Gosh.

I didn't mean to sound like such a downer the other day. And I totally meant that thing about not keeping the blog up as a tiny little footnote of a commentary about things. I didn't even think that anyone would read that far down the post, I was just thinking is all. And I wouldn't ever quit writing altogether. I write constantly. Always have, for at least a quarter century now. I would just write somewhere else. Somewhere anonymously so I can dump out the corners of my brain without anyone I actually know reading it, or maybe work to publish something, or maybe keep an old fashioned pen and ink journal tucked between my mattress and my boxspring.

And I was surprised to read that some of you thought I was in a pits mood when I wrote that too. It couldn't be further from the truth. I'm happier than I've been since, well, since ever. I'm healthy. Too healthy. So healthy I can't fit in any of my pants healthy. I only get fat when I'm happy. I like my life. Dare I say love? I love my life? Sure. I don't think it gets much better than this. My life is actually easy and enjoyable and comfortable. For now.

I figure that barring anything tragic and unexpected, there is a good chance that I have a year where everything can kind of just hover where it's at, and then Jake will turn us upside down and go to school and I will find something there to tear my brain apart. But today things are good and breezy and wonderful and I think that this is why they say that things get better with age.

All I meant by that last post is that I'm done trying to be who I was, and I'm ready to start being who I am. That's like, major therapeutic progress, people. Major. You should be proud of me rather than concerned for me.

Then again, every time I have a stretch of clarity and purpose, I am afraid that I have totally effing lost it. Think of the craziest person you know. Yeah. They think they have it all figured out.

But they are happy.

Nuts, but happy.

Maybe that's okay.

it's weird when the kids are the parents

I didn't mention to many people that Jake is away on vacation this week.

Used to be when he went away I tried to do as many non-mom things as possible.
That kind of changed earlier this year, and it is in full force about now.

Used to be when Jake went away I tried to recapture the person I was before he was born. But that started to hurt too badly because it turns out that I really miss that person, and there is no hopes in getting her back, so I stopped trying.

These days I'm just trying to figure out how to capture who I am now.

That's not so easy to do when your apron strings are being tugged every ten minutes.
That's not so easy to do when your apron strings aren't being tugged every ten minutes.

My week off was mostly spent in the house. Sometimes getting things done, sometimes not. Reading books, watching movies, not doing laundry because there isn't much to do. I saw a few friends. Got some work done at work. Things are going to change at work very soon, so I took comfort in the calm before it all happens. Things are going to change at home very soon, so I took comfort in that calm too.

Last night I tried to clean up some old posts on this blog, and ended up wiping out half my blog. Well, like a tenth of it. So much for trying to format on my BlackBerry. Oh well. I can still get to it on Reader, if I feel the need to cut and paste. I wonder if I should be backing this up a little bit better. I guess the answer is probably "probably".

This blog started out being a daily record of my life, and that got boring. I see it going back that way, and I'm not sure I want that. Sometimes I feel like the only reason I am keeping this up is because it makes me look like I'm busy back here at my little desk. Sometimes I feel like I should step away from the box and start spending time with real live people. I'm wondering how long I'll keep this blog going. Another month? Year? Decade? I feel like I'm running out of things to say.

Decisions, decisions.

That's what I was doing poking around in my archives. Digging around to see what I've said here, just to see if there is anything left in my brain. I think it's mostly out.

Maybe I'll take up watercolors or something. I'm actually pretty good at it.

Holy crap. Do you see what just happened there? I am becoming a homebody, who needs a new hobby. Watercolors? Seriously? Who is typing this post and what have you done with Lora?

Ack.

What's that old saying about never being photographed with a drink in your hand?

I'm imagining that the same thing is true about blogging.

Remember the time I did that?
Yeah.

I blogged about American effing Idol.

So wrong.

But you liked it, you really really liked it.

But my days are done when it comes to BUI, despite all the requests for more. And I was flattered by all of you who swore up and down that you needed a night out with me, just to see what I talk about.

So, here I am. I'm not giving you happy hour. I'm giving you happy afterhalfhour. One half hour. Me. Quiet room. Except for the Netflix du jour. Internet over there on the sideboard. When I feel the need to say something, I'll have at it.

Go.

I'm at the point of my drunkeness where I would totally accept a hit off your joint. Marijuana isn't the gateway drug.
Freedom is.

But I actually hate smoking weed. It makes me jittery and paranoid. It's not a very good drug of choice for me.

When I took Spanish class, my name was Cecilia. My friends called me Cecil. Now I'm just plain Lora.

When I blog irreverent things, I realize how sacrilegious America is. And how religious. I'm somewhere in the middle and that makes me feel okay with the world.

I yearn for pants with elastic waistbands. It's the only thing pregnancy is good for. Well, that and the baby. Blah blah blah. Whatevs. Elastic.

Boys don't read this: my boobs were huge when I was pregnant, but I didn't like it. They made me self conscious. I want a boob job. But like opposite. I want to keep the shape but go down two sizes smaller.

I wasn't gloriously pregnant. I looked like the slightly chubby chick left over at the bar after 2am.

If I never worked at a bar, I wonder what analogy I would use for the way I looked when I got knocked up.

The town I grew up in had a great lake. I mean a Great Lake. It wasn't all that great, but it was a Lake.

I wish they put Scotch in boxes like they do for wine. I wouldn't worry about dropping it while I was pouring. But drinking out of a box isn't as hardcore as drinking out of a bottle. Seriously, picture Janis and Jimmy passed out on a plaid couch, cradling a box in their arms. Not so cool.

Sometimes I look at high school kids and I want to do dirty dirty things to them. This is sick. I know it, but I just. can't. stop.

My knees are knobby. That's why you never see them.

Only boys' shirts cover your knees. That's why I dress like an 18 year old boy. What does that say about me? (Please see above. Please don't call the police.)

I like the ocean, but not the stuff inside of it.

My new tattoo is peeling. At least it's not itchy anymore.

I like to look at piers.

I remember looking at my toes when I was little and noticing that they were all pushed together but now I look at them and think that the weird space at the end of my toes is a surely a bunion.

I think navy, eggplant, and chocolate are far superior than plain old black.

I want one of those key necklaces from Tiffany's and I will wear it around my neck and under my shirt. Not one of those cheaper silver ones, but one of the platinum ones. I think it makes up for (or at least evens out to) the childcare that was never paid for when I was a real live latchkey kid.

Timing is a bitch. The kind of bitch you push to her knees and slap in the face.

Hotel wallpaper is so gross, it bothers me for months. Let's not even talk about the carpets and bedspreads.

I hate when my hands smell like food.

I hate chicken, but will take it in finger form.

I want an old forceps. I saw a birthing chair from the late 1800s when I was in California and it made me curious.

Sweet potato fries + sea salt+ powdered sugar + maple syrup = OMGWTF

Buttons down the front of a shirt is not good for me.

Oh Hai TV! R U on? Sry! 2 bzy in my own hed!

I secretly love the colors of my hair. Brownish reddish blondish, with 7 greyish silverishes.

favorites= butter raw meat whiskey fresh ground black pepper

I never liked meat until I ate it raw.

When I worked at Rite Aid, I wore a false name tag. Hello My Name is Nova. I didn't want the locals to know the truth.

So I shop in the little boy's department. Does this mean I'm gay?

I love saying "does this mean I'm gay?" after I say something that clearly does not make me gay.

If I watch television, it's not for the plot, it's for the set design.

I like the way balloons look, but not the way they smell.

It's not that I hate knots in wood, it's just that I know that's the cheap part.

I don't know my blood type.

Dr Bronner's soap? YES.

I have a splinter that I couldn't get out. Now I'm afraid my body will absorb it and it will flow up through my veins into my heart and stab my aorta and then I'll be dead.

I hate bacon. I'm sorry, world. I hate bacon.

"breakfast bar" connotes vodka. Not bran.

What ever happened to manna? I'm hungry. I don't want to cook. There's nothing good falling from the skies these days.

I look at the skinny girls in my neighborhood and wonder if they are enjoying it while it lasts. If you look that good at 18, it's likely that you'll look like shit by the time you are 28.

I wish all my dairy products came out of something smaller. Cows are big. Sheep? Too woolly. Goats? Weird eyes. Where's my cat? I will drink that bitch in a minutes.

Doing math in my head makes me feel calm and smart.

Address labels are kind of outdated,

Oops. Time's up.

trash day

I don't expect much from people who hold certain positions.

Fast food workers
Metermaids
Paperboys
Janitors
Low end department store associates

Who takes these jobs?
1) high school kids and under-educated adults
2) people who are half retarded
3) people who are in one hell of a bind and need a job.
4) old people

I've been a high school kid. With a job. And sometimes I didn't perform up to par because I had bigger problems than ice cream. Problems like boys and math and clothes and eyemakeup.

I've never been half retarded (for more than a few hours at a stretch) but if I was I know that there may be some situations that present themselves in a schleppy job that would be pretty hard to deal with if I was ringing in with about an 80 IQ.

I've been in a bind for a job and have taken on some tasks that I wasn't very happy about it, and I wanted to make sure that everyone I encountered knew how I felt. Knew I was too good to be doing what I was getting paid for.

I'm going to be old one day. "Thank you for shopping at fries with that! Would you like to have some Walmart? Don't step on the comic section! I'm reading this pile of dust on the floor."

So, when I get a $36 ticket despite a broken meter and a note on my windshield and I speak to the lady who wrote it and she looks like she showers in the carwash, I have a hard time getting mad at her when she tells me I have to take it to court.

And when I get a $25 ticket from the Recycling Patrol because I was tired of people throwing their trash in front of my house so I put a wastebasket out there and then I was cited for not separating out the recyclables on Wednesday mornings I can't get mad at the trashpolice. As if I'm going to separate! There is poop in there! And when I tried to contest it they ignored me and doubled my fine and so I just ate the $50 and hoped that the City used it for something good.

Like paying metermaids.

And then last night I got a $50 fine for setting out my trash too early despite the fact that it was a tiny bag full of street trash and the vandalized bricks that were around my tree that I refused to drag through my house until trash day. They were set back between the front steps and the bay window, hardly visible from the street so I called the hotline and they told me that I needed to take it to court.

So I am. I am taking these tickets to court because I'm tired of just rolling over and sending a check the way I always do. I might even buy a suit so I look official and shiz.

I blame Philadelphia. Not the people who write the tickets. It's time to take myself and put me up there in front of damned Philadelphia.

The people who write the tickets are either undereducated or halfretarded or completelydesperate and they have to dig through people's trash and cars and walk up and down the street and they take it out on us by finding the slightest infraction and writing us up.

Their problem isn't my car/trash/recycling/problem. Their problem is that their life sucks and they are only worth base rate pay and they never get to sit down indoors and enjoy a nice beverage and some air conditioning and frivolous interneting on company time. Then they probably go home to their base rate house with their base rate kids and their base rate lover and eat base rate food in front of base rate cable on a base rate couch before going to sleep in a base rate bed and wake up to do it all over again.

At least that's what I tell myself so I don't curse them out in my head while I tuck the ticket in with the bills I'll pay tomorrow morning.

Hooray payday!

Upyours ticketeers!

And since I'm on the subject of graven images in my house, I'll say this.

I was raised in a strict Presbyterian church, where we were taught that images of Jesus, Mary, and all other related parties were a horrible thing. If you went down on a day you had a Mary statue or crucifix or the like in your house, you were damned straight to hell. I didn't have many Catholic friends, but I was horrified that they would defy the Bible by having religious icons all over their house. Doubly in awe of the fact that they would dare pray to saints or Mary, clearly it is all against that whole "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." (RSV Exodus 20:3-6).

But I loved stuffed animals. And drawing animals and people and flowers and plants and trees. And I got my picture taken. So I guess I was a damnable child after all. I'll say this here and now- growing up, I thought God was kind of an asshole, but I respected what he had to say, because I didn't want him punishing my grandkids because I didn't agree with him. I mean seriously. What little kid is going to like an authority figure who is so damned mean and then decides to just do some sort of 180 all of a sudden?

Not me, that's for sure.

Back then I didn't trust the whole "turning over a new leaf" thing because I've never seen it truly work in the 5/7/9/11/whatever years I'd been alive.

I wanted a God that held baby deer in the palm of his hand and birds flocked to. I wanted a Disney Princess for a God. But I got some jerk who was always doing bad things to people just to prove he was stronger.

Please.

I had people in my life like that. I didn't need a God like that too. But I didn't admit it out loud, for fear of being smote and all.

Anyway, holymotherofgod did I want a picture of Mary. She looked so nice and stable and quiet and loving and gentle and pretty, and I liked the way she kind of looked like a giant vagina. Nothing says Mother of All Things Great and Small like a giant vagina. It made perfect sense to me.

What? I said I was raised in a strict Presbyterian church. Our house was quite liberal and anything but sexually repressed.

The halo that surrounded her was like the outer parts. The folds of her cloths were like the folds of the inner part. And her little face and peaked hands? Come on! You don't see it? Squint a little bit. I put it up there in black and white. Sometimes the blue and gold can throw you off.

Did I ever tell you that I was in therapy when I was a kid?

No?

Hmm. I guess I forgot to mention that here.

But I didn't think it was perverted, really. I thought it was beautiful and feminine and maternal and powerful and it made me realize what kind of magic I held simply by being born a girl.

So now that I'm all grown up and past what plagued me as a child, I think I'm finally ready to get what I've wanted for years. And it will be glorious. Hopefully with some gold leaf and silver foil involved.

I can has VaginMary?

If you're reading this tonight, take a look at the moon. It's in the phase that my grandmother referred to as "fingernail" but the rest of us called "shithouse"

I wonder if they sell handbaskets to match the backsplash?

So, you know how I'm giving my kitchen a makeover?
I picked up some knobs. I'm not sure which, if any, I will keep but I love them and maybe if they don't jive with the kitchen I'll put them on the laundry room cabinets and put the laundry room knobs in the kitchen.

And I think I would rather go with shelves than hang a cabinet. It's just finding brackets that are deep enough to hold all my crap. I took the old ones down because they were only eight inches deep and I'm the kind of girl who needs more than that.


Who knows.

So, I also need some glasses. I need your most honest opinion. I have this obsession with those Jesus and Mary candles that you can buy in the Goya aisle. You know the ones, right? They are something like $2.39 and are wedged between the coconut soda and the canned octopus? It's like a sickness for me. I go to the store to buy some beans and I end up staring at the VoG for like a half hour. As if there is an answer to my problems that can be found in aisle 4 at ShopRite.

How fast would I go to hell if I bought up some of those candles, burned them all the way down, and then served drinks out of them?

Like, would lightening strike me dead immediately in my own kitchen if I mixed you up a vodka tonic in something intended to receive the prayer of Mexicans? Or would it just be something that I might need to explain at the end of my years?

I'd be all like "listen Jesus. I thought you looked adorable and way kitschy on those cheapy candles, and the bright colors really went with the new Mary-Hoodie-Blue that I painted my kitchen walls so I just went with it. Think of all the good I did for the world. I mean, come on."

And He would be all like "of course, my child. When you were there in your kitchen, I was with you. When you were spending quality times with your loved ones, drinking out of old candles, I was with you. With all of you."

And I would be like "but Jesus, what about those times? Those times when I was all by myself and crying and sneaking three or four fingers of whiskey in my You Cup? I felt so alone."

And He would be like "No, my precious, precious Lora. I love you, and I would never, never leave you during your times of trial and suffering. When you thought that you were all alone in your kitchen, drinking whiskey from your Me Cup, it was then that I was with you. Watching you, loving you, for I was the glass from whence you drank".

cold as ice cream but still as sweet

It's funny how elusive time is.

How music and smells and tastes and people can erase ten years in ten minutes.

How you think you are over something and then you hear a few songs that tear your being into pieces and take you right back to where you were before you had it all figured out.

How you thought you would grow up to be someone that doesn't even really have a place in pop culture anymore. Holler atcher retro underground.

How funnelcakes and cottoncandy and WD40 and a papermaking plant are the same today as they were a billion years ago.

How you thought you would look when you got 16 but you still can't pull it off at 33. I mean 36. Because I look great for 36. And really skinny and well rested for having three kids. Don't you think?

How you thought that McDonalds' french fries would be the same forever but then the government swept in and took away transfats and now they taste like shit and you feel like you were robbed of your childhood.

***

Yesterday my best friend from high school asked me to be in her wedding. One year from yesterday, eleven years one month and ten days from her last one.

I don't talk to her much anymore but I'll probably see her next Friday night.

We will catch up about the boys. Both the big ones and little ones.

And then our old girlios.

And the nineties.

We will talk about our bodies, and how they changed.

And our points of view, and how they changed.

And our hair, and how it changed.

And our clothes, and how they changed.

And our make up, and how it changed.

And then we will move on to our hearts, which haven't.

july 1999

birthday weekend

Try as I may have to get into work on Friday, Dave was having none of it. He dropped off the boy at daycare and we drove down to Sea Isle. You know what I love most about New Jersey? Hating New Jersey. It's so weird and gross and the people are just so... so... well, before I went to college I never met anyone from New Jersey but I had heard a lot of jokes about people from New Jersey. Three days into living down here I realized they weren't jokes, they were warnings.

I love it. I hate it. I love to hate it.

Sea Isle is funny because it's a hang out for people in their twenties and for people who used to be in their twenties but forgot that they have saggy boobs and guts and receding hairlines now.

I wanted to ride a rollercoaster so we went down (up? over?) to Wildwood once the sunburn started setting in. I have no idea of Jerseyography, and I refuse to look at a map because the thing I love second most about New Jersey is not knowing anything about New Jersey.

Eight effing dollars to ride a roller coaster. Forget it. And the batting cages were closed. I love batting cages. I suck miserably, but it's fun anyway. Provided you are wearing your bathing suit. It's the perfect mix of controlled aggression and partial nudity.

Late lunch and back to the city to get the brat before daycare closed.

I slept in the car and it was delicious.

Ask me what I did Friday night and I'll hum and drool. I have no idea. Short term memory is failing. That and varicose veins are the two worst things about getting older. I know I didn't have any Netflix. I think. So I'm assuming I didn't watch a movie. I am thinking about the dishes I did on Saturday morning before Jake had swimming and I don't recall anything being incredibly notable.

Forget it.

I don't even know if I left the couch.

If I spent Friday night with you, I apologize. It's not you, it's the brain's tendency to forget the last day of the 32nd year. I understand that it happens to everyone.
You are wonderful.

Saturday. Bum around the house, take Jake to swimming, trip to Target to pick up soda for Saturday night (I understand that some of you like to mix your drinks. Wusses) and lightbulbs and cat litter and papertowels and ended up spending 18 years in there because they are redoing the store and I couldn't find anything.

Well, I couldn't find anything but $117 worth of crap I just had to have. Is it possible to walk out of Target without spending at least $100? Honestly. It's like the eleventh circle of hell.

I had a very very very very very tiny gathering Saturday night. If you weren't invited it isn't because I don't have mad mad love for you. It's just that I wanted it to be small enough that we could all sit in the living room. Remember how when you were little and your mom was all like "five friends. FIVE. Don't bother asking for more. Five."? That's how I was.

And someone brought Jello shots. And I have this idea like if I'm eating vodka I can't get drunk so I had about six dozen jello shots.

And I got drunk. It was like that time when I believed that you couldn't get high if you ate weed and I set out to prove it to everyone at the party. Guess what? Your stomach acid doesn't break down THC before it reaches your bloodstream.

So, when I get drunk sometimes I get a little bit competitive. So I busted out Twister because I never lose. But I lost. Eventually. To this guy. Stupid Frank.


There are more pictures, but they are downright porny. Not intentionally, but when you are playing Twister, your face and body does things that kind of makes you look like you must look when you are doing it and I'm not comfortable with you seeing me and my goofball friends like that.
I almost cried when I lost. One because I LOST at effing TWISTER and two because I had been playing Twister for hours straight. That's rough when you are 33. There are parts of my thighs that are still burning.
I know I painted my kitchen the most perfect shade of blue because when we were standing in there my friends looked absolutely gorgeous against it. They were all tan and the wall was so blue and my heart split open with love regarding the whole thing. I tried to take a picture of the paintjob, but I can't get the color right. It's like the same as that hoodie thing the Virgin Mary is always wearing. Like a robin's egg. Like forget me nots. Like pure bliss. I want everything in my life that color.
3am, dozens of jello shots, glass of Powers, two pieces of pizza, a fingerful of chocolate icing, hours of good times and I went to bed.
Woke up 9am sweaty and alone and soupy.
Birthday over.
Cold shower.
Two aspirin.
Coke Zero.
Glass of water.
Cold pizza.
Kiss the cat.
Catch the sub.
Off at Walnut.
Walk to the Reading Terminal to meet Mikey and Heather.

We sat in the Beer Garden for a few hours, catching up on old and new times. Years melting the way they always do. Young again. I couldn't stop staring at the two of them. My friends are so beautiful. I wonder if that's by chance or on some sort of shallow purpose or just something that happens inside your head when you love someone so much.
I wish I had a camera but I didn't. The only picture I have of them is a hundred years old, back before the world flipped itself over, before we had babies.
When I was looking for that picture, I found this one:
Me and my mom and my brother and Mara.
Could that really have been the right date? 2002? Pabst Almighty.
Where does the time go?
This picture's double hangs in my mom's kitchen, I'll have you know before you're all like "what the hell is that place and why would you take your mother there?". Well, mostly because my mom is the same kind of girl I am, and girls like us hang out in places like that. She loves it.
Dollar PBRs are a thing of my past, however. That's like buying a hangover.
Next time you come over I'll show you the rest of the pictures from that night.
And regale you with stories that I'd never share here.

raindrops on roses

My birthday is officially over, but there is proof that it existed. More on all that later. I really like to blog at work. Makes me feel like I'm getting paid for all this.

***

I don't know why I think you guys care to see pictures of my favorite things, but I post them anyway.

I feel like if I take pictures of this crap I'll be able to freeze that flutteriness my heart does when I look at things I love.

Jake took some of these pictures. I'll let you guess which ones.

***

***

***

I have a little boy who tells me at least once a week that "since mommies don't really like playing with cars maybe we can have a tea party since girls like tea parties". I think it's more like Jake likes to have tea parties but is afraid to ask because it's kinda gay. Not that he knows what kinda gay means, but still.

I think I'm going to cut this nasty old table cloth apart and frame some of the flowers.

***

This old tablecloth is going to be my kitchen curtain as soon as I can get it together enough to press it off and hang it.

***

***

the grackles ate my crops this year. Who knew indoor gardening is actually more efficient?

***

***

Blue Bunny, looking like I feel right about now.

***

I can't believe that Michael Vick is turning the Philadelphia eye away from me on my birthday.

Jerk.

When I first heard that he was going to play for the Eagles I was furious.

For about ten minutes.

Then I thought about it and decided I didn't care.

I wanted to get a post up right away, before the media onslaught. But sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and I didn't get a chance until right now. I haven't listened to any of this on the news, because there is no reason for me to. The man committed a horrible crime against animals, he was convicted and sentenced and he served his time and he was released and he was picked up by the Eagles and some people hate it and some people don't. That's the news. Why it's all you can hear about whenever you turn on the television I have no idea.

Let me start by saying that there is a reason I work with people instead of animals. It's because I love animals so much that I couldn't stand it. People? Well, people not so much. I can handle dealing with child abuse way more rationally than I can deal with animal abuse. Don't judge me. Just accept that I can. I love animals more than I love people the same way that I love vanilla more than I love chocolate.

I've sat across from rapist and murderers and junkies and whores and I have no problem working with them. I look at a dog perma-chained in a dirty yard and I totally lose my shit for days on end. I see the typical Walmart mom stuff- the picking the kid up by the arm and swatting at it and yelling- and I turn my head. I see mistreatment of an animal and I call the SPCA immediately. I should probably work to adjust my priorities a bit, but I won't. I think the world needs people like me. I think most social service workers are a bit detached from other people. It's how we do what we do without falling to pieces by noon.

Time and experience has proven to me that no matter how heinous a person's crime, there is no guarantee that person will be permanently removed from society, types the girl who has had the displeasure of assisting a young man who raped three toddlers so brutally that each of the girls had a hysterectomy by age two and one will wear a colostomy bag for the rest of her life put together a resume upon his release from prison after serving just a third of his sentence. He was 27 years old at his release, and his wife- the mother of one of the children he victimized- was fighting for the right to bring him home to his family. I hope she lost that battle, I didn't have the job long enough to find out. In Pennsylvania you aren't allowed to live with minors if you like to rape them. I'm assuming that law supersedes a woman's wish to live with her husband.

What? You're shocked? Come on now! How could the state possibly afford the cost and space of keeping him in jail? There are dangerous drug dealers out there. One dangerous drug dealer has the potential to cause thousands of families grief . Thousands of families versus three tiny little girls? It's math. Real life Utilitarianism. Haven't you ever read Bentham?

Don't do drugs kids. Drugs are bad. If you aren't buying them, people can't sell them and if people aren't selling them they can't be convicted of drug crimes and if people can't be convicted they can't go to jail and if they can't go to jail then maybe we can keep the real bad guys locked up.

I blame Nancy Reagan for all the released rapists. That one tittied bitch and her Just Say No campaign. I hope you're happy with yourself, Nance. I hope you're happy.

You know what really gets me right in my goat? Paying for people to make it through life who are perfectly capable with paying their own way.
I mean, I'm okay with the welfare system helping the un-employable. The crazies and the sickies and the mentally challengies.

You know what else gets me? People who view entertainment figures as role models and feel that it is the job of the record labels and sports teams and actor's guilds to only hire nice people. People who don't do drugs or get drunk or have sex or beat their wives or embezzle dollars or or or or.

So you know what would piss me the eff off? If Michael Vick was sitting on his athletic haunches in front of a big screen television on a leather couch waiting for the first of the month for his $422 in cash assistance and $186 to be put on his access card so he can fill his belly with lunchmeat and chips because people who have no life outside of their living room don't want to watch a man with a criminal history running up and down the field come the start of the season.

I believe that people can change. Have you ever done anything that you needed to fix? Has there ever been a part of you- big or small- that you had to turn away from? To improve? To redeem? Have you ever gone on a diet? Quit smoking? Stopped shopping impulsively? Stealing? Banging your secretary? I'm assuming yes. You have. I'm hoping that the change stuck for you. If not, I hope you are seeking a method of transformation and rebirth and healing that will be permanent.

I also believe that people do things for money that they wouldn't otherwise do.

Do things as a result of peer pressure that they wouldn't do if alone.

I believe that a person's state of mind can be altered, whether with drugs, alcohol, mental illness, physical exhaustion, the hardships of poverty, the desperation of love, general stressors, and countless other influential factors. If you catch a person in an altered state of mind, just about anything can happen.

I believe that a person may do a little something that they know is a little wrong, and then fast forward and all of a sudden that person is in over their head.

I'm not sure how Michael got into all this, but if I am to view him as I try to view every single person in this great big world, I have to have some sort of faith that he is a fluid and adaptive human being. I have to believe that no matter what he did and why he did it he is able to see the errors of his ways and the damage that he has caused. Damage to the animals, damage to his reputation, damage to his family who waited for his release, damage to our heartstrings. I have to believe that he is not an abusive dog hater by nature, and was involved with the fights for other reasons.

And if I can't get past it, I won't pay any attention to the Eagles this year and donate a few extra dollars to an animal rescue and work extra hard at my job to help people overcome the demons that plague their past.

Simple as that.

thirty three

Thirty three.

I almost feel like a grown up.

Almost.

My house is a home. My home. I don't want to live there forever, but I don't want to sell it just yet either.

My job is rewarding, and my work comes easy to me. I'm comfortable there, and I like what goes on.

I don't call many people Mister or Missus or Doctor anymore. I've put myself on a first name basis with just about everyone because I don't like people looking at me as though there is an age gap between us that demands respect.

If I don't like something, I speak up. That may come as a surprise to you. This blog or the facetime we spend together or the emails we toss back and forth are mine. The world is not. It took quite awhile for me to grow a set of tits large enough to command attention. The more I speak out the more I realize I am not the only one with any particular problem. I like to be a leader. I don't mind being the one to break the silence.

I like my family. I like the way I've arranged them around me. I like what happens when you grow up and get some control over who you see and when you see them.

I like my friends. I've done a good bit of shifting over the years and I think I've found the set that fits just fine these days. Things will change, I'm sure, but I'm happy now.

The older I get the more I feel that I have every choice imaginable available to me. I don't have to do anything that doesn't make me happy. I've went to school and worked hard enough that I can make it no matter where I go. The world isn't going to end if I don't cater to everyone in it. I don't care who likes me and who doesn't nor on what aspect of me they are basing their opinion. Fuck em. I like me. I like who I am and how I act and what I do and where I go and how I look and what I eat and who I'm with and the rest of everything can go to hell for all I care.

Dammit.

Happy birthday me.

I hope the next 33 are as interesting as the first. Then things can slow down a bit. I'm gonna be tired.

When ever I hear the word Cesarean I think of sardines and lettuce

I've been trying to come up with something really interesting because more than 20 people dropped my feed this week.

But I've got nothing to keep anyone's interest.

It sucked for like a minute, but I'm guessing that it is people who I don't really want to be involved with anyway. People that if we knew each other in real life and I saw them walking down the street I'd dig my phone out of my bag and start talking to no one just so I wouldn't have to stop and talk to them. People that if I read their blog, I'd probably stop after the first four sentences because I didn't like them much either.

Good riddance to bad company.

Moving on.

I have a few friends who have recently had emergency C-sections and are really upset with it.

I had one too, but thought it was somewhat glorious.

First and foremost, I'm not constantly peeing my pants like some people I know.
That is a fakeout link, but you know who you all are.

I think it is pretty damned badassed that I had my skin and muscles slashed open by someone wearing a burka who had never done anything like that before* and all my guts were dragged out and laid on my chest right before someone reached in and yanked a baby out of the gaping hole.

So much more punk rock than the other way to do it.

It's like the birthing equivalent of extreme body modification.

I had superglue and staples and stitches.

What did you have?
An ice pack, a squirty douche bottle, and mesh undies?
That's adorable.

(For those of you who got ripped a new one when your giant babies tore themselves out of your vaginas, you had it way worse and I respect that. I'm sorry your ladies got shredded like that. I hope you didn't end up with permanently blown out Frankencrotches.)

My stomach was perfectly flat after delivery. I don't know what they did while they had me cut open, but I didn't have a gushy mushy tum tum like some of the girls in the ward. Some of them looked like they still had babies in there. That has to be like a worst nightmare, leaving the hospital just as big as when you got there.

My ass was still in full force though. It was amazing.

I miss that ass.

Recovery was painful, but it was a great excuse to stay in my room for two weeks and figure out what the heck I was supposed to do with a baby. People brought me food and Netflix was in full force and the stack of books I had by my bed dwindled. I didn't feel pressured to cook or clean or do anything I didn't want to do. I put myself and Jake in a little bubble and it was okay.

I don't feel robbed of anything because I carried a child for almost 9 months, I labored for a day and a half without drugs**, my friends and family were all there, and a baby came out of my body at the end of it all. It didn't matter that the hole he slithered out of was manmade.

A baby came out of my body. Which was pretty much the goal all along.

What did you think about your baby's delivery?



*there was an attending doctor who had lots of experience delivering babies but she let the rookie do all the work.
**except for pitocin, cervadil, and benedryl. oh, and antibiotics because my chassis had strep throat. don't ask how that happened.

don't quit your dayjob

Edder over at I Don't Care for Your Tone awarded me with the I Shoulda Been a Stripper award. I thought I could be outstanding and use the Peeps picture she included in her post to make a fabulous button, but my computer skills don't extend past opening something in Paint and writing on it with my mouse and the little pencil feature. So here it is...
The guidelines of this award are to list 7 of your personality traits, as evidenced on your blog.

Oh boy. Here we go:

1. Well, I'm quick with the mouth and the hands. We'll call that one IMPULSIVE

2. And I think I'm the funniest person I know and I don't really care if no one else gets the joke. HUMOROUS.

3. I'm overly concerned with making the world a better place. I like to think of that as a big mix of ENTHUSIASTIC/ RESPONSIBLE/ INFLUENTIAL

4. I can be a bit much sometimes. OVER-BEARING

5. I work best under pressure and by myself. I'm SELF-RELIANT

6. I like to find the beauty in things. If I can't find beauty, I like to create it. You know, by just standing there next to it. AESTHETICS are where it's at.

7. I like the people I surround myself with. I'm SOCIALLY CONNECTED.

And if that wasn't enough to make me happier about things after that last post, Gina from If it were up to me... gave me the Your Blob is Like a Unicorn to Me Award.

You have no idea how bad I wanted a unicorn between the years of 1981 and 1987. I would've killed for one. This is the next best thing.


It's probably good that I never got a unicorn. And I don't think I really shoulda been a stripper. I am a terrible dancer. I really shoulda been born in the 1920s so I could be a 1950s pin up girl. I was made for it. None of this heroin chic anorexic crap over here. I would've been famous. My face would grace firehall fundraiser pie tins and naughty mag pull outs and I would lead a quiet life otherwise. All the neighbors would whisper across the fence that they think they saw a picture of me while they were organizing their husbands closets and I would just smile and wave while I hung my laundry to dry on the line.

My name would be Lola LeSoir.

But only on the weekends.

I would put together pots of soup for the homeless shelters on Wednesday afternoons and bake cookies for the PTA each Thursday morning. In the summers I would host ice cream socials in my yard for the neighborhood kids each Monday. Every Tuesday night I would take casseroles to the church potluck and Fridays I'd put together cucumber sandwiches for the ladies at Bridge Club.

All ingredients would be paid for with tittie dollars.

since the nation is abuzz with health care talks, I think I'll join in

Whenever I think of the phrase "women's right to choose" I think of abortion.

Maybe sometimes I think of birth control. We've pretty much got that one down, except for a few insurance providers who don't cover it. To me, that sounds judgmental and repressive, especially in cases where people are using the birth control pill to control for things like painful cramping and excessive bleeding. Sometimes a lady needs to adjust her hormone levels for reasons other than getting some carefree booty.

Six months ago I was talking with my gyno-oncologist about a partial hysterectomy. I was tired of being biopsied and gouged and cut and sewn up so many times. The mental stress was eroding my brain. The physical stress of having pieces of my ladyhood removed on a regular basis was horrifying. Neurological problems that may or may not be related to the cancer and the treatment and the lack of research surrounding all of this ("we just don't know enough about this to give you a definitive answer, maybe in a few years...") taking a toll on my sex life- hell- on my entire life. Nearly six years of going back and forth with this issue was wearing thin. I wasn't getting better. Every time I went to the doctor the cancer spots would spread or move or hide or mutate. I didn't understand why they couldn't just take out my tumory parts for once and for all and let me live like a normal healthy person.

"Because," she said. "Because what happens if you want another baby? We can't just take out your uterus and cervix in case you decide to have another baby. Your records say you are married, what if he wants another child?"
She said it like Bay-EE-bee.

"I don't want another baby. I want to be healthy for the one I have."

"Well, you are too young to be considered for this operation and you only have one child. If you had two maybe we could talk. If you were closer to 40, it would be an option."

"I'm quite sure I don't want to have another child. I'm 32. I've been told by two doctors that if I were to get pregnant again, it would likely be a high risk, bed-rest pregnancy. I'm not willing to go through that. I'm not willing to sacrifice almost a year of my life and my son's life just to have another baby."

"If you are interested in paying out-of-pocket for a hysterectomy, it might be negotiable."

And so on and so on and so on. I had this conversation with three other doctors and an insurance rep.

So, because I'm just a spring-like 32 years old and I've only spit one brat, I am not eligible to HAVE A CANCER-RIDDEN NON-VITAL ORGAN removed. Unless I wanted to pay for it.

Fucking lovely.

But the single 29 year-old healthy-as-an-ox yet childless man who works in my office, who carries the same damn insurance card that we all do here, is able to walk into the same hospital and get a vasectomy. No questions asked. He has a consultation, he talks to the girl at the front desk, he comes back in ten days, and he walks down to a taxi stand 45 minutes later with an ice pack and a pat on the back and doctors orders not to cum inside anyone for two weeks.

If I had a spot of melanoma on my arm it would be taken care of without question. If I had breast cancer it would be no problem. Anything anywhere else, and it would be gone and forgotten six months after it was found.

This is bullshit.

So I'm not allowed to decide I don't want a uterus anymore, but I can chose to take a pill every day to render it useless? Yes.

And if I forget that pill and I get pregnant I can chose to come to you and you can suck out the pregnancy with a vacuum on a straw? Yes.

But you can't take out my uterus because I might decide to have a baby but I can always decide to terminate that baby or I might be able to take a pill the next day after having unprotected sex so I won't have to have a baby that I don't want and I can do it all again and again and again provided I keep giving you $200 every time it happens? Yes.

And I can have my cervix and uterus removed on my dime? Yes.

But not on yours, and you are willing to pay so that I can have my reproductive organs nickled and fucking dimed until they are shredded into nothingness just so you can't say 'I told you so' if I get some sort of hormonal maternal surge in my late 30s? Just in case I want an eleventh hour child you say you are doing me some sort of favor? Yes.

What is this about, fundamentally?

I don't really understand all this. Six years brings probably over fifty office visits, dozens of painful biopsies, and one out-patient anesthetized surgery accumulated. Prescriptions filled. I can't imagine the total monetary cost.

But, cue the bluebirds and bring in the sunshine. Run a kitten across a field. Is that a bunny? Let's go horseback riding. Through a meadow of daisies. With ice cream cones for desert. Double scoop.

In better news, I've had two clean biopsies in a row. That's never happened before. I go back next month, and then in January, and if those are clean I can start living like none of this ever happened.

Three cheers for normal annual gynecological visits.

A girl can only take so many trips in those stir-ups before she gets a mite bit angry at the system.

"Personal Choice" my ass.

I was talking today with a coworker, about how she is afraid that she is missing the Mothering Gene. She is recently engaged, doesn't really care if she has children or not, but is marrying someone who can't wait to be a dad.

Grr Dads. Always wanting to be Dads because they get to be Dads and they don't have to be Moms.

I'm not afraid I'm missing the Mothering Gene because I don't really believe in it. We come through where we are needed. We are humans above all else.

I make a great Hen. Gather and direct. Gather and direct. Peck at the slowpokes. Push them up with the rest. Shove up the little ones under my wing in a rainstorm only to shoo them all out when the sun shines. Gather and direct. Push and peck.

I would excel as a Crossing Guard.

When I got pregnant with Jake, I didn't love him, but I did my best to care for him. No junk food, lots of whole foods. Plenty of exercise, water, and rest. Showed up for every prenatal visit fifteen minutes early. Vitamins. The works.
I was the best pregnant girl ever.

Then I thought I lost him.

But I didn't.

So I tried to love him.

But I didn't. Not in the way that I thought you were supposed to love your baby. I loved him like I love my left arm. I needed to keep it strong and healthy and attached because it is mine and it's my responsibility to do so. That little thing in me wasn't a baby yet. It was everything. It was nothing. It just was.

Fast forward.

Born.

Mewling skinny long thing. I thought he was beautiful and perfect and amazing. Then. Now I look at pictures and think he looked like an orangutan.

I guess I loved him. But not in the way that I thought you were supposed to love your baby.

I loved him from my guts. Some sort of visceral force that kept me from sleeping so I could be vigilant. That kept me eating so he could feed. Kept me breathing, just for him. Emotion deeper than words that had nowhere to go so it collected in my throat and seeped out of my eyeballs when no one was looking.

I tried to make my life match those Johnson and Johnson ads where everything is clean and happy and everyone is laughing and well dressed and the grout on the sink where the baby is getting washed isn't cracked. I wanted to be that mom. But I wasn't. So I stopped trying.

Then he grew and I started to love him. Just a little bit. The way I think you are supposed to love your baby.

In the moments between diapers and feedings and laundry and screamings I loved him.

And then he grew and I started to enjoy him.

The moments between the baby bullshit got longer and I got to show him the world.

And then he grew and I fell in love with him.
There is a vast difference between loving someone and being in love with someone, so they say. They.

The moments of baby bullshit got shorter and he got to show me the world.

Now I'm just so astounded by this 38.5 inch 31 pound boy that I don't know where to keep it all. He is so much bigger than he measures. My head is full, my heart bursts again and again. He breaks me he makes me he takes me.
Every time he looks at me time stops. Every time I look at him time jumps.

I want to touch him but I don't want to ruin him. Spoil him. Put the world on him.

Every little thing about him is perfect, even the parts that aren't.

I've never combed his crazy hair. It goes where it wants. It grows where it wants.
Someday he will follow suit.

A couple years ago someone left their newborn behind my bank. Every time I'm there I check the bushes to see if there's another baby in there. Community service

I've had this post in draft for over a week now so it's time to bump it up. I'm terrible like that. If I don't finish something when I start it, I never go back.

I don't even eat leftovers.

The problem is that bad.

Anyway, I was extra-hesitant to hit publish on a post I did a few weeks ago because I felt it was really personal and a little ambiguous and I wondered if anyone even cares about something that happened twenty years ago but I did anyway because that's how I like to be here. If I take the time I think something or write something, I like to get it all down here so when I'm old and crickety I will be able to look back and see what I was really doing way back when. Now.
I know from experience that I tend to gloss over the past and jam the details into my brain and just remember the big things that make me happiest or saddest. The middle stuff gets pushed out. So instead of letting it fade into nothingness, I put it here.

I was shocked to get an email that let me know that post was given honor over at Five Star Friday. Holy crap!


If this keeps up, I'm going to be tempted to tap even deeper into the recesses, which sounds appealing I'm sure, but trust me when I tell you it isn't.

Also, this morning, just as I was about to hang myself with the chain of rubberbands and paperclips I've been assembling over here because I can't stand to do any real work on a Monday, I caught wind that Atomic Lola has bestowed the SWANK award on me!


When I first got the email I thought it said STANK and I was all like, 'seriously Lola? You're my girl. I can't believe this is the way you let me know that you and I are quits'. But then I blinked and my eyes cleared and I was all squishy inside because if there is one word that I love more than any other word in our language to describe anything, it's "swank".
I want to be swanky. Sometimes I think I am, but sometimes I fail miserably.

A million thank youses to everyone who puts up with me here.
You all make my heart happy.

Hooray for Monday!
Did everyone get into work on time?
Only the rest of the day today and four more days before my birthday.

Jake got sick on Friday so I packed him on the 79 bus and took him to Ikea and the hardware store so he "could look at stuff to stop thinkin' 'bout bein' so sick". His words, his store request. That's my boy.

I secretly love when he's sick because he gets quiet and cuddly and lovery and wants nothing in the world but me. It's the best feeling in my whole existence. Except for the fact that he's sick. That kind of blows.

And it really blew that Saturday morning at 6 am I got a shoulder tap and a "mommy i think i need you" and then I had a bed full of puke on the word you, which came out more like youuucckkkkkack. He was fine by swimclass, and had an okay time there, but the rest of the day was nice and slow and full of mommybaby time. Plus, I didn't have to cook because he doesn't really eat when he is sick so that was good too.

AND, Mara came up from Baltimore and our evening was spent with pitchers of margaritas and fingers of whiskey and rums and cokes and lots of very important conversations about things that are absolutely none of your business so don't even bother asking because they are totally top secret and then Lauren came over to my house for a post-work drink and I almost passed out in my backyard because I am weak. A light weight. I'm getting old.

Somewhere in all that I got my kitchen wallpaper stripped. I don't have any before pics but this is really all you have to see:

This is the wallpaper. There were 4 layers of it in some places. It was superglued and/or silicone caulked to the wall in some places. None of it was my doing. The people who used to live in my house were whackjobs with bad taste, too much time on their hands, and deep employee/ reject discounts at Home Depot. Never buy a house from someone who works at Home Depot because it will be full of crap that everyone brought back to the store because it sucks.

***

This is what I found under the wallpaper. Try as I might, it wouldn't strip down any further. It is primed over now, but my brain will know it is there forever. It looks like Pogo the Clown

***

This is the PlasticJesusLight that I will be digging out of the cabinet (this is a file photo, and the Jesus has migrated back some but I'm sure he is still there. I like to keep him with the couscous. Jesus loves couscous. And curry and fennel. And ground up foods wrapped in grape leaves. Or so I'd imagine.) that I will be plugging in to the outlet that is nearest the horrorshow so I'm protected.


By the grace of John Wayne Gacy I didn't have a hangover Sunday morning and the weather was so miserable that we went to the Camden Aquarium. First of all, that place is damn expensive and I don't know where all these people get all this money but that place was packed. Aren't we supposed to be poor or something? Second of all, it was Sunday morning. Doesn't anyone go to church anymore, dammit? Third of all, all that water and swimminess and thick glass would have been torture if I had finished my last drink on Saturday night. I always leave that place feeling like I might puke. I don't get seasick but I have a hard time with fishtanks.

Tonight I paint.

Laura Ashley Sky Blue 1 and 2. I'll be tackling the 2 and saving the 1 for tomorrow. By Wednesday I will be 85% happier than I was last Wednesday. Then someday I'll get a new sink and counter and backsplash and all my problems will go away.

Also, does anyone know how to remove a totally stripped screw? It's really putting a wrench in my grandplan and I get a little testy when wrenches are put in my grandplans.

I was thinking of posting some of the emails I got regarding that last post.

Anonymously of course.

There is a reason I get emails instead of comments sometimes.

I was thinking of posting them because there were some amazing stories of survival and struggle and tragedy and turmoil and death and divorce and real I am Woman Hear Me Roar stuff that made my heart turn circles and my brain work overtime and I thought everyone could benefit.

But then the nasty stuff started rolling in. The ones like the ones I get regularly, that tell me I'm a terrible mom and a horrible bitch and incredibly intolerant and and and.

Clearly some people, who are smart enough to email from junk addresses and figure out how to send an email that I'm blocked from replying to, aren't smart enough to remember that I was talking about how I felt when I stayed at home by the time they got to the end of the post. There was nothing in there about how I feel about People who stay at home.

I don't care what anyone does as long as they are taking care of themselves and their children. I do care about how people feel, especially me. And you too. I care about your feelings and if I hurt them by being a person who needs to get out of the house eight hours a day five days a week, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I am not strong enough to stay home with my child.

There.

Christ on a cracker.

One time, I went to Catholic church where Christ was a cracker. Jesus was a tiny little cracker that people gobbled right up and swallowed AND Jesus was a cracker assed white boy.

See now, my Jesus was one tawny emmer effer, and he did not like to be bitten.

He told me that once. "Lora, no biting", I think were his words. There may have been a "my child" thrown in there. Or a "for I come in peace". I forget. I was just a kid.

I work with a lady who picks out her outfit each day based on what Jesus tells her to wear while she lies in bed for five minutes after her alarm goes off.

Hand to God, that's what she does. Seven days a week.

Sometimes she polishes her nails at the breakfast table so they match her clothes. She's like that. The shirt matches the bottom matches the shoes matches the earrings matches the watch matches the fingers and toes. Every day. It's wild.

I need that. I always end up wearing whatever pants are on the floor from yesterday until I spill something on them. Then I wear my other pair of pants until they get dirty. It's gross, I know, a bad habit I picked up in college.

But you know, I'm kind of thinking that Jesus only had but so many of those toga thingys.

So who's closer to Jesus now, bitch?

Thought so.

Go on with your 101 outfits self. I don't think Jesus approves of above the knee skirts anyway. You weren't given thighs so you could prance them around the 2nd floor office space.

So yeah.

What?

I think that last post was more about how I felt as a stay at home mom and how I didn't know what was wrong with me as a person, not how I feel about stay at home moms. And the only bit of intolerance displayed there was about a woman who risked her life a job that doesn't seem to do much for the lives and safety of others. If she was a soldier or a police officer or even an ambassador of some kind I wouldn't take issue. But she's not.

As you were.

So Euna Lee, the journalist held captive in North Korea blah blah blah?

Yeah. I hate to admit it, but I'm waist deep in the camp that says that her responsibility to her daughter is hugely greater than her responsibility as a journalist and she was slacking as a mother in her efforts to succeed in her career and I'm so very glad for her baby's sake that she is home but I have no respect for her or her decisions in the least bit.

As a journalist, what was she going to discover while sneaking around North Effing Korea that was going to make our world a better, safer place? Her daughter's world a better, safer place?

In some off chance she may have happened upon something that would have turned the world on end, I'm sure, but come on. I tend to think she wanted to see her name in lights. Big bold faced black and white Times New Roman lights.

I think as mothers we are torn in a million different directions when it comes to what we do on someone else's clock, on our downtime, on every. single. second. of. every. single. day.

Personally, I need to hold a career where I can leave the office each night thinking that I have made some sort of difference in the world. And I need to hold a career where I can travel to the office each morning without thinking that I might not make it to the end of the day.

I could double my salary if I took a job in some sort of finances or something, but I think my time and efforts would be wasted on a job that has no bearing on my community, on my well being, on little else than my pocketbook (which would be fabulous if I was making six figures).

I like earning a paycheck. Financial dependence is sickening to me. Asking for a few extra dollars out of someone else's paycheck so I can buy a latte breaks me out in a sweat.
I didn't ask even my parents for money when I was a teenager because I didn't want them to think I needed anything from them.
It's a problem that goes way back.
It's a problem that won't go away.

Save for freshman year of college and a month before grad school I've had a job since I was 13.

I didn't like feeling as though I was being paid by my husband to be a mother to his child when I was on my maternity leave. I didn't like feeling as though I wasn't able to afford to be a mother to my child if something were to happen to my husband. In these trying times, I can't imagine searching for a job if things got really rough at home.
When my check stopped coming in, I had to share his to make ends meet and that made me feel weak and unable and dependent and very very very small and unimportant.

Like he was paying me an allowance to clean the house and run the errands and sit on the couch and let his kid suck my tit for 8 hours a day just so I could cover my student loans and credit card bills and half the mortgage and bills and car note. When I would get a chance to go out, I would have to take a twenty dollar bill that HE earned out of HIS wallet.
Every day after my checks started coming in, all those things didn't bother me anymore. Other things did, of course, but not those things.

Dave didn't make me feel that way and it probably never crossed his mind. If he reads this I'll probably get an earful. It was my hormones and lack of productivity that made me feel so helpless, not the real world that was still somehow miraculously flying around me those first few months of Jake's life.

If I "only" wanted to be a mom, I wouldn't have needed a $50k degree that I'm still paying on. I wouldn't have needed the credit cards to get me through grad school. To get me through my twenties. To take me halfway around the world just so I could go halfway around the world. I would have just made myself a mom before all that happened. You need a lot of things to be a mom, but they all come from inside of you. For free.
Maybe then I would feel differently. Maybe not. Who knows.

I know if I stayed at home and paid the bills with a check that had someone else's name on it I would never truly feel that I was part owner of the house and the stuff and it was my "job" to take care of it and the babies that ran around inside of it.

I imagine I would probably feel the way I did when I lived under my parent's roof.

He who pays the bills owns the house and everything inside.
Or something.

From the day we decided to move in together Dave and I have shared a bank account. We still do. We both draw from it as we see fit. Maternity leave was no different than any other time where one of us went without pay, but it was the first time I had ever gone without pay as an adult, a homeowner, and a parent and I felt like a total shit.

Please don't tell me that's not the reality of the situation. Please don't tell me that you are a stay at home mom and that's not how it is at all in your house or in your life or with your husband or with your brats. We are talking about my feelings here. Let's pretend that my delusional thinking holds some sort of merit in the world for ten minutes.

I often wonder what is different about me than is about the mothers who are able to stay home and raise the kids and cook the dinners and clean the house and pick up the cleaning and buy the groceries without feeling like their man is some sort of bossdaddy. Without resenting the fact that their best years are filled with little more than domesticity, that they aren't missing out on something that is happening outside the front gate. How can they feel like they carry equal weight in the house just by virtue of being the MOM or the WIFE?
Why can they do it but I can't?
What is wrong with me?

I wonder if they think the same about me. If they wonder how the hell I do what I do.

I also wonder how the girl beside me can stand to wear socks and sneakers with her dresses. I spend hours contemplating this each week. I think about it in the middle of the night. It makes me want to puke so bad I'm considering taking her shoe shopping on my dime.
This should give you some perspective of where I'm coming from.
The answer is I'm coming from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

Where was I?
Let's see, I think it's shitty to chose work over family.
Got that.
I like to have a job where I make a difference in the world.
Yes.
I don't like feeling dependent on others.
Christ, no. Not since I was prepubescent.

I guess the only thing left is that as important as I feel it is to chose to be a good mother over choosing to excel at the workplace is the importance of teaching our children that women are able to get an education, a job, a life, and juggle it all. All by themselves if they have to. I want my son to see that his mother has an amazing education, can hold a job that she loves, and take care of him totally and completely and fully and madly and deeply and goodly.

If he chooses to marry a girl when he grows up, I want her to be educated and employed and independent and well traveled and and and and before she starts spitting out his damn babies.
If he chooses to marry a boy when he grows up, I want him to be all those things before they start buying babies.
If he chooses to live alone I want him to be sure to work really hard to beat me at life because he won't have anyone standing in his way. More education, a better job, a better everything.

No matter what, I don't want him to ever wonder what in the hell was I thinking when I chose something over him.

stop me if you've heard this one (Part Last)

Spending time in public makes me realize why Nickelback has a following.

Watching the sun set from broad and passyunk brings my heart great joy

Coming out of a fitting room w a bloody nose at 10am is shady. I swear I was just in there picking it

Trying to think of the grossest thing I ever ate. Real food, I mean. Not like the jalapenos and cigarette butts out of the ashtray at mannys

Urban fast food joints tend to play lotsa white frat boy music.

Do fire fighters still have Dalmatians? Did they ever, really?

Is it ethical to use nail polish remover on your child’s face to remove Sharpie? Or do you just let it erode naturally? I need a manual 4 this

Taking a number at the deli gives me hope of a mathematically ordered world. A girl can dream...

My fortune cookie tells me my happiness is intertwined w my outlook on life

It astounds me, the number of different ways you can make a Phils jersey into something slutty. Holler at yer South Philly girls

I love when October pretends that it belongs to summer. Makes me want to wear short shorts.

The way I see it, if I was out on my yacht somewhere off the far coast of jersey it would be well past noon by now

Campbell’s soup stock is up, reinforcing my belief that we should stock up on canned goods now so we have something to eat later when we run out of food and dollars. Just be sure to check the expiration date. I have lots of beans and tuna and fruit at home. Remember when you all made fun of me because my ocd forced me to buy all that stuff? Who’s laughing now? Oh stop. You know I’ll feed you.

Payday is amazing when it is payday. Not so much when you realize its not for another week and you’re broke now

Figuring a way to convince my boss that I'm Jewish so I can skip tomorrow. But I don’t want to work on xmas either. Suggestions?

I'm debating whether or not 2 worry about the economy. Should I buy everything I need now just in case? Stock up on canned beans? Sell my gold?

One of the things I like about walking thru the ghetto: I've actually been INSIDE lotsa these houses. What is my life? Srsly?

When the sky looks the way it does now I look to the north to see if any tornados are forming over the lake. But I'm too far away to tell

I have an empty Absolut bottle. You don't know how tempted I am to fill it with hi liter water and put it under a blacklight.

I have a day full of dead guys, raped toddlers, and teenagers who fondle their younger siblings. What about you? Anything good?

Tourists in my neighborhood make me wonder what the hell the big deal is. Am I missing something here?

Passing the royal at 230 in the afternoon and seeing some friends in there makes me bitter about being a responsible adult. And South street sometimes reminds me how bitter I am that I never got to live my life on daddy's credit cards.

Damn cold weather... Made me Dutch oven myself in an attempt to get my belly comfy and my head warm all at the same time. Takes me awhile to remember the rules of the fall. Now I remember why I wear hoodies to bed in the winter.

Few things in life are as nice as stepping on the paving stones and making some noise in Love Park

The biggest reason that I am in the field of helping people is so I don't feel so guilty for hating people. True story

My one wish is to get through a workday that doesn't include pee, poop, puke, or blood. Or at least that they be my own

Sometimes my brain clears out and all I hear is the old Pennsylvania lottery jingle. That's why I suck at yoga

Chicago made our local news solely because they make us look safe and clean

I find Japanese business men and their tiny little suits endearing

Jake is sleeping over in my room. We are watching cartoons. So what if its Animal Farm I don't have cable in my room

I love the smell of black top in the morning.

I love the way the wind sounds in the oak trees before an autumnal storm

The ghosts in count chocula look like a cross between pig noses and earlobes that had earrings ripped out in a fight

I imagine the disgusting bubbly sound of soda is similar to the sound of maggots in a wound

I have a mental illness that does not allow me to wait in line for food

Its so hot. Thank god for cotton underwear

What ever happened to buckets of peanut butter?

If I had a guaranteed parking spot near my house, I would spend a lot more time shopping

I love helping tourists because I like to think they will go home and tell everyone we are nice here. (We really are. Try us)

Believe it or not, Owen Wilson is ruining my day.

kitchenspiration

My kitchen is Ninetiestacular. It's time to change that. I want it mostly white with a little bit of red and some aquaish turquoise stuff and I'd love a little bit of pink and yellow and orange in there but not too much and if something is kind of green but sorta goes with the blues I'd be really happy and I'll keep the black appliances even though I hate black appliances and I want to try to not buy anything brand new except for paint and a countertop.

It's great to live in this town because old people are always dying and their kids are always selling the awesome stuff at cut rate prices because the kids can't look at it without thinking about their hysteric-prone mothers and their neglectful boozehound fathers.

Excuse the cut rate photography on these pictures, but I walked around my house and took pictures of the things I love best in an attempt to infuse their souls all together in the room where I cook food and keep my trash. Isn't that gross? You can only keep the area surrounding your garbage can but so pristine.


the Christmas star from my childhood.
remember when you used to get a smoke with your martini there? I wonder if you still do now that you have to take it outside.

best on grilled cheese. with tomatoes. and instead of buttering your bread, try mayo. trust me.



sexy girl drink glasses from Hope. Best housewarming gift ever.

dollar store tea towels




the first expensive thing I've ever bought myself. I'd straighten the candle, but that would take effort. It's up high.

the kitchen from Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
my favorite page from a book I've had since the 70s
$4 shoes.
Gap, because I can't afford Pucci
this is my favorite dress
no, this is
and this one
I love this skirt, but it looks a bit busy with my tattoos so I don't wear it much

milkglass
best cocktail ring in the whole wide world. Don't hate. I'll let you wear it next time we go out.



I cut the yellow flower from a set of my grandmother's sheets. She died when I was 5 but if you open the back of that frame, the sheet still smells like her house.

This! This is exactly what I want! If I could do my entire kitchen in vintage glass beads, I would.
it's fake, but you can't tell in real life. real life doesn't have flash






I would put these shoes away, but I think they look adorable on the bench by the door.
best!
I know you want to do that to my mouth sometimes too. Sometimes I can be a bit much.
I dare you to try to touch my face. That little brat is lucky he gets away with it.