laguna Beach. There is something about the world of warlocks that makes me believe its enthusiasts live quite oppressive off-ren-season lives. I know I do, but really - what kind of suffering does one have to endure during the week in order to find relief only by sticking a foxtail on his ass on a Saturday afternoon? And the girl has such a sensible purse?

There is so much I don't know about life and I realized it seventy times a million over and over again today thanks to the magical world of the Renaissance Festival.

* Next day note: I wrote this entry late at night and I woke up thinking about what a cheap shot it is to go to a Ren Fest and take pics and then poke fun at people wearng jorts and foxtails. My brother, an enthusiast of magic: the gathering told me that the foxtail may be from an anime character and then he told me a story about one of his coworkers who used to dress up as sailor moon. He was a six-foot-two dude.

I’ve lived alone awhile so being back in a communal living situation is interesting. I love being able to sleep through the night knowing that my chances of getting attacked by werewolf or serial killer are reduced by each additional body in the house (10% reduction for each adult, 5% for children, 25% for each adult sleeping on couch near door or window). But, there is something about living with other people that makes me think I don’t have to do dishes. The beauty of living with other people is that things get done even if you don’t know who did them. Some things bad, like drinking the last Coke Zero and other things good, like replacing the toilet paper. Of course in most living arrangements that involve more than one person these everyday tasks will inevitably rake on someone’s nerves until they have to leave a passive aggressive note or have a blow up right in the middle of a perfectly entertaining marathon TV sesh of “The First 48.” I don’t plan on sticking anywhere too long to deal with that or dishes for the matter. I’m a rolling stone.

In other news, I visited my ol pal Kendra* today in the posh suburbs of West Bloomfield. She showed me how she taught her baby "baby sign language" - it's not for hearing problems, it's just so the little bugger can ask for more food without having to learn adult english. Funny, a little creepy, and useful. A triple hit in my book.

*Kendra and baby E are cute as cupie dolls!

For the past week I’ve been staying in the one-stoplight town I grew up in. It has a few more stoplights now thanks to urban sprawl but almost-small-towns don’t have quite the narrative impact as small towns do so try to hold the one-blinking-stoplight image in your head. Also think about how people leave their kids strapped in their car-seats, trapped in minivans, windows cracked, engines still running while they run into the IGA and then post office and look oh there’s Mrs SoandSo let me stop and talk about band boosters. If this place were LA I would be a childnabber. I have needed a small chubby-cheeked child since opening day at DodgerStadium. It is nearly impossible to get on the jumbotron in the cheap seats unless you have a 6-16month old to dress up in baby MLB gear and throw over your head. But kidnapping will not be my crime here, I barely had enough time to settle in and wake up my criminal self. This place is even more suited for drunken disorderly. I am moving on to the city tonight. My offense there will be small town envy.

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I saw this in real life. I captured it in my Lumix and in my heart, like Bethany and I do with sunsets. Someday, and the time may come sooner than I'd like, I will die and the coroner (there will be an autopsy if my final wishes are adhered to by my friends and family) anyway the coroner will have to crack open my chest to rip my heart out to put it on that metal scale that weighs bananas and murder evidence. My heart will weigh exactly six tons of butte, mesa, rainbow and road. And even if everyone had thought at first that I died by setting my self on fire or by choking on an apple fry from BK, the evidence will show the cause of death was road denial.

Pops! from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Modesty and humility rule here. The grass is a nearly green and the trees are nearly tall, they aren’t trying garner praise or win awards, everyone and everything will be paid off in heaven. The cars are spotted with rain marks on gray and burgundy paint jobs. The trucks are brown and forest green – all the colors in the lifespan of a blade of grass. It all rolls out on bumpy two lane highways made of crumbly blacktop and faded paint. Every so often a pothole throws you up in your car seat and you wake up and fear for your tires, and your transmission, and your windshield, but not your future, you rest in the comfort of knowing that you are doing the right thing. You are in the motor city and there’s more where that came from.

I made it back to Michigan. My first thoughts about being back in the Midwest are that the place still reminds me of bugs and moist skin and animal hair and two lane highways and Mountain Dew. But I do feel the possibilities and the excitement of adventure and change. I think that has something to do with the Olympic opening ceremony - it makes me feel like a champion.

I miss my Angelinos but I can't wait to see my gals tomorrow.

Be sure to check out my new favorite website: Beth and her benches.

The Devils Rope

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

It's amazing how fast you can pack it all up and put it all behind and dream it all away and put it back together and stand in four states at once and make to it Shiprock in time for tater tots.