See?

I am not the only one who talks about public restrooms.

Mama Snee, Queen of the Long-Ass Posts

Yesterday was Birdy's first day at her new, Plan A daycare. We packed up all of her daycare stuff into her daycare bag and went to the center as a family, introduced ourselves, chit-chatted the staff, played a little bit to get Birdy settled, wrote a staggeringly large check, and slipped out the door without incident. Big girl in her big girl jeans, playing with other kids. Not sitting in an exersaucer by herself, screaming as I walk out the door. Relief.

More things I will not miss about life with the former daycare provider:

1.Location at the end of a long, residential, dead-end street (on the other side of the world) that requires driving through a very strict school zone, patrolled by the city's most thorough and most totally insane crossing guards.The pointing "youp!" lady has decided to engage in personal conversations with the street crossers this school year, so you can be assured a long wait in front of the clusterf*ck of minivans and suburbans trying to get in and out of a one-way circle drive emptying onto a narrow residential street. It is convenient and pleasant for everyone. The crazy old man is still disheveled and crazy, and he always seems to be messing with his cones, like he can't get them placed just right.

2.The unavoidable 2 square blocks of dead cell phone service near the daycare. The long-ass daycare drive home in rushour is one thing I will miss only because I tried to catch up on my phone calls during that time. In fact, it's the only time I ever called people back to do my "catching up" calls. And I always managed to dial about one block before the dead spot, said hello, and lost the call. I'm sure, if you are someone I speak to on the phone, that you are also not going to miss me calling you only to hang up on you right away.

3.The squirrel-eating accent of the daycare staff. They called her "Missy Clara"* but it came out like "Meesey Cluurey," in an old-lady witchy voice, which made me almost come unglued.

4.The daycare staff telling me how Birdy always "waves funny," despite my telling them about 750,000 times that she's doing the sign for milk.* And now that we're gone, no more temptation to teach her the sign for "fuck you guys."

5.The one thing I will miss is $25 per week in my checkbook that we'll pay extra at the new place. But it will be so totally worth it. When we dropped Birdy off the room was calm, the teachers could all physically walk/ bend over and pick up babies (an improvement over Plan B Daycare), and I think they all had a full set of teeth, in the front anyway. Again, relief.

So, I went to Wal Mart today. (shudder.)
Officer McSweatington recommended that I buy some kind of barrier to separate the back/ cargo end of the Beast from the passenger area, so that when an SUV bigger than mine (possible?) slams into the back end of the Beast, the stroller and emergency kit and jug of windshield washer fluid and all of my shoes don't come flying straight at Birdy's small noggin at 65 miles an hour.*

I went to AutoZone and asked the guy with the dirt-stache. (You know the dirt-stache? Probably made of hair but from a distance it just looks like dirty upper lip? Also known as third-senior-year-of-high-school-stache.) if he had the kind of barrier recommended by Officer McSweatington. He looked confused. "Like a cop car." I say. Now he gets it, but no, they don't have anything like that for me at the Auto Zone. And then he says, "But I know for a fact they have them down at the Wal-Mart's."* Did you hear that? He knows FOR A FACT! How do I get to the Wal-Mart's? It's far? I don't care! How do I get there? They have the thing, for a fact!"

Okay, I hate the Wal-Marts. Plural, all of them. But secretly, I was a little excited at the prospect of finding great deals on stuff. What stuff? I don't know, but it's going to be cheap.

And guess what Wal-Mart's doesn't have, for a fact? The damn barrier I'm looking for. I walked six miles from my car to the door and then another four back to the automotive section, and they don't have it. And golly, this guy sure doesn't know, for a fact, who would have it. And the Wal-Mart's sugar-bargain-coating rapidly melted away, and I found myself standing 10 miles away from my car and a million miles away from my office, under the harshest fluorescent lights with a squeaky-wheeled cart and no hope of completing my mission. And a gauntlet of aisles and endcaps and redneck children to pass through before I could be released. And my most valuable moment of clarity was the realization that the best bargain is walking away from the Wal-Mart's without a cart full of plastic bullshit. I did buy a $6 trash can on my way out, but that's all they'll get from me.*

I am being serious when I say that entire redneck colonies spring up around Wal-Marts across the mid-south and probably nation wide. Like moths to a flame. In fact, the moths probably say, "Like Rednecks to a Wal-Mart's."

Please Enjoy the Many Footnotes, AKA Mama Snee's Unsolicited Parenting Advice Corner:
* Yes, that's Bird's real name. Did you think her real name was Bird? It's Clara.

*I know baby signs can seem a little on the crazy mompetetive side of parenting, right there with infant foreign language lessons and super-intellectual subliminal play therapy and other accelerated-baby hoo-haa. And I know that when you're frantically squeezing your fist open and closed and saying "milk! milk!" over and over while your eyes do that crazy-cartoon twirly thing, and your baby just stares at you and blinks, you question the value of such efforts. But let me tell you, if you are the parent of an infant or a soon-to-be parent, do the signs and stick with it. Those spongy babies are absorbing everything you do, and there will come a day of signing explosion, much like what we are experiencing with Birdy. She can talk to us. She doesn't cry when she wants milk or food, she just does the sign. Same with "more" and "all done." Don't go out and buy a book or take a class-- If you've housebroken a dog, you can do this. Just go to a baby sign website (this is not the only one, just the first one I found) and figure out which signs you want to start with, and just do the sign when you say the word or do whatever it is you're describing. It worked with Bird even though her 8-5 caregivers couldn't grasp the concept and A. and I were the only people in Birdy's life flying the Sign Language flag. Do yourself and your baby a favor and do some signs around the house. Go. Do it.

*I live in the south, y'all. There are two accents here: The lilting drawl (20% of population), and the squirrel-eating redneck (80%). People say Wal-Mart's. I know, it's fucked up, but they cannot be dissuaded.

*Wait-- did I not tell you about that? Birdy has outgrown her little bucket-style car seat and has graduated to a giant seat-type structure. I had some misgivings about our home installation of the seat, so I rolled on down to the police station, where Officer Sweaty McSweatington helped me install it correctly. And told me about the flying objects, of which I'm ashamed to admit I was already aware thanks to the constant reminders from a friend, but had not yet addressed. Again, if you are a parent or soon-to-be parent, I highly recommend that you visit Officer Sweaty McSweatington (although if you go in cooler months, you might just meet up with Officer Very Serious), because I don't care how smart or mechanically inclined you think you are, you have that damn thing installed the wrong way. Maybe not the Britney-Spears-are-you-serious-with-that-forward-facing-thing wrong way, but I'll let Officer McSweatington tell you which end is up.

*I needed the trash can to replace the Diaper Genie. If you are a new parent or especially a parent-to-be, do not waste your money on the Diaper Genie. Just spend six bucks on a trash can with a foot-pedal lid. Fortunately, taytyme spared us the Diaper Genie expense, hooking us up in a bar parking lot with his boss, who happened to have a Diaper Genie in his trunk that he was looking to get rid of, and now I understand why. By comparison, the $6 trash can is cheap, takes regular, non-bank-breaking bags, requires only one hand to operate when you have a squirmy baby on a table, and does not require clearing the area, a pair of scissors, an extra trash bag, and 20 minutes to change the liner. Stick with the lidded trash can, even if you do buy it at Wal-Mart's.

Sisyphus the Arachnid

I think I fucked up my elbow singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

You don't think it can happen? It can happen.

Guess Who's Doing What Over Here?

I have to call them steps/ walking now, for real, because she's walking for real now. Ten months old and walking. As in walking around, not just stumbling a few steps toward me with her arms straight up in the air. She's not graceful yet, but over the last 48 hours she's improved by leaps and bounds... I'd venture to guess that the next 48 hold more dramatic improvement. Gah. Thrilled to see my little thing becoming a person, but not totally ready for it. (Again, check out the big-girl jammies)




And my favorite Birdy picture of the moment and possibly favorite to date, because it's all about her little emerging sense of humor:

She's silly. And that will get you pretty far in this house.

Tweedle-Dee, I'm on the Internet Again

A Few Words of Advice

* Crap about the copier and the sweet-talker has been removed. It was mean. I am mean. *

I know. I shouldn’t write about work in this thing. Danger, Mama Snee! Danger!

It Continues
My toilet anxiety is getting worse, and now includes the fear that I may have left tampon wrappers lying around. There is much double-checking.

More on restrooms: I went for a bathroom break today during class, and I have no idea how long I was in there. At one point, I snapped back to reality and honestly had no concept of how long I’d been hanging out in the can. All I know is that I was late coming back to class.

I know public restrooms are generally disgusting and that it’s strange, when you think about it, to line up and disrobe from the waist down and eliminate into water bowls all in a row in a teensy room. And I know you think I think too much about the bathroom. But it is truly the only place at this point in my life where I am by myself and unseen/ unaccounted for. Yes, there is also the car, but I am expected to drive and pay attention and other pesky bullshit. I have no responsibility in the restroom stall, except to flush, and I obviously take this one charge very seriously. I’ve always felt this way about the special brand of privacy afforded by public restrooms, and even wrote a poem about it in college about pretending to play the violin behind the stall doors. And it was well received in workshop, I’ll have you know.

Stumpy Glove-Hands
I have to keep my nails ridiculously short now. Not that I ever grew them out gracefully, but I did tend to keep some uneven and jagged length at my fingertips. Because—and if you know me in real life you may already know—I am the itchiest person on the planet. And now I am itchy with no scratchy. Tops of the feet in particular.

Also, I had a crazy dream where a gigantic black owl/ hawk was perched on the side of the interstate bridge, in an ominous, dark-cloud-ish way, and people just kept on driving like it wasn’t even there.

Masterpiece Sneeatre:
An actual telephone exchange between me and A. He was at the grocery store, I was at home preparing to make pesto.

A: What else did you say you needed?

MS: Pine nuts.

A:So you only want one sack?

MS: Yes.

A: So I will bring home one nutsack, then.

MS. Please grab the nutsack and pay for it.

Would You Like Some Over-Explanation With That?

I really didn't mean to make it sound like the nonprofit that employs me just goes around pulling secretaries from their desks and saying "Hey, cupcake, wanna head up patient services for the mid-state?" There was a lot of discussion and I'll Need to Take This to the Board kind of activity that happened before today. For those that are unclear, the secretary gig was meant to be my temporary, part-time-for-the-next-year-and-a-half solution while I work my way through the LMT program. And I am still not staying past graduation. At least not much past graduation.

Okay. Right... NOW.

The Post That is a Non-Post

Well, well, well. Here it is Friday, and I am just now sitting down to blog.
A. is out filming a show, Birdy sleeping like a teeny, exhausted log since her *@#*$^)#** daycare can't seem to get a handle on a little thing called "napping." I had such plans for tonight. All of the little three-word notes that I scrawled in the parking lot of the Zombie post office that would turn into full-length posts would actually turn into those full-length posts tonight, when I had the house to myself (mostly) and could turn my little hamster-wheel brain loose.

Okay, so I'm not going to do that. I've been staring at a computer screen all effing day and I think my eyes might burst into flames if I do it for much longer. I had also planned to review the budget and figure out how I convinced myself that dipping into savings just one more time wouldn't totally deplete the eensy balance. Which it has. I had planned. I had plans.

It's finally catching up with me and my engulfed-in-flames eyeballs that I'm in a little over my head with work and school and freelance stuff and a baby and a husband and two needy dogs and a malicious cat. I completely blew a deadline this morning for an article I never even started, and I have two others due in the near future that have been even less than started, if that's possible. Doing practicums for class. Making healthy dinners (with A's assistance, I'm no June Cleaver). Grinding up food for the bird. I am tired, and I'm going to the couch right... NOW.

Except one more thing:
I got the job today. No interview or anything, just got called into the ED's office from my little secretary desk and she asked if I wanted it. So I said yes, she said $dollars, I said $dollars plus some, and we shook on it. The end. I don't know if I'm up for it, to be honest, but I think I can summon up my many years of psychosocial work (kind of like vomiting, really), and pull it together enough to be legit. In any case, I have claimed that I can make that happen, and now I have to do it.

Here's the moral of the story: counseling people who are dying from a terminal illness that is both terrifyingly quick and heartbreakingly slow is better than data entry.

Well, that, and we are brokeass broke, and it sure would help if one of us could bring home a little more scratch.

Okay, going to the couch... NOW.

Hot Fudge Sunday

So, today I gave my first hour long Swedish massage. I was completely centered and ready for it, but then we broke for lunch and my partner went home with a migraine. So I had to give my first hour long Swedish massage to the teacher. I was so freaking nervous, but I think I did okay. I definitely did not do well-- it all felt disconnected and jerky. Not my best work.

If you live in my city and you want to schedule a practicum with me, I promise I will not be nervous with you. There's just something about undraping your teacher's glutes and working on them while she continues to pop her head up and give helpful pointers to the entire class while you are doing a sun-moon stroke on her booty that adds a little pressure.

Weekend Recap
Mom and Dad were in town this weekend watching Birdy while I had Sat/ Sun class and A. went to a wedding in Michigan. Two things:

1. My dad calls my massage table a bed. As in, I get a phone call on my way to school on Saturday and it's Dad, and he says "Did you need your bed?"
And I thought he said "Did you make your bed?" and I was trying to figure out whether to laugh or hang up on him, and then he said it again, and I said, "No, they have tables for us at school, I leave mine at home."

2. My mom could find the lite rock radio station on a deserted island using a coconut and a palm frond. When NPR switched to classical format later in the evening, she reached up to the kitchen radio, without looking, tweaked the knob just slightly, and landed right on it, and for the rest of the weekend we heard Father Figure and Candle in the Wind every hour, on the hour.

3. Okay, I meant three things. My mom is not a cook. She made spaghetti with tomato sauce and frozen stir fry vegetables for dinner on Saturday. As in water chestnuts and baby corn with marinara pasta and garlic bread. Am I just unwilling to break out of my mold here, or is that weird? I think it's weird, in a cute, my-mom sort of way. But that did not make the water chestnuts in the spaghetti any less surprising.

Miss Bird, Miss Bird.

• She almost says "Bear."
• She demanded (by crawling over to her stroller, pulling up, looking at mom and DABADABADA-ing and slapping the stroller seat) that mom drive her around the house in it, like a Granny chauffeur. And any time mom would stop, Birdy would furrow her brow and say, "BAH!"
  
• She takes steps. plural. (but I do not consider it walking because it is two steps and a lunge toward me. So steps, but not walking.)
• She can pull your hair, and then her own hair, and laugh like a little maniac. Same goes for teeth.
  
• She can look completely asleep and then pop up off of your chest and throw her arms straight up to exclaim, "thuba thuba thuba thuba!", then fall right back down on your chest and actually be completely asleep. Perfect.

I'm mending my Karma
I will be having another class with G1 next term, which will be a night class, and I have offered to take her home since she lives near me. So there. I can feel my horns sinking back into my head. I also ate lunch with actual other people from my class today, and I did not hate it.

Tomorrow= suck.
For real. I go to work at 8am, stay late for a board meeting until 8pm, then have to come home and study for my exam the next morning. Bah.

Guess Freaking What?!?

After seventeen months, we have made the jump from "waitlisted" to "enrolled" at our first-choice, just-around-the-corner daycare. Goodbye, crazy Mrs. J. Goodbye toddlers watching Barney (shudder) videos in the afternoons. Goodbye constant fear of my Birdy being dropped or stepped on. Goodbye to the director's horrible, horrible breath. Goodbye screaming, coughing, snotting baby M. Goodbye extra 45 minutes in the car on the way home in rush hour. (and, consequently, goodbye afternoon nap? we'll have to wait and see).

And can you believe I'm getting ready to say this? I'll kind of miss them. Okay, not really. I just feel like I'm breaking up with the whole gang, and they don't even see it coming. I know they love her, I know they'll miss our family. She's a good baby, and I always pay on time.

Don't Threaten Me With Your Flowers
I do not like being on hold with chatter on the line. I can't type or think.

So, this just happened at work:
Caller from NM: What's your mailing address?
MS: PO Box 1234
CFNM: No, your street address. Someone is getting flowers today.
MS: Oh! okay, it's 1234 Street Name.
CFNM: Okay, great. bye.

Next call:
Local Florist Shop: What's your mailing address?
MS: Somebody just called and asked for that.
LFS: Asked for your mailing address?
MS: Yeah, somebody from New Mexico. About flowers, right?
LFS: Well, I need it.
MS: Okay, I just wanted to make sure...
LFS: Well maybe they'll get there and maybe they won't!

AND HE FUCKING HUNG UP ON ME!
Nuh-uh.

The callback:
LFS: Hello, Flower shop.
MS: Our address is 1234 Street Name.

And he hung up on me again.

So I spent twenty minutes on hold with 1800 flowers waiting to BITCH THEM OUT. The lady was very nice and understanding, so I missed out on my chance to really let her have it with the rage. It would have been so misdirected, anyway. It's the LFS guy I'd like to kick in the nuts. And apparently, it is suspected in the office that he was the one who actually delivered the flowers. But I did not get to see him, or kick him in the nuts, because I was out of the office, hanging out at the 8th Avenue Kroger.

The Only Way To Kill Them is to Cut Off Their Heads
The closest you will ever come to being in a zombie (as in trying! to escape! but can't! get! around! the Zombies!) movie will be in one of the two places:

a. TJ Maxx*
(people walking around the narrow, cluttered aisles with carts full of mismatched housewares and ill-fitting clothes, glazed over, movements slowed to a point of gllarrrrrrggghhhhhh)

b. The post office near my place of employment
(people wandering around, stumbling with hands full of mail and keys in the middle of the parking lot, not aimed at any one car in particular, but slowly moving, looking for brains to eat)

Take This Job and Just Show Up
This job has gone from "I think I can fuck around a little bit as long as I get these three things done every day" to "I'll get to those three things later, I'm not done fucking around yet."
This is dangerous territory. This is a bad habit I cultivated at the last non-job.
However, there may be some developments around here. There maybe some movement and hopefully a different paycheck. I'll keep you posted.

Please Be Gentle With Mama
I wrote an article for a website I frequently write for, and it was about Vanilla Ice. Was it insightful? No! Was it thought-provoking? Of course not! Did I write it while the pasta was boiling, and not a minute before or after? You bet! But I got a venomous comment from some asshole out there in the internet world of assholes. And it really, really hurt my feelings. What? I'm somehow bruised by some shithead calling me an idiot because they didn't like my chatter about Vanilla Ice? Because Vanilla Fucking Ice matters so much to you that you would take the time to post a comment about it? A comment about how you regret reading my article, when you did so of your own free will? Vanilla Ice would totally have called that guy a chump.

Sixteen All Over Again
So, mom and dad are here for the weekend while I have another round of intensive classes and A. goes to Michigan for the wedding of dear, dear friends, the lucky bastard. And I totally scraped the shit out of mom's car and someone else's car (yes, I left a note) last night trying to parallel park and get carry out burritos down the street. Ugh.

A Calm-ish, Sustained Sort of Freaking Out
I'm wondering if my anxiety is getting a little bit... um... how you say, unchecked? lately. Probably from having a lot on my plate, combined with new crackhead-looking folks across the street, sitting in their car all the fucking time and dunking on the neighbor kid's basketball goal. I probably need to get off the paranoia-churning listserv again, though things have been fairly calm. Being a small town girl, sometimes I think the only place I'm going to feel totally at ease is in a smaller place. Is that a little insane? I like restaurants. I like having things to do and friends that aren't small town rednecks and living in an arty neighborhood. I'm just a little jittery these days. Maybe it is the house, the street. I do know I don't usually feel perfectly at ease at home by myself, and that's completely ridiculous.

*any business name ending in -xx makes me automatically think it is porn-related.

He Just Can't Stop

Q:How many times can an older/ middle-aged and overweight dog stomp up and down a creaky staircase while your sick and clingy baby is trying to sleep?


A: 75,000 times.
No wonder he has trouble getting up on the bed. He's spending all of his energy on patrolling the stairs.
(I know the pic is blurry. I like it because it makes him look a little nuts, which he is.)

So, our Bird has the pink eye. As in the DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING pinkeye. And miraculously, neither A. nor I have it, three days later. Probably because of the daycare's fast-acting staff who called me at work to come get Bird, NOW, because she has some ooze in her eye, and until you get here they are not going to touch her with a ten foot pole. Which I guess I can understand. That shit spreads like wildfire.

And do you know who is the total bomb-ass expert at getting eye drops into the oozy eyes? A. He is a frickin master at that. Thank goodness. He is a master of a lot of baby things, actually.

I stayed home from work on Friday (oh, and by the way, part time work = no sick days, so staying home with sick baby = no pay, which means making up work hours on the one weekend I do not have class, beh.) to take care of pinky, and honestly, I think it did me more good than it did her. I would give anything to be a stay-at-home mom, or at least a mostly-at-home mom. I just want to be able to pay that much attention, and try to fit the rest of the world around me and Bird, rather than try to fit me and Bird into the rest of the world. But I've said all this before.

Time to Purge
I am back to having purse issues, meaning that give me a purse, and I will fill it. And now, with school, I have stuff floating around between my actual purse, which is stuffed to the gills, Birdy's bag, which is full of stray peas and carrots, and my school bag. And I'm constantly moving things from one bag to anotherdepending on where I'm headed, in grave danger of losing my cell phone or my wallet, etc. in all of the shuffling. I need a bigger bag that can hold it all or a smaller bag that can hold a subset of necessities. Because seriously, when I leave the house in the morning, it looks like I'm moving out. I'm sure that keeps the neighbors talking (not really, unless they are talking about smoking pot in their car, because that is all they do).

What I really need is a caddy. Someone to tote around my shit and also give advice on the game, so that when I'm at the Caribbean place, I can say "Hand me my wallet, I'm going to order a black bean salad" my caddy can say, "You know, you have a meeting in 45 minutes, maybe you should go for the veggie pita." and I'd be all, "Thanks, caddy." And we would move on, and he would carry my shit, and I would have both hands luxuriously free to gesture wildly and adjust my large-brimmed sun hat.

Oh, and
Here are the earrings that A. got me for my birthday:

I Have Important Stuff To Do, Dammit

Keep It Like A Secret
Ahhhh, alone in the office! Time to turn up the Built to Spill. There are things filling up my to do list, but none pressing enough to actually do. I'm starting to have my aimless free-time panic again, (it is clear that I do not have enough free time, so that when I do stumble upon some, I treat it like the very special China dishes that we dare not actually use for eating, just looking at and taking up space*) where I fret about how to spend the free time and end up spending it fretting about how to best spend it. Not this time! I'm just going to do what comes naturally and then I will do the rest of the stuff tonight at home. New leaf, turned over.

So, I was in charge of ordering the lunch for a committee (that does not include me) meeting today, and I took the liberty of ordering an extra sandwich for me, and diet coke. It was totally premeditated, too, as I did not even pretend to pack a lunch. I brought an apple, but c'mon.

And just now, when I made a quick bank deposit, I swung into the Sonic and got another diet coke. Why all the diet cokes? I really, really like Diet Coke. And I really, really like the ice at Sonic.

If you don't live in the South (Sowf), you may not know what Sonic is-- it's a drive-up fast food joint, where you park your car, order, wait for the girl to walk your food out to you, and then eat over your steering wheel and carry the trash around with you in your back seat for six months. And at this Sonic, the carhop was about seven months pregnant, slinging cokes and tator tots in the 407-degree, melting heat. I really need to stop bitching about my steering wheel being too hot, because at least I work inside and I am not pregnant. I don't know thing one about that woman's situation, but stay in school, kids. And then go right back to school and right back after that if you have to, to keep yourself from pounding the pavement at the 8th Avenue Sonic. Because from the looks of it, it sucks the big one.

Guess what Bird can do!?!
Make the sign for "more." No, not kidding! Okay, she can't really tap her fists together, so she claps very deliberately, twice, and then opens her mouth up like, well, a Bird. It is so strange and wonderful to be communicating with her so directly. Now if we could just get an answer to, "How did you get that goose egg on your forehead at daycare?", we'd be all set.

Um, seriously.
You guys. My belly.

You will also love it.
I've been to Sweet Juniper and you can bet I'll be back. The writing is great and I loved the neighborhood tour. Maybe I'll be so inspired someday when it isn't skin-melting-hot outside and I'll do a tour of my little corner for you.

So, next time, I guess
I was going to post a photo of the earrings that A. got me for my b-day, but Blogger says no, so I will wait until it falls asleep in front of the television and steal its cigarettes from its purse. I mean, I will post the photo later.

Does anyone have a purse with cigarettes in it that is willing to fall asleep in front of the television so that I may steal one? I just want one.

*For the record, I do not own Very Special China that we Dare Not Use for Eating, because that is kind of fucked up and wasteful.

Frittering Away My Free Time Doing Nothing

I’ve been getting all excited about the way massage school is changing the way I look at and treat my own body—with more care, less desire to smoke, more desire to yoga in the mornings, etc. And then it’s time for dinner tonight and A. is passed out cold on the couch (more on this later), and while my house is actually full of pretty healthy food, I opt for the rest of a cheesecake (settle down, it was like one piece) some stale “natural” Cheetos, left here by my in-laws, because they will totally buy that shit (Natural Cheetos are hilarious, by the way, and I will be laughing all the way to the bathroom*) , and my favorite stand-by, egg noodles with butter, salt and parmesan. There are other variations on this gourmet dish, including shredded cheese and steamed vegetables, or breadcrumbs and garlic. But I’m having the basic version. I wandered around my kitchen, peered into spaces, saw all of the delicious and fresh things, and came up with this.

Which brings me to a behavior I could really stand to change: Aimlessness.

Today, for example, my class was finished 90 minutes early, and I had about 2 hours to kill before picking A. up for his appointment. I got in the car, all excited. Excited and hungry.

Where should I go? I started off driving with no plan. I drove to the Caribbean place. Too crowded. I took off to drive to the other Caribbean place south of downtown, and turned around halfway there because what if I don’t have enough time? But I was driving, so I just kept driving… this way! And toward this way! And I missed the turn for this place, so I guess I will continue on this way! And I want to get something to read while I sit in the waiting room with A! So I will go to Borders! And then I stand at Borders and stare at the books and have this idiot freak-out where I am reading titles but the rest of my brain is occupied with thoughts like “hurry up with this section because there’s this other book you need to look for” and “how much money can I spend and not feel like an ass?” and “how can I maximize my time here, should I get a magazine and just eat here or should I get a magazine and try to go somewhere else to eat?” Checking my watch. Adding up and estimating the time away until it’s gone. And by the time I dialed it back and decided to just calm the hell down and take it moment-by-moment and enjoy my free time at Borders, I had about ten minutes before I had to be somewhere else, so I made a hurried purchase and sucked down a sandwich and a most delicious Diet Coke.

If I had a laptop, I would have just parked it somewhere that has food and wifi, and cruised around Amazon for the book I wanted and maybe read/ written some blogs. If I had a laptop, you would see a lot more blogs from me, due to my need to constantly self-narrate. Even as a child, I remember my running inner dialogue, narrating everything I did and saw, likeI was in a documentary. “This is my room, and, uh, I bought this microscope with thirty dollars, some of it was from my Grandmother and the rest I saved.” (yes. I saved up for a microscope.) More often than not, I was sitting down narrating some imaginary situation in my head than acting it out with toys. This is why I don’t meditate well. I close my eyes and think “So as I was meditating…”

Drive Time
I triple-dog dare you to drive a Ford Explorer through downtown-ish lunch traffic and not say “motherfucker” at least ten times. Same dare goes for having a non-affectionate cat and the word “asshole.”

It will not be long before Mama Snee has to undergo a dramatic language makeover. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to my favorite cheap and socially crude adjectives and nouns around the little ears. A sad day is ahead. A sad fucking day.

It starts with a "C" and ends with an -"olonoscopy"
A.had a procedure today that was non-emergency but still invasive, which required me to not go to work and stay in the waiting room until I could take him home, something Katie Couric knows all about (no more clues, but I have his permission to tell you). And coming out of the anesthetic, he looked at me all dopey and lovingly and said, “Did you say they were building another tower in Minnesota? Because the only tower I know of is the Leaning Tower, and that’s in London.” And then he said "Asparagus. Cheese."

So, tonight I have been caring for the little baby and the husbaby, as he comes out of his haze. All good news from the docs, by the way.

Wanna see Bird?

*I know. I said no more bathroom stuff, but I am a liar.