I Suck and That's Sad


you are the "you suck, and that's sad"
happy bunny. your truthful, but can be a bit
brutal.


which happy bunny are you?
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When in doubt, go to Quizilla.

I could tell you about the 5 stunned minutes I spent in the toothpaste section, staring at the vast array of possibilities, and saying to myself, "Crest? Colgate? Which toothpaste do I use?"

When I was a child we always used Crest. Just like we always bought Palmolive, and we always had Pepperidge Farm bread and Land O' Lakes butter and Hood milk. But, I'm thinking to myself, somewhere along the line I might have switched. It might even have been recently. Did I switch to Colgate? Did I do that for Brian? Or do I now prefer Colgate? I just don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining this, and it's really still Crest. But which one? There are so many options. Would it be the one with Scope? The special tartar removing Crest? Hmmm. No, there's something about the Crest packaging that just doesn't seem right. It must be Colgate. But wait, don't I prefer Crest? Have I been buying Colgate as some sort of concession? Shit, what should I do?

I could tell you that story, like I said, but that would be too original and possibly entertaining. So I give you the quiz instead.

By the way, I had switched to Colgate at some point, I'm still not sure when, but I came home with the Crest with Scope. And I'm not sorry. Although I guess I kind of miss the nifty Colgate flip top. But really, no, it always got clogged and nasty.

Happy Blogiversary to Me

It's been one year.

In other news, my mother is in the hospital after having a heart "event" and is now getting a pacemaker installed. It should be done by now, actually. She's had heart problems for years, and had major surgery about 10 years ago to have her aortic valve replaced. This is actually nothing compared to that surgery, which was just plain terrifying to wait through and the recovery was pretty rough. Still, she's 72 years old and starting to actually seem it, which is sobering.

Oh, and I quit my job after the business blew up financially and I was lied to. But hey, it was only the first decent job I've been able to land since arriving in this town in September '01. No big deal.

So, right now, my life pretty much sucks. I'm job hunting, and penniless, and pretty fucking depressed.

OK, but focusing on the positive. We spent last weekend at the ranch and it was entirely livable. When everyone sits down at the table for a lovely meal of pasta with a chicken and artichoke heart sauce, fresh herb salad and some wine, I declare a place livable. I think we're going back this weekend.

And yesterday we went to the midwife and heard that whoosh-whoosh that is the heartbeat. So. That was delightful and made me feel a little bit woozy. Baby! Only 6 more months...

Random

I'm pregnant. Don't ask me to collect my thoughts any better than this.

I'm on the cusp of the first trimester, about to head into Phase II, and the official "what are we going to name the baby" conversations have begun. Holy shit, I'm having a baby. I'm going to be the mother of FOUR. Someone please tell Brian that Rupert is a terrible name. Because I'm tired of telling him myself.

I'm prouder than proud to be an Episcopalian right now. Although every time they said "first gay bishop" on the radio I have to shout out "openly! openly!" Because, God knows (and plenty of other people too), that Gene is not the first gay bishop. Some of us, wink wink, may even have been confirmed by a *gasp*gay bishop.

Flash mobs: your 15 minutes are up. Playing duck duck goose and walking around like Mary Poppins? OK. I guess I'm too old for flash mobs. And, plus, I didn't get invited. Not that I'm jealous or anything. Not that I would have time to go downtown with a black umbrella and walk around like Mary Poppins. I'm all grown up now, I have a job and stuff. So I DON'T CARE that I didn't get an email, OK?

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

But first an earring update: found, just a couple hours ago, on the living room floor. Praise Jesus. I'm going to have the things surgically attached to my ear lobes. Thanks for any and all prayers/dancing/spiritual practices.

So:

* The house is going on the market (please God let it sell).
* Jack is starting kindergarten in his dad's neighborhood - a friendly urban mostly Hispanic school with questionable test scores but certainly more culture than the horrid suburban block of concrete that sits 5 miles to my north.
* The 2 little ones are moving to a new day care across the street from my work.
* We are moving to a very small house on a very big ranch where scorpions inhabit the bathtubs and goats wander around in the back yard. we're talking cacti and vegetable gardens and dirt roads and creek beds -- and no guest room for my mother to stay in. Too bad. Heheh.
* Javi, my little baby, is crawling and eating cheerios and has 4 teeth and just slays me with his grins.
* I am just a couple weeks away from being undeniably visibly pregnant.

I'm having moving anxiety. As in, what am I going to do with all my stuff, what am I going to be able to take with me, how am I going to be able to fit my clothes in that tiny fucking closet, how is it that no matter how much I pare down I still, always, seem to have more stuff than space...And I hate moving. I really loathe it. I've rarely spent more than 2 years in any single place, especially as an adult, but even as a child, and I'm tired of it. I don't like packing, I don't like loading things on and off trucks, I don't like all the cleaning and the sorting and the unpacking and the dust and the heat and the lifting and the stress, and it always seems to happen in August or September, the hottest time of year. And. This move means getting out from under a mortgage I can't afford, and away from a house in a community I don't particularly like, but I'm losing the only house I ever owned (if you can call it that), and with that I feel like I'm losing some of my independence. Don't get me wrong, this move is saving my ass, the house on the ranch is really sweet, being able to live out there means being able to actually pay my bills and even (gasp) save money and possibly (gasp) be able to afford things like health insurance and car repairs. For all of that I am truly grateful. And to be able to finally share a home with Brian -- I'm excited. Certainly nervous. But excited. It just feels a little bit like a step down, too. I'm losing all the money I ever had saved up by selling this house now. And I'm losing some serious storage space, too.

Hopefully I'll have my digital camera working soon. Today I wanted to snap a picture of the truck in front of me sporting "Get off My Ass" and "Bite Me" stickers on either side of its rear window. Sort of hard to choose between those two options. And then there was the guy driving north on I 35 in rush hour traffic this morning, center lane, going maybe 59 mph, with "go ahead and honk" and "keep honking" stickers on the back of his car. I shake my head in wonderment. So, someday hopefully soon the camera will be up and running again and I can share the wonderful stickers of the greater Austin area with you, as well as pictures of the ranch.

Since your earring prayers were so successful, I'd appreciate some incense burning/chanting/peyote eating/speaking in tongues on behalf of this house selling. Thanks again, you guys are the best.

Pirates and Missing Treasure

Finally, a movie worth seeing in the movie theater. And on a nice, big screen, too. Johnny Depp is delightful, and remains among my favorite actors (along with Sean Penn) of his/my generation. The dialogue is funny, the sets are beautiful, the whole thing is marvelously coherent, which used to be something you take for granted in a movie but now seems to be a rare and notable exception, at least in a big budget Hollywood production. It's produced by Disney (gah) so it's extremely "clean" which, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, I sort of appreciated. Now the previews for Peter Pan, on the other hand, were positively terrifying. I'll be skipping that one. In fact, there wasn't one single enticing trailer, even though we sat through at least 5.

The baby is spending the night for the first time at his dad's house...I slept until 9:30 this morning. I can't remember the last time I slept past 7. Lovely. Hopefully all is well for my little guy. I'll pick him up this afternoon.

Yesterday was Polly's birthday and I wanted very much to post a picture of her, but my scanner just wouldn't work for me. My BRAND NEW scanner. She would have been 57. Last night at the restaurant I suddenly realize that I'm missing an earring. Polly had diamond stud earrings made for Airin, Alex and me, and a ring made from the center stone of a pin that was her mother's for Katherine as gifts to be given on the eve of K's wedding two summers ago. She brought the stones to the jeweler the day before she went into the hospital. I'm hoping it's at home somewhere (I'm at Brian's). If it's lost forever I will be absolutely despondent. So if you're reading say a little prayer/do a little dance/insert your spiritual practice here for me to be reunited with my missing earring.

Thanks.