Out of the mouth of my babe.
I am SO.
Happy Friday!
xo,
S
p.s. For Gin--Zoey fell in love with that Doris Day clip you directed me to awhile back. I thought she'd forgotten about it. Until this bath when she reminded me. Thank you:)
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
My Yesterday: A Thousand Points of Dim (and One Song of Despair)
8am-ish: Bryan stands right in front of me at the bathroom sink. I ask him to please move and he says, "but I have to go to work. You don't need to get ready because you're not going anywhere." And he is right.
9 or so: I drop Zoey off at preschool and stop at the grocery store on my way home to buy milk. See! I think. I totally have places to go! People to see! I nod at the man unloading a pallet of cheese, my friend, my colleague even if I have chosen to come to Safeway at 9 on a Wednesday morning and he is working. Semantics. As I'm getting into my car in the parking lot I hear a woman calling, "Ma'am? Ma'am!" I turn around, thinking maybe I dropped something. "Can I see your receipt?" she asks. I paid in cash, carried my milk out sans bag. I do not have the receipt, I tell her. "I saw you walk from the back of the store. I need to see your receipt." It's funny really, that in the second between the first time she asked and this second time I still don't have the receipt. "Which check out stand did you go through?" I wave my hand in the general direction of the store, you know? The one in there? "I need to see your receipt." I think maybe I have stuffed a chicken breast down my pants without realizing it. I still don't have the receipt. We both stand there in the parking lot not knowing what comes next. As in most cases when I am faced with a question to which I do not know the answer, I get in my car and drive home.
9:30 ~ 11ish: I wait for the po-po to arrive at my house with a search warrant for dairy products. Did she get my license plate? I check my pants but still there is no sign that I have stuffed poultry in my drawers. Oh! And in the driveway I step in dog shit. (The carton of milk hidden deep behind the juice.)
Sometime later, who cares: I decide to take a nap. (When you're unemployed, naps are kinda' like Taco Bell: they seems like an excellent idea until you are finished, at which point you just feel bloated, greasy and dumb.) Halfway through my nap a shelf in my bedroom falls, ripping deep silver dollar-sized chunks out of the wall. This is the same shelf Bryan refused to put up for me when we moved in, saying the lath and plaster would not hold any weight. So I put it up myself. Blearily I look at what was once wall sprayed across the floor like snow. Like dandruff. I fall back asleep.
All day long: Every time I check my email there is that annoying banner ad telling me that Obama Wants Moms To Go Back To School! For the life of me I cannot figure out why this ad shows a gif of animated shadow ladies dancing in front of a rainbow background. And while I am all for Obama and Moms and yes, even School (god, how I loved school!), one thing I am sure of is that I do not need more school, I need a job. Preferably one that does not have me dancing in front of rainbows, but, you know? If the pay was right?
But I'm fine. Really, I am. Because somewhere in this same world where people think I have shoplifted organic milk and the walls are falling down all around me, there is this: a cat enjoying a lollipop. I am fine.
9 or so: I drop Zoey off at preschool and stop at the grocery store on my way home to buy milk. See! I think. I totally have places to go! People to see! I nod at the man unloading a pallet of cheese, my friend, my colleague even if I have chosen to come to Safeway at 9 on a Wednesday morning and he is working. Semantics. As I'm getting into my car in the parking lot I hear a woman calling, "Ma'am? Ma'am!" I turn around, thinking maybe I dropped something. "Can I see your receipt?" she asks. I paid in cash, carried my milk out sans bag. I do not have the receipt, I tell her. "I saw you walk from the back of the store. I need to see your receipt." It's funny really, that in the second between the first time she asked and this second time I still don't have the receipt. "Which check out stand did you go through?" I wave my hand in the general direction of the store, you know? The one in there? "I need to see your receipt." I think maybe I have stuffed a chicken breast down my pants without realizing it. I still don't have the receipt. We both stand there in the parking lot not knowing what comes next. As in most cases when I am faced with a question to which I do not know the answer, I get in my car and drive home.9:30 ~ 11ish: I wait for the po-po to arrive at my house with a search warrant for dairy products. Did she get my license plate? I check my pants but still there is no sign that I have stuffed poultry in my drawers. Oh! And in the driveway I step in dog shit. (The carton of milk hidden deep behind the juice.)
Sometime later, who cares: I decide to take a nap. (When you're unemployed, naps are kinda' like Taco Bell: they seems like an excellent idea until you are finished, at which point you just feel bloated, greasy and dumb.) Halfway through my nap a shelf in my bedroom falls, ripping deep silver dollar-sized chunks out of the wall. This is the same shelf Bryan refused to put up for me when we moved in, saying the lath and plaster would not hold any weight. So I put it up myself. Blearily I look at what was once wall sprayed across the floor like snow. Like dandruff. I fall back asleep.Sometime in the afternoon: I show Zoey the above pictures of Brigitte Bardot and ask her which one looks like mommy. She points to the one on the right. Somehow I know that simply because I asked her this question we are both going to need years of therapy.
All day long: Every time I check my email there is that annoying banner ad telling me that Obama Wants Moms To Go Back To School! For the life of me I cannot figure out why this ad shows a gif of animated shadow ladies dancing in front of a rainbow background. And while I am all for Obama and Moms and yes, even School (god, how I loved school!), one thing I am sure of is that I do not need more school, I need a job. Preferably one that does not have me dancing in front of rainbows, but, you know? If the pay was right?But I'm fine. Really, I am. Because somewhere in this same world where people think I have shoplifted organic milk and the walls are falling down all around me, there is this: a cat enjoying a lollipop. I am fine.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Hump Day Harumph
I'm kinda' in a foul mood today, simultaneously pitying myself and generally not liking the world at large. So it's a good thing today is Hump Day. Happy or not, you don't have to hear much from me. (Why do I sound like Eeyore in my head??)
Anyhoo, this video is disturbing in an oh my god, it's true, exercise works and apparently makes you super tan kind of way. (I just like to watch his arms blow away from his torso like a douche balloon.)
Anyhoo, this video is disturbing in an oh my god, it's true, exercise works and apparently makes you super tan kind of way. (I just like to watch his arms blow away from his torso like a douche balloon.)
Off to bed to feel sorry for myself. (I am allowing myself the morning, 2 more hours 'til noon.)
See you tomorrow with a smile!
xo,
S
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
What Me?
Sometimes she is so cute I get angry.
First day of preschool. (In all honesty it is the second day of preschool as I forgot to take a photo on the first day, the beginning of a long tradition: second day school pictures.)
Safety pins, nuts, bees, string, buttons, paint, medicine, cars, bikes, jungle gyms, twirling, dancing, sleeping, water, earth, breathing, blood and oxygen. This is just a partial list of what can kill a child. Your child, my child, a child so perfect I get angry that the world itself does not match her.
Electrical outlets and plastic bags. I am not trying to scare you, but oleander, azalea, wisteria, even buttercup, a name so sweet it actually does catch flies. Poisonous flowers admired by a race with a 100% mortality rate, annual or perennial no matter. From the moment Zoey was born I have been picking up stray bobby pins from the carpet.
Shopping carts. Improper use of child seat can lead to head injury, even death. I need cereal, milk, pasta, and Zoey is so big now she likes to walk. Hold onto the cart, I tell her, capellini, fettuccini, fusilli, and when I turn around she is gone.
She is more likely to die of a heart attack. And yet I worry about the monster in the closet, on the corner, the monster in aisle 5 perusing the bread while wearing Dockers and a baseball hat. I am a worrier, always have been, wielding my power of what if. Of course this power is blunt, fuzzy, flaccid to be frank. I pick up bobby pins because they glint in the light; the man in aisle 5 does not even look up at me.
But what if is a question, and I don't want to parent in the unknown. How then do I mother in a world that at times seems so dark? 800,000 kids reported missing each year, 203,000 of which were family abductions, 58,000 non-family abductions, only 115 of which were stereotypical kidnappings. Somewhere in there is a number that is supposed to make me feel better, I think, a percent for the supposed masses like me who read People magazine. (But I am not a mass and my child is #1. A 1 in however many, I don't care, the solution to parenting not in denial but in acceptance of reality. Shopping carts kill.)
This is very hard for me, a woman who gets strength from worry. Nothing is more difficult than the powerlessness of parenting, plastic bags and marbles, chasing balls across the street. But what if is hardly preventative and worry is only the fear we manufacture. If I spend my time worrying then I miss that first day of preschool, the sundress she wore that reminds me of Fruit Stripes gum, how she came home chattering about her new friend named Ellie, a paper caterpillar colored red in one hand. Which is not to say that I have gone lax, but without imagined worry perhaps I will be more sensitive to sensing real danger.
Trans-fats and glycerides. She was in the cookie aisle all along.
I included this video because if anything ever does happen to my child I am totally tossing someone up in the air like this motherfucking water buffalo. Just sayin.'
First day of preschool. (In all honesty it is the second day of preschool as I forgot to take a photo on the first day, the beginning of a long tradition: second day school pictures.)Safety pins, nuts, bees, string, buttons, paint, medicine, cars, bikes, jungle gyms, twirling, dancing, sleeping, water, earth, breathing, blood and oxygen. This is just a partial list of what can kill a child. Your child, my child, a child so perfect I get angry that the world itself does not match her.
Electrical outlets and plastic bags. I am not trying to scare you, but oleander, azalea, wisteria, even buttercup, a name so sweet it actually does catch flies. Poisonous flowers admired by a race with a 100% mortality rate, annual or perennial no matter. From the moment Zoey was born I have been picking up stray bobby pins from the carpet.
Shopping carts. Improper use of child seat can lead to head injury, even death. I need cereal, milk, pasta, and Zoey is so big now she likes to walk. Hold onto the cart, I tell her, capellini, fettuccini, fusilli, and when I turn around she is gone.
She is more likely to die of a heart attack. And yet I worry about the monster in the closet, on the corner, the monster in aisle 5 perusing the bread while wearing Dockers and a baseball hat. I am a worrier, always have been, wielding my power of what if. Of course this power is blunt, fuzzy, flaccid to be frank. I pick up bobby pins because they glint in the light; the man in aisle 5 does not even look up at me.
But what if is a question, and I don't want to parent in the unknown. How then do I mother in a world that at times seems so dark? 800,000 kids reported missing each year, 203,000 of which were family abductions, 58,000 non-family abductions, only 115 of which were stereotypical kidnappings. Somewhere in there is a number that is supposed to make me feel better, I think, a percent for the supposed masses like me who read People magazine. (But I am not a mass and my child is #1. A 1 in however many, I don't care, the solution to parenting not in denial but in acceptance of reality. Shopping carts kill.)
This is very hard for me, a woman who gets strength from worry. Nothing is more difficult than the powerlessness of parenting, plastic bags and marbles, chasing balls across the street. But what if is hardly preventative and worry is only the fear we manufacture. If I spend my time worrying then I miss that first day of preschool, the sundress she wore that reminds me of Fruit Stripes gum, how she came home chattering about her new friend named Ellie, a paper caterpillar colored red in one hand. Which is not to say that I have gone lax, but without imagined worry perhaps I will be more sensitive to sensing real danger.
Trans-fats and glycerides. She was in the cookie aisle all along.
I included this video because if anything ever does happen to my child I am totally tossing someone up in the air like this motherfucking water buffalo. Just sayin.'
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Many Faces of Bryan: A Story Told in Facial Hair (NOW WITH UPDATE!)
For weeks now I have had Danger Zone in my head. Sometimes it's Footloose, I'm Alright, Playin' With the Boys, don't ask me how I know so many of these songs, I just do. Michael Mcdonald--I'll be darned if he hasn't squeezed into my head, too, other times Kenny Rogers, but mostly it has been Kenny Loggins, my life a soundtrack to an 80's movie wherein boy meets girl and irritates the fuck out of her skin what with his bitchin' beard and then some. Because of this, my husband:
Last week was the regatta de beard and I could not have been happier to see the finish line. Unfortunately on the first day Bryan torqued his back (so laden down with facial hair was he), and was forced to sit out the majority of the race. And by "sit out" I mean he laid on the couch at home and watched gladiator movies while making soft gristly downright maggot-y noises with his fingertips raking his beard. Sometime around Friday afternoon I reminded him that he was free to shave now that he was out of the race, but he said he wanted to support his team in spirit which means I got to spend my weekend with this man:
One bottom lip gained! It was kind of sexy in a Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers kind of way. Except soon, the civility of this:
Turned to this:
A man possessed by bad grooming, one gladiator movie too many. Who's to say if it was the Porn 'Stache or High Hilarity Brought On by Bedrest, but Bryan really went with it:
At one point during the weekend as I was asking him to stand against the wall for yet another photo Bryan said, "I feel like you're making fun of me." Which kinda' broke my heart.
Because I'm not making fun of him. I mean, he's in on the joke, right? Plus, while I am not one for mustaches and never ever once got the whole mystique of Tom Selleck 5-0, I do think Bryan rocked the Ned Flanders walrus pushbroom, don't you?
I am so totally NOT making fun of him.
And when Sunday night finally rolled around, I was so happy to gain a top lip. A mouth. That smile.
And then we made out. The End.UPDATED TO ADD: My sister-in-law just sent this awesome pic of Zoey proving that yes, Zoey DOES take after her daddy, and I do have a fantabulous sister-in-law.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tales From the Kingdom
I used to be a girl who did not like tomatoes. A girl who never wore gold jewelry, who wore pajamas to bed, a girl who slept in 'til noon. Then one year I went to Italy and ate tomatoes, simple as that, the before and after of a girl defined by citrus. Now my very favorite food is insalate caprese, could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, heirloom all the better but I will eat winter romas in a pinch, hard and admittedly a little bit bland. I wear gold jewelry now, never silver; I wake up early every morning naked in my bed.
I used to be a girl who did not like Disneyland. Nothing against Mickey and the gang, although Daisy does annoy. No, I simply don't like crowds, the ugliness of the human race en masse and under the sun like that sweaty. Too many tattoos, fingertips, pores enlarged and fat, everything a surface touched by so many, sticky systems of skin, eating and breathing and pooping and then eating some more. Oh, but I am a joy at street fairs!
And now this: a before and after of a girl defined by a petunia. I thought I would hate Disneyland, but I didn't. Because of this, because of her, my very own sticky system of skin that found the est in that place of the Happi:
First stop was the Bippity Boppity Boutique where Zoey was transformed into a betrothed Cinderella, the politics of the princessification of girls be damned. Here she had a personal shopper who helped her pick out her dress, glass (plastic) slippers, gloves and jewelry, then she was whisked off to have her nails polished and hair done, adding a shiny blond ringletted fall that would make Kim Zolciak proud. (Someday her Big Poppa will come, second verse, same as the first.)
Followed by a photo shoot, natch, in the grand tradition of Glamour Shots complete with resin woodland creatures and carriage. It was all a little disturbing in a Toddlers and Tiaras sense, but honestly? Zoey was so damn pleased I didn't care. All day long she licked mouse-eared lollipops and stared at herself in the reflections cast by Toon Town glass, her green eyes glowing with the magic of it all. Or maybe it was the purple eyeshadow that made her eyes pop, I don't know. But here's the thing: I didn't care. Don't care, the elbow length white gloves now brown with what. Zoey LOVED Disneyland and when I say loved I mean she was possessed by it all, a girl who danced with Goofy in front of a crowd of strangers, a girl who hates tomatoes and sleeps in 'til six am.
And I am left to wonder what this means to me, a girl who now loves Disneyland. Who is this person? Do I wear pajamas to bed, a Mickey Mouse print with a seasonal theme? Do I don pleated pants, a fanny pack, rat my bangs even though I don't actually have bangs? Do I say don?? Dot my i's with smiley faces, the est in a world that is no longer seen as sticky sick and fat, too crowded? A before and after of a petunia face of a girl who found herself a princess in a world without pragmatism or politic.
I used to be a girl who did not like Disneyland. Nothing against Mickey and the gang, although Daisy does annoy. No, I simply don't like crowds, the ugliness of the human race en masse and under the sun like that sweaty. Too many tattoos, fingertips, pores enlarged and fat, everything a surface touched by so many, sticky systems of skin, eating and breathing and pooping and then eating some more. Oh, but I am a joy at street fairs!
And now this: a before and after of a girl defined by a petunia. I thought I would hate Disneyland, but I didn't. Because of this, because of her, my very own sticky system of skin that found the est in that place of the Happi:
First stop was the Bippity Boppity Boutique where Zoey was transformed into a betrothed Cinderella, the politics of the princessification of girls be damned. Here she had a personal shopper who helped her pick out her dress, glass (plastic) slippers, gloves and jewelry, then she was whisked off to have her nails polished and hair done, adding a shiny blond ringletted fall that would make Kim Zolciak proud. (Someday her Big Poppa will come, second verse, same as the first.)Followed by a photo shoot, natch, in the grand tradition of Glamour Shots complete with resin woodland creatures and carriage. It was all a little disturbing in a Toddlers and Tiaras sense, but honestly? Zoey was so damn pleased I didn't care. All day long she licked mouse-eared lollipops and stared at herself in the reflections cast by Toon Town glass, her green eyes glowing with the magic of it all. Or maybe it was the purple eyeshadow that made her eyes pop, I don't know. But here's the thing: I didn't care. Don't care, the elbow length white gloves now brown with what. Zoey LOVED Disneyland and when I say loved I mean she was possessed by it all, a girl who danced with Goofy in front of a crowd of strangers, a girl who hates tomatoes and sleeps in 'til six am.And I am left to wonder what this means to me, a girl who now loves Disneyland. Who is this person? Do I wear pajamas to bed, a Mickey Mouse print with a seasonal theme? Do I don pleated pants, a fanny pack, rat my bangs even though I don't actually have bangs? Do I say don?? Dot my i's with smiley faces, the est in a world that is no longer seen as sticky sick and fat, too crowded? A before and after of a petunia face of a girl who found herself a princess in a world without pragmatism or politic.Happy Patriot Day everyone. Bippity Boppity Boo, I'm back.
xo,
Susannah
xo,
Susannah
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
La La La
In LA today.
Or rather the O.C. (bitch). Anaheim. The Happiest Place on Earth, the superlative of which might come into question come 3 o'clock considering Zoey was so excited last night she hardly slept. Wish us luck, dear internet.
Sparkles and flying elephants,
Susannah
Or rather the O.C. (bitch). Anaheim. The Happiest Place on Earth, the superlative of which might come into question come 3 o'clock considering Zoey was so excited last night she hardly slept. Wish us luck, dear internet.Sparkles and flying elephants,
Susannah
Monday, September 7, 2009
Yet Another Half-Assed Post From the Road
Truth in advertising. I have nothing to say today but this. (Back soon with real content, I swear).
Happy Labor Day!
xo,
S
Happy Labor Day!xo,
S
Friday, September 4, 2009
Happy Friday
The first of a few half-assed posts.
Behold, something that makes me smile:
And something that makes me swoon:
Surely I'm not the only one?
Okay, off to make sand castles now! (Which sounds like a metaphor for something dirty, but it's not. Just sand castles. That is all.)
xo,
S
Behold, something that makes me smile:
And something that makes me swoon:
Surely I'm not the only one?Okay, off to make sand castles now! (Which sounds like a metaphor for something dirty, but it's not. Just sand castles. That is all.)
xo,
S
Thursday, September 3, 2009
On the Road Again
I once read a rant about blogging, although for the life of me I cannot remember where I read it or who it was or even why I read it or when. But what I do remember is that the person was going off on how self-important it is to have guest bloggers when you go on vacation. As if the whole world might implode if your blog is not updated. Which is totally not the point. I know you all are not out there eagerly anticipating my next post like some bad Mervyn's commercial, fingers tapping at refresh. Openopenopen. Postpostpost. If I missed a day you might not even notice, the tree in the forest still standing. Or not. I'm not sure what's going on with that metaphor. Simile. Smile! Potayto, potahto, ladies and gentlemen of the www I am going on vacation and was too lazy to line up any guest bloggers. (Run for cover, the world is imploding!)
Today we are driving down to San Diego for a friend's wedding, then up to LA to visit my brother. Once in LA, we are taking Zoey to Disneyland whereupon she will quite possibly seek legal emancipation so that she may live in the Princess' castle forever and ever, living happily ever after in a world where pink sparkley bubble baths do not cause vaginitis. Which would totally give me more time to blog when I get back, which is next Thursday.
In the meantime, I may shoot off some half-assed posts here and there knowing full well you do not need them. But here's the thing: I need them. I need you. I need your stats, your comments; I need you to pat me on the head and scritch behind my ears the way you do, not too sharp but just right. Which is a whole other rant about blogging, something about that self same tree and the forest and if I do not post do I fall? Another day, my friends. For now I am driving down I-5 on the way to somewhere that is not here.
xo,
S
Today we are driving down to San Diego for a friend's wedding, then up to LA to visit my brother. Once in LA, we are taking Zoey to Disneyland whereupon she will quite possibly seek legal emancipation so that she may live in the Princess' castle forever and ever, living happily ever after in a world where pink sparkley bubble baths do not cause vaginitis. Which would totally give me more time to blog when I get back, which is next Thursday.In the meantime, I may shoot off some half-assed posts here and there knowing full well you do not need them. But here's the thing: I need them. I need you. I need your stats, your comments; I need you to pat me on the head and scritch behind my ears the way you do, not too sharp but just right. Which is a whole other rant about blogging, something about that self same tree and the forest and if I do not post do I fall? Another day, my friends. For now I am driving down I-5 on the way to somewhere that is not here.
xo,
S
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Happy Hump Day: Alas, the Edition
My mother's house is currently a crime scene.
I could not make this shit up if I tried.
xoxo,
Susannah
And while I would love to turn that opening into a trompe l'oeil of words--just kidding! a theoretical crime scene! all the world a metaphor!--alas, I cannot. (Alas is something you get to say when your mother's house is a crime scene.) No, there is actual yellow police tape cordoning off my mother's living room, which is kind of ironic considering someone died in there. Get it? Living room? Alas, again, alas. I am not cut out for this type of tragedy, a church giggler had I ever gone to church, the girl in the movie theater who turns to her friend to ask if she, too, saw the goof, blood on the car windshield seconds before the blast.
Nothing is real.
I did not know the woman. She was a caregiver of Allen's, a woman provided by the county. She was slightly broken, strange, and so she had been living upstairs. (Allen likes to collect strange broken people, pretty leaves, in the last three years he has given me four hand mixers that he found discarded on the side of the street and yet still I buy cookie dough in tubes). Maybe I met this woman, I don't know--the caregivers, they come and go so quickly, most of them somehow damaged or Fijian and large, never damaged Fijians or damaged large people, just damaged people and then other people who just so happen to be from Fiji and thus rather large. What I do know is that this woman was found lying on the floor with her head in a bucket. What I do know is that she was dead, is dead, the verb tense a little tricky, although no one knows how or why or exactly when she died, the who and the where the only bright spots in the case. (Scant whisperings that she had been stealing prescription drugs, a prison record, Medicare not well known for vetting or caring, the living room now taped off yellow until the official autopsy report.)
And that is all I have to say about that, its notability not so much in the grim details of a story as in the lack of one. It is Wednesday and my mother's house is a crime scene. These things happen. Or they do not, the world cleanly divided, it would seem, between those people who tell these stories and those that live them. Get it? Live? Alas, poor Yorick! All morning I have listened to the gutteral hack of my neighbor coughing, my other neighbor playing Mozart on the piano. It is my intention to stay on the side of the teller.
And if that wasn't Hump Day enough for you, I give you this: Absurd, I'm telling you. The world is full of it.
Nothing is real.
I did not know the woman. She was a caregiver of Allen's, a woman provided by the county. She was slightly broken, strange, and so she had been living upstairs. (Allen likes to collect strange broken people, pretty leaves, in the last three years he has given me four hand mixers that he found discarded on the side of the street and yet still I buy cookie dough in tubes). Maybe I met this woman, I don't know--the caregivers, they come and go so quickly, most of them somehow damaged or Fijian and large, never damaged Fijians or damaged large people, just damaged people and then other people who just so happen to be from Fiji and thus rather large. What I do know is that this woman was found lying on the floor with her head in a bucket. What I do know is that she was dead, is dead, the verb tense a little tricky, although no one knows how or why or exactly when she died, the who and the where the only bright spots in the case. (Scant whisperings that she had been stealing prescription drugs, a prison record, Medicare not well known for vetting or caring, the living room now taped off yellow until the official autopsy report.)
And that is all I have to say about that, its notability not so much in the grim details of a story as in the lack of one. It is Wednesday and my mother's house is a crime scene. These things happen. Or they do not, the world cleanly divided, it would seem, between those people who tell these stories and those that live them. Get it? Live? Alas, poor Yorick! All morning I have listened to the gutteral hack of my neighbor coughing, my other neighbor playing Mozart on the piano. It is my intention to stay on the side of the teller.
And if that wasn't Hump Day enough for you, I give you this: Absurd, I'm telling you. The world is full of it.
I could not make this shit up if I tried.xoxo,
Susannah
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Pre-school
And just like that! Everything about her long and loping. 
Legs and arms, neck and hair. The way she uses her hands now to talk. Sometimes, she said, I like to just stand with my eyes closed, and I smiled, agreed.
Legs and arms, neck and hair. The way she uses her hands now to talk. Sometimes, she said, I like to just stand with my eyes closed, and I smiled, agreed.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Maelstrom
He wanted to buy my mother a ring, my brother a pair of red painted maracas. We sat at an outside table at Carlos O' Brian's, my father a few months into sobriety, me a few months into nothing; we poked at a platter of tortilla chips in the flat sun hot.
My dad had come to San Diego to help me move back home, my chest shattered into a thousand tiny pieces by my latest breakup with Bryan. I was 19, my dad 49. My mom had just announced the end of their marriage and so we went to Tijuana for the day, a surreal jaunt that smelled of stale beer and carne asada, piss and heat. I talked my dad out of buying the ring for my mother but the maracas sat in a plastic bag at our feet. Neither of us said much of anything.
On the drive back home I would like to say we listened to mariachi music, the foibles of the heart up Interstate 5. I don't remember, though I doubt we did. What I do remember is that my cat was positioned in her kitty carrier right behind my father's head on a stack of my hand-me-down furniture. Everything I owned fit into a car back then, and my cat yowled for the entire nine hour drive, over and over and over again, the foibles of the heart broken sounding slightly dead up and over the Grapevine and into the dry of the valley.
We talk about that trip now with a gallow's humor afforded by 18 years. Bryan and I eventually got back together (broke up again and then got back together, I got a tattoo), but my mom and dad got divorced. Got mad, got restraining orders. I don't know if my brother ever got his maracas because around that time he stopped talking to my dad, the silence lasting for ten+ years. We don't laugh about that yet, although some day we may, the way a mariachi band pins you there smiling. Bryan and I are now married, Zoey. My mom and dad now friends, my brother a son. This is that tomorrow, what came next from a time that felt as if there was nothing more.
I have a friend, let's call her You, because it has happened to all of us, curled in bed wanting to die. That horrible moment when You wake up and remember that it's gone, that he is gone, that something essential that makes You you is gone. And you want to die. Maybe You are dead somehow, it feels. You are sure. I am worried about my friend, about You. I know there is nothing I can really do but proselytize my confidence in after, that sometimes we have to have faith when others do not. (Breathe in, breathe out, You are now two more breaths closer to something else.) And so I am hoping that maybe you can help? In the comments section, can you please leave a story of your own loss, how you felt, how you got over it, the After of a time when Happily was not even a hope? Feel free to be Anonymous. I am just banking on there being salve in all of our afters. So what's your story? Let's help You get through this one day.
Thank you.
xo,
S
p.s. Maelstrom is a beautiful Dutch word meaning crushing current. Click on image for link to photographer's Flickr account.
My dad had come to San Diego to help me move back home, my chest shattered into a thousand tiny pieces by my latest breakup with Bryan. I was 19, my dad 49. My mom had just announced the end of their marriage and so we went to Tijuana for the day, a surreal jaunt that smelled of stale beer and carne asada, piss and heat. I talked my dad out of buying the ring for my mother but the maracas sat in a plastic bag at our feet. Neither of us said much of anything.On the drive back home I would like to say we listened to mariachi music, the foibles of the heart up Interstate 5. I don't remember, though I doubt we did. What I do remember is that my cat was positioned in her kitty carrier right behind my father's head on a stack of my hand-me-down furniture. Everything I owned fit into a car back then, and my cat yowled for the entire nine hour drive, over and over and over again, the foibles of the heart broken sounding slightly dead up and over the Grapevine and into the dry of the valley.
We talk about that trip now with a gallow's humor afforded by 18 years. Bryan and I eventually got back together (broke up again and then got back together, I got a tattoo), but my mom and dad got divorced. Got mad, got restraining orders. I don't know if my brother ever got his maracas because around that time he stopped talking to my dad, the silence lasting for ten+ years. We don't laugh about that yet, although some day we may, the way a mariachi band pins you there smiling. Bryan and I are now married, Zoey. My mom and dad now friends, my brother a son. This is that tomorrow, what came next from a time that felt as if there was nothing more.
I have a friend, let's call her You, because it has happened to all of us, curled in bed wanting to die. That horrible moment when You wake up and remember that it's gone, that he is gone, that something essential that makes You you is gone. And you want to die. Maybe You are dead somehow, it feels. You are sure. I am worried about my friend, about You. I know there is nothing I can really do but proselytize my confidence in after, that sometimes we have to have faith when others do not. (Breathe in, breathe out, You are now two more breaths closer to something else.) And so I am hoping that maybe you can help? In the comments section, can you please leave a story of your own loss, how you felt, how you got over it, the After of a time when Happily was not even a hope? Feel free to be Anonymous. I am just banking on there being salve in all of our afters. So what's your story? Let's help You get through this one day.
Thank you.
xo,
S
p.s. Maelstrom is a beautiful Dutch word meaning crushing current. Click on image for link to photographer's Flickr account.
Don't Forget to Wish These People a Happy Birthday: Cameron Diaz, Lisa Ling, Krista's Mom and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Happy Day tout le monde! I am here to tell you that 37 is the new 7. I had chocolate croissants and bacon for breakfast and am about to buy this lovely for myself:
One white dove, seven layers of rainbow ribbon and at the clasp a blue crystal bead that hangs down the back of your neck symbolizing the last drop of rain. Rad and right and yes, please with a cherry on top, who's to say that I am not dressing my age?
Enough of this nonsense. I went to Random.org because the world is awesome in that such a thing exists and the lucky winner of the Second Annual Petunia Face Birthday Giveaway is the algorithm-less Melissa, #11! Life is good because it "is hard and it is complicated. And that makes it challenging and beautiful and very very good. And it makes the flowers smell extra nice." Melissa, I could not agree more. Please send me an email with your mailing instructions and soon enough your neck will be oh-so warm and cozy.
Love, love, love to you all and a Happy Sunday to boot,
xo,
Susannah
One white dove, seven layers of rainbow ribbon and at the clasp a blue crystal bead that hangs down the back of your neck symbolizing the last drop of rain. Rad and right and yes, please with a cherry on top, who's to say that I am not dressing my age?Enough of this nonsense. I went to Random.org because the world is awesome in that such a thing exists and the lucky winner of the Second Annual Petunia Face Birthday Giveaway is the algorithm-less Melissa, #11! Life is good because it "is hard and it is complicated. And that makes it challenging and beautiful and very very good. And it makes the flowers smell extra nice." Melissa, I could not agree more. Please send me an email with your mailing instructions and soon enough your neck will be oh-so warm and cozy.
Love, love, love to you all and a Happy Sunday to boot,
xo,
Susannah
Friday, August 28, 2009
Pow!
Friday, August 28th: the official start of High Holy Days, i.e. my birthday weekend. People always ask me about running around in my underwear and trying to sell my body, but I think I've accomplished a lot, I have a lot to be proud of, so why not share with people? Don't worry--this will make sense later. Pow!
Here is what we have on tap so far: sailing this afternoon. (I have eaten a bowl of Froot Loops to ensure special effects should I get sea sick, which I always do.) Tomorrow a lite shopping excursion with my mom and Zoey. And Sunday, the Holiest of Her Birthday Highness, a picnic with friends on a lawn overlooking the San Francisco Bay.
A perfect birthday weekend to cap off what has been a tumultuous but ultimately charmed 36th year.
Two years ago I gave myself this blog for my birthday, not knowing how very much it would mean to me. Thank you, all of you, for reading, for commenting, for lurking, for you. Thank you for the best birthday present ever.
Speaking of which, don't forget to get in on the Second Annual Petunia Face Birthday Giveaway! Winner will be announced on Sunday.
In the meantime, here is a little sumthin' sumthin' for everyone. Pow!
Happy Friday and more.
xo,
S
Here is what we have on tap so far: sailing this afternoon. (I have eaten a bowl of Froot Loops to ensure special effects should I get sea sick, which I always do.) Tomorrow a lite shopping excursion with my mom and Zoey. And Sunday, the Holiest of Her Birthday Highness, a picnic with friends on a lawn overlooking the San Francisco Bay.
A perfect birthday weekend to cap off what has been a tumultuous but ultimately charmed 36th year.
Two years ago I gave myself this blog for my birthday, not knowing how very much it would mean to me. Thank you, all of you, for reading, for commenting, for lurking, for you. Thank you for the best birthday present ever.Speaking of which, don't forget to get in on the Second Annual Petunia Face Birthday Giveaway! Winner will be announced on Sunday.
In the meantime, here is a little sumthin' sumthin' for everyone. Pow!
Happy Friday and more.
xo,
S
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Battle of the Sex(es)
(Sometimes--okay, most times--I sit down to write with a few jumbled thoughts rattling around in my head and I'm not quite sure how they're related but somehow I know that they are. Today is one of those times, so bear with me.)
The hair on Zoey's legs. I noticed it the other day in the sunlight, tiny wisps of blond like wheat and soft. The first time I shaved my legs I didn't even do it. I was 12 and my friend Lisa said I had to, that it was disgusting. She sat me on her bathroom counter and shaved my legs for me with her pink razor and a bottle of Jean Naté bath oil. Later she gave me her colorblocked sweater with the oversized buttons and sent me home, insisting she was the Jessica to my Elizabeth. The other day I had to get my tires aligned and rotated and sat in the office of the mechanic for two hours with a book that turned out to be boring. There were 5 men working at the place--I counted. 5 men in the office of the tire shop talking and joking, razzing each other, which is maybe why it took 2 hours to finish my car. But that is not the point of this story. The point is that these men in the tire place reminded me of an all-male Designing Women, and as I sat there I cast each man in his role. The one with the greasy ballcap and the pen behind one ear played by Dixie Carter, the large one with the railroad stripe overalls totally Delta Burke. I always wanted to work at a place like Sugarbaker Designs; too bad I know nothing about radials.
The hair on Zoey's legs. I noticed it the other day in the sunlight, tiny wisps of blond like wheat and soft. The first time I shaved my legs I didn't even do it. I was 12 and my friend Lisa said I had to, that it was disgusting. She sat me on her bathroom counter and shaved my legs for me with her pink razor and a bottle of Jean Naté bath oil. Later she gave me her colorblocked sweater with the oversized buttons and sent me home, insisting she was the Jessica to my Elizabeth. The other day I had to get my tires aligned and rotated and sat in the office of the mechanic for two hours with a book that turned out to be boring. There were 5 men working at the place--I counted. 5 men in the office of the tire shop talking and joking, razzing each other, which is maybe why it took 2 hours to finish my car. But that is not the point of this story. The point is that these men in the tire place reminded me of an all-male Designing Women, and as I sat there I cast each man in his role. The one with the greasy ballcap and the pen behind one ear played by Dixie Carter, the large one with the railroad stripe overalls totally Delta Burke. I always wanted to work at a place like Sugarbaker Designs; too bad I know nothing about radials.
I am so Annie Potts.
If forced to choose I'd say I'm a girl's girl, the kind who will tell you if you've got a poppyseed stuck to your lip, the kind of girl from whom you'd ask to borrow a tampon. Growing up I always had guy friends but that is who they were: a guy first, and then yes, my friend. We flirted, the back and forth banter of the language of maybe. To this day when talking to a man I am always aware that it is a man. I feel it, that undercurrant of other and then some. (This sometimes makes me sad, although if pressed I couldn't say why.)Zoey loves boys. Men. She watches Bryan's friends, repeats their names, Chris, Chris Chris until they listen, then she has nothing to say and so she laughs. She does funny little jump twirls at the playground when there is a boy, and Bryan and I look at each other and smile oh no. Maybe I should be worried, my own adolescence a cautionary tale of how not to act, not to feel, not to be, not to breathe. But I'm not not. Worried. I turned out fine. I love my father, my brother, my husband, my cat (although we did have him fixed and in doing so found out he only ever had one ball in the first place). Yesterday I took Zoey to ballet class and she loved it, as expected. There were magic wands and tulle scarves, plastic daisies, at the end: miniature pink cupcakes. Miss Rachel, the teacher, wore a glittery stiff tutu with appliqued roses and spoke with a thick Canadian accent, so thick that it might have been faintly Eastern European, I'm not sure. Let's meke a slice of pizza with owr feet! And then gobble it op! From first position to whatever no position is called. Have you ever seen a three year old try to point her toes?
(Maybe none of this related, I don't know. But this is what I have been thinking about lately before I fall asleep.)
I'm a girl's girl, true; you've got a poppyseed on your lip and I support you in creating your life, family, work, a Lifetime channel of a house with no glass ceilings in a room of your very own. But I don't trust you. There, I said it. And I hate it, this feeling. I have my friends, girlfriends, woman friends, whatever, they are few and I love them to death and trust them, yes. But you? I don't know you, don't know what you want from me, something ineffable between the sexes when there is no sex but this. This, what is this? I hate this, this thing that I feel when I smile. I am a hard person to get to know and I wish this was not the case. I wish I were a Ya-Ya traveling with jeans and a sisterhood, a bad book and an even worse movie, but I am not. I am a girl's girl who once had to make a New Year's Resolution to touch people more, on the shoulder, the hand, hugs; I broke that resolution in early February of that same year, and this is what worries me most.
Not boys. Okaay everyone! Hold hands weth eh partner and dance like eh butterfly! Only Zoey refused to hold hands with the girl next to her, choosing instead to dance by herself, flit and twirl and collapse in a heap on the floor, a very loosely interpretive dance of a metamorphoses into something else, the hair on her legs glinting like the fine powdered scales of a butterfly's wings.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Happy Hump Day (The Beginning of a Currier and Ives-Type Petunia Face Family Tradition)
Call it what you will. Laziness. Boredom. A slight penchant for the perverse among us. Quite possibly d.) all of the above. But from here on out I hereby proclaim Wednesday to be a day of Happy Humps, i.e. a day when I fall back on an image I have saved or a funny video, a bizarre product floating in the hinterlands of the www. Somethinganythingeverything that is not about me.
And because I am a woman of pomp and certain circumstance, I hereby declare these two the Petunia Face Prom King and Queen of Happy Hump Day!
I do believe this gent possesses a certain je ne sais quoi worthy of title, non? If nothing else, he appears equipped to give you the time should you ask.
And this little lady--well, if hips are a sign of feminine wiles then this little lady is a camel of womanhood, storing wiles in those two impressive lumps should she come across a desert expanse of dry tumbleweed testosterone.
I like to imagine the King and Queen living in this Castle of the Bizarre, the two of them carrying on like two bad actors in an "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercial, touching each other's wrist just so.
And because I am a woman of pomp and certain circumstance, I hereby declare these two the Petunia Face Prom King and Queen of Happy Hump Day!
I do believe this gent possesses a certain je ne sais quoi worthy of title, non? If nothing else, he appears equipped to give you the time should you ask.And this little lady--well, if hips are a sign of feminine wiles then this little lady is a camel of womanhood, storing wiles in those two impressive lumps should she come across a desert expanse of dry tumbleweed testosterone.
I like to imagine the King and Queen living in this Castle of the Bizarre, the two of them carrying on like two bad actors in an "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercial, touching each other's wrist just so.And if that doesn't illustrate just how very random this Happy Hump Day thing will be, then nothing will.
From my castle to yours.
xo,
S
p.s. I feel compelled to point out how much I loathe the word hump, the term "hump day," the picture that comes to mind. Which makes this all the more absurd.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
