The Magical Mystery Banana

I just discovered this banana carcass on the carpeted floor of our family room upon inspecting the work of my husband Dennis, whom I'd successfully cajoled into vacuuming up a sludge pile of spilled Joe's O's aka Cheerios®.

We used to refer to our family room as "the white room" due to the proliferation of white shelving units therein. But seeing as how the room hasn't actually been white in a very long time, in the manner of my soul, my teeth, and the parts of my eyes circling the green rings, we now simply call it the family room.

Firstly, wasn't it clever of me to tell my husband that the big vacuum "doesn't work for me"?

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Me: It just doesn't work for me. I don't know why.

Dennis: What do you mean? It works perfectly. I just used it yesterday.

Me: There's something wrong with it. I can't get it to work. I don't know what the problem is. Every time I try to vacuum I end up going over the same spot again and again and again and why don't we just get rid of this thing and get one of those units with the wand and the....

Dennis: Taking off down the hallway, hands over ears, one hand stretched pleadingly towards the closet that houses our perfectly functional vacuum cleaner.

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Secondly, and I love men, I really do, and I respect them as a species of person, and hate those awful "little husband brain" ads that put them in the same category as intellectually-challenged gerbils, but leave it to a man to vacuum a room to a state of fuzzy perfection, yet allow a violated banana to remain on the floor.

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Dennis: You said to get the Cheerios, you didn't say anything about a banana. It's fine. Just leave it there.

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Thirdly, does anybody have any clue why there are dots and a small cross pressed into the banana? I'm at a loss.

Fourthly, I think I read somewhere that ants are repelled by bananas and all manner of sugary things. Going forward into summer/satanic ant season, I think it would be prudent to place a quarter of a banana in each corner of each room in our house. Under our bed. On Dennis' pillow.

I think I'll do it today.

The Daily Irritation

Image via Wikipedia

Mimes doing a quirky little dance.

Don't send me your hate letters. I didn't make them do that.

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The purpose of "The Daily Irritation" is to distract you from more pressing and unavoidable daily irritants.

The Death of my Brain

Image via Wikipedia

I've finally done it. I've gone and killed my brain.

For real this time.

Because I've been feeling and looking like over-sized dog balls in sweats since the exact moment my husband's sperm first connected with one of my ova about four years ago, and the weather's finally starting to come around, I'm doing my best to stay off of the computer and outside performing healthy activities with my kiddos.

I've been feeling human again, with a hint of a spring in my step. My kids are happier. The sun has touched my arms and face more this last two weeks than it has the last year.

Or three.

But, as is the way of things, for everything we gain, something has to go. And what I've lost, it seems, is any chance I had at becoming a writer.

I sat down a short while ago and performed a one word mind map as a writing exercise. I couldn't think of a good word, so I Googled around and found a website that spits out random words upon command. The first word was uninspiring. The second, ludicrous. (Not literally.) The third was so dull it just made me angry.

I took the fourth because I didn't want to be angry no mo. That word was "hole".

Okay, "hole", here we go. Branches:

dismal
dark
see through it
the band
ruin
donuts
in a sock
poke

Alright. What to do with my little mind map. Hmm. Perhaps I'll try my hand at a poem.

Hole

When I think of dismal
I think of your hole
I can see through it,
Courtney Love is a fool
I want to eat donuts
in your hole
And poke a sock
through your hole
and
:-\
WTF?!?

Okay, I've tried this mind mapping business before and was able to eke out better stuff. Not good stuff, mind you. Just better stuff. Keeping in mind, of course, that I am not a poet, never have been a poet, and have no mind to ever be one. I just attempt it every third jumping-frog moon because I am compelled by a dark force, the same dark force that compels me to wear lime green velour pants and like it.

I mind mapped "afraid" on 10/22/09 and came up with this:

fear
water
clowns
cold earth
pill bugs
branches

Which led to...

Afraid

The smell of fear
is in the water
Somebody's spiked
the punch bowl
and that clown doesn't care
that I'm Somebody's daughter
Cougar's breath's on
the neck of the foal

So I burrow farther
into the cold, wet earth
With her pill bugs and roots
and no light, and no air
For safety
and control

© Heather Kephart

It's not great, but more satisfying than what I was able to produce today, after three or so weeks of avoidance of my blog.

My family and my health is my top priority at this point & I've really been working to get things on track. But I also want to be a writer. So I'm going to try to get my butt in here at least once a week and put my nose to the grindstone.

I apologize to those in my social networking circle. I'm not going to spend a fraction of the time going forward that I used to spend online reading and commenting on my favorite blogs, nor am I going to do a ton of blog promotion. Please do not feel obligated to comment here. I will probably not be able to return the favor, and that just ain't raht.

I do wish everyone the best. Please know that my attempts to peel myself away from the web are not meant to be attempts at peeling myself away from you. It's simply the best thing right now for home and heart. I need to lose a gazillion pounds and get healthy and learn how to be a fun playground Mom. Folks, we can rebuild her!

I have no clue what the future holds, outside of green tea. But I know it's good. For all of us. Huggles and puggles to all y'all web people.