kdiddy.org

This is the year-end meme that I do every year.

1. Where did you begin 2008?
Like last year, in the living room of a beach house in Rehoboth, DE. We watched Radiohead and Bjork on TV, said, “Whoooaaa,” a lot and then I got all dumbfounded staring at the stars on the beach.

2. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Sat in a hospital waiting room for over 12 hours waiting for my dad to get his malignant tumor removed.

3. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make resolutions but I am going to try to cut back on Diet Dr. Pepper. I’ve sort of already gotten started on this and am drinking way less of the stuff, but I’d like to no longer be the woman at Wal-Mart with the 24-packs and the crazed look in her eyes.

4. Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Yes. I have two more semesters of grad school under my belt. By this time next year, I should be done!

5. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

6. Any new additions to your family?
I think my cousin, Jeffrey, is looking to make his girlfriend a more permanent character, but nothing official yet.

7. Did anyone close to you die?
I was thankfully spared from the funeral home circuit this year.

8. Did you know anybody who got married?
I was thankfully spared from the wedding circuit this year. 😉 No, I like weddings, and I think there are at least two on the horizon for next year.

9. What countries did you visit?
The United States of What the Fuck

10. How did you earn your money?
Administrating and writing.

11. Where did most of your money go?
Bills. And those fuckers at PNC Bank.

12. Did you have any encounters with the police?
Not really, but my mom did get pulled over by Sergeant Douchebag in Mt. Lebanon. He was such a perfect example of “that dickwad in high school who was too stupid to do anything but pick on people so he became a cop,” that I had to plug my ears from hearing the crap that came out of his mouth. Otherwise, I would have launched into a rousing version of, “Fuck the Police.”

13. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Some more money. And some home improvement action.

14. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
October 31. I TURNED 30 OH MY GOD.

15. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Continuing to be a ninja, as my buddy Mary calls me, via working toward my MA, working full-time (and hopefully not screwing up people’s lives in the process), writing whatever whenever I can, wifey-ing, and parenting. I can always do better at all of these things, but I think I can safely say that I did all of them well.

Also, I can’t tell if my 30th birthday really marked a turning point or not, but I’m definitely much more comfortable with myself as a person and much more contented with my life. I think I finally started thinking a little differently and recognizing what’s important. I can honestly say I’ve never been happier.

16. What was your biggest failure?
Not going to bed at a reasonable hour. I really need to self-regulate a little better.

17. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope. *knocks on wood* Although the Student Health Center really wanted me to have appendicitis. The husband had all of the injuries this year.

18. Where did you go on holidays/vacation?
We went to my mother-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve, and to my grandmother’s house and the husband’s grandmother’s cousin’s house on Christmas Day. I’m hoping that by 2010, our house will be in enough shape that we can start shifting at least some of the holiday activities to our house. We’re currently in Rehoboth with the Sweetneys to ring in the new year.

19. What was the best thing you bought?
Dude: new cookie sheets, Silpats, a cookie scoop, and a cupcake carrier. I realize these are domestic nerd items but they seriously make baking (and storing/transporting your baked goods) SO MUCH EASIER. Also, I got an iPhone (well, technically, my mom bought it) and I’m happy to say that we are still totally in love.

20. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I’m generally pleased that US citizens didn’t elect McCain/Palin, but then again they only came to their senses after voting Bush/Cheney in TWICE. I still don’t understand what drugs y’all are smoking.

21. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I’m probably not the best person to ask that question, since I’ll just say, “Everyone.” Because I’m a hater. But yesterday I was reading this book that the husband gave me for Christmas and it said that recruitment into the Air Force and Navy rose 500% after Top Gun came out, which is just…oh my god. It made me think of Dave Chappelle talking about how phone numbers in movies are always 555-something because people were calling people’s houses and saying, “Hi, is Indiana Jones there?” Just…STUPID.

22. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Getting some more school done, going to Detroit.

23. Did you move anywhere?
No.

24. Where do you live now?
In my house in Pittsburgh, PA.

25. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Hmm, I should really start keeping a music diary or some shit, since I listen to all kinds of stuff and much of it isn’t current, Billboard-material. But last night I was listening to Kid A and really feeling “How to Disappear Completely,” and remembered how beautiful it is. It’s probably a tad more melancholy than I’ve been feeling, but whatever.

What’s up, party people? I am in Rehoboth with Sweetney and Co. and right now everyone is off doing their own thang. The husband ventured to the main drag to check out the record store. The remaining adults are all internetting, and the kids are watching a movie and making high-pitched noises.

I was in the living room by myself when the beach house phone rang. I ran to answer it and had one of the most ridiculous conversations ever.

“Hello?”
“Hello, who is this?”
“This is Kelly. I’m…I’m here…and I’m…My name’s Kelly,” I answered, because really what other explanation does she need and she’s the one who called me anyway.
“Uh, so this isn’t _____?”

Now, here the woman on the other end, no doubt a little stunned by having to talk to TEH KELLY (like, seriously, why did she even have to ask who I am? She didn’t recognize my voice?), asked for someone…and I could have sworn she said, “Stephen Hawking.” And I told her that no, that person wasn’t here. I mean, I saw someone wheeling through the hall earlier with a vocoder, but I don’t think it was him.

At home we always get calls for Pottery Barn Kids. The first few calls were just annoying, and now I get all irritated with such callers, because why can’t they and their yuppie friends get the right number when seeking out their tasteful but overpriced children’s furniture? Gawd.

Anyway, here’s some pics of our one big activity so far: making our compulsory trip to Dogfish Head. We’ve spent the rest of our waking ours on the couch, though Tracey and I did throw down at the outlet mall today before our hungover asses nearly caused us to black out in Old Navy by the performance fleece.

The iPhone usage here is off the hook.

Hot wings. Perfect for a growing boy.

Shortly after taking this picture, I tossed these kids into a blender and made a cuteness smoothie. Seriously, is that shit not ridiculous? It’s a total survival mechanism because the whining is a little intense.

M daintily dabs at her mouth after eating some fresh souls.

I know it looks like I’m sitting on the couch in my pajamas and posting to my blog about something not quite earth-shatteringly important when I should be doing laundry and hacking a path through the Christmas debris that is littering our entryway, but it only looks that way to you because you’re high.

Anyway, a belated Merry Christnukkwanzaa to you, internet. I hope you’re having a lovely holiday week. Yesterday was fun, but very long, and I am still a tad exhausted today. We all got plenty of cool presents.

The baby seemed pretty happy with all of his stuff, despite not getting a D-Rex, which we said no to because a) it’s a $150 and this is not a $150 dinosaur kinda year and b) we weren’t convinced that he really wanted it. And, as it turned out, he didn’t mention it once since he did get plenty of rad presents and we kept telling him not to be disappointed if he didn’t get everything we wanted and that Christmas is more about hanging out with family (and eating) than presents. Moral lesson learned? Let’s hope so. Especially since I think The Lord must be communicating with me through my breakfast. Check it:

I was frying an egg and broke the yolk, because I hate dippy eggs, and it started looking like a fetus. That’s gotta be a sign, right? I should go buy canned goods and bottled water or something.

Alright, I need to get moving. But! I do want to say thank you to reader Emily from LA who was sweet enough to send me a book from my Amazon wishlist. Thanks, Emily! I read a few pages the other night and it’s crazily interesting so far!

The more I think back to the period of my life when I was about 20 – 21 and how I lived at that time, the more I realize what a weirdo I was…am…was. Shut up. Someday I’ll tell you more about it, but one thing I need to frame this post with is the fact that I was working nights during the spring and summer of 1999 and living alone and was therefore completely nocturnal. I would get home from work around 1 or 2 a.m. and then do the things that people normally do when they get home from work but it was all bizarro.

I would eat dinner, fire up the AOL on the ol’ 56k, smoke cigarettes, and watch public access shows. I often ended up watching the local death/black metal show (The Gallow’s Pit?) and frothing religious dudes, but occasionally I would catch some gems. This is not from PCTV, but it very well could have been. Gawd richly bless you.

First off, I apologize in advance for a post that’s generally a downer at a time when folks are trying to focus on happiness, but I have to get this off my chest.

The other day, Tracey sent this link to the MamaPop writers. A group of teenagers in Ukraine brutally murdered people and took video of themselves in the act. A brief discussion among us followed, mostly expressing disgust at the actions of the teenagers and at the details that were available. Everyone mentioned reading a bit of the transcript, but not being able to look at the video that was included.

I looked.

Only for a few seconds, but long enough to realize what I was watching and what I was doing by watching.

I’m fascinated by death and particularly by deaths that are wrapped in crime. One of my favorite books is Shots in the Dark and I think post-mortem photography in general is an incredible art form. I’m not sure why. I’ve pored over those pictures and contemplated how peaceful the subjects look, even if their deaths were violent. Everything in their life led up to that moment and we all share that fate. We will all be stared at by people looking down at us and we will be unable to change their perception.

I’m also a huge fan of all manner of fucked up movies. I have my limits, of course…I’m thinking specifically of Audition and Japanese horror in general. Something about that type of cinema just doesn’t sit right with me. But I’ve seen some rather unspeakable things thanks to movies.

Somehow, looking at still images, especially in black and white, and watching films of actors, even if they’re based on a true story, is extremely different than watching that video. Perhaps the crime photos seem more kosher since they’re taken by a third party who is actually performing a service.

I told Tracey that I didn’t even know why I watched it. Morbid curiosity. Voyeuristic temptation. And I think, prior to clicking “play,” I didn’t totally believe it was what it was purported to be. What did I stand to gain by watching such a thing? Validation that such things, unimaginable as they may be, actually occur? Scratching some unacceptable itch?

I’ve always been fascinated and terrified by serial killers and people who murder for no apparent reason, at random. They set their own criteria, identify those who sin in their eyes, and deal them their punishment. From the time that I understood what these people did and how they did it, I’ve always been at least a little afraid that I would end up one of those random people. Our house being burgled last year by a man who crept into our house while we slept just a few feet above only exacerbated those fears. I’m still not able to watch my fucked up movies without feeling at least a little bit of panic.

The things that I saw in those seconds of jerky, cellphone video. I saw the nauseating glee. I saw beings who resembled humans and maybe once, a long time and a different reality ago, were humans that went grocery shopping and paid bills and stopped at red lights. And I saw…a face. Or something, a bloody, desecrated, disgusting, violated mess that used to be a face. And I could still see the question of, “Why?” running through a mind that was soon to stop functioning completely. And I could hear the echo of, “Why not me? Yet?” in the back of my brain.

It disturbed me in a way that I didn’t know possible. My worst nightmare came true for someone else and I watched it happen. I didn’t wield that hammer, but I might as well have stood there, in that cold, bleak forest, and watched it unfold.

By the time my brain said, “No. Stop,” I hadn’t assured myself of the slim chances of this ever happening to me or someone I know. I hadn’t cured myself of my paranoia. And I didn’t feel like I had a deeper understanding of how messed up this world is.

I had only accomplished one thing: watching someone be murdered.

Maybe I was stroking that part of my mortality that tries to deny itself, the part that likes to believe that I will call the shots, and if I cannot, I will call the shots for someone else. What separates me from Them?

I suppose what separates me is that I felt the urge to apologize after I chose to silence the giddy foreign language and the moist gargling breaths and the crunching leaves and the plastic bags. When I stopped, a different ending was still possible. Media feeds me truth and lies and joy and pain. And the brutal epiphany that reality and my place in it is more fluid than I’d like to admit. I’m sorry.

Long live the new flesh.

I never really thought about it until I started writing about advertising a lot on MamaPop, but I guess I’m rather grossly interested in the stuff and how it drives and marks our culture. Finding old commercials on YouTube shocks me back to childhood just the same way that a familiar sound or smell does. It’s an instant memory of a simpler period in life, when everything was kind of magical and I still felt…safe.

There are three Christmas-themed commercials that I’ve seen nearly every year for as long as I can remember. It’s kind of embarrassing to be so warmed by something as silly as a television ad but, heh, I have no shame.

Anyway, they are the Corona “O Tannenbaum” ad, the Folgers “Peter Comes Home for Christmas,” ad and Eat n Park’s “Christmas Star” ad.

Oh my god, I had a waitressing nightmare last night. I haven’t had a waitressing nightmare since…well, since I was a waitress. When I was slinging baskets of bread and water with lemon slices and panko-encrusted salmon, I used to have such nightmares all the time. They were always pretty terrific, too. Classic scenarios included suddenly becoming paralyzed from the neck down and crumpling into a pile in the doorway of the kitchen and getting bitched at by the fellow waitstaff for not getting the fuck out of the way, or forgetting about a table so long that when I finally remembered them, I would find the patrons had starved to death and that would come out of my tips somehow.

Last night’s horror was that I had to get a waitressing job because we were just SO broke (not exactly unrealistic, unfortunately) and my first table was an 8-top. Of course, I was kind of a shitty waitress even after I had been doing it awhile, but after 10 years of retirement I was a disaster. And, of course, the people were snooty assholes with bad kids. After I totally screwed up in every conceivable way, the man at the table made some remark about women not being able to do anything correctly because they don’t ever take on any responsibility…or some similarly vague sexist and condescending remark that was the culmination of all the little pieces of bullshit that I put up with from assholes on a fairly regular basis. I didn’t hold back though and told the guy that I was a fucking badass and listed all of the shit that I do well on a daily basis when all I had seen him do in the time we’d known each other was sit on his ass, complain, and judge.

It felt good, even if it was a dream. I’m all about having cathartic outbursts however I can get them.

Anyway, how’ve you been? I’ve been feeling pretty bad lately that I haven’t been writing here. I’m still constipated in a bloggy way. I can’t think of anything that I want to write about so in a way I guess it’s good that I had that ridiculous nightmare. I’ve generally been not very “here” when I’m on the internet. I can’t tell if it’s a cyclical thing or if I’m growing apart from this…place altogether. I used to spend an additional hour or two online at home in the evenings and now I barely touch my computer.

It’s been nice, though. I guess I’ve been kind of needing a break and surprisingly spending time away from here has been good for my head. I’m feeling generally very calm and able to handle things, or at the very least okay with NOT handling things. I have mental…stuff. I know this. And I can handle it most of the time. When I can’t, I won’t and it’ll be alright. It’s a very new thing in my world and I don’t know how I got here. I’ll take it, though.

I started this post the other day. Go ahead and read through and then I’ll meet you down at the bottom.

As I mentioned the other day, my semester is finally over. It’s a relief, sure, but I find myself uneasy about my final grade. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, so let’s discuss parties.

The baby had his birthday party this past Saturday and it was rather awesome. The Oaks Theater is available for parties so we booked that and showed one of the baby’s favorite Godzilla movies for him and his buddies. It was especially fun for the kids since they got to talk and giggle and wander around the theater during the movie. A taste of the forbidden! The guy at the Oaks also wrote a happy birthday message to the baby on the marquee, which was really cool for him to see.

It was a small group. The kids in the baby’s class don’t seem too big on birthday parties. But that was fine. Less noise, less stress, etc.

So, I highly recommend the Oaks for special events. I will note that it was a tad pricey (not surprising, really) and I’m thinking this will be our last big birthday party for awhile.

Of course, the baby started feeling crappy right as the party was ending and spent the rest of the weekend fighting off a nasty head cold.

I made cupcakes for the party, continuing in my deranged domesticity. Amber requested a picture of a cake wreck and I’m happy to deliver.

Those are chocolate cupcakes with mint icing, as per the baby’s request. I bought this pastry bag set the other day and it’s one of those crappy home baker sets, not a professional one. I don’t harbor any delusions that I am hiding a cake decorating superstar, but the pastry bag experience was rather frustrating. This is as far as I got the other day.

Anyway, yes, cupcakes. I went at them with the pastry bag set not really looking to make them fancy, but it just seemed easier to ice them with that than a butter knife or whatever I normally use. Not so much. But they tasted awesome.

AND I got my final grade for grammar and it’s an A minus. I’m not really sure how I pulled that off but I will so take it.

The title of this post refers to a story I was going to tell you about this yinzer baby shower I went to on Sunday and how I cleaned house during the loathed shower games. But it’s left me.

In fact, I am totally sapped of writing energy. I had an article due on Monday and I guess that and the usual end-of-semester meltdown have rendered me useless. I’ve been sparing you and subjecting the readers of MamaPop with my semi-coherent rambling. Lucky them.

Aaand I’m out of nothings to say. Instead, I’ll leave you with this clip from Sade’s Lovers Live DVD, which we started to watch last night and were stunned by it’s awesomeness.

You know what I LOVE? I love studying for an exam for hours and hours and trying to tell myself that it won’t be that bad in an attempt to calm my test-phobic self down and then sitting down to take the test and seeing that I have no fucking idea what the first question is talking about.

That’s what just happened in my grammar final. I eventually guessed and worked my bullshitting magic to justify my guess and, of course, when I finally left and checked my book I came to the totally shocking realization that I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy off.

I have no real idea of how well I did on the rest of the test. I had such a panic over that first question that the rest is a blur and when I went through my answers I found a couple more that I had totally screwed up. I fixed them. But I have to wonder how many I missed in my glimpsing. Now I just have to wait and see what my grade is and hope that I did well enough that I don’t have to take the class again.

Ugh. I’m just so tired of this whole thing. I just want my fucking degree. I think about having to deal with this for another year and I want to cry. I want to quit so bad. I just want to have a job and to take care of my family. I don’t want to burn the candle at both ends, I don’t want to impress people with how much I’m able to juggle. I just want to actually finish more than one load of laundry per week. I want to actually go grocery shopping instead of grabbing two or three things (that I can’t afford anyway) after work. I want to spend time with my kid without worrying about all of the other stuff that I should be doing. And I want a drink, dammit.

Oh, I don’t have much time to chat here, but I think it would be a blogging crime of the highest order if I did not mark the significance of this date.

See this guy? You all know him as The Baby. Well, he turns 7 years old today. Can you believe that shit?

It’s hard for me to do comparison pictures since 2001 was quite a few years before we leapt into the 21st century and got a digital camera. I scanned a few pictures some time ago but never really dove into that project. So his baby pictures aren’t readily available to the online public. I mostly show this one, which is one of my favorite pictures ever, even though it’s more a picture of my armpit cleavage than anything else:

The baby wanted to look at his baby pictures the other night so we lugged the photo album out. He marveled at the size of my pregnant belly and couldn’t help but coo over how cute he was as a brand new kid. He also asked me, “Why did you look like that?”

See, I had an emergency c-section and it really wiped me out. I was completely dopey for the first few hours after the baby was born. There aren’t many pictures of me in that state and of course none are online but I can recreate it for you:

Later.