bAnal Probe

2003-03-28T10:38:00.000-06:00

It's apparent to me that blogging has become some sort of therapeutic outlet for me. I've been without access to my regular blog for 2 days now, and as much as I miss having the outlet, I also miss the input of comments and hits. I wonder if it's unhealthy to have such an intense need to be heard and be responded to, even reacted to. Is this a basic human need, with the typical variances dependant upon personality...or is it an imbalance on my part that I need to correct using some other means?

I'm climbing the walls here without the availability of my usual mode of expression. I don't know what to do with myself and all of my thoughts that crop up during the day. Somehow, it's not enough to merely write them down anymore without sharing them.

2003-03-28T09:41:00.000-06:00

Nightmare.

I had a very disturbing dream last night. our house had rats. Actually, the rats had created a nest right in the open, on my bed. There were two adult rats and three HUGE baby rats. I had called someone, and they had told me that for every rat that I see, there are 10 rats that I don't.

So I brought my dog into the room, not the dog I have now, but Cash, my dog who died of cancer a few years ago. When she entered the room, all of the rats scattered except for the smallest (but still huge) baby rat. Cash spoke to me, and said, I will get that rat...at least that will be one that I can get. And she grabbed the baby rat and sunk her teeth into it.

The rat was still alive, and it looked at us with eyes which were hauntingly pleading and fearful. Cash continued to talk to me. She said "I'm going to take care of this" and she shook the rat violently back and forth.

The rat refused to die, so Cash once more turned to me and said "I'm going to take care of this" and once again I noticed a look of absolute fear and innocence in the eyes of the rat as Cash finally killed it by biting down on its head and hitting its body against to wooden porch, breaking its back.

2003-03-28T09:27:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. I have come back here to post my anti-war rants because full bleed is currently out of service, and the alternate location is also temporarily down. I'll be back with more later.

2002-05-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

Psst...I snuck out over the weekend and moved in with those zany hooligans at Surreally.net

You can come watch the paint dry with me while my hostess and moving crew recovers from a mother's day of drunken debauchery. I've slapped a few things on the walls. You can also sit and reminisce with me about this week in 1999, or I'll tell you what I did on Mother's day. If you're really bored, you might read up on what I've been reading, listening to, eating, and reading to the children.

It's all sorts of fun at full bleed. Race ya there!

2002-05-10T14:13:00.000-05:00

Listening to a tape of old 80's music

Would it be overly-sentimental of me to state that all of the secrets to life are revealed in the lyrics of this cheesy pop song by Stephen Duffy?

Icing on the Cake

Baby let me make you a statue
To stand outside the council house
To stand as a reminder
Of what you are and what you want to be

I want to live with you
Want to sleep with you
In a house in a peaceful world
They want to take you
They want to break you
Don't let them make you unhappy

You are the icing on the cake
The party on the street
The love we cannot fake
The truth you cannot cheat

You were left on the doorstep
Of the social security
You were hoping for a future as someone
Not just a leisure refugee
I'd always saw you as a fighter and a winner
Not content to only write your name
Their right way is the wrong way
For what you are and what you were born to be

Born to be young and free
To be young and wise
Not to listen to all their lies
Don't let them take you
Don't let them break you
Don't let them make you unhappy

Here we come waltzing home
By the moon so bright
By the sea by the harbour wall
They want to take you
They want to break you
Shape you and make you unhappy

2002-05-09T20:18:00.000-05:00

I found this very uplifting and beautiful

2002-05-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

I THINK This Means We're Doing Something Right

Today, while talking to Monk about random facts, I discovered that he knows that the sun is the closest star and that the moon does not shine, but reflects light from the sun. I discovered he can add and subtract numbers from 1-10, and that he knows that 9 dimes make 90 cents.

I also learned that he has no idea what the word "weekend" means. I think this is the best thing of all.

2002-05-09T09:20:00.000-05:00

The fact that urSkek now has a blog (and that I no longer have to live with the mystery of what she will name the new baby) had me thinking about cool names while I was walking today. Here are some of my favorites

Timely Rain, Noble Song, Sagacious Star (urSkek's kids)

Monk Andrew, Cole Sequoia Lark (Hey! I wouldn't have named them that if I didn't like the names!)

Criterion Sojourner (an old friend of mine)

Daven Nomad (another old friend)

Imagine (I don't know his middle name, but I find myself thinking of this name a lot)

Thelonious Spike (born on the same day, three years after, Monk was born)

(and here's where I draw a blank, even though I thought of thousands of them while I was walking. I'll probably come back to this...)

2002-05-09T08:20:00.000-05:00

There are precious few things in the world that are cuter than walking into a bedroom where an 18-month old child is sitting cross-legged on the floor "reading" brown bear, brown bear, what do you see.

2002-05-09T08:13:00.000-05:00

another cool blog...

2002-05-09T02:11:00.000-05:00

OK...so I'm cleaning out my e-mail boxes...here's an good site on natural pest control

2002-05-09T01:49:00.000-05:00

Ugh...

In case anyone thinks I reserve ALL my loathing for public school teachers, I offer this site, which was presented as a "good learning tool" on one of my homeschool lists. Yeah. Great. Let's get them brainwashed just as fast as possible.

I remember a few years ago, when I was new to the homeschooling lists that I'm on, I got into a HUGE fight about whether or not it was appropriate to use material created by the Dairy and Meat Associations to teach children about nutrition. Um. HELLO people.

2002-05-08T17:19:00.000-05:00

Topics I WANT to blog about when I'm all moved:

This whole electronic media and our children thing

Car Free (or Car Reduced)

The Freaking Garden (or, why the hell is there such a thing as bermuda grass?)

OK, I did write a review of that Rites of Spring record...just need to type it in

Recipes for the two dishes I made simultaneously yesterday (because I'm such a multi-tasker and stuff): Sun-dried tomato pasta salad, and pico de gallo.

Have I mentioned how much I utterly love, adore, and absolutely worship pea and kd? (insert sounds of loud, juicy ass-kissing) (OK, maybe juicy was a bit too graphic...)

2002-05-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

The Family Blood

2002-05-07T21:28:00.000-05:00

Coming Soon...

Thanks to Pea, KD, and Movable Type

2002-05-07T19:33:00.000-05:00

I'm definitely going to have to come back to fuckcorporategroceries.net another time...I think I'd like to discuss it a little, too.

2002-05-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

Monk says he has something to say...so listen up!

Even no I sometimes break some of Cole's toys, I still love him.

That's all.

2002-05-07T09:24:00.000-05:00

Just on a lark, I decided to see if there was a Profane Existence Home Page...and THERE IS! AND - they're going to start releasing new issues again in the summer.

OK!

2002-05-07T00:42:00.000-05:00

On a more uplifting note...

I got a call tonight from my friend Kera, who I haven't had the opportunity to talk to in...gosh...has it been years? A year? She's getting a book together & I'm really looking forward to seeing it. She's currently playing in this band and I'm currently wondering where my free copy of that EP is, MIZ Schaley. You know you are not allowed to release anything creative without hooking me up. To the post office with you, my dear! I promise I will review it and all of my adoring fans will flock to record stores all over to buy it.

I also am feeling all famous and stuff because Allyson (I hope I'm not revealing a secret identity by doing that...)interviewed me for the 1983 issue of diecastgarden. Why me? Oh, I slept my way to the top. Don't tell anyone, OK? I want people to think I'm legit.

2002-05-07T00:21:00.000-05:00

And this quote is for fertile_jim...

"If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope." -Noam Chomsky.

2002-05-07T00:16:00.000-05:00

and then there's this site, which included this picture by walter anderson:

2002-05-07T00:13:00.000-05:00

Looking for something beautiful to end my day:

I found this site
And this picture

and this story about Kenneth's wife (who I have always envied).

2002-05-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

I'm still really distraught about the 5-year old kid playing Grand Theft Auto 3. I have left comments at the site, and the woman who is in the proximity of this kid (it's actually her brother's girlfriend's kid) is saying that she doesn't necessarily agree that it's a good thing for him to be playing, but she can't do anything about it. Can she? Who will?

Sincerely, I'm not big on criticizing parents because it's a fuck of a difficult job...but certainly there's something that can be done to educate the mom on why it's a really bad idea to allow a 5-year access to this type of "entertainment." I'm trying to figure out what I can say to help this woman figure out what to say to the mom. Maybe "Hey...I read somewhere that in the first 7 years of a child's life, the brain is being hard-wired...and it's important to pay attention to the input there because it can cause a lot of problems later in life..." Is there a brochure I can e-mail her? Something? Anything?

Is there someone out there who can give me a reason why it's no big deal for a small child to be exposed to this? I mean, watching a video game person beat a prostitute with a bat to get his money back? Can someone tell me that I shouldn't feel sickshaky depressed about this? Because I respect that the woman who wrote about it feels like there's nothing that she can do...she says she doesn't "really" have "proximity" because she's only been around this kid for a few days...but if not her...who?

Because...reallyhonestlytruly I think it's abuse. I do. I'm not sure that it's intentional. But it's freaking me out like I'm watching a film of someone being beaten and I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I'm trying not to think about it...but that only makes me think about it more. And everything else I've written since that entry seems trite and dismissive of this very real issue.

I need to go play with my children. I don't know what else to say. I'm trying not to freak out about this any more than I already have.

It's worse than a fucking suicide blog...because the kid doesn't even know he's being harmed.

2002-05-06T09:01:00.000-05:00

I love the colors in this...it's nice to look at and easy to read...

2002-05-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

It's been a good night, and I think I'm going to go to bed early again. We all went out for dinner at Chango's - cheap mexican food. Then we had ice cream at amy's and got some pictures taken in the photo booth (I'll probably post them later, when I get around to scanning the strip.) It was family night, so we splurged. I love how Steven has decided that we have to hang out together as a family at least once a week. It's been a really nice thing. Tonight I realized that Monk doesn't even know how a table is set...I mean, usually the children are given food with a fork sticking out of the plate or whatever and that's it. Never anything formal. We very very rarely (as in, practically NEVER) have a sit-down meal with the whole family...so it's nice to set time aside for that once a week, I guess.

Earlier, I got some time to myself and, sigh, went to work to finish up a couple of things that I didn't finish on Saturday. I still have tons of crap to do, but at least I got the pressing issues out of the way. And I removed my PMS-y self from the house before I did any permanent damage to anyone, which was A Good Thing. But in my scatter-brained haze, I forgot to reset the resolution on the computer I was using (the teacher who uses the classroom during the day flips out about this, because she doesn't know how to do it herself) and I left my bike there...um...duh, Lainie! The bike was pretty much the reason I drove there in the first place.

When I finally do retrieve the bike (if it's still there tomorrow!) I'm going to have to learn how to change the inner tube on the back tire. I've never done it before and Steven's making it sound like it's a bitch and a half. Anyone have any pointers?

Woo hoo! Coleen just im'd me to tell me that she's going to try to put together a mAmazon in New Orleans in November. I am so completely utterly there. Yes! Yes! Yes! Now I can stop feeling all sorry for myself about not being able to travel this month. AND, since it's New Orleans...I'll bet Mr. Steve will come with, too...at least as far as MS.

Now I can dream happy dreams of travel bliss. Yay! Thanks, Coleen!

2002-05-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

A project...

I've been thinking about something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I want to create a digital archive of the zines I have in my collection. There are many that are no longer available in any format and they really should be somehow preserved and available for public viewing. My idea has always been to create some sort of online database from which users can request particular titles or articles, and those articles would then be available for download.

Does this sound of interest to anyone? I literally have a closet FULL of zines that I would love love love to catalog, but I don't want to undertake this alone. Plus I would need extreme amounts of guidance on the process of creating an online archive. So, anyone with this kind of experience...I would love to hear from you.

2002-05-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

And this one....

There's this weird thing about Upski Wimsatt. I used to have a crush on him when I was working at Kinko's at the University of Chicago. He used to come in to copy things and I suppose it was just that I thought he was cute or something. I never even had a conversation with him, although I did trade zines with him at some point...

At any rate, he keeps re-appearing my life (not physically...). Like when I decided to homeschool Monk, his name kept popping up in all of my internet searches on unschooling. And then Steven, for some reason, got the Self-Education Foundation newsletter...which I guess Upski is associated with...And now I find this site because of the burnbabyburn cd exchange.

Weird. Very very weird.

[amended to add: I just realized that I'm not sure if I had a crush on upski or if I was encouraged by my co-workers to have a crush on him. I remember a woman I worked with named LeShawn, who really seemed to want to fix us up for some reason. Perhaps because we were the only punk-ish looking people that she knew? I don't know. And now, 12+ years later, I can't remember if I noticed him first or if she did. Ha!]

2002-05-05T15:10:00.000-05:00

I get the feeling that this is what blogs were really meant to be. Amazing, incredible, educational...absolutely a must-link.

2002-05-05T08:14:00.000-05:00

A Saturday In My Life
specifically...yesterday!

7:30ish AM
Steven enters the bedroom, impossibly awake, and begins to tickle, tease, and play with the children. I pretend I'm asleep, listen to the laughter, fall completely in love with my husband again for like the 4th time this week (what can I say...I'm easy!) There is something incredibly appealing about a man playing with his children. I don't know what it is. Somehow, though, this sort of unabashed playing doesn't normally happen when I'm awake (probably because when I'm awake and Steven's home, the children are normally clamoring around me...or I'm gone) so I revel in it when I can.

8ish AM
Of course, the minute I wake up, everyone starts tickling me. Steven attacks me with the "big toe of death" (he has these enormous big toes that can grip skin like a freaking lobster) Monk sits on my legs and cole attacks my face with his mouth. I really really hate being tickled, but it's still sort of a nice way to start the day - everyone rolling around on the bed. Laughing. Cole says "Papa!" and crawls over to steven, resting his head in the crook of Steven's arm. Steven enfolds him in a hug and I melt for both of them.

8:30 AM
I'm outside with the kids trying to rescue the garden from the encroaching grass (garden update to come...er...someday) and doing some watering. The cats have been using the path as a litter box, so I'm trying to show monk how to scoop the poops up and fling them elsewhere in the overgrown yard. He can't seem to figure out the difference between cat scat and dirt clod. cole, however, walks right up and grabs a poop. *sigh* I pick him up, get him to drop the poop, and put him down somewhere else in the yard.

9:00 AM
We go back into the house a little muddier, a little sweatier, a little tireder. Steven starts making us some smoothies. We actually had smoothies for dinner last night, because it's too freaking hot to turn the stove on. I wonder if we can become smoothietarians? Today's flavor? Strawberry&banana with peanut butter. Yum.

9:30 AM
About that damn tire. I try to inflate it. The pump is broken. Steven brings out his portable pump...that doesn't work either.

10:00 am
I head out to Academy to pick up a bicycle pump. I grab a few pairs of ultra cheap slip-on water shoes (5 bux a pair) because my sandals have fallen apart, Monk has outgrown his, and cole has never had a pair.

10:30 AM
The shoes don't fit either of the kids, but the pump works. I pump up the tires, pack my lunch, change my clothes, pack a change of clothes, my keys, my work phone, and a little bottle of lavender oil (so's I can smell all purdy when I get to work) in my backpack.

10:45 AM
Steven has once again done his amazing disappearing act. He does this frequently right before I have to leave. He'll be there, then he'll say "be right back" and he'll disappear. GrrrrRRrrrrRRRRrr.

11:00 AM
Steven's back. I resist the urge to bitch about the disappearing act (although I do call him "the great stevezinie" simply because I canNOT resist being a smart ass) I don my helmet and my backpack, hop on my bike and go.

11:20 AM I'm almost to work and *POP* my tire explodes. LOUD. Like a gun going off. Lovely.

11:30 AM I get into my building and immediately check my e-mail because I think I suffer from e-mail OCD or something. I'm pleased, though, because Pea has sent a link so i can see what she's done with the design she's working on for me. Have I mentioned that I'm building several shrines to Pea in my home? I love her. LOVE her. LOVE HER!

noon My favorite client comes in, and so does my management assistant. I dig into my tofu sandwich...share some with my favorite client (management assistant is not a tofu eater)...start typing this...start doing a little work (Today's work agenda includes (for anyone who might be interested in what I actually do around here) checking applications for inaccuracies, e-mailing the course schedule to service organizations, calling clients who have not attended classes, closing out classes that have not been closed out, moving data around on the database, and helping drop in clients with whatever questions they have. Since it's Saturday, there's no formal instruction going on...this is where I catch up on all of the paperwork type stuff.)

2:00 PM
Wow! I can't believe she waited this long to start bugging me. My counterpart at the other site calls to give me random things to do because, you know, I don't have enough work to do and she, you know, is like...I dunno...my BOSS or something. NOT! It is so irritating working with control freaks. It's even worse working with control freaks who feel like they are competing with me for my job. If you want something done, baby...do it yr damn self.

4:00 PM
"Hi, can I add one more thing to your to-do list?" FUCK YOU!! fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou. ARGH! Send me a freaking e-mail with a list of stuff you want me to do, and give me a deadline, and stop freaking calling me. You are not my boss!

4:45 PM
I suddenly come to the realization that there is not enough time to finish all of the things I need to finish. I decide that I will have to come back tomorrow during "mommy time" to get stuff done.

5:00 PM
I start cleaning up, getting ready to leave. Look at one last blog, file one last app, send one more e-mail.

5:15 PM
I begin my journey home on foot. I decide it will probably take less time to walk the 2 or so miles home than take the bus (because the buses here suck, particularly on Saturdays.) Unfortunately, most of my walk is along the busy streets and highways, so it's not very scenic. For most of the walk, I smell exhaust and see debris, dead birds, cars cars cars...I pass exactly 2 other pedestrians, even though it's actually a pretty nice day (relatively speaking) thousands and thousands of cars. I get dive bombed by a territorial grackle when I inadvertently trespass on his mating ground. I run into my favorite client at the bus stop that's about halfway between work and my house and say "boo!" and he looks at me like he doesn't recognize me for a minute and then cracks a huge smile. I say "Don't recognize me without my face in front of a computer, huh?" He laughs. I say goodbye and he waves me off. While I'm walking, I'm thinking about people I love and...well...I"m thinking about the new blog. I decide that I'm going to change the name to Full Bleed when I move over to surreally...and I try to think about what I can do with the name bAnal Probe, which seems to me to be more of a group kind of name than the name of a personal zine/blog/whathaveyou. I'm also thinking about my body & how amazing it is. Lately I've been really really into my body. I've been strutting around the house in my spandex bodysuit like a little potato-shaped cat woman. I feel powerful because I can literally walk for hours and hours and not feel tired. I can do it with or without a 30 pound weight strapped to my back. I might not have what the rest of the world considers a nice body, but, DAMNIT, I kick ass.

6:00 PM
I arrive home and the kids are running around outside, having fun. I send Steven away and start plucking up the grass that's growing in the garden, pinch some suckers on the tomatoes, stick the tomato cages in the ground, revel in things growing on my little homestead plot, play catch with cole, pet the dog, talk to monk, sit on the back porch and listen to the music from the cinco de mayo celebration that's taking place across the street. I consider going over there, but I'm too lazy to get cole dressed.

7:00 PM
I bring cole inside to nurse him. I sing him some lullabyes, thinking he's tired. He sighs, coos, and relaxes, but does not sleep. Steven comes home and plays with Monk. Cole gets a bath. Again, I try to nurse him to sleep, but he's not sleepy. Steven leaves again. Me and Monk and Cole hang out on the bed and play for a little while. I read Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed 2 or 3 times. Monk starts jumping around on the bed. I get up before he starts really getting hyper.

8:00 PM
I start filling the tub for Monk's bath. I put on some music and dance around with Cole for a little while & put a bowl of sunflower seeds out for him to munch on. He dances around me as I type this, I pick him up and tickle him. Nurse him a little. watch him play. Listen to Monk in the bathtub

8:15 PM
Monk's ready to have his hair washed, which is his least favorite thing in the world. We manage to get through the ordeal without tears, which is a rare occurance. I tell him he can watch a video tonight and he says "YAY!"

8:30 PM
Monk is out of the tub and I go lay down with cole again, trying to nurse him to sleep. More lullabies, more stroking, nursing, kissing, hugging, kicking, scrambling, rolling...jumping...off of the bed and running into the other room. Crap.

9:00 PM
I set up the VCR, pop some corn and pop in Time Fighters in the Land of Fantasy...the world's longest video. There's a small argument that crops up over the issue of pajamas, but it's quickly resolved. I kick back and relax and do a little surfing.

9:30 PM
Coley's ripe for bedtime, so I bring him into the bedroom and rock him/nurse him/sing him to sleep. It takes all of 15 minutes for him to be completely out.

9:45 PM
More surfing while Monk watches Time Fighters. I really should be doing something else, though...

10:00 PM
I sneak into the back room with the back issue of Punk Planet that I've been reading.

10:30 PM
Read read read

11:00 PM
Monk has fallen asleep. I am sorting through old tapes in the back office.

11:15 PM
I do a little surfing. Find something on a blog that totally completely rips my heart in half. I comment on it there...comment on it here (SEE BELOW)...try to go back to reading the interview with Jaime Hernandez I was reading, but instead...I opt to go lay down with my children and hug them close to me. Good night.

2002-05-04T23:58:00.000-05:00
By the way...in case the author of that blog is reading this (because I did leave a comment)...I know you don't have children of your own, so you might not completely understand the depth of my sadness here. What you are witnessing is abuse. Sexualizing a 5 year old child like that - through video games or however else it's done - is wrong. It's abusive. And I hope if you are reading this you can find a way to put an end to it.

I'm not fucking around here. I'm dead serious. If you want to send me an e-mail...I'd be willing to discuss it with you further.

2002-05-04T23:53:00.000-05:00
Ugh...How depressing

I just read a blog where someone talks about their 5-year old nephew who plays Grand Theft Auto 3 all of the time & and it depressed the crap out of me. What is up with people? Just...what could a parent possibly be thinking? I mean, this is a game where, not only is there all sorts of violence, but, to regain your strength, you pay for a hooker (an event that is followed by an image of a rocking car) and if you want to get your money back, you simply run out after her and kill her. Great. That's exactly the kind of thing I want my 5 year old exposed to on a regular basis. FIVE YEARS OLD. FIVE. FREAKING. YEARS. OLD.

Not only that, but the author of the blog was talking about how the 5 year old has a crush on her, and the mom was calling him a "player." Way to go, mom. That's a great way to raise the next generation of womanizers and rapists. Where do I stand in line to give you your freaking reward.

I. Don't. Get. People. This makes me feel profoundly sad.

*sigh* I'm going to go cry my eyes out.

2002-05-04T21:32:00.000-05:00
Verisign

(for more information: see kd, christiane, and dmoz.)

2002-05-04T16:24:00.000-05:00
I think I want to come back to this one.

2002-05-04T15:12:00.000-05:00
Yay! It's Payla!

2002-05-04T14:58:00.000-05:00
I love the images and the words here.

2002-05-04T11:58:00.000-05:00
All Hail Pea

I'm all aflutter because Pea (who hereafter will be referred to as queen of my little universe) is making the coolest template for banal probe. Those of you who, like me, are suffering from eyestrain trying to read my barely coherent ramblings will, I think, be very pleased.

And those of you who are interested in reading my lists lists lists will soon be blessed with way more information about my little life than you could ever hope to receive. All thanks to PEA!

2002-05-04T01:17:00.000-05:00
Apparently, yesterday was "talk about pee" day. You can find urination stories here and here

And now...I'm off to bed. Tomorrow will be another day in my life, in which our fearless heroine once again attempts to inflate the tires on her bike so she can ride to work.

2002-05-04T00:15:00.000-05:00
a word from mami mala

2002-05-03T18:26:00.000-05:00
I just love her. She cracks me right up. Thanks to Christiane for the linky.

2002-05-03T11:07:00.000-05:00
and, just in case you haven't heard enough about my travel history...here's an article I wrote for the last issue of coleen's zine. You can get your own copy of Deep South Mouth by sending 2 bux to 428 Pacific Ave / New Orleans LA 70114.

Potty Practicum: A Study on Toilet Asceticism

It must have been May when I decided to take the trip to Portland from Austin by car, and at first I had the "normal" fears and worries one has when deciding to embark on such a monumental journey alone with two small children: What if I get mugged? What if I get in a car wreck? What if I lose my way? What if I run out of gas in the middle of nowhere? All of these concerns, and more, initially flooded my mind. However, all of these worries were quickly eclipsed by the one true conundrum. Where the Hell am I going to pee?

From my vantage, and perhaps from the vantage of any veteran mom, this is indeed a valid concern. With a preschooler and an infant, in fact, attending to nature's call has presented itself as a challenge for the better part of the past 4 years of my life! Not one to be undone by a challenging circumstance, I commenced to plan my trip regardless.

When departure date arrived, I felt I had prepared for every situation The Dodge Caravan was packed with 2 suitcases of clothes, a cooler, a water jug, several types of baby carriers, various genres of music, and two bins of toys. I had added "Roadside Rescue" service to my PCS contract, mapped my journey on my AAA atlas, and gathered the various phone numbers and addresses of friends and family members I was to meet on the road. None of these items were nearly as important as the tiny little stroller that was to serve as my mode for transporting the infant to and from the various toilets on the journey so mommy could pee.

My final pre-journey interlude with "home toilet" occurred at 6 in the morning. The kids were sleepy, but I managed to convince the older child to use the toilet before I loaded them into the car such as they were. And so it was that we were able to spend a good deal of our first day of the journey unmolested by thoughts of toilet turmoil.

I'm sure the initial few trips to the toilet were so uneventful, I can't even recall them. We made a point of stopping at rest stops periodically, particularly the visitor's centers. Following is a list of our more remarkable foibles:

Cheney State Park - somewhere west of Wichita Kansas. Not an outhouse in sight. I set the kids down with apples and bread while I crept off to a feeble stand of trees to do my first business. This marked the first episode of an entire comic drama of public urination.

In the middle of Kansas somewhere, off of Highway 6, which my dear friend Christopher informed me is called the "world's loneliest highway," is a vast public park. In the middle of this park stands a public restroom that shone like a septic star and allowed your weary travelers a place to relieve themselves of an entire day's worth of water, none too soon! The park was eerily empty, on a Saturday! And I remember having an odd sensation that perhaps the human population of the rest of the world had ceased to exist while we were driving. Perhaps this was the toilet at the edge of the world? Who knew. All I knew was that if I lived so close to a humongous park with a swimming pool, a miniature golf course, and several large fir trees that made a blanket of wonderfully scented pine needles, I would certainly be spending my Saturday there instead of in a smelly car chugging down the highway.

Lamar, Colorado - We arrived here at the end of a long day of travel on a highway with no rest stops. I had to pee, and was so distressed that the visitor's center had closed a mere 10 minutes prior to our arrival that I left the kids in the car and squatted down behind some bushes in a little public park adjacent to the building.

Just outside of Colorado Springs, I earned my crown as queen goddess of traveling moms. Monk barfed. I managed to pull off the highway, park in a deserted parking lot, strip, clean, and reclothe Monk, clean the car and get back on the highway in the span of 15 minutes. I think my perfunctoriness was reassuring the carsick 4-year old because he fell sound asleep shortly thereafter and did not have any more carsickness of the rest of the journey. Cole, the infant, slept peacefully through the entire incident.

In a National Park near Butte, Montana, my brother John, his two kids, and Monk went searching for frogs while Cole and I sat on the bank of a river. After about half an hour, Cole and I went up the hill to our picnic spot so I could change his diaper. When John came back with the kids 15 minutes later, he asked if I had seen the moos. "What moose?" I asked. He replied that just where I had been sitting on the bank were perfectly formed fresh moose tracks.

Between Lolo, Montana and Idaho lies a National Forest so huge it took 4-5 hours to drive through it. I suppose it was the Lochsa River that made me so thirsty, but I must have consumed about a gallon of water. I quickly discovered that it was much easier to park at unpopulated scenic turnouts and sit on the edge of the passenger side doorway to pee than it was to search for a restroom. I left my mark at several scenic turnouts throughout the Northwest. I began to envy the externalness of my son's genitalia!

Just past dark in McCall, ID - the baby was screaming, I was lost, it was pitch black, I had been driving through mountains all day...and I had to pee. Did I mention the baby was SCREAMING? I was remembering what my brother John had said about how the black bears and cougars have become emboldened by hunger and scarcity. Damn it! I KNEW I should have brought a port-a-potty.

Thankfully, McCall Idaho is also the home of my brother Michael. After the initial moments of panic, I was able to find his house and, with Michael and his wife (who have no children!) watching the kids, I am able to enjoy my first private peeing of the journey. Aaaaaah!

Something about driving along the Columbia River. I was inspired to stop frequently. Again, I was leaving my own rivers at various scenic turnouts. My tribute to this great tributary. I vowed to drink less water.

Somewhere in California, I made an important discovery - Chambers of Commerce have toilets that are remarkably sanitary.

As soon as I entered the L.A. area, I had flashbacks of driving in Austin and am sure this is where "they" must come from. There was no way I could possibly stop! I held it in until Irvine where I once again, with the aid of my sister, revel in PRIVATE potty time.

I paid 20 stinking bux to enter the Grand Canyon National Park and there wasn't a single restroom to be found. I somehow managed to cram all of us into an outhouse. I suppose the general population assumes no one travels alone with children. I vowed to never return.

Rest stops in the desert are no fun. The signs warn of poisonous insects and snakes, and the kids have no place to stretch their legs. Monk, deciding that he will no longer pee on command, originates the emphatic oath "I promise I can't squeeze any more pee pee out of my bladder." This is repeated at very rest stop for the rest of the journey. Shortly after hitting the road, he pees in his pants. I'm grateful we are more than halfway done with our trip.

Albuquerque, home to Ray and Maggie and their beautiful children. I manage to sneak in some private toilet sessions. Sweet silence!

Here are the 3 rules when hiking through the Carlsbad Caverns: No smoking, no touch the walls, and no food or drink. Monk repeated them to me before we embark on the trail. Too bad they didn't mention where a bladderfull 4 year old can pee. Three quarters of the way along the trail, I heard a familiar refrain "Mom, I gotta go potty." And another oft-repeated gem "It's an EMERGENCY!" Certain that the unspoken rule forbids urinating on the limestone, I ushered Monk to the nearest trash can, tilted it towards him and, mouthing a silent prayer for custodians all over the world, instructed Monk to do his business. Immediately after he pulled up his pants the words "I peed in a GARBAGE CAN!" echoed loudly throughout the caverns. I pled with Monk to not repeat that (lest he decide to tell the elevator operator.) I ushered him along the remainder of the trail. (Three weeks later, at the playground across the street from our house, a neighbor asked Monk about his trip. His response... "I peed in a garbage can."

West Texas is certainly dusty and desolate. I pulled off of Highway 10 to change a diaper and take care of my business. Monk had wet his pants for the zillionth time and I needed to change his clothes. I noticed a strange car stopped at an angle about a half mile back on the access road from which we came. Unsure of its driver's intentions, I finished my business, got in my car, and drove off. As soon as I was moving, the other car drove off. I assume its driver was making sure I was OK. It gave me a warm feeling...but I hope he wasn't watching when I peed!

I must have started fantasizing bout home toilet somewhere in Fredericksburg. It wouldn't be long now!

Highway 290, just west of Mopac, a storm rose up. An accident 10 cars ahead of me caused an hour-long traffic stop. The rain started pouring down. When I finally started moving, it was raining so hard I couldn't see the road in front of me. And I had to pee.

I stopped at an Exxon off the highway. You know, it may be an evil, anti-environmental corporate empire, but DAMNIT, their bathrooms really are clean! I vowed to use Exxon bathrooms exclusively on my next trip, even though I don't buy gas there.

Because of the rain, it took me 3 hours to get home from a point that is normally 20 minutes away. This was by far the most frightening part of my journey, but I made it! I arrived at my humble domicile intact and uninjured.

Most importantly, I have returned to home toilet. For the next week, I revel in the simplicity of being able to simply use the bathroom when I have to pee. To this day, Monk still insists on telling me when he needs to go.

Here are the steps I had to take to get to a bathroom on the road. Find a suitable rest area, park the car, pop the locks, unfasten Monk's safety belt, get the stroller, unfold it, remove Cole from his car seat and put him in the stroller, go around to the other door and help Monk out of his booster seat, check to make sure I'm holding the key, lock and close the doors, wheel everyone to the bathroom, wait for a vacant stall, preferably the handicap stall where we can all fit with relative comfort...sweet relief!

2002-05-03T11:04:00.000-05:00
Coleen...if you want me to edit this and send it to you as a .txt file, I can do that. This part jumps around a lot and should be inserted into the appropriate places in the other piece. Let me know what you want me to do. I'm SURE I'm forgetting some very important stuff, but...them's the breaks!

When:spring or summer, 1989 or 1990
Where: Chicago to Ann Arbor, MI
What mode of travel: 1982 Toyota Celica
With whom: Bryan Vermin and Mikki Dredd
Why: To drop Mikki off at a train station - Bryan just came along for the ride
Winning Moment(s): 16 hours without sleep. Driving on a foggy night, flicking on the highbeams and screaming "GHOSTS!" at the top of our lungs. Me and Bryan singing sonny and cher songs in the front seat. Me and Bryan singing "groovy kind of love" in silly loud voices, just to stay awake. Stopping at a rest stop and rolling down a dewy hill in the wee hours of the morning in an attempt to wake up. Visiting bryan's friend in ann arbor - I think she was a sibling(?) of Sonic Youth's drummer & I think she died of cancer a couple of years after this trip or something - and crashing on a mattress on the floor while she and bryan hung out and, you know, did it and stuff (I think. I mean, I was asleep), a big old cup of mountain dew. making fun of mikki all the way home (ok ok, I was a jerk). back to chicago having driven for about 16 hours straight, getting out of the car and literally falling down on the pavement.

When: ?Spring? 1991?
Where: Chicago to Grand Rapids, MI
What mode of travel: Umm...I think that was the 1989 Ford Mustang
With whom: Dave Bramble
Why: To attend Matt Richards' wedding reception
Winning Moment(s): Eating breakfast with Dave and Fletch before the journey. Feeling all cool with my poppy red hair and dave's long long dreads. Changing into my groovy paisley smoking jacket in the car. Thinking Matt was totally lucky to be marrying sarah. Sincerely. Adoring their baby. Hugging Matt. Hard.

When: ??fall?? 1993?????
Where: Chicago to Grand Rapids, MI
What mode of travel: 1989 Ford Mustang
With whom: Rob Caldwell
Why: To visit Matt Richards while I was in chicago
Winning Moment(s): Eating something funky at a denny's on the way. Barfing my guts out at one of those huge super wal-mart type places. Being cared for by sarah, who fed me tums (which, unfortunately, had the same texture as the funky thing I had eaten, so I almost barfed again) and made me salad. Watching Goodfellas and listening to some really cool music on the stereo while I slept. Reading some of Matt's journal, seeing my name in there, realizing (duh!) for the first time that he loved me as much as I loved him. Feeling intense remorse. Feeling sad that he was not getting along with Sarah. Listening to my empty stomach make strange noises all night, convinced that everyone thought I was farting. Tousling Calvin's (Matt's son's) hair before I left and having him say "Now I gotta wash my hair." Hugging Matt for the last time. I miss him so much. If anyone knows where he is, please e-mail me.

When: This was that same spring break trip in 1987
Where: Lansing, MI to Ann Arbor, MI
What mode of travel: VW Golf
With whom: Matt Kelly and Scott Sendra
Why: To hang out for the day
Winning Moment(s): Seeing Big Black live at the Halfway Inn. Having the power go out in the middle of the set. Hearing Steve Albini crack a bunch of bad jokes. Eating my first veggie hot dog at some hot dog stand there.

When: This was that same spring break trip in 1987
Where: Lansing, MI to Grand Rapids, MI
What mode of travel: VW Golf
With whom: Matt Kelly
Why: To hang out for the day with Matt and Matt
Winning Moment(s): Listening to U2's new album (Joshua Tree) with Matt Richards. Going to a punkrock show in some small town. Was this when I saw Matt's band? I can't remember. There must have been another g.r. trip in there somewhere where I saw matt's band practice...I used to visit Matt Richards a lot.

2002-05-03T08:08:00.000-05:00
Decisions, Decisions

Do I want to drive for 4 hours today to go to Dinosaur Valley State Park? Somehow, it doesn't seem worth it. But it's not going to be unbearably hot...so maybe I should.

2002-05-02T23:12:00.000-05:00
Hey everyone! Coleen has a blog!

Not only that, but she wants to reprint my travel history in her zine, Deep South Mouth. You should get a copy. You can go pick one up at mAmazonCon.

2002-05-02T17:41:00.000-05:00
Have I mentioned how much I love my nicey boss?

I got to hang out with him today at this career fair. He is the nicest man. He just is. And he has this madstrong presence. I think it's called a "commanding" presence or something. We talked and talked. Mostly about the bitchy boss and her high faluting PhD and how both of us feel like a college degree is something that should be acquired later in life when you know what you really want and everything. I just love love hanging out with him. He's so cool. And so smart. And completely inspiring.

I doubt if yr reading this, LeRoy...but if you are - you fucking rock, man! Thanks for making work enjoyable.

2002-05-02T17:00:00.000-05:00
All my thoughts are lines converging in on you

Does anyone else ever get this strange sensation: lately I'll be walking around and I'll be overcome by this warm feeling of...being thought of/loved from some unknown source. Sometimes it's so strong it literally stops me in my tracks and rattles my brain a bit.

And it's nice.

2002-05-02T16:56:00.000-05:00
hmmMMMmmMMmm

Since everyone is so generous with their time and their html-knowing selves...perhaps I should have posted a plea for 3 fucking million dollars or something.

Haha.

No, seriously. You ALL rock. Thanks so much. I have options out the wazoo...and it looks like I'll be moving to movable type and surreally dot com. I'll keep you posted. I'm sure you are all waiting with bated breath.

2002-05-02T09:13:00.000-05:00
AAAAAAAaAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRgh!!!!

I had a template all set. I had THREE FREAKING TABLES SIDE BY SIDE. I walked away to see what the baby needed. I came back. I made ONE SMALL CHANGE. poof. The three tables disappeared. I undid the change...tables are still gone. I am really starting to grasp the concept of tables here...but for some reason I can't do THREE of them to save my life. I thought three was the MAGIC number!

I am going to stop now. I have spent way too much time I don't have on this mickey-fickey flickety flapping thing!

I have to go to work now. NOW. I have to sit at a table with my nicey boss and try to get people to sign up to take free computer classes. I don't mind that part at all. What is going to be absolute hell is waking steven up. Everyone...send steven wake up vibes my way.

(This is how you wake up someone who suffers from PTSD: a. DON'T b. if it's unavoidable, give them ample warning that you are going to wake them up. c. start waking them up about a half hour or so before you actually need them to wake up. d. quiet as a freaking mouse e. gently rub back, chest, leg, face, etc. e. be prepared for the startle reflex f. don't ever use "that voice used to use" (this voice changes to include just about any female voice, so it's best not to use any voice at all) g. have coffee ready (not sure if that's a symptom of PTSD or severe caffeine addiction))

2002-05-02T00:35:00.000-05:00
Just on the off chance that anyone's bored enough...

Does anyone want to design a template for me so I can stop getting really frustrated with this one. I want to have another table on the right (beneath the kitty) but I can't seem to get it to work for some reason, and I don't have the time or patience to figure it out.

2002-05-01T23:53:00.000-05:00
Oh my god...while searching through all of my papers for something interesting that happened this week in my life, I found an old old paper I wrote about the Rites of Spring record, for a class I took in high school called "poetry of popular music."

Dare I share it with my dwindling audience?

2002-05-01T23:51:00.000-05:00
OK, This Week In My Life, circa 1984
in case there's any question about whether I've been a freak my entire life or not, here's what I wrote for an 8th grade language arts class...

"What" Paragraph

An outhouse is a small wooden building which usually measures about 8 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet. It has many various uses. One very popular use is as a john, a bathroom, a privy, a water closet, or whatever else pleases you. The difference between a normal, everyday bathroom and an outhouse is that the outhouse is specially designed in a way in which you can use it while in the woods, the desert, or any other isolated place. In other words, the outhouse is a small, smelly, fly-ridden shack used to relieve your bladder only when there is no alternative.

(P.S. I got an "A")

2002-05-01T17:20:00.000-05:00
At the playground today:

I'm sitting down, writing in my journal while my children play on the playground equipment 10 feet in front of me. The playground is suddenly descended upon by a chartered bus full of middle school children. They sit at the many many tables available at Pease Park, overflow onto the grass, and some of them sit near where I am sitting. Among this group near me is a mother? a teacher? I'm not sure. But she's an adult. Cole, who really truly does not look like a starving child, approaches this woman as she is eating her Lay's cheddar ranch (or some such) potato chips. I am RIGHT BEHIND HIM saying "coley...come back over here...not for coley." and then turning to her saying, "please don't give him that."

You know what happens next.

She GAVE HIM THE FUCKING CHIP! What's with that? We, as parents, try desperately to help our children understand that they are not to take food items from strangers, yet strangers continue to offer food items in our presence, AFTER we REQUEST that they do not. Of course, after I pulled cole away he immediately went back for more. And she was about to give him another one! Argh! So, in a huff, I gathered up the children, my journal, my blanket...and we hoofed it back to the van.

This actually happened before, when I was meeting friends at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. Some woman was eating french fries with her children at a McDonald's and I was desperately chasing both of my chidlren around while waiting for my friends to show up (after we had been stuck in a car for 3 hours). Cole runs up to this woman and she freaking shoves a french fry in his mouth. I just looked at her and said "Um, please don't feed him." She GAVE ME A DIRTY LOOK!

WTF? It's not like he looks hungry and it's not like what they are offering him is actually real nourishment anyway!

2002-05-01T16:59:00.000-05:00
found this while doing ANOTHER search for the lyrics to the Rites of Spring record. hahaha...pretty funny.

2002-05-01T16:42:00.000-05:00
Ladies and gentlemen...

Madame Prickly Pear has graced us with COMMENTS. Please shower her with love and praise.

2002-05-01T15:58:00.000-05:00
By The Way

I'm currently accepting applications for a travel companion for a couple of trips I want to take. The first one will be a car trip up the east coast with stops in NC, DC, NJ and destination Portland, ME. This trip will take place in the fall so the kids can see what it means for trees to change colors...not sure if it will be this fall or next.

I also want to take a trip to alaska and across canada. I think I want to take the train up the west coast, take a ferry from WA state to Skagway, AK and then...I have no idea how I'm going to get through Canada.

Anyone interested? E-mail me and tell me why you think you would make a good travel companion, and I'll consider it!

2002-05-01T15:51:00.000-05:00
My Traveling Life
A reverse-chronological outline of my life on the road. This does not include all of the posh business trips I took on my last job's dime (which brought me to places like New Orleans, San Francisco, Ventura, Anaheim, and Las Vegas), nor does it include every single trip I've taken between Austin and Chicago, nor does it include travel within the state of texas.

When: December, 2001
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago
What mode of travel: Dodge Caravan
With whom: Monk (5) and Cole (14 months)
Why: To spend the holidays with my lovely Family
Winning Moment(s): The day before New Years, mom offhandedly discounts my allegations of abuse at the hands of a family member by telling me she thinks It's all just a power struggle. Due to my fears of traveling on the road over New Years, I'm trapped there for 3 days, hating life. OK, so that wasn't such a good trip.

When: August, 2001
Where: Austin, TX to Portland OR (with stops in Wichita, KS; Lamar, CO; Cheyenne, WY; Butte, MT; McCall, ID; Portland, OR; Cave Junction, OR; (northern CA); Irvine, CA; Flagstaff, AZ; Albuquerque, NM; Carlsbad, NM.
What mode of travel: Dodge Caravan
With whom: Monk (5) and Cole (14 months)
Why: ummm...because I had never been to Portland before
Winning Moment(s): Hanging out with my brothers in Butte and McCall. Monk chopping wood with Michael. Seeing the redwoods. The Portland, OR Children's Museum. Mountains. Mountains. Mountains. Visiting with Ray and Maggie, Megan, Ben, Nora, and Maggie's Parents.

When: November-December, 2000
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Monk (4) and Cole (3 weeks)
Why: To get away from Steven
Winning Moment(s): Being completely snowed in for about a week and not caring a bit because there was nowhere I wanted to go anyway. Having tons of time to sit, relax, nurse the baby, and enjoy life. No freaking pressure.

When: Sometime in summer when I was pregnant with Cole, 2000
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Monk (4) and Cole (in utero)
Why: Just for kicks
Winning Moment(s): Hanging out with Gar at the museum of science and industry. Seeing Sue the Big Dinosaur at the Field Museum.

When: Spring, 1999
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago (with a side trip to Clear Lake, MN)
What mode of travel: Amtrak to Chicago, big freaking van to MN
With whom: Monk (2.5) accompanied me to Chicago. The trip to MN was with Monk, my mom, my evil sister from hell and her 2 children, my aunt, and the neighbors - sounds like fun, doesn't it?)
Why: My brother's wedding
Winning Moment(s): When my evil sister stopped talking to me because I asked her to not yell at my son. When my evil sister called Monk a brat to her son, in front of Monk. When my evil sister took a bouquet of wildflowers that Monk had handed to her and threw them on the ground (she's a real winner). When Monk gave a standing ovation to the violin soloist who played directly before my brother and his wife exchanged vows. Taking a long walk with Kera and talking talking talking. Taking a long walk with robby and talking, talking, talking. Hanging with rob and gar in the city. Taking the train with Monk and seeing the whole experience through his eyes. Charlie the porter.

When: May, 1998
Where: Austin, TX to Wilmington, NC
What mode of travel: Rental Car
With whom: Shani and Monk (17 months)
Why: WEFest!
Winning Moment(s): Walking around wilmington with monk in backpack. monk passing out asleep at wilmington exchange, wearing his flipper t-shirt - I contemplated putting an empty in his hand and taking a picture, but thought better of it. monk's first experience at a sand beach.

When: July (?) 1997
Where: Austin, TX to Denver, CO
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Monk (7 months)
Why: Ostensibly a work trip, but my friends Ray and Maggie were strong-armed into taking care of Monk while I worked so we could all have a visit.
Winning Moment(s): The entire trip was a winning moment. I love Ray and Maggie. They are too too cool.

When: April, 1997
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago, IL
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Monk (4 months)
Why: Just Cause
Winning Moment(s): everyone making adoring eyes at Monk. Nursing in front of old high school buddies.

(it's here where there were several trips to chicago that I can't really remember anything thrilling happening...lots of hanging out with old friends, seeing shows...you know, stuff you do when yr visiting the hometown crowd before you have kids. There are a couple of really memorable trips listed, but I traveled a lot more than this would indicate)

When: Summer, 1995
Where: Austin, TX to Athens, GA
What mode of travel: Rented minivan
With whom: Then-boyfriend, now-husband Steven (and Kera came back with us)
Why: To move Kera to Austin
Winning Moment(s): Hanging out at a party in Athens and witnessing a really flaky girl hitting on steven, hanging on to his every word while he spewed utter and complete bullshit for hours (she really, honestly said to Kera "Kera, your friends are SO SMART!" Camping out in Pensacola. Swimming in the Gulf with Steven. Fitting everything Kera owned into a minivan and moving her narrow ass to Austin, only to have her move to Denver like two weeks later.

When: January, 1995
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago, IL
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Darrell, my ex-nerdy boyfriend
Why: My 25th Birthday bash
Winning Moment(s): the party Gar threw for me, where I got to see John, David, Kera, and all of my long-lost friends. It was a fucking blast. Seeing Oi Polloi at a bowling alley. Seeing the symphony with Darrell, Kera, and Kera's boyfriend.

When: ?Summer, 1994?
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago, IL
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: Rachel
Why: just cause
Winning Moment(s): Hanging out outside of Gar's house. Watching the sun come up over lake michigan with john. Seeing Ann again for the last time. The idea of the show that never happened (there was supposed to be this show at a movie theater where they play star wars without sound and there's a band playing the music or something...I can't remember, but it didn't happen)

When: ?Spring, 1994?
Where: Austin, TX to New York, NY
What mode of travel: Airplane
With whom: myself
Why: to be on the Jane Pratt show
Winning Moments: An unplanned, onstage yoyo trick. Hanging out with Mike shafer all night before the show. meeting darby and karin from ben is dead. having the strange experience of seeing steve marr in the audience...he just happened to be visiting NY from Sacto, and just happened to decide to drop in on the Jane pratt show and just happened to be in the front row right where I could see him. the fact that the entire trip lasted less than 48 hours and I don't think I slept at all.

When: Winter, 1993??
Where: Chicago, IL to Austin, TX
What mode of travel: 1989 Dodge Diplomat
With whom: Erich (fish) Blocher
Why: Driving the gift car back to Austin from boyfriend's parents' house
Winning Moment(s): pretending we were "deep undercover" as secret punk rock agents. the evil log truck that kept appearing out of nowhere. No sleep+too much raw broccoli makes very stinky car. Just being around Erich, who was a totally cool person.

When: Winter, 1993? (same as above, only...)
Where: Austin, TX to Chicago, IL
What mode of travel: Amtrak
With whom: Gardner Richardson Brandt the Third
Why: To pick up aforementioned vehicle
Winning Moment(s): Gar's smelly armpits (I sat next to him with my shirt up over my nose for about an hour before he realized that I was trying desperately not to smell him, and then sheepishly nodded "yes" when he asked if he smelled bad.) staying up all night playing spite and malice in the lounge car (I won every last game). Just being around gar, because he's way rad. If you are ever in chicago, look him up...you won't be disappointed.

When: 1991
Where: Chicago to Lubbock
What mode of travel: Graduation Present car (from my boyfriend's parents to my boyfriend)
With whom: Al Frank
Why: To move to Lubbock
Winning Moment(s): Being chased on the highway by angry racists. Walking into a restaurant with my fire engine red hair and al's black self and having to turn around and walk right back out because of the horrible vibe.

When: 1991
Where: Lubbock to Chicago
What mode of travel: Greyhound bus
With whom: myself
Why: to move back to chicago before moving to lubbock
Winning Moment(s): Have you ever ridden a bus before? It's an experience of a lifetime. I can't even begin to describe it here. Try it sometime.

When: 1989 or 1990
Where: Chicago to Southwest (stops in Lubbock, Phoenix, and Boulder)
What Mode of travel: 1988 Ford Mustang
With whom: Gar, "critter" Criterion T. Thornton, Pete "the limey" kelly (yes, all of us in a mustang...and critter didn't bathe.
Why: Because it sounded fun
Winning moment(s): The lovely razorburn Critter gave me when he shaved my head bald with bare clippers. Seeing Doubt play in DeKalb immediately before departing - leaving the show singing "lukenbach texas" at the top of our lungs - handing out candy rings and asking everyone to marry me. Utter joy of living. Pete's addiction to tele bearing fruit in El Paso when he turned it on at 6 AM and exclaimed to the sleeping roomful of us "Hey! Everyone! Gwar's on the tele!" Hanging out at hippycore house with Jack and Joel. Hanging out with Elaine and Johnny Angus, who got really drunk and talked to me in his scottish brogue. making fun of critter's stench and inability to downshift up mountain roads.

When: 1989
Where: Chicago to Sacramento to SF to Sacto to Chicago
What mode of travel: Airplane to Sacto, VW Thing to SF
With whom: myself to Sacto, David and Bill to SF
Why: Because I was all starry eyed in love with David, and thought I could win him back.
Winning Moment(s): um. The san francisco earthquake. Did that stop us? no. Seeing Allyson. Playing with david's kitties. sleeping on the frigging couch. Feeling lonely.

When: 1988
Where: Chicago to Michigan (mostly grand rapids)/wisconsin/Indiana/all over
What mode of travel: 1982 Toyota Celica
With whom: David Smith
Why: Because we were bored
Winning Moment(s): These were several trips...we used to just up and drive somewhere on a regular basis. I remember waking up after pulling over to sleep at the side of the road somewhere and a cop was shining a light in our window...I woke up and buckled up instantaneously and looked out the window to find that we were parked just outside of the barbed wire of a prison somewhere. Nice. I always had fun traveling with David, even though he ended up driving me completely insane (or maybe I drove him completely insane.)

When: 1988
Where: Chicago to Washington dc
What mode of travel: VW Golf
With whom: Matt Kelly and Raymond Maseman
Why: To visit penfriend David Wilentz
Winning Moment(s): not getting along with weird-pseudo long-distance boyfriend, Matt (the trip was supposed to be a week-long trip with Matt driving, but Matt decided at the last minute that there were too many shows going on in Lansing that week, so he wanted to make it a weekend trip instead - irony evens the score as we pulled up to the curb in front of dave's house, hit a sewer grating, and fucked up the front end of matt's car...a repair which took exactly a week. ha!) dave's parents (ex-beatniks who were so so cool). seeing dragnet on the big screen after having traveled unsleeping for 24 hours. seeing 7 seconds at (what the heck is the name of that famous club? is it 503?) seeing vile cherubs and other cool bands at dupont circle. watching kids play in the fountain there.

When: 1988
Where: Chicago to Midland, MI
What mode of travel: 1979 Ford LTD
With whom: Matt Harris
Why: To visit penfriend Eric Cook
Winning Moment(s): I still have a tape we made of us being silly driving around town. visiting dow chemical and the surrounding "duck pond". Playing on playground swings. watching reefer madness.

When: 1987
Where: Chicago to Lansing
What mode of travel: VW Golf
With whom: Matt Kelly
Why: To hang out with Matt during my spring break
Winning Moment(s): missing the train and having matt come down to pick me up instead. hanging in his dorm room while he was in class. feeling so weird about taking a crap in the shared bathroom that I held it in all week (!). hanging out at the arcade. seeing his band play and feeling really cool.

When: 1986
Where: Chicago to Grand Rapids
What mode of travel: 1969 Mustang
With whom: Dave Amundson
Why: To visit matt richards, who had moved away the year before
Winning Moment(s): seeing matt, who I just knew I was going to marry one day. record shopping. waking up in the middle of the night to discover dave was totally making out with me. the awkward drive home.

I have left several out, but the baby just woke up, so I'll add more later. This was fun!

2002-05-01T10:05:00.000-05:00
Cole's Vocabulary

Now, expanded to include:

"backpack walk"
and
"read a book"

There is some debate here between steven and I as to whether or not "read a book" counts as Cole's first sentence. What do you think?

(Monk' first sentence, uttered at I think 15 months of age or something like that, was "This frog now go up top." followed quickly by "gimme those frogs!")

2002-05-01T09:09:00.000-05:00
Coming soon:

Yes, I promised a garden update...
My traveling life
More complaining about Car Culture (with a hats off to Megan)
This week in my life (circa ??)
I still need to write about that damn Rites of Spring LP

2002-05-01T09:00:00.000-05:00
Why I "love" living in Austin

I'm nearing the end of my walk this morning, and I'm crossing the street at a 4-way stop. Mind you, this is me, my dog, and the baby in the backpack. The guy in the pickup truck, apparently, feels horribly inconvenienced that I'm crossing the street in front of him, so he keeps driving through the intersection, honking his horn loudly, until he comes within arm's distance from me. Then he stops, continues to honk his horn, and glares at me.

I stop walking, turn around to face his car (I could reach out and touch his grill, he's so close), contemplate spitting on it, but my mouth is dry, instead, I say "Hey, guess what? I'm a PEDESTRIAN. You wanna, like, run me over or something? That'd get you to work a lot faster, wouldn't it?"

Fucking fuckity fuck fuck, man!

2002-04-30T13:47:00.000-05:00
Ok, At the Risk of Seeming Like a Complete Nag:

I'm going to post this article that I linked to earlier...because I can't believe no one commented on it (it came from this site via this link:

The Psychopaths Favourite Playground:
Business Relationships
Ken Magid and Carole McKelvey

"Here I have excerpted a chunk from HIGH RISK: Children Without a Conscience, a book by a psychologist, Ken Magid. He is really saying what we have been saying, that in the business world it is ever more acceptable that if you can screw somebody for a buck, then you're a sharp businessman. You have to wonder where the end of that is going to be. We seem to have developed a society which glorifies psychopathy. Life in the fast lane. The ubiquitous beer and pop ads tell us that's where it's at. But what about the downside? Magid, in his book, tries to address that. He worries about early child care arrangements producing partial psychopaths, and tries to alert us to the danger of the ever increasing numbers."
"Our society is fast becoming more materialistic, and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen."

...Certainly, there have always been shysters and crooks, but past concern was focused on ferreting out incompetents rather than psychopaths. As Owen Young put it, "It is not the crook in modern business that we fear, but the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing."

Unfortunately, all that has changed. We now need to fear the super-sophisticated modern crook who does know what he is doing ... and does it so well that no one else knows. Yes, psychopaths love the business world.

"Uninvolved with others, he coolly saw into their fears and desires, and maneuvered them as he wished. Such a man might not, after all, be doomed to a life of scrapes and escapades ending ignominiously in the jailhouse. Instead of murdering others, he might become a corporate raider and murder companies, firing people instead of killing them, and chopping up their functions rather than their bodies."

Up until the early 1987 Wall Street woes involving insider trading, white-collar crime was largely not something we focused upon. Certainly, the "penalties" administered in the business world are far less severe than those for "blue-collar" crimes." As Houston Police Chief Lee Brown reports in the book Crimewarps, "Police do not devote their efforts to get the white-collar criminal. The crimes we devote our efforts to are the ones the public is more concerned about - street crimes. I don't foresee that changing."

Of course, the consequences to the average citizen from business crimes are staggering. As criminologist Georgette Bennett says, "They account for nearly 30% of case filings in U.S. District Courts - more than any other category of crime. The combined burglary, mugging and other property losses induced by the country's street punks come to about $4 billion a year. However, the seemingly upstanding citizens in our corporate board rooms and the humble clerks in our retail stores bilk us out of between $40 and $200 billion a year."

Concern here is that the costume for the new masked sanity of a psychopath is just as likely to be a three-piece suit as a ski mask and a gun. As Harrington says, "We also have the psychopath in respectable circles, no longer assumed to be a loser." He quotes William Krasner as saying, "They - psychopath and part psychopath - do well in the more unscrupulous types of sales work, because they take such delight in 'putting it over on them', getting away with it - and have so little conscience about defrauding their customers." Our society is fast becoming more materialistic, and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen. The typical psychopath thrives in this kind of environment and is seen as a business "hero." Authors Norman Mailer and Michael Glenn recognized the increasing presence of this type of individual in society and have warned that this Trust Bandit may be better adapted to meet the goals we have now set for ourselves in defining "success."...

2002-04-30T10:28:00.000-05:00
The best part about the fact that I carry 2 cell phones with me at all times is, being an avowed phonaphobe, I never answer either of them.

2002-04-30T10:13:00.000-05:00
I think Christiane would be happy to hear that Monk is currently in the back room of the house, doing some hardcore birdwatching.

He and Steven spread a bunch of different types of food out on the back porch. In lieu of actually IDENTIFYING birds, they have given the individual birds names like "big head" and "star claw". Hmmm...

It seems most of the birds are most fond of the dog food. But we already knew that.

EDITED TO ADD:
Monk just came running in to the kitchen, where I am doing the dishes, to say "MOM! There's a SILVER TURKEY out there!"
Me: "A silver TURKEY?"
Monk (giggling): "yeah...that's giusseppe." (the cat)

ed.note: don't worry, bird lovers, all of the cats who live here are notorious for laying around in a circle while birds eat their food right in front of them. I'm sure it's some sort of stealth manouver, but let me just say we have some very very fat birds around here.

2002-04-30T10:02:00.000-05:00
Found THE BEST mother's day card for my particular situation. It says, in big letters, on the front:

"It's MOTHER'S DAY!!! I got you a CARD!!"

And then you open it up:
"This is the inside of it!!"

hahahahaha. But maybe that's a bit TOO cold? What do you think? All I know is I laughed out loud all up and down the aisles of the grocery store.

2002-04-30T09:47:00.000-05:00
Am I the only one who surfs Pink Prickly Pear each day, forlornly, hoping to see a new entry?

2002-04-30T01:58:00.000-05:00
OH! ANDANDAND!

I'm so proud of myself because we have yet to use our air conditioning even thought it's 90 frikking degrees and 5 million percent humidity out there. I want to AT LEAST make it through April...I'd like to AT LEAST make it until summer.

We have fans all over, and I'm hoping that will be cheaper electricity-wise...

2002-04-30T01:56:00.000-05:00
And, at the risk of providing ammunition for the "lawnmower privileged"

6. I carry not one, but two (count 'em, two) cell phones with me at all times.

(I don't know if I will ever be able to live that one down.)

anyway, the bills have been paid and I'm off to bed. Can everyone PLEASE send "children staying asleep until NOON vibes my way? Because, seriously, it was a bitch and a half to get everyone to sleep tonight.

2002-04-30T01:53:00.000-05:00
She seems cool.

2002-04-29T16:39:00.000-05:00
Five (potentially embarrassing, but maybe not) Things Most People Don't Know About Me
(and don't you dare tell anyone!)

1. I keep an exhaustive and complete list of any book anyone anywhere ever mentions in my presence, or any book I ever read about in a magazine, even if I don't think I will like it, and I have an insanely elaborate process for choosing from this list at random whenever I go to the library.
2. (if you've been to my house, you might know this) I have tons and tons of books that I have never read...but I'm such a slave to my list, I don't know if I ever will read them.
3. (this is really embarrassing) I call Steven "daddy" and "papa" all the time. I'm not talking about just with the kids...I'm talking about "Daddy, did you fill the car up with gas?" He has never once called me "mother" or "mama."
4. I have never been stung by a bee.
5. I have never had a cavity in an adult tooth, but I don't even try to take good care of my teeth.

Awright...now it's your turn.

2002-04-29T12:40:00.000-05:00
Today's Lunch:

Simple Ginger and Sesame Pasta Salad
Ingredients:
1 pound pasta (I used organic rotelli)
1/2 pound broccoli
1 carrot
1 zucchini
some peas
(basically I just rummaged through my fridge to find whatever veggies needed to be eaten, and this is what I came up with...YMMV)
about 1 teaspoon fresh ginger
a little bit of honey
rice or apple cider vinegar
toasted sesame oil

cook the pasta. If you are lucky (like me) and have a double boiler/pasta/steamer pot, you can steam your veggies while the pasta cooks. Just slice up the broc, carrot, zucchini and whatever else you wanna throw in there and...throw it in there! I put the ginger in there with the veggies to sort of infuse the flavor...and I didn't put as much into the actual dish b/c the kids don't like to run across small chunks of ginger in their food.

When the veggies are done steaming, put them in a large bowl. Drown them in cold water to stop the cooking process. I picked out the ginger, minced up a bit of it and threw it back in. When the pasta is done cooking, drown them in cold water to stop the cooking process and throw it in the bowl with the veggies. Mix it up. Add honey, vinegar, and sesame oil to taste. If you have some toasted sesame seeds or almonds, you might throw some of that shit in there, too. Or you can steam/stirfry/bake some tofu cubes and add it. I was too lazy to do this today, so we don't have the benefit of protein in this meal, but that's ok.

Enjoy!

2002-04-29T01:19:00.000-05:00
And I just have to say...Steven, you rule. I dunno if you read this, but thankyouthankyouthankyou for giving the dog a bath and dousing her with citronella. She seems much much happier this evening.

Unfortunately, I'm still going to have to pesticide her tomorrow. *sniff*

2002-04-29T01:14:00.000-05:00
Oh, and I do have a garden update, but I want to include pictures and the camera's battery needs charging. Besides, I'm beat, and I know Cole is going to wake up at 7 AM and expect to have his morning walk. So...to bed to bed to bed with me.

(Monk has crashed on the floor. His last words were "I'm NOT tired, I'm just BLINKING." How can someone so unbearably maddening can be so impossibly sweet?)

Another thought: Perhaps I should start a blog for Monk, so he can "do like mama does" right before bedtime...hmmmMMmmMM...this might be on par with the sock fairies, but it just might work.

2002-04-29T01:02:00.000-05:00
And no, I don't think that last post was a contradiction of the post prior to it. Because I don't think empathic parenting necessarily means martyr-parenting. And I do think there is room for self-enrichment and development within the framework of parenting. In fact, I think it's crucial for children to see their parents pursue non-parenting tasks, duties, and obligations.

I just wish it didn't have to seem like I'm doing it at the expense of my eldest.

2002-04-29T01:00:00.000-05:00
RE: the quip in my last post about not being able to read until my children are in college: My eldest, who is 5, has suddenly (over the past 3 days) decided that he needs to stay awake all night and try to engage me during my writing time. This means that, after a full day of getting most of our attention, and after our standard night time ritual of story time and game time, instead of playing by himself or going to bed like he is supposed to do, he stands next to me and tells me that I'm a horrible mama because I'm not paying attention to him. Then he goes to bed with me, and I wake up with the small child who requires my attention in the morning. Maddeningly, they do not go to their father for this attention...and even if Steven is in the house, Monk will still come to me and demand that I play with him. I mean, it's nice to be popular and all, but this is ridiculous.

This is a dilemma for me. I truly believe that I spend a better-than-average amount of time with the children during the day. We play games, we go to the playground, we garden, we go for walks, we read books. And I also am a firm believer that I need to have time to myself (particularly to write) each and every day. This is why we created the night time ritual, so both children were given a good deal of attention just prior to bedtime, and I could then go about my adult business free from guilt.

Sometimes it feels like Monk will NEVER get the amount of attention he desires. I want him to feel loved and appreciated, but I also need adequate time to do the things that I enjoy doing. I'm not sure what more I can do to maintain a balance here. I am stuck feeling like if I reward his demand for attention right now, I will lose the precious hour or two a day that I enjoy as my writing/reading/relaxing time. If I do it once, I will be required to do it every night. At the same time, I feel like he is really feeling sad and distraught and neglected, and I HATE THAT. I'm trying to think about this empathically, but I keep looking at what he's doing as manipulative...and I don't know if that's my issue or his.

So, anyway. Yay. A new and exciting parenting challenge for me to work on. One thing I'm going to have to do is just try to crank up the amount of energy I give to him during the day and see if that changes the way he behaves towards me at night. I've been trying to very gently tell him that I'm doing "mommy time" after 10:30 PM (or, as marian winnik says "your full service mommy is closed for the evening")(which is something he already knows and used to understand), and on other nights, after a couple of brief discussions about it, he has occupied himself with a puzzle or a game. Still, it's distracting to have to remind him, and I find myself accomplishing less. (For instance, this blogging tonight SHOULD HAVE taken about 30 minutes, but it's taken me well over 2 hours. I was going to do some journaling, throw in a load of laundry and pay some bills after this, but now I think I'm just going to go to sleep.) Not to mention there is a great deal of reading that I would like to get to...

So, there. I'm an imperfect mama...just trying to figure all of this shit out, and do the least amount of damage possible in the meantime.

2002-04-29T00:37:00.000-05:00
This one is something I've been searching for for awhile. It comes from this site, which I think has several valuable articles that I'm sure I will read as soon as all of my children are in college and I can have a minute or two of spare time to do some freaking reading. All of this is housed on this site, which has other goodies, as well.

2002-04-29T00:22:00.000-05:00

I'm also amazed that more women who have traumatic hospital births aren't diagnosed with PTSD. Here's the story of Monk's birth, as a sort of explanation.

Because I was talking to Christiane today about the very real disempowerment and sexism and...TRAUMA...involved in the standard American birth experience. About what it feels like to walk into the office of your ob/gyn and have someone demand that you strip so they can probe you and prod you...EVERY TIME YOU VISIT. And comparing that to our experience with a midwife who is so respectful of our personal boundaries that she asks politely if she can pull your pants lower than your belly button. Is it that most women don't know that it can be different that the hospital experience is viewed as a preferable choice to homebirth by so many women? Because I have to say that a million epidurals could not have "cured" me of the trauma of the impersonal, violent rape that was the birth of my first son. And I'm not saying this from the position of a zealot or someone who wants to interfere with a woman's choice to give birth as she sees fit, but as someone who has suffered tremendously at the hands of the medical establishment, only to be told that I shouldn't complain because the baby is alive and healthy and it really wasn't that big of a deal anyway. I'm certain, based on the way that I was treated, that my experience was nowhere near as traumatic as others'.

2002-04-29T00:20:00.000-05:00
I have been thinking about writing about my experiences living with someone who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out how to do this without violating his right to own his own experience. I mean, I know the difference between my experience of it and his, but in order to relate my experience, I would need to provide a marginal amount of information about him. I want to be respectful of that for him, and yet I also think it would be helpful for me and for others who might have similar experiences if I shared my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

So, I'm still thinking about it. In the meantime, I'm reading sites like these:

http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/specific/fs_relationships.html
http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/specific/fs_family.html
http://www.ptsdsupport.net/family.html

And wishing there was more support I could get without having to go to AlAnon or ACOA meetings...because I completely don't relate to the concept of "co-dependency" for myself.

2002-04-28T23:31:00.000-05:00

This is what I'm listening to right now. Still trying to think about what to write about it. I always wanted to get an armband tattoo of those woodcut flowers, though...

Those who are interested can download some mp3's here...if anyone knows where I can find a site with lyrics, please let me know before I obsessively begin to type all of the lyrics up myself. Thank you.

2002-04-27T20:05:00.000-05:00
This Week in My Life - Circa 1991 (all parts referring to my crappy relationship that I'm embarrassed to even READ much less share with the world have been edited out for your reading pleasure. I mean it...it's not even worth it for the angst factor.)

4/22/91 2:10 PM (arlington heights tv room)
The show last night was interesting. I was asleep until 7:00 PM and when I woke up, I was way too tired and didn't want to drive to the city, so I called Kera and asked her for a ride. She was happy to oblige. She brought her "boyfriend," Brad, along. We got to Czar Bar at aroung 9:00, but the show didn't start until around 11 PM. Gar, Brad, and I sat at the bar and bullshat for the two hours. Got really rude.

Doubt played a great show, even though "m" and "g" were on 'shrooms and Kera was all pissed off about it. Tiffany showed up - it was cool to see her. I met this man named Gil, he had been staring at me all during Doubt's set, and then when we were about to leave he told me he really liked my hair color. His friend, Steve, was collecting money for the "Society for Drugs and Alcohol that was congregating inside of his body." I gave him a quarter. they were both really drunk. Gil quoted from The Eden Express and said something to the effect of "Did you ever hear like a train go by, a glass break, a light turn on, water drip...and it all comes together in a sentence." I congratulated him on that one. I think he was trying to pick up on me, but I can't be sure.

Then we went to Tiffany's house for a little while. She has a 2-bedroom on Oakley off of Division & I guess she only pays $200 a month. We sat and talked about her films and photos and (PC)Pete and Nicole and all sorts of stuff. It was neat. She wants me to come to her photography critique on Thursday, but I'm not sure if I want to drive all the way into the city.

4/25/91 2:15 AM Arlington Hts Bedroom
Nothing exciting. I went to the post office today and bought some stamps. Tried to bleach my hair out & it turned this strawberry blonde color. Looks really heinous. I guess I should probably show up at the comic book store tomorrow, but I don't feel like driving all that way. Sigh. Oh well, I'll see what happens.

4/25/91 11:18 PM Arlington Hts Bedroom
"Fish" by Throwing Muses throws me into some kind of backwards tailspin - 3 years or was it 4 I had a brown 1978 LTD named Zeke that I used to drive to Raymond's house. We burned incense in that car so it always smelled so nice and the smoke would cling to me make me smell nice too. In spite of the fact that the car took 2 hours to warm up and there was always a pool of water on the passenger side floor that would condense on the windows and freeze there, making it impossible to see until I took the scraper to the INSIDES of the windows and drove around a bit with all of them rolled down, the tape player worked and it got me to school and back. Raymond and I took it to his Friends' houses (a bunch of giggly girl-school girls) and out for pie and Thanksgiving with Cheryl at Denny's in Waukegan - directions tainted with streets called Sunrise and Sunset and she on Adelaide. We went to get gas (boy what a guzzler) and couldn't unscrew the gas cap, had to jimmy it open with a screwdriver pry. We whooped it up. Innuendo-laced comments about the size of the back seat. It was always cold when I had that car. I drove it to my first full-time job. Mornings I'd wake at 6 and first thing start warming the car up. Seems like Throwing Muses was all I ever listened to although to this day I still dont' own a single album by them. Always on homemade tapes and usually from a girl named Melissa from Loveland, Ohio. Singing at the top of my lungs or softly whispering "You cage you cage." Even though the car was huge, I had yet to get into the habit of storing all of my most valuable possessions in a cluttered heap in the back seat. That came when I got the Celica. That winter was so cold. I left the headlights on once - in the parking lot of my job. Took a half hour to juice up the battery. I was so embarrassed.

When the weather got warm, Matt H. and I embarked on a journey to Midland, MI to meet/visit a pen friend, Eric C. (ed note: this is a different Eric C from aformentioned Eric Cope. This Eric C went to a high school that was, honest to maude, called Dow Chemical High.) What should have been an 8-hour drive became a 6-hour "pedal to the metal 90-mile-an-hour" experience. The car was quick, with great pick up & no one on the road EVER got in my way. Visited Matt Spudly in Grand Rapids (too) briefly on the way home.

The car began to guzzle oil and black smoke was coming out of the hood by the time we hit Chicago. I exited at Chinatown and as I applied the brakes, the car stalled. It was "fine" as long as we were moving, but would stall when stopping. We eked back into Arlington Heights. I called my mechanic, crying. He told me to bring it over, muttering about those "damn American cars." He had it for over a week before I called to see what was going on. It was dead - blown "o" rings. I could drive it, but it would guzzle oil and there would always be black smoke. The only way to save it would be to rebuild the engine.

We traded it in to help pay for a 1988 Ford Mustang and my mom sold me her car, a 1982 Toyota Celica.

4/26/91 12:15 AM Kinko's Hyde Park
"The only difference between tattoed people and non-tattoed people is that tattoed people don't care if you don't have a tattoo." -the Adolescents

4/28/91 6:55 AM Kinko's Hyde Park
The tail end of an all-night double-shift, eating trail mix.

4/29/91 6:55 PM Kinko's Hyde Park
Ben Weasel came over to drop off the DISGUSTEEN video (plus Screeching Weasel live) and to check out what I've done with the chapbook. He wants it to be called BRADY BUNCH BEHEMOTH - which, I think, is a cool title. He sat and chatted with me for a bit while I sipped my onion soup. We talked about the band getting back together & shit. I guess Dan from Ivy League is the drummer now. What a cutie! I wish I could see them play, but I'll be back in Texas by the time they get around to playing. Oh well. Maybe I'll show up at one of their practices and interview them. There's an idea.

2002-04-27T16:51:00.000-05:00
78745 - a couple of zany austin boys.

2002-04-27T09:24:00.000-05:00
Things I am going to blog about in the near future:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (and me)
This Week in My Life (vintage, 1991)
Rites of Spring (the band)
Garden Update
More About Homeschooling

Things I am going to add to the site (whenever I get around to it!):
Lists of music, books, zines, and other stuff
More fun links
More pictures
Things I am thankful for

Sound interesting? Let me know what you wanna hear first...and keep reading!

2002-04-27T08:00:00.000-05:00
a friday in my life (only 25% bitchy, with 10% less wit.)

Let me preface this by saying that I got to bed at 1 AM after spending about 2 hours laying out a newsletter for a local parenting group which I suddenly HAD to complete (according to the person I was doing the layout for) even though I didn't have all of the elements. I was waiting for an e-mail from her with the required final piece (or what I thought was the final piece) but when it still hadn't come by 1 AM, I just sent what I had to her and hit the sack. I had been awake since 6 in the morning.

4 AM - Cole decides now is a great time to be awake! I'm talking FULLY awake. He climbs out of bed and demands that I feed him bananas. I have about enough energy (but not really) to sit down and watch him run in circles around the living room. My mouth is slack. My eyes are bleary.

4:15 AM - I check my phone messages to find that the woman I am trying to do the newsletter has called me on every phone I have a number for to leave me panicked messages about how she's worried that she's going to have to finish this project on her own. I check my e-mail to find a panicked e-mail from her that says she's FREAKING OUT because I haven't gotten in touch with her. I write an EXTREMELY BITCHY e-mail back. Erase it. Send one more diplomatically worded. I think I said something like "I hope yr not freaking out because of me. I'm just waiting for your article. Everything else is layed out. I've been e-mailing you daily about that article, and I figured you would contact me via e-mail since you would need to e-mail that to me in order for me to finish."

4:30-7:30 AM - I'm sort of half asleep and half awake and trying to play with cole while at the same time trying to encourage him to go to sleep. To be honest, I'm not actually sure what all I did during these hours. I know I was awake, but I was not the least bit coherent. Was I online? I don't know.

7:30 AM YES! Cole starts rubbing his eyes and emitting short whiny noises. Optimal opportunity to hit him with the nummy stun gun and get him to go to sleep.

9:30 AM Awoken again by cole. Monk sleeps peacefully. I get up with Cole, read him some stories, mess with the layout some more, do some random crap. I think about making something for breakfast, but instead start feeding cole random unprepared food items like bananas, nuts, and oat-e-o's.

10 AM - I call the newsletter woman, convinced that I've been awake long enough to control my frustration. I've already told Steven how frustrated I am with the whole thing, and he listens to my conversation, amazed (and perhaps a little frightened) at how very duplicitous I can be when I put my mind to it. I'm very kind and patient with her on the phone, but the entire time...I'm really feeling like I want to kill her. She's actually a very nice person, so I feel sort of guilty for this, but I am very resentful that not only am I having to do all of this work at the last minute, but I'm also feeling like she's blaming me for this. She tells me that she's going to e-mail me her article and "some resources" that need to be added. The resources are supposed to take up an entire column, so I shuffle things around to make room.

10:30 AM - the children are orbiting around, and bouncing off of me as I attempt to fit into one column the 2 extra pages worth of material she has sent me. I feel my temples throb. I do NOT want to be doing this on my day off. Newsletter woman has assured me that she will come and pick up the disk at noon. Did I mention that I wasn't given a deadline on this project until 3 days ago? And that up until last night I was operating under the assumption that I was in possession of all of the "pieces" to the puzzle. Now I'm suddenly having to fit extra things in, which basically means I need to redesign my template. I spend the better part of 2 hours doing this.

11 AM - I finally start making breakfast for Monk. I get some oil really hot in a pan and throw in one diced potato and fry/steam it up really good. Then I put the potato aside and fry up some beans in the same pan, softening some tortillas on top of the beans. Monk finds this absolutely delicious. Cole proceeds to paint his entire body with beans.

noon - steven comes in and tells me that he's not going to be spending the afternoon selling records and that I can have the car and take some time to myself. I'm thankful, but I'm still waiting for newsletter lady to show up. I desperately need some sleep and/or a couple of hours completely to myself.

12:15 MUST. GET. OUT. OF. THIS. MADHOUSE! Monk is spinning really fast around and around in circles and having near collisions with all of the sharp edges in the house. Steven looks at me and says "Oh, yeah. Giving up television was a great idea!" I call newsletter woman and let her know that I'm bringing the disk to her. She seems surprised that I fit it all in (could this be foreshadowing?) I dig through my tapes for a Rites of Spring tape that I've wanted to listen to for a few days now...I don't find the one I'm looking for, but I do find a live tape with Rites of Spring, One Last Wish, and Chumbawamba. I also find an old tape by a band called Spahn Ranch which I will write about later.

12:45 I'm at the bank, making a deposit.

1:00 I'm at the Post Office, getting my PO Box mail.

1:30 PM I'm at newsletter lady's house. There's a sign on her door demanding that I remove my shoes (OK, OK...maybe requests that I remove my shoes). I start to remove them. She opens the door and I hand her the sample copy. I don't want to stay long b/c I really REALLY am needing to just be by myself for awhile and, frankly, I'm tired of dealing with her. She seems somewhat disappointed with the layout. Then she realizes that an entire column's worth of information is missing (because I never received it.) I know she wants me to volunteer to once again re-layout the entire thing, but I'm fed up and doing my best to not tell her to shove her freaking newsletter. (and, of course...because I'm me...I'm also feeling really fucking guilty because maybe I could have been more available and could have communicated better. But then, whose responsibility is that when I'm the one doing the volunteering? I had volunteered to lay the thing out, not edit (which she was asking me to do - actually admitting to me that she "didn't know what to do with one of the articles, so she just sent it to me hoping that I would know.") and I certainly didn't volunteer to be some sort of psychic who knows what all needs to be in the damn thing. There's a long, awkward pause as I stand there with my shoes half off and she is talking about how she's going to have to redo it. Mind you, she's being not in the least mean about it, but I'm still feeling sort of angry b/c I hate letting people down and in this case I feel sort of like I was doomed to let her down, you know? Finally, because I'm impatient and because, in spite of my guilt, there is no fucking way that I'm going to spend another hot minute dealing with this, I just say "Look...I'm really sorry, but I have got to go." She touches my shoulder and says "yeah...ok...I understand." and I turn tail and leave. In a way, I'm proud of myself because I think it's a big step for me to not shoulder the entire burden of blame here...but in another way I'm disappointed with myself because certainly I could have done a better job of drawing out the specifics.

2 PM I'm at my weekly haunt, Kim Phung. They know me so well, they don't even give me a menu. In fact, at the risk of giving away the fact that I'm a total stick in the mud, I have to say that the don't even ask what I want. They just bring me the same dish that I order every time. I'm really fucking hungry because I didn't eat any of the breakfast I made for the kids. I'm really fucking tired because I've been running around. I sit down and write in my journal, eat spring rolls and tofu with garlic, hot pepper, and lemongrass, and drink a ton of water.

3 PM - I have promised Steven that I will be home absolutely no later than 4 PM so he can run around town selling records, so I pack up my writing, pay the cashier, get in the van, and go. The Spahn Ranch tape is over, and I'm listening to Rites of Spring live. It fucking rocks. I didn't even know I had this tape.

3:15 PM - I pull up to the house and one of the Rites of Spring guys is saying (between songs) "Let's have the male bonding happen in the back and the dancing in the front, please." Right on!

3:30 PM - Monk's playing a computer game and Cole is sleeping, so I go to lay down in the bedroom. Peace. Bliss.

3:45 PM - "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOM, COLE'S AWAKE!" Fuck.

4:00 PM - We all head over to the playground. Monk, Cole, and sleepy me. Monk hangs out with the extend-a-care kids. Plays tag. Plays in the sandbox. Cole runs around all over the place with a silly grin on his face. He's really starting to use a lot of words now. He can say "window" and "monk" and tons of other stuff. He imitates what I'm saying, too. I need to watch my language around him now!

4:40 PM Time to go home, guys. Monk comes along with little resistance.

4:45 PM I for some reason fall under the mistaken impression (wishful thinking) that Cole is tired and needs to sleep, so I attempt to nurse him down in the bedroom. Instead of sleeping, he pulls my hair, attempts to gouge out my eyeballs, and stage dives from my body onto the bed. I bring him into the big back room, close the door, and lay on the big body pillow, drifting in and out of consciousness while cole runs around me and Monk plays outside.

5:00 Steven walks in and wants to know what we are doing for "family dinner" tonight. I tell him I need 30 freaking minutes of sleep or there's not going to be a family to dine with. He obliges.

5:30 Steven and Monk have decided that we are going to go to Chuck E. Cheese for family dinner. I think it's just surreal enough to be fun. We commence gathering shoes, clothing and diapers from various hiding places throughout the house.

6:00 PM - we roll up to Chuck's parking lot, pile out of the car, allow our hands to be stamped with flourescent ink to ensure no one walks out with our kids, and commence the cheeze fest.

6:15 - wow, that shit's expensive! Anyway, we make off with 60 tokens. It's actually not as loud and sleezy here as we thought it would be. Cole likes to ride on the little bouncy cars. Monk's having a great time. Cole nearly drowns in the ball pit. Monk explores the habitrail for kids thing. It is an utterly bizarre suburban experience. Somehow Steven and I manage to have some good, honest fun. The kids are really really having fun, though. I drink way more caffeine than I should. So does Steven. The kids eat a ton of pizza. I play a game of air hockey with Monk. Steven plays the Star Wars game. I sort of wish there was a pinball machine. Cole almost drowns in the ball pit. Hahaha.

7:45 - It's time to go and Monk has lodged himself firmly in the habitrail and REFUSES to leave. I take the baby to the car and let Steven deal with it.

7:55 - Steven is carrying an unhappy and unwilling Monk to the car. Monk informs us that he is running away to live at Chuck E. Cheese's, and that we have ruined his whole day by making him leave. We bribe him with candy to get him to let me put him in his booster chair. Steven and I are a well-oiled parenting MACHINE tonight. No one gets yelled at. No one gets impatient with. And, in spite of the fact that Monk is truly being a brat right now, no threats are issued. We are talking to him like we are reading right out of How To Talk So Kids Will Listen. It doesn't seem to be working, but we're doing it anyway. "I wish we could stay at Chuck E. Cheese's all night, too, Monk. Wouldn't that be fun?!"

8:00 - We swing by the store to pick up some evil disposable diapers because Cole has a really bad rash due to the fact that he's soaking himself at night without waking up and requesting a diaper change. I suspect this might be the culprit behind the early AM wake up times. The disposables should help until he's wetting a little less at night. He seems to have phases where he soaks himself at night...and phases where he stays relatively dry all night. The rash looks and seems really painful and I don't want him to irritate it any worse. On the way there, Steven observes a sign in front of the putt putt golf establishment that says "Wednesdays, all you can golf." We sort of giggle at the thought...are we turning into a minigolf minivan family?

8:15 Home sweet fucking home. Monk's still pissed that we left Chuck E. Cheese's. Steven and I get the kids out of the car and into the house. I sit in front of the computer for a brief period, answer a couple of e-mails, stare at my blog...I can't believe I haven't blogged all day. I'm amused because I have numerous e-mails from my preschool playgroup with the subject "abandoned lainie". They are in response to several e-mails I've sent this week asking where the heck everyone is. Monk misses his little homeschool friends tremendously. It sounds like everyone is wanting to get back in the swing of things next month, I am reassured.

8:30 I try to get cole to sleep, thinking surely he must be tired after all that running around. No dice, mama. *sigh*

8:35 Monk has a great idea! Let's go play out on the back patio and look at the full moon. It's absolutely beautiful outside. The moon is, indeed, full. I can see the bunny in it. Not just that, but there's a nice cool breeze and the air smells like honeysuckle. Cole and Monk run around in the dark and play with things while I sit and soak everything in. I'm no longer feeling angry, impatient, or even tired.

9:30 Even though Cole is still fairly active, I decide to try once again to nurse him to sleep. Hooray! It works this time!

9:45 - Monk has another great idea...let's lay outside on a blanket and look at the clouds and the moon. We talk about shapes of clouds and Monk tells me that he's so happy, his heart is exploding. He says it's ok, though, because his brain makes a new heart. Mother/son bonding abounds. I love that little guy.

10:30 - I come inside. Monk continues to look at clouds, running in every once in awhile to say "Mom! I saw a cloud that looks like a twister!" and "Mom! There's one cloud? And it looks like an elephant? And it's standing on one leg!"

blogblogblog...monk goes to bed.

11:14 - Steven comes into the room and says "You know, I actually had a lot of fun tonight."

So did I, dearheart. So did I. Family night restored my soul. thankyouthankyouthankyou.

11:16 - Cole starts screaming in the other room...time for nummies again. Maybe I should go to bed early tonight.

1:00 AM - I finish writing my Spahn Ranch thing. Blogger isn't working. I put everything aside to post later. Enjoy.

2002-04-27T07:44:00.000-05:00
To Learn Compassion By Trial And Error

Apparently, there is a death metal band called Spahn Ranch. This is not them. The Spahn Ranch in my tape player is a band that was on the late, great Insight label out of San Francisco. I don't know much about the band other than they released the record Thickly Settled, and appeared on an Insight compilation called To Sell Kerosene Door to Door with such notables as Beatnigs, Caroliner, and World of Pooh (featuring Barbara Manning). I'm pretty sure I also remember a friend in Michigan actually saw them perform live in the late 80's, so they were at least popular enough to scrape together a coffeehouse tour (which, admittedly, does not say much). The only credits on the album jacket go to producers Eric Cope and Matt Wallace. Eric Cope was the frontman for several other Insight bands (glorious din, dog food, stiff legged sheep), and it occurs to me (after all of these years) that he could very well be the voice behind Spahn Ranch, as well. When I was a bored high school student, Eric used to send me long letters espousing the views of George Jackson, Malcolm X and other revolutionary figures. I also recall beautifully written observations of his world, frequently written from the window of a coffee shop. He talked about children, about freedom, and about love. He was never condescending, although he was many years my senior and extremely busy with his various musical projects. He was also the editor of one of my all time favorite zines, Wiring Dept. I thought he was an amazing and inspiring person and felt honored that he chose to take me under his wing as a student of sorts. I vaguely recall that there was some sort of weird falling out between him and World of Pooh, as evidenced by the phrase "Kill Eric Cope" or something like that on the spine of a World of Pooh record. I am not sure what that was all about.

The album, Thickly Settled, is unique and soothing. Minimalist and clean with lots of slow, atonal melodies combined to provide more of a processional feel than a dirge. Removed from the whole, the sounds would be cacophonous and uninteresting, but combined as they are with overdubbed vocals and sparse effects, they create a mood of quiet introspection. The music implies the desert, with hot mirage-like sounds interspersed with plaintive lyrics which seem more like prose than poetry:

"We must be direct in everything we do and say. Weakness discouraged along with badface. Undertaking the ridding of grudges, let empathy take its place. One of the greatest, perhaps you know, has been the showing of authority amongst the lowest of feet. Never turn away. If you want, if you must, if you let, a bearing down shall come and take your crippled eagerness by the claw. We've seen it fleshing forward without recognize. Lend an ear, we'll start the tearing and the levelling of lies."

The name of the band almost seems incongruous to the sentiments expressed lyrically and musically. This is not "hippy" music, nor is it angry. Although there is sitar present on several tracks, it sounds middle eastern rather than psychedelic. And there is no talk of violent uprising. Best I can figure, the name "Spahn Ranch" was meant to allude to a revolution of spirit, rather than the Mansonian "kill the piggies" revolution. A focus on unselfconscious love as well as the abundance of questions that exist amidst a dearth of answers. This assertion would seem to be proven by one of the simplest and most enduring verse of the record, which is "love to love, not to be loved."

And if that's not a revolutionary concept, baby, I don't know what is.

2002-04-25T23:44:00.000-05:00
Way too fucking tired to do a day in my life. I might try tomorrow, but it was just not a very exciting day, other than the fact that I was tired and grouchy all day. We really didn't do anything fun, anyway. Tomorrow, I'll take a look at what I jotted down and see if I can witify it.

2002-04-25T20:03:00.000-05:00
for some reason...I thought this was pretty cool

2002-04-25T17:09:00.000-05:00
Where do I sign up for the Judy Fan club?

she's got the links, man.

2002-04-25T17:04:00.000-05:00
zineschool reunion

Lemme tell you a little bit about my friend spookydoll. I started writing to her when I was in high school and we were both doing zines. There was a weird synchronicity (there's that DAMn word again, surely there's another word I can use...too.lazy.to.use.a.thesaurus.use.yr.freaking.imagination) to our lives, as she was living in the same city as my father, having moved there from around where I was then living.

The strangest STRANGEST thing was that, when she came to visit, I discovered she knew and was friends with some of my friends. And we all hung out together.

It's comforting to still have her in my life. And now she's BLOGGING, so I get to read about her daily adventures. You should, too. She is one of my very most favorite people in the whole world.

YAY!!!

2002-04-25T12:14:00.000-05:00
Stay tuned...it's a very bitchy day in my life.

2002-04-25T12:13:00.000-05:00
Argh!

I can't access my e-mail AND comments are down...so, here's a song by Not Rebecca:

Gladly
This is the way I am finding you.
My thoughts disown me and that's nothing new
Your smile and your eyes keep me alive.
Drinking my way until I'm finding you.
Stumbled my steps till I get to you.

2002-04-25T06:46:00.000-05:00
good. freaking. morning.

Can someone please tell me that this is someone else's nightmare, and that I have NOT been awoken at 6:30 AM so that my small child can EAT CRAYONS.

Where are those kiddie quaaludes? I know I left them around here somewhere.

2002-04-25T02:00:00.000-05:00
very, very funny.

2002-04-25T01:56:00.000-05:00
What the American Flag Stands For

I found this while undertaking the monumental task of cleaning out my "random information" inbox. Right on, Charlotte!

2002-04-25T01:29:00.000-05:00
::link removed due to racist/sexist/heterosexist & otherwise offensive material::

2002-04-24T20:06:00.000-05:00
First of all, Jim...love ya too, baby. There's unbelievable synchronicity afoot here, because I was seriously thinking about this topic MINUTES ago, and the article appears on the same page of something you just linked to. But you might not want to read the rest of this, because I'm going to be talking about my boobies, and I know you start to feel all left out when I mention woman things.

OK, booby talk. Nursing mothers, I have a question for you:

Does anyone else have "milky" days? I'm talking strictly odor here, because I've long passed the days of embarrassing leaks. Today I seem to be just EMANATING eau de booby juice. I have showered. I am wearing clean clothes. And I smell like major nummies. What's with that? I was starting to wonder if other people might be taking notice and the aforementioned fertile_jim's site linked me up with this page. Hmmm....

Now, I wonder...is this affecting my phone voice? Am I being driven so completely wild by my own odor that I'm sending subliminal sex signals out over the phone?

Perhaps I need to start that phone sex career quickly...before the baby weans!

2002-04-24T19:39:00.000-05:00
Speaking of being hit on...

What is the most bizarre place/event/surroundings where you have been hit upon?

For me, it was the scene of a car wreck. I used to live near the Interstate, and one night there was a doozy of a wreck and I couldn't get back to sleep because of all of the noise of sirens and all of the flashing lights, so I shlepped out there wearing my pj's (no, I do not wear sexy pjs...I was probably wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt). I had my dog, Melvin, with me...and I'm standing there trying to figure out what's going on and some guy walks up to me and here's how the events unfold:

studman: Is that a PIT BULL?
blood: er. yeah.
studman (dejected): I have a schnauzer
blood: Oh. OK
studman: Hey...you wanna go watch them extract the bodies?!
blood: um. no thanks.
studman: OK...well...what's your number. Maybe I could call you some time.
blood: yeah! sure! (insert fake phone number here)
studman: cool!
blood: hey! listen...I gotta go. Have a great night.
studman: OK

I shit you not, 6 months later, I walked into my job at the time (I was an instore trainer for a popular copy place that shall remain nameless) and my manager introduces me to none other than STUDMAN who is my NEW TRAINEE.

Sometimes I hate it that I live a life filled with irony. At least I get a lot of laughs out of it, though. Hahaha.

Let's here your most famous pick-up lines! Anyone out there have anything BETTER than "you wanna go watch them extract the bodies?"

(I actually have an even better story...but I'll save it for later. It's a little more explicit and I am, after all, at work.)

2002-04-24T19:32:00.000-05:00
1-900-drubloo(d)

I've been sitting here at work making phone calls to try to get people to attend orientation for our classes (fun for me. I know you all are so jealous that you don't have my job today!) And I'm wondering - do ALL women get hit on by men on the phone? Because, you know, I always thought I had a really annoying voice (and a not-so-feminine chicago accent, to boot) yet I always seem to get hit on when I'm on the phone with anonymous strangers.

Is this common? Seriously. Because perhaps I should consider a career in phone sex.

2002-04-24T17:03:00.000-05:00
A Contest...

Those of you who know me know that I do not have a college degree. This is something that I am completely OK with. I'm comfortable with my degree-less self. However, in work situations when I'm chatting up someone new, I inevitably get the "So, what was your major?" question and it always leaves me flustered. Since it happens at work when I'm representing my organization, I feel somewhat sheepish about expounding on my disgust for academia (particularly since I work for an organization that partners with public schools and promotes higher education and learning to students) and I also feel somewhat inadequate in the eyes of the questioner if I say that I have no degree. It feels like I'm bringing down the credibility of the organization.

So, I've decided I'm going to start L*Y*I*N*G! And I need your help. Mind you, I'm not going to lie on job applications or in any other official capacity. I just need something to say casually so I don't draw too too much attention to myself when the question pops up. Here's where the contest comes in:

I need YOU, faithful readers (all 5 of you) to create a feasible degree plan for me. It must be realistic, and I must be able to answer any vague offhand questions about the campus I attended and the course of study.

To help, I offer you this: I am currently employed as a site coordinator/instructor for a local non-profit organization. I teach computer skills to adults. I have technical acuity and communications skills out the wazoo. I'm fairly up on trainer-speak, and can find my way around just about any computer system on the software end of things. I also enjoy writing, reading, and...but this isn't about my hobbies. I want to know what my DEGREE is.

Do I have a masters degree? Obviously PhD is going too far here. Where did I go to school? For how long? Did I have any internships? What were my grades like? What did I initially set out to do, only to decide that my final choice of degree plan was "right" for me? Who was that guy I dated who dumped me for an engineering major? Which of my roommates committed suicide. etc., etc., etc.

Elaborate as much as you want. Have fun with it! The person who constructs the most realistic (and usable!) lie will win a mix CD on the subject of their choice. I promise I will work hard on getting the seques right. Rewards will also be given to anyone who makes me laugh, because I'm feeling tired and distracted today...I could use a good laugh.

OK, that's it...now get writing. E-mail your entries to me by Friday, May 3, 2002.

2002-04-23T23:00:00.000-05:00
...For once...I have nothing to talk about. I am all. talked. out.

Enjoy the silence.

2002-04-23T09:06:00.000-05:00
Now, Pink Prickly Pear usually has an enjoyable read on her blog, but today she's in rare form.

Smooches, Ms. P!!!

2002-04-23T01:06:00.000-05:00
OK hang on...

Does anyone else find it insanely funny that I turned on the cd player so I could listen to some tunes while working out and the first song that cued up was "Sunglasses At Night" by Corey Hart?

As if it's not cheesy enough that I'm sitting here doing bodyweight squats alone in my living room, but I'm being serenaded by mr. pouty lips himself. What is this, Polly Esther's Workout Joint?

2002-04-23T00:29:00.000-05:00
Something Beautiful Before Bedtime

Walked the dog today with cole in backpack. We came upon a little kitty who stood resolute in the middle of the sidewalk, arching her kittyback as much as any kitty is able, but not fleeing the scene as most kitties do (which only causes trouble, as Twyla won't chase if nothing runs). The kitty moves toward us with her stripygrey back still arched. It's as if she's a cartoon kitty walking on those impossible tiptoes while the high keys of the piano play that little tippy-toe tune. Still she approaches, somehow unfazed by Twyla's big old droolyface. Reaching Twyla, greykitty rubs gently up against her chin, purring. Content. Cole in backpack says "HI, Kitty!" and we continue on our way.

2002-04-23T00:25:00.000-05:00
Blueroses and I are totally on the same wavelength today. I took the "high school stereotype" quiz, and I am also a goth. In fact, whenever I take the same quiz that she takes...I end up with the same result. Maybe we're the same person? FREAKY, dood.