THIS CAT WILL NOT BE QUIET

She's all up in my shit.

So I says to her, I says,

Go do a crossword, huh?
Go solve your rubix cube.
Go text your little cat friends.

It's my way of reminding her that she hasn't any thumbs.

MY DARLING

I'm driving home tonight. It's a quarter to nine. The DJ is playing some Mason Jennings song on the radio, but I'm not really listening.

And then suddenly I am.

The song is sung from the perspective of a parent who lost their child, Their Darling, in The War. And then suddenly, the tail lights in front of me are blurry. And I'm sobbing. I'm sobbing on the highway. I'm aching because I lost something too. But it wasn't even a son or a daughter. It wasn't even a person. It was just a little tadpole.

But I lost it. And for now, I am hopelessly sad.

OH, HOW I LOVES HIM

WORDS FAIL ME

My in-laws are visiting this weekend. Words fail me so I am going to have to step back from this computer and express myself through interpretive dance.

HE SPEAKS

The Boy is starting to speak. Already he can say the words "up" and "mole" and "beer." It's really quite adorable. And he's learning very quickly. At least he tries to say a new word every day. So I said to The Steady, "Now is the perfect time to teach him French!"

"But we don't speak French," He replied. "How about Klingon?"

AFTER ENDURING AN HOUR OF PROLONGED BURPING & FARTING

Dear second hour students,

I totally get the message. You guys are too cool for this class, and you are way too fucking cool for learning. I get it. I am very impressed with your awesome insouciance. Can we move on now?

THIS IS WHY WE ARE CAT PEOPLE

A few months back our neighbor asked us to dog sit for a weekend. No problem. She's a good peeps, you know, she doesn't throw trash into our yard or steal our mail or anything. And the job was simple enough. All we had to do was let the two little yipper-yappers out four to five times a day and then fill their food and water dishes. Super easy. And no, please, you can keep the fifty bucks. We are happy to do this favor without an exchange of money.

The first night we let them out, one immediately set out to a corner of the yard and promptly made a huge, hot, steaming pile of dog poo. And then with great doggy speed, the other one ran over to the pile and started to feast on it!

Aaaaaaaaarg!!

The Steady and I were physically writhing from the spectacle.

This is why we are cat people.

INTENTIONS

I don't want to start writing again and make some big hairy deal about it in my head. I need to stop obsessing about the quality of my words and just do it for one reason, and one reason only: I have no other way of recording the events of my life.

BREAKING EVEN

What with the troubled economy and the millions of endowment dollars my school/place of employment invested in the stock market and lost, money has been tight. We've had a wage freeze for about two years.

I just found out last week that the freeze is now thawed. I got a standard raise, plus another little bump commensurate with a promotion I received last year. Imagine my giddiness. I should be tickled fucking pink, right?

Well, I went home and looked at my old pay stubs and calculated my raise against the 11% rise in health insurance with two added dependents. I'm just barely making what I was before.

COURSE EVALUATION

My favorite end-of-the-course evaluation comment:

"This course felt like I was back in middle school. I figured this course would be more in depth with everything but I was wrong. A 5 year old could take this course and pass. I felt like I wasn't challenged enough. this class bored me."

The comment on its own isn't spectacular. What makes it funny is, the student that wrote it just barely passed the class with a D. The implication is that the student admits that he or she is ever so slightly smarter than a five year old.

I love my job.

ABOUT FLABBY DEMONS

As a mother of a toddler, I find it awfully difficult to find time to exercise my demons.

And they be feeling mighty cooped up, those demons.

BOOK CLUB FOR BOYS

My husband attended an all-male book club last night.

Why do I find that so adorable?

GRUMPY PUMPKIN: BUT NOT IN A FESTIVE OCTOBER-Y SORT OF WAY

I got about four hours of sleep last night on account of one fevered and inconsolable sixteen month old. Now I have to teach four classes in a row. I will not be a rainbow, today. I will not be a sunbeam. Once the caffeine leaves my body, I will turn back into a pumpkin.

A really, really grumpy pumpkin.