TALES FROM BEDLAM: ISABEL'S BLOG

TASTELESS CUPCAKE

2012-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Some days I can't meet
people's eyes
my face feels long and
set in stone

tired
ugly
old

Eating a cupcake tonight
for Valentine's
I thought about love and
how lonely
it can be

dry
empty
sad

The cupcake was tasteless
and I remembered thinking,
earlier,
this would be a day
without tears

AT THE GROCERY STORE

2012-02-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

The act of bending to pick up the fallen packages embarrassed her almost as much as the noise they'd made, that bare and open sound of flesh striking flesh, a noise that was so raw and primal she wanted to close her eyes for a minute, just a minute, while she got her bearings and was able to respond, with a quick, confident smile, to the gazes of the young couple and the dirty toddler beside her.

Just chicken breasts falling, she thought, but as the shelf continued to waver her unsteady hand made more of the packages fall like dominoes--like lemmings. It could have, it should have, been comical, but with that feeling coming on each slap felt like a warranted reproach, and all she really wanted to do was cry.

The toddler was grimy and scantily dressed for the chill of the meat aisle, and the mother had bad teeth, chipped and gaping, the teeth of a mouth she could hardly imagine kissing, let alone loving to the point of creating a baby, and she momentarily felt cynical, but then the absurdity of her own situation--the fact of the breasts falling, the fact of the breasts, the breasts that were not unlike her own breasts, the breasts she'd used to feed her child, the "time bombs," she'd heard, "waiting to happen"--hit her and she succumbed once more to the feeling, the feeling that made everything so strange and shaky in the first place.

It had been a difficult morning, preceded by a night of insomnia that left her shattered and groggy by six, when the alarm went off. The internal battle to shut off the snooze, drag herself out of the blankets, and propel herself out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen was made more difficult by the fact that she'd drunk a bottle of wine the night before; the rebelliousness that pushed her to do that had mutated, by morning, into a simmering anxiety about her drinking, among other things--into worries, intensified by a stabbing headache and dry, dirty taste in her mouth, that were difficult to ignore.

She’d made it to the coffee maker and turned it on, her mood briefly brightening with the comforting sounds of the machine and the smell of the coffee; for a moment, she leaned against the counter and rested her head in her hands, resolving, once again, to approach the day with a new, dynamic, positive perspective.

The sound of the baby crying drew her out of the beginnings of a dream, the insomnia having finally given way to dark curtains falling mercifully around her, and she wrenched her head up and looked at the clock on the stove: 6:45. Late.

The coffee hadn't finished brewing but she grabbed the carafe and poured it into a cup, then, adding a hefty amount of creamer, stirred it hastily with a fork. The house was rarely tidy by morning—or nighttime, for that matter--and it wasn't unusual for the first hour of the day to play out like this--a mad scramble for spoons, razors, and matching socks, a kind of real-life board game with real-life penalties and setbacks that, for some reason, never sank in.

Lifting the cup to her mouth, she walked towards to the bedroom yelling "Hon! Hon! You're going to be late!" and then shook, with her free hand, the lumpy shape of her sleeping husband.

"Hon, get up!" she said again, then lurched towards the baby's room. The motion--the turning, especially--prompted a fresh series of piercing jabs, and she instinctively raised her hand to press it against her head. In her foggy state, however, she forgot, or neglected to consider, the cup in her hand and the contents it held; sloshing jerkily, the hot coffee spilled over the rim and down her nightgown, landing in a splotchy puddle around her feet.

"Dammit! Fuck!" she said. Her head spun from the hangover and sleepless night, and she sensed the approach of the strange agitation, the strange feeling that had been growing for the last few weeks, or was it months? Years? She couldn’t remember when it had started and she wasn’t sure what it meant, and anyway, maybe it didn’t matter--what did matter was getting the baby dressed and ready for day care, so, bracing herself against the wall, praying the spinning would fade, she opened the bedroom door. With that movement a surge of brackish floodwater rose from the reeds in a neglected part of her mind, taking the spinning to the level of a nightmare carnival ride, and as she gasped the smell of diarrhea registered. That was too much--everything was suddenly too much—and as she dropped to the floor, the floodwater rose. Relieved now, almost…happy, she opened her mouth and released a wave of wine and coffee all over the pink fluffy rug.

Hours had passed since then and now the episode seemed like a dream: her husband, taking pity on her, had gotten the baby cleaned up—a dinner of apple sauce was to blame for the diarrhea—and off to day care, effectively saving the day, or the morning at least. After dozing till early afternoon she’d mustered some energy, showered, and dragged the baby’s rug out the back door, to be dealt with at a later date; knowing apple sauce was not an acceptable dinner option and they were out of wine, she’d gotten into her beat-up Honda and driven to the store. On the way, she told herself it wasn’t for her she was buying more wine--that morning, like so many previous mornings, she’d resolved to go cold turkey—but it was possible a friend would come over, and they had to have something, didn’t they, to offer? The thought of a bottle of wine sitting cold in the fridge, waiting to be opened, with the jolly popping sound of the cork, and then poured, with a soft gurgle, into a sparkling crystal glass cheered her. They neither had friends nor wine glasses, and they definitely didn’t own anything made of crystal, but it was nice to imagine such a pleasant, normal scenario, and it wasn’t until she got to the grocery store that she was aware of a craving for a drink.

She made it past the beer and wine section and, though she thought the craving, triggered by the jangliness of the store--the fluorescent lights, paralyzing choices, and seemingly leering strangers—might fade, the sick thuds of the chicken breasts had made it stronger: she needed a beer, a glass of wine, anything to numb her senses and take away the conviction that the whole store was whispering “freak.” She was sure of it—the couple with the toddler had moved away, but they’d seen her, and there was a manager-looking man over near the sausages, pretending not to watch her but probably thinking she was drunk. If only she was drunk! she laughed to herself, knowing it wasn't very funny.

Avoiding the man’s eyes, she gripped the handle of the cart and pushed it—since when were shopping carts so heavy?—towards the baby aisle. They were always running out of diapers, and the thought of that, of the general shabbiness and disorganization of their lives, coincided with another thought, the one she’d been avoiding all morning. The strange agitation that had been lurking below the surface, that had flared up that morning and now again, with the falling chicken breasts, was not going away. She knew that suddenly. Maybe, she thought, she should think about it, try to figure out what it meant.

Absentmindedly fingering a set of plastic toddler cups, she tried to remember when it started. She'd become aware of a simmering anxiety sometime in the course of their changing life, since adulthood took over and all the changes took place. That life had changed over the years was undeniable: her husband had taken a stressful job with long hours, and she’d gone from “looking for work” to “stay-at-home mom”; the amount of time she spent on the couch watching TV was in glaring contrast to his ragged salesman schedule. Tension had grown between them, and in their ten years together they’d become different people: her once slim shape was replaced by dumpiness brought on by snacking and indolence, and he’d become a gaunt, greyer version of his younger self; emotionally, they seemed to have gone through a mutual clearing-out that left them unable to connect. Things were not great between them, she knew, but their story was not unlike that of many couples, and it didn’t seem that the restless anxiety, the feeling, was due to their marriage.

Was it the baby? Obviously, that had been a positive addition to their lives, but, like so many things, an unexpected set of problems had come along too that sometimes made her wonder if it was all worth it. That sort of thinking generally only happened in the middle of the night, during her worst bouts of insomnia, but when she allowed herself to consider all the terrible things that could happen—sickness, accidents, kidnappings—and thought about the fact that one day, inevitably, she would be separated from her child, the sadness was almost too much to bear. She was a good mother, for the most part: sometimes negligent, it was true, but mostly just in mild ways, like in not keeping the house clean or in giving the baby apple sauce for dinner. She tried, she really did, to play and to be a fun mother, so what difference did it make if the edges were a little rough? Things were chaotic a lot of the time, but there was love in their house.

She wandered slowly towards the dairy section. Was it her childhood? She’d always been prone to feeling like an outcast. School had been one long string of painful experiences that taught her not to trust certain types of people, and above all, to keep to herself; it was only after meeting her husband, who’d endured his own share of playground torture and developed a similar attitude of self-protection, that she’d been able to let her guard down. When they moved in together things had gotten easier—she’d been almost lighthearted for a while—but complacency had set in and her tendency to drink to loosen up became a habit; before they knew it, her consumption became a lead weight they both carried.

Well, she thought, gazing at a display of crackers, it could be her drinking then. She’d read enough to know that after time it altered your brain chemistry, making you anxious and depressed. Was that it--was she anxious and depressed? She stared at the image of a dancing cracker. Maybe, but…it was strange—whenever she thought of horses, which she’d loved since she was little, the feeling became really strong. It was so strong then, so clear and overwhelming, she thought that sometime, in some way, she might do something crazy. She wasn’t sure what, but when she imagined the beautiful horses from the posters of her youth and thought about the feeling of freedom she might have sitting on the back of a glorious, full-boned palomino, its silky mane brushing her face, her life at that moment totally complete and perfect—when she thought about that, the agitation came over her and she thought she understood why, sort of, some people did strange and unexpected things.

Besides horses, there was her writing, of course. She’d always loved to write, and had thought stories would bring her success, redeem her in the eyes of the world and free her from the constraints she felt so strongly, but soon after college that love turned into a hobby—a hobby!—and then drifted by the wayside. She wrote a little now and then, but with chores and her TV shows she found it difficult to make the time; like so many things, it was now mostly a source of depression she preferred not to think about.

It was cold in the store. She’d been pushing the cart aimlessly, nervously thinking about the agitation that was growing steadily--frighteningly quickly. She tightened her grip on the shopping cart and forced her features into a look of calm. Ha, she thought—calm!

Turning a corner, she saw the wine and beer section. The effort of trying to look normal was having the reverse effect, making her more distraught, and all she wanted then was a drink. Fuck it, she thought, I’ve been through enough today, and wheeled the cart towards the white wine. Reaching up for her usual—cheap, not too sweet, fairly drinkable—she grasped the bottle and, squeezing its neck with both hands, pressed it momentarily between her breasts. The glass felt solid and comforting, and the thought of the first sip, with its miraculous power to simultaneously brighten and conceal, brought her a rush of relief. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them the store looked friendlier somehow--the lighting less harsh, the colors and displays almost pleasant. She felt a little lighter then--almost...capable--and, her worries about the strange feeling temporarily at bay, she walked to the register, paid, and went out to the parking lot.

When she got to the car, she threw the groceries in the trunk and, climbing into the front seat, rolled down the window. The air felt fresh and clean, and for a while she just sat there. Calmed by the presence of the wine, she started thinking again about her life and the strange feeling, now so clearly intertwined.

Outside, above the car, a gigantic flock of black birds was shifting and flapping in the trees. With eerie shrieks they called to each other, and the noise they made—wild, sad, and unearthly, the sound of lost creatures in a cold and lonely place—sounded strangely familiar. For some reason, she didn’t understand herself yet, but she felt like she understood, at least, what the birds were saying. That struck her as funny, and, turning on the car, looking over her shoulder to back up, she smiled.

PHYTOPLANKTON OF WORRY

2011-12-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

I'd apologize for taking so long to write except that I don't apologize anymore*, and anyway, what's thirteen days compared to five months? In terms of breaks I've taken from this blog, the last one has been a phytoplankton caught in the teeth of a blue whale, insignificant as insignificant can be, except that, well...is there really such a thing as insignificant?

To be honest: I didn't write because I've been a little depressed. The fear of not achieving my self-set goals (succeeding with children's books, mobiles, jewelry, photography, collages, short stories, this blog) has been weighing heavily on me lately, maybe because I'm getting close to 38. Yes, I made the ten mobiles recently, and that's great, but, oh god, the children's books! The necklaces and earrings! All the stories I've started!

It KILLS me to think that I might not succeed with some of this stuff. And it equally kills me to think that there's a room in this house, a room I can call my studio, and I haven't used it in...two months. Easily.

What's my excuse? Malko: finding him, today, on the desk in his and Lula's room, the window open and the screen pushed out; losing him, the other day, and then finding him, after a few seconds (of extreme panic) in our car in the driveway. "See, Maman? See?" Oh yes, I see, alright.

What's my other excuse? The house. It's home to nine mammals, five of which have fur. Think fur--lots of it. Lots of feeding. Lots of going inside and outside. Is it my own fault? Am I the only one to blame for the animal havoc I have brought into my life? Yes. YES!!! I admit it. It is my fault. But, oh god, if you could just see little Fia! Such a cutie. How could I resist?!?!? She makes up for Tango, who bites my ankles when he wants to be fed. Although he is cute, in his own way.

Anyway. You get the picture. Between Malko, trying to escape through the window and trying to drive the car, the house, not exactly as spic and span as I'd like it, and the five pets, things are a little hectic at times.

But I've decided to make the remaining weeks until my birthday some bad-ass weeks. I'm going to try really hard not to get sucked into the vortex of worrying, which almost always translates to procrastination, and instead just GET SHIT DONE!

*about that kind of thing

I CAN RELATE

RESULTS OF INTERGALACTIC MISSION 1674: SPACE DELIGHTS!

2011-11-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I finished my first ten mobiles ("Space Delights"). Since then I've been on a house-painting bender, and am only just recovering from the fumes, but am DYING to get started on the next ten (they'll have a different style of frame--a vertical line with horizontal-ish arms). I'm going to enter these in a show sponsored by Austin City Hall, and maybe try to get them in a store, but I'm hesitant about separating them because I think they pack more of a punch when they're all together. I'll post more details about these guys later--right now, I REALLY need to take a shower...

GOODBYE DAVID RICE

2011-11-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

It's one thing to joke about cops coming to the house when you're high on paint fumes and another thing when it actually happens. I'll just say this: it's not as funny as it sounds. Nervous giggling usually doesn't go over well with the law, and when your hair looks like it hasn't been washed in eleven days--specifically, because it HASN'T been washed--and you're giving off guilty vibes because of that time, twenty years ago, when you thought it would be amusing to write "I have a gub" on a piece of paper at the bank with your then-boyfriend, and he threw the piece of paper in the trash, and the cleaning person found it, and gave it to the bank manager, and next thing you knew you and your boyfriend were being interrogated at the police station--

That was twenty years ago, and my terrified tears quickly proved me innocent (and stupid), but for some reason the guilty conscience is still there, to such a degree that when I saw the cop car pull up to the curb I went and hid, and it took a few moments of standing in the dark hallway, clutching a paint can, before I came to my senses and thought "What the hell am I doing?" THEN I walked, a little more assuredly, to the open window of the office, which I was painting various shades of green, and said "Can I help you?" to the strangely bulging-eyed officer crossing the yard.

"Hello," he said. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks," I replied. "And you?" I didn't do it!!

"Just fine," he said, eyeing me--scrutinizing my sloppy painting getup, my guilty aura, my past lives as a gondolier and a squirrel--with mild suspicion. "I'm looking for someone"--my throat tightened--"who, I'm told, lives at this address. Do you know David Rice?"

Phew--he wasn't looking for me! I started to feel friendlier towards the cop, and for a second imagined myself inviting him in through the window, offering him a glass of milk, maybe gently broaching his eye problem. All I could manage, though, was a smile--a smile that said, I hoped, I'm a good, rule-following person. Those mushrooms I wrote about? Shiitake!

He waited. Gesturing awkwardly with the paint can--what was wrong with me?--I croaked out an answer: "David Rice? NO! NEVER HEARD OF HIM."

It was too vehement. The cop looked at me, his bulging eyes still bulging, and I began to think it was a trick--I'll make them nervous with my weird eyeballs! I'll make them think I'm the one doing illegal things, things that make me look this demented way!--but caught myself. "He used to live here, you say?"

"Yes, his sister told us this was his last place of residence. You've never heard of him?"

HELL NO, I wanted to yell, while in the back of my mind I started to wonder: maybe this David Rice lived with the seven other male occupants during the house's looney bin phase? Maybe he's the one who kicked the bedroom door in? Maybe he left the deep holes--enraged-looking gouge marks--in the kitchen counter? Something kept me from going into all that, and I just offered this piece of information instead: "We do get mail for other people, sometimes."

It seemed to do the trick. He looked at me one more time with his disconcerting cartoon eyes, asked my name--why??--and thanked me. When his back was turned, I got braver: "Have a nice day!" I called out. "Thanks for stopping by!" He waved, and got in the car.

Hiding behind the living room curtain, I watched him sit there for ten minutes, ten minutes during which, I was sure, he did a background check, triple background check, and inside-out cross-pollinating background check of my current life and the ones spent as a gondolier and squirrel. Finally his car pulled away--Good riddance, I thought, go do your job and catch David Rice!--and I went back to the office, where the afternoon light was making the newly painted room look especially happy and inviting. In the past week, the bathroom, hallway, kitchen, and front door had undergone similar transformations, making the whole place so much nicer--more dignified, more respectable, more normal--than it did when we moved in last year, not long after its illustrious time as a halfway house. To have helped bring about that change, to have replaced ugliness with beauty and carelessness with order, to have created, in a way, a new reality for myself and the family, felt really, really good...

No one's come looking for David Rice again, and I think it's pretty clear he doesn't live here anymore.

p.s. please note author wearing pig hat in photo. Get it? Pig?

LOST TOOTH FOUND

2011-11-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lula was in the studio while I continued my eternal activity of walking around the house with random objects in my hands, wondering where the other green sock was and what had happened to the 599 other lego ocean liner pieces; to add to the stupefyingly endless amount of daily household chores, I'd started organizing a closet in the hallway, dumping its dusty, mysterious contents--crap, mostly--on the studio floor.

One of the things in there was a pink box I'd been using to store sentimental stuff--postcards, old passports, somewhat macabre locks of the kids' hair, Lula's baby teeth--and though putting it in the studio with Lula made a little bell go off, I was in a fog of dodishesmakedinnerfoldlaundrywashdogsfindsockopenmail, and it wasn't until I heard her say "Hey Maman! I found my second tooth! We forgot to put it under my pillow!!" that I realized Pink Box + Lula = Oh Shit.

"Your...tooth? What tooth?" I asked, the fogginess giving way to alarm. Silently I berated myself for slipping up, for allowing the Great Tooth Fairy Myth--and Lula's precariously hanging, 7-year-old, almost-not-believing-anymore innocence--to be threatened. She'd recently told me some of her friends don't believe in Santa Claus; though I'd suspected she plays along, to a certain degree at least, with the bizarre gift-oriented lies we tell her ("Yes! It IS remarkable that Santa gives the exact same toys as the ones at H.E.B!" "Yes, it IS weird that Maman and the Tooth Fairy have the same handwriting!"), I'm finding that a year of a child's life, from my new perspective as an ancient person, goes a lot quicker than I remember it going, and...What?? Lula doesn't believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy anymore?! I'M NOT READY FOR THIS!

Scrambling to gather my thoughts, hoping she'd interpret my 10-second pause as Preoccupation With Important Housework, I affected a tone of nonchalance: "Oh right, we forgot that one. We'll just do it tonight." Still frozen in the middle of the living room, I waited for her reaction: had it worked, or would she...laugh at me? Did she know?

She answered in a clear voice, a voice so sweet, so guileless, that I couldn't help wondering if I was the one being duped. "Ok Maman, I'll put it in an envelope, then!" she said, and I heard her walk, suspiciously businesslike, into the office. I heard the filing cabinet open, then the desk drawer (to get a pen to write a note, I assumed), and then, still as perfectly accepting of "the story," maybe just a little too unquestioning, she walked briskly down the hall and into her room.

I heard the bunk bed creak, and started to relax. Phuh-EW, I thought, and then I wondered: had she written a note? If so, what did it say? Was it another series of questions asking how she could beat her friend Sammy in track? Was it a repeat of the last "note"--the words "I WANT A TOY" hastily scrawled on the back of the envelope? Or was it something different, a little more thoughtful--something that matched the steadily growing, happily purposeful activity I sense(d) in my not-so-little girl?

I still don't know what she wrote, because I forgot to do the whole Tooth Fairy routine last night. That came close to inflicting serious damage to the reputation of the Winged Hoarder of Teeth, but! As everyone knows! If you're late getting your tooth under your pillow--even if you forgot!--you get put waaay down at the bottom of the list. So she might not come on a timely basis. Although she had better, if she wants anyone to care about her...

Better go put that scratchy costume on.

PAINTING TIPS

2011-10-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

It used to be that when I'd paint I'd be all sloppy, interested more in the outcome, half-assed as it was, than in the process, the knowledge that what I was doing was being done well. It wasn't about people coming over and saying "Oh! Isabel sure did a neat, methodical job on those cabinets!" but the knowledge that shit was getting done quickly. Crappy as the cabinets looked with bits of masking tape still showing, here and there, and the interiors as neglected, as yellowed and ghetto as they'd been in the 60's, all I cared was that, come on, the fronts were blue now! There was color! I had done my work and anyway, HELLO, I HATE PAINTING.

Times have changed, and I am now an adult. The ripe old age of almost-38 has taught me a thing or two--namely, a thing or two about painting...

HOW TO PAINT LIKE AN ALMOST-38-YEAR-OLD

1. Choose a small space, like a closet or a bathroom, for your first project. If it's a closet, drag a bathtub/horse trough up to it; if it's a bathroom, use the bathtub that's already there.

2. Open can of paint with a spoon. If that doesn't work, use your teeth. While calling the dentist (because of resulting "teeth"), use power drill to create holes in paint can and, simultaneously, to ease stress caused by fact that eating, talking, swallowing, and other basic life skills will be problematic for a while. With free hand, pat self on back for multitasking!

3. Pour contents of paint can in bathtub/trough. Stir vigorously with foot.

4. Remove clothing. If paint is red, bloody shirt (from teeth issues) can be wrung into it, creating a DIY organic effect. Pride self on resourcefulness, then jump into paint.

5. Naked, roll in the paint. Cover hair with it. Pretend you are engaging in a strange alien ritual. Make it more convincing by screaming "EEP! EEP! PIXELLATION IS THE HANDIWORK OF OSCAR MEYER!" Disregard the knocking on the front door.

6. When thoroughly drenched, get out of tub/trough and approach an area that needs to be painted. Place self against the area; rub.

7. Continue to rub self against the area, effectively painting. Using the snow-angel, windmill, and eggbeater techniques, cover as much space as possible as quickly as possible. This is called efficiency, and it is the cornerstone of living life maturely.

8. When you get to hard-to-reach places like the inside corners of cabinets, do a quick assessment of body parts that will fit in there and proceed accordingly. Sometimes, you'll find, only your butt will do. This is normal, especially if the space is shaped like a giant cinnamon roll.

9. When entire area is painted, lie in bathtub/horse trough for a well-earned rest. Gazing at the ceiling, now covered in turquoise imprints of your butt, reflect on the leaps and bounds your painting skills and overall maturity have made; you might have the "teeth" of a 1-year-old, but your wisdom is shining through for all to see…

10. Rouse self from paint-fume-induced hallucinogenic trance and briefly wonder about the knocking on the front door. Still delighted with your ingenuity and your ability to commune, while painting, with Oscar Meyer, skip towards the door. Feeling as ecstatic as that time you ate an entire bag of mushrooms, open the door, turn around, and moon the policemen--moon convention, rules, and responsibility!--with your turquoise-painted butt.

SHUT UP, I LOVE YOU

2011-10-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's 1:27 p.m. and I'm trying to type really quietly so as not to wake up Malko, a.k.a. Harbinger Of Noisy Destruction. He finally fell asleep around 12 after yelling "PAPA'S BED!! PAPA'S BED!!" no less than 180 times, during which I gritted my teeth and sent him the telepathic message Suck It. I'm all about respecting my needs, yo, and my needs were telling me to ignore his insane, demented, loud, obnoxious demands to "take a nap" in the parental bed. My needs were that he needed to shut the hell up. In his bed.

Funny I should talk so roughly about my child after having a little breakdown, yesterday, about the impermanence of life--specifically, about the unrelenting possibility of one's child getting sick or having an accident and everything quickly turning into a nightmare. I recently learned that one of Malko's nannies, Jessica*, lost a child to cancer years ago, and putting that knowledge next to her ever-smiling, uncomplaining face was a shock. I've always wondered how people who've lost a child go on, how they manage to act normal, and to be so physically close to Jessica's reality--to witness, in a way, what I imagine is a constant struggle--was more than a little moving. I imagined myself in her shoes, working as a nanny thousands of miles away from the country she grew up in, from the place where her seven-year-old son died. How does she do it? How does she look at Malko, the same age her son was when he got sick, without bursting into tears? How does she keep it together?

I try not to think about this kind of thing--children dying--too much, but the fear, the worries, the thoughts are always floating around on the periphery, and sometimes I think that's a good thing: it makes me appreciate what I have. Believe me, I know what a ridiculously perfect life I have: our kids are healthy and happy, we have a comfortable home, we have safe water to drink and lots of food to eat. We have loving family and friends, and luxuries beyond belief.

I try to appreciate these things daily, to really think about how lucky I am, and most days, to a certain degree, I'm able to sustain awareness of our good fortune. Sometimes, though, like today before Malko fell asleep, I revert to the me who bitches and complains, who wishes my kid would shut the hell up so I can sit down and finally, finally write an entry in my blog, an entry that says, I hope, how much I love him.

*not her real name

BACK IN BEDLAM

2011-08-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome back to Tales From Bedlam.

I guess I should be saying that to myself!

So. Some moons have passed. Some things have changed. My hair, for example. It's now dark, and I have bangs--in other words, it's exactly the way I said I would never, ever have it again (dark with bangs). Oh, the things we say we'll never do and end up doing!

Yeah.

Today was a quiet day around the house--it was just Malko and me and the dogs and cats. We took the dogs for a swim this morning, where Malko got to splash around in the possibly polluted river until his diaper got all soggy, and then we came home and he took a nap. When he got up we went out for a piece of pizza, and at the restaurant he demanded to eat three packages of Smarties, almost fell over backwards out of his high chair, and generally was as unpleasant a dining companion as anyone could be. I'd thought it would be nice to relax and have a beer while we ate, but I had to gulp it down between his toddler hi-jinks and, guess what--it wasn't very relaxing.

The five-month blogging break has been good in terms of the creative projects I mention in the bio box, and that's satisfying beyond belief. I'm getting closer to my goal of "getting my stuff out there," and it is SOOOOOOOOOO EXCITING!!!!!

My eyes are getting super heavy now so I'm going to do a little drawing and then sign off.

It's really nice to be back in ole' Bedlam...

FRISKY!

2011-03-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

WELL, HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

HELLO BLITZEN! HELLO CRAIG! HELLO DONNA! HELLO PAUL! NOW DASH AWAY, DASH AWAY, DASH AWAY ALL!!!!!

Hello--I am high. No, not on that. I flushed that down the toilet and boiled the accompanying gadget so none of that could be scraped out of it (the gadget) in a moment of weakness. Everyone has moments of weakness, right? And luckily, moments of strength. Which is when, personally, I flush shit (ooh! double meaning!) down the toilet.

So! Anyway. I meant high on sugar. I haven't done this in a while. But tonight I had a CRAVING and concocted chocolate sauce out of baker's chocolate, butter, milk, water, and sugar, and poured it on top of raspberry crunchy cereal, then put whipped cream on top of it. Yum! High.

I haven't written here in a while. That's been strange. But I think it's because, as I said in a recent post, I've needed a break from the blog. And also, perhaps there's been some stuff happening and I haven't felt much like writing about my life.

Um.

It's spring! Spring is springing up and down, jiggling its cheeks like a frisky clown. Say what? Say "FRISKY"! "FRISKY"! "FRISKY"!

"Frisky," in my opinion, is a greatly underused word. I am going to try to use it here to make up for its lack of use in the general lexicon of American babble:

This morning I woke up at 6 a.m. to put the trash out because I had procrastinated the night before and was afraid of being attacked by the pack of frisky wild raccoons that stampede through the attic at ungodly hours. I threw my phone at the wall when it started doing its frisky fucking alarm noise because I had been up till very late not feeling frisky or even fanatical about flapjacks or anything related to being chipper and annoyingly jolly. When I opened the door to the garage I noticed that the rats had not eaten (friskily or not friskily) any of the laundry, and that made me slightly debonair. I tried to quietly roll the trash can out to the street but it was loud so I gave up and figured the neighbors wouldn't mind being woken up a little bit earlier on such a goddamn frisky morning.

I went back to bed and slept friskily for five more hours.

THE END.

Welp, that's that! Now we can move on to other things. Like the recent alleged "time change." Excuse me, but do you take me for an idiot?!?! NO THANKS BUCKAROO, I DON'T BUY THAT CRAP. Time change belongs in fantasy novels featuring frisky half-insect humanoids, NOT in my world. Thus: the computer says 1:58, but forget it pal, I ain't no sucker. It's 7:21 a.m. and/or p.m., and it will be that way as long as I say so. So there. Time change, my FRISKY BUTT.

WOOPS! That didn't sound right. Never mind.

Anyway, it's spring, y'all. Persephone is climbing out of the cave, or whatever the myth said. Sailing down the river Styx in a mega-yacht. Sprinkling petals hither and thither. Fro and aft, totally daft. The leaves they are a-coming in, and yes, I am somewhat intoxicated on the merry glee that is the rebirth, so to speak, of the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year, and which I am trying to enjoy without thinking too much about natural or, more appropriately, unnatural disasters, those frisky earthquakes and things that are wreaking a bit of havoc here and there and which I am afraid--

Woah, bummer topic there! Let's try to stay positive, shall we? Remember: "frisky"!

Before sitting down at the computer I was making earrings so I can try to become a wealthy artist. For some reason I was having gargantuan amounts of difficulty coming up with even simple designs, and in three hours I only made six pairs. WOW. Not very frisky.

My plan is to do a table on South Congress in a month. Wish me luck! I've made one Space Delight (mobile) and hope to have six billion more. For that to happen, great quantities of sugar will need to be consumed. Raccoons will need to be sacrificed. Frisky freaks, the names of whom I'm not naming, will need to go to bed earlier and sleep less lately. Even if they're up doing "important" "stuff" like "finally" writing in their goddamn "blog" after so much time has passed that frisky or unfrisky readers might think it's THE END.

Which it is. The end.

FOR NOW!

THE GROCERY STORE PT. 2

2011-02-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

This is continued from HERE.

Enjoy!

It had been a difficult morning, preceded, as usual, by a night of insomnia that left her shattered and groggy by six, when the alarm went off. The internal battle to shut off the snooze, drag herself out of the blankets, and propel herself out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen was made more difficult by the fact that she'd drunk a bottle of bad white wine the night before; the rebelliousness that had pushed her to do that had now mutated into a simmering anxiety about her drinking, among other things--into worries, intensified by a stabbing headache and dry, dirty taste in her mouth, that were difficult to ignore.

She made it to the coffee maker and turned it on, her mood briefly brightening with the comforting sounds of the machine and the smell of the coffee; for a moment, she leaned against the counter and rested her head in her hands, resolving, once again, to approach the day with a new, dynamic, positive perspective.

The sound of the baby crying drew her out of the beginnings of a dream, the insomnia finally having given way to dark curtains falling, falling, falling mercifully around her, and she jerked up and looked at the clock on the stove: it was 6:45. Late.

The coffee hadn't finished brewing but she grabbed the carafe and poured it into a cup sitting by the sink, then shook a hefty amount of artificial creamer in the cup and stirred it, hastily, with a fork. The house was rarely tidy by nighttime and it wasn't unusual for the morning to play out like this--a mad scramble for spoons, razors, and matching socks, a kind of real-life board game with real-life setbacks that, for some reason, never sank in.

Lifting the cup to her lips, she walked as fast as she could to the bedroom yelling "Hon! Hon! You're going to be late!" and then shook, with her free hand, the lumpy shape of her sleeping husband.

"Hon! Get up!" she said again, and gave him one more urgent push, then lurched away towards the baby's room. The movement--the turning, especially--prompted a fresh series of piercing jabs in her head, and she instinctively raised her hand to press it against the pain, but in her foggy state forgot about the cup she was holding; in a slow, dreamlike arc, the contents sloshed out and landed in a milky brown puddle around her.

"Goddammit! Fuck!" she said. The hangover and agitation were rising, a flood threatening to spill over, and as she opened the baby's door the smell of shit hit her and it was too much. The smell was too much, everything was too much, and as she reeled and fell to the floor the flood waters surged. Suddenly relieved, almost...happy, she opened her mouth and released a giant wave of white wine and coffee and another thing, a profound, unidentified thing, all over the legos and clothes littering the pink fluffy rug.

TRYING TO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE

2011-02-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

DEAR EVERYONE,

I HAVE NOT BEEN ABDUCTED BY KILLER BEE CLONES AND SENT TO WORK IN THEIR HIVE ON PLANET FLEEDLEBOP. DON'T THINK I'VE GIVEN UP ON THIS BLOG--I JUST NEED TO TAKE A BREAK BECAUSE I'VE BEEN FEELING BURNT OUT.

AND I'VE BEEN DOING LOTS OF OTHER STUFF LIKE MAKING JEWELRY AND DRAWING, THOSE THINGS I CLAIM TO BE DOING IN MY BIO THING AT THE TOP BUT WHICH I HAVEN'T ACTUALLY DONE MUCH OF UNTIL NOW. FOR A LONG TIME THIS BLOG WAS ALL I THOUGHT ABOUT AND IT MADE ME VERY HAPPY AND VERY SAD ALL THE TIME AND NOW I'M DOING OTHER THINGS AND FRANKLY IT'S GREAT TO TAKE A FREAKING BREAK FROM IT.

Hello! I've returned, briefly, from Planet Beetleflop, whence I was sent by Spence. Who's Spence, you ask? Frankly, I don't know. All I know is he has plastic eyeballs and no arms. Overall he's a nice guy despite his abnormalities.

Sooo....the old blog question. Right. Right. Yes, it's true, I've been taking a bit of a break from it. And really only because I've been doing OTHER stuff, that stuff I mentioned already, the jewelry and children's book stuff. Hot dang dawg kebobble, it's been so great doing those things! I feel productive, finally, for the first time in a long time. I've made 70-something necklaces, and I started drawing on these illustrations for the FIRST children's book (not the one about the bug) I started, seven years ago, and although it feels slightly weird using watercolor pencils again (it's been a really long time) I can't really describe how satisfying it is.

And! Tonight I got some supplies (electrical wire, ribbon, beads) to start some mobiles, and all I can say is yee-f'ing-ha, this is what I want to be doing, thank god almighty in the deepest heaven and Planet Fruitcake, or wherever hE (note cryptic reversal of standard capitalization) resides.

I tried to write more to go with the last thing I wrote, but it sucked, it really did, and I got all weirded out about it, like I wasn't able to keep up the voice, or whatever, but lately I've been reconsidering that and all I can say is, writing is hard. Good writing is practically impossible. For me, anyway.

Readers, whoever you are these days, as always, I want to thank you for reading and checking in--I'm sorry there's been a void. I'll be trying harder to get back into this blog from now on and providing something of interest and entertainment to you.

Buenas noches a todos,

Isabel

THE GROCERY STORE

2011-02-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

It started with chicken breasts falling, chicken breasts falling off the over-stuffed shelf to the row below, an equally crammed expanse of grayish-pink poultry bodies. The slapping noise jolted her out of her moody thoughts and brought her back to reality: the grocery store, Monday, 3 pm.

The act of bending to pick up the fallen packages embarrassed her almost as much as the noise they'd made, that bare and open sound of flesh striking flesh, a noise that was so raw and primal she wanted to close her eyes for a minute, just a minute, while she got her bearings and was able to respond, with a quick, confident smile, to the gazes of the young couple and the dirty toddler beside her.

"Just chicken breasts falling," she thought, but as the shelf continued to waver beneath its weight, her unsteady hand sent more chicken breasts falling like dominoes--like lemmings, she thought. It could have, it should have, been comical, but with that feeling in her head each slap felt like a warranted reproach, and with all eyes seemingly on her in painful accusation, all she really wanted to do was cry.

The toddler was grimy and scantily dressed for the chill of the meat aisle, and the mother had bad teeth, chipped and gaping, the teeth of a mouth she could hardly imagine kissing, let alone loving to the point of creating a baby, and she momentarily felt cynical, but then the absurdity of her own situation--the fact of the breasts falling, the fact of the breasts, the breasts that were not unlike her own breasts, the breasts she'd used to feed her kids, the "time bombs," she'd heard, "waiting to happen"--hit her and she succumbed once more to the feeling that had overtaken her, the feeling that had made everything so strange and shaky in the first place.

NOT SO FALLOW NO MORE

2011-02-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

Hi everybubby!

Don't worry, I still haven't been devoured by a Siberian tiger. And I do mean to tend the fallow fields of my g-o-l-b in the near, near future, like maybe tomorrow, when my "rolly-polly chubby cheeky shit machine" (I'm quoting a friend here, describing her toddler son) is being watched by his new, wonderful nannies!

Joedy got back in one piece the other night, just as I was embarking on a nervous breakdown, standing in the middle of the house crying because I'd watched Black Beauty that afternoon with Lula and Malko and it was sooooo saaaaaaaad, I just couldn't get over it, poor Ginger, why did she have to die?!?! And little Merrylegs--why couldn't he be at the meadow at the end too? It wasn't FAIR! LIFE isn't FAIR!

I was having a teary crisis partly because certain hormonal fluctuations were taking place at that very time, but also because I was just ready for Joedy to be home. I was sick of being Solo Parent and listening to my thoughts all day long, I was sick of the intense quiet when Malko took a nap or when both of the kids were asleep. By day 8, I was over it--very, very over it.

While he was gone and since he got back I've been making craploads of jewelry, necklaces actually, and it's been an incredible blast. I've made 47 so far, and I'm going to try to get to 150 so that I can have enough to try to sell them. I found out how to do a booth on South Congress on Sundays, and I'm just so excited about it, I really can't wait to give this jewelry thing a shot!

In case you're wondering, I'm not giving up on the other projects, namely, the children's books--they're just on the side burners while I focus on this project, which I hope might bring in some much-needed greenbacks in the next month or so...

It's late now and I need to go to bed so I'm bouncy and perky in the morning. Oh, right, it's Valentine's Day! I'm not going to get all sappy on you like I did last year:

Happy goddamn Valentine's Day!

And good night.

HAPPY

2011-02-04T19:55:00.000-08:00

Malko's sleeping and Lula's playing outside in the snow, yes, SNOW, so I have a little time to write.

As I said in the last post Joedy went to California for work on Monday; it's been remarkably easy managing the responsibilities that go with solo parenting this time around, probably because we have such a better house than the last one--comfortable and pretty and with a yard for the dogs and kids to play in--and because Lula's in school (except for today, due to the snow) and Malko's in day care. I didn't want this time alone with the kids to be difficult and stressful like the last times, and I'm really happy to say that I've not only been able to keep my cool (ok, there has been some yelling) but I've also managed to do a little extra, like wash the kitchen floor and cook something new and interesting (a bison and cauliflower pie).

Despite an insanely stupid washing machine saga involving three consecutive floods in the utility room, the purchase of a third washing machine when we had two perfectly good ones in the garage, lots of heaving around, and, ultimately, a clogged drain pipe, which started the whole stupid thing in the first place, I've survived, and even managed to produce clean clothing for the three of us, although much of it belongs to Black Ear, my old teddy bear, and is definitely a little snug. Malko has been throwing up off and on since last night (due to a bug, I think--hopefully not my culinary creation), so there's a pressing need to get this drain unclogged and one of our three washing machines hooked up; the maintenance guy said he'd be by today, so it should work out...except that it snowed and Austin's apparently frozen in place...so we'll see.

LATER

I just put the kids in bed, and the house is clean and warm--heaven. It's not even 8:30, so I'm pretty proud of myself, because of that and because I got Lula to eat warmed-up bison and cauliflower pie and salad without much complaint--she even said she liked it.

In a way it's been good being solo, because I've been able to have a constant, solid connection with Lula and Malko and to rule the house unhindered by the opinion of an Equally Important Person. The place has stayed remarkably tidy, not because Joedy's particularly messy but because I've decreed that during this period the house will be clean, and therefore less a source of stress. And having the kids to myself, when Malko, at least, tends to be a little obsessed with Joedy, has been really nice: holding him today when he was all sick and cuddly, hearing him say "Oh, Maman," feeling his hands reach up to my face to give me a hug, was beyond compare.

Late last night it started snowing, and this morning it was all white out, with heavy gray clouds overhead; with the bare brown tree trunks and the cardinals and blue jays flying here and there, it reminded me so much of Rhode Island, of that feeling of winter, that I was as excited as Lula, who jumped out of bed and was dressed and ready to play outside by 7:20. I watched her romping around in the back yard with Diablo and Astrid, her hat sticking straight up on her head and her too-big navy corduroys tucked into her rain boots, and although I'd barely slept I felt peaceful and happy, because she was experiencing one of my favorite childhood things: snow, and a day home from school to play in it.

Malko continued feeling sick all day, a clear indication being the fact that he only ate one cookie, which, if you know Malko, is absurd--the kid loves to eat like...like...like crack addicts love doing crack. A few times he allowed me to offer him some juice, which he drank good-naturedly, resting his head on my shoulder between sips and in general being the most adorable snuzzle monkey you can imagine; the rest of the time he dozed in our bed or on the couch, waking up now and then to look around with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks, just asking for another hug...

I said it's nice being solo, but when I talked to Joedy today, immediately falling into a highly detailed account of the stupid washing machine saga, complete with voices of certain players, I was reminded of how much we see eye-to-eye and how much, frankly, I feel like I'm living with my twin (in a good way) (most of the time). Granted, I'm somewhat better with time than he is, and he's somewhat better with banking than I am, but from the very beginning, from our first "date," I felt like we were connected somehow. The fact that I still feel that way, that I still love having a conversation with him, because half the time we're saying "Right! Exactly!" means--despite my present highly enjoyable ruler-of-the-roost status--I'm really looking forward to him coming home.

It's 10:08 and I'm going to go get into our sort of throw-up'y bed (that odor eater stuff works wonders!) but first I'm going to post a picture of Joedy and me from last weekend in Corpus. We'd been out doing some shopping for his trip, and stopped at a seafood place and had some delicious grub; the picture's a little dark and blurry, but I think you can tell we were happy...

STILL HERE!

2011-02-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

DEAR READERS:

DO NOT WORRY. I HAVEN'T DIED. NOR, DESPITE THE URGINGS OF A CERTAIN PERSON RESIDING AMONGST ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE WITHIN ME, HAVE I DECIDED TO PULL THE PLUG ON THIS BLOG.

WE WENT TO CORPUS CHRISTI LAST WEEKEND, AND THEN JOEDY WENT TO CALIFORNIA YESTERDAY, SO IT'S BEEN A LITTLE BUSY AROUND HERE. PLUS, I DIDN'T GET CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE FINALISTS IN A CERTAIN BLOG COMPETITION I ENTERED. THAT WAS A LITTLE DEPRESSING.

I'VE STARTED WRITING ENTRIES THE LAST COUPLE DAYS BUT HAVEN'T HAD ENOUGH TIME TO SIT FOR A WHILE SO I'LL GIVE IT ANOTHER SHOT TOMORROW--I FEEL SOMETHING BREWING ANYHOO.

THANKS, AS ALWAYS, FOR CHECKING IN, EVEN IF YOU'RE CLOSE FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND FEEL OBLIGED TO AND THAT'S WHY YOU DO IT.

HA HA!!!

SEE, I'M STILL HERE...

GYSPY, THE TOOTH FAIRY

2011-01-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Today when I came home from the thrift store Lula told me she'd lost a tooth.

Which was surprising, because I didn't know she'd had a loose tooth.

And which now raises the question: how much does the Tooth Fairy leave, these days?

It's been a long time since I've had anything to do with the Tooth Fairy. We met, briefly, eleven years ago, when I found myself stranded by the side of the road in Las Vegas; she opened her car door and offered me a lift, explaining, over a bottle of vodka, that she'd recently made a career change and was going by the name Gypsy. When I asked what had prompted the switch, her answer was simple: too many teeth.

She'd never liked teeth, apparently, and had only taken the tooth fairy gig to please her then-boyfriend, a rotund, jolly guy who liked to dress in red felt clothes with white fuzzy piping; he himself a giving sort of person, he'd persuaded her to apply for the job for the sake of "all the boys and girls--even the naughty ones." His choice of words had weirded her out a little, she said, brushing back a strand of bleached hair, but she'd gotten the job and done the lost-tooth-leave-money routine for four hundred years--maybe not that long, but it felt "really fucking long," and by the end, when someone named Ronnie took her place, she was more than ready to shake her groove thang at the Black Stallion Gentlemen's Club in Vegas, and...

"Here I am!" she said, giggling happily between swallows of vodka. For a moment it was quiet; among other things, I was impressed by her ability to drive drunk. Was it some leftover tooth fairy magic, or was she just a really good alcoholic?

"Gypsy," I said, "what's the new gal like? She doesn't steal, does she?" I explained that although most of our belongings once belonged to the thrift store, I'm still greedy, possessive, and anal about them, and if anyone thinks I'm about to let some strange chick wearing a green ice-skating outfit into the house in the middle of the night, THEY GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING, BE-OTCH!!!

"I know!" said Gypsy. "It's totally weird and creepy. I mean, I had to lift up little kids' pillows and stuff! Compared to what Jingle Balls--my old boyfriend--has to do, my job was seriously risky! I practically had to get in the kids' beds! Think about the potential lawsuits, and then think about the strategy and dexterity required to get under a pillow--a pillow with a sleeping head on it--and rustle around for a disgusting tooth, then put a heavy-ass silver dollar in its place...it was hell! Big Daddy X-mas has it easy, let me tell you."

"And you hated teeth in the first place."

"Right. I've always hated teeth. Ever since that time I took mushrooms with the Easter Rabbit. Talk about a bad trip! Wow."

We'd arrived at the Black Stallion, so I stumbled out of the car and threw the empty vodka bottle over my shoulder. Suddenly overcome by a warm, happy feeling, I shouted "WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOO! Gypsy, you're a fucking cool ex-tooth fairy!!!"

"Thanks, doll," she said, giving me a hug. We went inside, and for a while I watched her dance--until, that is, I found myself sitting on the lap of, and making out with, a goth transvestite. By that time everything was a blur, and soon I lost sight of her.

SUPER DUPER SERIOUS STUFF

2011-01-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of sentimentality, so I'm not going to talk about how, yesterday, I got depressed thinking about all the people who came to visit--how the dilly beans, coffee cups, and crumpled kleenexes, left here and there around the house, brought on waves of sadness and somewhat horrified thoughts about the temporality of life. I'm definitely not going to talk about how, while deflating the air mattress, I thought, "there goes the air my loved ones slept on." Suffice to say that a deflated air mattress, spent and lifeless, can be a depressing thing--as depressing as a receipt, left over from your birthday, listing flowers, leg of lamb, chocolate, and candles, can be uplifting.

With our nineteen house guests back in their too-faraway places, I feel like I can settle down and tackle this new year, a year I think will be as interesting and productive as 2010, which saw us landing (to the day yesterday) here in Austin and starting a new life, with school, work, a house, and friends; if I feel confident about 2011 it's because our new life grew so quickly and satisfyingly out of the rubble of our move to Costa Rica, and I know that was thanks, in large part, to Joedy's and my combined F'PEE F'PEE F'PEE-WOG!***. Many people have helped us along the way, of course, and a few Happy Time Federal And State Programs (not the cereal) (or the sweatshirts) have been indispensable, but if there's one thing I learned in the last year and a half, since we left California and started the Big Adventure, it's that Joedy and I can handle a lot: we can handle a lot, and we can do a lot.

(Our plan for the next few months is to settle into a work schedule; now that Joedy has an office and I have a studio we can really focus on our respective projects, and with Lula in school and Malko, hopefully, in a day care situation very soon, we'll--I'll--finally be able to GET SHIT DONE. Over the last two months I've spent a little time, here and there, in the studio (like the office, it's doubled as a guest room) and it's now officially in working order********: I have two big desks, where I can have all the jewelry/mobile/drawing stuff out at all times (HUGE RELIEF!); on the walls I've hung some tools, wire, and bead stuff; a couple of in-transition mobiles are hanging from the ceiling. My goal is to spend at least four hours a day working on, alternately, mobiles, jewelry, and the two children's books I've started; the idea of jumping from one thing to another like that has always appealed to me and it will be interesting to see, FINALLY (I got this idea six years ago), how it goes.)***********

AGH AGH AGH AGH
WELCOME
TO MY
DRUNKEN
HOLIDAY
POST!!!!!!

Oh my god, y'all, I just reread the last part of what I wrote earlier, and it sounds so...grammatical! Annoyingly earnest.

Here I yam, three chugged glasses of white wine later. I got the white wine out of the defunct washing machine in the garage, where I hid it earlier today--DON'T ASK WHY.

Because I'd be at great pains to answer: SO I COULD DRINK IT ON THE SLY BY MYSELF.

HEE HEE!

Gosh, I better say somethin' interestin' here, or I'm going to lose readers.

What readers?

That's for me to know and you to find out!

Anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay,

here we are in Texas, y'all, sort of tipsyish on vino blanco*, in this dark room, definitely lacking in light, standing in for a studio, which is a word I still cringe to use? Ok, why did I end that sentence that way? In a question? Which is a habit I tend to not like? BECAUAUAUAUAUSE:

Studio! Studio! We're gonna get studioooooo, oh, we're gonna get studio, studio, yeah, I said studio-oh-oh-oh-oh, yeah, I said studio

dontcha know

I said studio

and I'm drunk-k-k-k-k-k

Ok, that didn't rhyme, but that's fine. Because I can rhyme at other times! When I'm feeling

took a little pause there to replenish my gullet with more Salmon Creek (thanks, Kat!) and some forkfuls of Central Market Organics Fat Free Refried Black Beans, as well as some bass playing.

Did I tell you I have a bass? I have a bass! Joedy got me one for my birthday. He got me one ten years ago, but I didn't play it enough, and I gave it away (sold it? I don't remember) when we left Ventura; for some reason I feel like I need to play the bass, and I've been talking about that more or less a lot, and so he got me one for my birthday, and hello! Freaking freaking fakakakak akakak dog food awesome, HELLO! dude! Fucking awesome! This thing is fucking awesome! Yo! Deepfried black beans dog food fuck!

I've just been practicing three days, and I'm DRUNK, but HELLO, what the FUCK, here's a little sample you can enjoy or ignore, depending on your black beanedness or whatEVER:

*"white" "wine"

***originally said "strength"; upon rereading while drunk, realized that sounded grossly hideous, changed to more appropriate word

*******oh my GAK GAK GAK, could I get more freakishly normal sounding??!!!??? AGGA AGGGAA AGGGA Herruck! Herruck! Herruck!

***********Blah fucking blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah. Blah; blah! Blah.

Yeah, so anyway, that's the end of this post--I have to go brush my teeth! Please feel free, y'all, y'all readers I know nothing about or do know something about, to drop in on the ole' comments and say something stupid--I do it all the time!

Love to you and your black beans!

I think.

VISITS

2011-01-14T11:53:00.001-08:00

Hello, and welcome to fucking!!! Bedlam.

Sorry to swear--I know some readers probably don't like it. But given my physical state--deeply unwashed, harried, gorging on a salad while trying to fit some creative stuff between the fourth? fifth? recent washing of the kitchen floor and the within-an-hour departure to Ross to get some towels to replace the not really acceptable Spongebob ones--it's feeling really good to let loose, at least internally, with some Tourette's-style cussing.

I know I've mentioned it in some of the last posts, but since the week before Thanksgiving we've had out-of-town visitors, family and friends, staying with us for varied lengths of time: my sister and her boyfriend left the day before yesterday, my other sister and her fiancee, and his two children, are coming today; my parents have been with us, off and on, since a little before Christmas; before that we had my cousin, his wife, their kids, my stepdad, my brother, his wife, their baby, our friend, and Joedy's brother's two kids. It's been great having everyone here--we've had lots of fun, and the chance to reconnect, or connect more deeply, is a real gift--and I'm already experiencing the long-term benefits of the visits, in that my thoughts and associations with this house are permeated with happy memories, but it would be untrue to say there hasn't been some tiredness and sadness mixed in too. With nineteen people visiting in the space of two months, a period that began two weeks after we moved into this house, it's normal, I think, for some of us to have some ups and downs.

Especially if they're badly in need of a shower. And their goddamn sneakers are wet from washing the floor, and they have a chin hair that's threatening to rival the clothesline in length and durability.

One more thought before I attend to the unwashedness and the unpluckedness: this time last year, I was feeling really horrible because I'd invited everyone I knew and didn't know to stay with us in Costa Rica, where we thought we'd be living longer than we did. When we went back to the States for a visit in November and realized we couldn't go back to Costa Rica, it was compoundedly awful because I felt like such a schmuck for inviting people and then so soon canceling our side of the plans (this was especially bad because my sister and her boyfriend had already bought plane tickets). I'll always regret the way the end of our time in Costa Rica played out, but having everyone with us here, in Austin, has made me feel like I've gotten another chance at hosting them, at throwing a gigantic New Year's party, and that, I have to say, feels great.

GIVE UP AND HAVE FUN

2011-01-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

On the eve of one's birthday, it's not uncommon for one's loved ones to act unusually (some might say "strangely") solicitous, asking the almost-birthday-person what they want to eat the next day, what they want to do, etc. Although many things come to mind immediately, it's best to play along, so to speak, and act surprised, with a "Who--me?" type of response that suggests one is not completely obsessed with what one can get out of the deal. Yes, there are many things one might want to eat and do, but if one hasn't learned by 37 that life flows more smoothly with strategized self-restraint than hedonistic free-for-alls, then one might as well just...

-GIVE UP AND HAVE FUN-

-A HEDONISTIC BIRTHDAY PLAN-

1. Wake up. Fall back asleep. Wake up. Fall back asleep. Wake up again. Ask someone to bring a cup of coffee, nine croissants, a bottle of wine, and last night's leftover pizza.

2. Eat and drink everything. Fall back asleep.

3. Get up at 4 p.m. Take a bubble bath. Ask someone to go buy you a '74 Chevy Nova.

4. When the Nova arrives, leave the house wearing your feather headdress, your "dancing outfit," and five different perfumes, which may or may not determine whether your loved ones accompany you.

5. Drive downtown with the radio on very high. Play Lady Gaga and the Clash; disregard the voices, real or imagined, telling you those types of music don't mix.

6. Drive to the water. When you get there, run down the hill yelling "It's my birthdaaaaaay" and throw yourself in. Ignore people staring at you because you're wearing your dancing outfit.

7. Get out of the water. Ask someone to bring you a silk kimono embroidered with the abominable snowman. Put your headdress back on.

8. Get back in the car. Drive to a horse farm. Ask someone to buy you a black stallion. Put the black stallion in the trunk of the Nova.

9. Drive to a restaurant. Eat a grilled cheese sandwich, french fries, a lobster, lasagne, and truffle mousse bisque. Wash it down with eight bottles of kahlua.

10. Get back in the car. Realize you're drunk. Notice there's a banging sound coming from the trunk of the car. Ask someone to help you get the black stallion out. Fall over in the parking lot. Ask someone to tie you to the black stallion's back.

11. Ride the black stallion to Kentucky, where he was born. Drift amongst the green grasses and practice playing the fiddle. Eat grubs.

12. Remember it's your birthday and you're supposed to be home for dinner. Ride home, stopping only to race the black stallion at the Belmont. Trade your kimono in for a jockey uniform, INCLUDING THE UNDERWEAR.

13. Get home. Tie the black stallion to the garage door. Walk in the house. Give your loved ones a mimed rendition of your day.

14. Examine the wrapped present standing in the corner of the living room. Look at all the presents bought in the last few days all around the house. Go outside. Pat the black stallion. Feed him cake.

15. Eat. Drink. Play with presents. Sleep.

FUCKING CARDINAL IN FUCKING TREE

2011-01-02T21:31:00.000-08:00

It's weird--I'll spend forty-eight hours dreading writing the next blog entry, worrying that I'll sit down at the computer and have nothing to say, and then I finally start, and I'm like...

I have nothing to say!

Nothing funny, that is, because I'm abiding rigorously to my new rule of not writing wittily here, having gotten sick and tired of my humor, thank you very much, and anyway, being funny is a waste of time when I should be talking about climate change and how depressed I get whenever I read the news.

I don't know if other people think like this, but I believe Weather Hell is going to continue exponentially and is already bringing about Geological Hell (changes in barometric pressure can mean changes to the earth's crust, right? Meaning less stability, more earthquakes, more volcanoes?) that will spell doom for many, many people within, I'd guess, fifty years. At the current rate, which doesn't seem to be slowing down, how could anyone imagine the opposite?

What I find as mind-boggling as the number and severity of the "natural disasters" (Philosophers: I know! Humans caused this shit, so it's "natural"! I know what you mean, BUT) is the fact that none of the articles I read end with: "It is clear that the landslide/earthquake/rainstorm/tornado was a result of human-induced climate change, and IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING QUICK, EVERYONE'S GOING TO DIE VIOLENT, HORRIBLE DEATHS."

Ok, it's not the trend, in the mainstream news-reporting world, to offer an intelligent analysis of why this or that problem came about--the focus is more on the glossy accompanying pictures or a bystander's sensationalized account--and that always bothers me: shouldn't we be focusing on how to change things so the problem won't happen again? But when it comes to this shit, this climate change shit, I'm...blown away, so to speak. I get the feeling that either it's not generally recognized that humans are fucking themselves and the entire planet over or that people just...what? Don't want to talk about?

Frankly, I totally understand. I'd rather not think about depressing things--I'd rather focus on this moment, right now, when I'm sitting on the cozy couch, the kids asleep, Joedy reading, the heater going, everything pretty damn happy and great--I'd rather write silly stuff and be a goofball. It would be more fun, that's for sure. But I can't really do that, because as I'm sitting here all cozy on the couch, thinking about being a grandma to Lula's and Malko's kids someday, I can't help but wonder if we'll all make it till then--maybe there will be a flood, or a hurricane, or a fire--and I can't help wondering: am I alone thinking about these things? How can I be? How can other people ignore the signs that, to me, are so terrifying and real?

Sorry, my dear readers, for getting all heavy and depressing on this first post of the new year: I was going to write about my resolution (I'm going to try to swear more) but this came out instead. I took the picture of this cardinal a couple weeks ago; we've been seeing lots of gorgeous birds lately and it would be a shame if they all became extinct in the next twenty years.

What? What's the matter? You seem so...gloomy!

Ha ha, just kidding (kind of)...

Happy Fucking New Fucking Year!!

See? More swearing! Yay for resolutions we can actually keep!!

INSOMNIALAND!

2010-12-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

Hello friends, family, fried chicken legs!

Excuse me--I meant chied licken fregs. In other words, I'm being silly. Goofy. Gangly. Gargly.

In other words, I HAVE INSOMNIAAAAAAAAA!

No joke--it's 4:09 am, and I've been up since 2, having gone to sleep at 1, having drunk a double mocha right after dinner. Hee hee!

At least I'm in a better mood than I was an hour ago, lying in bed stroking my chin hairs, debating getting up and tweezing them, wondering whether that--turning on the bright light, getting the magnifying mirror out, locating the chin-hair tweezers--would wake me up too much. I decided not to deal with the chin hairs (I saw them in the mirror in the bathroom at the movies tonight, and it was like, WOAH!!) but instead have something to eat, so I went into the kitchen and devoured the remaining Christmas guacamole I made (I put chipotles in it, and it was AMAZING!) plus two spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt.

Gee! Aren't you glad you're reading this? The fascinating things that occur to one while one is wide awake in the middle of the night!

I'm glad I decided to write. I'd been worried about the blog, feeling like it'd been too long since I posted, and wanting to, at some point, say that I've decided not to be funny here anymore.

That's right, no more zany humor! I decided it was getting old. Instead, I want to just talk normally. Except, that is, for when I have insomnia. Because all the rules go out the window then.

Um, so...god, I need a massage. And the feeling of needing to pluck my chin hairs is causing this, like, metallic taste in my mouth. I swear to god, it was weird--I went into the bathroom at the movies, went to wash my hands, looked in the mirror, and saw these long, silver monsters sticking about a quarter inch off my chin. Not just one! Like, five of them.

To be honest, I LOVE plucking my chin hairs. When they get nice and long like they are now, it's deeply satisfying to pull them out and then, like, stare at them. I actually collect them on my finger as I'm going and when I'm done I'm totally mesmerized by the number of them and their stumpy dark prickliness. When I'm done, of course, it's great--I love having no chin hairs more than I love plucking them--but there definitely is a strange pleasure involved in dealing with them, sort of like when I pick my nose and collect the boogers and make them into little booger people (like snowmen, but smaller).

Ha ha ha! Totally kidding!

Oh right, I'm not joking here anymore, so forget that about the boogers.

It was a nice Christmas here. My parents are visiting from the Eastern Seaboard, and it's been fun spending time together, although part of the fun includes a sprained ankle (for Joedy) while dancing (very hilariously) and a hangover or two. It's been pretty cold here, and that's made the Christmas thing all the more...believable. Lula, especially, being 6 six years old, has been really getting into Christmas--she wrote Santa a letter (it said, among other things, "Meery Chrestmes" and "thank you"), and when she got his letter to her (written by...guess who?) she was so stoked, I mean, it was touching and cute beyond belief. Yesterday, in fact, she told me "I love Santa" in this sweet little voice, and my heart just, well, totally melted...

This is a short post but it's getting late, or early, already 4:45, and I should try to go back to sleep or at least get ready to hit the gym--crazy, but that sounds totally doable to me right now. I'll probably be a mess later today, but at least I had fun in the middle of the night--I least I got something done!

Speaking of getting something done, I'm posting a couple things: a link to a photo book I did a while ago (for a contest), and some pictures of Christmas tree ornaments I made the other day. Slowly but surely I'm doing stuff, and it feels freaking great...

PHOTO BOOK: http://dooce.shutterfly.com/1136

SIMPLE WITH BOLD HEADERS

2010-12-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Recently I read that blog readers can't handle more than one thought per entry, and if you're going to take that crazy chance and include more than one thought in your entry, make sure you use lots of BOLD HEADERS so they don't get confused.

To whit:

YOU TWIT!

Sorry, I didn't mean to call you a twit. I'm referring to my armpit. Or, as the case may be, my armtwit.

No, I'm not drunk, though I wish I were. Blogging is so much more fun when you're drunk! GogGAMMIT, why don't we have more beer in this house???

Excuse me, I'm not feeling like myself. I'm feeling like Ronald Reagan.

WOAH! WEIRD! WACKY! EL SENORITA HAS LOST HER BANANAS!

BEING CREATIVE

Why can't I underline the above header??? Headers without underliner look weird. Ok, where was I going with this? Oh right, "being creative." Right. It's important. The End.

BEATING ONESELF UP FOR NOT GETTING ENOUGH CREATIVE SHIT DONE

Right. I've been doing that too. I know, it's not fun to read about, and frankly, it sort of sucks to write about it, but it's a fact of my life, and you know what? I'm "secretly" proud of that. I put "secretly" in quotes because it's not much of a secret anymore, and anyway, was it ever that much of a secret? My love of self-flagellation? No, I didn't say self-"flatulation"--PLEASE. Don't get all childish.

MORE ON BEATING ONESELF UP FOR NOT GETTING ENOUGH CREATIVE SHIT DONE

So anyway, as I was saying before you cut me off with that gross, heinous, ridiculous reference to disgusting, stinky gas, I LIKE beating myself up. It's part of my martyr fantasy! Making people feel sorry for me because I'm always putting so much pressure on myself to do this and that stupid thing is FUN.

Ha ha! Just kidding.

Really--what I meant was that yes, there is an element of self-pressure, but I'm ferpectly ok with it. In fact, HELLO, I wouldn't want it any other way! Without pressure from lil ole me, who the hell is going to say "Isabel, you're going to be dead some day, like Ronald Reagan! And what have you to show?"

I know, I KNOW, I have great kids! I know. I know that. And I know I have a beyond-describable life of perfect happiness. I know that. I realize that all day long, every single day--I really do.

BUT!

But I do want to ACCOMPLISH. I want to ACHIEVE. And by good golly gigglybugs I'm going to do everything I can to do just that. The End. Thank You.

NON-BORING THOUGHTS ON CREATIVITY

If I keep talking about being creative so much, people are going to get sick of it, so I'll just say this one thing and then almost be done with it:

Being creative, for me, goes much deeper than making stuff. Being creative is about living creatively--it's about going through the day going, "How can I approach this situation in a way that yields a positive result? How can I see every moment, every outrageously lucky moment, in a way that maximizes my appreciation of the moment? How can I get the most out of life?"

The last sentence sums it all up: being creative, for me, is about getting the most out of life. Because if I want to, I can get something from everything--I can learn from every situation, I can grow and get stronger from every situation. That's the most important thing to me, really--that will leave me thinking, on my deathbed, "I didn't do so bad."

TAKING CHANCES

I know I'm not going to get very far if I don't take chances, if I don't believe in myself and do it and all that good stuff. Recently I found a bunch of old poems I wrote, and it got me in the poem-writing mood. It's been a long time since I wrote a poem, but the other night, driving home from the gym, I had an experience and tried to put it into words. I'm not sure if the resulting poem is that great, but, like I said, it's important to take chances, so here I go, posting it here.

The Train

The train had stopped on the tracks
at the Oltorf crossing
keeping me and a growing two-lane crowd of drivers
from going home
at 10 pm on Wednesday night

The flashing red lights of the signal
silently marked the passing of minutes
and the rhythm, I thought,
of life and death, death and life

Had someone died on the tracks?
I didn't know, but when two police cars
screamed by, way behind us, it seemed entirely possible
and anyway, people die all the time

You, in front of me, opened your car door
and from the trunk, pulled out a guitar
which you played and sang to,
a little out of earshot, ahead of me

I watched your hand on its neck and
the red lights of the signal on the keys
and it was beautiful, so beautiful, I wanted
to kiss your guitar and your hand and
thank you
for adding life to my night

INSANE TENACIOUS

2010-12-13T12:24:00.001-08:00

Usually I don't like it when strange men approach me at the gym. The past few occasions have been based on weightlifting advice I was doing perfectly well without, thank you very much, and, as usual, I was left thinking "Why didn't you offer advice to the sweaty, hairy guy who's using the Triple-Bend Vertical Row as a seesaw?" The attempt at "helping" me invariably brings out my feminist side; if I'm in a good, tolerant mood, I'll do my best not to bite the guy's head off, but if I'm already riled up about something, it's hard not to respond in a way that says "Don't think about little lady'ing me, you condescending, sexist dork!"

Of course, not all male gym-goers are the same, nor do all their varied approaches mean the same thing. This was proven to me a few days ago, while I was resting between sets on the hip adductor, a machine that takes "compromising position" to a whole new level--one not that different, I'd guess, from being dangled from a telephone pole while wearing green socks and a Ronald McDonald wig. The hip adductor, given its easy interpretation as a Kama Sutra warm-up device, requires a certain amount of sensitivity to one's surroundings, especially if one is female, and using it can almost guarantee unwanted attention, at least in the form of looks. Therefore, if I'm using it and a guy makes a beeline for the hip abductor, which sits right beside it, I'm usually pretty wary and...prepared.

I was in a so-so mood that day. It was my second time in the gym after a three-week hiatus that had left me feeling mushy, weak, and cranky, and though I had more energy and felt the positive effects of the last workout and two recent long walks with the dogs, I was irritable and wanted to make up for lost time both physically and mentally--namely, in terms of my creative project goals. Hard weights workouts and long, fast walks feed my ability to produce--to get shit done--and I was mad at myself for having slacked off for so long with the exercise and for having lost my focus.

The guy sat down next to me, his big, bulky body filling up the machine like a teddy bear in a piece of doll furniture, and with clumsy fingers he started fiddling with the pins and movable parts.
By then my irritability had morphed into Defiantly Ballsy, so I stayed in the embarrassing "resting" position, to hell with anyone thinking whatever, and readied myself for the throat-clearing, the helpful advice, the sideways glances, or--worse than anything--the entirely possible and infinitely unsubtle grunts and groans as he exerted himself. Breathing deeply, I reminded myself to respond in a way that was nonantagonistic, yes, but decidedly let's-cut-the-bullshit: I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but if I needed to, I would definitely make it clear that I was ALL BUSINESS and NO PLAY.

"This is the hip abductor?" he asked me, or I thought he was asking me--he just kind of said it out loud, to no one in particular.

"Yes," I said. Obviously. It says so right in front of your face. On the machine you're staring at.

"Oh, this is the HIP abductor." He got his knees lined up, gave it a few tries, then shakily returned to the starting position. What came next surprised me: "I think you're much stronger," he said, laughing, and gestured towards the decent, but not that impressive, amount of weight I was using.

What? I hadn't expected that. I hadn't expected him to be...nice! To be humble! What a relief. "Oh...no," I said lamely, trying to think of something that would make him feel better about...what? Being a weightlifting novice? Having recently gotten over a major illness? Having broken both legs in a terrible car accident? I had no idea what was keeping him, who was as densely built as a water buffalo, from lifting more than a paltry fifteen pounds on that ridiculous machine.

Before I could think of something to say, though, he started talking again. "This is the hip abductor? Well--I think I'm being abducted! Yep, I'm being abducted, all right!"

Ok, that was actually funny--abducted by the hip abductor? Wow--not only was he not a sleazy creep, he was unafraid of making corny jokes with a fellow gym-goer! Thrilled, I jumped in: "Yes, I can see you're really trans--"

But he cut me off. "Ha ha, I'm being abducted...ha ha. This machine is abducting me! Ha ha--look out...this is the hip abductor. Right? This is the hip abductor? Ha ha. Oh no, I'm being abducted! This is...this is...the abductor?"

That's when it hit me: he was as loony as an aging, addled Siamese cat.

Partly relieved, partly dismayed (I'd wanted to tell him he seemed "transported"), I turned my attention back to my workout. It went well--the more I pushed myself, the more motivated I was, and by the time I was done I felt strong and capable, full of renewed energy for my writing, drawing, mobile, and jewelry goals. As I walked out of the weight room, thirty minutes later, I heard a voice and saw the guy who'd been using the hip abductor barreling towards me. He looked like a tree trunk--a mass of solid, living, non-abducted matter--and I took a step back as his voice boomed out.

"Hey!" he said, "you're...insane tenacious. I saw you on that machine over there--you were...insane tenacious!"

"Oh no," I mumbled, embarrassed, "not really."

"Yes you were," he said. "I saw you. Insane tenacious."

Ok, I thought, whatever...

I left, and felt cynical half the drive home. Insane tenacious, I thought--sounds like the kind of silly thing I would say.

By the time I'd parked the car in the driveway, my thoughts had drifted to my projects: all the things I want to do, all the things I have to do, all the things I'm going to do. Suddenly, I heard it again--You're insane tenacious!--and then I was like, Thanks. Thanks, my crazy friend...

BAD MOOD ISABOB

2010-12-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

I spent most of last night worrying about all the shit I need to do and haven't done--finish the children's book(s), make a crapload of jewelry, make the jewelry website, get the jewelry in stores, make mobiles, pimp the mobiles--and by 10 a.m. I was just, like, FUCK IT.

FUCK. IT.

I decided to have a day of saying fuck it, because it felt GOOD to say fuck it, so that's what I'm doing. If anyone reading this is uncomfortable with swearing, please don't read any more--I'm not holding back. (In fact, I swear all the fucking time in my fucking head, so this is just me, being normal.)

Amidst my thoughts of telling all my stupid projects to get out of my life once and for all, just go jump off a steep bridge, you dumb, stupid, disgusting projects, I realized I could probably scale down here and there so everything wouldn't be so fucking overwhelming. For one thing, I can eliminate the jewelry website task, at least temporarily, because just having stuff made and in stores would be great--also,

...what is the also? I don't know what the fucking also was. I DO know that I decided NOT to enter the local paper's short story contest, contrary to my earlier decision, because it's just too fucking much, but then Joedy told me I should use this particular blog entry he really likes, which to me sounds like a bad imitation of Hemingway, but...who knows. I don't know.

I know I'm not scoring points with the Positive Attitude People but this feeling of creative goals depression was really fucking acute last night/this morning and it still kind of is. I mean--here's where the complaining ratchets up into kind of really annoying--what's the fucking point, really? What's the point of me pushing myself to make some silly pearl earrings or a book about a 6-year-old bug? In the long run, what's it going to matter whether I do any of this or not?

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE ANYWAY!!!

That was obnoxious, I know. So "nihilistic" and "deep" I want to THROW UP (please note the Christmas colors). But, really, it's the way I was feeling last night. And though I talked myself out of that frame of mind with the "you need money so you can pay for your kids' college/pay back your parents for that student loan etc/rent yourself a nice room in a nursing home thirty years from now" argument, it's still kind of there. I mean, sometimes things just seem so...fucking futile.

It hasn't ALL been doom and gloom around here!* Yesterday, while lying down with Malko, trying to take a nap, I had the interesting experience of having my nose snaked by someone else's finger. I'd close my eyes, start to drift, and then, like he'd been waiting for me to fall asleep, Malko would stick his finger in my nostril and slide it up in a TOTALLY strategized way.

He did this maybe five times--enough to make it clear that my nose is a great source of adventure and fun. Which I already knew, actually, but...you know--it's nice to be appreciated!

In related bodily humor news, this morning, while Joedy was talking to his business partner on the phone in the bathroom, Malko walked in, summed up the situation, and yelled "PAPA! CACA!"

Very loudly. Practically in the phone.

Ok! Bad Mood Isabob is feeling better now. Guess I better go do some
fucking
creative
stuff!

*"Happy ending" so readers won't feel depressed

ONE SETBACK, ONE STEP FORWARD

2010-12-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

Hello.

I'm still feeling a little post-Thanksgiving scattered, but I managed to pick up the pieces enough the last couple of days to bust some stuff out in the studio (I feel pretentious calling it that, but...what the hell), which felt great, even though I later discovered I'd need to take it all apart and start over.

I was making jewelry for the line I'm putting together, which I hope to sell to stores and on a website (which I'm also putting together), and though there are all these OTHER things I need to do (finish the website, for example), it seems like building inventory is a good first step in this particular creative project. [WOAH! "SCATTERED" SENTENCE!]

So, anyway, I was making all this stuff, and it was wildly exciting to use these pearls and other gorgeous beads I'd gotten a while back but hadn't had the space/time to get into; I made seven pairs of earrings and four new necklaces and I refurbished five old necklaces. I was really REALLY happy with them, ecstatic that I'd finally made some headway with the jewelry project, which had been moldering by the sidelines for, like, six months (due to a lack of space), but then I went to the craft store last night to get some metal supplies and everything came crashing down.

After spending no less than an hour and a half debating between THIS crimp bead and THAT crimp bead, THIS lobster claw clasp and THAT magnetic clasp, THESE head pins and THOSE elongated earring wires--laying everything carefully out on a shelf next to a herd of Santa trolls, analyzing the metal supplies I'd brought from home so everything would freaking match, goddammit, and be perfect--after all that, the saleslady who'd been standing next to me the whole time looked at me and said "Do you need help?"

What was it that tipped her off? My hair, which I'd thrown into a barrette, post-shower, ten hours ago, and which now looked like an experiment involving electrocution? Maybe it was because I wasn't just muttering under my breath anymore but speaking loudly to the Santa trolls: "No! No, that's not right. Will this size work? Where are the...? What the...? Where are the stupid plain little silver crimps then? God! Goddammit! What the hell?"

"Yes! I need help!" I said, and told her I needed more metal everything: earring wires, crimp beads, pins, blah blah blah. Did she have any thoughts on anything? Yes, she most certainly did: don't use anything less than silver or gold, because cheap metal will tarnish, look crappy, and give people allergies.

Well, shit. Dammit. That means all the stuff I've made (which isn't that much, really, but sort of), all the things involving wire or metal, needs to be redone. With silver or gold.

I should have known, really--I shouldn't have tried to cut corners using cheap metal in the first place. If I'd had the choice, I'd definitely have used the real thing, either gold or silver, but that's a lot pricier, obviously; from now on I'll just have to factor the better metal into my final cost. Anyway, like I said, it's not that much stuff I'll need to redo (it might take me a few days), and everything will look much better, more professional and quality, so I'm actually glad this happened. To tell you the truth, now that I think about it, I don't know why I was using cheap metal in the first place. Of course it has to be quality! Hello.

The saleslady gave me the name of an online bead supply store; as soon as I get a little extra cash and a resale number (Joedy says it's easy) I'm going to buy some silver and hopefully, some gold, and get this show back on the road!

I just can't wait for this whole thing to be up and running. I really, really can't.

Ugh. I HATE waiting.

HATHY VANKSGIPPING

2010-11-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hello readers dear and far!

It's 12:41 on Saturday, the day after the day after Thanksgiving, which is sort of a confusing way to say it. It reflects well the state of my mind now, though: a little scattered, a little tired, still riding the high of Thanksgiving and the visits of Benjamin, Mika, and Emil; Joedy's brother and sister-in-law Jesse and Melissa and their kids Noah, Venenzia, Victoria (still with us), and Robert (still with us); my stepdad Robert (still with us); our friend Blaine (still with us), Joedy's parents (still in town, visiting other family today); and, for Thanksgiving itself, the adorable trio of cousins/friends Kat, Nate, and Noah.

It's been so much fun having everyone around: the other night, getting ready for bed, I heard Emil crying and Robert moving around in the office, where he's been sleeping, and it made me so happy. Being surrounded by people I love, having all this fun stuff happening all the time, hearing voices in the kitchen when I wake up, making fires outside, going dancing (twice in three nights!)...it all makes me SO happy.

On Thursday around three in the afternoon, while everyone was cooking or sitting out on the deck, talking and listening to the music on the old record player Robert brought us out from California (we'd left it in the care of Joedy's brother James last year), the much-anticipated cold front hit: it was AMAZING! All of a sudden I felt this gust of cold air blow in the through the kitchen window, and with each half hour, it seemed, it got colder and colder, until...dang! It was freaking cold! And a party was sent out to collect rocks to build a fire pit in the back yard (Nate ended up throwing one together by himself while they were gone...it was really awesome seeing the first flames and then, later, huddling by it, although by that time it really was too cold outside).

Like I said, I'm feeling a little scattered--I keep forgetting who's here and who's not, and I can't for the life of me remember what the date is--but that's just as much due to the Extreme Dancing and Somewhat Extreme Late-Nighting I've been doing lately, and perhaps a little due to the Unusual Amount Of Drinking I've been doing (three shots of tequila, back to back, last night!).

I don't really know what else to say right now so I'm going to post a few pictures and then, hopefully, go eat an insanely spicy taco so my brain will get back to normal.

As I yelled to strangers on the dance floor last night, Happy f'ing Thanksgiving!

Or: Happy Thanks-f'ing-giving!

RATS AND ZEBRAS

2010-11-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

HOLY MARY IN THE STABLE SCOOPING POOP!!!

IT'S BEEN SIX DAYS SINCE I BLOGGED!

YET IT FEELS LIKE MORE! AN ETERNITUM!

That's because:

I've been tearing wallpaper--so much and so emphatically that the top layer of "wall" has come off too. Now there's cardboard, or something like it, in patches here and there in the main bathroom. It's an interesting effect--it sort of gives a vintage feeling. Kind of a run-down, vintage feeling.

Hm. Perhaps my house-fixin'-uppin' (I'm talkin' like my hero*, Sarah Palin) is doing more harm than good, you ask? Nay, it's not--the wallpaper in the bathroom was hideous. Mint green with purple designs on it, and all buckled and peeling and stained and disgusting from the, uh...the HUMIDITY that NATURALLY OCCURS in a BATHROOM.

As in, WHO THE HELL PUTS WALLPAPER IN A BATHROOM? That's what I yelled to Joedy the other day. He shushed me and pointed at the open window, but I was like, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE NEIGHBORS CARE?? THEY HAVE A SATELLITE DISH FULL OF DEAD LEAVES ON TOP OF THEIR HOUSE!

As in, I don't think they give an F or even a Flying F about what I think about someone putting wallpaper in the bathroom a long time ago. They don't even care about lightning hitting their satellite dish, turning them and us and the rats into a new kind of Texan BBQ!

That's right, I said rats! We don't have mice after all. Upon closer inspection of the dung heap behind the washing machine it became clear that these turds could not have come out of mouse butts--not even Texan mouse butts. The turds were long and hefty like bullets, and the hole behind the washing machine looked...rat-appropriate. Chewed up and filled with this weird black material that might have been insulation or maybe hair--I don't know which, because I didn't look very closely. We just put a big piece of cardboard over the hole and shoved the washing machine against it.

Don't get me wrong--I like rats. I've even loved rats. I often think about a few rats in particular, and when I do I get scarily sentimental, all of a sudden wishing I wasn't an atheist, so I could believe I'll see them again someday. But those rats were pretty, smart, and cute--they were pet-store rats, as opposed to your average brown, coarse, wild rat.

Oh boy, I'm sounding racist about rats. Time to change the subject.

I painted Lula and Malko's room the other day--blue, BLUE, BLUE!--and woke up the next day on a color-induced high that's continued through the wallpaper-tearing and the less exciting tasks of sorting toys, changing lightbulbs, and hanging curtains; it's been really fun gettin' all creative with this fixin' uppin'. I really love a creative challenge, and there have been some satisfying ones already, the most recent being "What to do with the nondescript framed zebra print?"

We inherited this ok, but very uninteresting, framed print from the previous inhabitants of our previous house, and I'd thought for a while it would be fun to draw over the zebras or somehow change the super-dull tan background; after spray-painting the ugly bronze-esque frame the other day I decided to do a collage around the zebras and cover the putty-colored (god, can you think of more boring colors?!) matting with this black and white paper that has a neat ripple design/texture. I'm pretty happy with the result--Flying F it, I'm VERY happy with the result!--and cannot WAIT to do more collages...actually, I think I'm going to start looking for framed stuff at the thrift store and do more of this "repurposing"...it's SO fun and SO satisfying.

On that note, I should hit the hay (Joedy and I have yet to buy a real mattress, and though the hay's getting rank it's still sort of comfortable...a little dry, which makes it crackle when you move, but overall--not too bad) so I can get up early tomorrow and get ready for the visit of

BENJAMIN! MIKA! EMIL!

*a joke, OBVIOUSLY

HOME FOR NOW

2010-11-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

The past week has flown by in a blur of cardboard boxes, mouse droppings, and desperate Craigslist searches for the loveseat that I know is out there, waiting for us to find it.

I thought this move would be a good opportunity to prove that I've matured, that I'm no longer as instant gratification-oriented as I used to be, but it hasn't worked out that way: I want this house fixed up, filled with cute furniture, and looking 100% perfect RIGHT NOW. Patience is not one of my virtues, a fact that was made clear again yesterday, when I tested our new hedge trimmer, a gift from Joedy's parents, on the bushes in the back yard.

My thoughts went like this:

"Wow, this is fun! I could do this all day! I could do this for a living!"

"This is a very big shrub."

"I'm bored."

I managed to finish the job, which is more than I can say for certain creative projects I started eighty billion years ago, and though the bushes are now more or less leafless, just a bunch of depressing-looking sticks pointing upwards, as least we can see out the windows. Of course, all the fallen branches still need to be picked up--I'm sure I'll get around to that someday.

I wasn't kidding about the mouse poops. Hello, hanta virus! Thanks for coming into my life just when I stopped worrying about our child-molesting meth-cooking ex-neighbors. Now I have something besides my Craigslist addiction to occupy my brain. It's always good to have something to worry about! Even if little furry fuzzums isn't dropping lethal turds around the children, he might eat the electrical wiring and set the house on fire! Which, given the crackling noise and Halloween-esque flickering a couple light switches have produced, seems totally possible.

AN IMPORTANT ASIDE: Parents, you're right--the landlord should take care of this. I will call him immediately.

Maybe we can get him to send over an electrician. Hopefully, unlike the plumber he recently sent over, he/she will not have red eyes and act...funny. I'm fine with stuff that turns your eyes red and makes you act funny, but I'd prefer electricians didn't smoke it before working on the wiring in our house. What if the dimmer switch got confused with the garbage disposal switch, causing a short and a fire and sizzling little hanta-bearing fuzzums in his sleep?

While I've enjoyed unpacking, finding new places for our things, cooking in the new kitchen, and generally settling into this house, which is in many ways a really nice place, I can't help feeling a little cynical, a little...unenthusiastic. I know it's partly due to having moved no less than six times in the last six years, but it's also because I'm getting old and still don't have a horse.

I've wanted a horse my whole life, and if I don't hurry up and get one soon I'll be too arthritic to lug around wheelbarrows of manure or act out scenes from The Black Stallion. Our current house is fine--it's quiet and roomy, and there's enough mouse poop to pretend I'm mucking a stable--but in a few years I'd REALLY like to say goodbye to the rental world and hello to the farm I've dreamed of since I was seven years old.

THE GREEN LIZARD

2010-11-04T18:31:00.001-07:00

I was enjoying the sun in the upstairs hallway, hiding behind a green suitcase that kept getting opened and closed in the most annoying way, when the female giant appeared with a small grey box that she pointed at me. She was so close I could smell her breath, and OH MY GOD--garlic! onions!--it was so intense
I had to move to the window sill.

As soon as I did I saw THAT thing--the female giant, apparently, had put it there as some kind of practical joke. Of course, I immediately started turning green, and while I looked for a way to get off the disgusting dirty sill she kept pointing the grey box at me and breathing that dragon's breath, which normally, being a lizard, you'd think I'd like, but...holy Jesus--you have NO idea.

Without too much trouble I was able to leap onto the suitcase, where, despite the stench, I couldn't resist posing--I do look good in green, after all--for the female giant, who seemed understandably entranced.

The sun felt good on my head and made me feel expansive, so I decided to formally greet the frog

and his companion, a duck. They seemed nice enough, but very quiet--neither said a word the whole time--and after repeated attempts at striking up a conversation I got the distinct feeling they were having a private moment.

Indeed, judging from their position, it seemed like the frog was doing something to the duck,

but when I tried to get a closer look he jumped up, startled, his bloodshot eyes full of warning,

so I climbed over him and left them to their antics.

By then, I was getting sleepy--from the sun, the exertion, the stress of having to look my best while the female giant waved the grey box in my face--and I climbed back up the suitcase for a nap.

It was a little uncomfortable with the frog and the duck doing whatever they were doing back there, but I was able to close my eyes and doze...

...until, of course, another wave of garlic and onions hit me--UGH--and I had to move again, this time to the top of the suitcase.

No relief there--the female giant kept hovering near me with that stupid grey box and breathing that foul stench...I was exhausted and PISSED by then, too worked up to be able to sleep, so I crawled away, off the suitcase, towards the floor.

As soon as I got down I smelled ANOTHER smell--just as strong, but less, well, garlicky--and since it seemed to be coming from the female giant's foot I climbed up on it.

It definitely was a strong smell--kind of oniony, still, but also a bit earthy, not totally unpleasant--and since it masked her breath I decided to stay there for a while.

She was making noises--soft, whispery sounds, sort of like my mother used to make--and as I listened I felt more relaxed, more comfortable with the smelly foot and the grey box and the frog and the duck and everything...

Soon my head felt heavy and I was sleepy again; before I lay down for a nap I struck one last pose,

thinking about how, all in all, it had been fun hanging out with the female giant.

BREATHING ROOM

2010-10-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what I said in the last post, I've decided to part with some cherished items in order to make this move easier. It breaks my heart, but sometimes you have to do what's necessary.

I'm putting everything on eBay and Craigslist, but I thought I'd give my readers first dibs--if you want any of the below items, just let me know (I accept payment in cash and, of course, underwear).

1. Rubber bands. I have eight of these--seven are tan, and one is blue. The tan ones are thin and loose, the blue one is thicker and tighter. I've used the tan ones to bundle up unopened bills; the blue one came around a bunch of broccoli. All are in good condition and can be bought individually ($3) or as a set ($34).

2. Plastic bags--literally, hundreds. Many have holes/tears but can be used for stuffing (NOT turkey stuffing) or performance art. The ones that don't have holes/tears are good for holding things. These must be bought as a set. $19.

3. (Broken) coffee maker. Actually, it's just the carafe that's broken--you can still make coffee with this. Just place a cup/jar/whatever inside the carafe; before it fills up and coffee spills all over the goddamn counter, remove the carafe WITH THE FULL CUP/JAR/WHATEVER INSIDE IT. Any kind of nervous shaking will spill the coffee, so make sure you take a Valium beforehand. $132.

4. Pencil. This is your standard "wooden pencil"--it's about five inches long, and is missing the eraser. There's some silver lettering on the side. It works fine if you don't care about erasing. It's a little dull now, but we've been sharpening it periodically with a carving knife and that seems to help. $20.

5. Cat. Color: white. A little skinny, cross-eyed, and neurotic, but otherwise in good condition. A slight over-meowing problem can be corrected with lots of "outdoors time," and any drooling that results from being petted can be easily wiped up with a thick, over-sized towel. This cat guarantees years of physical activity (from opening and closing the door eighty times an hour). Payment only accepted in underwear.

6. Earplugs--three, gently used. Two have bite marks from a monkey, but they're mostly in good shape. A little discoloration here and there, which seems normal with time. All still work great--in fact, they were used until this morning. Together with the cat, these would make a great gift! Individually: $12. Set: $40.

7. USB cords--I don't know how many, because they're everywhere. Although you'll never be able to "use" them "properly," they make great stocking stuffers when Santa's overwhelmed with other shit; after the thrill of acquiring more confusing electronic stuff has passed, they can be placed in a drawer and kept there for the next twelve years. Warning: do NOT try to find the original accompanying gadgets--a "nervous breakdown" (see item #10) will result. $72-$589.

8. Dog hair--many piles. Some piles have been growing since last year and are pretty big. The bigger ones have other stuff--paper clips, table scraps, silverware--mixed in, and not all the silverware is totally clean. I recommend letting the kids use the silverware as a creative bath toy; any congealed crud should come off between three to twenty-seven months. $13-$43, depending on the quantity of paper clips/table scraps/silverware/etc.

9. Broken glass. Many, many pieces and sizes. Some pieces are rough and jagged, some are straight and pointy. Can be used as "ice" around a gingerbread house or under a Christmas tree. Can also be placed in front of/behind the tires of someone you don't like (make sure you do this at night). $185.

10. Jacket--one. White, with lots of straps and buckles. Some drool marks on the collar/torn stitching around the wrist cuffs. Would make a convincing "mental patient" Halloween costume. I'm getting rid of this because I'm supposedly "better" and leaving my current "home"; though I'll miss the security of its confines, I'm looking forward to a little breathing room. $0--free to a good home.

MISSING PARTS

2010-10-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Since we're moving into the new place in a week and don't have much furniture, we've been scouring Craigslist and the thrift stores for things that are not only cheap but interesting and nice. We've had some very good luck, like with the free gigantic mirror, and some not-so-good luck, like with the plum-colored sofa we bought today for eighty dollars and which Joedy realized, after trying it out in our current living room, is missing its back cushions, and which I just realized, after lifting it up, is missing its legs.

DUH.

No wonder the lady was ok with selling it for less than the asking price. I can just imagine her laughing when we pulled away from the curb...

I'm not going to focus on our obvious swindle-ableness but on more positive things, like the cold hard cash I intend to get for OUR (mildly broken, fixed with a shoelace) laundry rack, which if propped at exactly 56 degrees leeward and 88.2 degrees towards the North Star works just fine. I'm sure I'll find some trusting fool on Craigslist who wants to take it off our hands! I'll even throw the shoelace in for free.

Despite this somewhat unfortunate sofa experience, it's been really fun looking for new old stuff to replenish our old old stuff. When we left California we debated about keeping our furniture--putting it in storage and having it sent to Costa Rica down the road--but realized it would be silly to hold onto stuff we'd acquired at very low cost, from thrift stores, garage sales, and, now and then, Ikea. We decided to get rid of everything, and jumped right in, putting it on Craigslist, holding a couple of yard sales, and more or less begging people, at the end, to "take it! Just take it!"

Over the last year Joedy and I have had many regrets about all the things we basically gave away--not because we didn't get much money for them, but because they were ours, they were part of our history, and now they're gone, turned into memories of another life. When we decided to let our stuff go (I know--it sounds so dramatic) we knew it might be hard, but we thought it would be good to have the experience of being virtually possession-less, of starting over, material things-wise.

So we said goodbye to the red armoire, the little beat-up blue couch, the kitchen table and chairs, the wooden desk, Lula's bed, the baby jogger, the rugs...the dust ruffle, the green dresser, the old brass lamp, the washing machine, the book cases...it was sad, but we reminded ourselves these were just things, easily replaceable things. When the gloom settled in and we questioned just what the hell we were doing getting rid of all this stuff, all this friendly stuff that made up such a big part of our life, we breathed deeply and focused on how free and wonderful it would feel to be uncluttered, how good it would be to start over fresh, with a new palette.

We comforted ourselves with the idea that we'd look for "the wood-framed mirror's cousin," or "the night-stand's twin," and remembered that, when you get down to it, thrift store things are all related...or they could be, anyway. Who knows where this particular mirror, the one we adopted yesterday, was ten years ago? Maybe it was hanging in the same house as our old, California mirror! Maybe this plum sofa lost its back cushions and legs to a puppy, Diablo's sister...maybe these new funky old plates shared cabinet space, long ago, with the funky old plates we put in a cardboard box and stuck out on the sidewalk last summer!

In the end, I have mixed feelings about the experience of "getting possession-less": on one hand I regret doing it--I didn't feel particularly zen when all our furniture was gone--but on the other hand...isn't it good just to have had the experience? Isn't it good to do big, crazy things sometimes--to throw yourself headfirst into chance? Even if you're pretty sure, afterwards, you WOULDN'T want to go through the whole process again, isn't just knowing that, having experienced it, having lived it, valuable?

It's been sad, yes, thinking about our old furniture this past year, but I learned NEVER TO GET RID OF ANYTHING (except for broken laundry racks and shoelaces) and the fact is, life goes on. Since we've already found some cool, unique things to take the place and remind us of their predecessors, the memories of our California life seem closer; in the new house, I think, our Texas life will really begin to blossom, and if we fill it with mismatched cast-offs with nicks, dings, and, yes, missing parts, I'm pretty sure we'll be happy.

INSOMNIACS 'R' US

2010-10-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Do you feel like you're getting too much sleep? Do you wish you could devote a few more nighttime hours to restless tossing and turning and feverish thinking? Is your well-restedness creating problems in your personal life, such as, for example, when you check the stats of your blog and see your reader, that person in Kingsbarknmeow, hasn't visited you in TWO DAYS, but you JUST DON'T CARE? You throw your hands in the air, and do a jig around the freakishly clean living room, and your neighbor sees you, and sees you're wearing your husband's underwear, and quickly bolts to his car, and then, later, you have to explain why you weren't wearing your OWN underwear? You have to explain about using it to light the barbecue?

If you're having this kind of problem, I can relate, and I can help. With my Infallible Insomnia Trick™, which I invented while restlessly tossing and turning and feverishly thinking, and which you can download at no expense to anyone but yourself, for the small sum of $798,345,293,879.49, YOU TOO can come up with unlimited brilliant ideas on how to save the world/make a fortune/peel hard-boiled eggs without half the goddamn white part coming off.

Soon you'll find yourself up all hours by night and, by day, drooling on your shirt and wandering around the house, racking your overtired brain for what the hell exactly it was you were looking for--a pen? A paper? To do what? Write something down? Write what down? Oh yeah, your brilliant idea. The one about the internet and...what was it again?*

For a limited time only, I'm offering a sample of the Infallible Insomnia Trick™; obviously, all rights belong to me, and I'll sue you if you even THINK about using it without paying me $798,345,293,879.49 in cash and/or underwear.

-INFALLIBLE INSOMNIA TRICK™-

A Limited-Time-Offer Sample

1. After dinner, bath, dishes, and bedtime, settle down at the computer with a strong cup of Insomniacs 'R' Us™ Extra-Caff Green Tea Mocha Brew. While your fingers start to shake, visit an online community; become inspired by the idea of sharing your deepest, most intimate thoughts with strangers you will (hopefully) never meet.

2. Share your deepest, most intimate thoughts. Include extremely unsubtle references to certain important people in your life and detailed stories about, say, problems you have had with addictive substances. IMPORTANT: DO NOT HOLD BACK. The key is full disclosure--if you don't divulge all the gory details, you will NOT succeed in incurring insomnia. The Infallible Insomnia Trick™ will NOT work, and you will NOT be reimbursed the $798,345,293,879.49/underwear.

3. After telling a bunch of complete and total strangers things you wouldn't even tell your therapist, for God's sake, say "FUCK IT" in a loud, trembling voice, and drain the rest of the Insomniacs 'R' Us™ sludge.

4. Flail your shaking arm at the computer in an attempt to turn off the screen.

5. Give up on the screen, lurch to a standing position, and speed-walk to the bathroom.

6. Grab your toothbrush and the toothpaste, squeeze the toothpaste too hard, shoot it all over the mirror and yourself, say "FUCK IT" again, and reel upstairs to the bedroom.

7. Join significant other in bed. If he/she is sleeping soundly, try not to move, DESPITE the sensation of deer ticks crawling all over your body.

8. Give up on not moving. Toss, turn, and scratch freely, frequently turning on the light to look for the ticks. Remove and shake all the bedding. Tell significant other, who's now awake, not to worry--you're just "getting rid of the bugs."

9. Turn the lights off and lie back down. As your significant other falls back asleep and YOUR legs and arms twitch and jerk uncontrollably, start thinking about all the private things you just told a bunch of internet strangers. Obsess about it for exactly two hours, and then start thinking about the internet and all the possibilities there...all the possibilities for communication, for making it artsy-fartsier, for...

For what? Sorry, this free limited-time-offer sample DOES NOT include a sample of the Super Memory Package, so I can't tell you anything else. The fact is, I just don't remember...

But I DO know it was great.

*Sleeplessness affecting your ability to recall simple facts? Download my Super Memory Package for just $234,872,238,746,328.89!

MOVING AND SHIT

2010-10-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hello!

And welcome to Bedlam.

Yes, I know, these pictures look like manifestations of mental illness, or at least sloth--slovenly, sick, slutty, smutty, snotty, spooky, squamous sloth--it looks like crazy people live here. It looks like bad, bad parents are doing a bad, bad job of keeping shit together. Of keeping things nice 'n' tidy 'n' neat, of infusing the little ones with an example of HOW LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED! OF BRAINWASHING THEM INTO TYPE A PEOPLE!

Or--might I posit?--it looks like we don't have no freaking space. No space for toys 'n' shit, no space for cords 'n' shit, no space for toilet paper 'n' shit. And sometimes, when the toilets don't flush properly, which is often, because they're dinky, we don't have no space for shit 'n' shit! And then someone has to go find the plunger, because Malko likes to play with it, and when we find it in the linen closet/pantry it just kind of ruins our day.

So it's a good thing we're moving. Yes, we're moving! A friend knew a friend who had a house whose prospective tenants fell through, and we checked it out, and it's, like, too good to be freaking true. It's close to our current place, which means Lula will be able to continue going to her school, it has four FOUR FOUR bedrooms, a fireplace, two "living spaces," a big garage, a laundry room, two bathrooms, one of which has two TWO TWO sinks (which, frankly, means more cleaning, but still), a deck DECK DECK, and the best part, the very best part, a yard YARD YARD.

By which I mean a real yard. One that two kids, two dogs, a cat, a rabbit, four chickens, and a goat can play in happily. What's that, you say? Chickens? Goat? Yes. I did say "chickens" and "goat." Yes...yes...why yes--we will be turning this house into a barn! Yes...yes, of course I also checked Craigslist for a horse! Actually, I found two of them! They're just $375 apiece. They come as a pair! What? "Space"? What do you mean--we have FOUR BEDROOMS!!! HELLLLOOO! Did you not hear anything I said??? Well, what did you think we were going to do with all that space--fill it with toys? Pots and pans? Cords? No, all that shit's going under the deck, where it belongs. Also: we won't be using the dryer (makes a great storage unit).

By the way: have I told you about my surefire preparing-for-guests technique? The one that involves a horrendously messy kitchen and freakishly early guests? Just throw all the dirty dishes in the oven. Cupboards work too--just don't let the guests open them when they're, like, looking for a glass. Quickly shoo them away, tell them to play with the livestock in the back yard. While they're there, they can pick up shit. With all those critters, there's sure to be a lot lying around.

On a not-so-jokey note, we've been really lucky to be able to live in the present house. When we got to Austin last January, we were essentially homeless, and having A Sort of Small But Otherwise Perfectly Acceptable Place was hugely helpful. We got to live next door to friends (even "God"--sorry, inside joke with "Anonymous/Grand Prout"), we've been close to downtown and Lula's school, and though our other neighbors were visited by a SWAT team and probably have been cooking meth/storing dead bodies all along, they never murdered us in the middle of the night! Yay, neighbors! We love you! And hope to never see you again.

So that's it, folks! Moving on, once again. Weird to be picking up the same boxes we filled with all our stuff last year in California, pre-Costa Rica, the same boxes that made their way here, all rumpled and...friendly-looking, this summer. Something tells me I'll have a hard time throwing these boxes away, once we're settled in the new place: they've been through a lot, and--it's silly--they mean a lot to me. Saying goodbye to them might be strange.

But, on a lighter note, it WON'T be strange or hard to say goodbye to this fan in our current stairway:

-THE DECAPITATING FAN-

INMATES OF BEDLAM

2010-10-08T20:06:00.001-07:00

Since I started this blog I've gone back and forth on the issue of posting pictures of the family: on one hand, I really want to show the kids mashing toast into squishy balls (Malko) and laughing uncontrollably about diarrhea (Lula) (ok, me too), and since the posts often focus on the kids it would be logical to include pictures of them, but I can't help thinking the internet has enough look-at-the-pictures-of-my-cute-kid blogs. Does it really need another mommyblog featuring snaps of charming peanut butter-coated Chucky? I don't think so.

I decided a while back to try to post illustrations instead of photos as much as possible, because it would be more challenging and make the focus a little more "artsy," and while I didn't post THAT many pictures of the kids I always felt a little uncomfortable about the idea of strangers seeing them. I'm sure my reader in Kingsgritsnmash is a dear, a kindly old soul with a twinkle in her eye and nary a spot on her crisp, pressed straitjacket, but nonetheless I always struggled with a feeling of I Just Don't Know and Maybe This Is Not A Good Idea.

A couple months ago, talking with my parents, I decided to pull the plug on all family photos (except for the pets), and I'm really glad I did: feeling a little safer, I sleep a little better, and I'm glad the blog has made the transition to "more artsy"--more illustrations, less smile-click-upload photos. Since I wanted to include an "Inmates of Bedlam" section, where readers could see pictures of the family (I think it's nice to be able to see who you're reading about), I did some drawings of us; yes, they're based on photographs, but not so obviously that it makes me uncomfortable.

Here they are:

LULALIE

MALKO

LAPIS

JOEDY

DIABLO

ASTRID

You can probably tell I started with the humans and ended with the pets (Malko was first, Lapis was last), and I'm kind of annoyed that the kids, especially, look kind of cartoony while Astrid and Lapis look realistic, and I'll probably have to go back and perfectionalize, but for now I'm pretty happy with these and El Blog in general.

THE HAPPY FOOL

2010-10-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

UM.

I recently went through every entry in this damn blog to correct the order of the illustrations in my Picasa album, and while doing so a few things became clear:

1. I can no longer start entries like this: "It's very late, and I was just about to fall asleep, but then I came downstairs and ate a crapload of sugar, and now I'm writing!!!" The number of times I've written a version of that sentence is very high. It is redundant. Therefore, although right now it is late, and I did just eat some sugar, and I am now writing instead of sleeping, I'm not going to say so.

2. I'm not as funny as I think I am. That realization was painful and depressing. While I write I often make myself laugh--I think I'm a gas*!--but in truth my wit is not always that sharp; sometimes it's actually pretty dull. After wincing my way through 150 entries, I just wanted to tell myself to shut up. Stop trying to be funny, Isabel!! Just shut up. Maybe it was the sound-of-your-own-voice thing, but I had a really hard time reading the entries and an even harder time finding what was meant to be funny, funny.

3. No more promises. This goes for promises about being a more giving person, about being a person who uses compostable diapers, and about being a person who is completing a children's book. Well, maybe the last promise is ok--I mean, I HAVE to do it, or I will KILL myself--but any other promises are a very bad idea. This applies to invitation-type promises too. No more of those. Those will only end in great sadness and regret.

4. Diarrhea makes excellent subject matter. Inherently hilarious, it always trumps the blogger-is-not-very-funny card and makes for an acceptable entry--especially if cake is mentioned. Cake and diarrhea, in fact, pretty much guarantee a laugh. At least from the writer.

5. Cut down on the damn words. We get it: you're an English major. You're very wooooordy. Very "SMART." Very "humble" while simultaneously a big showoff. Too many words are annoying. No one wants to read an epic account of your trip to the dentist with your kid. Well, maybe your parents do--maybe they do--but that's about it. So: cut words. Write like this: "Went to store. At store bought: bread, eggs, cake mix, chicken feet. Drove home. Unwrapped chicken feet. Saw maggots. Put maggots in cake mix. Cooked cake. Ate chicken feet and then cake. Had diarrhea."

6. Mid-entry, surreptitiously switch from first person to second person and even to third person plural. They can do this if they want: it's fun. If they call attention to it, they can continue, at length, at pains and at great labors, great, heaving labor pains, to underscore--nay, to emphasize!--their English majorness. He can already feel the glow of adoration from his reader in Kingsbaconbits, the gold hue that emanates from the love and admiration, the gilded bird which inside the cage sings at once with the bleating pig: "Heave, ho! You can do it, you know! Just get in that boat and row! To Jerusalem! To Squaw Valley! To squabs and such!"

"Nay, shush," says Nanny. "You mustn't: you are a nut. 'Twould be better to shut. Thy mouth. To linger prone upon a prawn."

"Ok," I say, "Nanny, you are right. With much ado and adon't I shall retire--pop a Benadryl to knock my brain out and sleep, at last, at long, yearning, keening last, the sleep

of the

Happy

Fool."

*a stinky one

STUPID CARROTS AND DUMB BROCCOLI

2010-09-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting here wondering what to write when Lapis started meowing more than usual and then barfed up a long yellow turd behind me on the rug. Ok, it wasn't actually a turd, but boy, did it look like one! Then he started making the barfing sound again, so I said sorry and threw him out the back door. Sorry, you demented, needy, barfing cat!

I guess the chicken I gave him earlier in lieu of "real" cat food didn't go over well.

I hope this isn't an indication of the quality of the chicken. Its sell by date was the 27th, two days ago, and since it smelled and looked ok I thought it was fine to cook, but now...hmm...

If it does turn out to have been bad, dinner will really have been a failure: the stupid carrots and dumb broccoli took about forty minutes to steam, so we never even ate them, we just had LOTS of chicken.

Stupid dinner. Lapis was right to barf.

FRIENDS

2010-09-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

Since I came back from Rhode Island a month ago I've been missing people--family, friends, old coworkers--a lot, even more than before, and I think it's because the novelty of living in Austin, of making it our long-term home, is fading a little.

I still love this city and am proud to call it home, but the reality of building a foundation here, of putting in the hours and days and months and years it takes to make new friends and create a solid social network, brings me down: I don't want a new group, I want my old group(s).

Besides Joedy's cousin (and mine, by default!) Katherine, I don't really have any friends here yet. I'm acquainted with a number of people, but I've done very little to become closer to them--I just don't feel motivated.

It took me a long time to find friends in Santa Barbara. For a couple years I literally wondered what was wrong with me--why I couldn't find friends--and though that lessened during Joedy's and my pre-kids partying years, when we did have a close group, we fell out of touch with that group when we stopped partying; I stayed close to two girls, but again I felt isolated and...weird.

It wasn't until a few years ago that things started clicking and I met "my people"--library friends/coworkers, for the most part, but a few "random encounters" too--and I finally had what I wanted: a big group of good friends. I felt surrounded and loved and normal, and it was great.

I knew when we moved to Costa Rica we were saying goodbye to everyone we'd become close to in California, and I accepted the fact that I'd have to make new friends there (which we did, amazingly, pretty quickly), but since we've been in Austin I haven't been interested in searching new people out--I just don't feel like it. It seems like work, frankly, and I can't help wondering: why? Why put all this effort into finding new friends? I don't want new friends! I want my old friends!

I know that sounds lazy and unappreciative, and just today I had a long, enjoyable conversation with a woman I'd be delighted to consider...my friend, so I might end up with a social life here whether I like it or not, but that doesn't take away the fact that sometimes--often--I miss all the people I've gotten to know over the years, all the people scattered here and there and everywhere, and sometimes--often--the thought of going through the whole thing again seems pointless.

SEPTEMBER 20TH

2010-09-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I realized it was the last day of summer when I looked at the date on the computer...

...and just now--weird!--I realized it's Malko's 18-month birthday.

He spent the entire day in his dark blue pyjamas with turquoise socks pulled up to his knees. It was grey and drizzly out, and he looked so cute and silly running around like that I didn't want to change him. In retrospect, it makes sense--everyone should get to spend their "birthday" in pyjamas (yes, even army pyjamas) and knee socks!

Besides lolling around in his nighttime attire like a spoiled prince, it was a pretty normal day for Malko: he discovered a new toy (a tampon) and a new activity (shooting the tampon out of his mouth), and he caused me great stress and anxiety (when I discovered his new activity and imagined him swallowing the tampon, which was wrapped in plastic, but still....AAAAAA!).

As usual, Malko climbed up on the kitchen table at one point and just stood there, waiting for someone to notice him and scream; as usual, he screamed whenever someone dared eat something without offering the entire something to him, even if he just consumed half a quart of yogurt, forty grapes, three eggs, fifteen mozarrella balls, a piece of bread, and a cup of mango-nectarine juice. In the afternoon he helped me put the laundry away, dragging carefully folded t-shirts from one room to the other and dropping socks, appropriately, in the trash can; when Joedy went to the post office and Lula came home from school he waved and said his new words--Hi! Bye!--in his funny little voice.

In the bath tonight, he poured a bottle of water on Lula's head and laughed like a madman, then Lula sprayed water at his stomach, over and over, and he laughed so hard he slipped, went under, and came up dazed and spluttering. After I washed and rinsed him he put his hands in the soap and "washed" his stomach and then his hair, which was hysterically funny to Lula, maybe because he did it so automatically--like, oh yeah, I need to wash my hair now...with this soap...but just the sides of my hair--and because the result was so...ridiculous. "You look like a weird clown," she told him, and she was right.

After the bath we lay down on Joedy's and my bed so Lula could practice reading. She read us Find The Kitten, and when she finished she asked Malko, "Where's the kitten?" "Da," he said, pointing at the kitten hiding under a plant. "Good," she said, "now where's the caterpillar?" He pointed at the kitten again. "No, silly, that's the kitten. Where's the caterpillar?" He pointed at the kitten. "No, no, you've got it wrong--not where's the kitten, where's the caterpillar?"

"Da," he said sleepily, starting to point, but I scooped him up and said it was time for bed. Hugging his warm chubby body, I carried him to the kids' room and put him in the crib. Excited kisses from his stuffed monkey cut his protestations short, and by the time I closed the door he was well on his way towards the end of the first day of the second half of the second year of his life.

OPERATION PYJAMAS

2010-09-16T20:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went WAY above my wifely duties and took it upon my poor little self to track down the elusive C-N3 vacuum cleaner bag and the equally rare Reef "bottle-opener" (there's a bottle opener implanted in the sole) flip-flop, men's size 7 and 9 (some for me, some for Joedy), and if that sounds self-pitying, it's totally justified: as soon as Malko and I picked Lula up from school the quest morphed into a vacuum cleaner bag/flip-flops/PYJAMAS FOR LULA mission, the last part obviously being the most important part to anyone within 600 miles, if only because of the endless whiny questions and heartbreaking sighs:

"I really wish I could get some new pyjamas."

"I know, Lula--I know."

"Oh, why can't we find some pyjamas for me here?"

"I don't know. Because they don't have any."

"Why don't they have any?"

"Lula. I don't know."

"I just really want some pyjamas badly, Maman. You said I could get some."

"Lula! Stop! We're looking! We need other stuff too! Please! Stop talking like that!"

My aggravation was heightened by the labyrinth of Austin freeways that took us first to Very Much The Wrong Place and then Very, Very Much The Wrong Place, all while post-work traffic grew and slowed our pace to that of an overheated sloth; Malko's tendency to grab merchandise and throw it on the floor and/or shriek like a prehistoric carnivore didn't help my frayed nerves. When the realization sunk in that we weren't going to find any of the three items, I was ready to wring my own neck with the socks Lula conned me into buying her, and when we got home it was a miracle I greeted Joedy without throwing the kids at him and without throwing the stupid vacuum cleaner, with its stupid bag full of cooked dog hair, out the second-story window.

Today the scenario repeated itself, except that I headed north instead of south, used up even more gas, got even more lost, and hit REAL traffic, making yesterday's Errands Hell look like a jaunt to the neighbor's to borrow a toothpick; I literally spent three hours driving, while fielding Lula's plaintive requests for sleepwear, while handing Malko dried cranberries...pieces of scone...pebbles from the floor of the car...anything to fill his mouth and stop that brain-melting SHRIEKING!

Luckily for both Joedy and the vacuum cleaner we succeeded, kind of, locating acceptable flip-flops and--Thank The Great Briny Bile Bag--pyjamas for Lula, although they are of a tackiness and ugliness not usually approved by me. At 5:45, listlessly wandering the overcrowded corridors of Mega Super Wal-Mart, dangerously close to inserting the word "fucking" into otherwise benign sentences like "Where are your boys' pyjamas, please?" and "Excuse me, do you have any C-N3 vacuum bags?" I saw a cache of PYJAMAS! PYJAMAS! PYJAMAS! NOT GIRLS' PYJAMAS! and we sped over to them, only to find that they were

VERY.

HORRIBLE.

Polyester, cheap, ugly. Army, Spiderman, monster trucks. Definitely not our style. But it was late, it had been two long days of disappointment, and the idea of listening to Lula sigh and moan later, while I was plucking clumps of dirty hair out of the used vacuum bag in a reluctant show of resourcefulness, did not thrill me. So we got the (hideous) army pyjamas.

When we came home she tried them on. First the shirt (it's that horse-poop shade of green, of course, and printed to look like it has a belt and lapels), then the shorts, then the shirt and the shorts together. After looking at herself in the bathroom mirror for a long time, she skipped into the kitchen and asked if she could wear the pyjamas to the restaurant we were going to later with friends.

"Of course not," I said. "What kind of mother do you think I am?" I'll drive 150 miles to look for footwear you can open beers with and use my prized chin hair tweezers to extract clumps of disgusting, filthy gunk from a vacuum cleaner bag, then re-use the bag, but allow my kid to wear ugly-ass pyjamas to a public place?! Please--let's be sane here!

"Ok," she said, and gamboled happily off. Watching her go, smiling at her skinny arms and always-just-so ponytail, I caught a glimpse of the ridiculous faux belt and lapels, and for a second--just a second--the pyjamas looked kind of...cute.

A LITTLE PEP TALK

2010-09-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday night, and I was just lying in bed with Lula--she practiced reading in Joedy's and my bed and fell asleep there, and I was close to falling asleep too, but then I got up and came downstairs and polished off the chocolate fudge brownie ice cream and HERE I AM!

I'm hoping to have a very organized, productive week. Joedy and I decided that he'll take Lula to school tomorrow and then hit the gym, and when he gets back I'll go to a coffee shop to work on my children's book. I don't really like leaving the house to write--there's always some annoying distraction, even if I'm wearing earplugs--but if I stay home I'm wildly tempted to clean, or do anything to avoid writing.

You'd think from the amount of effort I put into avoiding this project it's something I really don't want to do, but it's just a bad case of hyped-up standards and...fear, I think. Reading that sentence, I see how those two things go hand-in-hand: with such high standards (I've already decided this book will be the first in a looooooong series, which will get turned into PBS-type movies, which will enable me to buy back my childhood home and--please, God!--that pair of Friesian foals I've already named) of course I'm scared. I've already let myself down 6,849 times since I came up with the idea in the 4th grade!

But: I'm getting old. I'm going to be 37 in--oh, Jesus--four months. And the circumstances Joedy and I are enjoying now (we're not rolling in dough by any means, but we're stable, and I have some free time) aren't going to last forever. So I feel like it's now or never. Do it now or die houseless, horseless, and without having written that STUPID CHILDREN'S BOOK, YOU BIG DUMMY!

Sorry--a little "motivational speaking" there. It's always a good idea to criticize oneself when one is feeling like a failure for being unable to write a short, simple picture book about a goddamn bug. Works for me every time! Except for those times I find myself distracted by dried guts of dead flies on the window sill and imperfectly folded towels in the linen closet. Now those are things that need to be ADDRESSED! Immediately! With great vigor! For long periods of time, at least until it's time to pick Lula up from school, and then...well...my children's book? Of course I can't work on that while overseeing snack, homework, play...no way! Can't blame me for not getting anywhere today!

Back to what I was saying: I'm going to be 37. I should have a career by now. I should be saving for Lula's and Malko's college. At the risk of sounding hubristic and deluded, I think my children's book idea has potential. At the very least, I think it has potential because there are many not-very-good children's books out there, many that aren't particularly original or entertaining. I think--again, at the risk of sounding big-headed and delusional--I can do something original and entertaining, and I think it could have a chance of "working." And I'm going to be--sweet Mary in blessed Heaven--40 soon. So I have to do this. I have to give it a shot.

"Jesus, God, Mary"...I'm not even a believer--I must really be desperate.

And I haven't even talked about the jewelry/mobiles thing yet...

Crap. How the devil am I going to do it?

DA AND UH-UH

2010-09-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

LULA: Malko, what's your name?

MALKO: Uh-uh.

LULA: Uh-uh? Your name's Uh-uh?

MALKO: Uh-uh.

LULA: Oh, it's NOT Uh-uh? Then what is it?

MALKO: Da.

LULA: Da? Your name's Da?!

MALKO: Da.

LULA: Are you sure?

MALKO: Uh-uh.

LULA: What do you MEAN, "uh-uh"? You don't know what your name is? What's the matter with you?!

MALKO: Da.

LULA: What's "da"? Does it mean, "I'm crazy and I don't know what my name is"?

MALKO: Uh-uh!

LULA: Ok, does it mean..."I have a POOPY DIAPER"?!

JOEDY: Ok Lula...

LULA, consumed with giggles, gasping for breath: Does it mean...does it mean..."I went diarrhea in my pants"???

ISABEL: Um, that's enough now.

LULA, still laughing: Ok...ok...I'll stop...just don't ask Da what his name is, because he doesn't KNOW! (crazed laughter resumes) What kind of person doesn't know his NAME?! Is there something wrong with you, Malko, I mean, DA?

MALKO: Da.

ISABEL: Maybe he's Russian. Da, are you Russian?

MALKO: Uh-UH!

ISABEL: No, he's not Russian.

JOEDY: Maybe he's from Outer Space. Hey Da--are you from Outer Space?

MALKO: DA!

LULA: You ARE? You're from Outer Space?

MALKO: Da! Da da da da DAAAA!

LULA: How about your DIAPER? Is IT from Outer Space?!

ISABEL: Lula--uh-uh.

LULA, rolling on the ground: "Uh-uh"?! Did you just say "UH-UH"? Are you starting to talk like Malko, I mean, I mean, that kid over there who doesn't know his name? Are YOU from Outer Space too? Is everyone here CRAZY?!

JOEDY: Da!

MALKO: Uh-uh!

ISABEL: DUH!

MOMMY: GETTING WEIRD

2010-09-01T12:52:00.001-07:00

Are you going to pick up Lula?

Do you want me to pick up Lula?

Is that a rhetorical question?

No, I mean, yes. All I'm saying is, if you want me to pick up Lula, just say so!

Ok. If you don't mind. Yes, please pick up Lula. Are you taking Malko?

Do you want me to?

Do you mind?

You don't need to keep talking like that, you know.

Like what? Like you? Beating around the bush?

Ok, we're not going to get anywhere like this.

I know. Sorry. I'm just...trying to get shit done. I'm trying to make constructive use of my time and I'm feeling stressed out because--

Well, I told you what you can do, I told you yesterday--

You just cut me off. And really--PLEASE--right now I don't need you to "fix things"--I was just hoping to...blow off some steam.

Ok--blow off some steam.

Well. I'm trying to be productive, you know--making use of any free time so I can get somewhere with my stuff. I'm trying to do a little here and there while staying on top of the house while taking care of Malko so you can work--

So I can work? Do you think I like working? Being on the computer and the phone all the time? There are other things I'd rather do, you know--I'd rather go for a run, jump in the water, go for a bike ride--

That's not what I MEANT, you...! Listen: I wasn't saying I minded watching Malko while you work, or that it's a privilege for you to work, all I was saying is that I need to work on my stupid children's book or I'll never get ANYWHERE! I'll DIE without having done anything interesting! My whole life will be a waste!

Ok. I'm going to pick up Lula. Do you want me to buy groceries on the way home?

Do you want to buy groceries on the way home?

Do you want to buy them?

I can! I don't care! I can do it if you don't want to do it!

I'll just do it. Do you know where Malko's shoes are?

Why do you need his shoes? Is he going to be walking around?

Well, if he gets out of the cart--

I NEVER let him out of the cart! I'm always too focused on what I'm doing! And anyway, you never know what kind of weird creep is hanging around the store!

(Sighing, Joedy leaves; I go upstairs and work on something! Anything! besides my STUPID, ANNOYING children's book)

LEAVING AND RETURNING

2010-08-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

I left my parents' house Wednesday morning at the Happy! Jolly! Gay! hour of 5:15 a.m., after saying goodbye to my mom and my brother and sister-in-law's cat; my dad drove me to the airport in a pre-dawn drizzle that made me want nothing more than to crawl back into the warm bed I'd left behind, even if it meant putting off the reunion with Joedy, Lula, and Malko for one more day.

At the Delta counter I checked in and coughed up a grotesque sum for the privilege of hauling back a suitcase full of dirty socks and underwear, then my dad and I said goodbye and I watched his head disappear from view down the escalator. After taking off my sneakers and plunking them, along with my backpack, on the security conveyor belt, I was told by a uniformed young woman to enter the Security Portal, stop, turn to the left, and assume the stance of a praying mantis. Ever the law-abider, I did as I was told, but I found it odd that I had to form a triangle with my hands, place them on top of my head, and bend my knees, all while a gigantic vibrator was waved around my chest.

If they were trying to cheer me up, it worked--I immediately saw that flying can be fun, and I was in a good mood for five minutes, until I discovered the prosthetic limbs exhibit in the hallway leading to my gate. There, I had to wonder what the message was: "If you plant a bomb in your shoe, you might not have a leg anymore"? "Tamper with the smoke alarm and we'll chop your finger off"? My eight-dollar cappuccino started tasting like bile all of a sudden, so I stopped looking at the cute fake fingers and legs with metal pieces sticking out of them and turned instead to the bookshop, where a wrecked plane, felled by heavy rain, dominated the papers.

Lately I've tried to be a more relaxed, less worried person--me? Worry? Nah!--so I did a mental shrug and proceeded to the gate, where the plane was boarding, found my seat, and then found a whole bunch of EMPTY seats, where I stretched out and felt friendly towards Delta and the skies in general.

After changing planes in Atlanta and realizing that the guys sitting across the aisle from me were going to loudly, OBNOXIOUSLY broadcast their "coolness"--specifically, the fact that they were in a band together, they cooked up all these HILARIOUS pranks ALL the time, someone had (oh gosh!) even Twittered about them--I quickly lost my zen and sank into a deeply sarcastic state, wishing there was someone, anyone, I could snicker and roll my eyes with.

There wasn't, so I just sat there and stewed until the plane landed and the most obnoxious guy in the group (he actually said "fucking" out loud, which--I'm old-fashioned I guess--I think deserved a serious spanking) more or less yelled: "So, ARE WE OPENING FOR THE CULT OR IS THE CULT OPENING FOR US?" and I replied with a (muttered) "Oh, shut up, you dumb, pretentious dork" and turned my back in a way that I hoped conveyed Major Chilliness.

Ten minutes later I was rolling my green suitcase out of baggage claim and into the warm Austin sunshine. Joedy and Malko were parked at the curb in the Super Deluxe Luxury Vehicle, the dogs happily panting disgusting breath from the back seat, and before I knew it the morning faded away, leaving me with the strange feeling that lots had just happened far, far away. Today, one day later, I'm still kind of in the faraway place, but I'm also here, on the bed next to Joedy, near Lula and Malko, Lapis, Astrid, and Diablo, and it's a pretty nice place to be.

AUNTY IZZY'S ON THE LOOSE!

2010-08-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

I'm halfway into my child-free Providence visit, and last night I officially started missing Lula and Malko. Some things I don't miss--poopy diapers among them--but when I went to bed I was thinking about little arms around my neck, and I know I'll be happy to return to Mommy World next Wednesday.

Yesterday evening we drove to Jamestown, a tiny town near Newport, for a swim and a picnic; it was beautiful out, warm and breezy, and when the sun set and the moon rose it was tempting to make a mattress out of washed-up seaweed and commune with long-dead Indians, or at least a lobster.

From the new nephew perspective this visit has exceeded my expectations: little Emil, who's four months now, is the sweetest baby, with big dark eyes and a heart-melting smile; the love I felt for him when he was born grows bigger each time I look into his face and hug his cuddly body. I like to think that since I've been here he's come to recognize and feel fondly towards his Aunty Izzy, and given his obvious intellect (I'm not just being a doting relative--the kid's unusually smart) I wouldn't be surprised if he actually did know who I was, at least because I have the same gaunt, sunken-eyed face and hairy legs as his father.

My sister Nuria and my sister-in-law's brother came out to meet Emil too, and it's been great hanging out and having fun together. We've gotten to go out at night a few times, and we plan on going out again tonight, with the ultimate goal being DANCING.

Watch out, Providence!

Tomorrow I'm going to an old friend's wedding on the banks of the Saugatucket River in Wakefield, the town I grew up in. I'm really excited to reconnect with people I've only been in touch with through Facebook and to be "home"--it'd be nice to sneak away briefly, walk up our old street, and spend a few minutes looking at the beautiful old house I grew up in. Given the fact that I'll probably be drunk, however, there's a good chance those minutes reminiscing would end with nostalgic tears and the desire to lie in the patchy grass beneath the branches of the copper beech in front of the house; it wouldn't do to return to the wedding with leaves stuck to a tear-streaked face, so I'll probably skip the walk down memory lane/Kenyon Avenue and stay near my old buddies and the bar...

Something tells me that will be exciting enough.

EAR BARF: MAYBE NOT SO BAD

2010-08-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm going to Rhode Island alone for nine days to meet my new nephew; it will be the first time in six years I'll travel without a small human sitting on me and throwing up in my ear. Like most people these days I'm not looking forward to getting half-naked for the sake of security, but besides that I'm looking forward to the trip: I can drink seven beers, if I want to, and pass out over a stupid magazine, I can NOT TALK, I can THINK...

I'm definitely going to miss Joedy, the kids, and the animals--I enjoy serving as a short-order cook, clown, and human trampoline--and that's why I took the video of Lula having a meltdown last night while Malko practiced throwing himself into the bath headfirst while Diablo barked and Lapis meowed his loud, LOUD meow. When I start missing them, I'll figure I'll watch that--I should be fine again right away.

I'm getting back on Lula's second day of school, just in time to pick her up. I'm so glad I'll be able to pick her up--I didn't want to miss her first week. It's strange to think we're heading into fall already; although it's very much still summer here, I know the transition to the school schedule is going to dispel the ice cream-swimming pool-afternoon movie flavor of the days, there'll be homework and other serious first grade stuff, and before we know it the leaves will be changing and we'll actually WANT to wear clothes other than mu-mus and loincloths.

After hunting high and low for a new house and finding the dream rental (the walls were painted different colors! NICE different colors!), Joedy and I came to the somewhat difficult decision (there were some tears) to focus instead on buying a car, since it's been six months that we've been using his brother's (wonderful) Luxury Deluxe Vehicle and it's time to give it back. Putting the house hunt on hold was made easier by rearranging some stuff, namely the "home office," which is now in the living room, a.k.a the play room.

In lots of ways I think we've settled down, or settled into a groove, lately, and I've experienced a degree of calm and subsequent happiness that's very different from what we were going through this time last year, when we were preparing to move to Costa Rica, and in the subsequent months--especially when we came back to the States, when lots of big, important things were up in the air. I've mentioned before that I appreciate stability more than I used to, and that's never more clear than after (it was not clear during) Joedy and I make decisions to--for example--forgo moving into a really bitchin' house because, well, it's not the right time.

I know summer's not over yet--I see lots of ice cream in Lula's near future--but as I'm leaving tomorrow and coming back during the school year I feel like some things are ending. That's ok with me, but it's possible that tomorrow, while nodding off over my fifth beer, I'll be thinking about the three people I left behind and all the fun we've been having; it's possible that maybe I'll even wish one of them was sitting on my lap and throwing up in my ear...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHILD OF SATAN!

2010-08-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

Today I read something that made me angry. It was a blog entry, written by a blogger I've followed for about a year, in the form of a long, long letter to his daughter to commemorate her fifth birthday--her fifth birthday and the fact that she's SATANIC DEMON.

The little she-devil is apparently a terror, a REALLY BAD CHILD who's always screaming NOOOOOOOO, throwing tantrums, demanding the toys her brother's playing with, in general being a total pain in the ass, OR sobbing hysterically. Once in a while the Layers of Evil peel away to reveal a "sweet, charming, cuddly little princess," but not for long.

It sounds like she's a real handful. Having experienced a few periods of major tantrums with Lula, I know how hard it can be to deal with a kid who's out of control--how scary it can be, how easily you can feel like a total loser for not knowing what to do...for just wanting to stuff a dish towel in that screaming face. I know having a pain in the ass kid is NO FUN, and I can relate, like most parents probably, to this guy's problem.

But. When he says he first tried to "comfort her "(during her fits) and, later, he says "that didn't work, so I learned to just stay away from you," something doesn't sound right. Comfort her? When she's making a big fuss about putting her shoes on? Why comfort her?

To me it sounds like the talk of a confused parent--someone who's been fed too much "the child is the center of the family," "everyone needs to express their feelings," and "use your words" crap--someone who, for whatever reason, doesn't feel he can put his foot down with his kid, someone whose kid is quickly turning into a little monster.

The letter goes on, mixing in some "nice" stuff about the daughter's gymnastics class to soften the blow: you get the feeling the dad cares, but not quite enough...or maybe he's clueless. Either way, it makes me mad: if you have a kid, you don't "write her a letter" on her birthday talking about how awful she is, especially if you're posting the letter on the internet. It's not fair to your daughter, and it makes you look like a pretty lame parent.

Frankly, I'm sick of overly solicitous parents who overprotect their spoiled kids, treating them like neurotic royalty. The current child-centric trend, which encourages parents to treat their kids like delicate flowers ("Timmy, is it ok with you if we go wash our hands now?"), is annoying and stupid. What's wrong with telling your kid to stop being a brat? What's wrong with being the parent?

If my dear letter-writer doesn't solve the problem of his misbehaving daughter, his daughter might throw tantrums the rest of her life. And if she keeps throwing tantrums, I guess she'll keep sobbing hysterically afterwards, too.

Who could blame her?

CAMERA HAPPY

2010-07-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Joedy gave me a camera, a replacement for the one that broke a couple months ago, and this evening Diablo and Astrid and I drove down South Congress

to Town Lake to go for a walk and take some pictures.

Before we began the walk the dogs ran around

and went for a swim;

I admired the old train bridge

and a shiny skyscraper

and the way the branches framed

the rippling water.

Soon after, I put the dogs' leashes on

and we started down the path,

stopping frequently to ooh and aah at the leaves overhead

and the trees by the side of the path, at how dramatic they looked lit up by the setting sun.

After a little while we turned a corner and saw two swans in the water: I told Diablo and Astrid to sit

and then I took picture

after picture

after picture

after picture

after picture

after picture

after picture

after picture

after picture.

I thought it couldn't get much better than those swans by the path, but when we crossed the big bridge I took a picture of the buildings sticking out of the trees.

Just now, sitting at the kitchen table, I noticed there are swans in that picture too; they're small and far away,

but I like them a lot anyway.

NIGHT OF YAWN

2010-07-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

What have I to say, on this night of Yawn?

I took Lula and her friend to see a movie this afternoon; in the car her friend told us his family refers to some baby they know, who happens to be black, as a monkey. In other words, they call the baby a monkey because the baby is black.

UM.

The movie we saw, "Grown Ups," was the worst horrific shit trash crap excuse for a film I have seen in a long, long time, not the least because of all the not-so-subtle woman-bashing throughout. It was the story of five idiotic men getting together again after a long, long time, to commemorate their beloved "Coach" (GAG), who died, and each man has a girlfriend/wifey/nanny tagging along, and guess what? It was like a gigantic reaming session on females.

"Oh, he cooks and he's sensitive--it must be that time of the month for him, he's just like a GIRL!"

"Look, he's going out with an older woman--what a hag she is!"

"His wife is sexy and successful, but really she's a stuck-up ding-dong who only redeems herself by apologizing to her bloated disgusting Adam Sandler fool of a husband for having wanted to go to Fashion Week in Milan inside of partaking in the madcap inanities of the menfolk at their rented lake house! Crazy bitch!"

"His mother-in-law, a big black mammy type, farts and has bunions. Gross!"

"His twin daughters are total opposites--one's a sexpot temptress, and the other's a nearly retarded geek!"

"His sons' nanny, from China, speaks with a strong, dorky accent and doesn't understand a thing! Goofy Chinese chicks!"

I'm not being entirely fair: the stereotypes ran rampant in all directions, drenching the men, the kids (gotta have your chunky pre-teen nerd in there), the pets, and the "villians" (what, oh what, was Steve Buscemi doing there?) in overly-buttered idiotic Hollywood popcorn barf--so pleasing, it seems, to the taste of...WHO? Who likes this awful shit?

My main gripe, besides the fact that there was not ONE ADMIRABLE FEMALE FIGURE portrayed in the entire piece of crap, was that, AGAIN, it was a movie about BOYS.

God, I'm so sick of boys, boys, boys in the movies: does anybody else wonder what it would be like if the roles were switched? If all of a sudden we were all watching movies about women, and it was totally normal? Boys and men would voluntarily go to movies about girls and women, without batting an eyelash? They'd pay attention to us the way we do to them?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not a guy-hater. Not at all. I just would like to see more women, more interesting, intelligent women, in the movies. And in music, for that matter. And in politics (note: Sarah Palin is NOT interesting and intelligent). I think I'd like to see more women everywhere, in fact, but at fine dining establishments featuring bikini-clad waitpeople.

Goodness! I guess I had a rant in me after all. Just like a woman to keep it inside until--BLAM!--she lays it all out on you. I must have had an African killer bee in my bonnet...

Anyhoo--it's late. Lula just came downstairs saying she's scared, so I better go up to bed.

DIAPERS COMMUNICATING ON A TIMELY BASIS WITH COOKIES

2010-07-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness, godness, groosness, here I yam, starting a blog entry late as yalways.

It's 10:47. I just got home from the gym, where I stealth-poured a gallon of water on the rocks in the sauna to make the dang thing hotter, and then pretended to know naught 'bout why 'twas haught. I think you're not supposed to fiddle with the thing, but it's often, like, just lukewarm, and I had all that whiskey I needed to sweat out...

Speaking of whiskey, I always regret writing about ME having FUN in this blog--the day after posting an entry about sunning or drinking or swimming, indulging in Yay It's Good To Be Me hedonistic activities, I'll read an article about Chinese kids being beaten to death in internet addiction camps and I'll be, like, Jesus, can I get more preoccupied with stupid self-centered stuff? WHO CARES ABOUT ME HAVING FUN?? IT'S NOT IMPORTANT!!

I know it's good to relax, and I think it's fine to talk about how much fun one's having every once in a while, but it can be sobering to read about a fourteen-year-old boy named Deng who died within a day of his stay at an internet addiction camp, having been beaten by the guards, and knowing his story is just one of many: of many other abused kids in China, of many other abused kids--people--worldwide. It can be sobering, and it can make one mad at oneself for indulging in silliness and braying about that to the world, as if it were important...

So: business time. Today, mere MONTHS after promising to never again put Malko in standard bad-for-the-environment diapers, I bought reusable diaper covers with compostable liners and 100% Natural and Compostable Chemical Free Fragrance Free Chlorine Free Baby Wipes Made From Plants Not Oil! The diaper covers are cloth, in brown and tan (they come in other colors), and when I put the whole shebang on Malko he looked so cute and comfy I wanted to try them on too. They weren't that expensive (the liners were the same price, more or less, as a package of dipes) and I'm really glad because now I won't visualize mountain ranges of putrid rotting diapers every time I change Malky; of course, those mountain ranges will still be there--one year less, give or take, of one baby's dipes isn't going to make much of a difference--but I already feel less guilty, and totally stoked that these options actually exist! Yay, um..."Little G Pants" and "Elements" wipes! Way to go!

The diaper thing was really bothering me--I felt like I hadn't kept my word--and another thing's been bothering me too: back at the beginning of the year I said I wanted to make "giving" my theme--giving in the sense of giving myself, being available to people, being involved in their lives. I wanted to make up for not being a good enough family member and friend in the past; I wanted to become a giver.

I have to admit--it's unpleasant--that I've fallen far short of my standards, and frankly, despite a somewhat better record of email/phone communication, I still consider myself a not-so-great friend and family member. My biggest problem is timeliness: I tend to put off replying to people until very late, and sometimes by then I feel so bad I don't reply at all; although I'll try to encourage myself to reply by looking on the positive side, saying "a late email/phone call is better than none," the fact is, sometimes a late email/phone call just seems shitty. For all my apologies (I've started many, many communications with "I'm SO sorry this is so late"), the fact remains that often I don't make an effort to communicate faster, better--probably because I'm focused on other things. Like myself.

It's not totally awful--I've made some headway--but I know I can do a lot better, so I guess I'm going to just keep trying to make this year one I'm proud of. With two new babies (three, actually) in the family, I have plenty of opportunity to practice giving, and if I run out of little people who need mobiles and little books and clothes, there are lots of BIG people who might benefit from a dozen cookies or two...

Watch out! Watch out for the Cookie Express!

BABBLING WHILE DOING BALLET ON A BALCONY

2010-07-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

We got back from Corpus today and I have to say it was a VERY relaxing time. After writing the last post, where I was all angsty and unrelaxable, Joedy and I met up with some old friends of his; we drank whiskey out of a plastic water bottle and ate fried tortillas with fried fish and after many hours I found myself babbling while doing ballet on a balcony.

The balcony belonged to a friend who lived right behind the hotel; we lurched back to the room not too late, just late enough for me to have lost much of my normal brain function and my bag, a drama (the bag) that lasted less than twenty-four hours (it was on the table of the friend's house) and filled me with just enough of a thrill: crazy me, I'd lost my bag!

It was strangely kind of exciting. I felt like I did in the past, before we had kids and the party lasted not one night but two years; I felt gritty and reckless (hell's bells, I lost my bag!), and the next day I drank more whiskey. On the beach. In the afternoon. Just a little, but still--what fun!

Since there were no bathrooms on the beach I wandered around looking for a creative way to pee discreetly (I'd have swum out, but I'm afraid of sharks, so I "looked for shells" in the shallow water). After that, I watched Joedy and his friends fly a wakeboarding kite, imagining it hitting the beach and cutting someone's head off. It didn't kill anyone, but I'm pretty sure that's because I very clearly mimicked someone being decapitated and generally expressed my paranoid disapproval, bringing an end (thank GOD!) to the kite fun.

Later, back at the hotel, we were treated to a surprise luau: Joedy's mom and the kids made us wear coconut bras and grass skirts while we gorged ourselves on deep-fried shellfish. After that, we watched Tom Cruise make a fool of himself on TV and it was totally delightful.

This morning we packed up and hit the road and got back and picked up our friend BLAINE!!

Our old friend Blaine, whom we hadn't talked to in three years but who, when Joedy called him last week, immediately bought a plane ticket to come see us and is here now, for the weekend.

Blaine is adorable; I'm so happy to see him!

It's nice to be home!

I don't think the fun is over yet!

I'M RELAXING!!!!*

2010-07-21T11:15:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone!

We're in Corpus, with Joedy's mom and our nieces and nephew, enjoying a few days at a hotel on the beach. We got here yesterday afternoon and went straight down to the water, which was very warm, almost Costa Rica warm, and after an hour of lolling around in the sand, looking at the clouds turn pink and then gold, listening to the ssshhh, ssshhhh, ssshhh of the waves, I realized that yes, I do miss the ocean.

It came as a bit of a surprise: the whole time we've been in Austin I've been like "miss the ocean? Nah, not really. We have so much water here!" Which is true, and it's true the ocean isn't far...but I do miss it. So it's nice to be here.

The departure and drive went swimmingly: we cleaned the entire house so it won't smell like a petting zoo when we get back Friday (I still don't know why it reeked so bad last time), and I packed an assortment of interesting but healthy foodstuffs so we wouldn't stop at a fast food joint right away, as we are usually wont to do. In the spirit of organized road-tripping I made Lula and Malko drape an immense towel over their entire bodies while eating their whole wheat pasta+parmesan salad and organic whole-grain dark chocolate chunk spelt cookies so crumbs wouldn't fall in the Super Luxury Deluxe vehicle we're borrowing; cleaning the car before we left, I was appalled by all the crud in the crevices of the leather seats, crud I'm pretty certain has accumulated since we've been using it.

Since we had plenty of grub on hand Malko was kept mute, for the most part: each time he started to fuss, flailing his arms like--crazy idea--he'd rather be out running around in the green fields we were passing, I shoved another cookie in his mouth. It worked: he'd shut up for a good fifteen minutes--enough time to chew the cookie, retrieve it from his mouth, look at it, smear some organic chocolate drool behind his ear and in his hair, and then offer, with a big smile, the wet crumby remains to his sister.

This morning we came back from the hotel breakfast (what is it about little packets of fake cream that makes them so exciting to me? I just, like, can't get enough of this hotel coffee!) and after Joedy and I tidied up the room I said "Well, I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I guess I don't really have anything I need to do..." and for some reason he laughed. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm not gainfully employed and technically my life isn't made up of a lot of "need to do's"? Or maybe because we're on a mini-vacation from Home Life and it's silly to be thinking of needing to do anything other than enjoying NOT doing laundry, dishes, laundry, dishes, laundry, dishes?

Uh oh--I think it might sound like I'm complaining about my hard life as an un-gainfully employed person! Definitely not. Definitely, definitely not. I don't mind Home Life at all: as long as I'm making headway towards becoming gainfully employed some day, preferably via a creative pursuit that I enjoy, I'm totally okey-dokey with the interminable onslaught of domestic duties. In fact, I kind of like them.

Oh god, WHERE am I going with this? Can we say "ramble"? Ramble.

My point is, I think, that I like being on vacation. I LOVE being on vacation. But after a few hours in the sand I kind of want to be doing something. I want to be making progress. I WANT TO GET SOMEWHERE, DAMMIT, WITH MY LIFE!

So it's a good thing, it's a REALLY good thing, I have this blog to write an entry in--an entry that will add to all the other entries, all the other entries that maybe mean something or maybe don't--

Jesus, I don't know. All I know is I'm thirty-six and seven months old and if I don't make something of myself sometime soon I'm going to commit hari-kari.

My name is Carrie and my legs are hairy!

The end.

Goodbye.

Thank god.

*a lot of hotel coffee has been consumed

SHTUFF!

2010-07-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

When Joedy was in California he arranged to have our stuff--the stuff we didn't take to Costa Rica last August--sent to Austin, and it finally arrived yesterday and today. We, especially Lula, had been waiting eagerly to see not only what exactly we'd kept (with three yard sales and the brain-melting madness of trying to import a pet rabbit to Central America, things got blurry) but what condition everything was in. We'd told Lula ALL her old toys were coming, which was a big lie, because I remember throwing away BOXES of plastic crap with missing pieces, and I was apprehensive about that: would there be enough toys, or would it be disappointing for her? Would any of the clothes she kept talking about actually fit? Could I stand to see her sad again, so soon after the Liam business?

The delivery truck pulled up late yesterday afternoon while I was feeding Malko; hoping he wouldn't launch himself headfirst out of his high chair, I ran down the driveway and yelled hello to the driver. He jumped down from the cab, smiled, and opened the back: I saw a smallish stack of boxes, familiar but worn-looking, some smooshed, the whole thing kind of listing to one side, in the middle of the floor. My heart sank; I thought the stack looked tiny. Meager. Depressing. I thought, this is all we kept? My god, how disappointing...I could see a plastic bin stuffed with all my old diaries, and I was like, this is what I chose to save? This is what we've been waiting for?

The driver asked if there'd been any furniture attached to the pallet. "No, no furniture," I said, regretting again that we hadn't just kept all our beat-up thrift store furniture. How I'd have loved to see our old red armoire, our old wooden desk, the kitchen table, the little chest of drawers with the broken handle. But...wait! There WAS something! I turned to the driver: "Yes, there was a cabinet! Tall, wood, antique! Do you have it?"

"Ok--yeah, we've got it," the driver said. "It's at the loading dock. I think some other boxes of yours might be there too." Some other boxes? Phewie! Great, maybe we wouldn't be so disappointed after all. I mean, my old diaries?

Joedy came home then and we started carrying the boxes into the house. Very quickly the living room turned into Toy Central, which was a good thing, because it meant I had saved enough toys (oh boy, did I save enough toys) and Lula wasn't disappointed AT ALL. Not one teeny bit. How could she be? The stack of boxes had been deceiving--it had looked small in the truck--but in fact it was not that small at all, and easily a third of the boxes were marked Toys. Toys and Baby Clothes.

My god, we have tons of toys and baby clothes now. TONS. They're everywhere: in the kitchen, on the stairs, in the bathroom, on the couch, on the table, under the beds, on the beds, behind the stove. How can so much stuff have fit in those dinky-looking boxes? Someone--I'm not saying who--must have done a VERY good job packing!

The second installment arrived today with "Joedy's" (he bought it before we met) antique wooden cabinet: while it was still sitting in the driveway I opened the little drawers inside and saw all the old notes we'd put there, the scraps of paper with important doodles--all the little bits of paper that chronicle our life together--and it was so...nice seeing all that again. It made me feel young and happy, and I didn't mind, suddenly, that we hadn't kept any of our other furniture. I felt like, life is an adventure! We'll say goodbye to some bedside tables and hello to others! We'll go on wild thrift store sprees, which Austin happens to be perfect for, and replace all that old junk! It's good to get rid of old things! It's good to get new old things!

But: I also might not have minded because there was--is--so much stuff filling up the house already. Not just toys and baby clothes--kitchen gear, books, photos, mobiles, strange electronic gadgetry, diaries, paintings: enough stuff that it feels like Christmas. On mushrooms. But much dustier. Enough to fill another room or two. Easily. Which is why we need to move. Soon. We hope. Because this, this is nuts!!

SO MUCH SHTUFF!

I LOVE...

2010-07-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Joedy got back from California on Sunday, and as we drove home from the airport he told us about all the friends he'd seen. I'm sure it was partly due to the relief of having him back, feeling the tension inside me ease: as he described so-and-so and the familiar places he'd been, I started to cry.

"I just miss my friends," I said, sniffling over the steering wheel. Lula heard the self-pity in my voice and chimed in: "Yeah, well, I miss my friends too, but I'm not crying." I laughed--it's hard to maintain pathos while being chastened by a six-year-old--and we were all happy for a while, until we got to Polvo's, our pre-fireworks restaurant of choice, and Lula's own face started getting a sad, faraway look.

"What's the matter, Lula? Are you tired?" we asked.

"No," she said, looking even sadder. "It's just...when do you think I'm going to see Liam again?"

Liam. While we lived in Ventura last year, Lula became very close to the little boy, Liam, who lived next door. Both kids were the same age, came from half-French families, and adored each other; after a weekend of nonstop togetherness, which invariably included bad behavior, hurt feelings, and forced reconciliations, they wanted nothing more than to spend the night in the same bed, where they could look into each other's eyes and giggle.

Leaving California for Costa Rica was almost as hard from a Liam perspective as any other: while Joedy and I knew we'd miss our family and friends and all the places that had come to feel like home during our 13-year life there, we knew we could keep in touch and visit again. But watching Lula say goodbye to Liam, knowing how much she loved being with him, was wrenching: we promised to call regularly, but we knew that even if we did (we didn't) it wouldn't be the same, for her, as living next door.

Joedy visited Liam and his family while he was in California, and it was his recounting of the visit, over chips and salsa at Polvo's, that pushed Lula into her sad state. Before we knew it her face crumpled and her chest started to heave; sensing something serious, I picked her up and carried her outside to the quiet street. Sitting on a curb together, she cried and cried into my shoulder, and when she asked, "Do you think Liam cries about me like this? Do you think I'll ever see him again?" I felt terrible. All of a sudden I thought we'd been horribly wrong to leave California, to give up the good things we had there; this past year had obviously been much harder for Lula than we'd thought. It was true: she hadn't made any close, solid friends, and we hadn't even kept up contact with Liam's family. It'd been cruel of us to take her away from her best friend and all the other people in California who knew and loved her.

Over the next few days Joedy and I talked about moving back. We listed the pros and cons of Austin and Santa Barbara, and for a while, despite the insanely high cost of real estate in Santa Barbara, it seemed like the better choice: Joedy would be close to his work, we could see all our friends, we'd have the mountains and the ocean.

Although the idea of living happily ever after in Santa Barbara was nice, I couldn't ignore an unpleasant feeling that grew inside me and that felt a lot like depression: moving again would mean, well, moving again, and after the last year of turbulence I still want stability--no adventure, thank you very much, for a nice long time. We--Joedy and I, and our families, too--have invested a lot, emotionally and financially, in our settling down here, and I wondered what would it mean to walk away from those investments. Would moving back to California be worth all the stress, the upheaval, the rupturing of yet more new ties? Aside from those things and more practical matters--we'd have to find a new school for Lula, we'd have to figure out new health insurance, blah blah blah, thinking about it all made me want to shoot myself--there was the fact that...

I like Austin. I really freaking like Austin. I like so much about it: the trees, the cold weather in the winter, the thunderstorms, the proximity to Joedy's family, the rivers, streams, and pools, the trailer eateries, the tattoos, the funkiness, the skyscrapers, the music, the walking paths, the friendly attitude towards dogs, the coolness, the lack of pretension. Often when I'm out running errands, I'll see something neat and think "My GOD, I love this place!" When I'm with Joedy and the kids, when we're driving down South Congress, say, towards Town Lake, I can't help saying it out loud: "I loooovvve...."

Lula, who's heard it too many times, cuts me off with an exasperated sigh: "Oh god," she says, "not again. Please don't say that thing AGAIN." To make her happy, I complete the sentence with "cockroaches" or "Diablo's stinky breath," but everyone knows what I mean.

So, does this mean we're staying in Austin? Heck no! We don't know. We'll stick it out a year (paying one-third of the rent we'd be paying in Santa Barbara) and see what happens with Joedy's work, with Lula's friendships. She'll be starting first grade in a month, and I think we'll have more success finding good friends for her this year. We called Liam a couple times recently, and Lula was thrilled--THRILLED--to hear his voice and to learn he tells everyone his best friend is in Texas. The more we stay here the more comfortable we'll get, I think, and with the money left over from our cheap rent we could, maybe, take some trips to visit the family and friends we miss. So for now, I'm just going to settle back and enjoy being here--it's not at all a bad place to be.

FLOODED WITH FUN

2010-07-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

I try not to let more than a week go by between entries, so although I'm not really feeling it (it's late, I'm tired--the usual) I'm going to do a little update.

Joedy's been in California since Tuesday. He went to get some work done in LA and to send our remaining belongings (the stuff we left behind when we moved to Costa Rica) back here; he'll be home on Sunday, in time, we hope, for the fireworks.

I was apprehensive about being solo with the kids so we enrolled Lula in camp for this week; watching Malko is a full-time job, to say the least, and having his big sister occupied elsewhere seemed like a good idea. Lula loved camp on both Monday and Tuesday--she couldn't wait to go back Wednesday morning--but on Tuesday it started to rain really hard, enough to cause flooding in the street in front of our house and lots of other places on my way to pick her up that afternoon. After an hour and forty-five minutes in the car (it normally takes twenty minutes), terrified that the two feet of churning water we occasionally had to drive through would increase, all the while watching huge streaks of lightning shoot down and jumping at the VERY LOUD thunder, I was shaken and decided to play it safe the next day: Lula would go to camp only if "severe weather" was far, far away.

Wednesday morning predicted more heavy rain and possible flash flooding, so I kept her home; we made it out once, to give the dogs a walk at Town Lake and buy a couple activity-type presents for Lula (I bought them to keep her out of my hair, but ended up having to put the wind-up paper robots together myself) and an enjoyable, civilized cup of coffee for me, since the "coffee" we had in the fridge (something Joedy bought to deep-clean his intestinal tract, apparently) made me start sweating and jerking uncontrollably after just four sips. When we got home it was getting dark and we were all hungry, and things quickly slid into domestic chaos, with the end result being me standing in the kitchen trying not to cry from frustration (I kept kicking myself for not having taken Lula to camp) and wondering WHY THE HELL I hadn't bought any alcohol--at that point, by golly, I needed some badly.

Luckily our neighbor/friend gave me a beer and I made it through the dinner/bath/bed routine without feeling too much of the disturbing empathy I sometimes feel for Andrea Yates; by the time Lula and Malko were in bed and the sound of Malko's screeches--he's learning to speak raptor--had faded from my ears, I thought I actually liked my kids and perhaps it hadn't been such a shitty, wasted day after all. When Malko woke up at 2 a.m. and demanded first a bottle and then to "sleep" next to me (read: bang his heavy head into mine, thrash around, sit up, kick me in the stomach) I had a hard time falling back asleep, and the only reason I made it through the next day (the storm was supposed to strike again; Lula stayed home again) was because Malko fell asleep at 10 a.m. and slept till...

2:30!!

Yay, happy day! Malko, you heavenly, glorious child! Your mommy loves you--oh yes, she does! And now you can have all the banana-walnut-chocolate chip bread you want, you writhing bag of blubbery muscle! Because you left me alone for FOUR-AND-A-HALF HOURS! I was given almost five whole hours of freedom, during which I carefully stuck tiny robot pieces to other tiny robot pieces and did yet another HUGE pile of dishes! And changed my smelly shirt! Yay.

Last night I was so determined that Lula would go to camp today, and then, of course, not only was it raining this morning (it got floodish again at the bottom of the driveway, and I started thinking about what to pack in case we needed to evacuate--my ear plugs didn't make the cut, but I did consider bringing lotion, because I HATE having dry skin) but I was ex-haus-ted. Malko had been up again in the middle of the night, and I could barely keep my eyes open--I felt drugged. Luckily, he took another long nap and Lula read Calvin and Hobbes, and I got to sleep until 11:15, which was...wonderful.

Tomorrow Lula's playing with a friend, and since she's excited about that she didn't talk too much about camp, which was a relief. If it's clear tomorrow evening I might take the kids out for some tacos or something, maybe at a place that also sells alcohol? I have the feeling I'll be wanting a beer.

COCKROACH AND CONTRADICTION

2010-06-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a visitor! A big brown visitor with waving antennae! He was in the bathroom! At first, when Lula informed me of his presence, I tried to act cool, like, I LOVE cockroaches--cute little harmless critters! And then, after I'd captured him with a bowl against the wall and was trying to slide him onto a book to throw him outside, he wiggled out and I FREAKED! Screamed a garbled command to Joedy to get his butt off the downstairs commode and get it upstairs so he could do his manly duty and get rid of the horrific, disgusting beast!

Normally I don't believe in gender-specific duties, but I'm totally working this one: let the more muscular person fight the vermin. I'll scream and whimper pathetically like a good lil' wifey while you, O manly man, dispose of it. All I ask is that you don't use my flip-flop to smoosh it. And please don't get any of that toxic cockroach spray on my toothbrush. Also, could you sleep on the bathroom side of the bed tonight? In case we have another visitor? You have more muscles, you see, and you're emitting your own toxic gas from those refried beans--heck, you're scary to me!

It's strange that I'm making Joedy be the cockroach killer--that I'm playing the lil' wifey role--because just this afternoon I almost bit a friend's head off for projecting a "female gender role" on me. He'd (kindly) told Malko not to dismantle the pile of laundry that "Mommy folded," and I reacted by saying, "I didn't fold the laundry--I hate folding laundry!" Don't assume the laundry was folded by me just because I'm FEMALE!

I had just come home from the thrift store with Lula, who'd chosen, for her upcoming week at summer camp, two pairs of shorts, three t-shirts, and a pair of board shorts--all "boy's clothes," in the sense that there was nothing frilly, fitted, or pink--and when she tried on the new jean shorts and the black and blue striped t-shirt she really looked exceptionally un-girlish. We're used to seeing Lula in shorts and t-shirts, but the jean shorts bumped the tomboy factor a little higher, prompting Joedy to ask, "Did you get any girl's clothes?"

What a silly question. No, of course we didn't buy any "girl's clothes"--Lula hasn't worn a dress since she was three. She'd rather die than wear tights; she vastly prefers board shorts over a normal bathing suit; she can't stand having her hair down, or up, or any way but just in a plain ponytail, right in the middle of the back of her head, and her favorite color is blue, blue, blue--dark blue, sky blue, medium blue, navy blue...

I looked at Joedy. "She got normal clothes for a kid--shorts and t-shirts. What's wrong with a 6-year-old girl wearing shorts and a t-shirt? What's so boyish about these clothes?" I HATE gender role conformity, especially when it's pushed on little kids, and I think "girl's clothes" are often idiotic and demeaning. I understand Lula's tomboy inclinations and feel defensive about any real (or imagined) criticism of her clothing preference, of who she is. Joedy understood and changed course: "Yeah, what's unnatural is when little girls are made to look like little women," he said. "That's what's screwed up."

Thank you, baby, I thought, you are perfect. You're earning yourself some serious brownie points with this lil' wifey--this lil' wifey who will fight! Anyone! Who pushes gender role conformity on her kids! Who reacts kind of rudely when a friend assumes she--gasp--folded the laundry! This lil' wifey who throws herself unabashedly into a "female role" when cockroaches are around. This lil' wifey who DEMANDS that her poor, cockroach-phobic, sweet husband "be manly" when she's freaked out by a (gross, hideous, gigantic) bug. This lil' wifey who claims to be all anti-gender role conformity but then works it to her advantage when it's convenient for her...

This lil' wifey who's a little contradictory!

This lil' wifey who's a little hypocritical!

This lil' wifey who doesn't care!

Because the COCKROACH IS DEAD!

NORMAL EARLY SUMMER EVENING

2010-06-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

Galloping goosebumps, I'm soooo tired! We got back from Corpus today, having spent the weekend there with Joedy's family, and right after we walked into the house and spent forty-five minutes deodorizing it--it smelled, Lula said, "like a pet shop"--we (I) had to turn right back around and get right back in the car, which we'd already been in for 4.5 hours, and drive Malko to the doctor for not just two, as I'd expected, but THREE SHOTS! Wooeee, what fun--I love clamping fat little limbs down so they can get stabbed with needles!

Why did the house smell like a pet shop, you ask? I have no friggin' idea. The dogs were at Joedy's cousin's house, and Lapis was locked outside, poor neurotic overly-meowing kitty, so what was it that created the stink of unwashed bodies and unchanged litter boxes? Maybe the couch "ripened" with the AC turned off--I don't know. Anyway, it smelled funky in here. It helped us get on the ball with the dirty dishes in the sink, left over from my cookiebaking extravaganza Saturday morning, and we actually got a lot done during the rest of the day, which was nice. Something about banging an empty water bottle on your head (to keep someone from screaming during the remaining forty minutes of a long drive) makes you feel so...underproductive! Like your "higher skills" are seriously underused! Although your "lower skills" come in handy again, later, at the doctor's office, when you find yourself tearing up the paper sheet covering the examining table, rolling the pieces into balls, putting the balls in your mouth, and blowing them, with a loud, satisfying whoosh, across the room to--again--keep someone from screaming while waiting...

When we got home from the doctor's Joedy and Lula went to do some grocery shopping and pick up the dogs, and for a while Malko and I were alone in the house. Since I'm a freakomaniac I got nervous when two young men stopped to sit on the bridge below the house; I thought they were very probably pretending to be all casual and nonchalant when IN FACT they were going to sneak under the bridge, sneak up around the other side of the house, and break the back door down with machetes!

A little aside here, so I don't seem like a total cuckoo bird: we don't live in a very good neighborhood. The street was known for its prostitutes until a few years ago, and there are some very shabby buildings and very shady people very close by. Two weeks ago, Joedy was woken up (I had my earplugs in) by a SWAT team surrounding the house two doors down; we still don't know what they were after. Meth? A human smuggling ring? Black-market maple syrup? It's ANYONE'S guess!

So anyway, I was nervous, and I lowered the blinds, checked that the windows and doors were locked, and ran upstairs (with my phone, in case I needed to call 911) and unlocked the sliding glass door in our bedroom in case I needed to jump out (holding Malko). I figured by the time I jumped and was running into the street screaming, the guys with the machetes would just be coming up the stairs. It was a fail-proof plan! I peeked out the curtain, but couldn't see the guys anymore, so I went to the back window; all I saw was a work truck taking some stuff to the buildings behind our house and our neighbor sitting in his back yard, talking to someone.

Wait a minute--our neighbor? Sitting in his back yard? Talking to someone? Like, everything was happy-dandy? Like, it was just a normal early summer evening and, in fact, a pretty nice evening at that? Perfect for sitting outside and not worrying about fictitious attackers and their fictitious machetes? He was just sitting there, a little hunched over, partly obscured by the potted roses in the yard. He had a blue shirt on, and he looked so normal--the whole scene looked so normal--that I immediately felt relieved and stupid. What a dork I am, I thought. Who the hell is going to machete down our door in broad daylight? I kept going to the kitchen window and looking at our neighbor, and I felt so damn grateful, I wanted to give him a big FAT HUG!

Or a beer. I thought I could at least give him a beer--he might find me more normal if I gave him a beer instead of a teary, grateful hug--but while debating the judiciousness of opening the door I took a sip of the beer and then decided to just finish it, and then Malko woke up and Joedy and Lula and the dogs came home, and then the normal early summer evening merged into the normal early summer night.

LIKE A RABBIT

2010-06-17T08:34:00.001-07:00

Last night I had a nightmare and woke myself up yelling, or trying to yell: I was dreaming we were still in California, where there were six inches of snow on the ground from a climate gone awry, and I was driving our old Volvo through the snow, braking by sticking my foot through the broken bottom of the car. I had Lula with me and was trying to get home as quickly as possible because Joedy was leaving on a work trip; as the car skidded and slid in the snow a family ran across the road and I hit one of the children.

That should have been enough, but the dream continued: we got home, and after trying different doors and stairs it became clear that the building had turned into a maze--Joedy and Malko were in there somewhere, but we couldn't find them. I started up one stairway that looked vaguely familiar, and came to a room where three men stood. They eyed Lula appreciatively as we walked by, and--horror of horrors--reached out for her, grabbed her...I tried to yell, but I couldn't--my voice was trapped in my throat. My daughter was in danger, and I couldn't save her; I couldn't call for help, I couldn't tell the men "NO!"

When I woke up I just lay there, shaken, wondering why my mind would pile so many horrible things into one dream. Then I realized it was a pretty good reflection of my life, or at least my inner life, because I'm constantly imagining horrible scenarios, thinking about the "what if's"--all the awful things that could happen to a kid, parents, a family...

At the gym: We'd better not let Lula and Malko stay in the (unlocked) Supervised Play Area. What if a crazy person walks in there with a gun?

While driving: Better not drive in the center lane of this road. Any of the drivers coming toward us could be drunk and crash into us.

At home: The doors and windows should always be locked, and no one should ever be alone at home without the dogs, because a psychotic meth-head could drop by for visit!

Still at home: These flies seem to be getting smarter. Do you think they're evolving? What if they start attacking us?

Glimpsing the news, by mistake: Wow, that oil spill sure is gigantic. I guess this is it, eh? The environmental disaster that will kill untold living creatures, catastrophically disrupt the food chain, and end the world as we know it?

As I lay awake thinking about these things and my propensity for dramatic, depressing thoughts I began to feel silly and sheepish. Very few truly bad things have happened to me; my life is filled with love, beauty, and happiness. I recognize, on a daily basis, how lucky I am. Why should I always feel like disaster is around the corner? What a waste of time and energy, what a waste of thought; I could be putting all this effort into something productive, something that helps people who really need it!

Maybe I'm a bit overly-imaginative, or maybe this is just what being a parent is about: constantly imagining the worst-case scenario so you can have a backup plan, an escape route, a way to deal with the awful things that can and do happen. In the end, it doesn't really matter why I'm a paranoid worrier, I guess--what matters is that I try not to let it get out of hand. When I look at the situation objectively--when I see myself scan the inside of stores for exit signs, prepare to grab Malko by the feet and shake him upside down if he chokes--I think about Sapporo, the rabbit we left behind in California. Sapporo, and all the other rabbits I've had, were always looking for escape routes. It's their nature, it's their way of protecting themselves: in a sense, it's their way of fighting for survival.

Although I can get carried away, I accept my anxiety-based, rabbitlike qualities; to a certain degree, I'm even proud of them. If yelling "NO!" isn't always an option--if you can't wake up from the nightmare--it's good to have an alternate strategy in place.

Once the escape route's been determined, we rabbits can settle down, chew some grass, relax and think happy thoughts--until nighttime, that is, when anything goes...

ONE OH OH ONE

2010-06-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

That's what the time just said: 10:01. Which means, much too late. To be starting an entry. But: too bad! I'm drunk. Or at least, almost. Off this very enjoyable white wine we got at Central Market this afternoon! Between the free coffee and free fresh-baked strips of bread! Betwixt my armpit and my head!

Hello? Hello. I can HEAR you! You can? Yes! And? SHUT UP!

Golly, my alternate personalities are arguing!

Against my better judgment I'm going to try to write a lucid, interesting entry, with lots of fun-filled facts and a minimum of hyperbole, but, as usual, I can't remember what I was going to say, sooooo....hmm.....better drink some more wine...

Joedy just walked into the living room in his orange polka-dotted underpants, the ones my parents gave him last year; he has a band-aid on each shoulder from the shots he got at the doctor's today. For some reason the clinic he went to actually gave him medical care; they not only gave him the two shots but THREE prescriptions! And tapped his knees with the little wooden hammer! I was rightfully jealous when he came home. Especially since I'd been mauled all morning by Malko, who's tweaked his tackling technique to include a post-tackling stepping-on-the-victim's-windpipe-with-his-fat-foot, while laughing, and then a slamming of his big butt in the victim's face! Ha ha! What fun!

This couch I'm sitting on (it's not our couch) smells like cheese. Really--it's remarkable. It's like someone rubbed a hunk of cheese right where the back cushions and the arms meet. Or, it could be that someone who lies here frequently, a canine someone, emits a certain smell from a certain body part and that body part rubs on the couch. That's totally possible, and it just makes me feel so...close to the dogs! So intimate with them! Yay!

My teeth are tingling. I haven't been to the dentist in seven or eight years and I brush a lot to make up for it, but now they feel like this and it's weird: they're, like, vibrating. Maybe it was the steel wool I used tonight instead of a toothbrush? Or the Ajax? Probably both. Anyway, the wine seems to be helping.

Last night Joedy and I were all set to have a rare "movie night"; without realizing it would be so horrific and gruesome Joedy rented an EXTREMELY, UNBELIEVABLY, HORRIFIC and GRUESOME movie, about a boy and his father post-Apocalypse, and for about an hour, until we couldn't stand it anymore (I spent a good part of the time moaning, in the fetal position), we watched scenes with jolly, happy cannibals and meat hooks to hang up their human "harvest"! They were harvesting humans because, of course, they had nothing left to eat, because there was a nuclear disaster, and everything was dying, and the planet was turning grey, and they were all going to finish each other off au jus and oh, happy day! Happy, gay humanity!

It didn't help that the boy looked like Malko, and when he cried he sounded so much like...a young boy. A young boy stuck in a world of death, with only his dying father to protect him: a sweet young boy, a nice young boy.

Joedy didn't think the story was believable, but call me gullible--I kind of think it could happen. Or at least, I think people could go that crazy--turn violent and cannibalistic and deranged--if the circumstances were right, and it's that I went to sleep thinking about, and it's that I woke up thinking about, and most of the day, when I found myself getting annoyed at Lula for requesting ANOTHER piece of toast after I just made her one, after I'd put the butter away and wiped the counter, I thought how lucky I am. To be able to make more toast. For her.

"Gosh, I'm lucky," I thought, pressing the toaster button again. "If this were the future, and people were cannibals, we probably wouldn't eat so much toast! And toast, by George, is good! A life without toast would be a wasted life."

That's what I thought about: how lucky I am to have toast and to not be a cannibal.

Yay, toast!

Yay, wine!

Yay, cheese!

On the couch! Right behind my back! Filling my nostrils with the smell of a sharp, rancid cheddar or maybe a dog's body part!

YAY!

Good night.

QUIET TIME

2010-06-07T14:40:00.001-07:00

After a morning of domestic duties (groceries, cleaning the fridge, laundry, dishes, lunch, dishes) it's finally 1:30, Malko's nap time, and while he drinks his bottle in his crib the house becomes quiet. Relieved, I sit down on the couch to write; Lula, now in her third day of summer vacation, plays with teddy bears on the rug.

A minute passes while I try to remember what I was going to write about. It was something important, I think...frowning, I look out the window. There's a bunch of big black birds in the tree in front of the house. They're making a racket, screeching and whooping like a tequila-fueled bachelor party, and I'm sure they're going to wake Malko. Damn it, birds, I think, shut up! Don't you know nap time, a.k.a. quiet time, is sacred? Huh, birds? Huh? Can you please SHUT UP?

The birds don't shut up. I look at the computer screen: it's 2:15. Malko's going to wake up in an hour, give or take a little. What the HELL was I going to write about?

Lula's voice breaks the not-so-quiet silence: "Maman."

"Mm."

"What are you doing with your finger?"

"What?"

"With your finger. What are you doing with it."

"My finger?" What's she talking about?

"Yeah. You had it in your nose."

"Oh," I say, glad I know the answer so I can tell it to her and she can be quiet again. "My nose was itching."

"Yeah, but you had it inside your nose. Why was the inside itching?"

Jesus. I roll my eyes. "I don't know, Lula. I don't know why the inside of my nose was itching."

"Do you think, uh, do you think...Maman!"

"Mm." I look at her.

"Do you think you have poison oak in your nose?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Why what?!" GOD!

"Why don't you think you have poison oak in your nose?"

"I don't know." Could you please just be quiet now, I silently plead, looking at the clock in the corner of the screen. It's 2:30. "Quiet time"--clearly a misnomer--is dwindling. I've written two sentences.

"Well, you said when you touch poison oak it can come out anywhere, so maybe you do have it in your nose." I don't answer. Maybe if I pretend I'm deaf she'll stop talking?

"Maman." Staring intently at the screen, I fake-type, rattling the keys like I'm in the middle of a very deep, very important thought. Surely she'll see I'm busy and leave me alone.

"MAMAN." She says this in a mock stage-whisper. She's about as quiet as the birds outside who, judging by a new hooting sound, are at the stripper stage of their bachelor party antics; she's about as quiet as my phone's alarm clock, which just went off, inexplicably (maybe it's time to shoot myself?), emitting a muffled mechanical "song" that reminds me, at this particular moment, of an electric chair being dragged across a bumpy concrete floor. I put my head in my hands.

"Maman." I look up. Lula's face is hovering three inches from mine; her body is blocking the computer screen.

"What?" I say. Fuck it! Fuck quiet time!

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, Lula," I say. "I'm not doing anything." It's true. I've given up. Reaching around her, I close the computer screen, and then I go lie down on the rug. Lula builds a lego castle around me, and ten minutes later, when Malko wakes up, alerted by the sound of crashing legos, he practices tackling me, jumping on my stomach and grabbing my face, laughing maniacally when my amused protestations turn to shrieks.

"No! No! Leave me alone! Please! LEAVE ME ALONE," I wail, but it's no use: my cries mix with those of the birds outside (they just scored an eight-ball) and with the general din in the house. It's no use protesting, because nobody's listening: I'm lost in a sea of chaos and noise.

Quiet time is over.

IT'S NOT GOING TO HURT

2010-06-03T20:47:00.001-07:00

Today I woke up at 6:30 so I could call the pediatrician's office RIGHT AT SEVEN, like they told me, so I could make an appointment for Malko to get two of the remaining four shots he's behind on, and after making the call I started some pancakes (very lumpy and then, after adding too much water, very watery) and went to wake up Lula and Joedy so Joedy could take Lula to the OTHER pediatrician for HER checkup/shots at 8:45, and while heckling Joedy about his speed, or lack thereof, in exiting the house, I forgot to give him Lula's shots record, so when they came home at 11 she still hadn't had her shots, so I made ANOTHER phone call, to Malko's pediatrician, for Lula in the afternoon, and after taking Malko there and coming home I picked up Lula and listened, in the car, to this:

"Is it going to hurt? I don't want to DOOO THIIIISSSS! I think I want to go home right now. Maman, can we go home now? Please, Maman, pleeeease?"

Given that the last shot Lula had, in December, provoked an all-out terror fit and required the firm grip of not one but two nurses, I didn't have very high hopes for the successful (i.e., calm) administration of these three shots. I tried to comfort her by saying that Malko hardly cried when he got his shots this morning, but she was unimpressed, and rightfully so: Malko is bulky. There's lots more cushioning on his body.

I switched tactics: "You know how I wax my legs, Lula? Remember how I said it doesn't really hurt anymore? Well, it actually does hurt, but I'm used to it now, so I'm not afraid of the pain--it's not as scary. You know what helps? Telling yourself it's not going to hurt. That's what I do. If you tell yourself something's not going to hurt, it won't. It's kind of like magic!"

She was quiet for a while, and then, in a perfectly normal, happy voice, asked if she could have a prize later for being good. I sensed that someone was being worked, but I didn't care who as long as the shots went well. "Sure Lula, you can have whatever you want," I said. Just don't bite the nurse!

We got to the doctor's office early and waited seventy minutes to be called, during which time we observed an extremely loud and bratty young man make a big fuss because he "got kicked, and tore his ACL, and now he needs surgery, and...what? They don't do MRI's at this clinic?! Well then"--to his friend--"what do I do now? Mary, you're the one with the knowledge about the medical world, WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST I DO???" I had a few suggestions for him, starting with coming over to my knee so I could give him a good spanking, and not in a "fun" way, but all I really did was pronounce very loudly in French to Lula that it's a good thing we speak French because we can talk about bratty people who need spankings without them knowing! We can talk loudly about them as they're trudging, on their spoiled-brat crutches, right by us! What FUN!!!

Right when I'd decided to throw in the towel and go home Lula's name was called and we followed a nurse down the hallway to the Shot Room, where Lula fell into an inconsolable panic. "No, I don't WANT TO DO THIS, nooooooooooo, Maman, please don't make me do this," she cried, hiding in the corner behind the chair, welding herself to the wall so I couldn't drag her out. "Maman, please, don't let her hurt me! Don't let her do this to me!"

Glancing at the nurse, who appeared unruffled--in fact, she seemed totally used to this--I grabbed Lula and flew, at warp speed, through every motivational tactic I knew, listing the presents, spankings, groundings, and ice cream she'd get if she'd just sit down, extend her arm, and be quiet!

It didn't work, and a few seconds later, while I held Lula on my lap, trying to get her to be still, for god's sake, so the needle wouldn't go into her eye, her screams alerted another nurse, and between the three of us we got her to be pretty still, although she was staring RIGHT at the needle coming RIGHT at her arm and she was hyperventilating, crying, saying, "Please don't be mean to me, please don't hurt me," when I suddenly remembered our conversation: "Lula, remember what I said? Tell yourself it's not going to hurt!"

Sobbing, she turned her face the other way, and, her voice cracking as the needles pierced the skin, said: "It's not going to hurt, it's not going to hurt, it's not going to hurt..."

And then it was over! The nurses left the room, we stood up, Lula asked about the ice cream, and then she said, of her own accord, "I'm sorry, Maman. I promise I won't cry so much next time."

She looked so contrite, and with her face all red and splotchy, her gangly little arms hanging at her sides, I melted and leaned down to give her a hug. "It's ok, Lula, just try not to be so...dramatic next time." She nodded, and I wiped my eyes. Next time is going to be in four years, when she's ten. We have a lot of time to tell ourselves it's not going to hurt.

A GOON'S NEWS

2010-05-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

Misguided Mommy sits down to write
a lamp to her left a dog to her right
the kids are in bed asleep for the night
it was quiet in here so I turned on the lights

El Papa has gone, out with some friends

Welp! Welp, welp, welp--here we are, folks, on the good ship Bloggy Plot, some with candy and some with not, some with seaweed in their snot!

Wot?

A fly buzzeth above my headeth, annoyingly, and I hear the annoying sound of dogs eating their food in a loud, slow, annoying way!! Yet I sit here and persist in the insensible task of writing a blog entry when under the spell of not one but three margaritas, and it's already 11:33 and I committed to taking Lula to school (aka waking up at 6:30, performing a series of "brain teasers", driving a car) tomorrow, so Joedy could go out tonight, so what am I doing? Why? Because I finished the espresso chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer? Maybe? MAYBE?

Anyhoo: Joedy's out trying to see a band somewhere, Lula and Malko are in bed, the dogs have stopped making that noise, and I've totally forgotten the things I was going to say!

Weird!

Anyway: the house is a disaster zone. It would look to someone like the parents here have been partying all weekend over a three-day weekend, although at least one of the parents (I'm not saying who!) did a remarkable amount of house cleaning the first night the other parent was out with his friends, who'd just come into town, the night the cleaning parent was in a really great mood, the mood that did not last through the afternoon of the following day, when that parent was STILL stuck home with the loud, demanding, small, heavy, clingy entities. It was at that time that the cleaning parent began to resent having cleaned so thoroughly and goodheartedly, so warmly...aye, it was now that this parent turned cold! Bitter! Unpleasant to chat with! And all things teetered on the edge for a little while, but the other, non-cleaning parent very nicely apologized for having taken so long on the lake, and his cousin offered to babysit, so we took the kids over to her house, and we got in the car and went out on the town and I got to DANCE!

And today, I had two avocado margaritas and one plain/slushy margarita! And I got to swim in a huge spring and sit under these huge beautiful trees! And then eat a certain charred-pepper salsa with insane guacamole, listening to loud wonderful music! It was heaven!!

BUT: tomorrow is Tuesday, the 2nd-to-last day of Lula's school, and we have to plan some serious summer things (I guess) and I have to call the dermatologist, clean the house, go through the InBox, make MD appts. for Lula and Malko, do laundry, make an Internal Affairs MD appt., and get certain "creative" objects ready for travel...because...maybe? We will? Be going? Somewhere cool? Really soon?

I hope?

I hope!

I HOPE!

Stay tuned for more news from the goon!

CLOSE, NOT FAR

2010-05-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

When Joedy and I moved to Costa Rica we knew we'd feel far from family and friends, but it wasn't till we got there that we realized just how far we really were, how alone we were. While living in California we'd already been far away from many of our close family members, so we thought we could handle the distance between Central America and our loved ones; with Skype, email, and plane rides, we'd keep our relationships alive, we'd manage.

By the second week there I was totally depressed and didn't give a flying fruit loop about monkeys or warm turquoise water--I didn't care about the adventure, I just wanted to go home. The idea of staying long-term in Costa Rica, of creating lives for ourselves that would more or less exclude the people we cared most about, felt very, very wrong. Sure, we could fly to visit people, we could video chat every day, but the fact remained that it felt far, really far, and the thought of Lula and Malko growing up like that--apart from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins--made us sad. It wouldn't be right for them, it wouldn't be right for our families, and it wouldn't be right for us: we realized we couldn't live there after all.

We revised our plans, thinking we'd stay a year, maybe nine months, and as soon as the decision was made to come back to the States we cheered up. More than ever before, we knew distance wasn't what we wanted between ourselves and our families; feeling so deeply far away, we saw closeness with new eyes--the relationships we were privileged to have seemed more important and valuable, less easy to take for granted. I thought a lot about the bridges I'd burned, or come close to burning, over the years by not returning phone calls or emails, by simply not being there when someone I loved needed me, and though my chronic "communication-procrastination problem" almost always stemmed from a fear of not doing it right--not having interesting things to say, not sounding happy--I thought it was time to change: it was time to become a more loving, supportive friend and family member, to get over myself and into other people, to become a giver.

Our stay in Costa Rica ended early, in November, and for the next few months, while our lives crept slowly back from near-total disarray, we were shown again and again how lucky we were to have family and friends--people who took us in, supported us, offered their help--and though we didn't like taking, to be living like lame losers off the people we wanted to give back to, it was good to be with them; it was good to be close, not far away.

Since January, when we landed in Austin, our lives have blossomed in ways I didn't think possible. There have been some changes I'm tempted, now and then, to think of as miracles, but effort and love, not just luck, have been involved, and I know the likelihood of more change manifesting--of our being the people we want to be--is good.

I thought about this stuff tonight, sitting at the dinner table with Joedy's parents and my own, visiting us for a week from Rhode Island. It was their first encounter since Joedy and I hooked up, thirteen momentous years ago, and seeing them together, singing to Malko and playing with Lula, relaxed and happy, close to us, part of our lives, gave me the feeling that things are going in the right direction; the road from Costa Rica, or to Costa Rica, is taking us where we want to be.

A SONG

NOW THAT SHE'S SIX

2010-05-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was lying next to Lula on her bed a little while ago; in the semidarkness, she hugged Wolfie and Ottie, her stuffed animal friends, and remarked that Lapis (lying on her legs, vying for my attention) wasn't going to get Wolfie like last time, when he tried to bite Wolfie's neck and it looked like he was trying to carry him, the way a mother cat carries her kittens.

She looked at me. "Like Lapis tried to do with Gato, remember? Do you remember Gato, our little cat in Costa Rica?"

"Of course I remember Gato!" I said cheerily, trying to steer the conversation away from a potentially depressing topic. She'd been a little hyper in the evening, and I didn't want to disrupt an already precarious mood with talk of the sick, blind kitten we'd found next to a pile of trash and brought home, tried to care for, and discovered dead a few days later. Although the little orange cat had impressed me with his liveliness, with his sheer catness--despite being just a handful of fur-covered bones--there wasn't much to say about him that wasn't sad.

"Remember when we were in the bathroom, Maman, and he fell off the bed? We found him under the bed?"

Um, yes--I remembered. The tiny, fragile, sick kitten fell off the bed. Onto the hard tile floor. I could hardly find him under Lula's bed, he was so still and small, and as I scooped him gently, gently into my fingers I wondered what exactly he was doing, walking all the way from the middle of the bed to the edge. Was he looking for his mother? For food? For Diablo, who'd decided he was the kitten's surrogate mother? Was he just being a curious little cat?

"I love Gato," Lula said, and, hearing a tremor in her voice, I pulled her closer. "I love Gato too," I said. "It was good he had us for a family, don't you think? He had people and animals who loved him..."--how could I avoid it?--"...at the end of his life, when he died. He was lucky to have us, and we were lucky to have him, you know?"

"Yeah," she said, but she didn't sound convinced; tears seemed to be threatening. "I wish we had him still though. I wish he had been able to grow up and be a big cat like Lapis. I wish he didn't die and be all alone somewhere...where did you put him again?"

I lied: I couldn't tell her about the plastic bag, the trash can, and the bugs. "I put him under a tree in the forest next to our house. Remember the forest? I put some leaves over him and soon his body fell apart and went into the earth. Remember how I told you that when we die our bodies become part of the earth? Gato's body did the same thing--it sort of melted into a bunch of tiny pieces and went into the dirt, and when worms ate some of that dirt he went into the worms, and when birds ate the worms he went into the birds. He went into plants and water, into all kinds of different things. He got to be all these different parts of nature."

I thought I was starting to sound cheesy, so I stopped. Lula was quiet, and I looked at her face, trying to read her feelings. Her eyebrows were raised and the corners of her mouth were turned down, and though there were shadows around her eyes I knew they were open, staring sadly ahead. Tears weren't coming after all, but the deep, empty sadness I recognized in her was worse: I didn't want her, only a few days into her sixth year (she's still so little!), preoccupied with thoughts about death and loss, about the undeniable fact of life that life, well, always ends. I didn't want her to turn, so soon, into the gloomy person her mother can so often be...

She continued lying there silently and after a while I caved, tossing the "ain't-death-a-beautiful-part-of-life" spin out the window. Maybe what she really needed was honesty. "The sad thing, Lula," I continued, cringing at what I was about to say, "is that animals die all the time. I've had lots of pets that have died, and it's just sad. It really is. It's really, really sad..." I was coming close to choking up, so I stopped again, feeling lame.

She was quiet a while longer and then she asked if Gato was "still ours." "Yes," I said, "Gato will always be ours--he'll always be our cat. Even though he's not with us, he'll always be part of our family." I didn't really know what I was saying--I just wanted her to be happy again, and was glad she looked less stricken. Smoothing her hair, I asked, "Are you ok now, Lula?"

She nodded yes, and I could tell it was true. Getting up, I blew her a kiss from the door, relieved and a little amazed that everything was fine. We'd talked about death. I'd admitted it's mostly sad, that there's nothing you can do about it, and she was...blowing a kiss back to me.

Phew. We made it.

SEALS AND SHOPPING CARTS

2010-05-13T19:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday after (neatly) shoving all the stuff lying around the bathroom back in the cabinet I vacuumed the bedrooms and did some laundry and then I thought "Ha HA! Now I'm going to prove my last blog entry wrong by sitting down and doing some work! I CAN do everything!" But since I'd skipped dinner to do the housework I was starving, so I went downstairs for some fortification and wolfed down a huge piece of bread slathered with half a stick of butter and eight tablespoons of strawberry AND blueberry jelly, and then I made a cup of thick syrupy hot chocolate and guzzled it, and then I felt sick. Nauseous. Unwell. I'd thought the sugar buzz would be a good thing, but it was a scary thing; I tried to write but my fingers were shaking, and since it was late I decided to throw in the towel--take some Tylenol PM and go to bed.

I'd wanted to write about the movie I saw on a field trip with Lula's class yesterday. It was called "Oceans" and it was about...oceans...and though it was moving and beautiful--I loved the shots of the mother walrus hugging her baby walrus--it left me feeling depressed, because it showed photographs of polluted water flowing way, way out into the ocean and a seal swimming around a shopping cart on the floor of a shallow body of water, plastic cups and debris floating by and a cloudy blanket of trash on the surface. The shots of the pollution were bad enough, but the sight of the seal swimming around the shopping cart struck me because--I think--it must have been so totally incomprehensible to Lula and her friends. How does a six-year-old understand a seal swimming around a shopping cart? How does a six-year-old understand the plastic bags and other crap floating around the seal? Though Lula and her friends know a little about pollution, I think the seal and the shopping cart must have just looked odd to them. A seal? And a shopping cart, like, from the store? In the water together? Weird.

It was the thought that Lula and her friends are being given a world--a reality--where shopping carts invade a seal's home, where nature is constantly abused and compromised, that made me sad. It didn't help that the "strange-for-this-time-of-year" wind was still raging outside, blowing the message into everyone's ears that yes, natural disasters are happening more and more frequently and could soon happen in a place near you, so just think about that, you silly little mommy, as you're cleaning the upstairs bathroom, trying to put some order and sense into a world that's in so many ways incomprehensible...

It was the feeling of desperation--we NEED to do SOMETHING!--that made me decide, while putting a new box of diapers under the sink, that once these diapers run out Malko's going bamboo--as in, wearing reusable (bamboo) diapers. My brother and sister-in-law use reusable diapers (they wear a much bigger size than your average baby), and it's something I've thought about for a while; though of course I might change my mind, I felt pretty certain last night we'd follow through with this. I was a little apprehensive about breaking the news to Joedy (what if he refused?), but given his reply--"Okay! Why?"--I realized it wasn't his willingness I had to worry about...

I don't think our switching to reusable diapers is going to make much of a difference in terms of the earth. I don't think buying produce from a local farm is going to do much to save the planet. Frankly, I think we're fucked, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to try. It doesn't stop me from trying to give Lula, Malko, and their friends something better--a world where shopping carts and seals don't mix, a world where mother walruses can keep hugging their baby walruses for a long, long time.

A NICE SONG

WHY DO I DO IT?

2010-05-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Why do I do it, when it keeps me awake till two? Why do I do it, when staying awake till two means I'll be ragged and humorless tomorrow, unable to complete the medicine cabinet overhaul I imposed on myself today, the packing-of-winter-clothes extravaganza I started a month ago? If I can't put away the bottles of medicine, hair bands, swim diapers, and toothbrushes blanketing the bathroom and the weird piles of clothes scattered here and there--on the chair in the living room, in the stairs, in a plastic bag beside the washing machine--how am I ever going to work on the children's books, the mobiles, and the jewelry? How am I going to get anywhere with the creative projects if I can't pick up after myself, let alone two little kids?

Why do I do it? If I hadn't done it, I'd be asleep now, comfortably snuggled in the eggplant-colored sheets. I'd wake up fresh and focused, and after making Lula banana pancakes and taking her to school (explaining evolution on the way) I'd clean and organize the house and then I'd sit down to work on the "other stuff."

But now I won't, because I did it. Why? Why do I do it?

Why do I drink hot chocolate late at night?

NORMAL, ABNORMAL, GOOD

2010-05-09T19:47:00.001-07:00

The Great Banana Pancake spoke to me yesterday, and this is what it said:

"Waste not thy tyme on qualms about Muther's Dae. If thy hopes aren't lifted, thou cannot fall. Harbor thoughts not of diamond earrings and chocolate cake, a massage, a horse, and a Nova but of simple harmony amongst one's kin. Follow the light, the light above the kitchen sink, where tomorrow thou canst do dishes, happily knowing thy chylde is not badly syk, her fever is down, and peace for the most part is thyne."

I heeded its words and stopped doing the gnarly pile of dishes, built up in the last few days while Lula was home sick, and told Joedy I'd finish them tomorrow (Mother's Day). I meant it: we'd been pretty busy taking care of Lula, and now that her fever had dropped I could finally relax and feel insanely grateful--again--that everything was OK! It didn't take long to figure out that what I wanted for Mother's Day I already have in googolplex quantities, and though--what the heck--I'd totally wear diamond earrings, I knew I'd be completely, entirely satisfied if the day just went normally.

Twenty-four hours later, I ate another cookie and tried to explain how the day did, in fact, go normally, with homework for Lula, some vacuuming, snacks, and The Pink Panther; I also tried to explain how the "normal things" often feel abnormal in a novel kind of way, in a you-just-won-the-lottery way. I tried to explain that, but the warm fuzzy feeling I got from the bison meatballs, chicken-prosciutto ravioli, uncooked cookie dough, cooked cookies, and Joedy--who did the dishes, fixed the washing machine, and gave me presents--clouded my mind, so I stopped trying to write and posted a video I took in Costa Rica last fall, while Joedy and I were out riding our bikes and many things were different.

INBOX PEOPLE

2010-05-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

In the last week there have been so things I've wanted to write about:

1. My trip to the Community Care clinic to get some freaking health care. Getting instead a (friendly) lecture from the doctor about how bad the health care situation is in Austin, where there are 250,000 uninsured people trying to use the Community Care network. Nobody wants to work at this type of "social services" clinic because the pay's bad, and with just one doctor per clinic the care is--believe me--very bare-bones: I asked to have some moles checked, and the doctor told me I could maybe get an appointment with the network's dermatologist in three months.

Wanting to hear more of his thoughts on US health care, I asked him if he thought we were heading for a crisis; he didn't even hesitate before replying, "We're in a crisis." This wasn't news to me, but hearing it confirmed so emphatically by someone "in the know" drove it home even more. When the appointment was over (he didn't even bother to look in my ears) the doctor said: "Don't get sick, and don't get in an accident," and it was clear he wasn't trying to be funny.

2. Our trip to Wimberley, a tiny town west of here, this weekend. Pre-departure, while Joedy shuttled the kids, the dogs, and a small suitcase into the car, I cleaned the house, maniacally throwing toys in bins and lining shoes up just so, organizing dirty dishes in the sink and piling clean clothes on top of the growing mound in the closet because...because if we didn't make it back--if we got in an accident--I didn't want people to think we were slobs. I didn't want them to come in the house and see cat barf on the rug, shoes in the sink, or a bike in the stairway, so I cleaned and organized frantically before we left. Later, when we came home safe and sound--thank god!--the house was so nice and neat that I wondered if it's maybe a good thing to think depressing, morbid thoughts.

3. My recent hair turbulence: thinking I looked haggard, tired, and drained a few weeks ago, I bought some do-it-yourself hair dye. The picture on the box showed my color, light brown, as a nice golden shade post-dye, but instead it came out orange! Bright! Brassy! Orange! Looking for a cheap, natural way to tone down the hideous hue, I learned that blueberries can correct brassiness in hair, so I boiled a couple of bags and put the resulting soup on my head. It was kind of fun doing that, but the feeling of the boiled blueberries as they escaped the towel and trickled down my neck wasn't nice, and after two more blueberry sessions (neither worked) I decided to go for some real chemicals, in the form of blue shampoo. I went to a hair supply store, found a blue shampoo, and asked how long I should leave it on; the salesgirl responded, "Well, normally, it's left on for five minutes, but your hair's so--" and then she stopped and put her hand in front of her mouth because, I don't know, she was laughing? At my Bright! Orange! Hair?

The blue shampoo (it was actually purple) helped a little, but not much, so the other day I went to a salon to get some professional "correction." It was fun getting my hair done--I love having to sit STILL, listening to other people's conversations, and being fussed over--and in some ways my hair is better now, but it's also kind of too blond, and now that's bothering me. I guess I don't want to look like I dye my hair. Or do I? Do I care? Do I care about my hair? Do you care if I care about my hair?

4. Lula's school. We thought it was great when we first visited, and in lots of ways it still seems really good, but a few things have come up that have made Joedy and me wonder whether she should continue there in the fall. Our biggest concern is that the student population seems for the most part underprivileged, if not outright poor, coming from a low-income housing development nearby. With two kids on Medicaid, we'd be in an uncomfortable position saying bad things about the poor, but that's not the point anyway--the point is, poor people are generally less able to afford quality care, help, or support, and that often means more problems and instability. When families have problems and instability, the kids are more likely to be troubled, I think, and it's this--the possibility that there might be more troubled kids, and therefore a riskier environment at the school--that nags at me, especially when I see the "No Guns Allowed" signs posted on the sidewalk. Will we have to move Lula to another, more affluent school to feel safer? What would that mean to her, and what would we be losing?

5. Our inbox: we have an inbox! It's actually just a cardboard box that held exercise gear, but the magnitude of the fact that we have an inbox should not be belittled, because it means I--not just Joedy--play a part in our administrative affairs. Unlike a time not too long ago, when my self-prescribed mail duties involved ignoring the mail, I now open mail, sort mail, place stamps on mail, and send mail, and I even file stuff now and then too. Becoming organized in this way has been hugely wonderful, and the best part is knowing that I'll never go back to my weird mail-phobic ways. Being an inbox person is VERY empowering!

There are other things I wanted to write about--like Malko climbing over the gate at the top of the stairs, Malko launching himself headfirst into a bathtub full of water--but the main thing, the most important thing I wanted to say is how, while frantically cleaning the house pre-Wimberley, imagining the worst possible scenario, I thought, "Well, at least I'd die happy." And it's true: driving together in the car, making up new verses to the diarrhea song, just being together--nothing makes me happier. Of course, as we all know, when one claims to be happy everything immediately starts going wrong, so I better start complaining--about my hair, I guess...

FLIES: WE LOVE YOU!

2010-04-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

For a number of valid and invalid reasons, the kitchen's not as clean as it should be--my bare feet actually stuck to the floor this morning--and there's a fly buzzing around, either looking for his dead friends, whom Lula and I killed with the fly swatter, or for a way into the cabinet, so he can lay eggs in the brown sugar, which I will drink with my coffee tomorrow, and then fly eggs will hatch beneath my skin and worms will come out of my eyes!

Could it happen? Yes, it could. Also, the flies could interbreed with Venus flytraps (a strange reaction after being "spritzed" with XXXX Strong Antibacterial Countertop Spray) and become extremely aggressive, hyper-intelligent, pack-oriented flesh-eaters, feasting on you and me!

Oh, jolly it is to be with thee!
Dead and merry, merry we be!
Eaten alive by flies are we, while fly larvae exit excru-ti-a-ting-ly!

The obvious conclusion, of course, is that flies need to be annihilated. By me, and increasingly willingly by Lula, whom I wasn't too sure about brainwashing with a hatred of flies, though I couldn't help it: I hate flies! I kill them! Even if they have an important place in the food chain, providing vital nutrients to birds, small reptiles, and blah blah blah! I hate them. And now Lula hates them too, and I'm TOTALLY okey-dokey with it, especially when I find their smooshed entrails on the window screen. :)

Yay, dead flies! We love you!

We love you, dead flies, ohhhh, we love you
We'll try to be true, dead flies, truuuueeee, oooooo, to you
Because you brought such joy to us when you died without a fuss
when we found your guts were spread
all over the new bedspread

When we didn't hear your goddamn buzzing no more,
chasing behind you was less a chore
When you didn't rub your poopy hands
all over the baby's head
that was when we really knew
you were really truly dead
That was when we really knew
that we really looooove you!

TATOU ZAZOU'S NEPHEW

2010-04-19T19:25:00.001-07:00

During the past week my nephew was born. I already have two nieces and nephews through Joedy, but this was the first time one of my siblings had a child, and the experience I had of his birth was not much different from having my own kid. Okay, I didn't actually feel contractions or get offered drugs, but the emotions I encountered between hearing "it's starting" and "he's out" were erratic and intense, with the progression from excitement, irritation (what's he doing in there?), worry, and relief seeming either too fast or too slow, and--most tellingly--the Speculation Factor hovering dangerously close to High.

Example:
(Sitting at the kitchen table) Hm...I haven't heard anything in a while--I guess that means they're in the hospital. Hopefully there hasn't been a problem...would they call me if there was one? I don't know--maybe...Would I call them? Maybe, but that doesn't mean anything. Or does it? Does the fact that they haven't called mean there's a problem??

(Exiting the bathroom, zipping fly) Dammit! Of COURSE they called while I was in the bathroom! Shit...that message sounded weird. Like maybe something was wrong, but they couldn't say what, because if they did, it would seem like they thought something was really wrong. OF COURSE they don't want to think that way! Jesus! Shit! Why the hell did they call when I was in the bathroom? Especially now that there really might be a problem!

(On the kitchen floor, surrounded by bread crumbs) Oh god--thank god. Thank heaven. Thanks, heavenly ham sandwich--he's born. He's fine. Everything was fine, they said. He's sleeping, he's eating, he's crying, he's fine, and his name, his name is--what's his name? Wait, they didn't tell me his name? What...what the...what am I supposed to do, GUESS? Was I supposed to know or something? Oh wait--I do know. That's right--they told me a while back. Ok. It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm fine.

Not long after getting the last phone call, by which time I was in full relief mode, a little crying sesh came on, surprisingly, out of the blue, and for a few minutes all I could think was: "I am so relieved! He's OUT! I AM SO RELIEVED! He's OUT!!"

I was relieved. Probably not as relieved as his parents, but enough to see, suddenly, that aunthood would be serious a lot of the time, with--of course--a whole new bunch of hopes and worries attached. It will probably be serious a lot of the time, but not always, I hope: after all, someone needs to introduce him to butter eaten on top of cream cheese; a certain book or two; horses; and the diarrhea song. His parents are going to be plenty busy and will need help showing him the funner things in life, and few, after all, will want to do that more than his Tatou Zazou.

LIVING WITH ANIMALS

2010-04-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

A couple mornings ago I woke up to the sight of Diablo and Astrid sprawled on the rug at the foot of the bed. Astrid was lying on her back, a look of dopey joy on her face, while Diablo meticulously "cleaned" a part of her body that I really didn't want to see, or know anything about, at that time or any time, thank you very much. It's bad enough when he cleans her ears--that licking sound! His breath afterwards!--but this, well, this was nasty. If it hadn't been for the look on Astrid's face, which was so cute, really, and the comedy of the situation, I would maybe have kicked them a little, but I didn't.

Yesterday, after roasting a turkey breast, covering it with plastic wrap, and leaving it on the kitchen counter to cool while I picked Lula up from school, Lapis got on the counter, chewed a hole through the plastic wrap, and ate a significant amount of the turkey. I barely kept myself from drop-kicking him out the door (I just hurled him) when I got home, but my annoyance was quickly replaced by incredulity when he got BACK on the counter (how the hell'd he get in the house?) while I was administering snacks to the kids and went right BACK to gnawing on the turkey. In broad daylight, so to speak--as if, heck, this was a totally normal, acceptable thing to do.

Coming as it was from the cat who used to "catch" footlong submarine sandwiches from the trash can behind our old house (which we shared with the submarine sandwich deliveryman), drag them in through the open window, and leave their half-eaten plastic-wrapped carcases behind the couch, under the bed, and in the closet, I guess chewing through plastic wrap to get to freshly roasted turkey was a normal thing to do. Or maybe it's that my view of "normal" has changed--after all, I'm the one who put the turkey, half-chewed plastic wrap and all, in the cabinet above the stove, so Freaking Kittle Buns couldn't further vandalize it...

After exiling Lapis I thought I'd feed the dogs. Usually Joedy does this, but since he was gone and since we'd recently bought two new kinds of dog food--in hopes of conducting a scientific experiment that would hopefully tell us why Diablo's breath stinks like you-know-what--I poured what remained of Bag #1 in both dogs' bowls and a little of Bag #2 in Astrid's bowl (she's bigger). While Astrid immediately hunkered down and starting loudly eating, Diablo began to bark. I'd gone upstairs to change Malko's diaper, and I recognized his bark as the "give me something I want NOW, I will not stop barking, ever, until you give it to me, even if you slit your throat with exasperation first" bark. It was a demanding bark. A determined bark.

I ran back downstairs, ready to shake Diablo for being such a pain in the you-know-what when I had, like, enough going on ALREADY, but when I found him sitting on the kitchen floor next to Astrid I was mystified: you don't want to go out? You don't want your food? Still barking, he looked at me and then at Astrid's bowl, back and forth a few times, and then it hit me: he wanted some Bag #2 dog food, just like Astrid had. Bag #1 was not sufficient; she got some, so he should get some. Half irritated, half impressed, I poured some of Bag #2 in his bowl, and he contentedly lay down on his stomach and began to eat.

After Malko and Lula were bathed and in their pyjamas I put Malko on the living room rug and went around putting dinosaurs away and scraping oatmeal out of bowls; when I checked on Malko, I noticed he was playing with something grey and oddly shaped. Looking closer, I saw it was a piece of bone--a piece of bone with a thick wedge of marrow on one side and hair, disgustingly scary hair and dirt and grime and probably poop, for god's sake, stuck all over it. Grabbing it out of Malko's hand, hoping he hadn't yet "sampled" it, I thought: this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous, and it's disgusting. And then I thought: thanks, animals. Thanks.

Tonight I was tired from the constant go-go-go of the last few days and when we came home from the bank and the post office after picking Lula up from school I didn't want to have anything to do with any (annoying) animals, especially two dogs who were totally hyper from not having been walked for two days. "OUT. Get out," I said, banishing them from the kitchen, and for a while--ten minutes, while Lula and Malko silently gorged themselves on watermelon--it was peaceful. Calm. Almost relaxing. Then Lapis started meowing loudly, DEMANDINGLY, to have his back scratched, and the dogs saw a person on the sidewalk and started barking like the Apocalypse was coming, and then, guess what?

It wasn't calm or relaxing anymore.

MODEL OF INEFFICIENCY

2010-04-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd go to bed a little while ago, but then I got sucked into a vortex of chocolate chip cookies (with walnuts) and when I finally got free I was three cookies in and shaking from all the sugar. Since I'd be lying in bed wide awake for the next few hours, I decided to do something productive instead: write about maggots!

Maggots, oh maggots, you disgusting little creeps
Hiding in the trash and making me freak
Maggots, oh maggots, I hate your little guts
I hope a giant tapeworm kicks your squishy butts

We had a Maggot Event here two days ago, which involved touching of the hideous little beasts with my bare hands, flying of maggots all around me as I threw the trash can back into the dark dank trash closet, screaming (by me) in the kitchen, and donning of customized hazmaggot suit (dish gloves, husband's shoes, shower curtain, husband's--don't ask--underwear), the end result being the trash sitting on the back porch we share with our neighbor, me ignoring the trash so I wouldn't have to witness maggots again, and then finally our neighbor putting the trash in the bins because "it was smelling." Yeah--um, sorry.

Besides that misadventure, it's been a pretty good week: we dropped Joedy off at the airport on Tuesday, and since then I've been a model of efficiency, administering baths, bedtimes, and breakfasts on a rigorous schedule, barely giving Lula and Malko time to say "Why the hell are you such a maniacal drill sergeant" between trips to the bank and Hairy Eagle Butt, our friendly grocer. At the bank yesterday, while waiting in line to speak with a rep, there was a female employee whose job, apparently, was to prep the people in line, notifying them they'd have to fill out a deposit slip, show ID, sign over their house, etc. She was extremely perky and pseudo-solicitous, talking in cliched customer servicespeak that made her sound more like a computer--one of those annoying computers that talk in colloquial language--than anything else, and it made my body tingle with sarcasm. The sarcasm went unvented until I heard her say, to the person in front of me, "Oh, we don't want you to have to spend any money," and then it became vented: I said, "Yeah right." Because, excuse me? Wells Fargo is borderline criminal, I think, in its charging of 35-dollar overdraft fees and its misleading "account balancing," which leads the hapless shmuck to think she has this much, when in fact she has this much...

"We don't want you to have to spend any money"? Spare me!

Before going to the bank we went to the health clinic where Joedy and I recently got insurance (it's called Medical Assistance Program, and it's for poor people who can't get Medicaid). I'd been calling and calling to make an appointment to get an inhaler, literally spending two-and-a-half hours, yesterday morning, on hold, so when I was told I'd meet "Ray" (the guy I was trying to get hold of on the phone) I felt pretty smug. Ha ha, I thought: I'll tell Ray there's something wrong with his phone! Maybe I'll even catch him playing solitaire on his computer, or--I knew it--eating lunch!

The clinic was packed, and when an older grey-haired man called my name I jumped up and hurried towards him. I immediately liked Ray--he had a benign, social-services-worker vibe--and when he told me there was only one doctor for the entire clinic, that the entire month of May was booked, and that he--Ray--talks to thirty new patients a day, I realized there was more to it than a screwed-up phone system. "We're swamped," he said, looking at me over his glasses. "If you want, you can go to Urgent Care for your asthma, but make sure you go early, because I heard it's so crowded they're turning people away."

I thanked him, and we left. Tomorrow I'll go to Urgent Care to get an inhaler, and I'm hoping Joedy and I will have "normal" (better) health insurance before much longer. I'm not too worried about us, but I can't help thinking about all the other people--the other people with serious health problems and few, crummy options for help.

When we walked outside, I saw a crushed beer can on the patchy lawn and a scantily-clad overweight woman rocking back and forth on a bench. "Something's wrong with this picture," I thought, and I think I know what it was.

THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

2010-03-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

Last week Joedy and I took Malko to the doctor for a checkup. He got four shots, and the rest of the day, at home, he seemed tired--a little impatient, but more or less fine. He'd had a runny nose lately, and because the last time he had four shots (before we went to Costa Rica) he got a pretty bad cold, which turned into a really bad cough, which I thought was whooping cough, we wanted to watch him carefully. Not watch him so carefully that we would, like, take videos of him coughing in the middle of the night, to show the doctor the next day (SEE? He whooped!! That was a whooping sound! SAVE HIM!!), but enough to make sure he didn't get a really high fever, start convulsing, or start acting strange, as if, um, his central nervous system was damaged.

That night, we let him sleep in our bed. He was still sniffly and a little out of sorts, and he woke up a few times asking for something--a bottle, to be held, his pacifier--but overall he seemed ok. Since the shots didn't seem to have affected him much, the next day we thought he was in good enough shape to go for a hike at Mount Bonnell, a high peak overlooking Austin and the lakes running through it.

It was a fun, beautiful trip: Malko rode on Joedy's shoulders, and on our way back down I lingered to take some pictures. Hurrying to catch up, I turned a corner and saw Joedy standing on a flat rock overlooking the lake far, far below. He was holding Malko in his arms, and though I knew it was ok--Malko wasn't going to fall out of his arms and tumble down the sloping side of the cliff--my danger radar started beeping and I asked Joedy to give me Malko so I could take him to other, safer side of the path (where all the poison oak was).

The rest of the day Malko seemed to get crankier, and I started worrying the shots were having a delayed effect on him. He got worse in the evening, developing a fever and growing increasingly dissatisfied with EVERYTHING, and that night we gave him some Tylenol and kept him in our bed again.

Before midnight, he started screaming and flailing around, and though we tried to calm him, nothing helped: he kept screaming and crying, twisting his body like he was in pain, his face hot and red, tears and snots coming out, NOTHING helping. He just kept screaming--AYYYY! AAAYYYYYYYY! AAAYYY, AAAAAYYY, AAAAAYYYYY!--and I thought, this is it, the shots have hit him. It was scary to see him so upset, to see him in what appeared to be intense pain, and for a while I thought about taking him to the emergency room.

Finally, after a third, bigger dose of Tylenol, he went to sleep. My worries that he was hurt by the four shots lifted, but as soon as I began to relax disturbing images came to mind: images of Joedy holding Malko on the edge of a cliff, of Malko falling out of his arms, of Malko falling off the cliff. I tried not to picture them, but the images kept coming back, and the feeling I had when I saw his little body fall, when I realized that he was too far away for me to catch him--

I felt an overwhelming, sickening dread and fear. I kept trying to fall asleep, but each time I drifted off I'd lurch awake with a start, the sight of Malko falling through empty space fresh in my mind. I tried to shake the awful images and feelings, to tell myself he was fine, and finally, by listening to his steady breathing, I fell asleep.

The next morning we discovered Malko was teething. It explained his recent fussiness and the discomfort he'd been in during the night, and it was an unbelievable relief: he was just teething! The shots hadn't burned a hole in his veins, he hadn't suffered permanent damage from the cocktail of chemicals pushed into his bloodstream. We had survived a hurdle, we were relieved, we were all--phew!--ok.

We had a late, groggy breakfast, and though Malko was happy by then, chewing ferociously on a book, I began to feel depressed. Before I could say "teething biscuit" the depression knocked me down and I was crying--bawling--in Lula's bed. "What's wrong?" Joedy asked. "Malko's fine!"

"I know," I said, hyperventilating into Lula's pillow. "It's just...it's just..."

It's just that sometimes I can't handle it: the fears, the worries, the sadness that come with the happiness of having children, of loving children, become overwhelming. Sometimes, when the edge of the cliff gets too close, I just can't handle it.