September 2006 at Crazy in Shreveport

Is it me or are the months just whipping by? Here at CIS in September you'll find postings about Katee's new hair color, pagans in South Highlands, Gold Dome Book Sale, Hurricane Katrina, Andrea Yates, talking microwaves, Katee in college, recycling and plumbing woes.

Still no picture of all three of us. That was one thing we wanted to get done in September. Oh well, tomorrow is another month... maybe then...

Faces of Katrina, an arts exhibit featuring stories and photos is now hanging at artspace on Texas Street in Shreveport through October 20.

Resurrected Car Thieves

Toting Water and Zombie Latrines

Had I read The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead I would've had plenty of water in large covered containers to weather Charlie installing a new dishwasher and faucet.

But I hadn't so I didn't. I've been forced to tote water from the neighbor's outside faucet. I slosh a jiggly seven gallon trash can across her yard and up two sets of steps so we can flush the toilet. At least we haven't been forced to designate a corner of the backyard to serve as a latrine.

Washing dishes is a nightmare since everyone keeps using the real things thinking the dishwasher and faucet are almost finished. I've cleared Brookshires of their cheap gallons of water. Of course all the big pots are growing mold in the refrigerator so I can only heat up tiny amounts of water at a time.

I've lost count of how many days it's been since we've had real plumbing. If this siege of my kitchen doesn't end soon we'll have to follow the advice on page 91 of The Zombie Survival Guide: "Remain entertained!... keeping a positive mental attitude is essential. Find the natural entertainer in your group and encourage him or her to develop a routine of shows... Who's going to plan a talent show when hundreds of zombies are scrapping at the gates?... Someone who knows that a group of rattled angry, frustrated people are just as dangerous as the hundred of zombies scraping at the gates."

I guess we should count ourselve lucky since we have cable TV and I don't have to wield a machete on the way to water refills.

i really must stop neglecting this.

See, the thing is, I have been told that I have the attention span of a goldfish. This is a problem when there are things I need to do, but cannot concentrate for shit on it. It's like school. It usually goes like this: "Hmm, I should read that chapter in Art His--OMG A NEW MYSPACE SURVEY!" And then I forget things. It's really quite depressing. The picture on the left demonstrates what happens when I procrastinate, usually ending in lots of pictures being taken of myself.

I've actually gotten more done this week, on account of how bored I have been. All 2 of my friends have been working a lot, so I've been attempting to get things done. I painted the front of my bedroom door purple and placed a fairy poster there, mostly to signify that my room is infinitely better than yours. :P I've gotten some reading done and a lot of math homework, too. This test is sooooo not gonna be as easy as the last one. Grr.

Meru and I are supposed to go see Talledega Nights tomorrow afternoon when I get out of class since I haven't seen it and she is like in love with Will Farrell. Meru's prettttty great. So yeah, basically nothing exciting has happened at all in the last week or so and it really, really needs to before I die of lack of excitement. :(

Overheard in a Shreveport Bossier Casino Parking Garage

Man in a newer model gray pick up flags down a woman in a flowered shirt. He leans out the driver's window. "You reckon I can get out of here?"

"Yes, sir. Just keep circling around and eventually you'll get out." She points to the exit sign hanging overhead.

He drives away. She notices the Texas license plate.

They really ought to not let those rice farmers out of east Texas.

The Dirt on Shreveport Recycling

Here's the visual for a great cartoon: A woman stands in front of three bins. They are marked PAPER, CANS and PLASTIC. She places her separated trash into these containers. What she doesn't see is that under the floor there are tubes that send everything into a trash truck headed for a landfill.

THIS ISN'T HAPPENING IN SHREVEPORT!

A post at Shreveport.blogspot.com on September 16 entitled "Garbage and the mayoral candidates" worried me enough to leave a comment. It was about the efforts to green up Shreveport.

After reading it I was concerned that my newly separated cans and plastic bottles were landfill bound. I blogged about it at my myspace site. Noma suggested contacting Liz Swaine. Here's what she had to say:

"Yes, there is always a market for aluminum. I also did some checking and found out that your plastics are being recycled, too, so you ARE making a difference! Here is the response I got from our superintendent of solid waste on the question: Plastic received at the Recycling Center is dispersed nation wide and processed to construct everything from polyester used to make carpet and other products containing polyester to new products made of plastic. Several of the companies we use are, Clean - Tech, a company in Dundee, Michigan and K. W. Plastics, in Troy, Alabama."

Didn't ask about newspapers because I don't recycle those, yet. I mostly reuse them in the litter boxes (yes we have two, sometimes three).

About the picture: These are cans waiting in my kitchen to get squished.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Porch sitting. It's a fine tradition here on D street.

It was even better Sunday when neighbor Bob delivered delicious cookies his wife Pam baked.

Not only were they tasty (full of pecans, almonds, and chocolate chips) but also came in a beautiful package.

Charlie's only complaint. "I wish they'd bring them over every weekend."

academics and friends.

I've been neglecting my writing, but then again all of my online instructors decided that they should give their exams in the same week. I've been studying and it is certainly paying off. I have an A in math, probably for the first time in my life. Maybe since elementary school. Either way, it's awesome. Usually by the first test I'm down to a D and trying to work my way up to at least a C. It's different this time I think because my GED teacher actually worked with me, and the instuctor I have now is really great. It's all pretty much a review for me since what I'm doing now is around the ninth grade level and I had to learn it to pass the GED.

It's cool. I'm not even using a calculator because Ms. Black won't let us. She said it won't help in the next course we take, but I'm hoping I can just test out of that one. I never knew how to do fractions and now they're surprisingly easy to understand. The process is tedious and boring, but it's not hard. I resent the amount of time I spend on it because there are a lot of other things I can do with the hours I spend doing the homework, but that's okay. I feel kind of good about knowing how to do this stuff.

It's not just math that's been keeping me busy. Art History, which I thought would be much more interesting than it is, is a lot of reading. I'm not an art nerd. I appreciate visual art (paintings, sketches, sculpture, photography, etc) for its beauty and the passion an artist puts into her work, but I have always been partial to words and sounds. I find studying famous authors and listening to Beethoven far more interesting than reading about why the artist put a bit of coral pink paint on Jesus' thumb, or the symbolism of a certain hair cut. It's easy, but I'd rather learn guitar.

Adolescent psych is okay. The chapters in the book are quick to read and have some good insight on the way the average teenager's mind works, but it bothers me that there's no mention of chemical imbalances or any kind of psychiatric disorder other than typical teenage depression. It's as if the people who wrote the book failed to observe that teenagers can have psychiatric illnesses as well, and I would think that adolescent psychology textbook would address this issue. In the section about eating disorders, they only included anorexia and bulimia, completely ignoring binge-eating. Bulimia does have binge-eating, of course, but it's almost always followed by purging. Binge-eating by itself is very different. I'm going to have to take this course over again, as the credit doesn't transfer to LSU-S, so perhaps it will be different there.

And, lastly, there is History 101, which is Western Civilization I. We study civilization from the beginning of time to the renaissance. I'm quite into to history, especially the kind that doesn't get written into the textbooks and was hushed up for a long time before someone decided that writing a book about it would probably make a lot of money. While I like the subject, this particular course leaves something to be desired. When we studied the Greeks, the only mention of Greek mythology was a list of their gods with no explanation of what they were the gods of, nor any ancient Greek beliefs. The reasoning for this is that there are whole courses devoted to Greek mythology so if we want to learn about it we should go take one of those. This is stupid reasoning as there is no Greek mythology course of any kind at BPCC.

Other than school, I've been trying to make my room more aesthetically pleasing and hanging out with friends a lot more than I have in a while. My cell phone actually needs to be charged on a regular basis, which is an accomplishment because I used to only charge it maybe once a week. It's mostly been Megan aka Meru or Mike (and usually whoever is over at his apartment, like his brother or random other people) that I've been hanging out with. Life has actually been quite pleasant, other than the god-awful PMS I had for at least two weeks. My period finally came today, and I realllly hope it doesn't last for more than seven days. Despite the PMS of doom, Mom says my moods have been better than when I was on birth control. Odd.

More later.

Overheard at a Shreveport/Bossier Casino

Yuppie frat boy sits down at a $15 blackjack table. "Please don't blow smoke in my face," he whines to the female dealer. "The Horseshoe dealer blew smoke in my face four times last night."

She lifts her left eyebrow and looks at him. "I didn't know they let'em smoke at the table."

"They don't. I was smoking and blew it in his face."

"Four times?"

The young man smutches ash all over the green felt. "I forgot."

"Honey, I make no promises. You blow smoke in my face. I'm gonna blow it right back. Changing one hundred." She pats the table and scoots a stack of red cheques to the boy. "Good luck."

We're all gonna need it.

There is Something Bradburyish about a Talking Microwave

andrea yates.

I've just read a story about Andrea Yates in Texas Monthly. When this actually happened, I was about thirteen years old. I was far too busy being excited about entering high school to do more than watch the stories on TV about it. I don't think I would've been able to appreciate the magnitude of the situation at that age anyway. All I knew was that a mother had killed her children. But I also knew that things like that happened. Over the years, though, I've watched news stories and video clips from the courtroom and have found myself horrified at all of it.

The story is by Skip Hollandsworth and I was very impressed at the delicacy and tact the story is written with. I mean, here is a woman with five children (none of which were more than two years of age apart) with a history of post partum depression. She is encouraged to keep reproducing by members of her church even though it was a very, very bad idea to do so. I suppose her husband got tired of her being dependent on himself and his mother, as he announced that he would be leaving her alone for one hour in the mornings and one hour in the evenings to increase her maternal responsibility. He didn't bother to tell her psychiatrist.

I also understand that Andrea Yates was not acting like herself and that her mother was stunned at this plan because of Andrea's actions of late, like giving a toothless infant solid food. Her mother said Andrea was meticulous about this kind of thing because she knew solid food is not exactly good for a baby with no teeth. Her psychiatrist had taken her off of the antipsychotic she was taking, and instead upped her antidepressants. On June 21, 2001, she drowned her children in their bathtub because she felt her children were damned and she needed to save them.

I have not had a child, so I have never had post partum depression or psychosis, but I do know the signs and symptoms and I do know that this woman was suffering from both of these. There are people who still say she is selfish and evil and just wanted to be rid of her children, but they're wrong. Someone who is evil does not show remorse when she comes to realize what she has done. Someone who is evil does not miss whomever she killed. Someone who is evil would shed no tears.

I am appalled at the mental health treatment she received. I am appalled that she was encouraged to keep having children. I am horrified that a psychiatrist lied during the trial just to see her go to prison, suggesting that she got the idea from television, especially when the episode in question was never made. I am saddened that people still think she is evil. And I am disgusted that people are angry because she was sent to a state hospital, thinking she's getting off easy. I know what state hospitals are like, and I'd rather be in prison. Those hospitals are horrible. A patient has no rights. Prisoners have more rights than patients confined to a state psychiatric hospital.

Andrea Yates might get better. She might not. Either way, she will have to live with the knowledge that she killed her children, even if she didn't mean to, even if she believed she needed to at the time. I think that will be enough of a punishment without ignorant people calling her evil and condemning her to hell. The entire thing makes me sad. It makes me wish that people would take psychiatric disorders more seriously. It makes me wish that they would understand we did not ask for this. We do not enjoy it. It's not for attention. I wish they would understand that it is not demons that need to be cast out and that it won't go away just because we find God. I feel for her and her whole family and anyone involved. It is a sad situation, but I can't help but think that if she'd had more support and better care, I wouldn't be writing about this.

men are kind of clueless.

Men are so. . .urgggh. It is apparently absolutely impossible for them to pick up a phone and call. Okay, look, in this day and age of cell phones it's pretty easy to call someone. I know I even call people without meaning to if I forget to lock the keys when I have a non-flip phone. If you're out of minutes, don't tell me that there is no one else you know that has a cell phone that you can borrow. I mean, holy shit, just about everyone has a cell phone or at least a land line.

I only bring this up because when my mom and I got home from running errands, my dad was gone. This was 4 pm. We figured he'd gone to the grocery store or was getting stuff looked at on the Blazer. I decided to take a nap, and when I woke up at 6 he still wasn't home and hadn't called or anything. My mom went to take a nap, but kept getting up every 5 minutes to see if my dad had called or was home or something. We were all freaked out. He finally came home like 15 minutes ago and sure enough, he'd been getting the Blazer worked on, as he came home with a car CD player front in his pocket.

LEAVE A NOTE OR SOMETHING. Jesus, what is wrong with you people? Every store in the world has a phone that you can use! Paper and pencil work wonders when you can scribble down "I've gone to run around, be back later!" so that we know you haven't been like kidnappedand set on fire or something. Women are natural worriers. DON'T MAKE IT WORSE. Pick up a goddamn phone and call us. YOU HAVE FINGERS, USE THEM! If you don't, then get someone else to dial the number, DAMMIT.

*flails*

Emergency Pet Carrier

Will we always remember the beginning of September as the time of Katrina and 9/11?

All this news coverage reminds me that with four dogs and four cats and one hard plastic pet carrier it would be difficult for us to evacuate everyone safely.

Skye, the Min Pin, is test driving our in-a-pinch emergency pet carrier. It's a mesh laundry bag. They are two for five dollars at our neighborhood Walgreens.

am i the only one?

I think I've become completely bored with my life, which is odd because lately I've been out doing stuff with friends. It hasn't been the same, though. I've reconnected with a lot of old friends. Even Cory messaged me the other day on MySpace. He even called, which was strange because I deleted his number from my phone forever ago and assumed he'd done the same. It's just. . .I've been thinking about how grown-up we've all become.

My friend Meru and I went out the other night and had a whole lot of fun and everything, but it was so different. Meru's kind of been doing the same thing that I have for the past year. We've both been having some pretty difficult times, so when we hung out for the first time in probably about a year, it was awesome because we just picked up where we'd left off, like we hadn't been completely isolated from people for the last year. We were always great friends, though. I think it's mostly because our personalities are so similar: We're loud, silly, unashamedly and undeniably ourselves, and people either love us or hate us. I'm pretty sure no one has ever said, "Yeah, I know Katee/Meru, she's okay."It's always, "She is so awesome!" or, "Ugh, I hate her."

Anyway, it just struck me how much we've matured. We're still ourselves, but just, um, calmer, I think. More laid-back and more serious and focused about our futures. It used the be, probably two or three years ago, that when we went out, we didn't stop going until about 5 in the morning and even then we were reluctant to go home. We had a pretty great adventure on Tuesday night and even talked for hours on my porch until sleep started calling because of classes and work the next day. We tried to go out last night but we were completely exhausted and the night ended at abou 9:30. It was sad.

Maybe I don't have to try so hard to prove that I'm happy because I actually am happy now. I mean, everything's just so different. I'm still me, but like a more low-key version. I still don't hesitate to call someone out for being an asshole, but I don't go out of my way to pick fights. It's too exhausting and frankly, there are a lot better things I'd like to use that energy for.

I think it's like this with all my friends and former friends now. A few years ago it was so not unusual for someone to get arrested. Now we just don't have time for all that nonsense anymore. We're too busy going to school or working or both to go out and wreak havoc on the Shreveport/Bossier area. It's really kinda of depressing. I remember being ready to leave whenever anyone called, even if it was like 11 pm. Ending up in the outskirts of town at a gas station with a bunch of scary Texas Chainsaw Massacre looking people was quite common and enjoyable, and I miss it. I miss the spontaneity and adventure of it all. Growing up kind of sucks.

I'm also aware that I sound like a shithead talking about all this because I'm only 18, but holy crap, it sucks. I don't care if you're 70 years old, you know you miss being completely carefree. There were no student loans to worry about or GPAs to fret over. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely content with my life, but I miss being stupid like that. Now I'm more cautious, which makes me feel pretty lame.

Sigh. It's too late to be writing about this. I've been trying to make my history notes legible and now I'm irritated at how tedious that can be and am pretty pissed that I had to do it at all.

woooow busy!

So I definitely haven't had to time write anything in any journal in forever. I've been so busy, holy crap. I've barely been in my room and poor Kizzy is all sad and lonely. The good news is that my mom has her own computer and I have my laptop, so all is well. And our wireless actually works. Yay.

Does anyone remember that guy that I was talking about a few entries back? You know, the one who was like my first love and all that stuff. Heh, about that. He randomly called me one night and said, "I just got off work and I wanna show you my car." So he did and we drove around a lot. I finally saw the house that his family moved into, which wasn't that big of a deal because it's directly across the street from their old one, and he moved out of it like two days ago anyways into his own place with this other dude.

Apparently said other dude doesn't ever clean because that place is gross. I mean there's not like, clothes and crap everywhere, but there's a fair amount of food sticking to the kitchen countertops. I attempted some cleaning, but they didn't have any paper towels. I did wash their dishes which was easy because they have a dishwasher. But, um, it seems to be too much work to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Eurgh.

So we're not really dating but we kind of are. I don't even know if I want that to happen, but I feel really comfortable around him, even if he can be kind of a dick. It happens, I guess. He irritates the shit out of me when he "forgets" to call. He's all, "It's not a big deal!" I don't really care if we agree to like not see each other until the weekend or something, but it is SO rude to say "I'll call you tomorrow" and then. . .you know, not.

Eh. Whatever. I stayed at his house last night. Attempting to sleep when there's a giant snoring male beside you in a twin bed isn't all that spectacular. I think he should get a bigger bed 'cause. . .yeah, I don't dig being pushed off a bed. But hell, it's something. He's only 21; it's not like he's gonna be able to afford a mansion or anything. Mike's job pays well, but he's definitely not rich.

Also, he has a flat iron. And a blow dryer. Because he is apparently a girl. Seriously, um, he's about 6'5" and like 250 pounds and watches football and drinks beer, but his hair is longer than mine and kinda curly, so. . .hahaha. Yep, a flat iron. Jesus.

Okay, Meru is coming to get me and we're gonna go attempt to find something to eat for $20. This might be an adventure.

Gold Dome Book Sale

You didn't think I was gonna let the Gold Dome Book Sale on the campus of Centenary College come and go and not post an entry about it, did you?

I waited in line Friday night to shuffle in with everyone else and bought $53 worth of used books. My problem of how to tote two big bags back to my van was solved when Josh raced up in his golf cart. This nice young man took my parcels and swung them into the back while I plopped onto the seat next to him. Josh plays baseball for the Centenary Gents and was part of all the great volunteers who make the sale such a success every year.

I'm only sad that I didn't get back over there on Saturday. Oh well, I've already got the 2007 sale marked out on my calendar.

Change

All the little (and big) fibers in my body are trembling because of the changes going on around here. They're good ones like new computers so we can write more but getting the things up and running are shaking me. I'm such a creature of habit.

Getting blog posts out has become nearly impossible because of all this shifting around. I need to be squished under a giant body pillow or someone should come install a hot tub in my back yard... never mind that would involve more change.

One interesting thing all this has stirred up is the really strange relationship I have with money. Who would've thought having enough money would cause a person to have anxiety?

Pagans in South Highlands

My new addiction is night walking. I do it on my nights off. Load up Eko, our black cocker-poo mix goofy dog, and head to the side street of The First Baptist Church of Shreveport.

I snap the automatic dog leash onto Eko's collar and we're walking the streets of South Highland making observations: Most of those people don't turn on their porch lights. And a good number of them live in the back of their houses because they don't put up curtains in the front and leave all the lights on so I can see the fashionable colors slicking their walls.

Earlier this week the sky was fairly bright because the full moon is tonight. Two streets over from the big church I ran into a group of young adults standing in their front yards. I think "Yeah, it's pagans celebrating the full moon." Turns out to be they're waiting for the realtor to show them the house next door because it's for sale. Oh well, I should have surmised South Highlands wasn't paganland because there were too many Jerry Jones for Mayor signs. However I did note there was a Liz Swaine sign planted at a house directly across from the Baptist Church.

Getting Your Hair Did

Katee's got new hair! Make that new color. She went from black and orange to a nice rich red color.

Over at KKBJ I posted about using a national pharmacy for getting meds. Then I started feeling guilty cause I normally try to go to locally owned places.

Well, you can't get more local than Brothers Hair Design. It's in our Highland neighborhood and was the official hair salon for the Miss Teen USA Pageant for 1998 and 1999.

While I didn't get my hair did, I did take advantage of their mirrors and noted my home hair cut job wasn't too shabby.

"Pretty good," I said.

"Oh for God's sake, at least break down and go to the beauty college and get a five dollar hair cut," Katee said as she flipped her new do this way and that.

What and waste six dollars (I do tip) when the Gold Dome Book Sale is this weekend? Nope.

Brain SWAT