Friday, April 07, 2000

new updates to my tapelist!!!!
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 09:13:00 PM| link

thanks to sarah for this link. very nice. it really is the little things that make love work.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 07:27:01 PM| link

hmmmm...i wonder how many people are going to blast me for that last post? oh well. i guess i am just sick of people sueing cigarette companies because they got cancer, guns being blamed for the lack of parental guidance so prevalent in society, etc., etc., etc.

having the ability to stand up and say..."hey, i screwed up" shows strong character. too bad our society is showing our kids that it's ok to blame someone else for our errors.....geez.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 05:32:05 PM| link

web lampoon is running a daily cartoon that irks me. why is it that the nra is being blamed for the school shootings? sure, guns were involved. the fact remains that if you look at the guns used i would be willing to wager that most guns were obtained by illegal means. the guns really aren't the issue here....for pete's sake! i guess it angers me that people are so willing to blame an organization that has nothing to do with what makes kids kill....i guess it's easier than actually talking to our children and teaching them throughout their lives and guiding them and making them feel loved and important!

i grew up in a house with guns. my father and brother hunt...i don't, but i respect what they do. they give back to the wild as well. we didn't have locks on our guns, they weren't hidden away. we knew where they were and we knew....i repeat....we KNEW...what they could do. we respected that. they were left alone. people, we don't improve our world by hiding things away or tucking them out of site! guns are not a new creation....but the teen shooting phenomenon is, that should tell us something. we improve our future by teaching and preparing....we are truly failing our children and it makes me sick....i wish the world would stop placing blame where it doesn't belong and stand up and take responsibility for the failures we've caused. twenty years down the road we will have a group of very maladjusted kids running the world....sorry for the rant.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 05:26:24 PM| link

don't laugh. when i sit here during the day i turn on the tv to keep me company. i was just watching sally and this guy was on....amazing!!! he kept picking random people out of the audience and acting as a psychic medium, delivering them messages from loved ones on the other side. i really believe that he was legit. the audience seemed shocked.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 03:55:57 PM| link

i went to the c-store to pick up a personal pizza for lunch. while i waited for it to come out of the oven i admired the colorings done by some of the local children. the pictures were for an easter coloring contest and each one was labelled with the child's name, some had their ages.

the brightly colored bunny rabbits and easter eggs made me smile. i began to pay attention to the ages. the 2-3 year olds were mostly brightly colored scribbles. a few had determined a locale in order to place their markings and had invested a large amount of effort into their small chubby hands to make the crayola or marker find it's spot. some scribbled wherever and however they wanted.

in the 4-7 age group the "skill" was varied, but it was obvious that these were children aware of expectations. the older the child the more precise they were when they laid their color to paper. the bunny rabbits were white or brown. a few from younger talents were actually pink (i was always convinced that the easter bunny was purple). another 4 year old had a red bunny with blue stripes on its head....still another was rainbow striped in no particular sequence or style.

the 8-10 year old children had mastered their skill. many traced the borders to ensure there would be no spillage. there bunnies were white or brown and the sky was always blue. they had learned the art of coloring.any teacher or parent would be patting themselves on the back for a job well done and i must admit they were very nice. but i found my eyes straying and my lips smiling at the younger artists. the ones who did it their way. their view of reality had not thwarted their artistic expression. they like purple so they used purple. they made red skies, because they could, and if the easter bunny was magical then why couldn't he/she be blue?

if i ever have children i will never tell them to stay in the lines.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 03:40:20 PM| link

my father is a jack of all trades. his main occupation is as a diesel mechanic for a coal mine. he's been doing it since i was a baby. every day he drives 75 miles, one way, to work. it's an honest living, but we've always been stuck in the struggling middle class....mainly because my parents insisted on giving perry and i the very best.

my dad is an auctioneer, he was a realtor for a while, and he has always been a dealer. he deals in a lot of things. people call and ask "hey jim, do you know where i can find such and such?" and he will know...or he will find out. he loves garage sales and flee markets. i can't complain. these little side projects have given me the extras in life.

i never knew what name brands were popular...i only knew what i liked. in grade school, and even later i always had what was en vogue. when i was nine the neighbor lady up the hill had bought her daughter a pair of jordache jeans and they were too small for kelly, but fit me well. they were expensive. dad spent his saturday cutting cedar fence posts to trade for the jeans.

today he is proud of the fact that i shop at goodwill.

posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 01:44:17 PM| link

today jenny jones posed a question to the audience: "which would you rather smell, cheap cologne or b.o.?" i say b.o. call me weird, but at least it doesn't burn your nostrils. americans truly are too vain. don't get me wrong, i bathe and wash my hair on a normal basis, but i have no cares about what others do. my friend shanti says that women in other countries stay younger looking than american women because they shower less frequently. i can see it.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 12:25:44 PM| link

it's friday! friday! friday! friday! yeah! tomorrow i head to winona for the weekend....for an anniversary get together with brad's parents, and then to see some friends play at rascals. i can't wait. sitting at home all week for work gets old and i'm just far enough away from everything that it is a major inconvenience to go to the cities or anywhere else. so, needless to say, i'm ready to let my hair down for the weekend and to see bradley.....weekends are grand!
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 12:17:50 PM| link

disclaimer: last night i signed this guestbook don't look at it!!!!!! it was a plain yellow background with a bunch of mean people bashing this guy. today i noticed a lot of links in my referral log so i stopped back by....boy did things change...argh!!!!!!!! had that background been there i would have never signed it. i would have figured it was a joke.
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 12:05:12 PM| link

when I see you sky as a kite
as high as I might
i can't get that high
the how you move
the way you burst the clouds
it makes me want to try

when I see you sticky as lips
as licky as trips
i can't lick that far
but when you pout
the way you shout out loud
it makes me want to start
and when I see you happy as a girl
that swims in a world of magic show
it makes me bite my fingers through
to think I could've let you go

--high, the cure
posted by April Fraze 4/7/2000 11:50:55 AM| link

Thursday, April 06, 2000

i added [acid blog] and .=ericalynn=. to the list of weblogs....long overdue. i've seen the names of these fellow dead bloggers over and over, but hadn't had a chance to get there. i have to find more blogs to read so that the few people i do frequent won't think i'm a stalker. nice sites.
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 11:12:43 PM| link

i found this site tonight [via justinhankins.com]. i read the guestbook....and my heart was saddened. i have always felt that the anonymity of the net breeds cowards. this poor guy's guestbook is a prime example. how can people be so cruel? and furthermore, why do they feel entitled to the notion that they are in any way superior in appearance to him? some people just suck. i signed the guestbook.....
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 10:57:25 PM| link

wow! the leftover salmon site has changed. groovy!
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 09:37:42 PM| link

"do what you have to do to not worry."

--jerry garcia
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 08:57:29 PM| link

"i try to be who i am and do what i do, you know what i mean?"

--jerry garcia
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 08:55:38 PM| link

evaluating life today, my roommate is not planning on the long haul in minnesota....he's already planning his next step, the one we were looking at together. my lease is up june 1st. does anyone know of any jobs in the greater ft. collins, co area? perhaps the time has come that i break away and pursue the dream that has kept me going for 4 years now.
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 07:45:23 PM| link

how do i get addresses in my referral log when i am not listed on those pages? just seems a bit weird, doesn't it? if anyone could clue me in, please e-mail me.
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 02:34:47 PM| link

"in all the years that ellen cherry had known buddy winkler, she had never heard him utter a sentence that didn't amount to a cliche. she concluded that that was what organized religion did to people. it limited them to thinking secondhand thoughts. it caused them to live secondhand lives. wasn't that what religion had in common with totalitarian politics? nazi germany, the inquisition, stalinism, the crusades, these were what happened when reality was allowed to give way to cliche.

behind the sixth veil, like a pearl behind cheesecloth, was the realization that 'the end of the world' was the most dangerous cliche of all. incapable of penetrating the veil, unaware of the veil's existence, ellen cherry could only stew-and wonder why buddy had such a hankering for apocalypse.

1. because it would mean that his side had finally won?
2. because the messy, unpredictable imperfection of life/life would solidify once and for all into the perfectly ordered, totally controlled, solid-gold monolith of death/life?
3. because he was lonely?"

--skinny legs and all, tom robbins

food for thought.
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 01:19:01 PM| link

"ellen cherry didn't take any more paintings to the gallery, not even one of the boomer nudes (oh, how she would have loved to see the look on ultima's face!), but she stewed about it for weeks. she lay awake nights debating the pros and cons of it.

should she resume her identity as an artist? could a person choose to be or not to be an artist? once certain childhood forces were set in motion, you either were an artist or you weren't, and if you were, you might choose not to exhibit, you might even choose not to produce; you might, in other words, reject an art career, an art life, but you were still an artist. right? or was that just semantics? according to egalitarians, everybody had artistic talent. on a hobby level, that was possibly true. so what? it struck her that while a great many people wanted to want to be artists, they didn't actually want to be. a girlfriend in seattle once said to her, 'i'd give everything if i could paint like you,' and ellen cherry had replied, with only a trace of pomposity, 'i did give everything.'

talent was merely the underpinnings. to be an artist, you also had to have nerve. and to maintain nerve, you had to have drive. apparently she had lost her drive."

--skinny legs and all, tom robbins

from now on, i'm an ethologist.

ethology n.
1. The scientific study of animal behavior, especially as it occurs in a natural environment.
2. The study of human ethos and its formation.
[dictionary.com]
posted by April Fraze 4/6/2000 12:59:46 PM| link

Wednesday, April 05, 2000

thanks to rick, john, and jonathan for their birthday wishes!!! when you're spending the day alone with no real plans it's wonderful to see your name in lights. thanks for the kind gesture!!!!! i really love my blogger buddies! :-)


posted by April Fraze 4/5/2000 04:59:01 PM| link

maybe i should seize the moment and head out into the wind with my dr. seuss kite. i bet you're all jealous now. cause dr. seuss is the bomb!
posted by April Fraze 4/5/2000 04:52:04 PM| link

i supposedly live in tornado alley. this house was injured in a twister about 2 years ago as a matter of fact. now, i'm scared. yesterday was a glorious 40....today about 65, maybe more. about a half hour ago the wind got nutty. i had moved approximately 20 potted houseplants to the porch to bask in a little sunlight bounty for the day, so when i heard the first massive wind come whipping through the open windows i made a mad dash out to retrieve my precious children.

my scrambling pulled me out soon enough to see the wind pick up leaves in a swirl.....kind of a twister itself. as i sit here the sun shines, then retreats behind the clouds, the wind whips noisily....the scariest moments are when it becomes silent...like now. first wednesday of the month, day to test the tornado siren....i heard it today...maybe that was the impetus for my uneasy stomach. i get weird about tornados. go figure.
posted by April Fraze 4/5/2000 04:48:48 PM| link

hey, ladies....check this guy out. my friend, quentin, thought i might be interested....geez!
posted by April Fraze 4/5/2000 01:45:14 PM| link

Tuesday, April 04, 2000

i didn't do my laundry last night. it just didn't happen. so today i wore my brown outfit to the city, cause the work clothes are clean....but i wore white socks. in indiana this would have made me self-conscious. people would have noticed. here....it's art.

minneapolis is a cool city. i walked the eight blocks from my car to office depot....had to put together a check request for office supplies. believe it or not, i'm here in minnesota to open an office for my company. i'm all alone.....and they trust me. probably more than they should. i did get in a rut, but i've decided to ride it out until something jumps out at me. i need to put my best foot forward, because when i don't i get depressed. i've never been able to float...i have to succeed.

on my walk i passed a gentleman blowing his harp....i wanted to sit down and hear his story, but i had a mission. later i passed a couple: one male, one female. the gentleman strummed his guitar while they sang. it was truly beautiful. i love street performers. in indianapolis i never saw a single performance.


posted by April Fraze 4/4/2000 09:10:06 PM| link

hmmmm....this stock market swing interests me.
posted by April Fraze 4/4/2000 05:38:26 PM| link

Monday, April 03, 2000

ok...i am so not into the set-up of this page. just for a little flavor i messed with some of the color junk....and enlarged the type so it was a little less difficult to read. now, if i could come up with a new layout.....one day i will get things set how i like them...then about a week later i'll be ready to mess it all up again....i'm still learning....
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 10:56:06 PM| link

i've been playing with the appearance of my page...if you get caught in the middle of the changes...i apologize....
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 10:27:41 PM| link

now playing: one too many mornings from the dylan cash sessions.

"from the crossroads of my doorstep,
my eyes they start to fade,
as I turn my head back to the room
where my love and I have laid.
an' I gaze back to the street,
the sidewalk and the sign,
and I'm one too many mornings
an' a thousand miles behind.

--one too many mornings, bob dylan

i wish i could convey the delivery of these lines to those who haven't heard it....perhaps then they would understand the dylan mystique. this version is incredible!! i am also partial to the live 1966 solo dylan version....now the version from the times they are a-changin' is a keeper, but the delivery is less emphatic and more sad.....ahhh....bob....so many facets, so many faces, so much to give....
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 10:05:09 PM| link

i had my first experience with death when i was 8 years old. i was spending the night with my cousin, brett, that night. we had just made a "pallet" on the floor from blankets and were about to go to bed when the phone rang. from all of the commotion i was able to figure out that brett's grandfather had had a heart attack. as i was slipping on my shoes by brett i whispered childish apologies for the horrible thing that happened to his grandfather. that's when i found out. he looked over at me with a scared look in his eyes and said, "it's your grandpa, too."

when we reached my grandparents' home no one was there. the only sign of the prior events was a medic bag that had been left behind and paper fans folded from newspapers....the same ones my granny had used to try to revive my papaw's failing body. he was watching hee-haw and taking his regular saturday night nap when it happened.

aunt mary left us at granny's with uncle larry and made her way to the hospital. brett, darren, and i watched television. i still recall which episode of taxi was on that night. eventually my mom came in, followed by aunt mary and grandma. all i needed to see was the look in my mother's eyes to know that the news was of the worst kind. my grandmother, in tears, cried out, "i've lost my best friend." and i started to cry. to this day i take those words to heart. they taught me a lot about what love and marriage truly should be about. mom took brett and i home with her. the rest of the family stayed with granny. i went home and slept in my own bed. when i woke up in the morning it all seemed to be nothing more than a dream. i sat up and looked down the hall in time to see brett fall out of my brother's room and into the hallway. that was all the sign i needed to know that it had not been.

mom took brett and headed over to granny's....perry and i would follow with dad. as we drove down the country rode, somber and confused and way too young at 8 and 4, my dad began to whisper into his closed fist. he was talking to a mouse he had in there. it was a rather lengthy and humorous conversation. it made us laugh. he really didn't know what to do for us and in his own goofy way he tried to cheer us, to lessen the pain on our little hearts. to this day i look at the "mouse conversations" as one of his greatest acts as father.

granny's house was filled with our entire family. my aunt glenda, one of the most beautiful souls to grace this earth, sat in the corner battling cancer.

"when i think about him buried under ground it just makes me want to smother."

who could've known that less than a year later she would be resting beside papaw in goodman ridge cemetary, marengo, in.


posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 05:56:08 PM| link

i'm going to overhaul this site soon....i just have no idea what will change....decisions, decisions.....hmmm....i really hate the way this site looks right now....
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 04:19:27 PM| link

tonight i have absolutely got to do laundry. today i'm wearing a skirt.....granted, it feels good to be skirted, but most of my comfy skirts are more your summer wear. i think that one day i will only wear skirts and sundresses.....but then again, i do like cargo pants. my closet is preparing for a major overhaul. april 15th is our community yard sale and i will be out in all my ragged glory...trying to sling some of my wearables and accumulated junk....i do have a lot. i need to adopt the less is more creed and get rid of a lot of the excess. so many things that i just tote from one place to the next....they never even get used.
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 04:17:04 PM| link

april 3rd.....i always get a weird feeling on this day. it's difficult to explain, but anyone who was alive 26 years ago today in the midwestern united states might understand. on this day in 1974, 148 tornados ripped through 12 states. at least one of those tornados made its way to southern indiana.

my parents lived in a trailer, i was a week overdue on my debut (which is ironic since i'm never late for anything). mom and dad had went for a drive through the country past my mom's old homeplace and past what would eventually be my childhood home. they were just winding up their lazy day when the phone rang. it was my granny.

granny: "your dad says there's a tornado headed that way!"

mom: (laughs)

my father asked mom what was so funny, so she relayed the info....now you must understand, my granny is notorious for her weather reports. my father politely refers to her as "ruth doppler".

curious, dad looked out the window. although there was no sound, there was a twister coming straight for them. it had two tails. dad took my mother to the cellar and went to check on the neighbor, danny rothrock, who was home alone with a broken leg. danny's father-in-law. bert, was working in his garden up the hill with his back to the tornado. dad got everyone's attention and they all made it to safety. the only casualty: my parents' home. the trailer was in pieces. all the baby shower gifts and everything they had gathered in their 19 months worth of marriage was scattered and full of glass.

if you read the history of crawford county by h.o. "whitey" jones you will find a small reference to the event. something like this:

"jim fraze's coonhound weathered the storm in the back of the family's pick-up truck." (i seriously doubt that this is verbatim)

when they emerged from the cellar the bible lay open in front of the door. my mother wishes she had read the passage. they surveyed the damage. mom began having back pains so dad drove her the hour to huntingburg, st. joseph's hospital.

the jolt had sent my mother into shock and stimulated labor. 36 hours later i made my entrance. at one point a man was called in to donate blood for my mother. he came and introduced himself, but she doesn't remember much else. i kind of figure it's like one of those angel stories for her when she tells it. perhaps i should look at it that way as well, since her well-being had so much to do with how my birth and life turned out.

sometimes i have questions. there really never seems to be an occasion to ask them. once i did ask what they were thinking at that moment....."were you scared?" my mom rather nonchalently dismissed the question with "no. not really, i knew i could always go home to mom's."

family is important. everyone said i should've been named wendy. or is it windy?
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 03:12:30 PM| link

"the introduction of money, with its seductive, if largely ambiguous promises, added a fresh measure of zip to the sport of life, but the zip turned to zap when the players, stupefied by ever-shifting intangibles, began to confuse the markers with the game.

so, even for those of us who can't personally witness salome's dance, the fifth veil surely will fall. it will fall at the moment of our death. as we lie there, helpless, beyond distraction, electricity stealing out of our brains like a con man stealing out of a sucker's neighborhood, it will occur to many of us that everything we ever did, we did for money. and at that instant, right before the stars blink off, we will, according to what else we may have learned in life, burn with an unendurable regret-or have us a good silent laugh at our own expense."

--skinny legs and all, tom robbins

there are countless writings and phrases that exemplify this very same point....isn't it sad that as informed as we are about this sad fact we still live our lives for the all-mighty dollar?
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 12:41:36 PM| link

"money itself was incomprehensible. almost from its inception, it had perplexed and befuddled those in whose lives it had appeared, and although modern people were used to it, although they dealt with it on a daily, if not hourly basis, and although it worked in their every thought the way that yeast worked in bread, they were no closer to understanding it than they had been at the beginning. preoccupied with it, dominated-and ultimately bewildered-by it, introspective men and women finally had to confess that it clouded their vision of the world like...yes, you guessed it, like a veil."

--skinny legs and all, tom robbins

last night.....a heated game of scattergories between brad, dan and i....letter "r", category: unit of measurement. i put rupee. it passed....
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 12:26:15 PM| link

sometimes when i see the hits climb on my site i start to get super involved in what i'm saying. the result is horrendous. i draw a blank. i think i have a lot to say, but a need of approval thant dampens my ability to express it. i wonder if the stages are visible to readers? why is it that so many turn their blogs into a stage where they can achieve or grow their popularity?

thanks so much for the kind notes from everyone regarding my little page. i am so honored you wouldn't believe it! i've always been a "talker", and i get goofy about things i like...ask brad who had to endure my semi-epiphany last night after i read something that "clicked". this page is my release so i'm not going non-stop to my friends about the many things that clutter my head. i'm glad that people have found a reason to come back.

now for the confession: there are now 3 people reading books that i have mentioned on my site....yeah!!! the thing i have to admit: i have an agenda. you see, if i get people reading what i read, then maybe (just maybe) there will be a spread in my method of thinking....and one day we can take over the world . sneaky, huh?
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 12:16:47 PM| link

"who knows what causes the brain to split its britches. it would seem that the brain hangs so many curtains between itself and the true universe that eventually light can no longer reach it, and it molds and rots and festers in the dark."

--skinny legs and all, tom robbins skinny legs and all deals with the removal of veils. i think this singular sentence sums up one of the biggest problems with humanity.
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 12:06:09 PM| link

"a hungry man is an angry man."

them belly full (but we hungy), bob marley

i got bob's last show several months ago....dan taped it off of me last night. seems like this line sticks in my head. it says a lot. a hungry man is an angry man, but when is it acceptable? i guess there is almost always an element of hurt or anger when someone desires what others have, but the angriest are those who are not in possession of the vital stuffs: food, shelter, and love.

the first two are the easy ones to conquer.....sad as it may sound .
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 12:00:25 PM| link

"a man walks down the street
he says why am I soft in the middle now
why am I soft in the middle
the rest of my life is so hard

i need a photo opportunity
i want a shot at redemption
don’t want to end up a cartoon
in a cartoon graveyard."

--you can call me al, paul simon

i can relate.
posted by April Fraze 4/3/2000 11:49:40 AM| link

Sunday, April 02, 2000

have you been to walnut grove?

today brad and i went to pick up my $15, non-motorized lawnmower. we found it yesterday at a little antique shop past mankato, but before new ulm. very cool. i'm using it....not collecting. now i'm dehydrating a bunch of junk out of the fridge before spoilage and experimenting with jerky ideas with the food dehydrator. now that's a productive sunday. i even have the time to listen to a few new shows i have let pile up. lost sailor, cheesy, but grand.......
posted by April Fraze 4/2/2000 07:07:03 PM| link