kdiddy.org

Someone on flickr just questioned my street cred!

Anyway, the Rick Wilhite thing on Saturday was pretty fun. There was a decent turn-out, but there was a mass exodus around 1 a.m. or so. Very strange.

Rick Wilhite and his aura played many good records, including “Numbers” by Kraftwerk as a special treat.

Jwan’s ear! Jwan encouraged me to wear high heels more often but dude, I was practically in tears by the end of the night. Ballet made my feet all wide and thick. They are not dainty enough for girly shoes.

Frank showed up! He was in town for a friend’s wedding! I really need to get my teeth cleaned!

The event was all multimedia n’at. This painting was created on-site and I kind of want it for my dining room. There was also a sneak peek at Paul Dang’s movie Still City. Paul’s been working on the movie for awhile and I hope he’s able to release it soon because it looks pretty awesome. I love the title, too. It’s a play on words. People from this area tend to pronounce “steel” as “still” (ie, Stillers instead of Steelers). Imagery-wise it’s also pretty great. The three rivers flow through us constantly, but Pittsburgh is still, right in the middle of it. And Pittsburgh, for better or worse, never goes anywhere. Take that however you want. It just contains this weird mixture of people who are creative and loyal and cynical and interesting and just all around kind of weird.

I’ll just say this one thing, and it’s something that I wrote last year for Mother’s Day:

Besides, you know, the infinite wonder and awe that I get to experience just by being the baby’s mother, one of my most favorite things about motherhood is calling my fellow mothers, “Mama.” Even though the baby doesn’t refer to me by that moniker, I still think it is one of the best terms for “mother” ever created. No matter what our differences may be, being able to turn to one another and say, “I feel for you, mama,” or “Good job, mama,” or “Don’t fret, mama,” and especially, “Happy Mothers Day, mama,” and “I think you’re awesome, mama,” is one of the best feelings in the world.

I once saw a young woman on TV, about 18, getting ready to give birth to her second baby. She said, “I don’t think of myself as a teen mother or a young mother. Aren’t we all just mothers?”

And she’s right.

We are all mamas. And we are all in this together.

Happy Mothers Day, Mamas.

Also, let’s go Pens!

The baby’s tee ball practice was called today since it was all rainy and muddy. I was only slightly annoyed that I woke up at 7:30 for nothing because I drank about 3 gallons of coffee. Taking advantage of my vibrating state, I started cleaning the kitchen and the bathrooms. Inspired (!), the husband started cleaning, as well.

Since we’re so busy during the school year and since we’re also just generally lazy, cleaning isn’t really a priority around here, so things were a little dodgy to say the least.

I was motivated enough to address the clogged drain in the upstairs bathroom sink. I had been merciless with Drano in recent weeks, muttering a quick apology to the environment before pouring bottles and bottles of the pale yellow sludge down the drain. But after a few hours of mild improvement, the drain would revert to its slow-running state, making the bowl of the sink a constant, pasty reminder of all of the times that we brushed our teeth.

I tried some green, hippie trick for clogs that involve pouring 1/2 cup of salt down the drain and rinsing it with boiling water. That didn’t help, either. So I found a dusty old rubber glove and started tugging at the drain plug. When I finally got it loose, I found myself gawking in horror at the substance that coated the stem of the plug. It was dark grey, and slimy, and decorated with a few hairs of various lengths. I felt myself beginning to panic, so I grabbed a paper towel and just started wiping the badness into the garbage can. I then mustered up the courage to shine a flashlight into the drain.

I feel it is my duty to inform you that the gate to hell is located in my drain.

I did some more of the salt and boiling water and moved on with my life, satisfied but very, very queasy.

I watered our pathetic little Madagascar dragon plant and decided to put it on the front porch to give it some fresh air and sun. It was only when I opened the front door did I remember that I was wearing only underpants and a Barry White tshirt.

I can’t imagine why our neighbors don’t talk to me.

So, here’s the thing: I don’t want to participate in Mother’s Day. I don’t want to acknowledge it for my mom and grandmother and mother-in-law. I don’t want anyone to toss even a “Happy Mother’s Day” in my direction.

I don’t know how to explain it. And this isn’t some screed shaming my husband or anyone else for their lack of enthusiasm for the holiday. I’m just not feeling it any longer.

In theory, it’s very nice. Take one day to recognize the work that the maternal figure in your life does. The work that will never end. The work that will resume promptly on Monday morning. The work that I will continue to perform for less pay and a hell of a lot more judgment. Suddenly the chocolates and the flowers and the mass-produced greeting cards seem insulting.

As much as I dislike participating in the aforementioned Ladies’ Lunches, one highlight is getting to hear my Aunt Betty tell stories. Betty was married to my grandmother’s brother and together they had 13 children. Yes. 13.

And I imagine Betty was already somewhat laid back before she entered into her period of EXTREME BREEDING. But after so many kids and countless grandchildren, Aunt Betty kind of…just doesn’t give a fuck. I mean, she can’t, right? There’s no way you can dispense the neuroses of a mom with one or two children over 13 children. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Instead, Aunt Betty just did what she could, kept the kids alive and functional, and hoped for the best.

So it’s always entertaining for me, while I agonize over every single parenting decision, determined to make the baby the most awesome individual ever, lest my uterus get a reputation as a bad neighborhood, to listen to Betty’s perspectives on parenting on the whole other side of the spectrum.

And on Sunday, Betty told us a tale about when she only had 5 or 6 kids. Two of the girls were playing and Betty had left the newest baby in their care for a few minutes. When she returned, the baby was nowhere to be found. Nonchalantly, Betty asked, “Where’s the baby?” The girls tried to think what they had done with their sibling, when Betty heard a soft choking sound coming from underneath the bed. As Betty recalls, “So, you know, I look under the bed and they had shoved the baby under there to keep her out of the way and they had stuffed bobby pins in her mouth to keep her quiet.”

And Betty told this tale in a total deadpan and I could picture her, forty some years ago, sighing and casually plucking the bobby pins out of her baby’s mouth, telling her daughters not to do that again, and then going about her business.

If I were to retell the tale, I can assure you that there would be much caps lock involved and possibly some smelling salts.

Tee-ball started yesterday and that means that I no longer get to sleep in on weekends. The fact that I then sit and watch the baby be all cute for two hours mostly makes up for it, though. I forgot my camera, but trust me when I tell you that tee-ball is adorable. The baby, being a veteran at this point with one season of tee-ball already under his belt, got to swing at some live pitches and actually connected with the ball twice. That means that his hitting skills have already surpassed mine by 3,000%.

Youth baseball is so fun in our neighborhood if for no other reason than the people-watching. The yinzer population is high and yesterday a woman walked past us and, in a pristine Pittsburgh accent, said to her unhappy child, “Stawp cryin’. I bawt yew some Cawmbows.” You plain-tongued folks would pronounce it, “Stop crying. I bought you some Combos.” Awesome on multiple levels.

After tee-ball, I had to go to a “ladies’ lunch.” My grandmother invites all of my hammy-armed aunts (and me!) to lunch at her country club twice a year. Well, “invites” is a strong word. In my case, anyway. Usually my invitation comes in the form of a phone call in which my mom or grandmother tells me, “The ladies’ lunch is on x date. You have to go.” And it’s remarkable because the lunches are always smack dab in the middle of my busiest times. I’ve bowed out of the last few, but even though I told those wannabe matriarchs that I have, like, four projects due for school plus other shit I need to do, they still insisted. My mom told me that my absence would be disrespectful, which…you know fucking whatever. I’m not going to get into it, but that brand of manipulation really doesn’t sit well with me.

Me: “Dude, I don’t have time for this shit. Those lunches always take four hours.”

Mom: “It will not take four hours. We’ll stay for lunch and that’s it.”

So I went. And FIVE hours later I finally got home. The husband and the baby and I went to the Waterfront to try to buy shoes since we’re all sporting some stinky, disintegrating kicks. DSW was, of course, closed at that point so we just zipped over to the movie theater to catch Iron Man.

Dudes. That movie is kind of the shit. It’s all about redefining the American Hero. And also the CGI is rad and Robert Downey, Jr. is amazing and also BOOM SMASH RAHHHH FLYING!

They showed the preview for the new Indiana Jones movie and I don’t know if I can get more impatient for a movie to come out. I am so geeked for some Nazis and for some offensively generic tribal people.

If you wanted to buy a Sam Cooke album, where would you go?

Anyway, have some smattering…

That, my friends, is our car. We went and got it last night. It’s a zippy little thing and it has all of those new-fangled things like airbags and air conditioning and seatbelts that aren’t completely twisted. It’s a gigantic upgrade for us.

Pardon the cloudy picture. I took it through the screen door this morning and I was still un-showered and in my pajamas.

I took this picture a few days ago to illustrate the pretty purplish-pink and spring green combo that was all over the place. Isn’t it yummy? I wish the colors could stay like that all summer.

This is the mourning dove that lives on our porch. She’s mad pregnant. The slut.

That’s the grass in our front yard. Yeah. We’re those people on your street who make it difficult to sell your house. I’m deliberately only showing you a small portion, because I think if I showed you what it really looks like you would wonder when I moved to the savanna. This is why I can’t live in the suburbs. I would already have been put on some kind of witch trial for letting it go like this. Although…two years ago one of our neighbors passive-aggressively cut our grass after it got to about this point and if you’re trying to make a snotty point, I don’t know why you would do that. How do you know I won’t just think, “Oh, sweet, the grass-cutting gnomes were here?” I think a better tactic is to shave “CUT ME” into the grass.

“Let me out! Must kill small wildlife!” Yesterday, this guy was practicing his pouncing with one of his toys, going over and over his moves from various angles, looking very serious about the whole thing. I realized that he reminds me of Uncle Rico in Napolean Dynamite and I’m waiting for him to start telling me about how he almost won the big game back in ’88.

My sister-in-law graduated from college today. She didn’t want to go to the big commencement ceremony, which was kind of a relief for everyone since they’re generally 3 or 4 hours long. Instead, her department had breakfast for graduates and their families.

I didn’t even think of it until now, but I graduated from college exactly five years ago today. The baby was not quite a year and a half old at that point and the husband was still the boyfriend.

Holy shit, I checked someecards.com for something to send to the sister-in-law and found this:

I’m beginning to think that the sole inspiration for someecards is my life.

I had insomnia last night. I slept from 12 until 2:30 a.m. when the husband’s choice of going-to-sleep music woke me up. I dozed off for a few minutes here and there but some time after 3 I was just awake. Then at 4:30 the birds started singing and I started wishing for pestilence to wipe them all out, ecosystem be damned.

It’s stress. I’m freaked out about my final projects for my classes and all of the big stuff coming up at work. I have a paper due today that I mostly wrote last night until I went to bed. Then around 5:30 when I realized there was no hope, I got up and worked on it some more. I was at the point that I often get with such assignments where I no longer care about the quality, I just want it out of my hands so that the wretched experience of working on it will be behind me. But I decided to glance at it before sending it off and I’m glad I did. There were some strings of words that I think were supposed to be sentences but trailed off into the ether. I had to call them back home and wrangle a period onto them.

Since I’m deliriously tired, I’m still not sure if the paper makes any sense. But I think I’m just done.

But! While I was up this morning, I installed a plugin that displays comments in threads, so you and I can reply to each other directly. Won’t that be fun?

Also fun: hallucinating. I love insomnia.

Our buddy Matt is quite the amateur photographer. He went to a rodeo recently and snapped this picture of a bull rider literally folded in half after he was tossed from the animal he was riding. Every time I look at it, I gag, and yet I am transfixed.

I can’t say I feel sorry for the guy. Bull riding is just rather stupid, in my opinion. There’s the questionable outfits and, oh, the fact that there are BULLS involved. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve heard that bulls aren’t really known for their chillaxin’ abilities. They’re more of a HULK SMASH disposition.

Anyway.

I voted. It was votetastic.

I need to remember to take my camera with me tomorrow so I can take a picture of how gorgeous these flowering trees are next to the regular light green leaves. The flowering trees are this gorgeous pink/purple and the combination reminds me of sorbet or something sweet and luscious.

Also, since it’s spring, the dude next door has brought out his motorcycle and sits outside revving his engine for about 20 minutes before tearing off down the street with what has to be the loudest racket I’ve ever heard. Yes, window-installation-guy, you are a total outlaw on your trips around the block. Classic bad ass.