I've clearly abandoned this blog-child I raised from an infant

BUT!

I've started two other blogs that are less about the open-diary ramblings of NoFo and more about focused topics and CV. So if you're interested ...

TMIpolar: my bipolar adventures and essays on mental health in general

The One Who Mumbles: reviews and essays—mostly about the arts, natch—all collected in a place I can use as a writing portfolio

Read, bookmark and hopefully enjoy them at your leisure. And now that my mind is in blogging mode again, maybe I'll start posting here as well. Or not. 

Pay no attention to the junk piled behind the tree that I didn't notice you could see when I took this picture with my phone

Well hello, long-hibernating tabletop tree that I bought for Shoebox Manor—my first elfin Chicago apartment—and that eventually became our dining-room tree when my ex and I bought our palatial two-tree-accommodating condo. I finally rescued the tree when I liquidated my storage unit this summer, and at last its branches are complete again in their mélange of silver, white and cornflower blue ornaments, ribbons and besequined birds artfully curated to complement our old Wedgewood dining room. The palette doesn’t quite work with my mom’s Rustic Kountree Krafts décor, but I choose to squint and pretend it does. Plus I did a sloppy job perching the birds on the branches so I’ll have to edit some pokey-outy feathered tails at a later date.

I wasn’t really in the mood for Christmas carols, but I found an old Chicago playlist so I decorated the tree to the dulcet—and wistfully nostalgic—tones of Beautiful Day, Ray of Light, Around the World, Bad Romance, Get Lucky, Single Ladies, Whispering Your Name and other regular-rotation players from the soundtrack of my old life. The combination of my Chicago tree and my Chicago tunes put me in a mood I’m not sure I’m ready to be in, but the corner is dusted and vacuumed, the tree is up, and all that’s left to do is figure out where I hid my timer so the lights will automatically be on every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up.

Speaking of going to bed ... good night!

Does this smell stinky to you?

I recently got a letter from Kwik Trip saying a car with my license plate was seen driving away without paying for gas at 5:07 am on a weekday in Marshalltown, IA--a faraway city I have never visited. It was written with clumsy English phrasing and asked me to send a credit card number, so I thought it was a scam and ignored it.

Then I got another letter that was very threatening. I was concerned that the sender somehow had my license plate number, name and address, so I sent a message to the Kwik Trip corporate office via its website instead of the contact info on the letters to see if it was legitimately from them--and they promptly responded to say yes, and whoever drove away without paying either had an altered license plate or had stolen one of mine--and *I* needed to file a police report and provide Kwik Trip with layers of proof that it wasn't my car that drove away.

I wrote back using my anger words saying 1) if they don't demand a credit card or up-front payment before letting people pump gas it's their irresponsible corporate practice and therefore their problem, not mine, 2) I have no obligation to spend time calling the police and chasing down paperwork to send them based on unsubstantiated, poorly written accusations, and 3) the burden of proof is on them and they need to send me a photo of my car and license plate at their pump or leave me the fuck alone. They promptly wrote back again to tell me that they had benevolently canceled my "account" and that I "owed" them no money.

So questions: Does this smell stinky? Do you think it's some kind of Kwik Trip corporate scam? Did they illegally obtain my personal and vehicle information? Did they by any definition harass me? Should I call the police on them?

In the mean time: If their stupidly spelled name weren't enough to drive you away, DON'T SHOP AT KWIK TRIP so you can prevent yourselves from being scammed. Fucking assholes.

I have a paper trail and a string of stupidly incriminating emails from Kwik Trip. I'm gonna keep pursuing the issue with the police and the Better Business Bureau and all of Twitter just to be a pain in the ass back at them.

Oklahoma! key dramatis personæ, from the left:

Cord Elam. The moral and emotional core of the Oklahoma! narrative. Basically the lead. Brags that he could eat a gatepost. No homo.

Will Parker. The clumsy—but alarmingly bendy—one who does his press junket splayed out on the floor like a common hussy. Couldn’t count to $50 if his potential marriage depended on it. Minor character at best.

Curly McLain. Sings about corn. Lies about fringe. Someone runs into his knife. Someone runs into his knife one time.

Come see me in Oklahoma!

There is nothing more comforting than a well-stocked snack drawer

Especially on a morning that you didn’t eat breakfast.

You can see by our outfits that we are both cowboys

#Oklahoma! #CowboyHats #TheStreetsOfLaredo

You guys!

Three out of four Musketeers tell me I’m awesome and rockin’! The fourth says I’ll die alone, sobbing under a seat in coach. Which is impressive to get all crammed on one so-called “fun” size wrapper.

Anyway, the clear takeaway here is that chocolate loves you back. EAT YOUR FEELINGS! Before you die alone, sobbing under a seat in coach.

When you’re bored in the hospital, you tend to make mega-trendy cat memes on your phone

IT’S VOTING DAY!

Aorta stop eatin' junk food

Dad’s surgery was “smooth and easy” according to the surgeon—who may or may not have been referring to the fact that the hospital shaved my dad from the neck down before they poked him in the aorta—and he’s now recovering/waking up in the recovering/waking up room as we continue to stuff our faces in the waiting room.

You might say he’s on the mendo from his endo. But please don’t. Never say that.

Aorta lern my lines

When you got up at 4:30 and had to pack for a day of sitting in the waiting room at the hospital surgery center and you remembered to bring all the important stuff. So that’s good.

Dad is having what’s literally called a “re-do” on a five-year-old abdominal aortic aneurism surgery that had recently started leaking. Two weeks ago he had an exploratory aortogram—which it turns out does not, unfortunately, involve someone showing up at your door in tap shoes and an aorta outfit to sing Happy Birthday or a Valentine’s Day song—and he’s having the surgery today as the final gala event in his five-day 80th birthday celebration.

To complete the circle, I’m sitting in the waiting room memorizing my lines to Aortahoma!

SOME dumbass we all know

... has accidentally taken his night psych meds in the morning enough times lately that his mom finally had to make a bunch of big white paste-on labels for his pill containers so he hopefully won’t get so confused again in the future.

We don’t need no stinkin’ musical about dancin’ farmers and cowmen to be basic bitches in boots

But it sure makes a super-cute excuse.

Bro

I’m man enough to admit that I’m not LIFTING the 95s—the only unoccupied incline bench just happens to be parked in front of them today.

But I AM proud enough to broadcast that I’m back up to incline-dumbbelling 75s after a summer of injury-induced absence from the gym and from the 90s that I’d been incline-dumbbelling last spring.

And yes, incline-dumbbelling is now a valid gerund. I’m a licensed copywriter and I am hereby verbing it so.

Among my many noteworthy accomplishments today:

I finally got rid of that hideous Monster MalachiteTM square plate and replaced it with a delicately fluted saucer that matches Bitch Kitty’s elegant Velvety VerdigrisTM food bowl.

Now her basement café is just downright fucking classy.

Sigh

Three of Walmart’s finest ran into my cart in one trip and Iowa-timidated ME into saying Ope and I’m sorry but that’s just an egregious abuse of first-caucus-in-the-nation power.

Also: furnace filters + lightbulbs + non-slip rug pads + cat food-to-poop supplies = a sad, sad afternoon of quiet-desperation adulting

Stabby the Cat doesn’t put up with your excuses on back and shoulders day

He does, however, have a benevolent tolerance for your unruly hair.

My stupid new tie won’t hold an expertly tucked dimple

So my fancy-pants event tonight is all but guaranteed to be a catastrophic sartorial failure.

But I voted early so the republic is saved.

Good night!