I know, I haven’t blogged for nearly a week. I’d like to say I’m just slacking, but I’m going to be straight with you. I have felt like absolute shit for several months, and it only seems to be getting worse. At first I thought I was going through a particularly unmotivated, lazy spell. I’m always questioning whether I’m lazy or not, and this spell has been … had me … I don’t know. A part of it has also been the presence of a freakishly foggy brain.

Okay, I know I’m not lazy. If nothing else, I always have a long list of stuff I want to do but lately, I haven’t been able to do them.

I’ve been sleeping so much; I feel like I’ve hibernated most of the winter. I’ve never been a napper, but naps have become a daily necessity. I almost never eat dinner with Brian and Clara Jane anymore, because I can’t wake up and get out of bed to join them. I eat leftovers a few hours later when I’m finally awake.

Saturday night, I slept over seven hours. We spent several hours on Sunday at two birthday parties. When we got home, I took a four-hour nap. This isn’t normal.

Along with this, I’ve had constant sinus problems, sore muscles, bouts of depression, night sweats, crazy dreams, headaches … just one damn complaint after another.

I was supposed to have my annual poke n’ prod doc appointment at the beginning of the month, but she had a family emergency and had to postpone. I finally saw her on Monday, taking my list of grievances with me.

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Yesterday, Clara Jane’s class had their last field trip of the year. Despite my excellent display during the first field trip, when I lost someone else’s kid, I volunteered to chaperon again. I mean, we were just going to Laclede’s Landing, where kids can escape to the Mississippi River, several major interstates, downtown St. Louis or Show-Me’s within a matter of blocks. What could possibly go wrong?

The good news is, I didn’t lose anyone. The bad news is, the entire field trip illustrated to several moms in the class – including me – just how crappy we are as parents.

We took the kids to the dental theater.  Never been to a dental theater? The stage is a giant tongue, surrounded by a three-foot-tall set of lower chompers that light up. Around the room, displays of what horrors will happen if you neglect your teeth. I started the day by accidentally bumping a display case of tooth rot as I sat, nearly beaning myself on the head with a display of four sets of rotten chompers.

I call teeth “chompers” now, just because I think it might piss off the dental theater people.

The show began with a perfect-toothed young woman demonstraining the purpose of each giant tooth, brushing the giant teeth with a giant toothbrush, flossing the giant teeth with a length of shipping rope, and telling the kids that, if their chompers rot, it’s because of something they did wrong.

Okay, here’s where I get all PC parent on their asses. Clara Jane has already had a cavity. O, the guilt and the shame! The anger when the dental hygenist glared at me and said, “Well, this happens when children consume a lot of sugary drinks,” even though my kid has never had soda, rarely drinks juice, and rarely moves beyond milk and water as her beverages of choice. Hey Bitch, sometimes teeth just aren’t that great from the start.

Besides, these teeth are just going to fall out, anyway, right?

(Excellent parenting – there’s an example right there.)

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The past half-week or so has been utterly shit-astic. Nothing worth mentioning here; just the usual human misunderstandings, emotional breakdowns, a little bit of bank fraud, and the foibles of a possibly-menopausal 36-year-old. You don’t want to read about that.

Angela’s timing couldn’t be better when she announced the First Annual Fluid Pudding BreadPuddingAlong. Bread pudding is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. When I was little, my paternal grandmother always made bread pudding when anyone was sick. It cures everything.

When my grandma was dying, my mother wrenched the bread pudding recipe out of her with grandma protesting the whole time.

This isn’t quite her recipe. The base is hers. I’ve used her base recipe for umpteen bazillion varieites of bread pudding over the years. When I was in culinary school, bread pudding with fancy shit saved my ass nuermous times when I needed to make something deserty, as I am not a baker.

On Friday I devised the most decadent bread pudding idea ever, and one I knew Angela would love. Pig Candy Bread Pudding. The plan: make Granny’s bread pudding base. Sweeten with lots dark brown sugar. Add chunks of two Mo’s Bacon Bars. Bake. Top with maple syrup and run under the broiler for maple brulee.

I went to World Market, the only place on my side of the river that I know carries Mo’s. And they were sold out.

But they did have this:

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Just wondering … does anyone read blogs anymore? Or have our attention spans been diluted by Twitter and Facebook? I know I’m guilty of the latter. But I’ll keep blogging.

It’s been an interesting parenting week. We’ve known for a long time that Clara Jane can read, although we’re not sure how long she’s been reading. She lied about it for awhile, afraid we’d stop reading to her if we knew she could do it herself. Her teacher blew that ruse out of the water within a week of starting school.

Out of curiosity this week, her teacher sent home a first grade vocabulary workbook. Out of the 100 words a kid should know before the end of first grade, Clara Jane could read 98 of them. The two she missed? “Of”, which is understandable because it looks like it should be “off” or spelled “ov”. The other was the eight. I’m sure we all know adults who have problems with that one.

When I explained that sometimes letters are silent, she asked me to give her a list of all the words with silent letters so she’ll know them all. I fled in terror.

Her teacher’s response? “I’m scared!” She’s never had to bring the second-grade vocabulary books to a kid who just turned five years old. You’re scared? You should try living with The Brain!

Remember how big her head was when she was a baby?

Apparently, it’s filled to capacity.

I don’t intend for this to be a braggart post. I do want to capture this time in Clara Jane’s life, because chances are she’ll have read all of my blog archives before she starts first grade. Yes, we’re terribly proud and excited and relieved. But as with all good things, this stirs up some odd thoughts and emotions, because I can’t simply run with the fact that we have an advanced kid. Nope. Gotta analyze it to death. Lucky you.

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I saw Andrew Bird in concert last night with Brian, Julie, and her husband Jeff. How much do I love this song? My new philosophy on life: make sure that there will be snacks. Always.

i know we’re going to meet some day
in the crumbled financial institutions of this land
there will be tables and chairs
there’ll be pony rides and dancing bears
there’ll even be a band
cause listen, after the fall there will be no more countries
no currencies at all, we’re gonna live on our wits
we’re gonna throw away survival kits,
trade butterfly-knives for adderal
and that’s not all
ooh-ooh, there will be snacks there will
there will be snacks, there will be snacks.

My word, I love that man’s words.

The security guard confiscated my orange fine-tipped Sharpie when she searced my purse. I was unaware of any anti-Sharpie policy. It’s not like I was going to force Mr. Bird to use it to write lryics all over my naked body. At least not as far the guard was aware. She was probably concerned about the 36-year-old gray-haired woman dying to set her inner grafitti artist free, leaving the message that There Will Be Snacks! all over the wood surfaces of the Pageant. Then they’d have lots of irate customers expecting snacks with their rock.

Really, I just used the orange Sharpie to make notes to myself and write the occasional check to my kid’s school. Now I have to go buy a new one.

Sharpie aside, fantastic evening. Hell, the Sharpie added to the fun and we all know it.

More weekend fun? Oh yes.

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There are new blog posts everywhere: LiveFeed and Throwback of the House. Posts everywhere but here! I’m still trying to figure out how to balance all the new stuff.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I’d kill for some Springfield-style cashew chicken. I don’t know anyplace in Prettytown that makes it. Or any Chinese restaurants with a health code rating above 75.

Anyway, I’ve been colloassaly busy of late. I hate saying I’m busy. A few weeks ago I read an article in some hippy-dippy magazine about words to eliminate from our vocabularies. Most of them were expected: “should” causes guilt, “nice” is a cop-out (I’ve always hated the word “nice”), “successful” leads to negative judgements, and “never” turns into self-fulfilling profecy. But busy? It’s become inflated, a competition to see who’s more busy and therefore more important, according to the author. I also think it’s used as an excuse, but that’s another story.

But damn. I have been busy.

Sunday, Brian, Clara Jane and I hit the first Front Yard Feature of the year. Not so exciting: Clara Jane viewing “Wall-E” for the 298th time. Much more exciting: we went with Matt and Molly and their little girls. Why is this important? Because I’ve known Matt since second grade, but haven’t seen him since high school graduation in 1991. Thanks, Facebook! Much fun playing catch-up.

Monday, I did my last meal of the season for the homeless shelter, which means I spent the day in the kitchen, fixing chicken stew for 20. Since I had work stuff to do (busy, again), I didn’t take Brian and Clara Jane to the shelter with me this time. I love that I have a kid who gets miffed when she doesn’t get to go to the homeless shelter. I had to work fast, but was able to stick around long enough to help serve dinner, say hi to everyone, and wish them well. The shelter closes at the end of March and doesn’t reopen until autumn.

Thinking about where these women will go between now and September saddens and scares me.

When I left, I had that warm glow that comes from doing something good. I patted myself on the back for a few minutes, then commenced the self-flagellation because it’s just not enough. A meal on Monday night isn’t going to keep the women sheltered, fed, and out of the hot summer sun and storms.

I  slapped myself around until I picked up Arkay. You might recall Arkay; she’s the reason Alton Brown yelled at me last year. She joined me for this week’s Dive Bomber research. She also complained that she doesn’t like clicking to read the rest of my blog posts, which I totally understand because I don’t like that on other blog and yet, I do it anyway. In fact, I’m going to make her click to read the rest of the post in order to see what I have to say about our evening. HA!

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Brian has taken Clara Jane for her annual check-up, which means for the first time in five years I don’t have to deal with the trauma of inoculations. There’s a streak of “Will and Grace” reruns on Lifetime. I just had coffee, which doesn’t make my esophagus cry anymore. I should be in a fine mood.

I’m not.

This house is a wreck. I feel like I’m constantly picking up after Clara Jane, and she’s following behind me, tearing shit up. Currently on display in my living room? An open entertainment center door with a piece of tape stuck to the top of it, strung three feet across the living room like a trip wire, still attached to the tape dispenser. It used to have crayons stuck to it. Brian removed those last night so the dogs wouldn’t eat them. Not sure why he left the tape, but since I haven’t removed the tape I really can’t complain.

In good news, yesterday’s Dive Bomber is up.

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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.