Okay, in compliance with Ms. Polar B's Friday Directive from a week or so ago, I am posting my Friday Facts. I'm either a day late, or several days early...it's hard to tell when you live on "Beach Time"! :)

1. My favorite food is seafood, especially steamed shrimp, crabs, and lobster tail.  Toss it around in Old Bay seasoning, dip it in butter, and it's pure Six Nirvana. To me, frying seafood is blasphemy! :) I am not much of a meat eater.

2. Some of my favorite movies are "Shakespeare in Love", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Sabrina", and "Top Gun".  Obviously, I dig The Queen's English, geeks, ugly duckling love stories, and military dudes.

3.  I have a tattoo across my lower back of a red heart with black tribal wings, and my navel is pierced with a diamond stud.  I'm wanting another heart tattoo in the near future.

4. Not surprisingly then, my favorite television show is "Inked" and "Miami Ink" whenever I can find them on.  I love watching Comedy Central and MTV2 (when they actually have music videos playing)  Okay, I like Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" too... but PLEASE don't make me watch "The Bachelor"!!!

5. My "Achilles' Heel" would be guitarists with long hair and tattos... and Marines in "anything". ;)

6. If having the talent was a given, and I could be anything I wanted, I'd have to be the "front woman" of some rockin' metal band.  Until then, I'll just stay working at the surgery office!

-Six :)

              

"Please excuse Six for missing school last week...."

About this time each year, I wonder why I have never bought stock in the Kleenex corporation. In the last week alone, I have gone thru at least 3 boxes of tissues at work, and a similar number at home. Make mine the type with aloe, please. Nevertheless, I've got that oh-so-attractive Rudolph nose thang goin' on. Add to that my sore throat and new-found "sexy" flu voice, and I coulda got my own 1-900 number rolling for a week's stint and racked in some healthy buckage.  Not that any masculine caller could have seen me in my jammies and my "I don't feel good" poinytail, anyway... but that "voice" coulda earned Momma a new pair of shoes or five, and a couple dozen new CD's for her collection, baby! :)

Alas, I have been too wiped out by the end of the day to persue said entrepreneurial endeavor. [Note to self: check into that when feeling better] Thank goodness for the Clear Your Stuffy Head So You Can Rest Medicine Which Will Totally Knock You Out At Night! I have been taking care of myself and going to bed at a modest hour (the likes of which I've not seen since I was about 10 years old) in order to conquer the common cold. And I am definitely winning this battle!

 

Okay, okay... so maybe I have been a little slack in my Exec VP duties over at The New Residencia Newspaper. According to Editor IC Mann, I apparently only worked 23 minutes total last week at his Rag, and he has put up a reward of $40,000 for anyone who can submit photographic evidence that I'm actually "working." :) HA! See above!

"ONLY" 23 minutes? Well, what with Dazey having recently been hired in the VP office across the hall from me, and all the shopping we need to do (January is a great month for sales!), and then there's all the PR work I have been doing in the Islands and other tropical beach locales to promote this Rag...not to mention all the rock bands I need to schmooze with... a girl only has so many hours in her day!

Alas, I do feel slightly guilty. And I would really like to make it up to Editor IC Mann by hitting the streets and landing an exclusive interview, which would catapult this Rag over the top in sales... ahead, even, of the Terra Haute Tattler-Picayune!! No easy feat there, I might add!

However, it is freezing outside this evening, and I wouldn't wanna ruin my shoes in the sleet... and there is an interview on Rockline on the radio tonight with Seether about the Sno-Core Tour I don't wanna miss... and I am waiting on Dominos to deliver a thin crust pepperoni pizza in about 30 minutes from now... and I really did want to watch the latest episode of Nip/Tuck...

Well, to show The Editor I'm a hard worker... I caught up with myself and decided to ask me some hard-hitting, tough questions, on par with the best reporting ever at The New Residencia. At first I was a bit wary, however, that I might be a victim of some kind of personal bias or spin on answers I gave myself... but then I was assured by me that my professional integrety is above reproach, and I should feel to be open with myself. (Okay now, Abe Lincoln understood exactly what I said. BTW, do we have any more of that "special" NR coffee brewing around here?)

ME: Hello, Six! What up tonight?
MYSELF: Not much, just waiting for Dominos to bring my pizza.
ME: We already saw your more serious "Truths" post... can I ask you questions with more levity?
MYSELF: Sure, bring it!
ME: Right on. (sipping special NR coffee) So, do you have any cool scars?
MYSELF: Why, yes I do! (pointing to left knee) This zipper on my knee cap is from the ACL surgery I had in Y2K after blowing it out in a volleyball game.
ME: Ouch, that hurt! Speaking of pain...got any tattoos?
MYSELF: Yeah, but it's kinda personal.
ME: Come on... I see you nekkid every day.
MYSELF: Then I guess you know what it is and where it is, now dontcha?
ME: Good point. Ever been anywhere exciting?
MYSELF: I lived in Wales for 2 years in the 80's, and have done the whole "UK Tour", as well as Ireland. Went to Paris once, the Bahamas, and Alaska. The French suck, by the way.
ME: What's the craziest thing you've ever done in your travels?
MYSELF: Oh my! (blushing) I got pretty uninhibited those two weeks in Alaska during the summer of 2003. I spent more than one day "butt nekkid" on a beach in Cook Inlet (it did get almost 70 degrees). The other things are between me and Abe Lincoln, and that's all I got to say about that!
ME: I hear crops grow pretty big in Alaska.
MYSELF: ;) No comment.
ME: What do you dream about?
MYSELF: Well, if it's a bad dream, it always seems to feature snakes, zombies, or tornados. If it's a good dream, it seems to feature musicians I've known or would like to know.
ME: What about if it were Rob Zombie playing the guitar?
MYSELF: Um, no. He makes some pretty freaky movies though, and that will give you nightmares.
ME: What were your favorite toys growing up?
MYSELF: My "Etch-A-Sketch" and my Barbies. In my world, Barbie loved GI Joe, btw, and not Ken.
ME: I can dig it. BTW, have you heard from your Marine friend James in Iraq lately, and when is he coming home?
MYSELF: He wrote me yesterday that he was extended for about 10 more days, unfortunately. He was supposed to have come back home last weekend. Darn it!
ME: Yeah, dammit all. So, what kinda car do you drive?
MYSELF: I have a cute lil Toyota Tacoma 4WD chick-truck. Great to take to the beach and drive in the sand.
ME: Yeah, I've been to those beach parties of yours....
MYSELF: Shhhh!! ;)
ME: What's your favorite color?
MYSELF: I would say black, white, and....jeans.
ME: Currently attached?
MYSELF: Nope, but sifting thru a handful of gig applications at the moment.
ME: If you could have one of Dazey's coupons, what would you get?
MYSELF: My coupon would eliminate the ability for humans to be violent.
ME: Right on....

DING DONG!!! Get the door.... It's Dominos!!
Abe... get us some more o' that coffee, would ya?

The Six Truths of Six

One: Becoming a mom was the best thing I have ever done. I have loved every minute of this journey thru parenthood, good times and bad, laughter and tears. I would not trade this experience for the world. Becoming a single mom seven years ago forced me to get my priorities straight. When you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders by yourself, you quickly learn what is important in life, and what isn't so important. I went from a borderline "Type-A Personality" to the opposite laid-back extreme, which I refer to as the "Type-D" I am now.

Two: Mother-Father God answers prayers, and will speak the truth to you in the way that YOU best understand, if you are open to receiving your answer. Those epiphany moments could be an Angel in the form of a stranger on the street who tells you something and then seems to "vanish"; or a song on the radio which suddenly speaks to you out of nowhere and tells you what you need to know; or spiritually being "hit over the head" and shown the answer so that you will finally "get it" in a tough-love fashion to spare you further hurt later on... Be still, and you will know.

Three: I am ever the optimist, and I will never say NEVER! My motto is "anything can happen!" If I keep focusing on doors behind me which have closed, I will certainly miss the doors ahead of me which could be opening. Yes, anything can happen... and usually does!

Four: The greatests lessons I've learned have always been the hardest, and graced with tears of sadness and pain. There are no crib notes or shortcuts in the syllabus, unfortunately.

Five: Nothing on earth is sweeter than love, and will bring the highest highs, and the lowest lows. The Buddhists say that our hearts are meant to be broken at least once, because that is how they truly open. (I believe I've more than met my quota on that one.)

Six: I try to be ever mindful of the karma I create, and periodically check my ticket. When that karma train pulls into the station, it's better to be a thru-passenger to a rewarding destination than to have the conductor look you dead in the eye and announce: "this is YOUR exit". The darkness can be as seductive as the light, so I try to keep my spiritual flashlight with me!

-Six

My daily email from the war zone in Ramadi, Iraq arrived a little later than usual today. It was uncharacteristically short, and a bit startling to me.

"Crazy day here today. Check out the news. I'm okay. - James"

Marine 1st LT James has been my email buddy since receiving the care package and card I sent randomly to "Any Marine" in Iraq last October. While his platoon is out of Camp Lejeune, NC, he is originally from northern Virginia. Either he was the biggest bad-ass at the time my package arrived, or my southeastern Virginia return address on the package gave him first dibs. Either way works for me! :)

We have been emailing nearly daily since that time, and I don't know who digs it more: me hearing about a Marine's life and thoughts during the war, or him hearing about the everyday, often mundane happenings back home in the Red, White, and Blue which is my life. We have developed a sort of bond over the months of correspondence, I do admit.

James has been in the USMC for ten years and has been happy to serve his country. He talks about the irony of war being both boring with each day seeming like another scene out of the movie "Ground Hog Day", mixed with knowing that a mortar could fall out of the sky on his building, and any moment could be his last. But I've never worried about James over there in that land with the Devil's Rejects. His attitude is exquisitely hardened and he is focused on the mission he is there to do...and yeah, he IS a bad-ass Marine. I'm proud to know him.

His eleven word email today did concern me, though. He's got less than two weeks left before his one-year tour of Iraq comes to an end. The events of today with 100+ civilians killed and 10 US troops happened immediately outside his camp.

Too close to his Iraqi barracks...

...too close to coming home for good, and the date I told him I'd be honored to go on, should he ever pass thru my part of Virginia.

Stay safe, James!