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February 27, 2006

Hooray for Boobies!

I promise, this is the last time I'll mention this. Today's the last day to vote in the Share the Love Blog Awards. You've got until midnight central time tonight.
Runner-up in the "most inspiring" category! Thanks for those of you who, unlike my spouse, remembered to vote.

Now, on to much, much more important mooching.


This is my baby cousin Wendy. And by "baby" I mean she's almost 28 years old, but I still remember when she was born which means there's no way she can possibly be teetering on the verge of 30. Anyway ... I know many of you read Wendy's blog, Two Dolla dot Org, which is currently down for, um, let's say "repairs" and leave it at that.

Wendy did something amazingly cool last summer. She successfully completed the The Breast Cancer 3-Day in Boston. In the course of three days, she walked - walked with her feet, people! - 60 miles to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I don't think my fat ass has walked 60 miles in 2006 combined. And yet, despite the blisters, the sweat, the sleeping outside, and the foot-rot she endured during her walk, she's doing it again, this time in her adopted hometown of Minneapolis.

Do you like Wendy's scarf? It's pretty cool, all pink and littered with boobies of every shape and size. Go on, admit it. You want to tweek a nipple, don't you? Would you like a closer look?






I knit this piece of loveliness from a fabulous pattern Jillian Moreno published at knitty.com. Jillian also has a book coming out in April titled Big Girl Knits, and you know I'm all over that business.

For all you knitting geeks, this scarf is made with Araucania Nature Wool in color #42. It's a lovely, lightly varigated pink, 100% soft Chilean wool. I used two strands and #9 needles. The scarf measures 54" by 4.75" Is it perfect? Of course not. It's a little lumpy in parts. One series of boobs are a little ... connected. There's definitely some dog and cat hair knitted into it.

This scarf - along with the four others I intend to knit - can be yours. Here's the deal:

Starting right now, this scarf is up for auction, right here on my blog. You have until 5 p.m. central time tomorrow (Tuesday, February 28th).

The starting bid is $30

Place your bid in the comments. Please say "I'm bidding $_______." You can comment even if you're not bidding. Only comments that implicitely state that they are a bid will be counted. It's not like a real-life auction where, if you scratch your nose at the wrong time, you've bought it.

The winning bidder will make the payment directly to Wendy's 3-Day fundraising page, which is through the 3-Day's official website. I won't see your payment info. Wendy's won't see your payment info. It's all safe and secure.

Once the winning bidder forwards her payment reciept to me at poppymom at gmail.com (remove any credit card numbers, please!), along with her shipping address, I'll ship the scarf at my own expense. That's right, I'm paying the shipping, even if you live overseas.

I'm also covering the cost of the yarn. 100% of your bid will go directly to the Komen Foundation.

If you've got questions, I'll answer 'em. This is all new to me, too.

Now, bid!

Posted by Robin at 02:18 PM | Comments (18)

February 26, 2006

Definitely Not Mashed Potato Time

A year ago this week my dad underwent quadriple heart bypass surgery. That, along with a hard-to-diagnose form of arthritis led to his early retirement.

We were all concerned with how Dad would handle retired life, since he'd spent the previous 55.5 years of his life fulfilling the role of Crazy Workaholic Man. As I write, the Bobby Bare Jr.-Buck Owens-Jeff Tweedy-Radney Foster cover of "Take This Job and Shove It" just came on the shuffle. Because the shuffle, it knows. Anyway ...

Dad's adjusted well. He's entrenched himself in Lexi and Bubba, his quarter horses who are going to become parents in the next few weeks. He got Bubba trained to pull a cart and had a few wrecks. Nevermind that trying decapitate his dog Chiggar with a chainsaw is damn near a full-time job.

He's also discovered a new hobby. In my 33 years I don't think I've ever seen my dad read anything beyond the local newspaper and maybe the occasional horse or Nascar-related magazine. But hallelujah, my father has become a reader. At nearly 57 years of age, he recently procured his first library card. He's reading an average of two books a week. Now, I've always been a reader, but I'm lucky if I can finish one book every two weeks.

It was an odd sight when we were visiting my folks last weekend, seeing my dad in his armchair for hours, the TV silent - silent, for God's sake! That never happens! - with his nose in a book. "Hey Rob! You've gotta read this part!" he kept telling me, shoving his book at me. So I read numerous passages out of his book, things that he found funny or interesting, all while wondering, "Who are you and what have you done with my daddy?"

Yesterday afternoon I was on the phone with my mom. She told me that Dad's really enjoying his current book, Gap Creek by Robert Morgan, have I read it? No, I haven't.

I heard my dad in the background, yelling to my mom, "You've gotta read this part to her! Here! Read this page to her!" So, I had a little story time over the phone with my mom, at my dad's insistance.

I've got to say, after five minutes of my mom reading me the terrific details of a little boy vomiting great bucketsful of wriggly white worms, people reaching into his throat to pull them out until he fucking died, I came to the conclusion that I liked my dad better before he became a reader.

Fast forward to dinner tonight...

I made a lovely dinner, after a weekend of IHOP and Moe's. A spicy glazed pork tenderloin, sugar-glazed roasted carrots and mashed potatoes. We believe in the power of carbs in this house, oh yes we do. I didn't expect Clara Jane to eat any potatoes, because my child is completely unamerican and has never, ever liked mashed potatoes. I'm sure this is why I hear little clicking noises every time I'm on the phone. She's tried them a few times, but seems to have issues with the texture. Often, if she finds herself with a mouthful of mashed potatoes, she'll just sit there, mouth agape, potatoes blending with saliva under her tongue, dripping down her chin in a buttery river of drool.

But tonight, armed with a pair of chopsticks, she ate mashed potatoes. Teeny-tiny little dots on mashed potatoes on the end of her chopstick, enough to get that potatoey goodness without feeling like she has a mouthful of paste. Well, except for one bite, when she got a little carried away and found herself with the big drooly mashed potato river.

She stood there, mouth open, eyes horrified, chomping my fingers as I reached into her mouth to remove the offending potatoes, I realized you really can learn a lot from books.

Posted by Robin at 07:15 PM | Comments (2)

February 25, 2006

Working for the Weekend Tidbits

I've been far too verbose and serious this week. Really, I've had nothing else to talk about. The week has consisted of insomnia, a sick kid, a sick me, music aptitude news, and, well, that's about it. Today, I'm going to catch you up on the little bits of goofiness that have filled in the spaces between long-winded overthinking:

-I had a 90-minute-long phone conversation with my next-door neighbor on Thursday night. While she's not my favorite person in the world, I don't mind playing catch-up with her every six months or so. I just don't want to be her best pal, at her beck and call. I've been there. It's not fun. About ten minutes after I got my first might-be-positive pregnancy test, I was on the phone with my mom when this neighbor showed up on the doorstep, distraught over some miscellaneous drama. Hearing that I'd just found out I was pregnant didn't deter her from plopping down on my couch, moaning and wailing over something so minor I don't even remember what it was. That, I can do without. But the occasional neighborly chat's okay.

And in this particular chat I learned two interesting things: 1) she's started sex toy business, and 2) the neighbors across the street from her have a piercing and tattoo studio in their basement. So, if you're ever in the neighborhood for a Prince Albert and a Clitopatra II, make sure you stop by my place for a spot of tea.

In less quease-inducing news ...

-Looks like Clara Jane will be taking her first flight this summer, as my British buddy Sally and her darling boy Oz are going to visit her sister Kirsti in Detroit. While Detroit isn't exactly close to St. Louis, if Sal's there, I go. Relatively speaking, she's damn near in my neighborhood if she's in Detroit.

I'm a little nervous about traveling solo with the kiddo, although if we can survive last October's traveling vomitorium, we can handle anything. Also, I figure Sal's flying solo across the Atlantic and half the US with a kid six months younger than Clara Jane, so I have no room to complain or be chicken.

One of my favorite things about Sal - I'd give you the whole list of favorite things about Sal, but it might take months - is her unabashed love for things us Americans take for granted. Like IHOP. When was the last time you got excited about IHOP? Never? Well, I get excited about IHOP, just because Sal gets excited about IHOP. Excited enough to steal for her. Besides, it's the International House of Pancakes. I get to go there with someone who not only lives in London, but has also lived in Russia, South Africa and Australia. What could be more international than that?

Last night, B. suggested a trip to IHOP for dinner. Sounded good, since I've had IHOP on the brain all week in anticipation of Sal's visit. I think IHOP's happy about the upcoming visit, since they're going to have their own little Shrove Tuesday celebration this week. In preparation, Clara Jane wore her Mardi Gras beads and insisted on dancing when Elvis came on the PA system:



And I insisted on taking a photo of my dinner, just for Sal:



You're two months and two days away from the chicken fried steak promised land, my friend.



Clara Jane would just as soon bypass the fried beef and pancakes in favor of a pound of bacon, please. It's good to see that her experience with puking bacon across rural Illinois last October hasn't detered her hog product consumption.

-My poor, stupid little dog Murphy had a horrible experience last night. When we got home from IHOP, we got out of the truck and B. said, "Jesus Christ, Murphy! Shut the hell up!" We could hear her in the house, whining, all the way from our driveway.

We came inside, and Chloe greeted us at the door. Murphy couldn't be bothered to get up. She just laid on her back in our big red chair, whining and wagging and wiggling around like a damn squirrel. I gave her a belly rub, lovingly told her what a fucking window-licker she is, and went about my way. Still, she stayed in the chair, wagging. I had the thought that maybe she had her harness hooked on the quilt in the chair. I checked, and she was free, so I moved on, muttering about what a damn weirdo she is.

Five minutes later, she was still on her back. Even by Murphy's uber-freak standards, that's a bit excessive. B. took another look, and discovered that Murphy had one of her front toenails hooked in the ring for her ID tag.

Obviously, Murphy gets her intelligence from me.

-It's the end of an era. In today's mail, I got the 20th and final volume of Kristina's Rock Yer Punk Ass mix CD series. It all began an astounding four years ago this month. It was her first mix CD, throwing her into the mix CD crazy place where Kara and I had resided for about a year. Of course, we welcomed her to Crazyland with open arms. The three of us traded CDs like mad, with the unspoken rule of not repeating songs. For example, let's say I put Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen on my "Punk Kids Vandalized My Derelict Car" mix, then it would be in bad form for Kara or Kristina to put it on one of their mixes. It's just good mix CD manners.

However, even with our stupifyingly large music collections, we were always unwittingly using the same songs. The most overused being Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys. We latched onto it like, well, like a monkey to a handful of feces. We made it ours. And even though the song is about a really horrible cocktail, we took it literally.

Do you need some stuff with monkeys on it? Well, Kara, Kristina and I have some stuff with monkeys on it. Like the fabbo $4.50 monkey clock Kristina gave me last year. So intense was our zeal to procure the best monkey-related junk for each other that Kara kept saying, "We're taking this too far. Too many monkeys." To which I said, "We haven't taken it too far. Until one of us winds up with a live monkey, we haven't taken it too far."

For Valentine's Day 2003, I found a pair of cheesy, horrible cards with leery photos of chimps with shaky googly eyes. Of course, I sent them to Kara and Kristina, signing them from Priscilla von Monkeyassen, who resides at 6969 Baboon Lane, Monkey Island, South Carolina.

Of course, once they spied my awesome monkey alias, they had to have them, too. Thus Star Monkeybrass and Exena Humpamonkey were born. It's just good sense to have an alias, you know. When I got pregnant a few months later, my fetus was christened Coco Monqueytoes.

Had I known the monkey names would stick for this long, I would have picked something other than Priscilla for myself, since that's my mother-in-law's name. I eventually shortened it to Prissy. So, when you see a police report in your local paper regarding one Prissy von Monkeyassen and her accomplice Coco Monqueytoes being held in lock-down for stealing carafes from the IHOP, you'll know it's me, and I need to be sprung, please.

I'm sure Kristina will keep making mix CDs; she's just retiring the "Rock Yer Punk Ass" moniker. It has rocked her well. She's got a castle in Brooklyn that's where she dwells.

Enclosed with the CD, Kristina included an article about Loverboy from the December, 1983, issue of Creem Magazine. She even took the time to highlight each usage of the phrase "hog balls" in the article. I leave you with photographic evidence:



I think that headline pretty much sums up why we listened to Loverboy way back when: because they were there, and remote control technology wasn't like it is today, therefore making it more difficult to change the station to something that didn't suck.


Hog balls.



Nothing screams "heavy metal" quite like an unattractive Canadian man wearing nothing but a towel while blow-drying his man-perm.



That's Exena Humpamonkey on the left, lovin' every hog ball humping minute of it while she's working for the weekend.

Posted by Robin at 02:01 PM | Comments (4)

February 24, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Exceptional Edition

Before I begin, be forewarned: I didn't fall asleep untiil 5:30 a.m. today. It's been over a week and a half since I've had anything resembling a normal night's sleep. If you happen to encounter me on the street, I'm the fat woman with the empty eyes, shuffling her feet and muttering obscenities under her breath.

I pretty much wrote this entry in my head while I was trying to sleep. If I had known then that I wouldn't fall asleep until daylight, I would have just posted then. Instead, I stayed in bed, one-half of my brain writing, the other half banging on their shared wall, screaming for its neighbor to cut out that damn racket, already. No wonder my head hurts.

Anyway...

I don't know kids at all. I know my kid. Of course, I think everything she does is exceptional, but I'm wearing those special parental glasses that filter out all objectivity. But we've been seeing some things lately that make us say, "Jesus! That can't be normal for a 2-year-old, can it?" I've been meaning to talk to Clara Jane's teacher, Miss K., for awhile now. Miss K. is a music person, and she's taught toddlers for over 20 years.

You know I don't spend a lot of time bragging about my child. I really don't want to be that mom who prattles on and on about how perfect her kid is. I don't want to have pissing contests with other parents that go, "Oh yeah? Well my kid can ___________________." It's just bad for everyone involved, especially the kids. That being said, I wanted to talk to Miss K. about Clara Jane's obsession with music, just to get an idea of if the following behaviors are normal for a 2-year-old:

The list goes on and on. The fact is, this kid loves music. Just about everything she wants to do involves music in one way or another, either listening to it or finding ways to make her own.

I wasn't 100% sure that this wasn't just normal toddler behavior. I asked Miss K. if she's noticed Clara Jane having a particular aptitude for music. "She loves playing with the toy pianos and singing songs," she said. "She's just very, very smart. I don't have to tell you how advanced she is in everything."

"Actually, you do have to tell me. I know she's smart, but I don't know what constitues 'advanced'," I said.

I have a real problem with comparing kids to each other. With having two parents with perfectionism issues, I want to do whatever I can to keep Clara Jane from going through that. Saying a kid is "advanced" seems dangerously close to putting her on a continuum. Even if she's towards the top of that continuum, I don't want her to have to deal with that.

I went on to tell Miss K. the items on the above list, watching as her jaw dropped lower and lower with each item. "That's amazing," she kept saying, over and over. "That's so far beyond where most kids her age are. Get her in music lessons. Now. What she's doing is exceptional."

There's that word. Exceptional.

I know I shouldn't be surprised. I've got the test scores around here that prove I was a gifted child, which is another loaded term to me. B.'s so damn smart that NASA saw fit to let him write software for the space program. And not accounting software, either. It's always been assumed that we would have a smart, talented child.

That hasn't been important to me, though. In fact, I think there's a part of me that hoped for a child who might be just average, someone I could love without placing the burdens of overexpectation on either of us. With being average, I could let her know that I love her for who she is, not because of the exceptional things she can do.

Music has always been one of the most important things in my life, even though I have no talent or skills in that area. I can't play any instruments. I certainly can't sing. I can't read music. I always wanted some musical talent or skill, but things didn't go that way. By the time I started piano lessons, I was 14 years old - impatient, short attention spanned, and so used to doing things that came easily that I had no drive to actually work at something I didn't have a natural aptitude for. It felt too much like failure. I quit after six months.

So, now I have a child who's showing signs of having an early aptitude for music. I've got to be honest, that's what I dreamed of when I thought of my future child. Someone who might share my love of music, but who might take it much further than I ever did. However, I'm terrified of walking the line this situation presents. I want to give her every opportunity to explore whatever she wants to explore, music or otherwise. But I don't want to be that parent who forces her own failed dreams onto her child. It's really easy to confuse what she wants with what I want, to let my own projected desires bury hers.

I wonder if her love of music is a combination of B.'s math-encrusted DNA and my insistance on standing five feet away from a speaker stack at a White Stripes show when I was six weeks pregnant. Whether it's environmental or fundamental, it feels good to know that we are responsible for this, that this is the person we have created. But my lord, what a huge responsibility it is.

So yesterday afternoon, after this conversation, I was a mess. Thrilled, proud, happy, and relieved to learn that it's not my projection, that Clara Jane really does have something. But also fearful of so much, mostly that I'll do something to screw this up for her. Ultimately, I want her to love music - or whatever it is she's supposed to love - and I want her to take it as far as she wants.

When we got home, I called my mom to give her the usual post-daycare update, along with the news that, duh, Clara Jane digs music more than the average 2-year-old.

Later in the conversation, my mom said, "Oh, I've got to read this to you. Do you know what animal you are in the Chinese zodiac?"

"I'm a rat."

"This is from some magazine Flo gave me. It's your Chinese horoscope for this year." She paused while she searched for my sign, then laughed. "It says you're exceptionally good with words and that in 2006, you'll make money from your written words. Or from selling your stuff on the internet or in a garage sale."

And I laughed, because some made-up hororscope in a grocery-line women's magazine managed to put my greatest hope for myself into words. I was an exceptional, gifted kid. I can't remember a time when I wasn't writing stories; I was writing before I could physically write. I had all the opportunities offered to me: a weekly gifted class in elementary school that fostered my creativity, some teachers along the way who vocally encouraged me and made it clear to me that I had a talent and a gift, parents who tolerated my creative bend even though I'm sure they worried about me being such a weirdo at times, bosses who've paid me to write, a husband who brings home the bacon so I can spend it on daycare and a day of coffeehouse chow one day a week while I wrestle with the book I've always dreamed of writing. Some of those opportunites, I squandered for various reasons, or flat-out didn't see as being opportunities. Others, I've taken and done my best with them.

And I know that's what Clara Jane will do. No one has a map or an instruction manual that gives explicit directions on how to best utilize the gifts we're given. We just do it, hopefully with the support of people who recognize and respect those gifts. I've had that, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure my child has that, too.

I'm also going to make sure she has a shuffle, because Lord knows that child needs her tunes:

1. Tanga, Rumba-Afro-Cuban - The Mambo All-Stars (She'll love this - bongos and horns.)
2. Caress Me Baby - Jimmy Reed (I hope she loves this, because Jimmy Reed makes some great dancing-around-the-house music.)
3. Not What You Want - Sleater-Kinney (She adores "I Wanna be Your Joey Ramone", loves to scream along with the "yeah yeah" chorus.)
4. We've Been Had - Uncle Tupelo (Another favorite, as she already recognizes the genius of Jeff Tweedy, all the more reason for us to move to Belleville.
5. Never Say Never - Romeo Void (Let's just skip this. I don't need her singing "I might like you better if we slept together" at her Methodist daycare.)
6. Atomic - Blondie (Drums! Behold the glorious drums!)
7. Something I Can Never Have - Nine Inch Nails (Um, yeah, let's hold off on this one, too.)
8. Keep Your Hands Off My Baby - Little Eva (Hand claps! Loads of hand claps! My adoration of early-'60s girl groups is actively being passed along to the next generation.)
9. Until the End of the World - U2 (She likes it, but it ain't "City of Blinding Light".)
10. Monkey Man - Rolling Stones (Monkeys and music? We're in Clara Jane's happy place right here.)

Posted by Robin at 01:39 PM | Comments (10)

February 23, 2006

Is Someone Trying to Tell Me Something?

Why yes, like last week, I'm blogging when I'm supposed to be at the coffeehouse, working on the book. Like last week, I'm still under the weather, although not so bad that I can justify a sick day. Besides, Clara Jane and I have been cooped up since Sunday. It's time to be out of the house and among the other humans.

I dropped her off at daycare, then started to the coffeehouse, anxious and happy to get back to work. But, oh, that's not what the universe wants. Oh no. As I made the turn to the coffeehouse, I looked down and noticed that my wedding ring was missing.

As my shit began to freak out, I remembered that I'd taken it off to put lotion on my hands. I was 99.9% sure that I'd simply left the ring on the bathroom vanity, where it's perfectly safe .

I now know for sure that I can be driven stark raving batshit by a mere .1%.

But that's not all. Oh no. I ordered my usual - a large 2% latte and a bagel sandwich with egg, sausage and cheese - took my usual table and started unloading my bag. Damn. I meant to pack pens. I've had a pen die during each writing day two weeks straight, and I knew the one remaining pen was on its last legs. While it didn't up and die on me, it was pretty clear that it would like to take a nap.

With the pen set aside, I ate my breakfast and read the draft I wrote two weeks ago. Complete, utter garbage. If I caught my stupid little dog Murphy eating something that vile, I'd pry it from her jaws. That's how bad it is. We're talking the kind of writing that's best left to a seventh grader's little diary with the flimsy lock. Horrid.

I waffled on what to do next. It's never a good idea for me to try to edit something while I'm actively stewing in contempt for it. Editing in those situations tends to become throwing-the-whole-fucking-book-in-the-trash-ing.

I called B. and whined.

I finished my latte.

I decided to just get over myself already and press on.

I dug out the next pages of the first draft to be edited.

And I dug.

Then I dug some more.

Goddammit, they were here last week. I know they were. I remember them being here last week.

Fuck.

You know, when I was at my worst with the anxiety disorder and panic attacks, I would often let myself get wrapped up in believing things were signs or omens. I sure am glad I'm cured, because between the lost ring, the lack of pens, the shitty writing and the lack of first draft pages that I know where there last week, my brain would have split down the middle if I wasn't.

So I'm home. My ring was on the bathroom sink, just as I thought. I'm printing draft pages and have a pile of pens in front of me to take to my bag, once then next 40 pages of the draft finishing printing. The house hasn't burned. None of the animals are dead. All's well. Well, except for that chapter I read this morning. It still sucks large Peruvian donkeys. Soon I'll be headed back to the coffeehouse. Again. To tackle the next chapter. Again. To bang my head against the large copper decorative espresso machine. Again.

I love my Thursdays so.

Posted by Robin at 10:44 AM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2006

Sore Thumbs

I'm annoyed. Severely annoyed. This is my second attempt at posting today. The first attempt was going so well. It was good, and I'm sure you would have enjoyed it. However, someone left the door to my CPU open. The same someone who, when he built my computer last year, opted for the CPU tower with a snazzy door to prevent little fingers from, say, hitting the power button after I've dashed away from my computer without saving my draft. I think you can figure out what happened this morning without me going any further.

It's a sickening feeling, watching helplessly as the computer uses my hard work as a bedtime snack before going sleepy-bye. It's been over three hours and I'm still catching myself thinking, "But if I could just hit the magic button, my writing would reappear!" While I'm at it, I might as well see if the Mystical Lost Writing Recovery Gnomes are back from the mines with my work.

I'm thinking too much like a writer on this and seeing the metaphoricals. With just a push of a button with a tiny finger, my words can vanish, never to be finished and read. Dude. That's some heavy shit. It's relatively new, too. I'll bet writers 100 years ago didn't live with the gut-wrenching fear that all their hard work could be obliterated in a nanosecond. Sure, their work could be destroyed, but even if it, say, caught fire, at least there might be time to stomp out the flames and salvage something.

Two lessons learned today: 1) someone is never going to learn to close doors, and 2) the "save draft" function in Moveable Type is there for a reason.

Another lesson to be learned by someone: if you're too damn rushed to close the damn door on the computer - especially if you're so damn rushed that you leave the damn CD-ROM open for the cat to use as a springboard - then you're officially too damn rushed to be burning CDs at 5 a.m.

Anyway, what was I saying?

Right. This morning, before Clara Jane woke up (doing much better than yesterday, thanks), I opened Firefox with intensions of blogging about something. I don't even remember what, now. When I open Firefox, I have one of those snazzy customized Google homepages as my start-up. I live and die by the Google homepage. It's got feeds from my Gmail, my friends on Flickr,the local weather, enough news to make my head pop off my shoulders eight times a day, an IP address look-up tool (because I'm keeping my eye on you people, oh yes I am), my daily horoscope, and feeds from NPR Recommended Books, Simply Recipes, and wikiHow. I even get a quote of the day. Today's is: "There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality." - Pablo Picasso. Sort of fitting, since all traces of the reality of this mornings writing have been removed.

Point is, I'm a slave to my customized Google homepage. Let the world fall down around me! I'll still have a bazillion gigs of constantly-updated information whizzing past my head, oh yeah!

I do enjoy the links I get from wikiHow. Everyday, they toss three random how-to guides into the feed. From these, I have learned how to start my own 501c3 nonprofit organization, grow organic spring vegetables, and dress to conceal a large stomach. The trick, apparently, is to wrap ones head and neck in yards and yards and yards of flouncy orange tulle to draw attention upwards. But one of today's wikiHows gave me pause for concern: How to Tame a Free Spirit.

Now, as someone who often gets lumped into the "free spirit" category, I can't say that I want the general public to have access to this information:

Have you met someone who's fiercely independent, and yearn for their devotion? The key to taming a wild soul is to make him or her feel like they can be freer with you than with anybody else. Here's how to have that free spirit eating out of your hand, willingly and happily.

Surprisingly, the instructions that follow don't include the finer points of clubbing your girl over the head to make it easier to drag her back to the cave by the hank of her hair. Really, the instructions could be renamed "How to Function in a Relationship When You're too Insecure to Properly Deal with the Other Humans". Helpful tips like: don't expect your free-spirited partner to do backflips to meet your needs; don't be a suffocating dickhead; roll with the punches; don't impose rules; actually get to know the person; don't be such a tightass; give the benefit of the doubt; free free set them free, etc etc etc. The whole thing reads like it was written by a 16-year-old boy, which it probably was.

So I'm wondering, why are people threatened by free spirits? Is it because if one's spirit is free, one might have the balls to bail out of a lackluster relationship? Perhaps it has more to do with this fear so many people seem to have of honesty. Us free spirited-types, we have a tendancy to blurt out the damnedest things that might hit a little too close to the bone.

I've been watching a situation unfold over the past few days involving one of my favorite blogs. Word got around her small town about her blog, and she found herself with townfolk on her front porch, printed copies of her blog in hand, looking for explainations. Not that she really had anything to explain. Most of her posts pertained to things going on in her own life, which occasionally poked at her sleepy little town. We have that right, right?

I don't live in St. Louis proper. Because of some weird annexing laws, St. Louis is one of those metro areas that's compromised of many small municipalities with their own governments. My own municipality has a population just over 4000, and even though we're a part of the metro area the small-town mentality rules. I bitched about it last year when I got drug to court for my pretend barking dogs and got a big dose of croneyism.

When I wrote those linked posts, I told the truth as I saw it, knowing good and well that the truth is subjective. I know that if you asked my drunken idiot neighbor, or her friend the prosecutor, or her other friend the councilman, they'd have a version that would include the phrase, "That weird girl with the liberal bumper stickers who's only lived here seven years." It's perspective, nothing more, and I can take it. I have my doubts that they could do the same, though.

This friend of mine, with the people distributing burned CD copies of her blog archives around town, made much less scathing remarks about her town last year, around the same time I was throwing my small-town hissy fit. Now, because she had the audacity to state her point of view, she's had to deal with a shitstorm. I'm wondering - hell, I know - the same thing could happen to me. Not that this will cause me to act any differently. People who get so worked up because someone expressed her truth as she sees it rarely do much damage. I'm sure this blogger will be just fine, once these fools get distracted and move on to their next fixation.

But damn. Some days, it just doesn't pay to be a free spirit, especially if you happen to be an eloquent, well-written free spirit with tongue-in-cheek tendancies.

What was that word I thought I made up a few days ago? Homogenity? Turns out, it's a real word, but spelled homogeneity. It has the same meaning as I intended: the quality or state of being homogeneous. I hate it. I really do. I like sticking out like a sore thumb, and I have a deep, abiding affection for other sore thumbs, and a paranoia towards anyone who deems necessary to poke that thumb, especially under the guise of love and attraction.

I don't have to tell you that we live in a society that gives lip service to being an individual, being unique, but communicates something entirely different in its actions: Oh, we love you and we think your free spirit is just the cutest little thing. But we'd love you more if you were a little less, you know, you. Because you, at your full volume, scare the hell out of us. You think differently, act differently, speak differently and in doing so, your uniqueness might bring our own lackings to light. Now come on ... just settle down. I've got a nice palmful of grain. Don't you want a little bit?

Anyone who wants a free spirit to eat from the palm of his hand probably harbors a fistful of poison.

Posted by Robin at 01:19 PM | Comments (6)

February 21, 2006

Thank you!

For all of you who voted for me in the Share the Love Blog Awards, thanks! I'm a finalist in three categories: Best Writing, Most Inspiring, and Most Thought-Provoking. So, um, can you go vote for me again? You've got one week to vote in this final round.

So, how am I celebrating the recognition of my inspirational, thought-provoking writing? By not having a damn thing to say. The Scarlet Tide continues, and Clara Jane's got one of those colds that makes it sound like I'm hiding a colony of sea lions in my basement. Between her sinuses and lungs, and my uterus, we're living in a biohazard zone. There is no inspiring or thought-provoking writing here today.

Posted by Robin at 04:42 PM | Comments (4)

February 20, 2006

Plumbing Problems

Before I get started, I'd like to mention that voting ends today in the One Woman's World Share the Love Blog Awards. If you're home from work for the holiday (or at work, bored to death because everyone else is off), take some time to mosey over there and find some good reads on the nominee list.

I'm not exactly coherent today. At the risk of providing more knowledge regarding my innards than any of you want, I'm currently residing in menstrual hell. It's one of the many perks of polycystic ovarian syndrome: no period of months. I've recently had a change in my medications which is picking up the slack from the menstrualless months. Currently, I'm awaiting a side of raw beef to be delivered so I can commence gnawing, as I'm anemic enough to be more than a little wobbly. Should make for a fun post, don't you think?

Considering the current Deluge de la Uterus, I'm very glad to be back home with proper bathing facilities. When we bought our house seven years ago, B. gave us a souped-up rocket-powered shower. The previous owners, an old couple whose combined age averaged out to 108.3 years old, had somehow installed a kitchen sink faucet in the bathtub, which was corroded with lime deposits. I've met dogs who pissed faster and cleaner than our bathtub faucet and shower head. So, B. went all plumber on us, reworked the entire plumbing system, purchased a showerhead that was intended to be used in a professional car wash situation, and we're all happy. If you're filthy, come on over and we'll set you up.

An aside: if experiencing Deluge de la Uterus, don't listen to John Fogerty's I Will Walk With You, especially if a girl-child has ever resided in said uterus. Just don't. Your body won't be able to spare the extra moisture necessary for the tears the song and hormones will require.

Anyway, bathing.

I hate the bathing situation at my parents' house. Again, it's not like they're unkempt, even though my dad recently had a bug in his ear. Really, they're clean. They bathe often and well. But they've got several things working against them. For starters, they live in a beautiful 100-year-old farmhouse. But with beautiful old farmhouses comes tempermental plumbing. The septic system has filled their basement on several occasions, including my wedding day. I'll bet I'm one of the only brides who has a photo of a plumber, grinning knee-deep in raw sewage, in her wedding album.

The second and more worrisome problem comes from those who might happen to work on the troubling plumbing. Just to give you an idea of what we're dealing with:

Ten or eleven years ago, my parents decided to remodel their bathroom and add one of those oversized whirlpool bathtubs. Now, in my family, hiring a professional to do a job is for sissies. They put the "you" in do-it-yourself. Nothing wrong with that, except my dad has one speed when it comes to any project: warp. He's not the most careful person in the world, as you know if you've read this blog for any length of time.

The first time I used the new bathtub, I set the single water faucet in the middle to gauge the water temperature. It was too hot, so I turned the knob to the side marked with a giant blue "C", only to be greeted with steaming, flesh-searing scalding-hot water. The scary part is, this didn't surprise me. At all. As I tended my blisters I thought, "What's wrong here? Well, Dad installed it, so "C" is probably hot water and "H" is probably cold." And I was right.

It's one thing to accidentally install a faucet backwards. It's another thing entirely when people expect you to do so.

The latest plumbing situation at my parents' house involves the upstairs bathroom, next to the two spare bedrooms. For years it just had a bathtub, and I was thrilled last summer when they decided to add a shower. They didn't do this for my convenience; they did it because my little hometown hosts a lot of events and a lot of people rent their spare bedrooms to visitors. So they got the idea to fix things up and rent the spare rooms.

They haven't had any paying guests so far, just freeloaders like B. and me who don't seem to understand that beggers can't be choosers and we really have no room to complain about this shower. Not that this is going to stop me. Because even though I didn't pay one red cent to sleep and bathe in my childhood home, I asked for financial compensation for my bathing experience.

On Saturday, shortly before the 40 guests arrived for the mongo birthday three-way (Clara Jane, Granny Viv, and my 75-year-old great-aunt Helen), I stopped cooking long enough to bathe and make myself presentable. Since my last shower, I'd driven 3/4 of the way across the state, chased and wrangled my child, been repeatedly licked from shoulder to hand and back by Chiggar, ran around the way-overheated house helping with party preparations, spent a chunk of time on kitchen duty, and started The Deluge. I think it's fair to say I was a tad gamey. I didn't want to use the downstairs hot-is-cold-cold-is-hot shower because 1) I'd just straightened it up and didn't want to make a mess, 2) I didn't want to haul my crap downstairs, then back upstairs, and 3) Clara Jane was taking an entirely too delicate nap in the next room. So, the upstairs shower was it.

I didn't think this would be a problem. I've taken several showers in there and while it's not the finest of bathing experiences, it does the trick. I got undressed, turned on the water, and pulled the plunger to direct the water from the faucet to the showerhead.

Nothing.

I wrestled, pulled, tugged. Nothing. One thing worked: kneeling beside the bathtub while holding the faucet against the wall with my left hand and holding the plunger up with my right. While this provided a hefty shower spray, it didn't do me much good, what with being outside the tub and all.

After five minutes of wrangling, I put my clothes back on and yelled down the stairs for help. My mom came up a repeated the jiggling and jostling I had done. But something she did worked, and the water started to flow. With time ticking, I shooed her away, stripped again, hopped into the tub, and watched as my weight shifted the faucet just enough to send all the cold water through the bathtub faucet, leaving me under a scalding showerhead.

I jumped out of the shower, sweatier than I was when I started. I could have taken two showers in the time it took me to take, well, none. I gave up, admitted defeat, and took a most refreshing sponge bath in the sink, followed by a good dose of Lush's Candy Fluff, certain that I probably smelled just like my father-in-law: body odor encrusted with powder.

During the party I was standing with my cousin H, who never learned shame. H. says whatever crosses her mind. We were talking about her latest trip to Chicago, and I asked if she'd went to the Lush store. "What's Lush?" she asked.

I saw my chance. "Here," I said, getting right up against her. "Smell me." I knew that if I stunk, I could count on H. and her magnificent lack of tact to tell me so.

"Mmmmmmmm! That smells so good!"

Hallelujah! I was able to relax, confident that my sponge bath and expensive body powder had done their job. I didn't even flinch when, several hours later in the middle of the living room, H. hiked down her pants and demanded that I feel her underwear. That's just how things work in our family.

Posted by Robin at 01:10 PM | Comments (4)

February 19, 2006

The Abbreviated Version

A quick summary of some of this weekend's highlights before we hit the road home:

Posted by Robin at 02:13 PM | Comments (3)

February 17, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Dogs Love Bacon Edition

For blatantly obvious reasons I dont blog about B.'s job. I know from which side my bread is buttered and we'd all like to keep the butter coming, thank you very much. I've got to make an exception today, though. Since I won't be bad-mouthing his employer, I'm sure this one transgression won't be a problem.

B. often gets the opportunity to participate in product tests and surveys in exchange for extra little goodies at work - coupons to the company store, free DVD rentals, etc. Sometimes these tests involve sniffing used kitty litter. Now, if someone asked me to sniff dirty kitty litter for a prize, it would have to be a prize large enough to merit a declaration on my income tax statement. But lucky for us, B. is hard of smelling, so he doesn't mind the kitty litter tests so much. I wonder what this does to their test results, though. If you find yourself with extra-stinky kitty litter, you can probably blame my husband.

The latest series of product tests involve dog treats. B.'s company has sent him home with several dog treat prototypes and he's to feed them to our dogs, the Idiot Twins. There are several issues:

First, I really can't think of anything my dogs do that merit reward. "Chloe, you did a fine job of sleeping 22 hours today and destroying our couch with your foul aroma. Here. Have a cookie." Or perhaps, "Murphy, you are so vigilent in your staring that you went twenty whole minutes without blinking! Snausages* for you!"

Second, when B. does, say, the kitty litter sniff tests, it's pretty easy to get the results. He fills out a form and describes the odor of the kitty litter**. I can already tell you that Chloe and Murphy are going to have some real trouble when it comes time to give their feedback. For starters, neither of them can ever find their #2 pencils, probably because Murphy ate them.

"I'm supposed to describe their reactions to the treats," B. explained to me, trying unsuccessfully to not roll his eyes.

"But B., they eat everything. I once watched Murphy eat an entire artificial Christmas tree. Her reaction to that wasn't much different than her reaction to those handfuls of meatloaf she gets from Clara Jane."

"Maybe the question on the form will pertain to the amount of finger the dog bites while trying to get to the treat. With the original formula of this treat, Chloe would chomp down to my third knuckle when I gave it to her. But with the new version, she only gets to the middle knuckle. Obviously, the new product is inferior."

That's the kind of knowledge one gets with a masters degree in engineering.

We're going to be out of town this weekend, which means man's best codependent friend will be dogsitting. And by "dogsitting" I mean she'll be caring for my dogs. Sometimes "dogsitting" is a euphemism, which is good to know when acquiring a dogsitter, lest you come home and find something so mortifying that you join your dogs in hiding under the dining room table for three hours. But I digress. During this weekend's dogsitting, she'll have to give the dogs their treats and have to note if they refuse to eat the treats. Or if it affects Murphy's staring. Or Chloe's stinking. Or if they go blind, develop convulsions, break out in boils or start barking in tongues.

Dogs love shuffles***.

1. Foolish Love - Rufus Wainwright
2. The Deepest Blues are Back - Foo Fighters
3. Hungry Eyes - Merle Haggard
4. Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing) - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
5. Time - Tori Amos
6. The Darker Days of Him & Me - PJ Harvey
7. Rip This Joint - Rolling Stones
8. Sunshinin' - The Vines
9. Drop Down Mama - North Mississippi All-Stars
10. Fat Bottom Girls**** - Queen

*Not the actual product being tested. In fact, this product is made by a competing company and I probably just got B. fired by providing free advertising for the competition.

**I'm not supposed to call it "kitty litter". That phrase is verboten. B.'s definitely losing his job right now because of me.

***For any new readers, every Friday I set my iTunes software to shuffle and post the first ten songs that come up. You're welcome to shuffle, too.

****If I ever come into a great deal of money, I'm going to hire a valet to walk behind me with a boom box blasting this song at all times.

Posted by Robin at 09:07 AM | Comments (9)

February 16, 2006

Sneaking In

I'm not supposed to be here.

Yeah, it's Thursday, which means I'm supposed to be at my beloved coffeehouse, working on the book while Clara Jane frolicks at daycare. I tried. I really did. Seems I've caught a bug. I'm not full-blown sick, just feeling crappy enough to be completely distracted. I stopped by the coffeehouse, drank a latte and edited two pages. When I caught myself thinking, "Oh, these pages don't need editing. I'll just leave them as-is," I knew I was doing more harm than good.

As I got up to leave, the manager asked me where I thought I was going, slipping out less than an hour into my work day. See, this is what I love about having a third place: not only do they make a mean espresso and a fabulous spicy chicken wrap, but they keep me accountable. And when I whine that I don't feel good and I'm going home, they make sure I've got a pint of chicken noodle soup and a Ziploc baggie of crackers to take with me.

I've got three hours until I pick up Clara Jane, and I'm in a bit of a spin on what to do. The whole point of coming home was to get a little rest. I've got a few crazy days ahead of me; we're driving to my hometown tomorrow and staying until Sunday to celebrate all the birthdays. I've got laundry and packing to do, a casserole to make for the party, boobies to knit. I could finish the scarf in less than two hours if I'd just sit my ass down and do it. The sooner I finish it, the sooner one of you can buy it and support Wendy's Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk team.

Really, I should probably just take a nap. And eat more sugar. But instead I'm going to empty my brain to you kind folks, who would surely send me home with soup, too, if need be.

Yesterday's birthday festivities were fabulous, despite having one monkey wrench tossed into the mix. Since Clara Jane loves Curious George, and a local movie theater hosts Crybaby Matinees on Wednesday mornings, it seemed like kismet: we'll take Clara Jane to her first movie on her birthday! There will be monkeys! And popcorn! And the comedy stylings of Will Ferrell!

Except for one problem: the people who operate St. Louis Cinemas have obviously never been around kids. If they had any grasp whatsoever on the tastes of the preschool set that attends Crybaby Matinees, they wouldn't have chosen the remake of "The Pink Panther" over "Curious George" for yesterday's show. Unless I'm missing something. Perhaps local-boy-done-good Kevin Kline is as big as Elmo in the under-five set. That would explain the I Love You to Death poster that mysterious found its way onto Clara Jane's bedroom wall.

Despite the disappointment of missing "Curious George", at least we can look forward to next week's Crybaby Matinee showing of "Firewall". While I might not understand Kevin Kline's toddler cult following, I totally get their lust for Harrison Ford crime thrillers. Will we ever be able to forget the tragedy of the Gymboree Riots of 2002 in response to Ben Affleck taking over Ford's role as Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears?

So, we went with our backup plan: a trip to the Magic House, which is always fun.



Except when you get there a few minutes too early and one is forced to spend one's birthday with one's faced mashed against the door, demanding, "Open the door! I see Clifford the Big Red Dog! Open the door!" But otherwise, much fun, followed by presents...

...and cake.

I'm trying to decide if I have anything profound to say about my baby turning two. I feel like I should, but mostly, I'm just relieved. If I've learned anything in the past two years, it's this: I am not a baby person.

When I was told that I might have fertility issues, I started researching adoption. I talked to a friend of mine who'd adopted, and one of the things she said adoption agencies routinely ask is if you picture your child as a baby or a kid. I asked myself that question constantly through the year between that conversation with my friend and Clara Jane's birth. The answer was always - always - kid. Then we went through that horrible 32-hour labor, and the breastfedding debaucle, and the infection that knocked me so flat I couldn't take care of myself, nevermind taking care of her. I wouldn't go back to those days for anything.

Now I understand why I always saw myself with a kid instead of a baby. This kid business? I love it. While it can be frustrating and exhausting, it's also the most fun I have ever had. This little girl, who adores lizards and the song The Noble Duke of York and chocolate, she makes me laugh, makes me think, and makes me feel everything more accutely.

And yet, there have been two moments in the past week where I felt the stab of not being the mother of a baby anymore.

On Clara Jane's birthday last year I wrote about the lullabye "All the Pretty Little Horses" from the CD she's listened to every night since we brought her home. I wrote about how the dark, minor-key instrumental touched the darkness I was feeling while drawing me to this tiny girl. A few days ago, Clara Jane was listening to Laurie Berkner's version of the song. It's still slow and a bit dirge-like, but brigtened by Laruie's vocals and the lyrics. I was so overwhelmed I stepped out of the room so Clara Jane wouldn't notice that I was crying. But instead of bringing back all the fear and self-loathing of two years ago, it felt like a victory. It felt like a mile marker indicating that we'd made it through the worst mountain pass, and we were fine.

A few nights later, Clara Jane was having trouble sleeping. When I checked on her, she asked me to rock her. She hasn't been rocked in months, but she knew that's what she needed to help her get to sleep. As we settled into the rocking chair and she tucked her head under my chin, I felt her relax against me. I wrapped my arms around her and it hit me: this might be one of the last times I rock her to sleep. With her head under my chin and her feet in my lap, she'll soon be too big. Nevermind the fact that she asked to be rocked. Once they can ask to be rocked, the times they require it become more and more rare.

When I was pregnant I had so many visions of late-night feedings, just the two of us snuggled into that rocker. But that never happened. When I got home from the hospital, I was so sick with infection that my body would completely shut down at bedtime. Nothing could wake me, and even if I did wake up, I doubt my body would have allowed me to get out of bed. So B. took the night shift, and stayed on it until she started sleeping through the night.

I held her and rocked long after she fell asleep that night, wiping my tears on her quilt because I missed something that I wanted so badly. Once again I found myself wishing that her infancy had been different, caught myself on that precarious line between bitterness and panic from the one thing I will never have with Clara Jane.

But I had that one night, with my big girl curled against me like a baby. In that night, I recognized what I lost, but also saw what is possible. I can't expect or predict the moments I will have with Clara Jane, because I'll only set us both up for disappointment. One spontaneous night, when she asks me to hold her, makes up for an infancy of missed late-night feedings, which I'm sure I would have taken for granted.

It's funny. I was watching last night's "American Idol" while I wrote most of this. When contestants got the news that they'd either made it to the final 24 or were going home, you know what most of them did? They called their moms, or sought them out in the crowd. They wanted their moms to hug them and hold them in a moment that was either one of their finest or one of their worst.

I might have missed holding my infant late at night, but I know I have a lifetime of holding my daughter. And from now on, I won't be holding her because she can't hold herself. I'll be holding her because she chooses for me to do so.

Posted by Robin at 11:18 AM | Comments (12)

February 15, 2006

Sugar Sugar

For Clara Jane's second birthday, we're going to get her some diabetes. Here's a list of the nummies that are currently in my usually junk-free kitchen:

As I was slicing the hump off the top of the birthday cake prior to frosting, I thought, "Hm. It seems such a shame to throw away these little cake remnants. I should put them into a baggie for snacking." And then I collapsed in a heap on the floor from insulin shock.

I'm expecting a terse letter from my pancreas, just as soon as she stops convulsing.

Posted by Robin at 03:39 PM | Comments (5)

Happy Birthday, Clara Jane

February 15, 2004


February 15, 2005


February 15, 2006

Happy birthday, Sweet Sweet Sugar Beet.

Posted by Robin at 09:19 AM | Comments (21)

February 14, 2006

Getting Over Valentine's Day

For many years I was one of those anti-Valentine's Day zealots. It's a Hallmark holiday, created by corporations! You shouldn't need a special day to show someone you love them; you should celebrate your romance everyday! Valentine's Day exists only to destroy the self-esteem of singles! Blah blah blabitty blah blah.

My sophomore year in college, I lived with three other girls who shared my hatred of Valentine's Day. We were bitter! Oh, the things we had to be bitter about! I was 20 and hadn't been on a date in six whole months because men in our society only want women who wear size two jeans! H. hadn't been on date in two years because men don't fall out of the sky and land on our front porch, and meeting someone would mean she would have to do the horrible, unfair act of leaving the house! S. had her heart broken a few months earlier by a guy who couldn't handle the committment of having her move in with him after their third date! And A.? A. was 19 and had never been on a date in her life because, well, because of the same reason H. hadn't had a date in two years.

But we were sure of three things: the lack of romance in our lives was because 1) men are jerks, 2) society makes it impossible for any woman who doesn't look like a supermodel to be loved, and 3) did we mention that all men are jerks, and stupid, and worthless?

No way did our collective lack of a love life have anything to do with us being self-righteous, spoiled little idiots who thought the world owed us perfect boyfriends who would just magically appear at our doorsteps and sweep us away without us ever having to put our hearts in danger.

We declared Valentine's Day 1993 "Black Sunday" and took it upon ourselves to be walking reminders of what it's like to be bitter. The four of us, dressed in head-to-toe black, hit several eateries and bars where we knew couples would conglomerate. At the time, we thought it was the best time ever. But looking back 13 years later, I don't remember what was so fun about it. It was really pretty creepy, when you think about it. And mean. Even though we didn't do anything bad to anyone, it was pretty assholish of us to take actions that said, "Just a reminder! I'm miserable and I completely begrudge you your happiness! Enjoy your shared artichoke dip, you lovey-dovey motherfuckers!"

Within months of Black Sunday, my three roommates were all in relationships. H. found love with a truck driver 12 years her senior. They met at her mom's fourth wedding, where they consumated their relationship on the kitchen table. S. fell for a frat boy and went on to be that skanky girl who lives at the frat house, coming home only when she needed clean underwear. A. dated our neighbor for about a month, then bitched about him for the next five years.

I know H. went on to marry and procreate with her guy. For all I know, S. did the same. As for A., last I heard she was a 25-year-old virgin living with her parents. Our friendship ended shortly after things began to get serious between B. and me. Not that this surprised me. Most of A.'s friendships ended when the friend fell in love. Of course, this had nothing to do with A. Woe is her, always betrayed! I'm sure she's sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she would change the subject anytime B.'s name was mentioned.

I put myself through my own romantic crap, which I won't go into because my mom reads my blog (Hi Mom! Go away!). Suffice it to say that of the four of us, none of us had a shred of self-esteem or self-respect among us, and we were blind to how our attitudes and actions put us in the positions we were in. Sure, we made a lot of noise about the pointlessness of love and romance, but every single one of us was more than willing to do whatever it took - even sacrificing our friendships - to get it. In retrospect, it's obvious that 1) we were young and dumb, and 2) we didn't really hate Valentine's Day; we hated ourselves.

That's why I'm always skeptical when I hear people vehemently expressing their hatred of Valentine's Day. It's just a day. Either celebrate it, or don't. If you don't like the commercialism, don't partake in it. Simple as that. Why waste precious time and energy pissing and moaning about it? Unless there's something under the surface, something that might be painful and ugly, so it's safer and easier to throw your venom at a day, a concept, than it is to confront what's really going on.

Likewise, I'm equally wary of people who go overboard on the Valentine's Day spirit. Insert previous paragraph here, but replace "pissing and moaning" with "whooping and hollering", and "venom" with "full-on candy-coated support"

Not surprisingly, my down-with-love attitude vanished within minutes of moving away from my roommates. I was stunned at how we fed off each other. In the two years I lived with them, I went from being outgoing, flirty, confident and fun to being a depressed little drone. As soon as I moved out, I started finding myself again. Within a month, I was dating. Dating a lot, and having a grand time. I was going out, making new friends, and wondering why in the hell I'd spent two years with such hateful, bitter people.

I was well on my way to having a normal relationship with Valentine's Day. We'd nod passingly at each other every February. "Hey, how's it going, Robin?" Valentine's Day would ask. "Care for a Conversation Heart?" "Sure, V-Day! Thanks! I love sugar!" I'd reply "Have a good one. I'll see ya next year!" If I was seeing someone on Valentine's Day, great. If not, not big deal.

Remember how I mentioned that I have a bit of a hang-up about dates? I come by it honestly. Just like the universe has dictated that something awful should happen on or near my birthday every few years, it's also dictated that two of the most important days of my life should land on Valentine's Day.

1999: My first Valentine's Day with B. We'd been together for nearly a year and knew that this was it. We were in the process of closing the deal on our house, and I was preparing to leave the life I'd built during my eight years in Columbia. I was exicted, scared, completely in love, and going against my instincts to make the best Valentine's Day ever! Which was a terrible idea. When I try to make anything the best whatever ever, it's guaranteed to blow up in my face. This was no exception.

Much like that Valentine's Day six years earlier, which seemed so fun and important at the time, I don't remember the details of what made that night with B. so bad. It was stupid stuff. A stain on my new sweater, an overpriced, underwhelming dinner at an overcrowded restaurant. Nevermind the stress of the house-buying, the move and all it entailed. Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday, our horrible date had been on the 13th. When we woke up on Valentine's Day proper, we were picking and snarking at each other before we got out of bed. Again, I don't even remember why. In the middle of the argument I snapped, "You know, I was thinking I might ask you to marry me last night, and now I'm so glad I didn't!" To which B. responded, "Well, I was going to wait until Memorial Day and propose to you on the anniversary of our first date!"

Needless to say, the fight ended rather quickly after that. But nothing else was mentioned about the talk of proposals and such. Later that night he returned to St. Louis and we continued our routine of having our lives 100 miles apart.

The next Friday, B. was sitting in my living room after making the drive to see me, like we'd been doing every weekend for nine months. We ate dinner, and as I was clearing the dishes I said, "Hey, B.? Are we, like, engaged?"

He thought for a second, smiled and said, "Yeah. Yeah. I guess we are, aren't we?"

And so we were. He never got down on one knee. No question was ever asked. It just happened. If asked, B. will tell you that we got engaged "sometime between February 14th and February 19th." Ask me, and I'll say it was on Valentine's Day.

2004: I woke up at 8:45 a.m. feeling some pressure on my lower abdomen. Not that this was unusual; I'd been feeling pressure on my lower abdomen for months, seeing as I was carrying a kid who was estimated to be clocking in around 10 pounds and showing no signs of budging. But as I lay there, working up the energy to haul my pregnant girth out of bed, I knew. My water didn't break. There was no bloody show, no debilitating contractions. Just enough of a different feeling for me to know Clara Jane was on her way, but possibly stuck in traffic.

B. and I went to the diner amidst the usual Saturday morning breakfast crowd. "Today's the day!" I announced, balancing on my usual stool at the counter and ordering two fried eggs with bacon, hash browns and wheat toast, certain it would be the last meal I'd eat for awhile. A reporter for the local NBC affiliate was sitting a few spots from us, and he didn't miss that the diner crew and all the regulars were taking time to hug me, wish us well, and shriek, "Oh my God! I can't believe you're here, in labor, eating breakfast!"

"Are you really in labor?" he asked, and I could see the reporter wheels turning in his head.

"Yeah, but don't call the crew or anything. It's going to be awhile."

"Oh." He looked a bit disappointed that I wasn't going to crawl onto the counter and let Dempsey the Grill Man deliver my child. Can you blame him?

We had our breakfast, went to Target for a walk, and then hunkered down at home. That Valentine's Day, I talked to almost everyone I know as word spread that Clara Jane was on her way. Bundled into my warm little house, with B. and Aunt Codependent with me, friends and family calling to tell me they loved me, I can honestly say I have never felt more loved in my life.

I left for the hospital at 10:30 PM, when U2's "Beautiful Day" came on VH1. That song has sent me out of the house on so many adventures, that it only seemed right to leave that night when it was played.

The bitterness and resentment I once felt about Valentine's Day are long gone in two of those funny little twists the universe is so fond of making. Granted, I'm sure I'd feel this way about, say, June 23rd if I'd happened to get engaged and go into labor on that day. But it would lack the irony, the little smirk directed my way that says, "Remember that year that you were an annoying asshole about Valentine's Day? Heh heh heh.. watch this." That irony, that smirk reminds me there is so much love in this world and in my life, and there's nothing wrong with celebrating it. In this case, we'll be celebrating with carry-out Indian food, a dozen red roses, and a little girl who's pretty stoked about turning two tomorrow.

Posted by Robin at 02:00 PM | Comments (5)

Whoring for Love

Today's the day! First round voting has begun in One Woman's World's First Annual Share the Love Blog Awards! Thanks again for the nominations. I'm truly humbled and thankful to be nominated for deep breath

I'm also nominated for Best Site Design, but I don't think that's hardly fair. My "design" consists of a Moveable Type template and a fab banner that I had no part in creating. Mindy designed my banner, and her blog, "The Adventures of Converse Girl" is also nominated for Best Site Design. And her blog looks way better than mine. So, if you were thinking of voting for me in that category, I'd appreciate it if you'd give the credit where it's due and vote for Mindy instead.

Real, non-vote-whoring content later, hopefully.

Posted by Robin at 01:27 PM | Comments (1)

February 13, 2006

For Viv

The day I got my positive pregnancy test, the first person I called was my mom, because she'd kill me if she wasn't first to know. The second person was my granny.

"I know this is really far in advance, but do you have anything planned for your birthday next year?" I asked when she answered the phone.

"Why, no. I don't think so," she chuckled, her voice nervous and expectant.

"Well, I think you might be busy, because it looks like that's the day you're finally going to get a great-grandbaby."

After the test and before the phone calls, I had went to one of those pregnancy websites where you enter the date of your last period, and it spits out an estimated due date. February 13th. Despite the dire predictions of infertility and high-risk pregnancy with increased miscarriage odds, seeing that date filled me with hope that the pregnancy was real, and it was going to succeed. All my life I'd said that, if I ever had a daughter she'd be named Clara Jane after my granny, Vivian Clara Jane Jones Berry. Having that baby due on her namesake's 78th birthday? There was no way it could fail. Absolutely no way would Mother Nature make a joke so cruel as let this pregnancy with its charmed due date end in tragedy. Especially not after the terribly meanness of taking my other grandmother the day before my own birthday.

I'm not a superstitious person, but I do have a hang-up with dates. B. and I share a wedding anniversary with my parents and grandparents because 1)I'm surprisingly fond of tradtion, and 2)getting married on the date that produced the two successful marriages that preceeded ours seemed like a smart idea. And I really do think that my birthday is cursed. Clara Jane's due date landing on Granny's birthday - that's the opposite of cursed. That was the most blessed piece of news I ever received. Having my first child share a birthday with the kindest, most loving person I have ever known would have been enough to prove the existance of God, the angels and inherent good of the universe to me.

Clara Jane and my cervix had other ideas, though; she didn't show up until February 15th. And that's fine. It's good for them to each have their seperate days, but in my mind and heart, they will both always be linked to February 13th.



That's Viv, and she's turning 80 today. Don't worry - this isn't going to be one of those sappy, heart-warming stories that ends in death, illness or any of the trappings of old age. Yes, she's 80, and she's not as spry as she used to be. But she's still pretty damn spry. She's aged beautifully and gracefully. She still makes her amazing turkey and noodles for every family get-together. Still makes the best pie crust I've ever tasted, filled with blackberries, apples, and gooseberries she grew and picked herself. She still ventures into the woods behind her house to pick wild elderberries for her homemade jelly. She makes homemade salsa so hot it'll blister the skin on the roof of your mouth, just the way she likes it. She still makes the occasional quilt, including one recently made for Clara Jane's dolls.

A poor child of the Depression, this woman has never thrown anything out, ever. When I was around nine years old, I decided to start a stamp collection. I told Granny, and she disappeared to the attic, returning with glass jars brimming with stamps she'd pulled from mail she'd received for decades. Granted, that took a lot of the fun out of the collecting, since I managed to fill my stamp book in one afternoon. But still - who keeps every stamp she's ever received? Viv, that's who.



Granny's a tough ol' bird, although I'd never seen her wear jeans until two months ago. She could be a tough ol' bird in skirts and dresses, thank you very much. With Grandpa being on the road so much, she often took both the male and female roles in the family. Even now, if shelves need to be built or a snake needs killing, don't ask Grandpa to do it. Granny's got her own power drill and a snake-killing rake; she'll take care of it.



Not only did she raise my mom and uncle with Grandpa on the road, but she's also taken care of every single stray that's come her way, animal or otherwise. Spare cousins, her siblings, nieces, nephews - anyone whose ever needed anything, she's always been there to provide, probably because of all that junk in her attic. She was the oldest child in a large, poor family. As a young adult, she paid for her mom to give birth to the youngest sibling in a hospital. A few years later, when my mom was born, she had to forgo that luxury herself. But that's how she is, always putting everyone else's comfort and needs before her own.

These days, she doesn't get nearly as many strays of the human variety. Which is just as well, considering that there's a sign above her house that only animals can see, leading them to her. I have never seen such a motley crew of critters in my life. Every summer a possum shows up, named Blossom. It's a different possum every year. Deer come from the woods to feed in her yard. Even the snakes sometimes catch a break. A few years ago two rather large black snakes took up residence in the rafters of Granny and Grandpa's A-frame storm shelter. Instead of going after them with the rake or a shotgun like she normally does, Granny let them be, but not before naming them ... I can't remember their names, but I want to say they were Adam and Eve.

There was Lady, the fattest dog in the history of obesity, who lived to be close to 20 years old on a diet that was 85% gravy. And Elmer, the yellow cat so named because he stuck to Lady like glue. Then there's Elmer 2, the spawn of Elmer 1. He's still around, along with Bobbi, so named because of her lack of tail. Elmer 2 and Bobbi have a relationship that mirrors Viv and Chuck. Elmer 2 would surely starve to death or die of horrific injuries to his person if Bobbi wasn't there to make sure he's taken care of.

A bit off-topic, but it should be noted that Elmer 2 had to have his tail amputated a few years ago. The story was that he'd gotten into a fight and suffered some sort of tail-rotting injury. Personally, I think Granny's trying to send a message to the strays: "Sure, you can stay here and I'll feed you, but it'll cost you. I'll be needing your tail now." For the record, I don't know if the tails are in her attic. I doubt it, but that's just not something I want to know for sure.

I do know that the braids that are piled on top of her head in that last picture are in a plastic bag in her attic. They were almost waist-length when she cut them. And you just never know when someone might need some perfectly good human hair.



Granny's been married to Grandpa Chuck for 60 years this September, bless her heart. No one knows for sure when that photo was taken; it mysteriously appeared shortly before their 50th anniversary. That photo still sums them up today: she's exuberant and affectionate, and while he seems rather aloof, he loves her, too. I can imagine them in that same pose right now, at ages 80 and 82.

When I was a little girl and hadn't learned that a person's outside doesn't necessarily represent their inside, I loved my granny more than just about anyone in the world, because she was so beautiful. She had this bouffant red hairdo that was almost as big as Dolly Parton's, and in my eyes, that made her just about perfect. Now that I'm old enough to know that outer beauty doesn't always equate inner beauty, I know that this isn't the case with Granny. She has always been even more beautiful on the inside than that magnificent beehive on its best, tallest day.



For the rest of my life, this is what my heart will look like every February 13th.

Posted by Robin at 01:11 PM | Comments (16)

February 11, 2006

Biting the Chainsaw

Before I get started, here's a picture of my monkey clock, as requested by Jules:


It was a gift from that master of many nicknames, Kristina/KC Ramone/Exena Humpamonkey/K-Dog/Blossom's Dad's Ho/Jack White's Bitch #2. Perhaps later this week I'll tell the story of the whole monkey hang-up, since I do believe the official Naming of the Simians was three years ago this week. If you think the codependent stuff's bad, just you wait until the codependent monkeys show up.

Anyway ...

B. cracked me up the other night. Not that it takes much. All he has to do is talk about how stupid our poor, stupid dog Murphy is. You all remember Murphy, right? In this case, all he had to say was, "Jesus. Murphy's so stupid she doesn't even know how to eat right," and I was reduced to a bedwetting near-miss.

Murphy is three and a half years old. We're not 100% sure what Murphy is. She's either a badly-bred beagle or a badly-bred foxhound. The only concensus we can reach on this matter is that whatever she is, she's badly-bred. But we can't really fault her for that. She had no more control over her bloodline than any of us. Just like Clara Jane didn't ask to come from the unfortunate combination of Missouri hillbilly* and Michigan Yooper bloodlines, Murphy didn't ask to be born with genetics working against her. That's just the way it happened and I remind myself on an hourly basis that this is not her fault.

Murphy was born in a puppy mill, which was raided by the law not long after her birth. Unfortunately, her mother didn't survive. Also unfortunately, the first person to adopt Murphy was in no position to have a needy hound dog. While her owner worked 14-hour days, Murphy spent her childhood in a crate. By the time we adopted her, she was 9 months old and a complete spazz. But we could take it. With love! And a firm but gentle hand! We could turn this exotic beauty into a fine, loyal pet!

Did I mention that I got knocked up two weeks after Murphy moved in with us? Yeah. Kind of threw a monkey wrench into Project: Dumbass Renovation. Six weeks after her arrival, I gave serious consideration to granting Murphy her freedom, when she had the audacity to sprint out the front door, in the rain, the day after I spent an evening nauseous, claustrophic and smooshed in the pit at a White Stripes show. While running my chubby ass up and down the street, barefoot and pregnant, my untethered and tender F-cups bouncing hither and yon, I loudly announced to the entire neighborhood, "Fine! You stupid-ass motherfucking tard! Run free for all I care! The busy street's two blocks that-a-way!" while I stomped toward the house.

You know why I don't like my neighbors? Because one of them caught Murphy and put her back in my damn yard that day.

She can't help it. She was just born this way. She can't help being born stupid, anymore than she can help being born with that fucked-up little mouth with the upper jaw that juts one way and the lower jaw that juts the other. She can't help it. She can't help it. Oh lord, she just can't help it.

Things that Murphy can't help:

And yet, Murphy isn't even the dumbest dog we've owned. That honor belongs to a couch-eating, perpetually-pacing, never-sleeping, fence-jumping Airedale terrier who resided with us for three very long weeks in the summer of 2000. I had a friend who bred Airedales, and she needed to find a home for this dog. Sure! Why not? We'd had Chloe for a year at that point and had proven that a dog wouldn't die of neglect under our care, so we went for it.

About a week into Airedale ownership, we knew we'd made a big mistake. This dog was used to running free in the country and didn't adapt well to city life. Even though we have a sizeable fenced backyard, she took to jumping it every single time we'd let her outside, thus introducing my neighbors to my braless, barefoot, screaming dog-chasing skills.

Leaving the dog in the house wasn't an option either because she liked to eat the couch:

I had to do something I swore I'd never do with a dog: we resorted to chaining her when she was outside. I just hate doing this because 1) I think it's cruel, and 2) I didn't trust my ability to not turn that chain into a noose for this damn dog that did absolutely nothing but pace, pant, pester my dog, try to eat my cats, pace, pant, attempt to box me like a kangaroo, eat furniture, pace, and empty her soft-serve-machine-like bowels on my floors five times a day.

I think Chloe's pose in this photo pretty much describes how we were all feeling by Day Four of the Airedale Invasion. Tired. Beleagured. Stomped flat. Problem was, my friend was in the middle of moving and couldn't take the dog back for three weeks. We were stuck.

In the middle of Airedale Hell, B. and I got a repreve. My parents came to town for the weekend so we could take my dad to a Nascar Busch race for his birthday. My mom opted to stay at my house, where she cleaned my stove, cleaned up dog shit, and wrestled with that stupid-ass dog in the pouring rain when the dog refused to come inside, choosing instead to sit in the rain, head upturned, in immenent risk of drowning like a goddamn turkey. That one evening has provided my mom with enough mother guilt to get us through the next two decades.

A few nights later, B. and I were spending yet another sleepless night watching the dog pace around the room. Why weren't we sleeping? You try sleeping with a pubic-hair-covered dog brushing against you every thirty seconds as she paces, stopping every two minutes to rest her slobbery chin on your pillow and pant in your face.

Finally, sometime after the three a.m. hour, B. sat bolt upright in bed and screamed, "Ratfuck! Just go to bed!"

And I was so delirious from the lack of sleep, so oxygen-starved from all the face-panting that all I could do was roll over and laugh - great gasping, gut-wrenching howls of laughter until I thought my ears would explode from the pressure.

"Ratfuck?" I finally choked. "Ratfuck? Where they hell did you come up with that?"

"My God, Robin! Just look at her! Look! She's a Ratfuck!"



He does make a good point. Such a good point, in fact, that I can't remember that dog's real name because in that instant, she became Ratfuck. And Ratfuck she will forever be.

We reached our breaking point three days before we were due to return Ratfuck from wence she came. The $75 to have her boarded was worth our sanity, and probably cheaper than whatever else Ratfuck would have done to our furniture had she remained with us. After three days in a pen at the local veteranarian's office, we drove her across the state and returned her to my friend. While the Ratfuck hand-off went well, it was pretty much the end of that friendship. Call me shallow, but I just couldn't respect anyone who had that much love in her heart for that dog.**

Why am I telling you all of this? Because my dad is so fucking arrogant when it comes to his dogs. Admittedly, he goes the easy route with naturally smart breeds, like Labradors and Australian Cattle Dogs. I prefer to think that's he's simply not up to the challenge a dog like Murphy or Ratfuck might present. But it gets old, hearing how stupid my dogs are. Chloe's not stupid; she's just smart enough to know when pretending to be stupid will serve her best interests. Murphy, well, obviously I can't argue with his assessment.

Yesterday, any "my dogs are smarter than your dogs" arguments my dad might make in the future lost all water. My mom, who still insists on reading my blog (Hi Mom. Go away.), is now offering story suggestions for the blog. And, being shameless, I'm taking them, because God knows she has the best first-hand access to all the crazy family shit.

"I've got a story for your website blog thing," she said. "Yesterday your dad was outside with the chainsaw..."

"Wait wait wait ... No story that begins with 'yesterday your dad was outside with the chainsaw' ever ends well," I said.

"Well, there's blood in this one."

"What did he cut off this time?"

"Oh, it wasn't your dad that got hurt. He fired up the chainsaw and Chiggar bit it."

You remember Chiggar, right? The dog that's really a dingo?


Seems that Dad fired up the ol' chainsaw, and in his zeal to protect his master from the blade (which, I admit, is pretty smart of the dog; he obviously knows his master's history), he bit the chain. While it was going.

He's fine. Cut his mouth a bit, but not enough to slow him down. While I don't wish Chiggar any harm, I must admit that I'm thrilled. There's no argument anymore; the person who owns the dog who bites the fucking chainsaw while it's running officially owns the dumbest dog. Ever. I'm going to enjoy this for as long as possible. At least until Chiggar gets accidentally decapitated.

*Just so you know, it took me three tries to properly spell the name of the state where I've lived for my entire life, lest you think I'm exaggerating.

**It seemed to be a mutual feeling, as I don't think she had much respect left for me after the Ratfuck incident, and I can't say I blame her. Would you like someone who named your dog Ratfuck?

Posted by Robin at 04:22 PM | Comments (8)

I Have a Headache

My sinuses are hollering at me in a big way this morning, but I wanted to take a minute to mention that I've been nominated in two categories of One Woman's World's First Annual Share the Love Blog Awards! Some kind soul (whoever you are, thanks!) has nominated me in the categories of Best Humor and Best Writing.

If you're so inclined, voting begins on Valentine's Day and will be open for a week. Take a gander at the categories and all the nominees. There's some really great reading material in there.

Later: monkey clocks and chainsaws!

Posted by Robin at 11:08 AM | Comments (2)

February 10, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Stop Touching Me Edition

I got about halfway through composing a rather long-winded blog entry yesterday. It was about dogs. Specifically, my hilarious history of owning really, really stupid dogs. You would have loved it, I'm sure, had Clara Jane not hit the shiny red OFF button.

You see, I don't have my own office, per se. I did, once upon a time. One of the reasons why we bought this particular house was because of the lovely little room in the back of the house, filled with windows overlooking the backyard. And space! Oh, the glorious space! I had two - two! desks back there! And enough space that I could have a little dance party whenever I wanted.

The summer after Clara Jane was born, when she reached the point where she was no longer content to spend most of her waking hours in a swing or sling, I had to give up my office. It was too isolated from the house. For about a year and a half, my "office" has been in the "dining room", which is really just a small space between the kitchen and living room, open floor plan and all. On the plus side, I can be at my desk with Clara Jane in my line of sight, without putting much of a cramp in her motivation. On the negative side, my desk is in the middle of the house for everyone to abuse at will. Nevermind the intricacies of consolodating an entire office into the space of one desk. Precarious doesn't begin to describe it. Oh, the mountains I constructed from paper, notes, cooking magazines, yarn, half-finished knitting projects, rough drafts of chapters, CDs, bills, telephones, cameras, purses, beverage vessels and one very snazzy monkey clock! Mountains that have been driving me out of my mind for approximately 18 months. Now that Clara Jane thinks everything in the world belongs to her, some changes are in order, because the mountains, they are crumbling down.

Last weekend, B. and I gutted the rather large closet/pantry off the dining room to make room for all my crap. No more mountains! I'm happy. So very happy, indeed. But there's one thing I've been longing for. For years I have wanted a privacy screen. Before, I just wanted one to use as a room divider, open floor plan and all. But with my desk in the dining room, I've decided that a screen is essential to my survival. You see, I cohabitate with people who believe that, if they can see me it means that I am just waiting anxiously for them to ask me a question/fix something for them/listen to their incessant chit-chat/read them a damn book/etc. No amount of education on this topic seems to work with either of the people who share my living space. And by "share" I mean "plow over me at every given opportunity, especially when I'm eyeball-deep in editing a chapter for my book".

I need a damn screen.

Now, I love Isaac Mizrahi. I usually don't care one whit about designer anything, but I la-la-la-love anything Mr. Mizrahi does. Hell, if he groped me, I'd just laugh it off. Not like it would be the first (or second or even fifth) time I've been groped by a queen. Although I might ask him for a pair of shoes, if he really wanted to apologize.

When he introduced his line of home goods at Target, I knew it was kismet because what was all over his stuff? Poppies! Big, bright orange poppies. I do so love poppies. And what was the centerpiece of this line? Why, a big privacy screen enblazened with a giant, luscious poppy!

Today I was at Target and lo and behold, they have clearanced the lovely screen to $25. It's huge, so I pressed the button for customer assistance. And while I waited, I got kicked to a fucking pulp. Attacked, right there in the furniture department of my friendly neighborhood Target. Who would do such a thing, stomping the ever-living fuck out of a gal who wants nothing more than a 75% off poppy screen that will grant her the only wish she's had for herself in nearly two years - privacy?



Oh. It's you. Hello there, Devil Baby. I ... I thought you'd returned to the cornfield with the other minions.

No such luck. Devil Baby returned today, and she returned with all the fires of Hell blazing in her fury. I really think it's that sweater. It's cute and all, but she was wearing it again today, and her attitude matched that look on her face.

Clara Jane, would it fucking kill you to stop kicking me in the gut? Will your legs atrophy and drop from the seat of the shopping cart like lightening-struck branches on a tree if you ceased kicking for more than 30 seconds? Because if you don't stop kicking me directly in the incision the doctor made when she hastily removed you from my body - you know, where I gave you motherfucking life - I'm going to introduce you to another man named Isaac. I'm sure you'll have a grand ol' time, frolicking in the corn fields and worshipping Satan.

Yes, I cut my shopping trip short because I was sick of being kicked by my child, and sick of getting nasty looks from other shoppers every time I'd hold her legs and say, "Clara Jane, please stop kicking me." And yes, I've become one of those moms who does nothing but repeated things like, "Clara Jane, please stop kicking me," while her child continues kicking! Harder! Because she loves the sound of my voice!

Before we went to Target, we were at lunch. As Clara Jane repeatedly shoved handfuls of fried rice up her nose, and I repeatedly said, "Clara Jane, please stop shoving fried rice up your nose"*, it hit me. Oh my God, I am Jeffrey's mother. Remember Jeffrey's mother from Bill Cosby: Himself? She's a young mother who boards a plane with her young son, Jeffrey. Little Jeffrey repeatedly tells everyone on the plane, "I'm four years old! I'm four years old! I ... I ... I'm four years old!" As Mr. Cosby put it, "Little Jeffrey. I remember his name, not because he said, "I'm four years old," but because Jeffrey's mother said his name all 2500 miles of the trip."

And that's where we are. "Clara Jane, please stop kicking me. Clara Jane, please stop shoving fried rice up your nose. Clara Jane, please stop touching the bleach. Clara Jane let me wipe your nose and get rid of that rice. Clara Jane don't make me tell you again to quit kicking me. Clara Jane Clara Jane Clara Jane just .... stop it! Clara Jane, let's shuffle."

1. What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie
2. Out of Time - Rolling Stones
3. Set You Free - Black Keys
4. Going to Town - Afghan Whigs
5. Unchained - Johnny Cash
6. Down by the Water - PJ Harvey
7. My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
8. Magnolia Mountain - Ryan Adams
9. In Your Honor - Foo Fighters
10. Dinner at Eight - Rufus Wainwright

Posted by Robin at 02:21 PM | Comments (9)

February 08, 2006

I'm Worthy, Dammit

Clara Jane has returned home. My mom claims Clara Jane only cried three times during her visit, and each spell was brief and quite adorable in its darlingness. So why is it:

And that's not all! I'm just stopping the list at three because my God! Why continue? She cried five times in her first six hours with me. I am. The mother. Supreme.

It's been an irritating day. I'm a firm believer that the universe isn't out to get me, that other people aren't out to get me. It's just the way things roll; some days I rock and some days I can't catch a break. Like everyone.

That being said, I wished horrible things on these people who annoyed me today:

But those are all minor. I'm sure today's snow had everyone in a snit. I know I was in one and I probably annoyed someone just as badly. At least, I hope I did. I'll bet the woman who found my assprint in her lunch probably wasn't thrilled with me.

There was one irritation that overshadowed all of these minor ones, though. We're talking a veer-off-the-road-in-shock level of irritation.

While driving down the interstate, I saw a church billboard that read, "Be worthy of love."

Be worthy of love?
Be worthy of love?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

I'm sorry, I thought that, by merit of being, oh, I don't know, human, we're all worthy of love. I know my religious education doesn't go much beyond a few summer of vacation bible school as a tot, but Jesus I mean God, um, goodness gracious sakes alive bless my heart shit fire to save matches*!

What was I saying? Right. I don't have much God-learning beyond "This Little Light of Mine" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children", but maybe it's an elementary lesson in Christianity that's needed in this case, all that business about all the little children being precious in His sight and such. But maybe that really only pertains to children children. Jesus loves you unconditionally until you're 18. Then you've gotta earn it, Bucko.

I'm worthy of love because I spent my evening making four dozen frosted, decorated cookies for my bawling child's Valentine's Day party, and I fucking hate making cookies, dammit.

*These are all phrases that my Pentecostal grandmother uses in place of taking the lord's name in vain. I'm thinking I should adopt some of them, as my usual motherfucker is becoming a tad trite.

Posted by Robin at 09:30 PM | Comments (16)

February 07, 2006

Thinking About the Past ... Again

I know exactly what I was doing fifteen years ago; I was writing. Not that that's saying much, because like now, I was always writing. But fifteen years ago I was writing four things: my college application essay, a scholarship application essay on why I wanted to be a journalist, my opening arguments for the upcoming district debate tournament, and my high school commencement address. I guess the hard work and the crazy-making stress I put on myself was worth it because I got into my choice college, won the scholarship, placed first in the debate tournament and won the schoolwide contest to give the speech at graduation.

Along with writing, I was also glued to CNN's Gulf War coverage, which provided much fodder for that journalism scholarship essay. when I wasn't glued to war coverage I was listening to the unlikely mix of R.E.M.'s Out of Time and lots of Atlantic Records' classic R&B. At the time I was pretty sure I was the only white teenager in Sedalia, Missouri listening to the likes of Ann Peebles, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. Actually, thinking about it, I was probably right in thinking that.

Awhile back, B., Miss Codependence, Mindy and that Greenlight boy and I were talking about our teenage behavior. Not the adolescent behavior we currently enjoy, but our behavior when we were actual teenagers. I was a good kid, avoiding the Three Horsemen of the Apocolypse: alcohol, sex and drugs. Not so much because I was a goody-two-shoes. Although I think the fact that I just said "goody-two-shoes" indicates that I probably was, at least a little. It was more because I wanted to get the hell out. I was ready to move on from my hometown and get on with my life early on, and I didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize my escape. There would be plenty of time for debauchery later, I thought. And I was right.

While I was giving that commencement address, extolling our shared history, I remember looking into the crowd and thinking, "Wow. I could happily live the rest of my life without ever laying eyes on 98% of you people ever again." I was quite proud of myself for keeping that little nugget of contempt hidden under my mortar board, especially since I had a stage in front of the 212 members of my graduating class, their families, and the entire school faculty. Although there would have been something to be said for getting up there and saying, "Holy fuck, I'm so glad to be done with all of you. Kiss my ass."

Even though I was only an hour from home when I went to college, I broke ties quickly, remaining friends with only four people from my high school. Two of them graduated the year after me and one the year before. Only one of them was from my class, and we didn't become friends until our senior year. I lived with her during my sophomore and junior years of college, along with one of my younger friends from "back home", which is a sure-fire way to kill just about any friendship. One of these days I'll have to share some of the roommate stories with you. There's a book in those two years, I'm sure of it.

For most of my adult life I've maintained few of my childhood friendships, and I've been fine with that. I haven't attended any of my high school reunions. I saw most of those people five days a week, nine months a year for twelve years; I've had my fill, thanks.I'm happy to say that I have gotten over my childhood. Was it good? Sure. Was it bad? Of course. Did it make me the adult I am? Absolutely. But the fact is, it was only 18 years of my life, what I hope to be a very small portion.

(Funny ... I'm shuffling through my MP3s and what just came on? "Low" from R.E.M.'s "Out of Time", preceeded a few minutes ago by Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay"). The shuffle, it is wise and it knows.)

Anyway ...

Without going into too much detail, B. and I had a rather large fight this weekend regarding the ability to let go of the past. At one point I snarked, "You're still letting a bunch of fucking nine-year-olds rule your life. And nine-year-olds are stupid and don't know how to act right."

Oh. Where did that come from?

How many people are limping around as adults because of the things we were teased about as children, by other children? I had a year where I underwent some pretty brutal teasing; life as an overdeveloped third grader with a bunch of grabby little boys ain't fun. I was talking to an older friend of mine about that experience about five years ago and she gasped, "You know, that's sexual assault. They just didn't call it that in 1982." I responded, "Yes, but they were just kids." In that simple exchange, it all made sense. All those years of hurting, hating my body, and being convinced I was a freak were suddenly wiped away by 1) having someone call it what it was, and 2) recognizing that they were kids who didn't know any better. Not that their behavior didn't merit correction and punishment; it certainly did, and I learned quickly that I couldn't count on the teachers, school administrators or their parents to divvy up justice for me.

I do occasionally wonder if any of those boys have experienced fertility problems as adults, what with the stomping I administered their testicles. Looking back, I'm more than a little surprised at my willingness to adminster my own justice. To kick, to claw, and to fight when I knew no one else would do it for me. So while that experience taught me to loathe my body, it also taught me to be independent, to stand up for myself, and gave me confidence in my ability to fend for myself; the very traits that I eventually used to get over the body hatred.

In the past year I've made contact with several people from my high school. In one of those instance, I thought, "Shit, she hasn't changed at all. I could have gone at least another fifteen years without that." But in all the other instances I've been surprised by my happiness at the contact, and the immediate feeling of relief. What I'm relieved for, I'm not sure. Maybe that others made it out, grew, and have turned into good, interesting people.

This morning I had a message on MySpace from an old childhood friend of mine (hi K., if you're reading!). In her message she asked if I remembered the hours of listening to America's Top 40 on Sunday mornings when we were in fifth grade. Do I remember? I had completely forgotten, but it all came back with that one question. We used to spend Saturday night at each others' houses. We'd wake up Sunday morning and bounce around to whatever Casey Kasem was playing. It was 1983-4, which was such an important music year, and I know much of my music geek foundation was laid on those Sunday mornings. That was my church, and it still is. Not AT40, as the kids call it these days, but that church of music. I had forgotten that K. and I worshipped there together until this morning. How those hours of dancing to Michael Jackson and Madonna created a couple of Wilco fans, I'm not sure, but it makes me smile.

At the end of that school year there was a rift in our circle of friends. We were never close after that, but we always got along. But today, looking over her profile on MySpace, I realized that she's a lot like the people I've chosen as friends in my adulthood. It's further justification to that thought that slipped out of my mouth while arguing with B. on Saturday night, that it's stupid to hang on to the childhood hurts committed on us by other children. Just like it's stupid for me to nurse any contempt I held towards the kids in my childhood. Because we were that: kids. We were learning, and sometimes we didn't have the greatest of teachers teaching us. Just as none of us are probably the greatest of teachers to our own kids. But we're doing our best, just as our parents and teachers did their best. We not only have the shared history of graduating from the same school in the same year, but we also have the shared history of human fallability.

Fifteen years after I officially ended my childhood, I'd love to gather some of those old kids for a beer, where we can toast, and wipe our brow and say, "Whew! So glad we made it through that!" like old war buddies. As long as we can avoid falling into the big hair and pouf dress trap, we're gonna be just fine.

I know there are quite a few readers from my hometown. I know of at least two old high school friends who read (Yo! Julie Han and Big Daddy B! I'm buying your first rounds, and quite possibly the second one, too.) In an unpresidented show of school ... feeling the bile rise in my throat as I try to say it ... spirit, give me a hollar if we knew each other in those younger, dumber days. Or give a hollar with your own high school confidentials.

Posted by Robin at 01:22 PM | Comments (15)

February 05, 2006

Sunday Nuggets

Posted by Robin at 07:02 PM | Comments (12)

February 04, 2006

Has it spread?

The malaise/boredom/hostility? Has it spread to the entire Internets? Because damn, it's been quiet. Y'all have been quiet. Other blogs and comments have been quiet. The bulletin boards I frequent have been quiet. Email's been quiet. Yes, I know I owe a bunch of you emails but I'm the creator of the malaise/boredom/hostility moebius loop so I'm allowed, okay?

C'mon. Don't be quiet. Let's rap.

While I've broken free from the loop, things are quiet, but it's good quiet. Clara Jane's visiting my parents. I miss her but damn if I'm not enjoying the three hours I've spent sitting on the couch, watching Tivo'd episodes of Oprah, drinking my cinnamon dolce latte, eating pretzels and pineapple and warming my foot on Chloe's warm rump. Aside from feeling a bit like my ass has become fused to the slipcover, life's pretty damn good right now.

In watching these backlogged Oprahs, I've gained some respect for some people I already liked:

My God, I do so adore my sweet Anderson Cooper. Not just because he's hot and smart, either. Seeing him covering the Sago coal mine disaster, famine in Africa, even the old footage of him in Sarajevo ... he just blows me away. This is someone from wealth and priviledge who doesn't have to do what he does for the money. I'd love to sit on the porch and drink beer with him while he tells me about the things he's seen.

I've always liked Susan Saint James, probably from all that Kate & Allie I watched in my formative years, although I can't say I feel the same about Jane Curtain. Anyway, I hadn't planned on watching Susan and her family on Oprah, discussing the death of her son Teddy in a plane crash. That's the mom in me, who would love to pretend that bad things don't happen to children. But I watched it, and now I'd really like to adopt Susan to be a really cool aunt, perhaps.

As tasteless as this really is, I've gotta say that her older son Charlie? Total hottie. Like, Anderson Cooper hot. That's would be the funeral slut in me talking. Like Anderson and my beloved Bono, he's doing Africa-related goodness. I'd love to make out with all three of them, then go feed the world.

See? This is what happens when my mind and energy aren't being used towards raising my kid. When I wonder, "What would I do with my resources if I wasn't a mom?", this is the answer: I will spend many, many hours, my flesh becoming fused to the furniture, watching hours of Oprah and thinking, "That grieving barely-legal young man? He's hot."

Or I'll spend it watching hours of Daria and eating chicken wings, feeling a little guilty about all those wingless chicken staggering about on some debilitated chicken farm.

B.'s a big instigator. He came home from the library this morning with the fourth season of "Sex and the City" on DVD. I'll watch it while making boobiesand eating chicken livers with fried cheese, waiting for the sweet ache of gout to commence.

Having read through what I've just written, I'm thinking that maybe I should join in the recent group silence.

Ooooooh, I smell pizza!

Posted by Robin at 12:41 PM | Comments (6)

February 03, 2006

Friday Shuffle - The Kid-Free Edition

It's a melancholy day in these parts, as Clara Jane's going to visit her grandparents for a few days. On one hand, B. and I are looking forward to having some grown-up time (translation: hot, wild, all-night sleeping action). On the other hand, I'm going to miss this little kid with the bad haircut who's been running around the house singing "Oh! You! Look! So! Beautiful! Tonight!" from U2's "City of Blinding Light" all week.

Three years ago this week, I went off the pill. My ob/gyn wanted to start me on Clomid because my chances of getting pregnant were so slim. I said no, that I wanted to try without drugs for a year. It would be wasteful to jump straight to the drugs, and I didn't want to put my body through that unless I knew I couldn't get pregnant otherwise. And while I didn't say it outloud, I wasn't 100% sure I really wanted to get pregnant.

I'm glad I just said no to drugs. Otherwise, this blog would be about life with octuplets.

Two years ago this week I was roughly the size of a bottlenose whale, spending my few waking hours each day issuing terse eviction notices to my overgrown tenant.

A year ago this week, all my friends were so miserable and bitter that I spent a week using Morrissey and The Smiths song names for all my blog titles on their behalf.

But this year, the first week of February will be remembered as the time when this kid - she's a kid now, not a baby - started sprinting through the house, singing U2 lyrics at top volume, and using chopsticks as drumsticks and horns. It'll be remembered as the time when she figured out that she's big enough to crawl on the couch with a blanket and cover us up for snuggling. It's the time when I realized, after months of chanting that she's such a big girl, that she really is.

I need a few days to digest that information. And shuffle.

1. Price of Gas - Bloc Party
2. Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan
3. I've Been Loving You Too Long - Otis Redding
4. Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own - U2 (A song about a grown son sending a message to his departed father about how his father's the reason for the music in his life ... commence sobbing here.)
5. Speedbumps - Luna
6. The World at Large - Modest Mouse
7. Let 'er Rip - Dixie Chicks
8. While the City Sleeps - Irma Thomas
9. This Mountain - Kasey Chambers
10. Entertain - Sleater-Kinney

Posted by Robin at 08:32 AM | Comments (3)

February 01, 2006

Malaise/Boredom/Hostility Moebius Loop, Begone!

It's February and, as I predicted, the malaise/boredom/hostility moebius loop has vanished, gone like the January page of my calendar. It started going away yesterday, what with the cool people who came to my house for lunch, followed by the news that Wilco is coming to town next month. Wilco! You do know I so love my Wilco.

I didn't realize just how much good this news did for me, until I woke up this morning. My first waking thought: "Oh my God! Wilco! Next month!" There's been a severe lack of live music recently; I haven't been to a show since U2 six weeks ago. Granted, I'm looking forward to Cowboy Mouth and the arrival of several out-of-town buddies I never get to see. But I've known about that for months and the new has worn off. Wilco's on Sunday, Cowboy Mouth is the following Friday, which will be followed by a hopefully debauched weekend. I can't think of a better way to welcome spring.

In other happier news, Clara Jane's new haircut doesn't look quite as hideous in the light of day. I was still a little embarrassed to be seen with her in public, though.

We hit our regular trifecta today: Starbucks, Target, Qdoba, and each locale contained something unique and different, certainly not the stuff of the malaise/boredom/hostility moebius loop

#1 - How bad is it that, when we get into sight of a Starbucks, my kid starts yelling for a cookie?

#2 - We had an oddly brief trip to Target in which I spent less than $15. I have a feeling Visa will call me later today and say, "We noticed that you were at Target today and spent an unusual amount. We just want to verify that everything's okay." But that wasn't the exciting part.

As we were walking across the parking lot with our scant purchases, I felt a poke, a release, and a jiggle as the wire in the left cup of my favorite bra, exhausted from eight months of carrying such a heavy load, up and died on me, right there in the Target parking lot.

I thought I heard someone cry, "I can't! I can't! I just can't take this anymore! Please, Jesus! Please release me from my burden!" I had no idea that the wailing was coming from inside my shirt.

I looked down and saw my right boob, all high, firm and proud while my left one did a little shimmy down my torso. There was a time when I delighted in such a sight. That was in ninth grade, when I routinely wore my worst bra on 20 Minute Workout gym class days. The left strap was a bit cantankerous and would let loose at the mere thought of jumping jacks. The gym teacher never seemed to catch on that, around minute 11 every single week, I would excuse myself to the bathroom to fix my bra, returning just in time for the cool-down at minute 18.

Karma's a bitch, ain't she? Oh sure, I thought I was soooooooo smart, when I was a buxom and perky 15-year-old, ditching out of gym class. But karma had a plan. She knew - knew - that someday, I'd be a 33-year-old woman in a desperate fight against gravity, wrestling a squirmy toddler who thinks she might die if a chicken taco doesn't come into her life in the very near future. I brought it on myself, really.

Was I wearing a t-shirt? Of course I was wearing a t-shirt. And while it was too warm for the jacket I'd left in my truck, I put it on. I just couldn't bring myself to go to lunch with one boob up and one boob down, on full display. I'd rather be a little sweaty, thanks.

#3 - Pardon me, Qdoba staff and fellow diners, but I just can't stop fiddling with my one free boob. It's just dangling there, like a boulder on the edge of a cliff, held back by only a thin, weak piece of black satin and I CAN'T KEEP MY HANDS OFF OF IT BECAUSE IF I LET GO, IT'S GONNA TAKE OUT THE ENTIRE VILLAGE BELOW!!!!

I'm a Libra, the Scales, and as much as I would like to think there's nothing to that, good lord, being unbalanced drives me up the damn wall. As I sat there, trying to eat my lunch with my right hand with my runaway tit cupped in my left, all I could think was, "Perfect symmatry has been broached! All is not right in the universe! Pretty sure I'm going to fall out of my chair!"

I doubt if anyone noticed me, lopsided and sweaty. I mean, why would they pay attention to that when ten Mr. Happy Cracks were dining on burritos? I must admit, the sight of eight men in A Dry Crack is a Happy Crack t-shirts, and two others in simple CRACK hoodies was enough to even distract me from my unbalanced state.

Ah, surreality. I'm so glad you're back. I missed you.

Posted by Robin at 01:17 PM | Comments (4)

Anatomy of an Odd Day: A Reflection in Photos

Ever have one of those weird days where things just don't seem to line up correctly? Everything seems a bit subversive, a bit odd, and a bit not quite right? Yesterday was like that for me. Lucky you, I took pictures.

I didn't take pictures of the one normal part of my day: Angie and my old friend Mary came over for lunch. We ate, we chatted, and my child was reasonably well-behaved. Lovely.

Shortly after they left, the house-sawing began. Which means Clara Jane's nap was cut very, very short. And then the weirdness began.

First, Clara Jane put some glasses on her stupid nearsighted dog, then did a little jig on the couch:

Then, there's the issue of my cat Romi. Romi is locked in a romantic entanglement with a space heater. When it's on, she literally tries to crawl into the heater, moaning and caterwauling with joy. She's one big, fat pile of dandruff from allowing the space heater to suck every bit of moisture from her skin. But she doesn't care. I guess what follows isn't exactly odd, since it happens every single time we turn on the space heater. Just bear with me, okay?



Here she is, making her slick moves to see if her lover's hot for her yet.



Touchin', squeezin', lovin'...



A warm embrace.



The reason why my house smells like hair frying in lard.

Speaking of hair ...

When the time comes to finally cut a child's overgrown mullet, one would be advised to go to a professional. One would be will-advised to sniper the child with a pair of knitting scissors while she's sitting on the couch, enjoying a bedtime beverage.



Clara Jane, mark my word, from here on out it's only store-bought hairdos for you. I promise. In the meantime, here's $25 to add to your Future Therapy Fund. I'm sorry.

Posted by Robin at 08:16 AM | Comments (7)