AND GOOD WILL TO MEN

While thumbing through the local newspapers, I stumbled upon a coupon for one of the downtown strip clubs. They are waving the cover charge to all who donate non-perishable food items. Doesn't that warm your heart?

Or something?

To think you can have a desperate, misguided woman grind her muff in your face and stamp out hunger all in one stop.

FACEBOOK UPDATE

Winter Wren is falling into a tryptophan coma.

THIS JUST IN

Lead singer of band, Weezer, is a hottie-boom-ba-lottie.

SONG IN MY HEAD

As I already mentioned, my brain is almost always gnawing on some bars of music. Lately, these songs have been about London bridge, or parts of the face, or even the number seven.

MY CLEAR CONSCIENCE

I bought a bag of "reduced guilt" pita chips at Trader Joe's last week. I have seen "reduced fat" potato chips and I have seen "guiltless" corn chips, but never "reduced guilt." It's as though I'm meant to feel guilty about consuming them, but maybe a little less guilty than usual.

Since when is guilt an ingredient in food anyway?

GOOD STUFF

Ticked by quirky French movie, Rumba.

I AM A DIPLOMAT

When I talk to my husband. Why? Because I always need to choose my words very carefully and sometimes, I require a translator. But it's not all that bad.

Sure we get into scrapes here and there, but overall I'm very pleased at how smooth things run between us. Cohabitation is difficult enough, so I would expect co-parenting to be proportionately harder. But we have managed (so far) to do it without a lot of shouting. And I'm really happy about that. My parent's marriage is a minefield of pain, disappointment, and revenge, (and contempt and manipulation and mental illness). When I was little, they used to fight at night. I'd hear them screaming at each other downstairs and sometimes, things were broken. The sound of them fighting literally made me shake in my bed. My chin would quiver like a seismograph pen.

I will not be like them.
I will not be like them.
I will not be like them.

NOT A SHINING MOMENT

Recently, I was in the grocery store parking lot with my bag of vitals. I couldn't help but notice an adjacent car parked insanely close to my car. I almost had to collapse a lung and dislocate both shoulders in order to squeeze into the driver side door of my Yaris. I am not exaggerating. Once I was inside my car, I scrambled to find a pen and piece of paper on which I scrawled something like: You are an asshole for parking so close to my car! I hope you have a rotten day!

I had just dotted my exclamation point when I spotted the driver of the offending vehicle. She was a teeny, tiny, old lady! And I almost left this horrible note on her car!

FEED A COLD

I feed my rhinovirus cookies and short works of fiction.

PEDANTIC MANIA

Lately, I've been exercising my pedantic mania here.

I DON'T WANT TO BE A MOMMY BLOGGER

But the sad fact is, all of my students are boringly awesome this quarter. So I have nothing to complain about. And since I am now responsible for the well being of another human, I can't really pull my head through a bong and wax philosophical into the wee hours of the morning.

I need to reserve those wee hours for other activities, like sleep.

So, please bear with me. I hope things will change in the near future.

THE ALCHEMY OF A BREASTFEEDING MOTHER

I need to turn this cookie...into milk.

MAKE A WISH

It's eleven-eleven. Make a wish.

Think hard on it. You have all day!

PET PEEVE #5

I hate it when privileged white kids travel to poor and impoverished communities armed only with stories about Jesus Christ and then post pictures of said trip on Facebook.

Also, I hate cheap plastic spoons.

CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHANGE

Being a parent changes you.

For example, I can bolt my dinner faster than you can utter the words, "Uh-oh, he's awake."

A HARD SELL

The Nuva Ring obviously didn't work very well. So after moo moo was born The Steady and I had to think about employing some other, more effective anti-baby device. Before we could be fitted with something more long term, we had to use condoms for about two months. Total. Bummer.

I remember standing in the contraception asile at the neighborhood drug store staring at the many varieties of condoms. I was completely overwhelmed. It was like shopping for toothpaste. Pretty soon I would be pulling at my hair screaming, "where is plain mint!?" I was bombarded with labels like, Lifestyle Warming Pleasure, Trojan Her Pleasure Ecstasy, Durex Pleasuremax, and Trojan Magnum Twister. These companies were trying their damnedest to make it sound like sex with a condom is more exciting than sex without one. I mean, really, Lifestyles Triple Pleasure? Do the box of condoms include another man??

EMBARRASSING, BUT TRUE

Do you want to know something funny?

I thought this whole parenting thing would be a piece of cake.

Embarrassing to admit, but true.

It's not like I wasn't warned. I heard every hackneyed admonition. I was told to enjoy my sleep and freedom because things would change once the baby arrived. But then, the people offering these cliched morsels would throw their heads back and laugh. How was I to know their laughter was filled with irony?

Maybe I took too literally the pictures on the cover of Parents magazine at the OB-GYN office those nine months. I mean, there's nothing in those pictures to suggest that "new mom" hasn't slept or showered in three days.

LE PETIT MOO

BIG SIGH

Moo moo turns five months old today.