Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Christmas memories. I know that its a little late to be writing about Christmas, since today is the 28th of December. But I have been tied up with various and sundry things for about a month, and I'm just now getting around to writing about Christmas, so please excuse the timing of this and the next few posts.

I grew up in the late 50's and 60's. Christmas was such a magical time of year back then. I know that people say 'magical' now for all kinds of things, and it tends to cheapen the word, but Christmas really was magical back then. There were no constantly glowing neon signs, no fancy displays in store windows, no special effects on the television and in movies. And in small towns, like where I grew up, this was especially true. Our streets were deserted by five pm. There was nothing open in our town after dark. No gas stations, no convenience stores, nothing. Things were so much simpler then and we were so naive. And you know, it was wonderful to be naive.

Christmas brought the city decorations out of storage and onto the lamp posts in our town. A few red and green lights, a bow or two and we thought that the town was beautiful! I have fond memories of my parents and I driving around, looking at the Christmas lights, singing Christmas songs. And of course, we would turn out for the Christmas Parade. But the big excursion was the trip to Alexandria (the closest larger city, 30 miles away) to see their Christmas lights, and then go to Wellan's Department Store downtown to look at the window displays. We would ooh and ahh over the fake snow and displays of Christmas merchandise, all for sale inside, of course. The year that they put some animation in the display (I believe that it involved some elves moving back and forth) we were mesmerized by the miracle of modern engineering!

Home decorations back then were fairly simple. You had a Christmas tree, of course. But not one of these fancy trees like they have now. I remember going with my mother and father to pick out a tree. We had to hurry, because the day that the trees came to town, everyone wanted to get down there and get the very best tree. The Christmas tree lot (if you could call it a lot, I remember it as an alley behind the Morgan and Lindsay Five and Dime store) was small, and the bare light bulbs hung over the trees, illuminating the scruffy little sticks with needles that we called Christmas trees back then. The trees were all "Charlie Brown" Christmas trees. None of those tall, full, bushy trees that we get now. These were skinny little trees with scraggly branches, but to us they were beautiful, and the smell was incredible. I try to smell the trees that are sold now, but they never have the heady aroma of those scrawny Christmas trees of my childhood. It took a lot of comparing, turning the trees and looking for the bare spots, but we always found the perfect tree. We took it home and put it in the little green and red Christmas tree stand.

Of course we had lights on our tree. We had strings of those ceramic lights that would not light if even one bulb was out or even unscrewed just enough to break the connection. I remember spending hours trying to find the culprit that was keeping each string of lights from lighting up. I was so happy when they started making the strings of lights that didn't require each bulb to be lit in order for the string of lights to work. And those ceramic lights got so hot, it's a wonder we didn't burn the entire neighborhood down, but we were lucky, no burning Christmas trees for us. My wife and I tried putting the old ceramic lights on our tree last year, but the lights got so hot, I suggested that we go back to the little miniature lights that stay cool this year. Sorry...practicality wins out over reminiscing this time.

Then came the ornaments. The early ornaments that I remember were just plastic bells and lamps and paper mache' birds. But I desperately wish that I had more of those ornaments now than just the three that are hanging on our tree right now. How did those old ornaments get away from us? Did we decide that they were too old-fashioned, and that they were out of style? Did we decide that newer, sleeker, more colorful ornaments deserved to be on our tree? I'm not really sure what happened to them. My family moved several times during the years, each time to a larger, 'better' house, all within the same town. Did some of the ornaments get lost or broken in the moves? Or did we just discard them because we were tired of them? I remember, as a child, painting little wooden cutouts of elves, Santa, bells and stars to put on our tree. Did my little painted ornaments (although I am sure that they must have been masterpieces, since I painted them) shove the other ornaments not only out of the nest but even off of the tree? Did they push the old ornaments into a box for unused ornaments, a box that would be discarded at some future time? Maybe the discarding happened in 1975. That was the year I got married in May and made my home 100 miles away from my hometown. That was the year my father died in October, and that December my mother decided not to put a tree up any more just for her. I'm not sure, but I suspect that was the year that the old ornaments met their demise.

I also remember some unusual ornaments from the 60's that I had on our 'real' tree. You see, my mother had an aluminum tree on display in the picture window in our living room (the room that no one was allowed to enter except when we had 'company'). It was a silver tree with the rotating color light wheel. We were not allowed to go into the living room, and there certainly were no gifts allowed under that tree. We had a 'real' live green tree in the den, and that's where the gifts went. That's also where the ornaments went. On the real tree. I remember some ornaments that I am the only person in the history of the world to ever own. The reason I say this is that we (my wife and I) have looked high and low on EBay, on sites on the internet and in antique stores, and we have never ever seen ornaments like these anywhere. There is no record that anyone has ever owned anything even resembling these ornaments. They were round plastic ornaments, with the front half of the ornament clear plastic, and the back of the ornament was a plastic that glowed in the dark. There were little scenes in the ornament, and you could see them with the lights on or off, since the ornament glowed in the dark. Some were nativity scenes, others were scenes with Santa and elves, and some were rocking horses and other toys. I do not have any of these left to prove that they ever existed, and we have looked high and low for them, but cannot find a one. But I do promise, they did exist. I will continue looking for these, if only to prove that they really did exist. When I find one, I'll post a picture of it, just to prove that my memory isn't going yet. Finally, on top of all of the ornaments, there was the tinsel. I never liked tinsel, even as a child. If you did it correctly, it took forever to put on, so usually it ended up in clumps. And taking it off to save for next year took even longer. Someone in my family must have liked it. It just wasn't me.

As far as the rest of the decorations go, there weren't many. A wreath on the front door, a plastic Santa and his reindeer flying on his way to bring us our presents, a snowman holding up NOEL sheet music that was lit by a bulb inside of him. My favorite decoration (besides the tree) was a little Santa, 6 inches tall or so, lit from the inside by a C7 bulb. His hands are outstretched, and he is flocked, velvetty feeling. I always looked forwards to putting him by the tree and turning his light on.

And of course, we can't forget the nativity scene. Early in my life, we had a cardboard nativity scene, which, oddly enough seems to have met the same fate as most of our ornaments circa 1950-60s. The nativity scene that I have now (and put out each Christmas) came from Woolworth's in the early 1960's. Every weekend, my mother and I would go to Alexandria, which was not only the closest city to my home town, but also the residence of my mother's sister (Aunt Lucille). Since I was an industrious child, and earned an allowance, I looked forward to going to Alexandria and especially to Woolworths. There we would have ice cream at the soda fountain, and I would get to spend my little money. I collected fourteen pieces of a nativity scene, one or two pieces at a time (15 to 35 cents apiece) until I had the whole nativity scene. I saw on EBay that these figures are prized now, but I would never part with it. Not because of religious sentiment, but for memories of another time and place. I can remember walking the hardwood aisles, with all of the merchandise displayed on flat wooden tables with partitions between each item for sale. I remember picking up and considering each figure, trying to decide which one was needed the most. I'm sure that I bought many other things from this Woolworth's store, but this is the one that connects me to the store the most, and connects me to that point in time, and the memories of my Christmases past. But more than anything, my memory of Christmas is a feeling, a feeling that I try to identify and put into words. I cannot describe the feeling fully, but I keep on trying. Maybe I'll capture it one day.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Well, it's been a while since I have written a new post, or even visited the blogs that I usually look at every day! I have been fighting the internet, mostly AOL, which just disappeared from my computer with no prior notice. I don't mean that my account disappeared, I mean that the AOL program disappeared. All I could get on with was AOL Explorer, and that was kind of iffy. So I spent a while trying to figure out what error 23-something was, talking on the phone to AOL technicians, and I finally had to just reload AOL. But in the process, now everytime I try to get online, I have to restart my computer. Between that and school, I have just been out of touch. (It's the weeks before Christmas-we have a lot to do before we get out for the holidays, including a Christmas program that we have to participate in and decorations to make, vocabulary to learn, and a lot more that I don't have time to list.) I also have an ex-mother in law (but she's more like my real mother, only better) with a broken hip in the hospital. I will be back with a new post later this week, and I will be visiting everyone that I love to keep up with (you know who you are!). Talk to you later this week!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

GAY BINGO!!! That's where we were on Saturday night! We went to Dallas on Saturday, spent the night and returned home on Sunday. The highlight of the trip was ...GAY BINGO! I'm not sure if this is just a Dallas occurrance, or if this is a national trend, but if it isn't going on other places, it should be! The location was an old theater, complete with stage and rows of seats. Long tables were placed over a row of seats, so that you had a row of seats, then tables, then seats, then tables, etc. On the stage was the "bingo machine" that lit up the numbers called, and a large cage, draped in chiffon. When we entered the theater, we picked up our packet, which included 2 sets of sheets for 10 games. We went on in and found our seats, which in itself is kind of an amazing story. We chose a row that looked like a good distance from both the front and the back (far enough back to make running to the bathroom fairly easy, far enough front to be able to see and hear adequately), and we eased down to the end of the row and sat down. Later some other people came looking for their seats, and we discovered that the row and seat numbers were written on our packet. And (here's the amazing part) we were sitting in the exact seats that we were supposed to be sitting in! I know, amazing, right? Out of all of the seats in the theater, we had lit in our designated chairs. We knew at this time that we had good vibes...winning vibes!

Before we sat down, I told my wife that we needed to buy the markers for the games. She said, no, they were included with the price of the packets and 10 games. She pointed to the brown paper bags on the tables (at each seat) marked "CHIPS", (you know, chips=markers). We sat there a few minutes, and I decided to check out what color markers we had gotten in our bag. I opened the bag in front of my seat and discovered....chips. Nacho chips. With picante sauce. I immediately went and bought several markers for us(right after I finished laughing). By the way, the chips were actually pretty good. I should mention that in addition to bingo markers, they sold drinks, tshirts, photographs, and 5 additional "bonus" games. They were also selling raffle tickets, and since my wife had a slight attraction to a cute little baby-dyke drag king, we ended up with quite a few raffle tickets.

Neither of us had ever played "professional" bingo. I noticed that the guys that were sitting next to us had their markers out and were going to town marking out spots on their game sheets. I asked what they were doing (my wife hates it when I do that), and they said that they were marking out the ones that weren't needed. Those of you who have played "professional" bingo might know this, but we did not realize that the games had different patterns that had to be filled in to win. Silly me, I thought it was up and down or across that won the game. So, after finding this out, I began marking out my sheets in earnest. My wife just sneered at this activity. She had that whole "It's just a game" attitude. Well, I'm not competitive, I just needed to be able to do what I came to do. Which was WIN AT GAY BINGO! I mean, the whole evening was festive, a lot of fun, but if you play GAY BINGO, you play to win, right? Well, I marked and marked and marked, while my wife sat there, enjoying looking at all of the queens in their costumes. About five minutes before the games started, my wife was suddenly bit by the bug and started frantically marking her sheets! I'm not sure why, but she did. And surprisingly, she did get them all marked.

Each GAY BINGO night has a theme. This time it was "fairy tales". Queens in various fairy tale dress went up and down the aisles, looking for someone to put in jail. It turned out that the cage on the stage was the "jail". Various infractions could land you in jail. Talking or texting on your cell phone was one. Another was calling BINGO when you did not actually have it (you had to be very careful). Also, not doing the required motions to certain calls was another. (We were schooled in the special motions for B7, B13, and of course, O69). If you were "jailed", someone had to pay $20 to get you out of captivity. I made sure that I did what I was supposed to do. I didn't really want to lose $20 and be humiliated by being placed in a jail on the stage and jeered at by queens in Raggedy Ann costumes.

By the way, the theater was packed, and before the games began, we were asked to stand up and repeat the GAY BINGO oath. This included the promise that we will continue playing GAY BINGO until everyone is treated the same, homosexual and heterosexual alike. I would say that the audience was about 50% gay, 50% straight. Very nice to see.

The games finally began, and we got firsthand experience on how much having your sheets premarked helped. We watched as one girl got put in jail for texting on her cell phone. We felt sorry for her, but we were playing GAY BINGO, no time for sympathy. We got into the games, but we were never expecting to win. But, on the third game, I had one spot left. They called the next number and I told my beautiful wife that I had bingo. I stood up to call out "GAY BINGO"! My wife was pulling on my arm, no, don't, you'll get put in jail if you don't have it. But I had it. I told her that. She said, "You'd better be sure". I was sure. They took my card, checked it, and yes, I had won GAY BINGO! They took me out to the cashier, where I had to put down all of my pertinent information. I thought that I had probably won a candle or paperweight or something like that. But then they started counting the money into my hand...10, 20, (Oh boy!, I won 25 dollars!) 30, 40, (I can't believe that I won fifty dollars!!!), 50, 60 70, 80, 90, 95. Ninety five dollars!.... I couldn't believe it. I NEVER win anything! But if I only get to win one thing in my life, I'm glad that it was GAY BINGO!

I went back into the theater and told my wife. She informed me that the "special games" paid $250 or more. I had no idea that it was such a big deal. I guess that I was having so much fun, winning didn't matter. Anyway, we finished the games. No more wins for us, but the guy that I had pestered about how to mark the game sheets won a trip to Las Vegas. But even if I had not won, we had fun. GAY BINGO happens once a month, so we plan to go back in a few months. The dressing up would be fun, and every month there is a different theme. (I'm an old Rocky Horror cast member, so you know that I love to dress up.) If anyone out there lives close enough to Dallas to go to a game, let us know! And if anyone out there has GAY BINGO in their town, let us know also! Is this a national phenomoena? Or is it just a local amusement? Anyway it winds up, I loved GAY BINGO!!!!!!
**note: I tried to put a photograph with this post, but I am having many technical problems. But hopefully sometime in the future I will be able to publish photographs of GAY BINGO!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Oh no! I got tagged! I didn't even know what this meant until I saw it on Gogo's site. So, here is my:

10 Wonderful Things That Start With 'S'

1. Sweet Tea - Living in Louisiana, we have a southern tradition of serving iced tea either already sweetened or plain. I didn't realize that people in other states were not so fortunate. And on top of it all, down here, if you want more tea, you just ask for it, and it is poured into your glass...over and over and over, as much as you want, for just the price of the first glass. I was surprised when I traveled up north and found that if you asked for more tea, you received another glass of tea (still unsweetened, by the way) and a charge on your bill for the second glass of tea.
2. Snakes - OK, so everyone wouldn't put snakes on the wonderful part of the list, but I can't help it if I am drawn to reptiles and amphibians. To me, snakes are graceful, beautiful creatures. And yes, I'll say it, I really like holding them and feeling their muscular bodies move in my hands. I find them fascinating. Now, I can't say that I am particularly fond of venemous snakes, and I would definitely kill one if push came to shove. But I have to like them from afar, because my beautiful wife has drawn the line at snakes. And I would rather have her in my arms than a snake any day.
3. Swinging- One of my favorite things to do when the weather is nice, especially in the spring, is sit on the swing in the backyard with my beautiful wife and watch the birds and squirrels and enjoy our gardens. We can sit there without talking, just swinging and enjoying the smells, sounds and feel of the day. Everything else is inconsequential when we are there on the swing together.
4. Silence- Silence is golden. Especially when you have been in a classroom all day with absolutely no silence. I value silence highly, maybe because I have so little of it. Even at home, there are the sounds of the tv, the animals, all of us talking to each other. Don't get me wrong...I love those sounds. But I also enjoy a bit of silence every now and then.
5. Sea Lions- I have always liked sea lions, since the first time I saw them with my family as a young girl at one of those vacation spots in Florida. They are just so cute, so intelligent. I think that actually they are not as sweet as they look when they put on a show, but who is?
6. Surprise!- Who doesn't like surprises? Well, good surprises, at least. Surprise parties, surprise gifts, surprise activities of the good kind. Not the "Surprise! The IRS is auditing you!" kind of surprise, though.
7. Summertime-I love the summer! I love everything about the summer, except for the mosquitos. I just love the feel of summer. I love working in the yard, growing things to eat and flowers. I love the hummingbirds, the butterflies, all the little creatures that are out and about. And one more thing, my ex-husband once (and only once) said something profound..."It's easier to scrape the sunshine off of your windshield than ice and snow." I love summer!
8. Screen doors- I remember how it felt, sitting in the kitchen in front of a wooden screen door, shelling speckled butter beans or purple hulled peas and enjoying the cool breeze that the attic fan pulled in. I can still hear the sound of the spring stretching as the door opened and the sound of the screen door clapping shut whenever someone came in or went out. Sadly, you don't see many screen doors like that any more.
9. Sex - I don't want to embarass anyone, but everyone knows that if you are talking about wonderful things that begin with S, you simply cannot leave sex off of the list. OK, making love is better (actually MUCH better), but you have to admit that sex is pretty wonderful.
10. Sisterhood - That is such a powerful, wonderful word! If we don't stand up for each other and take care of each other, who will? Together we are powerful, a force of nature, something to be reckoned with.


5 Bad Things That Start With 'S'

1. Swollen- Maybe it's just me, but I have never known anything that is swollen to be a good thing.
2. Slugs- I hate slugs. They get in your garden and eat your plants, destroying all of your hard work. And they aren't very attractive either. At least snails have that shell that makes them a little cuter, but slugs have no redeeming cute-factor.
3. Sadness- This one is pretty much self-explanatory, isn't it? No one likes to be sad or to have a loved one who is sad. I know that into each life some rain must fall...but I don't have to like it.
4. Shrimp- This is on my bad word list because I am allergic to shellfish, and if I eat shrimp, I will end up in the hospital, which would not be a good thing.
5. Sorry- This is what I am, because I am so late posting this. I can make excuses...too busy at school, finishing everything before Friday (and Thanksgiving holidays), a trip to Dallas to play GAY BINGO! (hopefully I will post something on this tomorrow), and my AOL acting crazy. But the bottom line is, I'm Sorry.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Fall. When I was a child, you could tell it was fall, because you could smell the burning leaves and see the wisps of smoke as they made their way up into the sky. I remember raking leaves and picking up pecans. I don’t know that I was any help with either task. I’m sure that I ate a good many pecans, and I‘m also sure that I jumped in many a pile of leaves, causing leaf havoc. But after a few jumps and the subsequent re-raking, a jumping ban was put into place. Then my father would light the pile, and the smoke would drift into the sky, along with that instantly recognizable smell of burning leaves that still defines "fall" to me, even today.

Fall meant back to school clothes. School dresses, made of durable (read scratchy) material, sometimes plain, sometimes a fancier plaid, that tied in the back were the staple of every little girl’s wardrobe. Back then, girls didn’t wear pants to school. Pants were reserved for "play clothes", to be worn afternoons after school and on the weekends. And the pants that we DID wear either had an elastic waistband or zipped on the side, not down the front like a boy’s pants.
I suppose the same people that made the rule of buttoning boys shirts and girls shirts on opposite sides made the rule about the zippers. I'm not sure exactly why these clothing rules were made, but I had to play by them, like it or not.

Back to school supplies. Do you remember the smell of new crayons? What size box did you get? Eight? Sixteen? Twenty-four? Forty eight? Sixty four? Or were you one of the most fortunate to own a box of 128 beautiful, sharp pointed crayons in every color imaginable, and which came in a box that even had a crayon sharpener in it? The only smell better than new crayons is the smell of a new can of play doh. Both are truly intoxicating. I teach, and get to smell both quite a bit, but they still make me remember my elementary years and those first days of school each year. Put them in your little book bag (no backpacks then-we carried a book bag with a little handle, like a little briefcase, but in plaids and bright school colors) with your new pencils and scissors, and you were set for school.

Back then, when I grew up, we burned our trash out in the back yard in a large metal drum. Every evening we would take our day’s trash, in a large brown grocery bag, out to the trash can. Put the paper bag in the can, light the edge, watch it burn. It was a special treat to be allowed to light the bag. You had to have been very good to get that honor. The fire lit up the area above the barrel. If you watched the trash bag burn for a few minutes, large pieces of ash, which were pieces of the brown paper bag, would soar into the sky, propelled by the heated air from the fire, then slowly drift back to earth after they escaped from the force of the heated air. I was fascinated by the trash barrel and the huge pieces of bag, reduced to ash. It was as though they danced through the air, til no longer in the spotlight, they were resigned to their return to earth.


Fall also meant Thanksgiving. Even though I am a little heavier than I would like to be at this stage of my life, I was a terribly skinny child. I’m not sure why. My mother fried almost everything that we ate and we had rice and gravy at every meal (I grew up in south Louisiana, remember?). But I was just not that interested in food. And we didn’t have a big family, so Thanksgiving was not ever a holiday that even I cared about. Usually Thanksgiving was a meal for the three of us, not much different from any other meal, except for the turkey and cornbread dressing. Every now and then, relatives would come to our house for Thanksgiving or we would go to someone else’s house. But my mother and father were the babies of their families, and they did not have me until they were both in their forties. So there wasn’t an abundance of children in our extended family. My closest cousin was at least ten years older than me. Most were twenty to thirty years older. So the prospect of Thanksgiving dinner did not even contain the excitement of having someone different to play with. It was usually just me, trying to not be noticed too much, or someone would insist that I eat lima beans, which I detested. I sat in front of a plate of lima beans for hours on more occassions that I would like to remember.("You can't leave the table until you have eaten all the food on your plate-there are children starving in Korea who would love to have those lima beans.") When people did come to our house for Thanksgiving, I remember Momma getting out dishes that I NEVER got to see. Different plates, little cut glass dishes (for pickles and olives) and pretty drinking glasses. I wondered why we didn't use those things all of the time. Now I know why.


One more thing defines fall to me. Here in the south, there is an excitement that comes with fall. For ten weeks every fall, people's minds were on one thing...football. Playing football at recess, playing football in front and back yards all over town, and yes, HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Football season is the highlight of most small town southern schools. Ten weeks of excitement and hoping. Hoping that the season will extend beyond those ten weeks for your high school this year, all the way to the playoffs. Everyone was involved in some way or another at my school. I come from a small south Louisiana town. Population approximately 5,000. Not far south, like New Orleans, south like Ville Platte. Of course you grow up going to the games, but when you hit high school, it ceases to be simply a diversion on fall Friday evenings and becomes an integral part of your life. During football season, everything revolved around the football game to be played that Friday. Each grade (Freshman-Senior) would make huge signs to hang all over the school with catchy slogans, such as "Whip the Wildcats" or "Butcher the Bears". We would work on these every afternoon after school, starting on Monday, then hang them on Thursday. They were judged by someone (I never knew who judged them) and during the Pep Rally (held every Friday afternoon), the class with the best signs would win the "Spirit Stick", which was an exciting event. We were just crazy about football. Everyone (I would wager 85-90%) of the high school student body was involved in one way or another in the football machine. Personally, I was in the band. My best friend at the time was in the Pep Squad. And of course, there were the cheerleaders, and finally, the actual football players themselves. Parents were there working in concession stands or in the bleachers, watching the games. I do not remember missing a single game during the entire time I was in high school. We even went to the rainy games, with our rain gear on. I played piccolo, so I could not take my instrument out in the rain (the pads would get wet and be ruined), but the brass and percussion went on playing, and we were there to support them and the team. So ingrained was high school football, that to this day, on Saturday mornings, I read the prep scores in the newspaper aloud to my beautiful wife. Not just my home town, but any town that we might have played during my years in high school. I get great joy out of seeing a team that consistently beat us being trounced by anyone else (of course if the team that does the trouncing is my high school, that makes it even better).

I can't say that fall is my favorite season, but I do have some fond memories of fall activities, fall smells and tastes and sounds. Most of the things that I assosciate fondly with fall do not even exist for me any more. We are not allowed to burn leaves, and raking leaves into a garbage bag just doesn't have the same feel. My fall "back to school" clothing excitement doesn't really exist either. One thing is for certain, you would never catch me in a little plaid "school dress" and knee socks ever again. (Note to wife: if we ever decide to play "school girl and gym teacher", you have to be the school girl.) No more burning trash in a metal drum. And since I teach in an elementary school, and I am 150 miles away from my home town, no more excitement over football games. But, when it comes to Thanksgiving, I don't need a special day, because I am thankful every day. I am thankful for my beautiful wife, for our son, for our jobs and home and all of our "cast of thousands". I am thankful that we make enough money to be able to feed the "cast of thousands". I am thankful for so many things that I can't even begin to list all of them. I am even thankful for the opportunity to write these posts, to be able to share my thoughts and memories, and especially thankful for all of you who read it and let me know that it made you laugh or made you think or made you remember something important to you. Thank you!



Wednesday, November 08, 2006

???????????????????????????????????????????? I have a question for everyone out there. Why does the sidebar sometimes drop down to the bottom of the posts? I thought that it was because a post was extending out into the sidebar's space, so it forced the sidebar to go down to the bottom, but now I'm not sure. I deleted the post that seemed to be the offending one (the sidebar was where it was supposed to be until that post was added), and I was hoping that the sidebar would move back up to it's rightful spot. But it didn't. I want to get everything back like it should be, but I just don't know how. I also tried going into the template and reducing the margins or the width of the sidebar, so it would fit in what space I had, but couldn't do that. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Your IQ Is 140
Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Genius
Quick and Dirty IQ Test