Deluge!
Sure is wet here in Baltimore! How ‘bout dem raindrops? Huge, huh?! Nothing like five straight days of town-flooding rain to make you feel like dancing.
Every time I leave the house today the clouds are like, “Here’s your personal waterbucket, traveler! I shall happily dump the contents over your head!” Squish. Splash. Soaked from frizzy head to soggy toe.
But I did have a thrillingly enjoyable Flashdance moment in the parking garage elevator after work, swinging my sopping hair around and singing “She’s a maaaaaniac, MAAAAANIAC, on the floor.” I don’t often laugh out loud in public places, especially not at my own antics, but today I couldn’t help it. Today’s rain was more like a steamy communal shower than it was weather, and it was bizarrely liberating and amusing.
One thing, though: we’ve escaped any sort of water damage so far, but I would like to bitch mightily about the ants. A rising tide lifts all ants, apparently, and brings them straight to my door.
Feeling listless? Here’re some lists!
Things I am:
- done reading Mimi Smartypants’s book. (‘Twas good.) (I wish she had a podcast.)
- thirsty, yet too lazy to procure a glass of water
- tired, yet full of things to do
- sad that Clint is gone
- eager to try out the modeling clay Iain bought today
Things I am not
- pleased with the itchiness of my scalp
- enjoying the chewability of 98% humidity
- willing to watch re-runs of anything other than The Office
- able to throw away magazines of any kind
Things which are entertaining me
- Maynard Ferguson’s “Macarthur Park”
- picking out the plagiarized bits in How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life (scandalous!) (Just read Megan McCafferty instead!)
- Claymation set to Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The King Of Carrot Flowers”
- Wilford Brimley raps! (I know who has diabeetis!)
- Found II (gales of laughter, wrenching sobs)
- Being able to link to a movie the three of us made using Playdoh, wine and our Digital Rebel. (watch to the end for my behind-the-scenes cameo)
End transmission! Have a nice day!
It’s the government, stupid
I am reading “Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-somethings Can’t Get Ahead” and it’s depressing the living shit out of me.
Right now I’m reading about soaring college costs and how they compare, in inflation-adjusted dollars, to tuition costs in the 60’s. Scary. And statistics about how people who enroll in two-year/community college are less likely to get their bachelor’s. And about how our knowledge-based economy rewards “hypereducation” — master’s degrees and PhD’s, with a bachelor’s as just your run-of-the-mill starting point.
I am worried for my sister, who is not able to go to the state college I attended in the late 90’s because it’s too expensive. I’m worried for my brother, who has something like eleven million dollars in student loans. And I’m really damned worried for Owen.
Iain and I attended the same college, one year apart; we were both there only because we were offered full-ride scholarships and felt it would be foolhardy to turn them down. (Somehow I still ran up about $4k in student loans: Mostly beer and rent money, but still.) But I think that our virtually free college careers had us thinking that we don’t need to bother saving for Owen’s college, because it stood to reason that, with our genes, he’d be a shoe-in for some merit-based academic scholarship. And even if he didn’t earn a scholarship (which, we told ourselves, would be his own damn fault for slacking off), being made to pay his own way would be a good way to teach him independence and self-reliance. We have worked very hard ourselves to make our own way, independent of our parents, and would like him to have the same sense of accomplishment. (Of course, “independent” is kind of a relative term. I did live at home for two weeks post-internship and pre-Real Job; my folks did bail me out on a credit-card payment or two; and my folks gave us a beautiful wedding. And we have accepted “loans” and furniture from his parents. And probably other generosities I have heretofore forgotten.)
But between reading this book and having read Perfect Madness I am getting a very uncomfortable feeling. The direction this country has taken since Bush I and Reagan and Bush II — well, let’s just say I am in no way feeling safe and secure as a middle-class (oh, fine, lower-middle-class) American. And I am feeling especially panicky and short of breath at the thought of what this society is going to be like in 17 years, when Owen is ready for college.
It fucking scares me. And I haven’t finished this book, so maybe there’s some good economic advice beyond “hoard like Scrooge;” I hope there’s also some advice for getting the government to make with some compassionate relief. I know: Let’s bring our troops home, ITMFA, and start spending money on day care, schooling and higher-education. And paid ma/paternity leave. And flexible jobs. And affordable healthcare.
Oh wait. That would be crazy.
Fuck Pittsburgh. I think we better reconsider moving to Canada.
Who needs television?
Clint’s still here. So far, between making coney dogs and smoking, we have participated in the following 2006 Summer Games:
- Tootleball
- Drawing with your feet
- Crossword creation
- Mad Lib Theater
- Sloganizing for the U.S. Beef council
- Origami challenge
- DIY Scattergories
- Make-Your-Own Claymation Movie
The claymation movie was the best. We spent many, many hours with floral wire and Play-doh yesterday evening, and today I am finishing up the credits and preparing to burn our Claymation masterpiece onto a DVD. It’s not quite as funny today as it was after half a bottle of pinot grigio, but it’s still pretty funny.
he’s an intellectual
Liveblogging the drunken reunion
- An ant just crawled into my keyboard
- Father McDonnel’s Angry Letters to Assholes
- DELAWARE, dammit
- Pizza! Owen had the blue cheese dressing. And that’s it.
- Resident Evil II
- The guy who peed in the parking lot at our wedding
- Ethanol?
- beer. i like beer.
- I get jokes.
- Quebecois!
- Fur Elise: Not appropriate for an ice cream truck
- I hate that bitch.
- You can’t get cheese curds any more.
- You can fly THAT under my radar
- I’m all moist!
- 99 percent Deet
- “You got to gits yourself a ghillie suit!”
- Fucking Goliath beetle, man. It was beetle-esque.
- I was all pockmarked from gravel.
- I may have just peed a little.
- What say we shimmy up that tree there?
- “They call me Cobra.” Wonder what HE’S doing with himself these days?
- When was Naked Darts? Ought-three? ‘Cause we were together. Y’know, physically. Three to a bed.
- (Three beers is definitely my limit)
- “entropy would be the heat death of the universe.” “entropy would begin with the heat death of you and me.”
- It’s like the time of the orange juice.
You can call me a lady blockhead
I’m reading a collection of Mike Royko’s columns (“One More Time,” definitely worth checking out), and on page 211 he quotes Samuel Johnson:
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
I guess I’m a blockhead. Or does this quote not apply to women?
Get you some weekend plans
For all my homies in the greater D.C. area: This weekend launches the D.C. Rock’n’Romp 2006 Season! Great local bands, great place to take the kiddos, great place to have a cup of beer.
For … well, me, and Iain: This weekend launches the Return Of Clint! Great out-of-town friends, great times drinking cheap wine, great excuses to write drunken blog posts.
You’ve been warned.
Guilt-free “Me Time”: How to get it, what to do with it
I’ve been thinking lately: how do you handle “me time”? You know, time to yourself to eat Captain Crunch in peace, or to check the blogs in your feedreader, or to tweeze your eyebrows. How much is enough? Are you OK with just five minutes a day in which to go to the bathroom unassisted? Or do you need more like three or four hours and a bottle of wine? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Ahem.
Things have gotten soooo much easier now that Owen’s a little bit older. Seventeen months seems to be an all-right age as far as entertaining himself for up to three or four minutes at a time. But when he was just a little thing I remember feeling so gray and hopeless, thinking I would never, ever again get to brush my teeth without a baby strapped to my chest.
Sometimes I think I’m a little too laissez-faire in the mornings; I’ve been known to park him in front of Sesame street in order to gulp down my first cup of Folger’s and steal a smoke on the back porch to steel me against the oncoming day. And then I feed him breakfast, and then I check my e-mail, and it’s pretty much a tug-of-war all morning between him wanting to show me dirt specks and me wanting to find out if anyone’s posted new pictures on Flickr.
So I wonder: What’s normal? How do you balance your kid versus yourself? And if you do spend time to yourself — like, say, a day in Brooklyn — how do you do it without feeling at least a little guilty?
addendum this morning: mama c-ta talks about this too, in a much more … heartfelt way.
Don’t move a muscle, it’s perfect just as it is
I have the same feeling right now as you get after finishing a super deluxe fudge covered brownie a la mode: blissful, sticky-toothed, content, satisfied. And maybe craving a cigarette or some cheese doodles.
Saturday was the Moms Gone Renegade road trip up to Williamsburg, Brooklyn (let me hear you say ho-oh!). There was much coffee, and then McCarren Park was filled to the brim with prim — cute DIY indie crafters and their snarky T-shirts, vintage shirtwaist dresses, and 80’s-throwback flats. I was a little intimidated at first, because it was BROOKLYN and it was HIPSTERS and OMG they’re all gonna laugh at me. Because, y’know, I am not indie or alterna-girl in the leastways bit. As I have been told.
But after wandering the park and talking to some people, I suddenly had a moment of clarity: This is not about Williamsburg hipper-than-thou art-school dropouts giving me the stinkeye. This is about people with a certain passion — makin’ shit — and I could identify with that. These were my people, in a way. I do too belong. It was a little epiphany, but one that brightened my mental landscape like noon on a dodgeball court.
And then Duff appeared. Karen Duffy, former Charlie Red spokeswoman and MTV V.J. She had a camera crew. I was too much of a wimp to take her picture, even though I had been holding Debbie’s camera all damn day and trying to shoot pictures of things like Pee Wee Herman. I knew, even as I looked upon her strangely plasticine face and jet black hair, that I would look back on that moment of recognition and kick myself for not taking her picture.
This is that moment. See MB kick. Kick, MB, kick.
OK. Done self-flagellating. Let’s see, other highlights: I bought a t-shirt for Owen and a t-shirt for me from Raeburn Ink; I bought the world’s best a-line skirt from Fred Flare’s sidewalk booth; I bought a present for my sister but I can’t tell you what it is because sometimes she reads this silly old thing and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
Then we got ice cream and drove home to see our babies, whom we missed very, very much.
Sunday was Father’s Day, as you may well be aware. Iain slept late and was presented with Dunkin Doughnuts, an aim’n’flame, an emergency NASA-esque space blanket, a watering can, a book of Sudoku puzzles, and a CD. And some other stuff. We played out on the deck that morning, letting Owen run around commando-style and just kind of grooving out. And then. And then.
And then we went to the swedish furniture store because it is inexpensive and because my husband loves me very very very much and we bought new curtains and new rugs and OMFG a new sofa and yes maybe I shed a tear or two, so sue me.
And thus concludes the Best Weekend Ever. Gimme my cheeze doodles.
recent flickr
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my sewing tutorials
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