random saturday

I’ve heard of wearing your sunglasses at night, but in the shower?

upside down apes

This Sunday is not trying so hard.  This Sunday is, in fact, kind of a slacker.  It’s relying on the stereotypical Sunday as its inspiration which makes it… less than inspired.  Raw, grey, rainy.  Not much going on out there in the world, nothing on TV.  I remember hanging my head off the couch, legs up and feet on the walls, watching Planet of the Apes marathons on channel 38 when I was a kid on Sundays just like this one.

Get with it, Sunday.  Be a little creative.  Show us some originality, ok?  I’ll wait in the chair (right side up), drinking some tea and watching the same movie with the kids that they’ve already watched 500 times this week.  See what you can do.

all WHAM! and POW! and so forth

There is nothing new or shocking today.  Which I know is so different from what you’ve come to expect here.  It’s all WHAM!  and POW! and existential angst and complaining about TV commercials.  You know, that kind of excitement.

But today I’ll just say that I picked up Joe Hill’s newest book (thanks to my dear brother in law, who actually buys new books instead of taking them out of the library or drooling on them in bookstores, as I do).  His other novel was good but not great, but this one has started with a bang – about 100 pages in and I already can’t put it down.    And, yes, he is Stephen King’s son and yes, it shows, but not so much as you’d think.  Just read the book and try to forget about it, okay?

I’m going to go now and try not to drink myself silly.  I have been taken down HARD by a vicious little head cold and I am just now – this minute! – starting to feel marginally better.  Unfortunately, the instant I start to feel less horrible I think I’m well and I want to do everything I missed out on while I was sick.  You can imagine how that ends.  So I’m going to try to hit the couch and drink some water and watch a movie and get to bed early.  Or read all ni- And get to bed early.

pretty, blind, pregnant teens

So my kids are 3 and almost 9.  I let them watch TV.  I think I’ve probably covered this here before but, quickly, the reasons involve a) trying to educate them to be critical consumers of media in all forms and b) my own laziness.  No excuses.  Anyway, I am pretty adamant that I watch with them (see reason “a” above), which means I am also a consumer of this stuff.  Some of it is unbelievably horrible (Fanboy and Chum Chum?  What the fuck is that shit?), some of it less so (iCarly is pretty funny for a kids’ show.  Please don’t put me in jail), and some is downright hilarious (honestly, Penguins of Madagascar is laugh out loud funny pretty often).  But the commercials – sweet god, the commercials.  We used to only watch – or only primarily watch – shows without commercials, but as our oldest has grown it’s become more and more likely that there will be ads in the shows he chooses.  Which is not terrible, since we can help the kids pick them apart (see reason “a” again) and basically put our fancy undergraduate degrees to use in deconstructing them.  Sometimes, we use the ‘hegemony.”  But not very often.

What I’m taking a long time in getting at here is that I saw a commercial on TV today that very nearly made my eyes and ears bleed.  It was for Lelli Kelly shoes, which either also include or can be purchased with a toy cell phone that holds scented (I swear) eye shadow.  For, like, 5 year olds.  The hell?  I mean, maybe the horrifying song and psychedelic colors triggered some kind of flashback, but I’m pretty sure I know what I saw.  Way to sexualize our young girls!  Well done!  I will be sure to ask the pregnant teenagers I work with how that’s working out for them.  Oh wait…  Also, scented eye shadow?  I can only imagine this burning through young eyelids and scarring innocent corneas.  But they will be pretty!  Pretty, blind, pregnant teens.  Awesome.

The closest commercial I could find to share with you is the German version, but that should bring the lulz, if nothing else does (but they’ve got lipstick instead of eye shadow).  You’ve been warned.

And now I will go let the Nyquil do it’s job…

confessions & run on sentences

I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I can admit that I’m watching American Idol this year.  I recognize this indicates that the meds might not be working quite as well as I’d hoped, but there it is.  Andrew Garcia, Lee Dewyze, and Lilly Scott, if you’re interested.  And I know you are.

I was also talked into doing Script Frenzy next month.  It did not take much convincing, to  be honest, but now I’m getting a little jumpy about it.  I’m not a screenwriter; I’m going to be writing a play.  I can honestly say that I’m not a playwright, either, although that’s what I studied lo these many years ago (almost 20 years ago, good fucking lord) when I went to college.  The sad fact is this: I really enjoy writing short stories, but I’m much better at writing plays.  Which isn’t to say I’m superstar playwright – I’m not.  It’s just that they generally turn out better than my short stories.  And since I write for myself and no one else, I continue to somewhat blissfully churn out kind-of-okay short stories.  Now that I finished grad school and have a little more time on my hands, though, I’ve started putting some of those extra hours into writing again and have started thinking about sending some things out so I can begin my rejection letter collection.  And then I realized: the reality is that there are a few groups locally that produce new plays, and right now I think it’s more likely that I’ll get something going that way than with the endless number of lit mags and etc. looking for short stories.  So off I go.  To be brutally honest, I also got roped into working with a quasi-drama club where I work, and sitting on the stage got me jonesing for theatre again, a little.  But we’ll let that be our secret, okay?

Finally sunny Saturday, and warm.  I should be outside walking or doing something to enjoy it all, instead of typing away.  You, too, right?  So let’s go.

But wait! Been over to the Beeton blog lately?  Well, go check it out.  I’m LaurieB over there.  I’m doing rude things with vinegar.

Mark all as read, motherfucker!

You know you’re not in a real splendid head space when you are screaming in your head at Google Reader.  “I said ‘Mark all as read’, motherfucker!  ‘Mark all as read!’”  And then I’m like, um, time for bed.  Or a hot shower.  Soon enough.

So my roof was man-handled by the storm this weekend.  70 mile an hour winds, apparently, will rip 16-year-old cheap-ass shingles to shreds.  And those shreds were all over my lawn Friday morning.  But, hey, I have a reason to be optimistic.  If the young-ish, perky sounding insurance lady was swayed by my genuine shock (SHOCK) that the roof basically fell off she may give me some cash money to get the thing fixed.  And since we really needed a new roof anyway, this could be a good thing.  Optimism, friends.  Optimism.

Speaking of which, March is finally here.  I said a not very fond “fuck you” to January when it was over, and I say it again to February.  Fuck you, February.  I am glad you are gone.  It’s actually been a decent winter, in the sense that it hasn’t snowed non-stop.  In fact, it’s hardly snowed at all.  But it’s still been winter, which has meant cold and slush and grey grey grey grey.  I was driving to work a couple of weeks ago and realized that the scene outside my window might as well have been black and white.  It is not inspiring, to say the least.

But, (optimism again), the days are longer and there are actually patches of green on the lawn (the part not covered by my wayward shingles) and by the end of this month I’ll have seeds started for the garden, and that’s all good.  And it will get better.

All this optimism, by the way, may be chemically induced.  About a month ago I started taking generic Zoloft.  My first foray into the world of psychopharmaceuticals, at least as a patient.  I’m reluctantly pro-meds.  I think they are way over prescribed, to be honest, because I think there is a lot of sadness and fear and etc. that is normal and natural and that we need to feel if we’re going to become bigger and better versions of ourselves.  But at the same time I’ve seen kids who were on the verge of not being able to function at all really get their lives back from meds.  Adults, too.  So… I’m conflicted, I guess, at best.  And when my own anxiety became quite literally overwhelming I spent a few weeks debating with myself and finally decided to try it.  The doctor who prescribed for me was a) super hot and b) really ethical in trying to determine if I need this or was just looking for a quick fix.  So I tried it and I’m pretty ambivalent.   It controls the anxiety to an extent and allows me to get through the day without crunching numbers in my head on an hourly basis (sounds like a good time, right?  why on earth give that up?).  And I sleep better, and am probably more patient and resilient.  But I do feel a little dulled, for lack of a better term.  A little tiny bit blurry and maybe a bit bland.  I don’t think this shows outwardly so much (the dull part), but I feel it.  The question is – was the anxiety so bad that this new set of changes is worth it?  And I’m not sure of the answer yet.  I’m going to give it a while longer, especially since the roof repair – even with any insurance money – is going to clean us out financially, my job may get cut for next year, and so on and so on.  But really long-term… I think I won’t be too attached to these meds.

And why the hell am I discussing this online?  Because I talk a lot, even electronically.  Because I’ve been kind of riffing about my life all along on this blog and feel no reason to stop now.  And because so many people are embarrassed about mental health issues that don’t need to be, because there is no “normal” at all and we are all, in one way or another either messed up or unique, depending on how you look at it.  So you will get my better living through chemistry experiment updates from time to time.  Feel free to laugh, or pat me on the back, or ask questions.

And don’t forget the Victorian orgy I’m participating in as LaurieB over here.  Flavored vinegar this week.  The sky is the limit next week.

Dog Hog

G. (my three-year old girl): Mama, where’s my dog hog?

Me: Your what?

G: My dog hog.  Dog hog hog!  Dog hog hog hog!

Me: Your ground hog?

G: Yes, my ground hog.  (Quietly, to herself.) My dog hog.

Definitely beautiful

So I work in a high school and it is the first week of a new semester which means kids punching walls (boys) or each other (girls), seniors panicking, and endless, endless amounts of both questions and optimism (well-placed or otherwise).  I am burnt-to-a-crisp tired, seeing about 6-10 kids an hour.  I would like a “now serving” sign above my door — or my head, really, since I cannot walk to the bathroom with being stopped and asked a question.  I may pee on someone’s shoes soon, if this continues.

But it won’t.  It will be over in a week or so.  I am only twitter-capable in the meantime, although I’ll still try to put out the Beeton post this weekend, I think.  In the meantime, please head over to nell’s most recent and terribly well timed post, or just watch the video below.

it smells like letters

So G. is about 85% potty trained, which is good and bad.  Bad, because 85% trained means 15% not, and that is a messy, messy 15%.  Good because it means she is leaving the baby world behind, and I love that.  I know some people who feel a twinge (or more) of regret when their kids start to become more independent but not me.  The older they get the more interesting they are, as people.  I., for example, at 8, is researching countries on line and writing little paragraphs about them just for the fun of it.  Things like,  “China names its cities cool names… I salute your cool names, China!”  Really.  I mean, when he was in diapers he mostly picked his nose and sang along to The Wiggles.  I’ll take the “big kid” any day.  G. is starting to come out with the quotables, too.  She was given a candy necklace (or as she says, “neck-a-lace”) at day care that had a heart with the word “love” on it.  She opened it at home and took a big whiff  (remember that candy necklace smell?) and said with wonder, “It smells like letters.”  She’s off to a good start.

And now the snow is falling and it’s one of those rare occasions where I really don’t care.  Usually I retreat to bed or, when that’s not possible, just endlessly bitch and moan during a storm, but not tonight.  It’s not supposed to be a ton of snow (4 or so inches), I have nowhere I absolutely have to be tomorrow (no school), and it’s supposed to be warm enough this week that at least some of it will melt.  So I’ve been salting lemons and blogging away and am looking forward to a cup of tea or something stronger before bed.  This is my kind of snow storm.

It’s been a rough week otherwise, with work and the internal messiness that winter generally creates for me.  It’s made me either wildly anxious or middle-school sentimental.  I prefer the latter, to be honest.  Although I do have to be careful to what I listen to when I’m in this state…  The songs have the words but not the ones I want; I parse the lyrics for some deeper meaning  I can apply to my own life, only I’m 37 and not 14 now, and it’s a less fun game than it was a couple of decades ago.

At least there is some good new music — Vampire Weekend’s latest is not too bad and the Phoenix that came out last year is downright dreamy.

Have you donated to Haiti relief via cell phone?  Text “Haiti” to 90999.  It’s all legit and everything.  This is the future, baby.  Do it.  You won’t notice that extra $10 but someone on the other end sure will…

ENFJ, usually.

I’m disturbed, just a little, by how well electronic brains can predict what I like.  E.g., I just reupped with Netflix and spent a few minutes rating movies.  Eventually I was in some kind of zombie trance – haven’tseenit3stars1starhaven’tseenit – and so on.  But the recommendations now are scary good and the ratings predictions on the movies it turns out I have seen are almost always exactly right.  And right now, listening to Pandora Radio, the station I created a few days ago is basically churning out song after song that I love.  Songs I didn’t even know I loved, you know what I mean?

So I’m a bit undone by the implications here.  Am I – are we all – inherently predictable?  Is my personality really easily quantifiable?  I’ve taken the Myers Briggs and other personality/interest/etc. tests multiple times, and am somehow pleased when the results change a little, test to test.  I tell people not to put too much stock in their own test results but, really, am I lying to them?  And what’s the big deal if I am?  What if people are easy to categorize?  So what?  My essential little snowflake uniqueness (with apologies to Chuck Palahniuk) melts away but I’m still here, aren’t I?

Maybe I just need a drink.

Anyway – heavy musings for the night done.  It’s been a long few months and I’m thinking that in 2010 it might just be time to get the hell over it and enjoy myself.  Care to join me?

In other news… I. is taking basketball lessons and is loving it.  I, however, enjoy sitting on bleachers for an hour every Sunday a little less.  I love watching him, don’t get me wrong, but my general feeling about bleachers is that I belong under them with a cigarette in my hand.  Which would be lovely, but terribly wrong in this circumstance.  I think I. is going the artsy route, honestly (he likes guitar lessons more than this) but I can only hope.  There was a mom in front of me today saying “Shoot it!  Shoot it!” to her third grader in practice.  And I was steamy.  I believe it was either my foot in her back or the weight of my distain that thurst her off the bench and sprawling onto the floor.  Or perhaps I just imagined that happening?  In any case, she stopped, but I continue to pray that I. sucks just a little at sports, like his dear old mom and dad.  Even if that means having another writer (shudder) or even actor (dear god) in the family.

Speaking of writing, I’m contributing to The Queen’s Scullery.  It’s fun and gives me a good excuse to make obsencely fattening food and write about it.  What could be better?  Check it out – I am LaurieB over there.