Author: Tracey

This is something I’ve been thinking of and wanted to write down. Back when I first fell in love with Dan, there was a day on which colors looked different. They were brighter; more intense. I was so happy and it was so strange. I remember thinking maybe my eyes were broken, but I didn’t really care because it was so nice. I wonder, did I imagine it?

Dear Tracey,
The tape player in your car is not working. Do not shove any of your favorite tapes in it, they will break, and that would definitely be bad.
your friend,
Tracey

P.S. Wisecracks from the peanut gallery will be erased. So don’t even think about it.

Wormhole!…Normal space!…Wormhole!

FRELL!

What the Hezmana are you doing!

Legitimate Business!

I have the power!

Sto’Vo’Kor (it’s not a thing to shout per say, but a reason to shout)

And
words starting with poly:
Polyglot, Polyploidy, Polywater, Polycarbonate

With great power, comes a great electric bill.

Dan found this song called Handlebars. It speaks to power and things that seem possible and things that seem impossible. I’ve had several thoughts about the song. Sometimes I think it is positive, suggesting that once you can do one hard thing, you can do any hard thing. Sometimes I think it is about power and corruption. Then again maybe it’s all just a wild imagining of the possibilities of a life. Here are all the lyrics:

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

Look at me, look at me
hands in the air like it’s good to be
ALIVE
and I’m a famous rapper
even when the paths’re all crookedy
I can show you how to do-si-do
I can show you how to scratch a record
I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together
I can tie a knot in a cherry stem
I can tell you about Leif Ericson
I know all the words to “De Colores”
And “I’m Proud to be an American”
Me and my friend saw a platypus
Me and my friend made a comic book
And guess how long it took
I can do anything that I want cuz, look:

I can keep rhythm with no metronome
No metronome
No metronome

I can see your face on the telephone
On the telephone
On the telephone

Look at me
Look at me
Just called to say that it’s good to be
ALIVE
In such a small world
All curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine sixty four
Miles to a gallon of gasoline
I can make new antibiotics
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions
I know how to run a business
And I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance
I can lead a nation with a microphone
With a microphone
With a microphone
I can split the atoms of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule

Look at me
Look at me
Driving and I won’t stop
And it feels so good to be
Alive and on top
My reach is global
My tower secure
My cause is noble
My power is pure
I can hand out a million vaccinations
Or let’em all die in exasperation
Have’em all healed of their lacerations
Have’em all killed by assassination
I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don’t like’em and
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command
I can guide a missile by satellite
By satellite
By satellite
and I can hit a target through a telescope
Through a telescope
Through a telescope
and I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handle bars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

* * * * *

It makes me think too about myself. Sometimes I feel incredibly powerful, history will be written for me, songs sung, whatever I desire done.
Other times I feel so weak, I can do nothing, I’m helpless as things go on around me and my actions accomplish nothing.

The Simpsons had an episode in which Bart wants a brother. The reason he decides a brother might be nice is following seeing his sisters interact and having a strange dream about brothers. In it are the Manning brothers (football) and the Smothers brothers (folk music). At the shows end, instead of the Simpsons theme we hear the Smothers brothers sing and talk. Here is how it goes:

(both brothers are singing, Dick expects Tom to take the next verse or solo)
Dick: Take it, Tom!…..Take it, Tom! Wait, stop. I said ‘Take it Tom.’ Didn’t you hear me?
Tom: I don’t think I heard what you think you said.
Dick: What did you think I said?
Tom: It sounded like, ‘naked bacon’.
Dick: Naked bacon?
Homer: Did somebody say ‘naked bacon’?
Tom: See? We all heard ‘naked bacon’!
Dick: I definitely said, ‘Take it, Tom.”
Homer: No you said, ‘naked bacon.’
Tom: Yeah, that’s what I thought. We both agree.
Dick: You may both agree, but folk singers never say ‘Take it naked bacon’…

The whole exchange just makes me laugh.

Somewhere in the world a volcano has erupted. Magma turns to lava as it spills from the crater, pouring down the sides and over everything. It is warm, destructive, harsh and uncaring. Ash spews forth, filling the skies, becoming obvious.
I want to tell the volcano, “People’s lives are going on around you. The world is not yours run or ruin. You were silent so long. Couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut, even another week?”

So I wanted to write and say how pissed off I was at these medical shows recently. Two of the shows which I occasionally watch happen to have this female doctor who suddenly decides like over breakfast or whatever, that she wants a baby. But oh sadly she can’t have one for some reason, and even though she’s only been thinking about this for a week it’s suddenly a MAJOR issue. But luckily for her she works at a hospital- and OMG, some young mom who wasn’t ready for a baby puts one up for adoption. What a perfect ending for a woman who wanted a baby for the past week. How nice for her that apparently if you work at a hospital someone hands you babies all the time to just keep, never mind the home study, or waiting period. Go jump off something, hospital shows.

Another thing that annoyed me recently was this truly scary commercial on Hulu for the HPV vaccine. It starts off asking the perfectly nice question, “What if?” – What if it’s love? What if he’s the one? – I’m thinking ok, it’s a bandaid commercial or cotton fabric or toilet paper, something you would use through your whole life. Then it suddenly turns into “What if you got HPV? What if you got cancer from it?”
First off, I don’t like the idea of dreams and what-ifs turning from hopeful to terrible. I do that on my own plenty of times and don’t need a commercial to give me new things to worry about. I know the commercial is supposed to scare teens into thinking about getting this vaccine, but what it really does is scare anyone who is a woman! If they are marketing a vaccine to teen-to-twenty aged ladies there is no reason to scare every lady. Especially when there’s nothing the slightly older ladies can do. Yup. We’re all doomed except those teens. Stupid commercial.

Look up high! In the sky! It’s a school! It can fly! When I first watched this sketch I hated it. I think I was disappointed they were using CGI instead of puppets. But now it’s one of my favorites. I think my new favorite character is Gonnigan. He seems a little older than Abby and Blogg and usually comes up with the best ideas, when he’s not feeling too shy. His spells are always the same word three times, which is a different technique than Abby or Blogg use (their spells must rhyme). A couple of their many adventures: A Visit to Colonial Trolliamsberg and Bringing Macaroni Art to Life.

And
In an Elmo’s world segment, Elmo is pretending to be a tree.
Elmo: Elmo is a mighty Elm….,o.

My life is just a series of falling in love withs. Books, movies, Dan, babies, toddlers, cooking, singing…

My life is just a path towards one thing, then the next, then the next. Why did I stop here or there?

My life is just a hesitation, an afterthought,

My life never really was until now, never will be until it is now again.

Does my life equal something or is it unequal to anything?

Who is what my life is? Is it me, or someone else pretending-?

I don’t belong here, don’t we all?

Give me back what I need; to know that my life is after all.

Several months ago, maybe in February, a strange thing happened near my house. There were several police cars and an ambulance at the traffic light to the left of my house. The light itself was not working as usual, instead flashing yellow constantly. So that’s not too weird, maybe an accident. As I pull into my drive and notice that cars are being directed to turn around and go back the way they came. There are also several parked at the corner. I can’t tell if they are crushed up at all, or just went off the road, or what. So it is also garbage night and I go back out several times to get the garbage and recycles out. On my last trip out I notice this incredibly, huge-gigantic thing coming up the street from the corner with the busted light and it has a police-ambulance escort. It is riding on a wide load type truck, mostly covered, but it does appear to be made of metal, really enormous and shaped with rounded sides like a tank. But I can tell it’s not a tank. What it is?! By now Dan has joined me outside and we watch amazed as this thing rolls slowly by. It continues to the other corner to the right of my house and turns down that street. Eventually I can no longer see it. We never figured out what it was. We think the light at the corner to the left was hit by this thing as it tried to pass and police had to show up to help. I’m actually surprised it cleared the light at the other corner as neither light is that high up.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine
Dan and are watching it. So we get to this one disk and I swear from the episode titles we could be watching a bible study series. Here are the names of the episodes:
The Ascent
Rapture
The Light and the Dark
The Begotten

After the second episode, Dan points out, “Look their uniforms have changed. That’s after the movie where they try to ruin first contact.” (pause) “Except on Voyager where the uniforms stay the same, because they didn’t know about the sale at Macy’s on uniforms.”

A few minutes later, just to clarify, I guess, Dan says,
“You do know that they don’t have Macy’s in the delta quadrant, right?”

Yeah. Totally.