i obsess.

Doin' It and Doin' It and Doin' It -- Well, As Best I Can.

The thing about being perceived as thin is it messes with your head.  You think you should never say anything about how you feel physically crummy or tell people when you're having a squishy day (which can be especially glaring with the wrong pants).  And people are RIDICULOUSLY critical of thin women.  They scan every inch of those narrow bodies for any potential flaws ("problem areas," as the more horrible of the grotesque "women's" glossies will inform us).  I've seen it done.  Hell.  I've done it.

The Risperidone is working wonders.  I haven't wanted to breathe a word of its effects through - and this is pretty tragic, given what the medication is supposed to fix - utter paranoia that it would cease having positive effects if I told the internet that yes, YES, it's (kind of?) working.  Look.  It's not perfect.  It's trying.  It wants to help me.  Also, if I wanted it to really help, I'd take two every day instead of one.  But two - I tried to do it.  Two, or maybe it was three, different times I attempted to double up, as per the recommendation of my physician, but I just couldn't hack it.  It was uncomfortable.  And there's this fear of the potential to have some random muscle seize up and then freeze, just up and quit, which obviously increases with the higher dosage, and even though it's rare, It's still a possibility.  I can't handle that thought.

Then there's the weight gain.  It hasn't been *super* dramatic.  I've probably gained around 8-10 lbs.  (I don't weigh myself on the regular on purpose.  My theory has always been: my clothes fit, my body looks fine, and I eat alright and take my Geritol.  And I get loads of exercise shaking my cane at young people.  Why should I have to know my fucking weight?)

But there's all this damn agitating going on on twitter about working out and exercising and training, and Stefania wrote a super-fucking-inspirational post about having been influenced by the twitter mass-exercise-movement, and Kristen started a blog for the Gang of  Four Shredheads (my way of paying homage to her is through reference to a somewhat obscure punk-rock band.  You know.  She's punk-rock.  Old-school.  *shakes cane*) and there's Catherine's incredible efforts for her nephew, Tanner, with the tutus, and by gum,

I am gonna do it if it means I strain something.  Several somethings. 

And, okay, yeah, I may not have a *super* long way to go to be physically ready for a 5K in a month; I was a stripper for several years (it requires an assload of endurance to get through a ten-hour shift, believe it or not) and I snowboarded regularly from 1992 - 2004 (pregnancy/motherhood took me completely out of the game for several years but we plan to get back up there this coming winter, I say that knowing full well it probably won't happen but an old lady can dream, right?), plus I used to run several miles at a go, three or so times a week, back in my early twenties, so a three-mile run isn't gonna kill me.  

But dangit!, if I'm not nervous I'll quit anyway.  I really want to do this.  I really want to run the 5K at Blogher.  And I want to wear a damn tutu.  (Checklist: buy a damn tutu.)

Wish me luck.
 

Send Geritol.

******

p.s. If you're going to nyc for Blogher and you want to participate in the 5K + #tutusforTanner, here's the 411.  (JEESus.  Does anyone even know what that -- uh, 411 -- *is* anymore?  *hangs up hat* *picks it back up because of the running and the supporting Catherine and Tanner and the getting-in-shape and the Geritol*)

Toy Story 3: After Which, I Am Left a Beautiful Wreck.

No spoiler in the title of this post for the film, unless you *haven't* seen the trailer, in which case, see the trailer, and then all will be made clear (the spoiler, yes, is that Andy, the kid from the original film, leaves for school as a grown-up boy).  My heart was smashed in the process of watching a little boy grow up and leave for college.  Smashed and made whole and smashed again.  And cycled.  But I didn't come here just now to tell you about the movie.  Instead, I must report on the viewing experience, *my* viewing experience of Toy Story 3.

Some background is required.

Toy Story was the first truly beloved Pixar film in our house.  Before my kiddo was born, my brother, in the Nineties, loved Toy Story.  He collected several film posters, which were all left behind with the rest of his things when he removed himself to crazy-people-who-hang-about-under-bridges lands.  My parents, when my son was very small, asked if we'd like to have the blue-and-white-clouded homage to Woody and Buzz art from the collection of posters.  I said, oh, lordy, yes, because Jack was already besotted with those two.  In fact, the only things we gave him for his second birthday were the Woody, Jesse, Buzz and Bullseye dolls I spent much time earning on ebay in advance of the day.  He was mad about them, too.  Still is.  Still plays with each of them.  Ironically, though we've been to Disneyland three times since he began his idolization of Woody, we have yet to encounter him.  Well, not entirely true.  The second trip brought us face-to-face with Woody and Jesse but the line for photos had been closed only a moment before we discovered them.  Disappointing, but we figure we have lots of times left to find Woody and get some photos with his kindly yellow-plaid Sherriff's arm draped about our kiddo's shoulder.  (And honestly, we were thrilled on our last trip to find both Buzz *and* Jesse and get some snaps.  And by we, I DO NOT ACTUALLY MEAN ME.  Please know that I haven't lost my mind to that extent.  Jack was the happy one.  I was only glad to participate in his excitement.  You believe me, right?

*sigh*)

So this movie.  I cried for about the first ten minutes, give or give ten + more minutes.  SHUT. UP.

It's good.  I know you've heard about the positive reviews on rottentomatoes.com.  WE ALL HAVE, LADY IN THE THIRD ROW OF THE THEATRE WHO WAS PROUD TO KNOW THINGS THAT GO ON ON THE INTERNET.

*ahem*

(The lady in the third row wasn't, in case you were wondering, me.  Probably.)

So after I got through crying and focused on the moment, because I did a quick mental check and realized I was doing what I already do in life, I focus so hard on how it will end and how I need to be prepared to feel about the ending I forget to be here, now, living it.  I kind of feel like I'm not alone, here, with this manner of dealing with how life comes at us, tsunami-style, but it's something I'd like to change nonetheless.

Then -- the movie.  The improvement on the art alone is worth the price of entry.  The story is, well, it's Pixar.  You need feel no less trust in their ability to take your heart and shine it up and then drive a freight train over it and then lovingly kiss and clean it and shine it back up again, good as new, no, BETTER, than you ever have had before.  

THEN I kept having to shush Jack.  He was randomly talking VERY VERY UNQUIETLY during the film.  At first I simply said, babe.  We need you to whisper if you have something to say.  But his stage-whispers shook the seats, they were so ALSO UNQUIET.  After a few repetitions of the whisper-requests, I simply started to say, also in not-so-quiet whispers, WE DON'T TALK DURING THE MOVIE.  But then, he said one thing more, one last statement, and -- I thought about it.  His comment was a reference to the film's action taking place.  After I shushed him, I heard, *really heard* his sentence.  It broke through.  It wasn't "MAY I HAVE PLEASE HAVE SOME MORE LICORICE PLEASE" and it wasn't "I DON'T WANT ANY MORE WATER THANK YOU" and it wasn't "I HAVE TO GO POTTY DADDY/MOMMY."  It was (and here I am refusing to spoil with recognizable plot line references) a comment on what was taking place in the film.  And he said it loud.  Not because, I slowly realized, he had forgotten to whisper. 

He was trying to reassure himself that everything was going to be okay.

After that, I took his hand and I said, "babe, everything is going to be okay.  Remember, Woody and Buzz and Jesse and Bullseye and the others are all smart and awesome and they love each other and they're GOING to BE OKAY."  (Guess who felt better after hearing that.  It wasn't the child whose ears were the objective of the statement.  *points with thumbs at self*)

Then I held his sweaty paw and we watched.  It got kind of scary, I suppose, if you're a little kid.  I mean, it *definitely* got scary if you are a little kid whose parents haven't let you see the Wizard of Oz yet, or even the old-school Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  (We are NOT that overprotective.  We're just waiting until we know he can handle seeing those images and still sleep that night and for the rest of the week's worth of nights after *that*.  What.  Okay.  We *might* be a little overprotective.  Of our nighttime rest.  IT'S JUST WE REALLY LIKE SLEEP.  DO.NOT.JUDGE.US.)  It's a wild ride.  A great, exhilarating, thrilling, SCARY wild ride.  During the most intense part I took Jack onto my lap and held him close while he sobbed and shook.  I wanted to be a part of the action for my own sake, in that moment, but I wanted more to care for him while he rode out the difficulty of it.  I let go of my own needs, my own desires, in that moment.  And cried harder than he did again at the end when I was still holding him and Andy was saying goodbye and leaving, though Jack sobbed quite surprisingly hard in his own right.

(It was also interesting and eye-opening and heart-saddening to think of my brother while I watched, because I know he loved the original Toy Story and I can't help thinking of his having left boxes of things at my parents' house, never to be reclaimed.  I would give anything to pass that poster on to *his* child.  A child I know won't ever exist.  So -- that's pretty sad.  It's also comforting, somehow, to know that at least I have the child who loves those films.  And that my brother can take some random, unknowing comfort in his presence on Earth fractalized and carried on by my kid.  Jeff, if you ever read this -- yeah.  That.)

And all of these epic revelations and epiphanies, it's because of a Pixar movie.  The Toy Story 3 film.  The one that took me beyond myself. 

If a movie can do that, uh, yeah.  It's a pretty good movie.  Go see it.

I have a lot to (un)learn. Probably.

I think I need to stop worrying so much about writing.

If I am not meant to write brilliant, earth-shatteringly great prose, I should be okay.  The only reason I fancy writing at all is that I love reading good writing so much.  The good writing burns into my fingers and propels them toward writing implements themselves, and I am helpless to impede their messy progress.  Sort of.

I don't remember too clearly why I began this blog.  I mean, it was one thing and then another, it was me trying to get a small business off the ground (crafting/embroidery/etc) and it was me trying to connect with other new moms, new parents, kindred spirits, inspirers, and it was letting those words burn through my fingers and into the screen of my laptop and not letting them get stuck.

What gets confusing, though, is telling stories without the potential for invective.  Not a deliberate kind, but an inadvertent one.  Where I talk about my life and it crosses over into the lives of others around me, the ones who might wish to refrain from having their existences poured out onto the pages of the internet like a bottle of spilled wine, softly sticky and spreading rapid across the space.

I love to write.  I hate reading my writing.  I love reading.  I hate feeling the urge to do same, only to trace over those curlicued language annotations later and recognize their dissimilarity to anything I had tried to say.  I love when people I know manage adroitly to capture something, whether it was their intent or they allowed their voices free reign, that they captured a vibrance, a living breathing ALIVE being in their grasp as they hurried their fingers to the finish, wherever that may be, I love when I am able to read the capture as it happens, live-action style, the literary version of the sports channel.

I want my words to live.

Without hurting or killing anyone already living in the process.

But how?

Life IS a Highway (... Is Probably the Hands-Down Corniest Post Title I've Yet Written. Yet)!

I couldn't help observing this morning as I raced to work, my heavy right foot urging my oil-thirsty car on and on, ever rapacious, ever burning and smelly, that people drive just like they are.  I mean, okay.  This is probably a terribly obvious overarching statement on the nature humankind.  But I'm still going to attempt to extrapolate the overtness.  FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE SOMEHOW, IMPOSSIBLY, DUMBER THAN I AM.

For instance, take my driving; I get beyond a pack of cars and there's that gap, and instead of reveling in it, I race ahead toward the next pack because (and here's where it gets silly-stupid) I AM AFRAID I WILL LOSE MY PLACE in the herd.  I only just realized it today.  It's mind-bogglingly inobscure.  And of course this is how I behave in my life.  I get ahead of one pack and instead of saying, oh, AHHHHH, this-here space around me is NICE, I can't wait to get to the bottom of the next group where I will itch to pass them.  Plus I'm paranoid while in their midst because just pushing my rude ass through isn't uncomfortable enough.  I have to worry that they think I love myself more than I ought.

To take some of the heat away from myself, I shall now introduce some other types.  Like, for instance, that guy.  You know.  That one.  The one who cruises in the far-left lane like he holds the title with the state *and* federal departments on left-lane purchases.  Or however one would describe that sort of thing in Real-Estate-ese.  That guy inflames me.  Why do I always have to go around him on the right?  WHY IN BLOODY MELTED-DOWN STATUES OF JESUS' NAME DO I HAVE TO DO THAT?

And then there's the lady who's doing her make-up while also far-lefting.  Or, you know, more likely, middle-lane-holding-her-own but SO sloppy, and when I want to move past *her* I have to skirt her side whether it's left lane or right.  (This ain't LA.  We only have the three lanes up here in the sticks, aka Portland.)  I dislike her for being so vacuous that she speeds up and slows down in time to my attempts to move away from her, and becomes the moving obstacle when she aligns her car with a three-trailer semi, at which point she refuses to budge.  AM NOT A FAN OF MAKE-UP-LADY DRIVER.

The typical old-people drivers are obvious, but somehow, I have more sympathy for those types than I used to.  (Shut up.  It's not because I'm getting old.  NEIL.  It's because I'm just nicer. 

I AM.

*ahem*)

The fast-food-chompin' people bother me but not nearly so much as the twenty-something that hovers behind my bumper like a silent metallic moth; all shuddery and random.  They're often, if not always, driving a late-eighties Honda or Oldsmobile and they're THE WORST DRIVERS IN THE WORLD.  Bumper-hugging is like a dance-move or something, it's so popular with them.  I HATE THAT DANCE MOVE.  I want to squash it.  I want it to die.  I'm not the world's most pleasant driver to have to encounter in freeway combat but I try to give people some freaking space between our cars.  (Except for make-up lady who seriously can't be counted on to let the space exist.  I blame her entirely.)

The last type I'll mention, because I'm already bored by this whole conversation I'm having with myself, and want to move on to stuff like WHY THE FUCK AM I SO STONE-TIRED RIGHT NOW, and HOW MUCH COFFEE X MOVEMENT WILL BE REQUIRED TO SNAP OUT OF IT, is the middle-aged luxury-car Pud.  This guy kills me.  He's so proud of himself for having finally managed the merger that scored him the pile o' dough that got him at the controls of this hot-ass bitch of a car that he's forgotten why he wanted it in the first place: TO SCORE THE BEAUTIFUL LADIES.  And then he snubs them when he's driving his new beautiful lady of steel.  Guess he's too fascinated by how good the make-up mirror in the luxury car reflects the phresh George Hamilton tan he acquired on that recent Costco cruise in the Bahamas.  He's a rude driving bastard, he takes the middle or far-left lane and then kicks back in it, and can sometimes be confused with title-holding far-left-lane guy, but then he'll slow down and move to the middle and enjoy the drive long enough to let a few people by, only to realize he's SHOWING HIS AGE AND NOT IMPRESSING EVERYONE WITH HIS LUXURY SEDAN'S PROWESS, jumping back into far-left mode long enough to impede progress because he's sort of forgotten how to merge.  In traffic.  (I'm certain his board-room merger skillz are still highly impressive and in-demand.  Or whatever.)

There.  That's enough.  None of us care enough to finish this *sentence* let alone another paragraph about some dumbass on the road.

Seeing as how we'll all be walking to work (if we weren't smart enough to invest in a good bicycle already) pretty soon, thank you VERY VERY MUCH BRITISH PETROLEUM.

The end.

Love,

The Make-Up Lady

i love my husband. no. sereusly.

My stupid toe still hurts.

Today was kind of particularly awful, because I broke almost everything I looked at, including my workstation pc because I'm an insatiably-curious idiot who insists on spelunking in the some of the creepier corners of the internet without safety goggles and a hazmat suit, and I interacted with some bleeding, oozing thingeroo that gave my pc cooties AND NO, IT WASN'T P0RN, OR EVEN P0RN-ESQUE, I was, actually, believe me or don't, reading up on SEO-creation, as that's something I do for my job, and I linked to something a little weird and then a little weirder AND IT STILL WAS NOT P0RN, JESUS RON JEREMY CHRIST, I WAS AT WORK, ANYWAY, YOU PEOPLE WEAR ME OUT WITH YOUR SUSPICIOUS MINDS, GEESH, where was I?, ah, yes: aaaaaand and so, the pc: I broke it, sorta.  Lame.  Other things were also broken, not the least of which was my heart because I only just, JUST, today, realized how desperately sad I am not to have my beauteous friend Gwen here in the US of Hey any longer to kick around.  Oh, good golly, the pain, and SHE thinks she's got the worst of it because she's all, oh, wahhh, I have to adjust to living in some other country, etc.

Obviously, Gwen, you need to realize where the true impact of all this agitating lies: IN ME.

*graciously provides silent moment so as to allow it to sink in*

Anyway, I'm also pissed because I'm not pregnant, even though I LIED, BLATANTLY, to myself, to myself and everyone, about how glad I am not to be, for lo, I shall have the capacity to travel to Massachusetts in October and participate in my husband's cousin's wedding (don't get me wrong, I'm stoked and honored to be in the wedding, I just -- oh, oh.  Ugh, this urge, this prerequisite of explaining of things within me -- why do I try?  Seriously, why?  What is the deal with my programming that makes me think I can fix everything, make the world a better place, if I can only manage to EXPLAIN myself to -- myself.  Plus everyone else.  I despair of me).  I shall, further, have the ability to potentially go from Mass. to Switsish land if I'm not a giant, heaving whale of a breeder, and as to whether we will ACTUALLY do such a thing is not what matters, currently, it's the knowledge that we *might*.

Dig?

Oh, man.  Sad.  Tired.  Husband peevish because I wanted a new sink in our bathroom, resulting from reaching my legal limit on ability to deal with ugly flower-shaped pedestal sink placed there by old owners-from-H-E-double-toothpicks, what with the only location permissible for the handsoap being bang! in front of the handle where you turn the water on, which meant you had to pick UP the handsoap each time you wanted to wash your hands, and then, there you were, holding the soap while also trying to wash, and it was all very awkward.  Not to mention, hecka awkwardER when you're a chick who uses a diva cup and needs to clean it and the stupid thing is slippy and the soap for it has to be fetched from a cabinet behind you but there's no room to keep it on the stupid effing pedestal sink, the flower-shaped one, WHY DO THEY SELL SO MUCH UGLY CRAP WITH A FLORAL MOTIF IN HOME GOODS?, WHY IN THE NAMES OF HAYWOOD AND WAKEFIELD, WHY?, so there you are, again, holding the soap, but this time, also the slippy cup thingy and suddenly, one of them goes flying and you're desperately trying to keep hold of the other and then WOOPS!, there *it* goes, too, and in that same instant, your 4 y.o kid comes blasting around the corner and says, hey, Mommy!, whatcha doin'?, and spies the damn cup and begs, BEGS to know what it is and what it's for and WHY can't he know, Mommy, WHY?, and so on, and finally, you just throw up your hands and march off to Ikea, land of less-expensive bathroom sinks-and-whatnot, and you fight your way like a fish going upstream through the Sunday afternoon traffic and everyone kind of looks at you going the wrong way and thinks, "Oh, poor dear, she's never going to make it," and shakes their head kindly and through a true yet misplaced concern, because holy cripes, do you ever know where you're going.  You've been there more than you have been to church -- well, in the last sixteen years, that is.  Before that, not true.  Opposite-ish.  Etc.  But yes.  Found a sink.  And subsequently gave my husband a case of the classic Ikea-induced peeves.  It's Swedish and the elements don't work with US proportions, and it's kinda un-fun from what I gather.  From the sounds of banging, swearing and soft, soft sobs.  I go nowhere near the sounds, because I DON'T have a death-wish.

Doy.

The really great part is that it's my husband's birthday on Thursday.  Happy birthday to him, huh?

Yeah!

*pats self on back*

So, yep.  POOR ME.  Poor my-sadness.

(Do me a favor; ignore the gnashing-teeth sounds emanating from the bathroom so you can stay focussed on pitying ME, alrighty?

Thanks.)

have we?

 Have we achieved the zenith of the yin/yang eyebrow experience?  I want to know, in earnest, because I am TIRED of having to regret so regularly my lame choice in the nineties to imitate Drew Barrymore/et al in their pursuit of the heroine of Blue Angel (Marlene Dietrich, she of the quasi-invisible brows) and remove my above-eye hair half-moons of caterpillar-esque expressiveness.  I want to stop opening fashion magazines and be forced to confront my antique stupidity at the routine aspect of the lovely, lithe, fully-browed beauties gazing therefrom.   (The moon will wane, however, for them, too, because it was cool to have fat brows in the eighties, I know, and then they STOLE them from us ten short years beyond that, so WATCH THE FUCK OUT, little full-browed beauties, for they are coming, and they will be bearing tweezers, in about ten years.  Or so.)

HahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahah.

Ahhh.

*sob*

pregnancy tests aren't such humbug, as it happens.

Not that I've ever suggested they were.

I should've known I wasn't pregnant, even though I was almost two weeks late; when returning my Xmas Uggs (in a sumptuous cognac, the quasi-knee-high ones, the almost-too-cozy ones that I ordered too large and then never bothered to return until Friday, and a day in late February is obviously not the time to be ordering up more dead-of-winter footwear, ... *soft sigh*), I tried to make myself go in the direction of the "sensible footwear" section.  It didn't work.  I padded over to a pair of shoes that were sort of more the exact opposite of sensible. 

So even though none of the other parts of me connected with my non-pregnant status, given the tardiness of my cycle, given the convincing I was doing from the top down: my laser-sharp shoe-sense knew.

The catalyst
 

1 + 1 + 1 = magic. blood-curdlingly divine magic.

E.T.A. Hoffman's The Sandman.

Nancy Oliver's Lars and the Real Girl.

Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

Discuss.

generosity by which i'm befuddled. also, humbled. also, apparently, drunk, but only on fumes of embarrassment. (and maybe wine.)

I was driving to one of my many therapy appointments this week and thinking, "It's always darkest before the dawn."  (My head goes on cliche-autopilot during the dark spans.  Makes for very kicky water-cooler talk.  I sound like a cross between June Cleaver and the adorably zany neighbor on Valerie.  You know.  That show in the eighties that starred Valerie Harper [or, as you may remember her more immediately, Rhoda, whom I also adored, who also happened to be a zany neighbor herself, earlier, on the Mary Tyler Moore show.  jesus.  This may never end.  Didn't Dick and Laura have a zany neighbor, too?  No.  That was covered by Dick's comedy teammates.  But, Rhoda -- oh, the accent!  oh, the head scarves!  Lovvved].  Valerie, the show, also starred my favorite at the time, the appetite-for-the-eyes Jason Bateman.  Edie Clurg played the zany neighbor.  She was righteously zany.  Not quite as good as when she was the secretary with the endless number of pencils in her 'hive and her "oh, Ed"s on FBDO, you know, the one who sniffed glue and swore under her breath with perfect comedic timing, but -- I'll take my Edie Clurg where I can get her.  Well, unless it's on Hannah Montana, which I just found out she's recently done a guest turn on, because I looked at her page on imdb, because, dude.  I don't have cable.  Or a tweenage daughter.  Or any desire to know anything about Hannah Montana beyond its mere, burbling existence.  Etc.

June Cleaver and Edie Clurg.  Yep!  You betcha!  Fucker!

Wow.  My devolution of/war on clever conversation proceeds at its stumbling-yet-regular rate. 

*pats self on back*)

I am, quite obviously, stalling.

See, there are these bloggers, these people who came outta the woodwork and got together and sent me some gift cards that arrived today in the mail, that will buy this week's groceries, and a free-wheeling trip to Starbucks for treats and delicacies and non-necessaries -- oh, the frivolous things one can buy at Starbucks! -- and a card that is specifically for fun items only. 

They did this, these people, these amazing, incredible, thoughtful, beautifully kind people, because I've kind of been a massive fucking headcase-y mess of all hot messes, well, the broke-ain't-no-joke kind, and you have no idea how embarrassed and humbled and grateful and awed you can be until you're standing in my slightly-worn flats, shivering with shame and blessedness. 

There's simply no way for them to know how opportune it was, this gift, this kindness.

My darkest has, seemingly, broken up and is being replaced by the first lovely beams of pink-and-lavender-hued dawn.

Also, you fucking beautiful wenches made me cry.  Twice.  Then and now.

This week's groceries and dinners and lunches and breakfasts and mealtime toasts will all go to you, since you've made them happen.

Thank you so much.

I really wish I could think of something else to say, something to make you understand how depthfully you've touched me, touched my family, your kindness.  (Aside from making up words in your honor.  Words like "depthfully."  And "happy-diddliferous."  Although, quite honestly, that second one sounds more like something Ned Flanders would say, or maybe the zany-neighbor/La Cleaver would come up with.  Not as honorful as "depthfully."  However, "honorful" is kinda working for me.)

Shit.

(Maybe I could just swear a few more times and call you some more filthy names?  That's always *my* preferred form of thanks.)

You beautiful fucking wenches.   Love to each of you.

Er, that is, to

you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

dry.

I think about my grandpa a lot, lately, while I paint.  I think about his having been a painter, coming home from work at the end of the day smelling of turpentine and sweat.  I like to imagine, as my brush goes over its canvas of wall and wood, what he used to think about as he crouched and stood on ladders and peered into corners, his steady hand at work on the task.  I like to pretend I can smell him, hear him, hear into his head, to know how he felt about his family, his life.  My father has described how, when he was small, he would beg to go to work with his father, just so that he could be there to pick up small items, run for things grandpa needed, help lay drop cloths, wash brushes.  He said he felt such pride in doing these things for his dad. 

When grandpa came home, down the alley, in his ancient truck with the running boards on the sides, my dad and his siblings would rush toward the vehicle and leap onto the boards, riding back to the house, yelling and screaming, excited as all get out, because Dad was home.  About what he might have saved for them in his tin lunch pail.  Maybe a scrap of sandwich, a piece of cookie, something.  From what my dad says, no matter the item; it was always a treat when it came from grandpa's leftover lunch.

I like to think about these things as I hunker down in the face of the economic storm headed toward us, uncertain of its breadth and its speed, pondering my grandpa, pondering his having faced such a storm with my grandmother and already one son in their care (my dad's oldest brother, his senior by ten or so years). 

I drag the bristles up and down through the paint as it toughens in its hastily-drying state.

And I whistle at the rapidity of things.  Of the mind-skewing surreality of our time.

yay?

I got the job.  So that's good.

On the other hand, we still have to sell the house.

Also, I'm supposed to interview Oregon's soon-to-be Senator, Jeff Merkley, on Friday.  It's a phone interview, so I'm not super-panicked, but still.

Maybe one of you who's kinda good with the words wanna, um, lend me your head for an hour?  We could trade.  It'd be funny.  You could be all, lookit me!  I'm a dummy!, and annoy the shit out of everyone you work with.  Or just scare your toddler to bits.  Me, I could be smart and engaging and on it and know all my questions inside-out and sound really, really articulate and coherent and brilliant.  Look at what you could be doing for me.  No!  Not for me!  For Oregon!  For the future of our country!   For humankind!

I'll be waiting to see whose head is ready to sit on my shoulders in a few days.  Just, you know, be prepared for the eventuality that I may not give it back.

xo Deb

*clique, clique*

Or:  The Road to Success is Paved with Assholes.

We would sit on the bench along the rear wall of the dressing room lockers and discuss books and music and film while waiting for our turn at "up-time" - a horrible cat-walk get-the-evening-going system devised by the pimpy manager of the club where we worked, Pure Platinum (yes, that was the real name *gags*).  There were two locations; one sort of along the freeway in the middle of a random strata of San Diego burroughs, and one near the airport.  We worked at the one along the freeway.  It was considered the better of the two, which was laughable to us.  Sometimes, during a table dance (and they meant it, at this joint; the dancing was done in a little circular cut-out on the top of the tables) one would cling to the ceiling for balance during the routine, often meaning that bits of decrepit ceiling would flake off and drift down into one's locks.  Picking them out later was a true delight.

There were several dancers who would sit in the same seats, night after night, in front of the mirror that stretched along the wall just beyond the door into the dressing room. It was as if those seats belonged to them.  They were senior dancers in the club and also usually the best money-makers, and they were entitled, somehow, and no one else dared sit there.  Well, there were nights where those girls weren't working and then a second-tier dancer would take her seat; but otherwise, it was understood.  They got those spots.

We called them the mirror-girls.  When we were together and away from the club, we'd mimic them and their almost-ghoulish behavior while putting on their faces; how they spoke to one another, how they flipped their hair, how much rouge they applied to their decolletage. 

They had a name for us, too.  One night, one of the girls flipped her hair and, turning to give us the once-over while we mused quietly on Hemingway and feminism, said something pointed about our being "the nerd group."

We all laughed, genuinely laughed, laughed so hard the three of us were laying about on the floor in choking spasms.  It was such a filthy floor, too, with anyone's guess as to when it had last been cleaned.  But we couldn't help it.  We really *were* the nerd group.

I was so proud of that.

(I was also proud of the fact that, on an almost-nightly basis, I flashed the bouncer, ready to walk me to my car, and the dancers still waiting in the queue to be escorted out, with my regular bikini underwear, that they all referred to as "granny panties."  The other girls wore g-strings, without exception.  This was in ancient times, or about twelve years ago, so it's funny to think of g-strings being so edgy.  But they were.  Going commando wouldn't become a thing until at least a few years later on.)

I'm pleased when I'm not associated with what everyone else is doing in a large group.  To be different, to be able to distinguish myself from the rest of the inhabitants of a scene, it makes me feel alive. 

As a blogger, I'm glad to not play at being a hipster.  I don't know anymore what's cool in the music world, in film, or the realm of fashion, really, though once upon a time, it was the most important thing I could fathom. 

It's an honor to be friends with other bloggers who, while possibly not the edgiest, are the most genuine, the most sincere.  I'm humbled by their continued search for their truth, whether it means their traffic fluctuates or just plain plummets.  It's what makes them the very most edgy of us all.

And FUCK you if you think you're so cool you can't speak to something because it's beneath you.  Even when it's presented by someone who is lovely and genuine and a hundred times the writer, a thousand times the person, that you could ever be.  Especially then.

May your beloved mirror give you the unending pleasure and validation you apparently seek.  But don't assume there aren't people mocking your every move while you absorb yourself into its depths.

Oh, there are.

my personal jesui.

According to one of my imagined masters, Salinger, I am only, in referencing my craft (of the written word), to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers I love.

J.D. Salinger
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dorothy Parker
Katherine Mansfield
John Steinbeck
Henry James
John Updike
Emily Bronte (specifically, Wuthering Heights)
one poem by Sylvia Plath regarding the dreadful, anxiety-ridden state of new-motherhood
Ring Lardner (specifically, The Big Town, available at the online liberry, although probably spelled more correct-ish)
Edith Wharton
Henriq Ibsen
Samuel Coleridge (because he was a crazy, but kind, drug addict who probably suffered from adhd, I'm armchair diagnosing, and his life almost trumps his literature for interest and stimulation)
Virginia Woolf (mainly her essays)
Hemingway (albeit somewhat begrudgingly, due to having been forced to read A Farewell to Arms in high school, but then forgiving him readily and fluidly - ew? - upon stumbling into The Sun Also Rises, which led to discovering, among others, A Moveable Feast, sort of my go-to textbook on authorship for several years and counting)
Mark Twain
Roald Dahl
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities being the pinnacle of his works, to me, both because of its occurrence during the French Revolution, my favorite historical period, and because I was reading it while sitting next to my grandfather's deathbed and watching him as he slept through the night, a forever-entwined association with which I would not part for any sum imaginable)
Langston Hughes
Walt Whitman

Et vous?  Call it out, bitches.

in the face of overwhelm, start a new style blog.

You're welcome to step inside.  Nora thought of the super-kick-ass name, btw.  Nora rules.

It's still sort of beta, but I plan to add to it regularly.  And am hopeful that Nora will join me, on occasion, in posting some of her own takes on recycled style.

Also, because this post seems really fucking short, a shot of me with the luscious Redneck Mommy and the (now-infamous) Bloggess.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

quick, quick, out with it before it quicksilver-slithers away.

I'm living in a hovering state of panic about blog posts; reading them, writing them.  I'm filled with a daily-more-noxious sense, the threat of my ability to do either will be snuffed out, those wee licks of flame that still tease the bottom of the cylinder in which they reside in my core.

I cannot seem to write.  I cannot seem to tease out those flames, lure them into a cascading roar-and-echo, my leaping store of faith in my ability, diminished, diminishing, to forever put words together on a page, knowing they will succeed once they have joined up, like a militia, well-ordered and shining bright with their buttons and filigreed elements in the fiery light of the reader's eye, shins connected to smooth shoe-tops that come down clean and firmly-planted on the firmly-packed dirt of the trail, the trail that leads, winding, into the middle-distance of harps and furies and a smoky-amber'd ether.

It's thanks only to the efforts, hard-fought, I'm sure, of those who I rarely brave reading, it's thanks to their more quietly exerted, yet exceedingly exquisitely wrought, perfectly-tumbled gems, set to their most lovely angles in supple lines and worshipful sentences and passages of humbling brilliance, that I am even capable of 'fessing my fears of reading of writing, of hearing of their perfect, poignant, gripping telling of things such as:  pain, and the resulting discomfort, and of their experiences with shocking, raw beauty.  I owe them a debt I'll never repay, not because I lack the desire; merely the means.

But here is a game attempt to say it, to thank them for their work, their constant polishing and laboring over their love, for sharing it, bravely, regularly, in a way that I cannot.  For whatever reasons that I may or may not remember just now. 

musically challenged.

Yeah, boy.  I'm putting it on wax.  Well, technically, not really, because my record player's still on the skidz (less yeahhh, more wahhh), and I'm slipping all of today's playlist over the hot eye of the cd player that hangs about in my kitchen or dining room, depending on how kold-krazee shit's getting around here.  (iow, I listen to music in the kitchen when I'm cooking, and in the dining room when we be MAD entertaining the poppin'-off gentry in our lokal, or, you know, Jack's friends' parents from school - we're just insane/wack that way.)

But here's today's playlist, including my badass mommy skillz-on-the-tablez (kitchen *and* dining).

(I had to go downstairs and shift the laundry and wound up digging through the boxes of cds we still haven't relocated since we moved LAST FUCKING SUMMER, and heaved a load of 'em upstairs.  Who KNEW I had such -- moldy taste in music?  But, to me, still awesome, and that's all that fuckin matters, yooooo.)

(now ya have to picture me with my lips all screwed up in a wicked-killah pout, one eye squeezed shut, throwing signs.)

(or you can just picture me sitting quietly, working, as the music gyrates wildly in the background, and makes me look ancient as I spin, hunched, over the keys, the loom spindling rapidly in the other room - er, alright, the embroidery machine.

yeah.)

Oh, also, if you really like music, and are into reading about peoples' personal musical journeys, which I totally am (i.e., I'm a nosy fucker), especially super-ruling types like Feral Mom, then you will dig, but DIG, her fascinatingly cool tour of the hinterlands of sound during her growin'-up years.  Start with her introduction to The Beatles, or her awesome cover of love for the kick-ass (and Northwest natives!) band Heart.  I heart Heart.  And you should, too.  And then you should read the rest of her adventures, musically and non-musically related.  She's a funny betch, that one.  Hell.  Ya might even learn somethin'.  (I'm personally holding out on declaring my favorite in the series until she reaches Superchunk.  Ahhhh.  Superchunk.  That good, old Chapel-Hill sound.  Laura, the hotness, on bass.  Driveway to driveway, it's the same old cracks, you slack motherfucker.  Total bastardization of a few of their songs' lyrics, but I can, and, as has been previously noted 'round here, I WILL.  Gee.  I'm such a badass.  *  sigh  *)

Beastie Boys * Licensed to Ill
Superchunk * No Pocky for Kitty
Sloan * One Chord to Another
The Apples in Stereo * Tone Soul Evolution
Simon and Garfunkel * The Concert in Central Park
Cat Stevens * Footsteps in the Dark
Patsy Cline * 12 Greatest Hits
Beulah * The Coast is Never Clear
The Kinks * The Kink Kontroversy
James Taylor * Greatest Hits
Hepcat * Scientific
The Promise Ring * Wood/Water
Harry Connick, Jr. * We Are in Love
Stand By Me * The Soundtrack
Joni Mitchell * Blue
Hall & Oates * Greatest Hits
David Frishberg * Live at Vine Street
Stan Getz/ Joao Gilberto (featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim) * Getz/Gilberto
Stevie Wonder * Talking Book
Led Zeppelin * II
The Beatles * Revolver
The Best of Parliament * Give up the Funk
Hot Snakes * Automatic Midnight
Beach Boys * Greatest Surfing Songs!
Spoon * Girls Can Tell
Miles Davis * Porgy and Bess
The Smiths * Louder than Bombs
Billie Holiday * Fine and Mellow (1935 - 1941)
Eric Dolphy in Europe, Vol. 2
Ben Webster * The Soul of Ben Webster
Rolling Stones * Some Girls
Michael Jackson * Off the Wall
Os Mutantes * Everything is Possible!
Operation Ivy * Operation Ivy
Peter Tosh * The Toughest
The American Analog Set * Know By Heart
The And/Ors * Will Self-Destruct

What's on your list today?  (jesus.  that sounds just like a fricking grocery store commercial.  which is why i'm leaving it.)

oh, lady.

God, I love Missy Elliott.  This track kinda feels a little like old Tribe.  In fact, I'm pretty certain it's a tribute (among other things) to the TCQ.  Luv.

"cause I got more hits than you can get out of a bat."

giving it away.

This is so awesome.  I reviewed these Laundry Dropps for Green Mom Finds, and I'm freaking out a little because I've used almost all of them.  Sad! 

But you can enter to win a year's supply, and if you win, don't be surprised if I show up at your house and "borrow" some.

They freakin' rule.

cordially.

I found these here, and am now slavishly devoted to their creator, whose site is here.  She does it all for charity.  All of it.  I want to hug her.  *After* I eat several of those savory temptations.  Or pretend to.  I want one of each.  No.  Two of each.

There's just something so wonderful about crocheted food.

stumble.

I did that, one day, in 1999.  I meant to find a website for the magazine, Jane, that I had been enjoying since its premiere issue, featuring Drew B on the cover.  I loved that pictorial.  It was good.  She was still in her love-child phase.  So adorable.  No shoes, all those dogs, a VW bus.  etc.

I didn't understand search engines.  I was new, well, humbly prodigal returner, to the internet.  Something my brother introduced me to when A0L got invented in the early 1990s.  (Jeff was a computer-taker-apart-er even then.  Actually, before then.  Even in the eighties, or some such crazy shit.  Yes.  Genius gone batty.  Sigh.)  Then I spent all night one night in a chatroom with some fellow in his late twenties on the east coast.  I was nineteen, I think, which means it was 1992.  Yeah.  See?  Long time past.  My brother didn't like it, my having racked up approximately one-hundred-thirty dollars in phone bill money, being in that chatroom all night.  So he changed the password.  Good thing, too.  That guy was creepy and rather sinister, now that I recollect it.

But I was back, because it was 1999, and I was gonna party on the innernets.  In a sorta chatroom.  Well, a message board.  On the jane magazine website.  At my temp job.  At an insurance agency.  Where I was pretending to be the temporary receptionist, with the no-permanent-desk situation to remind me of my temporary status, and it was all rather awkward, especially given my penchant for being rather excessively late on many, many days, and simultaneously hungover.  I was twenty-six.  *shrugs*

But before that, before I found my online-party-calling, in the form of the wild-n-crazy message boards at jane magazine, a place where I first learned of a thing called the "dirty sanchez" and also the "taco salad" (although that may have been invented specifically because our friend, sweet Carolyn, used to post recipes for things like taco salad, which was cute.  it was.  she was, too.  still is, as far as I'm aware.  She taught me to love the word hilarious, only spelled like this:  HI-larious!.  I do.  I love it.  I love it and it loves me.  and bonne bell lip gloss, too) I found another place.  The place was jane.org.

jane, at jane.org, has been blogging since sometime prior to my discovery of her.  I read her regularly, once I'd discovered her.  I could never quite figure out what she was up to at her blog, a word I had not yet become acquainted with, for describing what she was doing.  Instead, I read, looked at the lists, culled what are now old-favorite-websites (like the currently-altered mightybigtv -- it's televisionwithoutpity these days -- and -- gosh.  what else did she teach me?, um, oh!, imdb.com, -- oh!  suck.com, and when it died, I was so sad.  really.  so so sad.  I was shocked to find out that wonkette had been behind some of the writing of that site.  wonkette rubs me the wrong way.  also, possibly, jane introduced me to fametracker.com, and groovechamber.com, unless Caleb told me about that last one.  he may have.  he knew about lots of good cartoon-y sites.  I married the man for a reason).  And her music lists.  They were quiet perfection.

jane is impressive.  She's written stolidly for years.  Years.  Without wavering.  Without having a blogging meltdown or getting burnt out or anything.

And her lists are things of beauty, as are her photos, and her musical taste - oh, it's impeccable.  Makes me see stars.

The end.

***

Okay, nothing is ever really over with me, is it.  I just wanted to add that I'm so smart that I've been reading the brilliant stylings of the brains behind gofugyourself since waaay back in the day, thanks to a) hissyfit, b) fametracker, and c) mightybigtv television without pity.

(Yes.  So smart.  So smart that I would've maybe, I don't know, recognized their potential level of success and tried to attempt something similar, and gone on to claim my totally-deserved pie-in-the-sky that you just KNOW those people at gfy are now hunched over and nibbling on in delicate, gfy-brains-of-brilliance fashion.  Or, um, done the world one better and refrained from such a disaster-on-wheels.  Yes, that's more like it.  See?  Yammer-y *and* honest to a fault.  It's what you love.)

The end, really.