kdiddy.org

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.

The semester is starting to wind down, which means both work and school are getting a tad psychotic. I keep hearing about how awful “Christmas creep” is but I’m going to be honest and say that I am all about Christmas this year. I’ve already started listening to Christmas music because I have this cockamamie theory that it makes me more productive. I listened to Christmas music when I was arbitrarily cleaning my house last week and I was surprised at how motivated I was. I think maybe my mom used to pull that with me when I was little, putting on Christmas music and telling me to help her clean and decorate, the incentive being that if I did, Santa might not give me the shaft. And, you know, I had some serious Tinkerbell and Cabbage Patch habits back in the day.

I’m also very gooily and mushily in love with my husband and son right now, and Christmas music reminds me that I will soon have days and days to cuddle with them and soak them up. I hate being this busy, but it really does make me appreciate how much I love them and miss them.

Anyway, here’s what’s been going on.

My dad is doing well. Very well, in fact. He’ll need to do a round of chemo to ensure that any microscopic spreading of the cancer is killed, but his doctors are very optimistic. Right now, he’s trying to figure out what he wants to do about his job…to retire or not to retire.

The husband finally had the tendon in his finger repaired about two weeks ago after some really ridiculous delays. By the way, anyone in need of an orthopedic should NOT seek treatment from Ronit Wolfstein, who does not return phone calls and schedules appointments and then just doesn’t keep them, which is especially unnerving when she tells patients that they need to have surgery as soon as possible. But whatever. A new doctor was secured, surgery was had, and all is looking good.

The husband has this foam stabilizer thing that looks like a wedge of Swiss cheese to keep his hand elevated. He only has to use it when he sleeps now, which results in some hijinks.

I took this picture without his consent, but I think I’m justified and I’ll tell you why. We have a full-sized bed which makes things cozy and with this thing sharing the bed, I often wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night because the husband’s be-cheesed arm has found its way onto my face. Narrowly escaping suffocation every night is pretty exciting.

The baby finally lost his front tooth, which was dangling by a thread for weeks and just generally looking pretty gross. Now he looks so cute I can barely stand it.

And this kid of mine turns SEVEN in a few weeks, which I really cannot believe. He’s awesome, of course. Mischievous, sure, but smart as hell. He’s doing so well in school. He’s reading like crazy and actually adding inflection and emotion when he reads out loud, which is just so cool. He’s really interested in his Spanish classes and is picking up math really well. He can spell like a mad man and his handwriting is surprisingly neat considering the husband and I both scrawl like serial killer chicken scratchers.

He’s also drawing a lot, which is cool because he really wasn’t into art very much until recently. In preschool, he was way more interested in trucks and trains, and when the teachers would encourage him to try drawing something, he would sigh and scribble a few lines on paper before getting back to stuff with wheels.

Now…well, check it out:

He has a whole series of attack scenes. I keep waiting for his teachers to call us in for a conference where we’ll be forced to meet with a team of psychologists and some dudes from Homeland Security. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on the no-fly list but, eh, we don’t go anywhere anyway. But here we have Godzilla and some other monsters attacking a city (presumably Tokyo) in Japan. How do I know it’s Japan?

The Lapan Japan sign! Duh!

Here, some aliens are attacking Washington, D.C. Lots of detail in this one. Let’s take a closer look!

Ah, there’s the Wigt House, aka the White House. And I think that dude fleeing is George W. Bush. What a little girlie man! If only Bill Pullman were President! The baby is vying for a position in Obama’s cabinet as head adviser on alien and giant, nuclear reptilian attacks.

Another detail of note:

That’s the Subway that’s two doors down from the White House at 1604 Pennsylvania Avenue. Aliens love them some $5 footlongs.

Also, another gem from his homework:

I was pretty irritated about including a McDonald’s sign in his homework, mostly because I really hope that our public schools don’t have to turn to frightening corporations to subsidize our learning materials. But the husband pointed out that it’s an exercise working with signs that the kids see. Valid point, I guess. But, as I already noted on the flickr page, if I wrote 1st grade learning materials, food would have snarky quotations and the other option would be constipation.

So, that’s pretty much what’s going on. I also wanted to say that I’m sorry I suck so much at responding to comments. I really appreciate you guys that read this nonsense and then take the time to interact with me. I read everything! I’m just kind of shitty about replying. Kisses!

There was nothing on TV this morning so I started watching I Love Lucy and while I was watching it, I was looking at Google Reader and there were TWO Lucy-related secrets today. Weird, no?

A friend of the husband’s was in town last night to play records at AVA and he was supposed to stay the night at our house. So, I spent pretty much all day cleaning. Our house is always pretty messy and dusty since we never really have time or energy to clean. The husband is, of course, out of commission with his hand so I was on my own and had a pretty sobering moment when I realized that I couldn’t possibly clean the whole house myself and had to determine which parts were the nastiest/most potentially embarrassing.

About 15 minutes after I finished cleaning the bathrooms and was sprawled out on the bed panting, the husband came home from work and announced that he had to poop. After he emerged, I whined, “I don’t know why you always do that right after I do the toilets.”

“That’s why I don’t like cleaning,” he replied. “It’s a Sisyphean effort. You’re Sisyphus.”

“Yes, and you’re this huge rock that shits all over my squeaky clean toilets.”

And then…THEN. The husband’s friend called and said that he was meeting up with “a friend” in town and would be staying at a hotel, after all.

GAHHHH

Well, at least the house is clean. I guess. Whatever.

In continuing in my Suzy Homemaker routine, I’m baking some homemade Nilla Wafers. They’re my dad’s favorite cookie and his birthday was Friday, so I’m making some for him. I hope they don’t suck.

I was thinking about Steel Magnolias when I was in the bathroom earlier. I generally dislike stereotypical “chick flicks,” but I fucking LOVE Steel Magnolias. It’s the dialogue. And I know I sound like a dude who reads Playboy for the articles, but it’s seriously one of the most quotable pieces of work ever. And, yeah, if I’m feeling emotionally paralyzed, I just need to watch Sally Field’s histrionics and the pent up shit flows out of me. It’s like an enema for bitches who hate…aka Yours Truly.

When our house got broken into last year, Steel Magnolias was one of the movies the dude stole. When we hunted our DVD collection down, we kept having conversations like, “Okay, so we have A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, the Tool boxed set, Unbreakable, Kill Bill…and Steel Magnolias?” And I would be like, “Oh my god! What? I have one estrogen indulgence and it’s a huge deal. Fuck off and give me my Ouiser before I cut you.”

Anyway, I thought about Steel Magnolias because I’m wearing tights today and faux-Spanx on top of that because I hate when the waistband of tights rolls down. Like, nails-on-a-chalkboard hate. So I’m extremely…held in today and it was making me think I should just say, “Fuck it,” and start wearing a girdle and then I started thinking about, “It looks like two pigs…fightin’ under a blanket.” And laughing. In the bathroom. To myself.

So there’s a disturbing little walk through my thought process for you.

But while I’m thinking about it, you know who can shut it down? Grown women who still pull that, “Oh, I’m having a second piece of pizza. I’m a pig. Oh, I’m so fat. Oh, I’ll just have some lettuce,” fishing for validation bullshit. I can understand some young chicks being insecure, but my god. If you’re looking at the other side of, say, 30 and you’re still talking like that, go to therapy. Or at the very least do not say that shit to me. I spent many hours of my formative years in a dressing room at a ballet school. I have seen and heard some psychotic shit and behaved that way myself. It sucks. I don’t think that you have an “appropriate” amount of self-hate, I think you’re acting like you’re insecure and want me to fix it. EAT YOUR PIZZA AND OWN IT.

It is really disheartening to go to the “dashboard” and see that I have 20 drafts just sitting there, all unfinished and sad. Busy time of the semester. This week in particular is nutty. It’s crazy time at my job, I have a test tomorrow, and a small article for AP to write. The article’s due on Thursday and I’ve done nothing for it. I rule.

Anyway, everything needs to wait because I need to tell you about my Saturday night. We went to see Louis CK in Greensburg. It was an odd location, but close enough that the audience seemed to be made up mostly of people from Pittsburgh.

While we were waiting for the opener, Todd Barry, to come on, the yinzer behind us was trying to wrap up her phone call. The lights went down and everyone got quiet, and she chose that moment to say/yell, “AWRIGHT, DAW-NUUUH!” (Translation: Alright, Donna!) So, that sort of set the tone for the evening. Barry came out and near the beginning of his set mentioned that nearly every show he plays, there’s some “incident” with one of the audience members and joked that he calls ahead and arranges for hecklers and/or obnoxious drunk people to be in the audience.

As if on cue, a large drunk man sat down about five rows back and would not shut the hell up. Barry would tell a joke, the audience would laugh, and as soon as the laughter would die down, this guy would interject, “I’M FUCKIN’ WAAAAASTED!” Shortly after that, the usher came up to our row and asked to see our tickets and then the tickets of the people sitting next to us…and the tickets of the people sitting next to them. “When people buy the tickets from The Online,” she explained, “there’s duplicates.” So…like…what the fuck are we supposed to do about that 10 minutes after the show begins?

She tried to move some people around, at one point asking a wheelchair-bound man move from his aisle seat, forcing him to hop on his butt five seats over to accommodate some other people when those latecomers could have just sat somewhere else in that row. Barry noticed this, smirked, and said, “What’s the conflict?” We all started giggling and the usher just kept on asking for tickets and studying them. “Is he the main act?” she asked the husband. “Uh, no, but he’s staring at you,” he replied. She finally left and Barry joked that she was an improv actress from New York.

Louis CK was, of course, amazing. But…okay…so, I stood in line after the show to buy a CD from Barry and noticed that Louis was standing at the end of the table. I was going to meet him.

Living in Pittsburgh, I don’t meet many celebrities, and honestly there are very few famous people that I would meet who would actually render me incoherent. Turns out, Louis CK is one of those people.

Knowing that I was just a few feet away from one of my favorite comedians apparently had an effect on me. I congratulated Barry on a great show and told him that I saw him last year when he toured with Louis. “I hadn’t heard of you but you’re really funny!” I blurted. “Um, I meant that as a compliment, even though it came out kind of backhanded,” I explained. “Oh, yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it!” said Barry, who seemed surprisingly sweet.

I started sweating and waiting for the guy with the long, stringy hair and the Slipknot tshirt to finish getting his picture taken with Louis. I didn’t really think about what I was going to say and by the time I baby-stepped up to Louis, shook his hand, and said, “Um, hi!” more drunk people were filing out and interrupting me to punch Louis on his arm and slur, “YER HILAAAAARRIOUS DUDE!” So, you know, I couldn’t do that well with the thinking and the putting words together and stuff.

“Great show! Just great!”
“Oh, thank you!” He was shorter than I expected and had a really nice smile.
“I have to tell you that I just love Lucky Louie and it still stings me that they canceled it,”
“Oh, yeah…” *enter drunk dude #1*
“Um, so, I mean…it’s…it’s…it’s scary–” *enter drunk dude #2* “Um, it’s really kind of scary how much your comedy speaks to me.”
“Oh. Hehe. Really?”
“Yeah, like, how you kind of hate everyone. I mean–I’m sure you’re very nice in real life–” *enter drunk dude #3* “You’re just…like…you’re like the male equivalent of me!”
“Oh! Well…thank you! (???)”
“And, um, I saw you last year when you were in Pittsburgh and you were awesome and I will totally come see you any time you’re in town.”
“Okay, great! Thanks so much!”

He was perfectly gracious, but I was pretty sure I caught a flash of concern go across his face when I started getting all Annie Wilkes on him. “You dirty bird! You wouldn’t let Lucy out of the cock-a-doodie closet! I SAW YOU LAST YEAR, MR. MAN!”

On our way home, I mentioned to the husband that I was sad to learn that Louis and his wife had divorced and the husband said that he always jokes about not getting girls and being single as a 41-year-old dad who had let himself go. “He’s famous and he’s funny. I bet he gets laid every night.”

I thought back a few minutes to my stammering dedication and the amused look on Louis’ face and started blushing even harder.

Jesus. Did he maybe think I was offering him a piece of this ass? And if so…did he just turn me down?

I started to get angry. “I’m 30 but he’s 41! That’s totally scoring for a 41-year-old! And we both have red hair! And I looked cute tonight! And I told him he’s my male equivalent! Well, besides the husband. WHY DOESN’T THAT ASSHOLE WANT TO HAVE ANONYMOUS FANGIRL SEX WITH ME?” I fumed about his rejection until about 1 a.m. when finally the rational part of my brain woke up and reminded me that I am completely insane.

I had a birthday party last night…and that’s all I really know for sure. Depending on your perspective, I really did it up right or horribly wrong.

Via text in the midst of everything:
Frank: Woooooooo
Me: Woooooopppopo omg my throat hurts so bad champagne
Me: Looking several kinds of sloppy
Frank: playaz grab your dicks if you love hip hop ladies rub your titties if you love big poppa
Frank: Are you surrounded by criminals high rollers heavy hitters and sheisty individuals?
Me: Something like that. OMFG I’m 30.
Frank: OMG
Frank: Thirty is the new twenty-one.
Me: OMFG Barack Obama
Frank: Omg rave
Me: Lizard britches
Frank: Sloppy cock
Frank: Poopy
Me: Drizzunk. Am totally.
Frank: Excellent
Frank: Slizober
Frank: I should go to sleep before I get in trouble again.
Me: Just puked the rest of my 20s out.
Frank: Augh
Me: Good riddance
Frank: I bet you still look hot
Me: Yeah totally *horf*
Frank: You’ll feel better if you
Frank: Tittys

Then this morning with Tracey:

Sweetney: did you at least have fun before puking?
me: yes very much
Sweetney: oh good!
me: and i must say that i deal with puking much better in my old age
Sweetney: “oh let’s just get this over with already…”
me: i very calmly got up and went to the bathroom off of the dining room and i’m like, “HWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK COUGH COUGH” and the husband goes, “are you barfing?”
“GWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUCHHHH”
Sweetney: hahaha
me: “kelly! are. you. barfing.” it was the dumbest “conversation” ever
Sweetney: hilarious
me: no i’m singing!
Sweetney: that’s from an aboriginal tune, it’s very EARTHY
me: it’s tuvan throat singing! but with extra bile!
Sweetney: hahaa

I’m definitely in the midst of a “never drinking again” spiral of regret and unfortunate sick outfits and my voice is completely gone. But I had so much fun. The husband and some of our other friends played records and were sure to play all of my favorites and it was so fantastic to have so many of my favorite people in one place for the first time in I don’t know how long. I think I got overly mushy near the end of the night and if that made anyone squirm, sorry. But like 75% of what I said was true.

So, I got a really irritating letter from the bank. Not quite as panic-inducing as some of their previous correspondence, but it means that some time next week I have to take time out of my day YET AGAIN to deal with those fools. And don’t THINK I’m not going to make some snide remarks about how glad I am to help THEM through this difficult time, what with the financial crisis hitting our rich people so hard. In fact, I might ask if I can have the honor of putting the $30 that they’re asking for now right in the hands of the CEO and be like, “Oh, I was just going to use this for something silly, like my water bill. Here you go. Have a retreat or something!”

Anyway, I had to go to CVS a little bit ago to get some pain relievers because…well, PNC picked a really bad time of the month to act like this if you know what I mean. While I was walking back, the nail shop pulled me in.

The manicurist called me “hon,” and spoke at lightning speed to her mom on the phone and the next thing I knew I had a perfectly corny full set of nails.

Typing is difficult, but I figure folks at the bank will know not to mess with me. I will scratch a bitch.

My CSA subscription continues to be awesome. However, I am failing one important piece of produce. They keep sending beautiful bunches of green leaf lettuce. And I guess once summer is over, I am just done with salad for the year. The lettuce sits in the fridge while I go, “Uuggghhh, I really need to wash that lettuce and eat it but graaarrraghhhghhhg it’s October! Don’t wanna!” And the husband and the baby aren’t really lettuce eaters, period.

I’m ashamed to tell you that I’ve thrown out at least 4 heads of lettuce. I’m determined to use this one because letting veggies rot in a landfill is sort of antithetical to some of the reasons I subscribed to the CSA in the first place.

But if I can find some preserving agent, I can just convert this week’s lettuce into some sort of mantle decoration.

Isn’t it fancy? I don’t know why it’s so spread out like that, but I had a hell of a time stuffing it into a bag for the fridge.

Also, these:

Oh, man. I’ve had three since I’ve been home and I’m sure I’ll have at least one more before the night is over. I’m going to have to start going to meetings for these shits.

Sometimes I think me and my family are being directed by some omnipotent force with a seriously sick sense of humor. God? I don’t know. Maybe if god is a drunken Woody Allen, then his direction for last night’s comedy of errors would be something like this:

Okay, Greedo (cat). You haven’t knocked anything off of any surface in months. Now stare deviously at the cactus on the mantle in the baby’s room. Lick your lips and jump onto the mantle. Tiptoe to the cactus. Now touch…touch…push! Now hide! They’re going to be pissed!

Kelly, grab Greedo, call him an asshole and give him to the husband, then carefully pick up the cactus with an oven mitt.

Cactus, stare up at Kelly with a “What did I do?” look. Great!

Husband, start your futile attempts to re-pot the cactus with the dry-ass soil. Wiggle the cactus to see if it will stay put. Once it starts to fall, grab it with your bare hand! Perfect! Now swear! Keep swearing! Tell the cat you’re going to kill him. Amazing. This is great stuff, guys.

Enter neighbors across the street! Alright, 3-year-old daughter, start screaming and crying! Keep going! Parents! Don’t make any attempts to comfort her. Repeat this process for the next two hours.

Okay, now we’re at the bar. Kelly, order a gimlet and some potstickers. Order another gimlet. Burn the roof of your mouth on the potstickers. Order another gimlet….aaaaaand one more. Great! Talk to Jwan about some stuff. Talk to Karen about vegetables. Show Maria your iPhone and then slur to her about graduate school.

Alright, let’s go home. Husband, curl up next to Kelly and attempt to make some moves. Kelly, be waaaaayyy too tired and breathe vodka breath into the husband’s face.

Oh, it’s 4:50 a.m.! Kelly, it’s time for your sneezing attack. And the baby, it’s time for you to get up and need some help turning the light on in the bathroom. Yeah, you guys do this every night. You know the drill.

Kelly, it’s 6 a.m. Your alarm is going off. Press the snooze button. Repeat this action 15 times. Alright, now it’s 7:15 and you really need to get out of bed. Note that your hangover seems to reside solely in your knees. Check the weather on your phone and wonder why you were reading the Wikipedia page for William F. Buckley, Jr.

We’re heading to Kelly’s in a little bit to wish the sister-in-law bon voyage. She’s being TOTALLY ORIGINAL and moving out of Pittsburgh now that she’s done with college. Gee, no one’s ever done that before. Yes, jump right into my diaspora, the water’s warm.

I just wanted to pop up really quick and let you all know that The Search for the World’s Most Useless Hospital Gown is now over. I found it at Magee. It features 9 straps, none of which are able to meet and tie at any point. Four of these straps are, bafflingly, around the neck and the rest dangle like undercooked fringe around the waist. I also wowed the nurse with my prowess when I backed into and nearly knocked over that flashlight that they shine in your vag. See, if they had just let me have my appointment yesterday none of this would have happened.

Later.