Around the house and garden this morning:
Unrelatedly, today marks 6 months since I quit smoking. To celebrate, I shall stop and inhale the scent of flowers deeply today, my nasal passages untainted by nicotine residue for perhaps the first time in my entire adult life. Yowza.
Yesterday I stumbled across this flickr group, started in the spirit of Self Portrait Truthiness. And because my need to over-share is almost a sickness at this point, I immediately went off and snapped the following pix of mah abode, unretouched and unvarnished and uneverything (I SWEAR!), for your viewing pleasure (click thumbnails to embiggen):
Not very exciting, I'm afraid. I thought about spicing it up a bit -- adding the stray dildo and/or lube, perhaps some questionable *ahem* literature *cough* here and there -- but that sort of tweaking would be contrary to the whole keeping it real point, yes? And the reality is that my daily life is, indeed, far from contrived porno-level exciting. Unfortunately. Though to my credit, who else do you know that has freakin' Godzilla attacking their dining room table on a daily basis, huh? ME FTW!!!1!!
Next up: photos documenting my yearly gynecological exam. Because it doesn't get any grittier or uncompromisingly real than a visit to ye olde hoo-ha ville. Brace yourselves, put your seat back into its upright and locked position, and don your protective goggles.
. . . . .
In somewhat actually interesting news, this dork and I are leaving tomorrow for what I hope will be Tracey & Amy's Excellent Adventure, complete with comic time travel and lots of dooooooooood (no, seriously: DOOOOOOOD!). We'll be spending the remainder of the week in California near San Diego, checking out some AV equipment provided by our john sugardaddy gracious corporate host, and hangin' in/on/around the beach, hopefully with umbrellaed drinks perpetually lodged in our whoring fists. I'm a small person with small dreams, yanno?
Anyway, since this trip is going to be all about the images and the video, any suggestions regarding things you'd like for me to document along the way? Images you'd like to see, or photo/video vignettes you'd like to propose? Theater or movie scenes you'd like Amy and I to (melo)dramatically reenact? Totally manufactured moments you'd like me to ineptly fabricate for your amusement? I'm your dancing monkey, and I'm taking requests!
C'mon, Pilgrim. America is counting on you.
This week is M's Spring Break from preschool, which means she's here at home with me -- bound tightly to my right leg like an enormous, fleshy barnacle coated in Disney Princess patterned cloth -- every day until April freakin' 1st. HELLO, THAT'S NEXT MONTH, PEOPLE.
Okay, so it's really only one week away... but boy oh boy does that whole flipping-of-the-calendar thing somehow make the time seem all the more daunting and epic. A DIFFERENT MONTH! APRIL, NOT MARCH! WOE!
Yes, I'm a total pussy. What of it?
So we're basically riding a slow-ass train to nowheresville this week, as I try (ineptly, as is my way) to balance all my various interweb work-type duties, my home/life duties, and the unrelenting spastic and needy insanity that is preschoolerdom.
Needless to say, there will be a whole lot of drinking.
But in the name of curbing my burgeoning alcoholism, let me also ask you, the all-knowing internets, for advice: what would you do to keep a 5-year-old entertained for one full week?
Any and all suggestions welcome, with bonus points and shiny gold stars for ideas that might also allow me to continue doing things like my work (dollah dollah bills, y'all!), household chores, and urinating and defecating alone.
I await futher directives from you, o mighty internet overlords.
I'll tell you all this right now: my husband is fucking insane.
He has... how shall I put this? A very on-again off-again relationship with reality. It isn't so much that he's lost his grip on The Real, but rather that he willfully chooses to ignore it, editing out select portions of The Truth Of How Things Are that don't exactly jibe with his wants and desires.
What do you call that? Selective Stupidity? What?
True, there's an incredibly charming side to this aspect of his personality, and it's definitely something that attracted me to Jamie when we first began dating. Because, quite often, this detachment from reality thing manifests as a kind of exuberant, ecstatic, seize-the-day attitude -- something that is difficult to argue with without feeling like a Scrooge and/or being overcome with self-hatred. I mean, he's right: OF COURSE we should jet off to Vegas for the weekend... and buy that really expensive Tiffany ring... and spend $300 on one meal. You only live once, right? RIGHT?
Sure, I participated along the way. Sure, I've reaped the rewards of living with someone who's knee-jerk reaction is to always say YES!, damn any and all consequences. I'm not denying that Insanity Has Its Benefits, and that I've enjoyed those.
But my willingness to stretch reality for shits-n-giggles has it's limits, folks. And they were recently reached -- nay, pressed beyond -- when Jamie began campaigning for us to buy an old $900,000 stone church.
I'll let that sink in for a moment. Do you need some smelling salts? Because I sure do.
Alright, so let me get this part out of the way: is the church awesome? Yes, yes it is. It's a mammoth stone-and-stained-glass relic of Old Baltimore, complete with a freakin' antique pipe organ. It's huge and beautiful and kick-ass.
It is also NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's the number nine, with five fucking zeroes. In case that wasn't clear.
Continue reading "My crazy husband. Let me show him to you." »
If you've been reading Sweetney for any length of time it probably goes without saying that I've been guilty in the past of vigorously complaining about things on this here blog without actually doing anything about the object of complaint (oh hai, innumerable posts about needing to diet and get in shape! (cough))... BUT NO MORE! I am a new woman, one who is all about action and results! Less talky, more do-y! With annoying superfluous exclamation points and stuff! So it is in that spirit (SPIRIT!) that I present the results of yesterday's epic decluttering and organization fest, which I like to call MISSION: M's FORMERLY REPULSIVE PLAYROOM. Behold the no-longer-completely-hideous-and-shameful play space:
I'd just like to note, for the benefit of all my fellow geeks in the hizzouse, that's an old skool Apple G-4 cube she's rollin' with there. Holla.
Omigod, you can actually SEE THE FLOOR! INCONCEIVABLE!
If I'd been brave enough to take a “Before” photo you'd be stunned -- almost as if you'd been held down and tasered at a John Kerry speaking event, Bro -- by my mad decluttering skillz, believe me. Imagine if you will what it would look like if the entire toy section at Target underwent a missile attack, and then a photo was snapped of the resultant wreckage just moments after the last Polly Pocket stopped smoldering. That would be very close to what this room started off looking like. SO NOT JOKING. Is like magic, no?
Of course this is just room one -- I have eight more to go (heavy sigh), including a basement so repulsive I won't let my daughter enter it, and an attic that has slowly transformed over the course of several years into something resembling what I envision a 300 pound rat's nest might look like. But one room at a time, sweet baby Jesus, one room at a time...
Edited to add: Apparently I am a “Popular Parent Blogger.” I have no idea what it means. Isn't that akin to “Popular Elective Surgical Procedures” or something? Am mentioning anyway. Do not know why.
Yesterday afternoon I went into M's room for episode II of my twice-daily Poking Of The Fish, and found Nemo face-planted in the colorful gravel at the bottom of his tank. OH CRAP.
Still not believing he could actually be dead at this point -- since he's faked us out more than once over the course of the past week, the little shit -- I retrieved our fish net and used the thin handled end to conduct a cursory physical examination. Poke, poke. Nothing. Not so much as a fin flutter. That was one dead fish, man. Don't think you can get much deader. This fish is no more. It has ceased to be.
As a side note, this week I couldn't help but be continually reminded of the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, and have been silently performing both sides of the dialogue in my mind:
Oh Monty Python, is there anything you can't make funny?
Not so funny, of course, was M's response to the news that Nemo had finally and definitely gone to the great fishbowl in the sky. Her genuine, heartfelt mourning over this loss was touching... if somewhat disturbing. Because she was, probably for the first time in her life, grappling with the matter of death, and clearly struggling to understand it. “Will Nemo come back tomorrow?” she asked, through tears. And later, perplexingly, “When I die will I still be in your belly?” It's as if she's searching for an out in this whole death thing, an escape hatch of rebirth or reincarnation -- something to temper the crushing enormity of death's permanence. But then don't we all?
I held her, dried her tears, and gave her a lollipop. I'm sure I probably could've handled things better -- made the moment into something exploratory and instructive about life and the world -- but all that seemed to matter was stopping the tears, the pain. Making things all better. Isn't that what Mommies do?
I am a poor excuse for a housewife, as my husband can attest. Above and beyond the aforementioned clutter issue, I often leave loads of damp laundry in the washing machine until they molder and smell like sweaty troll feet, mounds of unfolded clothes crumpled in the dryer or in laundry baskets randomly dotting the landscape of our household for days on end, and piles of filthy dishes marinating in the sink simply because I hate nothing more than emptying the dishwasher (OH, THE UNBEARABLE AGONY). There is visible mold and mildew on the upstairs bathtub shower curtain. There's cat litter tracked throughout our basement where the wretched litter boxes (yes, PLURAL) dwell, cat-sized petri dishes growing god knows what. It isn't laziness exactly, but more like studied inaction-as-protest in response to the scourge of filth relentlessly encroaching on our living space. I mean, I clean something, and then a week later IT NEEDS TO BE CLEANED AGAIN. Will this hideous nightmare never end?
Of course there's more to the story than just rumpled laundry and a few dirty dishes. So in the spirit of full disclosure and unburdening myself of my sins, here's a short list of things housekeeping-wise that I do not do, EVER:
1. Wash baseboards or door/window trim (I mean, C'MON!)
2. Clean behind the toilet (eww!)
3. Vacuum under area rugs or furniture (I don't even want to know what might be living under our couch at this point)
4. Dust anything located above eye-level (out of sight, out of mind, dude!)
5. Clean lightswitches or doorknobs (which are both likely festering with Bubonic Plague at this point, come to think of it)
And so on. Mine is a housewifery of least resistance without a doubt, and while I'm not always proud of the results of that stance, I'm owning it, man. We all have our dirty little housekeeping secrets: our rat's nest-like junk drawers and dank, wretched basements, our closets packed with crap near to the point of involuntarily bursting open like a misfired gag can of peanuts stuffed with spring-coiled snakes.
[tiny voice:] Umm, don't we?
(This is your cue to jump in with the making-me-feel-better Me Too!-ing. Better yet, tell me truthfully: what is your dirty little household secret? I promise I won't tell anyone... heh.)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Having said all that, my domestic failures and inadequacies haven't stopped me from contributing to this fall home shopping guide from JCPenney (or Jacques Pennay, if you're a complete flaming dork like me). True, I'm contractually obligated in blood to do so. But wholesale bartering of my soul aside, I like to think that my contributions there over the next two months will present something like the inept everywoman's perspective on the home (my first post, on the subject House Porn, can be found here). Like if Martha Stewart were a mouthy aging ex-punk rocker tightwad. IT'S A GOOD, CHEAP THING, MUTHAFUCKAS!
And in other, somewhat-related-to-blogging-and-commerce news, it looks as though this as yet unnamed Big Book O' Mommybloggers I have some stuff in will, in fact, be published. Like, on actual paper and stuff. Which would make me an author or something? Maybe? Definitely waaaay weird, but stranger things have happened I s'pose (like errm this, for example (shudder)).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Today's Fish-That-Wouldn't-Die Update: Still undead living! On the advice of the all-knowing internet, I am now withholding food (as a possible cure, not for the purposes of assisted suicide-type starvation). Must be increasingly vigilant in keeping the fish away from my daughter's braaaaaains: as the hunger mounts, so does THE EEEEVIL.
So first we had Wallace the self-de-hairing cat, who by way of self-abusive licking performed the feline equivalent of the endless handwashing stereotypically seen as a hallmark behavior of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in humans. (On the up-side, Wallace can also be used to remove those troublesome fabric nubbins from sweaters -- get your own OCD cat today!) Then Truman the retarded wonderdog went toe-to-toe with some chain link fence and lost. LOST TO FENCING. Oh, the halfwitted humanity.
In summary, it's safe to say we've established that the Sweetney family pets are defective, masochistic rejects. But oh mah lawd, nothing in our recent experience has come close to the epic pathos, drama, and stupidity of this weekend's Aquatic Deathwatch 2007 (sounds much more festive than it actually was, BELIEVE ME).
It began a few days back when I noticed that M's beta fish Nemo was acting, well, sort of listless. “Floaty and deanimated” were the words that came to mind. Instead of his typical acrobatic swirling about in his tank, I discovered him drifting near the surface of the water, leaning lightly against the front wall as if to say: DUDE, I'M FUCKING DYING OVER HERE!1!!!. Usually frenetic and eager at his daily feeding, now the poor little guy's tiny front fins barely twitched when I opened the top of the tank and dropped a few ground-up flakes of food in.
So we all know where this is going: straight down the toilet with a single, decisive flush.
Except it didn't. It hasn't. He's the fucking Energizer Bunny of fish. The Thing That Wouldn't Die of fish. The unstoppable evil zombie fish that can't be killed because ITS ALREADY (UN)DEAD.
Saturday morning I checked in on him and went so far as to call time of death (10:40am, if you must know). You may recall that the last time our family dealt with fish death Jamie and I chose to secretly replace the Original Dead Nemo with a Living Nemo Imposter, basically because we're pussified cowards who'd rather avert our gaze and deceive our child than suck it up and have the dreaded Big Death Talk. But now, with even The Nemo Imposter exiting, we seemed to have little choice. It was time to do some serious motherfucking parenting, yo.
The Talk went something like this:
Jamie: Honey, we have something to tell you.
M: *blink*
Jamie: Nemo was sick, and he died.
M: WAAAAAAAAAAH! I MISS NEMO!!!!!!!
Me: Its okay sweetie, it happens.
M: (quietly snorfling)
Me: You know... the circle of life and shit.
Jamie: (shoots daggers at my skull)
Me: I MEAN, fish don't live a long time.
M: Can we get another fish?
Jamie: Yes.
M: (inappropriately chipper) OKAY! CAN WE GET IT TODAY?!!?
Me: What, no period of mourning? How about a little respectful time and distance before we move on to callously replacing the dead, huh?
Jamie: (shoots flaming battleaxes at my skull)
Me: Alrighty then. Anyone up for ice cream?
So I think that went well. Except that at the end of this conversation, when I went to scoop Nemo's remains from his tank so that we could do the traditional burial at sea, the sucker MOVED. Moved, as in NOT DEAD YET.
Oh jesus fucking christ.
That was Saturday, and the death vigil continues still. A few times a day now I go in and poke the seemingly dead fish, only to have him spring to life and swim furiously around the tank for a few moments, thereafter drifting back into a limp, corpse-like pose on the surface of the water, as if to give us the finger while gurgling: HA! SUCKERS!
Stupid faker fish.
And I know its wrong, but since he's quite obviously on his way out and sloughing off this mortal coil and all that, I have to admit I kind of wish he'd get on with it already. This endless death rattle mambo is excruciating. WON'T HE THINK OF THE CHILD(REN)? Go to the light Nemo, go to the light...
And now I'm strangely hungry for a tuna melt.
Tags: children, daily, family, humor, kids, life, motherhood, mylife, parenting, pets, death
A post which should probably be subtitled: Oh My God My House Is In Dilapidated Shambles And How Did I Ever Let Things Get To This Point iiiieeeeeee! (A bit wordy that, I admit. Obviously we'll edit it down for the film version).
About every six months or so I wake up one day, take a look around at my house, and feel as though the walls themselves are tightening around me. Space itself seems to be contracting, as objects (ie: Pointless Plastic Crap) are expanding and multiplying all around us simultaneously. Everything is simply too much -- the clutter, the lack of room to move freely (I've all but given up my penchant for Interpretive Dancing), and every surface seems to taunt: “Just TRY to find a place to put a drink down. C'mon, I DARE YOU, BITCH.”
Yesterday marked the reemergence of that old biannual torment. This is not my beautiful house! In fact, I'm not entirely sure I can *find* my house with all this crap everywhere.
So at this juncture, what does any sane person do? GO TO IKEA TO BUY MORE STUFF! But, you know, organizational-type stuff. Stuff to help me with my stuff. Stuff to make the stuff I already have prettier. Stuff to put stuff into, to hide stuff. Why doesn't IKEA just make a gun that shoots out magic lazers that make your stuff actually invisible, since that's kind of what they're going for anyway? They could name the superinvisogun “Krappdie,” in keeping with their needlessly difficult Swedish Alien Naming System. ZORK!
How adorable and awesome is this poster?
Just bought one for M for her upcoming birthday... Shh! Don't tell her!
Those cat-worshipping Ancient Egyptians were duped, man. I have proof that cats are not “furry people” -- as some felineophiles would claim -- but rather simple, animalistic meat with pea brains driven by pure instinct formed during the Neolithic period (you know, back when cats wore Mastadon pelts and wielded wooden clubs and drove rock cars by furiously paddling their tiny feet).
Remember our trip to the vet last Wednesday? And remember that it was LAST WEDNESDAY? Meaning FIVE WHOLE DAYS ago? Well its been five whole days of relentless feline insanity here at Casa De Gaughran-Perez -- an unending carnival of multi-cat-on-cat growling, hissing, spitting, yowling and general surliness. Now is the late summer of our kitty discontent. sigh.
Love to you from Charm City, now with my own special brand of “I know nothing about gardening or flowers” attempts at naming and identification. Please to enjoy!
I'll call this one Psychotic Horn O' Plenty
WARNING: A truly ridiculous number of photos after the jump...
Everything's coming up roses lilies and hydrangeas!
More beautiousness after the jump...
Last night's rain brought some new gorgeous new blooms (click images for flickr enlarge-o-version)!
(Many more after the jump)
Sometimes I actually feel a little guilty having the garden that I have. It is, bluntly put, freakin' magnificent. And I can say that without it being shameless boasting only because I had so little to do with its existence, having planted perhaps a grand total of .05% of its bounty (practically nothing, honestly). I'm just the humble caretaker really, and not a terribly adept one at that. But brown-thumbed though I may be, I can still marvel at its beauty and my luck at having been bequeathed it.... BEFORE I KILL IT (as is my way).
(Warning: many, many pictures after the jump)
Having spent most of the weekend in our yard, I thought I'd share some recent spoils of the garden:
I spent most of the weekend digging out our front garden, excavating the dead remains of last year's blooms to make room for the new growth. A few photos of Spring's recent progress:
Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been around these parts as much as I used to -- that my posting has been lighter (and “lite”-r), and I guess there are several reasons for that. The first being that I've been throwing myself headlong into MamaPop -- building and tinkering and adjusting and organizing, trying to make it super mega awesome and something that stands on its own two feet, beyond even my own identity or that of any of the individual writers. We're getting there, even after only being up and running five short months, and I honestly couldn't be prouder of it or the work we're doing. And, to be completely frank, its incredibly refreshing to have a space dedicated to writing about things beyond me and my life, things external to the daily ins-and-outs of living and my sense of self. Anyway, its been and continues to be a lot of work, but its also ridiculously fun and immensely gratifying, particularly when I see people responding so enthusiastically to it. So there's that.
But there's also something deeper going on, which I've been hesitant to write about. Partially because it falls into the 'blogging about blogging' category, and OMFG how ludicrous and mind-numbing is that? But I've also been hesitant because its really something I haven't completely wrapped my head around, and how do you write lucidly about something you can't think clearly about? Urrm... have I lost you yet? SEE!
Reason number 5,382 why I love my husband and find him hilarious: He helped engineer a Top Secret Suit Day at his very dressed-down workplace yesterday, wherein a select number of covert operatives would show up to work dressed, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, to the monkey-suit nines.
Continue reading "“Gentlemen, your jacket matches your pants.”" »
But having any sort of life outside the computer to speak of is probably pretty much over now, right?
[shakes fist at Danny]
I know what you're thinking: Tracey, how can your sucktastic month get any more sucky? Its just not possible, right? I mean, any Supreme Being by this point would've determined that it would be just plain cruel to throw anymore drama or bullshit your way, because how much can one person take? To burden your already beaten black-and-blue spirit with anything else would be, well, something like kicking a three-legged, anemic puppy. Right? RIGHT?
Well apparently there is no God. We have mice.
Hydrangea buds in our garden... Someone needs to be reminded: its January (though our weather forecast here in Baltimore is calling for temperatures in the low 70s this weekend, so I suppose I can't blame our leafy friends for being confused).
PS: This is the beginning of the earlier promised bludgeoning-you-with-my-new-macro-lens hell. You have been warned.
There's nothing quite like coming back home after a week away to force you to come to grips with the reality that your life is all kinds of fucked up and desperately in need of some serious tending. Like, you suddenly see how living with piles of clean (and dirty) clothes stacked in unstable, Devil's Tower-like piles about your bedroom probably isn't the most expedient (let alone hygienic) way to live. The clutter and dustbunnies crowd about you, taunting you with their tangible, suffocating actuality, for scattering among them you see the sum of your domestic failures laid bare... and oh my god, have you even LOOKED in the fridge lately? Its jelly-dribbled filth is not for the faint at heart, my friends.
So while I attempt to dig myself out of this anxiety attack (as well as out from underneath the ginormous pile of about 400 magazines I have blocking one entire side of our bed upstairs (NOT KIDDING)... UGH), here's some photos taken by M_ during our trip to Rehoboth Beach, DE last week using her new-fangled kid-friendly digital camera (a most excellent xmas present from my Aunt Elaine):
Oh, THE POWER.
Continue reading "Preschooler + Digital Camera = INSANITY" »
ZORG SMASH RUDOLPH AND GAY ELF! GRRR!
Nothing says Festive quite like a shiny new glass robot ornament for the tree (courtesy of Jamie, because he's a fuckin' nut).
Or at least some song told me she did.
Anyway, hmm... I don't know what to say. M_'s having some, well, problems. And I don't feel at liberty to discuss the specifics, for the sake of her privacy, but have no fear, its nothing life-threatening or grandly disastrous. I mention this only because in the past 24 hours I've realized that I'm going to need to refocus my energies with her, away from the internet, at least for a little while. So I may be posting less, or seem at touch distracted or scattered (well, more so than usual), and I wanted you to know why.
Hi, Internet. Its me. Writing. Content.
Hi. Hi Hi Hi!
Today's weather here in Baltimore lamely threatens: Chance of snow, 20%. Which is unremarkable but for being the first time I've seen the word snow in a forecast since last winter. And yes, it frightens me a little.
(Carol Anne say: Its baaaack.)
(Well, its a kind of snow)
With winter finally upon us, it now falls to me to face the wreck of our domestic sphere head-on, though the thought of doing so fills me with a level of dread aligned with that generated by horrors like having to watch a Paris Hilton music (and I use the term “music” loosely here) video, or the sort of anticipation associated with an impending root canal. Let's just say I've let a few things slide, okay?
Bed made. Must now lie in it.
Its not too early yet, right? I mean, my understanding was that once Thanksgiving had passed, it was time to PLAY BALL.
1. Is it awful of me to say that I'm kind of happy to be back to the same-ol'-same-ol' weekly schedule? Yes, yes, I know its pedestrian and dull to the point of bordering on a kind of masochism of banality, but all this festive TOGETHERNESS and DISORDER doesn't jibe well when married with my Felix Ungeresque persona. Frankly, what jibes well is regimen meshed with seclusion, interrupted by occasional refreshing bursts of human fellowship. But this being around other people all the time thing? Why, that's just crazy talk. And stop touching me, dammit.
2. M's best buddy R was over yesterday, and the two of them produced together about twenty separate crayon-and-pencil scenes that each involved explorations of the destructive power of hot lava and the inability of living things to escape its furiously scribbled clutches. Kittens, flowers, Bratz Dolls, and, yes, even monkeys, all met similar fates, getting -- and I quote -- “Burnded up” by torrents of imagined magma. The bald-faced joy taken in all this death and destruction was, to say the least, rather unseemly.
Continue reading "Talking Points: Regarding Your Expected Update" »
Guess who has the flu! GUESS!
Thank you, fresh-washed flannel sheets.
Its a new work entitled Flying Spaghetti Monster On A Bloody Rampage In Lettertown
FSM, noooooooo!
A true artist's vision often isn't pretty, folks.
And yes, the crayons are most certainly goners.
Which is what these flowers I bought late last week bring to mind, at least for me:
Pods preparing to burst open and implant
their deadly alien spawn! Awesome!
So I'm reading this book about the Cholera epidemic that swept through England in the mid-1800s, because I apparently enjoy nothing more than being driven to horror and nausea just before going to bed every night. Or something. Anyway, I have to tell you that there's nothing in this world that'll put the trifling problems and annoyances of everyday life here on planet Earth into perspective quite like, oh, A PLAGUE. And, as if simply to underscore the insignificance of the reader's worldly grievances, the book contains little perspective-giving pearls like this:
If some rogue virus wiped out every single mammal on the planet, life on earth would proceed, largely unaffected by the loss. But if the bacteria disappeared overnight, all life on the planet would be extinguished within a matter of years.
YEAH! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, puny humans! You suck, bacteria ROOLZ! WOO-HOO!
Yes, its bacteria's world. The rest of us just live in it, folks.
And saaaay, speaking of petty human trifles (and bacterial breeding grounds): with your indulgence, I'd like to take a moment to lodge a purely informal -- yet vigorously worded -- complaint against the recent scourge of bathtime handiwork wrought by my daughter, enacted under the foul, seductive influence of these so-called “bathtub crayons”:
Water-soluble MY ASS.
Dear makers of Tidy Cats Scoop Small Spaces Cat Litter**,
Thank you for making my household not smell like cat pee.
I love you. No, seriously.
Yours very truly,
Sweetney
....................
* Second of a series.
**With which I have absolutely NO affiliation whatsoever, monetary or otherwise, so get off my jock already, asshats.
I need to be honest with you about something. I still entertain the (likely vain) hope that I might one day be able to live in a space such as this:
Continue reading "The Fruits Of Capitalism V. My Immortal Soul*" »
Trick or yarrrgh!
If you want to be a complete dork like me (and really, who doesn't?), you can get your own kit here.
Jamie came home from work Friday night positively bubbling with excitement. Over this, which he now desperately wants for xmas.
And why does he so desperately want this? So that he can, and I quote, “Build a robot to sit on my desk at work and hand me pens.”
The punchlines here are so numerous that I'm just going to go ahead and let each of you insert your own. Conversely, you could choose to simply marinate quietly in the absurdity. Your call, Cap'n.
Pray for me.
Have a good long look, because this is it until spring comes next year:
Le sigh.
It is done.
And it kind of sucked. And kind of ruled. The requisite number of children got hurt and cried. I'm frankly just glad its over with.
And I'm indescribably exhausted.
It pains me to report that illness continues unabated over here at the sweetney household. I was up at least half of last night, coughing and blowing my nose in the most honking, unladylike manner. Some time well after midnight, I finally snuck into M_'s room and dug up her stash of Vics Vapo-Rub -- left over from her brief time in the east coast Rave scene -- and slathered that shit on like I was a turkey being basted for Thanksgiving dinner. This alone allowed me to breathe and get some sleep, but somehow the combination of mentholated grease and head cold congestion seems to have done something weird to my brain, as I've suddenly been overtaken with bizarre, uncharacteristic thoughts of baking. I can't make sense of it, but for whatever reason my brain craves fresh baked bread, almost as if an equation were formed in my mind suggesting that if only I'd had oven-fresh baked goods, this tragic illness wouldn't have befallen me. ONLY WARM, TASTY MUFFINS CAN SAVE ME NOW.
I have no idea either.
But regardless, I must soldier on. And so let me embark on the catching-up by first imparting the following teensy-weensy nuggets of consumerist wisdom, gleaned from the past week's worth of experience:
Sooooo.... I have much to share from our excitement-packed weekend, including but not limited to:
1. JON MOTHERFUCKING STEWART, dawgs!
2. Tales of a 4-year-olds birthday party that devolved into a 4-year-old nekkid bedjumping free-for-all
3. Pictures of a child that may truly be The Chubbiest Chubby Baby In The Entire Universe (yes, I'm extending this claim to include other galaxies)
And much much more. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, I am dying. And dying makes typing difficult, what with the distracting involuntary muscle spasms and death-rattling and all.
It seems that at some point during the Jon Stewart show on Saturday I contracted a cold-type item from the frothing sea of humanity that surrounded me, and since then I've been on a steady decline that culM_ted in waking up this morning and thinking that if only I could somehow remove my entire respiratory system, shake it out, rinse it off, and then insert it back into my body, why, everything would be just dandy!
These are the thoughts of a very, very ill person.
So I'm thinking the update should wait, and that maybe I should just go lay down for a while. Some hot tea, perhaps?
Suggestions for magically ridding myself of The Pestilence welcome. So long as it doesn't involve blood sacrifices, I'm game for anything.
*OH YEA! BONUS ASSYNESS*: I just walked into M_'s room and discovered that her beta fish, Nemo, kicked the bucket overnight. MY LIFE IS AWESOME. M_ is at preschool this morning, and so is, for the moment, completely unaware of this pet death. So the question becomes do I:
1. Replace Nemo with similar-looking fish, pretend Nemo 2 is Nemo 1
2. Have The Big Dreaded Death Talk and give Nemo the bathroom Burial At Sea treatment
3. Remove all signs of Nemo's existence from her room and answer all queries regarding his whereabouts with “What fish?!”
blaargh. arrgh. uurrgh. gaaah.
I recently received the following email from a reader, which I found to be equal parts amusing and frustrating:
I had a dream last night in which you had just hired me to be M_'s nanny. My internal conflict in the dream (because I seem to have one in all of my dreams) was whether or not to tell you that I read your blog. A big part of me thought that it would be really cool to see what you wrote about me on your blog if you didn't think I read it.
Just wanted to share,
Lisa
My first thought upon reading this? Of course finding qualified babysitting is something that happens ONLY IN DREAMS. And not even in my own dreams, because even my subconscious mind knows too well how absurdly fantastic and irrational such an event would be. I mean, isn't The Qualified, Reliable Babysitter on par with, like, Unicorns and Leprechauns -- existing only in the surreal realms of fantasy and myth? Seriously, I'd have an easier time believing a friend who said they'd discovered Bigfoot rummaging through trash cans in their backyard the night before than one that claimed to have captured The Wily Babysitter. Particularly if that Babysitter was over the age of 12 and didn't have some sort of drug problem. Or visible running sores. Cause I KNOW those don't exist.
For the moment, our lack of babysittage isn't too problematic -- M_ doesn't seem to mind much being locked in her bedroom closet on nights when Jamie and I want to go out and do, like, adult things. But what happens when she gets strong and resourceful enough to jimmy open the closet door? WHAT THEN, I ASK YOU?
..........
*This post's soundtrack courtesy of the late great Roy Orbison.
I must confess that I'm something of a confirmed data packrat, and seeing how my iBook recently reached a critical seeming less-than-two-gigs-free-space-available, I decided to seek out an external storage solution that would give my hard drive some much needed elbow room. After some serious interweb dealhacking, I came upon that which would enable the continuance of my obsessive-compulsive hoarding. Behold the geektastic glory:
(Packaging by Tron, Inc.)
Continue reading "The One Where You Actually Have To Read It Completely To Get It (Retitled)." »
Much is made of the ephemeral, intangible nature of the internet. And though the web itself may indeed be immaterial, some of its products are most certainly not. Take, for example, my rad new desk:
Alright in da box?
This thing is seriously as big as M_'s head. It frightens me a little.
We had a handyperson come do some work around our house yesterday. He installed two lovely new ceiling fans:
This one is, in a word, spinny.
This one moves air around -- BY MAGIC.
Ooooh! Attractive AND functional!
And if you're ready to complain about the content of this post, please know that said handyperson also replaced our toilet seat. Count your blessings.
I'm stealing Amy's live blogging idear today (but we're friends, so she can suck it (and I of course mean “suck it” with love)), because though I have a quadrillion things to do I'm also so hyper-charged with impending BlogHerdom nervousness that I can't focus for more than three seconds on anything. So behold the glory brought to you by control-refresh and my brain on BlogHer:
AM:
9:50: I'm in a cleaning frenzy, because god knows Jamie isn't going to be doing crap while I'm gone, and I can't bear the thought of coming home to a full week's worth of filth. I also woke up this morning with a very-not-cool tickle in my throat, the sort that suggests coming illness. But goddamn it, I'm going all Jedi Mind-Trick on my own ass, and absolutely REFUSE to succumb. Take that, ominous throat tickle!
9:55: Have you seen this? Or this? snorfle. Okay, time to vacuum!
10:38: American Airlines, I ask you: what is the point of getting an E-Ticket if you can't get seat assignments and thus have to go through the entire freaking check-in process at the airport anyway? Assholes.
Continue reading "The Day Before: Crap I'm Doing While Waiting To Get The Hell Out Of Dodge." »
Sadly, we're back from the beach. I know you all loved nothing more than to read about our beach house fun and frolicks... Actually, the amount of email I received along the lines of I hate you, you lucky bitch suggests otherwise, but I'm quite skilled at denial. Ahem. In any case, its back to ye olde grind my friends, and you'll be happy to hear that not only have I been reduced from Asskickin' Nametakin' Beach Goddess to pathetic mere mortal, but my intestinal tract has been mounting a full-scale digestive revolt since our return; it may soon vacate my body entirely, perhaps in the hopes of catching a bus back to Bethany, to sun itself on a secluded dune whilst imbibing mojitos.
Yes, I just grossed myself out, too.
Its been raining for forty days and nights it seems. This morning, miraculously, its dry and sunny.
The garden approves.
Everyday it seems I notice new plants blooming in our garden that I don't recall being around last year. I think perhaps I was a little overzealous last year with my weeding, and probably unknowingly cut down/pulled out a bunch of things that this year are finally getting a chance to bloom.
Good thing for them I'm too busy/lazy to bother with pulling out all but the most obvious of weeds this year, huh?
PS: (Utterly unrelated aside:) Please, for the love of sweetney, don't forget to check Jinkies! daily!
There's a lot going on, peoples.
More carbon dioxide? LOVE. IT.
This year the rosebush in our front garden dang near lost its mind. Any day now I'm anticipating that it will sprout leg and arm-like appendages, and begin skulking about our yard in search of my hidden stash of Miracle Grow.
At a distance it looks somewhat unassuming...
Pretty, right? Sure, but...
IT IS FRICKIN' GINORMOUS. FRIGHTENINGLY SO.
And it certainly wasn't like this last year. Which makes me think that perhaps it is sliding up the evolutionary scale somehow, preparing the stage for some sort of plant revolution. BEWARE, HUMANOID EARTHLINGS.
Beautiful? Yes. But DEADLY.
So what's with this all-of-a-sudden-being-summer shit? Wasn't it just, like, a week ago that I was wearing long-sleeved garb and propping open the oven door after Jamie did some of that cooking-type stuff (clearly I am not skilled in the culinary arts), just to bask in waves of residual frozen-pizza-scented heat? Internet, I ask you (as I could only ask you the following), WTF?!
Its 90 degrees here in Charm City today (but, as the weather channel so unhelpfully points out, it “feels like 93!”), sticky-muggy, and our family was OF COURSE caught ill-prepared for this sudden temperature shift. You see, because our house is a gazillion years old* we have but a few measly window air conditioning units to shore against our sweltering ruin, all of which are still piled up in some far corner of the attic, which is itself about a quadrillion degrees** right now. Its a virtual inferno up there, man. And where is my goddamn husband -- he of moving heavy things fame -- when I need him to, uhh, move some heavy things? Oh that's right, he's chilling his ass in an air conditioned office. Its probably so nice and crisp and cool there that he and his coworkers have adorable little knit cardigans and such draped over their chairs, easily accessible to them just in case it gets a might bit too nippy.
Stupid cardigan-wearing bastards.
One summer when I was in graduate school, my then boyfriend and I became so fed up with that year's seemingly endless heat-wave that we actually went to see the movie Twister in the theater, just to escape our sweltering living spaces for a time. It was, in a word, unbearable. I mean the film, of course. And as I walked from the theater $5 lighter but heavily burdened with unspeakable knowledge of Bill Paxton's hair (if you can call it that), I realized a hard lesson in the repercussions of poor judgment: sometimes the lesser of two evils, well, isn't.
Which is basically just a long way of saying: I'm going to sit right here in a rapidly expanding pool of my own sweat and whine pitifully until Jamie gets home and bestows upon our household life-giving climate control. Wah.
Seacrest OUT!
PS: Completely unrelated link to funny bit about Lost's 3rd season, supposedly penned by the show's head writer.
..............................
*estimate only.
**ditto that.
So I'm freaking out a little bit, because tomorrow is the first RnR show of the season, and I have such a massive amount of stuff to do that its sort of paralyzing. Take the backyard, for instance:
Its like the Amazon Rainforest out there, and I have to somehow whip it into serviceable shape today. I went back there briefly this morning to scope things out, and -- interspersed among actual flowers, plants and ornamental grasses -- there are weeds growing that are taller than M_. All told, the weeds may actually outnumber the intentionally planted foliage.
You're royally screwed, lady.
Today should be, uhh interesting [shoots self in face].
If you are a mother, or if you care about mothers, or if you think you may some day be a mother (or a father!), you NEED to read this.
But that's just a taste. I'm currently reading Perfect Madness, and I've dogeared so many pages the book may well reconfigure itself into a pentagon-shape. I'm only through the second section of the book, and am having so many “EUREKA!” moments of self-recogniton and epiphanies and such that I only wish I could scan the entire book and post it here for you. Seriously. This is big, big stuff. I HIGHLY recommend getting the whole book. HIGHLY.
Now I know what I'll be talking about at BlogHer.
