after technical difficulties and about seven takes, jcsg and i finally get our shit together and finish the podcast for TV's craig ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River.

the podcast

let me tell you something, there is some kind of seasoning on potato oles that makes you witty and charming. last night jcsg and i worked on the podcast and we were brilliant. when we originally worked on it two weeks ago, the mic that we were using conked out and there was about 16 minutes of static with the occasional giggle.

and since we don't know any sound guys, we didn't know how to fix it. but groovy jcsg got a mic on amazon.com and we tried it out last night. sounds great!

and here is a little something about jcsg - she really isn't kidding about the whole dawson's creek thing.

i'll post the podcast later.

the dml - dream make out list. not people i would like to make out with, but people i have made out with in dreams.

the list thus far:
noah levy
adrian brody
constantine from season 3 american idol
darin brooks

and the latest addition to the list, this one totally surprised me.
ray liotta

i had a wicked tickly dream about riding in the back of a limo with rayray and the ice buckets were full. there were a bunch of keys on the partition between the driver and passager so i grabbed a bunch and dumped them on the leather seat next to rayray - for some reason i thought we could use them during foreplay. don't as me why, but he seems kinda kinky, so you never know? it might be his thing, right?

rayray is dozing in the corner and i wake him up by kissing his cheek and telling him i'd like to show him something. he sleepily says, what? i tell him that i'd like to show him what i'm wearing under my dress - which is a red satin number (not my style at all). he kinda grins and we make out.

i wake up when he wants me to suck on his finger.

i like the fact that subconsciencely, i know the ice buckets are full. since i'm an ice chewer. that makes all the difference for some reason.

and ray liotta, love his work, but not really my type and i don't know why. so it's kinda funny that he makes rank on the list. and to just show up, it's weird.

loved the dream rayray, thanks for making an appearance. welcome to the dml.

i started a pot of tea, because my parents are coming over in a little while. my mom went to go see her neurologist at the parkinson's center over here, so they are going to stop by after the appointment. i am more than a little anxious.

i want to know what's going on, but i don't want to hear it. that barely makes any sense, i know. i want the information, i just don't want to have my parents sitting in my living room telling me. i just feel like i am about to get some really bad news.

so i am just sitting here simmering with the water, watching boo meander around the living room, feeling as restless and she is acting.

needless to say, i am really looking forward to going to the cabin this weekend.

don't forget to check out the PODCAST PREVIEW!

from Snap Shirt

i thought this was fucking cool. i love words, and if i had any kind of ambition at all, i'd totally buy this as a t-shirt. but as it is, i am dead tired and boo's g-ma is coming over to babysit so i can get a massage.

i know, you're totally jealous.

and if it makes you feel any better, i didn't sleep last night. let me tell you something, nothing chases away that shakey/tired/stoned feeling like strawberry frosted pop-tarts and a big glass of milk.

i also have a new rule. i am no longer allowed to talk to my dad after 9PM for more than 30 seconds. we had a huge convo last night about my mom and what is happening and what played through my mind over and over and over again as i tried to sleep was his voice cracking with emotion as he said "i won't be able to handle it if she dies in bed next to me." nothing like thoughts of your mother dying to cure the chronic anxiety at 1:15 in the morning.

jcsg and i did a fucking sweet rockin' podcast discussing craig ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River - our july/august bookclub pick. but the mic sucked. way to go mr. microphone. so while we are waiting for spacedog to get up to speed, check out the groovy rum and coke soaked PODCAST PROMO!

i saw my friend saum today for the first time since october of last year. which is sad, but true. we went and had tomato soup at some old man deli and then stood around in the parking lot talking for another half hour. she has vanity plates that read "nsomnia", because she's one of these langston hughes types that will sleep from like 7 pm til midnight and then get up and do shit until like five in the morning. she smoked a lot of pot in her day, what can i tell ya? old habits die hard.

anyway, saum always smells good. like she gets some groovy perfume in india and this sandlewood soap and it's just great. so, of couse i hug and kiss her goodbye, and even now, like five house later, i just caught a wiff of her on my skin and it was just really nice.

see, not all of the shit that i post on here is negative, depressing crap.

call social services and give me the award for "worst mother, ever!" my little boo had one of the roughest 36 hours i have seen in a long time.

friday afternoon, coming home from errands, boo had fallen asleep in the car. so while i am carrying her into the house in that sleepy shoulder carry all moms can relate to, two of my neighbours come out and start taking to me. of course boo wakes up and is sleepy and cranky; and i try to get her into the house as quickly as possible. i take her upstairs and put her in her crib, hoping that she'll get comfy and snooze a little more.

and she's whining and fussing and sucking her thumb and it's not constant, so there are moments of silence, so i think she's settling down. this goes on for like 45 minutes. then she really cries for two minutes - then nothing. this is her typical behaviour when she falls asleep in the car, so i'm thinking "oh, ok, she's out." then she starts happily babbling and stuff. now, i'm thinking ok, she'll play in her crib for a little bit and conk out, i know she's tired, but if i go in there, she'll think it's time to get up and it's not since she hasn't really had a nap.

then she cries for about 5 minutes and silence. so i sneak in there and both legs are wedged in the slats of her crib and dangling off the side (totally stuck) and there is blood - yes BLOOD on the sheets.

naturally, i start freaking out.

i unwedge her legs, and pick her up - this of course wakes her up and she starts fussing. i check every inch of her bod, and nothing. then i give her a bottle and i notice a cut on her lip, the exact size and indentation of her upper teeth.

so no nap, a now a fat lip. now that she's up, i change her pants and we go downstairs and play outside for a little bit. then she falls and scrapes her knee and it's bleeding. so we go inside and take it easy. that night as we are getting ready for a bath - a nice long soak in the tub usually helps relax the crankiest of toddlers - while boo is playing in our room and we are being silly, she clips the wood frame of our bed and her nose starts bleeding.

we get that under control and she gets a bath. i put some tylenol in her bottle and she goes to bed. until about 12:30 when she wakes up screaming - and my boo never screams. we calm her down and get her back to sleep until 1:15 AM.

she sleeps until 2:30 and is up again. then she dozes off around 3:15 until 4:13. then she's rocked back to sleep until she gets up bright eyed at 6:30. then she's up until about 9:00 AM before she goes down for her morning nap. it was like having an infant.

then as she is in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, her new favorite thing. we notice a random bump on her left eyebrow. and neither of us has a clue as to how she got it. then boo and hubbin go into her room, while i get ready and all of a sudden i hear a noise.

this noise breaks your spine and makes you believe in god instantly. it's the sound of a 20lb one year old tumbling down stairs. i thought hubbin was watching her in her room and he thought that she was right behind him. we both dash to the landing before tears start and boo is standing upright on about the fourth step with a very stunned look on her face. then - the howl and the tears. hubbin grabs her and while i totally want to yell and scream at him, it doesn't matter because i want to make sure she's ok. and she is - she's totally fine - no bumps or bruises, no cuts or scrapes. we hand her her toothbrush to comfort her and she stops crying.

granted, children falling down stairs is bound to happen. and with our little dare-devil it was only a matter of time. i know that. and hubbin and i kept saying "it was only a matter of time, it was bound to happen, it could have been worse."

so yeah, fat lip, scraped knee, bloody nose, no sleep, and she fell down the stairs.

hand me that bad mother award right now! cuz the only thing that will top this is if i chained her to the radiator and made her eat chipped beef.

so i just got back from the swank euro-trash hotel in bloomington where Green was working. and goddamn did he look hot! i'm serious, like the jeremy irons of minneapolis. it took a lot of effort to not climb over the bar and suck on his ear.

so i sat there drinking wine and people watching. some dude from india sitting next to me waxing on the benefits of montessori schools and the hottie girl from bermuda sitting next to him who works in re-insurance and telling the story of Lloyd's of London - which according to her started as a coffehouse. then there was some schlomo in white sox garb sitting next to a bona fide frenchman. he was a trucker from chicago and why he was there with an old frenchman is beyond me, but it was fucking awesome.

i think there is some thread that connects me to green, i don't know why, but he is like the only man, other than hubbin, that i don't feel the need to lie to. like, for some reason, i know green will love me no matter what. and that's rare. but that's green. i can't wait to see him again.

it was good to get out of the house and go someplace new and talk to total strangers that i'll never see agian. there is such a comfort in that. i'm just so content right now, it's such a pleasure to be here.

sounds like i'm talking about PT doesn't it? well, i'm not. after a quick morning chit-chat with It Aint Easy Being Green aka Green, and after he told me that i should definately, definately call Marty, i'm therefore talking about Marty.

i don't have a nickname for Marty yet, and i don't know if i will. Marty is a complete novelty, and i don't think there is a drug out there that he hasn't tried. i mean, aside from some weird ritual jungle junk that only 13 year old virgins have to take to see their spirit animal.

when i asked green if i should call Marty he said, "yeah, you totally should", like all serious. and i cried out "green, you aren't supposed to tell me that - you're supposed to say NO BITCH stay the hell away." to which he just laughed. fucker!

so i haven't called marty yet, and i honestly, don't know if i'm going to. we'll see. i just don't want to open my heart up and have it pulverized again. i can't take it anymore with him. seems like every time i see him, it ends in tears. but it sounds like he needs friends who aren't drug dealers. and i can relate to having a mom who is seriously ill. so we'll see...tick tock tick tock.

since my dad went up to the cabin this weekend, me and one of the neighbour ladies took turns staying at the house with my mom. on saturday night, i went for some leeann chins. when we have finished eating and hubbin and boo were on their way home, my mom was waxing fatalistic all over me. and i told her about the story of hubbin cheering me up with the fortune cookies at big bowl.

so i took the two remaning cookies and offered them to my mom and said, "here, maybe one of these has a miricle." and she took one.

i've heard it said that while fortune cookies are not the most reliable divination tool, whatever one you pick is the one that is meant for you.

the cookie that my mom picked turned out to be empty. i had to turn away and swallow back tears.

there is no fortune for my mother, there is no miricle. 'nuff said.

i haven't said anything because i thought it would just leave or end on its own, but i have been having some major dizzy spells for the last ten days. and no, i'm not pregnant.

i called the doctor office yesterday and got some help from the nurse, then i went to the cracktor-practor and he said it was some type of vertigo caused by some inner ear thing, due to allergies.

huh?

i can tell you right now, i was outside for about ten minutes last night and i thought i was going to pass out. and now that i've been inside most of today - cleaning, cleaning, cleaning - i haven't had nearly as many dizzy spells as i had yesterday. but i don't think it's allergies.

so if i end up with a head tumor - you heard it here first.

i just don't feel very functional, like i am doing everything totally half assed and it doesn't matter. impass, checkmate, ennui, whatever it's now affecting my health.

and
and
and

marty is back in town because his mom is ill. i haven't spoken about marty before - marty is what jcsg would call an "outlaw". marty wrecked me and himself and so many others that i made my peace and said good-bye and haven't looked back. whenever i hear news about marty i always seem to wait for the words "and then they killed him" or "he woke up dead". the soft spot that i have for marty is slightly smaller than that which i have for PT. and that PT k-hole is like a mile wide.

i remember sitting in the kitchen at his parents house. his mom was always sweet, but always sick, and always drinking. gee, wonder where he got it? i think she maybe thought that i would be the girl to bring marty around. and i tried. for years i tried. he, however, preferred the dark side of the force. so a few years ago we had it out and i cut him off.

now he's back in town, showed up at a party a few weeks ago and i just got word now. i have no way to get ahold of him and ask him about his mom. and i want to, i really really want to.

1. When you buy a greetings card are the words or the picture more important to you? usually the words
2. What's your favourite kind of cake? birthday
3. Do you ever make gifts for people, if so what, or do you buy them? i have made gifts for people, but i never finish them (fucking french knots) so it's usually a mad dash to target or barnes and noble.
4. What's your favourite holiday? halloween
5. Are you going on holiday this year? If so, where? we are going to phoenix for thanksgiving - my least favorite holiday.
6. What was the best party you've ever been to? halloween with psycho jen's parents. i got pregnant two weeks later.
7. If you are married, describe your wedding? simply put, my wedding is the one that people still talk about. i'll be at a wedding and if someone is there from my wedding, they will eventually say something like, this is nice, but YOUR wedding was great!
8. What's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you? at a chinese restaurant, after bitching about my family and the subsequent bullshit that ensues; hubbin picks up the two fortune cookies and says "here, maybe one of these has a miracle." i almost cried.
9. What's your favourite romantic song? why don't we do it in the road? by the beatles
10. Which celebrity would you like a dream date with? johnny depp
11. Which female celebrity do you find beautiful? uma
12. Which male celebrity do you think is attractive? adrian brody
13. If you could be a fictional character from a book who would you choose? anita blake - vampire hunter
14. If you could be in a television sit-com, which would you choose? reno 911
15. Which character would you like to be? sylvia slawicki - the girl who looooves to get arrested.
16. What's your favourite girl's name? vivian
17. What's your favourite boy's name? william
18. What's your supermarket of choice? fucking cub
19. What is your best character trait? i'm funny
20. What is your worst habit? staying up late
21. What is your biggest pet peeve? assholes who throw their cigarette
butts out the window of their car

what's worse - bad sex or no sex?

i woke up this morning with that wonderful feeling in my stomach, that teenagery, breathless feeling when you find out that a cute boy likes you. now, i don't think any cute boys like me, but i woke up feeling like they did.

i had a loverly dream last night - one involving a man that i have loved since i was 14. and as i laid in bed, still smiling from whatever shinanegans were rolling through my head, i thought, "today is going to be a good day". which, of course, it wasn't since my mom had surgery today.

before the warm spots stopped moving over me like a ghost, i wrote a few things down from my dream. here is a list:

poetry - since we were at a slam
list of happy - this was like a quiz at the slam, you had to write down what made you happy and then perform your list as a poem - one of the word i remember thinking was "crying". since sometimes crying makes you feel better.
virgin question - i can't really remember what this was, something along the lines of "did you lose your virginity to your first love?" to which we both hummed and hawed over since when he was losing his virginity i was probably watching seasame street (he's a few years older).
kissing - obviously we kissed in the dream (which is something that i want to do over and over and over every damn time i see him).
holding hands - i think this was on the "list of happy"
in a boat on water - i have no idea what that was about, but maybe we were in a boat on water. makes sense right?
babies - in the dream he and his wife were talking about starting a family, but i projected my own life in here since we started talking about IUI. google it.
lonely - sometimes, even with someone you love, you can be lonely.
and then on the back "not happy with me, but not happy with her". and i am not even going to go there.

whenever things got really intense today, like discussing a DNR with my dad over cinnamon circle french toast at byerly's, i would desperately try to grasp an image from this dream. ususally the one of us kissing, or him grabbing my hand (not out of love, but out of a need for strength) and holding it, stroking the skin of my hand with his thumb. which i love, love, love!

now that the day has gone by, the dream is totally faded, it's just one image now...blue shirt open at the collar, white t-shirt underneath - tall and handsome and focused on me.

that's enough to last until tomorrow.

here is something that is sticking in my craw. the only person to call and wish boo a happy birthday yesterday was my mom. no one else in my or hubbin's family called. hubbin's sister called (the one who i threw the baby shower for and still hasn't thanked me) and because she left her camera at the open house, she wanted to make arrangements to get it back. nothing about boo's birthday.

that's fucking sad.

hubbin's family has really pissed me off this lately. granted the mother in law and hubbin's sister did bring stuff for the open house. however, they all stayed until the very end of the party and then stood around while we cleaned up. no one helped or offered to help us clean up, but they were fine watching us do it. and i'll excuse the sister-in-law on this one because she's 7 1/2 months pregnant. but there is NO excuse for six able bodied adults to stand around at the end of party and not help clean up. what the fuck is going on in the world? i'll admit to closing down a few parties in my time, but never have i not helped clean up.

and
and
and

as a huge favor to my mother-in-law i loaned her my car for a few days (long story) and she returned it without filling it up with gas. i'm sorry, but have we completly broken down as a society? isn't this like one of THE cardinal rules of courtesy? i mean, why would you treat your family worse than you would a rental car company?

the reason for the car loan was that the m-i-l got into an accident, and because she was in the middle of nowhere (up near st. cloud), and because she doesn't have a cell phone, she walked up highway somethingorother until some kind old farmer stopped and helped. after hearing about his mother on the side of the highway hubbin decided that she needed one of those pre-paid cell phones. so in a rush of generosity i pick one up and put minutes on it and then give it to her.

but she has no fucking idea about how to use it. so she's coming over today for a tutorial. COME ON! it comes with a book! she'll read every crappy romance novel she can get her hands on, but to read to learn how to use a gift? guess not. and why not just play around with it? just turn it on and start pushing buttons! how hard is that? why not call one of your other natural children to help you?

don't i have enough family bullshit going on in my life?

guess not.

hubbin just asked me what i thought of today and i said, "i wish it had been better." maybe it was just the rain, and the fact that i feel like there wasn't a good picture of boo taken on her birthday and we got professionals involved. i'll blame my period.

i did have some nice moments with my punky today though, we cuddled for a long time and giggled and sang songs. and in that way, it wasn't unlike every other day that i spend with her.

so happy birthday, my sweet, darling, special, beautiful, funny, smart, little girl. i am blessed to be your mom. and if you love me half as much as i love you, then i am the luckiest girl in the world.

happy birthday honey, and many happy returns of the day.