tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88704754818348788042024-02-08T03:53:19.559-08:00stealthpunchstealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-89870846367473756122011-08-19T20:18:00.000-07:002011-08-19T20:53:37.166-07:00You Look So Absurd You Look So ObsceneAs I was just pouring my second gigantic drink of the evening, a drink my grandpa liked to call a Dipsy-Doodle (but which I recently found out is just a Manhattan with more cherry juice and ice), I was thinking about how Gray has been really stressed out from work lately and how about two years ago he embarked on a "30 Days of Drinking" program. He's not a drinker at all by nature, which is quite frankly a bummer for me since I like to drink quite a lot, and doing it by yourself is shall we say not especially socially acceptable. So while doing his experiment he'd come home from work, have a drink, and ostensibly get mellow. It didn't really work, it just made him tired, and probably it poached his liver a little. But he has a group of friends who all email back and forth with big life news every once in awhile, and the 30 Days Program was what he chose to tell his people about. His line went something like, I'm stressed out, work is bringing me down, so I've decided to start drinking at night when I come home. And, you know, it was kind of a funny tongue-in-cheek experiment, and he's such a teetotaler that it could never turn into anything crazy. But he has two married friends who are both shrinks, and one of them wrote back very seriously to him alone and said, "Gray. You shouldn't do this. There are better ways to cope with your stress. Don't go down this path, it's a very dark place and it could lead to addiction and it's unhealthy and it's nothing to play with." It was really nice of her, right? It just made me think shrinks are more uptight and crazy than I already did.
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<br />I was just looking at facebook photos of Comic-Con from somebody Gray knows who likes to a) photobomb people and b) took pictures of every crazy costume there. There are some gigantic Halloweenie nerds out there, let me tell you. That said I especially liked the Indiana Jones guy's costume with the spiders glued all over the back of his vest.
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<br />Tomorrow we're going to a 40th birthday party for one our friends. Except his birthday isn't until February 2012. His wife is pregnant and thinks that since the baby will be three-ish months old when his actual birthday rolls around that she won't have time to deal with a proper party, so she's having it one, two, three, four, five months early. It's a surprise for her husband, tomorrow is. I promise to have my camera out and ready to take a picture of what for sure will be the most startled, freaked-out and confused look a person having a party thrown at them has ever had on their face, and then I will share it with you.
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-81166593877106191512011-07-29T18:34:00.001-07:002016-06-28T22:33:29.589-07:00It's Just You And Me Against MeIt's funny the things you think you'll never do to your children before you actually have children. I was positive I'd never stick them in front of the television so that the television could babysit them. Right now my not-even-two-year-old is watching Superhero Squad (rated 7+) with her 4.4-year-old brother (no stranger to things rated 7+) so that I can cook their dinner and write this. And I would be lying if I said it wasn't always the most calming and peaceful time of the day. And if that sentence was confusing with all its double negatives, let me say clearly that this is always definitely and for sure the most calm and peaceful time of my day.<br />
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Yesterday at the park while I was mindlessly pushing said two year old on the swing, these two mom-ladies next to me were having a weird conversation. I heard some numbers, then what sounded like esoteric photography things, and then I realized they were talking about camera lenses. Imagine! Two moms on a playground talking about something other than babies! It was so awesome that I butted in and totally got in on their game, and it turned out one of them was one of the area's two big family photogs. Granted, the area is pretty small, but still she's like a photography celebrity around here. And she is so nerdy it's unbelievable. Like how she ever makes kids feel comfortable enough so that she can get a natural-looking picture out of them is beyond me. But still it was awesome to not talk about diapers and bad behavior.<br />
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We have been on vacation so many times this summer it's ridiculous. And very unlike us. Usually we go nowhere and people laugh at us and say, "Don't you ever go anywhere?" And my answer is always no. So last week we were in San Diego at ComiCon (holy nerdiness Batman, speaking of nerds), and I raced up and down the SoCal highways visiting friends and places (thank you Juanita's Taco Shop in Encinitas for still being in business and being cheap and delicious after all these years, and to Lou's Records for sticking around) and it was fun, but nuts. Staying in a hotel room with two children is ridiculous. I went to bed at 9:30 one night because I couldn't turn on any lights or TV, and I don't think I've gone to bed at 9:30 in about 25 years. Another night I plucked my eyebrows for half an hour because I could only have a light on in the bathroom. And naps were awful, and the plane ride home with a lap infant was awful, and I think you just have to make peace with the fact that you'll be exhausted and wiped the whole time you're on vacation with kids. It's where "I need a vacation from my vacation" comes from. Also, sidenote: San Diego is a gigantic monetary rapist of a city when it comes to the week of ComicCon. I know it's totally foul to use that word, but I can't think of anything else that comes close to being as accurate. We stayed in a very average Hilton Hotel room, like maybe the fanciest thing was a goose-down duvet in a stylish patten, but with no in-room wifi and no free continental breakfast, and to use the hotel's internet was $1 a minute, and the hot water ran out and I could go on. Want to guess how much the room was? $420. Not for the week, but per NIGHT. Oh, San Diego, Los Angeles's beachy step-child. You're really not all that. And the adults in stormtrooper costumes walking down the street don't make up for it.<br />
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Now I will have Chinese food. Stefan took my order over the phone again. I think he knows me now... he didn't even ask for my name or number.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-51417404306265352492011-07-08T20:35:00.000-07:002011-07-08T20:57:50.725-07:00Heavy Is The Head That Wears The CrownI just ordered take-out Chinese food. The guy who answered the phone sounds exactly like the guy on Saturday Night Live who plays Stefan on the news, the ubergay NYC club kid. Would our local Asian food service fellow be flattered to know this? "General Chicken. What else? Wonton soup. What else?" to me sounds like, "Club Zero. Where midgets dance on top of clowns who dance on top of of mimes who pretend they're boxing micro-midgets who are lord of the dancing on penguins." Perhaps he would be excited. This town is strange.<br /><br />I don't know about this place. We've been living here for three years now, and I think I like it, but I'm not sure. I like our house, and I feel like I've made really good new friends. In fact we just went away with a couple of them for a solid week to a place east of here and had a really good time. So even I, the person who always talks about how hard it is to make good new friends, has made some good new friends. I think the community's pretty nice, but I'm thinking maybe I'm feeling separate and disconnected from it because I don't have anything really tying me down. I'm slightly active in the mother's club, but not really, and it's not enough to get really grounded. It's like when I lived in the LBC after college and I didn't have a job there and I was commuting and just coming home every night to live and I felt really super not at home there. It's not exactly like that, but a little. I need something to root me.<br /><br />Now that I have one kid in preschool two mornings a week and another who is (currently) taking a two hour nap each day, I have become vaguely more creative. Got a couple things in the can, some things that require illustrators and then programmers. If I say more I will totally jinx myself, so I'll keep it under my hat until things actually move forth, but I'll say it feels good to be sort of flexing that muscle again. It has been (and still is) SO HARD to say, when people ask, "What do you do?" to just say "I used to do this and this but now I'm at home with my kids." I don't begrudge the people who are cool with that, but I feel like I'm making excuses for what I'm not doing. We'll see what happens. The bay area isn't as bad as LA in that regard, like there are more people up here who are staying at home with their kids and when they aren't it's to go back to boring pharmaceutical jobs or whatever (man, have I become a judgmental prick?) but still... the internal pressure is strong. We'll see what happens. Probably nobody feels like they don't want to fulfill their creative potential. Everybody wants to take it wherever it'll go.<br /><br />In music news, I am all about the pop lately: Katy Perry, Ke$ha, with a little Elbow and Adele mixed in. It's kind of a mess, but a fun summery mess.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-33337736483915321882011-05-14T18:48:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:34:59.467-07:00Just Then a Tiny Little Dot Caught My EyeHere are some things:<br />
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The other night, after having sex (historically I have never talked about this, and I'm not about to start now, except that now you know that I've had it three times: the time I'm referring to and from the two times I've had children) and right after the moment of truth I started thinking about the Sepulveda Pass. Why am I postcoitally thinking about the Sepulveda Pass (which for those of you non-LA natives is a two-lane side channel alternate route-road which runs alongside the 405 between the Valley and the Westside)? I don't even live there anymore and I have no idea. The brain is a strange place.<br />
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I am disturbed by the new Quilted Northern commercials. Their theme seems to be that it's time to speak the truth about toilet paper, which apparently means cleanliness. As in, "use Quilted Northern for a confident clean." Which translates to "our toilet paper gets your poop off better," which, even though it's for sure the secret main reason we use toilet paper, is not something I want to think about during my two minutes of 30 Rock interstitial time. Next you will see Tampax commericals with the tagline "Soak up the blood!"<br />
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My life is per usual pretty boring, but Gray has had some exciting times at work lately so I live vicariously. One, he came home the other day complaining of his hand and wrist hurting. I thought, is it carpal tunnel? Has he been masturbating too furiously? (TWO MENTIONS of sex in one entry! What is going on with me?) But instead he said, "We got a new vending machine. I got my hand caught in the vending machine trying to get my stuff out." Nice. The second thing is that he and his coworkers have been going through sexual harassment training, and he goes, "Has anybody ever thrown a jellybean down your shirt into your cleavage?" and I said, "What?" and he goes, "Apparently that's the number one way to sexually harass -- to throw a jellybean or a piece of popcorn down the shirt of a lady and say, 'Can I help you get that out?'" So now I'm envisioning this miniature Don Juan, like a little spanish man with a bushy moustache wearing a short-sleeved button-down white shirt and a brown tie walking around offices across America tossing jellybeans down shirts of women and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.<br />
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Also, I've decided children are like bipolar monkeys.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-70926897949308805582011-03-25T15:06:00.001-07:002016-06-28T22:35:24.809-07:00Shed Lights On Your Better SideI think Facebook is a cultural phenomenon of the sort that deserves some serious study. Serious, seriously. <br />
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I was just reading a story (something longer than a status update, something shorter than an essay) that one of my friends posted about nighttime animal invaders in her garage, a semi-entertaining bit where she talked about being confronted with the choice of snuffing out the life out of a raccoon. There were eight or so comments that got condensed so that I could only read the last two, and these last two were so out of context that I clicked on all of them to read what got people there. So this thread talks about chickens dying, some other miscellaneous nocturnal rodent adventures, and then around number five there's one stuck in there from her sister-in-law who talks about how her father, my friend's father-in-law, has been in a coma for two days and is going to die anytime and she'll call her when it happens.<br />
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So. My questions are many, but mainly: why did she write such a personal thing there? Why would a matter, literally, of life and death be inserted inbetween people laughing about raccoons? Why are so many people getting to be so comfortable talking about the most private and important things so casually in such an open forum? <br />
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Which is ironic I guess coming from someone writing a blog in a world where blogs exist to talk about private things. But this feels so different somehow. I don't know. Maybe it isn't.<br />
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Now in the interest of continuing the non-private tradition, my children are practically in college since the second to the last time I wrote. Click for bigger pic.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-51159510542299126472011-03-10T23:24:00.000-08:002011-03-10T23:50:19.711-08:00You Can Feel the Electricity All In the Evening AirIt's true that I need an outlet. I just wrote on FB that every month I write the mother's club newsletter calendar section, and every month I write at least 10 snarky things and backspace over all of them. I want to see if anybody's really reading it (I know they aren't) but mostly what I want is to express myself. Like Madonna. It's hard not having an outlet, so hello again. I think about writing here about a hundred times a week and I never do it because I've built it up into this giant thing, like when you're fourteen and you're thinking about what your first kiss is going to be like and you watch the kissing scene in Some Kind of Wonderful a thousand times hoping it'll teach you how to do it so you'll be prepared. What? Maybe it's not like that at all. But so right now I'm just writing so I can feel my fingers do it so I know that they still work. <br /><br />I'm tortured. I've got no follow-through. It's really eating at me, all the things I've got half-finished. A couple of people I know have dropped dead lately (they were old, but it still counts) and to paraphrase whatever it was I heard on Terri Gross on NPR today, the death curtain has been lifted. What separates me from it is not so separated anymore and it freaks me out, makes me realize I'm not doing anything. And yes, whatever, I'm raising two children, and there is a certain amount of satisfaction derived from that, but also... not enough. <br /><br />The snarky thing that prompted all this ennui: researching a nursery school carnival, where the kids do crafts and play games, and they said don't worry! All the kids win! You'd think in Silicon Valley they'd know better, that it's not real, not everybody wins, that not even kids should be sold that line. You must work for it, son. And if you sit on your ass in the parking lot of grocery stores waiting for your children to wake up from naps, you sure as heck aren't going to wind up in the plus column.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-40873163671327202352010-12-21T22:31:00.000-08:002010-12-21T22:32:02.958-08:00Testing.Testing. Test. Testes? Testing.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-9093153142181266432010-10-26T23:25:00.000-07:002010-10-26T23:26:53.184-07:00Wait, what?So (knock, knock) -- this thing on? This is a test post to see if Blogger is in fact working again with my URL.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-51333137525813278622009-11-10T21:57:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:36:39.419-07:00You Got Me Living Like a Desperate YouthAlright, so I think it's official. I'm now writing to an audience of one. Me. It's cool, it was bound to happen given my infrequent posting. Countries have been overthrown and reinstated between my entries. Babies have been gestated and born. So I'll just meander along aimlessly here, kind of talking to myself. <br />
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So now I will tell the birth story of Baby E in August. From now on Stealthpunch Junior can be Baby B and the new baby can be Baby E. I don't know why I'm still so interested in privacy since the internet knows everything already anyway, but B and E it'll be. <br />
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It was, thankfully, a very straightforward birth. Everyone I know in life again thought I was crazy for wanting to give birth not at a hospital, but at a birth center. I was too chicken to have a homebirth, and also practical really since the closest hospital to our tiny town is half an hour away, plenty of time to bleed out and die under worst-case circumstances. Yes, I know, it doesn't make sense since I'm a crazy hypochondriac in every other aspect of life that I should want to do it outside of a hospital, but for whatever reason I'm totally natural and mostly calm about birth. I believe it's what my body was built to do from an evolutionary standpoint, and doing it the first time showed me that my own particular body is pretty okay at it. So anyway, everybody thought I was crazy and worried about me the whole time.<br />
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Timeline: I had the baby Sunday morning at nine. On Friday Gray's parents came to visit, and at night they babysat Baby B while Gray and I went on a date to the awesome Macaroni Grill and then to nearby Borders to check out the latest books. This is the kind of date we like: we stuff ourselves with starches and carbohydrates and then we read. (Really what I think it is is a nostalgic throwback to when we were really poor in Burbank pre-kids and we would go to Barnes & Noble on Saturday night and read books and magazines and not buy anything.) So we go to Borders, we do our reading, I celebrate the fact that we have some cash now by buying a decaf latte (not non-fat, because I am 39 weeks pregnant and eat whatever I like at this point), and then we go home at 12:30am. I go to the bathroom and there in the toilet is -- well, I'll spare the details and just say some minor evidence that things are starting to happen. I go to sleep.<br />
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The next day, Saturday, is business as usual. We take Baby B to gym class and everybody there says "You look really pregnant!" and I say back, "Yeah, getting close!" So then we get coffee, more people comment on my largess, and we go home. I sit around. I go to the bathroom and find more evidence. I eat lunch. I start to feel some contractiony stirrings. My in-laws, who were going to leave, now decide to stay. <br />
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A quick aside to talk about the mind-body connection. My first birth was 28 hours long. This was due to the fact, I believe, that I could not imagine holding a baby in my arms. I think I totally hung myself up by being emotionally un-ready to have a baby, which was sort of driven home by my midwife and doula at the time saying, "Imagine the first time your baby smiles at you!" in order to get my labor going faster, and it just didn't work. I couldn't imagine it because it seemed totally foreign and unreal. So this time what was hanging me up was the fact that I didn't know what we were going to do with Baby B when I went into labor. Some friends offered to let us drop him off -- if they weren't working. Our neighbor offered to take him in the middle of the night -- if she was in town and not travelling. There was no set plan, and it made me nervous. So I think the fact that my in-laws were here in our house staying with us did the trick. Brain told body "go do it, Baby B is safe," and body did it.<br />
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So around 8pm the contractions are getting a little more noticeable, but I can eat dinner, and I can joke around and make conversation. I call my midwife to tell her stuff's happening, and she tells me to get some sleep. Ha! I say, but I manage to sleep until midnight. Then I think maybe my water breaks. I'm not sure. I call the midwife again and she has me do the water breaking test which I never knew about, which is to lay down flat for half an hour, and when you stand up if water gushes out then your water has broken. If not, then it hasn't. And this is important for me because I'm group b strep positive, and the 24-hour clock starts ticking once your water's broken. Baby needs to come out before the 24 hour mark or the risk of infection shoots up. So I lay down for half an hour, Gray puts a chux pad on the floor near the bed, and I stand up. No water comes out, but what does come flying out is a fist-sized liver-looking piece of my insides that bounces off my leg and onto the chux pad and onto the baseboard leaving bloody red Mr. Hankey-sized plops everywhere it goes. I freak out and start dancing around, going "Should we call 9-1-1? Can organs fall out of your vagina?" and Gray doesn't even care how abnormal this seems, he's gotten busy trying to clean the splotches off the baseboard because he's an OCD clean freak. So I punch the midwife's numbers again and tell her that I'm dying, and she goes, "No, no, it's totally normal, it's just your body getting ready." Normal. Next trick I'll do is make part of my intestines come out my nose. <br />
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Gray just looked over and said "Are you writing a novel?" The answer seems to be yes, so more soon. Goodnight.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-67380873186346033702009-09-23T22:40:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:37:09.209-07:00With the Magic of Your Smile You Make Me HumbleI've had this open on my desktop for like three weeks, and since I don't have even two minutes of free time anymore -- nobody told me that having two kids like quadruples the workload -- I'm going to just hit the publish button and prove to you that I'm still alive. And what's that? You say I said "two kids"? That's right. I done went and had another baby and survived it. Let me tell you all about my semi-fast labor (not superfast, but definitely faster than the first 28-hour marathon), but let me do it another time. I feel like not posting this has been a roadblock to writing in general, so I really am going to just hit the publish button and get it out of the way.<br />
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(Everybody is saying, "She looks just like you!" to which I say, "Thanks for thinking I look like a scrunchy old man!")stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-38516436818645187392009-08-19T17:33:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:37:29.700-07:00A Kiss, A Cry, Our Rights, Our WrongsThe friend who I keep writing about is pregnant, and it's like a switch was flipped. In fact, it's probably why she came to our party, because she was a little pregnant at that point and feeling like she could stand seeing some bellies. So maybe I'll talk to her about it in a few months when she gives birth and get her side of the story. Maybe it will be interesting. Probably it will be just like we all thought.<br />
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==<br />
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Gray just asked me what my plan is for when I go into labor (1.5 weeks away is due date.) I said, "Maybe I'll go to Amoeba Records" (which is in the Haight and kind of close to where I'll deliver), and he goes, "But what if your water breaks there?" and then said, "Doesn't matter, I'm sure they've seen worse. Like an exploding hobo." Now all I can think of is a homeless person standing in the middle of the store erupting all over everything. True that water breaking would be a walk in the park comparatively, but still maybe not fun for me and grose for everybody nearby.<br />
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==<br />
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I've nothing new and interesting to share, I'm just totally consumed by the fact that I'll be giving birth in probably a week. There's no way around it, you know? I have a giant belly with a baby inside it, and she's going to come out whether I'm ready or not. It's nice how I get increasingly more and more crazy as the time wears on, though. Like I can't spell, I can't remember words, I'm kind of spacey and dumb, I think that I'm pregnant with twins because I'm measuring 3 weeks ahead even though I've had three ultrasounds and a CVS, I constantly think labor is beginning because of practice contractions... it just goes on. I downloaded a contractions iPhone app yesterday which should be fun when it finally does start, though.<br />
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My midwife is a good storyteller. She's not shy about talking about her craziest births, which may or may not be a little violation of patient confidentiality, I don't know. She kind of also tramples the unspoken midwife rule that you aren't supposed to tell scary stories to moms-to-be, too, like you need to keep them thinking positively instead of dwelling on the bad stuff. She talks a lot about the bad stuff. All I know is that I don't want a 28 hour labor like last time, but I also don't want a three hour labor that ends with me running into the place from the street, having a contraction, and delivering the baby on the floor. Yikes.<br />
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And the latest crazy thing I have to worry about is that there's a giant sort of biblical red tide going on in the ocean locally right now, and they're releasing warnings right and left saying "Don't eat shellfish caught in the red tide!" and what did I have for lunch yesterday? Shrimp. I keep trying to call the restaurant where I got the food and they aren't answering, which makes me think they were fishing locally and they're guilty and running from the law. And meanwhile I'll be dead from some toxic neurological explosion. Kind of like a hobo in the middle of Amoeba.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-64634325758361438162009-07-14T22:58:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:37:58.241-07:00Blown Away Our Four Leaf CloverAll right. After six weeks of polling i've gotten four really good friendship-fertility-sensitivity comments; one here, two on facebook, and one in real life. The definite consensus is that I need to back the F off and let my friend stay away from me and deal with my pregnancy on her own terms and in her own time. I had a feeling this was the right answer, and I'm just going to have to learn not to be selfish about it like I've been this time. <br />
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But she came to our fourth of July party when I didn't think she would. It was the first time I'd seen her since I think January, and she mostly avoided me but did hug me and say "Wow, look at you!" and that was that. Her husband is ignoring me almost equally, and I don't know if that's because he feels it like she does or if he's just being on her side. <br />
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So I'll wait and see how it goes. I hope they'll want to be friends after we have the baby, that maybe it is as some suggested that she can't be around me while I have a baby in my belly, that it's that fact that keeps her wanting to stay away, and that she'll be okay with things after the baby's born. I'll be patient, I don't think my feelings are the most important in our scenario anymore. Now my major emotion is feeling bad that I'm causing her to feel bad, that I've got something going on that she wants more than anything in the world. <br />
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--<br />
I'm 33 weeks, which means 7 weeks to go. I'm enormous. Some people have told me I barely look pregnant, which tells me that I must normally look like a giant humongous tube, so it's not a compliment to say such things. Probably telling me I look extremely pregnant is the better way to go. I'm starting to get a little fearful, which is no good for anybody. I'm scared my labor will be too long again; I'm scared my labor will be too short. I'm scared I'll have a weird complication at the birth center and die. I'm scared I'll have a stroke or get a migraine during labor. I'm scared the baby is too big. I'm scared I haven't been working out enough (read: at all) and won't have the stamina for natural childbirth again. I'm scared I won't remember how to do it. I'm scared that my inlaws will come to watch Stealthpunch Jr. when we go to the birth center and then they'll be mad when we kick them out when we get home in order to bond with the new baby. I'm scared Stealthpunch Jr. will be upset that there's a new baby in his house. What I'm not scared of is that we won't have enough girl baby clothes, because the amount of clothing donated to us from friends has been astounding. If you need baby girl clothes in about a year, just ask.<br />
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I've been listening to the hypnobirthing relaxation CD every night, and every night I fall asleep before they get to the secret message that will make everything okay. It goes, "And if you start to feel afraid, ...." and then I wake up right after they've said what to do. So I still don't know. I guess I should listen to it during daylight hours when I'm not exhausted, but not while I'm driving, just in case.<br />
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Tomorrow night is Tears For Fears at the Saratoga Mountain Winery. I have only average seats and not really good seats for the first time in several years, so I won't be able to send subliminal messages to Roland eyeball-to-eyeball. It'll be great to be there, and I'm just crossing my fingers that Stealthpunch Jr. goes to sleep and doesn't cry like a maniac like he has been for the past two weeks while his Grammy and Grandpa babysit him. The other night his Nana and Papa watched him while Gray and I went to see Bruno (don't see Bruno if you have even an ounce of prudishness in you) and it was tough. It's all because he's transitioning to a big boy bed from a crib, and there are lots of issues involved. Next up on the too many changes list: potty training, going to pre-preschool 2 mornings a week, and getting a baby sister.<br />
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Now I have to go re-stock the refrigerator with beer. Two New Jersey cousins are here, ages 23 and 20, and tonight they drank a 24 pack of the Sierra Nevada I was saving for the second I am no longer pregnant. When they started asking about after dinner drinks I feigned ignorance because there's no way I'm sharing the good stuff. I won't be pregnant forever.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-40667728663063016362009-05-30T12:07:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:38:48.536-07:00When Out of A Doorway the Tentacles StretchI need someone to talk me out of being a jerk. We have a group of friends up here who are all Gray's childhood friends, so I inherited them as friends when we got married and then their wives as friends when they got married. And they're all pretty good friendships, like I go out with them sometimes without Gray and everybody gets along. There are four couples, five counting us. Four out of the five couples have kids - two have one, two have two, so half have already had a second child. The fifth couple doesn't have kids and they've been trying since the second they got married three years ago. Everybody in the group knows about their infertility issue and is sensitive about it, unlike one of their other friend-couples who got pregnant just by looking at each other on their wedding night and likes to tell the story of how freaked out they were over and over as the wife pats her round belly. So we're all mindful. When I found out I was pregnant I told the husband separately and asked him how to tell his wife, my friend, about it, and he goes, "Don't do it, I'll do it, and I'm so glad you came to me first." She's been known to avoid kids parties, and I'd heard that she cries when she finds out other people are pregnant. On the flipside, they've hosted a bunch of shindigs at their house since we've moved here and everybody's kids are always there and she seems to be fine. <br />
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So I kind of waited for her to send me an email saying hi and congratulations or something vaguely acknowledging, but after a month of silence I asked him if he'd told her and he said yes, so I know at least that she knows. <br />
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But now that two and a half months have passed and I haven't heard from her and she keeps ducking out of all the things that the whole group does together (last weekend big picnic, she didn't go and was "at home relaxing") I started to get mad. I didn't want to feel it and I felt like an a-hole for feeling it, but couldn't stop. To another friend in the group I said I was bummed that she seemed to be staying away from things because of me and my belly, and this friend said, "I might do the same thing. I wanted kids so bad and if I couldn't have them I'd probably need to be as far away from visual reminders as possible." <br />
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I'm still feeling mad. I'm feeling like if she can't say congratulations to me and be around me, when she knows I'm not going to talk about baby stuff and will 100% have her feelings in mind when she's in front of me, then we aren't really friends. And after the picnic I heard her husband invite one of the other friend-couples back to their house for dinner. But not us, and in the past we definitely would have been invited too.<br />
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Maybe this is all non-sympathetic whining on my part. It's just that even when we had a hard time getting pregnant the first time (granted, 10 months is not 3 years, but it felt like a longgg time) I never begrudged anyone their joy and never avoided them and would never have not said congratulations or made them feel bad for what's such a happy time. <br />
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I'm pretty sure that I'm not being understanding enough. But I'm also pretty sure that if this continues for the next 3 months I don't think I can be friends with her in the future. If anybody's got infertility experience and you think I'm being a jerk, let me have it.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-34941641886481864152009-05-19T12:16:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:39:13.247-07:00Prepare For the Best and the Fastest RideMay miracles never cease -- I just set up a new mail account on my Mac and it worked. Lately things aren't so easy on the easy Macintosh, so I feel like I should get a trophy or a plate of cake or something.<br />
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After I wrote the last entry, we hired our babysitter and went out for dinner (Macaroni Grill, fattening and delicious) and to a movie (Observe and Report, stupid and lame) and the baby was still alive when we got home. Dang, it's hard to trust other people. Maybe when he's older we'll feel more secure about him staying with a sitter because he'll be able to tell us if they stick him in a dark closet or feed him beers, but for now it's nervewracking. And yet it was so nervewracking that we did it again two weeks after the first time, when we went to dinner (Carl's Jr., because we ran out of time) and saw a movie (Star Trek, pretty good overall) and had a nice time. Dates are good, I guess. But how important are they, really? When we were on them all we did was talk about Gray's lack of job and the baby back at home, so it's not like it was especially unique or revitalizing or anything.<br />
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The latest is the whole preschool issue. I always laughed at waiting list preschool people, but now we're some of them because there aren't enough to go around in our area. I'm also thinking about putting him in daycare (which is more like pre-pre-school) for two mornings a week before the new baby comes (3.5 months away) and this preschool business is all anybody wants to talk about in the mother's club. It's preschool. I don't think that the place we choose will determine the course of his life like some people seem to. All I remember of mine is that we sang Frere Jacques and played in the sand, so really. How much should I stress about it? <br />
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Because I have a father who grew up during the Depression (he's 81, whereas Gray's dad is 63 for comparison), all that save and don't spend stuff was fully ingrained in me and still sticks with me even though I've tried to to be a good American and spend some money once in awhile. So what do I do the second Gray gets laid off? I start selling stuff on ebay in order to hoard money. And it's been awhile since I've done it, and I've forgotten what a pain in the ass it is. I sold six things, and only three people have paid, and two of them are foreigners (Germany, Australia) who have picked whatever random amount they felt like to pay me for shipping to their far-off land, which will probably be too low. Somebody else wants a tracking number for a $5 item, and it's just such a pain. Nobody behaves normally there. Stupid ebay.<br />
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So Facebook always reveals funny things, and the funniest thing lately is that I'm friends with an old boyfriend (who has gotten really fat) and someone wrote on his wall: "I see you got married to X. Are you guys still together?" Normally a pretty rude thing to write, right? But fitting for a (formerly, at least) wandering cheater such as he.<br />
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On pregnancy: I am really obese and uncomfortable and still have a long way to go. Nothing fits, my boobs are huge and uncomfortable, I keep worrying that my belly fat is peeking out from under my shirt, and I get winded when I climb stairs. Man, the injustice. At least I don't have gestational diabetes, but I have to drink a grose iron drink because I'm anemic. All of the babies I cook in my belly like to sap me of iron. This one did, too.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-48930440999391815632009-04-26T22:12:00.001-07:002009-04-26T22:24:45.355-07:00All These Tapes In My Head Swirl AroundStealthpunch Junior is two, and he's never had a babysitter. That is to say, we've never hired him a babysitter, or had someone watch him who wasn't related to him or that we haven't known for fifteen years. And Gray and I are notoriously bad at going out on dates -- like those books that say "Couples should go out on dates once a week after having children for their own separate alone time" would frown at us so hard their faces would stick that way. I think we've been out alone once together in the year we've lived here, and once when we were all staying with Gray's parents and once when we were all staying with my parents. So three times in a year. And we're still married. Take that, couples counselors.<br /><br />But this is not what I want to write about. What I want to write about is sixteen year olds. We marched down the street to our neighbor's house, a neighbor who recently said, "My daughter would love to babysit for you," so we walked over to take her up on it. She wasn't home, so we talked to her parents, some nice people who look like they're about a decade older than us, say forty-five give or take a few years. Twenty minutes later the sixteen year old knocks on our door and we hang out and introduce her to the baby and we're all talking and about her babysitting him in the future, and she'll make our fifty dollar dinner and a movie turn into more like ninety, but whatever, the experts made us do it. So she leaves, and Gray turns to me and goes, "That's what sixteen is. Didn't you feel OLD?" and I said yeah I felt like a fricking grandma, and then he goes, "She could be your daughter if you had her when you were a senior in high school," and I go, No, I would have an almost twenty year old if I had her in high school. And then we kind of got depressed. And then I said, But didn't you feel like you have way more in common with her than you do with her parents who are way closer to us in age? And he said, "Yeah, totally." Does this mean that we're stunted somehow? That we have a Peter Pan thing going on? Or that we're of that Gen-X segment that just doesn't feel adulty no matter how old we get?<br /><br />Also, Gray got laid off on Friday. So I don't know how we're affording this babysitter.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-63381919631295108542009-04-23T22:57:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:39:41.356-07:00I Run the Streets and I Break Up HousesThis is going to be a complainy couple of minutes. Mostly because I'm in this terrible in between place of my clothes not fitting, where I'm not huge enough yet to fully fit maternity clothes, but my normal clothes don't fit either, and my bras are pinching me like a motherfucker. I haven't consulted last pregnancy's photos yet, but I'm pretty sure at 21 weeks I look like I did at about 31 weeks belly-wise. People who I haven't seen in awhile are starting to greet me by staring at my stomach, and I can see their wheels turning, and I kind of wait an extra beat to see if they'll say anything, but then I kill the awkwardness and just tell them I'm pregnant. "Oh, yeah!" They say. "I didn't want to say anything, but I thought so." My god, and I'm only halfway through, feeling like this. What will 19 more weeks be like? <br />
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Gray might lose his job tomorrow. He's not sure, but from what he describes it sure sounds like it to me. I'm trying to convince him to convince them to hold onto him for another 90 days, because we just refinanced and got this deal from Bank of America where if you get laid off after 90 days of signing they'll pay your mortgage for a year. That plus COBRA paying 65% of health coverage under the new federal socialism act when you get fired might actually be an inexpensive way to live our lives. <br />
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I thought I had a baby name picked out, but now I'm not sure. It's complex, the naming issue. It can't just look good on paper, it has to sound good, and it has to be suitable for baby, teenager, adult. The name I want to give will provoke some quizzical eyebrows and a lot of "Where'd you get that name?"s, so it's risky. Plus it's the name of a semi-celebrity's kid, and this kid is about 12 now, and I imagine that in five years this kid will be dancing on tabletops in Hollywood nightclubs, and what if their name becomes laden with negative meaning like, say, Paris? It's risky. Maybe dumb to be worried about it, but I still have to weigh it. Like my son was almost named Dashiell, but I was convinced there'd be a whole slew of Dashes after The Incredibles came out, and I've heard a couple. That stuff matters to me.<br />
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Also, I'm trying to make up my mind between giving birth at a birth center and a hospital. I asked the doctor at my current OB's office if they and the hospital would ever let me do natural labor for 28 hours like my first time around, and she looked at me and said, "Um, no." So it's looking like I might avoid the hospital yet again.<br />
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I think it is stupid that the toy brooms at Toys R Us are located in the girls' section next to the dolls. What kind of sexist crazy crap is that? While it's true that my life is exclusively about child-rearing, cooking and cleaning, it doesn't mean that future generations have to feel that way. Oh god i'm depressed.<br />
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Also, finally, I wish I had an advanced missile system on my car expressly for people who clean their windshields in heavy moving traffic, ie. when I'm right behind them. Because they might get a clean windshield, but then mine gets sprayed with their mist and gets totally dirty. Why don't more people realize this is what happens? Or do they not care?<br />
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I wish it were possible to drink whiskey and be pregnant, because I would totally sign up for that.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-48031403202233805012009-04-05T22:20:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:39:59.848-07:00There's No Victory As Big As The LessonUgh, taxes. Still not finished. Our accountant wants us to tally all the money we spent fixing up the Burbank house, and I don't know if you remember the stories I told here way back when about what a pit of despair that place was in the beginning, but it took a lot of cash to spruce it up. Gray is sitting next to me going through old checkbook registers tallying the damage, and I think we're up to about $75k, and that's just for the stuff we wrote checks for but not including the many thousands of trips to Home Depot that fell to the credit card. Truthfully I don't want to think about it anymore. We turned it from a hovel with four families living in it to the place where our first baby was born, and I don't want to relive the stressful expensive parts. I still wonder what those church services in the backyard must have been like before we moved in, though. <br />
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I went back to Burbank this past week for the first time in almost a year. I had a great time, but it was like the twilight zone seeing our house with somebody else living in it. I got to go inside for a tour, and they'd changed it pretty dramatically. On the one hand it's great because they've made it completely their own and will probably stay there and be renters for a long time, but on the other hand it messed with my head kind of a lot. Because nothing else in the neighborhood had changed -- all the other neighbors are the same and they all came over to say hi, including one who filled me in on all the crazy gossip within literally two minutes of getting out of my car, and our house is the same on the outside -- but we aren't living in it. I had to go drown my sorrows immediately in a Porto's Cubano sandwich.<br />
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And driving six hours each way within a three-day period is not recommended with a two-year old. Luckily he had his Sesame Street saxophone with him which got stuck under the backseat and so played what sounded like the Benny Hill theme over and over for two hours until we stopped and I got out and got it. <br />
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The new DM album is good for those interested. Not all tracks are great, but some are really good. They're playing the Hollywood Bowl and I have to miss it, and also Shoreline Amphitheater up here. I'll be two weeks away for giving birth, so it's not a good idea. Also, the fetus decibels. The injustice of it all.<br />
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Here is a funny picture from a website I like. They have really cool wall stickers for kids rooms, but I was looking at this going "I don't think this designer a) has kids or b) lives in earthquake country." Imagine that spiky clock falling off the wall. Ouch.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-68912792572321123842009-03-25T16:05:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:40:39.996-07:00Because When I Arrive I Bring the FireThis 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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The baby isn't a mess. He likes donkeys.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-41755812910553003872009-03-20T11:05:00.000-07:002016-06-28T22:41:01.276-07:00Someday You Will Find Me Caught Beneath the LandslideI'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.<br />
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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.<br />
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So, um, should I say now that I'm pregnant or should I save it for a fresh entry?<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-65726922707357487952009-03-05T23:21:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:41:35.591-07:00I Was Born With the Wrong Sign In the Wrong House With the Wrong AscendancyThe 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.<br />
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My son is 2 this week! How did that happen? I'm going to borrow a page from <a href="http://minjenah.blogspot.com/">Minjenah</a> and post before and afters.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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I'll write more soon. Sooner. Soonish. Promise.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-71704176229567587052009-02-17T21:20:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:42:02.405-07:00And The Ones That Go Unnoticed Still Leave Their Mark Once DisappearedToday I realized I do this terrible thing where I'm rude to car salesman. In life I mostly go out of my way to be not rude, to be in fact nice, because what comes around goes around and love thy neighbor as thyself and all that utilitarian stuff, which I totally believe in it. But with car salesmen I go in firing like they're the enemy, and it's a bizarre character flaw, but I can't help myself. The dumbest and ironic part is that each time this happens, I realize what I'm doing about three minutes into our hostile conversation, and then I spend the next twenty minutes trying to make them like me. You can only imagine what I'm like in a relationship.<br />
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I think I've almost recovered from my parents leaving. Although when I'm upstairs and someone bangs a cupboard downstairs without caring that it's loud enough to wake the dead I get a little shiver, and sometimes when I walk by the guest room I expect to see someone coughing up a lung or napping or huddled under the covers, but then there's nobody and I breathe easier. It's all so strange because I love my parents and I would hate it if they thought I'd been troubled by them being here, but it was just f-ing hard. Every society but ours believes that you should take your parents in when they're old and decrepit, but I honestly think it's against the natural order to live with your mom and dad beyond the age of 18. Cold-hearted? Maybe. I'm just glad mine are back to being healthy and independent again. Whew. For now.<br />
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Back to the car thing. I try to think a lot about what makes me happy in life, and the answer is not much. It's not that I'm overly depressive necessarily, it's just that when you get down to it I don't get too excited by stuff, and so I actively try to recognize it when something makes me elated. And one of those things is American Idol, and another thing is driving. There's a highway here, highway 92, that goes from town over the hill into civilization. It's about 12 miles and takes about 15 minutes, and it's windy in parts and almost g-forcey in parts. I love to drive this road. I've heard girls in the moms club say, "I never go over the hill. It's scary driving that road," and this makes me realize that I am not especially normal when it comes to cars and driving, because I love it. It's at the very top of the happy list. So my daily car is a super-boring Honda Pilot, and Gray's car is a Jetta VRX, which used to be my car before I had to be responsible for another life in the vehicle. When I can, I take the Jetta over the hill and drive the crap out of it. So, very long story short, it's about to croak, and even though the thought of buying a new one in this economy is almost unfathomable, I have my eye on a VW GTI. Now I have to figure out the whole world of leasing.<br />
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My local library continues to supply me with music, which I may or may not be duplicating, depending on whether the RIAA is reading and on whether or not it's legal. My latest fantastic find is the sort-of new Alanis Morissette CD from last June, which is called "Flavors of Entanglement." I put it on and was reminded of my favorite songs from her Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie from 1998, which was her last good CD if you ask me. And why this new one sounds so good? It's produced by the half of Frou Frou that isn't Imogen Heap. And it sounds a little BT-ish. It's really good.<br />
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In other news, new DM single coming April 7th, and it'll hit the radio airwaves on Feb 23rd. There is nothing better than a new Depeche Mode CD in the springtime. That can go on the happy list, too.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-64976071738083586842009-02-03T22:11:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:42:19.583-07:00Believe When I SayMy god. My parents just left after living with us for 21 days, and I must say that it was a very difficult month. The baby's schedule got wacked, I felt like I was cleaning up after people twenty-four hours a day, and we found out that there is no sound buffer between the downstairs and the upstairs, which means that the slightest noise carries and drives the upstairs dwellers crazy. And this doesn't mean my parents were humping downstairs, it means that the repeated stirring of chocolate milk with a clinking spoon at 3am woke everybody upstairs and resulted in crying crankiness (me, not the baby) and was probably worse than humping. Also, my parents handed out our phone number to their friends, and I'm still getting phone calls from my dad's people trying to track him down. "He won't answer the phone, can you tell him to call me?" So they arrived, my dad immediately got sick, my mom went into the hospital for her major surgery (and came through it fine), I got sick, my mom came home and caught it, and it was just a whole bunch of misery and despair. If January could be erased, that would be nice.<br />
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I wrote this on my social networking site addiction page, but I'll write it here, too: man, I wish I could watch American Idol while sitting next to a shrink. Some of these kids are so crazy and I can't for the life of me figure out what's up with them. Are their IQs a little low? Were they clonked on their heads? Are they sociopaths? Every season I yell at the screen trying to figure them out, and I never can. But my love for Idol burns brightly again this year. If you ask me there's nothing like the discovery of raw young talent. <br />
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Today I helped one of my new friends optimize her Macintosh. I've lived here for less than a year and word has already traveled that I'm a Mac nerd, great. And this is ironic because I'm having lots of problems right now with my own -- photos are f-ed, music is f-ed... it's a giant mess. It's probably me sabotaging my machine subconsciously so I won't be able to edit my film. Films. I can't even talk about them because I'm so lame. No talking about them until I actually start to do some work again.<br />
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So I'm off to the city tomorrow morning bright and early, and I'll tell you why in a few weeks.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-90367708764379914292009-01-18T22:28:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:43:32.148-07:00And As You Wake I'm Standing ThereSo much for writing more frequently. Merry Christmas and Happy new year!<br />
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I have been preoccupied, as my parents are currently living with me. It's temporary, but yet it makes life very different in a hard-to-describe way. For one thing, I find myself feeling obsessed with what I'm going to feed people, and for another thing I'm worried about making my father watch American Idol when I know all he wants to do is watch Law and Order reruns with the closed captioning on. And when I say my parents are here, it's really only my father, because my mother is laid up in a very expensive room at a local hospital having just had a very fancy surgery that was, thankfully, quite successful. We're all stressed out around here, though, like everyone got sick the second they came to town. Even the baby is coughing like he's a smoker.<br />
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By the way, I got one of those maybe-hoax virus emails a few months ago from someone purporting that if you slather your baby's feet with Vicks Vapo-Rub before he goes to bed that his cough will be cured, and I tried it tonight and little SP has only coughed once, this after spending the first four hours of his slumber last night practically hacking up a lung. So yay for old wives'-tale homeopathic curealls. Doesn't Asian wisdom say that toxins come out through the feet? What happens when you put stuff on the feet and hope that the stuff will go in?<br />
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Coming soon is cellphone year in pictures. Can blogger handle it?<br />
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Also, thank you to the people who've sent comments. I don't know if I know how to post them yet. Also, they seem kind of personal, so am I supposed to post them? I don't know. And one of them was kind of mean and made me go "Awww, dang," so maybe I'll just keep that one to myself.<br />
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(PS. This cute striped hat fell off the baby while we were shopping at Toys R Us in Foster City, and someone stole it and didn't turn it into lost and found and kept it for themselves. Bad karma, loser! I hope his stolen hat makes your hair fall out. Not your baby's hair, just your hair.)stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-71231496601592401172008-12-22T21:53:00.000-08:002016-06-28T22:43:48.359-07:00When Everything's Dark Keeps Us From the Stark RealityI need to figure out how to center date and title. It's driving me crazy. Also, comments aren't working? The world is collapsing.<br />
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Randomly:<br />
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A new study has been released about people who watch romantic comedies and love them. These people apparently have terrible love lives and a totally unrealistic expectation of what love should be. So watch out for John Hughes movies, he destroyed a generation.<br />
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It's good to know that northern CA drivers are the same as southern CA drivers in the fact that as soon as a single drop of rain hits the pavement everyone's IQ drops a hundred points. I have also noticed that northern CA drivers do not understand that when an ambulance is behind you with its lights flashing you need to move over to the right quickly because lives depend on it. Today I watched as an ambulance practically had to push a guy off to the side of the road and I had a major urge to murder him.<br />
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I realized tonight that I am like a mentally compromised person with good intentions. I don't think I'm allowed to say retarded so I didn't. I always set out to do good, but then I can't figure out how to follow through and wind up either abandoning the project mid-way or making a big mess of things. Two things in two days: I set out to install a dimmer switch in the living room where now there is a single switch. I cut open the dimmer package, turned off the power, took the old one out of the wall, put the new one in, and it didn't work. I called dimmer tech support and the guy told me I had the wrong model, so I had to put the old switch back in and close it up and in doing so I apparently broke it because now the light doesn't turn on. Then tonight out of the goodness of my heart and also not wanting him to die, tried to put new windshield wipers on Gray's car. Suddenly I'm wondering why I'm trying to do all these man jobs, but whatever. So I get one of them halfway off and then can't figure out how to put the new one on, and imagine Gray driving to work tomorrow with one wiper on and one off while the bare metal scrapes the windshield. So I put the old broken one back on and left the new ones on his front seat. Good intentions, retarded everything else. I mean mentally compromised.<br />
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The baby has a double ear infection, labeled 'severe' by his doctor. This is his first, and also his first time taking antibiotics. He's had a fever and has been miserable and has decided in the process that he doesn't like me and only likes his father. This is kind of sad, and hopefully temporary, but it does mean I can answer email without a toddler in my lap. If you have a baby with an ear infection, don't read about it on the internet because you think he'll go deaf overnight and will never be able to listen to Depeche Mode and you'll feel terrible and it's better just to not read.<br />
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Note to self: type less, and more often. I'll figure it out soon.<br />
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<br />stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8870475481834878804.post-37970773099126042222008-12-19T22:26:00.000-08:002008-12-19T22:51:50.353-08:00Hey Window Pane Do You RememberUh, how do I do links in the sidebar on this thing? And how do I center the date and the title? I feel like I'm in the middle of a lake with no paddle. Nice that I'm cool with Dreamweaver for six years, but then introduce Blogger and it's like I've never seen a line of code before. Links, blogroll - I need me a tutorial bad.<br /><br />I just watched the movie "Next" while sitting on the couch stuffing my face with Burger King. At least it wasn't Popeye's. This is the Nicolas Cage sci-fi thing that came and went seemingly overnight even though it had a decent cast. Am I the only one who thinks he looked a little like Roland from TFF in it? Semi disturbing, semi arousing. Also, why did the black guy have to die? The black guy always dies.<br /><br />A few years ago I wrote an entry about how I'd spent the afternoon at the park with my friend and her kid, and I said something like, "I had a flash and realized this is my future," all the while hoping it wasn't, that there would be something better to do with a kid than take him to the park and pretend to be interested that he crawled through a tunnel, that's amazing, yay!#!1! But there isn't. If I had a dollar for every day I've spent at the park, or some kind of Baby Fun Place, I would be loaded, way more loaded than I wish I was right now on all the Wild Turkey that I'm not drinking because I'm in the purgatory of maybe-pregnancy. Today I was in an upper-Peninsula indoor gymnasium-turned-gymboree, which was fun for the baby and fun for me only because I was with a friend, but come on. Two hours bouncing and tumbling and eating a little lunch? My brain is emulsifying. I don't even know if that word works, and you can blame it on my brain.<br /><br />Also, ever since he turned 21 months last week he has become a biter, a thrower of dishes, and a non-eater of vegetables. This, everyone says, is a very trying age. And I would agree.<br /><br />In other news, good news, I've finally after all this time started using Pandora, the internet jukebox, and it's great. I've made three Christmas stations, and now listen to Burl Ives sing Frosty the Snowman all day long. Also, Frank Sinatra sings a really bizarre version of Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer, and there's some other stuff that had no business ever being recorded. But overall it's festive. You know what else would be festive? The gingerbread cookies I would have made had Beans not jumped up on the counter and eaten the box of mix while I was off watching the baby tumble and bounce. Merry Christmas, dumb Beans.stealthpunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16598007046840093964noreply@blogger.com0