I think it’s notable that before I even turned 30, I already owned two pairs of Easy Spirits and one pair of Aerosoles. (They’re cute, though. Honest. Not so orthopedic-looking.)
On Saturday, I turned 31, and I think my footwear is now totally age-appropriate, especially since I was ready to take to my bed after trick-or-treating with the baby.
I normally announce my birthday and this year I didn’t because I was too mopey. It wasn’t my age getting me down, but that lingering sadness from things not totally going our way. If you know me, you know that when I get sad, I get REALLY sad, and as my birthday approached, I panicked at the thought of random outbursts of tears whenever someone asked me how we were doing.
Early last week, I called my mom and told her that I just didn’t feel like celebrating my birthday and that I really wasn’t trying to be dramatic. And while my family wouldn’t let me get away with completely ignoring my birthday, things were very low-key this year, and I was so glad to put all of my energy into helping my kid celebrate Halloween.
The baby went as Zombie Troy Polamalu and his costume turned out pretty fantastic.
The only stuff that we had to buy were the wig (Troy’s luscious locks are almost more famous than he is, so there was no getting around it) and the makeup. The wig was actually one of those ridiculous dreadlock wigs from the costume store that we just combed out, trimmed, and tied in a ponytail. I was wildly insecure about this because I had read at least a dozen posts leading up to Halloween about racist costumes. Then when nobody noticed the zombie part of his costume until after we pointed it out, I became even more worried that people were glancing at his painted face and assuming it was blackface. My white guilt. Let me show you it.
Anyway, we went to our neighborhood’s annual Halloween parade and the baby took home the prize for scariest costume. The parade was thankfully very brief this year, but I managed to snap a picture of zombie Troy with the baby mayor.
My mom came over to dole out candy while the husband and I went trick-or-treating with the baby. This was the first year that the baby really got into it and we managed to cover quite a few blocks. His haul weighed in at 14.5 pounds. And we had a ton of candy left over because our side of the boulevard is apparently not where it’s at when it comes to trick-or-treating. (One block was so anemic that I proposed an outreach program where people from other candy-deprived neighborhoods come in and hand out their goodies.)
On Sunday we had to be at the soccer field at 7:45 a.m. for a playoff game. The baby’s team won but he got an earful from us for goofing off the whole time and not trying whatsoever and then getting pissed when he screwed up. For the second playoff game at 12, he was fired up and played wonderfully, scoring his first-ever goal. So they get to play for the championship on Saturday. At 8 a.m. (*quiet weeping*)
I have a buddy named Mary. She works a few blocks down the street from me and on occasion, though not nearly often enough, we have what we call businesswomen’s lunches.
On Saturday, Mary went and done got herself hitched.
The happy couple, photographed by the baby.
The husband (that is, my “the husband,” not Mary’s husband) was supposed to be my date, but he punked out. “Ugh. I would have to shower,” he explained. So the baby stepped in as my date.
Not to get all Oedipal on you guys, but he was the best date ever.
He looked incredibly dashing but at the same time cool as heck because he wore his Chuck Taylors upon request of the bride. He also brought some entertainment for himself, that cheapie maze game pictured above, which he kept in his shirt pocket.
He also managed to take a semi-decent picture of me.
That’s me, wearing a red dress (scandalous), and trying to fit another White Russian in despite the faint weeping that I could hear coming from my foundation garment. Plus, I don’t normally drink White Russians, but I saw the half and half at the bar, and there was a faint Big Lebowski vibe in the air, so I rolled with it.
We had a lovely time and since it was a special occasion, I let the baby have two Pepsis. Then he sort of…bubbled over…onto the dance floor.
I sometimes feel like, when introducing my kid to new groups of people, that I should put out a disclaimer ahead of time. “He’s 7 going on 40. He has the shit-talking abilities of someone three times his age. He’s into really weird things like Godzilla and Kraftwerk and Detroit hip-hop and John Carpenter movies. He is not at all shy about speaking frankly to adults. He is one of the biggest characters you will ever meet.” I’m always nervous that he’s going to say or do something out of line, but so far (and maybe he’s just still cute enough to get away with it) he’s charmed the pants off of everyone he’s met.
So when he hit the dance floor on Saturday and immediately launched into some Bangles-esque Egyptian walking and The Robot, the wedding guests nearly fell over. As he got warmed up and more comfortable, he turned things up and eventually, there was this:
Unfortunately, the picture is dark but that is indeed my child giving the goat after some very intense air guitar.
But the best part of my son escorting me to the wedding was the fact that he gladly slow danced with me and gave me a sweet little kiss at the end.
Indeed, any future girlfriends will have to fight me for him.
Why, yes, I did just quote “Karma Chameleon.” What of it?
I am cranky today. I’m having a lot of trouble getting work for various jobs (9 to 5, internship, freelance gigs) done and it’s making me alternate between anxious and furious.
So, to cheer me up, I’m going to share some pretty pictures with you.
Do you recall a year or two ago when color photographs from the 1930s and 1940s were making the rounds on the internet?
Photographers from the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information took these pictures around the time when the Great Depression was winding down and when World War II was gaining momentum. The photographers aimed to document the hardships of Americans during that time and to spur government aid.
A few years ago, the Library of Congress put the exhibition of these photos online.
To me and to many others, the pictures were so stunning because they suddenly brought the very recent past to the present. I think if you grow up with color photographs being a given, like I did, you draw an imaginary line in your cultural consciousness. On this side is color and that which I can relate to. On the other side is black-and-white, long ago and far away, and intangible hardships that I could never possibly grasp.
Suddenly, with just a glance at a picture like the one above and those raspberry dresses, it all seems real. You can smell the dirt and feel the heat of the day and hear the sounds of the carnival that might have been a huge treat for the whole family. The kids are most likely well into their 70s now and somehow getting to see them this way makes their experiences that much more understandable.
Now, if those weren’t cool enough, the LOC also has a gallery of pictures taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. They are also color photographs but they are from 100 years ago.
Yes, really. Go check them out and be sure to read about the colorizing process. I’m going to go try and be less bitchy.
So, first of all, regarding this post, thank you all so, so much for commenting and lending your support and understanding. I was literally overwhelmed by all of the people who came out to offer a comment, letting me know that, while crazy, I am not alone.
Still doing Weight Watchers, though a sort of loose version. I adapt it as I need to. I’m slowly losing weight and things feel different this time. I attribute that mostly to my new-found fervor with regard to healthier food. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty frightened by the food industry in the U.S. and all of the icky governmental circle jerks that contribute to it.
So, this time around, going the easy route by stuffing my freezer with Lean Cuisine wasn’t really an option. In fact, since giving up Diet Dr. Pepper, I’ve pretty much done away with all “light” foods. That is, I don’t really buy light versions of foods. I don’t buy diet bread or light or fat-free salad dressings or light butter or skim milk or fat-free cheese or freakish 100-calorie desserts. None of that. (However, I do buy low-fat organic yogurt. Full disclosure, n’at.) I want Food. This has taken some effort on my part because I could eat more if I bought such things, but I just no longer see the point of sustaining myself on edible food-like things, which will inevitably become tiresome.
I’m eating a little less during the day so that I can eat a regular dinner with the dudes. That’s the major change that I’ve made. And you know what? It’s working really well. Mentally, I’m in a much better space. I’ve noticed that I feel satisfied/full much easier. On days when I indulge a little, I feel uncomfortably full and I think for awhile that became my normal “full” feeling. There were a lot of emotions involved, ya know? I would eat past that point for any number of reasons, stress being the main one.
I still genuinely love cooking and baking and, most of all, eating. I’m amassing an insane collection of favorite recipes and even more recipes that I want to try. I just today signed up at Evernote to work on a system of organizing recipes from all of the food blogs that I read because I want to try all of them. (Evernote, by the way, is pretty cool. I don’t know, for my purposes, if it’s a huge departure from the organizing/tagging features on Google Reader, but it’s still very nice.)
I also wanted to touch on a few points that were raised in the post mentioned above. I do not hate my body or the way it is shaped. I used to and believe me the way that I feel about myself now is so much healthier than the way I felt about it for a long, long time. And I kind of feel like I do accept my body and that my desire to lose weight, while certainly tied up in the bullshit that I’ve been dealing with for nearly all of my life, actually comes from a good place, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, I think there’s like…stuff going on in the world besides my ass vigilance. But here’s a (dark, crappy, phone) picture of my cat being forced to wear a babushka.
As of this morning, I am the mother of a second-grader. Excuse me while I gather my internal organs. They seem to have exited my body.
Part of this morning’s first day of school activities included the annual picture. Every year for the past four years, we’ve taken a picture of the baby on the front porch. And every year I screw up the perspective entirely so that it’s hard to look at the pictures from year to year and get a good sense of his growth. Case in point:
Top row: pre-K, kindergarten
Bottom row: 1st grade, 2nd grade
You have to adjust and notice that his legs are about 500 feet longer than they were last year. Other things of note are the brand new Chuck Taylors and the flat-brimmed hat. These were both very specific choices of his. The Chucks are low-tops because the high-tops were the shoes for first grade. The flat-brimmed hat indicates assimilation into the fashions of mainstream hip-hop. Whatever.
I, of course, had an annual first day of school picture growing up. My mom would cart me to my grandmother’s house and they would take my picture in front of this tree in my grandmother’s front yard. Nearly every picture has me squinting fiercely because those pro photographers had to have their backs to the sun. I think the last one would have been 10th grade because after that year I started my ballet program that had me at ballet class first thing and not going to school until later in the morning. Also, by that time I was far too sullen to bother with such nonsense.
And I’m pretty sure that tree is dead now.
We stopped by the baby’s school Tuesday night for their welcome-back event and got to check out his classroom and meet his teacher. I need to take a moment and gush about his school. It’s just wonderful and we’re so lucky to live some place where a progressive and outstanding public school exists. And the building itself is amazing. It is always spotless and it’s decorated so warmly, you can’t help but cheer up a little bit when walking through the halls.
The husband and I both went to struggling Catholic schools for elementary school and we both recall them as being very drab, which is weird since Catholic churches are always so campy and over-the-top with their decor. You would think that the decorating bug would carry over to the schools. But I guess the priests and nuns who didn’t have the gift of knowing which gold chalices would go best with stained glass window depicting some anguish and naked people are assigned to education detail.
Anyway, another awesome thing about the public schools here is that they do an excellent job of providing everyone with school supplies. The only downside to this is that it eliminates the need for the annual school supply shopping.
We decided to hit up Target that night anyway to get the baby a new backpack and a big thing of pencils for our house. While we were there I decided to poke around the bedding section to check out their duvet selection.
We have these comforters from Ikea that are about four years old. They’re still in good shape, but are rather dingy at the top where our greasy hands and faces come in regular contact with them. Despite my best bleaching efforts, the faint yellow remains as evidence of many good nights of sleep and drool.
All of the duvets that they had in stock were at least $70 so I decided to wait and order a cheapie version online and grabbed some new sheets while I was at it. I went with these two:
I’m going with the chocolate/blue combo because I totally have my finger on the pulse of the color scheme trends of 2003.
ANYWAY, all of this duvet talk kept making me think about Fight Club and how silly it is that I am even concerned about such things. And then I also started wondering if duvets were also mentioned in Raising Arizona when H.I. and Ed are giving Nathan Jr. the tour. But that was a divan.
With that sorted out, I think I can move on with life now.
I’ve been taking the bus to and from work. The driver that I’ve had in the morning likes to get on the PA as we cross the Smithfield Street Bridge into town and say, “Good mornin’ ladies and gentlemen. We’re abaht ta enter bee-YOO-tee-full dahntahn Pittsburgh.”
It never fails to make me smile.
I am super busy this week at work and my class (last one EVER!) starts today. However, I’ve recruited a few fabulous people to provide some content. Look for that over the next few days.
Saturday, I managed to wake up in time for breakfast and went to the opening session, which included a cooking demo using all Wal-Mart ingredients. Helpful, sure, but it’s all Wal-Mart all the time at my house and sometimes I can use a break from the endless parade of Great Value products (Dana commented on one of the unnamed-sponsor lunches, “I don’t want to eat the shit I make at home!”).
There was also an interview with Tina Brown and Ilene Chaiken and another Important Woman who I’ve totally forgotten. I was barely paying attention because I didn’t grab enough coffee. I know that they talked about various forms of media migrating to the internet…which was basically saying, “Print and TV and film are going to take over…soooo bloggers better recognize.” Well, not exactly, but that’s kind of what I read into it. But maybe displaced bloggers can take over TV and movie studios and newspapers? And those will become these retro media giants? And we’ll go back and forth with this power struggle like the Star-Bellied Sneetches? Who have blogs upon thars?
I went to a panel about blogging identity that was pretty interesting. I’m not uncomfortable wearing the title of “mommyblogger,” though it sounds a tad precious. I’m a mother and I write about parenting sometimes and I’m proud of that, but actually the only time that someone has called me a mommyblogger is as an insult. But they were tiny people with the acuity of applesauce anyway so it’s not really even worth considering.
I don’t think the panel touched on the use of the term “mommyblogger” as a pejorative, because that wasn’t the focus. But I guess I was assuming that they were going to talk about how to focus your blog if you’re a parent but write about other stuff, too, but it was more for people who have very topical blogs that aren’t about parenting. Not totally relevant for me but it was interesting.
Things did take a weird turn when there was some vaguely anti-parentblog sentiments thrown around. Well, maybe they weren’t anti, per se, but there was some level of irritation over the fact that mommybloggers receive the most attention from marketers and whatnot. I can imagine that if you’re building a blog audience about a topic and your audience is sizable, it can be very frustrating to be passed over. But things change and, seriously, blogging as a serious industry is still very, very young. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the balance shift in the next year or so.
But I did think about this site and how I kind of just write about whatever. If I wanted to, I could probably build a larger audience by focusing solely on one thing.
The husband’s blog really took off because he has a super-specific topic and there just aren’t many people writing about what he does. (I call him Dooce sometimes because he gets all gushy about his huge readership, which makes me wonder if this just all relates to penis size, and then I threaten to shut his site down because I run things.) But that’s not me and that’s not this site. I’m a human being and therefore multi-faceted. And I’m not sure that the world needs another memoirist so I’ll just plop shit here like so much slop in a trough with the occasional complete steak and let you guys come to it. And I think I just called my readers pigs. I didn’t mean it. I just…I missed the panel on storytelling and metaphor and that was obviously a big mistake.
Lunch!
I can’t remember if I went to another panel on Saturday, besides the MamaPop session. I don’t think I did. I’ll do better next year. But the MamaPop session was REALLY good. There was lots of interesting discussion and debate about pop culture and if there’s a feminist way to gossip. And I’m pretty sure that we won the Big Word competition for “schadenfreude” and “Aristotelian” being dropped.
With a few hours to kill, Dana and I ventured about 20 feet outside of the hotel and went to Niu for dinner. We had, no lie, the best sushi either of us had ever tasted and incredible mojitos.
I hit up the CheeseburgHerz party for a little bit but it became extremely crowded and I had to roll out. In the morning, Dana and Tracey and I went to the recovery breakfast and said some goodbyes before heading to the airport.
My only regrets were not seeing more of the city and not meeting more people. Obviously, I met a lot of people that I’ve known online for awhile in real life for the first time, and that’s always fun. But as far as people that, for whatever reason, I just didn’t know about until bumping into them at BlogHer, I can only say that I met a small handful. So, if I go next year, my mission will be to just branch out.
My only criticisms were that the wi-fi issue was just kind of ridiculous, considering it was a blogging conference, and that the expo booths were a little too girly. More nerdy tech stuff!
The last matter I want to address about BlogHer is the people that I met and hung out with. There is absolutely no way that I can make a complete list (see also: drunk on Thursday; 1,500 attendees). But I do want to touch on a few key encounters:
– Receiving a huge hug from Tanis within minutes of arriving at the hotel and later laughing with her about trying to fit into college writing desks while pregnant
– Receiving a huge hug from Grace after randomly bumping into her in the lobby
– Doing a slow-motion run through a field of daisies on a sidewalk when we first spotted Amber and Miss Banshee and Lena
– Discussing existential crises with Katie
– Flopping around on the Chi Bar couch with Miss Grace (both of us only vaguely recall this, but I’m pretty sure it happened…unless that wasn’t her tattoo but, in fact, Where the Wild Things Are coming to life before my eyes)
– Grinding to Ludacris with Y
– Trying to convince Amy to pull the bottom of her dress up between her legs, diaper-style
– Forgetting that I had gum in my mouth and nearly choking when I ate a piece of unicorn cake, and, though I didn’t introduce myself formally, having Bossy exclaim to me that she had just done the exact same thing.
– Finally succeeding in meeting Kristabella and Izzy
– The MamaPop group hug at the end of Sparklecorn, during which Heather gave me a gigantic kiss on the cheek, complete with, “MmmmmWAH!”
– Reintroducing myself to the lovely Kate, another casualty of Thursday’s beverage-induced amnesia
– Creepily lurking outside of Erin’s door looking for stickers that she placed there for me (feel better soon, lady!)
– Teasing Neil with his cattiness comments
– Just getting to hang out and giggle with Dana
– Just getting to pinch the cheeks of Schmutzie and Palinode, both of whom I love and want to put in my pocket
– Sleeping with Tracey every night (boom chick a bow wow) in the amazing beds at the Sheraton
– Anyone that I didn’t mention here that I even brushed up against that weekend
I also need to send a special thank you to Kim, who sold me her ticket to the conference after she realized that she couldn’t attend. I know that she was extremely sad that she couldn’t go, but she promises to be there next year. Go Kim!
I’m headed to Baltimore this weekend to visit Tracey (she can’t get enough of me) and Angela and some other assorted Baltimore characters. Note to would-be burglars: my very ferocious husband and my very ferocious cat will be home so BACK OFF.
Because of the short notice, not many people were able to attend the little party at AlphaLab last night, but it was still a very nice time. AlphaLab is an amazing space and we got to meet some of the people who are building their start-ups there. And we had a TON of food. I even gave away some brown sugar pound cupcakes with brown butter glaze to some ladies who were hanging out at the Double Wide Grill and started fantasizing about operating one of those trucks that tweets their location and sells yummy stuff. I think it would be an especially successful venture if I were to troll popular drunkard locations.
I was badly in need of a haircut. I’m pretty sure my last trim was in February and the last two inches or so of my hair looked like spun sugar gone awry. I realized that I was not going to be able to squeeze an appointment in before I left for Chicago if I didn’t go Saturday, so I pounded the pavement of the main street here. The husband joked that I would come home with poofy bangs since the beauty experts in our area tend to cater to a more, erm, nostalgic crowd.
I had faith, however. What I did not have was an appointment and as you might imagine beauty salons are busy places on Saturday afternoons. In fact, the only place that could take a walk-in was a small place that was decked out with Dean Martin figurines and possessed at least half of the world’s supply of rollers. I was the youngest person there by about 40 years but hey these are trained professionals and scissors are scissors.
I think the results are just fine and there’s not a bouffant or blue hair in sight. And it came just in time for my date with the husband to the Maxwell show which was AWESOME. As I stated last night, I predict that that show will urge a small baby boom and that at least 100 babies were made last night. (None here, though, for the record. I will say that the last time we saw Maxwell live, I was quite pregnant and Maxwell had an indirect role in that development. :-p)
And I know that this might get me kicked out of the sisterhood, but Maxwell’s version of “This Woman’s Work” is amazing and absolutely slayed everyone last night.
I really wanted that song to be playing when I gave birth, and yes I had seen She’s Having a Baby a few too many times, but emergency C-sections tend to blow your soundtrack plans out of the water.
ANYWAY, I’m trying to get myself motivated to do stuff around the house before heading out to the thing later. I think you’ll be shocked to learn that it’s not going so well.
I realize that it’s been over a week since I posted here. That’s mostly because things have been pretty uneventful. The picture above is from last Friday morning/afternoon. Faced with a day off for the holiday, I drank just a few beers (honest!) while we were out on Thursday night and woke up the next morning surprised to find myself feeling rather crap-like. Luckily, my cat provided the necessary head-to-head services that I didn’t even know I needed.
Other than that, I got nothing. We got W. from Netflix and I’ve been trying to watch for, literally, weeks and I keep falling asleep. It’s not a particularly bad movie, per se. There are some funny moments. And Josh Brolin’s performance is actually kind of creepily accurate (though the parts of him as young W. are just laughable). I just kinda…don’t care.
We’ve also been watching Arrested Development upon several emphatic suggestions from friends. I was skeptical because we had watched one episode while at the beach with Tracey and Co. a few years ago, but I think it was some random episode and was out of context and I couldn’t figure out why the Bluths were so fucking odd. Seeing it from the beginning though has really made me appreciate it. I’ve been in tears laughing several times and have gone to bed extremely late every night this week because of that fateful, “Let’s just watch one more…” declaration that has got to be close to being a psychological disorder in the DSM, afflicting adults in the era of DVDs.
Also, this:
That is Honey Bourbon Caramel Peach pie and it’s pretty much an orgasm in a dish. I was excited about this pie, not only because it promised to be amazing, but also because I thought I would be able to keep it in a cake stand that I bought a few months ago. For some reason, I keep thinking cake stands are bell jars, even though I know that’s not the case. However, the handles on the pie dish prevented the dome of the bell jar/cake stand from fitting properly…so I stuck my head in the oven.
Also this week we spent a small fortune at Ikea on shelving and other bins and crap in the name of organizing our house and now our house is cluttered with not-yet-assembled flat packs and Allen wrenches. I can’t win.
Today we’re going to a wedding of some friends of ours, so I think I’m going to go and, like, shower or something.