Today, my boss explained to me the notion of mens rea.

me: Yes, I remember that from Legally Blonde.
lawyer: I’m glad to know your tastes in movies leans toward the legal profession.

Remember, this is the guy who tried to get me to go back to college with the argument that technical sciences are artistic

Sometimes I want to shout out stupid, inappropriate things at work like, “Sorry I’m the happiest person here!” and giggle uncontrollably like I’ve been fired and I don’t have to come back and see these people ever again (except for my boss, who my parents will ask to Christmas again). (Which is totally fine. Apparently he knew I was a moron and hired me anyway.)

As I was driving my hour long commute home yesterday, I spied a Bellaesque old, red Chevy on a trailer attached to the back of a U-Haul from Missouri and I thought to myself, “Man, what I wouldn’t do for that truck.” But I have a small SUV, purchased new with a warranty because my mother is insistent that I have a car with a warranty because goodness forbid I get an old, cool car and learn how to fix it. If I did that, I wouldn’t have to work like a slave to pay off a loan, and then I might be able to live (corporately jobless) at the farm and learn how to drive a secondary vehicle – a tractor. But, as it is, my dad fears I’ll fall off the tractor and kill myself in its sharp, sharp blades. Or, that I’ll drive too close to the hill and roll down it.

Admittedly, a valid concern.

I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for a long time that my friends and family think I’m very materially minded. The first time this jarring realization entered my mind was that one time a male friend of mine told his doctor friend that I was too high maintenance for him. I was royally offended. It happened again many years later when I tried to sit in on a high school girl’s Bible class (when no longer in high school, but honestly, I never went to high school, so does it matter?) and I was told I was too pretty to be there. Really? Is that what you’re going to stick with when God asks you on Judgment Day why you wouldn’t let me hang out with all the cool girls?! And most recently it’s come in the form of my family telling me that if I do something, take a certain action, I won’t be rolling in dough. I won’t make much money. I’ll be destitute and sleeping under an overpass.

Honestly, I’ve seen under the overpass on 35 and it looks pretty homey.

What they don’t realize is that I would wear the same t-shirt and jeans every single day (as witnessed every weekend at the farm) and drive an old $2k Mustang with no a/c as long as it had a tape deck. I know I would look like a drowned rat after driving 20 minutes to the nearest Brookshires, but that wouldn’t stop the nice, country cart-pushers (who still take your groceries to your car for you!) from saying hi to me!

And after 7 (count them, s-e-v-e-n) years of working like a dog in industries I don’t care one bit about, pushing papers for people whose sole purpose in life is making sure everybody gets the money they think they deserve, simply because someone has tried to impress upon me that this is the way life is and sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do and if you don’t have a job you like it’s because you didn’t go to school and sell your soul to school loan sharks and being miserable at 25 is PART OF LIFE.

I don’t buy it.

Money is my enemy.

Phew, wow, that felt good.

Gratuitous photo to make this post more light hearted: I will be seeing this guy photo creeper on Friday and I could not be more excited.

grandma: “I just had a fashion/clothing question for you, but I can call back later.”
me: “Why don’t you go ahead and ask me?”

I find the conversation that ensued wonderfully funny because it is a well-documented and well-known phenomenon that I am incapable of matching. Occasionally, when I think I have it down, I’ll ask my mom what she thinks and she’ll say, “You know you don’t care if you match, so why are you asking?”

“Does this go?” must always be met with, “Does it matter?”

So my grandmother asking me what belt she should wear with an outfit only profited a great spew of every belt I could possibly imagine. “Cream colored crochet, brown woven leather…” “So, probably not metal?”

“Oh, metal, too.”

Dad sent Mom and I to buy a rifle last week.

He’s going to shoot coyotes, he says.

I’d like to say he’s going to shoot them because they’re horrible scary things that look at me from across the fence when I take Pearlie out. But really, it’s because they’ve been keeping him awake.

For some reason, there was a millisecond concern for payment on the rifle and I piped up, “Well I could have bought it.”

The woman behind the counter scoffed, “Yeah, if you were 18.”

I quipped, “Yeah, I’m way older than 18.”

To which she replied, “I thought you were 15!”

15? Really? Really?

Must have been my brilliant shorts, cowboy boots and no makeup combo.

I’ve been listening to these four songs (exclusively) for the last four days:

That should be the end of those post, but since I have no self control, let’s move on.

I made these tonight. And by MADE, I mean melted bark chocolate in the new fangled microwave and then dipped. Anyone want that jar of pickles? I think they’re a million years old, and I can’t open the jar.

Unfortunately, I forgot to wear one of my new-to-me aprons. I picked up these wonderful things at First Monday!

Something also picked up in Canton. I decided I needed some baby ones to stick on my car.

Do you ever get flashes of a feeling like you’re somewhere else? I do a lot. I also get tiny panic attacks every night around 9 when I realize in less than 12 hours, I’ll spend another 11 doing what I just finished doing.

On May 27th, it was a year since I got back from Hawaii. More often than expected, I’ll think I’m back there. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinking I’m late for 4 am work. Or I’ll make a turn and look for my coastal route highway. Or I’ll hear Charlie imitate Nacho Libre to make me laugh, or hear Christina telling me how cute my Hello Kitty tupperware is.

Or I’ll stand in the kitchenette in front of our automated coffee maker and remember serving a frilly latte with whipped cream to The Hoff.

While my time in Hawaii was tragically terrible and I probably would have died had I remained there, it was nice to give it a shot, and every day I want to go back.

I just wish I could drive there from Texas.

So this guy, Harry, is supposed to be like this awesome guard dog creature. But he’s only 11 weeks old, despite the fact that he appears to be a full grown lab.

Yeah, we should have named him Gigantous. (Or, at least Hagrid.)

Anyway, he’s not quite a guard dog, but he’s working on it.

Mom and I were down in the barn and he was up by the house when he noticed some commotion at the barn. Apparently, his then 10 week old brain didn’t make a connection that whoever was at the barn looked like Mom and Meagan. He came barreling down the path and Mom and I peered out because he was making such a racket that we thought coyotes were eating him.

Nope.

He ran into the barn, barking ferociously, and hid himself in a tiny crack between the old barn wall and the new barn wall, all the while peeing the whole way.

He’s just a baby. Good try.

Also, he’s never been in the house. Never except for last Sunday when Dad neglected to close the breezeway door all the way. When I left my room and walked by the entrance to the breezeway, I saw this enormous white paw streeeeetch out through the doorway. Then this black nose and these enormous, terrified puppy eyes peeked around.

When he saw me, he of course knew to turn tail and run outside again.

I felt so bad for him. I’ve never had a dog who was not allowed in the house. Now if there’s ever a need for him to be in the house, he’ll be too freaked out to be of any use.

Probably peeing all over the wood floors.

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