Because When I Arrive I Bring the Fire This pregnancy's weird. Now that I've talked about it it's all I'm going to talk about for the next five months probably. Half the time I don't feel like I'm pregnant even though my belly is getting exponentially rotund each day, and I've had 17 weeks to get used to it so far. I waited a long time to tell anybody because I was freaked out that something would be wrong, so freaked out that I had that CVS procedure where they stick a giant big fat needle in your belly, and I think everybody here knows how I feel about needles. If there was one thing Gray and I learned from my last pregnancy it's that we're both the kind of people who need to know everything there is to know about the baby inside. For instance, last time I had a nuchal translucency test, which measures the bridge of the baby's nose and the folds of its neck in utero to statistically determine whether or not it has Down's. Even though the numbers came back well within range of being fine, we spent the entire 40 weeks thinking something was askew since it was a statistical test and not a diagnostic test. So this time, diagnostic. And everything's fine. I'll have the big ultrasound in a couple of weeks where they can see how everything's flowing to all the organs and where my placenta is and if everything's good. And then if things are okay maybe I'll relax. What was that, you ask? You want me to say placenta again? Okay. Placenta, placenta, placenta. There's a town outside Los Angeles called Placentia and I always thought that was a little close/grose.

So everything else is cool I guess. One of my Burbank friends came to visit a few weeks ago and it made me realize that I still don't have any real friends here so it took me a few days after she left to get un-bummed. We'll have lived here a year next month. Next week I'm going to Burbank to see what $4000 buys you plumbing-wise on a house you don't live in anymore and also to visit with some friends, also to buy a Porto's sandwich, and also to hit a small bookstore up for the money they owe me but refuse to pay me because I don't live there anymore. Jerks. Which reminds me that the big indie bookstore in this town is closing at the end of April because of the dang economy. And also the sales tax here in this county is going to 9.25 at the beginning at April, which if you ask me is the crime of the century. Way to let people get back on their feet, California government. Hit us in the wallet on a daily basis. Things are a mess.

The baby isn't a mess. He likes donkeys.


  ¶ 4:05 PM 0 Comments

  Someday You Will Find Me Caught Beneath the Landslide I'm on hold with my life insurance company. Now that we have no money because of the stupid economy we decided it would be a good idea to get a living trust, so that if we die all of our zero dollars won't go through probate and it'll be easier for our zero-dollar-receiving heirs to inherit their non-money. So to get an address to mail the revised paperwork I have to be on hold for half an hour. At least it's toll-free.

I have a minor situation that's bumming me out. Periodically I get snailmail from people pitching me children's book ideas. My instinct is to help them, to tell them how to approach getting a publisher or how to self-publish, whichever fits their material best, or to urge them to get a little more schooling before trying to publish, which is most often the case. But Gray won't let me write back to them. He goes, "There's a reason half the production companies in Hollywood say 'We won't accept unsolicited material.' It's because they don't want to get sued." He thinks I'm going to respond to one of these people and then they're going to claim that I used their idea in a book and take me to the cleaners for all my zero dollars. So what do I do, not help people? It's so lame. But I don't write back to them because he scared me into not doing it.

So, um, should I say now that I'm pregnant or should I save it for a fresh entry?


  ¶ 11:05 AM 1 Comments

  I Was Born With the Wrong Sign In the Wrong House With the Wrong Ascendancy The last I wrote was February 17th, which means I am stone cold lazy. And I just forgot my password to blogger and had to look it up, that's how lamely infrequently I write.

My son is 2 this week! How did that happen? I'm going to borrow a page from Minjenah and post before and afters.




Can we talk about American Idol? No? Okay, that's okay, it's going to be really boring this year anyhow. They're (the judges, and America) making some dumb choices already. If there's one thing I can't stand it's the injustice of putting someone through who doesn't deserve it when the guy next to him is a billion times better. And have I talked about how I had a great idea for a documentary a few years ago about hit songwriters and their behind-the-sceneness and how they're the ones creating the popular content for everything on the radio? Anyway, I was focused on trying to get an interview with Kara DioGuardi, who if you check the liner notes of everybody on Billboard has written songs for them, and she's of course the fourth judge on American Idol this year. So it will never happen now, but if I'd done it back then the documentary would be gold.

So there are the two documentaries that I've shot but which are just sitting on hard drives, and the first one focuses on a woman I'll call Barbara. Barbara sent me an email letting me know she was doing a radio interview today and that I could hear it on the net, so I tuned in this morning and listened, and she was really good as always. Then the host started asking her about the documentary, and 500 miles away my face started getting red. Barbara was very good-natured about my slowness, but then they started talking about this man the host knows who converts old VHS home movies to DVD, and the host was like, "Why doesn't she give the footage to him and HE could edit the film?" and Barbara was all, "That's a GREAT idea!" Good lord. And if he did he'd probably win the Palme d'Or or something.

I'll write more soon. Sooner. Soonish. Promise.  ¶ 11:21 PM 0 Comments