i obsess.

voices carry. specifically, mine. it carries. eh.

This morning, at the farmer's market, with my last few dollars I decided to buy the pig-in-a-blanket the pork vendor sells, and after being handed the plate loaded with a pancake and topped with big chunks of scrambled egg, a long piece of bacon and a huge piece of sausage (the round kind), and some forks, and having poured a big dose of syrup all over the top, I went to walk away and dropped one of the forks.  Bending down to pick it up, I forgot to consider the plate and its wobbly contents, and the gigantic, semi-round sausage, coated in syrup, toppled onto my lap, before falling ungently to the ground.  The noise I made after the fork fell was kind of a "mehhh" grunt, but when the sausage doused me in syrup and then landed on the dirty cement, I blurted a fairly ungraceful "DAMMIT" -- and was looking down at the offending syrup stain on my upper left thigh as I did, so I missed that it stopped the surrounding market attendees cold.  When I looked up, it was to see many faces turned my direction.  There I was, already feeling totally ass-ish, coated in syrup, my fork on the ground, my sausage also on the ground, having apparently yelled through a bullhorn the play-by-play, and everyone was FUCKING STARING.  Sans sympathetic smiles.   Just - looks.  From strangers.

I only knew to do one thing in that moment:  crack wise.  Turning to the girl behind the counter who was offering me a napkin with a lamely sad smile (so, see, I lied about the zero-sympathy effect), I said, "Evidently, my pants felt they needed that sausage more than me."  Only, I said it loud enough for the surrounding crowd to overhear.  Some people chuckled.  I just feigned nonchalance, like I'd planned it all.  And the ultra-nice butcher gave me a replacement sausage.  And I commented that somebody's dog was gonna be STOKED (that is some fine sausage they sell).  (A lot of people stroll with their dogs at the market.  Srsly.  Somebody's dog got the STOKE after my mishap.)

Then I ushered Jack over to a nearby bench, but not *super* nearby where the incident had occurred, you know, maybe fifteen or twenty feet away, and we sat, calmly chewing the different elements of the food, until the people next to us, whose little girl, belted into her stroller, began screaming, "MOMMMMYYYYY," after which, the mother turned to us and said, "maybe you could try and be still and zen like that little boy, the one whose mommy had the syrup accident."

See?

I'm FUCKING LOUD.  Gwen and Nora, consider yourselves warned.  Well, except you already knew that, Nora, and Gwen, you already ought to.

Stupid, delicious pig-in-a-blanket (and, ftr, Jack ate most of it.  Nice, huh.  After all I went through for that meal.)

telephone game.

Me:  Jack, have you seen my phone?  

Jack: Yes, Mommmmmy.  *sing-songs the words while pounding on the wall with a play hammer and nails*

Me, trying to sound patient, because I know that I turned the ringer off so as to not disturb us during the naptime that wasn't, which means I am not going to be able to easily locate it simply by calling myself from the other phone:  Did you take my phone and put it somewhere?

Jack: Yeahhh... ? *looks slightly confused, but gets up and walks confidently toward his room, so I assume he's going to fetch it, which, I tell myself, signifies that he must have removed it, and it wasn't just that I misplaced it somewhere, like, in my bum*

Me:  So, you know where it is? *smoke curls trailing from my nostrils, but still clinging to a calm tone*

Jack:  Yeah, mommmmyyyy!!  It's in da office, mommy.  Let's go in der.  Because, it's pwobabwy in der.

Me: Jack, are you sure you know where my phone is?  

Jack: Yes!  It's downstaiws.  It's pwobabwy in my secwet spot.  Somebody pwobabwy put it der.

Me: *audible breathing, fingers clenched on pant legs, following child impatiently toward downstairs playroom*

Jack: Oh, mommy, it's not in hew.  Somebody pwobabwy took it.

Me: Jack, who would've possibly taken it?

Jack: Pwobabwy the monstews.

Me: The monsters?

Jack: No!  No, mommy!  Not the monstews.  The SPIDEWS took it.

Me: Jack, I need you to help me find my phone.  Can you please, Jack, please help me find my phone?  Can you try to remember where you put it?  Where did you hide it?

Jack: But, no, mommy, I cannot, because I do not know where it is.  Because I didn't take it, mommy! 

*child runs off, sing-songing*

Me: Ah, hell.  *hopes no one of mild importance calls, pours flagon of wine, begins drinking*

And then I console myself by thinking, "If I could just have these, it would all be alright."

(Told you this was a mommy blog.)

miercoles GIGANTE! or, this post is nothing to get excited about.

I added a nice, brief, offensive rant at the very bottom of this post about how stupid and lame that one shall-go-unnamed magazine is, the one that made the awesome and candy-studded Kirtsy change their name, but since we will never again acknowledge the old name's existence, because it would draw undue attention to the other, craptastic joint, well, just, yeah.  'Course, that doesn't mean I didn't totally use it blatantly and repeatedly in my rant down below.  Heh.  I said "down below" when referring to skir-- the magazine whose name shall go unspoken.  Heh.

Anyhoodily.  Read on, brave reader.

*****

Things I would like to post on today, but haven't got the hyperfocus needed to zoom in and analyze closely (hyperfocus is a particular element of ADHD; oftentimes, prior to diagnosis, people who have ADHD assume they're OCD because of this ability to become consumed by some subject to the exclusion of all else in their lives; for example, I once spent three days cleaning a shower with a toothbrush, and I wasn't even on crystal meth.  See?  Sounds a lot like an obsessive/compulsive behavior, right?  I thought so, too.   Turns out, this is the hyperfocus thing.  I would say I'm relieved, only it's just hopping from one lily-pad of crazy to another, which just isn't all that much of a relief):

*write several posts for green mom finds on the skin care products I just bought that are all completely amazing and cool and *also* lacking in massive, disgusting chemicals, and also smell fresh and good and wonderful.  I want to do this especially intensely because, Cristina!, I *know* this time these are good products.  One of them in particular excites me, because it's a line created by a local (to Portland) mom who grows the herbs herself, and creates the products, and packages them, and does all of her own promotion and marketing and sales.  HOW AWESOME IS SHE.  Yes.  I want to meet her and court her and give her a gigantic ring made of yarrow root and sage.  (Would that be an insult?  Possibly.  I would not intend for it to be, but such is my hyperactive, impulsive way.   Bleah.)  (Her product line is called Wild Carrot Herbals, and her farm is located in a town named Rickreall, Oregon.  I just bought the vanilla bean skin cream, and the ingredients are

water, organic coconut oil, fair trade certified raw shea butter (fair trade!), virgin cocoa butter, vegetable emulsifying wax, vegetable glycerin, palm stearic acid, organic jojoba oil infused with Madagascar vanilla beans, sea buckthorn seed oil, vanilla fragrance, grapefruit seed extract and organic vanilla essential oils.  (nothing I couldn't pronounce without sounding out like a second-grader!  big ups.)

She actually printed the following alongside the ingredients list:  Resist the urge to eat it.  I'm grateful for the reminder; it smells that darn appetizing.

*write a post about this new design I made for a friend of a friend recently, and feature a photo, because DAMN but it came out supa-cute.  (hi!  I brag.  I'm a braggart.  Braggy-pants McGee!  Whee!  Uh.)

*write about my burgeoning recognition of how my stripper past is a good thing, that I need no longer be ashamed, and introduce the element into that particular piece about how my shame regarding having been a stripper was always related directly to how trashy it seemed, how low-brow, and not because I felt that it was a moral failing; in fact, I was always stoked on the fact that I had the -- okay, I was totally going to say balls, here, but that just seems a little inappropriate given that I am a female and my dancing was often (but not always, and yes, it was hot when not) for males, so prolly, unless I were she-maleing it, that would've been a big, unexpected, unpleasant surprise to those who gathered in order to watch.  ANYWAY, goddamn distractability *shakes fist at ADHD* -- I am seeing, upon considering it, that my having been an atypical "type" within the stripper realm was, in fact, a path I helped spur, along with the others who were doing similar things, performance-art things, being the sometimes-goth who refused to bleach her hair and wear fake talons and typical cheesy stripper apparel, rather, who made it burlesque when there wasn't yet a revival of such, who wore whatever struck her fancy and even if (only, really, it was WHEN) that turned off the clientele and she was mocked and almost fired on several occasions because she refused to look like the other cookie-cutter girls imitating the Playboy centerfolds of the day, and she wore actual costumes, and played specific music related to those costumes, finding ways to be sexy without being the prevalent Barbie-esque type, reveling in small breasts and slightly-larger-than-average thighs and ass, making no attempt to disguise her contempt for the obvious ploys in which to entrap the customers at the clubs where she worked.

I did it for the love of the dance, of the feeling it gave me when the music and lighting and scents and my hormonal timbre were all just so, when my favorite costume sat in just the right place on my hips and my torso, when the temperature and the barometer and the atmosphere communicated perfectly with my skin and when I felt like I was made out of an astral cloud, silvery mercurial slickly satin, I could fly and I did.  And I could feel the people watching, their eyes as much a part of my movements as the force in my gut that propelled me around the space.

What I did, those actions, the resistance to falling prey to peer pressure, to succumbing to the requirement that I look like one of the long line of prancing, long-legged Barbie horses, in order to succeed, it was crucial, because it helped women get one step closer to misbehaving, to saying, FUCK, yes, I'M SEXUAL, and on MY OWN TERMS, and whether it brings me profit (it didn't, fwiw) is beside the point.  I am establishing myself as being unique, being sexy, being beautiful, not because I look like what is SUPPOSED to be sexy, but what is, in fact, ACTUALLY sexy.  Because I'm a woman, and I can do this, and I don't care if the girl standing next to me who looks like Hugh Hefner's girlfriend is popping another Benji in her already-bulging purse, and I'm smiling nicely because someone just handed me a pity-five, because that isn't what I'm doing here.  I'm proving something.  I'm proving that I can exist in this space, too, even while I don't fit.  I'm making room for myself to fit.  See?  Here.  Therefore = fit.

And now, the suicide girls and the newly popular burlesque theatre and all of the other inroads made by young feminists who are saying, fuck, yes, I'm sexy, and I don't have big tits and I don't have a perky, size 0 ass, and legs long as a colt, and it doesn't matter.  I'm part of that.  I helped that cause.  I'm proud as hell.  Because this movement, this inroad, the one that is still being made, whether women of all stripes and walks and runs and dances recognize it, the movement is doing its work.  It's erasing, nay, *obliterating* all of that singed territory between the madonna and the whore.  It's giving us all a chance to be, to embrace, all of it, the light, the dark, the dignified, the disgusting, because THAT is being a woman and THAT is real AND THAT IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL AND SEXY and it's the wave of the future if we're gonna get the beauty industry to quit wrecking us from the inside out with their shitty, chemical-rich, cancer-inducing bullshit.

Fuck yes.

But I only just realized it.

So.  ADHD?  Looks like I owe you one, today.

*another post idea, if those aren't enough:  to discuss how much I want to return to theatre, but hesitate, not because I can't do it, or don't have time, but because - I can't do it.  I don't have time.  I have already overextended myself regarding time and it wouldn't be fair to my family, and this is due to the ADHD's everpresent lure, the crooked ADHD beckoning finger, the one that whispers, c'mon, Debbie, you have time, and this! will! be! awesome!, and so much more exciting and interesting and captivating than the boring, insipid minutiae of your current regimen, and I say, oh, yes, ADHD, you're so right.  I'm coming!, and then, bam.  Even more overextended.

*more thoughts about the idea for an ADHD book; how I should format it; whether I should consult a medical personage in order to make myself sound more legit.  how I'm going to ever go about actually focusing for long enough to write one pathetic chapter, let alone all the chapters a book would require.  Ruth, your advice is perfect for me, too, but the terror that arises within me when I struggle to visualize myself seated and writing entire chapters, it makes my itching soles almost burn with the urge to run from that visual.

*there's more, but I have to leave to make a doctor's appt. and -- hey!  lookit that!  I'm late.

shit.

*******

Updated to add one more, but no less important, item to things I would post about if only I had time:

*write a post about how much the magazine SKIRT! sucks big, ugly, wrinkled-up-old-man penis.  I would include details about how the big money, colossal media corporation lifted up the combined sk*rts of the women running the awesome, fantastic site that has been renamed with something WAY FUCKING BETTER than skirt!, so nyahhh, old fucking pervs who insist on keeping their skirt to themselves, which, frankly, reeks of slightly more than a little bit of closeted behavior.  And, well done to the woman who began Skirt! back in the day, er, in the nineties, subsequently selling out to the man, and not only did she sell out her preshus, adorable company, but now they're capitalizing on her story to sashay out and playing at how they're small and start-up and cute, too, only they're not, because they're a bunch of old, white thugs who can stop with the pretense at being otherwise and may instead be excused to go herewith and suck each other's old, wrinkly penis -- penisi?  penises?  What the hell is penis plural?  I can't believe I've never run into this particular grammatical conundrum before.

*ahem*

Go Kirtsy!  Begone, Skirt.

NOW I'm done. 

phew.

on the uncomfortable end of it.

I'm so tired and angry - so tired of the ADHD winning so often, so angry that it's got such a grip.  I know everyone deals with something, but this just feels like the merry-go-round of stupid.  The stupid-go-round.

I almost started writing a poem.  But I hate that shit lately.  I hate perfection and beauty and elegance in writing, lately.  I hate composition and order and tidy thoughts, well compiled, on the page.  It all makes me sick.

I'm so tired of it all.

How much of a hot tranny mess is it that I (can't stop saying that) am forever in the tail spin of oh-so-tired-of-this-and-that.  Ya can't get tired of life, kid.  It keeps laying down tracks even while you stare bleary-eyed ahead at the endlessness of it all.

I hate this, this sounding-like-something.  When will I see the day, when will I wake up and hear a new voice, a different, fresh, interesting, novel voice?  I've lived a thousand years with this one, tired of it and learned to live with it and tired of it again.  I'm back here, back in self-hatred land once more, I am down amidst the rubble with my grime-covered hands pressed into the unforgiving surface of this boulder, shoulder blades aching with the lifetime of repeated slow rolling uphill.

I want the sap to begin moving in me.  I hate the waiting -- I hate the bile that burns from the waiting, the waiting.

I'm not good at this life thing yet, am I.

Drat.

deflecting matthew big's hatchet. (hint: move about an inch away.)

Dear Matthew Big:

Despite your attempts to convince John McSlugbrain that you want to hold hands and snuggle and dine under a full moon while supping on ambrosia and Cristal, because you think he's teh awezome, your hatchet-y piece on Obama is unsuccessful.

Why?

Because teh vot3rs aren't as stupid as you are; none of us would attempt to, *ahem*, gain access to McSnore's, uh, "lair."  We don't want to date him, or make out with him, or, god forbid, allow him to run anything bigger than his tongue around the inside of his mouth.  (Even that's a sketchy bet, since he's probably got inactive salivary glands these days, what with his being around a thousand years old, and the tongue probably has some hard work just making a half-circle.  I would guess he has to take breaks before it makes a full circuit.  Which totally grosses me out.  Now I'm grossed out.  Ew.)

Next time you write a piece on the Democratic candidate, you should consider who's going to ACTUALLY be President next year, because, unless you want to spend a lot of time cataloging McTwat's tongue-laps on a regular basis, you're wasting your time writing from the angle that you have just so recently done.  I mean, journalists *compete* to get onto Air Force One, right?  You might want to figure out how to better ingratiate yourself to the future President for that position, and not the future crypt-keeper's bro (dude).

Best of luck (which you desperately need, apparently),

Debbie

p.s. Though your love for him knows nothing of boundaries, maybe try vetting what your hopeful candidate-to-be says when he shrugs off ridiculous accusations *before* he buys dinner.  (And don't forget what they say about putting out without a ring on your finger, either, Matty.  I'd get that ring first, sweetie.  That way, you have something to pawn when the romance is over and your fella's out of the running.  Although I think it's too late in your case, given the head-over-heels piece you've written, and if you *have* gotten a ring, I'd be careful it doesn't turn your finger black.)

 

suburban bliss gone awry.

For a long while, now, I've felt more and more like I need to participate in the political process, that it's my -- job?  No.  That's not quite it.  It's my - duty?  Yes.  Duty.  My civic duty.  As a citizen of this incredible nation, I came around, after a lot of years of active, nonsensical discontent with a system I did nothing about, to the idea the I must somehow get involved in order to see to it that our nation continues to be a place for everyone to live as they desire, not because they're told to, but because they are free to.  Which is why I write for the MOMocrats, and DAMN but I'm proud to participate.

I just can't get over the weirdness inherent in this idea that somehow, because of our freedoms, we're free to not participate in our government.  Somebody, somewhere along the line, sold the populace the idea that we can come home from our jobs, pop into our casual gear, mow the lawn, throw the frisbee with the kids and the dog, grill up some eats, drink some beer, and chill, because they've got it all handled!  That we bought it is what I'm more saddened by, because this recession?  It's got our fingerprints on it.  We didn't do enough to rock this boat, the one headed into ever-murkier waters.

We need to get on the fucking ball, dudes.  This is our country.  If we don't want to see the equal rights parts get tossed permanently, if we don't want to allow massive corporate welfare at the expense of education and healthcare for the little gal's and guy's kids, well - we need to throw down.  Put our own asses on the line.

All of us. 

It's not a fucking right to sit out the game.  If you believe that, you've already lost.

shocking reveal -- mcgramps is grumpy!

The thing in this piece that immediately leapt up from the page was the following:

"The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me," wrote Republican Senator Thad Cochran, shortly before endorsing McCain.

And I have to ask:  why the hell did you decide to endorse someone who worries you?  Is Obama just too off-limits, given your Republican status, Senator Cochran?  Are you simply too embedded indebted blackmailed so trapped by Rove's iron fist that have your balls in a crushing grip to be able to endorse outside of your party?  That's just fucking sad. 

And it worries *me* that you would endorse someone, out loud, in public, to people, given that you haven't been owner of your own scrotum for, apparently, some time now. 

Although I do appreciate the further insight into what McGramps is really like, and not just the loving portrait often painted by his adoring fans, er, the press.

So, on second thought:  thanks for sharing.

the current dem candidacy smackdown, as viewed through the lense of an ex-stripper.

Back in the dark ages when I was, indeed, a stripper - and I happened to be one for several years, so it wasn't as though I just dabbled; I know from whence I speak - I encountered loads of conflict.  From every arena, in every gender-on-gender way.  I saw men fight men; once, when Jay, my best gay boyfriend, drove me to work for an evening shift, he kind of didn't really want me to go in because right before I got out of the car, we watched a stream of dudes exiting the rear of the building, the first of whom was badly bloodied from face to groin.  The second was carrying aloft what appeared to be a javelin, but was, in fact, I kind of remember, a closet pole dowel thingy (you love me for my scientific specificity, huh).  The first guy had evidently stabbed some dude, boyfriend to one of the other dancers, and then got walloped by some yokels.  It was dumb.  Another friend of ours, along for the ride, happened to be an EMT and was all, "do you think I should *gulp* go in?"  I said, sure, yeah, alrighty.  The subtext of that statement was YES PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ME GO IN THERE ON MY OWN.  It ended up fine, and I danced the night away to fun tunes like "Rock and Roll All Night (and Party Every Day)" - it has been my humble opinion for the last few years that the title of that song ought to be altered to "Walk and Crawl All Night, and Potty Every Day," but then, I'm the mother to a toddler who has lately made me want to chew through my chains and bolt.  But that's just this week.

maybe more political than not, these days.

This story makes me almost want to giggle with glee, just at the thought of something so stellar happening within the Senate.  Since 2006, the Senate has been trying call itself a Democratic majority, but truly, given their teensy lead of 51-49, and added to that, the record-breaking Republican filibustering, it's simply not the case. 

The following clip from the piece really just kinda kills me:

And though it is unlikely that Democrats will pick up nine seats this year, according to any reading of the political map it remains a possibility — as tantalizing a thought for Democrats as it is horrifying to Republicans.

Sure.  I can dig it.  The Dems are tangoing with a party that has wrought such damage within the system itself, up to and including how the voting process works, I would assume which is so as to maintain their power in a permanent way (not that they'd 'fess up to that, anymore than they'll ever assent to their determination to maintain a permanent, as in, forever, presence in Iraq.  Although even that's not working out so well, what with the new, schmancy embassy's completion date all mucked up, since no-bid contracts are not all that genius!!11!, after all).  I doubt they could grab nine seats and cement an *actual* majority, unless we were back to paper ballots and legally-enforced voting rules that didn't Jim Crow us to pieces (oh, the shenanigans we're about to witness in the coming election - *shudder*). 

But the thought of how horrific that process is to Republicans?  Yes.  I believe that's true.

I also believe it's true of ONLY them - ONLY the beltway insider types, and those who benefit from their corruption.  Everyone else is sick to death of their crapping all over us, this whole business of plunder-and-pillage, psycho non-romantic Piracy style, this we're-gonna-make-us-some-riches and the rest of you can all die sans health care or even a job, 'cause we got ours. 

I keep thinking of that scene in the movie, "A Bug's Life," where they all link arms because they realize, finally, that even though the grasshoppers are big and scary, there are far fewer of them.  Just like in this case.  The rich people are big and scary with their private militias and their fortresses and their millions billions trillions in dollars euros diversified money types gold bullion, stashed in fancy banks in the Caymans and Zurich --

but we have strength in numbers.

a recap and some other foolishness.

I should've probably mentioned that the glitch regarding our very canceled health insurance coverage was repaired within the same day that it was discovered; however, the fact that it was NOT covered for any given length of time made the fever that made me feel like a fever is supposed to and made me reticent to drive kind of fluctuate that much more uncomfortably, because some of the hot/cold flashes were thoughts of whether we might perish because of the no-coverage issue prior to getting it fixed, since I was driving madly in circles around the closest-to-my-house HMO-approved (Kaiser, everyone don't woo1 simultaneously, k) pharmacy for around two hours going starkers with a brain-crumbling FEVER, hoping against hope that the prescription for an antibiotic would just *magically* appear in the doorway, leaning against the sill all cucumber-cool, one leg jutted out, arms akimbo, grinning at me and beckoning.  Yes.  I had a fever.  That I couldn't get fixed with the winking, casual-in-the-doorway-flirtatious medicine because we didn't have coverage.  And trying to operate a slippery-in-my-clammy-palm cell phone, in order to fix the mess.  And there was this kid, in the back, needing a nap, not falling asleep just out of pure spite, and I had the heat up so he would plain pass out from it, only he wasn't, he was back there, laughing maniacally, and I was trying not to pass out while operating the lurching motor vehicle that I'm still trying to accustom to - I'm almost middle-aged, dudes.  I accustom less quickly than when I was a spry, young gadabout.  Look who that joke was on.  Yes.  You're right.  Not him.  Not the maniacal-laughter child.  It was on the not-so-spry-not-gadabout-quasi-middle-aged person.

It was not that funny.  (Happy ending: I got the antibiotics delivered to me by my nice husband later in the evening.  And now, right on target, I'm losing my bowels to when-you're-slidin'-into-first-etc, just as expected, five days in, so all is well, see?  All. is. well.)

*****

I keep thinking about how good this quit-blogging decision is.  I dash about in the mighty-wind minivan (it kinda whistles like a wind tunnel, it's so long and - uh, long), and I smile inwardly and think, yes.  Good decision.  Excellent.  And I feel so good about it, so constantly confirmed, like, god, could I BE any more done with it?, I am so DONE with it, that I want to share it with someone.

But who?

Oh, good old irony.  I see you peeping out from behind that wheel-well, quietly smirking.  You funny, funny contradictory literary technique.  You have make good time with the Debbie.  Yay, you.  Well done. 

Well, possibly not done, as it happens.