Last week I looked into building a time machine, because anyone who’s watched Doctor Who knows time travel is totally possible, but I can’t even seem to fix my sewing machine, how would I ever build a time machine. A time machine wouldn’t really be a solution anyway, because as I traveled backwards and forwards in time, I’d continue to age. I’d probably have to deal with some horrendous jet lag too. I’m pretty sure that every time you have jet lag you age a year.

After a lot of thought I decided that the best way to stop getting older was to just pretend it wasn’t happening. Denial solves everything, right? So I’ll tuck my gray hairs out of sight and when asked my age I’ll just tell people I’m twenty-nine. Someone once told me that I didn’t look a day over twenty-nine, but that was ten years ago.

Some people say that you should embrace your age. I don’t know what kind of drugs those people have been taking, but sane people like me will fight the advancing years like a zombie invasion.

Picture by Aih

I’ll write the screenplay which will be a breeze to do. I think it should feature a lot of slapstick comedy–falling down and pies in the face. Who doesn’t think a good banana cream pie in the face is funny?

Does the lead singer of Coldplay act? I was thinking that he could play my husband. My stepson would play himself, of course. He can really ham it up. I haven’t figured out who would play any of the other characters though. As the screen writer that isn’t my place anyway. I’m sure that once I finally convince Martin Scorsese to direct it, he’ll take care of the casting. I picture the movie being a nice family comedy. That’s right up his alley, right?

Note: I just told my husband about my movie plans and he said that Kevin Bacon would definitely play him. “People tell me I look like Kevin Bacon all the time,” he said. I wonder which people tell him this. I don’t see the resemblance, but who am I?

Photo by M4D GROUP

My husband: Look at that. There’s more of that around here these days. That’s good.
Me: I guess we were forerunners for the area.
My husband: Yeah. It’s not like the old days when people in trucks would yell at us while we walked down Bay Shore.
Me: Or the treatment we would get from people in Save A’Lot.
My husband: Yeah.
Me: But I guess we deserved it for being someplace like Save A’Lot.

Note: My husband would have a problem with the first part of this post because he no longer refers to people as black or white. He’s having some sort of issue.

The whole idea of being an oceanographer went out the window when someone told me that the job would require math. I struggle to figure out what my change should be when I buy something from the store. I failed Algebra II. I took a course in college called Math for Poets and nearly failed that. Math for Poets involved a lot of long division and adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions. On my part, it also involved a lot of sweating during tests and a lot of meetings with the professor. What a nightmare of a class! Luckily, I passed and was officially declared a poet.

With all of my other childhood careers out of the running, the only thing left was marine biologist. Here is the thing about the ocean and marine life. On the surface it may seem all peaceful and nice, but the deeper you go the more freaky and frightening everything gets. Maybe you could say the same thing about life in general. Anyway, deep water sea life are the things that horror movies are made up of. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a coward, so marine biologist had to be scratched off the list too.

Once I had to abandon all of these career choices I needed something else to fall back on, something stable that could make me piles of money. I settled on the only logical choice … writing.

You probably know this, but Florida is famous for it’s palmetto bugs. Up until yesterday, I had apparently confused the palmetto bug and the American cockroach. It’s an easy thing to do, but now that I’ve straightened this out I thought I’d share the information with you.

A palmetto bug is the disgusting segmented creature I find when I’m pulling up weeds in the garden. They’re slow and look like this:

I figure you can image what this thing looks like when not being eaten by a lizard. While they are horrible they aren’t nearly as horrible as this:

This is the American cockroach. It is the enormous, disease ridden abomination that flew into my house carrying an egg sack the other night. Yes, it flew, like a fighter jet straight from Hell. If you ask him, my husband would tell you it was about two inches long, but if you ask me I’ll tell you it was about a foot long. It landed in the corner of the living room right above my head. I would’ve taken a picture of it, but I was too busy screaming like a little girl to do that.

My husband believes in being kind to insects and prefers the catch and release method of dealing with them, but this one was too fast for that. With me yelling “Just kill it,” in the background he decided to use the electric fly swatter on it. While the electric fly swatter works well on flies and mosquitoes, it is no match for giant pregnant cockroaches. It just slowed her down a bit so my husband could catch her and set her free in the backyard with all her buddies.

Our backyard seems to be a haven for these giant roaches. Herds of them buzz around in the air at night. They give me nightmares. I hope none of them decide to venture inside again.

Palmetto bug photo by kthypryn

American cockroach photo by Gary Alpert

“How are you doing?” he said.

“Good. How are you?” I replied.

He smiled widely. “I’m great. I get to walk around in circles all day. It’s a great job.”

He seemed a bit too enthusiastic about delivering the mail to me. I wonder what he must be up to.

When I lived in Watford I read a story in the paper about a postal worker who was discovered going to the park every morning and opening people’s packages. What he liked he kept, and what he didn’t he threw away. I’m not accusing my postman of doing that, but I clearly remember handing him the envelope that contained the check to pay my internet bill. A few weeks later the internet company claims they never received my check. I wonder.

Now that I think about it, isn’t strange that I chose to pay my internet bill by putting a check in the mail? Who does that anymore?

I learned my lesson and paid my late bill online. I guess my postman was just trying to teach me that lesson as he dropped my envelope in the street while he was merrily walking in circles. I have no proof, but I’m trusting my gut on this one. From now on all my letters will go directly into the big blue box outside of the post office … expect for the water bill that I gave the postman this morning. Maybe I haven’t learned my lesson.

Happy birthday to the best husband in the world.

We went to the garden festival the other day, where I nabbed a lychee tree. I just love lychees and they are quite expensive. If I can get a tree to produce some fruit that will be mighty exciting. The problem is that I have a bit of a brown thumb. I used to say that I walk into a room and the plants wither and die, but I’ve decided to change my thinking a bit. I mean, you are with you think, and if I think I have a green thumb, I’ll have a green thumb.

When I go to bed at night I imagine that my thumbs are a lovely shamrock shade of green, and that I just look at plants and they start growing, flowering, and producing fruit. My technique seems to be working with the Mona Lavender I have. It’s turning into a regular shrub. I should probably put it in a bigger pot or plant it outside.

All of my visualization and positive thinking has helped, but I think what helped the most is actually reading the instructions. If you look up how to care for a plant and simply follow the instructions, it’s actually quite easy. Who knew? All this time I thought plant people had mystical powers. Apparently, the only power they had was the ability to follow instructions. So I’ve set aside my old ways, the ways that made my kefir making go horribly wrong, and I’ve started following instructions … at least for this week.

I’ve taken this concept to heart. That’s why after I roll out of bed at nine in the morning, I pretend to do some yoga. Health should be your number one priority, and you know what they say, fake it until you make it. I’m just wondering how many years you have to fake it before you get Angela Bassett’s biceps. I’ve been pretending to do yoga since college and I still have those flabby arm wings. I swear I’ve had grandma arms since I was eight years old.

Once I’ve gotten my exercise out of the way, I’m ready to retire to the indentation on the right side of the couch that 15 hours of daily sitting has left. I’ve read that too much sitting will kill me. According to my calculations, I’m already dead, so I guess a little more sitting won’t hurt anything.

First, I do the Tweeting on the Twitter. Despite having a Twitter account for years, I’m still not quite sure what to do with it. Then there is so much Facebooking to get done. All of these tasks are of course extremely important and stretch my brain capabilities nearly to the limit. How am I expected to continue on with the day without knowing what’s going on in the lives of people I barely know?

After the hard stuff is done, I can move on to easier tasks, like writing this blog post or editing the new Best of Nebulous Mooch collection that will be coming out next month. I’ve been telling everyone (everyone means my husband) that I was going to put together a collection of greatest hits from the Mooch for years now. Well, because I’ve decided to start doing the hard things first every morning, I’m finally getting that done.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my purpose in life and these days I really think it’s …. awww. I hate shells,” I say doing a strange hopping chicken walk.

“You were talking about your purpose in life,” my husbands reminds me.

“Ouch … awwww …. jeez … These shells are ruining me.”

When we walk on the beach my husband likes to walk in the water. I’m not a big fan of getting my feet wet, so I walk right at the water’s edge. This seems to be the area where all of the sharpest shells gather. I keep telling myself that they’re toughening me up. It’s kind of like walking on hot coals except much more painful.

Every once in a while, a stray wave will wander up on the sand a little farther than the others getting the edge of my foot wet. I always respond by wailing and running away from it.

Other than the shells, water, and getting sand stuck between your toes, walking on the beach at sunset is wonderful. Maybe I should buy some water shoes.

Note: Aiming Low published an article I wrote about my wonderful packing and unpacking skill. Check it out here.