what i watched on tv (with one hand) last night

of course a devotee of celebrity gossip like unto myself would know who the kardashians are, even if that knowledge was extremely limited. mainly i knew that these sisters have long dark hair, that they all date professional athletes, and that their mother married bruce jenner even though he doesn't have a nose due to plastic surgery issues.

hey! i may not have a hand but i do still have a nose, she said proudly!

anyway, i finally watched an episode of their reality tv show out of pure laziness and wow. all i can say is that i feel much dumber this morning.

thanks for that, kardashian sisters!

what i did (with one hand) today

1. ate wings--many, many, many insanely many wings

2. watched the super bowl--i was pulling for my boyfriend, peyton manning, but you can't be sad the saints won

3. also watched a little bit of the sound of music due to the fact that i was too tired to change the channel--watching SOM with my son gave me a chance to observe that he should be very happy i never made him wear lederhosen made out of drapes

4. he agreed

what i can't say

why sometimes we like a book and sometimes we don't. after my surgery, sweet friend betsy brought me the new donna leon. donna leon is hugely popular right now and she's a good writer to be sure. but somehow i can never quite get into her mysteries. and so while i appreciate betsy's generous gesture so much, i may put the leon aside.

what i can say, however . . .

my experience with the leon novel is a good thing actually. it serves to remind that readers aren't monolithic which means there's a place for many types of stories and styles and everything else.

long live donna leon!

Yes, Louise, you're right

i did write that last post to encourage myself to keep going. Especially now that I am one-handed. Speaking of which.

I spent two hours at PT yesterday. TWO HOURS. The guy at the table next to me nearly lost his hand because he got a staph infection after getting nicked by a screw. He didn't even bleed. But before long the guy's hand was a big fat puffy BALLOON and suddenly doctors were all dude! I think we might need to chop that thing off!

Only they didn't. You gotta HAND it to his doctors to find another option.

Yup. A good hand horror story like that makes los dos horas at La Casita de Physical Therapy totally worth it.

and now a word about hope

as i was driving around the other day--random thoughts always hit me when i'm driving around--i was thinking about how easy it is to become discouraged when you write. and also how this discouragement thing stops people from moving forward. i started thinking about all the people who have something to say but who've stopped trying to say it because of continued disappointments.

this thought made me sad.

so let's all promise ourselves to keep going, okay?

talking gratitude here

so there's this oddly famous lady in salt lake who has the world's longest fingernails. literally. she's in the guinness book of world records and everything, which why? what would take you to that place where you wanted to make that your life's goal? at least when i was in mutual they forced you to make practical goals involving exercising and scripture reading and NOT growing your nails out two feet so you could scare the holy crap out of kids who came to your house for trick-or-treating purposes.

anyway. i was talking to a man the other day who used to work at a store where this nail lady shopped. she would try on rings sometimes and the process took a lot of time and a LOT of assistance from store employees who had to slide and loop those rings up the nail until they hit her ring finger. and every time this guy would go home and say WTH. how does she do anything, ANYTHING. AND I MEAN ANYTHING with those things.

i, on the other hand, have one extremely excellent good hand which can do many many many things.

and i am grateful.

and now i and my excellent hand are off to tooele again to speak again. this time to a women's conference. tooele has become my home away from home this month.

in medias res

so some days i wear red lipstick. which OF COURSE makes me look EXACTLY like christina aguilera. in fact, there i'll be shopping for produce in the produce section at my smiths. and suddenly people are saying look! it's x-tina! Hey, x-tina! can we have your autograph?

anyway. i started putting on my red lipstick este manana. which is NOT a job that requires two hands. it does, however, require your dominant hand. otherwise, it looks like someone has been coloring outside the lines on your lips.

halfway through i looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and went oh wow. this isn't working.

meanwhile no one looked up from a vegetable bin in smiths and called me x-tina today.