I didn't know they made bikinis in size fat fuck.

I love my kitchen. I was up 15 minutes earlier than normal this morning (although I was still my standard 20 minutes late to work), and I straightened up in there and watered the seeds that we planted Monday. We have ambitious plans for the teeny bed just outside the back door, and have started our peppers, zucchini and tomatoes from seeds purchased from Bountiful Gardens and got their tomato mix, which contains heirloom varieties with names like "Big Rainbow," "Cherokee Purple," and "Moneymaker." They're on a shelf that Brandon fixed up in the window last week; the kitchen is perfect for this because it's the only really sunny room in our house. The entire corner of the room is windows, and there is no better feeling to me than just hanging out there in the morning, drinking coffee, and plotting out my day. There is certainly a lot to be said about the restorative powers of sunshine. My mood is really dictated by whether or not it's sunny when I go out for work in the morning. Gloomy days make me want to hibernate.


I'm sending in our application and payment for the Whitton Farms CSA this week. I'm so excited, because it's the first time I've ever participated in a co-op. Starting in the middle of May, we'll be getting a sack of farm fresh produce from these good people every week!


Thanks for your many comments regarding the high school reunion thing. I remain undecided. I may be swayed by the price of the thing -- I saw the blurb in the county paper about the 1998 reunion last summer, and it was somewhere around $60 per couple for what I pessimistically assume was overcooked prime rib, a baked potato, and no booze. Plus, you had to pay cover to be in the same venue as some shitty band. Double Ew Tee Eff, man.


I had a nice three-day weekend (that's the kind of thing that makes me heart working for the gov't). Sushi on Friday night, the symphony on Saturday. I got a pile of lovely cookbooks, as well as a tome entitled "The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People" from my dear husband. He knows me too well. The next time you use the potty at my house, you are free to browse it. We spent a rollicking Saturday night at Mr. Whitten's, where too much booze was consumed, for sure. My memories may be foggy but LT had sweetly posted the photographic evidence of it before I even woke up the next morning. What a doll. We made tamales on Monday, which was an all day ordeal that resulted in success! Everything on the internet advises that if you're going to go to the trouble of making the babies, you should go ahead and make 100 or 200 and freeze them. After cooking the meat and mixing the masa, and rolling all those little sons-of-bitches, I could see why. They were tasty and steamed perfectly, though.

Speaking of food, if you guys have not been checking in on the blog This is Why You're Fat, you should. It's photographic evidence of everything that's wrong with America's gastronomy. Be careful, vegetarians. There's a lot of graphic meat up in that bitch.

High School Reunion Hell !?!?!1!

I know I just posted a blog, and I usually don't do this, but this is a different topic. Therefore = different posting. Plus, I wanted to solicit some responses with this one.

I logged onto Myspace the other day and saw a bulletin from one of my classmates from high school soliciting ideas for our 10 year class reunion, which will take place this summer. I have actually thought about this fact occasionally throughout the past year, and I am still completely undecided as to whether or not I want to attend. Is it weird to think about it this much? Now, I didn't have a horrendous high school experience, and actually a very ice group of ladies who I graduated with came to our wedding this past summer. See exhibit A.

I wasn't a big stoner; I didn't drink a lot in high school. I wasn't particularly popular. I was pretty much a weirdo, but not as much of a weirdo as people who wore Marilyn Manson t-shirts and pierced their own noses. I have one really tight group of girlfriends, and we stayed friends for years, off and on; now, for me, the majority of those relationships are switched to "off." Except for Chrystal, who is as weird and funny as ever, and remains "the bridge I never burned."

I just don't know if I really want to see all those people again, though! I mean, I think it would be really weird, and I have the sneaking suspicion that years of weed abuse have erased some people's names and memories from my poor pitiful brain. And it seems like 10-15 minutes of "oh, hello, there you are, how are you, what have you been doing?" would be enough but an entire evening would be... pushing it.

So, if you'd be so kind, I'd like to survey your reunion experiences. If you don't mind. There was a 5 year reunion, but that was definitely too soon, and I didn't go. I've never done this before. And if you've never been to one, tell me why. Are you planning on going to any upcoming ones? I need your thoughts, friends!

Cardio Psychosis

Yesterday I finished my first full week of exercising regularly. I went after work every day Monday-Thursday. Hope & Healing closes at 2:00 on Friday, and I'm considering Saturday an optional day. Hooray me! I did 35-40 minutes of cardio every day, and I have to say: I don't hate it too bad. Going to the gym gets to be like going to class -- something you know you need to/have to do, but you get that wicked little charge from skipping. I'm going to try to keep this up a least through the end of March, and see where it gets me.

We had two truly delicious dinners this week; on Tuesday, Brandon made pinto beans from this recipe from the Pioneer Woman, and after I got home I made the cornbread, spiked with jalapenos, and we ate it with some sauteed turnip greens, raw slices of sweet onion, and my mother's "Amish relish" -- it's a tomato, onion, & pepper relish with a touch of sweetness. I felt a bit of shame that it took a recipe found on the internet to inspire me to make this meal that is so, so Decatur County. So country-ass and delicious. I felt as though my daddy's spirit was laughing at me somewhere, and he'd feel a little pride in seeing his daughter and her decidedly non-countryass husband moaning in taste ecstasy over one of the most basic meals in creation. The next night, I mashed the beans up, adding a little cumin and chili powder, and B fried some corn tortillas and plantains (Jesus fucking Christ, I love plantains! Why didn't someone clue me in about these years ago!) and we had the tortillas with the beans smeared on top, covered in that crumbly Mexican queso, salsa, romaine, and avocado slices. NOM NOM NOM.

Meals like that remind me that although I have a tendency to go spend $50 on Kroger preparing for some meal that includes at least a few pricy, hard to find ingredients, sometimes the simplest can be the most satisfying.

Although I have to say that after two days of bean consumption, my cubicle/our bedsheets have taken on a peculiar aroma. Ahem.

Spanish heartache

I should be working right now, because it's the first of the month and as all of us sheltered middle-class people learned from Bone Thugs N Harmony, offices such as mine are quite busy at this time.

But today I feel like spilling from my brain out my fingers onto this pitifully neglected blog. So I'll take a carefully timed, sanctioned 15 minute break and do it!

I was looking over photos from our travelling together on Flickr, something that makes my big red heart ache for the days of having nothing to do but explore new places with a man who is easy to both love and yell at, and I thought I'd revisit that time and write a little bit about it. And post some pictures! Because who doesn't love pictures!

So in the spring of 2007, Brandon and I had been together for nearly a year, I reckon, and were living pretty unhappily in Nashville. We're just not Nashville people, just not cut out for it. We're much happier here, a place that makes lots of middle-aged white people's faces crumple in fear and revulsion. He had some fat cash socked away from photo work he'd done, and I was sitting on a pile of money I'd been granted after my dear, dear father passed away. I had never been anywhere, really; no kind of extended travel, and one reason Brandon had made me all starry-eyed in the first place was the knowledge that he'd been places and done things. So even though it was terribly impractical, which flies in the face of in way I was raised completely, I started quietly planning a trip. I checked out Lonely Planet guides from the library and researched the internets like mad, trying to find volunteer opportunities abroad that aren't simply resume builders for rich-ass college kids (Hand out crayons for two weeks at Panda Kindergarten for only $10,000!). Finally I stumbled upon WWOOF, which is like mommy's miracle from heaven and was perfect. You don't know how bad I wish I'd had the knowledge and the balls to WWOOF earlier in my life.

So there's the background. It is funny to travel with your spiritual/sexual/emotional partner for an extended time like that. As I told him often, you see the best and the worst of that person, and they see the same in you, over and over again for all the time you are away. B saw me crying like a titty baby because my pack was heavy and we couldn't find our hostel in Barcelona, and I dealt with him patiently when he was wasted in Madrid and had to go back to the bar and take a shit.

Here's the bar, by the way; or, rather, the guy who played piano there. It was in the basement of a building, and Brandon called it the "piano cave." We had mucho sangria there. Duh.

It was just perfect, which was how I'd describe most of what we saw of Spain. Barcelona and Madrid were the most beautiful, interesting magical cities that I've ever visited. There is something about the Spanish culture that I just lust after; their daily schedule along is so laid-back and conducive to leisure and pleasure, and who can argue with that?

So, the day after that picture was taken, was probably one of the most overwhelmingly incredible days of my life, so far. We went for a picnic in Parque del Buen Retiro, which was just gorgeous, and then we rented a cute ass little rowboat. And then Brandon proposed, and I said yes! I mean, I wanted to say yes anyway, but how could I resist??

He looks pretty pleased with himself, huh? He had had a ring on loan from his mom stashed away for the entire trip, and brought it along that day, thinking that the time was right. The ring didn't fit on my bigass man hand, but other than that it went down perfectly. And now we both have "Buen Retiro" inscribed in our wedding bands, which means "good retreat."

We knew that bullfights were going on, and had read in some travel guide that although they were most often sold out, you could sometimes buy tickets if you hung out in front of the plaza where they have the fights. Brandon was determined to have the perfect day, so he memorized the Spanish word for tickets and worked his ass off until he happened upon some French girls who had chickened out of seeing the poor bull be stabbed to death. Now, I love animals, and I don't support this kind of thing at all (especially after reading about what exactly goes on during the "fight" on the internet. Did you know they bring out a guy on a horse to stab it with a spear repeatedly before the matador comes out to fight it so that the bull will lose blood? And they do this so that its blood pressure will drop and it won't drop dead from a heart attack from the pure panic and shock of being pursued by the matador? Pretty awful). BUT. We were in Spain, during bull fight season, in maybe the #1 place in the world to see them, and we wanted to experience all we could. So criticize me if you must, honestly, it doesn't make any difference now.

The bullfights were intense as hell, but much like viewing "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I became pretty immune to the violent act not long after it started. Thinking about it reminds me of the same feeling of disconnect it was easy to have when watching the Twin Towers fall on television -- it seemed like watching a movie. The crowd was immense, as you can see, and matadors who couldn't do a quick, clean kill, got booed by the spectators. There were lots of well-dressed old men smoking huge cigars; Brandon said that it's the only event he's ever been to where the men's room line was twice as long as the women's.

Oh, Madrid.

I guess I am just feeling a bit wistful and I miss that little bit of time that we were free, back there in 2007. Wwoofing and living on a shoestring don't really fit into my "now" plans, but life has a trick of making you wonder if you're doing the right thing or not. I have a lot of faith in our union, though; it seems nearly impossible that we'll fail at being happy no matter where we are or what we're doing. We have each other to keep the whole thing in check.

that's what she said

We've been combating a serious addiction at the Dilbro house, and that would be a little series called The Office. I bought my mother a Netflix subscription for Xmas, and since I set up her account for her, she's been sweet enough to give me access to the "Watch Instantly" option. One ill-fated night we dragged the couch over in front of the computer monitor and made the genius decision to start watching the show from episode 1, and from that moment our fate was sealed. Sometimes The Office makes me laugh so hard that I get flashbacks to watching Seinfeld with my mother in the mid-nineties when we'd both hoot and holler until she peed her pants.

What is winter good for though, if not watching entirely too much TV? I remember when we moved into this apartment; we had sold our Wii to Toby, since we didn't really want it in the first place (it was a Christmas gift to Brandon in '07), and decided to once again live life sans TV. We had done it originally when we moved to Memphis, but had to give in when we were given that devil video game system. The problem is that TV on the internet makes TVs obsolete! I don't need a fucking TV to watch TV. So no matter how hard I try not to watch TV (OK, not very hard), I keep watching TV. OH THE HUMANITY.

I wrote up 2/3 of an entry about the inauguration last week. No, two weeks ago. It's kind of a basic we were there and this is what happened and this is how I feel about it entry. But then, some time passed, and I didn't finish it, and then it seemed like too much time has passed, and I've been trying not to drink coffee in the morning and without a healthy dose of caffeine, both my teeny humble presence in the blogosphere and the success of my pooper, they suffer. So that is what happened to that. Maybe in the next few days, I will indulge myself in some extra strong coffee, take a huge shit, and finish and publish it. You will think, this is entirely too late, this is not a timely entry at all, but by then you'll be reading it and hopefully by the time you're done, you'll be too exhausted by its mundanity to have the energy to hit "comment."

The air conditioner's on in here. Why's the air conditioner on, for God's sakes? Oh wait, I know, MENOPAUSE.

The reason I've been laying off the coffee is that one day I was minding my own business, walking to the bathroom and a lady who started working here the same time as me, who I went through 3 months of training with, felt it was an appropriate time to ask me whether or not I was trying to increase the size of my booty, and then commented that it was looking "fluffy." Yes, fluffy like a cat or a baby ducking. However, instead of "adorable," I believe she was insinuating something more like "covered in a dimply layer of disgusting blubber." Ahem. I became distraught, went to the Amazon marketplace and ordered a copy of Skinny Bitch for $3. I'd seen Bianca on the Vegan Crunk blog mention it, and I was feeling in need of salvation. Apparently, the heaps of chocolate and cheese consumed during the holidays had made their presence known on my derriere. According to the Skinny Bitch bitches, the best way to be skinny, and therefore happy, is to be a vegan who drinks no coffee and, if you must get boozy (I must, I must), your only option's organic red wine. Is there an organic version of Franzia??

So anyway. Mr. Dill and I have been exercising at the Hope and Healing Center (which totally makes me think of a rehab facility) and while I have not become a vegan, I've been trying to change my habits a bit. Everyone who saw me drink 6 Natural Lights and a Sparks on Superbowl night is tee-hee-heeing at me, but what you don't know is that that was my dinner. So there.

I went on a huge weight loss bender in the spring of 2006 and sometimes, after working out at the Y, would choose to "drink my dinner." Instead of having a nice healthy salad, I'd just buy the dinner of champions:

But then one of those nights, I tried to drive to a boy's house to have sex with him, and THANK GOD he was not there, because we really didn't know each other that well and he was not the kind of guy you make booty calls on and it would have all been really humilating. And maybe he had a girlfriend? Who can tell. Now I drink Jerry with my husband, though, and sometimes I bootycall him. Other times I just pass out on the couch while he goes to the Taco Bell.