Weekend Highlights

We went to see Esther's Follies on Friday night. This is an Austin mainstay show -- political satire, magic tricks, juggling and general merry-making performed on a stage in front of floor-to-ceiling windows which look out on 6th Street so that all passers by can both watch and participate. Occasionally, mercifully, they drop some curtains down. Anyway, a good time was had by all thanks to Brian who won the tickets on the radio (answer: Hugo Weaving). We left the baby with a friend of Brian's and made our escape on the motorcycle, so all in all it was a pretty hot date. And cheap. Driving back to the babysitter's house through Austin at midnight on the back of the bike with my skirt hiked up made me feel precisely like a teenager. But in a good way.

Saturday was pozole, which always makes me happy. Then I spent the day working at Brian's house on the new, cute little computer he put together. Then a trip up to Fry's to buy accessories for my new, fabulous, shiny Tungsten T which I bought used from Brian just this week. And home to watch the DVD of 25th Hour, which was entirely worth watching. Of course almost anything with Philip Seymour Hoffman is entirely worth watching. Still, I think Spike has got his groove back, which is good, since he's young and it would be pitiful if he lost it already.

So many links! And we haven't even gotten to Sunday yet! Except, you know, Sunday was pretty much a total loss. I can't even remember if we left the house. There was an incident involving chicken broth and leftover chinese food that turned out rather badly. And, yes, at 9 pm we did manage to get out of the house to go to the local pub for dinner, but that was it. The locals were very impressed with Javi's general quietness and good nature at the pub. We explained that he had spent a good deal of time there in utero, so it was something of a second home for him. I'm raising my kids to be good little beer drinkers.

Things I Already Knew But Were Reconfirmed For Me Today After a Certain Un-Named Person Decided to Act Like a Total Dickhead. Again. You Can Connect The Dots Yourself.

1) I don't like to fight. This, actually, is not news to me. But the related insight that I so much don't like to fight that I am willing to beat myself up rather than fight back, that definitely shed some more light on the issue for me.

2) Singing helps. Even singing something really idiotic like "oh what a beautiful morning" helps. Even when your kids beg you to stop. Even when you only really know the first two lines. Singing it over and over again helps. Stressing the minor note in "morning" helps.

3) Things can be shit, and I can still be funny. Maybe you don't think I'm funny, but you don't know me that well.

4) My boyfriend rocks. He can talk to me, tell me straight up what he sees, even though it's not all so very pretty, and still be the sweetest guy on the planet. And when he shows up at the restaurant on his motorcycle? Fuggedaboutit. He is all that, I'm telling you, and a bag of fucking chips.

5) Pregnancy sucks. And when you're pregnant, you cry really, really easily.

6) In addition to singing, food really helps. Especially Cuban food. Topped off with some Tres Leches for dessert. You cannot help but feel better if you plunk yourself down in the middle of some Cuban culture, no matter how crappy your day was. I mean talk about a bunch of people who have to deal with shit every day and STILL eat the best food, make the best music, wear the brightest colors and are sexy as hell.

Lost and Found

Well, of course, the minute I posted about our newest addition, the phone rang. A woman in my neighborhood who knew about the dog saw a lost dog sign out on the road where I found her and called me with the number.

It's hard giving a dog up to a girl named Courtney, although she at least spells her name correctly. It's even harder when you learn she's named the dog "Ladybug" (Lady for short!). But she had a pretty reasonable story for how she lost the dog in the first place, and she has another dog (blind, rescued dog) at home who's missing the puppy. And there are 5 more pups from the litter available if we want one. And we have visitation rights. And honestly, a puppy right now is maybe piling on just a bit more on my plate than I care to handle. But still. Cutest puppy ever. We'll miss her.

Speaking of lost and found, r. and b. appear to have found love and happiness. She lives in Seattle, and he lives in Charlotte, so they have some things to work out, but as obstacles go, that's not such a terrible one. Go wish them well!

And????

OK r. and b., my little internet love birds, it's time to come up for air and give us a report. If I get any closer to the edge of my seat, I'll be on the floor.

It's A Girl!

Introducing...



This very sweet, very young puppy was on the side of the road on Friday as I drove home. Collar but no tags. I called the sheriff's department in case someone lost her, and spent the next three days praying the phone wouldn't ring. Ain't NO ONE taking her away now! She's now a happy member of our pack of beasts. We are all completely in love.

It seems her name is Dingo, a name I'm not overly fond of but it has great sticking power, and she IS an Australian Cattle Dog so it's not completely off base.

Is she CUTE? Or WHAT?

Best Google Search So Far

"frizzy jewish hair"

Whoever you are, welcome to my blog. Perhaps you are having a bad hair day? I'm ever so sorry.

Put on Your Red Black Dress, Baby...

...Cause we're goin' out tonight.

I'm going to my friend's divorce party this evening. Yes, that's right. So, what to wear? Sadly, this being Austin, everyone will be wearing the usual jeans/t-shirt combo or possibly shorts/t-shirt combo or if they're really feeling extra festive they might break out a vintage sundress. Casual is OK, to a point, but sometimes I like to get all glammed up, you know? At least Austinites have more style, and show more skin, than the folks in Madison did. The first time I went out to a party in Madison I almost cried to see the jeans-and-boots wearing crowd. Even at the best restaurant in the whole city I can remember a man who wore jeans, a pink Oxford shirt and sneakers to dinner. I wanted to ask him to leave, or at least leave my line of sight.

I refuse to let this all get me down, however, and still throw on my little black dress and strappy shoes every chance I get. Perhaps that will be the attire for tonight. After all, I won't be able to fit in that dress for much longer...

Lunch today, by the way, was a modest bowl of Udon noodles. Mid-afternoon snack was about half a pound of leftover beef brisket from the Salt Lick. Mmmmm.

I. Can't. Get. Out. Of. Bed.

The thing about being pregnant, or at least my thing about being pregnant, is that all I want to do is sleep. With interspersed periods of eating. (Did I use "interspersed" correctly? I'm too tired to look it up.) That's about it. This is certainly preferable to spending my entire first trimester hunched over a toilet bowl, like so many unfortunate pregnant creatures. So I won't complain too much.

In the eating category, I was inspired by Jodi's recent post to have some Indian food for lunch today. No, there are no take-out Indian restaurants in my little hamlet, but I did have the prescience to load up on decent frozen dinners the other day, so I was able to have my very own meal of Saag Paneer courtesy of Ethnic Gourmet.

I'm home alone with the baby, who, thankfully, seems to be almost as sleepy as I am.

That is all.

Fourth of Ju-BUY

Also, Mr. Insurance Salesman who stuck your plastic American flags complete with your business card into all of the lawns in my neighborhood? Two days ago? If I feel like decorating, I'll do it myself, thanks. This holiday is about INDEPENDENCE and GETTING DRUNK and FIREWORKS, it's not about advertising. I think the garbage man might have called Tom Ridge, though, after he saw me rip it out of the ground and throw it in the garbage can as they were coming around the corner. He definitely gave me a long, slow look as they were driving past my house. Maybe I should have burned it for extra effect. I hate the motherfucking suburbs.

Dear Mom and Dad, Guess What?

Would someone like to tell my parents that I'm pregnant for me? While I go hide under a rock? Because I'm SO not looking forward to those conversations. You see, if they'd just stayed married I'd only have to do this once.

They are going to flip out.

And I hate it that I'm 35 years old and I'm worried about what my parents will think.

Comments are working but the counter is not updating...not sure what's up with that. Please comment anyway. You stroke my tiny ego when you do.

All better now.

Highway Stalker

Driving home from work today I saw a car with Massachusetts plates. It was an old station wagon with a Yarmouth dealership logo stuck on the back and a Martha's Vineyard sticker (you know those horrible white ovals with the black initials that used to mean your car was registered in this or that European country but now they mean you live in/vacation in/aspire to be a homeowner in some town or island) on the rear window. And a bike on the rack. I'm so very homesick that I seriously contemplated following this car until it stopped wherever, just so I could strike up a "where ya from?" conversation with the driver. I was calculating how far I could go before I had to turn around and head back home when I came to my senses and pulled off at the next exit to go shopping, like I was supposed to. Hamish needs dog food WAY more than I need to talk to someone in a car from Massachusetts.

In other news, I'm pregnant.

Maybe, baby

Let’s pretend you’re newly divorced with three young children, one of them not even crawling yet, the oldest not yet in kindergarten, a mortgage you can’t afford and a new job that is shaky, at best. Let’s also pretend that you have a devoted and devotion-worthy boyfriend who has been with you through the whole gory, bitter, strange and liberating dissolution of your marriage and your former life. Let’s say you’re in love and you’ve been in love since, in fact, the moment you laid eyes on him and he opened his mouth and started talking to you. Imagine that you, who had heretofore been something of a cynic about love, choosing not to believe in things like love at first sight and eternity and soulmate, suddenly found yourself reeling with the discovery that all of that had not just been made up to sell romance novels, but that the poets just maybe knew what they were talking about.

Now, let’s say, that on the eve of your appointment to go to Planned Parenthood and be outfitted with a shiny new IUD you happen to take a pregnancy test because you’re just a little uncertain of your status. For example, you may have been breastfeeding until recently, and not yet had your period, and so not been aware of your ovulation cycle. And maybe you were a little lax in using your birth control.

Imagine that the test shows you two little lines.

And so imagine you and your boyfriend spend the next two and a half weeks in a fog of uncertainty. The decision to be made is staggering and frightening, and neither option, no matter how many times around the gerbil wheel you go, seems right. The timing sucks. Your finances suck. Your body is still in recovery from the last baby. Your job is new. Your relationship is new. And yet, to say no to this life, this baby, this creation which you, in fact, made happen...to make it and then stop it...imagine that this feels wrong to you.

You call the clinic, get the necessary information. Let’s say that you are told it is early enough in your pregnancy that you would be eligible for RU-486. They explain to you that you will come in, take a pee test, have an ultrasound, get lab work. You will be “counseled.” And then a doctor will give you a pill which will cause the fetus to detach from the lining of the uterus, and send you home. Two days later you will insert a suppository at home, and this will cause your cervix to open and your uterus to contract, and you will bleed out. Just like a miscarriage. Imagine that you are stuck on the idea that someone will actually look at this baby, via ultrasound. And that you will have to walk around for two days with the knowledge of what is happening, before you can finish the procedure.

Let’s say you make the appointment anyway, because the only way to make a decision, you realize, is to keep walking down the path. Pretend that you pull into the driveway, past the man with the big abortion sign and the picture of the fetus, who shouts desperately at you and your boyfriend as you walk into the clinic. You sign the papers. You pee in a cup. And then, imagine, the technician takes you back to a room and has you lie down on a table. The ultrasound, of course, is facing away from you. But your boyfriend is offered a seat right in plain view of the thing. He is watching, the technician is watching. You are lying there, holding back tears while she presses the wand into your belly. Imagine that you ask, “can you see the sac?” And that she responds, gently, “Yes.” Let’s say that when the technician is done your boyfriend has questions, which leads to looking at the actual pictures, and you lay eyes for the first time on the image of a dark, peanut-shaped form, floating there in your womb. Pretend that stops your heart from beating.

Let’s say you are led to a room across the hall from the lab, and when the lab tech comes to fetch you for your blood tests, you ask her, “Could we have another five minutes please?” But really, in your heart, you already know. Pretend your boyfriend is saying in your ear, “Why not?” And in your heart, you are already saying “OK.”

Imagine you pay for the ultrasound, and leave. The guy at the end of the driveway is still there with his big abortion sign, but he doesn’t seem to care that you’re leaving. You’re still in a haze as you drive to pick up your kids from day care. On the way back is a lovely mix of sunshine and rain.

Imagine you see a rainbow.

If my calculations are correct, we’ll be having a new addition to the Big City right around Valentine’s Day, 2004. Brian has already taken to calling “him” by the name of “Rupert.” I say he gets named Rupert over my dead body. Wish us luck.

Some Things

Thing One:
So it turns out my camera store has some sort of scam going, because a quick call to Canon (thank you Brian) reveals that for no cost at all, they will open up my camera and have a look-see, CALL me with an estimate, and then I can choose whether to go through with the repair or not. And yet, the store told me it would be a $160 flat rate? What's up with that? Of course, I was drooling over the PowerShot G3 today and maybe, just maybe, there's a little part of me that hopes it's too expensive a fix so I can buy a new camera. But that would be silly.

Thing Two:
The Sobig virus has made an appearance on my computer 4 times tonight. God bless Norton Anti-Virus. Let's be careful out there.

Thing Three:
Speaking of Nervous Parents, I stumbled across this ad in my monthly neighborhood flyer:

Is it time to babyproof your home? Call Austin Babyproofing Company today!

I especially like the text on the first page, which goes something like this:

What is Austin Babyproofing Company?
YOUR CHILD WILL DIE! YOUR CHILD WILL DIE! YOUR ONLY HOPE IS TO PAY US LOTS OF MONEY TO SAVE YOUR CHILD!

Oh, er, to answer your actual question, Austin Babyproofing Company is blah blah blah...

Thing Four:
I have no dog food. This is bad. I am home alone with three children tucked all snug in their beds, I can't leave the house, and tomorrow these dogs are going to be eating the baby if I don't do something about it. And really, they'd be perfectly within their rights. So anyway, if you're in the neighborhood and you wouldn't mind dropping off a bag of Iams on the front porch tonight, I'd be so grateful.

Thing Five:
It's been a strange day, and I have so much news, but I'm not ready to share just yet. However, I will tell you that the boys and I saw a rainbow today on our way back from school (if ONLY I had that digital camera! Ack!), and maybe that's not enough for YOU to go on, but as far as I was concerned it was a sign. And I felt instantly OK about the whole thing.

Thing Six:
Texas is good for fried green tomatoes, which I had today, and abundant iced tea served everywhere with abundant lemon slices. Texas is not good for fire ants, which made a midnight snack of my right foot a couple nights ago as I was innocently standing, barefoot, in my back yard playing ball with my dog. I'm sorry, but I grew up in Massachusetts where running barefoot through the grass wasn't some sort of pretty storybook fantasy, it's what we DID. I also have some issues with the heat, but having lived in Wisconsin and suffered through the other extreme, I suppose I'll keep my mouth shut.

Nighty-night. I'm off to book-land.

It must have been the news that sodomy is now legal in Texas that finally killed him

Bye bye, Strom.

From the article:

Asked once to recount his career, Thurmond was blunt and brief: "I tried to be honest. I tried to be patriotic. And I tried to be dedicated."

And he tried to be a racist bigot, too! And a womanizer! What a guy.

Reading

Yep, that's been me, over there on the couch or up late at night in the bed, reading words on PAPER instead of on this screen. I finally gave up on ever trying to finish The God of Small Things, which was coming ever closer to its heavily foreshadowed depressing conclusion, and even though the writing was very rich and intriguing, I just looked at that book with sheer dread. It sat by my bed like that, gathering dust, for months. It's still sitting there, actually, but I've moved on to other things. Briefly, I moved on to 20 Years in a Desert Jail, which I thought would be gripping and moving and teach me something about life, but I got quickly bored with that one as well. For one thing, I had been under the mistaken impression that she was Iranian, not Moroccan, and it was Iran that I had really been wanting to read about. And then there was all this stuff about growing up in a palace and being a sort of adopted princess and loving her beautiful mother from afar and the stables and the governesses that just sort of turned me off. I feel bad, but there it is. Never made it to the jail.

So...

I've been plowing through my old New Yorkers. Yeah, go ahead, roll your eyes, I read the New Yorker and listen to NPR and drink red wine and enjoy a little Mozart now and then. So fucking what. Anyway, I read a fascinating article on Koffi Anan and the role of the UN, another fascinating article on the director of PETA, several stunningly excellent Talk of the Town pieces by Hendrik Hertzberg and David Remnick who just TOTALLY kicks Tina Brown's ass, I don't care if she does write for Salon, I'll forever think of her as the whore who tried to Hollywood-ize my magazine, and I'm glad she's gone. There was a scathingly funny review of The Matrix:Reloaded which said in such better style why it didn't even hold a candle to the first movie. And a lovely article by Roger Angell, baseball writer, Red Sox fan, humorist, stepson of E.B. White about the car trips of his youth. Delightful. And now I can say with some relief I am completely caught up on my New Yorkers, so BRING IT ON Mr. Mailman.

In the books department, I've started reading The Professor and the Madman, which is the bizarre and true story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. No, seriously, it's not boring. Well, not to me. So a book I may actually finish as I make my way through the pile. Next after this is The Corrections, which I've been waiting to read with such anticipation I'm actually concerned that it won't live up.

What are you reading?

I Won't Hold My Breath, Though

Bush says "It's just a matter of time."

Camera Kaput

I got the call from the service department this morning. For $160 minimum they can send my camera to the manufacturer, but there's no telling how much more it would cost me once it got there, so I don't think it's worth it. I'll let Brian take a look at it and maybe he can fix it, but it's also quite possible that I'm going to have to replace a digital camera that is merely 2 years old, and cost me $800 at the time. I can get a better camera for less money now, but this is still turning into an expensive habit. I'm used to 35 mm cameras, which last for-freaking-ever. This is my first digital camera and I guess I thought I'd get at least 5 years out of the thing before I'd want sell it for an upgrade, not take a loss on the thing. I feel like I've been robbed. And to have this thing break on me the VERY DAY I switched over to blogger pro so I could upload digital pictures...grrr.

Damn

I got a speeding ticket today. I am such an idiot.

But I also got a free cup of coffee because the guy at the window felt bad for making me wait...I was too busy thinking about my next blog entry and listening to Wilco to notice it was late, but hey, free is free. Thanks buddy.

Parenting in the Age of Anxiety

And what was I thinking about, exactly, while waiting for my coffee? The people who live for the next Right Start catalog to arrive in their mailbox so they can set about making the world safe for their petit enfant. For the record, I have never used outlet covers, toilet seat locks, cabinet locks, doorknob locks, car window shades (let the kid squint, for god's sake), gates, cat guards for the crib (in fact, my cats sleep with the babies and everybody's happy that way), special harnesses for riding in the shopping cart, leashes, I.D. bracelets, video baby monitors, bed rails, "snuggle beds", corner "cushions" for my tables or any of the billions of other "safety" products that are marketed to an increasingly anxious population of American parents. All my kids are still alive, still in one piece, and I don't have to struggle with the toilet in the middle of the night just so I can take a piss.

This is Gonna Get Long, So Grab a Glass of Wine



I didn't actually get to talk to my father on Father's Day because he was moving from the house he has lived in for 25 years to a condo in Cambridge. My dad is easily overwhelmed and stressed, and feels an intense obligation towards the people he loves the most, so even just a quick phone call in the middle of all that moving would have possibly killed him. Anyway, Father's Day isn't really his bag, and I guess I inherited his general dislike for and suspicion of the "Hallmark holidays." I'd rather celebrate his birthday with him and be done with it.

What I really want to write about, though, is the house he is moving out of. When his wife, my stepmother Polly, died suddenly two years ago of brain cancer, my dad went from owner to tenant overnight. In her will, Polly left the house and land to her three biological children, my stepsiblings, under the condition that my father could remain there for as long as he wished. I really don't have a childhood home -- I was born in New York, my parents moved to a suburb of Boston when I was 2, they were divorced when I was 7 and my mom and I lived in a couple more houses between 7 and 14, when I escaped to boarding school in Vermont and my mother fled the suburbs to go live on Cape Cod.

When I was 10, my dad moved in with Polly and her three children, who were living in a house on the North Shore of Boston she bought with her first husband in the early 1970s. When I was 12 my father and Polly were married in the living room. Back then it was a fairly modest, albeit charming, 18th century farmhouse sitting on 10 acres in a sleepy Merrimac Valley town. Over the years both the town and the house have been transformed. Boston's suburban radius grew exponentially in the 1980s, and now it is not unheard of to commute to Boston daily from New Hampshire, some 10 miles north (and that much further away from Boston) from where the house is located. The town my father lived in was transformed overnight into a pretty wealthy suburb, with some awfully valuable real estate. My stepmother, always an excellent gardener, got a degree in landscape architecture from Radcliffe and set about cultivating 3 of the 10 acres of land, creating a beautiful estate of flower beds, hidden nooks with benches and statues, a frog pond with a running stream, several storage buildings, and eventually a swimming pool, labyrinth and fire pit. Meanwhile the house burst out of its boxy farmhouse shape and gained an enormous, fully-equipped kitchen, and the addition of a large dining room with a pantry and basement underneath. The wood for the kitchen (and the refurbished master bathroom) was imported from South America. The dining room featured a heated stone floor. All the rooms were filled with Polly's paintings, beautiful light fixtures. The wide plank wood floors in the entire original house were resanded. A pergola was added to the front entrance. The pavement driveway was torn up and a new gravel driveway with a different entrance was installed. And on and on.



It is possibly my favorite house on the planet. And it's all about Polly. That house and land were her heart and soul, a full and complete expression of her spirit. Polly, if you haven't figured it out already, bore a somewhat frightening resemblance to Martha Stewart (except maybe for the insider trading thing and the reputation of being a bitch). She was a perfectionist in all she did, and she did everything. She was a ballroom dancer, a painter, a singer, a landscape architect, a gourmet chef, a healer, a historian. This was not always an easy parent to have, even step-parent. But I worshipped her and learned from her and emulated her and assumed, like everyone else, that she would live forever.

I don't know what will happen to the house now. The taxes alone will cost her kids an arm and a leg. The upkeep on the property just to maintain the landscaping would surely put them under. It was sinking my dad fast, and I know he was extremely relieved to finally find a place and be out from under the burden -- not just financial, but the burden of responsibility, of oversight, of knowing what to do, which Polly made seem effortless. Relations between my father and my stepsiblings are strained; the usual fighting over who gets what has been going on. I am far away, half way across the country from all of this, and removed entirely, in any case, from the decision making and the bickering and whatever else is happening. I try to know as little as possible about it all.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I'm sad. I miss her. The house was a part of her, and now it's gone from me too. I wish she was still around to talk to me on the phone and to be a grandmother to my kids. I miss her cooking and her funny little anecdotes about the animals and the way she would look at me with such barely constrained mischief sometimes. I feel shut out from the house, and consequently shut away from her, and in a way it's like she's died all over again but no one knows this time.

It's a Good Thing

*When a certain someone who has been acting like a dick decides to stop acting like a dick just MOMENTS before you tell him to fuck off, which wouldn't be good all things considered.

*When you royally screw up at work but don't get fired because, for some reason, your boss likes you.

*When your 5 year old puts his head on your shoulder at story time.

*Money. In the nick of time.

*Dog snouts. Oh, and twitchy, dreaming dogs on the floor.

*Using some of the money to buy CDs and filling your house with Beck and Liz Phair (is "Chopsticks" not the funniest/sweetest/saddest song?) and Elvis Costello and Wilco and The Flaming Lips and, yes, Mozart too.

*Knowing that, no matter what happens, he loves you and it's going to be OK.

*Watching your 3 year old rock out to Regatta de Blanc.

*Roof/food/health/love.

Overload

The thing is, I can't write about it, at least not here. And this is when the blog fails me because it is public. So I'm thinking and thinking and thinking my little head off over this current, nameless (for you, anyway, dear reader) situation, and I'm left with nothing to write. I don't know. There are some of you who write about every last gorey detail of your lives, and others who keep it almost eerily impersonal, and most of you find some way to balance it all, but I don't know how you keep on writing when you're mid-dilemma. How you can write about other things while something really big is swirling around in your head.

My digital camera is broken (oh woe is me!) but I have a new scanner, so I might as well put it to use. And so, I give you...



Javier.

When in doubt, use the children for material. Right?

Kyle, my ferocious kitty is outside right now being dive-bombed by mockingbirds. She acts irritated if not indifferent, but I think she is secretly pleased that she holds such a fearsome status in the neighborhood. My other kitty gets no attention whatsoever from the shrieking birds, but Kyle is Public Enemy Number One. I've yet to see evidence of her destructive nature -- she hasn't once brought me a baby bird. But she couldn't have gained this reputation for nothing. I wish I could show you a picture.

I'll get back to my dilemma now.

Burning Passion

Sometimes listening to NPR can be thought-provoking, or amusing, or annoying, and sometimes it can make me crazy with lust and desire. Please, God, will somebody make me this cake?????

Why I Love My Boyfriend, Reason # 732:

He photoshopped this for me. Isn't he funny? Isn't he clever?

All Underwear, All the Time

Since it seems to generate so much traffic to my humble little weblog, I'm just going to keep on posting about underwear, underwear, underwear.

I know, quizzes are stupid. Bite me.


Your the boxers. You leave everything to the last minute. Never on
time for anything. And always caring about others before yourself.

Which underwear are you?

Yep, that's right, I'm a selfish bitch. Selfish AND lazy.

What Would You Do...

...with 7 pairs (6 white and 1 heather grey) of Jockey bikini underwear that your mother sent you in the mail?

Because I'm thinking: trash. And I guess I feel kind of bad about it, like I'm wasting perfectly good underwear. But exactly how do you give underwear away? I mean, does Goodwill even TAKE underwear? Would YOU buy underwear at Goodwill? It's brand new, never been worn, but these things are out of the package (they came that way) and now taking up precious real estate in my house, and I want them gone. Would anyone like some underwear?

Going, going...

Attention Wachowski Brothers, Vis a Vis Next Time

Please: more car chases, more fight sequences, more sex, more slo-mo bullets, more explosions, more octopussy evil machine robots, more sweaty earthy dance sequences, more Superman/Errol Flynn/Chow Yun Fat references, more long black trenchoats and tight-fitting shiny black outfits and hip sunglasses, more slamming of bodies into brick walls...and...

Less Philosophy 101. Please.

We do NOT want to sit in a theater while your actors, no matter how pretty they may be, yammer away about choice and fate. Especially when their yammering leaves us just as confused about choice and fate as we were when we came into the damn theater. And especially when they keep having the SAME FUCKING CONVERSATION OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I have more to say about this movie, but I'll let it go at that. The sad thing is, as I said to Brian on our way out, I'll pay* to see the next one, too, because it's so damn pretty to look at. I only hope the script is better. Please.

*Yes, Brian, I do realize that you paid for my ticket. And thank you.

Just Wondering

To the guy with the mustache driving in front of me in the silver Ford Explorer Sport, blowing smoke out the window but flicking the ashes out your sun roof, which, when you were stopped, caused them to land on your head:

?

To my mom, who just sent me 12 pairs of I-only-wear-these-when-I'm-in-my-third-trimester Jockey underpants in the mail, with no explanation attached:

?

Too Cool for School

Maybe someday I'll be a popular blogger, and people will come to my website by the dozens. They'll come to read my witty posts and tell me how very cool they think I am, or how sorry they are that my kitten died, or whatever. They will come. They will read. They will leave adoring comments. They will go. Many, many of them will link back to my website, until I'm so famous and so popular that national newspapers and cable news networks will call upon me when they want to do stories about "blogging" and "the internet community" and "women in technology" and "diapers." I'll be a household name, like Dooce or Jodi or C. Monks or Mrs. Kennedy. People will obsessively watch their blogrolls to see if my website has been updated yet, so they can read my latest nuggets of wisdom and humor. I will get so much email I'll have to hire minions to read and respond to it all. Total strangers will purchase gifts for me from my Amazon wishlist.

Or, maybe not.

I guess, you know, it's still a little bit like high school, no matter what you do or how old you get. And there's a part of me that is still wanting in on this popularity contest. Even though I should damn well know better. Mostly I write this thing for me, and because I want my own little toehold of html code to call my own so I can tinker a little bit here and there and try to figure it out, and because I like keeping a journal, and electronic journals are fun.

But there's this other little part of me that really wants to be a popular blogger, like the rest of you. A girl can dream, yes?

Rickie Is My Hero, And Mrs. Kennedy Rocks My World

This is why I love her.

And hey, my first post from work! It's a slow day in medical transcription land, kids.

*Note, I'm referring to the "Adventures in child psychology" post, not the post about how much it sucks to read sad stories about kids after you become a parent. The link doesn't seem to be working right. Thank you.

**Not that I don't love the other post, almost just as much. But "Adventures in child psychology" made me spit Coke on my keyboard.

Rickie is my hero



It's good, every once in a while, to break out those old CDs. I mean those CDs which are really replacements for records which you had in high school and played and played so much that the vinyl finally wore away. Remember vinyl? Remember stylus needles? Remember Rickie Lee Jones? Why don't I play music in my house more often? It makes me so happy.

Once you find yourself
A Better man
Treat him special all of the time
Make him some catfish
Fry it up in bed
Don't leave him hangin' on the telephone line

Wow

Matrix Reloaded was sold out, and we only had three hours before we had to pick up the baby from his dad's house. We headed for the Harry Ransom Center because I'd heard something about a Gutenberg Bible. There was that, and SO MUCH MORE. They had paintings by E. E. Cummings and Arthur Conan Doyle's golf clubs and letters by Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins discussing words and rhyme and meter and a really funny memo from someone (Ernest Lehman? I forget now) to Jack Warner about the importance of securing Richard Burton for the lead in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in part because it will keep Liz from worrying about where her husband is and a delightful little magazine created by Lewis Carroll for his family and a great Richard Rauschenberg print and a beautiful little Andre Kertesz photograph of a man in the street with a train going by in the background and a gorgeous painting by Diego Rivera of a slightly green-faced girl holding a doll and and and and...

I reached saturation point very early on, but kept on slogging through the collection trying to soak it all in. A great exhibition. Free, relatively sparsely attended, infinitely fascinating.

Look Out, World

I've got a scanner, and I'm not afraid to use it.

But really, how priceless is this picture of my grandparents?



I'm guessing 1972, Florida. God bless Rachel and Jack Johnson. The world just isn't the same without them.

And then there's this picture, circa 1979, of my sister Alex and me in a phone booth in Chicago:



I remember going to visit her. We took these pictures in a Woolworth's. Remember Woolworth's? We actually went in, had lunch at the counter (tuna melts and root beer floats), and then recorded the event in the booth. It was a good day.

Which Do You Want First?

The bad news: Brian's server is down
The good news: I've moved to blogspot and all my archives are saved
The bad news: But no one knows I'm here
The good news: Hardly anyone ever visited me before, anyway
The bad news: My digital camera appears to be dead
The good news: I have a new scanner so I can still put pictures on line and email pics of the kids to various relatives
The bad news: I have to pony up more $$ to blogger if I want to post pictures and lose the advertising
The good news: I can't think of any
The bad news: Brian's at his place and I'm at my place which makes us two lonely people
The good news: The kids are sleeping and there's 4 more beers in the fridge.

Foot Fetish, Anyone?

Apparently, people desperately looking for Sarah Kozer, of Joe Millionaire fame, whose 15 minutes have LONG since expired by now, have been visiting my blog in droves over the last couple of days. Why on earth this is happening, I do not know. So sorry to disappoint you all. You will find no kinky bondages pictures here. But click on that link above, yeah that one, or this one, they're all the same. And you can see that other Sarah all tied up and everything.

Raffi, Schmaffi

They're like a couple of teenagers up there, my boys. Staying up late talking and listening to CD's. I indulge them, because how cool is it, really, that my kids are staying up all night listening to The Police? It's way cool. Tomorrow we'll all be grumpy and sleep-deprived and some of us might even be a little hungover, but fuck it, that's tomorrow. Tonight we're staying up late and listening to records and having a good time.

Life is good. There's something of a melodrama swirling around me, but I'm riding it out. The thing is, none of it really matters in the long run. But it sucks to have to watch your back, to realize people in your life can't be trusted.

I Have No Decent Title For This Post

My 5 year old kid just called me from his dad's house to inform me that he was watching the Devils play the Senators, the game had just started, and the score was holding steady at 0 - 0. Thanks, kid. It's good to be informed. Meanwhile I'm sitting here drinking a beer and eating chips and salsa and thinking about how I SHOULD...BE...WORKING...BUT...I...CAN'T...MOVE..........

24 Hour Party People was loads of fun, by the way. If you didn't see it when it came around, go rent the DVD/video. It was good to see a decent movie for a change after actually paying good money for seats in a theater to watch the horrific dreck that was The Phone Booth. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that one.

And, in yet more unrelated news, the baby is eating solid food now -- we've kicked things off with bananas -- and, as my friend Dana put it some months ago, "Oh yeah, I remember, solid food = solid poop."

I guess that's enough sharing for now.

All I can say about it is that some people will do amazingly stupid things in an attempt to deflect blame from themselves. I'm flabbergasted. And really pissed off.

THAT day

I've never been all that fond of mothers' day to begin with, but now that I've achieved motherhood status I especially don't like it. Before it was just a matter of remembering to call your mother (and in my case, your stepmother as well). Now everyone on the planet seems to want to wish ME a happy mothers' day if I happen to leave my house with any child in tow. I hate it that the Sprint PCS information operator wished me a happy mothers' day ("if you're a mother" she said. I felt like smacking her), and that the first place we went to for brunch (and bailed on) was packed with mother-daughter dress-wearing bourgeoisie and a scary Little Bo Peep clown.

Mostly I hate that this day is now just a painful reminder of mothers' day two years ago, when Polly collapsed on the kitchen floor and was rushed to the hospital, and we learned of the brain tumors, and everything changed. I spent the day two years ago not calling her, for the first time in 21 years or so, because I knew there was something wrong and I was afraid to talk to her on the phone. The day before had been my sister's graduation from acupuncture school. Polly had arrived wearing some sort of long-sleeved wool getup, and I asked her aren't you hot in that? It was an exceptionally hot day in Boston, for May. And she just smiled wanly at me and didn't reply. She hardly spoke all day. That evening she drove us to the restaurant but forgot what she was doing and started heading back towards her house before my dad gently reminded her which direction to go. Weird things like that had been happening for a few weeks. She seemed distant, quiet, maybe even angry, definitely not herself, but if you asked her what was wrong she always said "nothing." We all sat stiff and anxious in our chairs, watching her study the menu while the waiter cocked his head, anticipating her order, which never came. Finally she managed to get some words out -- I think she ordered duck. She spent the evening holding her head, looking pale, like she had the worst headache of her life.

Of course, when this kind of shit is going on, no one ever thinks "oh, there must be a growth in her brain that is impeding her speech center!" Instead, you think she's angry, she's nuts, she's lost it, there's something wrong with her mentally.

But if we had only known.

We found out too late, though, and three weeks later she was dead.

OK, so that was a downer of a post, and I'm sorry. On a happier note, I ordered "Brian's Favorite" for brunch at the Austin Diner, and when the waitress came to the table and said "Brian's Favorite?" and I said "Yes!" well, it was just priceless. You had to be there. Brian's Favorite, by the way, is scrambled eggs mixed with cheese and bacon bits, a biscuit and a side of grits. It was righteous.

Totally

It's so obvious, it's almost embarrassing. I am:


Switzerland -
A neutral power for as long as most can remember,
it has avoided war for several centuries.
However, it is still considered highly advanced
and a global power.


Positives:

Judicial.

Neutrality.

World-Renouned.

Powerful without Force.

Makes Excellent Watches, Etc.


Negatives:

Target of Ridicule.

Constant Struggle to Avoid Conflict.

Target of Criminal Bank Accounts.



Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks to Jack.

21 lb 8 oz

No wonder my shoulders are killing me all the time, I've been lugging a monster around with me. Javier is six months old today and weighs plenty more than either of his brothers did at their 12 month check-ups. The shots sucked, but he recovered fairly quickly, and then fell into a deep, Tylenol-assisted sleep. Apparently when he woke up he had the best day EVER at day care, and couldn't stop laughing and smiling. So go figure.

WARNING, PARENTAL BRAG BELOW

We stopped for pizza tonight after checking out the local karate classes (Jack is extremely interested). I told Jack I delivered pizza once.

Jack: How old were you?
Me: Oh, it was a long time ago, I was 19 or so.
J: Before I was born?
M: Yep, long before you were born.
J: Yeah, I was a negative baby then.

I love this kid.

At the karate class he was reading the backs of the kids' uniforms and providing a play-by-play: "Sydney is fighting Jessica. Xavier is all done, he's going to sit down now. That's Jessie, she's wearing a red helmet..." And then doing math problems at the pizza place, just for fun. Subtracting the number of slices from the total number of slices in the pie. That sort of thing.

Yeah, he's wicked smart for a five year old.

END BRAG

In other news: Working full time and raising three kids is really fucking hard. I'm going to bed now.

Ping?

Testing.

Uh Huh

Working from home in your underwear totally ROCKS.

Of course, later I have to take the baby in for his six month checkup where he will get stuck with needles and cry like a banshee, and that will really not rock. But for now I'm half naked, eating a cinammon raisin english muffin and doing my work. Not bad.

Green

Yeah, I hated that template. Red and grey...all wrong. Actually, I have more ambitious design ideas for this site, and the upcoming photography site, but I need to learn a few things first...but still, had to change to green. Green is where it's at.

Would you like a poem? Of course you would.

THE GREEN PLANT

Silence is a shape that has passed.
Otu-bre's lion-roses have turned to paper
And the shadows of the trees
Are like wrecked umbrellas.

The effete vocabulary of summer
No longer says anything.
The brown at the bottom of red
The orange far down in yellow,

Are falsifications from a sun
In a mirror, without heat,
In a constant secondariness,
A turning down finality --

Except that a green plant glares, as you look
At the legend of the maroon and olive forest,
Glares, outside of the legend, with the barbarous green
Of the harsh reality of which it is part.

- Wallace Stevens

May Daze

Worrying, for no good reason, can just eat a person right up. And really, there is nothing to worry about. Life is complicated. Love is complicated. But all that really matters is whatever is happening RIGHT NOW. Not what happened yesterday, and not what you think might happen in five years, and not what would have happened if you'd stayed home from the party or applied to Harvard or failed to notice that your two year old was perched next to an open window on a fast-moving ferry 20 feet above the surface of the cold, grey, Atlantic in the middle of March. Worry is pointless. Being, living, breathing, accepting, delighting, suffering, playing, working...doing...is what matters. Why is it that this simple lesson is so far out of reach, so much of the time?

Here comes Mother's Day, and I'm thinking about my stepmother Polly who died two short years ago at the end of May. I'd like to get this month over with and just move on to June. Here's an excerpt from something I wrote about it:

Smooth and handsome Dr. Park, brain surgeon, meets us in a tiny room. We squeeze together to hear the news – it’s malignant. I watch as he describes the tumor as being like a starfish, a spider, extending it’s tendrils deep into her brain tissue, impossible to cleanly remove without removing precious brain. He splays his hand to demonstrate. It feels almost unkind, this gesture. I see in a flash how every new tumor is for him a chance to improve his skills, a chance to be a better doctor, a good thing. He talks about radiation, chemo, oncologists. Three to five years tops. This is what he tells us. We cry and eat our sandwiches and wander around the hospital, lost stars. Then she is in recovery and we come to see her, watch her fingers wander up to her scalp, touching the bare patches, feeling the bandages. It’s really only two more weeks to go. None of us knows this.

I miss her.

Hellooooooooo

Wow, talk about withdrawal. I'm so glad to be back.



Bluebonnet season is basically over...now the cacti are blooming.

Texas is pretty.

Bear With Me

I'm still figuring all this stuff out.

But here's a picture...

Testing, Testing

In the Fridge

Bad meat
Withered up strawberries
Picholine olives
Sliced cheese

Random

Comments make me happy. What is up with you people? I KNOW you are coming in here and looking around, but no one hardly ever leaves a note.

My boss told me today that she spent years of her life with "Frosty the Snoman" stuck in her head. She didn't tell anyone at the time because she was afraid they would think she was crazy...which, of course, she was. I think I would prefer Chinese Water Torture to an endless loop of Frosty.

What else can I tell you. It feels like a random day. I'm learning to spell things like cholecystectomy and synechiae. Such is the life of a medical transcriptionist.

I have a head cold that I just can't shake so I've been hopped up on Sudafed for the past several days in order to keep working. I'm as high as a kite, but I'm keeping that sinus infection at bay.

Easter didn't really happen this year. We went to church, but that was it, and I'm feeling guilty for cheating my kids out of the bunny and the chocolate and the egg decorating. I just couldn't get myself together to do it. I'm really bad at holidays, I resent taking on all that extra work -- shopping for stuff, cooking special meals, decorating things, wrapping presents, the whole production just leaves me feeling inadequate and tired. So I bailed. And then my 5 year old cried in the car on the way to day care yesterday morning, saying what a terrible Easter it had been, and I felt like the world's shittiest mother. I guess there won't be any more shirking of holiday duties from now on -- the boys are too old for me to get away with it. But damnit it's HARD doing all that stuff with three kids and a full time job! How do people do it? I just don't get it. I can just barely manage to feed my kids and keep them in clean clothes, let alone make a holiday happen.

Please, leave a comment.

What Makes me Happy

Brian
My kids
Foot rubs
Fastlane
Good hair days
Anne Lamott
Mangos with lime
Uninterrupted sex
Uninterrupted sleep
Horseback riding
Matisse
Flowers for no reason
Pozole, plantains and sangria on Saturday morning
Al Green
artichokes with melted butter and lemon juice
The Ranch
Little black dress + strappy shoes + fancy restaurant
Singing in a chorus
Sand in my toes
Japanese food
Driving fast
Letters from friends

What's Good About It?

I mean, it's the bleakest day on the Christian calendar, right? God is dead, right? I've never understood the "Good" part.

That's What it's For

So I had one of those dreams the other night. Dionne Warwick was singing with a bunch of cute backup girls, and when I woke up I realized, hey, I made up an entire song! How cool! And then I stopped and thought about the lyrics for a minute, which start out:

He just made love to me
That's what it's for

...and only get worse. I busted out laughing. Actually, that dream has had me chuckling for a good 3 days now. Whenever my boss gets really testy I threaten to sing the song and she immediately starts behaving.

Nachos

This is the funniest damn thing I've read in ages. Aaron Kinney rocks the house. I'm talkin' bout the April 8th entry.

Old Friends


Well, he didn't really remember me, which was something of a blow to the ego, but I finally did hear back from Kevin Platt (see "Where Are They Now?" below) so I could tell him this:

I don't even know if you remember this thing you said one day to {name
withheld to protect the innocent}, in defense of our teacher at the time, Mrs. Levin.
Said classmate had been bitching and whining and moping around for Jake whom
we all missed terribly...I believe he was rather unfairly fired from the school for being
a somewhat renegade teacher, thus depriving us of what should have been our
Second Year of Jake. In his place we had acquired Mrs. Levin, who I can
barely recall except to say she was fairly unremarkable. Mystery girl that day
said yet another bitchy little thing about how Jake would have done things
differently, and in my version of this event you raised your little self up
out of your chair and told her in front of the whole stunned and silent
class of 5th graders that she should cut it out, we all missed Jake, but he
was gone, and Mrs. Levin was our teacher now, and we'd all heard just about
enough from her about Jake this and Jake that. And then you sat down.

At the time, I felt like applauding, but I was instead pretty much stunned
into silence like the rest of the classroom. Years went by but that scene
has always stuck in my head and I've always wanted to say thank you to you
for speaking out, and doing it so well. The chick in question was bossy and pushy and
difficult, and even though she was my friend she was also intimidating. You
put into words that day what I had wished all along to be able to say to her
but was unable.

So this is what inspired me to hunt you down. You probably think I'm a
nutcase, you might not even remember this thing you did, but there you go.
I remember.

Naturally, he didn't remember the incident either. But it felt good to tell him, and it's lovely to be in touch.

Seriously Ill

And it's no big surprise. Cutting down on my sleep and adding a 180 mile round trip commute to my day has been hell on my immune system. I've been shuffling around the house all day in my bathrobe, very feverish and fucked up. I think I have SARS. Well, OK, I don't have SARS, but it's some kind of flu and it sucks. Add to the suckiness that my new job is a contract job, so I don't get paid if I don't show up. Sick days do not exist. Brian has pneumonia and he is home and feverish and fucked up in his own house. Every once in a while we call each other on the phone, wake each other up, mumble something inchoherent, and hang up.

Sigh.

Working

The reason for my extended absence (admit it, you missed me, all none of you) is that I have an actual, honest-to-goodness JOB. And I think it's even a good job. Time will tell, but it's seeming that way. Still, I now have to get up at 6 in the morning, haul my kids out the door by 7:15 at the latest, drive them 25 minutes south, deposit them at day care, and then turn my car around and go 45 miles north to work, arriving by 8:45 or so. I work until 4:30, get back in the car, make it to day care by 5:30, pick all the kids up, get back home by 6:15 or so, make dinner, administer bath, read stories, tuck in, collapse...interrupted of course by the one or two or three middle-of-the-night cries (only Eli could bump his head at 2 in the morning while SLEEPING). This schedule has me and my car feeling just a little bit flattened out, but it's still better to be earning money and feeling tired than the alternative, which was starting to scare the shit out of me. I'm still, of course, scared, as the work isn't yet paying what I'm hoping it will, and I'm desperately behind on some of my bills, but at least things are looking up.

Javier is doing marvelously in day care, he hasn't skipped a beat. And the big boys are growing bigger and more wonderful every day. I count my lucky stars, I do. Of course, with this new schedule I'm seeing much less of Brian, and that's hard. I'm lonely for him.

The war has me down. I'm waking up and driving and going to sleep to NPR, and when it's not NPR, I'm surfing the web for news of the war while at work. When I think about those Iraqi soldiers, most of them conscripted into service very much against their will, coerced into taking up arms and then getting blown to pieces for it. When I hear the words "collateral damage." When I think of the hundreds of thousands of children who are scared and hungry and hurt. When I think if the havoc we are wreaking on this country in the name of oil freedom...it all makes my head hurt.

Other news...I finally had "the talk" with my mother tonight. It felt good, actually, to get it all off my chest, even though my initial plan was to not get into it with her. I told her I thought she was worried and anxious for no reason, and had an unhealthy attachment to my children, and that she should tell me in person how she's feeling instead of waiting and sending a letter on the eve of her trip to Europe, and that she was most definitely NOT welcome to come back in May, as she was hoping to do. Parents. Can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the side of the road. I wish she'd just learn her lesson, but it never happens. Anyway, it felt good, for me anyway. I'm sure she's feeling pretty horrible right now, but she brought it on herself.

I've been doing a lot of shooting with my Nikon in the last few weeks, getting ready for the wedding which I'm shooting the first weekend in May. I'm so excited about this professional photography job I can hardly stand it. I've got film in my bag to be taken to the lab -- shots of Maida and her beautiful dog Violet in front of a more-wisteria-than-thou wisteria bush. I swear, this plant was definitely trying to make a point. I can't wait to see the pictures.

Here's a timely poem for you.

The "Where Are They Now" Edition

Inspired, as always, by Mrs. Kennedy (whose new banner, although quite fetching, gave me a sudden shock today), I thought it might be fun for me to see what happens when I Google the names of my old (and I mean OLD old, like Fourth Grade old) friends.

Yowza.

First we have Brenda Herschbach Jarrell, whose achievements are frightening:

Dr. Jarrell is a patent attorney with Choate, Hall & Stewart, whose practice is focussed on biotechnology. Dr. Jarrell followed an unorthodox path to the law, starting life as a Chemist (AB Harvard 1987; AM Harvard 1988) and then pursuing a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (UCSF 1993). Dr. Jarrell joined Choate, Hall & Stewart in 1993 as a Staff Scientist, continued to work there while pursuing her law degree (Harvard 1998), and is now an associate.

Of course, that sort of thing is to be expected when your dad is a Nobel Laureate. All I remember about her dad is that he was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was in his office. Brenda had long, beautiful straight blonde hair, Barbie Doll hair, which I was endlessly jealous of and fascinated with, having myself some pretty strange, frizzy and totally unruly brown curly Jewish hair. This didn't exactly help me to fit in in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Together, Brenda and I pretended to be alien children adopted by our human parents but needing to get back to the space ship, which we decided was going to land in Chicopee, Massachusetts. We spent hours devising our plan for getting back to the ship and thus to our true home in outer space. It all made perfect sense at the time. And yes, we lifted the entire story line from a certain Disney movie, but what the hell. We were eight.

Liz Dewey is absolutely nowhere to be found on the internet, but that's OK. I'm actually somewhat in contact with her family as her sister lives here in Austin and her mom and my dad are still in touch for business reasons. I don't think I ever need to see Liz again, actually. She broke my heart when she dumped me during the summer between Fourth and Fifth grade. I haven't been the same since. Anyway, I know she's living in Vermont and working for her dad.

I'm also still a little bit in touch with the beautiful, ephemeral Laura Heijn, although it's horribly sporadic. She, too, lives in Vermont. The only mention of her name on the internet has to do with some hut in the Appalachian mountains, and an award she got from high school. I don't think Laura even owns a computer. She's an artist, and all that. I miss her.

The shocker of the day was Kevin Platt. I pined like a lovesick puppy dog for Kevin Platt for years, enduring all sorts of horrible taunts involving his first name and my last (which was Zevin at the time), and the whole "Sarah and Kevin kissing in a tree" thing. And now he has his very own homepage. He sounds happily married and all that, so I guess I missed my chance. Kevin was tall, dark and handsome, and a total geek. While the other kids were playing outside at recess, Kevin and I would sit in the back room and READ TOGETHER. I'm still the same old dork I was back then, I guess. But Kevin really did something amazing once, by standing up to a very bratty classmate of ours, and I've always wanted to tell him how much I appreciated that. I guess now's my chance, huh? Wow.

I know I had other friends in fourth grade, but honest to God I can't remember their last names. So this will have to do. Thanks, Mrs. Kennedy!

Dear Texas Drivers;

The lane on the far left is called the passing lane. If you are driving in this lane, it should be because you were driving in the traveling lane (that's the one in the middle), but came upon someone who was driving more slowly than you, and so decided to pass that person. Once you are finished passing the person in the traveling lane, you should then return to the aforementioned traveling lane until such a time as you might encounter yet another person traveling more slowly than you. Then you should again follow the instructions above, and pass that slower person. If you are a very, very slow moving vehicle (like, anything less than 70 miles per hour), then you should be in the slow pokes lane. That's the lane on the far right. Please, for the love of God, if you are a truck driver going South to Mexico or North to Canada (never have I hated NAFTA more than since I moved to Texas), you should STAY THE HELL OUT OF THE PASSING LANE.

Thank you very much.

Love,

Sarah

P.S. Please stop riding the brakes.

Pray for Peace

Pray to whoever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Yahweh, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper
of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down
to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latté and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,
each caress a season of peace.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust
of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

-- Ellen Bass

12 Years Ago...

More or less...

I wrote this:

Monday 14 January 1991
Jass Oberoi Hotel
Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh
India

Tomorrow is the final day for Hussein to pull out of Kuwait -- midnight, eastern standard time, which is actually 10:30 the following morning here. Many people here and abroad seem convinced that there will be a war, although we are all hoping that some alternative will be reached. I'm a little nervous about flying back in two weeks -- I had a dream last night that British Airways cancelled all its flights...

Tuesday 15 January
Hotel de Paris
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

It's really hard to tell what will happen in the Gulf -- war could break out immediately, or later, or not at all. No one knows, really. I'm feeling somewhat frightened. I don't feel comfortable about being overseas.

Thursday 17 January
Hotel Fairlawn
Calcutta, Bengal

At 3:20 this morning, India time, war broke out in the Gulf. I was sleeping in a train headed for Calcutta. Michael was just finishing up with work. All I've heard is something about an air strike, & 18,000 tons of bombs being dropped. But really, who knows. I just hope it's over quickly and not too many lives are lost. I don't like being over here -- I'll feel much better when/if we touch ground at Heathrow & especially Logan. I'm feeling a real need to go home.

On the minibus to the hotel our guide informed us that war had broken out. None of us had much to say -- it's difficult to react to such news. I felt like crying, though. Meanwhile, life really does go on here in this bustling, crazy city...1/2 an hour ago, at 2, a number of us gathered around the t.v. to watch the Hindi news, but it was difficult to ascertain any real info. English news is on at 3, so I'm sticking around for that. I desperately want to speak to Michael. Dad's calling the office tonight from the Grand Hotel, around the corner -- if he gets thru we'll have some clearer news.

Suburbia

It scares me sometimes, truly, the people in my development. Today I asked Theresa who lives two doors down from me if her son's girlfriend could maybe babysit for me this Saturday night as I have a birthday party to attend. So this sends her spinning off into a huge and strange riff about her son, Brad, and his friends. And how most of his former friends have started to do drugs (they're so close, Brad and Theresa, he just tells her everything), so he doesn't hang out with them anymore because he doesn't want to be seen with them. Although, they're still invited to the house as long as they are clean. Oh, and they can't be wearing those baggy pants. You know the ones? That hang down below their butts? Because they know how Brian and I feel about those clothes, and if they want to come over to our house they have to dress real nice. And Brian was out in the backyard and he left his cigarette burning on the porch railing (cigarettes are OK, after all), and he forgot all about it, and Brad's friend was over and Brian saw the cigarette and pointed at it, and said, "what's that?" Only the kid thought he was pointing at his pants and he said, "Oh, yes sir, I'll go change." And this kid had brought a CHANGE OF CLOTHES to their house so that he wouldn't offend Brad's parents with his baggy pants. So he went right into the house and changed into some tight jeans. Well, not tight jeans, just jeans that fit right, you know. Yeah, let's go hang with Brad and his parents. Of course there's a urinalysis test at the door, and you have to be in dress code...but still...

OH. MY. GOD.

This was the woman who coerced me into attending a candle party when I first arrived in the neighborhood, and tried for weeks to get me to come to a Bunko game. I think now she's finally figured out I'm some kind of liberal pinko commie new englander freak, with blue toenails and a nutty boyfriend and lots of dandelions in my front yard, so she gives me lots of space.

Happiness Writes White

So what good is it? Let's be sad,
wear melancholy like an old brown sweater
patched at the elbows and smelling of our own funk.
The coffee cups pile up on the little table,
pages turn, electric lights come on --
it would be good to have a dog, you think,
one with grave eyes and an understanding of life,
it would be good

to go down to the docks and watch the freighters
idly listing in the oily water,
to smoke cigarettes and look out at the sea
and then walk home in the gathering evening,
at a measured pace, still hearing the voice of the sea
that speaks to you like a friend, of serious things
so simply and quietly
you barely notice the sky blanch after rain
or the woman coming out of the subway
carrying an immense bouquet of white lilac
wrapped in white tissue paper, like a torch.

- Katha Pollitt

Clams For Peace

This is political activism at its finest.
Thank you Brian for providing the link.

Peace out.

Miracle

Javier slept through the night last night. 8 straight hours. There is a god.

Good Weekend

Lots of good things...Saturday we went to BookPeople in the morning and there were 3 books on the sale table I wanted. I got Liar's Club by Mary Karr, Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir, and Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell. Then on to our usual brunch at El Sol Y La Luna with Honoria and Knut. Sandy and Cymbe came too. It's becoming a Saturday tradition, this pozole brunch -- who knew I'd be eating hominy grits on a regular basis, and loving it. It's the SXSW Music Festival here in Austin, so South Congress was just teeming with musicians and important looking people with badges, and strange looking people from out of town, and a whole wonderful music vibe was happening. After brunch we went to Mansfield Dam where Brian and Knut flew their planes and Honoria and I watched them. Watched the buzzards catch the thermals, watched the clouds float by, watched the traffic down on the highway, thought about air currents and felt very, very peaceful. Had a nice Italian dinner after that and headed back home.

Sunday morning I stayed in bed until something ridiculous like 10:45 (if you don't count getting up at 4:50 and 8:10 to nurse the baby). Then headed off to yet another brunch with Maida and her mother at Fonda San Miguel, which is just the best fucking brunch on the planet. Their ceviche alone brings tears to my eyes. I only get to go there about twice a year, but DAMN is it good. Maida's mother is too cute for words, too. Later we had our own little family peace vigil -- we lit a candle and took it on the dog walk to the park. (There were people lighting candles and having vigils all over the world tonight, but we weren't in a group hug sort of mood.)

I'm home now, and well fed. And tired. And I've got a lead on a job, so keep your fingers crossed...

Want Some Apple Juice, Little Girl?

I can so completely relate to the flight attendant who spiked a 19 month old girl's apple juice with Xanax on a flight from Amsterdam to New York. Of course it was a really, really bad thing to do. But I can relate. Still, it was a pretty bad career move.

Indulge Me

I just -- finally -- installed a comments program on the blog. So please, if you're a regular visitor or just passing through, don't be a stranger! Identify yourself. And by "identify yourself" I mean tell me your favorite fruit.

Thank you.

Poetry and Peace

Coming out of my jobhunting thing for a while, poking around my favorite blogs, and everywhere I go I'm seeing poetry, and this fabulous quote:

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials April 18, 1946

War Verse

Something there is that sure must love a plane
No matter how many you kill with what kind of
bombs or how much blood you manage to spill
you never will hear the cries of pain

Something there is that sure must love a plane
The pilots are never crazy or mean
and bombing a hospital's quick and it's clean
and how could you call such precision insane?

Something there is that sure must love a plane!

- June Jordan

It's the Oil, Stupid

It's about oil, it's about money, it's NOT about terrorism and it's not (exactly) about weapons. The peace movement, such as it is, needs to change it's tune.

The cry to "Let the inspections work" not only fails to explain Bush's designs for the region, it leaves us with little to say if the Security Council approves war based on Hans Blix's findings.

Speaking of Peaceniks, check out some amusing signs from last week's rally here in Austin. You really need to click on the thumbnails to read them.

End of today's political commentary.

Vive La France!

I was reading this article in the Boston Globe today, while perusing the out of town newspaper section at BookPeople. It's from last Sunday, and I'm too cheap to pay for the Globe archive online services, but here's the teaser they let you read on the web:

(begin quote)

WINE BUYERS DO THEIR PART
Published on February 23, 2003. Author(s):    FARAH STOCKMAN

A sign of the times? Best Cellars on Boylston Street makes it clear: they are in no way boycotting French wines. They are merely welcoming their customers to taste grape varieties that have been grown outside of France. The idea to highlight non-French selections came after irate customers asked the company to stop selling wine from a country that has turned up its nose at US plans for war in Iraq. A few doors down Boylston Street, the owner of Abe & Louie's Steak House was far less...

(end quote)

Well, that's all the quote you get. But anyway, I'm reading this article and thinking to myself, I'm thinking, what can I do to support the French in the face of this absurdity? And then, by pure serendipity, Brian goes shopping next door at Whole Foods and picks out two French cheeses for us to eat. In fact, it was an entirely French night, since we drank a lovely Cotes-du-Rhone to accompany the cheese. The organic Reblochon was particularly scrumptious.

I only wish I was back home in Boston so I could march on into Best Cellars on Boylston Street and tell them exactly what I think of their lame-ass policy of "suggesting" wines from alternate countries to their customers. Puh-lease.

So get out there, friends, and show your support for France, a voice of reason on the UN Security Council. Get out there and buy some cheese and wine. Stop the war. No, seriously. Wear a beret, while you're at it.

Writer's Block

What with the impending war, and my horrific financial situation, and the ghastly visit with my mother compounded by the ghastly letter she sent to me...what with all of that, and my recent divorce, and my kids who are alternately fantastic and maddening, with my yard full of dandelions and the bill collectors beating down the door and this feeling of never, ever, ever being able to get it all done, to do it all right, to live like a normal person. And yet here I am still, walking and talking, applying for jobs, taking my kids to school, serving up green beans and pork chops and rice. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep it up. Honestly. All of this makes it hard to write, or even to think about writing, even though writing is probably the best thing for me.

Random and surreal...kinda like my life!

Seen first on Fussy...

Sad...

I honestly thought Mr. Rogers would live forever.

The Sensitive Kind


-Sensitive- You're Sensitive, and you'd like to
stay that way. Sorry,listened to a bit too much
Jewel there. You're sweet and very emotionally
charged. You definitely love the person you're
with, and always want to know how they're
feeling so you can make sure they're happy.


What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ripped off from this place.

Sweet Talk

You are not the Mona Lisa
with that relentless look.
Or Venus borne over the froth
of waves on a pink half shell.
Or an odalisque by Delacroix,
veils lapping at your nakedness.

You are more like the sunlight
of Edward Hopper,
especially when it slants
against the eastern side
of a white clapboard house
in the early hours of the morning,
with no figure standing
at a window in a violet bathrobe,
just the sunlight,
the columns of the front porch,
and the long shadows
they throw down
upon the dark green lawn, baby.

- Billy Collins

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Shutterbugs

Brian and I are engaged in a contest. Stop by the website and see what you think.

Mommie Dearest

I was maybe a third of the way through a diatribe about my mother's recent visit, Calphalon, unwanted gifts, etc., when I decided to bag the whole thing and spare you the gorey details. I'm just glad it's all over with and I can get back to my life. Until she comes again...in May.

Meanwhile, the dog peed on the mailman's bag today. Can you say mortified?

Yessssss!

I laughed at myself in Best Buy this morning when I decided to buy Quicken 2003 Premier Home & Business. Sarah, I said to myself, who are you kidding? A home you have, but a business...hardly. A mere 4 hours later and I have two job prospects lined up! Two! Things are looking up.

I'm the Guy from High Fidelity


Which John Cusack Are You?


And you would be...?

If I Ever Get Married Again...

...it will have to be in an inflatable church.

Hell On Earth

Hell On Earth would be a birthday party at Peter Piper Pizza, 45 minutes from your house, on a cold and rainy January day. At this party the noise level would be so bad you would be practically having seizures. The pizza for which you paid twenty bucks would taste and look like crap. The grown ups would offer you unsolicited night time potty training advice and inquire (twice) as to whether your boyfriend "helps out" with the kids. Those are the grown ups that talk to you. Most of the grown ups wouldn't know you and haven't seen each other for a long time so immediately form a tight circle and talk about their own bad marriages while their husbands take the kids to the horrible arcade-cum-playland-cum-torture chamber. Except for the one child who remains IN HER MOTHER'S LAP while her mother proceeds to recount the tale of her separation and reconciliation, complete with details about marital counseling her husband cheating on her. Eventually, having had enough, the child would crawl away under the table as her mother screamed after her, "Get back here this INSTANT!" Your children would be alternately whiny and irascible. Your baby would be alternately poopy and hungry. Oh, and you would not have had any coffee that day and so be working on a first class headache.

I deserve a medal.

Movies I Would See if I Didn't Have a Two Month Old Baby

Adaptation
Chicago
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Far From Heaven
The Hours
Morvern Callar
Narc
The Pianist
Rabbit Proof Fence
Spirited Away
Talk To Her
25th Hour

Why is it that there was nothing worth seeing during almost my entire pregnancy, when I could have gone to the movies, and now that the baby has arrived there are movies galore??? Why???

RSVP is not French for "don't bother calling me"

I would like to invite all the assholes parents of Jack's classmates to mind their manners. Jack's fifth birthday party would have been a total loss if it hadn't been for Jack's friend Aaron and sister Briana, who were 45 minutes late, but at least they SHOWED UP. I don't think he was upset, but I sure was. Still am. Seething. Perhaps This site might help in the future.

Eyes Wide Open

I'm all for preventing ridicule in the cafeteria, but a retina scanning device? Isn't that a bit much, people? We always got along fine with ID cards. Tell me, anyway, that all the kids won't know exactly who the poor kids are, cash or no cash.

Oh, Yasmine

I'm having more fun than I thought humanly possibly perusing the mug shots on The Smoking Gun's website. Check out this gem. Lookin' gooooood, Ms. Bleeth!

Radio Blech-o

Well, after three sucky songs in a row, I'm going to have to rescind my endorsement of Radioio. Still in search of good internet radio...if someone has a station they love, please let me know.

Things I Do When Brian is in Houston:

*Chew ice
*Watch football
*Clean the pantry
*Pine

Oh, please, it's only 24 hours. Get a grip!

I gave To Catch a Thief another stab, this time sober, and it was (surprise!) a lot better than the other night. Loved the fireworks-as-metaphor-for-climax scene. Loved Grace's white ballgown with her too-perfect breasts perched so jauntily over her cinched-in waist. Loved Cary Grant in every scene. He's so gay, but who cares?

Today's Thought:

Robert Mitchum. Sexy.

So Far, My Favorite Quote of the Week:

By mid-December, when North Korea's stinky madman started making nuclear threats against us, and the administration wouldn't even admit it was a crisis, everyone I know felt like Alice on the other side of the looking glass. Wait, it wasn't a crisis? It looked pretty crisis-y to me. But it seemed to freak Bush out, because the North Korean made it ever so slightly less likely that he'd get to bomb Iraq. It threw them, Bush and his uncles, because they can only hold one resentment at a time. You could see in Bush's face: It was deeply confusing that two things could be in the same space at the same time -- Iraq, where they tried to shoot his dad, and may have nuclear arms someday, and North Korea, where they already do, and where the leader won't bathe, or brush his teeth.

That was Anne Lamott, in Salon. Man, am I ever glad she's back.

Oh, By the Way

I'm getting divorced tomorrow.

What Are the Odds?

So yesterday was a kick-ass, beautiful day, and Brian suggested we head out to the ranch and hike around, a delightful idea. We pack up the baby and the dogs and drive on out there at about 3 p.m. We put on our hiking boots and started climbing through the woods. We headed over the creek and up towards the cliff. And this is when we lost the dog. Again. No dog. Chickendog, of course, being her wonderful, dependable, well behaved self, is stuck to us like glue. Hamish is gone, gone, gone. We kept on hiking up to the cliff, and stopped for a bit to take in the lovely view. The sun was starting to go down so we headed back towards the car. All this time, of course, we're calling out for Hamish, but there's no sign of him. You have to picture very dense Cedar trees, on rocky, hilly terrain. We couldn't see very far in any direction because of the trees. In fact, we got lost on our way back because it's so hard to find your way around in this stuff. When we went through the fence and shut the gate behind us I was in tears, thinking of poor Hamish stuck back there all alone, but there was nothing to be done. We had the baby with us, no flashlight, it would be totally dark in less than an hour, we had to go back to the car.

As it was, we barely made it back before the light was gone, and we drove over to Brian's aunt's house feeling worried and dejected. They were all gearing up for a nice meal of black eyed peas, which was what we had been planning for dinner also. We headed back to town. Of course, driving away from the ranch back towards the highway, what should we find but someone else's loose dog..."what are the odds?" I said to Brian, as we picked him up and headed back towards his house. We deposited him (he was a sweet black lab, I wanted to take him home with me) with his doggy friends and went on to Brian's place.

I cooked up some fabulous Hoppin' John, Brian mixed up some margaritas, we both got hammered and started watching To Catch A Thief. Which, by the way, just didn't capture my interest. Maybe it was the margarita or the missing dog, but I just wasn't digging it.

The phone rang at 12:26. It was Brian's aunt Pam. Her dogs had been going crazy so she headed outside and heard barking far away. Bless her heart, she grabbed a flashlight and went down to the creek where she retrieved my dumb, skinny, scatterbrained, beautiful Border Collie.

One of these days we'll drink that champagne.

Really, Really Good

The very instant I hit the "Post & Publish" button, who did I see on my front lawn? That's right, Hamish himself. He's muddy, but otherwise looks none the worse for wear. We are two very relieved people right now. Happy New Year!

Really, Really Not Good

My dog is missing. He took off last night, spooked by the fireworks, and that was the last we saw of him. Brian and I spent the night driving around the subdivision, asking happy drunk people if they'd seen our dog. I'm so worried for him...I can't even really write about it. We're saving the half bottle of champagne for his safe return.