Okay, so I took a slightly longer break than I said. I needed it. It’s been a crazy-busy time and while I wish I’d documented much of what happened, I don’t know when it would have happened.

If you’ve emailed me in that time and I haven’t responded, it’s because I don’t know which direction is up most days. But in a good way.

So, do you want the short version?

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Yes! Finally! Stuff to do! The rule of the winter malaise is on the verge of being beaten to death because all of a sudden, I have a bazillion awesome things to do.

Monday night, Amy in StL and I visited the topic of this week’s Dive Bomber (which will be up on Friday).  I’m happy to report that no one very nearly got murdered this time.

Tuesday, I spent the first part of the day working. I’m amazed at how invigorated having deadlines can be. I didn’t realized I missed them. The rest of the day and evening were spent with Kate. Dinner at Fletcher’s. Lots of Littlest Petsho-playing, birthday cake for her daughter, and watching TLC (The Lord-help-us-there-are Creepy-people channel). Kate and I are basicaly good people, but we learned that The Duggars and pageant moms make us a little evil.

Saying that when the Duggar’s create their 2878 child was likely akin to fucking an open van door? That was unnecessary. Kate and I won Tuesday’s Bad Feminists Award for that one.

In my constant efforts to redeem myself for my moments of poor behavior, I’ve embarked on yet another project to bring good to the world. More specifically, rock n’ roll to kiddos. That’s right – St. Louis is finally getting a Rock n’ Romp. I got sick of waiting for someone else to do the work, so I’m doing it my own damn self. You know I’ll tell you more as I confirm details.  So far we have a date (April 26th), a time (3-5 PM), and a locale (The Royale’s courtyard.) Now I just need a band. A free or cheap graphic designer would be a swell perk, too. Ponies are always great, but in this case, optional. Of course, it’s going to be a LiveFeed event. All kiddos need to bring a non-perishable food item to get in. Otherwise, the bouncer will toss ‘em out on their asses.

Wow. That’s a lot of details for less than 48 hours of work.

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This is the kind of chronic brain flatulence I’m nursing: I completely blanked on my blog login information. How long have I been doing this? Nearly five years. Next up, I’m going to forget where I live. Please don’t ask me for my phone number; there’s no chance in Hell I’ll be able to recall it.

This weekend did a number on my brain. Not for anything fun, except hanging out in a Catholic church in South City on Friday night, eating fried fish and drinking free beer. The rest of the weekend, I couldn’t motivate myself to do much of anything.  I’m not physically sick. I’m not depressed. I’m just … yeah. I can’t be bothered to find a word to describe what I am.

Making matters worse: yesterday was Casimir Pulaski Day.  Do you know what that means? It means Sufjan Stevens is sad. So all the kids in Illinois stayed home from school, and we wore butterfly wings that made us look like dumbasses, played banjos, and relived bad childhood memories. Yeah. I don’t like this holiday. For the most part I’ve loved living in Illinois, but there are two things I don’t like: always having criminals in gubernatorial office, and holidays that cancel school to celebrate someone who lived before Illinois was a state.

I’ve got two deadlines today, but I felt the need to empty what little is in my brain right here so that perhaps I can get it together to do my real work. Which reminds me, my second column, The Dive Bomber, debuted in last Friday’s “Riverfront Times”.  I researched Dive Bomber #2 last night, which might explain my brain dysfunction. At least I didn’t fear for my life last night. New edition of Throwback of the House should be up sometime today. As will an update at LiveFeed. Which reminds me, we’re still waiting to find out if we nabbed the $10,000. It should take two weeks. Gah.

And since I’m now thinking about those deadlines, I think that means the worm that lives in my brain is ready to do something about them.

Since I signed some officially-looking papers today, I guess it’s time to divulge my cool news.

As of this week I’m going to be writing for the Gut Check blog at the Riverfront Times.

Pause while I squeal, which I’ve been doing a lot since I got the news a week ago.

I’m excited to be back to food writing. Excited to be writing for a publication with a sizable circulation, because I do have a writer’s ego that needs coddling. Even more excited that they’re letting me write about two of my favorite things.

Favorite thing #1 – Dive bars. I’m convinced that Prettytown is the Dive Bar Capitol of America, and I love it. I love bars where I can get a Stag in a repurposed Ragu jar for $1. My mission: find more places like this around the St. Louis area, hang out in them, write about it.

Favorite thing #2 – Shitty old cookbooks. The obsession was born a decade ago when I discovered The Gallery of Regrettable Food, which I still think is The Funniest Stuff Ever Written. I mean, the disembodied head that lives in a yellow room and craves house-cake? For me, it don’t get funnier than that. So I started my own collection. I haven’t bought any since before Clara Jane’s birth, until two months ago, which put me in the mind to start making the horrible recipes and blogging about the experience. And yet, I’m lazy. I had lots of tiny things to make in that time. I don’t like setting up blogs. Thankfully, the good folks at the RFT liked the idea, so I’ll be doing my evil over there.

For my first post, I punished the RFT for giving me the opportunity to write for them.

Now’s the hard part: I really want to tell you about what I did today, but it’s intended for an entry for them. You have to wait, and I’m sorry. Not really. They pay me better than you do. I mean, I love you and all, but it’s 2009 and I have a company offering me money to write. I’ve gotta run with it.

I’ll still be here, of course, as I doubt they will pay me to whine about the state of my esophagus and tell poop stories.

Today, on the eve of the eve of the eve of the eve of … oh, I don’t know. Her birthday’s on Sunday. This close to Clara Jane’s fifth birthday, I thought that perhaps we had experienced our last poop-related mishap. Her Christmas public crapping would have been an awesome finale to those childhood days of pooping freedom, and I hoped that was the last hurrah.

That was before Clara Jane had her first encounter with The Bubble Gum Medicine.

The good news is, yesterday’s hacking and coughing is from a sinus infection. She won’t be celebrating her birthday with bronchitis: the gift that keeps on creating sputum. That’s what I do on my birthday; I’m not ready to pass my thing on to the next generation.  The infection was bad enough to give her a bit of a fever, so she got antibiotics for only the second time in her life.

I can’t believe it. Not only have I parented a child to nearly the age of five, but I’ve managed to keep her spectacularly uninfected. I think I owe her immune system to all those years of letting her graze on leftovers from the floor at Hartford Coffee’s play area.  Whatever the case, she’s only had antibiotics once before this, way back when she was so little we had to squirt them down her gullet.

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First of all, thanks for all the LiveFeed votes – we made it to the finals! This means I’ll be bugging the hell out of you for even more votes during the last week of February when Ideablob holds the final voting for the $10,000. There’s free music in it if you vote! I’ll be posting the details on the LiveFeed blog as I get them.

Now, back to normal. Whatever that is. We have a rather abnormal situation on our hands today – my kid’s having her first sick day from school. I think she’s had a low-grade cold bug for awhile that’s been drug to the surface by severe overactivity. She’s normally out of school on Friday. Last Friday, we spent a good chunk of the day with several of her classmates at a Chuck E. Cheese knock-off … but much better than Chuck E. Cheese because they didn’t have terrifying animatronic singing animals. We could actually partake in adult conversation while our little monkeys ran amok.

Yesterday, Brian took her to the Y and she swam for an hour. I stayed home and snorted Sudafed like a back alley junkie.

Saturday, Brian took Clara Jane to a model train show way out in St. Charles. This was her idea; she saw a commercial for it and asked to go. I stayed home with my own respiratory crud.

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Did you listen to some Buddy Holly today? He died 50 years ago today, you know. Personally, I think the world would be a better place if everyone listened to at least one Buddy Holly song per day. This morning I awoke to a kid snoring next to me and NPR doing a story about the anniversary with snippets of Buddy’s best sprinkled throughout the story. I normally wake up Clara Jane gently, knowing how much I have always hated obnoxious wake-ups. Today, though, I couldn’t help myself. I woke her by singing along with the songs. By all accounts this should be grounds for requesting a new parent. But she woke up happy. Something about the pure joy conveyed in music made by a young Texan who died far too young a long time ago.

If this doesn’t pluck a chord in your heart, you probably don’t have one. What about this? Are you feeling it? It feels like being alive.

In honor of the day (or by sheer coincidence), I did something that made the music in my soul die a little.

That’s right. I bought tickets to see Morrissey this morning. The girl who could make a career out of making fun of Morrissey. (Invisible hoola-hoops! Morrissey’s biker gang! Quit humping those rocks! None of those lines are mine. Two were coined by Kristina and one by Beavis. Not that this stops me. The one that goes, “When he says he wants to go home, cry, and die, that’s a joke, right?” is all me.) I’m taking Kristina, who loooooves Morrissey to the show for her birthday/finishing her MLIS. I haven’t decided if part of the gift will involve me keeping my big mouth shut at the show, or laughing so hard I piss myself and get thrown out. Either way, it’ll be fun.

Speaking of concerts, I went to one on Saturday. Wanna see a bit of it?

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First, two apolgies. One, for the mass message. Two, for any repeats, as I’ll be posting this on my blog, Twitter, Facebook, in emails, etc etc etc. Why? Because this is super-important to me!

Most of you know I am passionate about three things: writing, music, and food. Since the beginning of the year I’ve been lucky enough to combine those three, along with helping what I think is the most important cause that needs our attention – hunger. The bottom line is, it people don’t get their basic need for nutrition met, there’s no way they can tackle the myriad other problems we face. I have been giving 5-10 hours a week of volunteer work to a St. Louis organization called LiveFeed, which I adore. We work with the local music scene to raise funds and donations for our local food banks. With the crappy economy, food banks have been devastated. Donations are down 15% nationwide, while the number of people requiring food bank assistance has jumped by 20%. I suck at math, but even I know that those are some dire numbers.

Below is an email from our director, Amy Graham. She’s entered LiveFeed in a competition for non-profits to raise some much-needed funds. $10,000, to be exact. All we need is for you to take a few minutes, click on the link Amy’s given below, and follow the directions to register and vote for LiveFeed.
So take a gander below. If you had time to read my ramble, you’ve got time to vote. Feel free to spam your loved ones with this message. Post it on your blogs, Facebook, MySpace, message boards. Being a pain in the ass is worth it if it keeps some kids from going hungry.

Thanks my dears!
Robin
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Clara Jane returned to school today, hallelujah and praise be to the snow overlords. And yet, my blahs seem even deeper.

This is a success: I’m currently sitting at the dining room table instead of in the armchair by the fireplace, which has taken on the shape of my ass.

I had no intentions of being home at all during the the school hours today. After drop-off, I headed downtown to … I don’t know. I figured I’d go to Oregon Trail, have a latte, and try to avoid the sun. We’ve got that winter death-ball thing going, where there’s not a cloud to be had and white reflective surfaces everywhere. I hate it.

About halfway there, my stomach decided it was not please with the giant coffee I’d consumed at home. I thought about turning around and going back home, but I was in the middle lane at a busy intersection. Nowhere to go but straight, and no way to feel but trapped. I continued toward downtown.

When I got there, I didn’t have the energy to deal with the parking situation. Prettytown, I love you, but I’m disappointed in the lack of plowed parking lots. Street parking’s a mess because of the mountains of dirty plowed snow. I looped around the block and headed home without trying.

The whole time, I was listening to Memphis to Manchester, normally one of my favorite radio shows.  I don’t know if my trippy form of malaise is a collective thing, but the playlist certainly reflected my uncomfortable, bloated, lackluster frame of mind. “The Theme From The Pink Panther“, followed by Tom Waits’ “The Piano Has Been Drinking”? My God. My brain. Fucked!

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Holy crap, make the snow days end, already! All indicators point to a return to school tomorrow and I could just about do the Naked Dance of Glee in the nine inches of snow in my yard.

I do love time with my daughter. Absolutely. But frankly, we’re bored with each other. So bored we even took a little nap together today. That never happens.

You’d think that with two days of snow closures I could get a lot done. I haven’t. Well, I got Clara Jane’s birthday party invitations in the mail. Other than that, I have done little more than atrophy my ass by sitting on it. I’m not even knitting or writing while sitting on my ass. No. I’m farting around on Facebook. Watching “Yo Gabba Gabba”. Thinking about cutting my snaggly big toenail.

This is madness and it needs to end.

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