Twitter Wit

Listen, I didn't dream it up: it's what they named the book. I found this little gem during a recent trip to the public library. In case I was boring you to death last time we talked, I might mention this is one of my favorite "me dates." When I need an hour or two - just a smidge of a sanity window - I run away to my closest library branch and wheedle away the time hunting the stacks for that gem of a find...such as this one.
Now, I don't tweet but, then again, I don't have to in order to know that tweeting is to Twitter what status updates are to Facebook. Let me also say that I - who only turns on my cell during school hours and has never even sent a text - have no interest whatsoever in permanently residing in this porthole of a world spent documenting my every whisper of thought.

But visiting is nice.
Visiting is fun.
And, in this case, visiting left me laughing so hard my sides actually hurt the next day.

This is an authorized collection of "some of the funniest tweets of all time." But, as its editor hurriedly points out, tweets are about far more than humor. If sarcasm is the grumpy man's wit, then Twitter is the postmodern, culture-saavy, uncensored, and sometimes all-out raw man's wit...conveyed in 140 characters or less! Some have elusive references; others are so accessible as to be boring. Lots and lots are crass (my faves, I gotta' tell 'ya), and just as many are...well...let's say more-than-crass.

But they're all worth noting because they're real: they came from real people noting real, albeit often unusual, quirks of everyday human life. It's a time capsule imprinted forever on the Internet mainframe, really.

Now that, people, is a social experiment worth glimpsing.

Here's a sampling for your reading pleasure (Warning: adult content to follow. Wink)

I stood there wondering, "Why is that Frisbee getting bigger?" Then it hit me. Notactually me.

He said, "Over my dead body!" and I guess I see now that it wasn't polite to ask if I could pencil that in." msteciuk

Even with a cup full of change, the hobo wouldn't front me $.50 to add vanilla to my latte. Hope the bastard has fun finding his cart. buttahface

PSA: "Instant coffee" isn't either. johntunger

A friend msgd me a picture, "africankids.jpg" when I closed the msg, it said: "africankids not saved. Save now?" I have God's cell phone. eersatzmoe

"You will not sucks forever." Thanks, fortune cookie. pheend

Two people are arguing just outside as to the definition of a "glancing blow." Do I really have to do everything? Here. Let me demonstrate. trelvix

Lady. Say "You're welcome a lot" in response to my "thanks a lot" one more time, and we're gonna be in the newspaper tomorrow. beep

I just got a new high score at Dishwasher Tetris! d_g_

I will follow you into the sunset, in hopes you catch on fire and I get to watch. drunkstepfather

My tits look awesome when I pick them up off the floor and put them in a bra. fourformom

I wish someone would invent a smell-yourself device. That's all. AprilSTL

The DVD of my life will include a four-hour montage of me trying to open packs of gum. Rayke

That's ok. I've been meaning to clean that table with a full glass of water for a while. ledge

London city airport. Where form meets function. AND THEY HAVE A FIGHT. stephenfry

The Mom Cycle

Life is about cycles. We start as children not caring too much about being the World Heavyweight Champions of...well...anything but fun - only to later headline the bouts between peer pressure and peer reviews; college or trade; major or minor; marriage or not; kids or none; mortgage or rent; drive or bike; travel or work; win or die trying. Inevitably, we're just dukin' it out until retirement when we can bask in the glows of grandchildren, travel, sippin' tea on porches, and crossing off our life-massed bucket list. By then, of course, we're back where we started: not caring too much about being the World Heavyweight Champions of...well...anything but fun.
Cycles.
And not all bad ones, at that.

Take Mother's Day, for example. Here's a date circled in red on every American calendar whose sole purpose is to make a proclamation - give a shout out, really - to any gal, brod, grand dame, and lady great out there who gives a lot of somethin' we call motherly love. There was a time, of course, when I didn't fall into that category, was in no minivan, playdate, or iphone a mother. I didn't care about library storytimes or how to best fanagle a day-of pediatrician's appointment and, quite frankly, had even less interest in figuring it out. In short? It didn't apply. Then a funny thing happened on the way to my 25th birthday: I became a mother. And you know what? Minivans, playdates, storytimes, and doctor's appointments still didn't matter much. But ten fingers and ten toes and a giggle that sets the heart a ticklin' - these became my top priority.

I don't try to comprehend the ways and means of the magnetic forces drawing me unto them daily (now three in all, thank you Lord!) I'm content to float happily along relishing them in good and tough, laugh and cry, fight and peace...just like mothers before me. For that, too, is a cycle...the realization that, when our mothers exclaimed, "Someday you'll have your own children and..." perhaps an insouciant shrug wasn't the wisest form of first response because here we are, hands in air, wondering, "What the *#$%@ is happening right now?"

Yes, Mother's Day is a cycle. But it's a great one filled with wisdom from the past for the present and coated with the reassurant love that, no, peanut butter sandwiches without the jelly won't ruin them for life, all things considered, because you're still counting the toes and the fingers and getting a good tickle from the giggle.

And, someday, they'll do the same for
their own children.

I Fell Off the Blog

Something happened on the way to June. Well, and July. Life got busy - as it always does in May - and then I got tired. As I always do in May. When these conditions exist to this degree simultaneously, a curious phenomenon occurs: they collide like a supernova to create a version of me usually more fiction than fact, a bit of an avatar come to dwell in the real world. This pseudo-me is weary and introspective (even more than usual), and I find that writing "out loud" even loses its appeal.

Now, make no mistake - I've still been writing. But writing as I believe we all do before any text arrives to print. I'm writing in my head. My imagination. Sometimes laughing out loud or crying in the quiet while I take it all in, chew it all up, and figure out the best from the better while spitting out the bad. For me, writing is organic like this: it's why I think so many pop culture authors compose essentially one great book and then commercialize themselves for the 18 that follow. You've got to let it breathe. Just open the cork and let it sit. You'll know when it's time to take a sip because you'll finally have something you want to say.

So I fell off the blog, but now I'm back on. And you'll find a bit of back, I'm afraid, as I document the better - after all, it IS the better. And, you know, it's rather good to take a sip...it tastes better after the wait.

The Hat

In January of 2008, I bought Craig a hat. The occasion prompting the purchase was twofold: his 35th birthday and an upcoming tumor biopsy.

The sentiment behind the purchase was a change in his consciousness I was determined to provoke. Perhaps to best understand the hat - and the sentiment - is through the visual.

Yep, they all have one item in common: The Superman Hat.

Though I've given him several over the years, this is the one he wears the most. I don't know if he knows he does. I suppose I'll have to ask him. But, whether consciously or not, he owns the message of this hat.

And that was the sentiment.

After months of pokes and prods and multiple scans, Craig still had a ways to go...and was feeling the discouraging effects of it. I was convinced he shouldn't go into the necessary biopsy - already painful and delicate and, therefore, quite scary in its own right - with that mindset. So, when I saw this hat, I scooped it up immediately...to remind him to be strong. To be faithful. To be determined beyond reason or logic. To stand firm when he most wanted to fall. And to believe in the might within him, given by God, no matter what.

When I gave it to him, I told him he had to live. He had to survive. I told him he was the most beautiful man I'll ever know. He just smiled and put it on, probably not really feeling any of those thoughts were true. But he wore that hat the day of his biopsy right until they wheeled him into the lab. And he asked me to get it for him as soon as he came out.

He conquered that biopsy. And the excruciating pain it brought. And the tumor it diagnosed.

Anyone who knows him will tell you, if you see Craig, you're likely to see that hat. 

He's a husband, father, brother, son, and friend.

He's smart and good and immeasurably wise.

He's a survivor.

After all, he's Superman.

I Spent The Day...

I spent the day bowling with great friends and a 10-pound neon pink ball. Yes - I hear your snickering loud and clear.

(I missed the Zitzmanns and the Cunninghams, so I imagine the picture is bigger and with four 

more people in it.)

I spent the day going to Barnes & Noble to spend a gift card from my mother-in-law (who always knows what I need and what I like). I bought two new selections:

I spent the day gorging myself on seafood enchiladas at Amanda's Fonda where a fabulous house margarita and salsa with just the right amount of cilantro (right, Jason Bowles?) also reside. With five of my favorite faces around the table giving great conversation and loud laughter, lunch was the perfect combination of form and content.

I spent the day drinking a tall, nonfat, half-caff, light foam, no whip, toffee nut latte from Starbucks (thanks, Quass's!). Yes, it's complicated. But if it's gonna' cost three dollars and sixty cents, it better be just the way I want it, right?

I spent the day munching on my favorite snack duo (Hot Tamales and Honey Wheat pretzels). Thanks, Mom and kiddos!

And sipping from my new favorite treasure from Bee.

I spent the day celebrating that I'm a bit more like who I want to be and a bit less like what I am.

I spent the day happy. 

I spent the day loved.

I spent the day marking 34.

34 Truth

It's official: I'm 34. In homage to another year of God-given life, I've conjured 10 "truths" I enter the next 12-months, as I say, "knowing in my knower" and striving to live each day.

1. No amount of action (despite how much I live by action) conveys value to another human being like the soul-certain assurance of verbalizing just three powerful words: I. Love. You.
2. No amount of words (despite my measureless devotion to them) conveys value to another human being like doing what I say I'll do and being who I say I am.
3. It is what it is.
4. It really is all in the delivery.
5. Relationship is far too precious to be about quantity. Quality will change my very soul every time.
6. To that end - never, never, never lie.
7. And never, never, never betray.
8. In that way, I'll always, always, always have the backs of the ones I love.
9. I choose to live my life as a story...but realize He's writing it.
10. God is not a myth. Faith is not a hoax. I have seen. I believe.

Welcome, 34!

The Best Birthday Gift

On the a.m. of May 2nd, 2007, Craig went to the local ER for treatment of a red, swollen, achy left calf. Seems we were wrong in our hopes docs would diagnose a tendon tear or muscle sprain...but then, hope is rather like that, is it not? That determination in the foreground to believe the best while the whispers of fear and doubt lurk in the back? In any case, we knew, after a few days of pain refusing to abate, something was wrong. We never imagined - couldn't have imagined - that a 7-inch blood clot in Craig's left calf had burst, firing an approximate 4-inch section through his heart to diffuse a massive pulmonary embolism through both lungs.

By all medical accounts, Craig could have died.

Should...have died.

Yet, still he walks amongst us.

On the a.m. of May 3rd, 2007, I awoke to greet my 31st birthday with arms and legs akimbo squeezed onto a small recliner in a hospital room on the cardiovascular floor of Penrose hospital. The day shift nurse had entered the room to check Craig's vitals, adjust the IV tube administering monstrous doses of heparin, and confirm that Craig hadn't moved throughout the night...not even an inch...for, at this point, we could only attempt to keep him stabilized lest the remaining 3-inch clot should detach, threatening death via another embolism or, worse, a fatal brain anneurism.

And so began my 31st year of life - a chronicle of time marked by 11 months of 3 hospitalizations for Craig, including one to remove a tumor "inadvertently" discovered during his second blood clotting episode (but let me point out: faith tells me there is no such phenomenon as coincidence...so nothing is "inadvertent" with God). When we share the story of that year - of labs and biopsies, hospitals and doctors; of fatigue and spiritual famine, angst and opposition; of one lost baby and one conceived - I hear one common refrain: "Boy, what a  birthday that was."

And here is how I reply:
Yes, it was. I will recall with great pleasure that birthday, particularly, because that birthday, I received the best gift ever - my husband's life. For, although most express the sentiment to acknowledge the negative of the story (and understandably so), I recognize the positive.

On May 2nd, I drove to the hospital begging God for just one plea: Don't make me a 30-yr old widow with two small children for I cannot be without my husband. 

On May 3rd, I awoke in that hospital thanking God for just one gift: Craig was alive.

Birthdays changed for me after that. Before, they would come and go with my little attention spared, save for the "biggies" like 21 and 30. Now, I celebrate every year because I now am certain - rather than vaguely supposing the possibility - that not even youth spares death. Now, I mark each May 3rd with a zest for another 365 days spent with the love of my life, our children, and the friends and family who make every day of those 365 worth remembering.

Now, every May 3rd, I recall that May 3rd. 

And I thank God for the one gift that gives again and again just by walking the earth...

Craig.