Echo

Austin murder suspect arrested at Kansas truck stop
Woman charged in shooting death of her child’s father

By Melissa Ludwig
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, July 29, 2004
A week after Rhonda Lee Glover bought a 9 mm Glock pistol at an Austin gun store and firing range, Austin police said, she showed up at a Houston shooting range with her 10-year-old son seeking shooting lessons and advice.

“How do you shoot someone in the head while they are sitting on a couch and you’re coming up from behind,” she asked an employee at Top Gun of Texas in early July, according to an arrest warrant.

On Sunday, Glover’s longtime boyfriend — the father of her son — was found dead in his Southwest Austin home, shot 13 times, and Glover, 38, had hit the road going north in a rented white recreational vehicle.
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Uh…if I worked at a shooting range and someone asked me, “How do you shoot someone in the head while they are sitting on a couch and you’re coming up from behind,” I wouldn’t be suspicious at all, either. But that’s because I’m an idiot.

I watched Star, the BMW film directed by Guy Ritchie with Madonna about 6 times at work today. It’s hilarious.

I ate lunch at the Century City Mall Food Court next to two grotesquely fat guys talking about working in the film industry. It depressed me. The industry talk.

Realization I: every artist needs a muse. And just like how we can’t choose who we love, we can’t choose who we struggle to claw out our souls for. At least I finally have one again. I’ve fallen in love with a disturbing projection. In the act of creating art, must one inherently become a narcissist?

Realization II: The area by the elliptical machines in my gym smells like penis. This is the second time I’ve gone into that area and noticed that. It’s very disconcerting.

I enjoy thinking about and talking about sex. But the real thing is too much mess and work. Is there some sort of happy compromise?

People who are oppressively pedantic and condescending to other people (ie me) make me violent.

What was crazy was on Saturday; I had a dream where I moved back to Ann Arbor. My mom and brother came to help me with the move and we went to Meijers (a crazy ass superstore) to buy apartment stuff. My place was in walking distance from the store so I went home early to get things set up. My mom showed up a little bit later. I asked her, “Where’s Michael?” She said she left him at the store to teach him a lesson because he got fixated on CDs and wouldn’t leave when she told him to. I guess I lived close by enough that she figured he would know how to walk there. An hour later, he hadn’t shown up. I was worried so I called him on his cell a few times but he didn’t answer, so we went back to the store to see if he was still there. No one had seen him. I went through the whole store looking for him, starting to panic because I had a gnawing fear that someone with bad intentions had lured him away (he has a tendency to talk to strangers and is really naive). We drove around looking for him, and as night fell, we finally called the cops. With every hour, I was getting more and more scared, because I know that with each passing hour that someone is missing, the chances are exponentially slimmer that they will be found, or more accurately, that they will be found alive. Two days later, it started dawning on me that someone must have taken my brother, and that at this moment, he was probably already dead. I was absolutely devastated.

This dream freaked me out. It was really bugging me the next morning, so as I was heading to pick up Whitney for brunch, I called my mom to tell her about my dream and to tell her to keep an eye on my brother and have a talk with him about strangers. I sometimes call people up and let them know about my dreams if I notice when I’m hitting a period where things from my dreams are showing up right after in waking life, and I have a dream about something big; I figure that it doesn’t hurt to tell people to keep their eyes open. So I call her and I say, “I’m just calling because I had a really bad dream last night where Michael disappeared and I knew he was killed by a stranger.” She says, “Seriously??? I was just worrying about that when you called because I had a nightmare last night where he was kidnapped.”

And then this morning, I had a short dream in between hitting the snooze button where I ran into this random acquaintance at a Starbucks whom I haven’t seen or talked to in over 6 months; I never run into him. In the dream, he gave me news about a project that was disappointing. I went to Starbucks after work, and as I was parking, I remember thinking, “Danny’s in there.” But I figured it was one of the many irrational bursts of thought that flash through my mind in any given moment. I walk into the store and the first person I see is Danny. I ask him about the same project from my dream, and he tells me exactly what he told me in my dream. It was pretty uncanny.

The good thing about these periods, is that it’s kind of interesting to see what matches up. The bad thing is that I get anxious, because I worry about if the bad nightmarish things might show up too. Luckily, it’s usually just the random details (like an item I notice in a room in the dream) or small scenes that happen.

Well stop what you’re doing! Cuz I’m about to ruin, the image and the style that you’re used to. For your stress-relief enjoyment, take a stroll down to my new site, in which I post a photo every day and you tell America what kind of person he or she looks like.

I’ve found that while Instant Messaging is a more accurate way of communicating than emails or letters, the medium still allows for miscommunication. But upon deeper analysis, miscommunications usually occur because someone (simultaneously) sees both the subtext and the surface meanings, but there is confusion or mistrust over which is being intentionally expressed (ie which the receiver is responding to).

Because IMing is each person typing out their own lines of dialogue. The only things missing are the emotional affectations and the face to face observations of another human being. I think IM is the clearest medium for exposing subtext because each person is automatically paring down what he or she says to the essential, and what is said is presented in a manner that gives the receiver a tangible message with which he or she can digest in the needed time frame, and which can be referred back to. But written dialogue also leaves room for interpretation. At best, we use our natural intuition to derive the underlying meanings or motivations that people give away (if you listen to people talk, when they are lying or internally conflicted, you can often tell by dissecting their word choices and dialogue construction. Outside of the sociopathic personality, the Truth is ALWAYS present in our communications, even if we are not saying what we mean). At worst, we project our fears and anxieties in our interpretations.

My dad always bought me GI Joes when I was little. I mean, I had stuffed animals and all that good stuff, but when it came to mock-human play things, I had GI Joes instead of Barbies. Perhaps he had secretly hoped for a son, but when I popped out, he figured he would treat me like the son he always wanted. But regardless, I was surrounded with GI Joes.

Let me tell you about the drama of my GI Joes.

I was in love with Beach Head. Beach Head was in luurve with Lady Jaye. When all the others would take the tank out for missions, Beach Head and Lady Jaye would be back at the base secretly doing what birds and bees and monkeys at the zoo do (at 7 years old, I wasn’t sure what that was other than that they would happily lie on top of each other). But Cobra’s men would always ambush the base and kidnap the two. Cobra would leave Lady Jaye to the whim of his rogue men while he marched Beach Head off to a secluded spot behind the mountains to “interrogate” him, but in truth, he was torturing Beach Head because he was in love with him and wanted him to consummate that love. But of course, the other Joes would come in and save the day just in time.

Is this what happens when parents give their children gender-confusing role-playing toys? That the toys become promiscuous and dabble in gang bang, S&M and homosexual practices? Or is this proof that I am actually a crack baby? And what kind of dramas might have been played out had I been surrounded by an estrogen clan of Barbies and a lone anatomically-incorrect Ken?

The potluck at our place was on Saturday night, and we had about 20 people and a hell of a lot of good food. I made broiled jerk chicken drumsticks and gyoza (Japanese pot stickers), as well as an assortment of improvised shots and blended drinks after dinner. We played a game of Mafia in which Alex and I, as mafia, won, and by early morning, everyone was pretty much passed out. We heard shouting from across the street so AD and I ran out to the front balcony. What is it about possibly witnessing a fight that gets people so morbidly excited? It was the two B-school guys who live across the street, their windows directly across from mine. They were in the street and one guy was storming around the corner while the other guy said, “I’m gonna beat your ass as soon as I pay for the taxi.” He spent about 10 minutes paying the cab driver before getting in his car and speeding off, swerving down our street, generously using both lanes. The asshole was totally drunk driving. Meanwhile, the other guy went upstairs and in his drunken state, neglected to close his curtains. Mind you, I parade around my place in my underwear near compulsively, not to mention the infamous spider incident* so as much as they’ve seen me, I’ve never seen them in any compromising states.

Today is my ex-boyfriend from years ago’s birthday. He’s a nice guy so I have no qualms about wishing him a happy birthday. We’ve only talked once since we attempted the post-relationship friendship but ended up falling out over him accusing me of accusing him of stealing my pot (trust me, this accusation came out of left field and I did no such thing).

The conversation happened because I kept leaving messages on his best friend Dave’s answering machine about editing work, thinking I was leaving messages for Dave, my editor. I just assumed that the name “Dave” programmed into my phone would be the same creative cohort that I talk to on a constant basis. Unfortunately, his friend Dave is also an editor, making these messages even more confusing. I didn’t realize my mistake until he picked up one day and I figured out that months worth of messages had landed on the wrong answering machine. I asked him how Drew was and Drew ended up on the phone. It was friendly without any past resentments. No mention of the weird pot-stealing fallout. End of story.

I saw Drew again last year at Bed Bath and Beyond, the night of my breakup with a stupid guy not worth naming. He had on a wedding band and was with a girl wearing a ring, and her parents. I’m assuming they were preparing the registry. Seeing as this would be an awkward moment to say hi, I left. Maybe he saw me lurking. I hope not.

Fast forward to three weeks ago when I’m at Sonny MacLean’s for a birthday party. I know that last I talked to him, he bartended here. I asked the bartender if Drew still worked here. She said there was someone by that name. I said, blond, from England. She said, he’s from Connecticut. I remember that he got here by way of Conn, so I say, he’s married, has a little dog. She realizes that we’re talking about the same guy so she says, “A good-looking guy? Yeah, he works during the days. He’ll be working tomorrow.” What is it about hearing someone say that an ex is good-looking that just rubs you the wrong way? It’s an ego thing. You don’t want to think that there’s life after you. You want to think their life is a dry, ravaged landscape ala post-Armageddon, and they’ve fallen to pieces ever since you took your rays of sunshine away. But I digress. I say that I’m an old friend who just wanted to say hi, take my drink and leave.

The next day, I can’t find my credit card. Having been at this bar seems to have been completely wiped out from my mind. I report it lost and a whole week goes by before I remember that the last place I used it was at the bar. Part of me knows that I should go and reclaim it, but part of me hates the fact that Drew probably came in, saw my card, and thought that I was still an idiot, leaving my tab open and forgetting my card. (but then again, there is really no argument here since this is the second time within months that I’ve done that). But more importantly, I was too lazy to make that 10 minute drive to reclaim my card since they’d already charged me and I’d already cancelled it.