now that's odd The Dauphin and I were visiting Hell yesterday. If you haven't been to Hell recently, it's all done up to promote Satan's newest video, "Hell Freezes Over, or Gimmicky Video #13." The creators of Hell have seen fit to bedevil us with two new demons, whom I'll call Really Irritating Snowplow and Snowmobile Who Should Drive Off a Cliff. These things have a pretty high Poochie the Rockin' Dog factor. Of course they spout highly memorable catch phrases intended to drive small children into mercantile apoplexy.

And then I had a Really Weird Thought, one of those that pops up from your cerebral cortex unchecked, like "I should stick my hand into the disposal while it's running." And it was Wow. Bob looks kind of hot without his helmet on.

But you know what? He sort of does. Maybe I'm just so used to the hardhat. It's like seeing a friend of yours in contact lenses for the first time.

i'm superbad Who's been smoke-free for a month now? I have.

I don't regret my eleven years of smoking. Nope. Not for a minute. I don't regret puffing on a cigarette while drinking coffee in my bathrobe. I don't regret the conspiratorial glances between me and my co-workers or my friends--"Smoke break?" "Sure." I don't regret sitting on the stoop behind the now-demolished Laura Kuykendahl Hall after classes were over, smoking a butt and looking at the parking lot. I don't regret lighting up with a two-beers buzz on.

It was all good, and I embrace it as my history. But I can't go on that way now, in the latter half of my life.

I've decided to give myself a gift: I don't want to be chronically miserable and in pain for the second half of my life. So--to the extent that I can control it--I'm going to avoid that. Smoking is for young people, fearless people. People sitting on the dam at Lake Georgetown watching a thunderstorm roll in.

The saddest thing is recognizing that you are not that person anymore. Well, it's bittersweet, I guess, because you also get to recognize the person you're becoming. We talk about losing our youth; why not gaining our age?

one for the book Awww. We've had our first call to Poison Control.

Did you know that Atarax, when dried to a gummy texture around the neck of a bottle, will foil a childproof cap? Me neither.

We're fine.

scud Phase One of our pest control project is under way: Identification. I am trapping specimens and classifying them.

I am so not a bug person that I dropped Bio II in high school because I couldn't stand to collect insects. But now it's kind of interesting. Of course I have to murder the specimens so I can examine them (otherwise they won't hold still), and if that bothers you, you may not want to keep reading because eventually I'm gonna kill 'em all.

My research took an unexpected turn when hundreds of scud came in through the sliding door and asphyxiated in my living room. They died on their own. I just got to sweep them up and check 'em out. I don't want them in my house by the hundreds, but they are kind of cool. I like their itty bitty legs. Texas is a weird place, man. An aquatic species storms your house? Yeah.

J. calls me "Peter Arnette"--remember the SCUD stud? Well, now that's me.

spambots and imaginary girlfriends Anyone still reading besides the spambots?

Not posting much because our network, just launched, is fakakta. We'll smooth it out. It just means I have to post from J's computer. Which is such torture, you know.

I want to be an Imaginary Girlfriend. Apparently they're hiring people on. Not sure there's a whole lot of interest in thirtysomething preschooler moms, but you never know...lots of twisted kittens out there. I can send correspondence about pies and the playground. Pictures of me surrounded by Legos. Uh huh. I think that'd make a funny parody site, actually. Hey, somebody do that!

spambots and imaginary girlfriends Anyone still reading besides the spambots?

Not posting much because our network, just launched, is fakakta. We'll smooth it out. It just means I have to post from J's computer. Which is such torture, you know.

I want to be an Imaginary Girlfriend. Apparently they're hiring people on. Not sure there's a whole lot of interest in thirtysomething preschooler moms, but you never know...lots of twisted kittens out there. I can send correspondence about pies and the playground. Pictures of me surrounded by Legos. Uh huh. I think that'd make a funny parody site, actually. Hey, somebody do that!

from kellie You're fucking kidding me.



I like this part: "This is not a soccer mom's vehicle."

No, this is a car for a man with a teeny tiny johnson.

If you purchase this car, you should be sent to Iraq to fight for your own oil. No problem, right? You're not a candy-ass soccer mom or anything.

hiatus I'm back.

I'm tired.

You know how when you start getting really old, and then you go out to see a show, and the band doesn't even go on until midnight, so you get home at 2 a.m., and then your kid wakes you up, like, an hour later? Yeah. That happened.

And then you're pretty much worthless for the rest of the week? Uh-huh.

I have about seventeen writing tasks going, and I can't seem to finish a single one of them.

I'm also out of groceries. Fortunately some Craisins remain.

What Al-Qaeda Did to Us An excellent piece from The Guardian reprinted in Salon.

go get im, boys and girls! Hell. Yeah.

Fight on, ye Texans. Fight.

Cake or death?

Easy Reader

easy rider

No Noo Noo We had a lovely dinner gathering last night at some friends' house. Wonderful people, all of them. Fantastic kids. Excellent pasta and a salad I would have eaten out of the bowl if it didn't have walnuts in it.

The only wrinkle of the evening was when the kids put on a Teletubbies video, which B. had never seen before. Noo-Noo the vacuum cleaner (or whatever that thing is called) began hoovering up things, and B. had a flying shit attack the likes of which I've seldom seen. As if he were attacked by weasels. He's a Sensitive Boy.

While we were reading today, Baldo turned on the television--another rarity since we don't really watch it around him (or much at all, except I may have to start watching CSI if Gary Sinise is going to be on it). We have only three channels programmed in (PBS, the WB, and FOX), so Baldo turned the station to Ambush Makeovers. I thought to myself, "Well, maybe this is a teachable moment," and we discussed how the two mamas on the show were tired from delivering newspapers and taking care of their families and wanted to get new haircuts and makeup. I also explained that one of them had a lot of damage to the hair shaft from chemicals, and that you don't ever want to have damaged hair. (Well, not unduly damaged hair, anyway, since I'm not one to talk.)

"That lady is the colorist. She's going to put highlights in. Did you see that, honey? She has pieces of aluminum foil!"

He lost interest pretty quickly. I'm happy because I don't want him to be overabsorbed in television, but I'd like him to take hair care seriously.

I hate you, BOB No, not you, "Bob." Or you, Bob.

This BOB.

Every radio market should have an oldies station, cheesy or not. If that makes me some old weird crank, so be it. But that's not my point.

I like the idea of a free-format station. We had one (briefly) in San Diego when I lived there, which made the place almost tolerable. Mike Halloran programmed it.

But BOB is like some cheeseball guy who takes over the stereo at your party. He plays Bob Seger and Sheryl Crow and Matchbox 20 or matchboxtwenty or whatever the shit that shit is. You try to get him to go outside to play tetherball, but he says, "Oh, I'm fine here, thanks," not getting the message. He purports to be musically adventurous but he's actually a K-Tel collection of pop hits. He also refers to himself a lot in the third person--"BOB likes all kinds of music!"--which is only excusable in toddlers who haven't quite straightened out that whole personal pronoun thing. Never mind that giving a business entity a fake personal identity is kind of squicky.

a new and entirely different blog spam For those of you who like to watch animals getting it on, a helpful blog spammer is pointing you to her (?) zoo porn. Or else you can come over and watch the squash bugs on my screen door. It's a good thing I don't garden, because we're ass deep in those leaf-eating jerkies.

I have a new policy: I'm going to just say whatever I'm thinking to the people I meet, as several individuals have done lately regarding my kid. There was another patient in the waiting room at the dermo's who felt compelled to say, "Wow, your kid is really hyper." I should have said (but didn't), "Jesus Christ, that's a totally unflattering haircut."

As it happens my kid was hyper because he was itchy from a staph infection. If you were itchy all over you might run around too. And my kid is sort of hyper. What can I say? He's two. Maybe he'll sit quietly and knit when he's 60. It's not as though I don't mind him. There's just a certain division of attention required when you're checking in at the doctor's office, pulling out your insurance card, and answering a zillion questions, and during that time your kid might try to pick up the outside phone and talk into it.

Here's another one I've wanted to say but haven't: "Your spouse sure is loud and boorish!" Or "Aren't you going to get anything besides beer and Zingers?" Or "Honey, those pants have got to go." Or, "Shit, I didn't even wear those horrible drop-waisted pleated skirts in the 80s." Or, "You seem to be missing an arm. What happened?"

Yep. Staph infection.

The nonsmoking project is going well. I chew the gum only in moments of crisis, and then it's like Wheeeeeee!!!

Texas fight!