On Motherhood and Such

Sorry for not writing much. The main happening in my life is waiting anxiously for another loan to go through on another house. Until it happens, I'm awash in crippling anxiety manifesting in dizzy spells, ennui, and irritable bowel syndrome. In other words, I'm not much fun.

But for good news, my little nephew is pure sweetness. We were back in Houston to see him two weeks ago, and we got to my sister's apartment just as they were getting back from the hospital. Gwennie, Emma and I were pushing and shoving to be the first to hold him. I won. Finally. They're small, but scrappy.

We spent some time there and then left to go out for the evening with some friends. The next morning, I got a call from my sister who was crying very hard. My heart turned to burning ice and the adrenaline flushed out my hangover but swiftly.

"IS THE BABY OKAY???" I bellowed.

"Yeah, he's fine," sobbed my sister.

Turned out she was just overwhelmed with learning how to breastfeed him. The nurses at the hospital had been such psycho, Nazi bitches about it, telling her that if he didn't eat every three hours, they were going to keep testing his glucose (which involved pricking his heel), so she better cooperate and give him a bottle. I really thought those days were long gone, but apparently not. So my poor sister was terrified that he wasn't eating enough when all the poor little thing wanted to do was sleep.

Jethro and I still drove over as fast as we could and I spent the day just trying to be calm and assuring her that her dear little baby was just fine.

Now I'm not trying to brag here, and I'm not putting my sister down at all for her panic, because she really did have a bad experience with those nurses that I never had, but when I look back to how I did with Gwennie at 23 years old, I'm pretty proud. It never occurred to me that I had done a good job. I have always been sure that I had done a mediocre job. But I actually did well. I didn't enjoy breastfeeding, but I did it until I got pregnant with Emma which was a solid 9 months and I nursed Emma for a year. I have plenty of faults as a mom, to be sure, but I also have strengths. And the best thing I ever did was to ignore every piece of advice that came my way once the baby was born. It's probably the strangest notion, but my rationale was if crack addicts can raise their children past infancy, then I can. And it worked. The thought kept me confident.

Anyway, I'm done here, and must now feed my children as the law dictates.

Words of Wisdom

Drinking non-alcoholic beer is like going down on your cousin. Sure it tastes the same, but it ain't right....

It's a Boy! A Real Boy!

I'm finally an Aunt. My little nephew, Phillip Thomas, was born yesterday at 11:42 in the morning, weighing in at a very healthy 8 lbs 1 oz. I've only seen grainy camera phone pictures so far, but I adore him already. He looks like my sister and my father, who he was named for. Jethro and I and the girls are headed back to Houston to see him and I'm sure I will have a hard time keeping Gwennie and Emma from abducting him to become his slaves.

I feel that euphoria one only gets from having a new baby in the family. My arms are just aching to hold him.

That doesn't mean I'm not busy, though. I have to clean the house, pack for the weekend and buy some presents. And my grandmother just called to make sure we'd pick her up when we go to visit. She's already gone to see him, but she's wasting no time piggybacking on whomever hasn't. Can't say I blame her, though. It's her first great-grandson.

I have to say that for being only 5 minutes old, he's remarkably unslimey.

Funny Stuff

I have yet another decision to make. Jethro and I have been discussing it and he would like it if I got my massage therapy license and worked with him in the clinic. I know I now have my associates degree in graphic design, but I always planned to freelance in that regard, and with a massage therapy license, I could have definite work.

So I went to an open house for a massage therapy school right down the road from the clinic.

Dear, sweet, mother of pearl. Every inch of this office was filled with clutter. From papers, to equipment, to kitschy Asian junk, there was no room to even leave fingerprints.

I walked into this den of hippies trying to keep an open mind, but as soon as I hear "chi flow" and witness the blank, vegan stares, I start feeling my skin crawl and I want to take it off. Jethro and the girls had come with me to check it out, but as soon as Jethro saw the ionic foot bath, he grabbed the girls and hightailed it out of there. I could hear him screaming in his head.

I don't mean to sound so condescending with regards to alternative medicine. It's our livelihood, after all. But so much of it is crap with no evidence (or worse, false evidence) to back up the claims. And even if something is eventually proven, it seems wrong to sell treatments before they are. Telling someone "the Chinese have done it for thousands of years, so you should pay out the schmoobie" doesn't strike me as very objective or scientific.

I know it's hard to imagine some unhygienic vegan in rags bilking people out of money, but they can do it just as easily as a guy in a suit.

Anyway, I'm tired and rambling and I think I'll go to bed now.

Tedium

Overdue hat tip to ALa of Blonde Sagacity. That was her cake in the picture below. She won a contest with it last year, and her husband won the year before. They seem to have a gift with the fondant. I don't. I tried making it once and it seemed to attract every piece of hair and fuzz and bug in a 5 yard vicinity. Not my best effort.

Things are going. I've been without my husband for almost 5 days, and I'm feeling kind of growly. Jethro is up in New Town, and I'm in Houston with the girls visiting his parents. It's not my preferred way of doing things, but they miss the girls so much and it's no real trouble for me, although I miss Jethro. We seem to be very co-dependent and I guess I'm one of those sick people who think that's healthy.

It's been an interesting week, though. I've seen quite a few people and have plans to see quite a few more including a young man I met at this gay homeschooling christian youth sports thing I went to in high school. I know he liked me back then, but I refused to date him because he was a year younger than me. I had ridiculous standards at 16. I wouldn't date anyone younger, but I would have given my left tit to have had the babies of a local auto mechanic sporting a golden mullet. Honestly, it's such a good thing for me that I'm married to Jethro, because I'm still that freaking weird.

Happy Birthday, America!

A Nose By Any Other Name...

I want a nose job. I know, I know. I don't approve of plastic surgery. And I really don't. Find the character to transcend your flaws is what I alway say, and shake what yer mama gave ya.

But I can't stand my nose. I'm pretty sure an ex-ray of it would reveal internal complications so whorled and maze-like and deviant, that a cottage cheese covered, anal sex receiving porcupine fetishist would shudder in ecstatic loathing and revulsion. Half-Jewish, and half-horrid-Scottish-bulbous-rosacea, it's as if the two genes collided then tried to run off screaming before they were frozen in stern, unyielding cartilage.

For such an offending appendage, it doesn't look that crooked. But it is. You should see the nose pads of my glasses. Mind-blowingly off center. One is somewhat straight and the other veers waaaaay off to the side and twists back.

But you should see it when I cry. For most people, women at least, crying is cathartic. But not for me. Actually, I don't know if it is or not because the physical effects of a good cry are so awful. My sinuses swell to the point where I can't breathe through my nose at all and a headache goes without saying. And it lasts for days. At least 4 days after a good cry, you can tell I've had a good cry. It's very aggravating.

Really, there's no point to this at all. I just wanted to write something.

Jon and Kate

I hate even talking about that show. Gwennie, Emma and I loved watching and cooing over the adorable little children who looked so much like them, and now those stupid parents have ruined it all.

Honestly, the last thing I intended to do was render some high holy judgement on those people. I knew they were getting paid a shitload to exploit their children, and I was okay with that. That's a lot of kids to raise, and money comes in handy, and I don't begrudge people what the market will pay them for anything as long as it's honest. I can understand them exploiting their own kids for the sake of their college educations, and I don't even begrudge them the perks that come with the show like tummy tucks, hair plugs and choppers. Sometimes silly, superficial, material things make it easier to keep trudging through some tough baby years.

But they didn't have the character to withstand the immersion into hard-core materialism and now these spoiled brat parents can't even keep it together for the sake of their little meal tickets. Those kiddies made their fabulous lives possible, and they repay them with a broken home. They suck. There's more I want to say, but that's all I really can say. They suck.

I'm Boooooored!

I have The Strep. I am taking antibiotics and trying to recover, so I'm dutifully remaining in bed, but I'm sooooooooo boooooooooored. I wouldn't even mind cleaning if it meant I didn't feel so shitty.

I watched 4 movies yesterday. Old movies, so no one cares, I'm sure, but one of them was The Professionals with Burt Lancaster. It was pretty good. It must have been made when people were just starting to say real swear words in movies because when they did use them them, they said them like they knew they're going to shock someone. When Burt Lancaster was asked where a bullet got him, he says "in the ass" in a very unnatural way. Then in the last lines of the movie, the Evil White Capitalist Man calls one of the professionals a bastard, and you could hear the exclamation point in his voice. But then the professional guy delivers one of the best lines in the movie, saying "Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, sir, you're a self-made man."

It was a good movie. But if I looked anything like Claudia Cardinale.....

I'd be ruling the world right about now. Seriously, I don't know how she never made it to icon status. She makes Sophia Loren and Raquel Welsch look like horses.

Anyway, my fever's breaking, so I'm going to go sweat for awhile.

So no sooner do I work past the disappointment of losing the house I wanted, then I get laid out by some kind of plague. Probably swine flu, given my luck. But everything is okay. I have so much. I have two daughters who I love more than anything, a husband who has not only been a comfort to me all while running his business, but who is taking such good care of me while I'm sick. When I'm sure I won't infect his johnson, I'll make it up to him.

So in spite of it all, I'm happy. Not calm, exactly, but happy. I'm gonna go to bed now. I hurt all over.

*Sniff*

Not gonna get the house that we want forever 'n' ever. I haven't cried yet, but I have no doubt it's coming.

Update: It came. And went. I'm moving on. And it's not a case of the fox and the grapes, but there were things that were not perfect about that house. The driveway was god-awful steep and hard to negotiate. The yard would have always needed a lot of maintainence and I wilt after 5 minutes past air conditioning. Of course we knew all this and would have bought the house anyway, but remembering these not insignificant drawbacks takes a little bit of disappointment out of the EPIC FAIL of our loan officer.

And BTW, I hate VPs of mortgage companies who used to be sports personalities on television. The only satisfying thing I could get out of this would be to kick him, deliberately, repeatedly and forcefully, in his softest parts until he begs for my dispassionate mercy.

So essentially, we're back at square one. We need to find a house and probably start the loan process all over again because we're certainly not keeping our file with the same preppie, WASPy, effete douchebag we were using. I'm gettin' me a Jew this time 'cause I'm tired of screwing around.

I'll be back when I've had a few margaritas and given Jethro the anger-fuck of his life.

I'm Already Going to Hell, I May As Well Blog About It

First things first. I'm done with school. This means I have Finished Something. It's momentous. Really.

But the real blog fodder is the wedding I attended recently. I mentioned a few posts back that we had a wedding in NY. I was the best woman (I refuse to say matron-of-honor, it makes me sound like a sadistic, but oddly rewarded prison guard).

I had been looking forward to this wedding for months, ever since the bride asked me to be in it. It was in upstate NY, not exactly close to where I grew up, but a lot closer than I've been in years, so I was pretty stoked to go.

I flew into Houston Wednesday evening so I could fly up with my friend Jen early Thursday. The wedding wasn't until Saturday, but I thought I'd go up early and help out and Jen said she'd go up with me. Way back when we purchased our tickets, we found a really good price, except that there was a layover, which didn't seem like too big a deal at the time, but actually was when we finally made it up to Rochester. We were exhausted and then we had to rent a car at the airport and drive the 40 miles to the town where the wedding was.

One day I will tell the bird story. Or maybe I'll let Jen do it. It was bizarre.

By the time we made it to the hotel, we were giddy with fatigue. We hauled our luggage through the doors and were immediately greeted by a large, puzzling sign declaring "NO MORE R WORD!"

Jen looked at me and mouthed "R Word?" Then we looked around. Helmets and motorized carts as far as the eye could see.

Yes. That R word. We were in the midst of a 'tard Convention. And yes, I know I'm not being nice.

We were gasping for air from holding in our laughter by the time we made it up to our room. Mind, it's not that we thought a convention of that sort was particularly funny or mockable, but when you go someplace where a wedding is about to be held, the last thing you expect to see is a parking lot full of short buses and crash helmets. It caught us unawares is all.

But do not fear. This gets so much worse.

Later that day, Jen, Jethro's ex Micky, and I, ended up in an elevator with a young man with CP and his motorized chair. He asked us to push the button for his floor and we obliged. His floor came before ours and we held the door for him as he tried to manage his chair. It seemed he was having a little trouble because he'd go forward and then go back a little, forward, then back, forward, then back. We weren't quite sure what to do. I'd have happily pushed him through the doors, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings or anything. Finally he made it out the door and we let them close just as he went back again a little. The backpack on the back of his chair looked like it might be caught in the doors and we frantically tried to open them, but it was too late and the elevator started moving. We froze in panic (well, actually Jen and Micky did. I think I yelped something and started to climb the walls. I had started drinking by then) and waited for a scream. Fortunately it didn't come, but we did almost have heart attacks.

Now Jen and I were sans kids and sans husbands in a podunk little town in upstate NY. The logical thing for us to have done would have been to go to bed and get a good night's sleep. But that would not have been as much fun as going to the hotel bar.

The bartender was a hapless, 19 year old Indian boy who (as we found out later) didn't eat meat and didn't drink in accordance with his religion. This meant that in spite of a rather well stocked bar, he was not able to do more than pour beer and shots as we discovered when Micky tried to order a dirty martini. She grimaced on the first sip and asked him to make it dirtier, to which he promptly responded by pouring in more vermouth. That was pretty funny.

Then the convention, which had been in full swing complete with band and dancing (I think it was dancing) ended, and the real fun for the poor bartender began. He was doing such a brisk business in milk and O'Douls, that we were beginning to feel neglected. We met some Canadian kids at the other end of the bar and wondered aloud if we needed to wear protective head gear in order to get a beer. But all the conventioneers had partied themselves out around 9:30, and the bartender gave us his undivided attention. He apologized for ignoring us, and complained he hadn't been tipped very well. He took back the terrible martini and didn't charge us, which was nice of him. Jen, being sensible and tired, had a smoke and went to bed.

Micky and I stayed to talk to the Canadians, a very young couple who had come down to Podunkville for a Kenny Chesney concert of all things. The young man was buying lots of shots and teaching the young bartender a thing or two about jagermeister, while trying to outdrink Micky and me.

It didn't work out so well for him.

If you look very carefully, you can just make out the penis I drew in eyeliner on the side of his face. I was drawing upside down, so it's not directly even with his mouth, but you get the idea.

I don't even look drunk in this picture, but I certainly wasn't sober. We talked with the young man's girlfriend awhile (she took the picture) and then toddled off to bed.

The next day was the rehearsal dinner.

The bride and groom were getting married in the garden of one of their friends' houses and having the rehearsal dinner there as well under a lovely white tent. I called them to see what I could do, and the groom said he'd pick me up at the hotel while he went to give the bride's father his tux. Then he'd drop me off at his friends' house.

When I got down to the lobby, there was a gentleman waiting who was not the groom. He stared at me for a second and asked if I was Zelda. I replied in the affirmative and he said he was a friend of the groom's and that he'd been asked to wait for me while the groom dropped off the tux. I asked if the groom told him I'd be the one without the helmet, and he chuckled heartily. That kind of set the mood for the day.

They dropped me off at the rehearsal site, and told me my job was to stuff little clear bags full of flower petals that were to be hurled at the bride and groom as they departed. Then after the stuffing, I was to spritz the petals with distilled water so that they wouldn't wilt overnight.

Then they left. Now maybe it's just me, but I tend to feel a little awkward sitting at someone's house I don't know, stuffing petals into little plastic bags then spritzing them. Luckily, the homeowners were really nice and friendly and after a beer or seven, I was loudly regaling them and other members of the wedding party who had managed to straggle in, including the bride, with the stories of the 'tard convention, figuring that amusing them was the least I could do in exchange for their hospitality. And it was funny. I had everyone in stitches - clutching their sides with my impersonations and hand gestures, except for the bride who was kind of giving me the stink eye. But she'd always been ultra PC, and she knew I wasn't at all, so I figured she'd just roll her eyes at me, call me a peasant, and that would be that.

So there I was, happily working and chatting and drinking, and in the very best of moods when the bride's family arrived. Oh, dear god, let the earth swallow me whole and cast me down with the sodomites.

Three of her siblings had The Challenges. Three. Not one, not two, but three. And one of them quite severely. And her mom was tooling around on a motorized cart.

I don't think I can properly describe the exquisite humiliation. I took the bride aside the second I had the chance and apologized quickly, but profusely. She looked squirmy, and I don't blame her a bit, but I think I might have been an even bigger asshole if I hadn't apologized. I'm really not sure, though. I think I might just really be an asshole and no amount of apologizing will atone.

Needless to say, I was her bitch for the rest of the weekend.

It didn't stop me from drinking more though, and I managed to tie on a pretty good one at the hotel bar later. The young bartender was stingier with his coke than his rum.

The next morning was not fun. I had to be out the door by 7:30 to go to the salon with the bride to get our hair done. I hauled myself up early, took some headache pills, took a shower, and still managed to be 15 minutes late. But I felt like shit and I didn't care. Luckily the bride didn't go bridezilla and we were only 2 or 3 minutes late for the hair appointment.

The other bridesmaid had very, very short hair, so there was absolutely nothing that could be done with it, which meant that while the bride was under the hair dryer, all eyes turned to me. It seemed obvious that something needed to be done. I had discussed this with Jen and Micky and we decided a french braid a la Jennifer Aniston at the Oscars would be easy and doable. No such luck.

This was the 'do I ended up with. I looked like a 12 year old swiss yodeler from the neck up. But I wasn't unhappy. My hair was out of my way and that always makes things easier. And what do I care, really? It wasn't my day.

After the hair and make-up, we arrived at the wedding house to get the bride dressed.

This ended up being somewhat of a Herculean task. The bride is not a small woman, and she had chosen a dress of maximum complexity complete with panels and corsets. We slipped the dress over her head and had begun the process of lacing her in, when she realized she had forgotten to take off her pants.

Given my bitch status, if fell to me to remove them. It was epic.

We huffed and puffed and pulled and tugged and snapped and tied and finally it was complete. I was sweaty and exhausted, but I went around to survey the front.

My eyes filled with tears.

She was absolutely beautiful.

The bride had always been sensitive about her weight and I'm sure she had spent a lot of time agonizing over her dress. And while nothing can make a fat person look skinny, the dress did make her look perfectly lovely. And really, she is the cutest, prettiest fat chick in the entire world.

And that was the highlight of my trip. There was more good stuff at the wedding and the reception later, not the least of which was Jethro becoming enthusiastically drunk and "helping" to clear up afterwards. I finally had to tell the groom to just let him do whatever he thought needed to be done because there was just no arguing with him. That was pretty funny too. Jethro is occasionally unpredictable when he drinks.

But honestly, every other funny part aside, seeing my friend marrying a fantastic guy, beginning a wonderful life, and looking so exquisitely beautiful, was pure joy.

I got a call from Big Dick last night (he's once again sharing his peculiar brand of humor with the net). It seems he's been without power for awhile and he wanted me to update his blog for him.

So in honor of his predicament, here's some Black Stone Cherry.

H/T to Inanna for turning me on to this neat little band.

Limbo

Here's a school project I did for a golf resort:

I thought it was funny. My critique ended up being one running ball joke.

The Perils of Marriage

A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally did something I'd wanted to do for a long time, but always had the sleepy good sense not to.

I punched Jethro in the balls when he snored.

To be fair, the tv was up as loud as it could go, and I was just about to solve a Medical Mystery. Jethro had dozed off and was snoring apneatically and at certain intervals, I would do him the favor of punching him on the leg so he would start breathing again. But being engrossed in the program, I had failed to notice his body shift and when his epiglottis had sealed long enough for me to become unconsciously concerned, I punched without looking.

I felt a certain thrill of horror shoot through my arm as my fist bounced on something soft and warm and jiggly instead of the muscle and bone I'd been expecting. I drew back my arm in consternation as Jethro's breath whooshed out. He curled, slowly, slowly into a fetal position, and slowly, slowly opened his eyes. I sat there, transfixed as a look of pain and confusion came over his face.

"You racked me!" he said, in a hurt, bewildered, accusatory way, looking at me with his sad, sweet eyes.

And then I laughed. I tried not to. But the more I tried not to, the harder I laughed. I'm laughing now. I hate myself.

House

The inspections were fantastic.  A bit of cosmetic work, but the structure is sound as sound.  It's really kind of nice.  I don't dare go nuts until the bank approves our loan, but I can't help getting excited.  I tend to take disappointment in stride and get on with life, but if everything went kapluey and we didn't get it, I would probably cry very very hard for at least a week.

Because, you see, it's the house I want forever 'n' ever.

Here it is:

Front (no, it's the back, Zelda)

Kitchen

Back yard

More back yard (there's a lot of back yard).

View from the long, steep, curved driveway.

View from the long, steep front steps

Jethro and I didn't expect to find anything great at this stage of our lives.  We were planning on buying a small, easy to maintain property, with no emotional investment, and saving up slowly for the house we wanted.  But I love this one.  It's the perfect compromise for Jethro and me.  He  wanted a home in a subdivision, close to the clinic and schools, and I wanted land to grow a garden and raise rabbits.  The subdivision is nice and subdivision-ey with a community center, school, park, and general convenience, but the yard is almost half an acre.  Half an acre of lovely trees and a house on a hill.

And while it's more than we wanted to spend on a little crap-box-eventual-rental-property, I don't think it's too much for a house we'd want to make our home forever 'n' ever.Anyway, I have three more weeks of school, then it will be freedom, blissful freedom.  

However, the fact that the end of school and all the madness that accompanies it coincides with what we hope will be the house closing and a wedding in NY, means my stress level is about to hit a peak I heretofore did not know was possible.  But my loins are girded.  Girded, I tell you. Which probably accounts for some slight spasming.

Indulge me, it's my birthday

I am not having a good day.  My back is killing me.  Jethro is working on it whenever he can squeeze me in, but it hurts really badly all down my left side.  Also, I don't want to be thirty...gulp...three.  Yes I know people are older than me, but I don't want to do it.  I pretty much want to be 12 except with my kids and Jethro.  And I know that sounds icky, but it's how I feel.

And we're buying a house.  We accepted the counter offer last week, and the inspections will be this Thursday.  I have cold feet like anything.  I mean, it's nearly perfect.  It's 2500 sf, 4 bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms (you have no idea what a happy thought that is), enough room for our furniture and entertainment center, it's on a gigantic, nearly half acre cul-de-sac lot.   It has a gorgeous view from the front door and the master bedroom.  It's in a very large, but very pleasant, low-key subdivision, and miracle of miracles, it was in our price range!!!

But I'm scared of it.  It intimidates me.  It's this giant house on a hill - the first thing you see when you turn down the street.  It stands out and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.  I was excited to move into a trailer and now I find myself trying to buy a freakin' mansion.

I didn't sleep well all last night worrying about it.  What if we hate the neighbors?  What if there is a mudslide and the house disappears?  What if we have a severe reversal of fortune and go bankrupt? What if I get in great shape from lugging groceries up a hill and up stairs?  What if no one wants to buy it when Jethro and I retire?  What if I go totally insane with self-doubt and burn it to the ground while I dance around outside, naked, with a martini, screaming Shakespeare and Bible verses?

I have a million things to do.  I even have a list.  I never have a list, but today, I have a list.  I want a drink so badly, but I have to drive a million miles today.  I should get going.  I should.  But I want to write more.  I've missed it.

I should write about the bridal shower I helped put on over the weekend.  I made this champagne punch that was awesome.  I fibbed and said I had a recipe, but really I just made it up.  It wasn't on purpose that I made it up.  They didn't have the stuff I needed at the store, so I had to wing it.  But if it turned out badly, I wanted to have someone to blame it on, so I said it was a recipe.  But it actually turned out pretty good, so I should have just kept my mouth shut.

And another time I should have kept my mouth shut was at the shower when we were playing games because I ended up saying "ass cream" in front of the bride's mother.  I blame the champagne punch.

After the shower, we went to the bachelorette party.  I'd rented a limo driven by a man named Kenneth Cole.  No lie.  He had a cooler in the limo stocked with Bud Light and Bartles and James pineapple wine coolers.

It was fun.

The bachelorette party was weird because the bride had requested that it be classy.  And we were classy.  Horribly, boringly classy (for a bacelorette party) and yet we still seemed gauche.

Just think if we'd been wearing penis necklaces!

And I didn't get checked out once.  That was even more depressing.  Usually I can get someone to glance my way, even if they look away immediately, but not that night.  I passed a guy in a very tiny hallway, and not only did he not look at me, he turned his head when I looked at him, as if to say, "I don't want your drunk ass even thinking for a second that you have a shot with me."  As if I wanted one!  Usually I prefer men who are over 4' 11" and who don't comb their hair into phallic little spikes.  And that made me even more sad.  I couldn't even get a first look from a fucking midget.

I'm going to go now.  The sooner I can get things done, the sooner I can drink.

Happenings

Madness surely comes through using more than 10% of your brain.  I don't say this in anything resembling arrogance since I believe the use of over 10% of ones brain is not a gift, but merely the result of having too much information crammed into it largely against one's will.  And the fascinating and horrific result is not Steven Hawking-like abilities, but rather in long, animated conversations (in public) with imaginary audiences about taxes, gardening, or why one would never remarry should one's long-suffering husband finally wise up.  "No really, Imaginary Audience.  I realize it would be a total waste of excellent woman, but should I be so unfortunate as to lose the one man I can tolerate, I would prefer a life of solitude and intellectual pursuit with occasional bouts of copious alcoholic consumption."

Other side effects include facial tics, hand gestures and twitches of all kinds, and a really base, immature impulse to snicker when an instructor says "rectilinear."

I have one term left of school. One. That's it.  And I have senior-itis in the worst possible way.  I don't want to do any work anymore for any class.  I want to work on real stuff, but stupid class stuff keeps getting in the way.

And we're trying to buy a house.  We found one we really liked, but then panicked because we wouldn't have gotten it for anything less then our absolute limit.  Then we panicked about panicking because it was in a really good area with really good schools and was the lowest priced house in the subdivision.  But in a silver lining kind of way, we found out there was a 14 foot easement past the patio in the back yard.  Yeah.  No.  Sorry.  I don't much get along with government these days, and this includes local ones too.  

And of course this all converged with PMS, a trip back to Houston for a crawfish boil, and a house that could really use a nice wife to take care of it.

Oh and my mom and stepdad are not getting divorced again.

Ketchup

I finished my portfolio class last week which had been making me craaaazy. It very much confirmed the fact that I have a weird form of OCD because I went off the deep end, tweaking each and every project to within an inch of it's (and my) life, going without sleep just to think about each project, and ultimately hating everything I put into my portfolio. It really brought home the reason why I never engage in large, time-consuming projects like housework or child-rearing.

Anyway, I went to my portfolio review with a feeling of resigned despair. This was the first portfolio review for the school where they had invited people from graphic design firms around the city. Everyone who went before me had come back from their review saying that the critics had ripped their shit to pieces and made them defend each and every thing they did. I was at the point where I couldn't remember why I did anything. I couldn't even remember why I wanted to do graphic design. So I just decided that to any criticism I would just respond, "I hadn't thought about it that way, and I just might have to consider that" but knowing that I might cry or become sarcastic. I don't take criticism as well as I ought.

But I didn't even get a chance to defend my work. They loved it. They had nothing bad to say. Not even suggestions for improvement. I was truly overwhelmed. Probably because I was exhausted. They raved the most over my copywriting and typesetting skills. Copywriting is not technically what I'm supposed to be doing, but I did have a couple of funny ads which made them laugh. And typsetting, while not terribly sexy, is somewhat necessary for work in graphic design that pays. So I was thrilled. Too thrilled to do much more than stammer out a "thank you so much" although I did manage to make a crude hand gesture which I didn't intend. I'll explain that one when I post one of my ads.

Anyway, it was quite gratifying, but now that the class is over, I feel like something is missing. And on top of that, my laptop screen cracked from stem to stern and I had to send it off for repairs. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I don't have any projects left to complete so I'm wandering around like a zombie during the day and my nights are filled with dreams of package designs and logos that simply must be done in 4 hours.

If you'll pardon the crudeness of the comparison, I feel like a man who was in the middle of having great sex, but whose lady friend suddenly decided she is no longer interested and he's left violating the air.