Sheryl.

I've been known to be hard headed, and maybe even ignorant, but never just plain dumb. However, the last Friday night of SXSW, I set out to prove this wrong.

I found that running solo throughout town is generally the best way to get things done during South By. I'll check in with friends from time to time, but mostly I can go wherever I want and not have to answer to anyone. (I discovered that I like being single more than I know this past week.) So when some guy starts Stage Five Hovering while I'm trying to buy a shot for the okay-looking Ginge from the badass band that just played, avoid but be civil to my ex-Ginge-boyfriend at the same venue, and also try to meet up with an old friend in town and party hard with him, I become irritated and jump ship. On everyone.

Now this had been a fairly rad night up until this point, and I know it's going to be hard to get a cab on this busy Austin night, but it's not even two yet, so I take my chances and get to a corner where cabs are coming right into downtown, without a fare, and pretty much I'm the only person trying to hail a cab in this area. Yet for some reason none of the cabbies are stopping for me. There is a veritable swarm of yellow cars coming in my direction, vacant lights a-blazin, and not one will stop. This is when I-do-what-I-want-Brynnan rears her ugly head and starts in the direction of home, which is, well, far far away from downtown on foot. And while there is never a "bad" part of town to go through, there are some pretty dark ones, void of any life at 1:45 AM save vagabonds and probably bears.

When I get to the edge of downtown, right before I blaze into the deep dark parts of North Lamar, I sit down and take a moment. My friend Patrick lives right up the street! Maybe the last bit of juice in my stupid new iphone will allow me to call him and I can crash at his place! But when I call, he is across town at a party, and instead of saying "I need help, friend," I say, "Okay, have fun then!" and hang up and kind of whimper a little bit. And while I still have a little bit of phone battery, I don't want to utilize it just now, provided I may very well have to call 9-1-1 in a few short minutes. But in my head, this is the only option I have, and I'm a very tall girl! No one would possibly want to mess with me, right?! Right?!

So I set off.

Now the first testament to my survival is going to be bums. And bums are all over downtown, but when we face them, we are normally with our burly man-friends, or amongst the several thousands of people downtown, or there may be a cop nearby, or a store front. But under a dark overpass, alone, with no one in hearing range... well this is all new to me. And while you may think most bums are only down and out and won't mess with you, trust me, they are mean and will spit at you for no reason in broad daylight. Luckily, this particular bum is passed the fuck out. He seem pretty comfortable wrapped in Chronicle ads and surrounded by beer cans, so I delicately make my way by. And we are right by one another. The City of Austin did not build sidewalks with consideration of sleeping homeless persons and the people who have to sneak around them. Fortunately, I am not wearing heels of any sort and my sandals are fairly noiseless, but as I'm tip-toeing by, I hear something jangling and realize that my GIGANTIC EARRING ARE CLANGING and under the overpass, it sounds like the British are coming. But when I put my hands around them to stifle the noise, my bracelets fall around my arm in a horrible, yet fashionable, sound. In a panic, I scurry off, leaving the bum who, of course, did not even stir.

And then, things aren't too bad for a while. I find a pretty white rose bush and put one in my hair. I see a pretty kitty. I even see some stupid ass sorority girl running around with headphones on. I want to knock her out for being such a dip shit but she somehow gives me hope.

And then I reach the twisty turning horrible dark spots of the trek, where not much traffic is flowing at all, and should I walk through the areas, I have to wait for some cars to come by to provide light and ensure I don't get carted off into the woods by predators, be they rapists or zombies. There are small paths entering the woods right by the road, which I can only assume are for drug trafficking. There are strange howls coming from the wooded area as well, but not dogs or even coyotes, but crack heads. I encounter no one on the walk any more. I am alone in the world.

And then someone tries to abduct me.

A man. A black man. In a van, the most frightening kind of vehicle, stops beside me on the road and tells me to get in, that he is a taxi and he will take me where I need to go. You have gotta be kidding me with this. So, I keep walking, feigning and cursing him off. But he follows me. Insisting he is a taxi in his unmarked gray van, and that he can "hep me."

Everything that I have learned in my life has come up to this moment. If I were the sorority girl a few, what seems like hundred, blocks back, I would get in happily, but I am not. I am the hard headed asshole from Pottsville, Texas who learned at a very young age to tell who is dangerous and who is not, so I direct all my fear into anger and yell obscenities and wave my long arms at the kidnapper/rapist/killer until he drives away.

Now anger again turns to fear and fear turns to defeat. Here I am, not even halfway to my stupid house and I almost got abducted, eaten by a flesh-eating kitten, and attacked by wolves. Crying only blurs my vision, making it impossible to survey the area for further predators. Although, yeah duh, I boo-hooed for a good solid minute. But I pull myself together and continue down the road, which is just truly awful. I mean, this is probably the least fun/smart thing I have even done. I keep wondering how I got myself into this mess and why on Earth I thought this was a good idea, and damn me for being so ridiculous and why didn't I just call a friend for help? IDIOT! And perhaps I am making a huge deal over walking this far but Good Lord, a man tried to murder me. Pretty sure.

And then lo! another stranger, but a kinder (and more chatty) stranger pulls up, in (damn) a van, and hollers out that she doesn't like me walking alone on this road. "I don't like it either!" I call back, but I am still cautious of Lady in Different Van because well, you know, the whole Pottsville spiel and all, but approach cautiously and we exchange names and not really pleasantries because she's in the middle of the road, but she starts in on her daughter who goes to Texas and she wouldn't want her to be walking alone and yada yada and I ask for her ID and where she's from etcetera etcetera. I have no real idea if this will help if the woman tries to kill me, and I assure you, she's no Vanna White, this lady looks as if she's been rode hard and put up wet, but it seems like the right thing to do, so after learning that she knows where Hamilton is and is from Grandbury, I get in.

So I hitchhiked home. But not all the way home because for some reason I have this thing that I don't like cabbies (and now, strange ladies who talk a lot about their kids and give young women rides home) to know where I live, so I have her drop me off like five blocks from my house, which is super dumb because at this point, my freaking feet hurt and in the past week I have managed to pull a muscle in my calf. And when I start walking home, feeling more safe because I'm actually in my neighborhood, I take off my shoes and run on the pavement, which proves more dumb than most things I have done all night. Then I resort to running barefoot through people's lawns, which is okay for a while then seems kinda weird, if the occupants were to see the Amazon woman in their yard and all. Finally, I put back on my sandals and kind of handicap-skip home, whistling and dancing, cause I'm alive and all.

Thanks, Sheryl.

I like chips.

Day 742 of my Unemployment.

I created a really decent rap playlist on Spotify...

I found some construction paper and made a Valentine's card for my neice Bella...

I learned how to spell "niece"...

I made 17 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate four bags of HEB brand bbq chips. And it's really only Day Two of my Unemployment. And I'm not even really unemployed. It's more like Under-Employed. I still have two jobs. I just really like to work a lot. A lot of hours of working because if I'm not doing that, then I'm shopping online or spending money at the bar.

And not sleeping.

Being underemployed is not nearly as hilarious as one would hope. I have all these friends who are like "Funemployment!" and "Heck yeah! Let the party begin!" and I'm like "Whoa. Maybe if I sit really quietly here on the couch, my Dad won't find out that I only have two jobs."

My mother has not taken the news well either. I am generally one of those people who fly by the seat of their pants and in the past, it's worked out for me. Right now, I'm still pretty calm about the whole thing. The Panic hasn't really set in yet. Like I said, I still have some shifts here and there. I also have a seventeen thousand dollar vehicle I just purchased that I would appreciate not being repossessed.

This blog is crap and depressing me. Here's to my student loan not going into forbearance. Whatever that scary word means...

Why I would rather just sit and drink on a boat instead of do anything behind one

I'm going to tell a story. It's about me. Surprise!

Once upon a time, four country gals from Hamilton County packed their bags and headed to Destin, Florida as a graduation gift. And in the beautiful little city, they mostly just layed on the beach and chased sea gulls and got stung by a shit-ton of jelly fish and talked about guys they were dating and what they were going to do in college the next year and so on and so on.

One day, one of the girls, probably the cute little blonde one, had the amazing idea of going parasailing. Me, who is leary of lighting a gas heater, sitting too long in the garage with the car on, and little children teetering on precarious perches, declined the offer. No freaking thanks, I don't want to be strung from a rope 75,000 feet in the air behind a moving motor vehicle with nothing but The Gulf of Mexico underneath me. But to my friends, this idea sounds exciting, thrilling, nothing short of wonderful.

My stupid, stupid friends.

So, we dye my hair blonde that night and the next day head out to find some dudes wearing Bob Marley shirts who can take us parasailing.

So, just to give you an idea, this is what parasailing is meant to look like...

It did not go as anticipated.

I am strapped in the apparatus with two other gals, one of them my long time friend and the third, the ten-year-old sister of my other friend, her mother downing margaritas on the beach as she watches the horror that is soon to unfold.

We get strapped in and are hoisted into the air off the back of the boat and things are going swimmingly and it's actually quite nice. The view is beautiful and the ocean is spectacular to see from so high up. I'm having fun and have put any precautions or fears aside. Then suddenly, we hear a snap. And not just like you snapped your fingers snap, I mean a cable snap, as in one of the cables that has us suspended into the air has snapped. And it's loud. And insanely frightening. But we seem to still be safe in the air and still attached to the boat, so things seem okay. And then, without warning from our fair boat captains, we begin to lose altitude, and my friends and I are plummeted into the ocean, all the while still being pulled by the boat, which is probably going about 20 miles per hour.

This part is not fun. I immediately regret the series of events that led up to me being drug behind a boat at 20 miles per hour. And what's this? My bathing suit bottoms are coming off. And now we are being shot back up into the air. Hundreds of feet into the air. And as we are plummeted back into the water a second time and shot back into the air a second time, I come out of my harness.

The pathetic ribbon of a strap that is meant to be under my butt has naturally, during the course of water engulfing us, come out from underneath me and I am dangling from the thing, held in only by something under my armpits and the upper-arm strength of a teenage girl. Now, we are back in the air and I am literally hanging on by a thread, attempting to hoist myself back into my stirrup, all the while keeping my tiny bathing suit bottoms on, long legs kicking and swinging in the air. The ten-year-old next to me is crying and I am cursing like a sailor. My best friend is trying to help me pull myself together and Starsky and Hutch in the boat are yelling inaudible sounds at me, trying to "learn" me back into my harness, none of their advice being heard or taken into action. And why in the hell is this boat still moving?

After several failed attempts at my regaining composure and more trips back into the water, the two 'gents on board decide to put us out of our misery and (omg, here's an idea!) stop the boat, and let us drop into the water safely and pull us in manually. Apparently, the cable that snapped was the reel-them-in one and instead of just stopping immediately and ending disaster, they really wanted us to get our money's worth and strung out the horror for as long as possible.

We lived. And hopefully got our money back, I honestly have zero recollection of even boarding the boat or coming back on shore I was so shocked and angry.

You know when something tragic happens to people who are doing something they love, like that one armed girl who got attacked by a shark when she was surfing, and she still surfs? Well fuck that.

It's Free.

If you've never checked out the "free" listings on Craigslist, I highly suggest it. Not only might you happen into something you need/want, you also happen into the most ridiculous postings on the planet. Sure, it's free crap, but the best part is that people take pictures of their free crap and put it on the internet for you to look at and mock.

Now, I was once getting rid of an obese tube-like television which shut off at the most inopportune times (say, when I was trying to, I don't know, watch something) and I needed to get shed of it. But no person in their right mind would pay ten dollars for it, much less come over and pick it up, which was a two man job, so I posted it under the free section on Craigslist and added a couple of pictures, you know, for allure, and then set it out on the porch with a giant sign that said "TAKE ME" on it. It was gone within fifteen minutes.

Then there's this:

Oh good. This looks like the frame department at Goodwill.

Another time, I was moving and realized I had so much shit that I didn't know how I'd been living with all this shit until I changed houses and realized I couldn't possibly have so much shit that I didn't need and couldn't sell so I set out a huge box of the useless shit and put an ad on Craigslist, sans photo of useless looking shit, but described in the ad fairly accurately all the piss-poor stuff I had shoved into this box: a picture of a cat without a frame, one cream colored heel with no match, a spool of black satin ribbon, several homemade decorative, art-ish looking pictures, a piece of pepperoni (partially nibbled), one antique greenish mirror with two shelves to match (one broken, piece in box), and two quite useful pieces which probably deserved a Craigslist photo: an hp printer (broken, but probably fixable) and a decent but cumbersome rolling desk with a glass top.

I posted the "Box of Crap" ad on Craigslist, left the box, printer and desk by the curb with notes on them "TAKE ME," and went about my life.

2:00 AM, after work, I come home, excited to see what has been taken. Surely the best items have been taken, that desk probably didn't last long. I bet the printer is long gone, too. But lo, I come upon the scene to find every single piece of useless crap rooted through and taken out of the box, including the single shoe with no mate, and the hp printer is the only thing that remains by the curb.

Wow.

The point is, Craigslist hounds LOVE CRAP. These people sit at home all day, looking at the "free" section, driving to other people's houses, picking through their worthless crap, loving life, and then go home and re-post it, taking pictures of it in huge, indecipherable piles.

?

Free... It's free. Come and get it.

Need some free food? It's on there.

Still seaaaaled...

No? No? Comonnnnn!

Oh! And all those loose DVD's you've been trying desperately to organize but have no means to?

Finally a solution.

I'm afraid I'm funny.

The other night I was at the bar and this large Jamaican fellow was trying to hit on me and kept trying to get my number from my friends. Then he went on to tell everyone that he was allergic to water. Mistake.

"Hold the phone," I said, "you're allergic to water?"

Who the hell is allergic to water? He kept on and on trying to convince a bunch of us that this was an actual diagnosis and he was afraid of dying so he didn't drink anything but purified water and "aren't you allergic to anything, Brynnan?"

"No."

"What, and you're not afraid of anything either?"

"No."

Then I really started to think about this idea. Of being afraid of shit. One of my friends suggested I might be afraid of dying. Nope. Bring it on. Spiders? That's what flip-flops are for. Snakes? They're darling.

I have had fears of things before, but they usually kind of expire. Or I outgrow them. For a second there I was afraid of the end of the world. It was right when my niece was born and I started getting real scared of a meteor shower or complete and utter natural destruction. But, for like ten days straight, I had these End of the World Dreams, every one of which I survived. So that kind of quelled that.

Then, for a hot minute I was afraid of my car going into a river. With me in it. Then I had this really rad dream about Old Blue (God rest her soul) soaring right into Hamilton's favorite source of giant catfish slash place to dump old couches, The Leon River. And what do you know if I didn't survive that with flying colors as well. I hauled ass out of that river with my red HHS Cheerleading bag and called my Dad on the river and told him what happened and he said, "Well! Get home!" So I did.

Lately, I have this fear that a tree nearby has just been struck by lightning and fallen on a wire that is tied to a clock and my sports car can't get up to 88 miles per hour and I can't get out of 1985.

I do not know what to do about this fear. Hopefully, some dream sequence will take care of it soon because I can't stand wearing red down-feather vests and dealing with overgrown morons named Biff.

Now I just have to do something about the fear of The Beastie Boys putting out yet another album.

Donn's Tales

Donn's Depot. My watering hole. I'm sure my "devoted followers" are familiar with the place, most of my goings-on happen either at work or at Donn's, which is where I go after almost every shift. It's nice to wind down and have a couple of drinks with your friends (ranging from ages 21 to 75) and also nice to walk in and not have to say a word to the bartender and he/she hands you a Miller Lite. Donn's is where the old but still partying folks come around 8 every night, cut a rug, and try not to break a hip. It's also the place where service industry kids come to unwind after a long day of waiting on people's dumbasses. The two crowds seem to mesh fairly well.

Most nights I know everyone there and when someone brings in a stranger from the outside, including myself who brings in friends from time to time, I get real nervous. Good Lord, it's like a lion's den in there. Most of the time I don't dare bring in a guy I'm seeing, way too many questions ensue and most of my friends (who happen to be men) look at the guy like he's the anti-Christ, silently sizing him up. Later they will bring me his carcass like a large cat would bring home an antelope for the herd, proud and pleased with the kill. (Thanks, guys.)

A friend of mine brought in a British girl the other day and you would have thought she was Princess Di. The poor girl couldn't carry on a conversation with anyone lest someone overhear her British accent and pop their way right into the mix. Her man-friend was less than pleased. I tried once to save her but gave up quickly due to the overabundance of man-crowding and shoving and continued onto the corner where I eat peanuts by myself and pretend to watch Sportscenter.

Donn's is also the spot of many a walked tabs and many a disappearing face. You can be carrying on a pleasant argument with someone concerning who had more affect in the lives of African Americans? Lincoln or Martin Luther King? and the next thing you know, you're fellow debater has flown the coop. Of course, in the bar world this is known as Houdini-ing. Some call it the Disappearing Act, some call it "She's Just an Asshole." (I prefer Houdini). It's a great way to cut out just at the right time so you don't have to go around and hug everyone, and tell everyone what a great time you had, and "OH MY GOD, I'LL FREAKING SEE YOU TOMORROW! DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS EVERYTIME!?"

No.

But people love to say bye. Love it. And when appropriate, like at Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday, I'll go around and tell everyone bye and I love you and all that good stuff. But not at the bar. It's not necessary. Which is why most night's, I prefer the Houdini.

The anti-Houdinis

Once, while on the porch of Donn's Depot, I had a hankering to leave. And once I get the hankering, it's hard to shake. I had to leave immediately. I stood up with my purse, quietly hoping no one would take much notice, but no such luck. My friends directly called me out on my disappearing attempt so I tried to quell them, "I'm just going to the bathroom guys. See? I'll leave my beer and koozie here. I'll be right back." And snuck off into the night. Directly after my departure, and from what my friends told me later, Best Friend Bo appeared, inquiring as to my whereabouts. Our mutual friends assured him, "She just went inside. See? She left her koozie here."

Bo scoffed, "That's not Brynnan's good koozie. That's a disposable koozie. She's gone."

He knows me so well.

Another once upon a time at Donn's, two of my favorite old time regulars, Winker and David Allen, were getting fairly tipsy on one side of me, while two of my younger male friends were getting also rather tipsy on the other side of me. David Allen pronounced, loudly and in slurs, "You gotta make a decision, honey! Which one is it gonna be!?" And while I thought that he was referring to my male companions to my left, I said hastily, "Oh, no D.A., I have very little interest in these two clowns."

DA: "No. What's it gonna be? Me? Or Winker? You gotta decide. You can't have both."

Winker (with drunken, embarrassed, 63-year-old laughter): "Yeah, sugar. Chose one or the other!"

Me (with pleading eyes at the bartender): "umm..."

DA (slyly, steadily) : "I gotta lotta... grated cheese... at home."

Winker: "I can lick my eyelid."

DA (loudly now, standing, still drunk): "I fought for your freedom in the war!"

Winker: "Well, you can't beat that."

Me... Houdini.

I used to have to watch "CatDog" with my little sister.

I like cats better than dogs. Cats are assholes. And lazy. And really fun to torture. You can put duct tape on their front legs and watch them do the-floor-is-hot dance, or you can apply peanut butter to their nose and watch them freak out in hopes of cleaning it off. My favorite is Cat in a Bag. I used to put my Shop Kitty in a laundry bag, kind of gently swing it back and forth and threaten the kitty that I was going to throw him in the bottom of the river. All the while singing a little tune I made up called "cat in a bag at the bottom of the river." It's a Whaley Family classic now.

It's not fair that people can say they hate cats but you're hard pressed to find the asshole who's man enough to say she hates dogs. Well... I don't care for dogs. Inside dogs that is. Where I'm from, a dog lives, breaths, sleeps, eats and stays outside. No questions asked. If you see the dog inside the house, you gasp in horror and run and hide so you don't get blamed for it. And I didn't know that people physically paid money for mutts until I moved to Austin. I overheard someone say they wanted a wienerschnitzel or some such half breed as that and that they were willing to pay, oh, I don't know, $500 bucks for this pooch.

Me: Meeehhhhrrrr? Errrr, heeeeh?!? A-say a-say, whaaaaa? You want to PAY MONEY for that dog? Five hundred big ones? For that stupid little dog? I don't understand.

And I still don't. If you want a new dog in the country, you go over to your friend's house and ask when their dog is having puppies. But mostly you just kind of come into a dog in the country. People love dumping animals in the country, so you just go outside and there's probably a dog already there and then, poof, you have a new pet. And you probably just will call him Puppy or Dog or something really clever like that.

And when the dog gets ill, you don't take it to the vet to pay him (!?) to put the thing down, you call your Cousin Jeff to come out and shoot the dog and put him out of his misery, as well as save you from spending hundreds of dollars in bills ON A DOG.

When I was a young pup myself, we had this family dog that was pretty much the end all be all of canines. He was a black lab, beautiful, smart, and really something. Pa taught the dog how to track deer that had been shot out in the woods and retrieve them if they had been wounded and lost, saving the deer from dying a slow and miserable death all the while pleasing the hunter with the finding of his kill. Dad would come home looking like he had been attacked by a bear because Tracker would pull him through briars and fences and he had to keep ahold of the leash lest he lose Tracker and the deer. Tracker found many a deer out in Hamilton County. He also got shot accidentally in the neck once, helped us raise four raccoons and would sit in the garage and listen to Dad as he worked. Raddest dog ever.

And then Tracker got sick and started seizing one morning, and as upset as we all were, Dad called his sister's husband to come over and shoot our family dog. My sister, mother and I waited in the house when we heard the shot, me crying over my cereal bowl.

I don't think I started this blog with intentions of chastising anyone with dogs, or anyone who pays any given amount for the purchase or health of their dog, it just kind of spun out of control. Dogs are sometimes okay and you can do with them what you please. As long as your dog doesn't lick my face. Their butt-licking tongues on human faces? You have got to be kidding me.

The real point is that I love torturing cats. Torture is a harsh word. Teasing cats for my enjoyment is more like it. Right before this blog, my roommate's cat wanted outside and I knew she wanted out, but instead of letting her out, I put a blanket on top of her and then opened the door. She could smell the rain and out of doors just a few steps in front of her, but she couldn't reach it (what with the blanket over her). And I laughed. Out loud. For a good two minutes. By myself.

And then there's this.

See? Cats are assholes. Love 'em.