kdiddy.org

I think it’s safe to say that summer 2014 is finally coming to a close. My kid has been in 7th grade for a few weeks and today the weather had that familiar cool crispness to it. I was initially a little sad to see summer go. We had a hectic-at-times summer but a good one. (Highlights are behind the “Read more” via photo essay.)

I’ve been busy with work/tired from being busy with work. I’ve never been comfortable posting too much about my job (any job) but I’m involved in some Big Things. This is simultaneously enthralling (“I’ve always wanted to be involved in Big Things!”) and terrifying. After particularly stressful days, I find myself thinking/saying things like, “I just want to go be a sister wife somewhere and take care of babies and make jam.” I feel terrible about this. For one, it’s not like that line of work is easier. (Plus, I would manage to turn it into The Most High Stakes Sister-Wifeing Ever We’re All Gonna Die Fail Which Is Worse I Don’t Know.) Also, I’ve never even made jam so I have no idea if this would even be a viable option.

The husband has been busy with music. His group, Pittsburgh Track Authority, has been doing really well, along with other related projects that he’s involved with/heading up. They’ve been getting a lot of press coverage, locally and nationally, and they’ve been DJing all over the place. It’s all very exciting.

The kid has been busy hanging out with friends, hanging out with grandparents, etc. I was upset the last week or so of summer vacation because I felt like I had barely seen him and it’s not like he’s going to be looking to spend less time with friends and more time with me as he gets older. I’ve been pushing our Great Race training because it’s 40 or so minutes that are just for us. It’s just unfortunate that we spend them huffing and puffing and figuring out how to avoid running up this one horrible hill by our house.

This was all kind of exacerbated when we went to see Boyhood a few weeks ago, which I loved. Richard Linklater gets a pass from me on certain aspects of movies that would otherwise bother me. I don’t know. He does the meandering-thoughts-and-experiences-of-not-extraordinary-people thing so well. It was very striking to watch a story unfold over time with the same people, especially, of course, the boy at the center of it.

My kid is still very much a kid, but he’s really looking forward to growing up and experiencing all of the failures and successes of becoming an adult. I get that and I don’t immediately tell him to just enjoy being a kid, “because being an adult is so much harder.” I don’t really believe that. Being a kid is easier only in mechanical ways that mostly have to do with money and being a candidate for blame. He seems to really be looking forward to the experiences that he’ll have, though I’ve cautioned him not to set his expectations too high. Parties and whatnot are never as epic as they are in the movies. “You’ll have fun, I promise,” I tell him. “But nobody has the time or energy for a drunken odyssey.”

(more…)

I am on some like anti-NaBloPoMo business. I am, however, doing a photo-a-day “challenge” (sarcastic air-quotes because it’s not like it’s a triathlon or something) over on yon InstaGram, which I’ve recently become addicted to because oh, hello, 2010. Nice of you to show up.

Backing up just a bit, I would like to inform all of you that I am now 34 years old as of October 31st and am now very mature.

Also on October 31st was Halloween, which was kind of anti-climactic since trick-or-treating was postponed. But having it on Saturday was kind of nice since I didn’t have to rush home from work. My kid went as D.M.C. from Run D.M.C., which a few people actually got, despite the fact that he needs to work on his ability to look hard.

Anyway, moving on… (more…)

The husband and I are at an age where we’re attending weddings fairly regularly. We had three this year and have at least one on deck next year. I can’t say that I’m too irritated about it. I really like weddings. In general, everyone is high off of the love fumes of the event and has a great time.

Of course, such blessed events are always so much more special when the marrying couple is dear to your heart. On Saturday, one of the husband’s bandmates, Preslav, married his long-time girlfriend Erin, and we were on hand to witness the union.

An interesting fact about the husband’s band is that all three members have been with their significant others for 12 years and all three initially got together with said significant others within six months of each other in 2000. The husband and I got married in 2006. Adam and Emily got married in 2009. We were thrilled when Preslav and Erin announced last year that they were finally going to make it official in 2012.

Pittsburgh Track Authority: the luckiest guys alive since 2000.

While the husband and I have known Preslav and Adam since Jesus was a boy, the better halves hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know each other until Pittsburgh Track Authority really started to take shape. Then Emily, Erin, and I had a chance to interact more often. We had the common bond of being in long (LONG) term relationships from a fairly young age and supporting in every possible way our respective dudes through their musical odysseys. Getting to know all of them better made me realize that this little group of people was pretty special. Musically, I think they’re on the edge of something big. Personally, it’s always so cool to realize that you’ve stumbled upon some folks who get you in ways that you didn’t even know you needed to be understood.

The husband and I arrived at the Mattress Factory about a half hour before everything was supposed to begin bearing a speaker for the DJ and cookies for the reception. We mingled for a bit before finding our seats. The place looked amazing and as the ceremony began I was blown away by how beautiful everything was. Preslav and Erin were gorgeous and their actual ceremony was short enough that I didn’t get a chance to start sobbing inappropriately like I usually do. I watched these two soulmates promise themselves to each other and grinned at how nervously excited they were. Preslav fidgeted with Erin’s hands and Erin let a few tears escape.

The reception was just one of the best I’ve been to. Everything was so relaxed and just felt like a really special party. Preslav and I noted that everyone looked so nice and I commented that it was probably one of the best looking weddings I’ve seen. Our friend Jim was DJing and he’s especially skilled at knowing just what to play. It was so refreshing to be amongst a group of people who weren’t nervous or shy about dancing, but who were just happy to be there celebrating this wonderful event. Dance music nerds have the most fun always.

The cops came by several times to warn us about the noise but I was glad that the music was loud enough to drown out the fact that I was singing along to everything, especially when Jim played one of my favorite songs ever:

I would never claim to be wise about love and relationships. Each one is so different and has its own unique set of challenges that it’s impossible to even glimpse the contents of anyone else’s heart. But I know what it is to be in the presence of the real thing. I can often step away and see it in the husband and I, and I could definitely feel it all around us on Saturday. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that the secret to making love work is to grab that moment and never let go of it, allow it to always be present in plenty and in want, in sickness and health, in good times and bad. If you follow that, you can never go wrong.

Right after Erin and Preslav were presented for the first time as husband and wife, Preslav fumbled for a second and asked Erin which way they were going. Erin replied, “Straight ahead.” We all laughed at the cute blunder. But to me it was the perfect way to take their first married steps.

Straight ahead. And if you get lost, just ask the amazing person walking right beside you.

Congratulations Erin and Preslav, October 13, 2012

This weekend was so great. So, so great. So great that I’m not even that bitter that I don’t have off of work today like seemingly everyone else.

As I mentioned on Friday, we were going to be attending the VIA festival. I was worried that we were going to be too tired to rally for all of the events, but it turned out that we had almost non-stop fun for nearly three days.

I was late to the dance workshop at the Shadow Lounge on Friday because I had to take the bus over after work. Even though I left my office a few minutes early, the bus was late and I wandered in when there was only under an hour left. But I got to see the husband, the baby, and the sister-in-law, who was in town for the festival, work on their footwork.

I joined in for a bit and felt pretty confident about my new dance skills until Manny, one of the guys leading the workshop, came into the center of the floor to demonstrate what footwork looks like when done well and at full speed.

It was, um, humbling.

We hit up Buffalo Blues for (a somewhat disappointing) dinner before heading back out to see a pop-up arcade. This was a raw, storefront space that had been taken over by Babycastles. The baby got a huge kick out of it and it was cool to see people creating their own video games right then and there. The baby lamented that I don’t let him play games like Call of Duty and such. I consider myself very liberal in what I expose him to via media (read: if you’ve written an indignant blog post about parents taking their kid to an R-rated movie, I was probably the object of your outrage), but there are a few things that I’m just not comfortable with, and some of the first-person shooter games creep me out. When he’s still kind of little and sweet, I just can’t take watching him pretend to be a hardcore assassin. But the pop-up arcade was inspiring because he got to see people making fun games that weren’t whatever is most heavily marketed. Got a fun idea for a game? Make it! Don’t wait for someone to sell it to you.

I could tell that the baby was really happy to be out doing stuff like this with us. He’s intrigued by the fact that we regularly go out to hear music and stay out very late and I hope that his desire to someday do that with us remains intact until he is old enough to do so. In the meantime, he was off to spend the night at my mother-in-law’s house. As we put him in the car, he very sweetly called out to us, “Have fun at VIA!” Ugh, he’s amazing. And the VIA folks need to make that into a commercial.

The musical acts that night were going to be in the old PNC Bank in East Liberty. Zuzuka Ponderosa was great, but we were all pretty unimpressed with SSION. Things reached some kind of weirdness apex when none other than Girl Talk took the stage wearing a Steelers uniform. He played some noise for about 10 minutes tops while some seizure-inducing strobe lights kept up. People in masks handed out and threw Arby’s roast beef sandwiches to the crowd before a confetti blast went out. It was bizarre.

Tiger & Woods got us interested again, though, and Spinn and Rashad took things to a frantic level of fun. I was completely drenched in sweat from dancing so hard. We headed over to the after party to hear Santiago Salazar. We were dancing until 4:30 in the morning. When we finally left, the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees and it had started to rain. So Pittsburgh. So lovely.

The next night was the highly anticipated performance by Moodymann, who is one of our favorites from Detroit. Nearly all of our friends were out, which made it that much more special.

The hotties from Pittsburgh Track Authority. I’m partial to the one in the middle.

Moodymann played hot and sexy and fun house music and displayed his legendarily bizarre personality, taking the opportunity to talk briefly about the Steelers and hand out cups of Hennessy to the crowd.

He was sitting over near the door when things were wrapping up and I had to go and tell him how much fun I’d had during his set. He appreciated my tshirt, which was from the roller rink in Detroit where he throws a skating party during the festival there. While he chatted with the sister-in-law, I talked to his daughter, who was one of the sweetest girls ever.

One more after party, before we dragged our selves back home at the relatively reasonable hour of 3:30.

Something to add to your list of universal truths? Pizza, even a weird hipster Domino’s pizza, tastes amazing at that hour.

I love that I danced my butt off to musicians from all over the world in old banks and odd little speakeasy-type places and then found myself chomping on nachos at a Steelers game less than 12 hours later.

The sister-in-law and I, wearing a combined total of 57 shirts, 8 pairs of pants, 20 pairs of socks, and three Terrible Towels.

Pittsburgh is just so weird and wonderful.

These past two weekends are causing a bit of deja vu.

Last year, on the last Sunday of September, I ran the Great Race, then the baby had his soccer pictures, then he had a soccer game, then he went to a Pirates game with my dad, and we celebrated the husband’s birthday. This year, on the last Sunday of September, I ran the Great Race, then the baby had his soccer pictures, then he had a soccer game, then he went to a Pirates game with my dad. We celebrated the husband’s birthday a few days earlier.

Last year, on the first Saturday of October, the husband and I were out suuuuuuper super late at one of the VIA events, then got about 30 minutes of sleep before going to the baby’s soccer game at motherfucking 9:00 in the a.m. This year, on the first Saturday of October, the husband and I will be out suuuuuuuper super late at one of the VIA events, then get about 30 minutes of sleep before going to the baby’s soccer game at motherfucking 9:00 in the a.m.

Argh. These two weekends are shaping up to be traditionally equal parts exhilarating and annoying and tiring. However, last year, while lamenting to our partied out friend about our son’s early morning athletics, said friend replied, “I FUCKING LOVE SOCCER!” which was kind of the most perfectly slurred thing to say at that moment. I hope he does it again.

Anyway, if you are in the Pittsburgh area, you should definitely come out to some of the events happening as part of the VIA festival. It’s been going on for the past few days and some supremely cool things will be happening this weekend. We’re taking the baby to the juke + footwork workshop at the Shadow Lounge this evening, then the husband and I will be checking out some music and visuals at the old PNC Bank in East Liberty. Tomorrow night, we’re going to see Moodymann, one of our Detroit faves, which I’m just so, so excited about.

I can’t overstate how fantastic it is that something like this goes on every year in Pittsburgh. If you have some time to kill, check out some of the events. A lot of them are during the day and are all ages, so bring the kids!

What is normally a joyous, raucous party anthem becomes a crippling tool of depression in the incorrect context.

It is not Friday night, there are no parties on any sides, reaching for a 40 would probably be inappropriate and/or grounds for dismissal.

I am not faded, so a trip to the shore is out. No honeys to be seen. I am not in my hood so I can’t speak to whether it feels good or not.

Kani thankfully went out style 20 years ago. Don’t know the status of the gang bangers and their intended drive-by, but hopefully today will end without a bomb threat. I do indeed need to get my groove on. Perhaps I can squeeze that in before payday on Friday.

I am not buzzed. (This is how we do it.) I have no knowledge of whether or not South Central still does it like nobody does. (This is how we do it.) I wouldn’t classify my neighbors as having much of any flavor. (This is how we do it.) Track, old school, something something. (This is how we do it.)

Waving my hands in the air from here to there might lead my co-workers to believe I am choking and in need of a Heimlich. I’m not sure if I fall into the category of O.G. Mack or wannabe player. I guess the hood’s been alright to me but now that I am an upper case G I had really hoped for more financial security.

Our perspectives are inherently different, as are our vehicles.

Tipping this coffee mug up, but keeping my hands by my side to prevent the aforementioned panic.

I am not buzzed. (This is how we do it.) I have no knowledge of whether or not South Central still does it like nobody does. (This is how we do it.) I wouldn’t classify my neighbors as having much of any flavor. (This is how we do it.) Track, old school, something something. (This is how we do it.)

As I mentioned in my last post, which was 3,000 weeks ago, we were in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend, as is our tradition. Again this year, we decided to forgo the actual music festival and just attend the related parties so that we would have more time, money, and energy to enjoy the city.

Aside from some initial uneasiness about having to stay at a new hotel and dealing with their particular quirks, we  had a lot of fun. We hit up some of our favorite eating spots, namely The Clique for breakfast every morning, Buddy’s for pizza, and Slows for barbecue. We also crossed two items off of our informal Detroit bucket list, which comprises a number of quintessential Detroit experiences that we had never managed to enjoy despite spending, cumulatively, over a month there over the years. For example, we had been there like 6 or 7 times before we managed to go to the Motown museum. One culinary experience that we kept failing at was trying out the city’s Coney Island dogs. This was pretty absurd since Coney dogs are de rigeur late-night food there and we’re always just getting our night started at 1 a.m. But the siren call of White Castle has always been too hard to ignore. But this year we finally made it to two of the 8 bazillion Coney restaurants in the metropolitan area and those happened to be the most famous/infamous establishments: American and Lafayette. We all agreed that we liked the dogs at American the best, but the the atmosphere and ambiance, if you will, at Lafayette was better.

Immediately prior to our Coney sampling was a trip on the People Mover which was pretty cool. We had never taken that anywhere because it’s sort of a dud of public transportation. But it offered very cool views of the city. Oh! It was also the setting for a wannabe-artsy self portrait:

Aside from eating, we went to parties each night, all of which were extremely fun and musically blissful. That weekend is where a lot of new music makes its debut of sorts, but DJs are DJs and so you’re bound to hear amazing classics from the 70s on up. Since Donna Summer had just passed, we heard “I Feel Love” at least 10 times, which I had no complaints about, particularly when someone played it at a lovely outdoor party. Someone on Friday night played, “I’m Gonna Get You.”

I had completely forgotten about that song. Suddenly hearing it plus drinking all of the gin and tonics made for quite the reaction from yours truly.

Awww shit! This my song!

We also went to Soul Skate at Northland, which I was both excited and nervous about. I hadn’t been roller skating since before I hurt my neck and I was slightly terrified that I would either make a gigantic fool out of myself after being so out of practice or manage to hurt myself again. After all, Soul Skate is no joke:

I am pleased to report that I actually felt quite comfortable getting back in the rink and once I was confident enough in my footing I even danced a little! Nothing like what’s on the video, of course, but I was so happy that wasn’t totally starting over with skating.

The whole weekend was really fun, as always. The only low point was receiving a really awkward hug from a mute homeless man. Did not want.

Hmm. I started this post the other day and cannot remember what the “lifelong commitments” part was going to be about. So…I guess I’m out of whatever I had committed to? Right?

Also also wik: I wrote about E.T. on MamaPop the other day. Go read it, willya?

So I went on the treadmill today, because I didn’t have sunscreen and therefore couldn’t go on the track. I’m doing the Ease into 10K program, which is like the 10k version of the Couch to 5k. And today, for the first time in a long time, I really felt like I was okay. My breathing was in control, my legs felt fine, and while I wasn’t on pace to set any landspeed records, I was holding steady at 5 mph, a nice jog. I got nice and sweaty, logged almost 3.5 miles, and got to watch an episode of House Hunters. Really not a bad way to spend one’s lunch break.

Hot. Literally.

I’ve signed up for the zombie 5k and the Great Race 10k, both in September. And I’d honestly been getting pretty nervous about them, even though they’re still months away. But I think I’ll actually be able to do them. My body is feeling stronger and more capable and like it’s getting back to where it was before my neck had that big failure. If nothing else, the neck injury has really taught me not to take my health for granted.

Anyway, everything else is good. We’ve been enriching the baby’s life through the classic works of American cinema.

We also took him to see Cabin in the Woods the other night, which is hilarious because I had just seen several indignant tweets from parents about people bringing their 9 and 10-year-olds to that very movie and what terrible people they were for doing that. So, hi! Worst parents ever! Right here! We’re a family of horror movie buffs, what can I say? And no, he did not have nightmares, and he’s only eaten three puppies, which is a significant drop.

Speaking of the baby, his baseball season started on Saturday. They had their annual parade at 10, then their first game at 2:15. It’s worth noting that it was 40 degrees and rainy all day Saturday, so that was pretty miserable, though cute.

I was too cold to even make sure I could see my kid in the picture I was taking but I'm pretty sure he's there.

Also on Saturday, we went to Art All Night with the sister-in-law and her friend who were in town from D.C. because they had submitted works. It was also too cold for this and I sped through the entire thing like, “Yeah, great. Art. Whatever. Can we go somewhere warm now?” So we went to Primanti’s and it was amazing.

Last Thursday was the Big Freedia show. I had not adequately prepared myself for all of azz that I ended up seeing. Be sure to watch the dancer on the right.

I mean, I expected it from the dancers, but watching a bunch of Pittsburgh girls grind on the stage was a little weird. Very fun, though. I’m glad we went.

So, hey. It’s been a minute? No big, I just became a little overwhelmed with work stuff and needed to simplify life where I could. This meant more or less taking a hiatus from the internet, minus my usual spewing of brilliant nuggets onto Twitter when the spirit moved me.

Physically, I’m doing okay. My insurance had had enough of me going to that physical therapy snakeoil treatment, so I’m basically trying to make sure that my neck doesn’t get any worse the next few months and hopefully will continue healing. It seems to be doing okay and I mostly only notice any discomfort or pain if I sit for too long or if I get too ambitious during yoga and try to do like plow pose or something.

Neck says, "No."

What’s kind of really upsetting is that the combination of my neck injury, the required period of inactivity, Christmas, and the god-I’m-depressed-about-this-let-me-eat-this-stick-of-butter methods of dealing mean that I have more or less gained back all of the weight that I lost after working so hard at getting healthy and active. I’m bummed and trying to do what I can about it, but I easily get stuck in the, “I’ve ruined all of my hard work and now I shall be overweight forever,” rut of self-loathing. Also, last night I made the extremely poor decision to watch the first episode of the first season of The Biggest Loser (I know, I know) and one of the contestants was my size exactly. That was upsetting.

ANYWAY disordered thinking aside, things are okay. The husband and the kid and I are trekking to New York this weekend (no, that is not an invitation to rob my house). They’re going to go see Kraftwerk while the sister-in-law and I will spread our distinct brand of classiness all over Queens.

Now that spring is settling in, I’m getting excited about stuff that will be happening the next few months. On the 26th, presumably still glowing (read: scrubbing the grime off) from NYC, the husband and I are going to go see Big Freedia. You might recognize her as the singer in the episode of Treme when Davis and Aunt Mini go to a bounce show. She is also the creator of this wonderfulness.

Speaking of Azz, I made the husband watch a documentary from 2000 called American Pimp that had recently popped up on Netflix. It was obvious that it had influenced parts of Idiocracy (the Upgrayedd character) and “The Playa Hater’s Ball” from Chappelle’s Show. I, of course, fell asleep midway through. This morning, I asked the husband if he had watched the rest of it and if it was any good.

“Yeah. Great soundtrack. It was just kind of way too long for what it was. They just kept explaining the same thing over and over again.” Then he sighed, “Like, ‘Yes, we get it. You can’t show the bitch no love.'”

In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s safe to say that not many people know about Kraftwerk. Folks who are considered nerds about music history know that they were fairly popular in their own right as pioneers in the field of electronic music in the early 1970s and know that they then went on to heavily influence early hip-hop, electro, new wave, and dance music. But ask your average music fan who they are and you’ll probably get a blank stare. I don’t say this to sound elitist. I mean, really, they’re an odd bunch of guys from Dusseldorf who are enthusiastic about technology and bicycles. In a parallel universe, perhaps they’re megastars.

I didn’t really start listening to them until college, when I had been enmeshed in the dance music scene in Pittsburgh for a few years and started to research the music, as I tend to do with everything. I found that listening to Trans-Europe Express while doing my homework seemed to help me to concentrate. When the baby came along, the husband began testing his nascent theory that Kraftwerk’s music tapped into some primal area of kids’ brains by playing The Mix for him. Consequently, the baby was a huge fan from an early age, loving the crisp beats and rhythms, weird sounds, and whole songs devoted to such wonderful things as robots and calculators.

And then we named our kitten after Florian Schneider, one of the original members. In case you needed a reminder, our other cat is named Greedo, after the Star Wars character. Yes, we are nerds. No, we are not ashamed.

A few weeks ago, the Museum of Modern Art announced that as part of a Kraftwerk retrospective, the band, now only containing one original member, would be performing each of their albums there over the course of about a week. When the husband told him about the shows, the baby actually teared up. (Read: Shit, now we REALLY HAVE to get tickets.) Each show would only have about 300 tickets, which would be $25 each. This was huge news, and music nerds all over the world counted down the days to February 22nd, when tickets would go on sale at noon. (Pittsburgh plug: Pittsburgh-based company ShowClix snagged the ticketing rights for the event.)

Yesterday, after a lot of fevered coordination, we had a team of people at the ready to purchase the two tickets allotted to each person. I had to be on my computer at work, which meant that I had to actively ignore anyone who stopped by to talk to me. (By the way, sorry everyone who came to my office and was greeted by my icy stare.)

Over 50,000 people tried to buy about 2,500 total tickets. I was not one of the lucky buyers. But my husband was. We decided that he and the baby would attend the Monday night performance of The Mix. I was bummed that I wouldn’t be attending, but the baby getting to go was the most important thing. Besides, we decided that we would all go up and have a long weekend in New York City. Nothing wrong with that, right?

The best part was telling the baby the news. Prepare to have your day made: