Thursday, July 20, 2006

Just in case you had any doubts....

Yes, I still do have my obsession with yarn! Here's a bag I made for my secret pal. I'm about 99% sure that she hasn't tracked me here, so I'm gonna show you guys because I LOVE it and I really want to keep it. I'm on a bag spree lately, but this is the only picture I have right now.


And here's the back:It's not wonky....it's just that I'm a horrible photographer. I made it out of a million tiny hanks of a ripped apart sweater that Little A and I dyed on July 3rd...in the office! I figured if I had to work while the boss was vacationing, I was gonna bring Little A and we were gonna make a mess! It was fun. Probably the best day of work I've ever had.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Knock, knock...anybody home?

Random people walk into my place of work on occasion. Its unnerving because I'm often here alone and we don't expect people to come here. When they open the door, they walk into a huge, dirty ominous looking garage. On one wall are four doors that indicate just a little more civilization than would be found in the rest of the garage.

As people are looking for the office, they begin to try these doors.

The second door is marked "office", they one where I sit, and the only one that is ever unlocked, so where do you think each and every moron who walks in here goes? The 3rd door. Inevitably. They pass right by the 1st and 2nd and try to open the 3rd, locked door. Then the 4th. Then they walk back passed the second door and try the first one. Sometimes, they then leave. The smart ones realize there is one last door and hit the jackpot. Me trapped in income poop.

I'm perplexed by this phenomenon.


And just so you all don't think that I'm done being bitchy....

I'm usually pretty forgiving of cell phone rudeness, considering I partake in many of these behaviors on occasion. BUT the one that really needs to stop is when people get pissed off because you called them on their cell phone at on inconvenient time. Duh. Turn your fucking cell phone off, geniuses, if its a bad time. I got this one from Littls A's dad today. I called him to tell him that there was a change of plans about where he should be picking her up tonight. Yes, very frivolous, I know. It is ghastly unimportant to know where your daughter is. He answers in a huff "I'm in a session." Well!

Fucking retard. Turn off your phone. I'll leave you a message.

But, the classic one was when I was trying to call Little A's dad just after he got his cell phone, but I must've had the number wrong because I got some girl's voicemail. After about 20 minutes, the girl calls me demanding to know who this is. I told her I just dialed her number incorrectly....sorry. And she says, "Well, I was in class when you called and the professor got really pissed that my phone rang!"

Good God. Will the stupidity ever cease? Or at least slow down a little?

Monday, July 10, 2006

A rant about the "young" ones. And not very nice.

No, not kids. Not babies.

No, not even that weird old BBC comedy.

I have come here tonight to tell you that people (read: men) who claim to be "young at heart" or "see through the eyes of a twelve year old" (as I heard on NPR today), or feel like they are still teenagers are making someone (read: me) want to shove a toothbrush down their throat and gaggidy gag gag.

First, let me just say, that finding a guy that has the maturity of a twelve year old, even well into his 50's or 60's is really no hard task. You don't even need the dead cat. Swing a tidy little piece of fun fur (because what else would you want to do with it?). So everyman and anyman, please feel free to cease highlighting this characteristic as if its something new and improved.

And worse yet than the salesman play on "look at this great new model man", it seems to be something that men say to attract women.

So, for you perverts that say it to get a girl that is way too young for you, ICK. And, many and most women grow and when she's turned 22 and your 57, she'll realize that you're not a mature, sensitive grown-up whose attention makes her feel mature and grown-up. She'll most likely see the pitiful playboy hoping to constantly relive his glory days as a second string highschool quarterback who played 15 minutes in a whole season. Get over it.

Call me crazy, but I, like most women I know, appreciate growth. I appreciate maturity. I appreciate people who have attained the nearly impossible, death defying feat of talking and communicating about something other than boobs, football, or beer. Or the feat of living inside the human they are, not the human they were 40 some odd years ago. Cumulation of experience is what makes a person. It what's make an average looking person, intensely attractive. It's what makes you worth the trouble.

This "you're only as old as you feel" attitude seems to be yet another notch on the post of obsession with youth. And I'm over it. (Just so you know.) That's right, I'm over youth (except for the smooth skin part. I do appreciate a good skin cream). Kids are beautiful. But I will no longer volunteer myself to date or marry one. Sure, have some vitality, have some energy...great! But PLEASE, for the love of God, have at least of side of substance along with it.

Blogger hates me for being a sometimes blogger

Yup, it sure does. Apparently enough to black out my whole blog! So, this is serving as a test post. Luckily, I have nothing too deep to say....

BUT, I do want to say that TINK made me go to work on Friday. Yup, if I hadn't gotten her awesome mix CD in the mail, I'm pretty sure that nothing would've gotten me into the car on Friday morning. Thank Tink!!

I'm done reading (basically) for my thesis, and now writing, writing, writing. Which is my NEW excuse as to why my posts are so very infrequent. I will be a very happy girl when this thing is done and I can write about whatever the hell I want to again.

I'm sososososo sorry that I've been a bad blog commenter lately (I'm sure no one thought I could get worse), but I'm still reading, I swear! And you are all as wonderful as always!

And with that...I'd better see if this actually posts before I actually start writing something that I'll be pissed to lose.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Guest Blogger!

Today we have a wonderful guest blogger! I'm happy to introduce you to Her Bad Mother ! I'll be over there today, so please come and say hi!

So, I had this really great post all worked out for this month's blog exchange, based upon the video for George Michael's song Freedom 90. It was all set to be a thoughtful discussion of the pressures of youth and image and the ways in which that both changes and doesn't change when one becomes a mother. And it was going to be chock-full of witty references to has-been musicians and aging supermodels, and you would have liked it.


Then WonderBaby decided kick the mama-butt-kickin' up a few notches, and any thoughts that did not pertain to sleep immediately fled the mental scene.


Freedom (I won't let you dooown, I will not give you up...) means only one thing - or set of things - to me at the moment. Freedom to sleep. Freedom to rest. Freedom that I no longer really have.


We've been pretty lucky with the sleep, for the most part: WonderBaby has always, with a few exceptions, slept pretty well at night. But she's never cottoned to sleeping during the day. And a turbo-charged WonderBaby who refuses to sleep is an exhausting thing. So I've always needed every second of that life-saving night-time sleep.


And when the night-time sleep goes? Hell. One of the further circles thereof.


I was thinking about this last night, after WonderBaby woke up around 11:30 and refused to go back down in her crib. You cannot do this to me, I thought. You cannot damn your own mother. She just grinned. Awake is fun!


Awake is not fun when you're exhausted and the Husband has to get up to shoot a commercial at 5am and so can't help you. Awake feels like being trapped. A lot like being trapped. So I did what any other desperate creature would do if it found itself trapped: I did the mother equivalent of chewing my own leg off.


I brought WonderBaby into bed with me. For the first time in over three months.


Now, to be clear, I'm not refering to co-sleeping as the mothering equivalent of chewing one's own leg off because I regard co-sleeping as an entirely terrible act of desperation. There's nothing terrible about co-sleeping. We did a lot of it in the early months. But co-sleeping with a swaddled-up larva and co-sleeping with a rabid badger (especially when one has become accustomed to NOT sleeping with wildlife) are two entirely different things.


One only sleeps with a rabid badger out of desperation. Because one does so knowing that the hard-won sleep that is the co-sleep is a painful sleep. When you've become accustomed to the near-freedom that is sleeping without baby - sleeping sprawled across the bed, arm tossed over Husband's back, pillows askew - sleeping with baby is startlingly uncomfortable. A situation that is only entered into under challenging and uncompromising circumstances and that is - for the most part - suffered.


The first moments of the co-sleep, of course, are blissful. Ah, sweet release from the torments of wakefulness! The delicious bliss of baby snug in your arms, her warm and fragrant body tucked against your own! Then, the squirming. The well-aimed kick to the boob. The little fingers jammed up your nose. The pain of lying completely still, on your side, cramped up in one small corner of the bed, hardly daring to breath for fear of waking the sleeping-but-still-fully-mobile creature that has spread herself across the bed.


Co-sleeping, for me, is suffered. But (like suffering the loss of a limb to escape a trap) suffered gladly. Suffered gladly in exchange for relief from the torture that is standing, exhausted, in the middle of the night, beside the crib that my baby is trying to climb out of while shrieking at the top of her lungs. Suffered gladly for the happy feeling of knowing that my presence is enough to calm and still this beautiful, wild thing, my baby. Suffered gladly for the few moments of baby-snuggle-bliss, moments that I know are fleeting, moments that I know I will someday sorely miss.


Suffered gladly for a sort of freedom - a temporary freedom from exhaustion and frustration. It's a crippled freedom, but it is, nonetheless, freedom. And I'll take my freedom where I can get it. So if we need to co-sleep again tonight, fine. I'll take the kicks to the boob and the cramped legs and the fingers up the nose and I'll tell myself, it could be worse.


And then I'll inhale deeply of the fragrance of her warm little head and tell myself, it can't get any better.


Freedom is overrated.



Her Bad Mother really, really tries to be good. But it's hard work, and she's lazy, so what do you want? Visit her at www.badladies.blogspot.com

If you are interested in participating next month, email Kristen at kmei26 at yahoo dot com. Here are other exchange participants to check out:

Cape Buffalo
Chelle
Soul Gardening
Another Mommy Moment
Mommy's Dirty Secret
Chicken n Cheese
A Mommy Story
A Crack in Life
Divine Calm
Taste the World
Binkytown
Motherhood Uncensored
Zach's Day
Mother Goose Mouse
Izzy Mom
Bethiclaus
Chaos Theory