The only certainty is bad grammar – Page 117 – Too personal for the internet.

South Dakota has whatever “it” is.

Published: June 3, 2009 / Updated: June 4, 2009 Crystal Uncategorized

Here’s the secret that nobody ever tells you about climbing the career ladder, not settling for dumb men and moving all the time – it’s lonely.

really lonely.

but this weekend i got to go back to my favorite place in the whole country – South Dakota. and i wasn’t lonely for even a single second.

*** The Friends ***

i drove there with bronson. and we rocked out for the entire 12 and a half hour journey across Route 20. We stopped at lame tourism attractions (see: U.S. Grant’s house in Galena, Illinois) and tourism attractions we invented ourselves (see: wind farm).

we also stopped in Correctionville, Iowa where he was told by a gas station attendant with a heavy accent, that the town got its name after a curvy road through the community was “corrected” and made straight. true story.

and then i finally got to Pierre, SD and saw my amazing, awesome friend Wanda.

aside from the fact that she’s amazing and awesome, she has 7 kids so her house is ALWAYS full of people and love and conversation.

and i got to stay there.

and we went out until 5 a.m. Friday night, and then woke up at 2 in the afternoon Saturday and got in multiple cars to drive over to the china buffet and share stories of how we went out. all of us sitting there talking over each other at one of those tables that stretches the whole side wall of the restaurant because there were so people in our group.

then i got to go on my friend’s boat. and he and his girlfriend fished, while Bronson and i soaked up sun like sponges left to dry on a white window sill on a hot summer day. we looked at the rolling green hills that surround the missouri river with our jaws open so wide that entire oranges could have fit through them. we took as many deep breaths of south dakota air as we could without hyperventilating.

we loved every minute of it.

*** The Boy ***

but even with all that, my story wouldn’t do my journey justice without mentioning the boy.

le sigh.

i wish i could tell you his name. i wish i could shout it from the window of my little green escourt. i wish i could print it on my business cards. i wish i could write it over and over with pink hearts on the front of my reporter notebooks. because he has the greatest name you ever heard.

but i can’t because im not sure he’d approve of me writing about him here.

i can tell you that he held me while we stood outside late Sunday night under the biggest sky you ever saw filled with flashes of stars. that looking into his eyes is such a magical moment that someone, somewhere should bottle it in little glass jars and sell them for $1 million each.

and that we shared a pillow while i slept in his arms.

just in case you missed that, i’ll type it again.

we shared a pillow while i slept in his arms.

is there anything better than that in the world? i felt safe, and happy and content and lovely and great and awesome. and all i really want to do with my life now is lay in his bed surrounded by white sheets and sunshine.

amidst kisses late Friday night he told me that i was different than he remembered me. that i had calmed down.

and maybe it was because i was in vacation mode, or maybe it was because i was already bone tired at this point in my travels. or maybe it was because i’d had a long island ice tea from Bubba Ray’s that night. maybe it was all three of those things that made me seemed so serene.

but i’d like to think it’s at least partly because, really, deep in my soul, i have calmed down.

i used to be a nut case. i used to constantly freak out that the WORLD WAS ENDING, or MY LIFE WAS ENDING, or that A TV SHOW WAS ENDING. and when i said those things then, i really meant them. now, those comments aren’t as sincere or as loud. i’ve managed to overcome my personal little world ending about 4 times in the last few years as i’ve started new jobs and moved around. and each time i’ve gotten back up and started over and nothing about the world ended. so i started to realize, that eventually everything works out.

i decided saturday to show the world that i was now a calmer version of my self by getting my ears pierced while in the mount rushmore state.

it’s the kind of thing i never would have done two years ago. i would have been scared and freaked out and crazy about it all and i would have insisted that the benefits of little pieces of jewelry didn’t outweigh the risks of the pain of a needle piercing through my lobes.

but not this weekend. this weekend, i knew i could do it. and with my friend wanda nearby and my hands squeezed around a teddy bear, i got little pink studs put in my ears. barely a flinch from this girl, i tell you. barely a flinch.

so now, every time i look in the mirror i get to see the magic. i get to see the little flashes of light from my ears that will forever remind me of a time when i wasn’t lonely for four whole days. and a state that God made to show us all what heaven’s like.

a burning bush. for real.

Published: May 27, 2009 / Updated: May 28, 2009 Crystal humor, im cool, medium

this is the story of how a bush in front of my house spontaneously combusted.

or so I’m told.

i was driving home from work Sunday night, day dreaming about the cute firefighter i had met a few days before thinking how i kind of wished there was a fire and then he could rescue me. and BAM. there was a fire.

for real.

except he didn’t come. but a real fire truck did. complete with firemen.

apparently the bush had caught on fire, my neighbors had smelled smoke, and then they had rushed outside to throw a bucket of water on it. they also called the appropriate authorities. about three seconds later, i got home from work to burned bush.

and i shyte you not, the fireman tried to tell me that the mulch had somehow got hot enought at 10 p.m. at night to spontaneously start on fire, because, according to him THERE WAS NO OTHER EXPLANATION.

im sorry? what? really? REALLY?

“Will it spontaneously combust AGAIN?!”

“No ma’am. there’s water on it now.”

“Oh. ok.”

i was so tried i believed him. for real. and then my roommate was like “WHAT? THAT’S CRAZY!?”

and i was like, “oh. huh. a bush starting on fire for no reason does sound kind of crazy. now that i think about, im pretty sure the only time i’ve ever heard of that happening was in the bible.”

unfortunately the firefighter had already left when i figured that out though, so i have no freaking clue how the bush caught fire.

in case you’re one of those people who likes photographic evidence of bushes that spontaneously catch on fire, here you go:

wordpress, people hating me, snowflakes and late-night music

Published: May 24, 2009 / Updated: May 24, 2009 Crystal im cool, Johnny Depp, medium

1. (note to non-wordpress users: this will mean nothing to you so feel free to skip down to number 2). WordPress keeps yelling at me to switch to WordPress 2.7.1, except im pretty sure if i try to do that, my whole blog will burst into flames. so instead, i have thus far decided to resist change in this one itsy bitsy aspect of my life. however, if anyone out there is fluent in WordPress, feel free to be in touch and then come over to my house and then hold my hand and feed me ice chips while you walk me through the transition one step at a time with the patience usually reserved for children.

2. Some dork from springfield keeps leaving comments on my blog telling me that he hates me. first of all, although you think your “FYI” user name is anonymous, i can in fact trace the IP address. second of all, if you hate me, why are you reading my blog? third of all, i get paid per click on this thing no matter who does the clicking. i make exactly the same amount of money off the people who love me and secretly wish i would make out with them, as i do off the people who hate me and secretly wish i would die.

3. I heard a really cool story at church this morning. im reprinting it here because it kind of the sums up the way i look at life and my own choices to do the right thing. although my pastor shared it with us, he didn’t make it up so for accuracy purposes, im giving it to you here via this web site:

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake”, a sparrow asked a wild dove. “Nothing more than nothing”, was the answer. “In that case I must tell you a marvellous story”, the sparrow said. “I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow – not heavily, not in a raging blizzard: no, just like in a dream, without a sound and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd dropped onto the branch – nothing more than nothing, as you say – the branch broke off.” Having said that, the sparrow flew away. The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself: “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for peace to come to the world.”

— From New Fables, Thus Spoke the Maribou, by Kurt Kaufer

4. Last night, my neighbors were playing music. outside my window. at mid-night. MID-NIGHT. and i thought, “surely there is a parent on my block who will share my outrage and go outside and ask these idiots to turn off their freaking radio in the middle of the freaking night.” but alas. that did not happen. so then i thought, “surely one of the 74 cops who live in my neighborhood – because the county courthouse is a block away – will wake up and go outside and tell these idiots TO TURN DOWN THE MUSIC!.” but alas that did not happen either. and after they played “blame it on the al.al.al.al.al.alcohol” AGAIN, i got up and went outside and told them to turn it down. and they said “fine” as though I was one being unreasonable.

The saddest part of this story is that i needed sleep because i had to wake up early for church, but i didn’t want to sound like a loser, so instead i told them i had to work Sunday. which i do, but not until 2 p.m. do think God’s mad that i didn’t go with church?