for in this world I'm bound to ramble

You've missed the rambling posts, haven't you? The "wonder what's going to spew out of her brain today?" kind of thing.

No?

Too bad. Because I drained myself a little giving you so many glorious wonders last week (the sugar/hyper kids connection? You know you're thanking me for that study!) that I just have to dash off a few things that have been cluttering my mind lately and then I can be free. You know you're going to read it anyway. And comment (including those of you who lurk in the shadows. We're all very nice here. Oh, I say I'm sarcastic and all that, but I am a very nice person, so feel free to leave a comment).

So now, sit back and marvel as I give you, in no particular order, the following:

-- I sometimes think wrong numbers are actually a means of checking up on me. I’ve received several mistaken calls lately, and I often spend a couple of minutes assuring the caller the person they’re seeking isn't me (I am many things, to many people, but I am not Dean Wheatenhaven). What confounds me is that after we’ve chuckled about their misdial, the caller in need of anyone other than me repeats a telephone number so very slightly off of mine as if to question whether it was really me who made the mistake when they called. To perhaps catch me in some ruse. You all know what I’m talking about. We’ve probably all done it. If the inquiry continues, (“Are you sure Dean’s not there? He said he’d be there. I’m pretty sure I dialed correctly.”), I begin to think the caller is trying to find out something about me. Do they want to rob my house and are now all "Drats!" because I answered the phone?

-- Same with wrong numbers on my cell phone. I've gotten a lot the last couple of weeks. Naturally, these calls often come as I'm in the shower or have just started drying my hair. Sadly, yes, I do the whole "turn off the hair dryer, listen, nothing, turn the hairdryer on, what's that noise?" move. In this case, I believe the calls are not from strangers casing my joint, but the friend I've been doing the whole “caller I.D. dodge” thing with. She's probably getting other people to call me to see if I haven't actually died. That or it’s some of you people out there in the Internet, hoping beyond hope that one day you’ll crack the code and find me.

-- What is it about balloons that turn children into mindless lunatics? We ran an errand to a new store last Friday and a sales clerk asked my sons if they’d each like a balloon. Unable to insert myself into this Pavlovian prompt and say no, I instead watched as their brains dripped from their ears and they forgot they were in a public place and lost all ability to listen to us and follow simple directions. Some people hate clowns. I hate balloons.

-- If I ever become a rock star (fingers crossed!) I want my first video to be the requisite "life’s tough on the road" video. Just get it out of the way, and THEN do the edgier stuff. So I'll bust out like the old school artists did it. Warrant. Journey. The Hooters. (ok, not so much the Hooters. But I dig the song. Play along). There's me smiling on the bus. There’s me starting to look a little wistful as the night sky whizzes by in a blur of city after city. There's me conducting the same radio interview over and over again ("So why 'Penchant for Panties'? What's up with that? Do you REALLY like panties that much?"). There's me on the phone, calling home to the ones I love and finding they don't answer anymore. There's my smile fading. There's lighters (Screw cell phone screens. Old school, people!) lighting up the coliseum as I buck up and take the stage tonight. There’s the slow motion shot as my guitar players dance some crazy guitar player shuffle, my drummer tosses his sticks 20 feet in the air and executes a perfect catch and I turn my head slowly toward the screaming fans and smile, give a nod and then fall backwards into their open arms. Cut to the end with the white towel draped over my sweaty head, walking slowly and silently and alone down the tunnel toward another lonely night on the bus. Not so smiley anymore. The love that feeds me having left a mess of empty beer cups and panties on the coliseum floor. Then fade in with a cross edit of me staring at myself in a lit dressing room mirror. Nice. What's that? Yes. Yes indeed. I rock.

-- You probably just THINK I have this much time on my hands.

-- So tell me, was the world really clamoring for a Spice Girls reunion tour? And why, out of all of them, was it that Sporty Spice – seemingly the least busy of the spices - seemed to hold out the longest on agreeing? Did she catch Baby in that lucrative Prego spaghetti sauce commercial and think “Dammit, when is it my turn to cash in?” Perhaps she just wanted to give me yet another reason to shout out to the Spice Girls here.

-- There's a guy who has come to the bookstore on a nightly basis for two or three months. We’ve exchanged pleasant and brief chit chat, and while he knows my name, I don’t know his, so I call him “Barnsey,” because honestly, he’s become like the store mascot with his nightly routine. I’m careful not to slip and call him Barnsey to his face, but it’ll probably happen at some point. That it didn’t last Friday night when he told me I looked stressed and offered to give me a shoulder rub is a bit surprising. I mean, what’s up with that, Barnsey? You’re kind of cute in that quirky way I dig, but wow. I’ve never had hands laid on me in the fiction section before.

-- I'm about done with television and the whole concept of "ugly guy/hot wife" characters. I can pretty much tolerate the "we live in an environment well beyond our means based on the jobs we don't go to" but the plausibility of these personal pairings is confounding and irritating.

-- The other morning, I stopped short of giving my youngest son his breakfast when I passed the television and spied my Steve wearing shorts on Blue's Clues. Hello, sexy kneecaps. My son's plaintive cries for cereal were drowned out by the thought of delivering a clue to Steve personally. Did I mention Steve was ON his knees? Practically bowing to me? My clues aren’t suitable for preschool programming, thank you very much.

-- Last Wednesday, I took my oldest son to his morning camp absent of panties. Thursday, I dropped him off sans bra. Lucky for everyone that Friday wasn’t a complete “clothing optional” day; however, I simply need to get up a bit earlier to better plan for these types of neighborhood jaunts.

-- Absent of Panties, btw, is going to be the name of my band when the original members of Penchant for Panties refuses to reunite, Spice Girls style, and I'm forced to make a small clubs tour of the Midwest in order to pay spousal support to my string of former husbands. I'll be the Sebastian Bach, the Vince Neill, if you will, of Absent of Panties, singing the old hits without all the glitz.

-- Never underestimate the powers of two Pringles potato chips set into the shape of a duckbill and a keen ability to sound like the largest duck ever to calm a crying five year old. Patented soother and tasty snack. Thank you, junk food.

-- In case you were worried, my girly boner situation came back in full force with the triumphant return of Mike Rowe and "Dirty Jobs" to the Discovery Channel last Tuesday night. Yes, I love you "Deadliest Catch." Yes, I've thought about what it would be like to be the only chick on a boat with a bunch of manly crab fisherman. But it's Mike, and all is well with the world.

-- Consider this my Internet Tip O' The Week - If you wish to drive traffic to your blog, simply quote the song "Love Is Strange" from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack in one of your entries. Goodness. A random check of stats here shows my blog is uncovered by people from all over the world searching various lyrics from that track on the average of 20 times a day. If that doesn’t seem to be the thing that attracts people here, the chimps dressed in suits that I included in this post seems to be a big hit, too. If I could find a way to get chimps dressed in suits actually singing that song, I quite think the Internet would explode. Oh, and yes, you can be sure I'm found by people looking for racks. Kick ass racks. And by the things some people want to do with one. Like have chimps with kick ass racks wearing suits and singing "Love Is Strange." Love is strange, indeed.

There you have it. My mind is clear now. And you? Yep, you're fighting it, but you're willing to admit you missed this, too.