Probably a dang good plan.

I wish there were a way to read my mother's blog with the shitty or weird or creepy-ass comments turn off (would that include mine? occasionally I bet yes). Seriously. Nothing gets my ire up like someone acting a fool...a creepy, creepy fool...or assholish...or...you get the idea...on my mom's blog comments. I think it's like when I used to chase kids down at school who said "well your mom's a ______ ". Ok, anger issues, noted. STILL. That's my fuckin' mum. You don't say SHIT to my mom, or I will do the equivalent or chasing you down the school hallway/playground and knock you out.

Don't mind me, just guardin' the ol' homestead. Or somethin'.

And then that makes me think, well, a lot of ladies are someone's mom. Or spouse. Or kid. And I bet if their family is the slightest bit loving and functional, they'd feel the same if someone came off like that to their family member. So I get that. Kinda makes me want to be nicer, but then I don't run around acting like an asshole on OTHER people's blogs, just my own. Also, I omit names on my own blog, so no one can prove nada, I s'pose.

I guess my point...for the millionth fucking time....is Don't Act Like A Dick. It's just really not necessary. I do not give two flying fucks and a shit that this is the internets and is make believe. Not everyone has their daughter patrolling their blog to jump on the backs of weirdo commentors to yank their virtual hair out and hold them down to hock virtual loogies in their virtual faces. But they fuckin' should. So treat everyone like they've got a mildly antisocial family member just lurking....waiting for a chance to attack....

Bloggin'

Bloggin - don't wanna.
Rain's stopped, there's baby stuff to be crafted up, and two more seasons of Law and Order, SVU to watch.
Add to that, a kid that needs to learn to draw his shapes and write letters, a husband who is going back to school again, and a brain that needs constant stimuli...

Well, I just don't have the patience or will, yo.

Will post pix of goings on in craftyland later.

xoxoxoxo

Oh Precious Few Months of Sanity...

Yesterday: slept in til 10 am, got dressed and picked up my bus pass and caught a ride downtown 20 minutes later, leaving Manwife and Squidge to head to the local pool for a Dad-Son day. I can't wear my bikini top without getting cited for indecent exposure, so I take a sanity day to myself.
Went from the downtown depot to the Newstand, and bought three by three's compilation book of award winning illustration from '07.
Went to the Old Town Cafe and had a farmer's skillet with Breadfarm toast (dense homemade hippy bread mmmm) and a pancake on the side, with lots of jasmine green tea.
Bummed around downtown, got snotty looks from scrawny hipster college girls at the Buffalo Exchange consignment shop, and grumpily stomped out. More hipsters made scoffing noises at me, so I made my way to the hippy-friendly Cornwall St area.
Went to my favorite import shop, found a nepalese embroidered hoodie I liked, but refused to pay $60 for it. Found nice buffalo bone earrings, the swirly fish hook sort with pretty carvings, but didn't want to pay $20 for them. Maybe next week.
Went to the local handspun yarn store and bought two skeins of grey and chocolatey merino, and a too-large set of circular needles. BS'd with the nice lady who runs the shop about spinning and dyeing classes and knitting circle, and petted the store kitty. I might go to knitting circle, I don't know, I am shy about that sort of thing kind of. I hope I decide to.
Wandered innocently towards the general vicinity of the art supply store, then stealthily ducked in and bought the largest jug of matte Mod Podge available, and also a brown pigment pen (i like to sketch with these a lot, they never bleed or smear and roll nicely along the papers I use).
Laden down with gifts to myself, I stumble tiredly back on to the bus and listen to my music while trying to ignore the drunk bum talking to me. Disgruntled, I get off the bus at the Falls/park about two miles from my house and take the trail around the pond and falls home. It's great! And really cold.
Fall in the door as manwife and squidge are leaving, and read James Kochalka's American Elf strip until they return. We go out to our favorite mexican restaurant and stuff ourselves silly, then go home and watch Stardust.

Today: I sent Jett dog back home to Ma and Pa, and Ayd went too! HUZZAH! Manwife returned from work around lunch, bearing gifts of peppermint mochas and eggs florentine sammiches!!! We knit and drink coffee and nosh in bed, watching Transformers and Bourne Supremacy, then we tried for the fourth day in a row to say good riddance to prophylactics while I am dropping eggs like a hen and make a bebe. It's very hard work. Please pity me. Heheheheheh! No don't! It's great! I will cuss it in about 7 months though. Oh well.
We drink more coffee, then decide to FINALLY use our Xmas gift cards and grab dinner.
First on the list is the bookstore, and Manwife takes FOREVER to find two books. I wandered around the bargain areas, then head back to the knitting and sewing section. I pick out a kid stuff knit book, and a weird Japanese felt craft book with a How-To for a stuffed felt Robot Panda (how could I resist that?!?!) Then I read some graphic novels I had no intention of buying and waited for manwife to look at every book in the store.
Then, we head up to the icky mall. But it was ok, because we get to wander slowly around the mall! Slowly! No whining! No potty breaks! No bitching! YAY!
We started at target, marveling at the bathing suits *already* on display. We look at baby bouncy chairs and exer-saucers and I am disgusted at the overwhelming amount of STUFF on them. It'd overwhelm ME, so how is a baby supposed to be into all the whoozits and whatzits they put on stuff? Good gravy marie. Manwife gets disgusted with me when I get girly and mushy and gross over tiny baby girl shoes, so we look at dishes and board games instead.
Then we wander to all of the girly shops with bath and shower goodies and smelly soaps and lotions. I buy a gel eyemask and nothing else (too stinky!).
Then it's off to Daiso Japan, where I got a lovely hankie and a couple of gifts for certain people. Just. You know. Certain people. WINK WINK MOM. This store is so bizarre, but only because they have EVERYTHING there, and it's cheap, and much of the packaging has strange cartoon characters on it. Even on dowel pins. There are cartoon guys on the package, being really excited about carpentry or something. The kids area smells like pee...all over...so we leave.
I go back to target and buy nick and nora monkey house slippers that are too big so I can slide around in them properly. They are hell of excellent.
After a few more stores, we decide Manwife is ridiculously hungry and I am kind of dizzy, so we run down to the Southside of town and go to our favorite Thai restaurant to stuff ourselves silly. I chow down on crab and cream cheese filled won ton things with spicy plum sauce, potstickers and garlic chicken and peanut chicken satay, and am bummed they made my pork KeeMao too spicy. I get drunk off of one glass of wine and then we go home in the cold frosty fog. I put my eyemask on my head, and my monkey slippers on my hands and sing songs about babies and baby making while eating m&m's (see, I have talents! they are many!)
Now we are going to go knit and read books in bed more, all without any whiny kiddos who just want to eat cereal and ice cream and watch spongebob (which is actually not so bad to do, it's just the whining that sucks).
THANK YOU MOM AND DAD YOU ARE SUPER HELLA AWESOME GRANDPARENTS THANK YOU OH DEAR CHRIST THANK YOU

Tha Intarnet Is Surrrrius Biznaz!

WOW. I get to be on the periphery of ridiculous high school poo and fucktardery on the internets, which I guess (?) is being perpetuated by people in their thirties and above.
And I am being chivvied to Take Up Arms and Play Along with the meaningless shite.

Ok, here it is.
THE INTARWUBS ARE MOSTLY MAKE BELIEVE. Internet people are essentially IMAGINARY FRIENDS. No offense, I intellectually know there are real people typing, but this a giant fucking masquerade ball, don't kid yourselves. It's a slightly less entertaining MMORPG, the whole blogging and posting world.
Do note, I was always polite to my imaginary friends, especailly Punky Brewster because she was so rad and we had awesome adventures and whatnot. I was an only child from the sticks, I couldn't risk being a dick to my imaginary friends - I needed them to stick around!

My advice to sufferers of blog "stalkers" and "vandilizers":
DO grow up. Seriously. There is a little trash can icon on commentor's posts, use it. If it's on someone else's blog or board, hope they like you enough to trash it, or IGNORE IT. Or don't. Get a grip though.

Everyone has a piddly, meaningless, jokey blog for the most part. Don't like what someone's commented? DELETE IT. Or reply back and start a flame war, but do remember the saying about fighting on the internet being much like the special olympics. Do.
Also, blocking people, comment verification and privacy filters are fantastic tools for dealing with creeps! They are! Any fucktarded 12 year old with a myspace account knows this...why doesn't anyone I encounter? I understand that sometimes the way of the web are lost on anyone who remembers the 70's and 60's, but my oh my. If you're posting on a decent enough site, you CAN and SHOULD block assholes if that is your wont. This goes back to Personal Responsibility, which I am a gigantic fan of. I really am.

However, it does seem like people have such dull fucking lives that they need to spam people and send gossipy consiprational emails around their little circles of Imaginary Intarwub Friends creating maaaaaaaaaad drama. If that is your thing, cool. I was not that kid in high school, despite being a drama and art geek. I was an ANGRY drama and art geek but also a redneck metalhead stoner kid (I realize that must be hard to imagine), and beat up kids who did that sort of thing when my name was involved in it. I did. Please don't tell my mom. This is retarded. Get cable, or a vibrator, or a good book and maybe something constructive to do whilst you're bored off your ass at work.

And that has been another exciting installment of She Who Does Not Suffer Fucktardery Ever At All Whatsoever (TM).

Phone etiquette

I have had this really weird thing happen lately on my phone.
My phone rings, it is a number I do not recognize or that isn't stored in my mobile's little memory chip. I answer the phone, "hello?"
"yes May I speak to D please?"
...."May I ask who's calling, please?" (I get loads of telemarketers and survey people calling me, even though it is illegal to do this to someone's mobile phone.)
In response to my query, however, I get silence, surliness, or just plain confounded asshole behaviour.
Such as:
"well, who's this? *chortle*"
"who am I speaking to?"
"um, *excuse* me...?"
"I'm sorry, what? Who is this?"

Woah. Woah. Woah.
Okay.
For starters, dear reader, this is not how one calls another person. At all. I am certain you know this, though, being the lovely bunch you all are. Har.
Unless you are intimately acquainted with the person you are calling, the appropriate response after they pick up their phone and say "Hello" is
"Hello/Hi/Hola/Bonjour/etc, this is/it's _______(state your name)". If you are calling on behalf of a company you follow your name with the company you are calling for. Is so easy, as Vlad would say.
Very simple. I do it all the time. I like to eliminate awkwardness like that, crazy me. Also I am wary of phone solicitors, and assume everyone else is, so I I say who I am right away because I do not want to get cussed at and hung up on.

You would think people like HR leads and secretaries and other such professionals would know this shit, but no. And they are extremely rude 9 times out of 10. Even when they are calling to give me a job interview (which I am politely declining, being home is fine, thanks, especially if the company hired someone so crappy at their job. I am not working for someone like my ex employer again thx).

For fuck's sake, did no one else's mommy give them etiquette lessons or teach them any damn manners? And why would I want to work for someone's company who let their HR people talk to *anyone* like that? Ugh.

Ok so what the hell, here.

Here is the deal.
If you don't like the way I write, or the slang I use, or the voice in which I choose to address the world, fuck off and don't come here. It is exactly that simple.
No, I do not hesitate at rejecting comments that are posted with the sole purpose of being twatty and heinous. Not at all, since this is my fucking brain puking and what the hell's it to you, any how?

(Other than that BS, Hi! I feel a bit better, just irritated that I am apparently still in Jr High...?)

WTF, mates. If you're here to be a twat to me because you're disgruntled with my ma, well...fuck off then, eh? I am not going to hold your hand and assure you she is horrifically unfair or be hurt on her behalf. Please be somewhat of an adult about conducting your affairs in blogland. Poo jokes are great, but weird hate-by-proxy is not.

Thanks much,

The Management

blog-o numer-o un-o (of 2008-o)

Ok, so I have been harassed for updates. See, I was going to, but then I was fucking around on the intarwubs - mostly looking for embarrassing pictures of people I know - and found...a thing. This thing was an adoptee-seeking-birthmama/dad thing. And it was this dude, born when my mom had her first kid, in Oregon, looking FOR my mama. AMAZING. I hyperventilated. I cried and got shaky and felt like my chest was going to swing open. So I did the logical thing and called Ma, flapping and squeeing and crying and freaking. I think I scared her.
So, she and I both shoot off emails to the address the site had provided. I am a horrifically impatient person, so I search myspace, friendster, facebook, your mom's house and tibet for this guy. Nooooo luck. Ok, well, still pretty neat. I stay up late playing Neverwinternights and bashing goblins until I stop shaking enough to go to bed ( I am sure four cups of coffee helped there... ).
Next morning, I am back on line, looking up phone numbers and people searches and gps locations. I get crazy impatient. Example: If Manwife misses calling me on his walk home, I cry into his voice mail about how I think hobos have flayed him and are wearing pretty Manwife suits around downtown. Then he comes home and eyes me oddly while beating me away from him to go hide for a while. I have a wild imagination. With hobos. And buffalo bill.

where was I?

oh, ok. so I get the bright idea to type in the email address i had into myspace's email finder thing. I figure, dude is pretty much in my generation, he MUST have something. I mean, come on.
And he does.
Well, his wifelady does. I feel a little voyeuristic, and peek in her pictures. OMFG. Dude has my mom's eyes, nose, chin, smile, WOW. No question. I see they have three kids, and omg, their daughter has the same pretty hazel almond shaped eyes as Ma and Bro. Amazing and wonderful.
I tap out a tentative and polite email asking if I could please get a hold of the guy. Pretty quickly, my sister-in-law (oh that is so cool to say!) replies and says, oh wow, we were trying to get a hold of you but gmail doesn't like verizon mail and keeps spitting the letters we send out! Agh, technology. Well, ok. Shortly thereafter I get an email from my big brother and I am still beyond the moon. I think he and Ma have talked more, but I have talked a good deal with SIL, who is so lovely and sweet. They both are, and I really am very relieved. I think everyone will get along nicely, which is kind of secondary...or tertiary...or entirely besides the point at the moment..! What an amazing couple of days!

Otherwise, I am still married, still hanging out at home - collaging, cooking, teaching Squidge to draw shapes and letters - still being a pain in the ass. Manwife and I have been playing NWN online with our buddy Joop (I am brynito, hit me up if you play and wanna go kill some shit and quest). It's a lot of fun, better than sitting around arguing with Squidge or having Manwife play one game while I'm on another. We are having intarweb issues, we see each other as offline when we play at the same time, which is hella lame. I say lots of cusses about it. Trying to figure out how to do a network connection or something. This may be easier if I get a laptop and do wireless networking, mayhap. My antiquated piece of shit has issues keeping up with the boys, que bummer.
Let's see...not much else to report, just connecting with old friends who are nice and not mean drunks to me, and others that are misguided but still nice, and doing brunch. I DO BRUNCH, it's a kick in the pants. Of course, we brunch at the crunchiest place around - local eggs and bacon and snausages and tatoes and java, mostly nice organic stuff and tahini and home fries with black beans and tarragon and salsa. Yum! And the local coffee roasters around here can't be beat - go find moka joe's and buy some!!

I am mostly just hanging out being flabbergasted and elated and grateful. I think if anyone deserved the cosmos aligning in their favor and heaping karmic rewards on them, it is my mother. I mean, the nice life with YB and having Squidge/Gooneybird around is great, and having a new son-in-law who is awesome and loved by all is nice too, but I was always worried this would never come to any sort of...resolution...?...I don't know the right word. But whatever it is, it's turned out in the best, most joyful and fabulous way possible. If I could meet my brother's adopted mom and dad, I would kiss them right on the mouth for keeping him safe and happy and letting him know my mom was out there and she loved him still. I really could.

The world is very strange and wonderful, I think you just have to look for it and choose it to be so.

today

today i set chicken stock on fire, a good ending to the year I think.

i am pretty sure that my house now smells a lot like what a lipo clinic that got burnt down smells like and it is hella nasty.

HAPPY NEW YEAR