Cheers to Aging Dream Girls: Happy Belated Father's Day

This evening my dad made a remark about how I really need to post something because he's sick of seeing that photo of Priscilla Presley's bad plastic surgery. So am I and so I am.

My dad has always had a thing for Daryl Hannah, and we always teased him because she's a total mouth-breather, although she was gorgeous pre-fillers, brow lift, cheek implants and Botox. Is Botox a registered trademark? My bad, I think it is. Botox®

Here you go, Dad. This one's for you. :)

love,
Blam

Mwa Mwa Mwa Mwab Mwab Mwab...

I am struggling to keep up with it all, the litany of to do's in my head sounding suspiciously like the grown ups in Charlie Brown. Oh, I am sure you have it, too. Laundry to do, bills to pay, projects to complete, kids to pick up, groceries to get, the blah of it all trailing off into the low nothing noise of a trombone. Did someone say Friday?

Not quite sure what Priscilla Presley is doing here except to say that I cannot stop staring. (Sometimes dots are better left unconnected, the Round-Headed Kid and the pretty girl who married the King and turned into the Little Red-Haired Woman with the I-Don't-Know-Why-Face.)
That's all,
S

Hey Girl...

I've had an insanely stressful few weeks. Family stress, money stress, work stress...not to be all coy and poop, but nothing I can write about here except to say that I am tired. And very very happy to have found this video at the end of a particularly bad Monday.

Just promise me you'll wait for the 37 second mark. This is an 11 year old Ryan Gosling performing with his sister at a Mormon talent show. (Did you know he grew up Mormon?? For that matter, did you know he could dance like that and/or rock a 90's wedge haircut and silk shirt combo???)

Big sigh.
xo,
S

What I'm Thinking About Right...NOW

For the last few nights I've been fixated on Rody's butthole. Sidenote: do you ever say a sentence and then marvel at the fact that you said it? Like wondered if maybe you are the only person in the history of the spoken word to ever say "hang a left at the statue of Stalin's frozen urine"? Not that I've ever uttered that exactly, though I did just type it. And this right here is why I don't smoke pot.

Anyhoo. Every night as I rock Ozzy to sleep I am left to stare at the backside of Rody. Now I love me some Rody. The funny little face and stout body; I want to kiss those flat plastic eyes. I just cannot for the life of me understand why they placed the valve in such a way. Each night I picture the Italian manufacturers of Rody shouting mettiamo qui il buco del culo, haha! I don't know. It makes me laugh, this thought. Again--this is why I don't smoke pot and why I apparently cannot, do not and should not speak Italian. Basta. 

And then there's my Diaper Champ. When I am done looking at Rody's bum I stare at the Diaper Champ and think about how it looks exactly like a Stormtrooper. A Stormtrooper with terrible diarrhea, but a brave Imperial Stormtrooper, nonetheless. 

Other things I think about as I rock Ozzy to sleep: how we are going to pay for our kids' college tuitions? Should I be unplugging the toaster before I leave the house? Why are there so many dust bunnies under the crib, and have you seen the trailer to my brother's new movie Shadow Lurkers? I mean, I know I posted on it last week, but I am one proud sister so I'm posting it again. Check it out and leave my brother a YouTube message. His name is Andrews and he always says please and thank you to waitresses. Not sure why that sentence just popped out as the one to describe my brother but it's actually pretty indicative of his character. Like I said: I'm proud.

Call it a Day

This week has pretty much kicked me in the face with a steel-toed Havaiana (summer can be a bitch) so I leave you with this:

This man is 69 years old. He drove a truck for 28 years, hence the unilateral hyperkeratosis, nodular elastosis and general dermatoheliosis on the left side of his face, i.e. the sun coming through the driver's side window fucked his shit up. Note to Self: wear sunscreen.

See also: Footnote to Self: when taking photos of your baby in the bath with your new iphone, do not accidentally push the button that flips the lens around so that you see yourself caught completely unawares, head tilted down pluralizing your chin, eyes crinkled up like a 69 year old truck driver.

Friday,
S

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Because I am. Afraid. Of the basement, of the space beneath my bed, of shadows and storms, of what might be behind doors and curtains and corners and the very word and. Seriously. Put and in the dark and...?

See?

I, however, am not scared of my brother, even though he did make me lie down in the street when we were little so he could stand above me to spit, saying he would catch it which of course he didn't, just spit on my face and laughed. Who cares if I've told this story a thousand times, so help me, he deserves this story told a thousand times more...but really this is a post about how proud I am of my brother.

Check this out: my brother made this movie with very little budget but a spitload of imagination. Shadow Lurkers preys on the universal childhood fear of the dark with the question: what happens when our shadows turn against us?
Thirty years later and I have almost forgiven my brother for spitting on me, mostly because I remember him letting me sleep on his floor when we were little and I was frozen afraid of the dark. I would creep in to his room and he'd toss me a pillow to curl up next to his bed, and sometimes he let me play his Atari. So check out his movie, and "like" the movie on Facebook. Because he's a fantastic storyteller, writer and director, but also because if there really are fucked up shadow things waiting in the dark (and I'm pretty sure there are), then I know my brother would still let me sleep on the floor next to his bed.

xo,
S

1

Dear Ozzy,

Here we are, little man. 1. Honestly, this year has been a blur of you and my very large boobs, buying a house, moving, working on the house, working on work, my very large boobs shrinking, you, and you and you. You with your funny little teeth and big hazel eyes. Just who are you anyway? My boy who pushes his fingers deep inside my mouth to run his fingers over my gums as if I were speaking in Braille. You do not know yet where you begin and I end, or maybe it is that you know that there is no ending at all. Silly me, why would I think--?

This is the year that we called you El Guapo. For you are handsome and talk of things I cannot yet understand. I can already see that you will teach me much, of the customary slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails, sure, but there is more. You're fearless, for one, how you crawl to the edge of everything. I watch as you open doors and drawers and lids and life, just to see, just because, just that. So? You with the mommy who stops at yellow lights. Already you have taught me about joy, noodles stuck to skin, the moment split wide and ripe. More than anything, you are a really funny guy (my very favorite kind).

What I will remember of this first year is Scrunchy Face, how one day you discovered that it made us laugh so now you do it all the time. My class clown in the making, how you make us stop and look. Playing peekaboo, only you stay under the napkin a beat too long, already seeming to understand the genius of good comic timing.

But I will also remember this, your hands. How they stick to my skin like tentacles, fat fingers gripping at my breasts, my neck, the thin skin on the underside of my arms like a kitten. You smell of warm bread and sheets, your blonde hair wispy soft and spiky. You don't know how to kiss yet so you try to eat my mouth instead, and I offer it to you, whisper secrets in your mouth that you swallow whole. Sweet boy, if one day when you are 4 you ask me to marry you? I will say yes. Yes. Yes. Please, thank you, yes.

Happy Birthday, to my great and powerful Oz.
I love you,
Mommy

May 29, 2012

Dear Future,

I am dead. But that is neither here nor there but then. I hope this letter finds you well, that you have found an answer to plastic. Because my times were fantastic. We stared at screens and sat. And sat and sat. Most everyone was lazy (but we meant well).

I write letters to my children. More small screens but I do print them out and bundle them in boxes. In homage to your dear friend Time I asked family to write Zoey a letter for her first birthday, not to be opened until ages 13 through 21. I assigned them like homework and they arrived sealed. Advice for Zoey when she turns 15 from her grandmother, what her uncle wants her to know at 19, maybe. I don't know what's inside each letter because I did not open them, so they sit in a box, thoughts from 2007 to be read on a day that will make that seem like silly ago. Tomorrow Ozzy turns 1 and we are doing the same for him. For their first birthday I give my children time machines and invite them to travel somewhere ineffable.

Dear Future, thinking about you is like contemplating the size of the universe or the meaning of anything: it’s disturbing and too abstract to comprehend. How entropy only increases. Time and space are much the same, not to mention love. Because tomorrow is like Mars and the year 2030 is Andromeda dressed in a bonnet.

So I wonder. Are they happy? Did I raise my children to know they are loved? Deserve love? To love? Do they remember my voice when I sang, the sound of me saying their names? The feel of my hand rubbing circles on their backs, and do they trace those exact same circles around the silken staccato spines of their own children? How bad does climate change get anyway?

Sorry about that, by the way.

Why can we remember the past but not the future? Who said the arrow in the space-time continuum can only point in one direction? I mean, check me out: yesterday I wrote to the future and here we are! Dear Future, how you scare the shit out of me. I drop these letters like bread crumbs so that I can find my way back, though we have already established that I am dead, so fat lot that does me.

Another thought, another stab at bending the mesh of this manifold: each year I write a letter to my children to be opened on the year that I am. Was. See? That is, this year I turn 40, so I will write a letter to Zoey to be opened on her 40th birthday, to Ozzy on his 40th. Me to my children, mano a mano, if you will, sans reference to combat. One 40 year old to another, despite the fact that I will really be 73 then 78, the numbers adding up to me falling through the years to say hello. How are you?

I was here. This is why I write, I think. More than anything else to just say this:

Love,
S

One Step Closer (But Too Lazy to Walk)

If I could just get off my ass and walk the 5 blocks from work to the nearest Aldo I could buy these rad $12 peacock earrings that would match perfectly with my cheap peacock ring which I love to wear with my leopard print coat which I sometimes wear with my leopard ballet flats although even I know that's a no-no. Then my transformation into crazy old lady would be complete.

So if you're going out for coffee would you be a lamb and pick these up for me? I'll also take a venti nonfat, no water 6-pump, extra hot chai. Thanks, dearie.

Bonus points simply because they're called Camero Earrings.
Bitchin.'
xo,
S

Gordon Gartrelle

Dear Old Navy, Target and Forever 21,

No doubt you will say it is my fault. The Endless Summer t-shirt I thought was cute but didn't try on because Ozzy was crumbling, the striped sweater cropped beyond what was acceptable even back when my stomach was flat, the pink and orange color block dress that has never been worn, the fabric so thin you can make out the curve of my belly button. But you seduce me here from the glow of my laptop late at night, and I drop things into my cart because you have my credit card stored from last time anyway. Plink! I'm easy like that. So yes, maybe it is my fault, but the other day I looked in my closet at what I have bought from you simply because it was only $12 and realized that $12 x often = too much. Too much money spent on too much crap that I will never wear because it is poorly made or the fabric is cheap, or both. I mean, did we not learn from The Fable of Gordon Gartrelle? Oh, sweet Old Navy, Target and Forever 21, you are too young to remember, but back in the day when 8:00 o'clock on a Thursday night meant everything good and right and prime time, Gordon Gartrelle was an expensive designer shirt that Theo wanted to wear to impress a girl but his parents wouldn't pay for it so Denise made a copy for him and blah blah blah, don't you get it? You are not a Gordon Gartrelle.

Which is why I am breaking up with you. Sure, we can still be friends. You can borrow a few bucks from me here or there in exchange for a pair of chenille sleep socks, but let's not make it a habit. Because I want to see other people, people who don't make themselves so readily available, maybe, but then again their medium probably won't range from XS to XL and if I order online and don't like it I won't be so lazy to return if the cost is higher. That's all I'm saying. I deserve more, I guess. So while I can't afford a real Gordon Gartrelle as often as I've been hanging out with you, maybe that's ok. Better even. Maybe that's right. To have less of what I really wanted in the first place.

Don't bother calling. I've already changed my (credit card) number.

S

Our House

She holds her brother now tight beneath his arms, hands clasped across his chest with the rest of his body falling away as if she were saving him from drowning, and he laughs and she laughs, so I laugh. This is how they dance each night. Girl party! Zoey says, but Ozzy's allowed even though he has a penis. Because there are rules, such as this: How we stand and hold hands, curl toward each other and then unfurl apart quickly shouting Hollywood. I don't know why, this rule not one to be broken. We would have such a very good time, such a fine time. Such a happy time. Lately we have been dancing to this.
When daddy and I were little, I tell her, although to her 8th grade would be old, he always wore a gray trench coat with a Madness iron-on patch, and one for The Specials. He had a crew cut and bleached the tips white. God, he was so cute, I say, although she is dancing with her brother who is scrunching up his nose to make her laugh hard, harder, until she puts him down saying Hollywood for him. Then we'd say nothing would come between us, two dreamers...

The Queen of Magical Thinking

I can think things into happening. Or not. More often not. I do not want it to rain this weekend, so I think it will rain, I worry it will rain, I obsess over rain and it does not rain. Of course it has never been about rain but about health or luck, life--who am I kidding? Mostly it's about health. And even more a matter of course is that a + b does not, never has and never will = c, though that does not stop me from thinking about b. B. Be. You can see how I keep myself awake at night?

I am happy. There. I said it. Wrote it, looking over my shoulder for what comes next. Because everyone knows that the minute you say you are happy something comes along to snatch it away. And so I play the game, think no, things aren't that good, I mean, we owe lots of taxes, and Bryan's been working so hard lately, too hard...my fingers pulling at the strings of the fabric of a make-believe mechanism that unravels the days into happening just so. See? I'm not that happy. And then someone says something in a way that tightens my tongue and pulls me sideways so that everything is right again in that it is wrong. I am unhappy. I am safe.

What is it about happiness that embarrasses me so? The unconscious possibly-puritanical belief that it is somehow better to shun the pleasure of being at peace? When did annoyance become my go-to, fall-back state of being?

Because I am happy.

I watch my kids and feel full of time. Full of hyperbole, the palm of my hand flat across rounded bellies. Lucky, although luck, too, hints at something undeserved or limited. No, what I feel is absolute unabashed joy. Yes, silly, chicken, tickle, stupid words that make them smile and so I say them even when they don't make sense. Because I have to remind myself that being unhappy doesn't keep me safe just as living my happiness doesn't make it any more likely that this weekend it will rain.

Ozzy at the beach, heading straight for the riptide with absolute glee. This kid's going to teach me a lot, I can tell.

Aack!

I have been having a Cathy cartoon kind of day. Make that week. Weak. I mean, one minute I'm floating on the magic of fairies, feeling like the awesomest mom outside of a pearl choker, the next minute I feel like whatever the opposite of gluten-free would be. Globby? Thick. Stupidly viscous and a little bit mean, to be honest. PMS, yes. Ok? No. Hint: I identify with the lady on the left, only my hair is way frizzier.

For instance: I am been growing increasingly annoyed with my houseplants. Anthuriam, Maidenhair fern, Bromeliads. They're all so goddamn needy, what with the watering and the watering. So I might have ignored them for a bit, and now? They're dead. I sure showed them, didn't I?

Then today I came home to find Bubbles Bubbmax--the Betta fish Zoey got for her birthday--desperately trying to swim in one inch of water, the counter beneath him soaked. Apparently the brand new fish tank we bought cracked at some point today, and now Bubbles is living in an acrylic water pitcher until I have time to get another fish tank.

I mean, really?

For breakfast I had an english muffin with nutella. For lunch a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a handful of Trader Joe's cat cookies. For dinner, McDonald's. Dude. I know. See pic above.

Off to research tasty, cheap, pre-made juice cleanses and chia seeds...
xo,
S

Very Fairy Birthday Party

A few months ago I talked Zoey off the ledge of an Addams Family-themed birthday party. I just couldn't wrap my head around a bunch of 6 year olds moshing to the music of The Cramps, so I steered her a bit more toward Gary Glitter and we settled on A Very Fairy Birthday Party. Done and done.

First things first, we set up a fairy crown making station. Easy peasy me-so-pleasey, I bought wire floral garlands, butterflies and faux cherry blossoms, then cut and molded the garlands into halos and snipped the flowers into 1" blooms beforehand. Then I set out the blooms and butterflies in terracotta pots along with some pre-cut wire, along with the deer from Zoey's room just because.

Here's Zoey showing her friends what to do, with my friend Rosalie photobombing through a pair of tinsel wings.

The resulting fairy crowns made my inner 6 year old burn with jealousy. I totally would've tossed a kitten if I hadn't already made myself one at home. p.s. "toss a kitten" is my new go-to phrase for throw a conniption. It's all kinds of marvelous.

Anyhoo, here is the just because deer modeling Zoey's fairy crown:

The girls then started decorating sticks they found to make fairy wands, and once again my head nearly fell off with the sheer creativity of kids. 6 years olds are simply Gen. I. Us.

I love this shot, like a few fairies copped a squat to chit chat.

Once? When I was 6ish, I made my family a cake and put the whole egg in, shell and all, and for some reason my family likes to tell this story whenever I bake. Incidentally, I had a made-up restaurant when I was little called Zuzu's. The only thing on my menu was grilled cheese which my mom actually made, but I bring it up only because I was thinking the other day how strangely close the name Zuzu's is to Zoey and Ozzy. Clearly my penchant for z's began at an early age. All that to say I made cupcakes and decorated them with butterflies so no one would suspect they were Duncan Hines.

Mandatory photo of the birthday girl blowing out her candle:

It didn't hurt that we had the party in an actual fairy ring, a grove of old growth redwoods in a perfect circle. Something about the center redwood either rotting out or burning down a thousand years ago, then a bunch of shoots grew in a perfect circle. Either that or magic, hard to say.

In case you've ever wondered what a gang of fairies looks like, it's pretty menacing...

This pic pretty much sums up the day, though. Lots of shrieking, which is the way one should start year 6.

Gratuitous shot of the party favors. Zoey and I made each girl a fairy terrarium complete with fairy, moss, cherry blossoms and plenty of pixie dust. Special shout out to the few days I spent on Pinterest before I lost...interest. What? I just pin shit--cute dresses and rings, shoes, art--and nothing shows up at my door in 5 to 7 business days? Hmph.

And just because I have noticed the slippery slope slide this blog has been taking with regards to a certain someone's second child syndrome, here's a shot of Ozzy, wingless and glitter-free but somehow just as magical.

Don't worry, little man. We're staring down the barrel of 1, t-minus 30 days and counting. Pretty sure your dad's already noodling on a Dukes of Hazzard-theme...

xo,
S

6.

Dear Zoey,

The next day you were 6.
Which is how it happens, I know. Not surprising or terribly complicated, but unbelievable all the same. You are 6. April 24, 2012. 1234567891011121314151617, you count up to anything now, 6 not even a catch-your-breath number to take pause. Numbers a game played with in tangerine cuties. What's 10 minus 4, you say, only I am not supposed to know the answer as you arrange the cuties on the table. 6, you say, triumphant, a little boastful even as you pretend to juggle though you close your eyes to catch. The next day you eat bruised tangerines for lunch.

The last photo of 5.

6 has brought swagger, and if I could bottle that swagger, I would. Spoon a bit of swagger to you each night before bed as preventative medicine, doubling the dosage in a few years. You wear glitter with stripes, zebra print, rainbow, shorts over pants because it is your "signature look." I admit, there are days when I try to talk you out of wearing your bathrobe belt as a scarf, though I know I should stop. Let you own yourself. Celebrate your spirit because soon enough there will be people who try to crush it, or at the very least poke at it with toothpicks. I will do everything in my power not to let them, but even more importantly, I will not let myself be one of them.

You found an old Ice Cube CD the other night and put it on your karaoke machine. Said that you knew it had the bad f word, but you wanted to dance to it. So you did. So you did.



The next night you asked me if I knew what the b word was. I cocked my head, curious, but you told me it was bunny.

6. Caught between bunny and fuck when all you want to do is dance. Look at yourself in the reflection of the window as you pop your head and arms and jump, feeling bad-ass krumping in a Rapunzel shirt.

When I grow up I want to be just like you.

You are magic, Zoey, your huge hazel eyes fringed with impossibly long eyelashes and I see you watching the world around you, amused. And I see the world watching right back, entranced with the girl who feels bad for the trees when we make her eat salad, who calls her brother baby potato and still thinks it's pronounced earthquick.

And so I will put you to bed tomorrow night, your first day of 6, after telling you the story of when you were born. How they pulled you out of me, a pressure released, how I looked at you and fell smack hard deeply in love with breathing, turned my head and puked, and then turned back to stare into those big, big eyes. And I will tell you again that when they pulled you out of me slick, your tiny baby fingers tore a piece of my heart and took it with you, how no matter where you are, no matter how old or how far, you will always have a piece of me, my sweet, sweet girl. My Zo.

Happy birthday.
Love,
Mommy

Apparently I was too cranky to write 5. But here's 4. 3. 2. (1 was before I started the blog.)

How High?

I get an A+. Like, I totally aced this part of the Motherhood Test (and you just know we're all being graded, right?). Gold star, smiley face, good job! Because I think I taught Zoey how to read. Slash, not in a way that has both of us in tears.

It's like this: I took a pile of notecards with words and taped them all over the house. Then I made it a game. Can you find the word jump? Zoey scampers off to find the word, somehow not realizing she is also learning. And here's where I get extra credit...the cards each have a simple sentence on the back using the word on the front of the card. Jump over the log! I am sure there is something somatic going on what with her thinking this is a game so her cerebral cortex is open, synapses zapping happily along, but she is actually reading these sentences. Jump for joy! Yay! Chest bump, Van Halen Jump! Whatever. More often than not we mothers berate ourselves for what we're doing wrong...working, not working, snapping, not sleeping, sucking at playing with Barbies (I really do hate playing Barbie), so I think it's equally important to focus on what we are doing well. And right now I am excelling at teaching Zoey to read.

Though I did just notice that the title I gave in homage to the card I have pictured is also a play on the fact that it's 4/20. Dude. Baby steps. Better motherhood one flash card at a time.

xo,
S

Cone of Shame

Apologies for the lack of posts but I have had pink eye. And I know what you're thinking, that pink eye does not necessarily preclude one from writing or the internet. If anything, the www is positively made for those with communicable diseases. Yet if I put my ear up to my computer screen I can hear you there like the ocean spiraled inside a seashell...whhhhhhnnuuu all hollow-like, the rhythmic recoiling with the mere mention of pink eye. I mean, you can feel it right now, can't you? Your eye? It itches a little bit? How good it would feel to rub the inside corner hard. But don't touch it! Whatever you do. Don't touch your eye while reading this post.So yes. Pink eye. It is not cancer or flesh-eating; it does not permanently disfigure. But for a few days you can see how it might be maybe, a sliver. The way people look at you either too hard or away, annoyed, disgusted, curious. Cautious. The way your presence leaves imprints. This is where your wrist touched the counter, fingertips on a pen.

Talking about beauty can be ugly. I am not saying I am beautiful. But I don't disappear either. Normally I am me and I am good, people smile my way, sometimes more. And then my eye crusts over and I am gone. Like that! In public, I look down. At home I avoid the mirror. The only way I exist is inside, what I think, how I feel, which is fine when I forget, if a little itchy. Then at night when I go to bed I wonder what it would be like to never have a mirror again, to never have seen a mirror at all. How might self-esteem change without the concept of reflection? Who would I be if I were only my insides?

Can you see me here again? My ear against the screen? Don't worry--I am not contagious anymore. Wwwwwhhhnn...did you know that if you put your ear up to a stranger's head you can actually hear them say what the fuck? Because I wonder what you think, who you would be if no one saw you.

I am in love with the color in this photo from Frida Kahlo's own personal collection. Through her countless self-portraits, she seemed fascinated with the play between physical and self.