for thyra We went to Thyra's funeral today in Madisonville. Her house was packed with people, and her name was on everyone's lips. She was so special and dynamic. We didn't make it to the actual services because of B.'s fussing, but we went to the funeral home ahead of time and saw her. There was a collage of pictures from her life, and they were amazing. She had a Katharine Hepburn quality, minus the Connecticut terseness--she was as down-to-earth as you get. I miss her. She was buried in her pajamas and had made her daughter promise that the mortician would give her boobs since she never had them in life. All my second cousins have grown up, and most of them have kids of their own. I'd like to say that our kids all hung out together, but theirs pretty much behaved while Baldo cut a path of destruction through Thyra's parlor in search of her grandmotherly bric-a-brac--glass grapes, geodes, strange fluted ashtrays. I felt so aggravated because I wanted to focus on the event and all I could do was just say, "No, not for babies," and "Let's find something else to play with" until I felt like an asshole. I inevitably end up feeling like I failed somehow, as if everyone is looking at me in horror while my kid acts up and screams and destroys what should be a special family moment. I know that nobody really cares--that's what kids do, Thyra loved her kids and grandbabies, yadda yadda--but I still end up feeling like my kid is the pill of the bunch.

We are in Bedtime Hell. B. decided that he no longer wants to go to sleep. I'll sing and nurse and rock and read, and he screams and cries and kicks. I'm going to build a pyre for my lavender oil and "relaxing" CDs and Time for Bed and destroy it all. Maybe head out to Terlingua and live in an Airstream. We are going to have to do that Ferber bit. Anyone who has a problem with that is welcome to come over and stay up with my kid instead. Tonight was another failure, even after 47 rounds of "Yellow Submarine" and a bottle of water and both sides of our sleepy tape. I can't do a two-hour bedtime ritual. Besides, it doesn't work anyway. I can't let my kid run around until he drops and then have him get up at 5:30 as usual.

My babysitter is sick again. Yeah, I'm a shitty mother who has a babysitter but no income and eats assloads of pie and Ferberizes her kid. I never thought it would be like this. I thought I'd be a great mother with a batik-print organic baby sling and natural wood toys and organic vegetables. I thought I'd be able to do writing and editing work while my placid child played independently with Waldorf toys next to me. I'd listen to NPR every day and vote early and become passionate about public education. All I know is that I can't hear NPR over the screaming of my child, and there's some election coming up and I'm so poorly informed that I may end up voting for Leslie Cochran, the perennial mayoral candidate who's a homeless drag queen. (But this being Austin, people love that guy. Maybe we need a homeless drag queen.)

I feel like I'm going to cry now. I feel as if every person I've ever loved or needed has left me somehow. I'm watching my family get smaller and smaller. When I die I think B.'s going to need a handtruck because I won't know enough people to have pallbearers. Why does everyone leave? Why does every death remind me of the death? (If you know me, you'll know what I mean.)

On a lighter note, J. got a kick out of seeing Johnny and his myriad male cousins, who are so similar that it's almost like the "Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich!" scene from Being John Malkovich. All these bald-headed sixtysomething Texan guys in blazers and boots, distinguished from one another perhaps by a mustache here or a small paunch there, all rattling on about hay farming and social issues in matching twangs. It could scare you.

I need to get myself back together again where I used to be. I need to be confident in my mothering. I need to get a spine. I need to get a pie. I need to have at least an hour in the evening to spend with my husband. (He's driving the baby to sleep, currently a daily pasttime. Oh, lord, the scorn I used to have for parents who did that...)

well, that's nice, at least
Your rockabilly dream date is Wayne "the
train" Hancock! He might not be all that
to look at but at least he will treat you
right. He is a sencere man, honest and he'll
probably write a tear-jerking song about you
someday.

Who would be your ROCKABILLY dream date?
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sad news My very cool great-aunt Thyra just passed away. She had pancreatic cancer and was very sick. She was able to be at home with her sons and her daughter when she died. I am going to miss her. Unfortunately that side of the family hasn't been as close as I might have liked, since they all live several hours away from us, but my memories of them are some of my happiest. There were a lot of kids my age growing up with me, which was really special--it's one of the reasons I'm sad that B. will have no cousins, aunts, or uncles. I liked Thyra particularly because she was a flame-haired, 5'8" (tall for our family) badass with a cigarettes-and-whiskey voice. She never seemed frail, even though she wasn't well the last time I saw her. She was wearing Birkenstocks and sneaking out to the porch to smoke. (Why not? She was terminal.) I quietly offered to get her some Officially Unsanctioned Herbal Medicine, and she turned to the room and gleefully announced, "Marrit's going to get me some marijuana!" She met The Boy, who was in his superscreamy fussy reflux phase, but that didn't phase her. We ate sandwiches. My second cousin Toni Kaye was also there; she has breast cancer and was undergoing treatment at M.D. Anderson. (I wonder if there's anything in that east Texas soil to wonder about?)

My dad's family is so full of earthy, brassy people who are easy to like. Only now it's a little less full.

keep austin weird Apparently Borders isn't moving in to 6th and Lamar. B. and I celebrated by going shopping. We didn't make it all the way to Waterloo, but we did get as far as Book People. I got B. a little board book about cats. Since our visit to the farm, he makes the "cat" sign constantly.

We stopped at Whole Foods to get teething tablets and gel. I also got a toothbrush with nylon bristles since I'm still not convinced that the latex toothbrushes weren't making B. break out. Maybe I'm the most paranoid mother on the planet, but seeing that B. reacts to avocado and bananas, and both those substances cross-react with latex allergy, and my son's skin is clear for the first time since he was born...a person wonders, you know?

Then I went to the bakery in search of pie. I am Powered by Pie(tm). It's out of control. The pies looked fantastic--a cranapple with a lattice crust and a pecan with whole nuts. Some bright star had pasted the UPC code over the ingredients lists on all the cranapples, so I had to ask the clerk to call the bakehouse and see if it had eggs in it. No answer. I felt like such a schmuck making a fuss over something dumb like eggs, but I guess that's what people have to do.

And then I found them: vegan doughnuts. Uh-oh. Mix-a-Lot's in trouble. I ate three of those suckers at the princely sum of $1.49 a throw: one in the parking lot, one while driving down Lamar, and one first thing through the door after I put B. down for his nap. They're nothing spectacular--just little cake doughnuts made with non-wheat flour and fruit juices and no eggs. I could make them at home. I even have a recipe from Sheila. More likely I'll be waiting for the Nutrilicious truck to pull in to the parking lot.

I feel obliged to mention at this point that I'm not some pastry-crazed freak (well, I guess I am, but there's an explanation). Lactators are notoriously hungry people. I'm way hungrier than I ever was when I was pregnant, and I was pretty hungry then. It's not easy to produce food for a 25-lb. toddler.

How out of control is 24? Did we just set the land speed record for deathbed confessions, or what?

I went to an overnight screening on Tuesday night that was hosted by--ahem--our daily paper, which is, in a sense, a competitor of ours. God bless those crazy kids in features. They're trying so hard to speak hip but are so middlebrow. They went all out: swag bags and a personal visit from representatives of the dance team associated with our new indoor football team, the Rockers. The dance teamers wore T-shirts tied in the back and "worked" the line to get in, handing out free Rockers tickets and chatting everyone up. I felt sorry for them. They got paraded out to smile and wave, and some assjob yelled, "Take it off!" Then we did the obligatory T-Shirt Toss into the crowd, and all the prize pigs jumped up and down, salivating. The movie was totally forgettable, except that it had the youngest Culkin kid in it, and he was working this sullen-weird-kid number that suggests the clan's cred may be rising (a la Igby Goes Down).

I missed two-for-one Tuesday at Vulcan, and I'm sad.

Baby waking.

Zzzz...

say cheese

every day should be a holiday Briefly: More walking this weekend, of the holding-my-hand-and-taking-several-steps variety. I just about peed myself. We seem to have one incident per diem. Baldo has begun knocking on doors, particularly upon the bedroom door while J. is napping. And while we were celebrating Sheila's birthday at the Farm, a certain whimsical corporate family restaurant down the street had no pie whatsoever. No fruit crisp, no pie, nada except a bunch of whimsical corporate eggy stuff. In other news, I was briefly reunited with Scooter, who emerged from his hiding place in the closet behind Dad's boots and hunting rifles to receive my Marrity Love. He still wants it. Yet he was terrified of Das Boy, now that the latter is mobile. It was sad not to see Baggins. J. has become fully Texanized to the extent that he rolls down his car window and verbally harrasses motorists who've pulled over to the side of the highway to photograph their children in thickets of the legally protected state flower, the bluebonnet.

(sigh) Ok, this not-napping shit isn't funny anymore. I don't dig on getting up with the baby at 5:30 and having him fastened to me for the next thirteen hours. Imagine someone you rather like--your significant other, your favorite co-worker, your beloved gramma--following you into the bathroom and touching you for thirteen hours nonstop--poking your nose, pulling up your shirt, waving books at you to read, climbing on you and standing with both feet on your leg, throwing blocks at you. Fortunately, J. is home and went for a walk with B. But he's not any better off than I am, having been awakened all night by the querulous and ostensibly teething (walking? itching?) B.

But this is what really has me steamed. I'm a pacifist and I am anti-death penalty (by and large), but man, if you did this, you deserve to be poked with sharp sticks and tossed into the Bay like so much chum. I'll do it myself, with pleasure.

And in case that wasn't enough...

Human beings: a virus in shoes?

donald rumsfeld, no! "Mr. President, I just got off with the Secretary of Defense."--Lynn, on 24.

then again, maybe I won't I was all set to do Friday Five, and the questions are really weak this week. I haven't seen or met any celebrities in real life, and when I have, I didn't want to bother them. (What, I'm going to go grab Lyle Lovett in the baggage claim at the airport?) Having worked on the Universal lot, J. is full of such stories, as when Arnold Schwarzenegger parked his giant gym trailer in J.'s parking space, or the time he had to call Bret Easton Ellis at his cabin in Maine or whatever, and B.E.E. was totally coked up and freaking out. ("How did you get this number? How did you get this number?")

Okay, maybe a little freeform nattering on the topic, though my stories are dull. You know who is really cool? Really, really cool? Nina Hartley. I met her at VSDA and told her how I thought she was a model for sex-positive feminism, and she was tickled pink. She's, like, four feet tall. I could see clear over her head to the displays of bondage accouterments and liquid latex.

I met Bruce Campbell the same day, and I couldn't manage to do much more than stare at my feet and mumble. Then again, I do that a lot. He really does have an amazingly protrusive chin. Watch out!

looks like it's a moot point anyway because the incredible sleepless baby is up again. i'm going to lose my mind. i can' t take any assignments, i can't defecate by myself, AAAAAAHHHHH!

a little something extra

HOLY BALLS! Houston, we have our first unassisted step.

One. Step.

Does that count? It seemed accidental.

a hep little piggy You know what's so great about trash/recycling day? You get to see what your neighbors have been up to when you go out for a walk in the morning. You get to see who drinks a freakish amount of Sprite and who subscribes to American Bowler (you'd be surprised).

Our going-to-bed CD has a horrible skip in track 14. This is a big deal. I end up sitting and rocking for thirty minutes or so, listening to it go "uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh" until I think I'm going to go nuts. But you know, if I haven't gone nuts by now, I don't think it's going to happen. I should be making a new copy, but instead I'm blogging with an empty pan of peach cobbler next to me. Shame.

I'm also somehow unable to complete my mix tape for Leah. I keep eking (ekeing?) toward the end, hoping that she's not in a hut in Mali cursing me while her Walkman, batteries drained, grinds out her Moulin Rouge soundtrack note by note.

harmonic generator Dammit, I'm eating all the Gerber Graduates Vanilla Cereal Snackin' Squares. For reasons I cannot fathom, my weirdass toddler doesn't like these. I think they're made with crack. Maybe it works on some people but not others, kind of like cats and catnip.

I'm getting kisses! Everyone and everything else already has--B. kisses his dad, his bunny, pots and pans, &c. But not me. Until today! I am a toddler-kissed badass mama. That's the good news. The bad news is that we were having another one of those nap strikes. The first nap was interrupted by an unexpected poop; B. had the hat trick by 9:00 a.m. The second nap wasn't forthcoming, so we motored over to A. and N.'s house to visit and help them pack. Sad to relate, they are moving to Seattle. Huh. What's so great about Seattle anyway, besides that job offer and the natural beauty and all that? Really. So of course B. crashed out in the car on the way home and will probably nap until bedtime. I try to be firm about the napping schedule, but I'm not going to sit around in the house while everyone moves away from me.

I need a support group for people who can't stay out of chichi natural-foods grocery stores. We went to Central Market to get fruit and vegetables (the pickins at our neighborhood store were piss-poor), and they had a beautiful abundance of produce--exotic, prosaic, marked-up, discounted, fresh, frozen, cruciferous, tropical, hard-shelled, soft-skinned, spiny, furry, seedless, prewashed, you name it. (Except no peaches, because the peach crop went kerplunk this year.) They have bags of frozen rhubarb. Rhubarb! I'm sick of feeding my kid (1) apples and (2) broccoli. I want papaya! I want exotic grapes! I want a selection that makes macrobiotic people flee in fear!

I drew the line at Brussels sprouts 'cause, man, I can't even eat that stuff.

K. and I saw Bulletproof Monk on Monday night. I was reviewing it. Man, that was some goofy shit. I still say I'd pay money to watch Chow Yun-Fat water his houseplants. There was a decreipt 100-year-old Nazi still in his jackboots and epaulets, a totally random Anglophonic crime lord named Mr. Funktastic, a kinky Teutonic white supremacist chick with lycra jumpsuits and a Aqua-Netted Marilyn Quayle flip, and Mako. Remember Mako? Looks like he's technically still alive. Weird. Excellent Trashy Movie Night potential. We had a hilarious time, especially since "The Monk" is our nickname for K., and the characters kept saying "Where's the Monk?" and "We have to save the Monk!"

I want to keep reviewing movies until I drop over dead, even though it's hard to be in this line of work and have a family.

nap strike Oi g'vault, I am one tired lactator. Not that it's unusual for lactators to be tired. B. is rebuffing his naps; not even trips in the Mamamobile and the stroller could keep him out for longer than ten minutes. I blame the teeth.

I used to think I knew what it meant to be tired, after the occasional all-nighter or bout of insomnia. I used to be so sleepless that I got hooked on Xanax (gasp!). But that was just a rehearsal for parenthood. This morning I was floating through the kitchen at 5:30, filling the coffeepot, and I realized that I was numb from the waist down. My head was buzzy. It was the same sensation I remembered from the President's Physical Fitness Test in the sixth grade, when I got an awesome runner's high during the long-distance run and pushed myself without pain and kicked everyone's butts. (My sole athletic achievement to date.) It was not unpleasant.

I'm stretched pretty thin today, but rather than kvetch, I thought I'd take a moment to talk up The Boxcar Preachers, whose album I purchased and greatly enjoy. Our buddy Bruce is one of these dudes. He has a song about Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal (a phrase that will instantly resound with anyone who's driven a Texas freeway).

I also had a lovely chat with Dave, our friend of yore, who was in town this weekend playing with The Lucky Strikes. I spent entirely too much time yammering about my postpartum experience (sound familiar?) and I fear that I made it appear as unpleasant as possible. Dave and Emee will probably sail through parenthood. They're so righteous.

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach when I read this passage in Gib's blog, from the Guardian:

The world’s first written words may have been lost forever. After surviving for more than 5,000 years, distinctive clay tablets that are recognised as the root of all mankind’s written communication have either been destroyed or stolen in yesterday’s looting of the Iraqi national museum.

And some jerkwad media corporation is buying The End and turning it into a country station. Not that The End was perfect--how many ads for laser hair and vein removal can you stand?--but I did have a soft spot for it dating back to my college days, when it was the "alt" station in town and was actually kind of alt, you know? When you could turn on the radio and hear Jane's Addiction and the Happy Mondays in your car as you were driving down to 404 with a lit Parliament in your mouth and truck-stop amphetamines in your pocket. Then you'd buy quarter drinks and shake your ass until someone in your party threw up on the bouncer and everybody got kicked out. And your neighbor was an intern there so you'd get to come in and poke around the boards. Maybe it wasn't that much of anything (my flaming youth wasn't particularly flaming--it was maybe pleasantly warm, like an electric-blanket youth, at times) but it was something, and it's yours to recall and miss a little when it's gone, when it becomes some ass-clown country station with jingoistic hoorah anthems you can buy on CD at Wal-Mart. Thanks, guys. On the bright side, who can argue with fewer ads for laser hair and vein removal?

So please let me take this moment to talk up The Next Big Thing, Andy Langer's new-music show on our otherwise shitty current "alt" station.

nothing can stop me now, or Friday Five III Looks like Syria is next. Then maybe we'll go back to Afghanistian?
The links are courtesy of my dear friend Gib ,with whom I've recently been requainted, much to my happiness.

Now I will lighten up with a Friday Five. I like them. Besides, B. is having a superclingyfussy day. He's always got a rash somewhere, and now it's on his face. He looks like the aforementioned Lady in the Radiator. We are seriously considering throwing ourselves at the mercy of our nice allergist and requesting the full gamut of food-sensitivity tests, even though our insurance won't pay for anything more. I don't know how much that would cost. I don't even want to speculate. Anyhow, on to the Five:

1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
   :covers eyes: It was Heart, with special guest Honeymoon Suite, at the Summit. I don't know what they call the Summit now. Stop laughing, J. I have dirt on you.
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
   I can't really answer that because WMA is stuck on the String Quartet Tribute's version of "Piggy." I am on a big NIN kick. It goes with the pie and was B.'s colic music of choice. Anyhow, I can't think of anything but string quartets unless I shut down IE and stop blogging, which I'm not going to do.
3. What's your favorite song?
   Umm...the String Quartet Tribute's version of "Piggy"?
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
   I would love to be able to play the button accordion. Or maybe the saw. Something not a lot of people play, so we could spread it around more. I'd also like to make music with water glasses, but I guess that's not really an instrument.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
   I'm not good at meeting people I admire. Ask J. about the time I almost physically ran into Kim Deal. I guess if I met Kim Deal I could apologize for almost running into her. Right now I'd like to meet the String Quartet Tribute and ask them what's so freakin' great about Incubus, anyway.
   Posted by Marrit at 01:12 PM

and check him out!

pie Oh, and Sun Harvest? Thanks so flippin' much for putting egg in your pecan pie.

it was all yellow A momentous day. B. and I went to our first storytime, which is kind of a rite of passage for the Sequencing Mother(tm). Pick the wrong neighborhood and you'll be in with a bunch of Gymboree moms doing sing-alongs. I guess I chose wisely, though there was a sing-along component. B. is having a flying eczema attack, so at first he just wanted to scratch his head raw and scream and arch his back in my lap, but he got into it. He even colored briefly: yellow dots on the picture of a tree with falling leaves. I wasn't sure he could wield an object without eating it. Apparently he can. There were all these toddlers, and some of them were so weird. One stood up in the middle of a story about some cat having a bad week and announced to the room, "I had waffles!" I was going to scan and post B.'s picture, but how superdorky is that? Please, I'm meshuga enough.

I washed the Mamamobile, which had accumulated a considerable veneer of bird shit. It looks fabulous, but B. cried all during the wash. Poor kid--must have looked like those giant spinning brushes were going to take his head off.

We were both tired during bathtime and bedtime, so J. and I cracked each other up with the "Cheezus H. Rice" joke from the episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer gains weight to get on disability. It got us through.

I got a bunch of cool stuff in a swap with Justine, who is just adorable. I couldn't be more thankful. We sent off the bouncer and the swing, and I actually felt misty. Bye-bye, bouncer. Thanks for holding on to The Boy so I could shower.
We watched A.'s boy (a.k.a. "The Duck") last night. Wow, children who don't scratch frantically are cool! He puttered around, all toddlery, and when it was time for bed, we spread out a blanket on the floor and read "The Going to Bed Book" thrice, and then he splayed out and closed his eyes and crashed. I've still got $1000 for the first person who can make my kid do that (offer void after he turns 24 months). I have to say this much: It creeps me out when parents "matchmake" their kids (i.e., "Oh, look, they're in love! They'll get married!"), but I think The Duck would be a lovely addition to our family.

good journey Just got an e-mail from my mom telling me that our family dog had to be put down. She had kidney failure. She was a fourteen-year-old battleaxe of a Basset hound; we used to joke that she was hard to kill because she'd survived experiences that would have finished off lesser dogs (e.g., she ate an entire bag of Hershey kisses, including the foil). I still remember bringing her home on my lap when I was in high school. She was so tiny (except for her feet and ears, natch) and shaking.

I don't know what else to say.

I might add that today and yesterday have been difficult days on the Baldo front, owing to Teethstock 2003 and an itchy sandpaper-like rash that seems to have resulted from our experiment with strawberries yesterday morning. J. and I spent three hours trying to get B. to sleep last night, until we were both exhausted and furious and feeling like the crappiest parents alive. As in so many moments during my motherhood experience, I was reminded of Eraserhead and the squalling, larval baby, swaddled up tight and screaming. I never really "got" that movie until I had a son and had postpartum depression and really, really wanted to vanish into the radiator because in heaven everything is fine. I don't want to sound like a super drama queen, because I'm honestly not, but there've been times when I felt like an abstract God-like figure could make erasers out of me. Last night was one of them. The difference now is that I can come back from those moments instead of being stuck in them. I think it's over tonight.

I haven't been extremely up on the news this week for the aforementioned reasons, but I'm very troubled by the problems with the police in Oakland. I need to read online. But I just feel like face-planting on my desk. No shower. No "American Idol." No phone calls or chatting with J. Just straight to bed at 7:30.

I'm still really into pies. I hated pie growing up. Then I think I got started on some kind of fruit cobbler (they say it's a gateway pie) and graduated up to strawberry rhubarb. I'm still not attracted to cherry pie, not even during our annual Twin-Peaks-a-Thon.M

And the baby is up again. That lasted fifteen minutes.

ikiru Does the world really need a remake with Tom Hanks? Dreamworks thinks so. Why can't they remake crappy movies? Like Boat Trip? Or digitally obliterate DJ Qualls?

I want a range life Why does the phone ring when B. naps? Go away, pesky caller! I shan't answer. I know it's not J., leaving one of his three-minute messages ("I'm at school...this phone is beige and has a ring light...there are lots of tiny holes in the receiver...it's Tuesday...") because J. is at the Drafthouse watching Chicago. I hope he's having pecan pie and a Schlitz. My newest cake is cooling on the stove. It's a dairy-free (for J.) and egg-free (for B.) thing called a Wacky Cake. I feel wacky already. It contains baking soda (natch) and vinegar, so when you mix up the batter it fizzes and tastes like root beer. I guess that's what's wacky about it. And I wasn't kidding about those cheese-rock MP3s--here comes Yngwie Malmsteen. Am I a bad Swede if I skip this? I don't think so. There, that's better.

At least I'm not as boring as this person. Actually, I think it's delightful.

I promised K. I'd take a bath in my boots and cowboy hat--as in the cinematic road apple called Lone Star State of Mind we watched last night for Trashy--but then I forgot and took a shower as usual while B. pounded on the bathroom door and screamed furiously. Maybe tomorrow.

B.'s closet has doors on it at last. I painted them one morning, and while they were drying, one of the neighborhood stealth cats walked all over them with muddy paws. I thought they were squirrel tracks at first, but they turned out to belong to a certain fat long-nailed Siamese mix tom who likes to splay on our back porch and give us insouciant glances while we're eating supper. In an attempt to annoy him off, J. and I have dubbed him Professor Meowington and refer to him as such at every opportunity. Not working so far.

Maybe I am getting old, but I'm starting to like The End. Maybe it's because I was driving home from the grocery store in the Mamamobile listening to the Buzzcocks, hauling my Pampers. I'm afraid, very afraid.

We are probably going to chaperone some of J.'s students on Peace Day next weekend. Most of them are much more aggressive activists than I ever was, including this one kid who's been arrested for shutting down South Congress and has a penchant for tearing up paper American flags during the Pledge. Should be interesting. I think we get pizza or something. I hope B. doesn't get fussy.

oh, no!
you're emo!

How can I label you?
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friday five II 1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?
Thirteen.
2. Which was your favorite and why?
I like Nipplewood. Though I fondly recall our first brownstone in Boston; our place had a dumbwaiter and French doors and a view of the Charles. But we had no shower.
3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?
I hate it. Especially the time we had to move in a snowstorm. Or the time we had to move our furniture down the street on foot.
4. What's more important, location or price?
What good is a location you can't afford?
5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?
A big yard with trees, especially trees that drop leaves and pollen everywhere. My dream house has a magical neverending coffee dispenser and comes fully equipped with Trent Reznor (an invisible electric fence keeps him from escaping, but he can run freely in the yard). The living room is rubberized and can be blasted clean with a high-pressure hose. Everything is babyproof, and the water is never too hot nor too cold. I also want a helicopter launch pad and one of those Japanese bathtubs you stand in rather than sit in. I need a bigger garage so the door doesn't close on the Mamamobile's bumper. And The Clapper. I have to have The Clapper.

the boy

two of us

never mind the bollocks

n is for napping Awww...yeah.

A baby nap is like 200 pounds of pudding.

Awww...yeah.

I'm on a super pie kick. I could eat so much freakin' pie. There's something about having an enlarged spleen that makes you not so hungry, and then when it goes away, look out, man, especially if you're a pie and you're in my house? Awww...yeah. I need to go pick up my pictures and get some stuff for brunch tomorrow. We used to have these brunches, in our wild and flaming childless youth. They weren't at all poncy; we'd just drink champagne and eat baked eggs and sort of lounge around in a Sunday-morning haze. We're going to have another one this weekend but I don't think there will be as much drinking and lounging, although I'd love to have a kir, maybe, and there'll be no baked eggs, of course. I've been playing my MP3s through and realizing that they really are kind of an odd mix. Aside from B.'s music, the cheese metal bands seem to come up a lot. I was nursing and half-asleep yesterday and I thought, Hey. There really ought to be a Vegas show based on this stuff. We'll get the remaining members of Dokken and Dangerous Toyz and we'll call it "Unchain the Night," and it'll be all full of that crying noodly guitar and start out all rockin' and then move into "Angel Eyes" or some power ballad, and the story will be about what happens when you Unchain the Night--specifically, there'll be lots of head-banging and rocking out and some kind of party in the parking lot of Whataburger after the Klein Forest game and Darren What's-His-Nuts will show off his Mach 5 and there'll be some kind of star-crossed romance and chicken nuggets, too. I get all kinds of bad ideas when I'm nursing.