Social Experiment: Perry County, Tennessee

While in town for a get-together with friends, I went to the Food Giant in Linden, TN. While cruising the aisles with my bum-wheeled shopping cart, I passed by a number of adolescent to mid-twenties young men. The first I passed looked down immediately refusing to meet my eyes or return my fake-smile pleasantry. I thought...Weird. Perhaps he is just socially awkward. When I passed another young man and he did the same thing, I most earnestly felt that I was deep within the Twilight Zone. Surely, this isn't something that is taught to young men in Perry County. "When you see a lady, don't you dare look in her eyes. They're all just like that damned Eve. They're here to pull the wool over your eyes and make you get them pregnant."

I then thought it was my duty to seek out other young men (most of them worked there) to verify my paranoia. I looked for them, and my results (without a control group) were startling. They all did it! They all looked at the floor. Now, one would think to inspect themselves before drawing too many conclusions, but I didn't think it was necessary. I had checked the mirror before I'd left my mom's house. I wasn't wearing any potentially revealing even accidentally revealing clothing. I wasn't wearing makeup, so I was neither strikingly beautiful or painfully unsightly. No toilet paper on my shoes. No fancy clothes, accessories, etc. There was no reason for these young men to be just plain un-Southern in their angst. They outright refused to greet me or meet my half-smile. I thought for a moment that there was a strange, Emmett Till-type mentality in the town. They were afraid of me maybe.

I do think that these boys are taught either implicitly or explicitly that they should not look into the eyes of women. It's sort of disgusting. They are hobbled by their raising. How are they expected to make anything of themselves? What if a woman is the interviewer? Or...is any semblance of communication with women possible for them? Is it even anticipated that they will cross the county line?

What is it, friends?

Frodo Died.

Frodo Bagadonuts June 10, 2003-Dec. 9, 2009
My husband and I just came inside from burying our darling Frodo Bagadonuts. We buried her next to her daughter, Little Jerry Seinfeld who was hit by a car nearly four years ago. Frodo was only six-years-old, and we can't imagine what must have happened to her. She started acting out of sorts and puking Monday morning, and then today she was in a near coma, barely breathing with a shallow heartbeat and rousing only to dry heave. We tried to force water into her mouth with an infant medicine dropper, but I'm afraid it was too late.



I cherish Frodo for so many things. She was honest-to-God the sweetest dog on the planet. I always talk about how dumb my dogs are, but my goodness are they loyal and loving and as much a part of our family as any of the humans. The day we got Frodo I watched her delicate one-pound body hop through the grass like a grasshopper. We watched her attack moths and her shadow and plush toys for what seems hours. At least she was doing something; we were just amused watching her play. And I called HER dumb!



From the second I was pregnant, I'm convinced, Frodo knew it. She was always in my lap and lying around with me for the weeks I didn't yet know, and then for the remainder of my pregnancy, she was a mommy's girl through and through. It was only a little while before I had Ethan that Frodo had some babies of her own. She and Cosmo became parents a month before Ethan's due date. It was from that litter that we got Little Jerry. She and her parents were great pals and such a comfort to us. I don't care how shallow it is...when you've had a shitty day, sometimes you need the love of a dog.



As you can imagine, this is all a bit much for me right now. I feel like I'd be better off getting in bed, but as Frodo slept with us nightly, this will not be easy either. Plus, I just don't think that a blog could do Frodo justice. I miss her.

He read a book today. Oh boy!

It was only a few nights ago that my sweet and precious and lots of other pleasant adjectives son read his first book independently. He turned five on November 2nd. You can only imagine my excitement. The joy I felt was unparalleled. I have never been more proud. I didn't really think that illiteracy would be a problem in our household; that's not it. I (wow) am just...I say "excited" too much. I have been working with him since in-utero. But, really...we've been working on phonics since before he turned four. He read with prosity, y'all. That was the most amazing part.

Here's the book he read, Biscuit's Big Friend.

Fifth Lead Vocalist for Van Halen is Hot for Yogurt--She's Got It Bad,So Bad: She's Hot for Yogurt.

I changed my picture so that you would all know that I still think about my blog. The girls said I should blog some more, so I will eventually. Somehow, I have become addicted to Facebook, and while I'm there, I say everything I need to say ( a lot of times through fact-based quizzes). It's a little embarrassing, but I'm okay with it. I have become so laid back that I'm apathetic. That is definitely not a virtue.

The good news is these days I have a lot of energy. I wish I were home more so that I could get things done. My bedroom is really clean right now which may not be a super big deal to you, but it was so dirty that it became our way of life. When I cleaned the room, exciting things started to happen in the bedroom: exciting, private things. It could be a combination of the tranquil, serene room and the fact that I quit my birth control pills. We are not "trying for a baby" (like it says on the Sims). I just didn't want to take them anymore. Seemed like an unnecessary expense really.

Gosh, sorry this is horrible. I'm speaking in sentence fragments. I'll tell you the truth. I'm watching an Activia commercial over and over. Most of the time I like the TiVo for skipping the commercials, but when there is an advertisement for something as provocative as a shit-party yogurt, I can't help myself. This is what I look like when I eat Activia. Bowel pain makes me look sex-ay, 'cause all that diarrhea means I'm gettin' skinny.

I Cried During Bible Class

At church yesterday, there was a woman with her infant grandchild. They were sitting in the pew right in front of us. He was sucking on his fist and cooing and grunting and doing all those baby things. It reminded me of what my body refused to do for me and of what my body had taken from me twice. Damn these ovaries! Damn them! They're covered in cysts and refuse to release the proper hormones. The result is one very sad woman.

Somebody Left Their Baby on the Bus

Jeremy drives a school bus, a half route (either morning or afternoon). Earlier in the week, he heard over the radio this, "Yeah, some girl left her baby on the bus. She's probably gonna need it." It was something along those lines. It was one of those computerized birth control babies they give out as a potential grade in high school health classes. We saw some former students at Sonic in Iuka yesterday sitting at the picnic tables with their robo-babies. Naturally, I congratulated them. hardy har!

I got to thinking, so I asked. "Hey, girls, how come I don't see any of the guys with those stinkin' babies?" They answered, "Well, Mrs. Smith, the boys get the option of writing an essay or keeping the baby over the weekend like us." Oh, ta-hell-no! Can you friggin believe that? They can impregnate, but they are not asked to participate in this program? Letter time! I'll write a letter that never gets answered. That's just an activity I participate in to keep my mind healthy and my blood pressure just slightly above where it should be.

To quote Napoleon Dynamite, "Gah!"

Sweet Jesus!

It wasn't long ago (inside of 8 years, that's not long ago, right?) that we were at the Wal-Mart Supercenter here in Corinth, Mississippi, to buy quick cheap sheets for our new mattress. We weren't quite married yet (uh oh), and I have a phobia of sorts of uncovered mattresses. We couldn't exactly borrow a sheet from his mom, and I was so paranoid that my mom would notice one of her ancient sheet sets missing. Jer parked in the fire lane, and I ran in to buy our soon-to-be consecrated 250 thread count sheets. Sidebar: this fitted sheet less than a year later came out of the washing machine with a burned hole in it. As I walked from the automatic doors back to the car with the best, most confident posture, a cliche work crew was boarding their own vehicle. One of them shouted, "Sweet Jesus!" Apparently, he was impressed, and I was, unfortunately, flattered. My fiance heard their appreciation and seconded it when I got myself in the car a little too quickly. There I was outfitted in Old Navy and Addidas, a total of $100 probably dressed me head to toe (and that is by my estimation $80 too much) sure I was going to be raped before I could enjoy some consensual premarital sexual relations.

I couldn't quite figure out why I felt like these men were going to try to rape me. I had been places before by myself, and I had been admired less tactfully I'm sure. I had learned about testosterone and its effects in biology class, so surely I should have passed it off. Over the months following "Sweet Jesus-gate," I started having kind of flashbacks of some things that happened to me when I was a little girl. While those nauseating events were not as brutal as they could have been, I felt disoriented and betrayed. Then it hit me. I feel scared about little nothing things, because of what happened to me when I was ten. The uncovered mattress thing, consequently, has everything to do with the psychology involved in my molestation. Now, I'm a statistic, pissed, and a little weepy.