Random Thursday Thoughts

I'm going to wait to post the results of the Johari Window until more peeps click over. Come on, it's fun. One observation so far...according to you all, I'm both nervous and relaxed. Interesting! I would say you're both right. Nervous in person; relaxed on the radio. I guess I'm less afraid of microphones than I am of people looking at me. That's some good pondering material.

Speaking of nervous, for the past two or three months I've been waking up almost startled. My eyes fly open and I jump out of bed like someone shot me out of a cannon. It feels like I'm flying around on a broom while I'm brushing my teeth, pouring coffee, motoring around the internet. And the feeling lasts....well, it never really goes away. It's all book-related I'm sure. I know I'm called to put myself out there, but actually doing it is another matter entirely. I'm fear-driven much of the time. I don't want to drop the ball with my book, my radio job, the laundry, and the list goes on. Angela remarked to our friend Kim last night that this insatiable drive is a gift, but at times I feel like it's more of a curse. Sure, I'll get farther with the a cannon blasting me in the butt, but the force can wear on a gal. It's like there is a little hamster inside me who spins and spins on his little wheel and won't ever take a breather. Maybe that's why my bottom three ribs tickle at times. I thought it was Josh Groban's voice. But I digress.

I spent an hour on the phone with HP support this morning because none of the icons on my desktop would respond to the clicking. Despite having virus protection, a virus snuck in and I had to delete my user account and re-create it. That didn't ease my stress. But at least the support tech spoke in a language I could understand. He was nice.

I ate a delicious Walmart Supercenter peach yesterday. It wasn't even a Central Market peach and it was juicy and delicious.

I decided not to work out today because I spent an hour on the phone with HP.

I'm in love with the Antigone Rising CD and I sent all of them friend requests on myspace. I have also vowed never to call them Auntee Gone Rising ever again. I finally watched the VH1 special and realized it's An Tig Uh Knee Rising and that I am an idiot. I had only seen their name in print until yesterday, but now I know. I love them just the same. They remind me of Austin and they make me want to go buy clothes at the Salvation Army.

You all are my best friends and I love you very much. That is all.

Interactive Johari Window

Have you seen this before? I love learning about personality traits--my own and those of others. What makes us tick.

If you can spare thirty seconds, click on this link and select the 5 or 6 words you think describe me. I'll post the results tomorrow. Luckily, paranoid stressed out freak is not one of the choices!

http://kevan.org/johari?name=jenaustin

If you get a window of your own, let me know. I'll be happy to click.

Me and a Hall of Famer!

I did a Mix 102.9 appearance at Verizon Wireless in Fort Worth today and I got to meet Rayfield Wright! He used to play for the Cowboys and was just inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August. I watched every minute of that induction ceremony and got goose flesh during his speech. He's amazingly talented, spiritual, and the type of man that I'll teach our kids to become someday. He has succeeded against the odds and I have the utmost respect and admiration for him.

If it had been some cute pelvic-thrusting pop star signing autographs I would have kept my distance and my mind probably would have wandered to our grocery list. But this was a real live NFL star! I was giddy!

I'm a bit bothered by my angelic glow in the picture. It's not angelic. It's ghostly. I hate flourescent lights. They do nothing for my pasteyness. But I love me some Rayfield! The Mix co-worker who took the picture said the glow was the fault of the camera, the white signs, and the lights. So there.

If my ingenious webmaster/graphics girl can edit this photo to make it look like I'm a normal human being, Angela and I are going to frame it and put it upstairs in the game room right next to my beloved Peyton Manning. Rayfield rocks!

The Office Season Premiere

Roy's mugshot, courtesy NBC










Jenna Fischer at the Emmys







I was laughing so hard I almost needed an apendectomy! That was some good TV. Yes, we have TV in the studio and I snuck a peak during the show. We have to stay in the know, you know.

Jenna Fischer is my friend on myspace and we have a really tight relationship. The kind where I leave a psycho fan comment ocassionally and she never even clicks over to look at my page and continues to go about her superstar, popular, hilarious-hit-show business. It's very fulfilling.

I wish I could remember all the great lines. Like Michael's, "I don't care if you're gay, straight, a lesbian, or... overweight! Everybody in the conference room now!" Way to take charge, ya big stud! Ha!

I Tivoed it at home and can't wait to watch it again. I want the whole episode to be my ringtone!

The shorts to jeans transition

I'm lucky. I don't have to get dressed up to go to work, so I'm always in jeans or shorts. If I have an important meeting I might put on some black slacks, but otherwise it's all about the comfies. And the studio has its own thermostat, so if I get too chilly in shorts I can always boost it a little and be just fine. That is, until I go out into the hallway, where I swear they keep it at 55. It's like Letterman cold. I'm surprised I don't turn into a thunderstorm when I walk out there sometimes.

I'm finding it kinda tough to make the shorts to jeans transition this fall, but I think I finally did it for real today. I didn't just go to jeans and sandals; I went to jeans, socks, and SHOES! I surprised myself so much I decided to take a picture. I forgot how comfy these Keens are.

Fall rocks!

Pink is out as Janis Joplin

I want more Pink. I really dig Pink's sound, and I wish she had a big, fun hit on the radio right now. I just read that she had been working on a Janis Joplin movie, but due to scheduling conflicts (that's what they all say), she has been replaced with Zooey Deschanel. I don't even know who that is. I'm sure Zooey is great, but I doubt if she'll rock as much as Pink rocks.

I see Pink once a week doing the intro to Sunday Night Football on NBC and that makes me happy, but it doesn't really give me enough of a Pink fix. I do love that she's part of my football obsession though.

There is another Janis Joplin movie in the works at the same time, which I really don't get. We've gone all this time without a big Janis blockbuster, and suddenly there are two. That said, I'm sure I'll make it a point to watch both. We named our band in Austin after Janis' alter-ego, Pearl and I've always felt some strange connection with her. (We were Shades of Pearl, but we sounded nothing like Janis, unfortunately.) Maybe I've always wanted to feel a connection with Janis because she was seemingly able to let go so easily, and I have a heap of trouble doing that. But I digress. Why don't they cast Melissa Etheridge in these movies? Is that too obvious after she nailed A Piece of My Heart on the Grammys a couple of years ago? Tammy has twins on the way anyway, so she probably has other things to worry about.

Back to Googling Pink. Hey, now there's a band name...

My weekend stress relievers

I woke up this morning and felt like someone had shot me straight out of a nervous cannon. I've had major anxiety all day, and I can't really put my finger on why.

Some if it is book stress I think. I've created a whole 'nother job for myself! I started writing because I love to write, and I ended up writing a book because I had a lot to say. But what is happening now that the book has been published is another beast entirely. The book is personal, so any acceptance or rejection of it feels extremely personal. It's been largely accepted in the places that I've pointed it....everything is just magnified a hundred times. Amazon.com listed it today. But without cover art, so anytime it comes up it's just text and the dreaded "no image available." Pooey. I still have to upload the cover art, and I have to jump through several hoops in order to do that. At least I'll get my exercise.

The weekend was fantastic. I deemed myself the queen of the day yesterday since it was my birthday. I got to eat whatever I wanted (mostly spinach dip and cheese), wear whatever I wanted (my Peyton Manning jersey), and do whatever I wanted (watch football and lounge with Angela). No yard work, no treadmill, and no internet. For the most part anyway. It's hard to spend a whole day offline.

Saturday night we had a few friends over to the house for girl talk. And to watch my Huskers lose against USC, dang it. But it was still good fun. We watched the game, ate a ton, and played pool, and then hung out in the backyard until our anal retentive neighbor squashed our fun. (Not you Oliver! We love you!) We weren't all that loud, but this neighbor would really like to control every bit of her earthly surroundings, and we were slightly infringing upon her beloved territory. I see that in her because I'm a bit of a control freak myself. And I'm extremely bothered by her because I'm bothered by this in myself. I'm plenty aware. But it still made me mad that even on my birthday it was all about her. I'm going to withhold the good-neighbor wave from now on.

I don't think my friends realized on Saturday night how much I needed to be around them. This is probably the most stressed out I've ever been. Well, no that's not true. I've been way stressed plenty of other times. But, this is a time when I really need to laugh and have fun with the people I care about, and appreciate them as an outlet. Angela provides this type of stress relief for me all the time, but even she needs a break sometimes. :-) So thanks, friends.

Tonight I'll try not to curl up inside the nervous cannon when I'm finally ready to go to sleep. That could be part of the problem. I'll try to find the fancy-free cannon instead. Do they have those at Sleep Experts?

Birthday weekends are the best

Well, as much as my Virgo-ness drives me insane at times, when September 17th rolls around, it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy and special inside. I've always loved the number 17, and I wonder if it's just because it's my birthday. If I had been born on the 1st, perhaps that would be one of my favorite numbers. I doubt it. One is just a hard number to love. It's not pretty and it's lonely. I wonder these things. Anyway, 17 it is. If I were an NFL quarterback, I would have it on my jersey.

The Colts are playing the Texans on Sunday, so I'll get to watch a Colts win for sure! The Cowboys...who knows. They play the Redskins and it will all depend upon Drew Bledsoe's ability to quit laying interception-laced eggs. Romo! Romo! Romo! That's what I want for my birthday Mr. Parcells. The future is now.

I'm going to eat a lot of cheese on Sunday. I would rather have birthday cheese than a birthday cake. A block of cheese is harder to put candles in (not to mention it would likely melt, especially with the relative bonfire someone my age would require), but it's extremely tastey and the calories are less empty. What kind of cheese? I have a hard time turning down cheddar, but colby jack is nice too. Perhaps we'll go to Central Market and get some fresh mozzarella and put it on garlic Triscuits with sundried tomatoes and fresh basil. And a candle!

I'm just happy I've lived this long. Must be the cheese.

Teeth-whitening experience gone awry

I've started to use my teeth-whitening gear again. I haven't whitened my teeth since last fall, but when I was in Nebraska last week my parents were whitening their teeth, so I thought it was time to get crackin' again! They inspired me.

The problem is, it's been so long since I've been through the teeth-whitening process, I semi-forgot how to do it. I can only leave this stuff on for 15 minutes because it's nuclear-powered and will turn one's teeth to dust if it has enough time. Or something like that. But I stuck to 15 minutes yesterday and I did the stabilizing rinse afterward as instructed. However, I forgot to follow up with the brush! I should have put some Colgate on some bristles and worked on getting the deadly solution plum off. Instead, last night while I was on the air, I noticed that my teeth felt kinda foamy and that they had a really slick feeling. The bleach was still bubbling! No wonder I was feeling a sensitivity zing each time I took a breath. Once I realized I had forgotten to brush, I immediately had all sorts of visions of my teeth turning to dust piles, or at the very least causing so much pain that I would have to turn mute. I went to my locker and found a toothbrush, and went to the bathroom and scrubbed away. So far, thankfully, my teeth are intact.

The best news is, I was able to drink my coffee this morning without any severe hot-drink consequences. That would have been bad. So I think I survived relatively unscathed! Whew! And now perhaps I won't have to whiten my teeth for another year. Hmm...there's an idea...

9 11

I never know exactly how to feel on the anniversary of 9 11. If I feel thankful for my life, health, my family, etc., I feel guilty when I think of those who were robbed. If I focus on those who lost their lives, I realize that dwelling solves nothing, and it's better to move on and help the world keep spinning. I suppose that's the dilemma we'll always be stuck with on this date.

On 9 11 five years ago, I was doing my last morning show for the 80's station in Austin when the first planes hit. It was a frenzy of information gathering once my co-host and I realized what was happening, and since we were covering the story on the fly we were feeling the shock and raw emotion at the same time the world was feeling it. My voice cracked more than once as I was delivering the news. Several co-workers and I huddled around the TV most of the morning, and we went through more than one box of kleenex together.

At one point my cell phone rang and it was my mom who said, "Are you sure you want to drive to Dallas this afternoon?" I had to start my traffic-reporting job on the morning of the 12th, and I had planned to leave Austin the afternoon of the 11th. No one really knew if that attacks were over at that point, so every movement was wrapped in a little bit of fear and uncertainty.

I did drive to Dallas that afternoon, and I've been here ever since. Angela couldn't come to Dallas until late-October of that year, because someone had to stay in Austin and tie up the loose ends with our house, etc. So the weeks following 9 11 for were lonely and scary in more ways than one. My paranoia didn't help much. Every time I got the mail I worried about anthrax, and every time I entered a tall building I wondered if it might crumble. I guess in that way, the terrorists succeeded.

I don't suppose there will be any resolution on this 5th anniversary of 9 11, but at least the communication today will prove that no one has forgotten. 90,000 flags will be waved in the stadium tonight at the Redskins/Vikings game, and fighter jets will flyover the second game of the Monday night doubleheader in Oakland. (Flyovers give me goosebumps, but the actual fighting thing is another matter enitrely. Hurray for flyovers.) Tony and Cappy did their own tribute today. There are lots of ways to acknowledge what happened five years ago. There's no point in dwelling of course, but it's healthy to remember.

On that note, have a great day! There's power in that too.

A few vacation photos

Nenny, Jada, and Harry.

Jada LOVED her some Harry. She wanted to hold him constantly, so I always made her hold him on my lap to increase the bonding time.












Angela and Ciara (Cici). Go Big Red!












The patio at my parents' house. Family everywhere! There were 7 kids and 12 adults at the house that day; it was nutty. The oldest kid was 6. The rest were 4 or under. It was a chorus of crys at times!









This is the blonde section of the family. We're nearly always outnumbered by the brunettes.

Back from vacation

We spent the past several days in Nebraska visting family and we just got back earlier this evening. This time last night, I was crying my eyes out over having to leave my little 3-year old niece Jada. We became best pals when my sister lived just down the street from us here in Texas, and our visits now are few and far between so it's rough saying goodbye. They moved back to Nebraska to be near family about a year ago.

I thought I was going to be fine last night, but once it came time to give my sister and both of her girls a hug goodbye, I lost it. I tried to hide out in the bathroom once I knew the floodgates had opened, but after a few minutes Jada came wandering into the bathroom to check on me, and started rattling off story after story (each of which lasted about fifteen seconds). No point in getting too caught up in the depth of just one I suppose. She knew I was upset, so she tried to do her best to entertain me and set my mind on something else.

Jada has this habit of projecting her own little feelings onto her sister Ciara, whom we all call Cici, and smack in the middle of one of her stories (as I was sniffling and looking at her through bloodshot eyes), she said, "You know Nenny, Cici REALLY does love you." Ahhhhh! I'm tearing up just thinking about it again. But that little sentence will stick with me for the rest of my life.

I'll post vacation pics as soon as I get the chance. There were lots of other people around besides Jada! She's the one that melted me though. Aunt Nenny is a big pile of goo I tell ya.