Prepare not to be astounded.

The other night I asked someone if I was boring, and I was told "You astound me every day". This was the nicest compliment I'd received for some time. In fact, I can't remember being told (in earnest) that I'm beautiful or anything else for so long that this was a huge compliment. I, astounding.

Tonight I asked if he really meant what he said or if he was just joking when he said it, and he responded that he didn't even remember the conversation. My stomach fell. I felt sick.

The truth is, I am not astounding. I may be eccentric about some stuff, or maybe interesting, but nothing I do is really amazing or astounding. Maybe this is why it was such a huge compliment; it was like being told, "You are more beautiful than Cindy Crawford." It was so unbelievable that someone would think that of me that it resounded and kept bouncing around my mind, playing over and over again until I tried my hardest to cling to it as one good thing about myself.

So, from now on, the only person I am trying to astound is me. I am not easily astounded by myself or anything I do. I'm highly critical of my looks, my abilities, my potential for success. Maybe this is the impetus I needed to get off my keister and start astounding myself. If I can truly manage to fund my library degree, and to ace all my classes, and to forge a career that interests me while making a living for my family and paying enough attention to my daughter and making her life better and paying off my debts, now THAT will truly be astounding.

I'm with the band...

Back in the day, I was a singer. I was in chorus, I was in KV chorus festival, I sang in a small group audition-only chorus at school, and I sang in college. I was a singer. A SINGER. People used to like how I sang.

I've listened and sang along to Beatles songs since Gerald Ford was president. And now, with the advent of Beatles Rock Band, I can realize my dream of singing into a microphone, in front of an audience. Well, in theory, that is. My damn weiner kids won't let me sing. They roll their eyes and sigh and tell me to leave them alone while they're singing and playing Beatles songs. The killer is that I know these songs BETTER than they do! I can get five stars! I can be Paul, John, Ringo, even George, whose songs suck. But they won't let me. I have to kind of hang around behind them until they finish singing a song, then say, "Hey, guys...let me sing this one, would you?" and suffer the eye-rolling, sighing, bitching and moaning. Why? When was I pushed out for the new generation? These people weren't even alive when John was killed. I WAS! REALLY!

Maybe I need to punish them by taking away the singing rights to Beatles Rock Band. Maybe that would show them. I can get five stars. Yeah. That'd show 'em.

When Fish Attack...Moose?

Tommy and I just finished watching "When Moose Attack," and apparently they are nasty big animals who will just attack any person, dog or other animal by whom they feel threatened. Fine. I get it. I'm from Maine, and I'm familiar with moose.

The real surprise came during the show AFTER "When Moose Attack". It's a program called "When Fish Attack," and the first piece involved a teenage boy who was in Panama deep-sea fishing when he hooked a 600-pound black marlin, which, if you don't know, looks like a gigantic swordfish. This kid hooked the mega-fish and reeled it in waaaay too fast (it's supposed to take up to an hour to reel in one of this big fellas, and it took this boy only 25 minutes), and the fish got really mad. I mean FURIOUS. By the time it reached the side of the boat, it launched itself, sword-first, into the teenage boy's open mouth, and ripped his face open, the sword exiting the back of his neck and going through his cheek, sinus wall, and cutting his lip on the way out.

The kid lived, the fish lived, yadda yadda, but that's not important. What came of all this was a really great idea for a show on the Outdoor Channel that I'd kind of like to market if it didn't involve having anything to do with certain right-wing fanatics I hate. Basically, the show would feature Ted Nugent as the narrator and host. He would be on a large boat deep-sea fishing. Also on the boat would be a fully grown bull moose. Ted would fish until he hooked a black marlin -- which can grow to 15 feet and 1,000 pounds, by the way -- and gets it sufficiently pissed off enough to attack, just like the fish that attacked the kid in Panama. However -- and here's the delicious twist! -- Nuge would use his master archery abilities to AIM the sword of the fish so it pierced the bull moose right in the heart, thus killing both the fish and the moose at one time. It would be a new sport.

I'm thinking it should be called "Ted Nugent's Surf and Turf". Your thoughts?