kdiddy.org

groan

The baby is upstairs in his crib and I'm down here. I'm hoping that he'll take a nap. Mostly I just needed a moment to collect myself and eat something because I was beyond starved. came over today and we took a jaunt down to Butler St. to do some Christmas shopping. I really like how, whenever I sing the praises of certain shops/shopping districts on places like Live Journal, and then I go to shop at them and they do something stupid. I wanted to go to three places: Awakening of the Senses, which opened at 11, Swoon Antiques, which opened at 10, and Jay Designs which opened at 11. We got down to the Butler St. around 11:45, walked up to Awakening of the Senses, it's not open. Go to Swoon Antiques, it's not open, either. Thankfully, Jay Designs was open and I got a ton of cute stuff to give to my ladies, but there was one thing I definitely wanted to get for my mom at Awakening, so I'm wanting to know what the fuck was up with not being open when you're supposed to be. Anyway, I'm saying still support these independent businesses, but if they're closed when they should be open…leave an angry note and threaten to go to Wal Mart or something.\
After Jay Design we went to Emma's and had some hot drinks, but then had to rush up to the house so that the boyfriend could go to work and we could take the baby to the doctor's. He's had this bad runny nose since the beginning of the week and I was worried that he had a sinus infection (he doesn't). Now we're home and my belly's full, so that's good. But I think when I have those huge fluctuations in blood sugar levels it messes with my mood. (I'm not diabetic or anything but you know how when you don't eat for awhile your blood sugar just gets low…) See, cause, now I'm all depressed and I don't know why. Many of my friends are depressed or otherwise mopey right now, so maybe I'm just trying to follow a trend or something. So, yeah, quit being depressed, guys, you're dragging me down! ;-)\
I'm going to go check on the bairn and then I might possibly be back.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_biz/205605.html

Tonight at dinner, the baby and I were splitting some macaroni and cheese while the boyfriend was feasting on some pasta that his mom sent over for him. The baby wasn't totally feeling the mac and cheese so I went down to the basement to grab him a can of soup. Suddenly, I heard this rather inhuman noise coming from the kitchen, the boyfriend saying, “Are you okay?” and then the baby started screaming. I got all primal, mama bear and bolted up the stairs to find the baby hurling up soy milk and crackers in between screams. I guess the boyfriend gave him a Wheat Thin to tide him over while I was getting the soup and he ate it too fast and choked. Luckily, his gag reflex kicked in super-quick and got all of that out of there before any serious damage could occur. It was still scary, though.\
Need sleep.

I had a job interview today. I didn't mention it on here because I didn't want to jinx it. It's a basic office position at CMU.\
Pros:\
-It's part-time, so I'll still be able to spend plenty of time with the baby (because, honestly the thought of only seeing him a few hours a day, five days a week was really tearing me up inside).\
-I'll be able to more or less set my own hours, so I'll be able to work out child care with the boyfriend and his schedule. No day care to fuck with! Woo!\
-The pay is pretty decent.\
-I still get full health benefits, as does the baby.\
-It's easy work.\
-It's in the English Department, so I can make plenty of grammar jokes without getting “I hate you” looks.\
-There's a great little reading room next to the main office. I'll be able to hang out in there and read during my breaks and stuff.\
-Dress is casual.\
-The people are nice.\
-I still get free classes.\
-It'll be a big boost to my resume.\
-I'll still be able to free-lance. (I fully realize the need for the boyfriend and I to become financially stable for the sake of our child, but I could feel my heart yelling “sell-out!” whenever I would look at a job listing that I knew would leave me no time for writing. I'm not saying that financially stability is no longer one of our goals due to my desire to write, it's just not going to come as easily for us.)\
-I don't have to wear an apron or a bowtie or memorize a list of daily specials.\
-There is no laundry involved.\
-I will be in Oakland, which I've missed terribly since graduating college.\
-It's a short bus ride to and from my house.\
-They have some hot computers.\
-The whole campus is wireless. Yes!\
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Cons:\
-I'll still be pretty poor, since it's only part-time.\
-It's not the most exciting job ever.\
-I won't have my own desk/office. I want my own desk and office so bad I can feel it, but I can wait.\
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As you can see, the pros far outweigh the cons. This isn't something that I plan on doing forever, but I think it will be a really great step forward.\
Anyway, the interview went well and I got the impression that they liked me. The receptionist seemed to really be pulling for me. They sprung a computer literacy pop quiz on me which I handled no sweat. They said it was to see how I would react to some unexpected assignment. I'm not sure what they expected me to do…run crying from the room? They were pretty straightforward during the interview but did ask a few of those annoying, subliminal, mindfuck, potentially tricky interview questions, such as, “How do you feel about communication?” “What are your privacy needs?” and “What do you expect in a workplace?”\
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I was blushing furiously the entire time.\
So, yeah, this would definitely be a good thing. I should find out next week whether or not I got the job so I need all of you to keep your fingers crossed.

I had a nightmare last night about suburban sprawl. I was at some event and the prize was a monster truck. I was waiting outside after the event was over and watched as the pulled the monster truck into the parking lot for the winner, who was this guy that looked a lot like this kid that I went to high school with but never really knew. However, instead of a monster truck they hauled in some huge luxury SUV. At some point, I received a phone call telling me that I had won $2 billion, but I didn't seem to phased by that. Suddenly, as the SUV was being driven out of the parking lot, I found myself within a sort of Discovery Channel-type documentary. I was being transported through the surrounding areas, which, when I had entered the building where the event was being held was half bustling cultural urban space and half unspoiled nature. At some point in the past hour or so, all of that had been levelled and replaced with huge McMansions, completely devoid of character. They all looked exactly the same and became closer and closer together. They hadn't bothered to plant any grass or trees, so it was just dirt and rocks all over the place. A voiceover was telling me about the swelling population and how people have no regard for each other anymore or what effects their actions have on the rest of the world. It talked about the rate of consumption and how we throw everything away without a thought of where it goes. It told me about racism and how it's getting worse with every generation, but with smoke and mirrors we assume that everything's getting better. It told me about how there are people around me who will always hate me because I am a woman and a mother. The sky was broken and dark and I could tell that the sun was never going to shine again. All around me, people marched around thoughtless saying, “Yes, but my house is very nice. Just look at the closet space! It has a two-car garage!”\
Basically, all of the stuff that I bitch about offline. It was a pretty disturbing dream. Why can't I just dream about flying or being naked in a public place, for fuck's sake?

I'm in this mood today where I'm trying to, as my mom would say, “work wonders and shit blunders.” I'm not sure exactly what that means but it has something with putting unrealistic expectations on your day. I keep thinking of chores that I want to do, for instance\
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-do all of the laundry (as always, there's a ton of it)\
-rearrange the nightmare that is the Tupperware cabinet (this I actually did but I'm thinking I need to work out a better system)\
-write out Christmas cards (the main thing stalling this process is that I need to get the baby's pictures to send with them. I was originally going to take the photos I had taken out to the boyfriend's house to use his sister's scanner and send them off to Shutterfly. However, we haven't had a chance to go out there. I'm probably going to have to find a way to get to Target or someplace and use one of those Kodak Picture Makers. ergh)\
-Christmasize my bedroom\
-go to the bathroom\
-pester Shanley with emails\
-finish Christmas shopping\
-take my bedspread to the laundromat (one of the baby's sippy cups was leaking so now I have two crusted-up puddles of soy milk to sleep with every night. blech)\
-bake cookies and the like (this will have to wait a few days…unless people want some stale cookies)\
-clean the kitchen cabinets\
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One big thing that I did accomplish the other night is going through the baby's toys and sorting out the stuff that he is now too old for. There's a box of stuff in the basement now and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it (Goodwill? toy library?). There's also two bigger things that have to go down there like this and this. They're cool toys and he still plays with them every now and then, but we just don't have room for them anymore. Ideally, I'd like to figure out a way to keep all of the toys out of sight when he's in bed or something.\
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The baby is currently in his crib but not napping. Ergh.\
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I keep forgetting to post these pictures. I really wanted to make these our Christmas cards for this year, but I didn't think the upper echelon of my family would get it.\
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These were taken a few weekends ago at the boyfriend's mother's house. , who, by the way, just happens to be the boyfriend's younger sister, is the guilty photographer. Anyway, that's me reading this book of ' that was lying around. The baby just happened to poke his head into the corner, as if to say, “Don't waste space on your memory stick taking pictures of her! I'm way cuter!”\
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Quick, what am I thinking?\
a) Man, he's right…nothing feels good.\
b) I feel so empty\
c) I fucking hate emo\
d) If I ever run into Andy Greenwald I'm going to poop on him.\
e) I wish the boyfriend and would hurry up and get ready so we can go to Best Buy and I wouldn't have to sit here reading this drivel.\
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Be back later. Laundry.

(Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) is having an event this Friday at the Lava Lounge on the South Side. Despite having heard all about this group's lovely events, I have yet to attend one. But I'm definitely trying to start. Yinz should join me. The Lava Lounge is pretty neat, too, despite having some odd seating.\
C'mon gals!\
Edit: Just wanted to add, Pittsburgh gentlemen are welcome, too!

“We woke up to our upstairs neighbor banging on the wall at 7am, then managed to pass out again until 11am … only to awake to his thug-ass, ghetto friends making all kinds of noise. We've concluded that he's a wigger and hangs out only with ghetto-ass black people. Yech. I really don't want that element around here. Dormont is great because it lacks that ghetto element … but now the inner-city thugs are invading my happy Suburbia.”

While talking to yesterday afternoon, I realized that I hadn't been out for an evening of fun for quite some time. Luckily, John Arnold was going to be in town to play at the Warhol and at Havana.\
After dinner, the boyfriend and I headed out but I had kind of a rough time leaving. The baby, for the first time, got very clingy to me and bawled when I left. I was pretty taken aback and felt bad, but I haven't left the house for anything other than grocery shopping in so long I was starting to grow mold.\
The performance at the Warhol was nice and laidback. While listening to Mr. Arnold I chatted with , her friend Terry (sp?), , and . I kept getting distracted by the hysterical William Wegman movies that were playing on the back wall.\
After the Warhol, the boyfriend and I drove out to his house in Brookline so that he could grab some CD-Rs and crap. We got back to our house around 11 and were shocked to find the baby still awake. My mom said that he wouldn't go to bed for her, which meant I had to put him to bed. This might seem obvious, but rocking a yummy toddler to sleep isn't the most encouraging thing when you're in the middle of a night out. I really wanted to go to bed, but sucked it up to make it out for 's last night as a promoter of Sauce.\
Havana was fun, but there was weird tension the whole night. Our friend Shawn was having some serious girl woes and when any of the boyfriend's boyfriends is having girl trouble, he seems to project negative behavior onto me in order to bond with his boyfriends or something. At one point, he became slightly angry with me for hugging a guy friend…a gay guy friend. I was irritated, but decided not to make a big deal out of it. Not long after that, all was forgiven, and fun was continued. See?\
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That's me, looking snobby. I took my camera with me and I sincerely hope that I got some nice shots. Due to the low light I was having some serious trouble focusing.\
When 2 a.m. rolled around, the boyfriend didn't give me a chance to decline going to the after hours party at the Shadow Lounge. I was pretty tired at this point but figured that I could hang for about an hour. We had Jwan with us, whose needles were being used on the turntables there. There had been a show there beforehand so there were already quite a few local artists (musicians, singers, poets) being drunk and goofy. The boyfriend and I played a game of Mancala, then when he went to play records I halfheartedly danced around and took more pictures. showed up and…sat.\
I guess for a good chunk of time I was just standing in the middle of the room looking dazed, because the boyfriend came over to me and said, “Are you getting tired?” I can't imagine what would have tipped him off to that stunning realization. He said that we could get going but Jwan convinced us to wait “just 15 more minutes” for a few more records to be played so that he and his needles could leave with us. I suppose it would be a good idea to alert you all to the fact that a keg of Yuengling had been provided and most folks, including Jwan, were taking full advantage. This could be the reason why plans and times got fuzzy. I was not partaking because I had to pee enough as it was and I wasn't trying to make 6 zillion beer bladder trips to the Shadow Lounge's cold-ass bathroom in the basement.\
As you can probably imagine, guy time warps were in full effect. “15 more minutes” came and went…and soon it was 4:30. I was trying not to be the pain-in-the-ass girlfriend that ruins the fun for everyone, but, as I kept pointing out, unlike everyone else who were going to make up for the late night by sleeping in until noon and then rolling to Starbucks, I was going to be dealing with a 2-year-old in a few short hours. I kept seeing people pull out “just one more record” to play, and at that point I was so tired I was feeling violent and would scream “NO MORE RECORDS” across the room.\
Finally, thank dog, we got home and I passed out as soon as possible. The baby, due to his late night, slept in until after 10. When the supernova of sunshine woke me up at 9, I had plenty of time to drink coffee, read email and shower.\
I did get my hair cut today and it looks very nice because they straightened it with one of those hair irons. However, I had the sadistic hairdresser who seemed to take great delight in scratching my face with one of those big, round brushes before pulling single strands of hair out with it and bending my head 45 degrees with every stroke. My mom told me that I should have said something to her about it, to which I replied, “I figured yelping and saying 'Ow' would get the message across just fine.” Obviously, I was wrong.\
*rubs scalp*\
I didn't make it to Craft Day out in Greensburg, but it's probably just as well. I'm in such a bad mood from lack of sleep that I don't think I would make a very good impression…actually I don't even know why I'm still awake. I need to rest, since tomorrow the boyfriend, his mom, and I are going to see The Nutcracker tomorrow. Ugh.