lucky dog

lucky dog: an extremely lucky person

I keep meaning to tell y'all. We adopted a doggie from the Canyon County Animal Shelter in January. Meet the newest member of the Halgat-Johnson family, Waylon Jennings Johnson. He's got brains and beauty. We taught him how to shake and roll-over in less than a week.

Squeeze!!

let's just say...

Pomeranians are the cutest little fluff balls ever! Dee from Roller Doll Skates came to Boise a few months ago and brought her pompom.  The entire time, I berated her, "how much is your dog? Is your dog for sale?  Would you stop selling me skate gear if I stole your dog? OMG! Look at how adorable your dog is. Dooooogggie!" Poor Dee. Actually, poor anybody who has to put up with me when I see a cute animal. I extend my deepest empathy.

moxie

moxie: Force of character, determination, or nerve

Typically our two year old lab, Mender, has oodles of moxie.  He is strong willed, energetic, and determined to play fetch twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  If you have ever owned a lab you know this quality I speak of.  And you know that when you do sit down to rest or avert your attention elsewhere, they whine, "plaaaaay with me, come on, play with me! Look I have a ball, and a Frisbee, and a rope! I can get the little dog if you want. Pleeeeease play with me. sad face. come on, just play with me. Oh, idea! play with me!!" This is extra true, until you are unpacking from a trip out of the state, and a melatonin tab escapes onto the floor...rolling...rolling...rolling...spinning round to a stop and whooosh, in dives Mender, licking up the tab. TRRRRRREEEAAT!

Oh no. So, then I shout to my roommate, "Mender may or may not have eaten a melatonin tab just now. Don't worry though, it's perfectly natural, it will just make him sleepy."  Sleepy, that's an understatement!  When it was time to go to bed, we reached the stairs and he turned and looked at me, his eyes said, "are you kidding me, I'm not hiking that huge mountain, I can barely even wag my tail." He turned to lie down right in that very spot, and instead, crashed into the garage door. Bang, his head hit, but he was too cracked out to even notice. We, yes both of us, had to push 80 pounds of tired up the stairs, lift him into bed and hear his snoring for hours.  Apparently, we learned this from doggie WebMD, melatonin is used as a sedative for pet with debilitating anxiety.

transfiguration

transfiguration: a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state. If you're religious, Christ's appearance to three of his disciples (Matthew 17:2, Mark 9:2–3, Luke 9:28-36)

Gawd! I don't mean to compare myself to Christ. In no way, actually, do I ever want to be compared to a spiritual body. Please, keep all your strange religious menageries, I want no part of them.

Instead I have doggies and derby love, and they are both a huge part of my most recent metamorphosis.  Things have changed, at the very least, transitioned.  For the first time in all my 22 years, I am having to do more than rationalize by external logic why I am doing what I am doing.   Let me begin, well I already have begun, but anyway, let me proclaim, rather, that playing derby is the first real thing I have chosen to do because it makes sense to me and only me.  No higher power, no societal standards, no emotional forces.  Just me and my own logic. 

So, as I wrote about earlier, I broke my ankle and without derby I realized that I was doing everything else in my life for no "real" reason.  I'm not talking about the "real" reasons you imagine.  Instead, I'm talk about genuine motivation that comes from the self and nothing else.  It's not because you have to get a college education, it's not because you have to pay your rent, it's not because it's your responsibility as a friend, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter, a "high-functioning" adult.  It's because, well heck, you don't even have to say the reason.  No need to justify it to anybody else except yourself.  So, I changed and even cut all the things out of my life that I felt compelled to rationalize and explain to others. 

I got a new job, I ended a broken, no not just broken but rancid, relationship; I moved; I stopped sleeping, sleep never made sense to me anyway.  The last stronghold, though, is school.  For 18 years I have gotten straight A's and plugged through school because I had to, that's just what you're supposed to do, right?  Now that I am in a graduate program, this logic is broken.  I love my job and my career field and getting my masters is certainly a goal of mine, but why?  Why is a it a goal? Not what will it allow me to do in the future...but why is it important to me, and why is it important to me now?  I haven't discovered an answer to this pickle just quite yet.

I do know that I'll never have a mind-numbingly boring job again.  I do know that I'll never drive around the block not wanting to go inside my own home again.  I do know that I'll never stay in a relationship again just because it makes me feel "normal" or even worse "needed." Fuck being normal, fuck living by other people's standards.  Trying to live by other people's standards is not genuine, it's cowardice.  Live by your own standards, value shit because YOU value it. Own your life and how you live it.

So anyways, doggies and derby love...throughout this time of transition, I have been met with open and supporting arms from my derby family and their doggies!  Never could I have imagined that by being hospitable and welcoming me into their homes, hearts, and letting me bond with their children, furry or not, could my derby family have inspired such internal motivation, such genuine change and strides towards authenticity.  Thank you Highway and all the phenomenal women I skate with on TVR, you have no idea how you and how derby has effected me, no, better yet, how you have encouraged and fostered personal change.

bucket list

bucket list: a list of things to do before you die

Right now it is 10:41pm at night and I am standing here exhausted, with one hand on my hip and the other picking away at the key board. I have been this way for the past 20 or so minutes. I think my foot may be asleep. but I don't want to move, mainly because this is the first time I've stopped moving in the past week and a half. My body is still. My brain, however, is beyond preoccupied with all the junk I have to get done before I head back to school. So far I've spent 4 hours at the DMV, $397.25 on textbooks, and far too much energy worrying about things that aren't worth worrying about. And in lieu of doing all the things I should be doing, I am going to stand here, still, and type a list of all the things I'd rather be doing...

in other words, here is my bucket list:
See a firefly*
Send a postcard from the following places- Austin TX, San Francisco CA, New York NY* (it's too smelly for me), Ecuador*, Washington D.C.*, Japan, France, Spain, Budapest, Ireland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Morocco, Vegas for NFR[], Florida[], Main to go crabbing/lobstering, Alaska to go salmon fishing, Italy, Hawaii*, x-country America*, x-country Canada, the moon
...actually I've decided to visit all the factories/head quarters of my favorite products (more on this to come)
Obtain my MLIS []
USFA OTS- Commissioned Communication and Information Officer []
Name all my pets after other animals []
Restore a piano
Learn to fly fish*...and actually catch something
learn to crochet*...then yarn bomb []
Grow a garden
Join a roller derby league*
Get a tattoo (or 2 or 3 or 4* or 5) []
Build a rat rod (requires me to learn to weld...also own a black 1970 Fleetwood Cadillac or a dusty pink Nova SS)
Learn to make killer mashed potatoes []
Become a notary
Punch someone in the face and mean it
Start a mixed CD group or a book club
Drive in a demolition derby
Get divorced (it’s inevitable). And maybe after I could date a man with a wallet chain and long hair. Better yet, just marry Eddie Vedder.
Destroy something important (demolish a building, ruin a marriage, infiltrate and bring down a syndicate)
Celebrate my 100th b-day (and still be healthy enough to eat the cake with my own teeth)
Live straight edge*
Kick depression in the shin []
Go to the opera in my pj’s
Hike Mt. St. Helens
Become fluent in another language (Spanish,* Sign Language)
Stay sassy []
Participate in a Historical Reenactment
Start a band/learn to be a better percussionist and keyboardist/learn the steel pedal guitar and accordion
Learn to square dance (really I just want to wear a big puffy skirt)
Die my hair red
Live where the stars are as big as silver dollars

* = already completed
[] = in progress