Phases of my life (this post has nothing to do with sunsets)

I became who I am in chapters. Everything happens gradually, of course, but there are phases in my life in which I've really become, when the real scaffolding of who I am was erected. It doesn't have to be anything glamorous. Peanut butter M & Ms first taught me about fleeting popularity.

I was thinking about this because my son -- who has recently been infuriating, confusing, and inspiring in equal measure -- has entered what I consider to be my own first big becoming phase. I came to be rooted in who I was, and who I would, in many ways, return to being, between the ages of 8 and 12. This was when someone other than my teacher, mom, or dad read my stuff, and I decided I wanted to be a writer. This was when I really got into animals, even after my gerbil tried to maul me and also seemed to interpret competent mothering to include cannibalizing one's young. It was when I first hiked the Grand Canyon, hiked to the top of the Superstitions, and ate leeches (the last one, unintentionally). It was when I saw someone's house burn down. It was the time during which, after a very unfortunate incident with an evil yo-yo and my face, I realized "coordination" for my body most closely resembled "OK, limbs, everyone do your own thing!" It was when I was first bullied, when I first stuck up for someone, when I had my first crush, when I discovered the word "fuck," when I developed acne, and when I realized, to my great personal anguish, that certain things about me were abnormal, some OK and some not.

A few things happened between 12 and 15. Not much. I got my period, way after everyone else. (I was thrilled. Why would you want it earlier? No, I don't "feel like a woman" now. I feel like shit. Now quit looking at me.) I read the collected works of Christopher Pike. This was not a defining time.

Phase Two was, I would say, between 15 and 18. This was the first time I suffered a great personal loss. It was when I decided to rebel, learned I really sucked at rebelling, my boyfriend and I ran for our lives from a bear (which may actually have been a squirrel), I barfed lettuce out of my nose, I got religious, I began to get nonreligious, I got engaged, and I decided to get unengaged.

Later, I got popular for a few minutes. I got pregnant. But that wasn't really a phase. It wasn't even particularly life changing.

Having my son was certainly life changing. I became a mom, and that is and forever shall be my most defining charcteristic; and screw you, everyone who says that means I'm giving up some part of my identity. I'm certainly no perfect homemaker, as anyone who knows me can attest. For one, I spend WAY more time reading science fiction fan forums than I do cleaning my own house; and also, I had a cookie for breakfast this morning because I was too busy doing other stuff -- which, now that I typed it, doesn't look like something that should make me proud, but, well, so THERE.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Phases.

Anyway, after that, there have been plenty of big things, but they tend to fall back to parameters set in place in Phase One or Phase Two. And you know what? I don't talk much about those times.

So now, to fill up my blog posts, I shall bore you with the entirety of my childhood.

No. Kidding. KIDDING! Please don't go away. You'll make me cry, and then I'll eat a whole pie, and then I'll feel sick so I'll look for something to drink only all we have is sugary soda because I'm too crappy of a homemaker to go buy diet soda even though I want it and my husband's diabetic so he needs it; and THEN I'll enter into a Phase Three, which will be comprised entirely of weight gain and visits to my husband's doctor, and you don't want that on your conscious, do you?

I will share brief snippets from those times. They're actually all pretty short, but they're the things that drive me. Some are sad. Some are funny. Even if they're not particularly life-shattering, they're the stories that live in my head, and thus, who I am. I'm thinking of starting with the rabid squirrel-bear. What do you think?

**I'm still doing snapshots, or going back to them, I guess. You seemed to like them, and David's got a TON of shots I need to share.

**I'm thinking of making some kind of schedule, you know, themed posts of one type or another on certain days. What do you think? (I'm thinking Snapshots, Things I love/hate, critter day, maybe even Wordless Wednesday. I can be wordless. You know, mostly. Sometimes.)

**I'm throwing in pretty sunset pictures because you all seem to like that. This post has nothing to do with sunsets. I could draw again, I guess, but I'm not sure if the kudos on that was because you were humoring me, or what. Or maybe you think my family really does have Jack-o-lantern heads, so the drawings were accurate. I did kind of like drawing, though. It captured how correct I was, right?

Things I Hate-with-murderous-rage-for-no-good-reason Thursday

I wrote this Thursday, but now it's the wee hours of Friday. Bah. It's not a Things I Love anyway.

The thing about me is I'm really pretty good at bad stuff. Like, actual bad stuff. I'm sad/angry/scared/whatever just like the next person, but I go into action. I react later, if ever. In an emergency, I'm your lady. Well; if there are no paramedics, police officers, firefighters, emergency-trained civilians, or my mom available; then I'm your lady.

But little stuff drives me INSANE. This leads to a curious contradiction in my personality, and I'll say things like "No; he's not going into a coma. Let's just keep an eye on him and if he's not better by 6, we'll go to the hospital ... HOLY CRAP; I RAN INTO THE DOORKNOB! AGAIN!!!! AND NOW MY HAIR'S IN MY FACE! THE WORLD HATES ME!" (Actual example.)

So this is more of a Stupid-crap-that-shouldn't-bother-me-but-does post. Enjoy my impotent rage.

• I was woke up with a HUGE headache, like worse than my usual ones, like my brain was trying to punch my skull and poke out my right eye from the inside. Naturally, my husband saw fit to remedy this by flopping over on top of me, before shoving me out of bed entirely. He didn't even have the courtesy to wake up and see my death glare.

• The door burst open.
"Mom!"
"Meow!"
"Mom! Mom! Mom?"
"Meow. Meow Meow! MEOWWWW!"
"MOM!" [I was grabbed.]
"MEOW!!" [I was bitten. Scratched. Generally assaulted.]

• The toaster burned my toast. It also burned my fingers, because I don't stick utensils in the toaster because you're not supposed to, but I can't help thinking sticking my hand into burning metal isn't much better. The toaster's a bastard. Also, I can't ever clean it completely. What the hell, toaster.

• My son was behind on his homework ALREADY. On the second day. It was only because he hadn't brought home the ridiculously easy worksheet the first day, and when I told him "Just think to yourself, 'What is it that I need to bring home?' before you leave each day," he looked at me as though this had never ONCE occurred to him.

So the next day he had double homework. But this is double easy-beginning-of-third-grade-BS homework. I reasoned with him. I told him it was only a few minutes of work, then playing and frolicking fun-time.

(Because another fun part of my day was receiving a scammy phone call that made me paranoid that I owed my student loan people tons of money, I called the real company and was on hold for a bazillion hours. In this time, I drew a depiction of my reasoning with my son. Few minutes of work, blissful kid-type hi-jinks):


He opted for a different approach:


He decided to do this FOR THREE HOURS.

• I had to retrieve the trash can, naturally, in the swelteringly-miserablest part of the day. By the time I got out to the curb, I was sweating. By the time I grabbed the trash can, I was playing reluctant host to a curious wasp. Also, the can lid fell apart. By the time I had properly abused, cursed, and reassembled the can and was hitching it back to the yard, I realized I'd been standing in an anthill this whole time and was now the proud owner of two living socks. Much leaping about and shrieked obscenities ensued.

• As I headed upstairs my husband asked, in a funny voice, "Do you want some company?"
Me: "What? Are you offering?"
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "I said, are you offering? Are you trying to hit on me?"
Him: "Uh, no, not exactly."
Me: "Oh. OK then." [I turn to walk away.]
Him: "Where are you going?"
Me: "Oh, so you ARE trying to. OK, then! It was just off-putting when you said no."
Him: "Never MIND, then!"
Me (crying): "What? Why? I was happy about it!"
Him: "You said you were turned off!"
Me: "I did not! I said put off! Actually, I said YOU were off-putting! Totally different!"
Him: "Not to me!"

It devolved from there. I have a depiction of that one too (I was on hold for a while):


I tried to make it better by explaining the difference. Somehow, this didn't help:


• Later, someone with whom I've been trying to meet rescheduled his already re-re-rescheduled appointment, then e-mailed later and canceled that one.

• I needed to finish a query, but I couldn't find my latest document because, like a fucking genius, I named the last three documents "Document1," "Document2," and the super-specific "Article."

• The computer erased all my work (all 45 consecutive minutes of it!) and informed me that I had "chosen" to do something that made it crash. (Apparently, making something italic is verboten.) Which, by now, the computer might as well have grown a giant middle finger. I get it, computer. F me.

• The cats both did their best to help me concentrate: "Meow. Meow. Meow. [Second cat joining.] Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. [Cats beginning to fight. Murderous yowling.] MeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeow Meooooow. MEOW. MEOWWW!"

• I craned my body around the bend in our stairs to look at the front door, and bashed my head on the ceiling. This happens often. It is, of course, the ceiling's fault.

• My husband tried to proposition me again, more directly this time. Unfortunately for him, verbal repartee is not his strong suit. He used the word "boobies." He tried to make up for it by telling me how nice I smelled, how I smell unnaturally great for so long even between showers (kind of odd, but good so far), and that it stays wonderful "after you shower, for like a week and a half!"
Me: "Wait. A week and a half? You think that's how often I shower?"
Him: "No! I just meant..."
[Crickets chirping]
Him: "I mean, not that you don't..."
[Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.]
Him: "I only meant that you smell SO nice..."
[Chirp. Chirp. ChirpChirpChirpChirpChirp ChirpChirpChirpChirpChirp ChirpChirpChirpChirp.]
Him: "You're sexy?"

• And now I can't go to freaking sleep.

Things I love, summer edition

Did I mention I was taking a break? Sorry. Break over.

It is Thursday, so here's what I love today:

Vacation. Family. How traveling to another place, carrying all your stuff in a sack, and being disconnected from most of your everyday life reminds you that really, you've brought the best parts with you.

The ocean. The ocean frickin' rocks, especially to a desert dweller.

French silk pies. I've eaten at least three this summer. The guys might have helped, but not much.

Arizona insects. What, you mean you don't brave 115-degree weather to tote around a heavy lens for hours and muck around for giant-mandibled arthropods to hold? Your loss, I suppose.

Parenting. I do it right every once in a while. I only hope it makes up for the 90 percent of the time I seem to screw up royally, and also for my complete inability to pretend that I enjoy tickling or video games. But the incident with the cat, the spoiled milk, and the plastic planets? Nailed it. The question -- "Is God really really real? How can we know if he's real or fake?" -- posed while we were covered in sweat, dirt, camera gear, and the aforementioned giant-mandibled arthropod? Postponed thirty seconds, then nailed, I think. The extended middle finger behind my back? Happened to "miss" that one, which I think is nailing it, given the apology/hug that quickly followed.

Netflix.

Tom French. He was one of my MFA mentors, and I believe I've rhapsodized about the guy before, on other blogs if not this one. He's got a new book out, and you really have to read it. If you like animals, if you like zoos, if you hate zoos, if you're not sure. Whatever. Just go read it. I remember Tom telling a story during residency about when he was a kid -- he would climb trees, hide up there for hours, snoop on his neighbors, and become simply enthralled by their lives and their stories. ALL their stories. I think that's the thing. He doesn't take sides, or rather, he takes all sides. I don't know anyone better at getting to the heart of a story.

Finally sort of getting this marriage thing right. We're keeping the house clean! Without fighting! PLUS we kiss passionately enough each day to gross out any 8-year-olds in the vicinity.

Octopuses. For everyone who booed my booing of Paul the Psychic/Prescient/Whatever Octopus, I really really love cephalopods, kind of more than is normal. So there. P.S. It's "octopuses," not "octopi." The "i" is only used to pluralize an "us" if it's a Latin word; whereas "octopus" is more of a Latinized Greek word. I'll accept "octopodes," in a pinch. (See; you can be sure it's still me. Who else is so pedantic about these things? Well, half of you, probably. But my husband and his friends the other half likes to make fun of me.)

I love lots of other things, but I'll want to be even longer-winded about each of them. Also, snapshots to come. How's everyone's summer going?

30

I'm not saying that this necessarily applies to me in any way, but I happen to find the concept of a modern woman on her thirtieth birthday -- maybe, say, one who is a mother, is in an unlikely but very happy marriage, and is underemployed -- intriguing. Say this particular woman -- just to pick a location at random -- lives in a suburban development, in a reasonably kept house and wholly unkempt yard, somewhere southeast of Phoenix, Arizona.

1. Learn astrophotography.

Now, how does our modern woman -- and say, just for the sake of argument, that she holds a couple of college degrees and a bazillion dollars in student loan debt -- how does she take stock, on birthday No. 30?

2. Revisit the Grand Canyon. Take someone.

Let's say this is a particularly self-absorbed self-aware thirty-year-old woman, and let's say she dug up a lame-ass "30 things to do before I'm 30" list that she wrote in/after college eons ago. Let's say most of those things are still undone. The list itself wasn't even finished, perhaps.

3. Learn to cook better.
4. Buy a house.

And let's assume -- not that I can identify -- that our woman is pathologically introverted except for via keyboard; that she's fiercely opinionated but too chicken to voice her opinions; and that she's the type to, I don't know, cry at school talent shows and talking-dog movies.

5. Get better at origami.
6. Teach son about the desert/wildlife.

Suppose this woman really hasn't learned much these thirty years. Can't cook, save maybe a dozen dishes. Can't drive in strange neighborhoods. Can't balance her checkbook.

7. Try several types of sushi.
8. Teach a college course.

Suppose our lady isn't even sure about the things she has learned. Raised hard right, now she leans left. Used to attend religious services; isn't too fond of them anymore. Used to selfishly adore being adored by certain individuals; now avoids their Facebook friend requests. Doesn't want to be called "girl" but isn't "yea woman!" enough to say anything about it. Thinks she's a better mom than you but won't say so. Thinks she's smarter than you, and will say so, but will probably pretend it was a cough if you get mad.

9. Learn to drive stick
10. Skydive/parasail/bungee jump.
11. Scuba dive.

However, we can figure she's learned at least a few things in her three decades. At four, maybe she learned Sit -N- Spin = barfing. At six, maybe she learned the boy who tricked her into taking the wings off a ladybug was a sadistic douche, and perhaps she acquired a lifelong passion for animals. Somewhere around nine, she learned she had something or other called ADD, and it made her brain both better and worse than other people's. At twelve, she learned she was smarter than most everyone, which was not a social boon. Somewhere in there, she learned to hate the desert, and then to love it; she learned to love baseball and poker, and she spent a few straight years turning over rocks to watch what scurried out.

12. Dance in public and not be embarrassed.
13. Volunteer at an animal place.
14. Get Master's degree.

At fourteen, she discovered she was pretty good at writing, and decided to be a writer, probably a journalist. At fifteen, she met a guy she figured she'd someday marry. Between fifteen and twenty-one, let's say she did a bunch of stupid shit that was largely forgettable, save for learning that Jell-O shooters are not the same thing as Jell-O Jigglers, and deciding she would not, after all, be a writer or marry that guy.

15. Make new friends.
16. Visit a volcano.

Perhaps this is a woman who, stupidly, like a million other women, sealed the deal with a new guy before there was a deal; and who, like at least thousands of other women, had a whole new deal a couple of months later.

17. Shark cage!
18. Get in the best shape of my life.
19. Get organized.

And let's say this woman decided, right then and there, that her life had entered a whole new chapter. At twenty-two. Not that I would know anything about that.

20. Publish photography.

Of course, after the deal changer, she dated a bit, and eventually decided to get to know that first guy again, who was really pretty great after all. We can assume she's married to him today. Let's say she became a writer after all. Sometimes she's good at it. Let's figure once in a while she even gets paid for it.

21. Publish a book.
22. Run a 5K/10K/marathon.

It's safe to assume, hypothetically, that our woman doesn't get out much. Not many ticks on the life list. But maybe she knows all the desert's critters by sight and sound. Maybe she's passed on this knowledge to another generation. Maybe she sat on her thirtieth birthday and watched her son reading chapter after chapter, reclined on the couch, in camouflage shorts and a superhero t-shirt. Maybe she just got a whole host of handmade birthday presents, encased in rainbow-paper-and-scotch-tape cocoons. Maybe she figures that's at least as good as a bungee jump.

23. Kayak in the ocean.
24. Plant a garden.

Maybe this thirty-year-old has a wandering mind and she thinks, out of the blue, of that fishless fishing-hole scene at the end of The Last Picture Show ("Is bein' married always so miserable?" / "Naw; not really. About eighty percent of the time, I guess."), and how it reminds her of that one fishless fishing-hole scene in an episode of Stargate SG1, and she knows her husband would know exactly which scene she means, and that's gotta count for something, even if she'll never learn to dance.

25. Be fluent in Spanish.
26. Become a good mom.

I wish I had a satisfying conclusion. But it's just an intellectual exercise.

Suppose our intrepid woman still doesn't really know anything. Doesn't have a clue, really. What's next?

Yeah. I don't know either.

In praise of weeds

My life and yard are full of junk. A walk through my yard is more like a high-stepping slog through the weeds that take the place of things that should be there. Little seeds set loose from our steps take flight, lodging in our socks or taking root to make even more weeds.

My son tells me that it's fine. He loves weeds. He blows dandelions, harvests aphid-encrusted weed flower bouquets, and immerses himself head-high in the things. Which is fine, if you're eight.

If I could, I would agree with him. Weeds weren't always bad, anyway. Etymologically, "weed" comes from the Old English for "grass" or "herb," but during the Middle Ages the meaning changed to mean plants that grew tenaciously where they weren't wanted, especially among agricultural plots. They became the grasses and herbs that hung on, unwanted, the plants that stuck around instead of what growers decided should be there.

It's the same with my writing. I polish. I practice. I agonize. But no matter how much mental weed spray I use, I don't think like most people (a fact of which I would remain blissfully ignorant, if not for the thousands of times per day my husband looks askance at me). Because part of what I do is write stuff other people should want to read, lacking several common thought patterns leads to a thousand false starts -- a thousand seeds floating around -- and because I'm also fairly obsessive, they all take root. At any given time, I'm completely obsessed with Marvel comic fandom from a fangirl-turned-mom perspective, and I'm also obsessed with arthropods and how they're a perfect allegory for introversion, and I'm ALSO obsessed with a coffee table book idea I've had for a month, and ... well, a million other things. All at once. Always. They're gorgeous to me. I watch the seeds float; I wish on them. I play in them up to my head. But they serve only to block out the things other people do want.

A few weeks ago, I decided to pull the weeds. I waddled and crouched in my yard all day, feverishly pulling, yanking, piling. I still have the blisters. I culled about two thirds of the waist- to shoulder-high (or head-high if you're eight) weeds.

My son was close to devastated. What about the birds? he asked. They pluck seeds from the weeds each morning, and use the thin branches and stems to finish their nests. What about the ladybugs, whose nymphs were attached to hundreds of the stems? What about at sunset, when light shines through a thousand breeze-blown filaments? What about his plans to take his friend on a backyard jungle trek? Weeds are exciting. No weeds is boring.

I wrote something years ago, shortly after my son began exploring the world. I had been afraid motherhood would be boring, uniform, manicured, like a bland lawn. It wasn't. It turned out to be better, worse, weirder, and more exciting than I had expected. At the time, I said of my son and myself: "We tend the wild weeds in each other."

I've left the rest of our weeds where they are. The birds visit constantly. The ladybugs (I had carefully picked around the nymphs in the first place) have hatched.

Weeds are not a crop (even though several are great to eat). Still, they have utility of a different kind. They're our ladybug nursery. Birds make use of them for food and shelter. We wish on them. Who wishes on a rose?

Biologists don't use the term "weeds" all that often. Many plants considered weeds are very closely related to popular crops, biologically. Allelopathy, a chemical method of preventing other stuff from growing, tends to give weeds a bad rap. We've kept the remaining weeds far enough away from our "desirable" plants that everything grows in harmony. What if, then, I could do away with mental allelopathy, but keep the rest? Because weeds are awesome.

Weeds have some of the most widely heralded virtues. They are specifically adapted to thrive where destruction has occurred. They take root when nothing else can. They can even help depleted soil, bringing rich nutrients up from deeper layers and into decimated topsoil. They restore eroded soil. The stuff covering our yard, something from the mustard family, is fiercely competitive and protects itself with saw edges of teeth along its leaves. You can't help but respect the stuff. It's edible, apparently, but packs quite a punch. Our crop of it appeared almost overnight, transforming our yard from a brownish expanse into a rich green sea.

I think my favorite thing that weeds do naturally is something Tom French, one of my MFA mentors and all-around amazing guy, had to remind me a kadrillion times to do: They keep going. As any frustrated gardener can attest, weeds spread with abandon; easily, randomly, wildly.

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, a weed "is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."

There's a lot of discovery potential around here.

I'm still watching my ideas float around, and they're still taking root in a thousand different places. Maybe I'll let them grow. Weeds, after all, can make great companion plants to "good" plants, helping them thrive during dry spells.

Weeds have strong roots, after all. And if the light hits them just right, they light up like nothing can.

Children and Nature Awareness Month (is ending)

April is (I should say was) Children and Nature Awareness Month. Of course, it's also Autism Awareness Month and Cesarean Awareness Month (by which I assume they mean the doubly-life-saving but very dramatic procedure I underwent, not the Roman dude). In fact, April is Frog Month; Informed Women Month; Month of the Young Child; Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month; School Library Month; and National DNA, Genomics and Stem Cell Education and Awareness Month. While I wholeheartedly support all of these, I feel like I should apologize for not commemorating Children and Nature Awareness Month at ANY time during this month. I mean, it's sort of my thing. I did write a 216-page manuscript on it. I do tend to preach on it. I did write a hero-worshippy e-mail to Richard Louv.

Partly, I've been busy. But mostly -- and I think it's both to my detriment and maybe sometimes (hopefully) to my credit -- it's just not my way. I suck at gaining followers to causes. I just don't care about starting movements. I'm more of a be-there-and-chill type person. Who the hell am I to start a drive or movement or whatever? A person who wrote a really long essay about traipsing about in the desert? So what?

But I think maybe that's not what Children and Nature Awareness Month is about. It's about being close. Physically, emotionally, regularly close to the world around you, down to its smallest, hairiest, squishiest bits and up to the stuff that is so enormously big as to make you feel insignificant, but in an oddly uplifting way. It definitely takes both kinds, the big and small of nature and the big and small of nature thinkers. I'm a small. I don't mean lesser. I just focus inward. I'm pretty discouraged sometimes that I'm not the movement-starter type. What I do want to be, though, is the type who keeps it up anyway. With no followers. With nothing for me to follow except the boy beside me and the caterpillar inching from my finger to his. With no validation except his smile.

So I didn't blog Children and Nature Awareness Month. It wasn't to make this sappy entry, either. It was because I didn't want to. I wanted to do it.

I've got some plans in mind for specific features. I'd like to do some insect posts, maybe venomous critters, definitely locales. My son, actually, wants to start a weekly-ish "David's animal stories," which I wholeheartedly support and would like to incorporate. (What do you all think? He originally wanted to tape it, but his videos make Cloverfield look stationary. He's wanting to do mostly pictures with "a short story," he said.) But I didn't spend the month pitching Children and Nature Awareness Month. I was greedy. I just grabbed my kid, and we enjoyed it ourselves. I hope you don't mind.

You really should do this every month anyway.

Things I love

This guy's amazingly freaking awesome website. Found it via his blog (I'm a tad obsessed with just about everyone at ScienceBlogs), and it's absolutely gorgeous. Must... get... macro lens.

I was featured on this week's imagine childhood blog. Go look at mine and tell everyone how great I am. Check out our nature walk as well as some others. It's good stuff. Thanks to the folks at imagine childhood.

Softpaws, the savior of our furniture. At least, they'd better be. Someone is going to get his paws hog tied otherwise.

Having an uncharacteristically productive week. Hooray for being a competent adult.

Ladybugs. They're adorable, and they eat aphids, which are considerably less adorable. We watched a ladybug absolutely decimate and devour an aphid the other day, after which the ladybug seemed slightly less cuddly, but much cooler.

Dumb luck. You know when you're leaning back in a chair and you have that feeling of absolute inevitability, during which you haven't quite fallen but you know it's coming? I had that feeling -- over this prickly pear, while I was leaning over it face-first to get a good angle for a picture. Somehow, I tripped on top of the clumsiness that had already put me in that predicament, and actually threw myself backward. Two idiot moves canceled each other out. Woo me. This thing is pretty huge. It would have been a full-body affair. Judging from the experience of my brother, who did the same thing only with his back side, it would have been fairly unpleasant. (His ordeal included sitting on a pillow for a while afterward, and other consequences that may or may not involve a certain maternal figure of ours pantsing him in the backyard -- but I'm sure he doesn't want me to mention that.)

Arizona sunsets. I know they're cliché to like. But I like to rub it in non-Arizonans' faces  be unoriginal  point out the obvious appreciate them every once in a while anyway.

My husband's dream the other night. He dreamed he was furiously jealous because I'd become close to this character from The Big Bang Theory, and my husband thought his equations were making me all hot and bothered. I love how he apparently sees me. It's not too dramatically far from the truth. My poor husband.

I'll end with a gratuitous sex shot: