Labels: My Writing

"Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad."
- Christina Georgina Rossetti

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- Katharine Hepburn

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"It's noble to be good. It's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble."
- Mark Twain

"What we hope to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence."
- Samuel Johnson

Ten things I’m gotta make sure I take with me the first time I go to school:

1. A teddy bear. It’ll be something I can hold onto when I need a hug.
2. Pictures. I will probably take some of my mama, my daddy, and this special one of my grandmother and her Mona Lisa smile.
3. My planner. A darling friend of mine bought me a Franklin Covey planner and bag. They are so good looking. I can barely wait to start using them in school.
4. My bible. Maybe I’ll be able to find time to read it along with my hundreds of pages that I’ll have to attempt to absorb.
5. My treadmill mat. It works really well when I want to do my sit ups.
6. My Brief Handbook. It’s a book with all of the right rules. There are a couple of other books I need to take with me, but I will have that one packed first.
7. Sanitizing wipes. Who knows who has been living where I did in the past?
8. A scented candle. I could use it to give myself a cue to focus on what I have to get accomplished.
9. Garbage bags. I keep a lot of plastic grocery bags and use them for garbage.
10. Candy jar or holder. It’ll be something inviting.

Please tell me anything else you think I should take with me the first time I go to school. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten what to pack the first time.

Labels: Humor, My Writing, Ten Things This Tuesday

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"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
- Nelson Henderson

“May I speak to Diane, please?”

A few moments later, Diane confirmed who she was and I started talking.

“Hello, my name is Gina Kohl and I just wanted to confirm if you have received my high school transcripts?”

“Sure. I just got back from vacation.”

I’m anxious, but I know I should try to be amiable. “How was it?”

“Oh, it was fine. We went to New Mexico…”

I’m hearing what she is saying. I really am. She went there and Colorado, visited her children in those states; she was gone for two weeks and just got back and this is her first day at work. I did hear her. Yet, my life is moving slowly through rut after rut and waiting to make sure that they have everything that they need for me to get in is one of the reasons I've been in so much turmoil. Nevertheless, this call isn't about me. WELL IT IS, DAD GUM IT, BUT I HAD TO ATTEMPT TO BE CALM AND COLLECTED! LADY! HURRY UP! I NEED TO KNOW!

“Okay, your transcripts got here on the 13^th. We’ve got everything we need. You’ve been accepted."

And that’s when I started getting sick. Oh, I played it off well. I thanked her and we talked about the $250 deposit that I needed to make—the one that I didn’t have a clue about—gave other mundane niceties and hung up.

I’ve been accepted to Millsaps College. Oh, my stars. I’m going to be sick.

Labels: Humor, My Writing, Prose, Thoughts

Maybe it started out when I found out the fantastic news. I have an itching problem. I know it’s a nervous condition, but it is what it is and it’s for real.

Let me describe it to you. You know how it is at the end of the day when you get out of your clothes and you just have to scratch your body?

Yeah. It’s kind of like that.

Another way to describe it. Pretend you are standing outside. Suddenly it begins to rain. Sometimes it’s drops or sprinkles. At other times it’s a light and gentle, but constant, rain. Now, pretend that every drop you feel is actually a tiny insect and instead of that drop of rain that just touches you and evaporates, the insect drops on you and tries to acclimate to the spot on you it just dropped on. It doesn’t walk around. It doesn’t fly off. You don’t get to shoo it off. It just picks up its feet and stamps them down on the spot that it dropped on. At least it feels like a tiny bug until you look at the spot where the bug dropped and find there is nothing there.

Delusional? Crazy? Paranoid? No, no, and no. It’s the nerve condition that I have had for several years now. I almost appear like there is something wrong with me; every few seconds, I am reaching up and either scratching or rubbing a spot on my body from my scalp and forehead to my fingertips and wrists to my toes and the soles of my feet.

Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch.

On my thighs. On my back. On my cheek. On my hand. On my scalp. In my nose. In my ear. On my other cheek. Under my underarm.

Simultaneously.

And those are the polite places I can tell you about.

Labels: My Writing, Thoughts

Labels: My Writing, Poetry

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Labels: Humor, My Writing

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"I consider chaos a gift."
- Septima Clark

This one is interesting. Any input? At a second glance, I think this is a funny line.

"England and America are two countries separated by the same language."
- George Bernard Shaw

This one ought to bode well for some of my British friends...

"In the last resort, nothing is ridiculous except the fear of being so."
- Henri Fauconnier

I like this one. This one justifies my talking to myself in public--and answering!

When a man goes on a date, he wonders if he is going to get lucky. A woman already knows."
- Frederick Ryder

True words!

Labels: My Writing

Labels: My Writing

Labels: Much / Not So Much, My Writing

- George Carlin

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- Henry Louis Menchken

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"Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you."
- Mae West

"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed."
- Mark Twain

I've gone through something I have never experienced in Mississippi before. If someone would have told me that this would happen to me, I would have laughed at them on the outside, yet become distraught. Please, bear with me. This is going to be difficult for me to write.

One of the things that I’ve been doing lately is taking my great aunt, my Aunt Timothy, to cancer treatments in another town. (Yes, I’m going to say it—BECAUSE OUR FREAKING SMALL TOWN IS TOO SMALL! I HATE SMALL TOWNS! SCREAMING! SCREAMING!) On the way back, we went about our ritual: going to Baskin Robbins so she can get two scoops of ice cream (yes, I’ve stopped getting ice cream because I weigh .9 pounds more than I can bear—see “My Friend. My Foe. My Gut.” for further explanation), and then heading back (controlling my screaming) to the small town where I live.

We were driving along, and before you know it, it was right there, in front of our faces in the middle of nowhere, on one side of a four-lane, interstate style highway. I nearly screamed.

A traffic jam.

What in the Sam Hill is going on? I was on the back end of at least two miles of backed up traffic! I, along with several truckers and drivers of numerous vehicles, discovered that there was a funereal procession of nearly thirty cars that turned onto the highway before us; stopping “rush hour” traffic. We would have been zipping along after the last car came onto the highway, but the line of cars decided to break away from the one-lane formation. There were some passengers that lost their way; one of which nearly ran me off the road as an attempt to get back in. I would have let that big ole honking SUV get in. Stupid driver.

I will never look at life the same way again.

Did I mention that I hate southern small towns? Well, I do, dad gum it.

Labels: My Writing

Labels: My Writing, Poetry

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Labels: My Writing

I’m shallow.

And, in certain circumstances, I’m vain.

Over the last few weeks I decided that, at forty, I wanted to get healthy. My genetic predisposition to acquire diabetes and high blood pressure would be fought with any instrument that I could wield, and dad gum it, I would lose weight, too! So I started a regimen of exercise, eating better, and eating less.

So a friend of mine, Yolanda, and I have been walking and baby-steps jogging in the morning on a track and walking on a not-so-straight terrain at night. We are focused, we are determined, and dad gum it, we will lose weight!

So we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing and she suggested that, since the scale that she has is askew and since I believe mine has the same illness, we should go to the health department. The next day, yesterday, she called me and said that she did it. I figured, why not go there. It is a digital weight scale instead of the balance scale or whatever the name of it is, and the least I could do is give myself a solid starting place.

This day, I go to the health department. I know a couple of women who have known me since I was a tweener (or whatever they call them thare folk) and I was in high spirits. We had conversation and yacked about a lot of things when I remembered why I was there. I was lead to a scale and one of my friends said that she was going to turn her head. I took off my flip flops (for those of you who don’t know, thongs or shower shoes may be a better name for them) and stepped on the scale. My head turned downward to look at the number. After the shifting of numbers that first rapidly sped upward then moved back and forth for a few moments, I got the number.

And it happened. I realized two things when I looked at the number.

200.8 lbs.

The first thing that hit me was to tell the woman that she had to step outside while I strip naked because I know that I must be wearing at least nine-tenths of a pound of clothing and that I need to take off these clothes because there is no way that I could possibly weigh over 200 pounds.

The second thing that came to me: I have never known a woman that weighed 200.8 pounds and looked good wearing it. Never, never, NEVER.

Then a third thing came to me and here is the thing that shows how shallow I am if the first two facts didn’t do it for you. I am not as pretty as I thought I was and that I was much skinnier than what I complained about when I weighed 141 in my adolescence.

In my defense, I am a tall and solidly built woman. My body was made to make women who wear size-six clothing appear nearly anorexic. I would be good friends with Jill Scott, Queen Latifah, Monique’, and Pam Grier.

So here I am, standing before you on this date at over 200 pounds.

No, dad gum it. Less. My clothes MUST weigh at least 2 pounds.

Labels: My Writing

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Labels: My Writing