well, that's effective I just noticed that when I'm doing something weird/stalky/surreptitious online, I type really softly, like I'm tiptoeing. Because, you know, nobody notices that. The server log won't hear me.

Semi-relatedly: I'm trying like heck to get conversant with MySpace but it's just too porny somehow, without even trying.

cowbell (x4) I just finished my manuscript.
I just finished my manuscript.
I just finished my manuscript
because I finished it!

dear dipshit Thanks for smashing the driver's-side window of the car parked in front of my house. It's not my car, but it belongs to another teacher so now I have to hunt you down. (We have a code; I'm like Liam Neeson in Next of Kin.)

You also nigh well fucked up bedtime for the family by setting off the alarm. And you made me have to stay home and wait for the cops instead of going out by myself, which is a rare and special thing. I got to sit on my can and watch The Amazing Race, which really ought to be called Assholes on Parade, and I'd forgotten Jerry Bruckheimer was involved, so now I need to go shower the smarmy feeling off, but the cops still haven't shown up yet.

Excuse me, stewardess. I speak jive. The manuscript is recovered, and I'm down to the appendix. It's a memoir with an appendix. (I'm a Virgo.)

We have visual confirmation of Baldokitty. He's living in a storm drain on the corner, and an elderly couple has been feeding him. J. went out to talk to him this morning. The cat's all like, say what? And J's all like, get in the house. And the cat's all like, I ain't tryin to hear that.

The holiday season brought me a metric assload of chocolate I can't eat because it's made on shared equipment with nut-containing varieties. You can buy a goddamn fair trade chocolate bar processed entirely by employee-owned cooperatives on four different continents, but the moforkin thing is still made on goddamn shared equipment. And that really chaps my hide. I have PMS and I need this chocolate.

good cheer People, you would not believe what I just got in the mail.

No, it's not the Bacon of the Month Club.

It is an entire wallet of CDs from The Other J. and his fantastically talented and altogether wonderful sweetie, whom we might call Other J's J.

I've done nothing to deserve this. And still I can't seem to stop listening to this thing.

two weeks left My manuscript is due in two weeks, and I can't start up my computer. Hi, Windows? You still in there, baby?

I think that off-site back-up storage may have just paid for itself.

sniff I hate to complain, but is it possible to die of a cold?

This is almost as bad as when I had pleurisy at my wedding.

The difference? Now I have a kid. "Swing me!" he cries. "Run with me!" I slog after him neurasthenically, masticating a lozenge.

I don't know what this virus is, but everyone in Austin seems to have it, and it creates sinus pressure that registers on the Richter scale. All I can do is squint and wince.

Especially the right side.

I can't get shit accomplished on any front. I keep having to turn down assignments. My manuscript--now due in less than a month--lies fallow. I canceled a holiday thing for this weekend because I can't stand the idea of trying to get to Houston and smile and act nice. Especially in an election year.

We're going to get a goddamn bucket of chicken for Christmas, and if anybody has a problem with that, I'm kicking ass. And don't think I can't do it because I'm too weak to stand. I can lie on the floor and bite.

If I go four or five days without writing, I'm miserable. (Blogging helps minimally.) Baldo was climbing all over me today, and I was so tired and sick of talking about (1) construction equipment and (2) Tickety from Blue's Clues that I started to cry.

"Don't be sad," he said. "I will hug you and make you happy."

Awww.

"How about you help me pick up your toys?"

"No, I won't do that."

Hey, you. I know you, I know you. Article on bloggers and publishing in the Times.

fingers crossed A certain meeting is taking place on my behalf today. I hope it's going well.

But I'm a Swedish Unitarian Texan!
jewXcore!

How Jewish Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

festive us To create the right ambience for this post, you should imagine "Party All the Time" being sung by Andy Richter.

Ready? Okay!

First the bad news: We're not going to do Festivus this year. I know, I know. I have this...this thing I'm supposed to be writing. So y'all are just going to have to crash your cars and get puking sick with rotavirus somewhere else. Good luck with that. It makes me sad because there are certain people out there in TV land who like the Festivus...and I'm not naming names, but some of them stay late, and they're soccer coaches, and...and...they teach...and they bring good wine to the house...

And we'll see you later.

Partially it's the kid thing. Much to my dismay, Baldo's naps are gone for good. The afternoon is a little dicey. Either he's the Greatest Kid Ever or he's Baldus the Demon, screeching and slapping and just generally not using his words. And then he sacks out for the night around 6:00, which means we're eating dinner at 4:30. This was weird at first, but then I figured I could pretty much eat any time, any place. Turns out it's true.

J. and I are taking turns going to holiday parties. He gets the Booze Cruise with the teacherfolk (not a big sacrifice for me) and I got to go out Friday to a wingding at which I

• camped at the wine tent
• discovered a room full of pies
• possibly humiliated myself
• told seven or eight different groups of people that the phrase "butt plug" was among my son's first words
• and, to cap it all off, fell down a hill as I was leaving. I was waiting on the sidewalk for my designated driver/party bitch to unlock the "door" to his Gerbilator SX Turbo, and suddenly he and the car began disappearing from view. "Hey, where you going?" I yelled, only to discover that he was just standing there inert while I fell off a perfectly level sidewalk and went over backwards like Mr. Bean or something.

This is why neither of us goes out very often.

Fortunately I recalled from my flaming youth that you must (1) take the Tylenol before you go to bed and (2) eat scrambled eggs when you get up. Presto: Functional mom.

The remainder of our parties will be family functions and the preschool potluck, so I think I'm safe until New Year's.

tractor

laundry

Halloween

I'm blushing. Okay, so I just read this Steve Burns interview in Spin (::cough::stalker::cough) in which the Striped One confirms that he has not in fact "done it" (his term) in the thinking chair.

You know, that wouldn't have ever occurred to me. Because it's the thinking chair. You sit down in the thinking chair and think, think, think. The song doesn't mention anything else. Though it does say "we can do anything that we want to do." Which I guess is like whatever amendment it is that grants to the states powers not specifically denied, provided that we use our minds to take a step at a time, or something.

And now I'm going to have to watch another video tomorrow, and you know the thinking chair is just not going to look the same. Pretty soon I'm going to start thinking of all these untoward applications of...um...the crayon, and the Handy Dandy Notebook, and apparently this is all really de rigeur for preschooler parents, but I swear not in a million years would my brain have gone that way if not pushed. I think parts of my brain have just powered down. I kind of wish they'd stay that way until Baldo is finally old enough for Sea Camp, because I can really get a lot done in a day this way.

my mitzvah I try to be good. Is that not enough?

The UPS delivery person came to the door last week with a package. Though not a package for me--for the person with the same house number on my cross street. I gave it back, even though it was...

the Bacon-of-the-Month Club.

Freakin' bacon of the month, man. I think it was, like, apple-smoked or some kind of fancy-ass bacon I can't even begin to understand. And it was a heavy box, too.

I shut the door and Baldo flipped out, like, I want that bacon give it back bring back my BAAAAA-CON!

I know, kid. I know.

I love you, Steve Burns Maybe it's the Paxil talking, but I love Steve Burns. I like a man who works the blue screen with an animated dog. I've been trying to talk J. into that for years. Years, people. And there are some boundaries that you just have to respect, I guess.

When I was at the Mama Gathering in July, Steve was in town doing a show. The news went around in tones of hushed awe. "THE Steve?" Yes. The Steve. People were arranging carpools to the venue. Did I go? Of course not--in keeping with my philosophy of making the dumbest possible decision at every juncture, I demurred in the interest of our bedtime routine. And so I lay there pretending to sleep in a hotel bed that was as yielding as a morgue slab while Baldo chirped, "This way to the woods! This way to the woods!" and sang "Ring of Fire" in the rent-a-crib. He still does that, as a matter of fact, on the floor of his room.

And do I have any fond memories of...say...throwing my nursing bra onstage at Steve? Not a one. I've never thrown my bra at anyone. I just throw it at the hamper, and it flutters down like a leaf because I have no rack to speak of anymore. I guess you gotta play the hand you're dealt.