to take the sting off NY and GA rulings

"Conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits, and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families."

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/349

thanks, opa.

Surly Bird

You know what store I hate? Pearl. Aren't those retail workers lazy and arrogant? Or maybe they all just hate me in particular. Either way I always forget how much I hate them until I'm already in the store, climbing over half-unpacked boxes of stock to get to the dusty, shelfworn item I want, and then standing in line behind someone returning 75 tubes of paint while the cashiers one-up each other with ohmygodiwassodrunklastnight tales. I always swear I won't go back but I do. Cause I'm dumb like that.

Do you know what is fun? Fireworks! Plus, they make your mom grumble disapprovingly like Marge Simpson! Which is funny! Then you can tease her by hiding your fingers like they got blown off!

In related news, if anyone needs a gross of sparklers, call me. I may have gotten carried away at the Fireworks, Candy, and Puppydog Store. EVERYTHING WAS 2 FOR 1.

in the supply cabinet

dear pilot vball grip extra fine (black)

i love you.


dear leaky pilot V5 precise rolling ball extra fine (green)

you may now go to hell.


dear scotch tape

I am sorry. it's an addiction.


dear china markers

what are you even for? marking....china?


dear self-inking stamp refill bottles (red)

what do you say we splash you all around and then shout "murder!"?
no?
you used to be cool, man. What happened?

baby smeagol

anyone out there expecting a child...you must sometimes, secretly, worry that your baby will not be cute. What? No? Just me? And I'm a shallow bitch? It's true, I probably am.
I encountered such a baby last night. Instead of delicate baby ears, he had jug handles. Instead of a wee flower of a mouth, he had a mick jaggeresque maw. It didn't help that he was wailing, either.
My mother tells me that A) I will think the baby is cute even if it is not and B) no one will dare to tell me that it is not cute, so I will never know. What this says about my own baby-looks, I do not guess. Her B) sounds suspect though, knowing my own father to have greeted brand-new infants and their parents with "Gee, I bet you can't wait for the kid to get cute!". Which was funny at the time but now makes me worry.

I am Grampa Simpson

Yes, yes, thirty is the new twenty, but what of those of us who were fifty when they were twenty? How old are we now? Not too old to ROCK OUT, are we?
The truth is I was always lame, and have never really rocked out. We went to the radiohead concert on Monday and everyone there was about 16 years old, which makes no sense. You people were little bitty babies when Creep came out!
I kind of wanted to have a nap before the concert but Monday nights are the nights where I imprudently play flying baby and horsey rides and dinosaur is chasing you. So I was a wee bit worn out beforehand and secretly wished all those people would sit down so I could sit down and not look like Granny At the Show. I also got some earplugs. I know! I've always been lame! We also had binoculars, since I can't see. And we needed to see as well as hear, for the crazy little dances that Thom does are not to be missed. We came home smelling of weed and extreme youth, but it was awesome, they sounded awesome, and it'll be a good long time before I feel like I need to prove my vigor again.

I was tired on tuesday though.

the intern that everybody loves

What's the deal with that guy? he's not so great.

Ask the Grandparents!

Everyone's favorite game, where we ask our grandparents how to wisely handle situations of everyday life!

You are viewing a community sporting event. Someone blocks your view. How do you ask them to move?
A) Excuse me, I can't get a good look. Would you mind stepping back?
B) Down in front!
C) MOVE YOUR FAT ASS!

When the person above objects to your verbal abuse, what do you say?
A) Sorry, sorry, I got carried away
B) Hey, we're cool, right?
C) FUCK OFF!

When your children and grandchildren object to your behavior, what do you say?
A) Aw, you know I don't mean it
B) I said What?
C) You'll miss it when I'm dead!

The devices used by those who cannot run in a marathon are called:
A) Hand cycles
B) Wheelchairs
C) Cripple Carts

I don't really need to give you the answers, do I?

ring ring

Somewhere, deep in Amazonia, on the humid, mosquito-swarmed banks of a muddy, broad river, where strange birds call out and sharp-toothed fish lurk beneath the surface of the water, there is a dude who makes his living by tapping a stand of rubber trees, collecting the resin, and smoking it into a ball that he can sell to traveling rubber merchants. That fellow lives in a small tent with a plank floor, cooks his meals along with his rubber ball over an open fire, and works fourteen hours every day.
That guy, unlike me, has a cell phone.

I've always thought a cell phone, for me, is a big waste. I work all day at a desk where I have a phone, and then I go home to my house where I have a phone. In between, I'm on the train, and there's no signal anyway. I am not a fan of the whole "we'll call you when we pick a restaurant!" thing where cell phones render humans incapable of making a plan and sticking to it. And I don't see a need to be constantly reachable. Plus I'm bad about losing things, and breaking things, and forgetting things. Most importantly, I am a cheap bastard. So no phone for me.

Last night I was out with my buds, and they managed to hit me right where it hurts cell-phone-wise. They said that it would be nice for my friends if I had one. Those sneaky bastards have to know that the way to manipulate me is to tell me I'm doing it for my dear friends.

So maybe I'll get a cell phone. dammit. But a cheap one.

high school nightmares

I do love my parents, but they do some stuff I can't bear. One of which involves being friends with the parents of kids I hated in high school. They're always talking about "the Smiths* were over for dinner last night, and they said Jonathan is living in LA," or some such nonsense. Thing is, Jonathan was a grade-A asshole when he was ages 6 through 18, so I don't want to hear it. Hearing it puts me back in a frame of mind I don't want to go. This is my problem, I realize. But it makes me do stupid stuff. I just spent twenty minutes sitting here thinking of what to wear on Friday when we go up there for the weekend, because The Smiths and the Jameses will both be over for dinner that night, and somehow, in my addled mind, I have to dress up, and wear makeup, and look nice, so that they will not all go home and email Jonathan and Sally about how that Shirky, you rememeber, from school? The ugly one, with the glasses, and the little head? She looks a fright!! She must be eating twelve cupcakes a day, poor thing.

Ahem. No fair pointing out I'm insecure. I know that already. I just can't make it stop.

My parents are even going on a vacation this summer with the Jameses, to a tropical locale (SO not like them, I have no idea what's gotten into them) where they will no doubt sit around and discuss boring grownup stuff, but I will worry that the Jameses will think poorly of my parents because I am not successful. And that would be terrible because it is not my parents' fault I don't really like working for a living/haven't found my calling/am a lazy ass bastard. And oh, just thinking of these people makes me think of their horrible children, who probably aren't even that bad, but one time, Jonathan Smith told me I was stupid and annoying when I asked what the fuck was going on during some weird ass japanese movie he made everyone watch, and another time I heard him making a twenty-dollar bet with some other douchebag over who could seduce a freshman first, and that is just nasty, and he is nasty, and I hated him, so there.

So yay! Three-day weekend! Rock out!

*not their real names. None of these names are real.

to persistent voicemailer

1. Sudeepta does not in fact work here
2. Voicemail is not capable of responding to questions. It is a robot.

scraping the bottom of the blogging barrel

--attention: the following is boring--
It's another rainy day here. Unfuckingbelievable. I have been sitting around trying to come up with projects and plans to distract myself for the next 18 months (give or take.) I got nothin'. Except eating. Look for me in your local bakery, licking cupcakes clean of all the bomb frostings.


Work is so slow lately, it's nearly approaching the boredom level of the Old Job. The Job That Broke My Brain! I really hope it doesn't go that far. For one, I hate looking for new jobs and two, I begin to sense that the problem may not be the jobs, but me, as a person who cannot occupy herself for more than five minutes without employing cupcakes.

Ideally I would find a hobby that could be engaged in from my desk at work without anyone noticing (breeding fancy chickens is probably out, and hog-calling is a definite no) that costs nothing and makes me smarter, not dumber. Perhaps I should run a side business of some sort from my cube. Is there a market for home-based cupcake testers?

ooh! blogging about work!

The woman in the cube across the aisle is being Angela. You know, the religious nut on the The Office. She's on the phone with someone, complaining a lot about the Da Vinci Code. She and I probably don't agree on much. But we can agree that that book is lametastic.

I hear lots of phone conversations because we have just cubes. One woman seems to be running a financial consultancy out of her cube. She is always giving advice on investments and IRAs and so on. I wonder how good her advice is, though, since she still works here and is not living it up Trump-style.

This is why I always find an empty conference room, even just to make a dentist appointment. Super secret ninja style personal calls!

Seriously, she is still going on about the Da Vinci code.

a new fad that's sweeping the nation -- wasting food!

We went to New York this weekend. Rather than bring a traditional hostess gift such as flowers, we brought hijinks!

After a nice brunch, we went over to a nearby park to be a bad influence on the local children.

We stopped on the way to purchase 2 liters of diet pepsi and a pack of mentos. Both of which I consider inedible, which is good, because wasting food is not easy for me.

Here, you see the pepsi, awaiting its fate:
And the mentos:

And Lauren:



Aaaaaand, the mischief:


Kids: definitely try this at home.

damp

Seattle,

Some of your things are still at my place. I put them in a box for you so if you could just come and pick them up that would be good. There's drizzle, mist, clouds, and some dave matthews CDs. Anyway, if you could come get them pretty soon, that would be great, I don't have a lot of room.

--Boston

cat in doghouse

At about four AM every day, the elderly feline resident of our home begins her "Wake UP, you guys" routine. She howls in the hallway, she saunters back and forth across our heads, and worst of all she climbs up on our dressers and begins pushing little objects off one by one.
I keep a squirt bottle of water by the bed to discourage her. I know she remembers what the bottle does because I only have to hold it up and she runs off. But thirty seconds later she is back, making sure that the force of gravity is still acting upon all the items on our dresser. She's robbing me of hours of sleep! I was so tired, I tried to turn off the alarm clock by squirting it with the water bottle.
This morning she raised the stakes by throwing down a glass of water that was up there. It was just pulverized. We'll be finding glass crumbs for months, I'm sure. Good morning! Step on glass! feed me, bitches! Or the next one falls on your head!

gone

Twenty-two painstakingly assembled copies of our profile are now in the mail.
they had better arrive safe and sound, after all those trips to staples and oh my god the pages are upside down moments.

I feel like we'll never be finished though: there is often one more form to complete, one more thing to sign, one more document to get witnessed (every agency has their own requirements, their own forms, and so on).

It has taken a sick long time to get this far, what with the homestudy social worker dragging her feet and then up and quitting (so she got laid off. It's not her fault! still! It was an inconvenience!) I'm not too worried about time--going into this we knew it would take a while and we were in no rush. The longer it takes, the more dough we have saved, the more chances we've had to pick up and go to NYC on a whim, and all that stuff. I'm trying to really savor all that instead of letting my brain swirl itself into an anxiety smoothie.

brain smoothie is a nasty drink, by the way. Very salty.

douchebag rundown!

Today's list of worthless tools who tick me off!


David Blaine
James Frey
Samuel Beckett
Steven Pinker
Mary Cheney

Congratulations, you all suck!

edited to add:
how could I have forgotten Mel Gibson? The King of All Jackasses.

owie

I have been attending a series of lectures at BU Med School. I like science; I like to hear about research; I thought it would be fun. They had important doctors lecture on their area of research. Some were better than others. You know--some actually talk, and others read right off the powerpoint. The stuff they presented was a little boring--I was ready to hear about some amazing new discoveries, and they were all like "Smoking leads to heart disease." But it was OK.
There were two things that I hated though: one, the building the lectures were in has a constant smell of week-old garbage. Two, there were several other attendees who delighted in asking the most obnoxious followup questions.
Now, some of the mainly-elderly audience was asking kind of strange questions, but clearly they needed to know the answers, and I can't have a problem with that.
But then there was Pre-Med Asshole. Every time he raised his hand, I rudely rolled my eyes. He would invariably ask a "question" that was really just a list of vocabulary words he'd recently memorized, with no real point. The speaker would listen politely, blink, and try to form a question out of those words that he or she could answer, and end with "Does...that answer your question?" Pre-Med Asshole was a fucking showoff, but not even really smart. The worst kind!
Then there was My People Are Superior in Every Way Guy. Oh god. This guy did not ask questions. He would raise his hand and say "I have an observation," and I would shrink down in my seat because I was actually embarassed for him. For example, when the topic was Depression, he offered that His People do not suffer from depression, due to their "fighting spirits." The speaker respectfully repeated the main topic of her presentation: depression is caused by chemistry in the brain and central nervous system. She guessed that cultural coping mechanisms could mask or exacerbate depression. But MPASEWG wasn't having it. "We had a man in my country named Gandhi," he continued, "who had this fighting spirit! I have a fighting spirit!" The speaker allowed as how Gandhi and MPASEWG might have the somewhat-protective allele of a particular gene that has been recently discovered. But MPASEWG insisted on the more scientific conclusion of "fighting spirit". I wanted to ask his spirit to step outside to settle it mano a spirito.

Last night the topic was BOOBS! Or breast cancer, specifically. And oh my god, am I the only person on earth who still doesn't understand how mammograms are possible?? The boobie...in the machine...and squashing....holy crap, that has got to hurt. Also I still can't look at my own chestal area and imagine how mine would get in the machine. They're ATTACHED, for pete's sake. And there is not much there! They don't stick out very far! And I just imagine this horrible pinching machine scrabbling at my chest trying to squash something that isn't there. And it misses like 30 percent of tumors? Why is it still used? That's insane!

That was before I learned to swear

heh.

When I was in high school, my worst subject was English. Also math. But English I hated on a personal level--all the literature we were forced to read pissed me off extraordinarily for some reason. I also hated my teachers. I found them smug and hateful.
In 12th grade I took one semester of a class where we had to read "Man and his Symbols", which still triggers boiling rage. This is how much patience I have for bullshit pseudoscience: . We also read, and were supposed to perform, "Waiting for Godot", which I find profoundly irritating. I know! Smart people like these things! But I am not that smart, so I don't.
The play only has two parts. (Spoiler: Neither of them is Godot.) So two students would act for a while, then the two more would tag in. Somehow I was either absent or stubborn on that day. Since I remember it, obviously, stubborn. And I didn't take my turn. So, to make up for it, I had to come after school to perform "The Lesson" with another kid who had been legitimately absent.
Are you familiar with this play? There are again only two real parts. A tutor and a pupil, and the tutor hates the pupil by the end. By the end (Spoiler: the tutor kills the pupil in a scene of barely-disguised sexual violence!) the guy is shouting and yelling at her.
I took the role of teacher, and Pete took the role of student. In retrospect I should have read it through before choosing, because the tutor has this line (while stabbing):
"That'll teach you, bitch!"
When the time came for me to speak this line, I gagged on it, and skipped the word. I was young! My teacher was there! I couldn't do it!
Afterward, Pete was mad, as he thought maybe our grade would be lowered because I failed to swear.

And so I am not much for absurdist plays. And now I can say that Beckett, Ionesco, and that fucking Godot are all bitches.

Comin' back from Cali

Dude. Do not come back to Logan at 5 AM. There are no taxis. There is no train. It is cold. It is raining. It sucks ass.

California, on the other hand, is mild and sunny and beachtastic. Too bad I was born with new england tattooed on my butt.

I managed to sneak around Santa Cruz without running into my former co-worker. I told my sister "She's a vegan, and she drives a car that runs on vegetable oil," and she was like "yeah, her and everyone else in town." Yes yes. I know what the town is like. If it weren't for the ocean breeze mixing with the patchouli and feet, it would smell like my own home town. Also, we were there on the twentieth of April, so, you know, there was that smell as well.

We have these friends who are moving to Asheville, NC, which means when we visit our family and friends, we will be hitting the neo-hippie trifecta. Like medieval pilgrims visiting Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago. Maybe we get some kind of holy dispensation from Phish for it, I don't know. I feel like I should get something, though, for eating vegan cookies. Do you know, vegan cookies have no butter in them? Not even a little butter. They play a dirty game, those vegans.

whoa!

did you know you can get podcasts with tivo?

Of course you did. You are not an idiot like me.

But I am delighted! Podcasts all the time! On the Tivo!

guh?

So at CVS they have a new display of these fancy expensive hair products. There are two varieties to choose from. One for "fine" hair and one for "thick" hair. They're both meant for curly hair. The line is called "curl conscious". Here's what the boxes have on them.

In case I have bollocksed up the pictures again, the 'fine' hair trio says:
Nordic Angel
English Rose
Wispy Waif
Botticelli Muse
Baby Doll
Belle du Jour

The 'thick' hair boxes say:
Latina
Hot Mama
Vixen
Temptress
Amazon
Kinky Chick
Wild Child
Warrior
Brunette
Mamacita

I...don't even know what to think. My mind...she is blown.

Tuesday impersonates Monday

This morning I woke up late from a dream in which I was running to escape a vengeful ghost (wtf?). I realized that both of my pairs of pants were dirty (it is hard for me to buy pants that fit, ok?). I thought I would wear a skirt. I knew it was cold and rainy, so in order to wear a skirt I needed a pair of tights. I found only navy blue (no go) and grey, which, with a black skirt just made me look like I got dressed in the dark. I ended up wearing the dirty pants from yesterday (my volunteer night--they have baby boogers and fingerpaint on them. yes!) I showed up late for work, and without my pass, so I had to sign in and knock on the door, and now I'm trapped here for the day, unless I want to get stuck out there again.
Woo! Go Tuesday!

I should really do laundry more often, and possibly buy more pants. Yesterday I went into the one store that has pants my size but everything there is like sixty bucks and I am a super cheap bastard. Whenever I express pants-buying frustration to my friends, they always exclaim, "The Gap has 'long' pants!" or something like that. Here is Gap's idiot-ass idea of 'long' on me:




Damn you, pants!

Operation BookHoard

The mission to collect all DCF winners is going well. My first stop was of course half.com, which worked out well, and Goodwill, good ol' goodwill, has also been helpful.

As I get them, I'm also reading them. I read them while I blowdry my hair in the morning. Even so, they are pretty quick reads, not nearly as substantial as I remember them. Which makes sense, since I last read many of these twenty years ago or more.

There are only a few genres represented so far. I like to think this is because there are certain things that really, really appeal to the kids who are voting on this award, but maybe authors are just damn copycats. Here's what we're looking at:

Alone in the Woods
Magic Stuff Happens to Regular Kids
Confrontation With a Bully

Classic themes, all.

I can't keep my grownup brain from analyzing them as I read, though. I pick out stereotypes and gender role enforcement and ecologically unsound camping practices (some of these are from the fifties, okay?), and none of the books is free of all that stuff. In fact, there's one book--well, I'll post a photo later. Still, I like them all okay and I still think they are young reader gold.

	Naughty words	Children alone in woods	Child confronts bully	Magical happenings	My complaints	Other
Two in the Wilderness		Yes			Sister sweeps; brother hunts
Bones on Black Spruce Mountain	Piss AND shit!	Yes			Kids in the woods cut down trees, build fires, very naughty	Adoption figures in this story
A Bundle of Sticks	"faggot"		Yes
The 18th Emergency			Yes
Time for Andrew			Yes	Yes
Jennifer Murdley's Toad			Toad confronts bully	Yes
Castle in the Attic		Briefly		Yes
Summer of Fear				Yes	Girls is bitches
The Boggart				Yes	Gang of "friends" really just a collection of stereotypes
Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio						One of these things is not like the others...

naughty kitten

I think we'll have six more weeks of winter, because I have lost my mittens--an annual occurence. Stupid mittens.

In my brain I keep coming up with little projects to fill my blog. Not so hot on the followthrough though. Like, every time I walk through the neighborhood, I think of taking photos of all the churches. There are SO MANY. They're all different, too. Some are two churches in one (two congregations share the building). I'm so unschooled in churchery that these places might as well be secret underwater cities. I have a vague idea from TV and movies that a church contains benches, a talky fellow at the front, and maybe some hats. I generally picture the Simpsons' church and Reverend Lovejoy. Beyond that I probably couldn't distinguish a Catholic church from Satan's Holy Roller Church of the Sacred Beagle. What? You don't believe me but this is a seriously church-dense neighborhood.



They're all very mysterious to me. I hardly ever (never) see people going in or out of them. This is related to my weekend laziness, most likely.

Hapless

How to make a weekend trip to the mountains into a study in dumbassery:

Be very careful to pack necessities:
1. milky way miniatures
2. travel scrabble
3. sled

Who cares about these luxuries:
1. toothbrush/toothpaste/soap/shampoo/contact lens case/deodorant/sunblock...all that kind of stuff.
2. boots
3. socks

For that extra something, when sledding with the all-important sled, be sure to go right over a pile of dog shit! (Bravo, irresponsible dog owner!)

I am exhausted today from waking at 5 to drive sister in law to the airport. Not an early riser. I feel like barfing! yeah!

anyway, lessons learned, I guess.

I'm Bored. Let's Buy things!

I adore good quality kids' books. In my old job, the Job That Broke My Brain, I scored a ton of good ones, and discovered a bunch of quality authors I'd never heard of when I was a kid myself. I have a little stash now--I am pretty greedy about them and never seem to give them away as I intend.

I have already begun collecting books that are a little "special" for our imaginary kid. I got my mother's favorite (I searched hard for the same edition she has, didn't find it, but got close.), my grandmother's favorite, and a few picture books in Tamil.

I hate bad kid books as much as I love good ones. My unfavorite* are "books" that are really printed advertisements: Licensed Character's Trip to McDonald's! Barbie Goes Shopping For Branded Items!** I also hate are preachy, "lesson" books (Little Engine that Could, I'm looking at you). I dislike cheap thrown-together looking stuff with no author, too. Yes, you heard me, Dorling Kindersley, all those shiny photos can't hide your EMPTY SOUL.

Now I'm trying to collect a whole set of really good books in the laziest way---using a list of award winners. It's the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award, which no one has ever heard of, but it was really a big deal to me growing up. The annual winner is chosen by actual kids, so you know the books will appeal to real life readers. I voted every year I was eligible and man, those were some awesome books! There are 48 winners to date and I've given myself the mission to track them all down. Yes! A project! My favorite!

If you're interested, here's the list:

Winners of the DCF Award from 1957 to Current Award Winner


1957 Pace, Mildred Mastin. OLD BONES, THE WONDER HORSE


1958 Cleary, Beverly. FIFTEEN


1959 Leighton, Margaret. COMMANCHE OF THE SEVENTH


1960 Erickson, Phoebe. DOUBLE OR NOTHING


1961 Bell, Thelma Harrington. CAPTAIN GHOST


1962 Lampman, Evelyn Sibley. CITY UNDER THE BACK STEPS


1963 Burnford, Sheila. INCREDIBLE JOURNEY


1964 Ball, Zachary. BRISTLE FACE


1965 North, Sterling. RASCAL


1966 Cleary, Beverly. RIBSY


1967 Viereck, Phillip. THE SUMMER I WAS LOST


1968 Jackson, Jacqueline. THE TASTE OF SPRUCE GUM


1969 Thompson, Mary Wolfe. TWO IN THE WILDERNESS


1970 Morey, Walt. KAVIK THE WOLF DOG


1971 Erwin, Betty K. GO TO THE ROOM OF THE EYES


1972 Ellis, Melvin. FLIGHT OF THE WHITE WOLF


1973 Caufield, Don and Joan. NEVER STEAL A MAGIC CAT


1974 Woods, George A. CATCH A KILLER


1975 Byars, Betsy. EIGHTEENTH EMERGENCY


1976 Merrill, Jean. THE TOOTHPASTE MILLIONAIRE


1977 Pevsner, Stella. A SMART KID LIKE YOU


1978 Duncan, Lois. SUMMER OF FEAR


1979 Pfeffer, Susan Beth. KID POWER


1980 Budbill, David. BONES ON BLACK SPRUCE MOUNTAIN


1981 Howe, Deborah & James. BUNNICULA


1982 Pascal, Francine. THE HAND-ME-DOWN KID***


1983 Blume, Judy. TIGER EYES


1984 Mauser, Pat Rhoads. A BUNDLE OF STICKS


1985 Cleary, Beverly. DEAR MR. HENSHAW


1986 Smith, Robert Kimmel. THE WAR WITH GRANDPA


1987 Winthrop, Elizabeth. THE CASTLE IN THE ATTIC****


1988 Hahn, Mary Downing. WAIT TILL HELEN COMES


1989 Paulsen, Gary. HATCHET*****


1990 Ehrlich, Amy. WHERE IT STOPS, NOBODY KNOWS


1991 Lowry, Lois. NUMBER THE STARS


1992 Spinelli, Jerry. MANIAC MAGEE


1993 Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. SHILOH


1994 Coville, Bruce. JENNIFER MURDLEY'S TOAD


1995 Cooper, Susan. THE BOGGART


1996 Hahn, Mary Downing. TIME FOR ANDREW


1997 Park, Barbara. MICK HARTE WAS HERE


1998 Kehret, Peg. SMALL STEPS: The Year I Got Polio


1999 Levine, Gail Carson . ELLA ENCHANTED


2000 Sachar, Louis. HOLES


2001 Curtis, Christopher Paul. BUD, NOT BUDDY


2002 Di Camillo, Kate. BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE


2003 Creech, Sharon. LOVE THAT DOG


2004 Jerry Spinelli. LOSER


2005 Kate DiCamillo. THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX

*like that? slipped in a word to fill the lexical gap

**And don't get me started on branded toys. I tried to find toy food one time and everyone was selling sets of "food" that were just plastic replicas of happy meals! fuck that! And they sell miniature dirt devil brand vacuum cleaners! what the hell! If my kid likes vacuuming that much, he can learn to use the real one while mommy chills out on the couch, ok?
Now that I've said this, my kid will probably refuse to wear/eat anything that does not feature a mutant ninja something or a talking british locomotive.

***I remember this was a big hit because it had the word BOOBS! in it! Yes!

****This was AWESOME.

*****Ditto above, but here's what should have won that year.

Snackfood rundown

Overload S'mores

These are cookies with marshmallow on top, then covered with various candy bits, like M&Ms or butterfinger crumbs.
I am a fan of marshmallows, the goofy way they are bouncy and soft. So I like the marshmallow part. The cookie was really dry though. Maybe because they'd been around for a while--they were on clearance at the target. The candy bits fell off when I tried to bite the thing, which was a serious construction flaw.
I give them a C+. And I don't think they'll be around for long.

Jerky Crisps

Meat Chips! I did not eat these. I just saw them and was grossed out.

A bargain at twice the price!

Just a dollar!

Dude, I would have paid a dollar to get out of gym class. I would have paid THREE.

I'm not alone here. Everyone hates gym. It's a peculiarly scarring experience that we all must share. (Those who enjoyed gym class, the exit is behind you. Take your dodge ball and begone!)

Let me count the reasons I detested gym class:

1. When I was an 8th grader, we had mixed gym with the 7th graders. We had to line up in alphabetical order for attendance, and I had the misfortune to be named something that sat me next to two blonde 7th graders who smelled my social incompetence. I recall feeling outraged, not so much by their snide insults, but by the fact that I was being PICKED ON by SEVENTH GRADERS, when as an 8th grader, I should have been exempt from their scorn! Hadn't I earned that, at least? Goddamn seventh grade bitches.
2. Playing racquetball, or badminton, or something with racquets, I swung hard at a ball (birdie?) and the racquet slipped from my weak grasp, and nearly brained the "coach". I got in so much trouble, which, had I deliberately thrown it at him, I would have deserved. I was pissed that I hadn't done it on purpose, as long as I was paying the price.
3. Indirect gym trauma, for which I was not present: Once two friends of mine were in they locker room changing after class, when a mean bully girl grabbed one of them and smashed her into the lockers (her infraction? giving bully girl a "look" during class! yes! classic!) and proceeded to pummel the poor thing. My second friend raced from the locker room to find the "coach", a male gym teacher. "Coach! Billie Jo* is beating up Sally in the locker room!" Coach's response? "I can't go in there, it's the girls' locker room!" Wow! Don't you feel safe now??
4. Foursquare! For when "Coach" is feeling lazy! It's a game based on ganging up three-to-one to get someone 'out'! How can that be a problem??

Are gym classes just unsupervised? The torment and anguish I'm recalling suggests that the teachers were mildly stoned at all times, or that they hated me as much as Billie Jo did. How much weed can you get with one dollar per kid per day?

*Real name, no joke.

Winter's BACK, bitch!

At least the cold gives me elevator talk.

I am a very naughty person but I am delighted today that the annoyance I described here has been banned from that blog. Not because of our stupid argument, but because he's a bee in everyone's coke. Apparently.

*shiver*

Reading Shakespeare's Sister I found this link to pictures of scary, horrible creatures of the deep, all apparently found washed up after the big tsunami. I have this bizarre and unfounded phobia (are phobias ever rational? really?) of creepy sea creatures. Oh, also those scary-ass cave creatures with NO EYES. Also centipedes. Eurgh! I remember when I was a kid I was screaming at some nasty crawly thing and my dad was like, "Why do you do that? Why live up to such a stereotype of women and girls?" I think of that every single time I run screaming from the house, begging my dear and patient lady to "deal with that thing oh god that horrible THING". (She always does. She is really top quality.) I don't WANT to be a stereotype, but the centipede MAKES me do it!

Self, you are not helpful

My calendar today has a question mark on it. That's all. Just a question mark. A little note to myself that says, "You are a jackass. Think before you make notations."
It really sets the tone for the day, that little querying mark. All day I will be wondering.
?
?
?
what? did? I? mean?

gah.

heh

Dear Shirky,

Jeepers, I completely forgot about your stint on the tramp steamer---- you should pardon the expression. I might imagine it was your tatoos that first attracted MJ to you at the dockside bar. As your uncle, however, I don't care to think about that.

And I can fix those demon eyes for you in Photoshop. But no amount of retouching can hide the evil in your soul.

----X, D

Borrowed Musuem

Tangential to AmericanFamily's post on clothing, I was thinking on all the arty and not so arty stuff we've accumulated over the years. Lots of it comes from other places or just other cultures.
I love having pretty stuff in the house. I really don't like the look of a bare wall very much. I just don't like the stark euro look, I guess. Plus, when we go places, I love coming back with a big pile o' junk. It extends the trip in a way. Every piece has a story about where it came from and how it came to be here, plus the stories about why it was created in the first place. The longer I stare at the objects, the more detail I notice about them, and the deeper their dimensions become. I also love the common motifs or elements in pieces from totally different cultures. The blue of the Virgin Mary's cloak and the blue of Krishna's skin: maybe they were first represented as blue because the lapis pigment was so dear. I love that artists in such distant corners of the world showed their love for their subject with the same technique--the brother- and sisterhood of artists, connected across time and distance. Or something.
Some pieces I love just for their beauty: our contemporary (but traditional style) bronze Parvati--with luscious curves and saucy gesture.
Some I love for symbolism--the set of tiny pairs of lovers. Some I love for its purpose--I can't play a lick of music, but someone else can, on the cute little charango. Some I love because it's just so funny--the Ecuadorian dog mask that freaks the hell out of our cat. She hates it.

I love the jewelry from Africa because making it gave me awesome fingertips of steel, until I could touch hot coals with my bare hands! Check it, suckas! (I can't do it anymore. ah well.)
So probably I'm an apologist. These pieces, to me, are merely beautiful, useful, or artistic; they may very well have other meanings that I'm ignorant of, and, well, that's the very definition of cultural appropriation, isn't it? I suppose that our tiny collection is representative of American removal of art forms and objects from their proper cultural context.
I think I'm going to have to live with it, though. I really can't bear to not collect things.

Canada in the hood

This morning there was a huge truck parked up on the sidewalk in front of the door. Really, like I had to squeeze by the truck to get off the front porch. It was marked "Gouvernement du Canada/Patrimoine Canadien". I peeked in the back--it was open--and it looked like just an ordinary moving truck, mostly empty.
What could this mean?
--Someone has stolen a Canadian government truck to move house
--Ambassador from Canada is moving into the alley behind my house
--CIA is pretending to be Canada while setting up secret surveillance location in the alley behind my house

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Caramel

This seemed like a really nice idea. Unfortunately the execution is sub-par. First off, I think the peanut butter should be on the bottom, and the caramel on top, instead of the other way around like it is. Second, the caramel flavor is not my favorite. They're not too messy, which is nice. Some caramel items get all over your face and hands. These can be eaten while walking, which is nice. The caramel just isn't quite right to me--a little too burned-sugar and not enough gooey artificial flavor. What? What do you think I eat candy for?

Overall: B

In other news, I was moron enough to engage in a stupid little discussion on a political-type blog with a smug type who can't seem to wrap himself around the idea that other people might have half a clue more than him. Why do I do it? Why can't I let it go? But I am in quite a mood from it. If you're him: dude, I am much better informed than you are about my own tax filing status and the implications therein.

surprise!

On Saturday morning we went up to Vermont for my cousin's baby shower. We got to meet my cousin JJ for the first time, she is fucking adorable, though she bites:



And there was much cake and disgusting oohing over tiny baby clothes and socks. What is it about those socks, man? they are so cute.




My cousin was really enthusiastic about the baby sling we made her. We tested it out with our eight pound cat so it should work OK for a newborn. Does she look pissed? Because she was pissed.



My cousin's due date is like March 14 or something. I forget. Which gives her plenty of time to pick a name and paint the baby's room and stuff like that. That's why we were surprised and not a little alarmed to wake up to this:



At about 1 in the morning, my cousin had horrible convulsive seizures due to eclampsia. She was taken to the hospital in Burlington and the baby was delivered around three. The kid is fine, though nameless. She is in rougher shape but will be OK. It seems like something that only happens on TV, it was such a shock. We spent the early afternoon at the hospital, where we got to see Nameless Joe but not my cousin, who was drugged and sleeping, as she should be, poor thing.

Holy crap, huh?

stank

how bad must my shoes smell that I can smell them way up here at my head?

and loudly.

Oreo Chocostix

I do love oreos, despite the way the dusty black crumbs adhere to my face, fingers, and shirt, so that someone always says "Have you been eating oreos?" The answer to that question is nearly always yes, by the way. I have usually been eating oreos. For breakfast even.
Today at CVS I saw these Chocostix. The package says "made with REAL chocolate". Even though it also said "wafer sticks", I thought they would kind of be rectangular oreos with a chocolate coating.
Sadly, I must report that they are nothing like that. I should have been warned by the lightness of the package. Oreos are a pretty hefty cookie, but this package was airy light. I am very sorry to say that in the flavor department they are also pretty lightweight. The wafer part was just nothing like the delicious chocolate part of a real oreo. It was like chocolate-flavored packing peanuts. This pathetic texture distracted me from the creamy filling, too, so I couldn't even enjoy that.
All in all, a disappointment.

I give them a D. Steer clear.

this is how crazy

I secretly sort of thought that maybe the agency isn't really quitting the homestudy business, but that they concocted this story and wrote this letter to get rid of us (just us--the rest of the families get to stay in).
it's kind of like when you think that everyone is in on a joke on you and you are left out.
Let's hear it for pathologically insecure solipsism!!
woo!
ugh.

fuckity fuck!

Our homestudy draft still not in our hot little hands, a letter arrives saying that the agency is getting out of the homestudy biz. GREAT! Maybe the social worker hated us so much that she quit. Hell if I know. So here we are! Possibly up a creek! Possibly not so bad. But couldn't she have CALLED to let us know? And how did we pick such a losing horse?

ARRR!

Pirate shirt, same technique as monkey shirt

arrr!!

Not Getting It Trophy goes to...

For not understanding "making a difference", the young man quoted in this article saying "If you want to make a difference, you'd be better off doing something that doesn't interfere with tradition."

People of the world: Please continue interfering with tradition. I thank you for it.

Loony

Marisa posted about breaking up with her best friend. That's a subject near to me, I tell you what. My real life friends glaze over if I get on the topic of the platonic breakup. Yes, I say the same things over and over. I must sound like a whining, broken record. I don't understand, it came out of nowhere, why'd she have to make it ugly, we could have just grown apart. It's a stupid story, in the end. We met in college--she was part of the small circle of friends I managed to cling to, socially awkward and shy as I am. She was a year older and knew a lot about music and drugs and that stuff while I was a babe in arms, seriously underinformed. I thought we were such good friends. I thought I would have done anything for her. She was ill with some undiagnosed mystery illness, and I worried constantly. If it had been a matter of bone marrow or something like that I would have been first in line to donate. Then she stopped calling, stopped taking my calls, turned down all invitations, sometimes rudely. I figured she was just busy or she found me boring. Then, out of the clear blue, an email accusing me of being a bad friend. Never visiting. Never calling. Never caring about her health. I was so wounded. It hurt for a long time. I went back and forth between feeling like a horrible friend and feeling like she was the world's biggest asshole. It was SHE who had been ignoring ME, right?

Now, years later, I realize that from her perspective, I was a bad friend, and from mine, she was too. There's really no way to fix that that I could see. As time passed, I remembered more and more times where she had demanded attention, loyalty, agreement in a not-friendly way. She was just kind of like that. It was great when I was a young stupid college student, looking for guidance from older, wiser heads. It kind of sucked when I got smarter and older myself and she would shake her head wearily at my ideas. From her point of view: I would call to invite her to a party, or out to dinner, never just to talk. I never showed up at her house unexpectedly.

Sometimes I see her in the subway and I hide or walk the other way. I think she must be doing the same thing. If I find an artifact of our friendship somewhere in the house--a photo, something she gave me, a damn mix tape--I swing between wanting to burn it, destroy it, and wanting to keep it safe forever. In that way, it's probably a lot like a romantic breakup. But with a romantic breakup, maybe you can at least feel like it happened because you wanted different things. But with a just-friend? That kind of friendship is supposed to be free of demands like that. There aren't expectations or destinations. You're supposed to just BE friends. Maybe if you have a big fight or disagreement about something, it makes sense to part ways.

I do think I got something from all those years when we were good friends. So there is that.

Maybe they didn't really like him

Maybe this guy was an asshole before, and they're just disappointed to learn he didn't die.

HA

Sassyfemme linked to this site where you can put in a picture of you and it will tell you if you look like a celebrity. I used my office photo (the one used on our company directory) and it said I look like:
Audrey Tatou (thanks, computer thing!)
Elijah Wood (Not so thanks)
Monica Lewinsky (my teeth are NOT like that, thanks very much)
Serena Williams (riiiiiiiight)

It reminds me of the photo booth thing at the arcade that will take two photos of two people and mash them together to make a "child" face. We tried that years ago and oh. my. word. The fake child was a hideous monster!! All we could figure was that because I am so tall, and she is so short, it couldn't line up our faces. The child face had two faces, four eyes, it was all crazy.

Maybe that's the REAL reason we're adopting! Ha!

I looked on the internet for a program that would do the same thing for laughs. Couldn't find one. Let me know if you know of one.

fruity

These are the fruits and vegetables I made for the neighbors' daughter who had her second birthday. I think she liked them OK. There is also a cupcake, because dessert is very, very important.

Meeting Notes: Project Status Meeting, 1/12/06

12:32: Hear sounds of conference call being initiated in conference room. Shit, there's a meeting! I have to be there!
12:33: Sidle in. Last seat available. Faces the window.
12:33: Turn to blank page on legal pad. Uncap pen.
12:34: Recap pen.
12:35: Uncap pen. Recap pen. Uncap pen. Recap pen. Set pen down.
12:37: Aha! Something I can write down! No, wait, it's already printed here on the agenda. Recap pen.
12:38: That building's roof is covered with water. Huh. It hasn't rained in days and days.
12:39: Is that someone on that roof? Nope. Just a plastic bag blowing around.
12:39: Looks windy. The flags on that roof are flapping a lot. Remember that time that they replaced the flags during a meeting? That was a good meeting.
12:40: Glance around the table, try to focus on speaker's voice. What is this meeting about again? Sneak peek at boss' notes. Aha. That thing. I can look smart about that thing.
12:40: Look smart, look smart. Uncap pen.
12:41: There goes a police car, way down there. Hm. Do they look slower from up here? Or maybe it really is going slow? Remember to ask lady when you get home. She knows these things.
12:42: Ooh, and a Police HORSE too.
12:43: Hm. I wonder what they're building over there? Looks big.
12:44: There's a bird drinking the water off that building's roof. Hi bird. Don't do that. That water has either been there a week, or is from some malfunction.
12:45: I guess maybe birds know when water is OK to drink. Like cats.
12:46: Wasn't this meeting supposed to last half an hour? Feels like time is going backwards. God.
12:48: Go over words on paper with pen. Fill in o's, p's, zeros, sixes and nines.
12:49: That building has a roof garden. Wouldn't it be nice to have a roof garden? Except for being afraid of heights. That would be a waste.
12:50: One, two, three...three steeples I can see from here. No, four.
12:51: Is that guy playing sudoku on his palm pilot??
12:52: That's a good idea, I should look into that.
12:54: Okay, I said one thing! My one meeting thing out loud!
12:55: Ok, probably should have said something different.
12:56: Is the meeting over? Time to go?
12:57: God no, they can leave but I can't? What do you mean, they aren't needed? I'm not needed, and here I sit.
12:58: Is the clock just STOPPED?
12:59: Ok, lunchtime, guys. Guys?
1:00: Timetogotimetogo......
1:01: Oh come on. Please? Doesn't someone else have the room signed out now?
1:02: tidy papers. push chair back.
1:03: push chair in again.
1:04: blah, blah, blah. HUNGRY.
1:05: FREEDOM! BLESSED FREEDOM!

Pilgrims crushed

Every year, people are killed like this, but this year seems particularly bad.
It's scary to me to imagine embarking on this journey knowing that it could end with you under the feet of the crowd. And think of all the old ladies and other frail types there...the very ones who are at the tail end of the crowd when sundown approaches, because hello, they walk slower.
In West Africa, people I talked with would say that it was those "big, strong" pilgrims from Indonesia, which seemed funny, because compared to me, the average Indonesian is a wee slip of a thing. Moroccans that I talked with about this also believed the problem to lie with some other, shovier, pushier nationality...Sub-Saharan Africans and Asians, they might say. Ethnic predjudice aside, come on. The problem is that there are so many people, and so small a space, and the deadline...I wonder if this happens as much when hajj is in the summer and there's more daylight?
There's got to be a better way of crowd control...I know the bridge was widened at some point, but someone needs to step up and make some big changes. You shouldn't have to take your life in your hands to fulfill this requirement. It's tough enough already.

Neologist

One word I really always want is a nice simple word meaning the opposite of "favorite".
"Least favorite" is weak, "most hated" is awkward. I want something that's instantly understood.

Another one I need is a single word to express one's envie de pisser as it were. We have good solid words to express other physical needs: thirsty, hungry, even--ahem--horny. Peey? Weey? "Pissy" being already spoken for.

Klutz

My poor right hand will be a claw of scars when I am old. Behold this weekend's injuries:
1: Papercut
2: Hideous blood blister--pinched in folding chair
3: One papercut was not enough
4: Oil-splatter burn (blistered)

incoherent

When I read old posts, they sound strange to me. They sound terrible, actually. A year from now, when I look back to see what I was doing a year ago, I'm going to be surprised by how sloppy my notes are. Sheesh.

We've put out a call for photos to the family, for pictures that we will be using in the "photo album" the agency wants. I still haven't settled on a style or layout for the whole profile. I'm leaning toward having three sections: about both of us, about me, and about her. This lets avoid awkward phrasing like "Shirky loves to make shirts with monkeys on them. We think monkeys are funny." Who's the narrator there? It makes no sense.

The social worker told us not to read other people's profiles, because it would influence ours. Since she gives SUCH good advice, I read a few online. Some are--forgive me--lame. There, I said it! They're lame! And get a haircut, shaggy!!

Ahem.

Some are not so lame, but none of them really sound like anything I would write. (Not incoherent enough, I guess) So we're starting from scratch here. It's slow going but it will get done.

spinny

Monday night I couldn't sleep. For many years I have suspected that I take longer than average to fall asleep. But that night I was still awake hours after getting in bed. I lie there solving problems in my head, going over things, inventing stuff. It would be great, if I weren't so tired in the morning.
So last night, anticipating the same thing, I took an antihistamine (you know...benadryl AKA CVS brand Sleep Aid). I may have slept better, I'm not sure. But this morning when I woke up I was so insane. I could barely stand. I dropped things, stumbled, and my head, filled with helium, whirled around the room. So no more of that. I felt nuts.
Yesterday I made a cool shirt with a monkey face on it. I've been making things lately. Made a bracelet out of old coins from my travels, and a gym bag. And a scarf, which is good because I've lost my usual scarf. I don't know why I'm possessed with the need to make stuff. I'm sure it will wear off soon, so I better get some cool stuff out of it meanwhile.

why everyone gotta have typepad

I'm a little bored. Nothing to read!

Why I think the social worker doesn't like us

There are things she has said that seem like she is just trying to tick us off. She's not encouraging. She talks about the adoption process a lot and about parenting very little. Here are some things she's said that I interpret as negative:

1. "You don't have a car? What if you have to take the baby to the hospital?"
Why of course, we will now purchase an automobile for the rare and unlikely event that we need to take the child to the hospital, and the situation is not urgent enough for an ambulance, yet too urgent for a taxi, a neighbor, a zipcar. Despite having no place to park said car and very poor driving skills. That would make our lives safer, not more dangerous.
2. "Your families are supportive but they live so far away. It's just the two of you here all alone."
Yes. We are friendless, we have no telephones, and despite living in a major urban center, no one would ever come to our aid. It's surprising we have not yet been devoured by bears or starved to death, without our mothers living upstairs.
3. "I have been working in adoption for twelve years and I have never met anyone with such low expectations." This one is just like, what the fuck? What the hell do you want from us? You want us to meet you at the door demanding our baby?
4. (Smugly, when she asked a question about the placing agency we didn't know the answer to) "I guess I ask more questions than you do." okay, now you're just a bitch

I'm just tired. Just exhausted from trying to figure out how to please her. WE ARE AWESOME. Why doesn't she believe us?

Whining

Is something I do well!
Here's today's batch of whine:
-Our social worker thinks we're stupid idiots, I swear
-And she doesn't like us very much, I think
-And the office holiday party is really just a meeting with booze
-I hate meetings
-and I don't drink
-So what's the point?
-It is also mandatory
-And the social worker unfavorably compared us to another couple
-wtf?

Breakin all the rules

I know the rules about not talking about work in a blog.
But how else will I think things out?

I haven't told anyone at work that we're adopting. I'm not really friends with anyone so it's never going to just come up. (There's a bit of a running joke between my boss and co-workers, when the projects are getting really rough and things are going badly, they joke that they're going to have or adopt a baby "tomorrow" so they won't be in to work! So would they even believe me if I told them??) But eventually I kind of have to say something. And I've been wondering. Can they, like, fire my ass for planning to take time off?
My company doesn't have any parental leave policy. They have a short-term disability leave that you can take if you are a woman and you "have" a baby. That's more for the medical status than the parental status. So I'm planning to just use FMLA to get my 3 months off. If I declare that I am planning to, at some point in the next year or so, call in one morning and then not show for 12 weeks--can they say, um no, we're replacing you? I know they couldn't fire me if I were pregnant and said I was going to take 12 weeks off after having a baby. But that's because there's a law against firing women for being pregnant. Is there any law against firing someone for planning to take leave in the future? I know you can't be fired for USING FMLA. but could you be let go before you did? I wonder.

ooong

is the sound I make after eating
barbecue chicken
fruit salad
mashed potatoes
piece of chocolate cake the size of my head

Tis the season for other departments to have luncheons, and for me to loiter around conference rooms in order to score the leftovers. god bless caterers with poor estimation skills.

Home visit on Tuesday Afternoon. or Tomorrow. CRAP!

The Nemesis

Everyone has their nemesis. Their Lex Luthor. Their Joker. Their baby with the one eyebrow. If you can't think of your rival, then it's probably because I have claimed him as my own and he's busy battling me for world domination, and can't be bothered to foil your plans at every turn. I have my hands full with these types, though.
In college, there was Marian. Marian was the ultimate over-acheiver. As I recall, one of the first times I encountered her, she was detailing her plans to get a double major while graduating a year early. As if that wasn't nauseating enough, one of these majors was MY MAJOR. My weird, no one has ever heard of it major. You know, the only thing making me unique in a sea of sameness. She started showing up in my (small) classes, and I totally resented her. Resentment is a word which was probably invented at the time, to describe my feelings for her, which had been heretofore unknown by humankind. I was that awful. Marian was better than me, I'm not ashamed to admit. She always understood the reading, while it flew over my head. She asked insightful questions. She actually worked on research projects, while I scraped through school barely understanding the point of education, period. She was ambitious, and smart, and I pretty much wasn't, but they were traits I wished to have.
When I was very young, I had a friend who had been a similar figure to me. She was always one step ahead of me in every endeavor. She and I had a lot in common, but she was just one notch up. The problem was that we were friends and I admired her more than hated her, so I probably came off as a sidekick rather than a matched adversary. Alas. At the time, I had a picture book called "Timothy Goes to School." It was about a racoon or badger or other little creature who is constantly being one-upped by another little woodland animal, Claude. Eventually Timothy makes friends with a little girl rabbit who has her own competition. The little rabbit, Violet, describes her foe, saying, "She sings, she dances, she counts up to a thousand, and she sits next to me!"
I have always treasured that story and that description. Because while I will always know that there are people better than me at whatever I attempt, I don't really mind as long as they are TV champions, internet stars, historical figures. It's the proximity that really makes me look bad.
So anyway, here at work we are in the holiday season, when ordinary offices become minefields of forced activities like canned-food drives, luncheons, office-wide parties, white elephant games, and of course, the cookie swap.
Oh, the cookie swap. There is a particular cookie that I have been baking since I was about 14 years old. It is buttery and flavorful and just about the best cookie I make. I've perfected it over the years, and I like to think it's my signature cookie. It's called Double Gingersnap. I was planning on making that for the godforsaken cookie swap.
And of course, today I overhear that my Nemesis, Captain Loud, is making--you guessed it--ginger cookies. It's a Christmas Miracle! I mean Nightmare!

Well golly!

Texas Attorney General prevents a couple from getting married.

Gosh, that's terrible. A silly old state law is standing in the way of true love? How ridiculous! Why, Texas isn't like that!

Oh wait.

Which was the style at the time

This weekend my grandmother told us that my father and his cousin once went to a party wearing white flannel pants and polka-dot shorts underneath. Apparently the idea was that the shorts showed through the pants. I just about died laughing, and I truly am sorry that digital cameras did not exist at the time. Today I spent some time looking for pictures of this fashion debacle from 1967 or thereabouts, but so far no mention of it on the interweb. Maybe it was their own particular fashion venture.

People Who are Supposedly Gorgeous But I Don't See It

Ashton Kutcher
Jude Law
Orlando Bloom
Jessica Simpson + that dude she's married to, whatshisname
That econ professor who slept with students in college
Uma Thurman
Tom Cruise
Yer Mom

Oh, why must words mean things?

A big delivery has arrived and I kind of want to go tell the person it's addressed to. But how can I go down the hall shouting "Lulu! You have a giant package!"? Or possibly worse, "Lulu! I see you have a huge box here!"

who decided that normal office words had to have naughty secondary meanings? Now I just have to wait for her to go to the mail drop herself, which is kind of assholish. But I probably can't lift that ENORMOUS PACKAGE anyway.

Eau de New York

Went to NYC this weekend, which was warm and pungent. Sometimes I am a little jealous of New York. The subway system, though flawed, is superior to the T in some ways, like late nights and connections and frequent trains and express versions. The urban design of the whole city is also better (don't hate, Boston, it's just the truth) and makes people come out and be outside and having fun and being cool and I feel like the cool might rub off on me, just a little.
The whole city was chock-a-block with babies, too. We always joke about picking the best one and running away with it, which nice people probably find sick and unfunny. But it amuses us. We do the same with dogs. What's with all the dogs, New York? Where the hell do you keep them? in your 6th floor walk ups?
I don't think I could ever really have a dog. They need to go out in the snow to pee and so on. That's not really my style. Sorry, dogs. But I do find them cute and funny and I like watching them play insane dog games. That's another thing--my town does not have dog runs like New York has dog runs.
Boston does have some problems with tradition and unexamined regulations that I feel prevent the city from improving itself. It's really hard to change things here. I feel like a lot of people have a suburban attitude even in the middle of the city.

Of course, New York also has these events, which I long to attend, but haven't been able to swing it yet.

Which is weirder?

Scientology, or Kabbalah?
I really can't decide. What would be great is if some celebrities jumped on the Raelian train. Then there'd be a perfect trio of lunatic sorta-kinda-religions to shake our heads at.
My lady once worked with a Raelian dude. He seemed ordinary, except then he'd offer to loan you his book explaining the whole aliens created humans by cloning thing. The book was weird, dude. It even had pictures. He only had one copy, so we had to give it back. I should have scanned it first.

And HMBalison...I'm sorry you had someone try to take advantage of you like that. That is really rough. I am glad you adopted in the end. I agree that we have to be patient. It's not really a part of my personality to be so, so that's my main challenge in this endeavor. That, and picking a placing agency. I still can't decide! It's like choosing between Scientology and Kabbalah!

Las Vegas reneges on promise

Fails to keep local happenings within city limits

Dullsville, baby

That's work lately. There is little for me to do. Desk still messy. Mostly it's papers, papers that technically could be filed, but I hate filing. Home has some of the same stuff. I figure that eventually, the piles of paper will biodegrade and return to the earth, in the circle of life. Right?
Adoption proceedings are proceeding. We had the interviews. I felt awkward. I do hate answering those kinds of questions--the "tell me about yourself" questions. Who doesn't? Well, this one dude at work. But he must be an exception. But it wasn't too bad. I think. We didn't get a big red stamp on our foreheads that says "BAD PARENT MATERIAL".
I have been thinking more and more lately about the actual waiting, matching, placing process. Some days, I feel like no one could ever possibly choose us as parents. We don't have a big house, or a backyard. We don't have a loyal family dog. We don't even have a car. We don't go to church, and our families live in other places. Strike, strike, strike, etc.
Other days I think, why not pick us? We're young. We're cute. We're fun and funny. We have educations. Jobs. We spend time with kids of all ages and we like it. We are great together. We have a cute place to live. We live in a nice city. It's diverse. It has good schools. Our families are excited. Our 17 year old cat proves we can take care of small crying things and stick with it. We have nice friends.
Other times I don't think about any of this stuff. I think about other people who have adopted. Lots of them have flaws, too. They're not perfect. They got a kid. Someone chose them, and they're doing okay.
Then I'll read about someone who never got chosen.
That's sad and I don't know what to think then. It's easy to see us in that position. That makes me glum, chum.
We haven't chosen a placing agency yet. That's hard.