Life's been good to me so far

I love my crazy friends.

David called me on my cell a couple nights ago, twanging in his southern accent like he does, telling me he was sitting on his porch with his girlfriend like they do. They have "a couple'a oak trees and a main road, better'n tv".Then he started telling me about the first weekend they both had completely off in over a month; it started Friday night when some Tequila led to him stripping down in a Chili's "Don't know what it is bout Tequila that melts clothes off my body". Saturday a friend drove up (did I mention this is Louisiana?) and they started drinking at 10:30 while David made gumbo. By about 9 that night, they were pretty freakin drunk - I'd recall the list of empty bottles for you but I can't remember them all at the moment - and a gradual, relatively low speed, no big injury pileup happened on the road in front of The Porch. So they got to spend like 3 hours heckling the drivers as idiots, throwing things at the cops as they arrived and generally mooning everyone as often as possible. He couldn't even retell this story without both of us laughing til it sounded like he was crying. I'm not sure if he'd be sticking to the porch without parole hanging over his head or not, but, either way I'm glad he's satisfied with it because even though I LIKE getting handwritten letters from prison and all, I do love him enough to like the idea of him free. This is why I was relieved when I found out he was going back to Louisiana, where nobody bothers to arrest you for stripping in chili's or mooning cops from the privacy of your own trailer porch. They'd been talking Texas - that would have been a disaster. In Louisiana he can weld 60 hours a week , rake in money, and continue to be a surprisingly good foster Dad to the kid he loves like a son who's got nobody else.

Memo just updated all his facebook pics - this is Portland area. There's the one where he's standing by some giant fake titties clad only in pasties and his Dad commented "Aye Memo why don't you come get your Dad and share those melons" and the one where he has a dude in drag's thigh draped over him outside somewhere and the one showing the pink-lit tattoo shop where he works (his Dad commented on that one, "Are you tattooing for the cure??? JAJAJAJA"). His gallery is pretty incredible. Anyway Memo called, messaged and texted me for THREE DAYS to call his newly-ex-girlfriend and get her to see the light and take him back. This is why he can't work on my illustrations: he's lost, broken, dark, hurting, etc etc etc and doesn't want that bleeding into my children's book. Finally at 2 am when I had already studied too much, I replied "Dude you're sending me a number with at least one extra digit" and he sent me the real one and I called up this chick I've never spoken to before and we talked for 40 minutes. He interrupted 4 times, every time with "DON'T TELL HER IT'S ME! ...are you still talking to her?" She said some things that made sense and some things that didn't but ultimately it could probably all be summed up with how, the last time he really made her cry, he said "But don't you feel alive? At least I made you feel something!"

I think I may eventually figure out how to get all my dysfunction by osmosis.

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I feel so renewed and good because,

1. I went and spent hours and hours in Advisement and Financial Aid and so on yesterday (with Aaron - it was good bonding time, although I DO NOT understand why MDC is showing FOX NEWS in the waiting room, Geez) and got it worked out so that I dropped (online) algebra for this semester, and will be taking it next semester in an actual classroom with a teacher ratemyprofessors.com assures me is both great at explaining things and offers lots of extra credit opportunities. Of the 3 remaining classes I'm currently taking, I'm assured at least 2 As. The other one could be a B. My next semester is highly doable schedule-wise and already in the computer registered. I may have to go through an appeals process or end up paying for the class I dropped but I still think this is a vast improvement over the path I was on two days ago that involved screwing up my GPA bigtime. And seriously; reading and writing based virtual classes ONLY, for me. I'm the only parent sitting around at PATH doing my own homework :p

2. THE WEATHER is amazing. It's been in the 60s/70s two days in a row! It's like January has come early :p It really is downright surreal following the past few months, though, in the best possible way. Elise ran most of the walk to preschool this morning, which offset the horror of the headpiece of her seat on my bike being broken off. Grr.

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I'm reading Beautiful Creatures because I randomly picked it off of a list for a novel project for my literature class, and it is claptrap - claptrap, I tell you! I didn't think there was anything that much worse than Twilight, but apparently there is - there's a whole genre out there now INSPIRED BY TWILIGHT; Books clinging to Twilight's coattails. I heard "Southern Gothic" and thought "Anne Rice! True Blood!" No. Just, no.

Oh, Mom, if you're reading this, you would love Beautiful Creatures and should get on it right away :D