Visiting my family in Michigan always leaves me feeling a little bit like I’ve slipped the fragile bounds of reality and wound up in an alternate universe entirely.

For instance, one day while I was there I found myself tussling with logs. Like, the wood kind of logs. That come from trees. I don't know about you, but here in California, I never have any kind of interaction with trees that strays outside the boundaries of looking at them. Sure, we have regular old normal trees in the Golden State, which will certainly come as a surprise to those who think California is one giant tropical beach caressed gently by the shade of palm fronds and overrun by the supertanned gay Hollywood liberal Jewish media elite. And if a tree were to fall down here, where I live, well, I would simply wait for the proper authorities to come and haul it away.

But in Michigan, when a tree gets sad and falls down? Well, ma'am, the proper authority is you. You can't just leave it there splayed across your folks' property, you have to go around helping your dad pick up all the branches and twigs that broke off and then sawing up the tree into logs and stacking them. To use as firewood, or something. Or possibly contests involving brute strength. Or maybe you can set up a lawn chair nearby and just hang out. Have a drink. Hi, logs. Hi. What's going on with you? Feelin' a bit sappy lately, eh?

Ha ha! Ha! Ahh.

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Hi, guys. Hi. I don't normally like to do this, because I feel like we're inundated with appeals to donate to various organizations from every angle. But you've got to pimp the causes that are important to you, right?

Take Steps for Crohn's & Colitis

One of my best ladies, and a wedding brigadier to boot, has a sister with Crohn's disease. She and her fiance dedicated themselves to raising money for and participating in the Take Steps for Crohn's & Colitis Walk this Sunday, May 22. As of this writing, they are $210 behind goal.

If you're feeling generous today, will you consider chipping in a little change? Donations can be made here:

Fight against Crohn's disease!

Dishing for Dana

And if you have any extra money to spare, please consider donating to the Broke-Ass-Bride's Dishing For Dana fundraiser. I know a lot of us circulate around each other's blogs, and many of you already know about this massive effort to help Dana with her medical bills. Those who don't can learn more here.

To be quite honest with you, I'm fairly broke. We are broke. The beau and I have been doing a lot of paycheck-to-paycheck living, and my paycheck only arrives once per month. I put off talking about Dana's cause here until I was able to make a donation, which I did today when that glorious and long-awaited check arrived.

Even though I'm late to the party, it still helps. Everything does. You can contribute here.

And even if your pockets are empty right now, thanks for simply reading. The thing that most rocks about writing this blog, I think, is being a part of a community of people who care. Period.

I feel I owe you an explanation for my almost-sorta-three-weeks of blog silence. So, here it is:

...

Aw, shit. I was trying to come up with something really good, like I fell into the center of the world's largest cream-filled doughnut and it took me three weeks to eat my way out. Or maybe I've just been busy during the hockey playoffs filling in as a Canucks Green Man:

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Lately, I'm trying to be quiet.

Not quiet in the sense of turning the volume way down on NOW That's What I Call Music vol. 3 and halting my boot-stomping, pot-lid-banging parade around the house. No, I mean quiet in the sense of not talking so damn much.

You see, while I tend to be reserved around strangers, around close friends and lovers I tend to behave like a raving lunatic. I crack bad jokes faster than I can come up with them, I voluntarily disclose embarrassing facts about myself, and I generally do everything within my feeble power for a laugh. And with the beau it’s exponentially worse, because I am around him all the time. I mean, even when we're busy with separate extracurricular activities — which is often — I can bet that at some point during the day I'll step into the bathroom and find him brushing his teeth. Or I'll wander into the kitchen and find him rummaging in the pantry. Or maybe he'll be standing by the dryer, pantsless, waiting for the creases to get tumbled out of his work khakis. Oh, you. There you are. So we meet again.

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