on the heart and mortality

In an act of betrayal and irony, the compass around my neck flipped polarization. The black needle no longer points sentimentally to my heart, but away from me, or down to my crotch. Lovely. I continue to wear it, partly out of stubbornness and partly to discover the source of the polarization-addling magnetic field I must have been exposed to at some point. Suspecting I will discover a cosmic portal and thwart the destruction of Earth.

I have issues. And food poisoning.

I was sly and semi-polite, thumbing at the borrowed iPhone between agenda topics until I figured out that the woman clacking away irritatingly on the keyboard next to me was one of my bosses. Went on to display pert attentiveness, and dutifully ate the plate of horrifying food set before me.



A few hours later, I was sagging against the car, trying not to hurl into the petunias on the parking lot median. Tried to walk off the meat-with-meat-with-meat-with-gravy in the mall, and passed the window to the coffee shop, where a man my age lifted his head and watched me go by. For a moment I glimpsed my reflection in the glass between us; a woman in a yellow button-up blouse and jeans, thumb hooked into a purse on her shoulder, hair loose, stride purposeful. Maybe I looked like someone who might be nice to talk to. Or stuff into a barrel. Ice spread from my belly to my outer limbs, and I hurried past. Went to Walmart. As I was checking out, a man loading groceries in the next aisle grazed eye contact with me, and did a double-take. I threw myself down into the candy display, out of sight. For all I smile at winking pensioners and pose for pictures with the husbands of my friends, men still scare the everloving shit out of me.

Have been suffering holiday despondency about mortality, and the fleeting nature of life. Watching the new episode of Bones last night, I broke into a silent Ugly Cry at the same moment as Emily Deschanel, and left a wet circle on the back of Mike's shirt as we lay spooned on the couch by the Christmas tree. He didn't notice. All adult life becomes regret, I feared. "Doesn't it bother you? Our lives unraveling from our hands and away from us faster than we can scramble to gather them up and hold on?" "No, because they're not." Either he's an idiot, or I am. It balances out, I guess, because I felt a bit better. I'm here, after all.

And now I am going to watch the skies for flying toilet seats, as I have just jinxed my odds of surviving the day.

Another book signing

Nobody wanted a book signed. We sat at a tiny table sucking on complimentary iced lattes and making fun of the Nook salesman until he came over to show us his color touchscreen. We managed to make him turn red and mutter something like "family establishment" when suddenly the doors swung open and a crowd of firemen strolled in, like a herd of unicorns, and our straws dropped from our mouths. Z said, "Hey, I'm standing right here," from somewhere far away. His New Zealand accent is adorable. 

 

(Sorry, Z. But this godawful picture is waaaay more flattering than the ones Mike took of T-dubya and me. Although at least I wasn't holding my junk in any of those.)

We made vague non-plans to get together at the fondue restaurant some time, the boys were rounded up, and the signing was done. We said goodbye and headed on to the brewery down the road.

After being introduced as, "my... ex-wife... girlfriend... something" to the brewer, I stomped off and tipped back a row of mini samples in the tasting room while the man patted bags of grain for an hour. A retired Seattleite winked at me over his wife's shoulder, Leif exchanged rocks from the parking lot with a tot who's mom was trying to procure a keg for his 2nd birthday, and Gavin organized his gaming cards, then fell off the bar stool and dumped them all over the floor. We left with a crate of beer ingredients and some overpriced 10oz. sampler glasses. The drive back to town was scenic.

That's what she said

And that concludes our publicity tour.

Craft Corner DEATH MATCH - vermin

harpy vs. robots vs. yermits vs. apple

Inspired by people who make stuffed creatures on a far more regular and skilled basis than myself, I threw myself uninvited into their midst. (Mostly - thanks Apple for the shove in the bum!)

GO SEE THE REST OF THE CHALLENGERS HERE. They are stunningly awesome.

The challenge: yourself, as vermin. (Are they still vermin if you want to yank them up by the tail into a big squishy hug, heedless of the claws raking ribbons out of your face?)

Raccoon-me in work gear.



Fluffy bottom. A handknit cardigan; made without regard to gauge, pattern, or sufficient yardage, and from which a small child has eaten one of the buttons.



Amber jewelry. Too many earrings in one ear - which used to make her feel cool, but now just make her look as if she used to be trying to be cool. An old Trader Joes bag, stuffed with debris.



Debris: wad of yarn, no needles. A Diet Coke. The Idiot Mug. A library book by an author she privately enjoys but is slightly embarrassed to be seen reading. The library's copy of Dexter on DVD (good thing they are just a dollar; this one appears to only have 1 disc).





She doesn't have a phone, can't find her glasses, and forgot her wallet at home.

At work, she dumps the bag by her desk and gets a cup of tea in her Idiot Mug. She watches the other library vermin - rats, mice, a few mongooses, a squirrel with an out-of-state license looking for free internet - and yearns for a big surly badger.

Yarn and baby poop

For when you are trying to nonchalantly put distance between yourself and the Holiday of Shame.

12 hats in 24 days: a knitting challenge

This did not work.

Onward to baby poop. Sorry.

The poo fairy takes a day off, is replaced by spoon

The infink was finally displaying charm and humor in front of my mother. He had a habit of greeting her by getting miserably sick with whatever seasonal grossness his brother brought home from school, and my mother had taken to grunting skeptically whenever we insisted that he was not normally a complete jerkface. It went well for two days, and I got to bask in smug-parent-smugness after his adorable bathtime antics and perfect bedtime routines. Then it all went very wrong, and he spent most of Saturday screaming on the toilet over a log of concentrated Thanksgiving that was refusing to vacate his tiny body. His doctor offered him a spoon (a SPOON), and then - when that was gently declined - a spoon filled with laxative instead. That evening, there was much fanfare over the resulting brick in the potty, and the man was set off on a nostalgic diatribe about the Biggest Poops I Have Ever Seen (which it turns out boys in locker rooms have a lot of experience with), until we kindly told him to shut the fuck up.

On Sunday, cheer needed to be re-asserted, and that cheer needed to involve a lot of chocolate and brandied eggnog, so the tree was set up two weeks early.



The gargoyle cat menaced our feet from her foot-blind.



(Bonus glimpse at last year's grocery store clippings - we maintain our waistlines because we cannot afford to eat)

My mother flew back to Oahu the next day, and I realized I had been laying down her presence like a comfortable padding of fat over my seasonal unease. As I drove back toward the mountain, the insulation tore away and I cried into the steering wheel. I'm a sucker for tradition, you know.

Clink clink clink

Shut up, everyone, I'm talking.



It's good to see you all here again this year. A lot has happened since the last time we sat at this table, and most of it was, actually, pretty great. There was the house, the car, the trip to New York, the holidays with friends and family - oh, stop toasting yourself, Nicholas Sparks, I know how your stories end. As soon as I figure out where you hid the script, I'm handing over my life story to someone who knows what they're doing. Put your hand down, Cormac. Anyway, yes, friends and family, good stuff. I'd also like to raise my glass to my mother, who had a spectacularly horrible year, healthwise, but still came out of it with her new bike gang jacket and her most fantastic bronze sculpture to date. You're amazing, mom. Cormac, stop looking at the cat, you can carve the turkey in minute - I'll help hold him down. Just kidding Sparks! Geez. So, right. To my beautiful sons, you are wonderful and I love you. Mike, thanks for being good this year. At least as far as I can tell. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the geolocation tracker on your phone to tell me if your pants are on. But still, I only had to write one angry email to another woman, and didn't have to slap you at all, so that is a marked improvement there. Koontz, if I see you slip one more piece of ham to that goddamn dog, I'm going to make you switch places with Sparks. Who invited you, anyway? Fer Christ's sake, Mike, how many people do you think fit on an airbed? I don't have enough english muffins for this. You all better have birthday presents for me tomorrow, I tell you what. So yes, it is Thanksgiving, the food looks fantastic, and I know we all can't wait to dive in face-first, so I'll wrap this up. To the people I love, I - erm, love you. To the people who can't be here, I wish you were. To Ms. Apple over there waving from Skype, yes, Thanksgiving was a month ago, I tried to tell them but they all came anyway. Oh, stop sniggering, Sparks, grow up. KOONTZ I AM SERIOUS IF I SEE THAT DOG ONE MORE TIME - oh, he can use cutlery, that's ok then, make him sit at the kiddie table. So yes, everyone raise your glasses, grasp your forks, and let us FEAST!

Sláinte!

Thanksgiving 2010

Prelude: the infink is subjected to horror and indignation.

Early in the morning, the man scooped up the boy, I put a blanket over him as he blinked blearily at us, and he was stuffed into the car for a trip to the pedodontics.



This seems like an unfortunate thing to have to put on a sign over your business.

But not too bad, right? Maybe dentistry is fun!



No. It isn't. But the infink did not need to be velcro-wrapped into the "burrito", because he is stoic and awesome. Suck it, mom of the 4 year-old who got trussed to the table! I win!*

So at the expense of my poor tic tac-toothed child, I had a few hours to myself in the morning before work, which happens so rarely that I stood in the livingroom trying to figure out what the hell it was that I always wanted to do with some spare time. Prepped some pies, threw in some towels with perfume-free laundry soap so as not to kill my mother when she arrives, and then tried to get the pee smell out of the floor.

The pee smell.

I bought a little bag of M&Ms to bribe the infink into using the potty (which could have had something to do with his dental woes - had he actually earned any) and it is clear that a further bag of Dove chocolate or mini liquor bottles will be necessary to bribe the man into directing the infink to the effing potty. Or at the very least, steer him away from the couch, the rug, or the computer - which small angry penises can point at when dad is refusing to let their owners bang on the keyboard. The computer is now in the shop, the mac nerds scratching their heads as to why the insides smell funny since it just "up and died for no reason which in any way disqualifies our warranty", and we are tinkering away on a whirring old beast that likes to quit applications and shut down at random. I got onto my knees and sniffed out the spot on the floor that reeked, spritzed enzyme cleaner on it, stared at the spatter of bubbles for a moment, and then twisted off the cap and dumped the rest of the bottle out onto the rug. Take that, floor.

*I'm so sorry.

diversion tactic

And here are some more hats. Madness.

vanity and amputation

A gross post. For posterity. Because they obviously need to know these things.


One of the things I never really liked about myself was a birthmark - ok, a mole, a big, hideous mole - on the back of my head. It is the reason I have shrunk from hands plunging into my hair and hairdressers wielding pointy combs, and why I secretly fear that someone will offer me a million dollars to shave my head on television and I will not be able to do it. I am of Nordic descent; we are blue-eyed, white-skinned, sunburned, and speckled with rich, meaty, knobbly moles, so as to better sneak up on spotted baby seals and, maybe, to provide snacks on long journeys. Thanks, viking ancestors. I had mine clipped off today, starting with the monster growing out the back of my head - uncreatively dubbed "Voldy". (To be fair, perhaps not quite as large as a second head, but at least the size of a pea. That is huge when you are only seeing something with your fingers. Just ask my high school boyfriend. HAA HA. I am vain and mean.)

I also had a couple on my neck, not so nightmarish. Before:



Aw, happy moles are happy. Ignore the green throttle-marks left by my cheap jewelry.

I imagined it would be a neat and tidy process, and I would trot in to work blemish-free and smoothy-smooth. Doctors use Photoshop to do cosmetic procedures now, right? But no - there were scissors and needles and scalpels and cauterizing rods and stitches and bandages involved. "Fine," I said, "Take them off with nail clippers if you have to." My doctor put me up on a table, cut a bald patch out of my hair, stuck me with a needle, cut and tugged and pressed gauze to my head as blood ran down the back of my neck, and asked for sutures. "My first stitches!" I said. "Wait, no, come to think of it, when I gave birth I think I got about 8 of them. But that doesn't count." "Nah," she agreed. What? Why did we just agree on that? I needed my henparts sewn up after being torn open 3 inches by the blunt force of someone's head. That should probably count more than having a mole nicked off. When she was done, I asked to see it, and it was... oh god. I looked at it, with my eyes. And it really did look like Voldemort. Only Voldemort has Ralph Fiennes underneath, and this really, really did not.



Yes, I had to resort to lolcat for that. Also, thank you internet, for giving me this while I was at it:



Also true.

Anyway, the rest of the nicks weren't so bad, and they shooed me out into the waiting room with a bottle of antibiotics and a giant bandage taped to my forehead. I fluffed my locks to arrange them over the bald spot, and a giant hank of hair came out in my hand. I looked around in horror at the empty room and then buried the hairball in the garbage like it was someone's tiny dog I had sat on.

Pulled up to work, and an odd hiss emanated from beneath the car. Specifically, from a big gaping wire-laced crack bulging in the side of the right rear tire. Oh no. I do know how to change a tire, just as I know how to drive stick, start a fire, behead a zombie, and punch a shark. I did not have to do it, however, because my janitor is awesome and he loooves me and I bribe him. I did help lug the busted tire around to the trunk, though, and got greasy dirt all over my work pants. To cheer myself up, I peeled my forehead bandaid off in the mirror, expecting to see something magical and cute, and shrieked at the big gruesome hole cut in a jagged star and burned black in the middle. By the time I walked in to work, I really wasn't feeling too good about the bandages, clumps of missing hair, burn hole in my face, stitches in my scalp, and filthy pants - and there were the two good-looking A/C repair guys who I had forgotten were coming to replace the Singing Compressor of Doom. "I got in a fight with a bear in the parking lot," I said defensively. Damn.


After:



Oh yeah, that's a real improvement there.

My forehead looks much better, too.



moral: remove your moles with nail clippers.

The book signing

I didn't have to drive, so I threw back some medicine, hoping to clear my head before facing the indifferent passersby in the book stores all afternoon. Halfway to town, I was busy making a hat for my ex-brother-in-law, who hates me, and was alerted to a faint wargling in the back seat. Looked behind me just in time to see a wave of orange macerated goldfish erupt from the infink, his tiny constitution undone by the curvy road. Pulled over, peeled him from his clothes, and searched the car for spare duds. Found a dirty sock. Mopped him off with it, snapped him naked back into his seat, and drove to Old Navy while I tried to convert the hat into a speedy pair of trousers and matching jacket. Perhaps not off to a great start.
Spiffed out in a purple polo shirt and tight emo cords ("Ok, let's leave the tags on until we make sure they -" *rip rip* "-fit.") the infink ran off with the boys to see a movie, and I was ditched at the book store. I finally met my author, who was so fantastic and gorgeous that I really, really wished I hadn't been tripping off my gourd on decongestants and - soon after - tipped over the edge by an enormous complimentary pumpkin latte. I believe at one point I marveled that her husband had square pupils like a goat. Hordes of absurdly good-looking people crowded in to say hi to her, while a handful of burned out bookstore hobos meandered over to my side of the table. It was a lot of fun, the mustache was legendary, the conversation raucous, Tia almost got thrown out of Borders Express for carrying an empty Starbucks cup (thank goodness Vigilant Cashier didn't see the cookie platter), and I bought a hot-pink sparkling Virgin Mary piggie bank in the midst of my chemical fugue.



Amazing day. We even sold a few books, too. Am going to suggest that we slink into the store every weekend and assemble a little fort out of our books to pretend that we are having signings, by way of procuring more hang-out time and lattes.

Halloween 2010

I am sick. Siiick. Lurched through airport, the very beast they have installed automated sanitation-goo stations every 10 feet in order to combat.



But I'm sick with a retro photo app, so also tragically hip.

The weekend was wonderful, sickness aside. And despite the fact that no wild fantasies of unbridled materialism actually happened. The samples of handcrafted marshmallows at Williams-Sonoma go uneaten until next visit.

Saturday: dragged to the university to help my mom invest her wax sculpture in plaster for the bronze pour. Put on a pink gas mask and mixed lung-destroying substances, spent some time admiring the graffiti in the women's bathroom. Between the flowers and positive affirmations, someone had drawn a penis and hairy balls, which was followed by half a wall of disappointed remarks and suggestions for art and literature courses to improve the peen-doodler's creative range.

In the evening, we went to the store to buy candy and a pumpkin; stood for 10 minutes talking shit about the other's candy preferences, then turned around and realized that the ONLY PUMPKIN IN THE STORE was sitting on a display right behind us, just waiting for someone else to walk by and pick it up. We tackled it.

Sunday: lunch at Gordon Biersch. I had lobster bisque, because I am fancy like that.



Fanciness undermined by kiddie menu octopuses, as usual.

We went to the Edward Gorey exhibition at the university, where Gavin scored some candy because he had insisted on wearing his getup all day and accidentally wandered into the costume contest at the right moment. My favorite was the toddler dressed as "K is for Kate, who was struck with an axe", with tiny bloodstained shirt and plastic axe sticking out her back.



Which, awesome as the costume was, I would flat-out be unable to do to my infant without barfing.

Hurried home to carve the pumpkin, throw up some streamers, bake some pizza, and dump the kids into costumes.

Leif wasn't having any of it. We managed to get him into hat and pants and take the picture before he ripped it all off.



He eventually figured out what was going on and began running up the sidewalk after the big boys and shrieking, "TEET TEET!" at every door. He's advanced like that.

The cousins were great in their matching outfits, and some Potter-loving neighbor snuck special fancy-ass pewter HP bookmarks into their buckets, which made them all aspirate their pixie sticks when they were discovered.



I went in my traditional role of Tired Old Tart.



Mike went as a vampire in a long women's wig. I did not take a picture of him. Shamelessness is great - Mike in that wig was not.

When all the children were dumping candy on the floor and the crowds of kids turned to trickles of self-conscious teenagers, my mom gave me two margaritas and then asked me to wrap up the pumpkin in plastic. I managed not to wrap any cats or children to it, so I was pleased with myself.



And then my lungs tried to escape my body via my nose.

Back to the couch I go.