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I had my dermatologist appointment yesterday morning, which was good because it gave me a little extra time in the morning to get my act together, which I desperately needed. By Sunday afternoon, I had felt like everything was falling apart because the laundry wasn’t done, lunches weren’t packed, we had missed the announcement of little league pictures being taken that day, and my kid realized as we were walking out the door to go to my mom’s house that he still had homework to do. I don’t deal well with situations like that and began this really dramatic inner monologue about how thoroughly we did not have our shit handled as a family and how it felt like I don’t actually do any adult things with any degree of competence. Don’t I sound like fun?

But we had a nice Mother’s Day and Monday morning I was able to putz a little bit after getting the baby off to school. Packed my lunch, made smoothies, put a load of laundry in. It gave me a chance to at least do some stuff that made me feel like I was making up for falling apart parentally. Or something.

By the way, the dermatologist said that my clown lips were most likely dermatitis caused by a contact allergy. I couldn’t think of anything weird that I had eaten, but he mentioned toothpaste. The husband said that we had been using a different variety of the brand that we usually buy when that started. In my compulsive Googling, I found that many toothpastes contain sodium lauryl sulfate, which is a foaming agent that some people are sensitive to. Probably the variety of toothpaste we got was SUPER EXTRA WHITENING POWER! which probably meant that it just had extra SLS in it. He gave me some topical steroids (YAY MORE ‘ROIDS) so hopefully this long, annoying circus will soon be over.

My kid has a big week this week. Today he has his first track meet for the little track team that they’ve cobbled together at school. Later in the day he has his band concert in which he’ll be squeaking out some notes on the saxophone. On Thursday, he has a baseball game. And on Friday he has his after school program’s talent show, in which he’ll be playing some songs on the piano. I’m not going to today’s events because I have a big work event coming up, so I’m kind of in head-down-tunnel-vision mode until Saturday

When I was going down this list of events this morning, I joked, “I can’t wait for him to burn out when he’s like 12.” But in all honesty I inserted myself into some half-assed Time article about overscheduled children and lack of unstructured play and WaldorfAttachmentWhatToExpectWhenYou’reMomEnoughCryingItOutSuzukiMethodKumonHookedOnPhonics. I think, more than most people, I understand the importance of doing nothing from time to time. If I don’t get at least a few minutes of nothing a day I get all out of wack. But it started me down this indignant path of, “The old ways of doing things really weren’t always that great,” mutterings. Like when people complain about how they didn’t have any xPads or Nintendo phones, they just had dirt and sticks and their obviously superior imaginations. Yeah, right. Then they thought up games like King of the Mountain, which is some microcosmic version of capitalist assholery or Torture the Stray Cat or Throw Rocks at the Windows of the Abandoned House or Taunt the Neighborhood Crazy Guy.

I get similarly cranky when people complain about iPhones ruining the fine art of conversation. I don’t know about you, but prior to having the ability to stick my nose in my phone to look at absolutely anything, I wasn’t sitting on the bus, for example, thinking, “This conversation about illegal immigrants that I’m having with this entitled a-hole is so great. I’m so glad I have no way of obviously signaling that I’m not listening or interested in engaging with him whatsoever.” Also, it’s not like reading and more or less ignoring the people around you was invented with the iPhone. What did people say when printed materials and literacy became common? “‘Tis a shame that the unwashed masses can now read the newspaper on their way to their 18-hour shift in unsafe conditions at the meat plant, which they might not survive. I remember the good old days when they would say to each other, ‘Hey. Do you have any idea what’s going on at all?’ and, ‘No. But I will see you at the virgin sacrifice later and hopefully the angry god living in the mountain yonder won’t eat us.'”

Having finished Downton Abbey a few weeks ago and still aching for costume dramas, our heroine returned to the offices of 1960 Sterling Cooper. After Roger Sterling suffered a heart attack while in the arms of a young model, Don Draper lingered in the hospital’s hallway. He noticed a commercial for Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy on the TV in the waiting room. As it played, our heroine’s ears perked up at the mention of a familiar phrase.

At 00:28, someone asked President Eisenhower about Nixon’s contributions while he, Eisenhower, has been The Decider.

“But…I thought…there was only one Decider,” our heroine whispered to herself.

This changes everything!

You will please forgive our heroine’s goofiness. She had a rough week, physically, and now her uterus is trying to start some shit.

I spent most of yesterday on the couch, tooling around on the internet and watching TV, which is what you’re supposed to do when you’re sick. I think the giddiness that I experience at the prospect of being able to partake in such activities without a smidgen of guilt is what jump-starts the recovery process.

I watched things that wouldn’t cause me any grief if I were to fall asleep during them. Daytime TV is made for that sort of thing, but that’s also what makes it kind of enthralling, leaving me napless. First was The Family Stone, the plot of which captured about 3% of my attention. The rest of them time I spent thinking, “God, I LOVE that house.”

Then I watched a particularly absurd episode of MTV’s True Life, which was about young psychics. One young woman was having trouble in her relationship with a guy whose name I believe was Squash because he didn’t believe in her abilities. There was also the not insignificant issue of her Christianity and her psychic gifts were not in line with the Bible. Squash went to Chattanooga to buy guns and then they broke up over the phone. She started dating a guy she met at a psychic expo and made out on camera, but then broke up two weeks later. (Insert joke here about why she didn’t see that coming.)

There’s a soap opera channel and they were showing an episode from the first season of Beverly Hills 90210. I realize now that the only reason that I ever liked that show was because I was 12 and a moron. I wanted to smack Brenda so badly and Jason Priestley does nothing but furrow his eyebrows the whole time.

At some point in all of this, I saw a commercial for Rent-a-Center starring Troy Aikman and Hulk Hogan. The, um, plot was that Troy talks up the great deals at Rent-a-Center for a few seconds and then Hulk Hogan wanders into the frame wearing an elf costume. He then utters the words, “I have an elf wedgie.” And that’s it. That’s their commercial. That’s how a company chose to sell themselves. I have an elf wedgie. If viewing this commercial caused you to consider patronizing a Rent-a-Center, please drop a bag of hammers on your foot.

Later on that night, the husband and I ended up watching Spies Like Us, which is way more hilarious than I remember. We were cracking up over the training sequence, particularly the Radical Vertical Impact Simulation exercise.

We then ceased being able to breathe when the husband read the comments for this video. Someone actually formed this thought and then typed it:

They watched the explosions, the bog of pig shit with machine gunfire, flamethrowers, g-force exercise, and an airplane smashing into the ground, and THAT was the detail that gave them trouble.

I’m taking this week off of 30 days of truth because the topics that I would tackle this week, my views on religion, politics, drugs, and alcohol, are way too long-winded to crank out during a lunch break blog post. Next time!

I’m short on time today, but I wanted to toss these two, unrelated bits at you.

Bit the First:

When we were leaving Wal-Mart on Sunday night, someone was standing by the door giving out free kittens. No lie. I heard “free kittens,” and my head snapped around and the guy doling the fuzzballs out locked eyes with me, pointed at me and then pointed at the kitten he was holding. NOT FAIR, MAN.

We seriously considered it. Or at least, I seriously considered it, if you are of the mind that, “KIIIIIIIITTENZ NOM!” qualifies as such. But, ultimately, we went home kitten-less, our reasoning being a) we don’t know where those kittens have been so they might be riddled with disease or zombies b) we really don’t need a kitten right now and c) our cat would hate us.

Bit the Second:

Another lovely feature of my awesome kitchen is our dishwasher. Now, I’m glad to have a dishwasher at all. And considering that the one we have is from the first Reagan administration or somewhere thereabouts, it’s in fantastic shape. It’s one of those “portable” dishwashers that isn’t hooked up hard to your plumbing, but is freestanding and can be wheeled over to the sink and run from there.

Because of the way our kitchen is laid out (stupidly), the dishwasher sits across the room, opposite from the sink. When I want to run it, I have to swing it around, hook it up to the sink, then thread the power cord behind the oven to the only nearby outlet.

Every time I swing the dishwasher around, I bump it into the oven. Every time. And the other night I was going through this ridiculous routine and sure enough, *smash.* Suddenly, I thought, “This is the one activity that I probably have in common with people who do lots of steroids or PCP. Somewhere, some asshole is throwing the dishwasher at the oven, just like me.”

This morning, I was feeling good, and I was all set to write this post about how I’ve been working hard on my outlook on life and our prospects for not being over-educated and destitute. But then, my mood changed again to angrily sad and foot-stompy. It might have something to do with the rain, but I think that’s just how it’s going to be for awhile, until things have the slightest hint of being less precarious.

Seeing as how I’m so mercurial, I’m going to resort to my favorite and most immature coping mechanism: making fun of people.

So, we have a Snuggie. I think it’s awesome and I’ve publicly ranted AGAINST haters-of-Snuggies before. The husband’s grandmother gave it to him for Christmas last year and he has staunchly resisted it, since he is a hater. I just don’t get it. The thing is super warm and comfortable and I’m pretty sure that there is Ambien woven into the unnatural fibers because as soon as I put it on, I am OUT within five minutes. If you have insomnia, I highly recommend picking one up.

Anyway, the husband finally started using the Snuggie a few weeks ago…but only as a blanket. As in, he’s refusing to use the sleeves, which is the whole fucking point of the thing. This infuriates me, because I had been happily using the Snuggie to its full capacity for nearly a year and now this dude comes along and claims it and doesn’t even use it correctly. He just sits there, with his arms getting cold every time he wants to change the channel, mocking me with his blatant abuse of the Snuggie, while I tug at an inadequate, regular blanket.

I’m not sure that our marriage will weather this storm.

The other people that I want to make fun of are the pro-life cupcake folks.

Now, I think if you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m very pro-choice. And that includes respecting people who choose not to have abortions for whatever reason. And I think if you’ve ever talked to me about the matter, you’ll know that I have a characteristically snarky attitude about the “debate,” because I think it’s dumb.

Anyway, I recently encountered the pro-life cupcake people, who were, I think, an off-shoot of the group who organized National Pro-Life Cupcake Day. The official day for this event was October 9th, but the group notes that you can have such an event whenever.

And the premise is to hand out free cupcakes to people, noting that baked goods represent the 50,000,000 babies who were aborted and the birthday parties that those kids never had.

So. Okay, fine. Whatever.

However, I have some questions about the logic behind this event. If you’re going for some kind of shock factor, and according to these folks, the goal is for “the cake in their mouth will become dry and the moment will hopefully become quite somber,” are cupcakes really the best way to go about it? I mean, cupcakes are pretty good, even at their worst, and I kind of doubt that reminding people of the fact that abortion exists will turn them off of cupcakes forever. And if they do, isn’t that kind of unfair to cupcakes? I mean, why drag cupcakes into this debate? They never hurt anyone. And if a person is so turned off mid-cupcake and isn’t able to finish their cupcake, isn’t that just a lot of wasted food? Food that could be donated to hungry, existing kids?

Also, if you keep handing out cupcakes as long as people keep having abortions, I think you’re sort of…doing it wrong. Because, really, if I wasn’t pro-choice before, drawing the connection that abortion = free cupcakes would sure as hell push me over to that side.

Ah, well. Road to hell and all of that.

Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be sitting on my couch, not in a Snuggie, and making inappropriate jokes all weekend log.

Did you hear? Since we elected a black president, all racism is now over!* There is no more white privilege! Get out your levels and plunk them down on that playing field. I guarantee that the bubble will be right in the middle. Read all about it at Racism is Over!

*Ahem, this post and the blog that is linked to within is sarcastic. If you seriously entertained these thoughts, please notify the authorities immediately because someone assaulted you with the Stupid Stick.

Yesterday was mostly pretty awesome. I got so much love and birthday wishes. We got our house looking pretty cool:

I like having decorations for holidays but I don’t have any…creative vision, I guess. Nor do I have any patience for that sort of thing. Oddly enough the husband usually pulls those things together. He’s fancy like that.

I think this was the first year that the baby really got into trick-or-treating. He came away with a really impressive haul. We had a lot of trick-or-treaters, definitely more than in past years. Weirdly enough, a lot of them complimented me on the jack-o-lanterns, all of which I ended up carving myself while the husband was at the ER with his severed tendons and whatnot (horf). I mean, sure, they looked decent, but they were just the usual triangles and toothy grins. Occasionally, I switched it up with some circles. But these kids were all, “Wow, did you carve these yourself?” I don’t know. Maybe with those fancy patterns everywhere, these jack-o-lanterns are all throwback and shit.

We stopped down to the mother-in-law’s and while we were there some crappy head cold just descended on the husband and me. It was weird. We were fine and then all of sudden we both felt awful. We came home and I fell asleep at like 10:30 or something. I guess it helped since I don’t feel too terrible today.

The Pumpkin King rests after another successful Halloween.

I need to catch up on my shared items! Since October 29th:

Kittehs help wif science

God Hates Signs protest waged against Westboro Baptist Church

Are you talkin’ to ME? My note: “Thackeray Hall? I wonder if this was at Pitt.”

Ice Cube signs on for NBC cop comedy My note: “Wait. What?”

Wonkette: Jesus people pray that false idol will save God’s economy My note: “good luck with that, assholes.”

basement cat

Roseanne’s Halloween episodes

Wobbegong shark costume

The Libby My note: “Somebody make me this.”

Drew’s Due My note: “I can already see the defense for this as some kind of twisted interpretation of free speech. Being a bully to people your own age is one thing. Bullying a kid when you’re an adult is just fucking messed up. I hope this asshole gets hit with a baseball bat many times.”

RA: The good, the bad, and the deep: Rick Wade My note: “My husband bit my style and became a writer.”

Witch Head Nebula

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Charlie & Mac sing the song from Ferris Bueller My note: “HAAAAAAAAAAAA I’ve seen bits and pieces of this show and I’ve always ended up in tears from the awesome, promising myself to start watching it regularly and forgetting but now I must renew my commitment to this show and run-on sentences and candy.”

In Videos: Anti-Candy Corn Song My note: “Sigh. I miss the days of Noggin.”

10 Castration Scenes from Movies As a card-carrying feminazi, I consider this important research. I’ve only seen three of these, though. I’m slacking.

Graphic Design Fail

Welcome to Britney’s “Circus” My note: “I had to say “If You Seek Amy” fast like 50 times before I got it. These kids today and their innuendos.”

I am in serious need of some levity today (is that a contradiction?), so in honor of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs and the subsequent hilarious responses, I give you my top 15 conservative songs:

1. The Beatles “Norwegian Wood” – The line “Isn’t it good, Norwegian wood?” refers to the glorious benefits of a global market and the commercial opportunities afforded to us by imports and free trade. Look for Ringo Starr’s follow-up anthem for Ikea, “Swedish Particleboard.”

2. The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” – This song was written to celebrate the release of Windows 95 and the overall capitalist success of Microsoft. Only in America!

3. The Beach Boys “God Only Knows” – “God only knows what I’d be without you,” is a sweet ode to The Creator’s omnipotence and psychic powers.

4. U2 “Sunday Bloody Sunday” – In the line, “How long? How long must we sing this song?” Bono expresses his exasperation with singing such liberal anthems.

5. The Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the U.K.” – The call for anarchy is obviously sarcasm. This song is actually just a call for an end to big government.

6. Metallica “One” – “Fed through the tube that sticks in me/Just like a wartime novelty/Tied to machines that make me be/Cut this life off from me” speaks to the glory of dying on the battlefield…er, well, almost dying on the battlefield.

7. The Kinks “Lola” – “I pushed her away/I walked to the door/I fell to the floor/I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me” refers to the physical altercation that always ensues when a manly man realizes that the chick he’s been macking on is actually a dude. It happens to the best of us.

8. Bob Dylan “Masters of War” – In the line, “You fasten the triggers/For the others to fire/Then you set back and watch/When the death count gets higher” Dylan acknowledges the fact that those who are drawn to politics aren’t that great with all of the killing and stuff and that it’s better left to people who are more predisposed to rage…like pissy broke people.

9. The Pretenders “Brass in Pocket” – The title line is an homage to how it’s better to have money than to not have money and those who do not have money should get some so that they won’t be poor anymore and then they can stop whining about being hungry all the time.

10. David Bowie “Suffragette City” – A plaintive song about how women gaining the right to vote directly led to men refusing to help their buddies in favor of shagging.

11. Ben Folds Five “Song for the Dumped” – Folds rails against welfare queens when he screams, “Give me my money back, you bitch!”

12. Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” – Proof that God is a capitalist: “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven/And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed/With a word she can get what she came for.” THERE ARE STORES IN HEAVEN! We can shop ’til we die and then just keep shopping!

13. Pussycat Dolls “Don’t Cha” – The obvious lesson from this song is that good ol’, healthy American competition gives us all character…and results in hotter chicks who will fight and/or make out to attract men with five brain cells. Everyone wins!

14. Chumbawamba “Tubthumping” – Sure, the band members are all anarchists and anti-corporate, but you can’t miss the Horatio Alger pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps of “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.”

15. Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze” – When he sings (I think), “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy!” Hendrix is apologizing for his homosexuality because he knows it threatens my marriage.

Bonus: Heidi Montag “Higher” – The song is being considered as the new theme for No Child Left Behind.