The neighbors downstairs are thinking, wow, how about that huge poundy rock they keep dropping on the floor up there over and over again? But no, it’s just Marty, cracking open another coconut.

For me.

With his machete.

Am I wrong to suspect this is too much fun for him?

Filing this under “things that don’t fit in Twitter”...

I visited my parents in Youngstown at the beginning of October, and practiced Shiva Nata every day on the huge porch surrounded by gorgeous living trees and bugs and birds and cool, crisp air. There was a huge rainstorm the first few days, and it was amazing to practice on the porch with rain falling all around me. I didn’t use the DVD while I was there, but I made so much progress and got so much peace of mind.

I played with the dogs outside while Dad did his daily walk, and Otto—who last visit had a boot—now had a bucket. A really mangled, chewed-on bucket. It was a freaking riot. “Otto and his boot,” Marty says. “Otto and his myriad things that he has. Otto and his bucket. Otto and his mail-order bride.” Yes. Any day now.

I got a great raw “cook”-book (Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People) and made awesome raw recipes for my family most of the time I was there. Guacamole and romaine wraps and chard salad and raw chocolate cake and fresh vegetable lasagne, crazy! It was so delicious. Mom gave me a Christmas present—a great looking book on food that I had to leave there for now because it wouldn’t fit in my bag to come home!

I launched the fabulous blog of Pace and Kyeli. It was really exciting! (The Usual Error Project has launched, too. I talked about it all in my project blog!)

I sang a great program for the Niles Gymanfa Ganu Association and hugely enjoyed seeing my friendly Welsh people again! The sun attacked my eyes, but I adjusted and all was well. (Geraint Wilkes was fabulous as ever, and the Shenango Valley Chorale sang fantastically!)

I successfully managed to videochat with Marty using iChat (we haven’t tried since he bought his new laptop!), but not until the last day of my trip. (Silly!) I had a revelation about parents and mindful purpose. I decided that I don’t want to fly anymore if I can avoid it (though I’m sure there will be exceptions).

And then I came home to my comfy red chair.

“Bruce is so fucking cool,” Marty says. “Look at Xena, all happy… and giggling. She totally wants to have sex with Bruce Campbell. Everybody wants to have sex with Bruce Campbell. Even I want to have sex with Bruce Campbell.”

And then he leans forward, fervent. “I love you Bruce,” he whispers passionately to the television.

I accuse, serious and sincere. “You have a boy-crush on Bruce Campbell,” I say to him.

“I do,” he admits, cheeks glowing.

It’s so sweet.

We’ve been talking about how he ought to for ages but there was always something else getting done. So, one day last week he came home from work with a half-finished doodle (if you can even call it a doodle) and it just looked like the most awesome idea for a shirt. I’ve been a big fan of Threadless for a long time, and with all the great work Marty’s been doing in the last few months, it would be insanely excellent for him to have a Threadless design go to press. Besides the fact that he’d be paid well for the work, it would mean really good quality tees with his artwork on them. Way better than CafePress! We have a lot of Threadless shirts already, and they are pretty damn comfy.

And so, if you would like to help, you could go to his design submission page, make a Threadless account, and rate his concept. Hell, you can even leave a comment. This won’t be the last image he submits, but for this to go well… it’s crazy not to try. And by the by, I’ve had a Threadless account for ages—they’ve never sent me any mail I didn’t ask for, so I trust that they’ll treat you likewise. It’s also a pretty fantastic community of nifty people, as far as that goes.

It will run for six more days, probably five by the end of tonight. At that point, they will choose the tees they want to print and that will be that. It will fill him with glee to be rated well and have lots of friends show up to help out. It will fill me with glee. And don’t you love a gleeful Megan? Doesn’t she make you just want to dance in fields of daisies, with bunnies? And baby pixies? And rainbows? That’s what I’m talking about. It would be awesome.

And, uh, it would help us pick up some groceries. Groceries are also awesome…

PS. He wrote a kind of amusing post about it on his website. It gave me happies.

PPS. I found some information about scoring and how winning shirts are chosen—take a look.

Marty just informed me that our guacamole / salsa / veggie chips / coca-cola binge totally counted as dinner because it contained all four food groups: Crunchy, squishy, chewy, and wet.

I can, in this case, think of some other things that would constitute dinner.

So where does that put the two quarts of Ben & Jerry’s?

Marty posted another doodle and mentioned our rollergirls game last night—smack in the middle of the third bout and all the power goes off. I used my phone to post, um, pictures in Flickr. (Not that you can see much.)

I admit I was kinda tired during the game, but not enough to want the power to go out!! And dude, it was a crazy game. I don’t remember any of the games this season being so rowdy right from the get-go—I think Special Ops (the Assassination City Derby all star team, from Dallas) is the best visiting team we’ve had so far, and they were hot. We had a group of folks right next to us hollering encouragement to Choko Ono. I guess they were Dallas people! Marty seemed to lean towards rooting for Hell Marys, and I seemed to lean towards rooting for Hot Rod Honeys, but we BOTH were rooting for Hustlers. It looked like Barbarella was having this kooky awesome night, narrowly avoiding disaster and grinning and playing a great game, and then something happened and she slid into the penalty chair head-first, ow. It looked like she’d hurt her hand instead of her head, which is probably good. They got rid of the penalty chair after that.

It was neat to sit in the dark and speculate about what the hell was going to happen, but ultimately we went home and it sounds like they might have a rematch. Kind of lame, to have such a wild game cut short. We all dashed to our cars in the pouring rain, rivers in the parking lot, absolutely soaking wet by the time we got home, ate pie, watched some TV. But other than the tromping through rainstorms part, it was an awesome evening.

Had some goofy dreams last night, but haven’t remembered them yet.

Watching The Pursuit of Happyness with Marty, I thought, This is the kind of movie where he will win, in the end. He has to. And other movies, I know I have thought, The end is going to be bad. And I will just have to sit here and take it.

But this one, I stay with it. No matter how many rotten, demoralizing things happen to him, he’s in that kind of movie. It will get worse and worse but in the end, it will all come together. It will be worth it. He will be lifted up, and so will we.

It’s not what’s going on now. It’s not what you’re going through now. It’s what kind of movie you’re in. I know what kind of movie I’m in. What kind of movie do you want to be in?

I’m pretty sure… we get to pick.