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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.

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.

One of the best parts of my day is coming home after work and school, kicking my shoes off, combining ingredients to make a nutritious, home-cooked-with-love meal, sitting down with my family, digging in and hearing, “Ehhhh, this has too much garlic! Why is there ricotta in here? I hate ricotta! This is too hot! Waaahhh!” And that’s just from my husband.

To be fair…if I had a cooking advice column and someone asked me, “kdiddy, if I need two cloves of minced garlic for garlic bread and have a jar of minced garlic that I want to use up, can I just use that for the bread even though it equals 6 or 7 cloves of garlic?” my answer would be, “Absolutely. Especially if you want to have the garlickiest garlic bread that ever garlicked.” I honestly didn’t think it was that bad, but I love garlic so whatever. *breathes on you*

I didn’t really watch the debates last night. I was being a good student and studying for my Grammar mid-term that’s on Thursday. I appear to have a serious problem identifying phrasal verbs and some other shit and oh my god, I really can’t wait for this class to be over. It’s fascinating, sure, but I hate hate HATE tests and I seriously will not take another one after this. Except for my driving test. I really need to get on that. But that’s a whole other panic attack.

I did hear about McCain referring to Obama as “that one,” which, you know, smooooth move, Ex-Lax. I also really liked the part where he started talking about speaking softly and carrying a big stick and how Obama speaks loudly…and presumably carries a small stick and, hey, let’s just call this whole election thing off and have a dick-measuring contest!

I also skipped all of the punditry and relied on play-by-plays from Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden, and, of course, Biggie Smalls.

I am brimming with excitement because after nearly ten years I am finally getting new glasses! I went to the eye doctor on Saturday and ordered new contacts, which I am also in dire need of since I had been in my last pair for way too long and they were all cruddy. I also picked out a cheap-ish pair of frames that will house new lenses that are actually my current prescription. And I promise not to fall asleep in them this time, since that was part of the downfall of my current pair, seen here in a rather bizarre picture of me eating birthday cake with my hands while dressed as Carrie at a Halloween party in an abandoned store in the South Side in 2000:

That’s just how I roll sometimes. Those glasses were something of a trademark of mine and I heard howls of protest from both the husband and our friend Jwan when I announced that they needed to be retired. But, the new glasses are very similar. Fear not.

I’m excited at the prospect of actually being able to wear glasses from time to time since my old ones were only good for seeing me from the bathroom to my bed without walking into walls.

I also had my massage on Saturday and I told the masseuse about my problems with sleeping weird and waking up immobile. When she initially ran her hand down the left side of my back, she said, “Ew.” She found and worked on nine knots and strongly suggested that I buy a new pillow. I repaid her good advice by drooling on her shoes through the face hole thingy.

The baby spent the night with my mom and the husband and I went to see Choke. It was only alright. Palahniuk’s novels are, I imagine, a tough thing to translate to the screen and Clark Gregg just didn’t…get it. Plus, there’s a lot of stuff going on in that book and he tried to fit all of it in and just present it as it is. It didn’t work.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I hate it and really wish we had just waited until it was on DVD. We should have gone to see Blindness, but that’s another book that I love and if they fuck that up, too, I may go ballistic.

But to remedy that, the husband and I are going to see the premiere of Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Kevin Smith is doing a special screening at The Oaks and I’m really excited about this new movie.

To veer off into another direction in this already scattered post, I am very happy that the Steelers won but these late Sunday night games are totally messing up the one night that I have shows to watch. True Blood, Entourage, Californication, and Mad Men are all on Sundays and I missed all of them to watch the Steelers. I recorded them, of course, but I hate waiting. I need to know the latest on Betty and Don and I want to hear more about Joan and her fiance! God!

“The Husband.”

“Mmph?”

“Turn the light off.”

“What?”

“Turn the light off!”

“What light?”

“The light! Turn it off!”

“What?”

“Your lamp! Turn it off!”

“What lamp? What the hell are you talking about?”

“YOUR BEDSIDE LAMP! THE ONE THAT’S ON EVEN THOUGH IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! TURN IT OFF!”

“*snore*”

“DUDE!”

“WHAT?!?!?”

“TURN. YOUR. LAMP. OFF.”

“YOU ARE SUCH A PAIN IN MY ASS!”

Or something along those lines. That was the argument that we had ’round about 3:30 or 4 a.m. The husband fell asleep with the light on and I woke up to help the baby to the bathroom and then had that infuriating exchange. What light? Give me a goddamned break. The light that is replacing the darkness that I should be seeing right now, you ass. God. It’s not like I asked him what newspapers he reads.

Anyway, I used to have this big old Toshiba laptop that I bought with some of my college graduation money. It turned out to be a bit of a lemon and a few years ago I brought it into work so that the computing people here could at least get it to function a little bit and I could get my pictures off of it. I put all of the pictures onto a bunch of zip discs. Yes, zip discs. I intended to take them home and transfer them to a functioning computer, but just never got around to it.

Yesterday, I was poking around in my office and came across both the discs and a zip drive. So I spent a little bit of time transferring them to my computer and uploading the pictures to flickr. They go back to 2003 and it’s really neat to see so many pictures of the baby being all little that I had totally forgotten about.

I have another big post in me about how looking back at these pictures has also been very upsetting, because in a lot of them I’m very thin. It’s been drudging up a lot of stuff that I really want to get off my chest, but I can’t do it right now.

Meh. In the meantime, my kid is cute as HELL.

We are jam PACKED this weekend. Tomorrow at noon, the baby is going to hang out with the husband at the record store while I go to the eye doctor, then after that I’m getting a massage! I’m in dire need, really. My neck and back have been totally messed up. Then we have a kid’s birthday party to go to and the baby is going to some Magic Tree House show with my mom.

Rest in peace, Paul Newman. I never really knew much about his acting until fairly recently. I have a hard time getting into movies from before I was alive. No real reason for that, really. I think it’s mostly a mental block, but I also think that the realism in acting had a long evolution, so a lot of earlier movies are too theatrical. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, I’m just not partial to it.

Anyway, the first time I really got Paul Newman was in Road to Perdition, which is an oft overlooked masterpiece. Newman was already pushing 80 by then, so playing the role of a weary mob boss who carries all of the disappointment of life on his shoulders wasn’t a great stretch. But Newman really knocked it out of the park.

In particular, there was this scene. By the way, if you haven’t seen this movie, here be spoilers. Newman’s character’s biological son is a despicable and traitorous human being while Tom Hanks’ character Sullivan, who he raised as his own and who is closer to him than his real son, is on the run from Newman’s minions. The family is slick with betrayal and what they did to Hanks’ character was wrong. Newman’s character, Rooney, knows this and knows that his adopted son must make things right.

On a very dark and rainy night, Sullivan waits in the shadows for Rooney as he departs a restaurant. It takes a few minutes for Rooney and his men to realize that something is wrong, but as soon as the first shots are fired, Rooney knows immediately who it is. Director Sam Mendes beautifully frames Rooney as the men fall around him and the pouring rain drenches him, spilling off of his hat and sloped shoulders. Rooney turns to face Sullivan. He looks at his boy, the one he should have protected, the one who now has to be on the run forever with his own son, and knows that this is right. “I’m glad it’s you,” he says, and Sullivan, fighting back tears, mows him down. When it’s over, he looks up to see illuminated windows and shocked spectators witnessing the act.

In other movie snob matters, the husband’s birthday was on Thursday and it unfortunately was kind of a bust. He had rather un-fun exams on that day and it was otherwise a typically annoying weekday. I couldn’t get it together to do something special for him, but hoped that the gifts that the baby and I gave him at least made up for it. We gave him Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass, Sade – Lovers Live, and the Criterion edition of the original Russian version of Solaris.

Last night, after the debates (ugh) were over and the baby was in bed, we put in Solaris. Now, Criterion is supposed to be on top of things. So why is the aspect ratio set up so that if you want to watch in widescreen and see the subtitles, you have to set it in subtitle zoom, which makes it all stretched out and wonky. There’s no 16:9 setting in which the subtitles are viewable, so we had to watch it in 4:3 with the letterbox. Grrraaarrrgggh! Unacceptable, Criterion.

Alright, I have to get moving. I’m in a book club! Look at me, all being sociable! Today we’re talking about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I just finished reading last night and LOVED, even though I was initially irritated that it had a quote from Michiko Kakutani right on the front cover, but whatever. I guess when you get such accolades you show them off, right?

This post is part of the Mo’ Babies Shower Extravaganza. Catherine put a call out for posts reminiscing about the first days that people had with their babies as a gift for a few mamas who have new little ones getting ready to make their debut.

The first night that the baby and I were home from the hospital was probably one of the toughest nights of my life. I’d had a c-section and I was still in a lot of pain and somewhat immobile. The baby had slept for a long time in the days leading up to that and I vaguely hoped that we would have a smooth night as we adjusted to feedings and whatnot.

Nothing seemed to go right. He wouldn’t stay asleep no matter what we did. He was fussy and didn’t want to nurse. I thought my breasts might explode.

I can remember hobbling into our bedroom with him and plopping onto the bed. I finally sobbed and confessed to the husband (then the boyfriend) the thought that had been whispering in the back of my brain for nine months but that I was too ashamed to utter: “I don’t think I can do this.” I was sure that the night would never end, that I would never get any of the rest that I so desperately needed, and that I had made a grave mistake.

The husband looked at me and bluntly said, “You have to. You have to do this.” It wasn’t gentle and it didn’t necessarily make me feel any better. But I did it. I nursed him and soothed him and finally, as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, we fell asleep.

The husband woke me up hours later. My eyelids creaked open and I squinted at him through the pale sunlight. It was almost noon and he had to go to class. He asked me if I wanted him to put the baby in his crib. My brain was still scrambled from exhaustion and pain and I worked to interpret his question. “Baby? Crib. I was asleep.”

My eyes finally drifted from the husband’s face to the tiny boy curled up next to my chest. I think I forgot that he was real, that he was actually here with me and would be my son every morning when I woke up and every night when I fell asleep, forever. He was so small. He’d rejected his sleeper during the night and was dressed only in a diaper and an undershirt. His arms were only an inch or two around and his hospital bracelet worked to cling to him still until we relieved it of its duty. His hands were curled into fists the size of marbles and his chest rose and fell with his satisfied breaths.

“No, he’s okay,” I finally replied. The husband and I smiled at the baby. He finally headed to class. I pulled my child closer and went back to sleep.

*As a special bonus gift, I present to you the Pittsburghese pronunciation of “showers.”

Last night, I twittered: “on second glass of wine. Have ditched pants entirely. Onto the dishes.” Reviewing that now, I realized that it sounds like I ditched my pants physically onto the dishes, which is just not what happened. I poured myself my second glass of wine, removed my pants, and then started to do the dishes. I just really wanted to clear that up. I am a lady, after all.

Anyway, Jwan was over last night and we watched Platoon, crossing another movie off of my Fundamental 80s Movies list…which doesn’t really exist in any physical format and we should really write these things down before we forget and I go another 20 years without seeing Risky Business.

Afterward, I went to bed and fell asleep HARD and slept through three events:

– The husband woke up at 3 a.m. because he smelled something strange and realized that our house was filled with some kind of smoky fog (smog, I guess). He scurried around for a few minutes, trying to determine if we were on fire, before noticing some emergency vehicles a street away and realizing that there was some fire over there or something and that we were okay, fire-wise.

– The baby got up some time later and came into our room to tell us that he needed to go to the bathroom and started farting. I do recall hearing the husband say, “Do NOT poop your pants,” but apparently was not alarmed enough to see to any impending (literal) shitstorms.

– My alarm clock going off.

I told the husband that this obviously means that he, alone, is on save-the-family detail since I can’t really be bothered.

To be fair to myself, and it’s my blog so I get to do that, it’s a dreary, rainy day and I really think I should get an award for getting up at all. I also fed my child, dressed him, put him on the bus, showered and dressed myself all in under an hour. Actually, now that I think of it, I’m going to walk to Starbucks and reward myself with a Pumpkin Spice Latte. ‘Tis the season and I need to get started on my pumpkin-flavored-junk addiction.

Husband’s classes started yesterday. Mine started today. The baby starts first grade (the FUCK?!??!) on Thursday. So far, so good.

I’d forgotten how relatively awesome it is to only take one class per semester. I looked at my syllabus today and didn’t have a total breakdown. That seems like a step in a healthier direction. I felt so relatively unstressed about the whole thing that I got all cavalier, like, “Pssshhh! I’m practically AUDITING this shiz!” and then realized that the prof had asked a question and I am, in fact, taking this for a GRADE for my MASTER’S and daydreaming should mayhaps cease for a few hours a week.

We went to the baby’s school tonight for their “welcome back” thingy that they stupidly scheduled to begin at 5 (hello? jobs?) and met his teacher. Weirdly enough we went to high school with her. She is actually two years younger than me which is a little wild. And she has a gigantic engagement ring.

This is pretty much all I know about the woman who will be educating my son this year. I win.

With all of this stuff going on this week, I’ve been a little more frazzled than usual. I’ve had to go to these interviews for candidates for this upper-level admin position at my job and today I successfully made an ass of myself in front of the candidate by a) showing up at 3:45 when I was scheduled for 3:15 b) busting into his previous meeting thinking I was a few minutes late and startling the woman he was speaking to c) smugly asking a question about something on his CV and then realizing that I had grabbed the wrong CV.

I should have just rolled with it. Been like, “Tell me about this initiative that you started…What do you mean ‘what initiative?’ You don’t have an initiative? Aw, man. That’s a problem. You should really have an initiative.”

I shall perfect my mind games.

We’re still all messed up, sleep-wise, from vacation. So you can imagine how shocked I was to glance at the clock last night in the midst of helping the sister-in-law work on her resume and cover letters and see that it was nearly 1:30 a.m. I did a few more things on my laptop…very pressing issues like playing Word Twist, etc., but I was heading for bed.

You know how there are certain business locations that just always fail no matter what kind of business goes into it? There was a Seinfeld episode about this phenomenon and I’m fairly certain that every neighborhood has at least one of these locations.

Of course, in my neighborhood, the only locations that are immune to this phenomenon are those that house the CVS, the Sunoco, and the CoGo’s.

Anyway, there’s an apartment on my street that is always, always rented by the biggest turds on the planet. Every year, new tenants move in, and every year, everything’s fine for a week or two and then the noise starts. There are arguments, fights, parties, crying babies, whatever.

The current tenants aren’t too bad in that respect, but the one dude who lives there is a jerk. He creeps me out. He lurks on the street, stares at people, yells at the husband to turn down music when it’s still early in the day. But after last night, I completely detest him.

He sat in his parked (gigantic, ugly, $500-to-fill-up-the-gas-tank) SUV and blasted…sigh…I have a hard time even forming the word…Creed.

CREED!

God-awful, melodramatic, no-shirt-wearing, “CAN YOU TAKE ME HIGHER?” CREED. At 1:30 a.m. On a fucking weeknight.

I seethed at the husband that if the dude was going to have such horrible taste in music, he could at least suck at a reasonable volume.

The husband cocked his head at me, puzzled, and asked, “Are you sure it’s not Nickelback?”

“What difference does it make?!?!?”

“Well, how do you know it’s Creed?”

“I watch too much MTV.”

“This is like a nightmare.”

“I KNOW!”

After 15 more minutes the husband finally said, “Fuck this, I’m calling the police.”

“Be sure to tell them that he’s listening to Creed. Maybe they’ll get here faster.”

Of course, at that point, the dude turned the music off and, I don’t know, wept over his I <3 Scott Stapp armband tattoo, but I still had a hard time getting to sleep.