the sloppy copy

Gentleman Friend and I recently took a weekend trip to Kansas City so that we could stand in the rain to watch an outdoor concert. During our short stay, we relied heavily on Uncle Google’s Sassy Map Lady Friend to help us navigate around town. We learned quite a lot about the overall layout of the city during our short stay – so much so that by the time we left, we were “old pros” at getting around. So comfortable and un-irritated with the city were we that we never screeched at each other in frustration as we missed our turn for the twelfth time!

For those thinking about planning a trip to this land of barbecue and…other things, I’ve put together a Cheat Sheet for you to study so that you are fluent in the area byways and highways before your trip even begins!

1. Take a look at a map of the region. You’ll see a town laid out in a straightforward grid pattern. Interspersed with your north-south and east-west thoroughfares are a few random swirly routes, created to maximize the flow of vehicles and make turning left across traffic so you can get to the Price Chopper nearly impossible.
2. Take a closer look at a map of the region and zoom in to the downtown area. Like with any major metropolis, this is where the major interstates come together and branch off so that you can get to where you need to be. For guests arriving to KC via Interstate 70, the city has made your next step extraordinarily easy! Regardless of where you are coming from or where you are going, the exit number you are looking for is 2. Exit 2 is then subdivided 20 ways and labelled with a letter of the alphabet. Simply look for your exit letter in the correct order. For instance, exit 2T is after exit 2R, because in the English alphabet, R stands for Rocky, which is a superior movie franchise to Transformers, which begins with T.
   1. PRO TIP. It helps to have multiple passengers in the vehicle to help you find your exit. Is it a left hand exit? A right hand exit? No exit at all? Whatever you do, be sure to continue travelling at 85 miles per hour. Except in that one section east of downtown itself where the speed limit drops to 17 miles per hour.
3. There are many parkways. If you are staying south of the downtown area, a few with which to acquaint yourself are: Swope Parkway. Ward Parkway. Blue Parkway. Brush Creek Parkway. Volker Boulevard. When trying to remember which is which, remember the following: They are all the same.
   1. PLOT TWIST. It becomes Shawnee Mission Parkway as soon as you cross into Kansas. How will you know you’ve made it to Kansas, an entirely different state? You passed through a stoplight.
4. It is not uncommon for several major roadways to intersect at the same point, multiple points, or just slightly adjacent to each other approximately 50 yards apart so that the rookie traveller is not 100% sure he is making the correct turn. Please see the images below for examples.
   

   

   

   

   
5. Do not be alarmed if you find yourself driving and gradually realize it appears you are now traveling on a one-way road because traffic in the opposite direction is now separated from you by a median approximately 3 football fields wide but then you see that traffic on the other side of you seems to be going in both directions because they are actually on a road with a completely different name, but it runs parallel to where you are driving and then you realize that’s the road you need to be on but how do you get over there?
6. Roundabouts! Hooray!
7. Lastly: for an overall mental picture of the area, imagine a beautiful Gaelic knot, intricately woven with care using rope that’s become slightly unraveled and also it’s been submerged underwater for a bit and possibly there is some glue in that water. That’s a good start.

It’s cute when a cat has extra toes, it’s weird when a human does.

It’s all about perspective!

I amaze myself each time I realize how much I (hell, all of us) have become set in my ways: ways of doing things, ways of thinking, ways of speaking or expressing myself. Humans are creatures of habit, and habits have an irritating way of dying an agonizingly   will-it-or-won’t-it, soap opera-style death: Just when you think it’s gone, it pops back up again.

Existing is hard work sometimes!

I knew someone who, at one time, stored her t-shirts in her kitchen cabinets. Her justification was a simple “why not?” I guess, within the way her particular life was laid out, this just made sense. Good for her, I say. Because why not?

In the course of my new-ish job, I talk a lot about how “perception is reality.” If I’m speaking to someone for whom my employer provides services, it’s pointless to argue when they say they are not satisfied with us. “How can we better satisfy this person?” is the million dollar question. And sometimes the answer is “We just can’t.” And that’s the end of the story.

For those who are wondering, I don’t have a point here. I’m actually just free writing. I kinda-sorta hoped that in the course of my keyboard-clacking I’d end up with a nifty way to tie these thoughts together and a perfect little bow would suddenly appear from my fingertips and I’d be able to tie everything together oh-so-neatly. But so far I haven’t, and it’d be in all of our best interests if I quit while I was semi-ahead.

Have a good day / night / morning / afternoon / whenever you end up reading this, y’all.

Once upon a time there was a girl a woman who lived to write. sometimes she wrote poems, sometimes she wrote stories, sometimes she wrote long descriptions of imaginary people doing imaginary things. Sometimes she just wrote – the physical act of writing. Words. Lists. Names of imaginary people. she wrote thank you notes and just-saying-hello notes and birthday cards and silly messages on dry erase boards and scraps of paper and Post-it notes. She was never far from pen and paper.

as she got older and technology evolved and her access to said technology increased, her formerly written words became typed words. She wrote emails, message board posts, long-winded AIM profiles; she type, type, typed to her heart’s content.

She also blogged. She started some and ended some, but one day she started one that she didn’t end. It became a treasure trove of her random musings, daily observations, stories and anecdotes – both real and fiction. while she certainly wasn’t well-followed, several of her close friends were kind enough to read it and offer comment. Adding a portion of her writing to this blog slowly became part of who she was and how she identified herself.

One day, she stopped. At first, she told herself it was because she wanted to take a break, figure out how she wanted to proceed, organize her thoughts just a little more to make the whole thing more palatable to others. She had ideas of how she could intentionally create a following. But none of this ever happened.

A year went by. Still: radio silence. Nothing new was posted. Hardly anything was even written during that time. Almost two years went by. Not writing became as strong a habit as writing had been.

Gradually though, she began to miss all of the writing. The ideas backed up in her brain and begged to be let loose. Some days she almost couldn’t concentrate – the ideas would flow past her regular, daily thoughts and sweep them away until all she could do was close her eyes and see a story though.

The writing began again. first, in spurts. then, in more organized chunks. She rediscovered how damn much she loved writing and blogging in the first place. She slowly let go of some of the insecurities that had caused her to stop blogging – did it matter that her content didn’t have a theme? did it matter that there was no organized schedule of posts? No.

What mattered is that it made her happy. It was something that she managed to forget how much she enjoyed. It even brought her peace, sometimes. And she was rediscovering all that she had been missing, for almost two years. With glee she cried out:

I’M BACK, BITCHES.