How Papa Quank rained on their parade...

Every Memorial Day Weekend, Herrin, Illinois, hosts a weekend long festival devoted entirely to the town's weirdly vast Italian heritage. Officially, the event is called Herrinfesta Italiana. You have your standard carnival with games and rides, along with your standard beer tents and overpriced food. You also have your standard washed-up musical acts like Firehouse and Eddie Money. And let's not forget the standard parade, where Miss Herrinfesta Italiana rides atop a newly washed and waxed Camaro to show off her shiny plastic tiara.

Last Saturday, my father drove his pick-up truck to the nearest Target to load a ton of recently purchased patio furniture in the back. His direct route home included passing through Herrin, and he was unaware that he was driving home on Main Street at the very time the Herrinfesta Italiana parade was taking place.
Somehow, he got in line behind a police car with flashing lights and in front of some float, with people throwing candy in all directions from both vehicles. He's not sure how he ended up on the parade route, but those Herrinfesta Italiana celebrants were NOT happy. They gave him the evil eye as he passed by without throwing any sugary goodness from his window. And they must have wondered what loser made a float out of nothing but cardboard boxes piled in the bed of a 1994 Ford F150.

And that, my friends, is how Papa Quank rained on their parade.

Important tooth-related advice...

1. Don't try to whiten your teeth while drunk. It's not an ideal situation when you leave the strips on your teeth for over 2 hours because you passed out. Your gums may or may not continue to bleed profusely days later.

2. Try not to visit a 60-year old dentist who, while numbing your mouth and drilling on your cavity, hums along to "Switch" by Will Smith.

Orange-level pug alert...

My parents came to visit with the pug for a Memorial Day BBQ. Right before we sat down to dinner, my mom realized that Pugsley was missing. She knew that he'd be whining under the table for bits of food if he was anywhere in the near vicinity. But, he was nowhere to be found.

I was immediately sick to my stomach. I was the one who begged my parents to bring the dog, and I was the one who assured my mom that the backyard was safely fenced in. I thought that there was no way for the pug to escape.

We all went into orange-level pug alert and formed a search party. Rodney, Britt, my brother John, my parents, and I spread out around the house and the neighborhood to locate the missing animal.

About 15 minutes later, my mom and dad could be seen walking back toward the house with the 35 lb. pug in their arms.

How did they find him? Well, he waddled up to a lady's home, and literally within 5 minutes, she had created a poster on hot pink paper that read "LOST: ONE FAT PUG." That made it pretty easy to find him.

I need retail-job therapy...

The benefits received from my trip to Jimmy John's on my lunch break today were twofold: first, it's located right next to the Bank of America I needed to visit, and secondly, I was able to experience one of my favorite college meals (until I got "burnt out on the Jimmy," or Jota Jota, if you will, by senior year).

Sidenote: My favorite Jimmy John's memory is the day that I, still wasted from the night before, had a veggie (#6) delivered to my apartment. The chain's slogan is "subs so fast you'll freak." When they got to my door in what seemed like 2.5 seconds, I literally freaked. The delivery guy didn't know what to do with the sandwich recipient jumping up and down before his eyes.

I, of course, was sporting my fitted Shoe Slangin' Store polo tee. Just when you feel like you can't escape your job, they put you in a uniform that screams "Hi, I'm Quank. What kind of shoes are you looking for today?" to the general public, everywhere you go while in said uniform. So, even when I'm on my lunch break, I get lots of questions from random passersby about the product we slang. I can't stop talking about the store, even when I'm on my break from said store.

The guy in Jota Jota whipped up my #6 like nobody's bizness. When he handed me my bag, his friend popped out of the back and asked, "What's the difference between the 991s and 992s?" I gave him a look that said, "Really? You want me to get into this?" He still looked at me quizzingly.

So, I said, "The 992s have a wider forefoot, which gives you a more stable base. Also, they feature extra forefoot cushioning, which explains the $5 price increase from the 991s."

They laughed at me because I knew what I was talking about.

As I left, I heard the same guy mutter, "I like the 991s better."

So do I, buddy, so do I. Can't wait to do it all again tomorrow...and Sunday...

Yo, check it [snap].

Second "article" on Inside STL - Proven Medical Phenomenon: The MENstrual Cycle

This is now a weekly thing, folks.

And please don't tell me who won Top Chef because I wasn't able to watch last night. No cable at the new digs yet.

Feathered friends...

I am officially moved into Casa de Bowlin, and I wanted to share a picture with you of our front porch denizens. If you are a veteran reader of "I'm a Walking Contradiction," then you are well aware of the power struggles Jables and I have had related to these creatures. But, now the eggs are hatched, and mama bird is stuck raising this brood on her own. This is not the time to evict the family from their home. They pay their rent with the warm fuzzies they deliver to my insides each and every day.

The evolution of dance...

I felt compelled to post this video link because literally four people, in the last week, have e-mailed me and said that they thought that I would appreciate it. Not sure what that says about me, but hey, thanks for thinking of me. And "The Perculator" is definitely missing.

Untitled...

Today would have been my Grandma Ree's 84th birthday. I've never missed anyone more. But, instead of trying to describe how that feels, I'm sharing a few passages that can speak for me. I'm reminded of her (and everyone else I love) in so much of what I read.

From "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote:

And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.

From "Neighbour Rosicky" by Willa Cather:

She had a sudden feeling that nobody in the whole world, not her mother, not Rudolph, or anyone, really loved her as much as old Rosicky did. It perplexed her. She sat frowning and trying to puzzle it out. It was as if Rosicky had a special gift for loving people, something that was like an ear for music or an eye for colour. It was quiet, unobtrusive; it was merely there. You saw it in his eyes, --perhaps that was why they were merry. You felt it in his hands, too.

From "Ashes" by David Sedaris:

You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger; it is foolish even to try. The most you can do is eat up while you still can, stuffing yourself, shoveling it in with both hands and licking clean the plates, recalling every course in vivid detail.

Goodbye...

In typical girly fashion, I hate goodbyes. Especially when the goodbyes involve people who mean a lot to me.

The very random part about tonight (and would it be a typical Quankie night without a huge dose of randomness?) is that Terrell Owens' arbitrator, Richard Bloch, performed outstanding magic tricks for our group. Magic tricks that blew our minds. His daughter, Rebecca, graduated from Wash U Law School with the rest of our friends, and he put on a good show during the last hurrah.

Teeps, I am visiting you in NYC tomorrow. You rock the side pony like no other.

Darren, you say you'll be back Monday, and I'm holding you to that one.

I think I'm cool.

I think I'm too hungover to fully appreciate this, but I've been published. What started as a little blog post has made its way to www.insidestl.com.

Preparing to cross the finish line...

Three finals down and one more American Lit paper to go...

While I write a five-pager about the postmodern author's recognition of the post-WWII youth counterculture's identification with the progressive musical genres of the time, I will share some good passages with you. I know there are some music lovers out there.

From "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, on listening to his brother play jazz in a nightclub:

"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order as it hits the air."

"He and his boys up there were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."

"Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did."

Now, go listen to some rock 'n roll.

A true phenomenon explained...

Have you ever wondered how "The Wave" gets started in big baseball stadiums?

As I said yesterday, I celebrated Mother's Day with the Quankie clan at the Cards vs. Diamondbacks game. We sat in right, just 15 rows off the field. At the beginning of the 8th inning, a girl stood up and yelled, "I know you guys are watching the Cardinals, but we're gonna start 'The Wave.' It has to start in this section. It just has to!!!" She counted to three and our section simultaneously threw our arms up in the air and whooed. Some people even stood up. And around and around the stadium it went until the half-inning was over.

I've never been part of the section that actually originates "The Wave," but I've always wondered who succeeds in getting it started. I can now see that it takes a sports-loving female in a Cards ball cap, with a commanding speaking voice and a lot of balls. And I don't mean baseballs.

Teach your parents well...

Happy Mother's Day to you and yours. How am I celebrating with my mom, you might wonder? The entire Quank clan is heading to a Cards game. Yesterday, I had some one-on-one with my mama, which included lunch at Blueberry Hill, bowling at Pin-Up, shopping at the Galleria, checking out the Mason Jennings in-store at Vintage Vinyl, and buying a bench at Pier 1.

We decided Mason Jennings was dreamy. Mama Quank thought it would be a good idea to ask him if he wanted to join us on our mission for a bench at Pier 1. Alas, he was wearing a wedding ring. So, we shopped for some CDs. I bought MJ's new Bone Clouds (and had him autograph that sucker to yours truly) and Jason Collett's Idols of Exile. Mama bought a Roberta Flack and a Gladys Knight and the Pips greatest hits. I had to talk her out of Gloria Estafan and the Bodyguard Soundtrack with a conversation about priorities.

We did not expect a spectre...

Last night, Cheers Heavy and I were sitting on his couch, eating dinner, waiting for Top Chef to start, and totally minding our own business. (We swear!) Behind us flashed a weird blue light near the wall. We both saw it and instinctively turned to take a look, but it was gone. We looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and I immediately got goosebumps. Matt got up to check out the rooms behind the living room, but nothing was out of order. We could not come up with an explanation for the blue light. We still don't really know exactly what happened, but the thought of a potential ghost did cross our minds.

I've only had one other experience like that in my life, and it doesn't really count...

My mom told me only a couple of years ago that on the day of her father's funeral, they put my little two-year-old self to bed around 8 PM. An hour later, I came out to the living room where they were watching television, and I told my mom that Grandpa John was in my bedroom, talking to me. She instantly started crying. Since I was two, I don't remember this at all. But also since I was two, how could I make something like that up or even be able to rationalize what was going on? It was definitely a strange experience to hear the story for the first time.

My friend Britt has a million ghost stories, and most of them include her as the central character. They say ghosts do materialize more around certain people.

Do any of you have a story to tell?

One step closer to a spread in Playboy...

I don't know if you were lucky enough to catch it, but Britney Spears made a surprise appearance on my celebrity dad's show last night. She arrived on the set of Letterman in time to deliver the night's top ten list, after some friendly banter with the host.

The girl seriously looked as uncomfortable as a patient with her feet in stirrups at the gynie's office. I'm not even a fan, and I found myself internally rooting for her to NOT look like a total fool. She hunched over in her seat, she nervously chomped her gum, she showed no ounce of a personality.

When she read the top ten list, it was obvious she didn't get the humor in the least bit. Granted, the top ten is usually so unfunny that it's hysterical. But even I could have done those one-liners a bit more justice. At one point, she grazed over a word she didn't recognize by pronouncing it as "something" instead of saying the actual word. The word was tamiflu. Sound it out, honey. Make your best guess. Get hooked on phonics.

Due to my sappy, yet instinctive love of the underdog, my thoughts on repeat were "Step it up a notch! Make them laugh, Britney! Show some personality before I die of embarrassment FOR you!" Alas, she did not receive the messages.

Before she left the show, she confirmed her pregnancy with her second child. That poor, poor girl.

Oh, delicious contradiction...

I stayed up late last night working on the most ridiculous grad school project I've ever been assigned. I got up early this morning to attend my last mentor session with little Bryant, my fifth grader at Clark Elementary in da hood. Because I was running on empty, I purposefully steered my car off Highway 40 to enjoy the goodness of a grande cafe mocha. Ain't no shame in my game.

When I ordered, I asked for skim milk in my coffee. When the Starbucks front counter worker man asked me if I wanted whipped cream, I vigorously nodded my head in the affirmative. Then, I started laughing at myself. I'm health-conscious enough to order low fat cow juice, but I immediately counteract that benefit with the inclusion of sweet lilypads of whipped cream that float on the surface of my caffeinated pond.

The front counter worker man said he calls that combination "the delicious contradiction." And, no, I'm not crazy for ordering it. Right when my coffee was ready, a lady in a business suit sauntered up to the counter and asked for her coffee with skim milk and whipped cream.

I exchanged a knowing look with the front counter worker man.

You want funny?

Season three of my favorite television show, Scrubs, comes out on DVD today.

I'm really hoping that this season includes the episode where they realize that Janitor is the guy from The Fugitive. Good stuff.

Seeing red and making it out alive...

Matty, aka Cheers Heavy, and I ventured out of the St. Louis metro area and into red state territory this weekend for friend Smitty's wedding in Arkansas. Given that I am from a very small town and call many a redneck my friend, it takes a lot of ass backwardsness to befuddle my state of mind. Matt and I definitely weren't sure what to think of all the sights on the 6-hour drive through the Ozark mountains.

On the way down, every other building was either a strip club or a church. We saw billboards for every type of outlet store in which you'd never want or need to shop: knives, wooden bowls, Wisconsin cheeses, candy. When we passed through Branson, Missouri, I thought we had died and gone to hillbilly heaven. It was like Las Vegas without the casinos. When we saw the sign for "The World's Largest Banjo," we weren't sure whether to laugh or run for cover from the infamous first bars of Deliverance that haunted our ears. Armadillos, both alive and in the unfortunate roadkill state, scattered the pavement. Shacks on the side of the road offered wares such as strawberries, chickens, and baby goats.

Mapquest sent us on quite the journey when, following the website's questionable directions, we traveled for 90 miles on a 2-lane highway that curved every which way through the mountains. Matt's knuckles were ghostly white due to his intense grip on the steering wheel as he averaged 30 miles per hour through this tedious phase of the trip. Every few seconds, he muttered such things as "Fuck this!" or "Seriously, WHO lives here?" or "Hell of a commute to work for these people!" or "Fuck that!" or "This isn't even a state!" or "Where ARE we?" It was so ridiculous that it was beyond aggravating. It was purely laughable at that point. After approximately 40 miles, I read a sign that said "Steep and Crooked for the Next 37 Miles" and gasped. I was very scared to tell Matt what I saw; I didn't want to induce his first heart attack at age 26. We lightened the mood by singing along to ditties such as Alabama's "Dixieland Delight" and John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." He definitely deserved a beer after this navigational feat.

Not only did the wedding take place in a dry county, but the bride's father is an elder in the Baptist church, so needless to say the daytime reception was booze-less. Smitty's parents rented out a bar in Little Rock for all the alcohol-loving guests later that evening, and it was a great time. By combining old college buddies, a Queen cover band, and a trip through the Taco Bell drive thru in the Holiday Inn shuttle bus, Saturday's events made the trip very worthwhile.

That didn't keep Matty from praising the Lord once we crossed the state line from Arkansas to Missouri. We're fairly certain that we'll never return.

Possible Side Effects

My favorite contemporary author, Augusten Burroughs, has a new book out entitled Possible Side Effects.

His first memoir, Running with Scissors, is currently being adapted for the big screen, and it will feature an incredible cast including Gwyneth Paltrow, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Evan Wood, and Annette Bening.

My absolute favorite Burroughs' book is Dry. It is both hilarious and heart-wrenching. I found myself crying so hard at one point that I couldn't see straight.

Check out Burroughs' website. I prefer him to David Sedaris. And if you haven't read Dry, then hop to it.

With that said, I leave you for Little Rock, Ar-kansas. Another college pal tying the knot. Have yourself a merry little weekend. Let your heart be light.

A side of frog legs with a nice Chianti...

Jables is single-handedly attempting to reverse all the painstaking work my main man Noah put into that Ark thousands and thousands of years ago. With one evil eye on the robin red-breast who recently built a second nest on his front porch (after the first nest was purposely removed), Jables has now turned his other evil eye to the frogs who live in his otherwise uninhabited koi pond. He now looks rather like Colin Hay in Men At Work's "Who Can It Be Now?" video. Animal-hating eyes in every direction.

A few days ago, Jables called to tell me that he was kept up all night because of the croaking of the frogs (the seeming antithesis of the silence of the lambs). He proudly told me that he was going to remove them from the premises, and he hoped I would back him on his effort. Mainly, he thought that I would approve since "frogs aren't even cute." But, I like the ribbit of frogs deep into the night. They remind me of home. They don't keep me awake; they help me sleep. Their noise is like one of those relaxation CDs your masseuse plays while tediously working the knots out of your shoulder blades.

Jables was exasperated with me.

Later that night, Cheers Heavy, Jables, and I convened at my apartment so that we could move my fish tank to the new house. Once the move was complete, I hurriedly worked to set up the aquarium so that my fish wouldn't go into a state of shock. Meanwhile, Cheers Heavy watched Jables take four frogs out of the koi pond and put them in a dumpster in the back alley. I'm sure Cheers Heavy simply giggled the entire time.

The next morning, I received an e-mail from Jables. He told me that he removed 11 more frogs from the koi pond, and there are still more left.

Can you imagine these 15 frogs sitting at the bottom of a dumpster, croaking and ribbiting and doing their frog thing, while trash and cardboard and old mattresses gradually pile up and suffocate them? My heart goes out to them. I fear for the life of my fish.

Take shelter in your local shopping mall...

A freaky pattern has been established in Hollywood over the past few weeks. Publicly feuding parties are ironically becoming parents on the exact same day. First, there was Brooke Shields and TomKat. Next to follow were Shaq and Kobe, both becoming fathers again two days ago. What is going on? Is anyone else scared?

Is this just the universe mocking the ridiculousness of petty celebrity arguments? Will more follow? Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken? Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan? Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie? Is this something more serious?

Something is stirring. I suggest you get down on your knees and pray in front of your latest copy of US Weekly. Have you seen The Night of the Comet? Cause that's what I'm talkin' about.

And it's all over now, Baby Blue...

Today I read a short story that literally made my stomach knot up and turn upside down. It was Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" I highly recommend taking advantage of the full-text version on the Internet. Click here. It's a quick read.

The interesting thing is that this story is dedicated to Bob Dylan. My professor told me that the lyrics from his song "Baby Blue" are easily recognizable throughout Oates' work. The song itself did not influence the author to initially create the story; however, Oates claims that "the haunting melody of 'Baby Blue' seemed to beautifully approximate the atmosphere of the story" during the writing process.

I am definitely not an expert on Bob Dylan, but I just read the lyrics to "Baby Blue" online. Combined with the story, I'm even more creeped out.

As the bird turns...

I looked out the window and saw that the nest was complete. Jables and Dinner took their perch on the front porch for a smoke break. I lingered on the front step while the rain torrentially poured from the sky, debating on whether or not to make a run to my car. We heard a huge clap of thunder, and in that instant Jables reached for the the robin's creation and shouted, "I'm getting rid of this nest!"

"Nooooooo!"

Jables muttered quietly, "I'm gonna kill that bird. I've killed a bird before, just last Thanksgiving. I'll kill again."

I am the smartest woman alive!

Not really, but I finished the crossword today all by my lonesome. I know it's Monday, but it's a nice feat for me.