For the positive Clay Aiken fans. . .

Thanks for the encouraging words, you guys.

I took the post down because I don't want my mom to worry about vengeance or lawsuits or getting my car keyed (haha). . .

Let me just say this: Clay Aiken has taken a lot of grief over the years and so have you guys. All I know is he has made my mom really happy, gotten her to travel to places and meet people she keeps in contact with (probably a lot of you!) She gets pins from everywhere and looks on the boards and there's Clay pictures everywhere (It's weird - there's so many pictures in this house it's like I had this brother I never knew about) A tattoo soon to follow (I'm so just kidding).

It's admirable and necessary to have something/someone that brings out the best in a person. For me, it's expensive tri bikes and horses. For you, it's Clay Aiken. It's not up to anyone to judge or question or, in this case, sully your beliefs by cheapening them with dumbass behavior.

Anyway, that whack-job chick was the only psychopath I saw both nights we were at the theater. Everyone else was patient and kind. I am all for people meeting someone they admire or getting their autographs or whatever. . .What got my motor revving was the rudeness, not just to my mom but to all those nice people who had been there waiting. When Clay came out the door, these same people politely handed him theater flyers while he autographed them and smiled in the pictures he took with them. He seems like a sweet soul.

On the flip side of, yes, a very strange evening my mom finally, after all these years of worship, got her program signed. So if I kept the path clear using whatever means necessary for her and the other folks who also got their programs signed, I would do it all over again.

Please pass the Preparation H

It's no secret that as you get older, your body falls apart. This doesn't happen all at once but a little at a time. It's like paying off a maxed out credit card by sending in $15 a month.

I used overhear hear old people complain in vivid detail about colonoscopies, bowel movements or the lack thereof and the latest in cataract surgery. So what does it say about my own age when I start adding in tidbits of my own?

If it's not my back hurting, it's the nasty bike accident. If it's not the seeping road rash then it's the boils I got when I had chicken pox as an adult. (Really gross.) I say these things not necessarily in the privacy of my own home anymore. I sometimes talk about this as other people are eating.

See where I'm going?

Gastrointestinal information of any kind used to destroy my appetite for a few hours until I could release the imagery. Now I just shrug and pick up my sandwich.

I still feel like if you're 90 years old, you have the right and privilege to discuss any damn thing you want at any time of day. Personally knowing the person you're speaking with vs. some random person in the elevator is completely up to you. And I don't feel like I'm there. Yet.

Part of why old people bring up the subjects in question is because they no longer care that someone next to them is consuming something that looks like the results of too much Ex Lax. And that's my problem. I simply don't care anymore. I'm not seeking attention it's simply what I have to offer during a conversation.

I remember when Generation X was the cool, hip generation. Sure, we were purported to be the laziest generation ever but it was the whole "title that ends in an 'X'" mystique. We wore black clothes and flannel shirts. We grooved to Pearl Jam.

Have you seen a picture of the members of Pearl Jam lately? They look old. Instead of battling heroin addiction, Eddie Vedder is fighting lactose intolerance.

But despite everything coming disassembled, I grant myself this one benefit as the years go by: More cake than the year preceding it.

In that case. . .

I am seriously doing my best today to ignore there's a 1/2 Ironman going on at another location in Austin other than where I'm seated in front of my computer. When I emailed them two weeks ago to let them know that I wasn't going to race, they emailed me back suggesting that "someone can come and pick up my goodies."

There's an unstated rule in the triathlon world: Don't wear race shirts from races in which you haven't actually raced. In this case, don't wear race shirts that make you want to kill yourself.

On the positive side - I found a LONDON FOG trenchcoat at Goodwill for $25.

See? If I was racing in an event that I spent pretty much the entire year training for I would never have this coat. And it will cover my outta shape big ass while I'm in NY. Maybe it's someone's way of saying they *heart* me.

You can go to Kona and I will go to physical therapy

For those who don't get the joke, it's supposed to read like this: You can go to hell and I will go to Texas. I'm not sure who said it but I guess it's a famous quote from somewhere because I saw it on a bumper sticker.

Longhorn is this weekend and I won't be there. Kona is this month and I won't be there, either. I will, however, be in a physical therapist's office and I really hope they aren't sensitive to the f-bomb. The soundtrack to this back injury is loaded with f-bombs, like a rap song without the racial epithets.

Last night I had the audacity to reach for a dryer sheet. Apparently, my back hates Bounce because it did whatever it does to bring on the hurt. Today I was as absent from the vintage stores as I will be from Longhorn/Kona. Today I've been doped up on muscle relaxants.

My schedule went something like this: Read, go into a coma, wake up, eat a handful of something, repeat. For a field trip, I went to the bathroom where I looked in the mirror. I look like I'm posing for a mug shot.

The muscle relaxants are also good for calming down the cooped up, frustrated, uber-bitch that I have become. At least when I had the gnarly road rash bike accident, I could look at (at get nauseous by) the right side of my body. This time the injury is not visible.

Secondly, invisible injuries are normally something I can ignore and train anyway, which is probably what got me into this mess in the first place.

In any case, I'm sick of listening to myself whine. And curse like a sailor on leave. I've taken to walking up and down the stairs for a workout like a hamster on a wheel. I also put my ice skates on and walk around the house. Freakin' psycho.

Forget the office, just gimme the plaid

Ninety-nine cents. 99 cents.

That is what I paid for an Ann Taylor blazer and a sounds-weird-but-looks-great plaid blazer. These are really the cherries on the cake of my vintage day so maybe I should've ended with that.

But finding a bargain like these is like winning bigtime in Vegas. You don't just head quietly toward the nickel slots after you've just scored the BMW.

Savers. That's the name of the store. Mecca. Nirvana. Sixty-four bucks and I brought home a garbage bag full of clothes. Not Old Navy. I'm talking like $100 jeans. SAVERS.

I didn't buy a single thing for the office and I would've stuffed that garbage bag even more, baby, but I was on my Vespa. I had to cram some of it into the helmet holder and I kept the rest in the bag holding on for dear life by a bungee cord from the back of my scooter.

S.A.V.E.R.S. on South Lamar but it's a nationwide chain so if the three of you who read this happen to live anyplace other than Austin, look it up. Ninety-nine cents.

P.S. What the *(& is with the library having to close an extra day due to "budget constraints" to make Austin's libraries "cleaner and safer"??? What hooey!!! This is beginning of the end, I tell you. That's right. Close the library so that the ten people who read are caving to the rest of the lazy dimwit society that our country is turning into who consider reading to consist of three letters: Wii.

New Zealand is looming closer as a logical housing choice.

Goodwill? Rocks

I am becoming a thrift store junkie. The object is to prove that, because I'm unemployed, I'm broke. If I'm broke, I can't go to Nordstrom. (I hate to go to malls anyway but that's beside the point.) If I can't go to Nordstrom, then everything I buy will be way, way inexpensive.

Case in point: My heretofore mentioned office I'm redoing. I'm determined to prove to myself that I can earn this room bragging rights to the tune of, "Yep, it's cool. I got that for three dollars at Goodwill."

At the rate I'm going, I will have this whole room done spending no more than $50.

I found a pair of jeans today at Thrift Town - six dollars. I went to St. Vincent de Paul's yesterday, bought nothing but considered passing out free deodorant. Tomorrow? Savers on South Lamar.

What a surprise to discover that Yelp rates thrift stores.

Word to the wise - I read once that someone got crabs by wearing an unwashed pair of pants they bought second hand so what I save in clothing costs I will make up for with my electric bill. And crab medicine. Gross. I'm kidding.