Some butterflies may be dead, but I am not

It's been a busy June over here in Zoo town. For one, I've moved out of the house where I was house-sitting. I've struggled with the wording to that sentence. Did I move out of the house I was sitting? Or did I move out of the house I sat? Both of those sound incredibly strange, so I moved out of the house I was house-sitting and into a room -- yes, a room -- in a house across town. As I've said before, this is not where I wanted to be at this point in my life, but I took a big-ass pay cut to come here, so this is all my doing. Damn my doing.

Things at my new museum are q-u-i-e-t. It's very different from the Nature Center -- and I'm not just talking about the sudden absence of toad urine from my life. Everyone I work with is in their 60s or older, we have very few kids visiting (hence, they hired me), and, oh yeah, I'm supposed to teach people about local history now. Needless to say, history is a tougher sell than snakes, alligators, toads, oh my.

The most exciting thing going on at work is that the woman who I replaced -- who was fired a year ago -- is suing us and everyone is giving their witness interviews this week. She has no case -- which is one of the reasons three lawyers have quit on her -- but she also has no life, and so the case persists. I wouldn't put it past her to walk in the museum with a gun one of these days. However, that would be the most proactive thing she's ever done regarding the museum (can you tell I'm worn out from cleaning up her messes?).

I've got to cut this short as I have to go on over to Lepidoptera Lady and copy and paste my posts into a Word document. So that I may print my blog and frame it for all posterity? No, not so much. I'm going to try to cobble together a 5-10 page sample "manuscript" for my application to an environmental writing institute that will be held at the U in the fall. Sharman Apt Russell, author of An Obsession with Butterflies (also goes by the subtitle: "The Book that Changed BPW's Life"), is leading the institute, so I have to get in.

So, I hope that things settle down enough one of these days so that I can write a proper post and let you know all about my agoraphobia and other fun things. However, the weather is FINALLY warm, so that day may be a long time coming. In the meantime, I ask you this:

Ted: Why do you know so much about Meat Loaf? I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed.

Lily B: Your husband downloaded the long version and made you listen to it? Does he not like you? (and, yes, Hemingway's lack of punctuation is plenty reason not to like him. In fact, The Old Man and the Sea is plenty reason not to like him)

JMB: Not so much a question, but, hey, July 5 is next week! Woo hoo!

Did anybody know this?

Meat Loaf's "I Will Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" clocks in at an astonishing 11 minutes, 54 seconds. I had no idea.

(Toe Sucker recently directed me to "fan radio" on Yahoo Music; I am currently on the Journey fan channel. That Meat Loaf song came on and it seemed to go on for hours. In the time it played, I ate lunch, sent some emails, made plans for moving, played with my split ends...that is a really, really long song.)

Okay, now go find out why I wore a lampshade Friday night.

Just a typical Friday night in Missoula, wearing a lampshade on my head

Friday really kicked off the weekend in a semi-specactular way. Wait -- let me rewind to Wednesday, when I received an email from my Purple People-Eater friend in the photo. Her crazy (no, really -- she's nutty) neighbor roped her into modeling in support of an art auction benefiting Living Art, a nonprofit that tries to improve the quality of life for those facing illness and loss through creative expression. The auction would be featuring unique, artsy lamps and mirrors. The models would be a kind of walking advertisement for the show, parading around the preview area dressed in fun outfits and evening wear...and wearing lampshades for hats.

When my good friend Barney the Purple Dinosaur sent an email looking for others to join her and her shady ways, I, of course, had to say yes. Not only was I getting to wear a lampshade for a good cause -- and not just a drunk cause -- I would get to wear evening wear, possibly from the collection of Crazy Neighbor. The purple dress on my friend? A highlight of Crazy Neighbor's collection.

Crazy Neighbor (or CN, for short) is an older lady, probably in her 70s, who lives in the apartment above my friend and shares an entryway with her. CN has loads of stuff on their front stoop...a small wooden rocking chair, wreaths, old magazines, tables, shelves, an altar of sorts. Since she leaves her front door open most of the time, I had previously been able to get a peek at the stairs leading up to the apartment. Like the entryway, her stairwell was just cluttered with stuff, random, random stuff.

Wednesday afternoon, I went upstairs with my friend, two other neighbors who were participating in the lampshade escapade, and CN herself so that we all could select outfits for the Friday night event. What I saw at the top of the stairs was not to be believed. It was seriously the most surreal experience of my life. If I tried to describe in detail what I saw, you would not believe me. For once, I'm not overstating my claims: CN's apartment was pretty freaking weird.

We're pretty sure CN has that compulsive hoarding disease. For one, she's seen all over town carrying bags back from Goodwill, weekly, if not daily. For another, holy crap -- her apartment is about to explode at the seams! Everywhere you look, there are old Barbies, shoes, hats, dresses, scarves, candleholders, more dresses, beads, plastic lizards, lampshades -- and, oh my god, is that an entire 6-foot-long rack of clothing in the center of the kitchen? -- glassware, clocks, coats, gloves -- just total sensory overload. No exaggeration: she had an 18-inch wide aisle in her living room in order to navigate amongst the stuff; otherwise, the stuff was piled to the ceiling.

So, that was weird enough. Adding to the bizarre atmosphere of our "shopping" expedition in CN's apartment was the couple we were with, who, to be fair, are a typical Missoula couple. I mean, what woman in Missoula doesn't know her husband's dress size and women's shoe size?

Anyway, my purple friend definitely got the prize among the dresses available to us. I tried on one of CN's dresses -- a tight, short, sequined purple number with a scooped back -- but I just looked like a prostitute, which really wasn't the look I wanted to go for. Luckily, I remembered where I put my fringed dress and satin gloves, last worn on Halloween 2000. For some reason, I packed those in a very accessible place when I moved; I was just dying to have a reason to wear them again, I suppose.

One of purple friend's joined us Friday evening -- in a lovely gold dress that made her look like an Oscar wearing an itty-bitty lampshade hat -- and we stood around the preview area Friday night, making small talk with people who were there to preview the auction. After a bit, we moved out onto the street, where we had a number of pictures taken of us by complete strangers. It was a really nice time -- people were happy to see us and curious about why we were wearing lampshades, which got them into the auction preview area. Of course, one snotty little group did make a snide comment when they were passing us: "I thought they were drag queens!" Drag queens wish they could look as good as us, buddy.

The strangest part of the experience for me was the fact that we were stone-cold sober. Who wears a lampshade sober?

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And to completely change gears...the comments section here has been all wonky for me this week, preventing me from posting a reply to y'all's comments. I don't have anything huge to say, just that I think we should start an Anti Catcher in the Rye Society; I, too, think it is one of the most overrated books out there. I think that one irritates me most when it's named as someone's favorite book (celebrities are often guilty of this; perhaps they identify with Holden's self-absorption?); I have yet to find any redeeming qualities in it.

I, too, have re-read some high school books as an adult and discovered that I actually like them (rather than just feigning affection to please a teacher). The list is a short one since I'm not much of a fiction person to begin with -- The Awakening, The Great Gatsby, and, my favorite, Heart of Darkness. You know what's not on there? Hemingway, in any way, shape, or form. Gah. Another Esteemed American Author I cannot bear.

Speaking of high school books, what high school class reads Lolita?!? What is that in-class discussion like??? You know what else Nabokov wrote about? Butterflies -- something I should do one of these days. He even got a species of blue named after him. There aren't any insects named after me. :( One day, one day...

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P.S. to JMB -- I've been meaning to ask for the longest time about Spring Fest -- how was it? Had you been to Live Oak before? Did you camp? My exboyfriends used to go to Magnolia Fest together every year -- that's where they discovered Seth -- but they couldn't ever go to Spring Fest because it was smack in the middle of tourist season (same for me). Tell your brother-in-law that he needs to play Western Montana!