Speed Limit

There is going to be some major speed adjusting to do. I had better start practicing now. Mule Town's speed limit is 25mph. On every single street. In Fresno, the lowest speed limit on the major streets is 40mph. And of course I go at least 50mph because 40mph just isn't fast enough when you're trying to get one block from your house to fill up your car with gas so you can drive another block at 50mph to grab fast food.

Also, Mule Town has these quaint little cross walks about every four feet down the middle of Main Street so pedestrians can blindly walk into traffic and sue whoever hits them because there are clearly crosswalks painted for pedestrians to never have to use common sense or decency again because they're in a small town and who gives a shit about the folk who have to stop for you to buy a fucking loaf of cheese bread from the bakery that everyone just HAS to stop at because it looks old-timey and cute??.... Uh... I forget what I was saying...

Oh yes, I was saying that it will take some habit breaking and will power on my part to not race through the streets of Mule Town and hit pedestrians who are incapable of looking both ways and who are so damn impatient to buy a fucking loaf of cheese bread from the cute little bakery with the carousal out front that their spoiled little kids can ride on while simultaneously getting fat from eating cheese bread and cinnamon rolls from the cute little bakery that they jaywalked to get to and they failed to see me coming down the street so I have to slam on my brakes and try not to get sued because I'm broke and that's why I'm moving home with my mom in the first place.... Damn... I can't stay focused today...

I kind of want some cheese bread from that cute little bakery. I can't wait to walk over there and grab some in a couple weeks.

Bee-dee-lee-lee-lee-lee-lee...

I hear the sound of a distant banjo being plucked away at... I turn on the dirt path and see an old dilapidated house with a quaint front porch and a little freckled boy who may or may not be a burn victim. He's got a banjo and a look of deep seeded hatred about him.

Bee-dee-lee-lee-lee-lee-lee...

Weird... I've never heard a banjo sound like impending death before...

I walk up to the little boy and ask him if he knows any Zepplin. He just stares and plucks away at the same ominous tune.

Bee-dee-lee-lee-lee-lee... LEE!

And then I wake up and realize moving day is now only nine days away.... bee-dee-lee-lee-lee-lee-wtf.

Hoard Control

Due to the lack of space, and the lack of need for earthly possessions now that I'll be living in my mom's place and she has all of the same earthly possessions, I have decided to dig through my crap and get rid of everything that is not an immediate necessity.


I am a hoarder. This is a genetic trait that has been passed down from generation to generation since the dawn of man, I'm guessing. Every single one of my family members is a hoarder. I love that A&E has made the disorder a public disease because that show alone has inspired me to throw everything I own away. There are several different types of hoarders according to the show. I'm a moderately bad hoarder. I don't have rotten food and dead cats in with my belongings but I do have age old newspapers with articles in them that I felt like I needed to keep for some reason and trinkets from when I was a kid that bring about a certain kind of nostalgia.


The hoard disease has affected everyone in the family differently. Some of them are organized hoarders, while others, aren't. I'm not organized about my hoarding at all. In any given box I'll have several categories of items ranging from holiday decorations to baking supplies to craft supplies. Just a few days ago, a friend was helping me go through all of my belongings to try and decide what to keep and what to toss. In with my stuff were three separate containers filled with googly eyes for craft projects. I'm not talking thirty or forty googly eyes, it was like four hundred googly eyes. How many pretzel people did I think I'd be able to produce?


Hoarding is a severely entertaining disease. Why I would possibly conceive that I'd need thousands of rainbow colored pipe cleaners, fourteen pairs of scissors, twenty-nine black Sharpies, a stockpile of Easy Bake Oven cookie mix (enough for my kids to play with for the next decade, easy), seventeen of the same size crochet hooks or old AA batteries that may or may not be worth saving in ziplock baggies is beyond me.


I have managed to lighten my moving day load from 27,831 lbs of crap to 27,694 lbs of crap. I'm going to fire up the Easy Bake because I deserve a cookie.

O.M.G. NO H.B.O.

I just realized that I will no longer have all of the channels on T.V. that make watching T.V. worthwhile. No HBO, no Showtime and no IFC. 

How am I supposed to survive like this? It's inhumane. It's inconceivable torture. No Dexter? What is the point of living? No Six Feet Under? No Curb Your Enthusiasm? Fucking seriously? What am I supposed to watch now? Channel 78??

For those of you are aren't hip to what Channel 78 is (and don't feel bad because I was just informed a couple days ago myself), it is a channel devoted to showing a continual landscape shot of mule town 24 hours a day. A camera is set up out by the local airport (and calling this thing an airport is being generous... It's basically some blacktop that all of the mule town residents gather on every 4th of July to light off fireworks) and it just shows the happenings and coming and goings, if any, from the vantage point of someone who might be standing out in BFE.

I don't think I can move now. I mean, what kind of life is a life without Dexter? None at all. This might even be considered cruel and unusual self-punishment. I might be fined or jailed for making the decision to ditch the premium channels for a bit of inner peace and financial reasoning.  I might be a masochist!

That's it. I'm making it a stipulation that my mom gets Internet at her place before I even get there so at least I can watch shit on Hulu. She had better comply... OR ELSE... I will cry and scream until I get my way.

Assholeville 101

One thing I WILL NOT miss about moving to the sticks are all of the rude people that fill every crevice of every street, store and alleyway. 

People are incredible assholes in the city, especially around the holidays. How is it that we Americans require so much more personal space than Asian cultures and we are ten thousand times more rude than they are? Asian cultures seem to follow a strict code of politeness and have no problem standing less than an inch away from a stranger and not decking them in the forehead, and we Americans don't want people to look at us, touch us, be near us or cut in front of us in any situation or all hell breaks out.

I was thinking of all of the possibilities I might have as a new(er) resident to the hybrid equestrian land. Maybe I can start an after school program for teenagers to teach them how to successfully integrate into a bigger city. I have a whole curriculum already laid out. 

 TALKING POINTS FOR FIRST SEMESTER

1. Eye Contact: How Not To Make It

2. Space Bubbles: How Not To Invade

3. The Basics Of Brake Checking

4. Nice Gestures/Gifts: Why People Think They're Being Poisoned

5. Greeting Strangers: Why People Think You Want To Rape and/or Murder Them

6. Megan's Law: Navigating The Website/Wrongfully Mistrusting Your Neighbors

7. City Orchard Etiquette: Beware Farmers With Shotguns

8. Neck Tattoos: Distinguishing Prison Tats From Homemade Ones

9. Overpasses: Inappropriate Resting Spots

10. The Homeless: Change And A Cigarette? When To Put Your Foot Down

I really think this will be a beneficial class to the youth of mule town. Who wants to sign up for next semester?

28 Days Later... From Today

In 28 days I will be living in mule town. I'm trying to be a grown up about the move. I really am. I haven't even thrown myself on the ground and kicked and screamed yet. Honest.

There are just too many things I'm going to miss about the city. Like... Target, street lights, 24 hour Jack In The Box, a movie theater with more than two options, people with teeth, being six hours away from my hometown so when classmates ask me what I'm up to these days I can lie and say, "Important stuff," cell phone reception, smog (because of pretty sunsets), the lack of mountain lions, being able to ignore phone calls from my mom when I'm in a bad mood so I don't worry her, a solid Internet connection, no snow, being able to wear flip-flops year round, Red Robin, In-N-Out, just about every other restaurant here, not carrying chains in the car, not chipping ice off of my windshield... you know... most of these reasons are weather or food related... you get the picture.

There are things from the country that I miss too. Every time I think to myself that it would be fun to move back there I remember very quickly that all of the things I miss, besides my family, I get my fill of within four days and I'm ready to leave.

Here is an actual conversation between my mom and I:

ME: "I don't know what I'm going to do for work up there mom."

MOM: "There's always opportunities with the county. Or the gas station. Or Carl's Jr."

This was pretty much the end of the conversation. I'm going to be chipping ice off of my windshield and going through Animal Style Fries withdrawals to go flip burgers or pump gas to feed/fuel my old classmates as they pass through town on a four day vacation.

Shit.

Anticipation. Agony.

Since I have just made up my mind less than thirty-three hours ago to move back home, I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Lots of ups and downs. Mostly downs. OK, all downs. I'm on a rickety track straight to hell with this negative attitude.

I need to find the positives with my upcoming move. I'm going to find ten positive things about moving home and in with my mom. Here we go...

1. I will have a reliable babysitter.
2. I will have someone to talk about my sister behind her back with.
3. I will be able to talk smack about the rest of the family with my sister over coffee, all the while pretending I'm not talking smack on her with mom.
4. I can take pictures of especially redneck behavior and post them on my blog.
5. The Mule Capital Of The World is surrounded by natural hot water wells for me to go and soak in when stressed out.
6. Most of the roads are paved.
7. My grandparents and my uncle live there as well and are a great source of wisdom and entertainment for me.
8. My newly acquired skill of crawdad fishing will come in super handy.
9. I can run into old classmates and practice lying about being more successful than I really am.
10. I can kick the kids outside to play and not worry about them getting kidnapped. If they get bit by a rattlesnake, it was probably their own damn fault.

Well, that made me feel a little better. I like this whole new me! What a difference a positive attitude makes. We currently have 29 days until the move to mule town.

I think I'm ready for a slower pace and for all of this pride to finally be swallowed. A humble person is a good person, right?

On a side note... I wonder what the noise that mules make is called? Horses neigh and donkeys bray... NEE-yay? I remember hearing a mule make noise before but it's not surfacing in the memory banks right now... I'll just keep imagining a NEE-yay as a sort of lame and poorly correlated Monty Python tribute.

Waving My White Flag

I give up. I have been trying to tread water in the big city for about a decade. I'm finally throwing in the towel, waving my white flag of defeat and moving back home with mom.
I called her yesterday and gave her the great news that I will be invading her space yet again. She's stoked to have her baby and all of her grandkids at home with her, but I am a bit apprehensive. I remember what it was like living with her over a decade ago. I'll have to hone my vaccuming in straight line skills again and probably make my bed.

I am a failed Photojournalist, Telecommunications Analyst, Entreprenuer, Visual Design Manager and Radio Station Receptionist. That's a long list of failure. And now, to add to it, I am a failed Big City Girl as well.

My mom lives in The Mule Capital Of The World, and I can not stress enough how much this is NOT a joke. It is all true. Google it. I will be posting updates of my misadventures in this lovely little town of which has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in all of the state and holds the record for having the highest bar to church ratio in the nation. That's probably a lie, but it seems true enough.

Enjoy my meltdown.