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You know what you should definitely not do if you’re fighting some sadness? You should definitely not read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The husband saw me starting to read it the other night and said, “Uh, didn’t you say that you were feeling depressed? Then you really shouldn’t read that book.”

“Yeah, I know. I kind of feel like wallowing in it, though.”

“I’m just saying, I started reading that right around the same time that I started reading a book about the troubles in Belfast and I chose to stop reading The Road because it was so much more depressing than the Belfast book.”

I didn’t listen, though. It was a fairly quick read, but the past couple of nights, I would put the book down and try to go to sleep and think, “Well, yes, this may have been a terrible idea.”

I finished it last night and freaked the baby out a little by bursting into tears after closing it. Interestingly, I feel a little bit better today. Even if I could kind of relate to some of the panic that the father feels about taking care of a child in a broken world, I’m obviously not facing the horrific bleakness that they were.

I’m actually in between coats of polyurethaning the stain in the baby’s bedroom-to-be (which we’ve been working on, on and off, for four years). So, you know, I’m just sitting here, waiting for the pink elephants and the birdies and stars to dissipate. Fumes are fun!

We had to be at the soccer field at 7:30 this morning for pictures, which sucked, but the game that was supposed to be at 8 was called for rain. We headed back home and piled onto the couch with orange juice and maple links, then grabbed some blankets, turned on some cartoons and passed out.

It’s nice and dreary here today and after the turmoil of the past couple of days, it’s a relief to know that life will sink into somewhat familiar rhythms.

The rainy Sunday got me feeling nostalgic, but watching The Clone Wars doesn’t help with that. I started poking around on YouTube and quickly came across some compilations of 80s commercials. For whatever reason, they’re like comfort food. Though I’m slightly disconcerted that I remember nearly all of these, indicating that I watched way too much TV as a kid and absorbed way too many sales pitches.

I call this postpourri. Get it? Potpourri but in blog post form? And, yes, Tyler Durden, being clever is working out for me just fine.

Anyway, I wrote on MamaPop yesterday about the Sundance Channel’s mini-documentary-series Brick City. Part 3 of 5 aired last night. I think I’m a little too cynical to be really inspired by the efforts of Mayor Cory Booker. I mean, good on him for giving a shit and all. I think I’ve just lost faith in politicians having any higher callings than their own professional ambitions to propel them to action. And even then their “actions” are lukewarm and tentative and serve bullshit. *coughcoughObamacough* But I’m really, really drawn in by Jayda and Creep. I guess it’s the parenting aspect. Seeing those two just in it and trying so hard to be good people and struggling with the fact that they’re bringing new people into this questionable world hits me pretty hard.

Onto the lighter stuff. If you’ve spent any time around me, you’ve probably heard me whine about my kitchen. It’s small, though that’s not the main problem. There are three doorways, plus two covered-up doorway things. One was the servants’ entrance and the other I think might have housed shelves at one point. Plus, there’s a covered-up fireplace. The result is the most inefficient use of space ever. The previous owner’s home improvement skills were lacking at best and so his solution when it came time to update the kitchen back in nineteen-seventy-hell or whenever this perversion of home improvement went down was this crap:

That little slab on the right is the extent of my counter space. I do nearly all prep work on the stove and it’s only by sheer luck that I haven’t cut off a finger while chopping on a rickety cutting board perched on one of the burners. If you stop by for dinner, it’s likely that you’ll hear, “Just gonna chop this carrot. *chopchopchop* AUUGHHH OH JESUS. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Okay. Whew, they’re all still there. EVERYTHING’S FINE!”

Obviously, redoing the kitchen into something resembling reasonable, much less the gourmet pr0n version that I now want after working in this hell hole for 3 years, will require a LOT of money. And if there’s a perfect antonym to our personal finances, “a lot” would be it.

So, since I’m usually trying to make dinner here after a long work/school day, I’m often flustered and pissy and saying many disrespectful things about the kitchen’s mother. This results in some odd placements of items on my part and some questionable uses of space. Some are benign (“Why is the fucking muffin pan in the microwave?”) and some are more serious. The top of my stove houses the tea kettle, a lunch box or two, and my cast iron skillet and grill pan. (I was keeping those last two in the oven but always, without fail, forgot that they were in there and would preheat the motherfucker and in case you didn’t know, cast iron cookware gets hellaciously hot and even oven mitts are barely a match.)

Sometimes, the cast iron skillet becomes a temporary storage space. Like, for instance, about a month ago I needed some place to set a tomato and a new bag of brown sugar and a mixing bowl. Into the skillet went the tomato and the brown sugar and on top of them went the mixing bowl. And there they remained, forgotten, until last night.

I’m not sure what made me look in there, but I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I was confronted with rotten tomato ooze that was causing weird reactions in the skillet and coating the bag of brown sugar. And a smell that was somewhere between garbage juice and the Allegheny River that one time that my dad, the dog, and I went for an ill-advised swim and my mom wouldn’t let us near the house for the better part of a day.

I recoiled and in doing so knocked over a cup of chocolate milk and a cup of vegetable juice (that’s what goes for balanced nutrition in our house) that the baby had left on the stove. I then spent the next hour transferring the brown sugar to a new bag and attempting to rid the skillet of the smell so that we don’t have Cornbread with Garbage Juice the next time that we have chili. FML.

At the bus stop the other day, the baby hit me with yet another of his non-sequitur questions: “Are people in Antartica upside down?” Certainly, this a pretty typical question for someone his age and appropriately adorable. However, we sort of got into it.

“No. Well, there are only a few people in Antartica. They’re scientists doing research. But they’re not in Antartica hanging from the ceiling. They’re standing up just like we are. The earth is round and gravity keeps everything on the ground. There’s no real up or down or left or right in space, you know?”

“Yes, there is.”

“No, not really. Directions like up and down and left and right are things that people made up so that they can make sense of the world. But in space, where earth is, everything is going in every direction. Kind of.”

“What?”

“Well, scientists are pretty sure that that universe began because of a big bang, that there was this, like, ball of energy and matter and one day it exploded sending stuff in every possible direction and those bits and pieces sometimes bumped into each other and blended and became new planets and galaxies and stuff.”

“Like how Saturn’s moon exploded and formed its rings?”

“Yeah, kind of like that.”

“Do you think you could ice skate on Saturn’s rings?”

“Well, no. I mean, besides the fact that it’s, you know, Saturn, remember how on that show we watched they explained that even though Saturn’s rings look solid, they’re actually lots of bits and pieces of rock and dust?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“It’s like…there was this artist, Monet. And his paintings, if you’re far away, look like water lillies and people relaxing in the park. But if you get up close you can see all of the little dots and strokes and when you look at his paintings really closely they don’t make sense. And like the cells that make up your body, too.”

“Not my skin, though.”

“Your skin, too! Your skin is made up of tiny cells that clump together and cover your body. It’s called perspective.”

“I know about perspective!”

“You do?”

“Yeah!”

“Good.”

I swear to god we had this conversation and only stopped because the school bus came. It was especially timely because I really, really need some perspective right now. Not the “there are billions of people who have it way worse than me” kind. I have that in spades. I need the “I’m looking at my 30-year-old self from a few years in the future and laughing at her because why didn’t she realize that everything was going to be just fine?” I would like that perspective in bulk, please.

My identification with fictional characters is pretty strong. At least once a year, a movie or a book or a TV show or a song will hit so close to home that I become a little convinced that it was sent to me for a reason.

I’m an indifferent agnostic, but I guess if there’s one thing that keeps me wondering about the existence of God, it’s pop culture.

Well, I suppose that’s far too simple. A more poetic expansion of that theory would be that art is often the result of someone expressing their feelings and/or experiences into a medium and sharing that art with the world to be experienced, discussed, and hopefully related to.

More than once, I’ve suspected an artist of setting up surveillance in my home and brain because the emotions and words that they’ve captured on film or in music or whatever so poignantly echo my own.

Most recently, this happened with My So-Called Life.

Yes, I know that MSCL happened way back 1994, but that’s what makes this experience so great.

MSCL hit me pretty hard when it originally aired. I was 15, just like Angela Chase. I was a sophomore in high school, just like Angela. I was quiet and tentative, just like Angela. I was growing increasingly mopey about high school and its preamble to adulthood, just like Angela. And I was having a really hard time living in the same world as my mom, just like Angela.

Recently, hulu.com put all 19 episodes of MSCL up. Last night, I decided to watch the pilot for the first time in a few years, since the last time that I happened to catch a rerun on TV.

It was a really weird experience. I still felt so much like Angela. I still find myself wanting to hide under my sweater during whatever is the grown-up equivalent of yearbook meetings. I still have moments where I can’t look at my mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly. My scenery has changed, but I might as well be 15.

But for the first time ever, I saw a lot of myself in Patty, Angela’s mother, particularly last night.

The baby has become increasingly difficult to handle. In many ways, this is not surprising. He’s 7 and 1/2 and has been on vacation all summer without much structure to his days. And he doesn’t have access to many kids his age so he doesn’t have anyone to relate to his energy most of the time. I understand this.

At the same time, I can’t help but become furious at his increasingly shitty attitude. Yesterday in particular, everything that came out of his mouth had some sarcastic bite to it. Obviously, sarcasm is practically currency in our house and in this respect (and this respect only) we’re filthy rich. But beyond the sarcasm in his voice yesterday there was a distinct tinge of meanness. He was being mean to me.

In a more perfect life, I would have a heart and brain big enough to deal with him in a more emotionally intelligent manner. But I don’t.

Last night, while reading before bed, he snapped at me for not turning the pages quickly enough and indicated that the friction of the paper had some direct correlation to my lack of intelligence. This was at the end of an evening during which this attitude had clung to his every word, despite repeated warnings that if he kept it up, all joy would be removed from his life indefinitely.

I’d had enough. I reminded him of the warnings and how they were likely to become realities now. I also appealed to whatever sympathy he might have for me and asked him how he thought it made me feel when he talked to me that way, after I go to work and make him dinner and clean his clothes and whatever else I do in a day that is for him. He started to cry and said that he thought it made me feel sad and that he was sorry for making me sad.

I can’t be sure if the tears were more about the threat of having his Godzilla DVDs confiscated or if he genuinely felt bad for hurting my feelings. In any case, I was extremely grateful for some moment of clarity.

In the pilot of MSCL, which I watched right after putting the baby to bed, Patty and Angela’s dad have a number of disagreements. One in particular hinted at Patty’s frustration at being the mean one all the time. Someone has to be the adult and make sure that the kids aren’t being total assholes. While that isn’t exactly the transcript of the arguments that the husband and I have (mostly because our kid is younger and his bad behavior is still relatively simple deargodgetmeadrink), I often find myself trying to get my family to understand that I feel totally on my own sometimes. They don’t always get it, mostly because it’s hard to hear, “I’m very frustrated right now due to X, Y, and Z issues,” over my refrains of, “WHY THE FUCK AREN’T YOUR SHOES ON? I HAVE TO GO TO WORK RIGHT NOW! OH, SURE, JUST LEAVE THE DISHES PILED IN THE SINK THAT’S MY FAVORITE SHIT EVER!!!! NO, YOU CAN’T BUY THAT BECAUSE WE ARE BROKE MUCH LIKE WE’VE BEEN FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS!!!”

Near the end of the episode, Angela goes to her mom’s room, exhausted from her botched attempt to gain entry to Let’s Bolt. Suddenly, she starts to cry, and apologizes to her mom for having a shitty attitude. I think neither Patty nor Angela expected it, but Patty hugs Angela fiercely and Angela falls asleep in her mom’s arms. The turmoil is over, for the moment.

It was so weird to watch that moment, having just come from a nearly identical moment in the next room. Seeing someone who so typified my adolescence climb into the arms of someone who is starting to typify my adulthood/motherhood/wifehood was like getting a glimpse of my utter confusion that surrounds my identity and my decisions.

I think it really speaks to the craft and brilliance of MSCL that I can relate to it so well both as an adolescent (and perpetual kid) and an adult.

Things in my house that are dirty:

– everything
– me

Things in my house that are probably housing dangerous molds and spores and stuff:

– the fridge
– the toilets
– me

I really, really need to do some stuff here today but the past week and a half just caught up with me and now I can’t really imagine doing anything but watching old episodes of Mad Men.

Speaking of, and in honor of today’s uselessness, I give you kdiddy a la Mad Men:

The baby had his first soccer practice today. The coach freaked me out by openly talking shit on the parents of two kids who couldn’t be at today’s practice. Not cool. I had to spend the practice attempting to find a dry patch of ground that was in shade so that I wouldn’t combust, which means that I need to go whole hog on this soccer mom thing and buy a folding chair with an umbrella. I need something that will protect my pallor while I hand out Sunny D and say stuff like, “Gosh!” and “Golly!” and “Kick the shit out of it, kid!”

Maybe not that last one. I’m still learning.

Earlier this week, the husband worked some magic with the Allen wrenches and my house, formerly The Land of Flat Packs, now has some shelving and bins and stuff. When we saw the first patch of floor in my son’s room, we cautiously whispered, “What is that?” Then, when we realized that it was the hideous green speckled carpeting that we had first encountered three years ago before the toy layer was set in place like sediment, there was much rejoicing.

We still have a number of things to do before we can move him into the smaller bedroom that we’ve been remodeling off and on since we bought the place. For your reference, here is what we were faced with when we got here (you’ll have to supply the cat urine smell yourself):

I really wonder why this look was so popular. It’s like living under an oppressive burnt marmalade regime.

And here’s what it looked like when the walls met the business ends our sledgehammers and crowbars:

Work and school and money have slowed the process considerably, but the small room now has insulation and new walls and new trim. I’m really pushing (read: whining) to have this room done by the end of the summer. Then I’ll get to take “after” pictures!

We went to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. It was okay. I was mostly entertained by the previews for 2012, which looks god-awful. Plus, John Cusack is the heroic lead, which is just kind of funny to me, and I think they should have played up this unlikely casting in the script and previews more. “John Cusack saves the world…and mends his broken heart. Unlucky in love but ready to kick some apocalyptic ass!”

We finally joined everyone in 2007 and watched Tropic Thunder last night, which was also okay. It definitely had its moments of brilliance, but I think I was expecting it to be a little more skewering of the movie industry.

On a final, totally unrelated note, when do kids learn how to ask hypothetical questions that…like…make sense? I’m getting really frustrated with my son asking me stuff like, “What if our car was blue?” THEN IT WOULD BE BLUE, DUDE! GAH! I know that I should appreciate his childish wonderment before that fateful day when he first calls me a bitch (you know it’s coming). But how do you explain to someone that hypothetical questions need to pose serious, altering conditions to a situation? Is there some sort of Theory for Tots class I can send him to?

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.

Ignore the pile of shirts in the background (hey, they’re folded, right?) and feast your eyes on my kick ass tshirt. I came across BelieveMerch a few weeks ago and ordered two of these shirts, one for me and one for the husband as a graduation/anniversary/Father’s Day gift. Then I had to wait because only someone of brilliance orders something from a small, local merchant who peddles Pittsburgh sports stuff two days before the Penguins win the Stanley Cup. I waited as long as I could before sending them nagging emails (by the way, if you happen to read this, BelieveMerch folks, sorry I put my mom voice on in that last email). But the shirts finally arrived today and I’m so so excited.

The reasons for the awesomeness of this shirt are threefold:

– It looks fucking badass
– It’s about Pittsburgh
– It’s a Weeds reference (Shane, a young character on the show, goes through a period of obsession with Pittsburgh, convinced that it’s the Promised Land and obviously art imitates life so he’s absolutely correct.)

About a month and a half ago, the husband and I ventured out on what some might call a proper date. We were going to the drive-in and looking forward to watching the Pittsburgh-centric Adventureland. Dreamy.

We ended up pushing our bashed up car out of the Sonic parking lot so that we could trudge to the boring old regular theater and see the movie, which was only okay.

We made a second attempt at our drive-in outing on Sunday and I’m happy to report that we were successful. We went to Dependable and saw a double feature of Drage Me to Hell and The Last House on the Left, both of which were fantastically campy and perfect for drive-in viewing. Er, well, I think the latter was supposed to be more disturbing, but it wasn’t.

Anyway, I highly recommend this method of movie-viewing. It’s generally cheaper and it’s more laid back, though it’s admittedly better for movies that don’t rely on expensive sound systems and whatnot. If you’re interested, Wikipedia has a list of active drive-in theaters.

I really liked the whole atmosphere, since the the screens are out in the woods and on a nice night, like Sunday was, it was really relaxing. Plus, you get to snark on the movies as much as you want and people don’t need to shush you.

I would advise taking some insect repellent. We were lucky enough to emerge unbitten, but a few gigantic mosquitoes were hovering, including one that one made me gasp. “That looks like some West Nile Virus right there,” I moaned. “Oh shush,” said the husband. “Besides, how do you know he’s not from the East Side?”

I kind of hate him.

The beds at the motel that we stay at in Detroit are very old and become instantly U-shaped when you lie down on them. My back and legs have been stiff ever since we came back and it’s making me feel really old.

Also, I’m watching this home improvement show, Moving Up, and losing my shit at this one couple who bought this GORGEOUS old Craftsman house with all of these pristine original fixtures and are like, “This wood is too dark. We’re going to paint it white like a bunch of wack ass landlords so that it can look like we’re renting.”

It’s hitting a sensitive spot because we have a big old Victorian Pittsburgh house with a lot of original wood and while the previous owners were good about keeping the first floor wood fixtures, they painted the second and third floor fixtures when they turned it into an apartment. When we bought the house, we ran out of money for home improvements pretty quickly and have just been making do for the past few years, biding our time until the husband was done with school and able to get a decent job. We’re finally able to do a little bit of finishing work to the third bedroom and in the course of discussing that we were thinking about what we would need to do to get the hideous matte paint off of the trim. Seriously, if you own an old house and the wood is in good condition, LEAVE IT ALONE.