Thank you guys for your addresses so far!

And encase all of ya'll missed it: Click this link to be taken to the post where I'm asking to exchange Christmas cards with new LJ peeps and Peeps who might have sent me their addresses via email or IM's. (I lose those. I've got everyone's from 2008 & 2009 who replied here at live journal though.)

NaNoWriMo Update
Yesterday I had 13,000 there abouts still. Since Christmas is coming I've been padding up Triond and trying to earn a little $ of course, so I joined a new pay-to-write site and ended up doing a review for Star Wars Galaxies.

No one had written one!

So...I have used that review to pad my word count LMAO.

ALSO I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO CHRISTMAS MUSIC ALLLL DAY YAY! CHRISTMAS!

And so I close with something I haven't done in a while but you should know me for, by now.

A Random Mel List Update Stuff:

My pink cell phone's screen, when flipped open either comes up like a television that's on with no cable (a dark black screen that gives off a little bit of light,) or it works SO LONG AS I DON'T TOUCH ANY BUTTONS LOLOLOLOL. Shawn's phone started randomly shutting off a few months ago.

Called AT&T, not only were we able to replace BOTH of our phones for super cheap, because we're getting refurbished phones--we were able to afford upgrading our account. Not only do I have unlimited text? I now have unlimited information transfer. That means NO LIMITS ON: IM's, Email check & send, Pictures & videos. YAY.

Shawn and I are getting LG Vu's. We know they aren't the iphone. We can't afford the ipod, and compared with our phones which were made in the stone age AND they're completely touch-screen I am PRETTY BESIDE MYSELF ABOUT OUR PHONES RIGHT NOW OKAY? OKAY YAY.

Our old California King bed sheets, purchased thankfully by Grandma for Christmas three years ago just...started unraveling four or five months ago. Shawn, the gentlemen that he is, has been sleeping on a GIANT GAPING SHEET HOLE for the entire time. Recently we were able to scrounge up enough money and snatch a really GREAT deal on a full set of cotton, satin finish, 800 thread count california king with matching pillow cases. OH MY GOD THESE SHEETS ARE SOFTER THAN THE TEARS OF THE BEBE JESUS. And strong. And LOUD, loud as in if you sigh with too much force all the sheets rustle BUT I DON'T CARE I'M SLEEPING ON JESUS TEARS.

Despite doing good on the money front bills and things We Should Do But Cost Money still keep coming. Shawn says I need to hurry up and take over the world with cute clay things already.

I'm thinking about taking down digitally drawn art commissions. I'm just coming to the conclusion that I don't draw as well as I make disgustingly cute things out of clay.

I joined Helium today.

My lists are always too long!

THIS ENTRY IS RANDOM

I made another tin-box critter, a pink bunny and a pair of apple & worm earrings as well as a fire flower.

The fire flower looks like whomever made it has the onset of palsy :/

I swear, if I had a steady hand the shit I could do.

I have pictures, but the card reader in my computer isn't cooperating. I'd use Shawns, but he's uploading windows 7 which we pre-ordered before the lawyer bill (:p smart geeks, geek smart!) and got a steal of a deal on. So I have to wait and you do too.

BECAUSE I KNOW YOU GUYS AREN'T TIRED OF CLAY YET RIGHT? RIGHT. RIGHT?

In other news, since my self imposed internet hiatus--it's interesting to find out who remembers you and who you remember! GASP. WAS THAT A DIG OR A SARCASTIC COMMENT OR SOMETHING ELSE? DUN DUN DUN.

I went out onto the back porch on my way in searching for a leaf. I was gonna try and see if I could do some sort of press-thing with clay and get away with making pretty leaf earrings when I noticed a big, fat, Georgie*. He was just sitting there, probably the length of my middle finger eye balling me up like I might be dinner. So I reach down and try and scoop him into my hands.

We play I-chase-you-flail-about-having-a-fit and eventually I am able to cup my hands around him gently and trap him. I scoop him up in my triumph and lift him up. "Aha!" I crowed, happily, brought my hands up to my face and opened them just a little bit to peek in at my captured lizard friend.

Who then flew at my face as if my hands were far more horrifiying.

Surprised as I was, I froze stupidly for several seconds while this itty bitty lizard clung from my nose and lower lip--no doubt just as startled as I was. When I was able to rouse some sort of response (which I think sounded a lot like, "whhhhrrrrrwhhwhhhwhrrrr?!") I hopped about a second from foot to foot. This seemed to awaken my swaying, lizard friend and he flung himself from my face to my boobs.

Admittedly, it's a good place to be, but my brain responsible for reacting to creepy crawlies didn't like this much either and made me jerk my hands upward and sweep him off my shirt. He landed, safely, to the concrete porch below and scuttled off while I in a daze, hurried into the house.

An hour later and nearly recovered from my lizard encounter, I was on my way to the fridge to rummage for Raven's canned food. Feeling that odd, almost ghost-finger brush up and down my spine that meant someone's watching me, I turned my head to peer out the french doors in our kitchen leading to the porch. For a moment, I wasn't sure what it was entirely until by pure accident, my eyes fell to a dot lurking below the bench on the porch.

The dot was a lizard.

Staring his beady little eyes into the glare of kitchen french door glass, patiently waiting, waiting...waiting for his moment of vengeance against his earlier capture.

I write this in hopes a record of me remains; beware the lizard and the chasing there of.

P.S:

How the fuck are you guys?

*Brown Anole literally have taken over Florida. They're on every surface on every wall, sunning themselves everywhere. I lovez them.

Diabetes.

When I say that word, what do you picture?

Do you see the fat kid from fourth grade stuffing his face full of cake? Do you see an overweight woman struggling up and down steps or do you see an obese man with stomach hanging over his jeans?

When I hear the word, Diabetes, I see neither.

I see my mother.

My mother is not overweight. She was (contrary to what she will say as she has a habit of looking at her older pictures and pointing out the half-pound of fat some where I can’t see and rolling her eyes saying how ‘fat’ she used to be) a slim woman with long arm and leg bones. She was never too skinny either, my mother was always just right. She enjoyed her food, she enjoyed cooking the dishes her mother often made and was never ‘lazy’. In fact, I cannot remember a point in my life where my mother ever stopped doing something when I was a child–Dad and I used to call her The Lone Re-Arranger due to her perpetual fits of taking all the furniture in the living room and changing it about, by herself!

But Diabetes has changed all of this with a slow hand that I can only call cruel.

Diabetes has changed my mother. It is inevitable that it would, for it is a disease and in the case of Type 1 diabetes and most cases of Type 2, it cannot be cured. It can be controlled and reigned in with diet and exercise  for some, for others, it runs rampant through the body causing havoc with every major organ: from kidneys, to eye sight to the heart. It takes a toll on the body after so many years.

My mother’s body is very tired of fighting this disease.

These past few months she has been in and out of the hospital, fighting. Her arteries have been weakened, her kidneys have shut down and her heart has suffered through a handful of major and minor heart attacks. For my mother, it is a never ending cycle now–they can treat her heart, but it bothers her kidneys, they can treat her kidneys but it bothers her heart–and mixed with all of this is the lurking Diabetes; the beginning of it all and the original cause of almost every major issue she’s had to date.

Despite all of this I am hopeful.

Despite the fact that my mother will now absolutely require kidney dialysis for the rest of her life to help her shutting down kidneys to flush out the toxins ours do everyday without fail–I believe that this is a disease we can find a cure for, a disease we can easily beat.

And while weight can be an issue with diabetes, it isn’t always so! Diabetes isn’t a “fat persons” disease. This isn’t a “fat kids” disease. It’s a Your Mother, Your Father, Your Son, Your Sister, Your Uncle, Your Aunt, Your Cousin, Your Friend, Your Grandmother and Your Grandfather disease.   It’s a disease that is deceptive with its severity: it can start out as something so easily manageable we are often complacent to the damage this disease can do to a human being. It is no less of a disease than any other–it is still robbing us, slowly but surely, of those we love and adore.

This is my mother and Diabetes.

Please help my mother. Please help the thousands dealing with this disease. Please help us keep those we love. Consider donating to the American Diabetes Association, the Canadian Diabetes Association, or help in any way you can. A single dollar from you is one dollar closer to ending this disease–a single step closer for mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.

This is for my mother.

The American Association for Diabetes
The Canadian Association for Diabetes
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Cure 4 Diabetes
Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation

Originally published at 2PhatGeeks.com. You can comment here or there.

Four a.m. is the perfect time for poetry.
There's nothing in the world but
millions of sigh-sleeping souls
curled around love-nubbed blankets.
Thousands of black cats s-curved on pillows and
children clutching one eyed teddy bears.

It's the perfect time to stare
at white, blank screens that flickerflicker
mock your inability to move anyone but maybe
your self out of the chair for another cup of
sleepy-time tea and did you turn the kettle off
and where is the cat you hope you didn't
shut her out when you closed the door.

The house creaks in little amused snorts,
your chair whines at being awake at this hour and
the computer tries its best to hum you back to sleep.

The world around you exhales patiently.
It knows that there won't be any writing tonight,
yet conceeds that yes,
four a.m. is the perfect time for poetry.

------------------------------------

In other news, after spending yet another day in bed on my back with pillows shoved to high heaven under my legs--I am terribly put out with my back.

My patience with it has finally run thin. There's nothing better to teach me that I a) need to step up my yoga routine, b) need to lose weight, c) need to spend less time near a computer, d) don't really think it'd be nice to lay around and do nothing all day because IT'S. SO. ANNOYING and e) my back is super special and I only get one.

I wasn't able to return to any of my weekly online engagements I should have. I wish there was some sort of way I could flag people when I am unable to make it to seem less of a flake, but that's out of my hands.

Shawn came home tonight with more publix brand aleve, but something better. Walgreens extra strength back-pain relief. I call them "HOLY FUCK, YES," in tablet form because after taking them I've been able to sit upright and realize how much crap I have to do around the house.

And, of course, that it's almost four in the morning. Laying on your back in bed for days in a row makes you give up and sleep out of not much else to do. Television is truly horrendous and my books are all read.

Tomorrow I don't plan on overdoing it, but I'm going to do some Yoga and try and clean this place up. It's a mess.

I go back to the optometrist to get my contacts checked and hopefully fixed. I can't see the computer monitor as well as I could with glasses and the reading glasses I was prescribed? NO ONE makes them. I'd have to get them specially made. No way we can afford that!

Anyway, last week when we were getting them I got into an argument with Shawn's optometrist. He stopped in the office of mine to get contacts. Now I was asking my doctor if there were reasonably affordable (IE: cheaper but decent quality) contacts when Shawn's doctor came in. I wasn't going to go with Accuvue lenses. Shawn apparently decided to go with Accuvue and I asked HIS doctor if there wasn't anything any cheaper and he flipped.

"I'M the EYE DOCTOR here, and MY advice is the advice YOUR HUSBAND is following," he huffed. "Further more, you don't expect to purchase a $20 car and have it run, why would you purchase a cheaper pair of CONTACTS. They're your EYES."

"--Whoa, whoa, whoa, attitude dude." I said to him before I realized it. I think he bristled. He was balding, so there wasn't much to bristle.

"WELL. Contacts are a luxury item. If you can't afford them, don't get them."

"Uh--our insurance covers them. We wouldn't if--" He'd already stormed off.

Uhm. The only reason we got lenses & contacts was because as soon as I married Shawn I was able to be placed on his benefits. Insurance covered contacts up to a certain amount and lenses, the same. Let's just say I won't be seeing THAT doctor anytime soon.

I wouldn't even have contacts if not for this. So! I think that I will try and get the more expensive astigmatism contact lenses. I'll get less, but I don't plan on wearing them that often (special occasions,) so as long as I keep them sealed in containers within best before dates, should be good to go. AND I should be able to see with them.

Right now, I'm stuck wearing the first prescription because the docs have to be sure my eyes aren't going to explode out of my face and crawl away and it drives me nuts. I can see our neighbors house clear as day, the house after, the far-away trees, but we get to the garden outside out window and it's a little blurry. Anything from right in front of me to 10 feet on makes my eyes freak out. One moment they're in focus the next they're not!

I have a plethora of unimportant things to say and aren't you lucky that all of you who friended me get to read them?

• First, for those of you who are role playing awesomesauce people like myself: Greater Realms is, officially 100% complete. The theme is installed, the Flashchat (<--Clicking that link will bring you to G.R. Flashchat which you need to have an account with the GR board to log into) has been skinned to match the summer theme and, I hope that slwatson can say she's proud of what the board has evolved into. If you haven't visited or bothered signing up, I'm asking pretty please with sugar ontop that you consider doing so. No one who plays on the forums or the chat are stuck to single settings, members can create their own private or public rooms if they want, which personally (and I AM biased) is fantastic to me. Remember! We're not trying to replace anyone, we're just trying to give more places to play.
  
• The next plan for Greater Realms is to simply wait for a points/coins/post count = pretend money MOD & store mod that will work with phpBB3 that isn't in alpha phase. I don't really trust half of them out there now. Some of them haven't been worked on since the release of phpBB3.
  
• The gum surrounding my wisdom tooth has stopped swelling and returned to normal for now. Shawn went out to Walmart and purchased a waterpick, and an oral cleanser that is 10% Carbamide Peroxide. Using the water pick, brushing more than usual, and soaking the gum in the peroxide has made it a thing of the past. However, I am not stopping the water pick and soaking it once every two days in the peroxide, just as a precaution. There's a big tear-drop shaped flappy-floopity piece of gum hanging out over the middle of my wisdom tooth. I can shove my tongue under there, and I imagine all sorts of food too. No sense in not making double sure it doesn't get infection or inflamed again.
  
• Long hot shower at night + fresh, still-warm-from-the-dryer pajamas + same for bed sheets and blankets = sleepgasm. I wish I could bottle the feeling of what it's like to curl up in, and swipe my toes across, as well as fondle into my pillow--in a bed that smells so good. Shawn brought home lotus & rain fabric softner instead of cheap no-name dryer sheets for a treat. My god what a difference.
  
• If you can't afford shaving cream, conditioner DOES work just as well. I found that out this week as I ran out and didn't feel the need to really spend the extra $ we don't have on something that I won't die without. So I read somewhere that conditioner works just as well, and slathered some on my legs and went to town shaving. It's 100% true (though I imagine it depends on whether your conditioner is thick or not.) and I think I might just not bother buying the shaving cream anymore. One less cost on the food bill = more money to save!

This concludes my random rambling and odd list for today.

Anyone else have any cost-effective tips or ideas? We need 'em.

April 17  II 2009

Atlanta loomed large and sleepy in late night, early morning orange street lamps. Their flickering orange lights highlighted my own reflection in uv darkened bus windows as I found myself spending more and more time simply staring out of them in the hopes it would make this trip go faster.

I don’t honestly remember much of Atalanta, although I remembered the bus station. I’d been through there before several times years ago in several different bus trips. The bus station in Atlanta seemed crowded as well as protected by the broken-teeth rows of old, abandoned factory buildings. Brick buildings everywhere, including the station itself. I was never so glad to get off a bus in my life, as I did not have to sit and smell the armpits of Stinky Australian man who sat behind me, the reeking pot stank of Fifteen Scent, or listen to the quiet snores of Mr. Nap who, whilst saving me from losing my bus ticket–really shouldn’t sleep on large, fat, tired geeky white women.

Atlanta was cold. Atlanta was colder than I’d expected; living in Florida had spoiled me rotten against winter. I had thought all those past months of complaining about how hot it was might actually do the opposite and help me embrace my long distant Canadian winter blood. Alas, this was not so. My teeth began chattering the moment I trundled off the bus and onto the ramp leading inside. Atlanta, however, gave me my first hour and a half at a station to do several things. Up until that time Grayhound had herded us on a bus, then herded us off, then herded us in stations, herded us in lines immediately and then called for boarding even if our tickets said 2 or more hour layover.

There are no showers or any other facilities past a toilet, sink and mirror in every Grayhound station I can remember, so I packed smart. Let me just tell you plainly at this very momoment–after two days on a bus surrounded by coughing, sneezing, farting, drinking, smoking, snotty people there is nothing quiet so awesome as a baby wipe bath. A baby wipe bath that you scrub so hard you emerge pink and squeaky.  It was one of those moments where I realized how grateful I was to have a home with running water, a place to have a shower or bath if I wished.

I didn’t spend too long in there however, because as per usual with Grayhound, there was an immense line up for the Atlanta to St. Lois bus and by the size of the line? I knew boarding call was coming soon.

When we all trundled onto the bus, most of us were over tired, cold, exhausted and simply wanted to get back into our iron maiden chairs cleverly disguised as being bus seats. I didn’t pay much attention to the happy-go-lucky driver as I piled myself into a chair near the window and tried not to kill anyone with my uber-bag of emergency everything. As I was settling, I heard over the bus’ intercom, “Heh. Heh. Heh. ” I can only describe it as the most laid-back, cool, ‘heh’ I have ever heard in my life.  Was it possible to make ‘heh’ sound both as awesome as the Fonz’ eyyyyyyyyyy and as funkin’ as Shaq’s theme song?

It was. It so was.

“Ladies n’ gentlemen, welcome to the big daaaawwwwg buslines,” mellow and drawn out, he took his time pronouncing each word and made sure to dramatically pause here so he could say, “also known as Grayhound, heh, heh, heh. Just want to inform ya’ll that there will be no smokin’ in this here couch,” pronounced: cowch. “There will be no ingestin’ of alchoholic beverages of any time. Please don’t smoke in the bathrooms, s’bad for ya’ll anyway.

“Before we go on our trip I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you that while we are all together on this here cowch, we’re all just tryin’ to get some place. So let’s spread some love out there in the world today.  We family, and I want ya’ll to treat one another like family. Ain’t nobody here to look after one another but each other, so remember that. Treat your fellow cowch passengers as you’d like to be treated, like y’treat your mom, your dad, your sister or loved one.  This how we do it–how we start spreadin’ the love all over the place, in little spots like this, you know? Then it’ll get bigger and spread more.

“I’ll be your driver all the way to St. Lois, if you need anything please feel free to ask. Thank you for choosin’ the heh big daaawwwg, grayhound.”

He was without a doubt, one of the coolest and best driver’s I ever remember having. He walked up and down the aisles after to talk to everyone while we waited for refueling to finish, smiled and listened to people.  When the trip got under way and it was time for some bus passengers to leave, he’d always remind them to ‘Spread th’ love,’ and thank them for riding the big dawg.

It didn’t seem to matter so much that the stranger sitting next to me kept elbowing my boob, or that the bus smelled like a salad of gas and shoes–I felt like perhaps there were pockets of hope scattered around the universe, just waiting for us to spread the love and reward us. That was the first time I was able to rest my head against the bus window and get several hours of sleep. The sleep was almost as glorious as the magnificent St. Lois Arch I was greeted with, awashed in the gray morning light of a cold rainy day.

I had one more day to go before arriving at Alberta. I was full of niave hope that the trip there might finally go without a hitch.

This is part III of a series of writings pertaining to Mel’s experiences traveling four days on a greyhound bus from Florida to Canada. Miss the first post? Why not read it: here? Check out the second post here

       

Originally published at 2PhatGeeks.com. You can comment here or there.

I love it when I am going out of my way to find cheap but healthy foods for Shawn and I, since times are retarded tight I'd thought I'd readjust my shopping--and I find recipes with white wine, portobello mushrooms, smoked Gouda and fresh sage.

Most poo' folk don't have access to a garden nor the money to splurge on a bag of live herbs at the grocery store. I don't know about some of you, but when we say money's tight...Money is tight. $5 for a bag of basil that could be turned into 3 cannisters of the dried stuff or 2 bags of kitty litter or a whole tub of margarine that'll last us a month is a bit steep. Portobello mushrooms at our grocery store, Publix, aren't very cheap either. They're generally anywhere from $3-$5 more than a box of uncut normal 'shrooms.

Everyone, everyone is urging everyone around them to try and eat healthier, better-for-you foods. That your health is a priority and one of the major ways to improve it is eating fresher, more organic stuffs.

Why, then, is it so fucking expensive?

Why can't I come home with enough stuff to make a Vietnamese tofu & noodle lettuce wraps for several lunches through out the week for the same price as a 6 pack of Kraft Dinner?

April 16th, 2009. 2:00 am - 9:00 am.

Earlier on the 15th when we arrived at the Orlando Greyhound bus station, I was in for a mightly surprise.

For three hours on the first evening when I started my trip I was literally in heaven. The bus was sparsely populated and I had two bus seats of my own to easily stretch out across. The bus, while not being new was at least relatively clean enough and it was quiet. All that changed in Orlando.

Inside the bus station was pretty much standing room only. Every seat had been taken and lines that spanned from the Greyhound boarding doors facing the parking garage, to the front entrance door spanned the building. Children were hot, bothered, cranky and screaming from within their mothers clutches. Some of them weren’t even held within their mothers clutches, they ran willynilly within the bus terminal stepping on other peoples luggage and screaming shrilly until it bounced off white-tiled walls. There may have been an air conditioner inside the Orlando bus terminal, but the humidity from everyone packed together exhaling, sweating as well as generating body heat made it as useless. Every face of nearly every person inside was twisted in some semblance of exhaustion or outright blank, soulless, oh-god-why-the-hell-did-I-take-the-bus expression.

After what seemed like the millionth time some kid kicked over my suitcase, I decided to retreat to the outside in hopes of finding some relief from the bleak, unusual hell also known as ‘inside the bus terminal’. The outside was little better than the inside of the terminal. Lined from one end of the curved single lane drive way meant for pick ups, to the other, were yellow taxis. Weaving in between the taxis were men and women begging to use stranger’s cell phones and spare cigarettes (because every 20 pack comes with an extra 5 dontcha know!).

Nearing boarding time, I head back inside thinking I might return to the sweet, sweet cave of a sparsely populated Greyhound bus from Orlando to Atlanta, Georgia.

How I was wrong. So, so, so wrong.

The line for the Orlando to Atlanta bus? It was one of those lines from one end of the terminal to the other. By the time I got myself in the right cattle-loading-lane, I was very near the end with a handful of other stragglers that moped about at the back of the line with me.

One was a young Australian fellow who I learned shortly would be traveling with me all the way from Orlando, FL, to Calgary, Canada. With me and the Aussie at the back of the line was an immense man who was a dead ringer for Michael Clarke Duncan, right down to the laugh.  He made a quip about not fitting into the seats because he was so very tall and I made a quip about not fitting in the seats due to being very fat. He laughed, loudly, his voice definitely tipping toward basso.  As I picked up my 49 pound bag of clothing, my second over-the-shoulder back of food, supplies, books and ipod as well as my camera bag…I once again thought, aw, well, maybe things are looking up despite the line!

That brief flicker of hope was cruelly snuffed when we were sardine packed within the Orlando to Atlanta bus to full capacity. No seat was left empty, no space in the above storage compartments that was  not crammed full until it creak-groaned over every little bump. I was stuck one seat directly in front of the Aussie fellow I had met in Orlando, and my seat partner was an Arabic gentlemen who spoke perhaps a handful of words in English.

As the second night wore on, I realized that the Aussie, whom I had thought earlier I might offer him some ribbon candy to see if he’d get into my van marked: Candy–(He was cute and young. Put him on roller skates and I would have called him Meals on Wheels.) –smelled like three year old sweaty gym socks and ass cheese. The scent was wafting over me as the buses air circulation system kept blowing this unwashed, ass cheese, pit fungus scent like a drill directly up my nose holes. To make things worse, every time he lifted his arms a wave of death would arise out of the dark cesspools he called armpits. I literally spent the next two hours until the Aussie went to sleep (where he finally  lowered his arms… ) struggling not to gag loudly. The icing on the cake was that the Arabic fellow who seated himself next to me fell asleep. He fell asleep on me.

I spent the next mind-numbing moments attempting to pretzel-fold my fat ass into a wafer thin greyhound seat and jostling Mr. Nap beside me so I could get comfortable. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Every time I thought I would, the bus stopped, Mr. Nap fell asleep and slid over until his unconscious body hit mine–or someone decided to sneeze and not cover their mouths whilst doing so, spraying the people nearest them with a soup of spitsnot. To make attempts at sleep a bit more interesting at night; every single stop the bus made to pick up someone or drop them off the bus driver flicked on the lights. Now, I understand why they have to do this. Some schmuck would probably sue Greyhound if they ever tripped in the dark and got themselves a hang nail on the way down. But I am not sure those of you unfamiliar with traveling a bus at night, understand just how special these lights are. At night, these lights are like a thousand white-hot melty plastic stir-sticks jabbing into your eye to tickle or dislodge pieces of your brain stem.  They are retina raping lights! And every stop the bus driver flicked them on for seconds to illuminate the newest member of this ride to hell on their way to their seat.  One of these pupil violating stops picked up a half-drunk, horse faced beauty with limp brown hair.

The moment she stepped on the bus she was so goddamn loud you could literally hear her thinking. She settled down in her seat, which as fate would cackle about it, was one row away from being directly across from mine and behind Michael Clarke Duncan Clone’s seat. In the span of an hour, the entire bus learned this woman’s sex life, how much she liked to drink, where she lived, what she thought about “ignorant fucks who walk down the aisle with their elbows out,” and what kind of underwear she was wearing. As time appeared to limp like a freshly struck-by-a-car deer toward morning, I had visions of strangling her dancing in my head. Delicious, slow motion visions.  At 1:30 am when the bus had stopped at a convenience store, she informed the entire bus she was not fucking sleeping, no way then trundled on in to purchase an arm load of energy drinks. As everyone boarded again, they settled in some semblance of quiet.   I assume Crazy Loud Lady could not abide silence of any kind because At 2:00 am precisely she burst into “99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! 99 BOTTLES OF BEER! TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 98 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL.” To which, the Huge Michael Clarke Duncan look alike lead the majority of the bus in a hearty:  shut the fuck up, it’s two in the morning! I felt the sting of proud tears prick my eyelids as I once again attempted to sleep snapped in half against the window.

I couldn’t do it–I couldn’t grasp hold of this beautiful, illusive creature called sleep so I dug around in the carry on bag I had stuffed full of random-bus-things  for twenty minutes in the dark to find some of the cashews I was sure I had packed. On a whim, and because Arabic Mr. Nap was still awake, I offered him some cashews to eat. I think he said no thank you, and I continued to juggle the thought of committing seppaku on a packed bus.

I’m glad I offered Mr. Nap the Cashews. As we reached Atlanta and the lights clicked on for the last time, I was in a hurry to get the fuck off that bus. I wanted to stretch my legs, run around in the strange, alien cold that Atlanta had and get away from Crazy Loud Mouth Lady and Mr. Nap. As I was almost ready to step into the aisle with all my bags and leave the bus, Mr. Nap took hold of my elbow and pointed to the floor. In heavily accented English he said, “Is that your ticket?” In a panic I whirled about and look down. Sure enough! It was my ticket laying on the floor. It had fallen out of my bag with my earlier squirrel-digging when I was looking for my cashews.  I swooped down and picked it up in a hurry and thanked him profusely.

So day 2 of my 4 day Greyhound ordeal was nearing to a close and I had already learned two valuable lessons:

• Don’t give Crazy Loud Ladies energy drinks and
• remember to offer cashews to whomever naps on you encase you drop your ticket.

This trip was looking more and more fanfuckingtastic as it went!

This is part II of a series of writings pertaining to Mel’s experiences traveling four days on a greyhound bus from Florida to Canada. Miss the first post? Why not read it: here?
Credit for Stock photography in this article: bingevil-stock, prognar, lordmanchae,

       

Originally published at 2PhatGeeks.com. You can comment here or there.

My parents here in Alberta live in one of those cut-out suburban communities.

There are thin, long homes in various acceptable pastel and bland shades of white, yellow, blue, beige and the occasional wild trim of forest green or red. The homes are huddled together like people shoved under awnings in the city during unexpected rain. I can walk out the front door, sit on the front step and stare at the siding of the next house six to eight feet away from the front door.

And in fact, this evening I did.

Across the street is a cul-de-sac, five homes splay outward as fingers on a hand stared back at me. Above me was nothing but stunning, late evening cornflower blue skies touched with stretched-out-cotton clouds. The cement step leading up to the door was not cold at all, it was still soaked with the warm sun of the afternoon and I pressed my socked feet against it absorbing it.

The neighbors kids were out. The girls were squealing and running around as well as away from one of the younger boys, sun-bronzed already and it's not even officially summer here; the snow's just stopped really. Mixed with the sounds of children chasing one another, laughing, squealing and screaming was the distant sound of a dog barking, a car door slamming. Mingling with all of that, the hum and drone of busy little cars hurrying along the highway.

The leaves had just exploded. It seems like three days ago there were nothing but buds, buds, buds and skinny bare branches. Now I watched the sunlight glitter along fresh, brand new leaves.

We're all different as human beings. Our tastes, our wants, our needs, our desires and our dreams--all different.

I couldn't help but think that right at that moment, on that front door step with the smells and sounds of life all around me that...It was paradise, for me.

Someday maybe, I will have the chance to have a little pale-siding house squished together with more in a little community some where in Florida. Some day, maybe, I'll have a front step and a back porch where I'll spend my evenings listening to children laugh, dogs bark, and life spinning all around me reminding me that life is simple. Simple and good.

I think perhaps it was one of the first moments of pure content in my life.

I hope there are many more.