Theoretical Grammatarian

2008-10-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

*Flex*
*Flex flex*
*Wheeze*
*Gasp*
*Faint*
"Well crap, I seem to be out of shape," I says to myself a while back. What to do, what to do? Drinking wine and eating cheese until I was too tipsy to give a damn how I looked didn't work. Cross that one off the list. Perhaps, just maybe, it was time to start thinking about possibly considering the idea of working out. But I didn't want to rush into anything, okay, in my state of fitness, any sort of rushing could have killed me.
I was in a bad way, I confess. I was (well, still am) a stay at home mom, somewhat socially withdrawn, maybe a little depressed at times, too fond of eating and mostly sedentary, and it was showing. The less I did, the more inertia would keep me doing nothing, and worse, every time I realized how flabby and lumpy I was getting, I would get more and more down and less and less likely to get off my expanding ass and go do something about it. Finally I shook myself up enough to start going for walks with Thomas every day and taking him out for more physical outings, like going to the zoo where we both could run around rather than just taking him to the park where I could sit and watch him play. It started to work. I got pregnant! Kept walking, wanting to be a fit mama of two! Things were going well. We lost the baby. I gained a shitload of weight from self-medicating with wine and beer every night as soon as Thomas fell asleep and just wallowing around in my own misery. I gained more weight in the month after we lost Alexander than I had the four months I'd been pregnant with him. I felt, and looked, awful. I made a decision, though, that I needed to figure out what I really wanted to be doing with myself, my life, my future. I kept coming back to one thing: I want to be a cop.
So, now I'd made a decision and it was time to do something about it. The first test I have to pass in the hiring process is the physical ability exam. I started exercising again! Yay! I started feeling better, looking a little better, bit by bit. Then I went to visit my sister in Colorado for two weeks. I didn't work out at all while I was there, but I still lost weight from swimming with the kids, walking around, and sweating like mad in the sweltering heat. Hooray! I started exercising a little as soon as I got home, but then we were moving. I used my work out time to pack boxes. Then we moved in and I used that time to unpack boxes. We were mostly moved in when I discovered that our caving in and getting cable had a side benefit - exercise TV! I was doing a 20 minute, ass-kicking workout every day! I started losing weight again! I felt great! Then Rob brought home The Plague. I was too sick to work out for three days. The day I started feeling better, I had three wisdom teeth pulled. I pussed out for another week. Then a few more days from sheer inertia again. I am, at heart, a deeply lazy person.
Today I got back on it. I did the 20 minute workout. I may die.

2008-08-10T09:21:00.001-07:00

You know what sucks? It sucks when you're going along with your life, thinking that you're totally dealing with your recent tragedy, that you're sort of okay, getting over it even, then suddenly you have a meltdown and realize that you've been wound so tightly just trying to function that you're about to lose your fucking mind. You realize that you haven't been dealing, you've been avoiding, that you're so angry, so volatile, so brittle, and so depressed that you're acting like a crazy person. That you've used up all this time you could have been healing convincing yourself that you're fine and not really healing at all.

Yeah, that sucks.

Luckily, realizing how fucked up I am has actually helped. Letting myself not be okay has made me a little more okay than I was. I certainly have more patience with Thomas (poor kid has been dealing with a psychotic mom for a while) since I realized how bad I really was feeling. That, in turn, makes me feel less guilty, since every time I lost my patience with him I felt like a monster.

I have sent an email to my midwife to see if she can recommend a good Psychologist. That might help as well. Also, I'm going to get back off my ass and work out every day. On top of the depression and mourning, my disgust at myself for being so out of shape is just making things worse. I figure that every little thing I can do will help. Keeping the house clean was helping, but I've been gone for the last two weeks. Working out was helping, but it was so unbearably HOT in Denver while I was there that the thought of breaking an additional sweat (when I was already nauseated from the 100+ degree weather and altitude) was repellant enough to give me a good excuse to sit around on my kiester. Today, though, today Thomas and I are going for a walk, to the park, and while he naps I'm going to work out. I need the feeling of doing something and the endorphins.

I'm also going to send off an email to a counselor at Berkeley and see about planning out my schedule for going back. I only have two semesters' worth of credits to go and I'd like to get on it. That will also give me time to get in shape. With a Bachelor's in Psych and being fit I should be ready to tackle the Police Department exams. I should also get in contact with a training officer at Daly City PD and maybe at SFPD as well and just have a talk with them about my options and chances for passing the exams and getting hired. This all means putting off having another baby, but I think that's for the best right now. I don't want another baby, I want Alexander. I can't have him, though, and I need to deal with that loss before I will be ready to deal with another pregnancy and child. I need to work through this and concentrate on being a good mother to Thomas for now before I am going to be able to have another baby. And, I think that having a good reason to go back to school and going for a career that I feel passionately drawn to will be good for me.

2008-06-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

I was doing pretty good yesterday and this morning, but this afternoon sucks. I'm tired. I'm depressed. I'm still bleeding. That's the worst part, I think, the constant reminder every time I go to the bathroom.

You know who's awesome? Seriously awesome? My husband is awesome. I am feeling down and tired and out of sorts so what is he doing? He's coming home early just to be with me. Because he's awesome and it's always worse when he's not here. He makes me feel safe.

I started writing again yesterday, though, and that felt good. I dug out the tiny bit of the NaNoWriMo project I started a couple of years ago. I can't find all of it, but the excerpt I posted here was a good seed for something. I didn't get a lot added to it, but it was fun to just be writing and I think I can go in an entertaining direction with the story. It will, if nothing else, get my mother off my back. She's been nagging me to write more and, as you can probably tell by the frequency with which I update this thing, I just haven't been up to it much in the last year or more.

2008-05-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all the comments and sympathy. I really appreciate knowing that so many people were thinking of us as we've been going through this.

It's been a week and a day now. We had the D&C on Friday, so I've been not pregnant for 6 days. I hate it. I sort of hate everything right now. I'm not angry in any focused way, like angry at the world for my baby being dead and gone, instead I'm just generally angry. I want to hit something, start a bar fight, pull some jackass out of his car on the freeway and slam his head in the door. All this rage is built up and I have nothing to do with it. The only things that don't make me angry are my son, my husband, and my mother. And Mom has to leave today and go back home. It's going to suck without her. Thomas is very attached to his "Gamma!" and he's going to be distraught when she goes, as will I. She's been such a help and such a source of strength. Rob went back to work today, and while I am so thankful that he was able to take this time off, I miss him terribly. Tomorrow is going to be rough with just Thomas and me knocking around the house. I may take him to the zoo or something just to get out and keep my mind off of things. Hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm afraid it will be. I know I have plenty of friends I could call to distract myself or talk or whatever, but I can't seem to bear the phone right now. I can't even talk to my sister (who's going through her own mess right now). I want to call people; I pick up the phone intending to call people, but then I just can't do it. I have so many voice mail messages just sitting there waiting for me to address them and I just can't do it. I don't have the energy. I can make it through the day and play with Thomas, cook and eat, function and keep from falling apart, and that's it. I don't have anything left at the end of each day, and yet I can't rest, either. I lay awake frantically thinking about anything else, reading or doing stupid crossword puzzles, exhausted but wide awake. I'm so tired.

Frankly, I'm a mess and I'm sick of it. My own inability to concentrate is as infuriating as everything else. I'm tired of getting in the car to drive to a particular store and find myself heading for the freeway or downtown instead of where I needed to go, tired of forgetting the thing I was on my way to pick up, tired of being in the middle of doing some task around the house and suddenly realizing that I have no clue what I was up to just seconds ago.

2008-05-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

I don't really know how to say this, and I am having a lot of trouble talking about it out loud, so I'm turning to this neglected blog to get it out. For those few of you who may read this who don't already know, I got pregnant a few months ago. I am 17 weeks and 4 days along right now, and my baby would have been due October 27th. But it's dead. Since my last appointment at 13 weeks, just after we saw that amazing first ultrasound of his or her little arms and legs wiggling and squirming, that tiny heart beating, the baby just stopped growing, stopped living. We don't know why yet. Hopefully we'll have some sort of answer soon. We don't even know if it was a boy or a girl. We'd planned on naming a boy Alexander and a girl Eve, but we'd started considering Alexandra, so we're just calling the baby Little Alex. We are going in tomorrow morning to have the D&E and I will never even see Alex. We had a barrage of ultrasounds yesterday but I never got to get a good look at my baby's face. Alex was just so small. So still.

To those of you who have sent me such kind messages, good thoughts, and prayers, I want to say thank you. It has meant more to me than I thought possible just to know that there are people out there, many who barely know me, who were thinking of us. It may be a while before I can bring myself to get back to you directly, but please know how much I appreciate your kindness.

I never, in my whole life, thought that I would ever become a decent housekeeper, but apparently I have and that's unfortunate. Right now I just really need to clean things. I have already scrubbed the bathroom, but the kitchen is already pretty squeaky clean, and there just isn't much else to be done. Maybe I'll clean the windows. Or maybe I'll just sit here for a while.

Thomas has been so amazing. He was such a good boy all day yesterday, even though he spent most of the day trapped with us in various waiting rooms, exam rooms, and triage rooms, mostly waiting for doctors and nurses. So much waiting. He was an angel and a welcome and beautiful distraction from why we were there. Rob and I are so lucky to have him.

I have so much I want to say, to get out, but I can't right now. I just need to get up, move, clean something, fold something, wait for Thomas to wake up from his nap. Rob is napping with him; we were up pretty late last night, drinking wine and watching stupid movies. I can't nap, though, I can't lay down.

Regrettable Outerwear

2007-12-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

I'm about to share something really shocking with you. Shocking, and not a little sad. Nearly everyone has some sort of skeleton in their closet, whether it's the figurative skeleton of a past misdeed or indiscretion, the fact of a shameful family member, or maybe it's the literal skeleton of a family member hanging there behind your summer coats as a malodorous reminder of your shameful misdeeds. Whatever the case, most of us have something in our closets that we don't want exposed. Today, though, I'm going to bring mine out. My closet skeleton, the albatross of my storage space, is this:

Quake with terror at its garish patriotism! Quiver with vicarious school spirit! Squirm with laughter at the vivid moose mascot! Give in to the juvenile jokes about the P splashed across the chest! Ponder what in the hell I could possibly have lettered in in High School!

But wait, it gets even more absurd. I didn't just letter and wear that hideous thing with pride, I lettered in Drama. That's right. Drama. A letter for Drama. I'll let that sink in.

So, when I role my eyes at some amateur display on myspace and sigh and cock my head and say, "Pshh, whatever. That's weak, I lettered in drama!" you can rest assured that I am indeed for serious, yo.

2007-12-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks to JP over at Round Is Funny for bringing this memory up for me. When I was a mere slip of a shaven headed seventeen year old girl, I took my boyfriend with me to visit my dad at Christmas. Dad was having his annual Christmas BBQ, which you can do in Northern California without freezing your giblets off. The house was filled with my step-sisters, neighbors, and dogs. Everyone had that rosy glow that comes with holiday and a few liberal glasses of yuletide spirits, well, except for the dogs who were probably only waiting until enough people were tipsy enough to start actually setting their drinks down within reach of their eager little doggie tongues to get to a state of canine pixelation. If I remember rightly, this was the first time my boyfriend had met my dad, so I'm sure he was nervous as all hell. My dad is a very jovial soul, though, and did his best to put the young man at his ease. After hugs and handshakes and the ceremonial, "Nice to meet you, and I do hope you realize that if you do anything to hurt my daughter I'm going to invite you on a one way trip to my favorite hunting spot. Anyway, sure is nice to meet you young man, can I offer you something to drink?" The boy managed to stammer out, "uh..." before shooting me a panicked look. Kindly I took over before my dad was overwhelmed by the boy's eloquence. "What have you got?" I asked.
"Well, we've got brandy, whiskey, rum, vodka, and egg nog."
Hmm, I thought, this could be a test. Better play it safe. "We'll have the egg nog."
Cups were filled, handed over, and tasted.
"Uh, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"What's in this egg nog?"
"Brandy, whiskey, rum, and vodka!"
It was a very merry Christmas indeed. Dad Nog is now a staple 'round these parts every holiday season. Tasty, viscous, flammable. It's like toasting the baby Jesus with nutmeg flavored napalm.

2007-12-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Came across this picture that I nabbed from Newsweek and I had to share because it's more awesome than anything else any of us have seen all year. It is likely that it is the most awesome picture you will see this decade. Bow down.

Random Sunday

2007-12-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

Today's entry is brought to you by exhaustion. Went out dancing last night with Michelle. My feet hurt and it may take me a week to get the last traces of eye shadow off. Rather than attempting to be coherent, I'm just going to roll with the giddy incoherence and present a few gems from the collection of random crap I've managed to accumulate in my photobucket.

Merkin!

The Hoff's merkin goes to eleven.

Even the 6 year old boy here can tell that Jenna Jameson is really letting herself go.

Weren't expecting that, were you?

2007-11-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah, okay, so I fail at "A post a day." Acknowledged.

I think it's time to revisit a topic quite near to my heart - hanging right in front of it, actually. Yep, it's time again to talk about my boobs. Specifically, the sorry state thereof. Some of you may remember when they looked like this:

Nice hooters, huh? Yeah, I thought so, too. Well, since weaning Captain Crazypants, the glory has faded, and faded fast. I had to go buy new bras yesterday and I found myself wishing I'd brought a bugle along to play taps for my ta-tas. They are bodacious no more. In fact they are starting to look like a couple of Ritz crackers shoved into a pair of pantyhose. I know I shouldn't complain, since they are only down to a C, and not all the way back to the A I had before I got knocked up, but it's really only a C after I've gathered them all up and shifted them around into some sort of loose skin origami breast shape and plopped them into the damn bra, relying on meticulously engineered wires and padding and mystical lingerie prestidigitation to keep them front, center, and pointing vaguely upward. Victoria's Secret? Yeah baby, it's in the buttresses. And speaking of buttressing...no, I'll spare you that horror and sit on it for another entry later.

Technical Problems

2007-11-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

There is something hinky going on with the archive pages. Because I'm an idiot, I had the incorrect path listed for a while, but I fixed it so that you can now actually get to an archived month from the front page. When you try to move from one archive page to another, however, things start to go all wrong. You have to come back to the front page and navigate from here. I've tried everything that my very limited knowledge allows, and the frustration, she burns.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how much longer I'm going to be trustworthy. They say you can't trust anyone over 30, but does that mean that from the moment I turn 30 I become a shifty eyed undesirable, or does it mean that I have until my 31st birthday to cling to my reputation of respectable reliability? Do I have 11 hours, or one year and 11 hours? Will you believe anything I say tomorrow? How will I know? Will I assume that I'm being totally upfront, but in truth the inherent sketchiness of a 30-year old will be oozing through without my conscious will? Or is it something I'll feel come over me? As the hour strikes will I be suddenly filled with nefarious intent? I'm already questioning myself....this can't be good.

How To

2007-11-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Good habits start early so I'm doing my best to help Thomas avoid being a "How Not To" Goth. He's getting the finer points already.

Thomas' How To Goth Like You Mean It:

Be mysterious:

Be pale:

Get into a band:

Hang out in cemeteries:

Be dramatic:

Embrace the eyeliner:

Wallow in the occasional blue funk:

No matter what you're wearing, this above all else: be fabulous!

How Not To Goth

2007-11-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm a public service kind of girl, I really am, and so today I'm going to present a public service announcement about my own favorite subculture: the goths. Today's topic: "What the fuck did you do to your face? Because seriously you look like a lobotomized mime on a bender." After mining the depths of the web, including the fertile grounds of myspace, I bring you the best of the worst (that I found today - I can pretty much guaran-goddamn-tee you that there is much worse out there just waiting for me to stumble across it, gasp in horror and yell, "what the FUCK is that? Who traded your psychotropic meds for a black eyeliner?").
Let's dive right on in, shall we?

What can we say about Captain Batbrows? He's clearly out of Pantene, but that's the least of his problems. His eyebrow flames, ridiculous as they are, aren't even the major issue I'm having. What's most troubling is the he appears to have been fellating an exhaust pipe. If you insist on wearing the black lipstick, which is a bad idea unless you're a member of KISS or the Insane Clown Posse (which you clearly are not, Captain), you need to acquaint yourself with one of my favorite words: reapplication. Constant vigilance, son, constant vigilance.

Okay, you have a corset, a bra, opera length gloves, a cadaverous English major in badly fitted leather pants and the ubiquitous and inexcusable International Male flouncy shirt, even what appears to be a pair of unenthusiastic bat wings strapped to your back, but it looks like you ran out of steam on the way up your head, and honestly I can kind of see how that patch of leprosy could be a bit discouraging, but if you're going to leave the house like that, Honey, you need to keep soldiering on; Goth, even bad Goth, doesn't stop at the cheekbones. A little mascara, eyeliner, and shadow would take this from "I'm A Polyamorous Ren-Fairy Who Will Eventually Marry The Dread Pirate Glen Here In A Lord Of The Rings Themed Ceremony, Refer To Myself As Raven Eyown Online, And Name My First Child Loki Taliesin" to "Moderately Attractive Goth Chick," well, if you'd do a little something with your hair, that is.

Where do I even start with this? There are so many things wrong with this that I'm fairly certain I'm going to have to call my opthamologist, because looking at this picture has actually made me even more blind than I was before. My contacts are melting to my corneas. Cheap splotchy black lipstick? Check. Badly fitted leather pants? Check. Bicycle gloves whose sole purpose seems to be to confuse me? Check. Lousy snake tattoo? Check. Orange sunglasses? Pink dangly earring? Kimono jacket? Check, check, check, and what the ever-lovin' fuck? I mean, what the hell is going on under that top hat? Is that where you keep the demented monkey who dresses you?

Actually, no, there's nothing wrong with this picture. Yep, this is just exactly how you should look. If you washed your face and took off the stretch velvet dress it would be harder to tell at a glance that you've suffered massive head trauma. This could lead to unrealistic expectations and awkward encounters. Dress like this always; it's more festive than than the cardboard "If I wet myself, please contact my doctor" sign you'd have to wear otherwise.

"My black lipstick is so clumpy and awful that my hair is actually attempting to make a run for it. Man, I'm hardcore!"

It's cruel to take your blonde cousin to a goth club with you for the sole purpose of making sure that, no matter how unwashed and indifferent you may look, you'll be able to stand next to someone who makes you look like a fucking fashion plate. Cruel. Just because her normal wardrobe is primarily composed of hemp, and she has no idea that the fishnet shirt creates a beer gut where none existed before, and the no-makeup hippy hair thing clashes painfully with the vinyl skirt, is no reason to take advantage. You're a heartless bitch, Streak, truly heartless.

This is a cropped version of the original three quarter length nude shot, so you're not getting the full effect. You can thank me later. You know who can wear white face? Mimes. And who likes mimes? Oh, that's right, nobody! Meditate on this, for it shall bring you enlightenment.

I like Skinny Puppy, I do. I wish that this boy and I could connect over other things I like, like, say, shampoo.

The glasses, the skirt, the Level One helpdesk hair style...I...fuckin' Hell, you've broken me, Sir. I can't go on. This picture makes me want to head straight to The Gap and buy some pink polo shirts, khaki gouchos, and for the love of all that is unholy, some goddamned brown shoes! You've brought me to new lows Mister. I hope you're proud of yourself.

See, I told you it wasn't going to happen!

2007-11-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

My last post is a truncated version of what I wanted to post, and I didn't even know it actually published until today. For some reason there was something wonky somewhere between blogger and my ftp server. (I wonder if I could have fit any more "some" in that sentence.) Since then I've not had the itches in my britches to get back on this here bloggy thingy. I wanted to compose a long rant about schools canceling recess because tag could lead to collisions, and dodgeball is dangerous and exclusionary, and giving detention to kids who have the temerity to hug their friends, but I'm afraid my brain would esplode from the rage and my growing hatred of our overly sanitized, blunt-cornered, self-esteem building, life crushing society. Then I'd end up grabbing the Saphire, bellowing, "take care of the boy, this girl's got a date with the bottom of this gin bottle," and locking myself in the bathroom, emerging only for more lime juice and a pad of paper on which to draft the complicated plans for my insurrection that will rely heavily on small, pointy metal jacks, buckets of dirt, and finding enough grown ups with the intestinal fortitude to eat the occasional goldfish cracker long past it's thirty-second rule expiration, then returning to the bathroom mumbling incoherently about the siblings and baseball bats made of actual wood and fat lips and by God we liked it that way! So, in the interests of averting this frightful scene, I shall, instead, dedicate this post to things which are awesome and give me some small hope for the future of the world.

The man who brought us the infamous Hall of Douchebags has a blog!. This is cause for rejoicing people, so rejoice already!

You're The Man Now Dog presents Breakup Letter, A Dramatic Reading. (Thank you Dorothy!) Turn on your speakers.

Keep them on for this old classic: Rather Good kittens get down like that. Something that never fails to make me bop around my house like a jackass.

Go, check out VAST, it will make me happy, it'll make you happy.

Rock out with a cello!

And to bring it down a little, some Grant Lee Buffalo:

That's all I've got for today, I'm afraid.

2007-11-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

Want to hear something shocking? Here goes: I meet women off the Internet. I'm meeting one today, as a matter of fact. Scandalous, I know! My husband is aware of my little hobby, and, open-minded guy that he is, is totally okay with it. Sometimes I just meet them for a stolen hour or two in the middle of the day, other times for a more formal dinner date, and occasionally I meet up with more a whole bunch of them at once for an elaborate group session. Talk about setting a bad example for my son! He's already taken up my tawdry little hobby.

Faces altered to protect the innocent.

Just got home, more tomorrow. She wore me out.

The Spanish Casual Chat

2007-11-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

Confess! Confess! Give me your dirty little secrets, your clean little secrets, and even your mostly tidy but mildly disheveled little secrets!

This was inspired by a thread on a forum to which I belong, but I'm going to mix it up and confess to things I haven't even done yet. That's right, I'm going to be a madcap and toss in confessions of secrets I fully intend to be keeping at some point in the future. Am I going to tell you which those are? Hell no! Life is better with an edge of uncertainty! It builds character, keeps you regular, fights the germs that cause gingivitis!

So, if I were stretched out on the rack, water boarded (that sounds filthier than it should in the past tense), forced to listen to the soundtrack to High School Musical, denied access to shampoo for more than 24 hours, or in some other way heinously tortured, here's what I'd cop to:

*I tell people that I'm allergic to garlic, but I'm not sure I really am. What I do know though, is that it gives me horrible stomach cramps, and then, later that night the most appalling alchemy occurs somewhere in my bloated abdomen turning that pungent but mostly harmless little relative of the onion into a dank cloud of toxic EVIL that must fight its wicked way through my guts and escape out my ass. Miners used to keep canaries with them because the teeny birds would give warning, by way of dying, if they encountered a pocket of bad air. Those little birds had it easy! I could take out a turkey buzzard at a hundred yards after an accidental bite of hummus.

*I nearly broke up Christian Bale's marriage, but once I'd convinced him that I wasn't going to leave my husband and son, that he had a daughter to think of, and after a lot of counseling, he and his wife were able to move on from the unfortunate episode. It was heartbreaking to see a grown man, a respected actor, making such a fool of himself, though I was flattered, and I hope that we can all move forward with our respective happy marriages and maybe be just friends someday.

*I'm afraid of zombies, and the ocean (because it harbors zombies), and mimes (who might be a species of zombies). The only thing more frightening than a deep-sea zombie mime is possibly a cockroach...or a deep-sea zombie cockroach mime...

*I may have just pissed myself thinking about deep-sea zombie cockroach mimes.

*Sometimes I avoid my neighbors because I'm sure they can hear us watching porn and having sex.

*I was drunk when I accepted my Grammy, but I'd sobered up by the time I hip checked Avril Lavigne into the mini-quiche table and teamed up with JLo to beat the shit out of three of the Pussycat Dolls. I blamed it on the booze, but I have to tell you, in the interest of openness, that time I spent in "rehab" I was actually eating dim sum and watching old wutang movies with Jet Li and Yeun Woo-ping.

*It's been 61 hours since I last breastfed my son. This bit of information is significant for two reasons. The first is that I am no longer a nursing mother and I'm pretty happy about that. The second is that I might, possibly, be a tipsy right this very minute. I will probably have to confess to drunk blogging during our next Spanish Casual Chat, then head back to "rehab."

(Bonus points to anyone who knows where "Spanish Causal Chat" is from, and cookies in the mail to anyone who can find the relevant clip on YouTube....and more cookies to anyone who can correctly guess how many tries it took me to type the word relevant after all the wine I've just had. No cookies at all to anyone who guesses exactly how much wine I've put away tonight, because no one likes a tattle tale.)

2007-11-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

We got the movie Monsters Inc. recently and I have decided that I hate it. When I first saw it in the theater, I loved it. I enjoyed the plot and the characters, and was suitably impressed by the animation. Now, however, all I can think about is that those two monsters have no idea what to with a child, and somewhere on the other side of that door are some very worried parents. Also, this kid can say about four words and yet she's already potty trained - is there something wrong with her speech development? How old is this kid, anyway? And, speaking of potty trained, she comes through the door around 6pm, and doesn't have to pee until late the next morning. I can't go more than two hours without peeing, so I somehow doubt a toddler is going to make it fifteen hours or so. She never once wonders where her parents are, either. I can't go down to the garage and rotate the laundry without Thomas checking on me to make sure I'm not doing something fun without him (he's convinced that there are clowns and ponies lurking around every corner, and I sneak away to frolic madly whenever he's distracted or asleep). And she gets Fruit Loops for dinner - and it's the only meal she has during the entire movie! The sugar rush! The tummy ache! The perservatives! Motherhood has clearly ruined movie watching for me. Who thinks about this during a cartoon? I mean, seriously, the kid doesn't exist, and I'm worried about her nutrition, hygiene, and development, and obsessed with how terrified her mom and dad must be that she's disappeared from her bed (because, honestly, is that not one of the most frightening things a parent can imagine?). What is wrong with me? Or is this really a horror movie cleverly disguised as children's entertainment? Think your little one is safe in bed? Nope! No matter what you do, if you aren't actively staring at your child, they can just vanish! Sure, the kid in the movie gets returned with nothing worse than an empty belly, some soggy underoos, and a weird habit of saying "Mike Wazowski," but her parents don't know that!!

Day Two

2007-11-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

I don't have a penis (those of you who've not met me in person will just have to take my word for that [and so will most of you who have met me, actually]), so I really can't relate to penisy things, but apparently when penis and scrotum meet sand it is pure hilarity. This fascinating bit of news came my way this morning when Thomas decided that he simply couldn't be in the sandbox with his clothes on. First he wanted his toes in the sand, so we took off his socks. A little while later he let me know that the overshirt had to go, then the t-shirt, and then, as if a light went off in his head, he looked at me with this big grin and said, "pants! off!" So, there went the pants, and I thought he'd be content, but no, the diaper was creating a totally unacceptable barrier between his manly bits and the sand and so off it went. Immediately his plumbing was covered in sand and the cackling started. I would have thought that gritty sand cradling one's fragile nether parts would be unpleasant, and I certainly won't be offering my unprotected nooks and crannies to the not so tender embrace of beach grit anytime soon, but if one is a nearly two-year old boy, a sandy package is pure, organic awesome. It's amazing the educational opportunities motherhood presents, isn't it? I've also learned that if you set a boy on the potty but don't take away his markers he'll paint himself a pair of Ken doll bvds in a fetching shade of aqua. Also, poop covered scrotums are irresistable to little toddler hands. When he pees, he has no real interest in grabbing his junk, but if there's even a smear of poo, it's like trying to arm wrestle an octopus to get him wiped and diapered while keeping his hands crap free. And, lastly, I've learned that a mom just can't connect with her son on this issue. I used the word scrotum every day of his life during diaper changes and baths and not once did he acknowledge it or try to say it. Rob, while playing the Point Out That Bodypart game with Thomas one day said "balls" once, and our little man grabbed his diaper and gleefully shouted, "BALLS!" right back. Some things a boy and his mom just won't ever share, I guess.

One thing we can share, though, is a love of the zoo, and so I present to you a small (and sort of grainy because I only had my camera phone) photo safari of Thomas at the petting zoo and play area:

GOATS!

Farmer Thomas has some heavy chores to do!

The zoo seems to have a giant spider problem.

Caught like some unfortunate Edward Gorey child!

But no, our wee hero makes his escape!

Spider schmider...what else you got?

A post a day, huh? Oh that's gonna happen!

2007-11-01T18:53:00.001-07:00

Something weird and exciting happened to me on Tuesday. I left the house - no, no that's not the really cool part, rare though it seems to be, the exciting bit was that I went out with my husband...and we didn't take the child! Yes, you read that right, the two of us left our house, sans Thomas! Shock shock horror horror!! It was the second time we've done so since Rear Admiral Poopsenhosen was born. Madness!!!

Thomas stayed home with my wonderful friend Tommy Salami, who I've known since I was 15 (because that's the level of trust that is required to babysit my kid, because I'm, like, totally not paranoid at all), so we could go see the Tiger Lillies! I huffed and I puffed and I pulled my gut in, then strapped a corset over the damn thing, wriggled my feet into impractical but gorgeous shoes, slapped enough makeup on to turn my sorry mug into something vampy and less than haggard, and off I tottered to the show.

You know what? I've had a bit of gin, and I think I might be a little too tipsy to make a good entry. I'll try again tomorrow, and leave you with this:

M-I-C, See you little bastards in hell!

2007-09-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

You know how cats sometimes do that thing where they fix their entire attention, nay, the whole of their being, on one completely unremarkable spot on the wall or carpet, every molecule making up their furry be-whiskered selves orienting towards this arbitrary bit of nothing interesting as if the deepest puzzles of the universe will be sussed out and made knowable to their wee feline brains if only they stare hard enough? That thing? That thing they also sometimes do when you're home alone and your husband is out of town for a week and you're afraid of ghosts and you know someone once died in your building but no one will tell you in which unit so you're sure it's yours and you've read that cats can see things that humans can't (like dead people) and here's your little furball staring very intently just over your left shoulder as you sit on the couch alone at night and then, suddenly, in reaction to no stimulus you can perceive except did you just feel the merest brush of an icy hand on the back of your neck, the cat lays its ears back and runs away as if the deceased former occupant of your living room was hot on their striped tail. Yeah, that thing they do? Well, sometimes that has less to do with the restless souls of former tenents and more to do with unexpected housemates of the tiny, squeaky, flea-bearing, non-rent paying variety. Having experienced both causes for this most troubling of kitty cat behavior, I have to say that I think I vastly prefer being scared out of my pajamas to dealing with the damn mice now making themselves at home in my walls and under my dishwasher. Ghosts I can handle...well, sort of, if by "handle" I mean turn on every light in the house, make a fortified enclosure out of couch cushions, pull a blanket up over my head, refuse to come out until my bladder is so full I am in serious danger of pissing in my Powerpuff Girl underpants, and pray for dawn or rescue, then yeah, I can handle the fuck out of some ghosts! Mice, on the other hand, rob me of my dignity.

The cats, having alerted me to the presence of the miniscule freeloaders, seem to feel that their work is done. Last night during a quick intermission between episodes of The Tick while I was in the hall bathroom (with the door open because I'm a heathen and there wasn't anyone in the house I hadn't married or birthed so you can just refrain from judging there Judgy McJudgerson), a bit of movement caught my eye. Lo, it was the bold scampering of a very brazen little mouse explorer, who, having squeezed his uninvited self out of the vent under the dishwasher, scurried across the vast open expanse of our kitchen, gone past the first cat on the left and straight down the hall, and, upon hearing that we bought a new bed had decided to upgrade to posher digs than the wadded up appliance insulation in which he'd previously been nesting, so was making his way, in the least furtive fashion I have ever witnessed a mouse move, straight for our bedroom. Shocked at the complete disdain with which our home, our personal space, and our possession of not one, but two, natural mouse predators were being treated, I completed my necessary business and schemed up a little scheme to inform Mr. Cheeky O'Mouseypants that, while he may have been safe in his cozy little den beneath the Potscrubber 600, there was no sanctuary to be found in my bedroom! I hied me hence to the living room, snapped, "mouse in our bedroom" at Mr. G, scooped up the first cat I found (Velcro, wily hunter of flies and slayer of spiders), and, clutching my bemused savior to my bossom, marched off to the bedroom with the glint of oncoming victory in my eyes (victory doesn't actually smell like napalm in the morning, in fact, it smells a bit more like whiskey and vermouth in the late afternoon). I closed the door behind the cat and me and looked around for my miniature nemesis. Velcro blinked a few times and commenced with some important paw washing. I spotted our prey, his pointed snout poking out from behind the curtains, the look on his face clearly stating that he felt the color scheme in this room suited him ever so much more than the drab dust and wood tones to be found beneath the cabinetry in the kitchen. I pointed him out to the cat. She ignored me. I picked up the cat and set her in front of the spot where the mouse head had just been. Velcro did some more blinking and shed apathetically. I could only hope that she simply didn't want to embarass her clumsy human friend with a display of shocking acrobatics and graceful violence. Admiring her discretion and tact, I withdrew, bracing myself to return to a grisly display of battle trophies and some understandable kittenish smugness. I listened for a while but heard no sounds of struggle. For good measure I found Jet and tossed him in as backup, or competition, or something, just kill the damn thing already! Mr. G came to listen. He said he heard a scream; I thought, "Excelsior! Score one for the home team!" I was deeply disappointed, though, when we went in to check and Jet was staring at the bookshelves, Velcro was laying on her side by my dresser, and the mouse ran over my foot and under the bed. Noble descendants of tigers, my lily-white ass! Useless kibble moochers, I say! I firmly believe that what was heard was not a shriek of pain and fear, but a mousely taunting as our unwelcome new housemate hurled his scorn and tiny defiance into the face of our worthless and not as carnivorous as advertised furbags. I felt shame on Jet's and Velcro's behalf (behalves?), since they seemed quite disinclined to feel properly mortified at their own disgraceful performance, or complete lack thereof.

What makes this all the more unsatisfactory is that this is all after a vist from an exterminator. Glue traps lay empty under the sink, behind the various cleaning products, and surrounded by a mocking little rock garden of mouse turds. Our landlord came over this afternoon, and after much disarranging of large outdated dish cleaning equipment, some plans have been set in motion, further strategies have been laid, and I fear that I can't give any more detail than that lest that information fall into disarmingly cute, but undoubtedly nefarious, diminutive enemy hands. If I don't update within a week, know that the mice have won.

I know we've grown apart, but I'm willing to change, because I love you.

2007-09-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

It totally wasn't you; it was me. I've just needed some time to get my head straight and really figure out me, you know, before I could really give myself to you fully. You deserve that. You deserve all of me, and I just wasn't capable of giving it to you. Now, though, if you'll take me back, I think I'm ready to be with you. I promise that I haven't been seeing any other blogs during the break. I've been faithful. I haven't even been touching my diary or looking at dirty fonts. I won't even ask if you've blogged or seen other bloggers while we were apart; it's none of my business. I accept that I left you and I have no right to know, or care, what you've done since February. I don't even ask that things be the same as they were before. I'm not expecting us to rush straight to bed, even, and I am willing that you should read my blog on the couch, or even in the den if that's where you're comfortable. I just ask for a chance to wiggle my way back into your affections.

In the interest of honesty, I'll tell you everything, you deserve to know.

(Did I mention how hot you look in that outfit? God I missed you!)

So, here's the recap:

We went to the Caribbean in the Spring, with a few days on either side spent in Minnesota. We frolicked in the warm ocean, ate amazing food, drank rum, enjoyed every damn minute of it! Here are a few pictures of the Grammatarians in Paradise:

Then we went to New York and L.A. for a few days each for Mr. Grammatarian's company. Thomas and I tagged along and he took a couple of extra days to make a small family vacation out of each trip. I'll put up some pictures later, but I don't have them on this computer or my photobucket account right now. I have to say, though, that Thomas travels surprisingly well. He hasn't been that kid on a plane yet, though he does have a habit of grabbing flight attendants' asses. Luckily he's pretty cute and can get away with it.

We just got back from another trip to Minnesota, actually. We went to meet Rob's grandmother, who is a lovely woman. We also met a few of Rob's cousins - and by "a couple" I mean nine....out of 28...just on his dad's side. We went over to one of his uncle's house and met eight of his nine kids. The mind, she boggles. The uterus, she whimpers.

Rob went on tour as a hired gun drummer. They followed a heat wave and flash flooding down Route 66. It was two weeks of muggy weather, cheap beer, and an attempt to grow a Lemmy moustache. We missed him terribly and I think that two weeks of solo parenting a toddler getting molars is more than enough for me, thanks.

I have to stop now, Thomas is up from his nap, and I have mom stuff to do, but I'll be back, and to tide you over, here's a picture of the Disco Ninja himself enjoying the zoo:

2007-02-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

Did you hear about the circus owner who had trouble putting up the big top every night? Yeah, he'd take it down and put it back up at least four times because the stripes didn't line up, or the flag on top was crooked, or it was wrinkled and just not right. Yeah, he was an anal re-tentive.

This is the joke that I came up with during a dream last night. The rest of the dream was about the Golden Girls.
I guess I sleep just a little funny.

Nap Strike Ends In Victory for Local Housewife

2007-01-30T16:21:00.000-08:00

That's right, people, that baby, that baby right there - the maniacal one:

yeah, him - he's asleep! Against his will even! I win! Awww yeah! Dig it! Freddy, my love, let me hear it! Show me some love!

You may ask why I am so giddy about a mere nap, and I will tell you. We are in the 5th straight day of a nap strike. Union reps and household management have yet to reach an agreement that is acceptable to both sides, but I am happy to say that I have managed to go around the mediators in this instance, and have, through sheer persistance, been able to make The Baby see things my way this afternoon. Booyah, baby, booyah!
Seriously, this is one stubborn kid (a trait I am quite sure he got from his father, thank you very much). When he doesn't want to nap, by God, he's not going to nap. When he is agreeable, the routine goes like this:
8 a.m. - up and out of bed after about 10 minutes of him climbing onto my face and neck, giggling and farting.
8:15-8:30 a.m. - watches Dad shower and attempts to climb in with him only to realize that his legs are still a little too short to get over the rim of the tub
8:30-9 a.m. - breakfast, during which some food might actually make it into the baby. Cuteness and messiness abounds.
9-10 a.m. - chase cat, play with toys, read books with Mommy, run amok, maybe poop
10-10:15 a.m. - nurse and pass out
10:15 a.m. - 12 p.m. - sleep with reckless abandon
12 p.m. - wake up, get diaper changed
12:15-12:45 p.m. - vid chat of lunch time havok with Daddy
12:45 p.m. - 2:30/3 p.m. - amok amok amok, with a shower in there somewhere
3- 3:15 p.m.- nurse and pass out
3:15 - 4:30 p.m. - sleep like you mean it
4:30 - 6:30 p.m. - run amok in such a way that all earlier amok running seems like a pale and lackluster foreshadowing
6:30 p.m. - greet Daddy, drag him around the house
7- 7:30 p.m. - dinner, messiness, cackling
7:30 p.m. - into jammies, quiet play time
8/8:30 p.m. - nurse, cuddle with Daddy, pass out

These days it's the same until:
10-11:30a.m.- nurse, refuse to sleep, grab Mommy's hair, poke Mommy in the nose, giggle, squirm, fuss, look around, try to escape, throw a fit, babble, wiggle, throw another fit, pass out
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. - sleep, but mix it up - sleep like the dead for 15 mnutes, then flop about and open eyes for a bit, demand to be held halfway through
1:30p.m. - wake up, proceed as usual until
3 p.m. - repeat process

He was so stubborn about this nap that, in the end, his eyes were closed from overwhelming exhaustion, but he started babbling loudly in protest in order to keep himself awake. In the end, however, I have had my victory and he's sacked out. Because I am the Champion, my friends.

Dateline: Daly City

2007-01-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

The world is going to pot it seems. Global climate changes, genocide, terrorism, war, zealotry, e. coli, blizzards, Lindsay Lohan! I suspect that the planets are aligned in some unfortunate configuration that is causing upheaval across the Earth. Crises are springing at every level, International, national, local, and even right here in the beige-carpeted domestic haven that is Casa Grammatarian. Yes, our very own civil war rages on, unabated. Battles are won or lost on either side, but no end to the conflict seems forthcoming. On one side stands the United Parenting Front. Their pro-nap, anti-tantrum stance has them at odds with their opponent, the Toddler Demolition Force. The TDF has vowed not to rest until...well, actually just not to rest, period. Toddler scientists have come up with a masterful new technique that renders certain members of their force immune to all forms of sedation, including a great favorite of the UPF, "The Car." The TDF has also called a food strike to protest the creation of Toddler Free Zones around the home electronics and the application of child locks on cabinets filled with Many Interesting Things. Mealtimes have become a source of great tension, particularly for innocent civilian cats who are likely to become accidental victims of cracker shrapnel and yogurt spray.
Aggressions are spilling out of the house and onto the streets of Daly City, where the leader of the Toddler forces, Thomas "the Disco Ninja," in a deliberately provacative act, was seen consuming sand at a local playground. After several attempts at intervention showed the Parents' representative's inability to move swiftly enough to curb the crusty consumption, the agent, one "Mom," gave up her efforts at inhibition and resorted to documenting the event for posterity.

As of yesterday, both sides received reinforcement from allies. Caitlin (alais: Monkey Girl) has joined The Disco Ninja, and a mysterious agent known only as "Grandma" has reportedly signed on to the opposing team, keeping the TDF outnumbered. How will the weekend play out? Though possessing superior numbers, the UPF still faces a determined opponent willing to fight dirty, engage in psychological warfare, and has no moral compuctions about breaking international conventions of warfare for the simple reason that they are too young to have any morals at all. Further updates as events unfold.

2007-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was feeling brave and actually left a comment on one of my favorite blogs, Mr. Nice Guy, in which I confessed that he rocks me sockless. After reading elasticwaistbandlady/The Smiling Infidel's most recent post, however, I am thinking that sockless might just be a damn good thing, and that Mr. Nice Guy is lucky to be spared socks like these:

These are the only entertaining socks I own, and while the selection is nothing like the Infidel's, I admit that the area of footwear where I really excel, and in which I am willing to throw down the gauntlet of challenge, is shoes. Shoes like these:

and these:

I'm even inflicting my passion for shoes onto the adorable little feet of my boy-spawn. Observe the midget's shoe collection:

I believe firmly in the idea that the world is easier to face in a really kick ass pair of shoes. There is little one can't overcome with the proper footwear (and the proper application of said footwear to the posterior regions of the deserving when necessary).

Edited to add:
Oh yes, and just for you, my dear EWBL, I also have these: