There I Am

Psst! Over here! I'm over here today.

Talking about inspiration, Tina Turner and ancient Greece, of course. If you would, please pop on over to Krista's blog and say hello...

Image.

Because I Would Rather Drink a Congealed Gravy Boat That Had Been Left Out Over-Night Than Set Foot in a Store Today

And so it began...

On the off-chance that you might not be as excited to open a gift of tighty-whities, I have discovered something so magical, so perfect, so gimme gimme disgusting and pre-Lehman Brothers No Good Very Bad Economic Meltdown that I simply must share it with you: The Universal Wish List Button. Basically it's a link that you save to your favorites and when you see something you want online you click it and it automatically-quite-possibly-with-the-help-of-the-Devil-himself puts that item onto your Amazon wishlist. Apparently, you can put anything on there because I tried: a tropical island in Belize, a house, a car, tight tummy--natch. Gimme gimme at its finest. Here is mine should you feel so inclined, though truth be told I also need me some new skivvies.

Happy Black Friday.
xo,
S

Yeah, That

I hate cranberry sauce. Meh re: turkey.
I don't like the pecans in pecan pie. (Why can't it just be a pie with carmelized brown gooey stuff?)
Green beans and peas--two thumbs down.
Gravy is gross.
I wish someone would make stuffing without any mushrooms.
I merely tolerate mashed potatoes; I fill up on dinner rolls.

And yet this year I am thankful for it all, for my family big and small, my friends. For my job and autumn leaves, giraffe socks, words like chickpea and saucy, lassitude, inky, thistle and frock. I am thankful for nutella and The Real Housewives of Everywhere, the smell of privet, tangerines, naked ladies (the flowering bulb), the sounds of tennis, Blackbird, for humor, for you. Thank you Great Big World of the Absurd and Beyond, how I do love you. (I am also exceedingly thankful the following has not yet happened to me:
)
Happy Happy Everyone.
xo,
S

You Sonofawhoreson Bitch!

Simmer down. I did not just call you a Sonofawhoreson Bitch, though secretly I cannot wait for the next time someone pisses me off so I can say that. No, it's just that I wish I knew how to quit you.

I mean, seriously. There I go all we need to take some time apart, let's slow things down, it's not you it's me, but then I see videos like this and all I can do is think of you. After all, what fun are silicone breasts on a man techno dancing while chanting something in German/Russian/possibly Portuguese if we cannot share it together? So sit. Hold my hand. Let's sip this same soda from two straws. Tell me: what language is he speaking and the bigger quesion of WTF?

xo,
S

The Weight of Raisins

"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness." --Tom Waits, on what is wrong with the world (and me). I can't handle it, you guys. All of it. Raisins and the bus schedule, iphones, the sound of Zoey singing. The walls are thin and I can feel winter pass through each window pane. It's my own doing, of course, isn't it always? I told myself I had to post every day, like a job. But the raisins--did I tell you? They are everywhere! On the floor beneath the coffee table, in between the cushions of every seat, lining the bottom of my purse like lint. And if I have learned anything in this world it is to listen to raisins, what the sun will do to a grape.
I will not be posting every day anymore. More like 3 days a week, I think. No less. Certainly no less. I mean, you won't think less of me will you? You'll still visit, read? Comment? After all, if Tom Waits is right, then maybe my posts will be better this way. And let's be honest--when has Tom Waits ever been wrong? Never, I tell you, never, which is good because there are odd raisins in my car stuck like pebbles across the floorboards.

xoxo,
S

Image & image.

Said Cheese

Much of what I love about motherhood (other than the actual child) was at some point sold to me wrapped in convention and tied with a cliche. Shrinky dinks, matching mother/daughter aprons, the two of us walking on the beach talking about that not-so-fresh feeling (which hasn't happened yet but probably will in 20 years, of that I am pretty certain). In a world in which I rarely know what I am doing I find safety in string cheese.
Which is why I love Zoey's school picture--her first. Good old dorky school pictures, soft focus frizz, just check out those hands! Clasped, all with an envelope and an order form for mom. This girl could sell me juice boxes, insurance, Ranger Rick magazines, for some reason a membership to AARP. This girl makes me feel happy, even if it is a cliche. Happy Friday.
xo,
S & Z

Warmer Colder Cold.

Sometimes I forget what I want and what I feel. What I did or didn't do. Like maybe I'll be standing in my kitchen feeling discombobulated and I don't quite know why, my tummy kinda' slippery. Did I forget to pay the cable bill? Is there a new ding on my bumper? Did somebody say something off to me? And I run through the possibilities right there like a grocery list. When I was little we had a cat named Dumb Darryl. I don't know why except that when he entered a room he often looked as if he forgot what brought him there. Dumb Darryl Chicken Liver Whip Whap Sick Sack, like a song, and we would laugh at him there between the ferns.

I guess I forgot what brought me here. Should I post a funny photo? A story? Something slow and dense and yeah, like this? Are we out of milk? Should I post at all? Yesterday I got a traffic ticket for $380, last night Bryan and I were mean to each other. My skin is dry and I wonder if it wouldn't be better to be like our old cat Wanda who peed on the carpet.

But that's not it really. Close, but not quite.

Image here.

Because Inside of Me Lives a 12 Yr. Old Boy, His Ambition to Become Dungeon Master Vying with His Desire to Spend More Alone Time in the Bathroom.

If you had to (the best sentences start with if, n'est ce pas?), would you make out with this guy...
(I mean, this is verging on racist black face here, right?) The make up/make out must be full-on grinding, or as the kids say, macking. Or maybe the kids only said that ten years ago like on Degrassi High, or something. I don't know. The point is your faces are mashed together, tongues down each other's throat, humdidah humdidah for the 81 minutes it takes you to watch From Justin to Kelly out of the corner of your eye. And the whole time the guy is sporting this jacket:
Or would you rather work as a professional animal masturbator for one year.

Hmm, i.e. things that make you go: Smells, bulls, the relative importance of the prostate.

It's important to know where you stand on such issues as you never know when someone might present you with option 1 or b.) forcing you to choose AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT JUST BECAUSE, OKAY?

Just because it's Wednesday. Happy Hump Day. (I'm going with 365 hand jobs because one time at the DMV after I failed the eye exam I was given this plastic view-master thing that was smeared thick with stranger sebum and before I had a chance to object the DMV lady pushed it to my face and asked me what I saw but I only heard and it was a noise like ssck and to this day my license reads "Restricted: Corrective Lenses.") You?
xo,
S

Mostly True Tuesdays

I was wearing the outfit he got me for Christmas at Contempo Casuals which was a big deal because 17 year old boys don't usually buy their girlfriends clothes and my friends, they all squealed when they heard. The top was orange and the pants were printed. I did not like the outfit but I wore it and we sat outside of school while he held the slip of paper with the phone number in his hand.

I want my car back, he said, so I gave him ten cents and he called the guy who he'd sold it to. I sat on the curb in the parking lot. I remember the gravel around my shoes but I cannot remember the print of my pants.
It only took the guy a half hour to get to our high school but he was not in the car but another car: an El Camino. The car's in Petaluma, he said, so we climbed in even though Petaluma was an hour away and let the guy drive us.
He took the backroads. I sat in the middle of the bench seat and for some reason the guy was talking about Hitler. Lampshades made of skin. Trucks and Nazis, engines, or maybe it was ingenuity. I dug the fingernails of my right hand into Bryan's thigh as we sped around curves and hills and into valleys. Nobody knows where we are, I thought, or I think I thought. Surely I must have thought that? In the car of a man whose phone number was only on a slip of paper in Bryan's pocket? Mostly I thought about how I hated what I was wearing and how gross the man was in the way that all adult men are gross to teenage girls.

When we got to Petaluma it was already dark and the man went inside his house real quick to do something. Bryan and I looked at each other and smiled. This is funny, right? one of us said. Weird, huh? All the world a story to be told during 3rd period. So we waited there outside standing on a Rorschach of oil in an otherwise empty driveway. My outfit had not come with a jacket and I was cold in just my orange shirt. I wonder how much longer this is going to take, and then the man came out and said the car was up in the mountains, that we had to drive a ways to get it.Can we use your phone? Bryan asked, we need to call our parents to tell them we'll be home late, but the man said no, his phone wasn't working, and opened the door to the El Camino. Run, Bryan said, run, just like that, not an exclamation point but a period. Run. And so I did, we did, we ran and we ran and we ran until--I don't know? Until we came to a bus stop and the next thing I knew we were doubled over laughing in the back of a bus with fluorescent lighting not really knowing if we were going in the right direction but we were laughing. And then twenty years later I wrote this story thinking it was the 1970 Chevy Cheyenne with the airbrushed wave on the dashboard that we were trying to get back only to read it to Bryan who told me that no, it was the 1974 Chevy Caprice with the fishbone spray painted on the hood, and that he doesn't remember ever buying me an outfit for Christmas at Contempo Casuals.

What I Did This Weekend (In Addition to Inventing Sliced Bread)

All weekend long I have been writing this post in my head and laughing--oh, how I laughed! God, I'm good, I thought, and maybe popped another Tylenol Cold and Flu. Next thing I knew I would open my eyes and it would be 5 hours later, me struggling to breathe out of whatever nostril had an airway opened one millimeter. Quite frankly I'm surprised I didn't rub my nose down to a nub, what with all that blowing and hacking and blowing and blowing. Seriously--in my head this was funny. The flu? A freaking hoot.
I had some good ideas this weekend, courtesy of a fever. Like this one: I want to create a font. Well, I suppose it's not a font so much as it is a type of software or something. I don't know, I plan on hiring some IT people, okay? Anyhoo, this thing would translate your written words into sick speak. So if you were sick and needed to email your boss you could write I don't think I'm coming to work today as I don't feel well and with the push of a button it would be translated into I don' thingk I'm cominkg to work today as I don' peel well. With this font/software/thingie your boss would fully grasp the gravity of your sickuation, thus feeling more sorry for you, which, as everyone knows, is paramount when one is sick. Imagine the possibilities!

But then I got paranoid about posting my idea--what if somebody steals it, I thought. Is it enough to have a time/date stamp on the post? Would that hold up in court? I mean, I don't think it would because you can always pre-date a posting. So then I took another Tylenol Cold and Flu and slept for fourteen hours wherein I dreamed the geniosity of inventing sliced bread. That's right--I invented sliced bread this weekend! All I needed to do was write a post about the idea and date it July 6th, 1928, the day before sliced bread was actually invented. And so I did. Then I invented the Cotton Gin on March 13, 1794, and on September 17, 1919 I invented pasties. For strippers, not the Cornish.

So yes, I had the flu this weekend. Still do, in fact. Can you tell? (A hoot, I tell you, an absolute hoot is what it is.) And you--what did you do this weekend?

Insouciant

If I smoked this is where I would do it, bare feet flat against the high side of a hot building.
But I don't smoke, of course. Or sit on ledges; I rarely wear a bathing suit outside of a swimming pool. In short, I am careful.

When I pick her up from preschool she is playing on the slide with the Pre-K boys. That's what she calls them, like the Lost Boys or the Boys of Summer, boys in a pack and all the more cool for it. The tallest one slides down head-first and says something that I don't understand and they laugh, crazed, the Pre-K boys and my Zoey. Later when I ask her what he said, what was so funny, she says she doesn't know, didn't know, or maybe she just forgot. The way she pulls at her string cheese like a harpist, she is the prettiest thing in the world and I want to jump, really I do. Instead I pull her back and eat my string cheese in bites.

GreenLit

We do this thing--Bryan and I. Netflixiosis. Where we rent seasons of shows at a time and devour them 3, 4, 5, 6 episodes a night. Our eyes crunchy and sag-bagged, he might turn to me or I to him--another?--and the other will nod even though the clock reads no more, the two of us hunched under our plush throw that pilled in the wash last year.

But that is not the thing. The thing that we do, it's like this: when we were renting The Sopranos we would watch them so densely packed that our days were colored Gandolfini. I would only sit if my back was against the wall. What? You want a fuckin' Whitman's sampler? Bryan would say to me apropos of Lucky Charms, and I would narrow my eyes because I am nobody's goomah. (When we were watching Six Feet Under I turned corners in my car and thought of spackle, and then there was the week of Weeds when we giggled. Breaking Bad was very bad, every decision ending in yo', Californication with oh dear, things I cannot, will not ever mention.)

But that is all in the past, some of those realities since cancelled, the rest waiting in our queue like costumes. Now we are watching Season One of In Treatment and at night Bryan turns to me and asks wanna' go to therapy? I nod my head yes, yes, of course, we need this, Laura who only breathes out of her mouth, Alex, thin Sophie, god how we hate Jake and Amy. Why are they even together? Our hands meet in the bowl of popcorn; together we rumble GAIIIIINA when Dianne Wiest comes onscreen.

In the day I wonder why we do that. What does it mean? Pronouncing Gina Gaina, ceci n'est pas une pipe, all the world never just a cigar from a couch with its own waiting room. When Bryan calls to tell me he's running late he follows with and how does that make you feel? This man who I usually think of as my silent Indian.

The thing is with this thing we do: there are things that may or may not be Things. Because lately Zoey has been blinking. Which is good, of course, fine, normal. Blinking. But Blink. Ing. And again. Blink. Ing. Kind of exaggerated. Kind of a lot. Have you noticed--and Bryans says yes and we tell each other not to call attention. Of course if this were a week when we were watching The Sopranos I would think she was being disrespectful; Weeds? Three years old and totally stoned. But we are not saturated in those shows now but this one, and I wonder why it is so important to me that I know why my daughter is suddenly opening and closing her eyes.

When I consult our family physician, Dr. Www, I am assured that it's common, exaggerated blinking in toddlers. A transient tic (or a brain tumor, good thing Six Feet Under is four years gone). Not to worry. When I tell my mother she reminds me that I stuttered as a child. I remind her that I grew up to be a woman with severe anxiety.And so we try not to notice. (And how does that make you feel?) Today at the park my friend told me that her husband thinks I am creating a mini-me. Does that mean he thinks I wear leopard ears in public and only pink? I asked, and we laughed. But the thing is I already created it, her. It's a wrap, and I am left to study her until my eyes go dry thinking of articles I have read in waiting rooms.

Images found here.

Good Things Come in Three's

Or four's. Two's? Truth be told I don't much question how good things come so long as they come when I most need them. Like this three picture story of a family in the making:

Which is so totally true seeing as how Zoey still sleeps in our bed. (I love it. Bryan says she kicks him in the balls all night. So maybe if these were pictures of my family the man's toes would be curled in that last photo.)

And then this, which makes me want to throw myself down on the sidewalk there to get in on that cuddle.

Can you tell that I am happy today? All kumbaya and confetti? (Don't worry--we all know confetti is a bitch to clean up; tomorrow I will be back with more words.)

In the meantime, Happy Hump Day!

xo,
S

Just an Idea (i.e. Just the Most Awesomest Idea Ever)

You have my word that if I ever publish a book I will recreate this image for my author's photo on the dust jacket. No contemplative chin in the hand for my tome! Oh, I know there is only one of me, but that is the least of my worries as photoshop can dupe me out as well as maybe minimize my gut over high-waisted gold lamé shorts.

(As Bryan was walking by just now I showed him this pic and told him my plan. Tcch, yeah, right, he said, and kept on walking, so now I totally have to write a book, get it published, feather my hair and find gold boots just to show him up. Oh, also because I want to write a book.)

Any publishers out there? This is golden people. Seriously, *I will do it--let's make this happen.

*Unless, of course, the publisher doesn't want me to. I mean, this isn't a deal-breaker. I can gaze at the camera in academic earnest, too.

Monday Morning News (In Which I Reference the Bible, Physics and Tub Girl)

I got a job. A job job.
Of course because of this awesome photo I am thisclose to comparing myself to the biblical Job, something about my faith being tested maybe, but let's be real. I had to Wikipedia "The Book of Job" because I have never actually read the Bible even though I was an English major and everything right down to Dr. Suess can be analyzed as a Jesus myth. (One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish anyone?) No, in that respect I am illiterate, and when Wikipedia started referencing Ezekial my mind closed up as if all that smiting was a vitamin it could not swallow even lengthwise.

Anyhoo. Yes. A job. And I am happy. I bought a sweater the other day, these jeans. Two baby shower presents. The duvet on our bed has a hole in it and every night I find myself chasing tiny white goose-down feathers into the corners of our hardwood floor, (like thoughts, they float away); I really want to buy a new duvet. Still. There are some things that once seen cannot ever be unseen: dead bodies, tub girl, this. And I would very much like to never un-see this last year when my world seemed narrowed down to what was real: food, shelter. Family. I hope I never forget what is important, even though Starbucks has brought out those happy seasonal red cups yet again. Job! I knew it: God is testing me with eggnog chai.

So here's the thing: my new job. It's writing. And it's perfect. They know about my blog but have asked that I never mention work. So this is it. You have all followed me through this Year of Living Employmentlessly so I wanted to let you know that I am now okay. Better than, but that is all I can say which makes it sound as if I am writing for the CIA so let's just go with that--I wear oversized dark glasses, a trench coat and I write. I am happy.

I guess I just want to thank you all for being there for me this past year, you in your swivel chair slouching. Reading, lurking, anonymous, and not--you have all helped me more than you can ever know, mostly without even really knowing me. Of course I will still be here blogging, but I can't help but feel this is a tipping point, that I am moving from one equilibrium to the next, a tomorrow qualitatively dissimilar from yesterday (but hopefully more stable). And yes, I totally Wikipedia'ed "Tipping Point (physics)" for that. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

'Til tomorrow then.
xo,
S

I Give Up

If your week was anything like mine then you rully rully need this:

If your week just so happens to have been nothing like mine, then, well, I don't know. Here?Narcoleptic meerkats make my tummy feel squidgy, (I choose to ignore the rest).

Happy Friday.
xo,
S

Blogger Down

Not with the H1N1 virus or anything sexy like that, but with work and a child who refuses to take part in Daylight Standard Time, a fridge harboring nothing but baking soda, milk and salsa, plus when I roll up my driver's side window a gap remains so that when I drive on the freeway my car emits a low airy whistle like a perv, or a fart. Wheeeeeh. Everything off track. As I type this my cursor is flickering spasmodically. I can't help but think of that time when the sound of Mary Hart's voice triggered seizures in an epileptic, like maybe my computer is sending me into the throes of something; I wonder if someone would insure my legs for one million dollars each.
All this to say that I am not posting today, which, yeah. It's like when someone asks if they can ask you a question? And you kinda' want to bitch slap them while wearing a large purple costume jewelry cocktail ring? Like that.

The good news is I am fairly certain I can make a bomb with the contents of my fridge.

Back tomorrow.
xo,
S

Hump Day: the Ho Hum Edition

I'm the first to admit I like my world strange, my blogs absurd, my news doubled over.

This is how I blog. In fact, c'est moi.

I mean, if I had the money? And a hole where my sink should be? I would totally install this bitchin' ammonite number, maybe commission a toilet to match, though let's not get started on what toothpaste would do to the finish, much less something other. And things like this? Make me giggle. Was that intentional, you think? Or simply a joke told by the setting sun? He's a funny one, that fiery orb.
These guys. Truth be told I cannot name one Motorhead song. I despise rugby shirts and suspect the guy on the left would pronounce my name SusAHHnah no matter how many times I corrected him. Still, they look like a fun bunch, don't they? I would totally hang out with them. But this? This blurb from News of the Weird?

A male Swedish college student, Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, has begun pumping his breasts at three-hour intervals in a 90-day experiment to see if he can produce milk. If he succeeds, he said, it could prove “very important for men’s ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage.”
A professor of endocrinology told the daily Aftonbladet that male lactation without hormone treatment might produce “a drop or two,” but suggested that men instead consider offering their breasts to babies as a matter of comfort and warmth, rather than as food.
Bengtsson, who will report regularly on his progress via Stockholm’s TV8 channel and the station’s Web site, acknowledged that his timetable would sometimes require that he pump during classes.

I don't know, you guys. Sometimes the world is too strange, even for Wednesdays. Especially for Wednesdays.
Happy Hump Day, people.
xo,
S

No White Shoes After Labor Day, No Horizontal Stripes. If You Lived Through a Fad the First Time Around, Pass Up Any and All Resurrections.

Just curious: what do we think about these?

( This coming from a girl who may or may not still own a hair scrunchie depending on semantics and the width in millimeters of the ruching.)

I ask because I think these denim stretch pants might be cute with a chunky oatmeal-colored turtleneck sweater on a cold winter day. And as hard as it was for me to type "stretch pants" I need to tell you I would never ever not in a million Ferris Bueller Days Off wear them with patent stiletto heels but with boots. Or something. Yeah. I mean, am I crazy? Am I verging on these?

Or better yet, this get-up? Though, fuck--I actually like that embroidered denim shirt in a slightly ironic though truth be told also sincere way, not with stirrup pants, mind you--never stirrup pants. But thrown over a tee-shirt worn with a simple black a-line skirt? My scrunchie's on too tight, isn't it? You'll have to pardon me if I pause to catch my breath on this here split rail fence.

So these, you who talked me out of Crocs, what do you think? My hesitation lies not so much in the stretch pant moniker as it does the elastic waist band. They look like maternity jeans; as it is one too many UPS delivery guys have congratulated me when the only bun in my oven is a hot cross chocolate croissant for lunch. So?

Save me from myself. Hell, save yourself! November 3rd--I believe today is Election Day so cast your vote. What do we do in the face of these 80's fashions that have come back maybe a little bit cuter? Plastic earrings and shoulder pads, Sussudio, crap that means nothing but gets stuck in your head nonetheless. Sussudio, oh oh oh, Just say the word...

On Second Thought: Why DON'T Kids Use Pillowcases to Trick-or-Treat Anymore?

No doubt the interwebs are abuzz with pics of petite pirates and princesses, balloon boys, bees, their parents a mere blah blah behind them so proud. And I get it: Halloween is over, 2 days gone, store windows already dusted with styrofoam snowflakes, bins of spiders marked 75% off at outlet. But wait! There's more! This pumpkin is not yet doubled over soft, the bottom only sits in a very shallow puddle of liquified goo, I swear. Please don't shaving cream my blog but indulge me these last bits of my favorite holiday of all time and then some: Halloween, when everyone gets to be someone else.
My first memory of Halloween is standing outside my house while my dad took my photo. I was dressed as a ballerina and only noticed years later that my shoes were on the wrong feet. I wish I could find that picture now but in all honesty I don't really need it. I have this photo: not a ballerina but a leopard boasting the same glee and self-satisfaction years before it's deemed unbecoming to feel such things.

And then this. God: this. I mean, really, I want to lick my hand and pass it firm over her head and behind her ears like a mama leopard, nudging my forehead into hers, a kiss. (And then, truth be told, I want to push her father into our bedroom to make a hundred more babies just like this, like her, a hundred and one kitten Zoeys, though something tells me that is not a compliment any child wants to hear, much less in the face of so much leopard print.)

Another Halloween memory, years later: I was maybe ten, old enough to trick or treat with a friend unchaperoned. My friend was dressed as Pippi Longstocking, I was Mommie Dearest. We cut through a park holding our pillowcases of Sweetarts and Reece's when a group of teenage boys crowded around us to steal our candy. My friend had wire in her braids to make them bend up like Pippi's, and the boys, they bent her wires down like two arms broken and we cried. Why are you doing this? I asked, and they said, Because we're older! And when you're in the tenth grade you'll do it, too! I am very happy to report that I never stole anyone's candy, not even in the tenth grade. Although when I think back to that memory I do kind of laugh now, the image of those braids pointing out and then down. The best thing about Halloween is having a very good friend with whom to trick or treat, and a mom who will let you raid the candy bowl when you come back without your pillowcase, even if it was one of her good ones.

Next up: Thanksgiving, though you'll be happy to note I have never been a fan of this day of turkey and dirty dishes, football, leaves on tables too long, crevices stuffed with necks. Still--perhaps the day could be improved if I wore my mustache? Got a little cranberry sauce on the tip there? And don't even get me started on those turkeys that kids make by tracing their hands, the thumb dripping with a little wobbly gobbly, the pinky glop-topped with an feather dyed orange. Good god, if Zoey presents me with one of those construction paper bad boys I am totally going to lose it, sell my soul to Hallmark and call myself a mommyblogger without even a hint of apology. My kid is the cutest facking leopard ever! Hear me roar!