Notorious--Long Live The Queen

Today would have been my grandmother's 83rd birthday. In memory of her, I've been watching videos online that remind me of the two of us: Been Around the World, Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, Hypnotize. At this point, are you really surprised? It's been long established that there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

I don't know, our bond was unique. By the time I was five, I'd gotten so used to people warning her about treating me like a peer. "You treat him like y'all are equals. One day you're gonna regret it." I guess they expected me to grow up and not respect her like most kids would in that situation. They didn't know that interspersed between every conversation were a few "I'll bust your head wide open." I knew not to challenge the throne. That's why she's Biggie in all of the videos and I'm Puffy...or I'm Ma$e to her Puff.

Looking back, I miss her, of course. But she always told me to keep living, so that's what I'm gonna do. Now I'm listening to Jay Z:

Don't worry about Brooklyn
I'll continue to flame
Therefore a world with amnesia
won't forget your name
You held it down long enough
Let me take those reins
And just like your spirit, 
The commission remains

[caption id="attachment_3750" align="alignnone" width="215"] Man, did she slap the hell out of me when she got these proofs back from Montgomery Ward.[/caption]

Housekeeping

Just a quick heads up:

I've decided to take on the enormous task of redesigning the site from the ground up. It's a task I began two years ago when I said, "I'll just pick this god-awful dark theme for the time being." As you can see, I haven't made much progress. Anyway, in the meantime you'll probably notice some random changes. A professional would make changes in the background, and test them before finally making them visible to the public. I'm sure you can find a site like that somewhere. In the meantime, this site is hosted for free on Wordpress, and that option isn't available to me.

You may also notice that typing in Mentalstorage.com will soon lead you to a "PAGE NOT FOUND" message. That's because Wordpress wants about $12 for that service, and I'm not entirely sure I want to commit to them for another year. I predict about a week before I make up my mind. Indecision is the cornerstone to my procrastination. Anyway, if the site stops working for some reason...I'll be back!

In the meantime, examples of my considered changes include the lovely and completely random picture on the right of the screen. I've discovered the Instagram feature. That's a picture of my bathroom floor as it existed at the moment that I pounded my phone's screen while trying to figure out how to use the Instagram app. I also discovered the paint app on my computer. Just wait til I start drawing.

Anyway, this was supposed to only be a paragraph long. If the domain stops working, you can always find me at mentalstorage.wordpress.com

Home Alone

I just read this article about a woman who's been charged with child cruelty after leaving her six-year-old home alone. The gist of it is that the little girl woke up around her 11 and couldn't find her mom, so she just dialed random numbers on the phone until someone answered and told her to call 911. The lady came back home around 3 am and reported the girl missing. The cops then arrested her, and put the child in the care of another relative. The story has a somewhat happy ending, so I feel it's okay to make a few comments.

Is there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing, because with Christmas coming up I'm inclined to file a report against a certain parent if I don't get anything this year. By six years old, I was a pro at staying home alone. As a matter of fact, it was my preferred choice over:

• Go with my mother to rehearsal


• Go with my grandmother to Senior Circle (or whatever they called it) at church


• Risk my life riding around with my grandfather who drove like the traffic signs were suggestions


• Sit in the 9-hour-long Evening Service for the Pastor's/Usher's/Church's/Senior Choir's/ Trustees' Anniversary.

Now granted, no one ever left me home alone that late, but even if they did I don't think I would've panicked and dialed random numbers. My grandmother used to have me watch the evening news for her and recount the top stories when she got home from her night job, so by six I was mentally damaged enough to consider that one or all of my relatives could be brutally attacked by one of the 15,000 animals that seemed to escape from the National Zoo on a regular basis back then. Either that or they'd be swept up by the tornado watch, and taken to Oz. When my mother came home later than promised one time, I worried that she'd fallen into an open well like Baby Jessica. Real world events + six-year-old-imagination= loose interpretation of reality. The bottom line is that I knew that as long as there was a box of Cap'n Crunch downstairs that I had at least enough food to survive for a while. No need to call the cops just yet.

I still don't understand how the six year old didn't know the number to 911 or at least one relative. I guess we can chalk that up to stored numbers in cell phones and speed dial. Anyway, I'm glad the little girl is okay. I don't know where the mom had to go for four hours that late at night. Correction: I don't want to know. And I guess I can go ahead and pat myself on the back, because by seven I'd been promoted to caring for other kids as well.

Leadership potential!

Decking the Halls

"You need a woman in your life."

That was my friend's response to a picture of my Christmas decorations. My response cannot be published. Christmas is extremely important to me, especially now that I have a child. I used to send Santa schematics of toys that I wanted the elves to make for me. Every year, I'd put the old beat-up white Christmas tree together by myself, unravel the decades-old tinsel, and hang long-past-their-prime ornaments on the tree. No child has ever sympathized more with Charlie Brown than this guy.

[Cue the violins]
*sniff sniff* I even remember the year that no one came home when they said they would to light the tree with me. *sniff, sob, sniff* That was the year I sat on the floor with a radio looking for Christmas carols, but found Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You instead. So goodbye. Please, don't cry. We both know I'm not what you need. And IIIIIII...
[End violins]

It was in that moment of despair that, deep within the recesses of my soul, a maniacal elf was born. I swore promised took a blood oath vowed that when I grew up I would have kids and my house would look like the North Pole. A few things that I didn't count on:
It costs a lot of money to go full North Pole
My daughter is three, so her enthusiasm is about 98% less than mine
I don't really have an eye for decorating, coloring, crafts, or organization

But I'm not gonna let a little thing like that stop me. I bought $50 worth of decorations from The Dollar Store, and a nice 7ft tall tree from Target. I put lights up in the window--the fancy kind that move in a pattern. I let my daughter put on the window decals, which kinda spell out HELP ME depending on how you look at them. I have Christmas cookie jars (no cookies yet, but we'll get there), a snow globe, some jingle bells for the door, a bow...A whole lot of stuff. I even cut out construction paper in the shape of trees, candy canes and ornaments, which I let my daughter glue together so that we could put them on the wall. We're doing it big, but at Black Friday prices.

So while it may not be the prettiest thing you'll see, I think we're really in the holiday spirit here at the North Pole Satellite Location.

[caption id="attachment_3740" align="alignnone" width="225"] It's like knocking on Santa's door.[/caption]