train derailment

I'm sitting here, staring at the blank blog box (say that three times fast), not knowing what to write. So I'll just play the train of thought game, going from topic to topic, going off on tangents, going to hell in a handbasket, going for broke, going crazy (oops! too late!), going to hell if I don't change my ways (Should h(H)ell be capitalized? Is it a proper noun? Why do questions of proper punctuation and grammar plague me?), going to bed in a few minutes if I can't think of anything to write.

My favorite color used to be blue, when I was younger. Now that I'm a "ma'am", it's green, emerald green. I like the jewel tones of colors now, and don't like bright colors. They hurt my eyes. Time for new glasses?

My favorite comfort food is mashed potatoes with brown gravy that has sauteed mushrooms in it. I only like cream gravy on chicken fried steak, and it has to have enough pepper in it, or it tastes like library paste. I ought to know. Eric (fizziecoffee) is fond of regaling people with my attempt to make biscuits and gravy in the dorm (Brazos House) at UTA. He said the gravy was like library paste.

I keep wondering where this train of thought is taking me, and for unknown reasons, my mind goes back to listening to my mother play guitar and sing "The Hobo's Lullaby": http://www.arlo.net/lyrics/hobos-lullaby.shtml

My mother was such a talented person. At times, I feel like... I don't know how to explain it. Somehow, through "Fun With Recombinant DNA"™, my mother's genius has been watered down. I may try, but I just can't seem to be as brilliant or as interesting as she was. I don't think any of my siblings measure up, either. That's not to say that I think that the addition of my father's DNA to the mix was the cause of the diminish... (ing? ment? Yeah, I know, go to lookitthehellupyourselfgoddammit.com) My father was brilliant in his own quiet way. (Who else makes a play with "xenogamy" and "xu" in Scrabble®, play out, two triple word scores, making everyone cry?) He had endearing quirks, like wearing only boxer shorts unless he was going outside, eating broccoli stems with peanut butter, and reusing junk mail as stationary for personal correspondence. Every door knob in my parents' house had five thousand rubberbands saved on it. Tiny balls of twine were in the "junk" drawer in the kitchen. And the pantry had a box, I kid you not, 3'x3'x4' packed SOLID with plastic grocery sacks. Herbie saw it and said Pappy was ready for plastic bag warfare. I miss him so much.

Gawd, I'm feeling maudlin. Nothing for it but to plunge in and get it out of my system. I need red wine, chocolate ice cream, and George Jones music. Well, maybe I'll crank up the smoothie machine and make margaritas. Country music always puts me in the mood for margaritas.

I guess I should try to think happy thoughts. Okay, kittens purring on my neck (except when...), Weyland laughing at his own knock-knock jokes which don't make sense, Brighid's face lighting up when I gave her a Chinese style robe I found for less than $5 at the thrift store, Logan trying to tickle me, Nona's (aka Eric) cooking, especially if he makes me the perfect hash browns, with onions, garlic, cheese, and ketchup, lots of salt & pepper for sure, and getting a box of 64 crayolas with a sharpener for Christmas one year, wrapped in the most beautiful ice blue jacquard paper, which I actually liked better than the big box of colors.

Okay, I'm no longer depressed. But it's 8:16 p.m., and I'm hungry, so I'm off to go scrounge something for supper, since Nona won't answer my IM offer to go for chicken fried steak....