I'm Back, Baby! (for the time we have left, anyway)

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the inexcusably long delay in posts. Then again, you regular Porch sitters probably needed the break to boost brain cells with more cerebral, high-brow reads -- like Snooki's A Shore Thing. (My God, I am so bitter. If I'd only known it took a perennial tan, a Bumpit and a catch-phrase like "get it in" or "DTF" to have a bestseller, I'd be surpassing Harry Potter by now).

But why the long delay? I could tell you about how everyone in my house was stricken with the flu during the holidays; how seasonal affective disorder makes me kind of, well, s.a.d.; how I'm contemplating a return to the workforce (you know, one with paychecks, though I never tire of the donuts I pay myself); how I've had an epic case of writer's block brought on by a "Where do I go from here?" crisis; yadayadayada, but I'd be lying. Totally. That stuff never happened.

Here are the actual reasons for my hiatus from the Porch:

1. The sky is falling. I've become obsessed with the Aflockalypse and mass animal deaths around the globe. Thousands of birds fall from the sky; dead fish and crabs wash ashore in droves; and now cows--COWS!-- are dropping dead in Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, I am tied to these events because (a). my brother lived for years in Beebe, Arkansas, where 5,000 dead birds littered the streets on New Year's Eve (b). I graduated from Murray State in western Kentucky, where from what I gather, the first dead birds might have been discovered and (c). I like fish and chips and also Big Macs.

I'm not saying I'm freaked out, but when I heard the street cleaner whoosh loudly down my street at 5 a.m. one morning, I jumped out of bed screaming, "OMG! It's the Mother Ship!"

Clearly, these events are correlated and tied to Armageddon, right? Not so fast, Chicken Little. These are just weird coincidences, according to Kirk Cameron, who played the dreamy, Tiger Beat-alicious Mike Seaver on the 80's series Growing Pains. Now the apparent prophet for the End O' Days, Cameron assured everyone via CNN that the recent animal deaths do not signal the end of the world. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I believe the exchange between Cameron and Anderson Cooper went down like this:

Anderson Cooper: Kirk, try to tear yourself away from my brooding, bedroom eyes and chiseled anchorman jaw long enough to answer the following question: Is this, in fact, the end of the world? And more importantly, can you tell I'm wearing makeup? I try to make it look natural, so I maintain my ruggedly handsome international correspondent look, but is the pancake too heavy tonight?

Kirk Cameron: End of the world? Aww. Show me that smile again, Anderson. Don't waste another minute on your cryin'. We're nowhere near the end. The best is ready to beginnnnnnnn. As long as we've got each other, we've got the world spinning right in our hands. Baby, rain or shine, alllllll the time, we've got each other, sharing the laughter of lovvvvve.

Anderson Cooper: Uh. Can we get Carol Seaver on the phone please? She was always the smart one, right?

And that brings me to the second reason I've been delayed in posting:


2. I have fallen back in love with Mike Seaver. 

Next to Bo Duke, that delightfully dense, curly-haired Seaver was the biggest crush of my youth -- but not to the point that I applied bubblegum-flavored Bonnie Bell lip gloss and practiced kissing on his Tiger Beat pull-out poster or anything. Because that would be weird. And, if I recall correctly, sticky.


So of course, I trust Mike Seaver when he says this isn't God's wrath on a wicked world. But if it's not the rising of the antichrist, what in the world is causing thousands of species to die in such a short span of time? I can only think of one rational explanation, which leads me to the third reason for my break from the Porch.

3. I have been trying to convince the NSA that the Earth is under attack. Puh-lease. We know who is really behind the animal deaths, the floods, the earthquakes and the magnetic pole disturbances, don't we? It's not like he didn't warn us for years that he was going to destroy Earth. It's obviously someone with a Napolean complex, an axe to grind and a cool-ass mop helmet:

 
So far, no one from the NSA has returned my calls or answered my emails; therefore, when Marvin the Martian comes after us with his Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, don't say I didn't warn you.


Now, these aren't all of my reasons for neglecting the Porch. If the end of the world is nigh, I have things to do, people! I've always done my best work under a tight deadline, so here are a few other highly important things I've been trying to accomplish in the time we have left:

• Finish removing eleventy gazillion security twist ties, plastic coverings and tape from my eight-year-old's Christmas gifts, so he can play with his toys. Sadly, it would be easier to steal gold from Fort Knox (or underwear from a Hugh Jackman movie set; don't ask me how I know this) than free an action hero from its plastic confines.
• Convince Frito Lay to mass-market my new chip: PremenstrualOs. They're a delicious flavor combination of mini chocolate donuts and Chinese take-out. You know you want them.
• Study up on surveyor symbols so I no longer confuse them with gun crosshairs in political target zones. How embarrassing.
• Perfect scratch-and-sniff app for iPhone called Paolo Nutini's Hair Smells Like This. If the technology matches the dream, it will smell like salty ocean breezes combined with Necco Sweetheart Conversation Hearts.
• Figure out why characters named Luke are subpar in Hollywood. Bo Duke (yum!) was hotter than Luke Duke (ho-hum). Han Solo (yowza!) was hotter than Luke Skywalker (yawn). Luke Brower, while played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Growing Pains, was less adorable than Mike Seaver. That must be why no one is asking DiCaprio if it is the end of the world.