plow this, baby

oh gary. wherefore art thou, gary gilbert?

my last phone number was previously owned by gary gilbert. gary owned a snowplowing business. so whenever so much as a flake was forecast, our phone rang off the hook. why did gary leave an obviously successful snowplowing business? who knows but he left the phone number behind quite swiftly (at least according to his customers).

"is gary there?"

"i want to make sure gary is coming tomorrow to do my driveway."

"hello, hello, gary? gary? it's mrs. putz again. gar-r-r-y?"

nevermind that these messages were left on our answering machine. my husband's laid-back drawl very specifically says who you had reached and it wasn't gary. we were dealing with blue-hairs. if their phone book says this is gary's number, well, who were we to argue any differently?

we felt bad for these elderly women. they rarely left return numbers in their messages so that we could call them back and let them know that gary wasn't coming. most of the messages were of them wondering how to leave a message..."hello, is this recording? can you hear me gary? gar-r-r-y?"

i had visions of elderly women trapped in their mile-long suburban driveways. old women sharing cat food with fluffy because they couldn't get to acme to load up on milk and bread. all because of damn gary.

we tried calling the phone company about how to track down gary. the few callers we actually spoke to were peeved that we didn't know gary's new phone number. how many people actually call their old number and let the new owner know where to forward their calls? but like i said, we were dealing with older women and the phone company couldn't (or wouldn't) give out his new number.

"these are old women," i pleaded with the phone rep, "they need to reach this guy or else they will be eating cat food."

privacy rules, they argued. they couldn't even tell me when he last owned the number. since we inherited the number in october, we could at least pinpoint it that far back. and the callers we spoke to remember using gary the previous winter.

gary had to be in over his head. why else run out on his steady stream of blue-haired customers? instead, we were left holding gary's bag of business without a plow.

if either my husband or i drove a car that could handle a snowplow, we could have made a ton of money those two winters we lived in that place. when we moved, we were a little sad (and a little relieved) to see the number go.

we had a new home without any of gary's guilt.

until last winter, when we got the first forecast of snow. "gar-r-r-y? hello, gary?" the phone company put a forwarding message with our new number on the old number we shared with gary.

the old ladies desperately seeking gary managed to update their phone books with our new number. i gotta get a snowplow.

agitation. frustration. creation.

what the hell is the connection between being fired up over something and practically bursting at the seams until i can get my thoughts down on paper? (or laptop.)

does frustration fuel the creative process? is that why in my painting days i was so prolific, because i walked around just waiting for someone to drop-kick with my doc martin?

and what better time for cranky people than christmas?

fa-la-la-la-la. la-fcukin-la.

thank-yuh jeee-sus!

uggh... the christmas letter.

this is not your typical christmas letter, although it contains much of the usual parts. what we did this year, an update on travels throughout the year, yadda, yadda, yadda.

this one is from holy rollers. born-again christians. how do i get into these things? praise the lord!

the couple's connection with us can only be blamed on my husband. the guy is HIS coworker.

at first they seemed nice, the guy was new to my husband's company and at the time, the closest one in age to my husband. we lived relatively close to where he and his wife did. we both got married in the same month. we both like dogs.

and that is where the similarities ended. it was probably the 2nd or 3rd meeting before i realized they were thumpers. bible-thumpers.

at first they were somewhat discreet about their religion. (as it should be.) it wasn't until they kept asking us about what church we went to that the hairs on the back of my neck went up. my tail started swishing. that's when i knew i was in a bad place. we don't go to church. we're heathens. and we were about to be preached to. praise jeeessus!

i feel worse for my husband though. he has to listen to this guy's 'sermon on the mount' everyday at the office. he was more than a christian, he was eee-van-glical. born-again. believes the bible at face value. if jesus said 'hop on one foot and rub your belly' this idiot would be doing it.

so obviously this guy and his wife need to send us a christmas letter with an update of the past year. every year. because we care sooo deeply.

the countless times i've turned down going to her crazy woman-spiritual retreats weren't enough to tell her to scram. retreats where the wives sit around and discuss 'how an unused uterus is a sad uterus'. the last time she asked i told her i was sick. i knew i would be sick 3 weeks in advance. god told me so.

anyway, the letter comes today in the mail. here's what gets my panties in a wad... these folks have now adopted a full vegan diet. because god told them to.

normally as a vegetarian, i would be happy for someone who decides it's right for them. but not these people. i am thinking about mailing them an unsigned box of hot dogs.

this guy -- every year -- is sat at the same table as my husband and me for company dinners or events. each year for the last 7 years i get intrusive questions on why i am a vegetarian and why else would god make animals but for them to be on your plate, hahaha... and why aren't you going to church.... you catch the drift.

for those who know me well, you know at times i can be called upon to act like a lady and graciously smile through clenched teeth. keep my tail in check, too.

if you know me well, you also know at times i can howl like a she-devil and taking shelter is the safest bet if you wish to survive. #*&%!!#

but i kept my feelings in check with this guy. all those years! wasted opportunities to sink my fangs into him and give him a real response to his up-my-butt questions. man, what a rip.

maybe with the hot dogs i'll write my vegetarian wo-manifesto and mail it to his house. thank-yuh jeee-sus!

smoke gets in your eyes

one thing about having great friends is knowing you can always count on them to sympathize with you, no matter how rough it gets.

having great friends who experience similar fcuk-ups in their own relationships, well, that's priceless.

it's not that i wish bad things on my friends, it just makes you feel less alone if they have weird run-ins with their in-laws, too.

so this weekend, while i suffered through a sunday drive to hell with my in-laws, one of my best buds was undergoing similar difficulties of her own.

she invited her in-laws and her husband's siblings to dinner at their new house. expecting some level of wackiness is normal from this cast of characters. we had the pleasure of spending lots of time in their company before her wedding and it was always interesting. (notice i didn't say fun?)

this dinner definitely ranks up there with the best of 'em. not one, but two members of her new husband's family tried to burn down her bathroom.

poor gal. in her newly outfitted bathroom, her strange (very strange) brother-in-law knocked over a lit candle in the bathroom. wax went everywhere you'd expect (the shower curtain, bath rug, towels) and even those places you wouldn't expect (the toilet seat?). leading to some awkward question as to how said candle got spilled in the first place. her b-i-l is a weird guy, if he were polishing off some dance moves in front of the bathroom mirror, that could explain how the candle got knocked over. of course he could also be doing some kinky stuff in there too which would make me never want to use her bathroom again. ever. but we'll never know for sure.

when her b-i-l walked out of the bathroom, i can only imagine my friend's reaction. she'd swallow her anger, her eyes would circle around in her head a few times and then she'd go about resolving the issue, quietly steaming.

now, when her equally, if not more so, strange sister-in-law emerged from the bathroom claiming to have knocked over the same candle, well, she exploded. it ain't the bathroom's fault that her in-laws are insane. and trust me, my friend is not the type to place a lit candle on carefully balanced pick-ups sticks. knowing her, it was on very solid footing.

why then do her in-laws insist on torching the place? are they that mentally unbalanced themselves? or are they simply closeted pyromaniacs that couldn't resist the urge?

the reaction of the rest of her ill-spawned clan to her outburst doesn't bode well for the rest of the holiday season. we all know the holidays are a time of mass-family-togetherness that we manage to avoid the other 11 months of the year. so i'll be thinking of her this weekend as i partake in the filet o'dinner.

yet, no matter how unfortunate our troubles with in-laws may be, we know we share stories with sympathetic ears. we also provide comic relief to our singleton friends.

and provide powerful reminders to only marry orphans. without siblings.

scritch is back

i listen carefully but don't want to look.

the soft scritch is back. and it can only mean one thing. we caught a critter.

one of the downsides to living in a house that backs to the woods is when the weather gets cold, things start seeking shelter in warmer places. like my kitchen.

as a vegetarian, i walk a tough line between wanting them out of my house and the squishing them approach that others often take. unfortunately my dogs don't scare the little furry things away like a cat would. and allergies prevent my house from being a kitty haven.

sure we've caulked and put brillo pads in the holes they may have used to enter the house. but let's face it, we live in an older house with lots of little gaps that let hot air out and mice in.

so we set out humane traps that do not kill or squish the unfortunate mouse who moves in. but if we catch one we need to get it out of there or it will die from starvation or thirst.

my husband takes the trap out to his car and drives them across the highway from where we live and lets mickey loose in the woods. really. he knows he would let loose in the woods if he was lying to me.

so now that a scritch is back, i need to get mike to check the "mouse house" to see if anyone has checked in. i feel guilty looking into the clear top to see the little eyes saying, "uhm, excuse me but the door has locked from behind. please be a love and let me out, will you? i have littles one to feed."

instead, i scrub the kitchen with disinfectant again.

christmas nazi

i am a christmas nazi. my husband just laughs at my insane rules of engagement for the holidays.

"there are rules", i say to him each year. "there are standards for decorating your house for the holidays. we are just not colored-light people."

i tell him, when in doubt, just ask yourself, "what would martha do?" if a white pine roping near the front door is what martha stewart teaches -- then go for it.

martha does not espouse plastic, light-up figurines of toy soldiers, candles or candy cane lights that provide a runway entrance to the land of gawdy christmas decor. mangers that serve as dog houses the other 11 months of the year are not allowed to be called in to serve as the birthplace for a plastic baby jesus whose face is rubbed off from exposure to decades of snow, ice and petty vandals.

i also find fault with those huge inflatable lawn items. part of the reason i am not allowed to own a gun is because i would most likely be found wandering around less than sober taking aim at the army of inflatable santas invading my neighborhood.

the funniest inflatable was a homer simpson dressed as santa on my neighbors lawn. homer was knocked over with his usually waving hand just reaching upright like he was passed out on the lawn from a night of too much duff's beer.

last night on the way home from my dreaded in-laws, we passed a fallen santa laying face first on the roof of a business. normally welcoming passersby, this time santa decided he had to get his groove on. the gentle wind last night made santa bob up and down like he was humping the storefront roof.

"that has to be illegal", my husband said, "what if some family with kids drove by and saw that?" i just said it's just another reason to ban bad christmas decor.

martha would never allow a humping santa.

i could learn to like this

knowing full well my body would need a day of rest after PMD, i scheduled a mental health day.

this morning, i slept in until 10 am. the dogs -- thankfully fed and let out by my husband this morning -- were sleeping soundly next to the bed.

the sunlight woke me this morning -- a far cry from the squawk of the alarm at my normal, dark 5:45 am awakening.

i made coffee and ate breakfast. read the newspaper in my pjs and not in a suit on the train. the cold has not yet reached my bones from walking down jfk boulevard face first into wind. i have not checked my blackberry to answer emails or respond to any non-eventful crisis brewing in my office.

and i am sitting here telling my story in my jammies. i could learn to like this.

welcome to my nightmare

how long into a visit to my in-laws does it take to drive my blood pressure through the roof?

apparently, they are able to raise it now before i even step foot in the door. i woke with a headache like no other yesterday morning. against my bitter prayers leading into this day, the sun did rise on pierogie-making-day (PMD).

okay, i will admit, on occasion i can be a bit dramatic. but i can assure you, i am NOT dramatizing the insanity of PMD. i am NOT that good of a storyteller.

besides i have witnesses -- my mother attended once and swore to never set foot in there again. my sister-in-law can sympathize as an outsider to the defective gene pool but she's more easygoing than me... when she goes for hugs, i scream for drugs.

granted this year has been rough on my husband's family -- my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and given estimates of only about a year to live. as stubborn as a mule, his determination to prove the doctors wrong has remarkedly given him a new reason to live and is now successfully beating back the cancer.

my husband's uncle went in for surgery on his hand and walked out with a brain tumor. poor uncle john who was caretaker for my sick in-laws (mother-in-law only mentally and not officially) now needed a caretaker of his own after undergoing brain surgery.

for any family, this would result in a normal disruption of everyday and traditional events. for my in-laws who are already living far west of normal, this bordered on the land of make-believe and flying unicorns.

my m-i-l will never win the "clean house award". in fact, if ed mcmahon shows up with a large check and balloons to her front door, she will promptly slam the door in his face to prevent him from walking across the threshold. if i were ed, i would run back to the van. my first interaction with her included a similar event, i rang the doorbell to see if my future husband was home, she answered it, said no and slammed the door in my face. if i only knew then what my life would be like now...

regardless of the past year's events, their house is disgusting.

as my s-i-l babyproofed the living room for li'l oscar to crawl about without worry of him putting a petrified pizza crust in his mouth or pulling himself up by a stack of newspapers from 1992, i went to work on the kitchen.

before we could begin PMD i needed to clear a workspace in the kitchen from various pots and pans, bags, dirty and clean what-have-yous that take up residence in what is supposed to be a kitchen table and chairs. before we could begin PMD i needed to scrub the floors and counters to remove a years worth of crud (i scrubbed it before last year's PMD, too) before we lay a new layer of flour, sauerkraut, and potato blobs on it.

my m-i-l just stood in the kitchen and watched. hovered. but neither acted or moved in shame, remorse or even with any gratefulness of what was happening. my blood pressure boiled as i scrubbed away at filth, anger seething from my pores. my husband hovered too, i think partly to keep me from sinking my fangs into her once and for all.

there were no christmas mix tapes this year and production of pierogies were cut back (only about 15 lbs worth of stuffing ingredients -- potato, saurkraut and mushrooms & cheese down from the usual 25 lbs).

we moved rapid-fire through the process trying to maintain some resemblance of normal through out the day as my f-i-l determinely rolled out dough, and assembly-line workers like myself stuffed and crimped the 15 lbs of fillings into the little circles of dough. and my m-i-l continued to hover, moving from task to task without accomplishing anything.

SNAFU at its best -- situation normal, all fcuked up.

smelling like a cigarette butt

aahh, nothing says christmas like coming home smelling like you smoked a pack a marlboros. all your new toys and clothes would be covered with the stench so potent you secretly hoped they left a reciept in the box so you could return it.

not because you didn't like it. but so you could get one without a nicorette patch attached to it.

my childhood christmas eves were filled with smoke rings blown from the lips of my parents, grandparents and assorted visitors. how i picked up the filthy habit myself in my teens, who knows? (actually, i do know but that's another story.)

a fake, white christmas trees packed with plastic ornaments and lights of every color of the rainbow. a plastic village of 60's brady-bunch homes arranged by my pop-pop in some new urban experiment under the tree. a plastic doll carriage ornament that i was told was from my first christmas but i was never allowed to touch. sure you could let me play in a busy street but break a 99 cent ornament and you break out into a cold sweat.

toys and gifts were stacked under the brady bunch homes. each year your picture was taken while sitting with your brother on top of the life-sized, statue of a deer lying down in the living room. the one whose hoof was broken and taped back into place with athletic tape, each year the camera caught the deer's permanent injury along with bad hair, braces and clothing styles of wonderfully clueless children of the 80's.

polaroids and cigarettes butts. that's what christmas means to me.

filet o' dinner

pierogie-making-day (PMD) is quickly approaching. with less than a week away, i started to stockpile the xanax.

(i just realized that by the time that PMD is upon us, i won't be in class anymore. hmmm, if you are interested in my freak life, i plan on continuing this blog, although it will probably be on a new url. leave a comment with your email address if you want me to notify you of its new url.)

but in writing about my dreaded day, i forgot to give the reason WHY we undergo the insanity in the first place. an explanation for the family tradition.

it's filet o'dinner, the traditional polish christmas eve dinner that packs us into my mother-in-law's completely cramped and utterly cluttered kitchen.

filet o'dinner (not really how it's spelled but with the polish language it's easier to write it phonetically that listen to the butchering that occurs when letters that normally aren't used together -- d's, c's, j's and z's -- appear in most words) is the polish version of my italian 7-fishes dinner. still with fish but missing about 4 other courses. and pierogies, lots of pierogies.

if i were an atkins-addicted, carb-counting person, my heart would stop pumping as a result of this dinner. long underused fat cells would dance on my thighs with glee over the pounds of pierogies (potato & cheese or sauerkraut stuffed dumplings for the uninformed), the pounds of boiled potatoes cooked to add thickness to an always watery mushroom soup, the italian bread served -- i think as a way to remind me that i'm NOT with my family for their dinner (as if the italian bread served up by acme is any equal...) and the dessert of chris-chickies (again the phonetic way) which are -- you guessed it -- strips of dough, fried and sprinkled with sugar.

the only slightly healthful thing is the mushroom soup. but with most things polish, there's something backwards about it. the soup is made with vegetable broth, some light cream and poisonous mushrooms. at first when i heard family members speak of it, i thought they were kidding. ha ha, play a joke on the non-polish one. real funny.

then i thought about it some more and thought, this is how my m-i-l plans to get rid of me! she's going to off me with poisonous mushrooms and make it look like its my lack of tolerance to the polish stuff that killed me. after i told my husband (then boyfriend) he laughed and called me cute. bleah! i don't want to be cute, i want to live, dammit!

after carefully explaining that the mushrooms won't kill me, it's just a nickname for some of the more exotic ones used, i calmed down. only slightly, though.

that still didn't answer why after each filet o' dinner, i would drive home in gastric distress. with white-knuckles and rolling stomach cramps, i'd drive to my house, praying that i wouldn't:

a) poop in my pants, or
b) blow chunks all over the steering wheel.

neither of which you should have to clean up on christmas eve.

the reason for my beanie belly (as my husband calls it) was the sauerkraut pierogies. as a vegetarian, i haven't eaten anything with a face in more than a decade. the sauerkraut (cabbage cooked in beer and other accoutrements) used to make the pierogies was precooked when we got there to make them on PMD. so i would have never known that part of the seasoning used to cook the sauerkraut was friggin' BACON FAT.

my belly never knew what hit it. the annual crisis it suffered on christmas eve finally had an explanation. it was so unaccustomed to consuming animal products - bleech - it reacted the only way it knew how - "abort, abort! all hands abandon ship, abandon ship".

and my m-i-l said she didn't know that was it would cause a problem. i thought i was dying each christmas eve. over and over again. gurgle, gurgle.

i bet she figured if she couldn't kill me with the poison mushrooms she would just send me to the emergency room to get fluids 'cause i was pooping myself inside out.

so no, filet o'dinner is not my family tradition. it's not even a fun tradition.

and even though i know there is less carbo-riffic things for me to eat, my fat cells still get excited. there's always the acme-brand italian bread to scarf!

a costco christmas

in what is now becoming a tradition, deb, hope and i have once again decided on a date for our costco christmas celebration.

we really do go to costco, the initial reason for our trip last year. on a friday night. disclosure needed: we have all become suburban geeks now.

when people first asked what we were doing and we told them we were headed to costco -- knowing the three of us -- the assumption was we planned something juicy and just were not into sharing the details. even our hubbies and significant others thought we were up to no good. (which must say something about us...)

the guesses people made about our activities far exceeded our expectations for the night. male strip club, dancing all night at a club, going to the casinos for some texas hold 'em. soon, we decided not to share that indeed, we really were going to costco to pick up a few things before going to dinner. at the olive garden. ho hum.

we had a good time despite our seemingly innocuous activities. we laughed at each other's acts of stupidity. we enjoyed our dinner. we leisurely strolled through the costco, analyzing the usefulness of a 64-pk of anything.

our train-forged friendship deserves to celebrate this new found tradition. especially, since hope promises not to lick any of her utensils at dinner OR dessert. a small change from last year when she licked someone elses.

no "christmas card" from W

the postman will not bring me a christmas card from W this year. not that he has in years past.

frankly, i would let chloe the destroyer loose on it if i were to receive one.

but what has me excited is the how W's own camp is calling for his head after receiving the christmas card without the christmas on it. tee hee hee.

the uber-conservative religious rights love of cramming religion down everyone's throats has a new battle cry.

"put the christ back in christmas" is sooo last year. especially after we removed christmas entirely from the occasion and replaced it with "holiday" -- the all-inclusive name for the shopping blitz now upon us. or my personal favorite -- chrismahannakwanzaa -- which for some reason isn't catching on as it should...

you'll find holiday everywhere -- the capitol's decorated tree is known as the "holiday spruce"; shopping circulars will be inundated with snowflakes, bright lights, and ornaments as decorations. personally, my own department has a holiday dinner and luncheon. i think we are running out of ways to use a blue, non-denominational snowflake on the invite.

i am reminded of the song from the broadway play "rent" (and no, i haven't seen the movie yet):

no stockings, no candy canes, no gingerbread, no yuletime, no rudolph, 'cause santa claus ain't coming, no, santa claus ain't coming. no room at the holiday inn, oh nooooo, and it's beginning to snow...

with sincerest apologies to other rentheads for butchering the lyrics...

open letter to santa

dear santa,

i know it has been a while since i believed in you but at this point, hell, one more letter can't hurt.

i have been a good girl this year. (sort of.)   sure, i got snagged on the usual items -- but no lawsuits, fights or accidents this year. wahoo!

this christmas, i was hoping you could bring me a few of the items on my list. as you can see, my wishes are not really just for me... and i really don't need more socks or another rudolph sweatshirt!


santa can you:
+ end the war in iraq and bring our soldiers home safely to their families who miss them;

+ end the bickering and partisan posturing in our government; while you're at it, stuff a sock into the holy rollers' mouths, would ya;

+ ensure that women continue to have the right to control their bodies without meddling by outsiders and politicians;

+ decrease the number of homeless and help them gain access to the services for drug addiction, mental health, job training that they need;

+ protect animals from those who would abuse either through ignorance or malice and put those animals to the hands of those willing to help them find warmth, love, shelter, and medicine;

+ protect children from the same abuse and lead them to the same end result;

unfortunately this list could go on forever. santa, let's see if this year we can scratch some of these items of this list. we can worry about the rest later.

xoxoxo,
carleen

pgmc2pc?

saturday evening i attended my friend flug's christmas concert. i look forward to the annual event even though my attendance has been hit or miss recently due to conflicts with the holiday party circuit.

the holiday production this year by the philadelphia gay men's chorus (pgmc) was a hit in all regards -- music selection, performance and ability to put people in the holiday spirit.

the only thing that buggered the whole production in my eyes was the use of a sign-language interpreter for the concert. (all hearing-impaired homies in the house) say what?

explain this to me in a way my blonde, idiot-girl-self will understand -- if you are hearing impaired -- what exactly do you get out of a concert?

i pretend to be deaf sometimes...usually when my hubby is blathering on about something. i just cannot imagine what sense there is for me to be at a concert.

sure, i understand the whole "i want to see my partner/friend/family member perform on stage" but you can not tell me the interpreter with fingers a-flying is picking up all the nuances of a song.

choral music contains multiple vocal sections layering sounds and words to round out a song. it is the vocals that make or break the musical experience, not the words.

and if you are not getting the full exposure of those audible nuances -- visually, it's just a bunch of guys in tuxes. trust me, you can only stare at the stage and scan for weird audience members for so long before you get completely bored.

so aside from the spastic interpreter and the rude man in front of us who kept turning around to give us evil looks ... the concert was excellent. (and the rude man who changed his seat got his when two teenaged girls moved into the seat behind him and chattered for the whole section half. HAH! who is annoying YOU now, buster?)

the rousing rendition of jingle bells -- complete with handbells for jingling, percussion to mimic the clip clop of a clydesdale and a leather man to give out the paddling -- provided an encore to remember.

and what says "home for holidays" more than a leather vest and a paddle?

the quote that best fits my life right now

The best brands are built at the intersection of what the consumer wants and what the brand offers. How you find that meeting point is research.

-Amy Palmer
Senior Planner, Leo Burnett

christmas came early this year

and i don't mean that because the stores have been pushing product since back-to-school ended in september...

on one of my holiday shopping forays this past weekend, i bought myself a little gift from santa while at barnes and noble. since i am an idiot girl picking up laurie notaro's an idiot girls' christmas seemed like a good idea.

in this book, you'll find laugh-out-loud tales of the snorting kind:

• how to combat the forsaken christmas gifts (by just asking for enough white cotton briefs to outfit a convent full of nuns)


• how to make an impression on in-laws at the holidays (by mixing up the tags on the wrapped gifts)


• how to deal with the overzealous holiday decorating style of obviously sex-starved neighbors

i devoured this book, and i'm sure you will, too.

what would you do?

what would you do if you had your life to live over? by some miracle, you got a mulligan on life. a free pass to start back at go (and maybe collect $200 in the process). a do-over.

+ what would you do differently?

+ what would you keep the same?

+ how personally do you think these changes would affect you and consequently, would you be a different person because of them?

+ if this other you existed in a parallel world, would you both end up at the same place?

+ if who we are as individuals is a collective sum of our experiences, can this parallel you even be called you?

+ or are we more nature (vs. nurture) than we would like to admit?

your deep thought for the day... carry on about your business.

on being an artist

a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

okay, it seems far away. in reality, it was about 10 years ago. i had a dream. i had a dream of being a painter.

a real painter. no flowers-and-fruit-to-match-your-fcukin'-sofa type of artist. i was going to have substance and meaning. i was going to shake up people's perceptions grounded in this earth and on a metaphysical plane. an artist who needed to paint like others needed to breathe.

it turns out i really just liked having angry debates, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

i guess there's still a glimmer of that girl inside me. only she is a non-smoker now and a little less angry. but i still like strong, dark coffee.

turkey day and you: another call for alcohol

any day spent in the company of family calls for alcohol.

not just a class of vino, but hard-core chugging anything that might give a buzz is acceptable. mouthwash in large enough doses can be used. minty fresh breathe and no hang over. sweet!

the problem with my family is the alcohol. we're not waspy wine and port drinkers. no, my grandmother keeps schlitz beer in existence. she gets christmas cards from the ceo thanking her for another wonderful year of sales.

my aunt keeps a lover. his name is jim beam. in fact, when she's in the spirit (usually after 8pm) we like to say she's "beamed up."

me, my poison of choice has always been vodka and vodka drinks. i might as well be russian for my ability to swill the stuff. even in high school when i got caught drinking at lunchtime in the cafeteria it was vodka in my oj that got me busted. (i'm hardcore, baby.)

not that i am proud of my stupidity. i have done a lot of stupid things in my short life. but i can't ignore it either. my bad girl badge of courage has many patches.

so yesterday when the family gets together for the holidays, it's never a dull moment. my cousins are old enough (late teens, early 20s) to verbally punch back in the family sparring matches that take place. us girls tend to gang up on my brother and fight dirty.

my brother files solo as the only boy in the family besides my uncle (who thinks we're all insane) and my husband (who equally thinks we're nuts and pities my brother for swimming in our demented gene pool).

my mom, goddess bless her, is a teetotaller. really, she is the odd one in the group. doesn't drink, takes care of the crazy old bat, and puts up with all the rest of us and our insane antics.

i am in the weird place. my cousin is taking over my role of antagonist in our family. from my pink hair to her purple, her completely liberal politics and ability to filibuster vigilantly, i have handed over the torch. my uncle says by handing over the torch i've officially become an adult. i don't quite like the sound of that.

like the day at mama's vegetarian lunch cafe when the cashier called my ma'am. i spit the dirty words back at her: "what did you just call me?" if i wasn't there with coworkers it could have gotten nasty. the ghetto girl in me was awake and pissed.

i am not ready to be an adult. even if technically i am one. and there is nothing quite like being around family to make you aware of it.

no i do not fondue

chalk it up to my latest cooking disaster.

i cannot melt chocolate. in the microwave. i have sunk to a new low in cooking.

one would think that my well-developed relationship with chocolate would allow something as simple as this to be accomplished without a struggle.

the little freakin' fondue pot requires you to melt the chocolate first and transfer it to the pot after it's throughly melted. (what is the purpose of the friggin pot then?) i know it is a lot to expect the power of a tealight to melt a pound of hershey bars, but c'mon i pictured liquid chocolate when i opened the box.

i realized this would not be the case when i pulled the bowl from the microwave and the chocolate had a smoking hotspot. i had killed another dessert. the chocolate tasted like a heath bar from the chewy bits that fused themselves together. still i hoped if i heated it again, they would melt themselves out of existence.

no, instead i created a chocolate chernobyl. it only made more of the clumps and the previous clumpy ones bigger.

as i transferred the steaming mess to the stupid fondue pot, i realized at least we had a bag of milanos, marshmallows, bananas and peanut butter-filled pretzels in front of us. no matter how nasty the chocolate was, we still had good stuff to gnosh on.

fondue you

i am so excited! i am going to a sleepover tonight.

in lieue of this month's girls' dinner, we are planning a slumber party. i am on deck for dessert this month so i plan to bring the fixings to make a li'l chocolate fondue, in my new fondue pot hopeless bought for me.

the fondue pot is a dangerous thing. i realized this as i walked around genuardi's asking myself the question, "can i dip this in chocolate?"

the unfortunate answer was yes. too many, in fact.

i searched vainly for the sexiest man aisle for a little viggo (mortensen), matt (damon and mcconnaughey), or george (clooney) to dip in the chocolate. they would be yummy.

it looks like we will settle on mini milanos instead.

fait accompli

the sleep-depriving second project is complete. warts and all...zzzzz

food for the soul a look at the lives of 5 friends and their fascination with food and each other.

weapons of PMD (pierogie making day)

in one month, the longest day will settle upon me. no, not the summer equinox, but the day that earns me brownie points towards heaven - pierogie-making-day (PMD).

PMD is a 12-hour day spent at my in-laws' cramped kitchen getting covered in flour, dough, clumps of mashed potato and shreds of sauerkraut. this is served with a big hearty bite of family dysfunction and side of god-awful mix tapes of christmas songs. really, this is what xanax was made for.

"this day is a family tradition," i am told. this is what families who don't have cable tv do for fun. the amish have more fun than we do on this day.

my tolerance for drinking is pretty light lately. in years past, my husband and i would start drinking pretty soon after arriving. a nice buzz makes it easier to ignore the dysfunction and imagine my happy place.

anyone who shares a love affair like the one i do with my in-laws will understand my pain. my mother-in-law has never worked a day in her life. she married young, gave birth to her babies (at an age before i had even graduated from college) and her life stopped soon after that. so my career goals, my education, my fear of children, my life path scares the bejeesus out of her.

the only thing we share in common is the fact that we both are bitches and we both like dick. of course if i ever shared that insight with her, i might cause the heartattack or stroke that i secretly long for on PMD. (not that i wish her dead anything -- swarms of killer bees, fire, flood, locusts -- that allows me to escape from PMD is part of my "happy place" scenario.)

on the flip side, i get to catch up with the latest in medical technologies from her that she's absorbed through watching public television that day (i wasn't kidding, she refuses to get cable tv). things such as how the flu vaccine will make you sick with the flu. unfortunately things often get lost in translation with her.

for the most part, i survive the day. my only real injury are the welts that appear on my forehead from the smacking it endures. homer simpson has more moments of brilliance and he is a cartoon character.

she is showing a moment of true genius this year. our calendar gets booked normally a month in advance; the holiday rush of shopping, decorating and parties start even earlier. she's learned her lesson in years past if you don't set a firm date well in advance, we may get booked with other plans.

so this year, she reserved december 18th as PMD. all the way back in october. joy to the world.

fattened calves

having fat calves is a sure sign that the devil is a man.

why else would the devil tempt me with such pretty high-heeled boots if i should just deny myself entirely of their guilty pleasure?

okay, that may be stretching it but try finding stretchy boots that can cover long "athletic" calves (read: manly and muscular) and you'll better understand the nature of sin and desire. so many pretty boots. sexy boots, kitten boots. but not boots to fit around my big boys.

the devil wears prada?
before the booty welcome wagon rolls into town to pity me, i do own one pair of high, black boots. but there's no sexy heel. nothing quite fun or flirty about these. they fit but don't quite seal the deal. utilitarian in form and function.

who writes home about that? besides, even those live most of the year with the remains of misfit socks balled up in the calf to help stretch the stretchy fabric even further.

fits fat calves and kicks ass
when i wore doc martin's this was never an issue. the laceup feature allowed even chunky calves like mine a chance to be "fashionable". (albeit in this case, rebellious. like every other 18-year-old sporting them.)

the therapist was wrong -- i can blame you for something
genetics unfortunately play a major part in this body part. unlike if i try to wear thigh-high stockings and the roll of pudge pops out the top, these calves aren't my punishment for eating too many of my pal lisa's cookies.

oh no, the blame for this lies strictly on my family. well, my grandmother actually, one fine inheritance of manly calves and icy blue eyes.

catty-tood

we all do it. just some of us get caught.

like i did on the train several weeks back. a fellow train traveler had been looking, well, different lately. my feral pack of train buddies and i observed one day.

"was she pregnant?"
"packing on the pounds?"

my position on the platform prevented me from getting a good look at her, well enough to curry an opinion. i waited until she was standing and about to get off the train to sneak a look.

well, obviously, i wasn't so sneaky. the train conductor caught me checking her out. as my friend caught the conductor checking me check out her, my friend grabbed my arm. "abort. abort." she hushed through clenched teeth while pinching me.

actually, it was her fingers in my flesh that finally woke me from my observational state. she could have screamed the pledge of allegiance in my ear but i was mentally taking notes and as a blonde, it required all brain power focused on the task at hand.

thankfully the object of my stare never caught on to what was happening. afterwards, i received a thorough interrogation from the conductor as to why i was hating on her.

(two good things to know: one, i am friendly enough with the conductor for him to ask this of me; and two, i make faces when in observation mode. my lip curls, i squint. i probably grow horns and a swishy tail too, but that hasn't been pointed out to me yet.) i went back to whatever conversations my buds and i were having before i got dubbed "completely obvious woman".

i wasn't hating though, i was observing. something we all do. we all compare others against the traits we hold in high regard. whether it's body image, hairstyle, clothing, career, religious piety (or lack thereof) we use these to compare and contrast you against them. how they rate. where we fall short.

it's only natural the mental exchange that occurs. it's a compare and contrast book report in your head. the only sad part is when people act on this knowledge.

we are all replaceable

you know your days are numbered when, in a meeting, someone tells you about a new feature on their product that can write commentary.

as writers our ability to express ideas, join facts and provide conclusions and insight to others through the written word is now able to be replaced by a complex set of rules and computer programming.

the concept is called rules-based-text generation. RBT is a complex formula (which i am simplifying here) that looks at the numbers in column A, compares then to column B and depending on the correlation of the two sets of numbers, moves to grab the appropriate, pre-determined response. this can be used to create all sets of reports previously written by warm-blooded mammals with opposable thumbs.

"the scariest thing is, computers don't even need healthcare benefits," whitney said as we all shuddered at her observation. "except computer viruses," dj cracked, "they're still suspectible to them."

karmic bitchslap

one of the funniest lines on tv (in my humble opinion) can be attributed to dave chappelle in a skit he performed on his show as rick james.

"what did the five fingers say to the face, beeyyyatch?"

"ssslap!" as he gets bitch slapped across the face.

today, i heard from a very reliable source that someone near the top of my list of beeyatches is getting her own karmic bitchslap.

before i could contain my glee -- because really, ding dong the witch is dead -- her name came up in another unfavorable, who-the-fcuk-does-she-think-she-is type of diatribe.

every backstabbing moment. every falsehood she told. every moment she stood with her high-heeled hoof firmly planted on someone else's back.

"what did the five fingers say to the face, beeyyyatch?"

"ssslap!"

face value

i see his face each night. he still startles me each time.

by now, i should be used to how his face is disfigured. how his eye hangs slightly lower and the long, jagged scar crossed his cheek holding in, holding back whatever hurt him this way. his slightly pinkish skin casts an odd contrast where his five o'clock shadow should be by 10 pm.

i try not to stare. but want so desperately to see.

i know i wince when he catches me off guard. he bursts through my post-workout endorphin rush as i head to the ladies room to finally release the muscles of my bladder, who maintain their own workout routine.

does he understand my guilt that i shouldn't even feel? i didn't hurt him or cause this physical pain. each time i see him, i am like all the rest.

my eyes, my face, my expression sears new scars onto his face that's already seen too many.

online lit review

sorry for the uninspired title for this post. i just spent the last hour reviewing these different sites and feel sooo uncreative that this is as good as i get.

2river

the landing page is way too cluttered, with a completely balanced, three-column format it lacks any visual hierarchy of the site. the only clue to where the current issue is by the blue header that you see only after your eye settles on the clean white space around the (useless) quote in the top center of the page.

but, once you delve into the issue, settle on a story, choose an writer and then get to the actual piece, i love how it's laid out. it's like peeling back the husk from an ear of corn to get to the actual artwork on this site and we all know how much shucking corn sucks. the use of audio and podcasts are a great (and unique) feature for this site.

brevity

nice color scheme and logo happening when you land on this page, although the large graphic of the marcel duchamp bike on the right sidebar drew my attention before the articles in the center. but you knew you were entering into friendly territory.

one thing that was really cool was the small intro into the work on the landing page with an icon that later became a large relevant graphic on the actual page. this icon as a bullet really drew my interest to an article and then hooked me with the use of a teaser to the article. the subpages with the creative work were neatly laid out but if they decreased the font size you could eliminate the need to scroll sooo far down the page.

summerset review

oooh, very artsy. yup, it was this site that zapped my mojo. i know we're not supposed to like landing pages that make you click to enter a site, but hell, i go anywhere that graphic led me. yep, i am a design slut, if you have a well-designed package, i'll do (just about) anything.

lily

what the hell is this? first thing i thought of was lily's a witch! full-moon, bare tree branches, mysterious female eyes peering back.

after scrolling to what seemed forever did i figure out what the hell this site was selling. and it wasn't worth buying -- blecchhh!

goddess help you if you stumble into the site -- you are literally trapped once you venture onto an article or photo piece. you can only move to the "next" item -- there is no escaping from lily's clutches. mwah-ha-ha!

everything was sized wayyy too big on this site. maybe a worthwhile place for wiccans (and i'm not picking on witches here) with no sense of 2-D design but i'm not trekking back to see what spell she cooked up this month.

philadelphia stories

nice place to land. everything made sense. noticed that just about every site so far has taken advantage of a white crisp, borderless background (except the freak lily).

what confused me was what was happening once you clicked on story or poetry. why two columns of links and the larger groups of links scrolling off and down the right side of the page? someother way of delineating featured content versus additional content was needed. unless of course i'm missing the boat entirely in which case, others may as well. once settled on a piece, though it was pretty easy to move about the site.

ahem, and i will now eat a big piece of humble pie as i finish coding my site.

zen garden of CSS

thought i would pass this along... came across this in my daily creativepro email. it's a pdf called door to my garden: using simple css to build stunning visual effects by patrick lauke that goes into nice detail about using background images as part of your style sheets.

haven't had a chance to play with their ideas yet but for some reason, maybe it was the images used but it made me think of the online literary magazine...

scrabble babble

some discoveries while hunting a replacement for the elusive deluxe scrabble edition turntable:

ebay rules the world. or at least has major stock ownership in google 'cause that site turned up in every search i tried.

you can buy a (used) complete deluxe game edition on ebay for around $9.95. better hurray though, the auction ends on 11/6/2005.

if you prefer new, hit the toys 'r us portal on amazon.com to buy it new for only $24.99.

the hasbro site is selling it new for $29.99. guess mr. potatohead needs a cut in the action.

there is a spanish version of scrabble that comes with 100 tiles. and the spanish call it a replacement pouch, not a bag.

the canadian version (en francais) has 102 tiles. perhaps the french version has more "F" and "U" tiles than the american version?

the french even pretty up the word for the little blue tile holder bag -- le sachet. oh la-friggin'-la... at least it costs more than the bag.

which leads me to... why spend money on a pouch, bag or a sachet when a ziplock baggy will do?

michael graves is everywhere, too. we should see what level of ebay/google stock HE owns.

the customer service page on hasbro.com has mr. potatohead on it. under replacement parts, you can search from 4 main menus of hasbro products that have fallen apart. that's a lot of stuff to screw up. yikes.

mr. potatohead is obviously running a scam of some sorts. him and the missus must be breaking all sorts of pieces before putting them in the boxes... like evil elves trying to pump up sales to support a coke habit. they have been known to have had a nose job or two.

last thought to leave you with, why the hell do you need to replace play doh? sure, it's an edible treat for dogs and kids alike, but do ya think you can just run out and buy more?

septa sucks

and the unions aren't much better.

to the unions:

welcome to the year 2005. people with access to employer-sponsored healthcare plans usually pay something towards the cost of that healthcare for themselves and their families. even those lucky few who in the past paid nothing are experiencing changes to the system due to the rapidly rising costs. which leads me to...

if you are upset with high cost of healthcare, take your beef to the insurers. not your bosses. it's like yelling at the paper boy for the crummy article on the sports page.

now watch the insurers will blame rising costs the doctors and hospitals for ordering expensive, unnecessary procedures. doctors and hospitals will blame medical malpractice suits for why they are constantly covering their asses from the threat of a malpractice lawsuit (which also tends to make drs. insurance rates skyrocket). which makes drs want to leave the states with higher insurance rates (hello, welcome to PA?)

to septa:

snap out of it! you have proven yourself to be inept and inefficient moving people in the best of times, so in this time of crisis you are reduced to a sniveling bunch of cattle herders (without the branding irons).

septa management needs to learn their business. the best managers have an idea of what their direct employees do at their job. an informed and cross-trained management will be much more effective in a strike situation or similar work-stoppage situation.

lining up boarding passengers waiting to board the train at rush hour is a ridiculous concept. lines of people snake through the train stations with people unaware of what the hell they are waiting for. what's worse is that you fail to let people move to the platform until after the train has arrived, slowing loading times even more. countless people are not making the train because of their placement in the line... so rush hour trains are not riding at full ridership capacity.

you have dispatchers and radio systems. if conductors or engineers radio ahead, you could move the people to the platform in advance of it arriving, so at most you have 4 rail lines worth of people waiting on the platform. if only doing this a minute or two in advance, would greatly improve timelines.

i digress... and in the meantime, i'll continue to leave 20 minutes early to catch a train that will get me home a half-hour late. fire all the unions. then fire all the management and start from scratch.

grandparentus interruptus

october must suck to be an old person.

for old people in my family, it's the month that determines who is or isn't coming for christmas.

i was in grade school my grandfather died in early october. it was my first experience with death and it scared me to watch my parents react to their grief. it scared me to be shut out from it all because i was too young to comprehend.

many years later, my soon-to-be husband's grandmother passed away on the same day as my grandfather. we were stunned to lose her only a few weeks before the wedding.

never one to be outdone, my other grandfather died a few weeks after that -- in late october -- on my wedding day.

this is the man with whom i shared a great bond and considered to be my "father". my biological father's great contribution to my life (beyond some fcuked up stories) was that of sperm donor.

two years later to the day -- my grandmother -- his wife passed away. (yup, on my anniversary... although i tell myself he came back for her.)

so when my last remaining grandparent fell down this past friday on the death day, she was scared. she thought she was next.

so she sat alone, in her little rowhouse and tidied up the place just in case. her hand, in the meantime, swelled to an ugly, purple-and-blue color and the use of it was painful.

still, she refused to call anyone for help. she was determined to not bother anyone or further shroud my anniversary -- this day -- in death. so she waited for it until the moment came.

instead of the grim reaper, she saw an x-ray technican. this grim reaper presented a different prognosis. the doctor at the hospital determined her hand was broken in several places. this signaled the end of her days of living alone, unassisted. she will be moving in with family members who can help her in her day-to-day living that proved too much for her.

it wasn't her life that was over per se, it was that her life as she knew it was over.

multiply me

a few friends have asked me recently why i chose multipicity as the title for my blog. when i was brainstorming for titles, i knew i needed a word or phrase to describe me that i wouldn't grow to hate in 12 weeks.

multiplicity captures the costume changes that this whirling dervish wears in my one-act play of my so-called life.

cruise control is not an option on this package. for any interaction, i need to be "on" or else why bother showing up? so it's easy to see how the proverbial candle wick not only gets scorched at both ends, it can cause a raging house fire when it burns.

so, until i learn to clone myself, you are all screwed.

we are all alotted 24 hours in a day. precious sleep has been netting less than 6 of them on a regular basis now. these days, anyone who comes into contact with me now prays that the personality they run into is the groomed, tactful "work" version and not the she-devil running around after midnight, furiously writing.

"Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, bigger paycheck, the bigger house." -- Anna Quindlen

i think i have gotten better at juggling. mainly because i have the attention span of a fruit-fly. as the queen of "let's do it RIGHT NOW", if 5 minutes pass between the time the idea pops in my head and the time i get to starting it, i get fidgety.

"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change." -- Bertrand Russell

multiplicity makes sense for me. my strengths have always centered on my flexibility, creativity and ability to switch gears.

it is on the personal level that things get complicated for me. people are not that easy to put back into the inbox until you can find time to deal with them.

people don't like to think they are not a priority for you. in their minds, no matter how understanding they may be, they are a higher priority than they may be at that time. no one wants to be unimportant.

my life would be much easier to manage if we could find a way to clone me. cloning seems to be the only way my responsibilities would all be met, friends and family would feel satisfied that i have devoted enough time to them and feel included on my life.

archiving our posts?

has anyone had any luck archiving previous posts?

there's a link for old posts but it doesn't go anywhere. i know we should have a destination folder on our ftp site for them but not quite sure of the steps needed to get from here to there...

wash the dog

sunday was a glorious autumn afternoon. clear skies, crisp air. perfect football weather. perfect weather to stay inside a watch football and let the doggies have their own fun in the yard during the game.

the only non-glorious part was the heavy rains that fell earlier in the week, turning the yard into a puppy paradise for sloshing about in the mud. nothing that bathtime can't take fix...

we took sadie into the house for her first bath -- which was a breeze. she didn't want to get in the tub but after we got her in, she was fine. a little trembly, but fine. she loved the attention -- surprise, surprise. the big tough rottie loved being lathered up and massaged by her mommy.

chloe, my golden retriever, knew what the hell was happening and was freaking out in the yard. it must have been like at the death camps in WWII -- having some vague idea of what was happening, not knowing if you were next, worrying about your sister who was taken first. it was a traumatizing half-hour for chloe, now alone in the muddy, muddy yard.

when we finally brought her in, it took my brother and husband to lift her and bring her to the bathroom. she did her best impression of ghandi imitating a wet noodle.

until we actually got her into the tub, where she quickly went into rigor mortis.

do you know how hard it is to bath a dog whose limbs won't move?

i couldn't pick up her feet to wash underneath without breaking through the tub. then slowly she began her escape artist attempt. we realized this when we discovered only two legs in the actual tub -- the other two had climbed the bathroom wall and she was determined to push her way out.

all this happened while she wailed as if it is not water, but really battery acid that touched her skin... friggin' baby. it's not like the water temperature was too hot or too cold, remember i'm sloshing around in it myself!

bathing chloe is really a three-person job -- one to hold the leash to hold up the head, one to crawl around and actually wash her, and one to hold the back legs, either up (her other trick is to drop down into the fetal position) or down (from climbing the tub walls). drying her off is a little easier as she stands like with a "well, dry me off, bitch" look on her face... such a brat.

after the pre-requisite make-up cookies, she wouldn't come near me the rest of the night. she lay on her bed, licking her "wounds" while drying by the fireplace.

you may laugh at the money i spend to take her to the groomers but it's worth every freakin' penny to not have to go through that. i'll gladly pay someone else for the experience.

growing up in the 'hood

random dinner conversations with friends on saturday night sparked the idea for this post. here are some things we've learned while growing up in a not-so-pleasant section of philadelphia:

::   the cockroaches prefer walking on sidewalks as much as you do after dark.

::   even in a "good school" people still got their asses kicked at the end of the school day. chains, pipes and bricks made for good entertainment.

::   most girls learn to fight. the ones who don't, raise tittie-twisters to a whole new level.

::   most girls who learn to fight will fight a guy at least once who is not a sibling. although they may learn to fight by sparring with older brothers.

::   low-grade-but-edible cheese fries, soft pretzels with cheese and/or chocolate-iced donuts counted as a meal.

::   'haute cuisine' at our school was the not-quite-Elio's pizza on no-meat fridays.

::   the priests were checking out the boys. (my high school ranked as one of the top places for touchy-feely priests to be "relocated" to. if you count the priests in my parish -- wahoo! -- we were the number one stop on the pedophile underground railroad that the archdiocese put in place.)

::   most friends who didn't live in the area were not allowed to come into our neighborhood at night. although those same well-intentioned parents thought nothing of letting three girls find their own way back to that bad neighborhood.

::   septa -- and all of its inadequencies -- becomes a way of life.

::   everyone drinks in high school. some neighborhoods just special in 40s, not keggers.

::   only the best parties get raided by the PCLB (pennsylvania liquor control board). only the luckiest sons of bitches don't get caught (moi!)

::   in any group of friends, round-table dating was bound to occur. by graduation, you should have hooked up with each of the guys in your group at least once. and sometimes some of the girls, too.

::   everyone knew the friendly neighborhood pimp.

::   everyone knew the crazy, red-headed kid; his poor, suffering mother and his delinquent (probably-because-everyone-knew-of-the-family's-shit) brother.

::   most kids would steal the $1 or $2 from the church envelope to buy candy. only the dumb ones would leave the torn envelope in a jacket to get caught.

::   we got out of having to sit through the weekly class mass when drug dealers broke into the church to steal the gold chalice in second grade. we thought it was sooo cool that there was blood left behind on the altar by the thieves.

::   we would get woken from our sleep by the sounds of cars driving into the pharmacy's front doors and setting off the alarms that alerted everyone but the cops as to what was happening.

::   even in first grade there were girls who left their panties behind at recess in the ladies room.

::   it was not uncommon to hear of eight-grade girls taking pregnancy tests... of freshman, sophomore and junior year girls getting pregnant... or of having about-to-pop girls walk down the aisle at graduation.

::   now, at reunion's talk is less of who got married and is starting a family but more about who is a grandparent (which scarily enough, is entirely possible).

::   even within the neighborhood, there were still levels of class distinctions. (as kids, we never really knew how poor we ALL were.) "oh, you live on that side of the park, well..."

::   you never ever went into the park alone. if you had to walk 15 miles in the snow, uphill, barefoot, blindfolded and gagged, would still be easier for you that if you dared to cut through the park without all of satan's army in tow.

::   in a neighborhood of rowhomes stacked this|close to one another, everyone's parents knew each other. the unfortunate part was it killed a lot of good parties.

::   parents really do remember which way the car was facing and where they parked it last.

::   the smart ones got out at the first chance they could; the stupid ones are dead or in jail. the unfortunate ones are still there, stuck in the misery they created for themselves or just weren't strong enough, smart enough, or committed enough to release themselves from its grip.

::   the really lucky ones get to tell the tale.

thank god for anal retentive friends

once a month, four of my closest life-long friends and i get together to eat, drink, laugh, bitch and moan. we call it "girls dinner". at times it is our only chance to reconnect.

at our most recent one, the question of the history of our dinners came up. after tying in to milestones, we figured out the date of our first dinner -- january 2002.

could it be? has it really been almost 4 years of our dinners?

have we really subjected ourselves to almost 48 dinners and desserts of varying level of stomach-inducing cramps? (most likely to occur for my dinners but you already know of some of my cooking failures.)

we laughed quite heartily over our failed attempts to wow each other with foods. we remembered the stupid moments like our curdled custard cups and leaving one single solitary piece of monkey bread as a mark of sheer willpower. we were all determined to NOT be the one to eat the last piece. by dieting rules, whoever eats the last piece assumes the entire caloric devastation of the dessert.

so it sat there, tempting us all.

we remembered other feasts where stretchy, elastic waistbands were required attire. a very yummy but deadly dinner of tortellinis and tiramisu -- a gastronomical version of t'n't. we talked about crunchy lasagna (how could we not?).

we also remembered our shared history -- the torturous years of catholic schooling, the weddings, the funerals, the graduations -- all moments of our friendship captured over a hot, home-cooked meal. no matter how dyfunctional.

for a bunch of anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, overachievers like us -- connecting and holding onto those kindred souls that complement us is the true miracle of friendship.

a little something to chew on: update

as reported by msnbc, "jane roe" the missouri inmate seeking an abortion but was repeatedly derailed by the governor and lower courts, was able to obtain the abortion last thursday in st. louis.

as a feminist absorbed with life in an urban landscape, it is quite easy to forget that in most regions of the u.s., getting access to quality women's healthcare is still an issue.

getting access to a clinic that offers abortion services is even more difficult. it seems it is only getting tougher with parental and spousal notification laws now on the books for a growing number of states and 24-hour waiting periods in effect for another. most states don't have waiting periods to buy a shotgun but they feel the need to have one to restrict medical decisions -- insane!

whatever happened to trusting a woman's ability to decide what is best for herself? or am i just dreaming that this ever occurred at all?

i don't know where i am going with this or even how i can make a difference. but every so often it helps to burst the bubble i live in that being on an email distribution list for NARAL is not enough.

"i see dead people" and other scary things

oooh, i am reaally afraid now. damn blogger with its "last updated blogs" scrolling bar!

i clicked on a link that i really shouldn't have (the title "biblical womanhood online" alone should have warned me against it).   i thought it was a joke.

hardy-fcuking-hah.

like the little boy in "the sixth sense" i see religious peeps everywhere now, all trying to erode my rights as a woman. kicking and screaming is the only way they are taking this feminazi down...

for a pulse-quickening, blood-boiling experience, check out the site here. this should not be done on an empty stomach, either.

(yes, i debated whether or not to "promote" this shit but my greatest fear is that we don't know what the religious armies are planning.)

a little something to chew on

i saw it before i opened the door. and i wanted to cry.

my weekends are usually filled with at one day of cleaning, scrubbing and picking up after 2 big furkids and 1 human who really should know better. so as i walked in the door to find a week's worth of newspapers bound for the recycle bin shredded by one of the furkid's, well, you can sense my desperation.

she just needed a little something to chew on.

it's not her fault. chloe has some vendetta gets the printed word. it doesn't matter if it's the newspaper, a magazine, even ayn rand's "the fountainhead" --   she ain't having none of it in her house. like the religious right going after hustler, there's no stopping that bonfire once it's been started.

here's something else to chew on:

in reading today's inquirer on the train this morning, i came across an article that the supreme court of missouri will not halt an inmate's access to the abortion she is seeking. the governor and lower courts have tried to limit her access to one and have used the old rabble-rousing statement "the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for it" to ignite the pro-life torches.

here's where their argument goes array: the inmate is paying for the abortion herself. the only fees to be billed to taxpayers is for transportation costs to and from the prison to the clinic and her security escorts... expected to total $350 for the roundtrip.

the 'taxpayers dollars and cents' argument can't cut it this time.

i'm not sure what healthcare system they have in missouri, but i'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the healthcare costs for a full-term pregnancy is going to be a hell of a lot more than that. the court costs alone to bring this to trial (the inmate sued the state after her earlier attempts to get an abortion were rejected) far outweigh these expenses.

the tired 'taxpayer' excuse can be used to justify any spending initiative that you don't personally agree with. deal with it.

it is no secret now that missouri has strict abortion laws and the republican governor has stated in action more so than in words, that he "ain't having none of it in his house either". his unwitted victim whose life he is trying to shred is an inmate. one who by her fate is determined not by her incarceration but strictly on the political wrangling of some men (there, I said it. happy, now?) who want to impose their viewpoints on someone else's life.

grrr.

although the state supreme court has overturned other stays by lesser courts, "jane roe" is fighting a timely battle. missouri state laws prohibit abortions after 22 weeks -- at around 16 weeks -- jane only has a few more weeks before the governor and the pro-lifers win. care to take a guess as to who is driving the van, folks?

thankfully, the ACLU is working on her case. and thankfully, the state supreme court's decided today to uphold the woman's right to privacy and privilege to end a pregnancy.

my desperation is at the slow attempts to decimate women's rights today. hard-fought rights can be swept away with political posturing, pervasive attacks on the "activist judges" who uphold the laws and those who know what's best for you (without even knowing you first).

it's a wake-up call, folks. i can see the desperation all around and i want to cry. the wolves are at the door, looking for a little something to chew on.

when old people go bad

old people are a strange breed.

my fiesty old grandmother must be their leader.

this morning, i attended a family funeral and had a chance to once again get a taste of my grandmother's unique personality. the ol' bat managed to slip in 2 back-handed comments in less than 30 minutes - a new record.

first, she came up to where my cousin and i were standing. she had spoken earlier with another relative who had remarked to her on how beautiful her granddaughter is. the problem was she meant me and not my cousin, who in being a normal teen is sensitive about her looks. when i tried to deflect her comment by remarking that she must have meant to say granddaughters, she just stopped. "no dear, she didn't mean trisha. she said you're the beautiful one."

ouch.

next, she walks up to my big brother. my brother is, shall we say, big-boned? so after her first assault on us, she goes up to my brother pats his belly and tells him he needs a corset to hold his big belly in.

double ouch.

my brother managed to get the last laugh. he quickly responded by asking her what had happened to her eyebrows. see, she is one of the generation of women who pluck their eyebrows until they are bald. and then because they have no eyebrows, they draw them back in.

well, today, she had her "face" on - full makeup on her lips, face and eyes. cupie doll bright pink bow lips and bright red eyebrows. she swears it was brown.

it wasn't until we dropped her off at home did we discover real beauty secret. she used lip liner on her eyebrows. my aunt is still angry that we failed to get a picture of her with one of our camera phones.

deep thoughts (on missing class tomorrow)

my own deeply ingrained sense of guilt (damn those nun!) is making me feel bad for missing class on thursday. it's not like i have a choice in whether or not to attend the wedding rehearsal -- i'm part of the wedding.

don't get me wrong, i am looking forward to sitting around with our friends and dishing about the state of world affairs (and other tasty gossip).

no, this has more of a playing hooky type of feel to it. so I'm trying not to dodge my responsibilities i.e., all the freakin' reading, posting and finishing up project 1. my fear is that if i don't they'll gang up on me next week and i'll have a panic attack.

thoughts on chapter 6
it's common sense, no? making links usable, using headers and subheaders to break out the infamous wall of words we've all run up against?

but the kicker for me was the section on only using bold to make text pop out. any graphic designer can tell you a 1,000 stories of people asking:

why can't you make it red? or underline it, too? i really want to make this stand out. if you only make it dance and add a subliminally naked chick behind the headline for a kid's swimming class, i'm sure the dads will look at it...

my point is, i'm gonna freakin' print out that section and laminate that sucker to hand out with business cards. oh hello, yes, you are an idiot. here's my card -- on the back is written proof that you are....indeed... an idiot. cheers!

uploading project 1
not sure if it's because it's wayyy after midnight or what, but i can't log onto the ftp site. when i type in url listed on the notes and swap in my username, i get an error code.

did anyone else run into this problem? or am i having a blonde moment? elizabeth can you email me offline with what could be causing this? the exact error is a "530 Login Incorrect."

Other than that, have a good class folks and i'll see you next week.

new marketing campaign

25 things

in my mind this was going to be longer but it's late and i'm tired. plus i usually avoid adding more negativity to the world for fear of karmic bitchslap but somethings are better addressed using the outside voice:

25 things that piss me off:
25. waking up early
24. bad coffee
23. waking up early to bad coffee with a hangover
22. finding a dead battery on my iPod at the gym
21. my soon-to-be ex-cell phone carrier
20. needy people
19. arrogant people
18. people who think that cubicle walls are soundproof
17. bad kissers (this one's goes out to my sister, lis!)
16. the downward spiral to the big 3-0
15. books with great cover designs that don't grab you in the first 5 pages
14. bad home design shows (i have a degree in painting and it's NOT that easy)
13. SEPTA (it's slippery rail season folks, pls. don't schedule any 9 am meetings, i won't be there)
12. needy family members
11. corporate bureaucracy when it's not in my favor
10. people that don't respect the puppies
9. rainy days in the fall (where's all the great fall foliage? oh, that's right under SEPTA's wheels...)
8. country music (and i like dogs)
7. stupid people who buy dogs and then dispose of them as if they were sweater aunt suzie gave you with the reindeers on it last christmas (unfortunately the sweater really does need to be taken back, no?)
6. genetics for requiring me spend so much time scrutinizing and analyzing my body issues
5. george bush (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy and z. pick your past, present and future generations of oil men)
4. holy-roller-god-fearin' people who feel the need to save over the world by saving us from ourselves. thank yaaaa, jeeee-sus (and allah. buddha never hurt anyone.)
3. people who fear hurt animals, little people or older people (being forced to talk to those holy rollers leads me to believe there is a special level of hell reserved for them.)
2. feeling like i have no time for anything of importance in my life these days
1. picking up the messes others leave behind... muddy pawprints, destroyed databases, silk ties found left in the refrigerator crisper bin.

there you have it folks, a step-by-step guide to staying on my good side.

why does it always rain on me?

does anyone remember this great song from a few years back? i'm pretty sure it's pre-"coldplay" (maybe around the time david gray hit the scene before he became the darling of 'xpn).

okay, the reason for this segue is this weather is sapping my energy. like cryptonite to superman, i feel like making a nice warm nest for myself and not moving my ass 'til spring. it's depressing to leave the house in the dark and return home without ever seeing the sun.

now i know eventually this stormfront will remove itself from hanging over our heads, but until then, my mojo is gone. motivation to move is extremely draining. i want to hibernate like a bear.

maybe all's i need is two tickets to paradise or tahiti or someplace warm like that. but then again, the bear would need to shave her legs...

o fiona!

after nearly a 6-year period between albums, fiona apple has released her much- awaited third album, "extraodinary machine".

with her smoky, soulful vocals and introspective lyrics, fiona has seen me through some rough patches in my life. her passion flows as she bangs the piano keys flows through me. like a modern-day nina simone, fiona not only sings my story, she feels me.

her first album nursed me back to health after surgery to stop the war my body raged on itself. every hurt, every small step made that summer came with her flowing through my tortured veins.

her second album gave me strength to get through my planning my wedding. her lyrics gave me a voice when mine failed in after the death of my grandfather.

now with the release of her third album, i'm wondering what road we're preparing to travel down together. what lessons i need to draw from her lyrics. somehow i know that whether life"...is kind to mean or treats me mean, I'll make the most it, I'm an extraordinary machine."

how to add an image to your post

i have noticed 2 things while perusing my fellow classmates' blogs:

1. everyone is mostly commenting on the assignments (inside voice says * borrring*. outside voice says *why the hell aren't you doing that?*)
2. people are asking how to add an image to a post.

the last request i can handle. with only 1 week to go until my blackberry is activated and my new business cards are legit, i've been a documenting FOOL. so it's only fitting after 35 hrs this week writing procedures that i do it on the weekend, too...

how to add an image to your post

1. on the formatting toolbar, click the third button from right (*hint* it looks like a photo)


2. a new window will open. you can choose to use one of your own images or one that's currently in use on an existing web page.
   


3. if you choose to add an image from your own computer, click browse and navigate to the folder where the image is stored. select the file name and hit open. to add more images, click the link to add another image and repeat step 3. when finished, proceed to step 6.


4. if you choose to add an image from the web, you must first know the location (URL) of that image. to find the url, go to the web page where the image is stored and right-click (mac users are flying solo on this one) on the image. copy the contents named "location" and begin "http://...". this is the image's url.
   


5. go back to blogger's pop-up window, paste the info into the box named URL. to add more images, click the link to add another image and repeat steps 4 and 5. when finished, proceed to step 6.


6. choose the layout of where the picture's alignment and size. click the corresponding radio buttons for each.
   


7. click the upload image button.


8. viola! presto! c'est magnifique!
   

you've got art.

shiny meatloaf

considering my facination and love of all things martha, you would think that i would be able to cook.

nothing could be further from the truth.

yet, for all of my efforts, my culinary skills just aren't up to snuff. friends and family have been more than generous (heroic even?) in their attempts to swallow things I've placed on their plates.

lasagna so crunchy you need a knife to cut it and lots of fluids to keep it from getting stuck in your throat. a roasted winter vegetable casserole with balsamic vinaigrette that turned into a warm, brown mush.

i have many favors to repay. but none so much as for the shiny meatloaf incident.

in high school, my mom thought i was mature enough to start dinner while she was at work. after a few botched attempts at a making the meal, my role was downgraded to putting it in oven at 4pm only. it was all i could handle. and really, i was okay with that.

on the night of shiny meatloaf, i did exactly what was asked of me. the premixed meatloaf was taken from the fridge at the prearranged time and placed it into the preheated oven. fait accompli.

my mom arrived home from work to find her meatloaf dinner nearly finished cooking. wow, that smells good, she said. when she removed it from the oven, she also noticed how good it looked.she was really impressed and wanted to know what i did to make it so shiny.

did i brush it with egg whites before baking? nope.

did i apply a coating of olive oil to get that glistening and crunchy coating? nope.

still baffled, it wasn't until she attempted to cut into that glistening and crunchy coating did she discover my secret recipe for her meatloaf.

a double layer of plastic wrap added the special touch. i had forgotten to remove the plastic wrap when i took it from the fridge to place in the oven.

hopeless

this is my first day without her. and i miss her already.

for purely selfish reasons, i wish she hadn't made that decision. i can count a million and one reasons why it didn't make sense for her to do this. but that was "me" thinking.

one of the greatest things she taught me was to break outside of me and do things differently.

live dangerously, take chances, who cares what someone else thinks? a 10-minute walk in the middle of the afternoon is good for the soul. leave on time, even early sometimes. leave even earlier on fridays.

my wild-eyed friend pulled another trick from her bag. she resigned. she decided to leave her unhappiness with the direction of her life, the stresses that made it worse. it was time, she said. all i needed was the kick in the ass to do it. and like always when she made up her mind, she did it.


i admire hope for many reasons, the greatest of these is her ability to befriend everyone. never in a saccharine way, but she has an uncanny ability to empathize with everyone she meets. whereas many people would be stuck in their own bubble oblivious to the outside world (count me in this group), she said hello to strangers. she's someone who can and will strike up a conversation and truly effect change in that person.

selfishly, i wish she could have stuck it out, took a vacation, cleared her head, whatever was needed to right herself. yet i know, she DID take the right action. she took a risky move and only time will tell how it pays off, but in someways, it already has.

she's happy again.

designer of everything

some thoughts on our reading regarding chunking...

as writers, artists and designers, we are routinely called upon to use our skills to provide organized solutions.

we organize concepts and behaviors. we provide structure for communication.

we command attention where its due and nudge influential pieces of information into the spotlight.

we control the power to persuade, to argue and to illuminate.

we solve problems not simply by building the bridge that's asked of us but by asking about the size of the chasm that separates us. (last sentence restated from an article in Fast Company's Power of Design issue, Jun 05)

really, we are the designers of everything.

mozilla + blogger = not good

first lesson in browser sensitivity:

not all browsers are created equal. my it geek husband switches network browsers and software like some people change their underwear. logging into the computer is always a unique experience to see what changed from my last visit.

software comes and goes. but i thought internet explorer was here to stay. unfortunately, that was not the case.

it usually starts with a denial of service error, e.g. can't find network to let me know he's been monkeying around again.

this time, we were using mozilla's firefox for our web browser. bill gates got his walking papers.

but after spending 3 hours trying to post a few blogs, (being the smarty-pants that i am) i finally checked the known issues list on blogger's help section. typing in the exact error in the search field got me nowhere.

lesson learned:  if it's taking wayyy too long to post something, even with a cable modem or dsl, stop it and read the help section.

and ie is back on my laptop.

crack and barrel

the new 'crack and barrel' catalog came in the mail today.

i'm in love.

there is just something so warm and fuzzy about that place; i want to set-up shop there and live happily ever among their autumnal selection of table linens and pumpkin soup tureens. i just know i'd get a good night's rest if i laid my head down upon their bright, modern comforter and sheet sets. it makes me want to wrap myself in their velvety fabrics and my rooms in their rich color choices. my desire for wreaths, berries and vines are awakened when i flip through their catalog.

the crack is addictive.

somehow i got added to their distribution list, probably when i bought a candle at the store in kop 3 years ago. now each season, i know (hands wiggling excitedly) it's coming. each time the catalog is in my mailbox, it's like a little gift from the mailbox fairies. a new catalog to drool over, and by the time the drool dries *poof* a new season is already upon us.

it should be no surprise that this one appeared. the furniture catalog arrived last month. oh, the orgy that catalog inspired! all of my latent-martha-stewart-tendencies spring to life and i just want to design, decorate and masturbate to its hardwood furniture selection. forget the ol' furniture that's in my house, there's a new man in town and i'm a decorating slut.

my train buddies and i poured over that rag for like a week straight, dreaming of our new lives with perfect houses filled with perfect furniture. we were having way too much fun with the fantasy to bother adding perfect men.

that's just stretching the truth a wee bit too far.

momma's girl

if it were possible for her to share my genetic code -- like family members with 2 legs instead of 4 -- it would make sense how freakin' similar my dog chloe is to me.

but we don't.

and still, she IS me.


chloe was meant to be baby. how else could you explain how sight unseen I drove three hours to pick her up from idiots who couldn't care for her?

yup, this little goldie-locks with curls is very much like her curly-haired, blonde mamma:

• we both like to start shit; yet when things get too crazy, we're the first ones to go find a quiet place to hide.



• we both get too loud when we are excited. this more than makes up for the times when we could give a shit about talking at all.



• we both are petrified of the water. the pisces and the water dog, go figure. (only i have the added misery of wearing a bathing suit on top of it.)



• we are both imperfectly perfect; from a hooked tail to thunder thighs, we are beautiful and we know it.



• we both love to snuggle down to get a belly rub. and neither of us are afraid to give kisses to those we love.

and we will never, ever turn down a cookie.