So I'm on this low carb thing, because I have this big event coming up, and my mom's visiting, and it's a veritable carb-fest. When I got home last night, she had baked and frosted her famous chocolate cake that I ate for breakfast on many, many mornings when I was younger. Tonight, she's doing an Italian pasta salad. She's trying out recipes on Erik. But when the parental units leave, it's back to no sugar and no flour and no chocolate cake.

The Upper Midwest is still relatively untouched
Like Antarctica
And I'm so excited
It could all be mine
And at the same time
(maybe it's the sore throat and stuffy head)
I wanna curl up on my bed
In the slanted square of sunlight through the window
I'll take a long winter's nap,
Hiding from the elements that feel like
Antarctica.

I have acquired a summer cold. Summer colds are bad, in part, because June is not the time you want to snuggle up and sleep it off. In June you want to be outside. People around me are like bats. They like cold, dark rooms. What is wrong with them? I need warmth, people. And maybe I'll go home and see where that will get me.

Attaining a Bachelor's Degree: $blood

Moving cross-country three times to feel settled: $sweat

Trying out every career your college advisor said your major and minor were good for: $tears

Getting a promotion that makes it possible to go home for your Ten-Year Class Reunion: PRICELESS

I'm a consultant, y'all. You may love me now.

Faith of a mustard seed....& prayer. That's all you need.

"Everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle."
--Naomi Judd
I dearly love the people with whom I work, but every last one of 'em is living a soap opera. That's just how life is. Every one of these folks has something going on. Drama, drama. But so have I. Everybody does. Look at anyone around you. I'll bet they're thisclose to leaving their husband, getting their kids back from an ex, or, in my case, living in the 'hood and fending off ants at every turn. Drama is life. Life is just four or five days surrounded by all their aftermath and beforemath (who came up with that word -aftermath? Is it trigonometry? The calculus of planning a wedding. I'll bet Martha Stewart has a book on that...). Aftermath is drama. So....how 'bout them Spurs?

"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm watching David Robinson run like you." I said, of his lifelong hero.
That was June 1999, and last night my Spurs won another World Championship. These are my guys. I love the silver and black. And David's last game. I sobbed for most of the Fourth Quarter, and the attack was awesome. It was like watching them being shot out of a cannon, how suddenly they just went to work. They came to work-work-work it.

My senior year of college, I interned at CBS in Washington, DC. One day I was sitting in the Face the Nation office, clipping articles and organizing them, when a very pleaant man asked me my name and where I was going to school.
I told him, and asked, "And your name again, sir?"
Well, he started laughing.
He laughed until tears rolled out of his eyes and he removed his dark glasses to wipe them away, and leaned against the wall, crying in his laughter.
Behind him on the wall was a giant poster with his picture.

Face the Nation
with Bob Shieffer

"You're lucky I'm not Dan Rather!"
His daughter's college roommate told me that she was sure he loved that story and it would be great at dinner parties and I shouldn't feel bad. When the amusing anecdote reached the intern coordinator, it had become that I walked up to Bob Shieffer and said, "Who the hell are you?"
Now I think we all know I've never spoken to anyone like that in my life.
A few days ago, in Barnes&Noble, I noticed he has a new book out.
“This Just in: What I Couldn’t Tell You on TV"
I didn't buy it.

My friend Tash and I would go driving around in high school, often bottoming-out her truck on the gravel roads near Falkirk. Ya know those handles on the ceilings of vehicles, which some use to hoist themselves up into SUVs, etc? Well, we affectionately referred to them as the "Oh Shit!" handles.
I feel like I need an "Oh Shit!" handle in everyday life, and especially so when commuting in monsoon conditions among Texans, who can't drive in anything but sunny, dry weather. I feel like I need to instruct the world how to drive. Everywhere I go, the World's Worst Drivers follow me there.
An "Oh Shit!" handle is like an exterior element of our "fight or flight" system. We need "Oh Shit!" handles.
Kind of like an "Oh Shit!" handle is my Guardian Angel clip on the visor above my steering wheel. She gives me a strong sense of security while I'm teaching other people how to drive (Thanks Mom).
Another "Oh Shit!" handle would be this venti Starbucks sitting four inches from my left hand. Say what you will about corporate coffee, the other stuff just ain't as good. I need this. And who among you dares to deny me?

Wow Weekend. Yesterday I raced Go-Karts. More accurately, I put-putted along around a trackwhile boys ran circles around me, ramming into my cart as they passed. I then convinced Erik to go purse shopping. I agreed to lunch at Hooters. Hey, I'm secure. I can be surrounded by Hooters Girls and not freak. Last night I sang karaoke in front of ten or fifteen adoring strangers. Today I had an aqua massage in the middle of the mall. I fell asleep to Enya in the headphones, and when I woke up there were people watching me. Ya gotta get up pretty early in the morning to be this amazing. GO SPURS.

Ok. White Mustangs follow me. They are everywhere. I think I need one. Also, many years ago...ok, like, SEVEN... a listener faxed in to the radio station a picture of me as a superheroine. "Josie the Girl Wonder." It might get me a job today. So thank you "Greg," wherever you are.
All I wanna do is to thank you
Even though I don't know who you are
You let me change lanes
While I was driving in my car.

"My heart warms with the friends I make
And better friends I'll not be knowing
Yet there isn't a train (plane, or automobile) I wouldn't take
No matter where it's going."

Yup. Somebody needs a trip again. A drive? Nah. I want a plane ride.

Hug the Jeff, or Jef, as it were, closest within your reach. Do this today. Do this for me. Thank you.

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them." - Shakespeare