mel has been doing some work, so between that and my broadband taking a crap after the landlords moved out, I've been out of commission. Problem should be solved by tomorrow.

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So.

Yep yep, that's right, me mackin' with a dude in public. But before y'all get titillated and shit, there's a story behind it -- a sickeningly sweet, darling story, but a story nonetheless.

It was Mer's last night before returning to NYC, and after we'd semi-recovered from Tuesday night's terrible, horrible nightmare (which I'll share the whole visit shortly, once I get it sorted out in my head), we decided we were going to Johnny's Tap, the only real, true tavern in the town where we spent our formative years; it's like, we've been alive 36 years and we'd never gone to the place. So we go, and it's pretty much like we imagined it -- a bunch of guys (and one skanky broad) sitting around the bar after a long day of work -- except it was really, really tidy, even the bathrooms. We sit down and order a couple beers, and this guy comes up to us to ask if we had any particular preference for what he was going to play in the jukebox. I looked at him, and I said "[name redacted since we didn't talk about the blog]." He looked at me, and it took him a couple seconds before he said, "[Broad]," and I was like, "How the hell are you!??" We hugged, and I reintroduced him to Mer, who he didn't remember because she'd left the summer before high school. So we sat there and rapped about the people we all knew, and he said another couple guys we had in common hang out there, too (one I only knew by sight, and the other I was in love with in 8th grade). Then the one I didn't know walked in and joined us, and can I just say he's pretty hot. Reminds me of Nic Cage in a way. But before he got there, the first guy brought up what our connection was: I was the first girl he ever kissed, standing by our bikes behind the town library.

After a couple hours of rapping and (dare I say) the boys flirting with us, Nic Cage said he needed to get going, and Mer was starving, so we all bid farewell, but not before I said, "We have to get a picture of [redacted] and I to commemorate the occasion, because this is too funny." Behold:

Wait ... what!??

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Since I couldn't possibly make it up on a good day, y'all want to hear the latest about DtR!?? Of COURSE you do.

My assignment yesterday was to cover this one fire department that was giving a little boy a whole bunch of gifts to lift his spirits after he'd been bitten by a dog, so I'm sitting there with the chief and his crew getting backround on the sitch when I asked the little boy's name. The chief said "so and so." I thought, "Huh. That's DtR's last name, and we're in the area where DtR lived," so I asked what street they live on. The chief said, "such and such," so I asked if the boy's mother's name is Whosit and, well, whaddya know!?? I was like, holy shit, I haven't seen these people since DtR and I broke up 15 years ago, how weird is THIS going to be, right?

Not one bit, oddly enough. The little boy, who's a little doll, went out to talk to the firemen, and I walked up to Whosit and said "Fucking Whosit," and she squealed and was like, "OhmiGOD! How ARE you!?? Blahblahblahblahblah!" And so after the firemen left, she, her husband and I shot the breeze for awhile. Hope y'all are sitting down, because here's the big news: DtR's married again. Got himself a youngin' this time -- she's 23 to his going-to-be-39 -- and, according to Whosit, may have been divorced about an hour before he got remarried again. Also, while she loves her brother, he's a lying sack.

No. Get out. Imagine my sur-prise. (yawn)

So I told her before I left that mark my words, he's going to read my story, and I'm going to have an e-mail sitting in my box by time I get out of bed.

Wait ... what!??

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So the Gay Games Opening ceremony last night:

4 freaking hours

I mean, I know this is an historic event and I'm all about it, but come. ON. What did y'all do, just pick every LGBT thing you can think of and throw it against the wall to see if it would stick!?? Because there were about four dance routines too many up in there, and they all highlighted that one guy that you usually end up wanting to pick off with a blow dart. You know who I'm talking about: The one who skulks around doing a low-rent Michael Flatley impersonation without the tap? Yeah, that guy. I hate that guy, especially since it looked like he was wearing gray leopard muscle pants. And what was up with all the maudlin songs and readings!?? I thought it was supposed to be all about getting people happy and fired up and ready to compete, not jump off a cliff. Jeez. But aside from the overall length of the program, it really was exceptionally cool seeing all the athletes from around the world storm Soldier Field. Favorite moments: The lone athlete from Uganda (woo!), seeing Indiana better represented than The Baby and I expected, and then seeing the state of Illinois send maybe 20 people total and actually believing that was all there was until the very end, when Team Chicago exploded onto the field with at least a thousand people. Mad cool.

Meanwhile, I was on Garden Walk duty this weekend, where I found the two houses I want for my very own. One was a darling little cottage house in Gary's Miller section no more than 500 feet away from the lake, and the other this behemoth in Schererville that looks like something straight out of Tuscany with a garden that surrounds the property and extends halfway onto the cul-de-sac. At 6,500 square feet, the latter house would be a little too big for my tastes, though, so the Miller house would be just enough for me.

Wait ... what!??

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Well, the opening ceremonies, anyway -- B-Dubs just talked me into going with him and The Baby. The after-party is all them, however, as 1) I'm not gay, and 2) I'm not young and in possession of the stamina needed to stay out until 6 a.m. dancing to techno anymore. And in order to avoid a repeat of last time, we have a plan so that I'll get to take my leave.

So to the wonderful people who're going to Ogmeet this evening, I extend my regrets but promise that I'll be around for the October hookup no matter what. Promise.

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Got 'em up about a month and a half ago in an antiques store when I went down to Lowell and my assignment got rained out: Lookit. Best part? They're vintage Ray-Bans. Even better? Got 'em for $8 freakin' bucks, man! Tara's Sean laughed at me when I wore them to my boss' 4th party, but I think they're cool. And the pic is me (natch) with The Baby being retarded at Pride. So far, it's the only one where I think we look even remotely alike. As usual, no making fun of my ginormous head and 25 chins.

So tonight's assignment had me at court awaiting the ruling of this guy who amassed 278 charges of animal neglect -- they weren't ALL animal neglect; many of them were code violations, but still -- and I ended up aiding and abetting two bonafide tweakers that amazingly enough aren't related to me. You might be wondering how the hell I ended up doing that. Well, allow me to start by saying that although I realize a courtroom is not the best place to see society's finest, this particular courtroom was, like, whoa with the dregs. And because the courtroom is so small, about 50 of them were standing outside waiting to be called in. I was talking to another completely cracked-out broad who of course has this juicy story to tell me about how the law won't give her back her kids (I'm guessing it's ultimately because she's a crackhead, but I got only bits and pieces of the story since she's now slightly agoraphobic after her car accident and needed some Xanax real bad) when these two other women kept coming in and out of the courtroom looking for a phone. I lent them mine. The story went that they needed to go back to the one's dad's house to cash a check at a bar for the fine the one was going to have to pay for whatever her charge was, which I kinda wondered about since the judge usually gives people between 30 and 60 days to come up with the scratch, but whatever. So the one asked me if I would take her to the old man's house so the other one wouldn't get nailed for failure to appear, and since I had at least an hour to kill before I'd get to talk to who I needed, I said all right.

So the whole car ride, the woman, who was way skinny, yapyapyapYAPPED nonstop about this, that and the other between thanking me profusely and saying my name over and over so she wouldn't forget it. Among the things she told me: She's bipolar, and that's why she can't pass the test to get her license; her friend back at the courtroom just got diagnosed with breast cancer after being hospitalized with an infection for having the wrong false teeth given to her (wha? Yeah, that's what I thought.); and that her friend's dad is a former city mucky-muck who had a stroke and that she and the daughter are taking care of him. Anyway, we get to the old man's crib, a shithole flophouse above the ol' family store complete with all kinds of detritus, and the woman has him write a check for $100, but then chides him for writing it out of an account that has his and his other daughter's name on it. Half-naked and a whole lot disoriented, the poor bastard writes then another check while telling me of how he used to be a city mucky-muck. I then take her to a bar to cash the check, and then back to the courthouse, where she met back up the daughter. When I told them I couldn't give them a ride, they walked off across the street and suckered some other guy. This was after she told me mucky-muck's daughter was too weak to walk from the wrong false teeth infection or the cancer or whatever.

And so I thought to myself, are all drug addicts the same? Do they all clamor desperately for attention, good or bad? Because these two were no different than Crackhead.

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Or even if it does just sorta, we wear it because it's cool. Below, the newest edition to my concert shirt collection (and no laughing at my gigantic head):

Wait ... what!??

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Anyone who's ever read Og's blog knows that traveling west off the I-80/94 into Illinois is hell on earth, right? I'm here to tell you that homie ain't lying. Christ on a crutch, man. Any plans you may have of going to Iowa in the near future? Scrap 'em now or get there through Michigan or Minnesota or whatever, because going that far out of the way will probably get you there sooner than I-80 will.

That nightmare, of course, meant that I caught only about two songs of our intrepid heroes' set, but what I heard -- "Life in the Fast Lane" and a U2 song my muddled brain can't remember at the moment -- done did us proud. As I told Lenny last night (Lenny being the sole original member left of BtL), he's finally got a group together that reigns him in and is serious about playing music and not just the whole rockstar aspect. Good stuff. The guys also made sure I had access to the VIP area since I didn't get a VIP bracelet which, love them.

Steely Dan, meanwhile, played none of their new stuff, only the best of the best: They started with "Bhodisattva" then right into "Time Out of Mind," my favoritist Steely Dan song EVER. I was in heaven. Michael McDonald was even good, though he did only his well-know stuff from the Doobies. Eh. And dude's got some white, white hair. But I got the cutest concert shirt; just hope it fits.

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Got an e-mail from my pal Lenny about 20 minutes ago telling me that my favorite cover band is not only playing The New World Music Theatre/Tweeter Center/First Midwest Ampitheater Saturday night, but who're they opening up for*!?? That's right:

Steely Dan!


My head just exploded.

Wait ... what!??

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I was sitting here in the office where the view's obstructed from the giant plum tree the landlords have yet to prune this summer, and there's this gurgling noise like it's raining, but I couldn't see anything, and then when I went into my room to see if I could hear it there, I couldn't. So, I was like nah, it's not raining, but then I looked out the window and saw that the streets are wet and there are puddles with raindrops. Strange. It's gotta be raining.

Except it's not raining:

Wait ... what!??

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In about six hours, I'm going to be sitting in the United Center watching the goddess of all things pseudosacreligious with BFKAS and B-Dubs. My baby sister went last night and said she was freakin' phenomenal, but I just can't seem to get myself psyched up. For 135 bones, this better be good.

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Because I'm still waiting for my scrub and hand cream, and I ordered it a month ago. Hellooooooo, people.

So other than having to drop $150 on two new tires because my alignment ate the others, notta lotta is still going on up in Chez Broad, except I? am wearing my new green cargo pants that I couldn't get into two months ago when I bought them, huzzah. Haven't really done anything in particular to make that happen one way or another, but I'll take what I can get, thankyew. And they're not even stretchy pants.

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Because how is it that I did NOT know that one of my pretend celebrity boyfriends, John Mayer, dated Jennifer Love Hewitt?

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Why do I always look like such a tard when I take pictures of myself?

Wait ... what!??

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Tonight, as a follow-up to my American Idol story from last year, I was forcedassigned to watch the finale and then talk to some of the people I interviewed for it to get their reactions on the winner, and wouldn't you know that the one bitch I was able to get a hold of who told me she'd be home watching it conveniently wasn't home, therefore making me suffer through that crap.

(Based on her iciness when I talked to her this afternoon, though, I'm not entirely surprised. She probably thought my story last year was going to be all about HER and it wasn't. But it's not like the paper cared about Idol that much, anyway -- not when there's murder and mayhem afoot -- so joke's on you, beeyotch.)

Yeah, so Poppy called it that Taylor "thank-God-they-put-tight-pants-on-him-tonight-so-he-couldn't-jump-
around-like-Snidge's-nefew-doing-his-poop-dance" Hicks would be the next sucker, based on the fact that the winners so far have been 1) a lithesome brunette, 2) an overweight black male, 3) an illiterate black woman and 4) a blonde who pretended to be a pop star but who really is a country star, and that with all the money the AI people have invested in the show and its hype it would have to be staged, but c'mon, people! He BLEW! Couldn't sing a note all damn night. Not even Toni Braxton could help him out, but then again, she sounded like ass, too. And I would've completely loved the Clay Aiken segment, were it not for ol' Clay sidling around like this one gay theater major I used to hang with in college when he was trying to channel Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Longer hair becomes ol' Gay ... I mean, Clay.* But Prince is now dead to me.

Anyway, when it's not ass-humid out and my hair isn't all frizzed up, remind me to post a picture of my awesome new haircut. Picture a cross between Louise Brooks and Emo Phillips, and you're close.

Wait ... what!??

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Over at Greta's waiting for a load of laundry to dry (gotta have some fresh towels on hand for my grrrl upon her arrival tomorrow, after all), but when I was trolling around MySpace earlier (I know, I know, I said MySpace is for the young, but that doesn't mean I can't look. It could be research. You don't know) I totally came across a couple of guys with whom I went to high school way back in the day. Now, I know them as Goran and Dejan, two of the hottest and most popular guys in school, but y'all might know them as indie band extraordinaire THE GUFS!

I KNOW! How could I forget that!??

Well, it's easy when they're too cool for NWI and play places like The Double Door and Milwaukee Summerfest instead of McCool's and Rosie's, but even though Dejan and I were in college together, it's not like we were super super close or anything, so you know, you lose track of people and whatnot.

So anyway, I thought for fun I'd add Dejan to my buddy list to see if he might remember me, and whaddya know? He totally does! And -- AND -- he still has a review I wrote about The Gufs from, like, '92 when they played at the Elbo Room! That was the night I picked up this John Cusack lookalike (with Larry, my date, standing right there); "London Calling" was playing in the background, and I was wearing a black mock turtle and put black eyeliner only on the top lid for dramatic effect. How fucking funny. Of course, thinking about how twee and unrefined my writing was back then, I'm kind of weirded out that he still has it, but still. I'm going to have to look in my old portfolio, because I'm sure I still have it in there.

Jooools, you must pick up on this band as well as Goran's solo efforts! I'll bet you would love them.

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It's the Grey's Anatomy season finale, and I WILL NOT ANSWER. So don't even think about it.

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Yeah yeah, I know I've gotten out of the blogging groove. It's not intentional, exactly -- part of it is boredom, sort of, and another small part has to do with what The Universe sent me today:

So yeah, I'm kind of in mourning, sort of. Not like the-curled-up- on-the-couch-unshowered-and-convinced-that-my-house-is-bugged kind of mourning I'm prone to. It's more like the horrible dread you feel when something or someone you've loved and respected for so long disappoints you for the last time, and with that final action you can't go back to the way it was no matter what. You're not sure what's worse -- the hurt over the action, or the anger over thinking that you had something to do with it even though it wasn't your fault and never was, but yet you've still got this feeling inside your head that maybe if you just did something different, it wouldn't be like this. Doesn't make for real interesting conversation, that, as Snidge can attest.

But I AM having fun feeding my iPod -- just gave it some Barenaked Ladies and The Police.

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The new machines apparently don't interface well with the old machines, so all the totals need to be hand-tallied is the word coming out of the guvmint center. And all I can think to myself is, "Y'all couldn't have tested this shit BEFORE THE PRIMARY, MAYBE!?? Just a thought." Dumbasses. So now, the paper will have to spend another entire issue devoted to results, which is, like, whatever.

All I covered tonight was school board stuff, which was fine because it was my last official story on the one school board I covered with regularity. And since I refuse tono longer cover them, I feel no compunction in saying that today was a sad, sad day in Highland, because the town just reelected the man who was in no small part responsible for running the district into the ground. No small wonder since he spent the last 3 1/2 years bad-mouthing all the efforts of the current board, of course, but that's how they roll over there. This is not to say that the current board was puppies and sunshine; it handled things very badly, especially in the beginning of its tenure -- the proverbial bulls in a china shop, if you will. And I'll be the first to admit that bought into the hype put forth by the old guard. But then I saw the financials of the board on which the guy who was reelected sat -- the shoddy record-keeping, the allowing the assistant superintendent to take off for ISBA business that just happened to coincide with her daughter's college basketball games, the way he and his former board members fought so hard for LIFETIME INSURANCE BENEFITS from the school town for elected positions that they don't even pay into, the insane attorney fees with an attorney that didn't have a contract with the school board -- and I learned real quick that thpugh the new board might not be the most charismatic and touchy-feely, it had a lot of cleaning up to do. And anyways, I'm sure the old guard would've been crabby, too, if every one of THEIR meetings turned into an ugly spectacle like they made the the current board's for 3 1/2 years. Point is, I will continue to tell all my friends with school-age kidlets that they need to get the hell out of dodge before the kidlets get to middle school.

[And as a sidenote to Mr. Jackass Attorney who accused me of impartiality when covering the board debates and most likely the board as a whole over the last 3 1/2 years a couple weeks ago, I have this to say: Contrary to popular belief, reporters unequivocally do have opinions about the things they cover; if they say they don't, they're lying, myself included. The true craft of being a reporter, however, is to be able to report the facts no matter how infuriating, nauseating and offensive those facts may be to you, and I will be happy to sit down with you to go over every single story I've ever written on the School Board and compare them to every single minute of meeting tape to show you just how impartial I was. Name the date and time, and I'll be there, though I don't expect you really would because I know you were just lashing out after I asked you if you were bankrolling the one candidate. But the offer stands, my friend.]

Anyway.

My 'hood is now infested with stupid people who yell and scream like morons all the time. Most of the time, it's celebratory yelling and screaming, but I expect the "You done me wrong, Cletus, and now I'm going to throw the toaster at yew" yelling and screaming to commence at any time.

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You know how I've talked about music making me all weepy, especially depending on the time of the month!?? Apparently, it happens at art unveilings, too. I was at the Lubeznik Center for Art in Michigan City earlier covering the unveiling of the new South Shore Poster, of which I happen to have a small collection, and when the blanket came off, I literally gasped and started tearing up. I know, right? What a goon. Anyway, it's entitled "Power," and it's an Art Deco depiction of these guys hand-powering a turbine at the MC generating station done in blues, purples and pinks. Just breathtaking, especially if you're a closet gearhead who kinda gets turned on by big industrial equipment. AND it'll work in my bedroom, which has yet to be decorated after eight years of living here. Just got to make sure I flatten out my copy where les chats can't sit-walk-otherwise destroy it.

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Have any of y'all been watching Nashville Star? Did you know that a Region Rat, Nicole Jamrose, has cracked the Top 4? She flew in for a charity concert at her former high school tonight, and I covered it.

Now, I'm not a country fan by any stretch, but this girl!?? Is the shit, man. She got the looks, the talent, AND even though she may be in your typical NWI bar band, Nick Danger, she doesn't pick the usual covers, instead opting for Lucinda Williams and Susan Tedeschi, which can I say thank GOD!?? And I know her husband; I've chatted with him about cop stuff because he's a County Mountie.

Anyway, because I threw my ol' press pass on, I got pretty much unfettered access to the floor, and here are my pics. If she makes it, then you could say you saw her balancing on the cusp of greatness here first.

Wait ... what!??

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Wow, so there really were no takers to my posting my inanimate wang collection. Huh. Am I losing my street cred, here? Because jeez, if inanimate wangs can't get y'all back, I don't know what can.

How about this:

Wait ... what!??

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Picked up my thank-you gift for watching the animals from Poppy and her husband earlier. One of the gifts was a t-shirt from the famous Senor Frog's. The other you'll find pictured below.

Wait ... what!??

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to fill up my fucking gas tank. That ain't right.

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Poppy and her hub are on vay-kay in Cancun, so I've been babysitting her menagerie, including the ferrets, Stushdon and Shnockies (I think, or that might be the other ferret she had). And I gotta tell you, if they didn't reek to high heaven, ferrets are a pretty good time. I let them run around in their room, and they chirped and wiggled and tussled and tried to get in the leg of my yoga pants. Good times on a Friday night.

Their one dog, on the other hand, hasn't been as easy. He's an old guy with bad hips, and once you let him out, it's a crapshoot whether you'll be able to get him back up the stairs. Last night was one of those nights, and after about 45 minutes, I decided I'd leave him on the stoop between the upstair and downstairs, thinking he'd be so exhausted he'd just hang out there for the night. He didn't, of course, so Hub's mom called me in a panic this morning because she in all her 100-pound soaking wet glory couldn't get him upstairs to go outside. We eventually got him up and out, but I left him in the house tonight when I went over there. If Hub's mom doesn't hate me for this morning, I'm sure she will if she walks in to a house full of dog crap.

But you know what I noticed last night? Even though I yelled at the poor bastard once thinking that might startle him into moving, my patience never waivered into DefCon territory. I'd kinda like to attribute that to Dad, because as we all know, Dad had to be a patient man lest he ended up burying Mother in the backyard, and we also know that I tend to have a rotten temper when I want to. Maybe it's something he left me when he went. Or maybe it's the drugs.

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one day, you watch a tow truck dump off a white, later-model Monte Carlo on the street between your apartment building and the one next door, and it just sits there for weeks on end with no one doing anything about it, so you call code enforcement to tag the motherfucker because you're sure as hell not going to let your 'hood turn into the place where people leave their cars to die; it cheapens up where you live, and code enforcement got right on it when you called them last year about the burned out car left on the other street. And then you do a joyful pee-pee dance when a big ol' tow truck -- possibly the repo man -- comes out on a Sunday night to retrieve the dead car, and you think, "I wonder how they knew to come get it!??"

Sometimes, it takes so little.

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No, no -- no such luck. (Shut-up, you.) But I did do something almost as exciting: The Popster and I jumped on our bikes today and rode about four miles. (By the way, did I mention she's going on 11 weeks knocked up? She sure is. Much too soon to know what the sex is, but we do know that it's no longer an embryo and is instead a fetus, which of course I've knicknamed Cletus because c'mon.) So anyway, yeah, got on the ol' bike and rode, and actually really loved it. I mean, the weather was just phenomenal today, and instead of riding around in the industrial complex that surrounds my crib, we rode the trail, and that was nice. And I felt really good doing it, too -- not too much sweating, had good clip going ... plus, I left my bike in her garage, so now I can just go to her crib and get it whenever I want to ride instead of having to haul it down my stairs and going through heavy traffic to get where I want to go. Who knew exercise could be so invigorating!?

Of course, now that I've found my groove, it'll become ass cold and rainy again.

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A year ago this coming Sunday, I talked about seeing my ex-boyfriend from college and how I was kind of all freaked out about it, right? Hadn't seen him in 12 years, figured he'd be at the event with his bitchy wife, etc.

Yeah, saw him today at a different event for his not-for-profit. He looks exactly the same, if a little heavier and quite a bit more bald. (Then again, the last time he saw ME, I was 45 pounds lighter with vibrant red hair. In fact, he hasn't seen me as a brunette since before college, since I started dating him the summer before I started, and even then, I was more blonde than brunette. Yikes.) But we talked for, like, 45 minutes before I had to split to make deadline, catching up on shit and whatnot. Turns out that on top of his stepson, he has two kids of his own, which is really funny since kids were never part of his plan. But his little girl is gorgeous, blonde hair and blue eyes with a little Dutchboy cut -- just darling. And his little brother who I loved so much is now 24 (!) and working in PR for a Chicago real estate firm. I was like, "So that means I can conceivably run into him at a bar!?? Man, that ain't right." And he offered me condolences about Dad, naturally, but what was really wild is when I filled him in about the bio-fam, he remembered the guy who pretended to be my biological father back in college. (Haven't told y'all about that one, have I? Remind me to later.) And then, in probably the best moment of the conversation, we were talking about how his little brother who I love so much was never much of a partyer in high school, but that his own weakness was girls and oh, what he didn't do for girls -- not for them, but for himself. Having been the casualty of this weakness, I smiled and nodded, "Yeah, yeah." There was totally no rancor to it or anything; it was just a really sweet moment, one that I never imagined would've happened since our final breakup took about a year. Anyway, we talked about keeping in touch, maybe getting together for lunch when we have the time.

There was something oddly comforting about talking to him. Not in like a "get back together" kind of way, but like talking to someone you haven't talked to in years and picking up like it was yesterday. And what was really cool was seeing him so Dad-like about his kids. I'm still smiling about it, actually.

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Whooooooooooa ooooo-oooo/whoooooaaa-ooo-ooooo!

Your earworm for today. Y'all can thank me later.

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So yeah, dinner with my little (alleged) sister was a pretty damn good time. She's cute, funny and definitely has a mind of her own, so we got that in common. Plus, she's loud just like me, and if there were anything in this world that would serve as an identifier, it would be that. (Ok, not really. But still ...)

She also has a past that would make the toughest survivor cringe in sympathy/horror, and that unfortunately has left her very closed up while opened like a festering sore to the rest of the world all at the same time. If I in my two-parent white-bread childhood world thought my other sibs had it bad when they were growing up, I can at least take comfort in the fact that they didn't have it nearly as bad as Baby Girl did. Think, among other things, a multitude of stepdads (and a mother who isn't quite over the whole married thing yet after all this time), a sperm donor who gave up his parental rights so she could be adopted by one of the stepdads, drugs, a real live mohawk and multiple piercings, a failed marriage and her own daughter's death before the age of 20 (!), then a complete life turnaround by the age of 25 and you have the REAL A Million Little Pieces right there. In fact, a great story about the sperm donor: She was 17 and after having last seen him when she was 12, she gets shipped out west to visit him for what was supposed to be a three-week trip, right? Can't remember what day into the trip it was, but he takes her to Old Country Buffet for dinner, which is fine until he starts putting nine, 10 little bowls of condiments on the table and six glasses of milk, then proceeds to eat seven or eight plates of food BY HIMSELF and yells at her in the restaurant that her eating two plates of food "isn't getting his money's worth." And then there was the crackhead that showed up at his door at 3 a.m. and him being all like, "Uh, I TOLD you he doesn't live here anymore (wink, wink)," and the pot smell wafting from his room that really wasn't pot, according to him. Yeah, it took her four days of that before she was like, "I'm out."

No, she has not gotten herself into therapy toot sweet after all this, and that worries me, because underneath the bravado, her terror is palpable. But she seems to dig me; she says we have to be the same because we're both extreme smartasses.

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Got a call from Tara this morning: Her dad's colon cancer came back after 11 years. No word on how advanced it is yet, because the doctors still need to do all the tests and shit.

Good thoughts, por favor; prayers are good, too, if you're so inclined.

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My (possible) baby sister and I are meeting for Mexican tonight at 5-ish, 5:30-ish.

Details at 11, or something.

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