kdiddy.org

As soon as I started speaking my voice got all shaky. I hate that. Anyway, that's my nerdy voice. Hope you like it.\
Not much happened this weekend. We went to Brookline yesterday to visit the boyfriend's family. We left the baby there and went to Best Buy with the little sister so that she could get some stuff to fix her computer. I did a lot of walking around and ogling. I especially liked standing in front of things like the huge Phillips flat-screen TV, opening my arms wide, throwing my head back and saying, “ahhhhhh.” I did that five or six times. I also humped the super-hot Whirlpool front-loading washers and dryers (good for Irish washer women like myself) and the very pretty LG refrigerator. Appliances make me crazy.\
But you need to envy me because I treated myself to the Indiana Jones Trilogy DVD set. “We named the dog 'Indiana.'” Hotness.\
Back at the boyfriend's domicile, we watched The Grifters and I drank one of those Smirnoff Ice things (aka alcoholic Sprite). It gave me a tummy ache…probably because it sucks. At the time it was fun and I walked around and pretended that I was at a Pitt frat party.\
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“Like, ohmygod, this is, like, better than Zima! We should, like, put Jolly Ranchers in it, cause, like, it would taste different. like. Got any e-pills?”\
I also had a quick discussion with the boyfriend's mother about Christmas presents. I told her that toys and such needed to be low-key this year and she seemed to be okay with that. Which was good. She did, however, give us what she called, “A non-religious Advent calendar.” I replied, “That's amazing, since Advent is a religious season.” It has Santa on it, which somehow makes it all better. I give up.\
I also tried to get input on the menu for the baby's birthday dinner. I was planning on making lasagna but everyone is less than enthusiastic about it. I can't please anybody.\
I need a shower…especially since I told all of you that my feet stink.

I guess my brain said to me, “You're in way too good of a mood. You should go to the DMV and get your ID renewed.” Good lord. I'm not even going to get into it, since it was just a series of annoying and confusing events. The main thing is that I have a valid state ID now, which I haven't had in over a year. The picture is, of course, hideous and my hair…I don't even want to talk about it.\
So, I will do the Friday Five.\
1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space.\
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Disorganized.\
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2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer.\
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Well, I'm self-employed, so….short and frazzled\
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3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.\
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relaxing, carpal tunnel, virtual\
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4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day.\
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incomplete, fulfilling, frazzled, maternal\
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5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.\
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secure, fulfilling, maternal, loving, informed\
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Those probably don't make a lot of sense. They were off the top of my head.

Three guesses what I'm doing today…\
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Anyway, I have some weird thing on my face just below my right eye. I thought it was just a patch of dry skin but when I looked at it in the mirror last night it's a red ring and in the middle is some sort of pimple or insect bite. I'm a little freaked out. The boyfriend accused me of having hepatitis, leprosy, and psoriasis. My theories so far include insect bite, insect bite in which eggs are laid, Satan was here, the Matrix has me, I'm the Golden Child, and alien implant.\
(Edit: My other guess was bubonic plague. You know, ring a ring of roses and all of that.)\
So if you don't hear from me for awhile just go ahead and assume that my face has fallen off or something else really bizarre has occurred.

http://www.pittsburghpulp.com/content/2003/11_13/arts_art.shtml\
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It's about an artsy fartsy event that's happening this weekend. Pittsburgh people, I will be there on Friday night. Come on down and mingle with me! I wrote this article in about a day while taking care of a toddler and the boyfriend. I am hardcore. (This is the part where asks me why I can't get some measly reviews to him in a timely manner if I'm so hardcore.)\
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…\
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Totally unrelated, I'm getting really irritated at the month of December. See, one of the big drawbacks to an unplanned pregnancy (and this is something that Planned Parenthood won't tell you about) is that you might have your baby at a really inconvenient time. My son's birthday is December 6…19 days before Christmas. Last year's gift giving was completely insane. This year shouldn't be as bad since for his second birthday we're just doing the family thing (no big huge party with everyone we've ever met like last year). I'm starting to take a military approach to delegating the gift responsibilities and it's pissing me off. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make the baby his own amazon.com wish list and people can just see gift suggestions on there, but don't necessarily have to buy from there. Nearly all of the people in my family over 30 are certain that if you shop over the Internet, bandits reach out of the screen and pillage your house.\
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“We raped the horses…and rode off on the women!”\
Anyway, the reason for all of this is that last year, both my mom and the boyfriend's mom gave him the same toy…and there was tension that lasted right through Valentine's Day. It was so dumb. So now he gets to play with the Little People Farm here and at the boyfriend's mother's house.\
It's not that the grandmothers don't like each other, it's just that sometimes they get this weird competitive edge. I really don't understand it.\
Not to mention the fact that I can't even speak about my gift ideas to the boyfriend's mother because she has a weird tendency to steal ideas and beg ignorance. Isn't this ridiculous?\
Another thing is that the baby is still playing with most of the gifts that he got last year. I went through everything the other day and sorted out some stuff that he really doesn't play with anymore to donate to the toy library, but it was like rattles and other tiny things.\
Gah, I can't think about this anymore. Last year I suggested that we just not do gifts but everyone called me a fascist. That, of course, came from all of my staunchly Catholic relatives who whine about “the true meaning of Christmas.” How is it that I, the lapsed Catholic, am the only one who's keeping it real, so to speak?

I got a rebate check from Toshiba. Seriously, that's the hardest that I've ever had to work for $100. I was pretty excited about it when I first opened it, but then I remembered that it has to go straight back to paying off the CompUSA credit card that I purchased half of the computer with. Curses!

I finally finished that Elizabeth book. Christ. It took me like three months to read that crap. Actually, since I bought it in 1999 and started to read it then, it took me over four years to read it. No more books about royalty, methinks. At least not for awhile.\
I believe next up will be Choke by Chuck Palahniuk aka The New Guy that Everyone Loves to Hate. I've read and heard many, many anti-Palahniuk statements over the past few weeks. I've come to the conclusion that you all need to just chill out. I actually have a pile of books underneath my nighttable that are comprising my “To Be Read” List:\
–To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I've read this book many times, but haven't read it in a few years. It's one of my all-time favorites.\
–Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. I love Tom Robbins, but bought this book when I was pregnant. As many moms could probably tell you, a pregnant woman goes through this baby tunnelvision phase and can't concentrate on anything else. Unfortunately for Mr. Robbins, his book wasn't about babies or birth or breastfeeding so it didn't hold my attention for very long.\
–Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Just 'cause.\
–The Cave by Jose Saramago. A Spanish communist does Plato. I love this guy, despite his stylized lack of punctuation.\
–The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Another literary casualty of my pregnancy. My copy is autographed, too!\
–Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. I bought this around the time that the boyfriend and I first started seeing each other and, well, I was busy. ;-)\
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It's snowing today. The baby is angst-ridden. Save me.\
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