Sweetney

when the blogher's over.

the past two days have been amazing, and i promise a substantial entry after my return to baltimore. had some great experiences, made some amazing friends, and indeed did laugh so hard last night -- courtesy of a story involving gigantic panties told by alice -- that i almost peed my pants. i couldn't have had a better time, period. so much so that i'm honestly sad to leave it all.

but leave it i must. i'll now shower, pack, and go meet alice, mrs. kennedy, and jen for our farewell breakfast (sniff). i've never been much of a plane sleeper, but i'm hoping i'll be able to zonk out for a bit today on the way home, as i think i've had a grand total of *maybe* 10 hours sleep over the course of the past two days... which might not sound all that rough, but with all the ass-hauling i've been doing round these parts (plus a little jet-lag) i think i can safely say i'm working in the red zone of the sleep deficient.

much more to come when i'm safely back in charm city, yo.

more blogher pix.

i'll actually add some written content soon, but i'm leaving my computer back at the hotel for the time being since i'm developing some sort of shoulder-slumping disability lugging it around the conference.
some photos from my lunch table, and the conference session “how to be naked”:

i made mrs. kennedy cry. no, i'm kidding, she's laffing... i think.


alice gives me her sexiest look.


mighty back.


carbs gooooood.


gesturing heather.


smiley heather.


jen tells everyone to stick it. TO THE MAN, THAT IS.


how to be naked.


contemplative heather.

more soon...

our story so far.

as people were filing into the main conference space, they were BLASTING shania twain and sheryl crow, complete with videos of the songs on the screen shown below. my eyes, they were a-rollin'.

the opening remarks...


file under: can die happy now: i was pulled over by mrs. kennedy to this table: (left to right: melissa of suburbanbliss, maggie of mighty girl, mrs. kennedy of fussy) and...


(heather of dooce, alice of finslippy, and jen of jenandtonic.) dude, its the GLOB (Gorgeous Ladies Of Blogging)!

that i was seated at this table bloggles the mind. oops, i mean BOGGLES the mind. heh.

one for my homies.

keepin' it real with my DEFEND BALTIMORE tshirt. werd to yer mutha.

i'm here at the conference, already hungover after last night's escapades with a bunch of bloggers whose names i can't recall. YES, it was one of those nights. thank god i got all of their blog business cards. and incidentally, when they all simultaneously whipped out their cards to give to me i nearly wept, as i felt like the biggest fucking dork in the universe making my own cards shortly before i left, and was sure that i was going to be the only one geeky enough to print business cards for their friggin' blog.

but no, as it turns out, I AM AMONG MY PEOPLE.

california, here i come.

today has been an all work and no play day, as i've had to bear down on preparations for my big trip to blogher, where i plan to meet many of my fellow she-geeks with a little help from the social lubricant that is alcohol. let's just hope barfing isn't involved -- being sprayed with partially digested food tends to adversely impact feelings of kinship and camaraderie amongst peoples. so let's just say i'll be pacing myself.

so i leave tomorrow. expect a weekend chock full o' updates from me -- to not blog at a blogger's conference would be near heresy. i promise to try to keep blogging-under-the-influence to a minimum, though that may in fact be more entertaining than a laundry list of things i did and people i saw. honestly, i have no idea what to expect from this weekend, though i am bound and determined to have fun, despite the sucking black hole of beth's absence. yes, sucking. HARD.

gotta go pack and charge up the ipod... i'll be talkin' atcha next from the land of sunshine and silicone.

later, skater.

its a kind of bird, dork.

i've got a fever, and the only cure is shut up.

not often, but sometimes.

people's idiocy and blindness absolutely astounds me.

and i think i'd be a lot more pissed off more often were it not for my view of justice as a sort of natural force -- karma, if you will. that despite convincing deception, and for all intents and purposes getting away with it (whatever it might be) , you will always, always reap what you sow.

that's all i've got today, people.

an international problem.

the nations of the world must put their differences aside and come together to form a united front against this scourge of humanity that knows no borders.

thanks to sonicage for the good cheer.

casting call for pirates of the caribbean III.

anybody know of, uhh, anyone fitting this, err, description in the, umm, LA-area?

Extreme characters and hideously unattractive types, ages 18-50. Odd body shapes or very lean to extremely skinny. Missing teeth, wandering eyes and serial killer looks with real long hair & beards. Wigs & makeup are not what we're looking for. We also need little people, very large sumo wrestler types, extremely tall or extremely short people, albinos, amputees. Any size or shape that is NOT average is best. All ethnicities. Mostly men, very few women.

sing along songs.

for children with short attention spans.

blogherxiety.

in just a couple days i'll be goin' back to cali, cali, cali for this blogher dealy i mentioned a little while back... and as the time draws nearer i've sensed my social anxiety threatening to squelch my otherwise anticipated good time. which would be a major downer.
so here's a few things i've been repeating, mantra-like, to myself in an attempt to hold the forces of darkness at bay (feel free to borrow/modify to suit your own anti-anxiety needs):

*i expect no one to have even heard of me, let alone to have read my blog. i realize i am a nobody within blogdom, and embrace that.

*this is the first and only time i have been away solo-style from my husband and/or daughter in 5 years. so get the fuck out of my way if you plan on harshing my buzz in any manner whatsoever. dude.

*imbibing of various psychoactive substances [cough] will be a priority, as will laughing until i almost wet myself (these two facets of my weekend plan may or may not be related), even if i have to do these things alone. gawdammit.

*there are people going to this that i'd like to meet, but if they aren't accessible i'll be ok with that. i'm not one to throw myself at peoples, so in all likelihood i'll end up hanging back and not approaching certain someones. BUT THAT'S OK. I'M OK WITH THAT. REALLY.

*i will be on an inspired and vigorous quest to have fun. so you can get on the sweetney party train or not, but the train is leaving the station regardless.

*say it with me: FUN FUN FUN!

did that sound convincing?

but really, i'm a nice person. do say hello, won't you?

take back the magnets.

a few prototypes...

whattaya think, bri?

my family so rules.

my aunt sells worm poop, dudes.

bogus.

so i was driving back from target yesterday (as i am wont to do), and came to a stoplight directly behind an SUV with one of those FUCKING MAGNETIC RIBBONS slapped on the back of it. only this ribbon was green and the text said “support magnetic ribbons.” dude, this is so *totally* a rip on my buddy brian's ribbon manufacturing plans, begun in february. it took all the strength i could muster to not jump out of the car, throw open the door of the offending SUV (though i guess they all offend in their own special way, don't they?), and throttle its occupant for participating in such heinous thievery.

somebody should file some paperwork or make some calls or something sorta like that, you know? [cough]

march of the irritating (but adorable) toddler.

M_ had her first movie-in-an-actual-theater experience this weekend; on sunday we took her to see March of the Penguins at The Charles, along with about 150 old people. seriously, the median age of the audience at our showing was like 80. the old dude sitting next to us had about 5 hand-knitted afghans, a cylinder of oxygen, and what appeared to be an attending nurse with him. in any case, things went okay; M_ made it through almost 3/4 of the film before the inevitable breakdown, and -- prior to the previews running -- treated the filled-to-capacity captive audience to several heartfelt renditions of “mary had a little lamb,” “the alphabet song,” “row, row, row your boat,” and “the itsy bitsy spider.” she actually got up, went to the front of the theater, and stood before the curtain singing at the top of her lungs. people clapped at the end of each song, spurring her on, as jamie and i (initially) laughed and (later) became increasingly embarrassed. we tried to lure her back to her seat with popcorn and lollipops, but nothing could compare to the thrill she was getting from public performance... eventually jamie had to physically wrestle with her to get her back to where we were sitting.

shortly thereafter a nice older lady came up to us and asked if “one of the parents of the star” could open a bottle of juice for her. as jamie was fighting to get the screw-top off, this woman leaned closer to me and said “i have three daughters, and one of mine was just like that when she was little... she became an actor.” i nodded and smiled, but in my mind's eye terrible images of a yet-to-be-realized future were flashing: jamie and i supporting M_ well into her 40s (while she of course continued to live with us), enduring bad dinner theater for the sake of being supportive, plotting the inevitable drug interventions... though i guess there's still time to encourage an interest in medicine or even, say, plumbing, right?

further amusement.

wondermark.

redemption and garden pron.

last summer, a praying mantis befriended me. every single day, like clockwork, it would come and perch on a small black wrought-iron table i have positioned on our front porch between two chairs -- my designated 'smoking area', as we haven't smoked inside our house since the dawn of M_dom. anyway, one morning it just sort of appeared there... and then continued appearing daily to chill, mantis style, as i sat beside it, cultivating lung cancer in-between tantrums (M_'s, not mine). in all honesty, it kind of freaked me out a little -- this alien-like creature's apparent abiding interest in me. at the height of my anxiety about it we even attempted to relocate friendly mantis (as it came to be known) down into the front garden, placing it on a large, inviting hydrangea leaf in the hopes that the little dude would finally realize HE'S A BUG, NOT MY SMOKING BUDDY, but friendly mantis would not be deterred. later that same day it reappeared on the porch table, casually cleaning its diminutive triangular head with one long, stick-like leg -- a posture that clearly said: you ain't gettin' rid of me that easy, lady.

i'd almost gotten used to this uneasy cross-genus friendship when, driving M_ to preschool one day early last fall, i caught sight of friendly mantis clinging desperately to the metal edging on the passenger-side windshield, a caricature of hanging on for dear life. friendly mantis was obviously being badly buffeted by the wind, its legs and wings extended in a most un-aerodynamic fashion, splayed out and trembling against the wind's current. i quickly slowed the car down to a 15 mph crawl on harford rd, where speeds typically exceed three times that... but to no avail. a particularly bad gust of wind ripped friendly mantis from the car, and [cue violins] out of our life... forever. (sniff.)

but this morning, as i was tending some potted plants out on our back deck, i stumbled across a tiny praying mantis hiding out on the underside of some small leaves.... and, well, it may not be kin to the long lost friendly mantis, and it may not even be friendly, but there it was. and somehow just seeing it lessened my long-harbored mantis-slaying guilt. free at last, free at last...

thus endeth the tale of friendly mantis and the toyota camry of doom.

and now on to the red hot garden pron:

dickwad is one word, right?

751 people have one word for bush. (about 1/2 way down the page)

If you had to describe President Bush with one word, what would it be?

According to a new survey, the most frequent response was “honest.” The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press administered this political Rorschach test to 751 respondents who were asked to give their impressions of Bush in a single word.

and pray tell, what would your one word be?

song of the week.

[the epigraph on the tombstone of my present]

If you hate the taste of wine
Why do you drink it until you’re blind?
And if you swear that there’s no truth and who cares
How come you say it like you’re right?
Why are you scared to dream of god
When it’s salvation that you want?
You see stars that clear have been dead for years
But the idea just lives on

We are wheels that roll around
As we move over the ground
And all day it seems we’ve been in between the past and future town

We are nowhere, and it’s now
We are nowhere, and it’s now
You took a ten-minute dream in the passengers seat
While the world it was flying by
I haven’t been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime

I’ve been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don’t advertise
I’ve been sleeping so strange
With a head full of pesticide

I got no plans and too much time
I feel too restless to unwind
I’m always lost in thought
As I walk a block to my favourite neon sign
Where the waitress looks concerned
But she never says a word
Just turns the jukebox on
And we hum along
And I smile back at her

And my friend comes after work
When the features start to blur
She says these bars are filled with things that kill
And you probably should have learned

Did you forget that yellow bird?
How could you forget that yellow bird?

She took a small silver wreathe and pinned it onto me
She said this one will bring you love
I don’t know if it’s true but I keep it for good luck

tube-related aside.

are any of you watching that morgan spurlocktastic “30 Days” on FX?

tonight's episode centered around a middle-aged mother's attempt to prove a point to her college-aged daughter by binge drinking greek-style for, you guessed it, a month. as it turns out, proving said point involved a lot of vomiting. and some bowling.

now that's what i call quality television, people.

rockheals update.

ooooh boy, jamie's fixed up a mess a good eatin' over at that there web page.

brother to a sister of thought.

can't say enough good things about dear patrick.

everyday sith.

out and about, at work and at play....

as loud as hell, a ringing bell.

yesterday i listened to both nirvana's nevermind and the pixies doolittle back-to-back -- two albums so iconic that they now almost border on something like a self-generated cliche. but here's the thing: they ROCK. and i don't mean just that they're really, really good music, i mean that the fire and passion and innovation in them borders on miraculous... i know i'm dating myself here, but where the hell have all the genius angry rockers gone? where is that voice from the wilderness, howling and wailing with true feeling, set to raise the hair on the back of my neck and make my knees go a little weak?

when nevermind came out i kind of resented it. i was DJing at an alterna-club/bar called The Reptile House, and would put smells like teen spirit on as a kind of in-joke, since a lot of the kids at this club pretty well represented what cobain was targeting in that song. but they loved it, and i had a hard time stomaching that they loved it -- that people who a year before would've made fun of my clothing and hair AND music were now embracing all of it and calling it their own. still, i could never discount the power of that song, despite the co-opting and overexposure. and listening to it yesterday i had this vague feeling of comfort wash over me that i can't describe.... it was something like the warmth and ease one feels being around old friends; when you connect with your natural place in the world and recognize that where you are at that second is where you are meant to be.

its so relieving to know that you're leaving as soon as you get paid.

on sunday i finally redeemed my anniversary gift certificate from jamie for a day of beauty (sarcasm) at a local spa. i always feel kind of weird at those places, where i'm basically paying people to a) touch me and/or b) take care of personal grooming that i'm now too lazy and/or too busy to take care of myself. and believe me there's A LOT of personal grooming i'm too lazy and busy to take care of these days. anyway, maybe i have an unusually large personal space bubble or something, but i cannot imagine having a job that required me to intimately massage, poke, prod, pluck or otherwise touch the body parts of others and get paid for it. i'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing it, i'm just saying that i personally have, well, issues about touching other peoples and vice-versa. as you might imagine, this makes situations like sunday's a little, umm, tricky.

it didn't help matters that during the course of my beautification i ended up with a masseuse who wanted to tell me all about the most private details of her personal life, including her fiance's prior drug abuse and resultant incarceration, her fears about his inability to commit (despite the fiance bit, he balked at the idea of them buying a house together, among other things) and questions about the overall potential longevity of their relationship. AND ON AND ON AND ON. i tried my best to blot this chatter out as our special time together wore on, but that became impossible when her monologue turned to her thoughts about working at this particular spa's pikesville location -- another baltimore suburb, one that is apparently a predoM_ntly jewish community. “you're not a jew, are you?” she asked. “mmurffle” i replied through the cheesecloth face donut thingy. “oh good,” she said, “because they're really bad tippers. and, you know, we kind of live on tips.”

let me add that this woman was black. which is neither here nor there except (one would think) when it comes to bigotry and gross generalizations about large ethnic groups of people. that i was stunned into silence seemed to work in my favor, however, as she quickly shut up and soon finished with her kneading, pressing, and caressing of my various body parts. and yes, i felt very, very dirty during those last minutes with The Hate Masseuse.

i thought about stiffing her on the tip, but then my expansive guilt and suffocating empathy kicked in, and i slipped her twenty bucks on the way out. thanks for, you know, touching me.

cooks=UN, broth=interweb.

yeah, i'm pretty sure that between all the delegates, they'll find some way to royally screw up -slash- ruin things for the rest of us.

hold me, i'm frightened.

M_ vs. the art museum.

[click image for more]

attack of the hipster zombies.

as i [heart] pirates, i [heart] zombies, thus:

Right, so there are a colony of nerdy D&D-playing medeivalists who
gather in Mount Royal Park every Sunday to run around screaming and
slapping each with swords made of duct-taped iron bars and shields
made out of the lids of recycling bins. Shit, there are even dudes
with nerf arrows, flails, battle axes and big fuckin' hammers. One guy
had on an entire suit of chain mail armor.

Anyway, a cabal of local hipsters decided that this Sunday was going
to be different. This Sunday, the hipsters were going to dress up like
zombies and come marching out of the woods to engage the nerds in
glorious battle.

[props to jimmy.]

blogiversary.

frickin' frackin'... twas july 2nd.

baby's all grows up! [sniff]

the garden, part II.

the garden, part I.

in need of an exorcism.

what do you do when you're feeling down, stuck in a rut, and full of general blahness about life and the world? what rituals, spells and incantations do you deploy? what helps you get through, lifts you up, sets things straight in your mind?

no, i'm really asking.

revenge of the blogher.

so the deal is that beth and i were supposed to be going to this together (err, meeting there rather, since she's in utah (i was going to say FUCKING UTAH, the emphasis intended to convey its ends-of-the-earth-type otherworldliness and mystery)), but now it seems the deal might be somewhat in question for her, after some misunderstanding with a parental unit regarding childcare. [sigh.] i guess she still could make it somehow, but that appears to be not terribly likely. [even more dramatic sigh.]

so uhh any of you going?

but i swear to christ being alone will not be a bad thing. i mean you mama-types hear me, right? ALONE. can you even fucking imagine?

maybe i'll get drunk in my room and order pay-per-view porn or something. and then blog about it.

please note.

the following important amendment to sweetney.com's declaration of independence (and yes, i promise this will be the last of this crap you'll hear for a while from me... can you say *boundary setting*?):

6. this is a personal weblog, not a public forum; a dictatorship, not a democracy. i do not owe you a voice here, and so reserve the right to delete comments with extreme prejudice should i deem them to be rude, snarky, stupid, hateful, combative, mean, or anything else i find unacceptable. 99.999% of the comments i get do not fall into any of these categories, thankfully, so this generally isn't an issue for me or for you. and yes, you are absolutely free to disagree with or criticize anything i write on this here blargh, so long as you do it in a way that is not clearly asshole-ish. openly being an asshole will get your comment deleted so fast you'll hear a sonic boom about 10 seconds after you try to post it.

just, you know, FYI.

song of the week.

if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

bunny blossom.

a signed kozyndan print for M_'s room... for she is my little bunny.
ps: dude, $15 plus shipping!

geeking out. like, way.

i.cannot.wait. squee!

weeping at the generosity of the internet.

people never fail to surprise me. in both good and bad ways, natch.

today i was scrolling through some unread email (and i'm embarrassed to say that there was a bounty of it stuffed waaaay back in the dusty catacombs of my inbox and assorted folders... have i mentioned before that i am ridiculously horrible about email? that if you write me and don't hear back that it has nothing whatsoever to do with you or my feelings about you, but rather is related to both my inability to organize my shit and (relatedly) not being able to find the adequate time amid these laughably brief 24-hour days to connect with My People?), and i came across something regarding my flickr pro account. flickr pro account? uhh, do i have one of those?

and yes, apparently i now do. a gift from brooklyn, who wrote:

seems like you've had a tough blogging week.
hope this cheers you up a bit.
a stranger and reader....brooke*

i'm utterly dazed by this, and beside myself with gratitude. but more importantly, i'm reminded that the world is fairly dotted with many kind, generous, and thoughtful people.

thank you, brooke.

*this note was sent to me on july 1st.

be afraid. be very afraid.

a while back, my friend claire wrote something on her blargh to the effect that “kids ruin marriages.” in fact, i think that's a direct quote. and while i hate to validate that statement completely -- since its sort of like saying I'M FUCKED -- i think the sentiment behind those words rings painfully true. kids might not ruin marriages, but having them -- in my experience, and in the experience of just about everyone i know -- definitely changes marriages, mostly for the worse.

and its not their fault of course, its our fault -- those of us who bore them, who made that monumental decision, who somehow thought our lives and relationships would not change or who weren't fully equipped with the skills to deal with those changes. time and again my friends and i have bemoaned our lack of understanding about what having a child would do to our lives and marriages/partnerships prior to conception (in my paranoid moments, i refer to this gap in our collective knowledge as “a conspiracy of silence”), and while i don't think anyone *can* fully articulate just how hard parenting and child-rearing is to those who haven't been there, i think a few things are -- again, from my own -slash- my friends' experiences, your mileage may vary -- fairly clear to me... so let me break this down for ya'll as much as i'm able:

1. if you are thinking about having a child, wait at least 3 years from the time you have that initial thought until you actually attempt to conceive. this figure might be more appropriately doubled for those under 30. and why, you ask? because you are young and free and will never, ever get the chance to be young and free again once you have a kid. if you want to travel, travel A LOT. do lots of recreational drugs. be really, really irresponsible, stay out all night, and wear tight, short skirts (that goes for both women and men). generally what i'm driving at is: you will never get the chance to do these things again with any degree of freedom and ease once you have a child. oh sure, you may know of that ONE PERSON with a kid who managed to backpack around europe with child-in-tow, but let me dispel this for you right now: THAT PERSON AND THEIR CHILD ARE FREAKS OF NATURE. you are incredibly unlikely to get a child that easy, or to be able to handle even a fairly easy-going child's needs, wants, and demands effortlessly enough to make such an excursion possible, let alone enjoyable. so be childless as long as you can, and enjoy being childless. had i known what i know now, i'd have waited until my ovaries were crusted over with cobwebs before i'd have even thought about putting one in the oven. better yet, if you're cool with adopting, wait until you're like 40 and give some child a loving home. seriously.

2. once you have a child, your marriage/partnership will never be the same, you will never look upon each other as you did before having a child (as you are now “mommy” and “daddy” in addition to everything else you are), and you will never again have as much time/energy/attention for each other. the dynamics of your relationship will shift. you will both likely feel overburdened and stressed in ways you could not have previously conceived (heh) of; it is also likely that as a result you will take some of that stress out on your spouse, intentionally or not. both of you will feel like you never have any time to yourself, that you are the family pack mule, and how you handle all of that will probably determine the relative health and shelf-life of your relationship.

3. young children are adorable and charming and hilarious, and your love for your own child will exceed in depth and intensity anything you can imagine. but young children are also needy, helpless, demanding, relentless and unreasonable, and though yes, they do grow up and “get better,” this needy/helpless/demanding phase lasts for YEARS. and don't tell me that 5 years isn't a long time -- remember back when clinton was still president? oh yes, that's right.

angela said to me the other day that going to the beach with her toddler was like going to the beach with an incontinent, crotchety old man, and that sounds about right. prepare to have the wind taken out of your sails A LOT. prepare yourself for the fact that even the most joyous of times -- vacations, for example -- will be reduced from their previous 100% fun to about 50% fun, 50% damage-control (and i might be being generous there).

4. you will fret and worry -- in some cases rightly, in others neurotically -- a good percentage of the time about, well, everything (hence my gestating ulcer). but mostly you will fret and worry about whether you are a good enough parent, whether you're fucking your kid up for life or damaging them in some way because of the choices you've made, whether you really *should* have signed up for that toddler gymnastics program or preschool or made them paint more or watch tv less... i could go on and on here. you will second, third, and fourth -guess everything you do and don't do relative to your child, because it is the biggest responsibility you have or will ever have in life. it is your fucking job -- above and beyond whatever paid work you may or may not do -- to make sure this kid turns out okay or better than okay, and the weight of that responsibility is pretty intense. so stock up on the mylanta. heh.

there's of course more, but i'll leave it to my esteemed colleagues to add in the comments what i've missed or misstated here. and incidentally, before someone jumps all over my ass: yes, of course there is joy, and a great deal of it. but my feeling is that, honestly, nobody knows what they're getting themselves into when they do this kid thing, and nobody really levels with prospective parents about some of the harsher realities of parenting and family life. “real life” as a parent is not the warm/fuzzy highlight reel, the family sitcom, the romantic comedy -- its whole lotta slogging through, getting by, and feeling spent and exhausted and ready to check out. and i do indeed want it to be better than that, and want to work in my own life at it being better than that more of that time, but its also difficult to change the inherent nature of the beast.

dropping later this summer.

courtesy of the righteous this is your signal.

communication breakdown.

M_: i'm going to play music! its going to be loud!
R_: okay, i'm going to play too!
M_: let's play loud!
R_: let's play wow!
M_: okay!
[M_ starts in on drums, R_ strums guitar]
R_ [singing to the tune of the alphabet song]: wow wow wow wow wow wow wow...

that's going to be the title of my imaginary band's first album -- Let's Play Wow.

corresponding with a Nigerian email scammer.

my buddy brian is doing good things over on that there blagh. check out his current series of posts starting with this.

new low achieved.

file under hi, i'm an idiot.

i predict there will be some long, thick bangs in ms. kari smith's future.

a postscript.

[to my ulcerative post:] the past several weeks have been very hard, stressful, manic, exhausting. sweetney readers, i spare you the details out of love -- please believe me when i say that. but here is the upshot: that i feel i am a spindle upon which a number of different tension threads are being wound tighter and tighter, both swallowing and compressing me, even as i struggle to keep each line separate, to maintain the appropriate velocity though i feel myself threatening to spin out... or is it take flight? one can't know for sure until that point of no return, and i'm not ready for it yet. so i revolve and revolve and revolve, thinking: which stressor do i now attend to? and do i have the strength? and why am i not one of those for whom life seems so easy, so effortless?

turn, turn, turn.

i think i'm getting an ulcer.

every night, roundabout 8-9pm, my stomach begins to feel as though it is consuming itself. there is much gurgling, roiling, and generalized gastrointestinal unpleasantness. laying down compounds the catastrophic gut-wrenching, and forces the expulsion of endless epic belches (yeah, i know -- NICE). this also happens during the daylight hours at seemingly random times, leaving me feeling leperous and wretched -- unfit for public consumption. OTC antacids seem powerless when pitted against the fury of my stomach's twisted machinations. clearly, i am doomed.

if anyone needs me i'll be in the belltower, hiding from the shame-filled daylight that would reveal my true hideous form to the masses of men. fire BAD!

to those of you who are thinking about having children, but have yet to, i say: HOLD YOUR FUCKING HORSES. but i'll return to that (yes, related) matter shortly... after i've downed half a bottle of mint&puke flavored mylanta. its like a smoothie, only UNBELIEVABLY REPULSIVE.

gurgle.

PDA.

it makes me feel all warm and snuggly inside knowing my closest friends are this smart.

dinosaur comics presents.

ways to win or at least end arguments if you don't care about people respecting you.

dear world.

this morning's events aren't really helping to bolster my rapidly receding faith in humanity.

so please stop sucking so hard.

thanks in advance,
sweetney

transcript of the phone call i just received.

[phone rings]
me: hello?
lady: hello, may i please speak to the person responsible for marketing the website sweetney.com?
me: uhhh.... marketing?
lady: oh, yes... is the website a business?
me: uhhh... no.
lady: oh alright then. thank you for your time.
me: uhhh.... okay...
[click]

umm, what the fuck was that all about? and umm why was i too retarded to simply ask?

clearly sweetney.com is profoundly in need of a marketing department.

official vacuum of the Master Control Program.

our 5+ year old vacuum cleaner finally died a horrible, gear-shredding death, and so i've given in and bought a dyson.

so now the question seems: where in the house can we put this baby on display? cuz the thing is, like, some sort of bizarre sculpture straight out of the movie tron.

to the dirt and dust bunnies of the sweetney household: you are now subject to immediate de-resolution. that will be all.

vengeance is (not) mine.

i tend to think of people as flawed, tender packages of meat deeply in need of more than a little TLC. truth be told, i'm one of those masochistic people who is frequently guilty of falling into the so-called wounded bird syndrome; finding obvious brokenness in others somehow endearing and magnetic, and being constitutionally unable to resist the opportunity to royally screw up -slash- over-dramatize my own personal life via efforts to save someone (this explains many obscenely bad dating and friendship choices of the past). i tend to have a lot of empathy -- perhaps at times too much -- for the outcast and slightly looney among us (unless of course your particular brand of craziness involves posting utterly retarded comments to web sites, ahem), and while these connections often serve to make life interesting, the exhaustion-level in such undertakings is pretty high, and so i'm newly resolved to rail against my natural tendency to take the prime psychotic specimens of the poor, huddled masses of humanity under my wing like the doting mother bird i clearly want to be. because, to be blunt, you crazy people are seriously harshing my buzz.

i say all of this simply to make the following point: i am pretty forgiving of others faults, errors in judgment, chemical-imbalance-induced bad behavior, and even real or perceived slights directed against my person by others. we're all kind of fucked-up, right? and so who am i to forever condemn anyone for any ill-conceived acts or words -- its not like i haven't been there myself at times. glass houses, stones -- you get the picture.

of course all of this goes out the window when we turn to one single subject: my brother's ex-wife.

i am quite seriously entering some sort of disturbing internal borderland regarding this woman, one that divides simple pity and contempt from unadulterated, abject hatred of the sort typically set aside for people who viciously beat puppies and kittens. and yes, she deserves it, and yes, she is that bad. let's briefly review the ever-mounting evil: 1) cheats on my brother; 2) denies cheating, and manipulates everyone (including my family) into believing she has been horribly wronged by my brother in a variety of bizarre ways; 3) convinces everyone involved that upon their separation she would pursue an amicable and fair divorce involving joint custody of their daughter; she instead hires cut-throat lawyers and tries to get full-custody; 4) makes ludicrous, unfounded claims about my brother's mental health; 5) refuses to let my brother see his daughter for months at a time, including over the holidays, when he has no other family nearby; 6) drags my brother back into court demanding that he has psychological testing done to determine his parental fitness (not surprisingly, when this is done it is determined that he's completely sane and fit as a parent); 7) extracts 3/4 of my brother's pay for child support, thus rendering him utterly unable to eek out even a subsistence-level existence while she revels in a full salary from her own job plus the child support spoils; and finally, this weekend's coup de grace: 8) gets a court order demanding that my brother put their house on the market by august 1st, because apparently she wants to take away/destroy anything and everything that matters to him in this life. seriously, bitch is evil. and this is the condensed, lacking-sordid-details version -- you wouldn't believe the uncut and unrated edition, and, in all honesty, i don't think you're even remotely ready for that jelly.

i was saying to jamie this weekend that -- for perhaps the first time in my life -- i've been having revenge fantasies... that i would really like to do something horrible to her, even knowing how awful and small of me that is. oh yes, something damaging and truly unpleasant but untraceable, since she's crazy-litigious and about as likely to sue my ass as she is to involuntarily blink. and of course it would have to be something that would impact only her, as i don't want their daughter brought into the mix. but unfortunately i don't have a mind for this sort of thing; the best i can come up with is adding her email to a buncha “send me spam!” lists, but that seems so, i dunno, not anywhere near painful enough.

if i believed in such things i'd be driving pins into voodoo dolls and burying a piece of her hair wrapped in rotten sulfurous fruit in our backyard or something... sadly i'll have to stick with using my harnessed mental powers to shoot death rays into the soulless depths of her being, because in the realm of mind-over-matter that's the only game i've got.

ps: yes, comments are back. because i'm a big wussy wuss.

sweetney: version 2.0.

i had planned to take a much longer break from writing here, but the thing is... well, i enjoy it. and as i thought about the reasons why i'd decided to take a break, they seemed less about me and/or what *i* wanted or needed, and more about things wholly external to what i'm actually doing here. and the more i mulled it over, the more it seemed like what was needed wasn't a break, but rather a purifying manifesto of sorts. thus:

SWEETNEY.COM'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

1. in theory i like the idea of a community of bloggers. in practice? not so much. i've never been a group-type person, or a joiner, or one who relishes the unpleasant interpersonal dynamics that invariably come with stuffing a bunch of people together under some sort of artificial umbrella of sameness. there are people who do this blogging thing in my city whose writing i relish, and in a very few cases i've met them in-person and like them as people, too. but i do not feel kindred to anyone simply because they do something that i do, like piss or take out the trash or read the newspaper or watch television. not everyone is interesting or notable or worthy of being read, and a person's proximity to me geographically does not somehow increase their baseline appeal in my eyes, and i refuse to act as though that is the case.

2. do not pretend to know me or my intentions and motivations. with the exception of those family members and close friends who read this here blog thingy, i'd like to remind each of you that you and i are, in fact, complete strangers. just because you read my words here does not mean that you know the first thing about who i am, and please keep that foremost in your mind when you begin -- all sherlock holmes-like -- deducing motives and subtext and other things not explicitly stated by me.

3. if what i say bothers you, don't read my fucking blog. let me say that again: DON'T READ MY FUCKING BLOG IF IT BOTHERS YOU. don't whine about it, or complain about it, or get all worked up about it. just.stop.reading. finis.

4. relatedly: this is my space to say what i want how i want. i am not here to please you, to amuse you, to uplift you, or to be your very special e-best friend. i am here for reasons related entirely to myself, chiefly: to engage in the practice of writing, to stay in touch with people i know, and to entertain myself throughout the average weekday. if you enjoy the content that is produced through me doing those things, wonderful. if it does not suit you, there are about a quadrillion other blogs out there, and i'm sure you'll have no problem finding what you desire elsewhere.

5. for the time being i am turning off comments, because i need to regain the pleasure i got from writing here before i had a sense that there was an audience to be written to or for. this does not mean that i don't want to hear from you, however, if you have something you'd like to say. i can always be contacted at sweetney @ sweetney.com. and i may very well turn comments back on in a few days...or a few weeks... or never. we'll just see about that, won't we?

--sweetney.