Rat-a-tat-tat

It seems to me that one of the great injustices in life is that we are given just one freshman year in college.  My only comfort is knowing that I lived my freshman year to the fullest.  I'm reminded of this fact every day when I look at my tattoo.  Actually, my tattoo is on my right foot and I don't get down there that much, but I guess I look at it every time I put on socks.  

I spent several nights of my freshman year sitting in my friend Georgia's SUV, parked in our dorm's lot, with her and our boyfriend.  The three of us would be in there for hours, listening to hippie music and tinkering with herbal remedies.  On one of these nights, we were listening to Widespread Panic's song, The Waker (listen to it here), in which a verse goes:

My name is Treetop

And I'm higher than you'll ever be.

I'm married to my roots here

Still I feel like I am free.

We all looked at each other like, "Man, that's fucking deep.  That's like, uh, poetry."  So off to the tattoo parlor where I wrote this in Sharpie and they traced it onto all of our right feet.  Well, Georgia doesn't come around so much anymore, and our boyfriend moved to China w/o telling us (it's a long story), but since it was my handwriting, I like to think I leave my mark on people.  Anyway, my tat has been gradually fading for the last three years until it looked like this last week:

 

But I recently had it restored to its original glory and I LOVE IT all over again.  My foot looks much cleaner too.  

So here's to freshman years ... 

Getting in the Halloween Spirit

Growing up in the Bible Belt, I didn't get to celebrate Halloween very much because my mom thought it was of the dark lord.  Instead we had to go to lame ass Fall Festivals at our church.  And while we were always country and poor, my friends and I always had plenty of spunk.  One year we all got into our parents' old college wardrobes and went as hippies (foreshadowing, huh?  Too bad we hadn't found our moms' wacky tobbacky stashes yet).  Another year we were all celebrities.  But we, of course, were not normal 3rd graders so I was Elizabeth Taylor, Dora was Alanis Morrisette and Bobbie Jean was Annie Oakley.  I guess this was also a little bit of foreshadowing as I am now pretty much a lardy hermit who sits around in ridiculous get ups and thinks she's fabulous and Bobbie Jean carries a (stun) gun around in her purse at all times.  

So yeah, now that I'm out of God's territory, I can finally do Halloween the right way.  I recently attended a MomGathering at which three neighbor moms and I planned a Halloween party for our massive brood of chirrens, ages 2 to 6. My kids are obviously the bad asses of the bunch so I kept throwing out great ideas (peeled grapes as eyeballs, cold spaghetti as worms) that the wussier moms kept shooting down. What the hell is a Halloween party if not even one kids shits their pants???

Anyway, two of the moms I like a lot. However, one of the Stepford-Wannabes in our neighborhood kept going on about her FABULOUS house parties and trying to make us feel inadequately informed about paper plates and flatware. Fortunately, T-Money, my tough mom friend, back handed her and got everything on track again.

I want to be an alien for Halloween, but my costume is shaping up more like a hooker on acid.  I guess that's okay too, it just somehow seems less kid-friendly.  I'm also really proud of the new Halloween tats I got.  Pictured below.  I'm such a gangstah nanny.  Love it.