The Burr Woman.

"Well duh, it's the Burr Woman." - my sister Julie, commenting on whether or not she'd ever heard of this obscure bit of folklore

Of the same ilk, the song "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" by Genesis, which Julie described once as "really effing creepy":

I’m coming down, coming down like a monkey, but it’s alright
Like a load on your back that you can’t see, ooh but it’s alright
Try to shake it loose, cut it free, just let it go, get it away from me.
Cos tonight, tonight, tonight - oh, I’m gonna make it right
Tonight, tonight, tonight - oh.

I’m going down, going down, like a monkey, ooh but it’s alright
Try to pick yourself up, carry that weight that you can’t see,
Don’t you know it’s alright
It’s like a helter skelter, going down and down, round and round
But just get it away from me - oh.
Because tonight, tonight, tonight - oh
We’re gonna make it right
Tonight, tonight, tonight - oh.

Clearly, Phil Collins is referencing a thousand-year-old desert Southwest Native American folktale about a small grayish rag-wearing hag who assaults the wicked. *derisive snort*

Well, uh, the Burr Woman. Yeah. The traditional among the peoples of the desert Southwest look twice over their shoulders whilst traveling through the arid wastes, lest the Burr Woman assault them. What happens is this: you're walking, minding your own business, perhaps thinking about cheese, and SLAMMO! A chimp-sized mouse-gray woman with a tiny vestigal tail launches herself from some scrub and onto your awaiting back, whereupon she commences to dig her filthy dull nails into the soft flesh surrounding your spine with her hands and her hominid opposable toes. No force on the earth known to man can remove her, not even the sight of Dick Cheney rising buck nekkid out of the North Atlantic following his transformation from a sea-lamprey into a dead-eyed being capable of terrestrial locomotion. Then, in about two week's time, you die. She kills you by exhaustion, all the while crooning to you softly and asking you to get her some water - water that she will never drink.

Of course, my own personal Burr Woman is my Dread Romance Language class, preparations for which kept me from sleeping at all last night. Ten pages of typewritten translation; thankfully, it was about something that didn't make me want to take my own life with a paint-thinner cocktail. Ah, the ambitions of Turkey in Central Asia. Needless to say, those ambitions are sinister, but I, like the father of a viscious/socially challenged child, will look the other way.

I've come to the realization that when I am sleep-deprived that I cannot be held accountable for any of my actions. I watch the things I say and do as if from outside my pathetic hairy Irish/Italian body. For example, whilst laboring in the delerium of sleeplessness last night, I did the following:

* I melted a plastic drink-mermaid in a Berry Bramble Yankee Candle; naturally I started with her nude breasts. Divine.

* I prepared a box of Kraft Mac n' Cheese, and into it I shook some Old Bay Seasoning, Thai peanut sauce and some curry. I ate it with startling gusto.

* I nearly began to weep when the song "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel came on from one of my mixed CDs. Like, perilously close. Welling up. God only knows why. Fortunately, the next song was "Work It" by Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliot. In this song, there are such enchanting lyrics as:

If yer a fly gal
Git'cher nails done.
Git a pedicure.
Git'cher ha'r did.

Fascinating [!].

So, my parents. They're getting old. Today, my dad's birthday; the sixth was my mom's. I'd ask them if they could teach me how to knap a nice spearhead out of some chert or the proper way to thrust something sharp into a mammoth, but I think that they will just poop in my food if I do that. {Diapers!} So the less said about their nativity in eons past, the better.

[Happy Birthday, Mom and Dad! I still want birthday presents! Just remember: it's YOUR DNA that makes me like this!]

It snowed like a mothertoucher for about a half hour tonight. March: clearly, the month that the other months make fun of for being on the stem so much. Tomorrow at the stroke of 6 I will be liberated from classes for a week: IU SPRING BREAK!

Go ahead: ask me if I'm going somewhere hot and jammed with hormonal twentysomethings intent on contracting venereal diseases and Montezuma's Revenge (aka Delhi Belly). I say: If you can't point to Cancun on a map, then you need to not go. Yes, folks: that's in ANOTHER COUNTRY. Like Mexico. Yes. No, I am going to Chicago (two nights and a day) for the first time. [!] I will keep you posted; clearly there will be pictures.

Until tomorrow, I remain, as ever,

Dom