Hemalayaa Is Trying To Kill Me

Hemalayaa wants me to be sexy.

Hemalayaa wants me to stand up and pulse my hips up and down and up and down and up and down and she keeps calling it a "relaxation move" but I have never before in my life relaxed and sweated and wept at the same time. Except between labor contractions.

Hemalayaa wants me to burn and she keeps laughing and giggling and she makes me jump from side to side, side to side, side to side and then lunge, lunge, lunge, and all in time to a watered-down Bhangra that sounds like a Punjabi wedding trapped in the white bread aisle of a grocery store.

Hemalayaa says, "Now lunge-hop-spin-waltz-step-spin-lunge-SMILE AND GET SEXY!" but I can't, Hemalayaa, I can't be sexy and shake my shoulders and bobble-wobble my head and get my "praise hands" going, I just can't.

Around my house, "sexy" is changing into my comfy pants and eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia and stretching back on the sofa to leave just a hint of belly hang over the top of my waistband, looking for all the world like a warm, white slug. Me and my belly both.

Your kind of sexy hurts.

You are hurting me.

You are making me do things and my heart and lungs are complaining.

Your kind of sexy is a lot like...exercise.


My husband and I are getting old.

We like the kind of sexy where you get to sit down and have a few beers.

And a nap.

Where's the scene in the Bollywood movie where all the sexy people sit around and eat great curry and sing in impossibly soprano voices about taking a nap?

I want that workout video.


Please bear with me on the ad clickthrough hyperlink text. I'm experimenting with some stuff here for my soon-to-be other blog. Most all the selly-selly stuff will be switched over there in a few weeks.

About A Boy

The author hockey-slides into room, panting, coat flopping half-off shoulders, hair trying to escape ponytail in ten different directions, and bearing small crock of spinach-artichoke dip in one arm with a loaf of rye bread stuffed into her diaper bag/purse/grocery bag/fashion accessory.

Oh my gosh, yous guys, I am SO SORRY!

I had Mothergoosemouse's baby shower written down on my Google calendar, I swear I did, but when I was downloading emails from Google Mail, some spam about a Webkinz convention uploaded itself to January 21 and completely wonked out the rest of my schedule.

Okay AND I was so busy planning my daughter's birthday party on January 20, and seriously, I can only plan ahead one event at time, and that's even why I almost missed my own wedding because somehow a dentist appointment got scheduled the day before the wedding day. You'd think that even a root canal wouldn't sidetrack getting to the church on time for your own wedding, but you'd be wrong.

Anyway...I'm here!

Hoorah!

Did you already play that game with the diaper and the peanut butter?

Drat.

I love that game.

Oh well, my bad.

So, I'm guessing that by this point all the really great advice has been handed out.

I'm sure that you're all caught up regarding the penis and the pee fountains and why not to change a diaper while singing because even though urine is sterile, it still tastes like ammonia (even when it smells like asparagus).

Uhhhhmmm...and you got the part about little boys being enamored with their little boy thingy?

And how that continues on through adulthood?

Okay...hmmmmm.

You know, I realize that with my parenting resume boasting an impressive seventeen months of raising a boy, I should already be a font of wisdom on all things boys, right?

Well, to be honest, I haven't quite yet noticed that much difference between raising boys and girls.

Yet.

Right now, the boy-baby is 17 months old. Thinking back to when my daughters were the same age and comparing my parenting experiences thus far, my conclusion based upon my data sample of three is that at seventeen months old, both boys and girls are a lot closer to behaving like mad chimps than anything recognizably female or male, even within the most liberal cultural parameters and definitions.

But okay...one thing I have noticed about boys that is different...

When the boy was three months old, people were more likely to pick up my 15- pound son and bounce him around and say, "Look how big he is! What a linebacker! What a tough guy!" Whereas with one of my 15- pound daughters at three months old, those same people would more likely place her on a silken pillow and coo over what a sweet, delicate princess she was. In actuality, all three children at three months old were equally similar in that their overriding personality characteristics were not so much those of linebackers or princesses, but of pooping, squealing, burping, flailing, adorable loaves of bread.

Another thing about boys...

I've found that when shopping for my son, it's almost impossible to find clothes off the rack that aren't embellished with airplanes, footballs or dinosaurs. In the way of Things To Get My Panties In A Twist Over, this is very small potatoes, but...you know how sometimes you just want a plain blue shirt? You know how if every piece of clothing a kid owns has some sort of pattern or theme, then you have to organize your laundry so that you don't end up with nothing but striped pants and spotted shirts with dogs on them? And you know how just once in a while you'd like to dress your kids as if they weren't members of a clown family? Or more eccentric than they are?

You know how sometimes you just want a PLAIN BLUE SHIRT?

Well, nature-nurture debates aside, I will warn you that fashion industry's push for boys to become All-Star Ace Pilot Paleontologist begins pretty early. I'd begin memorizing dinosaur taxonomy and fighter plane silhouettes as soon as possible if I were you.

Oh! Here's another good piece of advice!

I'd recommend visiting your local ice rink for a review of your figure skating skills, especially on re-learning a solid landing for your double axle. The reason I say this is because - as an indicator of what you might be in for - right now, every floor in our house is littered with booby traps of small four-wheeled everythings threatening to send me into a surprise death drop at every turn. I don't think the preponderance of Things That Go is so much the result of a stereotypically and innately male obsession with cars and trucks and all things muy macho, so much as it represents a boy-brain fascination with anything that moves. There are, of course, cars, trucks, and trains strewn all across the living room floor into the kitchen and down the hallway. But the boy has also been claiming and making zoooom! any and all doll strollers, pink ponies on wheels, In-line Skating Barbie, and a bright pink Polly Pocket Corvette convertible. I don't think that my son is compensating for...anything...just yet with his collection of miniature Trans Ams, nor do I think that his love of pink ponies on wheels indicates that we will be enjoying long summers at his beach house in Provincetown (although I dig Trans Ams and Provincetown somewhat equally - if only there were a hybrid Trans Am) ; however, he does like things that move across his cortical spatial areas.

So as a note of warning, do keep in mind that when these small movable objects are stepped on in the middle of your midnight jaunt to the bathroom, you'll grab a much higher technical and presentation score if you don't flutz your lutz, and if you can one-foot your spin, smile, and impress the judges with good extension on your flying camel. In other words, you don't want to look like this. Especially, on vinyl flooring. In your bathrobe. Or worse.

Other than that, the boy seems to be pretty much keeping pace with his sisters as far as first words, first steps, and first tantrums. Maybe not exactly coinciding month-by-month, day-for-day, but all within the wide realm of normal. One notable difference, however, is that while his sisters progressed through first attempts at English thusly

Ma-Ma
Da-Da
Uh-Oh
Ba-Ba (meaning ball, bottle, balloon, belly button, etc.)

the boy's first vocabulary looks more like this

Uh-Oh
UH-OH!
Bub-Buh (meaning "Booby")
Beh-Beh (meaning "Pee-Pee" a.k.a. penis)
Ma-MAAAAAAAAA!
Woof
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (meaning "I want that thing I cannot have!")

So there is that.

My last word of wisdom is the only piece of advice that may border on being controversial.

No, it doesn't have to do with circumcision.

But it does have to do with overcoats. And it goes like this:

You have two older daughters. I have two older daughters.

I don't know how much girls' stuff you got rid of, but in a fit of decluttering, I got rid of a whole lot of all my baby clothes and paraphernalia right before I got pregnant. Like, literally, a few hours right before. Which, I suppose, sort of clinched the fact that there would be a surprise pregnancy, what with the universe having a distinctly wacky sense of humor not unlike the best Three's Company episode you can think of.

Now, there have been a good number of years between babies in my immediate family, as well as in the extended family, and so a whole lot of people went kooky-crazy at the thought of a new baby. As a result, we were delightfully showered with all sorts of baby gifts. One of these gifts, however, was not a winter bunting. This is understandable, since that baby was born during a 110 degree heat wave. And yet, even with six months lead time before the first snowfall, I still managed to find myself one day needing to head out of the house with the baby during a cold snap, and not having anything warmer than a long-sleeve snap dinosaur t-shirt on hand.

Well...except for the purple bunting with the pink hearts.

Now, I don't know what your politics are regarding putting little boys in purple buntings with pink hearts. But I will admit that I did pause for the briefest of moments after digging through the one remaining Rubbermaid container of infant clothes in my basement and only coming up with my daughter's decidedly girly-girl bunting.

I hesitated for a moment.

And then I put the bunting on him.

Because I had a date with a latte that could not be rescheduled.

I didn't think much about it afterwards - even when several people oohed and ahhed over my daintily adorable princess baby - until I arrived at the school bus stop to pick up my daughters.

They jumped off the bus, skipped over to the baby and me, and my eldest was immediately horror struck:

"MOMMY! YOU put the BABY in GIRL CLOTHES!"

I tried to act nonchalant.

"How was school?"

She wasn't sidetracked.

"PEOPLE will THINK he's a GIRL!"

I found this especially surprising coming from her since she is the daughter most likely to horde snips and snails and puppy dog tails in her battered and muddied jeans pockets.

"Well, whaddaya say we get him an anchor tattoo on his upper arm? You almost never see girls with anchor tattoos, right?"

She was not amused.

And although I tried to address her worries with reminders that her own very, very muy macho father often wears pink or purple shirts to the office, she still silently fretted over the "wrong-gender-specific" bunting.

Which later worked to my advantage.

Because, you see, as far as my politics go on who gets to wears skirts and who doesn't, and who gets unjustly teased for their clothing choices and who shouldn't, I've realized that I'm all for "live and let live", especially when it comes to things like pink and purple buntings. However, I understand that in some micro-cultures - and perhaps some macro-cultures - it's very much "more okay" for a girl to wear a shirt with an airplane than for a boy to wear a skirt covered in lavender daisies. And as much as the fight for A More Purple-And-Pink Inclusive Society is one that I'd like to fight for myself and for my children, I'm still not decided to what extent I get to make the decision for my children as to whether or not to put them on the front lines without their consent or own willingness - or preparedness - to walk into battle.

Pink and purple buntings aside.

And this all sounds very grand and enlightened and socially conscious and brazenly activist in the Fight For The Right To Wear Pink-And-Purple, all while balancing a profound respect for my children as individuals with their own rights, feelings, and political leanings...but what it really boils down to is this:

With three kids of various and sundry genders and, I'm guessing, a wallet that on occasion gets a bit stretched around the edges as all our wallets do, my advice is that from here on out, everyone in the family gets green winter outerwear.

Or red.

Take your pick.

But if your personal household economy - likes ours - demands that the younger kids get hand-me-down winter wear, then stick with a color that doesn't incite a coup in your own home.

Or a mutiny.

Maybe he'll want to wear a pink Sparkle Pony coat; maybe not. But I need coats to last three seasons for three different kids and for as long as possible. I don't need a defiant uprising or a revolution of visionaries on my hands every December; uprisings and revolutions are both so, so draining. And right before the holidays.

We're all on the same page: everyone gets green.

You'll have plenty of other opportunities to prove your gender issues points.

Like the battle over the toilet seat.


Anyway, I hope I didn't turn anyone off with my very controversial musings about buntings and gender-specific coat color choices for children.

My husband said that I should be more controversial in my blog posts, but I hope I didn't run headlong into a firestorm topic that will overrun the Internet with links back to my blog berating me or celebrating me for my bravery in tackling this heated bunting topic, and then there would be the mention on Huffington Post and then the NY Times article and finally the made-for-tv movie starring Jennifer Aniston as Madame Jozet.

------------------------------------------------

Well, that's all I have.

I'll end by wishing Mothergoosemouse a happy and eeeeaaaasssssyyyyy labor, and good wishes for her and her family in welcoming the soon-to-be newest human to our wonderful, beautiful world.

Much love and many, many amazing days to come!


ETA: Poo. I tried to put this link in the comments, and have been flummoxed again. Try this one Pink For Boys and Titian's Boy With Dogs

iRockstar

This meme is great fun.

It's like that game you used to play when you were about fifteen years old.

You know that game where it's Saturday afternoon and you're all sitting around in your friend Brian's basement drinking A-Treat cola and eating pretzels from a red plastic basket that Brian's mom lined with a paper towel, and you're listening to this other kid Darren's newest record album of rare, remixed bootleg T. Rex demos (number 3,424 in a series) and there's this other kid who's a few years older than the rest of you and that everyone knows only as "Skunk", and Skunk is sprawled out on a broken orange recliner in the corner, jamming along on an electric guitar that Brian's grandmother bought Brian four years ago for Christmas but that Brian never learned how to play but that Skunk is very excellently wailing on, and halfway through 20th Century Boy Darren gets up to smoke one of Brian's mom's Marlboros near an open window, and after a long drag, he meaningfully points the cigarette toward Skunk and proclaims, "Dude, we should totally get a rock group together," and everyone agrees that, ain't yo, we should totally get a rock group together, and that the first most important step toward getting a rock group together - the most kick-ass group in the entire county that would just blow the heads off everyone at the local firehall block parties - the most pressing matter at hand is not deciding where to practice or who's going to learn to play drums and who's going to get a summer job and buy an amp because Brain's grandmother said that she wouldn't buy Brain any more music equipment until he got a haircut ("No way, dudes. No way am I cutting my hair.") -

No.

As everyone knows, if you're going to start a rock group, the absolute first thing you have to do is come up with a frickin' awesome band name.

And then decide what your first album will be called.

And then fantasize about the groupies.

(By the way, how did you like that first paragraph? William Faulkner, eat your heart out.)


Now, with this amazing meme, you can relive the caffeine-high thrills and mock-creative rush of this childhood game of yesteryear, but in a new and improved version that's been simplified, sanitized, and updated for the computer tech era. No more do you need to spend entire afternoons in your neighbor's dank basement inhaling toxic mixtures of mold and second-hand smoke and risking a contact high from Skunk's flannel shirt and Brian's mom's Country Meadow solid room deodorizer by Glade.

With this exciting meme, you can just point, click, paste and presto! You're on your way to slacker dream stardom the iWay.

Here's how you do it (directions courtesy of the fantabulous Professor J.):

1. Click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click on this link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Finally, click on this link: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.


You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your pic.

Frickin' AWESOME!

And it was so simple, I did it three times.


My first band's first album.















Highly acclaimed by critics in Europe, Dinwoody Glacier's first album, much about the problem, languished in American charts until mid-summer when the break-out punk-polka track"Ten Dead Pole Cats" set the beat as background music in a Volkswagen Golf commercial.

From Rolling Stone magazine:

"Dinwoody Glacier's energetic fusion of fast, hard guitar and thumping hot accordion is the next great thing to have you shouting "E-I-E-I-E-I-O" and crazy-mad two-stepping in the Polka Joyland mosh pit. Like your Aunt Agnes after too many Four Roses highballs, front woman Madame Jozet is a non-stop dervish, pumping the bellows and punching out rapid-fire lyrics in a frenzied wall-of-sound not heard since the days of Stanky and the Coal Miners."

(Damn, I was good.)

Dinwoody Glacier broke up suddenly after drummer Johnnie "Elbows" McGloughlin sold his drum kit to pay for a tuxedo rental for his sister's wedding.

The remaining members of the band later regrouped for what is widely considered to be the "The Glacier's" sophomore effort, Those Whom We Admire. However, even though the band line-up was intact except for the loss of McGloughlin, and even though the entire album consisted of gospel covers of every single song on the first album, most die hard fans don't recognize the album as a Dinwoody Glacier project because an important defining characteristic of the band - the frickin' awesome name - had been changed.

My first/second band's second/first album











Lancaster House Agreement's first/second album soared to number one hundred thirty-seven on national charts, with single "God Loves A Yonko" holding a brief reign as number two on WMBT 's Sister Charmaine's Gospel Power Hour out of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.


The Solo Album

With a nod from the Schuylkill County Grammy Awards and a fan letter from some guy living in a hunting cabin up near Wellsboro, fame and delusions of marketable talent conspired to break-up the band once again, this time for good. Around this time, Madame Jozet met underground poetry slam guru, Juju Tulkinghorn, at a local Dairy Queen where Juju was in charge of the custard machine. Juju's influence over Jozet was total, and shortly after their meeting, Jozet put down the accordion entirely and entered what is artistically considered to be her "completely sucky" period. Jozet subsequently changed her name, and her first and only solo effort was the eponymous album, Palanga, a predominantly spoken word recording interspersed with some ham bone, the sound of marbles dropping, and random humming.



















After she was booed off stage at a community college charity auction and almost set on fire in the parking lot by an associate English professor, Madame Jozet gave up her music career once and for all, thank the lord, and slipped into quiet obscurity in suburban Central Pennsylvania (where slipping into quiet obscurity is practically a religion.)

Once in a while she spends a day sitting by the telephone waiting for the producer of VH1's "Where Are They Now?" to call. But mostly, she just tends to her lawn and occasionally fiddles with the marvelous Name Your Rock Band Meme, clicking-up up frickin' awesome band names and designing album covers that are totally, totally cool.

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Wow!

That was fun!

I wasted an entire evening typing that up.

(Thanks, Professor J!)

Now, why not try it yourself? You know you want to! C'mon...how many times this week have you heard some unique string of words and phrases and said, "Hey! That would be a great name for a rock group!"

Next thing you knew, you were in the Good Will scoping out secondhand spandex pants and striking pouty paparazzi poses with your toothbrush-microphone.

What's your rock band album?

Post your links...if you dare!

I just know that you're totally frickin' AWESOME! Too!

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Gogol Bordello cites Dinwoody Glacier as an early influence.

PSA: That Stuff To The Right

That mish-mash of links and ads and buttons and widgets and gadgets to the right of the written test will be cleaned up soon.

(Heh...I wrote "written test" instead of "written text". And I woke up this morning with the song "What I've Been Looking For" from High School Musical stuck in my head. I have no idea what this means. But I sure hope I get a date for the prom.)

Right now, I'm just tossing things up on the right sidebar just to get them tossed up. For now.

Really, I'm not supposed to point out or alert you to some of the ads. That's what the fine print on the ad contracts says, anyways.

But in way of alerting you to some of the ads...what's up with all the sausage ads?

I understand the Discount Hotels in Lithuania since I mentioned my fat Lithuanian-Polish head in my last post, and supposedly there is a little robot that now visits my blog, crawls the text for content, and then posts relevant ads based upon what I'm writing about. Thus the Lithuanian vacation sites.

(The little robots, by the way, make me feel all itchy just thinking about them. Any other time there's been a small anything visiting my content and crawling all over, it's required hours of nit-picking and a dose of permethrin to get rid of it.)

I suppose that posting the word "Polish" did it as far as the sausage ads. "Polish" set off a robotic word-association game that goes something like this:

Polish
Polish Jokes
Stereotype
Bang & Olufsen
Bangers and Mash
Monster Mash
Monster Trucks
State Fair
Pork Product Vendors
Kowalonek's Kielbasy Shop
Easter
Parade
Exercise
My Sweaty Armpits
Smell Like
Sausage

Or something like that.

There is one ad up there right now that I do wholeheartedly and strongly recommend that you take a look at - besides Kowalonek's Kielbasy Shop...seriously, the best kilbo in the world -
and that's the ad for Barefoot Books.

I love these books.

I'm a bookseller (for another book selling establishment, namely the largest retail book selling store in the entire universe) and I know my kids' books. And Barefoot Books rock-a-doodle-doo: stories out of the ordinary, multicultural stories, outstanding illustrations, and all from a mom-and-poppish shop that lovingly handpicks each product for outstanding quality and high OOOOOhhhhhhhhh! AAhhhhhh! factor.

Anyway...more about that later. Eh-hem.

So, before I end this post and begin chasing Terzo to grab the marker from his hand - the marker he's been entertaining himself with while I've been blogging, and the marker that he's been using to draw all over the front of the fridge - I have to clear up one thing....

It seems that there has been some misunderstanding based upon my roundabout and confuzzled ramblings in the post below, and that somehow, some of the commentors - male commentors especially - are wishful thinking under the impression that I will be starting a pole dancing blog.

I regret to say that this is not going to happen. Not in your wildest dreams.

I may start a Polish Dancer blog, but that's something else entirely.

However, as a sort of consolation prize, I will offer you this.

Just don't watch it at work.

And don't tell your wife or girlfriend...or mom...that I showed it to you.

Thnxkbai!


EDIT TO ADD: Well, now the sausage ads are gone. But I swear, there was a big ad covered in meat about ten minutes ago.

ANOTHER EDIT TO ADD: I just clicked on the Kowalanek's link with the computer speakers on. Evidently, there was a song I'd missed before. A song about kielbasy. And that's one way to get any High School Musical song out of your head.

Instead of a cross, this writer's dross....

I must say, that was a thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

Mostly.

For the most part, the holidays were just grand.

Sigh.

Well, actually, there was this…thing…that happened. Not a horrible thing, but still sort of mildly discombobulating. Although, at one point, I will admit to feeling a bit out of sorts. More than a bit out of sorts.

I’m being cryptic, I know.

I can’t help it. I promise you.

I’m one of those partially “outed” bloggers, and in this matter of which I cannot really speak, I’ve been sworn to real life cryptitude so as not to startle the neighbors with the breadth of my...lateral thinking.

Which begs the question “So why write about it if you can’t write about it?”

Because I’ll tell you why:

Because every time I sit down and try to write something fun or funny or funtastic, this thing drops down on my keyboard like an albatross holding a cinder block upon which is scrawled “I AM THE THING FOREMOST IN YOUR MIND AND YOU WILL WRITE ABOUT ME OR ELSE I WILL BRAIN YOUR MUSE WITH THIS HEAVY OBJECT.”

That’s why.

(I really wish I could find a picture of an albatross holding a cinder block, because that would be just the perfect graphic for this entry.)

So now I’ve sort of kind of written about the thing, and I hope the albatross is satisfied and will fly off (very low) to some place else and go harangue mariners or something.

I’ll just say this, because otherwise I know you'll worry:

Everyone here at Chateau Halushki is, knock wood, healthy in mind and body - praise be - and, no, no one in my family was attacked by a tiger, nor were they caught in crossfire in a war zone, nor did they get caught by the paparazzi upon exiting a car while wearing no underpants. (By the way, those horrific events are not listed in any particular order of quantifiable suckitude.)

And finally, the discombobulations of which I am barely speaking of are over and done with and a new day is dawning and it’s all sunbeams and star shine and whipped cream puddings from here on out.

Still too cryptic?

Let’s just say that as a family, we were in a sort of temporary severe cash flow slump. We knew it was going to be temporary (although not quite sure how temporary at one point) but the timing of the whole matter just simply was not the bestest. Two weeks before a major celebration of consumer spending is not a good time for low cash flow, especially when some members of the family still believe the fruits of this consumer spending are actually the result of magic as wielded by a right jolly old elf and not connected in any way to rock solid greenbacks.

Still too cryptic?

Then may I just further say in the way of tantalizing innuendos that I was also temporarily and necessarily engaged as a full-time member of the workforce, the experience of which was in no small way responsible for my giddily arrived at decision to display ads on my blog, as if Google Adsense were my way to a golden ticket.

For, you see, I’m no longer cut out for full-time, 9-to-5 wage earning.

I’ll do it if I must.

But I’m much better suited as a “lady of the manor” type.

You know…up by 11:00 AM, breakfast of bon-bons and champagne spritzers, and then back for a nap until my lady’s maid wakes me in time for me to give direction as to whether to prepare the lamb or the lobster for dinner.

Work is hard.

It’s even more hard when you’re doing it because you have to do it or else someone big and burly will come repossess your car and your heat and stuff. It’s even harder when the work you’re doing pays close to minimum wage and so you have to do a lot of it to make the money you need to allow everyone in your family to take lukewarm showers and without setting a timer in the bathroom. (Although somewhere Al Gore is shedding a tear of bliss after reading that last sentence. Because Al Gore reads my blog, you know. All the presidential hopefuls do.) (Heh-heh.)

After I returned home and had completed my temporary full-time tour of duty in pantyhose, there was of course the consideration of my continuing some full-time work of a more permanent sort and for some pay substantially higher than retail wages. We could become a two income household and make sure for certain that any potential future cash flow slumps were knocked out at the knees and for good and forever, amen. However, after factoring in the eventual cost of summer childcare for three children, gas money, and pantyhose stipend - because I can go through four or five pairs a day easily - I’d have to be earning somewhat more than any job I am currently qualified for would pay. Other than pole dancer at a truck stop. Because, from what I understand, I could bring my kids along with me to a job like that to bus tables and what not.

Certainly, though, there aren’t many well-paying jobs listed in the newspaper for English majors who write sentences for which prepositions are the ending in. So for all my talking in circles, and until Little Terzo is in school full time, we’re most likely going to remain a one-and-a-half income family and continue our rice and bean diet...with lobster and bon-bons only every other Friday.

Although…

I did have this kooky idea.

Naw…it would never work. It’s just this crazy notion I had one evening after painting the bathroom ceiling with Killz paint and forgetting to open the window to vent the fumes.

Well…okay. I'll tell you.

I was thinking that, you know, even though there are something like 78,453 writers out of work right now, and another couple thousand on strike in LA, I was thinking that maybe - just maybe - I could still do some kind of job where I could sit at home in my pajamas and string words together in magical and fantastical arrangements, and then post those words on The Internets - where people don’t care so much about prepositions - and then maybe, somehow, a big genie would occasionally appear from my CPU and hand me a dollar bill. “Occasionally” meaning every five seconds or so.

Wouldn’t that be neat?

And maybe, after a while, I’d turn my magical, fantastical writing site into a dot.com site. Not that I don’t adore Blogger with every fiber of my Granny underpants, but ________.com just flows better on a t-shirt. Or a bumper sticker. Or coffee mug. Or Goodyear balloon.

And maybe, someone who knew something about how to do all this crazy, complicated computer stuff would give me some hints and pointers on how to turn a blog into a .com. Since I know nothing about such things.

And then, someone else would point me in the direction of another someone else who knew things about funky graphics and eye-catching banners and who had a powerfully cool idea for revamping and updating my blog. Because, I have nonesuch.

And THEN I’d go really crazy and start a SECOND blog that was…ooooh, I don’t want to spoil the surprise since I’ve already got my bold soul cryptic on. But it would be a site with a focused theme (unlike this site, where I talk about albatross and cinder blocks in the same sentence) and which offered useful information on a specific topic (other than waterfowl and building supplies) and to which readers would flock (get it? flock?) to hear all the amazing things I had to say about…certain things…and stuff…and the readers would actually be grateful to be put in the way of advertisers who sold that kind of…thing…and stuff.

And no, I’m not starting a cinder block review site.

The thing is that at this point I’m all ideas.

But! And this is an important But! so pay attention:

But! This most recent foray into the out-of-home workplace has energized and motivated me - inspired me, even - to never work full-time outside of the home again if I can help it.

Finally, to all those people who have in the past said,

“You know what you should do as a job? A job that is a cosmic calling but also a job that puts greenbacks in your hand and warm in your shower water and sugar in your coffee? You know what you should do as a job like that kind of job is…

WRITE!

GOL-DAMMIT, YOU SHOULD WRITE AND WRITE AND WRITE!

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! DON‘T YOU REALIZE YOU CAN AND SHOULD BE MAKING MONEY WITH YOUR WRITING, YOU IDIOT?!!! HOLY HECK, WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET IT THROUGH YOUR FAT POLISH-LITHUANIAN HEAD! DON’T MAKE ME CALL UPON THE UNIVERSE TO THREATEN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT THE WEEKEND BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN ORDER TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE TIME TO DO THIS IS NOW, NOW, NOW! CRIPES, GIRL, JUST DO IT ALREADY! NOW WHERE DID I PUT MY RED BULL?”

To all those people who have in the past said stuff like that, I say

“oh…i get it now.”


Because I’m really e. e. cummings.


Psyche.


So anyway, it’s a new year.

And as I watch the albatross fly into the distance, cinder block skimming off the roofs of cars and setting off alarms as the bird wends its airy way toward the open sea, I feel…buoyed.

And buoyant.

Ebullient!

I’m going to try a few new things with my blog, try to get my writing to earn some money - even if it has to pole dance for a few months while I’m figuring out what size pantyhose it wears - and who knows?

This time next year, I‘ll be writing about my thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

And showering in hot water.

At the same time, even.


Amen.