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I know it’s been…*checks watch*…one week since we’ve talked. But I am alive and well. I’m sorry to have left you hanging. It won’t happen again. Take Ike back, Tina. Ike sorry.

Seriously, everything’s been totally crazy since last Friday. In a good way, mostly. There was that whole Super Bowl thing and then I had about 5,000 things due for school and 50 million things to do for work, especially since I’m going to be in Las Vegas this weekend.

Oh, did I not mention that? Well, yes, I’m in Las Vegas until Sunday and will be hanging with a bunch of the other MamaPop writers. I’m excited. I get to hang out with my buddy Tracey and my girl Amber and meet a bunch of other folks and assorted goofballs. AND it’s my first time in Vegas. If you’re not already doing so, you may want to follow me on Twitter if you don’t want to miss a minute of me saying, “OMG SHINY!” or “I’M DOT NRUNK!” or “I WON $5 ON THE SLOTS!” I’m sure it will be riveting.

And, sorry to be corny, but as excited as I am about this little trip, I miss my dudes. It was tough leaving them so early in the morning when the house was all dark and warm.

Today is supposedly the most depressing day of the year, but I have to say…I’m not feeling it.

I worked and had class today, so it was easy to momentarily forget about all that was going on. Today is, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The baby asked us the other day if we celebrate MLK and it took me a minute to know how to respond. I mean, we don’t celebrate it like we do other holidays. There isn’t a feast or decorations associated with it, but it is one of those days that we pause to acknowledge that there isn’t just one day for compassion and understanding and battling ignorance, but that we must continue to do so every moment. The husband and I explained this to the baby and told him about other people who have spoken out in the face of injustice, whose words and actions, even their most controversial, we must continue to wear as armor in the war against hate and oppression…Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass.

Tomorrow, of course, we inaugurate Barack Obama. As the hours of George W. Bush’s presidency tick toward their last, I find myself reflecting a lot on how I feel about him as a person. Many times during the last eight years, I said that I hated him, that he made me furious, that he was evil. But I watched video of him the other day in which he answered questions about his presidency and how he felt about it now that it was coming to an end. I realized that I didn’t hate him. I listened to the way he listed the things he regards as “disappointments:” the lack of weapons of mass destruction, never capturing Bin Laden, plastering up that “Mission Accomplished” sign, the extent of the devastation of Katrina, his “inheritance” of an economy in recession. It occurred to me that he doesn’t understand what happened. Thousands and thousands of people died. Whole families were destroyed. These are not disappointments. These are catastrophes that would haunt most people until the end of time. But W., I think, is simply unaware of the reality that we live in under him. He is an unwitting tool of some project steeped in privilege and entitlement, a project that is hopefully gasping its last breaths.

Ultimately, W. is responsible for his actions as president, but the blame (and my rage) can not rest solely on his shoulders. I hope that it will be the legacy of a way of thinking and behaving, that there are people who simply don’t matter, that will die as the books close on W.’s term.

Hope.

It’s such a strange thing, isn’t it? It’s so thrilling but carries with it such an uneasy feeling. Obama doesn’t owe anyone anything and the task of making things right at this time is a job surely far too immense for a couple of measly presidential terms. Honestly, he’s proving a bit too centrist for me and some of his cabinet appointments make me very uncomfortable. But I can wait and see.

That’s my son, right after I let him push the button that cast our vote for Obama and the whole world might as well reside in that blue iris, the same way the President-elect can see the universe in the eyes of his daughters. We have your back, Barack. Show us what you we can do.

With such heavy things pressing on our minds, it’s wonderful to turn to something where the stakes are considerably lower.

Indeed, the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to the Super Bowl. Plenty has been written about how football fans, particularly Steelers fans, are an inexplicably rabid bunch. But I would argue that the anti-football folks are far more rabid. Several seemingly innocent interactions online yesterday quickly turned ugly when folks felt the need to inform me that I am stupid and/or insane for liking football.

I can understand the kneejerk defensiveness. Football is mainstream and we all know how Americans tend to react to behavior that is outside the mainstream. But oddly enough growing up and living in artistic and intellectual circles, my devotion to the Steelers was seen as, at best, a quaint remnant of my blue-collar roots or, at worst, a hint toward my true nature of hideous yinzer Morlock, something to be shed along with my grating and offensive accent and my scandalous desire to simply have fun rather than devoting every waking moment to the elusive goal of enlightenment. This belief that artistic or academic interests are mutually exclusive to football fanaticism is just…stupid.

And besides, I can wax the hell out of some eloquence when it comes to the Steelers and what they mean to Pittsburghers like me. I just know that opening the door last night and hearing the cheers of unbridled joy of people who aren’t even in the game is an amazing experience. And I know that celebrating their Super Bowl XL win on my normally silent main street is something that will flash in my mind right before I die. It’s not really The Win, you see. It’s getting the chance to see people who you normally pass on the street and maybe grunt at just…happy.

I think, as an adult, I’m suppose to get all grumpy about the snow and gripe about how difficult it makes life, but I have to be honest. I love snow. When I was little, I can remember it snowing like this all throughout winter. Now it doesn’t seem to dump the white stuff like it used to, so I get even more excited about snowfall than I did when I was a kid.

The husband played at a club last night and I wasn’t feeling so great so I just stayed home. I ended up watching a couple older movies, namely For Keeps and Hackers.

I had seen For Keeps a couple of times when I was a kid. It was one of those semi-crappy movies that were on HBO constantly in the 80s. This was obviously before I was old enough to really get what was going on in it, but for being a rather melodramatic Lifetime-ish movie, it’s surprisingly bold in its depiction of an unexpected pregnancy and the frightening ways people behave when trying to deal with it. I’ve yet to see anything from pop culture that really accurately depicts how it feels to know that you’re in an icky situation with a pregnancy at a young age, and at the same time struggling with how impossible it is to convince everyone around you that you can make the right decisions for yourself. Juno came very close in many ways. I think both movies hit me in the gut most with some of the things people say to a woman when she’s pregnant and they don’t approve. It’s amazing how honest people get and how ugly that honesty is.

Hackers was another movie I hadn’t seen in years and it was almost painful in its 90s-ness. And it seemed entirely plausible that the people who wrote and directed the movie had never been in the same room as a computer. I nearly choked when they were drooling over a computer’s kick-ass 28.8 bps modem and the constant dubbing of people as 1337.

Errgh, I think I could probably replace this whole post with, “I’m a loser x300.”

Anyway, the Steelers play the AFC championship game in just a few short hours, then the new season of Big Love premieres, THEN The United States of Tara premieres. Just to illustrate how excited I am about those things, I’ll point out that I did nearly all of my reading for this week’s classes yesterday afternoon so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it today at all.

I’m feeling like Sophia from The Color Purple…wanna go somewhere. Can’t.

Wanna blog something. Passed out.

There are other forces keeping me from you, internet. Last night while dinner was cooking, I announced that I was going upstairs to post to MY blog, since the husband has been happily updating his all week. I flopped on my bed, opened my laptop…and of course the wireless was not working. So I said fuck it.

I’m pretty sure I’m in the midst of my annual, winter “hibernation-lite” mode. Sleeping is just so awesome. I swear, right before I pass out at night, I go, “Yay!” While we were on vacation, the husband and I got to sleep in a king-sized bed with an awesome (and very firm) mattress. I slept so soundly the whole time we were there. Our mattress at home is nice and firm, but is only a full-size, and this causes some strife. Mostly because I sleep in a position that could be described as…eh…Exaggerated Fetal.

The other night, I was already well into dreamland and sprawled out when the husband came to bed. The next day, the husband told me that he complained to me about my dominance of the sleeping area. And you know what I said to him? “I’ll move.” Like, totally asleep and dismissive and of course I didn’t actually mean what I said.

But that pretty much brings you up to date on me. I’m trying to play catch up at work this week before classes start back up on Monday. It took me three days to open my mail and go through email. So…yeah.

My dad started chemo on Monday and so far that seems to be going pretty well. He called to tell me he was starting on Monday on New Year’s Eve, while I was goofing off with Tracey and really in no condition to talk about things like cancer. I tried to play it straight and I think I did pretty well. But I was all:

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!

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.