with the radio on

but jonathon didn't play roadrunner last night, in fact, I've never heard him play roadrunner live. I wonder if that was song requested by the skinny girl to whom he said, no dear, I've only played that song once in the past thirty years and I'm not gonna play it tonight...
and then he launched right into pablo picasso. and he did that modern lovers song that talks about the old world and the new world. but he didn't play back in your life, my favorite song, or everyday clothes, my other favorite song, or chewing gum wrapper or fender stratocaster or even action packed or vincent van gogh or velvet underground or the beach, all staples of his atlanta bar shows in the early nineties.
and it could be that I'm just a crusty old curmudegeon, holding on to my early nineties as tight as I can.

the first time I ever saw him (it was february, 1990)he did this song that I'd never heard before and haven't heard since, that goes:
jonathon, jonathon, whaddaya want?
something something something and a croissant?
not me
too much talkin goin on
can't be inside talkin
got to be outside rockin

I trust the reader understands that when I say "something something something" what I mean to convey is my lack of recollection of the actual words... and I have just been informed by cheryljill that the song in question is titled "cappucino bar." so put it on that mix cd you're brewing up for me, reader dear.

so once again I was up til 3. I seem to keep forgetting that we don't have a morning nanny around here. and now we're off, off to see my friend s. in the hospital, she had her baby boy yesterday. she wants reading material and candy.

super size this

I went yesterday and saw super size me all by my lonesome.
I have to say I loved and hated it. I am constantly pissed and amazed at the inability of so many seemingly bright and creative folks to speak out against all that is evil about this culture of fast food and give me convenience or give me death and etc. without being hateful towards fat folks. homeboy skimmed right over some big issues - skinny middle school girls eating nothing but fries and soda for lunch, for example, and a comment about the diet industry being huge while pro-active attention to one's health is made difficult, but still he focuses a lot on the "obesity epidemic" business.

anyhow.

mcdonald's. when I was little, the closest mcdonald's was in downtown fort myers, 40 minutes from home, so we only went there now and then, and when we did, we'd squeeze the insides of the french fries out for my baby sister to eat. when we ate out, it was usually for chinese or pizza. or that mexican place near the beach. the split rail. I still recall their enchiladas.

when I was a starving teenager, I was all about subsisting on fries and a soda, or making one wendy's chicken sandwich last all day. in my teens and early twenties, it was a tradition for my friends and me to go to mcdonald's on new year's eve and gorge on fries. I'm not sure why. when I was 16, I ate at the mcdonald's in helsinki even though I was extremely embarrassed to do so, because all of the other restaurants in walking distance of our hotel were way out of my price range and it was hours until dinner. when I was 20, I ate at the mcdonald's on boston common once because I was so very over the painfully correct and critical group I had been stuck with for traveling companions, I was sick of their whining about food and so I went, I had a quarter pounder with cheese and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

watching the film nauseated me, though. I couldn't finish my popcorn. I came home and urged mbd to stop giving the kids chicken nugget happy meals. and I wish I had a live-in girlfriend who was a vegan chef, damn.

we went to whole foods this afternoon for some staples but also a few things for the trip to texas. so that we won't be stuck with so few non-junk options. nash asked me why healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. lately he is very concerned about everything - is it healthy? is it okay for me to eat some not healthy things as long as I've eaten some healthy things? I am torn between feeling like it's good for him to have an awareness of nutrition and worrying that I'm making him neurotic.

mmmmm. I'm sleepy. the kids are watching the hobbit and eating burritos. I just ate a bowl of evil jungle prince and drank a second emergenC. my ear hurts again. I am tired and cranky and have that wouldn't you like to get sick itch in the back of my throat.

but, today we went to the aquarium and then toured a dredge vessel that's docked in the quarter. a great big ship, it was cool to go all the way to the top of it. we were stir crazy after so many rainy afternoons. well, the kids were. I just want to sleep. I want them to go to sleep so I can watch lost in translation.

I remember this rankin-bass animation from my childhood. I saw it on tv, just before reading the book.

You're a Speak & Spell!! You nerd, you. Just
because you were disguised as a toy doesn't
mean you weren't educational, you sneaky
bastard.


What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

8:04 AM and I'm the only one awake.

my contacts are uncomfortable; I've been recycling the same pair since november.

yesterday I spent a ridiculous amount of time online, being unusually productive. I got major things accomplished for camp, for work, for my summer travels. I spent a lot of time on the amtrak website.

the kids and I now have a ride from DC to camp, so that we can take the train there instead of all the way to NY. this is excellent, because we had no good chance of a ride from NYC to camp, and the train trip from NY to albany was murder last year. so was the hour spent in penn station. to no longer have the fear of those experiences hanging over me, it's wonderful. I feel way less anxious about the summer in general.

BUT: I still need a roommate and a hotel room for long beach, and that's big, that's very big. I am trying to be hopeful about long beach but I fear that it may be the most difficult part of the summer. last year, boston sure was.

liam just woke up:
"I had a bad dream. a dragon ate me."

my neck. is so. sore.
my kingdom for a chiropractor. or a massage therapist. or whatever.

the kids are watching young frankenstein and eating chips and guac for dinner. we had a large meal at 4. this is the eating style I prefer.

it's unusual for me to blog more than once a day - I'm generally more of a once a week blogger - but today, I have to. I called up someone I'd met a few weeks ago at unschool group, well, we met online via a mutual friend, then met in person at unschool group for nash's birthday, and then made plan after plan to hang out... between her four kids and my two, something was always coming up to prevent our getting together.
last thursday, we finally met up and went to the aquarium, but everything was stacked against it being an enjoyable experience for us: there were at least four school groups having field trip days; three out of our six kids were irreparably cranky; and we encountered several pointlessly rude childless folks. my favorite of those encounters was the lady who announced with a scowl, as she walked past our group of howlers, "well, when you have too many, you can't keep them happy!" gee, thanks, ma'am. aren't you sweet.
our visit was cut short due to mass hysteria among the children, and today I realized a whole week had passed. I wanted to call her up to make sure that she knew I hadn't been scarred by the experience. the first thing she said was that she was surprised (relieved?) that she hadn't read about it in my blog!
nah, it wasn't that bad. I mean, it sucked! but I've been through just as bad. and at least it wasn't raining. and nobody puked. so there you go. we'll try again.

there is a gw bush coloring book exhibit at fair grinds (is it fair grind or fair grinds? anyhow, that coffeehouse by the fairgrounds) tomorrow night, but will I make it? probably not. and son del pantano is playing at the family friendly happy hour at the mermaid lounge, too. will I be there? highly unlikely.

liam slept from 8:30 til 8. for which I am thankful. right before he went to sleep, he was watching kiki, he had thrown a massive hysterical fit on the walk home from the park and was worn out, wore me out to the extent that dinner was toaster waffles (organic! on sale!), and he said, "my belly is already asleep, and that means that I had better go to sleep now."

in the past couple of weeks he stopped calling me "mom." for which I am thankful. I hate to be called mom, by anyone. mama is not so bad, but mom I dislike. or the dreaded mommmmmyyyyy. ugh. I grew up calling my parents by their names and nash has always called me by mine, except for the mum-mum-mah of babyhood, and then, at just under a year, his first nickname for me of whooo-zat, caused by his father pointing to me each time they came to pick me up from school, asking the baby, "who's that? who's that?" but when we moved here, liam was just turned two and, for all of us but mbd, it was our first experience with total immersion in mainstream culture via the busy neighborhood playground. on the playground, every woman is mom or mommy. and so, by two and half, liam was calling me mom. mommy if he was scared.

I'm relieved that it's ended with no effort on my part. I think if he knew it bugged me, he'd never have stopped...

my neck is still sore, it has been for two weeks now. I am at a bit of a loss.
I'm sick of this.

we're going to target this morning. for more new drawers. and toilet paper, saline solution, and a bra. once the underwire has popped out of place and is poking you, it's hopeless, right? I mean, is there any chance for repair?

I am reading the almanac of the dead and the next carol o'connell thriller: crime school. I like the word thriller. I don't own the album, thriller, and never have wanted to. I think the song sucks and the video, too. although I do enjoy billie jean.

the kids are watching scooby-doo. later today, I am unplugging the cable. I have told them that after today, we won't have cable anymore. I have not told them that I am doing it on purpose - not that I made up a lie, just omitted some details. just said, well, after today we won't have all those channels anymore, but we'll still have pbs AND now that we have a dvd player, we can watch all kinds of great movies. and they are pleased. nash wants me to rent the sound of music! my strange little child. mister tough guy who loves musicals.

the cable is something we have for free. which is why I have never unplugged it, I always feel like, oh but it's free, we might as well... and at first I really enjoyed it, especially the TLC & food network shows. but I'm over them. lately all I watch is bravo and various movies. seems to me now that I can see whatever I really want via netflix and pbs. and the kids' addiction to cartoon network & disney & nick really drives me nuts. better the sound of music every day than that.

right now I have disc 1 of freaks & geeks, pete's dragon and tipping the velvet, which I am saving to watch with rosana in celebration of her first year of grad school.

when I'm finished with freaks & geeks, I'm going to discover six feet under. then I'll be cool. sure. hey. who needs friends when you have tv?

(this is from last night)
all of the food talk and all of our issues that come with it, it's reminding me of the film Eating. I saw it all by myself, one fine afternoon at the dollar theater in atlanta, musta been 1990 or 91, I think 91, and anyhow, it was a first step for me in saying yeah, I have a problem, I have issues, all those times I said I wasn't hungry, hello, I was lying, this is who I am.
and afterwards, I went to the grocery store and when I walked in I felt so good, like, I can buy whatever I want and I'm going to enjoy it! and then I just walked and walked around, I couldn't bring myself to get anything. I walked home crying and thought, okay, it's okay, I'm kind of fucked up but at least it's out in the open now, and it's going to be okay.

but also

I nearly forgot that it is post poetry day. I always feel particulary poetry illiterate, but here are two of my favorites.

this one, that always reminds me of my former roommate, jamie, who was inclined to make every household note into a poem:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

and, my childhood favorite (it had special meaning for me, as a sea captain's daughter):


Wreck of the Hesperus

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintery sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The Skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
for I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring,
Oh, say, what may it be?"
"Tis a fog-bell on a rock bound coast!" --
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns;
Oh, say, what may it be?"
Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light.
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(this is from yesterday)
in light of the jazz fest rain-out, zack, who was visiting, has gone and all I have left of him are these dinner leftovers. I'll eat them later.
I went to work, and the bank, bought supplies for sunday and then went to the movies. I got there at 12:40 and so my choices were dogville, monsieur ibrahim and goodbye lenin. I chose goodbye lenin and found it sweet and sad and funny. the general scene at the theater was also funny - heaps of tourists here for jazz fest - it's pouring down rain and they are at a loss. the place was packed. packed out, dude, as they say.
there was a 15 minute popcorn delay while they popped more and it was amazing how irked some folks got over this. I just sat and waited. my fresh, hot popcorn was well worth it.
as I went in, a disgruntled couple was leaving in the middle of eternal sunshine, the guy was saying, "it's just not enjoyable!" well. as I left afterward, a couple was exiting dogville, the woman proclaiming, "it was horrible. horrible!"
me, I called zack and learned that he had gone ahead and hit the road. he doesn't like the rain. I walked through the wet quarter, dodging dumbasses with umbrellas. I went to walgreen's, also packed, and got hair dye, mane & tail conditioner, deoderant, new sunglasses and a copy of instyle.
here I am, dye on my head, um, some shade of auburn, I don't recall, by garnier. do they say cut then color or color then cut? well, anyhow, I washed, then colored, and then I'll deep condition and check out how much of the ends really need cutting. my goal is to cut as little as possible.

between the march on washington and jazz fest, no one's reading. and that's okay.
and while I am in texas attending a national unschooling conference on memorial day weekend, ladyfest texas will be taking place just an hour or two away in austin, and I'll miss it. and that's more or less okay, I mean, the rethinking education conference is all paid for, and not by me, and I have no resources for getting to ladyfest anyhow. I do hope I get to one someday.

this morning's ordeal went as smoothly as can be expected and I managed not to hurl. now liam is at my parents' house, with his former teeth in a little box for the tooth fairy and everything. he's feeling fine. my baby will be completely minus his top front teeth for the next few years - wah.

thanks to the tooth pulling fun, it's tv-positive day here at my house. thanks to that, I was able to finish my book, stone angel by Carol O'Connell, and it was delicious. soon I'll start the next one. I love to just tear through a series, to get so into a set of characters.

I made more curry. delicious. I think I have found my new staple.

tomorrow I am going to get a new PO box, at the copy shop next to nash's kung fu studio. I also have to go to work to get envelopes and stamps for a parent mailing, and swing by the store for canned goods to drop off for food for fines week at the library. after that I've promised nash that we will "do science projects."

it's so nice to eat something tasty. these three weeks (okay, tomorrow it will have been three weeks of full on anti-yeast eating), so much of the time eating has been a purely functional, er, function and I hate that. I love to eat. not just that, though - it is important to me to maintain eating as a pleasureable experience, I don't want to lose that, to get all depraved by deprivation.

just got the latest issue of bitch. read bee lavender's piece. trippy.
yep, I went to the lilith fair courtesy of hip mama, courtesy of chickclick... and took my two year old with me. it was his second big concert, and his first time eating ice cream. I was 8 months pregnant with my second, and it was hot as hell.

if I weren't sick, this would be some kind of cushy life. breakfast in bed, and then two hours of the west wing followed by law and order...
but I am sick although better today than yesterday, at last. yesterday was the worst. intense sinus pain and fatigue. I took some children's decongestant before bed last night and it helped me to sleep, although I'm sure it had some sort of sugar in it.
my primary objective is to not be sick for the weekend, for saturday would be nice but certainly for work sunday morning. mbd will be off tomorrow and he has agreed to take nash to the seder after kung fu class. I don't want to be sniffling and sneezing all over the seder plate.
I'm very much over being hungry all the time. right now I'm eating a pink lady. that's good stuff. but it's never enough. and the trouble is, my internal Eating Disorder Girl just loves being hungry. it's a job to keep her from taking over.
in a little while I'm going to bake myself some potatoes.

I picked this up from fleagirl...
and it's so appropriate because I was already feeling self-conscious about having used the fuck word several time sin my blog this morning.

IT'S NATIONAL F-WORD DAY!

The day we collectively tell the Federal Communications Commission to stop wasting its time prohibiting broadcasters from airing the word "FUCK"...

...And to start doing what they're mandated to do: ensure the public has access to a variety of opinions and viewpoints in the media.

Don't forget to fly your FUCK flag high today, by giving "FUCK" a place of prominence in your websites, blogs and/or webzines.

And while you're at it, send a FUCKload of Faxes, emails, phone calls and letters to the FuCkC, advising them to step the FUCK back off FUCKing "FUCK."

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

FCC chairman Michael Powell: Michael.Powell@fcc.gov
FCC main phone line: 1-888-CALL-FCC
FCC FAX line: (202) 418-0710

Forward this reminder at will. We shall over-FUCKing-come.

the uplift mofo party plan

for the fourth year in a row, nash's birthday party plans have relied heavily on good, clear weather and for the fourth year in a row we have completely lucked out. it's going to be clear and warm and just fine.
mbd made the cake last night (carrot), and this morning he'll go map out the treasure hunt. this time 7 years ago, I think I was just arriving at the hospital, having awakened a little before 7 (after two hours of sleep, having been vomiting much of the night) to the gush of amniotic fluid leaving my body, then discovered that our phone was disconnected, then got into the borrowed car (ours had been totalled a few days before), went to the nastiest payphone ever (on moreland, at the edge of little five points), fended off sleazy, stinky guys, did NOT stop for food even though I was starving because I though perhaps there was some urgency to my situation, and then got to the hospital only to spend at least an hour sitting around in admitting...
april 1, 1997 was a lousy fucking day and I hated it. april 2, 1997 started out pretty fucking bad, they pulled the kid right out of my womb a little after 6 AM, showed him to me and I passed back out, but around 9, which is when we finally got him back, I was feeling momentarily good, nursing him was great and I called at least thirty people, sitting there in the bed with my phone list from home, making all these calls that went like, well, I had the baby a few hours ago... his name is Nashua... yeah he's pretty big for a baby... nursing is great... I never thought I'd have to spend 24 hours in labor AND have surgery, what a fucking rip-off... I don't know why I had to have surgery... no, not because he's big, I don't believe that... etc.

now, on april 2, 1998, we gave Nash his first ever bagel - his first encounter with white flour and eggs. and he loved it. we invited a handful of folks over but torrential rains kept most of them away. jane, mark and duncan showed. jane gave nash a t-shirt that said "read to me" and a rainbow babies board book. mark held him and danced with him. duncan came late and we watched soul food and cried together.

on april 2, 1999, I was pregnant and nash and I had both just recovered from a severe case of bronchitis about two weeks before. it had been an intense, scary experience. we knew a few people via hipmama.com at that point, and invited some of them over. as it turned out, tessa was the only one who could make it at all and mbd had to go pick her and her sweet baby up. we had just got a baby pool and nash and I played on our gorgeous front porch while we waited for them. but by the time they arrived, he was very cranky and weird, didn't even want to try the carrot cake, which was to be his first real (sugarfest!) cake. tessa and resse gave him a large floor puzzle that liam still uses sometimes, although it's seen a lot of wear and tear now. and a few hours after they went home nash began to puke, beginning a three day vomit and diarrhea fest that took the entire household by storm.

april 2, 2000, we had been living in mississippi since mid-november, and in our own ugly little house since february. we had my parents, my sister and her husband, and this couple we'd met and their child who was two weeks younger than nash. they were very into reiki. my sister baked the cake, my parents brought drinks and ice cream, I gave a nash a little wooden train. the reiki family gave him a big, plastic playhouse with pooh characters all over it.

april 2, 2001, we invited a small handful of folks to the beach at dauphin island in alabama, for cake, ice cream and playing. we asked that there be no gifts, or simple gifts from nature. our LLL/UU friend from mobile with the three kids brought him a bag of seeds to plant, and the reiki family brought some flowers. it was sweet, he was happy. my sister was there with her fat little baby girl, and my mother was there. I had goody bags for the kids - 6 of them - with bug catchers and pinwheels. nash and I played in the waves.

april 2, 2002 was the first big deal event. because we'd been living in this very neighborhood-ly neighborhood for several months, we had, for the first time, been attending other children's birthday parties and so Nash had some ingredients that he felt must be included in order for it to be a real party. balloons. a pinata. a really big cake. he made a picture for my sister of the cake he wanted, and she made it. my sister gave me $60 to hire a professional housecleaner in case of rain. we set up the back patio (no yard, just an enclosed cement space) with chalk, bubbles, toys, chairs. I got all martha stewart and created this garden-spring theme with plant pots packed full of ice cream, covered with grated chocolate and then with a flower (plastic) stuck in each. this was a scaled down version of my original plan which had involved real flowers, making homemade tofutti and having the kids paint the pots. I did spend too much money on balloons from party city, so that each child could be sent home with one. we had a lot of kids - maybe twenty? we invited at least 25. we had a store bought pull pinata filled with overpriced plastic toys, no candy: bouncy balls, tiny slinkies, dinosaurs, etc. and I knew that we were now immersed in a culture in which discouraging gifts would be completely ignored. plus it would bum nash out.
it was wonderful when nash brought out the ice cream pots on a tray and they all sat down angelically eating them. nash still talks about how cool it as that we "fooled everyone" with chocolate dirt. the pinata action was insane, some of the kids ripped it to shreds and kicked it around the patio. the gift haul was overwhelming - I'd never seen anything like it. and my parents were there, and my sister and niece, my brother inlaw videotaping everything.

april 2, 2003 nash wanted to invite "everyone" so I decided that our house was not an option. we chose the neighborhood park and invited everyone, handing out invitations at the neighborhood playgroup two fridays in a row. my mother sprang for snacks and such at Sam's, spending I don't recall how much on cases of ice cream sandwiches, goldfish, coke, juiceboxes, ice, everything. my sister brought her canopy tent. rosana fashioned the mother of all pinatas into a harry potter masterpiece and we stuffed it with candy and a ton of weird little toys that I'd trash-picked and cleaned off. we bought a small, good cake from the fancy bakery and let the kids gorge on candy and ice cream bars while we enjoyed it. it was a circus, it was a zoo, it was nuts. my parents were not there. nash lost his first tooth in the middle of the party. and my brother inlaw took digital pictures this time instead of videotaping. I forgot my camera.

and so tomorrow, we will gather at the park uptown, in the spot where our unschool group meets, and there will be goldfish and homemade hummus and fruit and juice and bottled water, a homemade cake painted like a jolly roger, a big ass pinata full of stickyhands and bouncy balls and chewy candy, a treasure hunt leading to a chest of chocolate coins, ice cream sandwiches, my mother and my sister and my niece, rosana and unschool group friends and church friends and kung fu class friends and a few of the neighborhood folks and dude, I have to remember to get some film for my camera. nash has another loose tooth.

seven oh six ay em.
I went to sleep at 9:30 last night. liam went to sleep during a story (peter pan) at 8, and then I read nash another chapter of harry potter & the chamber of secrets and sent him to settle down and let me read. and by 9:30 I was nodding off violently, doing that thing where you just give your eyes a little rest in the middle of the page...

I still get defensive about how much sleep I need. or, I've had a resurgence of defensiveness about it since hitting my thirties. it has nothing to do with age - I've needed to make sleep a priority since I was 18, since I spent a year as a semi-invalid with chronic fatigue. that year, I called myself an inVALid. and I felt like my life was over.

so I get defensive when folks talk about turning in early meaning that they, or I, are "old." for me, the only part age is playing is that I have the wisdom and deep investment in self-preservation thing going on. I know what it feels like to be sick all the time. and I know that if I get overtired, I will be mean, sad and ultimately, sick. so I make not getting overtired a priority.

but 9:30! wow. that's unusual. and I have these feelings of I should have been writing, I should have been cleaning, I should have been doing yoga... but I was sleeping. and I feel okay.

oh right on!
and don't you forget it.


Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

Seattle
Your dark exterior masks a caffeine driven activism. You'll take up a cause and you'll get ugly to advance it.

I knew I'd get this result, because I could tell that neither new orleans nor atlanta were options.
I love the chance to use "nor" in a sentence.

liam's notorious "when you have to do what you have to do/you are my rock'n'roll person" song is on the audblog below.

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last night, before bed, the combination of watching velvet goldmine and a conversation I had with rosana made me crave david bowie, and realize that oh yeah, I DO have a bowie CD now - my friend zack sent me one back in september. I am so used to thinking that all of my bowie is on vinyl, it's just a habit of the past 8 years or so to assume that I never get to listen to him anymore. and how I love him, like nobody's business. so the kids and I, we danced to david bowie and it was awesome. they were hilarious, taking turns imitating my dance style - "look, coleen, this is what you look like!" "no, this is what she looks like!" - apparently, I look ridiculous, but that's okay.
when we lived in mississippi, partly because we had a total lack of social life, every single evening after dinner, we'd dance our asses off, nash, liam and me. I'm thinking we should reconnect with that tradition.

liam got up at 6. and raised hell. his favorite way to drive me insane is to whistle at me in the early morning hours. I finally turned on the tv and went back to sleep at 7. first I watched a few minutes of the awful show he was watching, for a change of pace from the othere awful early morning shows: TLC's animal jam. bizarre, the way they ahve all those kids in a studio looking like they're making an aerobics video or something. then I woke up for the last few minutes of magic schoolbus and by that time nash was up. I slept all through sesame street, woke up for good during during rolie polie olie.

but don't worry, strangers on the internet say I'm smart:

I am an Intellectual



Which America Hating Minority Are You?

Take More Robert & Tim Quizzes
Watch Robert & Tim Cartoons

my room makes up the entire upstairs portion of this house. being a camel-back, it has a second story that is stuck on like an afterthought, and as such it has windows on all four sides. which is gorgeous, in theory. but it also has blinds, which I hate, and when I sit at the computer at this hour of the morning (7:15) the sun blazes in through a corner of the blinds and gets me right in the eyes.
so there's my argument for not trying to work early in the morning.
all week I've been going to sleep around 10, 10:30, I mean falling hard into sleep. I guess I'm well rested but it leaves me feeling unaccomplished, or like I am just marking time, like, okay, what am I doing? the only night this week that I was up late was the night I watched the pianist, it kept me up til nearly one.
liam is still sleeping. nash is in my bed, where he moved because he got cold in the middle of the night, and he's lying there picking his nose.
the tv is off and I'd like to keep it that way. it is so difficult to get a break from the noise of the tv lately. plus I have guilt because liam at four and half has seen so much stupid drivel that nash at four and a half was never exposed to. it's just sad. I'd like to blow the rugrats off the face of the earth. no little kid needs that clear a script for mean-and-nastiness. let them find their own path to their individual brand of mean-and-nastiness... then at least it might be entertaining. like nash's four year old insult: meet-a-motthead. it's much more fun to be called that than "you stupid baby!". kiss my ass, angelica.
I detest those "live, learn and get luvs" ads and in general, they do not match up with my parenting life - we continued on with cloth diapers with our second child, for example, and were actually more conservative with his eating (delayed solids), did more intentional attachment parenting with him (because we had read more about it, and observed more), delayed/declined vaccinations, were better, more informed advocates for him during his first few hours of newborn life in the hospital, etc. and when liam was a baby, we didn't even have a tv in the house. but since he turned three, it's been pretty nuts. well. no. the marking point is actually, since I got this job. almost two years. almost.
I read bell hooks' all about love last night. I think it depressed me. it certainly left me more sad than inspired. then I started natalie goldberg's thunder and lightning.
I dreamed I was suddenly at the oscars. some best actress nominee had been disqualified due to bad behavior (!) and so I was nominated, for my work in a small film. I was trying to mingle and be cool but I kept losing my children in the crowd. gwyneth was really, really nice to me and I felt guilty for having never cared for her. I wore a black dress, long and vintage-y.
liam is waking up and awwwwwwwww they are snuggling. gorsh they're so beautiful. and now they just turned the tv on. damn. spongebob. could be worse.

bedtime last night

liam: mom, why do they call it a library?
me: well, because that -
liam: why do they call it a book?
me: hmmm?
liam: why do they call it a frog?
me: goodnight, liam

and from free will astrology:

Lent is the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter when devout Christians commemorate the 40 days that Christ allegedly spent resisting the devil's temptations in the wilderness. Growing up Episcopalian, I was taught to imitate Jesus every year at this time by giving up something I had a strong attachment to. My usual choice was candy. It so happens, Virgo, that even if you're not Christian, the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to renounce three experiences that you have become a bit addicted to. Those experiences are berating yourself, denying yourself pleasure, and giving till it hurts. I urge you to give them all up between now and April 10.

I think this is something I can get behind.
one of my neighbors and I have committed to a walking routine, and watching each others' kids so that we can walk in peace. we started just after mardi gras, and she said, "for lent, I ain't giving up a damn thing." and I've been thinking, well, but we're giving up, uh, sloth or whatever. now I'm thinking, what is it with me and always needing to feel like I've got to give something up?

You're Catch-22!

by Joseph Heller

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you
see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense
of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an
ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You
could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of
people.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

a series of liam's wake-ups

2/3
I'm feeling like a subpar parent.
liam's first words this morning were, "is your headache gone yet? can I have the remote?"

2/5
liam at 7:30:
mom, can I watch tv? where is the remote? hey mom, you have been letting me watch tv every day! how about if we only watch tv on fridays and saturdays!
me: it's thursday
liam: okay, how about we only watch tv on thursdays, and on thursdays we'll watch tv allllll day. hey, mom, do you need to sleep? hey mom, I'll bet you love me, right mom?
me: yes I love you
liam: you love me so much that you never want me to leave?
me: um. no until you're ready.
liam: when I'm ready I can go to the park all by myself?
me: no, NO, stay in bed, I meant when you are a grown up and you're ready
liam: when I'm a grown up you'll be old, mom. hey mom, someday you'll die! do you need to sleep, mom?

2/6
liam at 8 AM:
mom, are there any trains in new orleans?
me: yes
liam: ther are LOTS of trains in new orleans, right? maybe ten? and even some in algiers point! and also trolleys. more trolleys than trains even. hey! did you hear that? was that a train or a boat?

2/10
liam at 8 AM: "did I sleep? I didn't sleep. I did NOT sleep. you need to sleep, I don't."

2/11
liam at 7:30:
mom, is our car broken? when our car was broken, they had to come with a tow truck. with ALL the tow trucks. someday our car will be broken again, because, when it's time to die, all of the meteors will come down. because, mom, there's lots of worlds. and mom, someday YOU will have a birthday. I want you to have a surprise party.

2/13
Liam at 8:30: can I watch my video now? can I watch it RIGHT NOW?
(after a stomping and screaming interlude, then there was some cuddling, and I said-)
me: mmmm, you're good for eating!
liam: and YOU are good for sleeping, mom! you are really good at sleeping. ha ha, you are the best sleeper I know! does it make you laugh when I say that, mom?

2/16
liam at 8 AM:
did I fell asleep before the end of chitty chitty bang bang? can I watch it again right now? is the sun all the way up?

2/17
liam at 8:15 AM:
I dreamed that I was in a soccer game at monkey hill, with my friends, and I went backwards from the way that you are supposed to go, I was up on the ramp part, kicking the ball up and up and up and then down the wooden part, and I was really kicking the way that my friends teached me.
me: who were these friends?
liam: you KNOW, my FRIENNNNNDS
me: were they people I know?
liam: one was a boy, one was a girl, and they were older than me. they were not teenagers, they were not grown-ups, but they were older than me.
nash: of course they weren't grown-ups. why in the heck would you have friends who were grown-ups?
me: well you guys have friends who are grown-ups.
liam: yeah, like Kami!

2/19
liam at 7:45:
mom what day is it?
(and then, after a discussion of days)
can I watch some tv now?
me: if you can be very quiet
liam: you mean not yell and sing?
me: right. I need for you to let your bother rest, and let me rest, too.
liam: (exasperated sigh) but mom, I just love rockin too much! I just want to be rockin all day.

2/20
liam is off to the doctor for more shots.
he woke up around 8:30 and started playing right away with his mini flashlight bead - a muses catch - and I think his first words to me were, "open up and let me have a look, mom! you're a very good patient..."
poor kid. I think this is the last round. I hope so.

I was catching up on blog reading - I only read blogs once a week or less, so I got caught up on smallhands, which is my favorite, and then read some more, including esperanza, and felt inspired to check out her partner's blog: radikal papi
cool!

liam at 7:30:
mom, is our car broken? when our car was broken, they had to come with a tow truck. with ALL the tow trucks. someday our car will be broken again, because, when it's time to die, all of the meteors will come down. because, mom, there's lots of worlds. and mom, someday YOU will have a birthday. I want you to have a surprise party.

(I thought for sure he was going to say that someday I would die, since he tells me this at least once a day. I am allowed to get as old as grandpa, whom he thinks will die very soon. my father is in pretty good health.)

last night's news:

1: it HAILED tonight! ice all over my front porch. I love that stuff. Nash is going to be so pissed that he missed it.

2: free will astrology
I rarely employ my mediumistic skills, but a host of spirits was just clamoring to address you this week. So I agreed to channel five of them, on the condition that they'd be brief and to the point. Here, then, are your advisors from the other side of the veil. First, Wernher von Braun: "Research is what you do when you don't know what you're doing." Second, A.A. Milne: "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." Next, Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis." Casey Stengel: "You're lost but you're making good time." Harry S. Truman: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em."

I discovered yesterday that Zoboomofoo has been taken off of my local PBS sheculde and replaced by Boohbah! it's an outrage. not that I have something against Boohbah per se, I haven't even seen it, but surely Boohbah could have had one of the numerous slots given to Arthur or Clifford or the accursed Dragon Tales...




You are Galadriel's Mirrorball. A gift to her from
Sauron in the days when he masked his evil, you
wreak havoc among the weak-minded. The elven
queen herself has been seen sneaking away to
her secret glade to dance the night away to
wicked music. You may be the downfall of
Middle-Earth.


Which completely non-existant Lord of the Rings object are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

ah, one of my all time favorites...

Obituary Note: Joan Aiken, Author of 92 Novels

Adult and children's book author Joan Aiken passed away on January 4
at the age of 79. Popular in both the U.K. and U.S., Aiken wrote in a
variety of genres, including fantasy for adults and children as well
as poetry, plays, horror and short stories. She is perhaps best-known
for her Wolves Chronicles series for children, which began with the
novel The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. The third title in the series,
The Whispering Mountain, won the Guardian's Children's Book Prize in
1968. She also won an Edgar Award in 1972 for Night Fall, a children's
mystery.

Aiken wrote a total of 92 novels in her lifetime, 65 of them for
children. She was published in the U.S. by Delacorte and Houghton
Mifflin, among others. Her most recent book, Midwinter Nightingale,
was published by Delacorte in June 2003. Her final book, The Witch of
Clattering Shaws, will appear in spring 2005.

I don't want the clean sweep people to come to my house. I like my stuff. today, I went through a lot of it - mostly the paper part. and I threw away a large bag full of papers. but I'm glad I did it by myself. I am not interested in anyone else's assessment of my stuff.
one thing I saved, for example, is a note from my friend aram, detailing a list of things he wanted me to pick up from the store in case I went into town. I love it. it's so him.
I am throwing some stuff out but mainly I need to look at what this stuff IS and move it around. I have two small filing cabinets, two drawers each, metal, one black one blue-grey. the bottom drawers of each had not been emptied out since before Nash was born. we have moved five times since then. FIVE. yes. and so I found a plastic tub of markers and crayons which had long since been crushed under the weight of other things, all of my politcal buttons from the late eighties & early nineties (my favorite of which is the one proclaiming, "half gay"), a copy of every newsletter I put together back in the 80s and early nineties, every conference flyer I ever made, every camp yearbook & mugbook I ever got, and so on and so on.
now the drawers are as such: blue top - misc. things that I am saving for pure sentimentality; blue bottom - rowe camp things; black top - files, with things like all things calendar, all things zine, all my issues of the EVI, etc.; black bottom - all camp & conference newsletters, yearbooks, mugbooks & flyers, PLUS all of my papers & exams and things from the mid to late nineties at georgia state, AND the negatives to my wedding pictures.
I was able to get rid of the HUGE box of miscellany on top of the black filing cabinet and replace it with two small boxes, one of sentimental things and one of active stuff. at least half of my sentimental keepings are photos. next stop, putting things into albums! yikes.

oh good, I can get a job!


Good. You know your music. You should be able to
work at Championship Vinyl with Rob, Dick and
Barry


Do You Know Your Music (Sorry MTV Generation I Doubt You Can Handle This One)
brought to you by Quizilla

In the interest of producing something coherent about my travels of last summer, I am trying hard to bring last june into focus. the trip to providence and boston. I remember everything about being in providence and boston, it's the drive I've lost. I remember eating "steak-out" take-out food in a hotel room. I remember listening to 8 accursed magic treehouse books on tape and loathing them all. I remember the construction back-up in NYC that cost us hours and earned me my mother's deep, burning resentment for acting like miss know it all with the map. I remember liam having to pee all through NYC and there being no place to stop. we stopped at that first exit that feels like you're out of the city, but you're not, you're still in the bronx, but it has a big shopping center with all of these chain stores and fast food and stuff and we went to pee at this little deli wherein some dude was screaming and going off when we first came in, and as I was paying for our snacks (I distinctly recall buying yogurt smoothies for the kids) the proprietress was telling someone, "it's the heat. everybody's goin crazy" and lordy, she wasn't half wrong.
I may have to ask my mother where we spent our nights - in hotels, yes,but to be more specific.
the drive back down I remember pretty clearly.

free will astrology, frighteningly appropriate as ever:

One of your most wonderful qualities is your aptitude for helping people. It's also the part of your nature that is most likely to be abused by charming narcissists and charismatic manipulators. But in 2004, you will have a knack for freeing yourself from these oppressors. You'll be able to spot potential new ones from a mile away, and you'll know how to break the hold that the old ones have on you. Take this pledge now: "I will serve only the smart, effective people who also serve me."

we bought nash a keyboard for winter solstice. $13.88 and he loves it .
lots of playing and singing and songwriting going on. he wants a mic. he wants to record his songs. he said, "when I record my songs on tape, the name of the tape will be The Nasherator 2004."

he is over "fuck" and into "poop."

sadder than that, he and liam are both mostly over the pixies, and into the beastie boys, primus and this song called "oh bondage, up yours!" by the x-ray specs. not that I don't enjoy their current favorites, it's just that I hate to think of them being over the pixies...

thing one & thing two

thing one:
last night, Nash was talking to his grandmother in NH on the phone, and I guess she asked or said something about bedtime (it was 9:30). he said,
"you know coleen isn't really like, (in crazy british sort of accent)'the children must go to bed propahly at bed time!' you know she doesn't beleive in sending us to bed until we're tired, she's like, (in crazy new york-new orleans sort of accent)'whaddaya wanna send'em to bed fah when dey not tiiyid - if dey not tiiyid dat doesn't make any sense!' because you know, I should tell you, if people send kids to bed when they're not tired, they'll never be able to get to sleep, it's just ridiculous!"

thing two:
Liam woke up around 6, crying and sat up to tell me, "don't you EVER take me to the hospital again, not NEVER ever NEVER." I said, OK, I'll try my best not to, and he went back to sleep after a few minutes.
at 8, the phone rang, and he woke up and said, "my dream was all about ANTS, and I was in mississippi and it was a giant ant pile and they were building their house but I thought they were just doing regular ant things so I went right in."

I feel like I've been to hell and back.

on december 17th I took my four year old to the ER in mississippi, where we were visiting family for an early yule celebration. he'd been sick since the previous afternoon with fever and vomiting.
Liam got a quick diagnosis of meningitis, and
then spent about 36 hours in the NICU, until the diagnosis could be narrowed down. By Thursday evening, he was coherent enough to begin voicing his passionate dismay at the whole situation and we could see then that
there was no doubt of him pulling through. The treatment involved a ten day stay, though, so
they moved us into the pediatric ward and there we stayed. Liam got better fast -- it was one of the many surreal aspects of the whole thing.

I think it was friday afternoon - our second day in the ward - that my sister
went out and bought a tv/vcr combo for us and installed it in his room along with many videos, some of which I would never allow under ordinary circumstances. but that it was this is. it is unlimited access to offensive disney videos and hormone laden chocolate milk from enslaved cows. it is letting him hold the remote. it is whatever he wants, whatever gets us through.

there was one nurse who made a comment about the video watching each time she comes in, she seemed to think he was watching too much tv and I'd always bite my tongue while thinking, lady, I have here a kid who, as soon as he was well enough to know what was what, spent much of the day crying about how much he wanted to go home.
if watching videos all day keeps him from counting the hours, what's it to you? of course the same nurse made an uneasy comment about "all of the witchraft" in harry potter, so, yeah... whatever.

When he was not watching his favorite movies
(those would be Little Bear,
Harry Potter, Kiki's Delivery Service, and, much to my chagrin, The Road to El Dorado (what was rosie perez thinking with that movie?)), Liam enjoyed walking the halls, playing with the adjustable bed controls, and... opening mail! We were lucky enough to get lots of letters and packages from friends and relatives.

I fended off the attentions of the hospital chaplain several times. this was our conversation on december 22:

him: how much does your baby understand about
christmas?
me: well, not much because we don't celebrate
christmas.
him: oh, you're jehova's witnesses?
me: no, we're unitarian universalists.
him: oh... well, I am not familiar with
unitarians, but I'll respect
your religion.
me: thanks.
him: I'll keep praying for you.
me: thanks.

all of this time, Liam was growling at him. half an hour later we respectfully declined a group of candystripers who wanted to come into
the room for some bedside carolling.

now, we're home, having a quiet new year's eve and Liam is fully recovered, energetic and completely back to normal. me, I feel like my head is floating somewhere above me, like the stress and fear of this whole adventure is only beginning to settle on me like a big weight.

I'm tired.

I did not try to get this answer... but I didn't try not to either.


You are a Gender Nazi. Your boundary-crossing
lifestyle inspires awe in your friends and
colleagues. Or maybe they're just scared you
will kick their asses for using gender-specific
language. Either way, the wife-beater helps.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

I have $25 left for groceries or anything else I (or mbd) may need before saturday morning. we won't starve, but I hate that feeling of knowing that I have no easy out. I have to eat what's here. and no fancy gingerbread latte at my favorite coffeehouse for me when I take nash to kung fu. and no taxi to or from rosana's gig wednesday night - if I have no ride I just plain can't go.
I want to be able to save that $25 for friday morning's shopping trip of ingredients for cookie dough and maybe egg nog.

I sent liam downstairs to get a muffin, I told him they are in the plastic bag near the milk. he came back with stuff on his face and said he couldn't find them... a half an hour later I went down with him and he said, I couldn't find them so I just ate color candy powder. turns out he ate a baggie of colored sugar intended for cookie decorating - probably only a tablespoon in there, but still. I guess I'm just lucky he didn't go for the baggie of raw chicken.

I have to go the library to return videos. last night I fell asleep at 9 with nash reading to me. I woke up at 12:30 and watched happiness, because it is due today and I have renewed it 4 times already. what a painful, sad, ugly, disturbing film. great music.

my orders:

How should you dress today? by MidnightVampress
Name
Shoes	Platform
Shirt	tube top
bottom	sweatpants
hair	pigtails!!!
makeup	no blush, light foundation
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

my reality:
shoes just wool socks now, doc marten boots when I was out
shirt red long sleeved stretchy t-shirt
bottom olive green trousers that are way too big
hair hat head
make-up chapstick

what if I just posted this every single day for the rest of my life?

the regionalism meme

born and raised in florida, by a native floridian and an early childhood hoosier transplant, with many a summer spent on the gulf and in louisiana bayou country.


1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks? a canal, a creek, or a bayou, depending on where we are and whether its more nature or humna made
2. The thing you push around the grocery store? shopping cart
3. A metal container to carry a meal in? lunch box
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in? frying pan unless it's an iron skillet
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people? couch
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof? gutter
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening? porch - usually a front porch
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages? soda
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup? pancake
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself? sub or a py-boy, depending on the bread
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach? bathing suit
12. Shoes worn for sports? sneakers
13. Putting a room in order? straightening up
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark? firefly.
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball? roly poly
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down? see saw
17. How do you eat your pizza? with my hands, pointy end up to the crust. I rarely eat the crust.
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff? yard sale
19. What's the evening meal? supper when I was a child, now I usually say dinner
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are? basement but we never had any where I come from
21. When you are waiting at the bank, you are standing ____ line? in
22. In a school, if you want a drink of water, where does it come from? water fountain
23. What are the chocolate things that you put on ice cream called? sprinkles
24. Place where you put your towels to dry, above the boiler? huh?
25. Piece of cloth with which you wash your face? washrag
26. Day after Christmas? just that, the day after Christmas
27. Thing women (mostly) use to tie their hair back with: Ponytail holder
28. An unusually heavy rain which does not last long? this is not so regional, but in my family we call it a "fucking monsoon!" or a "fucking torrential downpour!"
29. A window covering on rollers that pulls down? window blind
30. A new, limited access, multi-lane road? interstate highway
31. Heavy garments worn for work? coveralls if they are the ones that you know, cover AlL; overalls otherwise.
32. The area in the house where people usually sit? living room or front room
33. paper thing you carry something home from the store in? grocery bag

the temperature is dropping, fast, and I'm about ready to start baking cookies.
I'm getting excited about attending the bonfire on the levee.
the kids say they are ready to put up our yule lights on the front porch. I spent two hours at work making flyers for our winter holiday fair, and our mitten tree project. I cut and pasted many, many images of trees and logs other greens in use throughout history to celebrate winter's arrival and the return of the sun.
saturday night will find me coring 25 apples for the kids at church to use in the advent garden spiral.
so, yeah, except for the fact that I prefer "pagan-friendly atheist UU" as my religious descriptor, this quiz is pretty right on.


You are 'Deck the Halls'! Let's be honest, it
isn't Christmas you are celebrating, is it? In
fact, you know full well that there were no
shepherds in the fields in December, and that
the date of Christmas was put at midwinter
specifically to coincide with the older
celebrations of Yule and the birth of Mithras.
An unashamed Pagan, you take great glee in the
number of carols referring to holly, evergreens
and Winter's end, and will sing them with
gusto. You know where they really came from.
And you do enjoy the seasonal celebrations,
regardless of their name... A merry Yule to
you!


What Christmas Carol are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

how I make hot chocolate:
I coulda got the idea from anywhere, I guess, but the truth is that it came from a martha stewart kids holiday edition two years ago: take equal parts cocoa and white sugar, mix mix mix them together until they are totally blended and put it in a jar. that's my cocoa mix and I now make some up each time it gets chilly out. a cup of soy milk in the microwave and then stir in the powder... however much looks right. if I'm making it for all of us I'll heat the milk in a pan on the stove instead... I'm not making like it's healthy or anything, but it is way cheaper than prepackaged hot chocolate. this morning mine is embellished with leftover thanksgiving whipped cream.

the flu has loosened its grip on me, slightly. enough so that I can sit here for a few minutes, anyhow. if I had a laptop, it'd be different. this has truly been the worst flu I've had in years. possibly the worst since the one that turned into bronchitis on me in the spring of '99. rough.
my strongest remaining symptoms are weakness and dizzyness. at least I got my voice (almost) back - for a few days there it was just a croak. now I have croaking, yes, and also a pre-pubescent boy's sort of squeak.

I dreamed that I was being given an award for my ability to communicate with children. steve burns was presenting it to me, and I doubled over in a horrible coughing fit. I woke up coughing, sweaty and disappointed.

so my mother called me up and said, oh hey, all those friends of yours are in the new utne reader...
well, yeah! not just my friends, but me, too, sort of, by way of being one of the women behind mamaphiles. I haven't had a chance to see the utne piece yet, but I will be glad to show off the mamaphiles cover in all its glory:



if you haven't got a copy yet, go to mamasunidas distro today.

even though my feet hurt, it must be said that I love to go trick or treating, and that my neighborhood is the very finest trick or treat place I've ever seen, much less lived in. yeah I slapped a preposition on the end of the sentence, so what.
we walked through sidewalk haunted house displays, block parties, smoke machine made mists, you name it. it was grand. trick or treating at whole foods earlier in the day, that was nice and all, and the treats couldn't be beat, but that's nothing like going out and meeting your neighbors at their wackiest.
I'm really glad I live here.
and look:


Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

I have a sore throat again. I went to sleep just a little after ten. it's pretty sad when I can't even stay up for the west wing. I have been going to sleep in the vicinity of ten for several days now. I want all of this rest to shield me from sore throats. why isn't it working?
we don't have the heat on. I love the space in time after the air conditioning but before the heat.
most of what I did yesterday beyond direct action child rearing was read my book, cold flat junction by martha grimes. it's moody and sad and lovely. it feels a lot like margaret atwood.

I feel quizzish, how 'bout you?


Goo!! You are SALVADORE DALI.
You paint the bizarre and surreal. No one can
figure you out, and everyone has given up
trying to guess what crazy thing you'll do
next. Your friends look forward to whatever
outrageous endeavor you will engage in next.


Which famous artist most reflects your personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

I am getting in gear for the bookfair. I need to get a long armed stapler from someplace. oy.
meanwhile, girlmom & mamaphonic are back up, the new hip mama is gorgeous, the weather is nice if it a bit warmer than I'd prefer, and I'm okay.

song of the day: anchorage by michelle shocked

I took time out to write to my old friend
I walked across that burning bridge

***

I had a great weekend in atlanta, with old friends, chai, thai food, a wedding, dinosaur bones and a long train ride

go on over to the new hip mama site and make me a nice, satisfying poll.

wow, I really enjoy the grim reaper's age guesser. it says I'm 33. that makes it sound like I'm being all, ooh it called me young! that's not what I mean. I enjoyed the questions and am impressed with the accuracy.

this household has gone from stomach flu to cold-and-flu without missing a beat.

as I post this, my fluish kids have been in front of the set all day...

Television


The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Roald Dahl

we were hit hard by a stomach flu beginning on tuesday night. now, I'm placating recovering kids by tolerating the freaking wiggles. I can't stand the wiggles.

saturday is the national day to empower teen parents. look for events near you.

news: someone stole my kids' shabby yard sale bikes from off of our front porch.
reminder: the submission deadline for a mama's calendar is nov. 20.

I don't want to post about things that are causing me grief, so I'm avoiding the present by posting meme after meme, but...
here are some positive things I can say:
*a friend of mine taught nash how to crochet and he's really into it
*jonathon richman was wonderful last night, even though the crowd was mostly unresponsive and it was the shortest headlining set I've ever seen him play
*the children's halloween costume choices so far are an undead pirate (nash) and a ballerina (liam).
*the weather is a joy to behold
*I'm reading martha grimes latest, foul matter

today is hard.

now, who is going to babysit for me on monday night so I can go see jonathon richman? who?

Gynocide's Banned Book Meme!




The Top Most Frequently Challenged/Banned Books from 1990-2000.

bold the ones you've read. I've read surprisingly (to me) few.



Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz

Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling

Forever by Judy Blume (a long, long time ago)

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman (this is one of nash's favorites)

My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (I can recite this book, I'll bet)

The Giver by Lois Lowry

It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Sex by Madonna (heh heh)

Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (I was just enjoying this today)

The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard

The Witches by Roald Dahl

The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein

Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry

The Goats by Brock Cole

Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane

Blubber by Judy Blume

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier

Final Exit by Derek Humphry

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George (oh, such a great book! I need to read the sequel, now that there is one)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Pigman by Paul Zindel

Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard

Deenie by Judy Blume

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden

The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar

Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)

Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole

Cujo by Stephen King

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell

Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy

Ordinary People by Judith Guest

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Crazy Lady by Jane Conly

Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher

Fade by Robert Cormier

Guess What? by Mem Fox

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Native Son by Richard Wright

Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday

Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen

Jack by A.M. Homes

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya

Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle

Carrie by Stephen King

Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume

On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge

Family Secrets by Norma Klein

Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Always Running by Luis Rodriguez

Private Parts by Howard Stern

Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Running Loose by Chris Crutcher

Sex Education by Jenny Davis

The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene

Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts

The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney

Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

the ranking process of this meme is pretty entertaining.

Hipsters, Bill Clinton, The New York Yankees
Circle I Limbo

PETA Members
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

General asshats
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Rush Limbaugh
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Bill Gates
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Camille Paglia
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

diet industry CEOs
Circle VII Burning Sands

the Man
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

George Bush
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

autumn! at last.
and it's gorgeous, sunny with a soft breeze. cordero and trailer bride are playing at el matador tonight.
life is not so bad.
so many times in the last two days I thought of things I meant to write about. now it's gone, all gone from my mind.
things went well at work sunday morning. I embarked on the very ambitious project of cleaning my room afterwards and got, I dunno, maybe a third of the way done.
sunday night I happened upon a roseanne marathon and watched it for HOURS. it was amazing. I had to force myself to turn it off at 1:30 AM.

it's my birthday, and I have no cake. something must be done about this. tomorrow, sometime, somehow, something. I won't have my 35th pass without cake!

quote of the day:
"You can follow your book and your map of wars, but I'll go and follow my kids." -- Woody Guthrie

and now to take a moment to live in the moment, and experience these things: homemade iced chai, the air conditioning blowing just a little too cold (but in a really good way), liam making up his own harry potter stories (that's right, fan fic from a four year old!), nash continuing to dedicate himself for preparing for the life he will lead after he gets shrunk, and one more wordy quiz:

First bike: I had a tricycle when I was three, it was metal and I am pretty sure it was purple
First best friend: Melissa Merrill, fourth grade
First car: an 87 nissan sentra, red; it was mine from 93-97
First job: aside from babysitting gigs? when I was 15 I started my career in food service at GD Ritzy's in Fort Myers, Florida
First screen name: my very first screenname was my full name, first, last & initial, on the hip mama boards. I was clueless.
First self purchased album: the Beatles, Love Songs
First pet: I'm not sure if the puppy came before the kitten, but neither one lasted long. the kitten had to be given away after it gave me cat scratch disease.
First piercing/tattoo: I got one ear pierced when I was 18, and the both done when I was 20.
First independent home: I got my first apartment when I was 20, February 1988. it was a nightmare of rattan furniture, in a way that was not at all my fault. it was hideous and I hated it. I moved out in May.
First credit card: I got my first one late, which is a good thing, I guess. I got it when I was pregnant with Nash and a couple hundred bucks right away on maternity clothes.
First love: David in the first grade. he sat behind me, and he used to slip me pringles chips out of his lunch box during class. my second love (after david moved away) was later that year, and his name was either Kirk or Kurt. I got it wrong half of the time, but that's okay because he always called me Corleen. We played monopoly - I would help him with the reading parts and he'd help me with the math. It was a great relationship. Kirk/Kurt, where are you?
First enemy: no idea. I went to elementary school with a whole host of meanies.
First big trip: what is big? as a child, I went with my family to california (from florida) when I was 4 or 5. When I was 16, I went all the way to the USSR.
First play/musical/performance: I was maid marian in robin hood with my 2nd grade class, which consisted of 5 children. I was the only girl in the class. I had no lines.
Last movie seen: I went to see The Whale Rider yesterday afternoon. It was lovely and hard. I cried from the get go.
Last book read: I read all of Little House on The Prairie last night! for the first time in many years.
Last cuss word uttered: I have no fucking idea
Last beverage drank: iced chai with honey & soy milk
Last Food consumed: leftover evil jungle prince, using the east village inky recipe
Last crush: like I'm going to answer this
Last kiss: Liam Everett Vercouteren Murphy
Last phone call: my mother
Last TV. show watched: queer eye for the straight guy
Last time showered: I took a bath this morning
Last shoes worn: my painfully smelly mary janes with the studs
Last cd played: the bottle let me down
Last item bought: an obscenely large thing of popcorn at the movies yesterday
Last downloaded: an anti-virus and firewall thing that I don't entirely understand
Last annoyance: my back is still sore from falling up the stairs back on monday
Last soda drank: dr. pepper a few days ago
Last word written: "ago"
Last word spoken: okay
Last sleep: this morning I was able to go back to bed from about 8 til 10, which is a rare treat.
Last IM: last week or maybe longer ago than that... it was with max.
Last weird encounter: I have no energy for this question.
Last ice cream eaten: last week, I fiished off Liam's birthday ice cream in a root beer float.
Last time amused: this morning
Last time wanting to die: it's been since 1987
Last time hugged: this morning
Last chair sat in: my computer chair, which is really a dining table chair, wooden with reddish brown vinyl. it's technically my dad's.
Last shirt worn: I'm wearing a shirt today that pleases me very much. my mom put it on Nash the last time we were at her house, after he'd mushed bean burrito al over himself. it's dark blue with a big white women's symbol and it says, "womanstrength, womanpower, womandream" in small block letters with "Sonia" written in cursive in the center. I wonder if it's from some Sonia Johnson campaign.
Last web page visited: bust.com

I got the news from meghan about the suicide in korea, and I wanted to send her something hopeful and beautiful for this day, and then I thought: why just send it to meghan? why not... the world!
I heard about this project from my friend lli, who posted it in her journal. I'm into it - I'll be leaving at least one book in the park today.
love to you all, coleen

ps happy birthday, john kleber!

A "Poetical Happening"

On Sept. 11th, join a "poetical happening" and free a book!

Because a book is a symbol of freedom, sharing and tolerance.

On Sept. 11th, 2003, take a book which is important for you, a book that has changed your vision on the world, write in it a dedication, a few words, an address, or a drawing, and free it!

Leave it on a roadside bench, a bus stop or in a cafe making it available for any unknown reader!

In this way Sept. 11th will be not only an anniversary of tragedy.

Together let us affect this global sorrow with creative and generous action!

A general mobilization from Bruxelles, Paris, Florence, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Whidbey Island and more! Almost all over the world readers, artists, writers, poets, and publishers of vision and heart will free books that are important for them on Thursday Sept. 11th 2003.

Readers, authors, publishers - free a book!
Because a book is a symbol of freedom, sharing and tolerance!
Some who have already decided to free a book:

Sophie Buyse, Anatole Atlas, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Evrahim Baran, Graziano Staino, Guy Montens, David Giannoni, Patrick Depauld, Luca Del Punta, Xavier Löwenthal, Antonio Bertoli, Emmanuel Lequeux, Marco Parente, Martin Bakero, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Nati B. Laïtem, Cristina Abati, Ed Sanders, Carlo Salvador, Luigi Grechi, Anne Waldman, Marianne Costa, Giuseppe Monaco, Leslie Aguillard of Denver, Victory Lee Schouten
This poetical happening originated with:
Éditions Maelström - Bruxelles, Éditions Le Veilleur - Paris,
Edizioni CityLights - Firenze, City Lights Publishers - San Francisco,
A.C. Biofficina - Roma - Leslie Aguillard, Denver
Belgium: info@maelstromeditions.com
France: e.lequeux@tiscali.fr
Italy: citylights@firenze.net
U.S.A. : stacey@citylights.com
Because a book is a symbol of freedom, sharing and tolerance!
Victory Lee Schouten < victory@greatpath.com >
Great Path Publishing < http://www.greatpath.com/ >
Phone/Fax: 1-360-331-7099 Ordering: 1-800-858-5063
P.O. Box 882, Freeland, WA 98249, USA

"The moon rolls through the trees, rises
from them, and waits."
-William Stafford

sure, I'll do this one again...

1 MINUTE AGO: I was looking at my library account info, reserving a dave eggers book, wondering what else to reserve
1 DAY AGO: sitting here procrastinating on all of the written work I have to do, just like I am now, and waiting for the west wing to come on
1 WEEK AGO: freaking out about getting the house clean for liam's birthday party, realizing that the washing machine was broken, struggling with getting my mamaphonic essay out of my head and on to the page/screen
1 YEAR AGO: recovering from liam's birthday & settling back in to work and life at home after the summer away, just as I am now.
I HURT: sometimes, just like everybody else
I LOVE: to have a whole stack of books waiting for me to dive in
I HATE: mortality
I FEAR: death and pain
I HOPE: that liam's prediction of living until he's 100 comes true
I LISTEN: to nash talk allllllll day sometimes
I HIDE: from my children by reading in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, when I've reached my limit.
I DRIVE: myself crazy with my procastination
I PLAY: the same elvis costello song (I turn around) over and over sometimes
I MISS: my grandma
I LEARNED: some kung fu tonight, from observing nash's class
I KNOW: I have issues
I WAIT: til the last minute
I NEED: my own place
I THINK: about writing way more than I actually do it
Current Clothes: black calvin klein boxer briefs and a light blue t-shirt that says: "Shelburne Falls" in glittery, gold letters.
Current Mood: anxious, tired, cranky
Current Music: two little snorers
Current Taste: dr. pepper
Current Hair: pulled back, but dude, I had it so big earlier tonight
Current Annoyance: I'm not saying
Current Smell: I can smell my hair goop, frizz-ease stuff
Current thing I should be doing: writing up the order of service for sunday and oy, so much other stuff
Current Desktop Picture: emily the strange (or is it emily strange?)
Current Favorite bands/singers: the breeders, big star, whoever does that "stuck in indianapolis" song
Current Book: I just finished "mom, murder & apple pie" an anthology of mysteries realting to all three topics. it was good in parts - I'm gonna send it on, though. I'm also reading the MamaPhiles zine.
Current Movie In VCR: it's empty. with the exception of my 10 PM west wing fix, the tv has been off all week, and will be til sunday afternoon, when the little buggers can watch themselves into a scooby induced coma
Current Refreshment: I'm about to go get my dr. pepper and some water
Current Worry: coming across as (un)professional and (dis)organized this weekend.
Current Crush: bah. no soild crush energy at this time.

I woke up with a migraine today. although I must say, it's been since june, so that's pretty good, considering that for most of lastyear, I was getting them monthly like clockwork.
liam was overwhelmed by his party and I feel bad about that. I'm relieved that less than half of the kids we invited showed - he reached his limit at about 4 friends, so it would have been hellish if devlin, pearlie, jobeth, mia, silas, eli, adeline, sofia, vivian, felicity, julian and isabella had been added to the mix... although if the weather had been cooperative and we had been able to go out back as well as indoors, I think he would have been more okay with it. and what a contradiction he is - convinced that his birthday wouldn't be for real unless he had friends over, singing and blowing out the candles, even though he didn't really enjoy the process.
my birthday when I was 4 or 5 (no one remembers. it's a curse having a better memory than your parents) ended in disaster as a result of over-celebrating... I don't rememember the first two parties, but the last one was at my maternal grandparents house, with most of my mother's six brothers and sisters gathered around, and when the cake came out, and they were all singing and looking at me I just couldn't take it. as I started to sob I heard my mother say, "it's her third birthday cake today, I guess it's too much..."
when I got a couple of years older, though, I longed for big birthday parties. I always wanted a surprise party.
ow ow ow my belly hurts. I say "belly" because it is both my stomach and my guts that are in an upheaval. I feel tentatively that it was the pizza. after a week of carefully avoiding dairy, I had pizza with my dad last night. I find it typically ridiculous of me that I didn't eat any of liam's cake because it had butter in it and was frosted with cream cheese (my favorite!), but then ate three slices of gooey pizza with my father. now my stomach hurts, my guts are twisted, my head aches and I'm all stuffed up. so there you have it: I really should get back to my early twenties lifestyle of reserving dairy for special occasions only. that was so much easier then, when I mainly lived on restaurant food of the chinese, thai and jamaican varieties.
back to birthdays:
I get sad when my birthday goes unobserved. I always want a party or something, a little something special. my favorite adult birthday was 25, when saasha and aimee threw a party for me at their place, and at least a hundred people were there, I really felt the love.
what do I want for my birthday?
a night out. a lot of nights out! a girlfriend. the new puffy amiyumi cd, and some yeah yeah yeahs, something by the donnas, and some rufus wainright (at camp, john played this rufus wainright song for me - maybe it's called cigarettes and chocolate milk? - and I was like, is this neil finn? no! rufus w.! I am the last, it seems, to discover rufus w.)... time, immortality, good health. high quality non-dairy cream cheese, a lifetime supply of edensoy extra vanilla. regular babysitting. free photo processing. a professional massage. my friends all around me.