The Sleeper Curve

Does it exist? I hope so! I am reading 'Everything Bad is Good for You", and ten pages in I love it and want every word to be true, as I download my two week free trial to gametap, a sort of online gamefly service, but with classic games like Pifall and DigDug. How much do I dig on Burger Time? A whole freakin' lot, I tell you.

I am reading this book in the absolutely most decadent way. I am ashamed to relate it, for it reveals everything about my soft booosh-wa lifestyle. I am so up against the wall when the revolution comes. My shower is pretty large. It almost gives you the impression of being in gym class. Two shower heads face each other on opposite ends, it is fully encased in white an cobalt blue tile, and has a bench that is tiled to match. On this bench I set my cup of hot cocoa, or sometimes coffee or tea, and a book. I have yet to perfect a way to keep the book completely dry, but it never gets more than a few sprinkles on it. This is the most indulgent thing I can think that I could do. More than living up to that housewife cliche of laying on the couch eating bon bons and watching Oprah whilst awaiting a visit from the sexy plumber/meter reader/ mailman. It's scandalous! I always read in the shower before, but this shower, holy crap.
And I have a radio in there. Can't be without my NPR!

I am so fodder for the punks with the assless chaps who will eat me and my family when the atomic fallout happens and we all live in Damnation Alley.

Anyway, now I will go play Donkey Kong Jr., and daydream of being young cute and a frag doll.

It's cold.

It's cold, and rainy, and dim, and drear. Can it be only drear, or must it be dreary? I can't rely on this spell checker, which does not know how to spell Gandhi. I don't know how to spell it either, this is just a guess. I could easy go to some kind of dictionary dot com, but I don't. I don't like having so many windows open, it gets to be way too much and I'm off reading the dictionary and sighing over how I can't possibly afford a subscription to the O.E.D. I am no kind of multitasker. It's one of the reasons I think I'd be such a terrible driver. Not that I even have a car to be a terrible driver in.

The husband has a car, and if I learned to drive and wanted to drive, I'd have to get up early and drive him into work, then drive back home, and this would take an hour out of my morning for the ability to do the shopping without paying two dollars for the bus. And then I'd have to pick him up. Another hour. Is my time worth a dollar an hour? Two, really, since the bus ride home would mean another two dollars. I sell my time for babysitting at ten dollars an hour, and knitting lessons go for $25. Don't ask me why one can get more for frivolous hobby teaching rather than serious care and well-being tending to that looking after a child is. Why are teachers so poorly paid? It's a mystery of life. I suppose that's why the tenure thing, rather than them being on their own, 'at-will' like the rest of us. Ah-nold wants to muck up the tenure system somehow, I'm really not sure what the hell is going on with that. This is the first time I really have no idea what is going on with the propositions and so on. Haven't even looked on that there interweb.

For no reason at all, I'm in a really terrible mood. I wish I had the new Doom or Halo, I'd really like to blow things up at a high frame rate and with really slick graphics. It makes me feel so much better. And hey, pixels not people, right?

The boy's favourite game in the world is to make up words and rhyme them. My father thinks this means he is developing oddly. I think it means he's just a funny little kid. I pointed out that intermacroscular was not a word. The little boy looked at me and said "yes, but it is a word in my mind." Deadly seriously he spoke these words to me, and I burst out laughing. He got a wigglysad look on his face, and I tried like crazy to do damage control. that's what most of parenting seems to be to me. Damage control. Please oh please don't say I've fucked him up for life, please oh please let me spend skads of money on college, not therapy. I told him that I thought it was a very good explanation, and that it made me happy that he had such a clever answer right at hand, and that's why I was laughing, because he made me happy. That tided him over. Mostly the boy does not believe a word I say, doesn't belief in anything! Dragons, Fairies, Hobbits, Elves, Makurokuroske, the moon is the north wind's cookie, anything you should believe totally in when you are four. Santa of course, He's totally real. And the Easter Bunny. These things come from not me, and therefore are real as the house he lives in. How did I get to be such an unreliable source? Not that the boy is wrong. It's just alarming to get called out by a toddler, I guess.

Stupid ipod

My stupid ipod (which is also named Edward) is now 1/3 full. I've had the thing two years, and in that time I have constantly daydreamed of lighting it on fire and inserting it sideways in Steve Job's posterior. It's a four hundred dollar paperweight. I can't believe how badly it works. But I am stuck with it, as the Apple genius people said so. I tried to return it within the first ten days, but they kept sending me back saying, "oh, but you haven't done this. Do this and all will be well." So I'd do that, and then, on day nine, I was told that since it had a scratch, it was unreturnable. Of course, that scratch came from the little protective case that APPLE made for it to live in. Two microscratches down the front that are the same width as the apple tag that is on the inside of the case. Real freakin' geniuses, those guys. As the husband furiously stated in the store, Jane Goodall would give us our money back. Ghandi would give us our money back. Of course, Ghandi most likely would not be caught dead with an ipod, though I imagine it'd be nice to spin to the tunes of balliwood.

I saw one of the most fantastically bad movies last night: Pinata: Surviour Island! With Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in it, and Harry from Star Trek Voyager. Oh, wow. So bad. And as the overly long introduction was plodding along, I was thinking to myself, wow, those guys who did Critters, what ever happened to them? This looks like something they'd do. And sure enough, Chiodo brothers appeared in the credits. What a terrible movie.

In the not quite bad, but not really good category is Ginger Snaps, a teen werewolf kind of thing we caught on IFC the other night. It seemed pretty funny at first, but it got seriously slow and heavy near the end, it just changed gears completely and not in a good way. Oh well. The TIVO just caught Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed. It's set in an asylum, so there's at least that going for it. Asylums are classic. Haven't yet caught Gothika, I was hoping it'd be on a non-premium channel by now. Ah well.

The TIVO is filling up with bad horror films, it's very exciting. I'm going to gain 10 pounds in popcorn this next week, I swear. The little boy want to watch a scary movie, but I just can't think of anything suitable for him other than Nightmare Before Christmas or Mad Monster Party, and we've watched them. Where is the Great Pumpkin this year? I can't find it listed anyplace.
Alrighty, it's nice and rainy, so it's off to the library.

The Library

We have so many books, really, just hundreds of them. I can barely give a single one of them up, even the cheap-ass halo backstory novel and the even cheaper Alias backstory books, of which I have two. (It was nice to see Sydney a young gal at college.) When we moved, WE put most of the books into storage months before. This helped in getting the house less full of crap, and easier to do all of the improvements we had said we were going to do on moving into it five years ago. But I missed the books, everyday. At least once, sometimes twice, I thought of a bit of information, or wanted to show someone something, and I knew exactly what book it was in, and that it was in the storage unit. Killed me. Now that we're settled in again, I am starting with A of the fiction section and reading all the way through. I do this every few years to ensure that the books I don't re-read every year- like the Lord of the Rings, or the Dune books, or His Dark Materials- are still worth keeping. If I get to a point in the process where I am faced with a book I don't want to read, off it goes. I just finished Watership Down last night, the first book on the shelf.

Also read this week are: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood. Fabulous!
The Daguerreotype, by Patrick Gregory. I'm glad it's over. Not a
terrible book, but close to it.

The next book in line is the Oresteian trilogy, by Aeschylus. Yum.

I got a shareware version of Doom last night and played it like crazy. Man I love that game. I wish our computer was able to run the latest edition, but you can only do so much with an eight year old machine. Halo runs, but just barely, and usually without sound. Also, now we only have one working computer, and we can no longer play Quake against each other. Maybe when Star Wars Battlefront II comes down in price we'll pick that up and then blast each other to smithereens. Fun fun fun. And the Nightmare Before Christmas game looks so great! And leggo Star Wars! I can actually play that one with the little boy. We played it at a neighbor's house that we were looking after (and their cats), and we finished it, but I totally want to play it again co-opratively. It seemed like there were things you just needed another player to get done.

Oh, good grief, what now?

Soooooooo, since we bought our fabulous new house from a guy who hadn't even lived in it for one year, we decided not to get another pest report, but did go ahead and hire a general inspector. Well, it all turned out nicely. Until last night, when the husband found the termite nest! They were all over a few boards that were lying on the floor of the basement. He hauled 'em out and soaked 'em with raid. Today I called pest control companies and they all wanted to know when we bought the house. "Oh, like 6 weeks ago," I foolishly replied. "Oh. We don't come out unless it's been one year from the close of escrow, sorry." WTF??? I called around some more, but this seemed to be standard practice. One company told me that my pest inspection report is guaranteed for one year, and that they are the people who are responsible for the work. Catch-22. My inspection report is one year past, but I have not owned this house for one year! What could they do if I lied? Invite the termites back?

Blarg.

This is Halloween!

Ok, not yet, but soon. The only real drawback about living where we do is that there is no neighborhood, so no trick-or-treaters, no reason to decorate the house (more than it always is). You can't even see the house from the road, and our street isn't marked. I'll have to go across the Dam Road to the Sherwood forest neighborhood. I am not kidding on that name. I so tried to get a house there, but it was not to be. On Robin Hood drive! Near the corner of Marion way!

The Corpse Bride was very disappointing, did I already mention that? So thin, the music was just terrible. I wasn't expecting another Nightmare Before Christmas, but seriously, it lacked a lot. And one thing that bothered me was the bride, how she had a spot through her cheek where you could see her teeth, and that the movement of her visible jaw did not line up at all with her speach. In fact, it never moved once! Lazy! Don't pay full price, matinee only.

Today I'm finally getting around to dying my hair, the new standard: mostly black with a bleached part for my bangs and some hair on the right side, which I may dye blue. I'm going to be Medusa for halloween. The little boy is going to be a goblin from Labyrinth, and I have no idea wht the husband plans. Last year he was the red barron, it went great with his moustache.

the upside of voiceovers

Not really any that I can see, except for maybe the one in Alphaville, or did I imagine it? I needed one for that movie. But the Upside of Anger? No, not so much, thank you. An enjoyable movie though, despite Mr. Kevin Costner whom I don't actively dislike, yet, don't care for at all. Except the bicycling movie with Rae Dawn Chong. Where has she gone???? Kicking ass by the governator's side, Doing Kevin Costner in a bicycling movie, and something else I'm sure. I use way too many commas, but i'm not sure how to break the habbit. Maybe I should learn how to write.

I'm not watching Lost because The Husband is not yet home. Must save Lost.

I just realized that I have made (Including this post) 8 entries without a single one of them detailing the amazing cuteness of my cat. I may have broken some kind of internet by-law. I shall make ammends at once:


This is my cat, sleeping in her catbed.
Yup, I knitted it. That small yellow thing is one of her toys that she does not actually play with, but only keeps in her bed. A lovey of some kind.
Yum, catnip filled fish skeleton.

It's so pretty here.

This is what I get to see from my porch every day. And only 20 minutes away from the BIG CITY. El Sob number one, indeed. Do I realize how lucky I am? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

ow. again with the ow/motherhood means mental freeze

yeah, more owiness.

So, I used to live on the east coast, and in a lot of ways it seems to me that I was smarter, then. I read more, watched TV less, was politically active, had a job, went to school... and was relatively fine with my life. Then I moved out to the west coast. I immeadeatly felt happier. And stupider. I still had a job, eventually, after a few very generous months on a futon in a freind's house. I was able to upgrade to paying roomate status, and was thinking about going back to school. Politics not so much, TV, well, couldn't afford it. Reading....mostly comic books.
But happy! Then I became a mom, and let me tell you, whoever you are, my IQ must have dropped by 50 points the moment I was knocked up. I feel knowledge seeping out of my head like a kid with a snotty nose. I was in school, but barely finished out the semester. That was five years ago, and I still don't have any kind of substantial college education I can point to. I can, however, smell a dirty diaper at twenty paces. That doesn't bring in as much money as being an executive of some kind, or even answering phones. Hell, the night janitor at Kmart makes more. My brother was one, so I know. Dumb as a sack of hammers. Sharp as a sack of wet mice. I used to blame the avacados. The pure hippy-ified air, the residual pot smoke that hangs above Berkeley, the fact that under the purple hair it was blonde, you name it, but really, I'm just not very smart.

But I'm happy.

I know women who hold down jobs and have kids and can carry on wonderful conversations where I just smile, nod, and eat another PB&J. They are happy people too. They have the total package... Maybe they can't fold a fitted sheet. That's it. I bet my linen closet is neater. I'll fold that damn sheet so flat and iron it too. If I could remember to do it..... uh..... brain tumor!


New book started: Focoult's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. So far, no hot monks getting it on.

Knitting update: Commisioned cardigan back done, and a partial sleeve.
Husband socks languish...

Movies: None lately, caught up on some very critical buffy the vampire slayer. TIVO!

Ow. Ow. ow. Ow.ow. OW. ow. ow. ow.

Lately my back has ben hurting. It's never done this before, except after a night of crazy mosh pit action, and let me tellya, it's ben a looooong time since that's happened. So I woke up barely able to move, no reason I can think of at all. I'm shuffling through the day like an old lady, almost unable to push the grocery cart, and absolutely unable to lift any of the groceries to the house. The husband did it all. The only thing that helps is to curl up on the couch with my head tucked forward as far as I can get it to my knees, and take a nap. This is very not good. I can't ride my bike, which means I can't get around, and can't get to the new babysitting job that may await me tomorrow. ug. It seems my life is a bit out of whack that I can Babble on to no one on this computer, but I can't afford a car or to go to the doctor. I need a new job. I need to learn how to better be a farmer with the money I do have. I need a cup of cocoa.

The world turns

I used to remember how I'd roll my eyes, and mock the crowds of tourists everytime an event came along in the city. They'd clog my subway cars, wear bad clothes and talk too loudly. The children ran like feral creatures. So of course now that the tables are turned, It felt completely weird when one girl on the train looked at me and said "Oh my god, what's going on here?" "fleet week," I replied, "the Blue Angels just put on a show". "Fucking Fleet Week!" She said in a voice I found too loud and rude, since there were small children nearby (including my own). But she had talked to me, mostly I'm sure because we were two millimeters apart on the train, but also because I didn't look the part I play. Maybe. That's what I'm chosing to belive, anyway. Purple stripped knee socks and pink hair don't really say 'suburban housewife' as well as unflattering jeans from JC Penny and a polo shirt, yet I'm finding more and more that suburbia is getting more and more me.

Sin City was great! I loved it! I think it may even be an honest to gooodness 'good movie'.
So often the things that I like aren't actually good. I Like a lot of crap, what can I say?

Currently knitting: Husband Socks in self-striping wool, 9 sts to the inch, so tasty!
Comissioned Cardigan Test Run in crap acrylic, 4 sts to the inch.
Raffle Diamond Scarf, in grey 'wool-ease', 5 sts to the inch.

Currently reading: The Illiad: the real cute little red one that fits so perfectly in my pocket.
Life Before Man, by Margaret Attwood (almost done.)
A Book Of One's Own Thopmas Mallon (i think) A diary of Diaries.

Live in California, but leave before you get soft.

I have gotten so very soft. My last kitchen had one sometimes working outlet. I disliked anything permanently attatched to it. So no coffee maker on the counter, no toaster, no rice cooker, nothing. just the fridge. Well, the kitchenaid mixer. But it wasn't plugged in. (I've got the cobalt blue guy, we've named him mixmaster mike, oh he is lovely!) Now, in this new kitchen, I have FOUR outletts, all GFI. It's a scandal. Yet this morning when I was fixing waffles, I found myself complaining that there was not an outlett closer to the stove to make the transfering of the waffles from the waffle-ifier to the oven where they coud keep warm untill my saturday morning babysitting charges arrived. I was seriously unhappy about this for at least three minutes, perhaps more. Soft soft soft. and fat, don't forget the fat. It's from the waffles.

And I was wrong about "Stay", it's not "the Time Traveller's Wife", it just has some guy named Henry who was in a library appearing to get unstuck in time, so why would I ever get the idea that it had anything to do with the book, about this guy named Henry who gets unstuck in time
and works in a library. Nothing similar there at all. Again, I blame the waffles.

"The Ring Two" is utter crap and should be avoided. I'm sure most folks know that already, however since I don't go to the movies but more than twice a year, I must wait for the pay-per-view. Suuuuuuhhh-hhhhhucked! And I did really like the first one, I mean, I've got the novel and the manga too. Really liked it! I haven't seen the Original Ring 2 and Ring 0, but I did see the original Ringu, and I really liked that too. I haven't seen the remake of "Dark Water", but I did enjoy the short story and the Japanese movie. Also in Asian horror news for me, there is a sequel for the "Eye", and it's only $12, I should just buy it. The Asian horror films are so much more direct than the American ones, you go into a haunted house, or cross a ghost's path, and BOOM! no explanation, no beating it, no lifting the curse, this house is not clean and will never be clean no matter how many pretty blonde actresses get eaten. Too bad! So sorry! You are dead meat. It drives me crazy how There always has to be some way to beat it, to get out of it, of the hook, in American horror movies. The boy and girl hold hands in the sunset endings, The ghost's eyes peering after them with some dramatic crash of music followed by the credits. Fuck that noise. I want them eaten. The bad end badly, the good unluckily.

In other news of the horrorshow type, Tom Cruise is expecting a spawn. Shudder.

house worming

My friend Steve had a housewarming party over in the city, and I couldn't go, but i knit him a worm, a nice red one, styled after the worms from David Lynch's movie of Dune. (That Sci-Fi channel produced one sucks eggs.) I think It will go well with the Death Star Tea Cozy. Maybe i'll even get past the finishing, as it is sitting, un made-up, in my knitting basket. This is what happens when you get an idea before the last one is used up. The new idea is shiny-er and better, and must be started up right away.

Is this movie, "Stay", that i am seeing previews for, really what has become of "The Time Traveller's Wife?". It looks crappy.

"Serenity" looks like it could go either way. I'm hopeful.

"The Corpse Bride" is high on my list, but I'd need to get a babysitter, and then it's money money money, which I just ain't got right now.

My new house has been warmed, but not officially, and certainly not by worms, though there are many in the garden. I hope the former house sells. It'd be nice not to pay two mortgages and have only ten dollars at the end of the month. It takes twenty to go to the movies. And I do so like movies. But that's all i can jusitifiyably complain about, except that i can't spell jusitfyably, and I can't be bothered to look it up. Nope, you can't make me, I am simply too lazy. And the caring factor isn't there either. Typos. Typhus. Typhoon. Tantrum. Tantric.
Taun-taun.

edward

My kid is four, and he has written his first book. It's name is "Billy". Not because it is about anyone with that name, or has any characters named Billy. The book itself is named Billy. Yes, yes, he is a genius, like all the other genius children of proud parents. So, completely biting his style, I have named this blog edward. I'm sure the world has been shaken to it's very foundation, a new blog! Thanks, good work, I'll most likely delete this in the morning.