I Want You to Go Get a Peanut

Seriously. Have any peanuts in the house? Salted, Boiled, Spanish, it really matters not. If you have any go get one. Get a few so you can eat some while we talk. I'll wait.

Ok, if you followed instructions and got the peanut(s) (or even if you have no peanuts) I want to ask you a question. Did you know that Santa Claus hides inside peanuts? I do because my mom told me. Even better than telling me was the fact that she showed me. Open a peanut. Gently. Pry the two halves apart and have a peek inside. Do you see him? His tiny little face and beard and hat? Etched in nutmeat in greater detail than any sober person could possibly manage in those dimensions is Santa. If you are a person who has no peanuts available at the moment I will show him to you myself.

Ta Da.

My friend Coyote and I were talking one night about how it's the small moments that matter to kids more than the overblown gestures. I, for one, have always felt that it was more important to have a great Mommy and Daddy than Mother and Father. I had both. My parents were very good at the serious business of parenting, but what stays in my heart and fills it to bursting are those magical moments they gave me. I believe wholly that childhood should be a time of magic, and not simply in the Trips to Orlando kind of way. The serious business of parenting, the rules, the protection, actually parenting instead of chickening out and trying to be best buds is very necessary. If done correctly, those things do a slow burn in a child's character. The tiny little things, however, are those that will be pulled front and center to a child's brain when a parent leaves this world.

My mother was the first person to really show me an example of physics, which is mildly amusing since she failed physics. I do not remember a specific day, or what month it was, or what I was wearing. I do remember, though, my mom pointing to the maples in front of the house and saying, "Look! They're tiny helicopters!" I ran down the steps and looked up at hundreds of tiny maple seed pods fluttering to the ground, spinning as they came. The wind calmed, and my mom came down the steps as well, picked some up in her hands, and tossed them in the air to fall again. My toddler disappointment evaporated, and I joined in. I watched the tiny pods spin in their circles to the ground over and over again, and when my attention began to drift my mother took me over to the neighbor's maple, which was a different type. She picked one of the larger, green pods it held and used her thumbnail to slit the base. She spread the base open and applied it to my nose and told me I was Pinocchio.

My dad was actually pretty good at that whole "pulling a penny from your ear" thing, and it tickled me to no end whenever he did it. In fact, when I became pregnant with Livvie I informed Rich that he was going to have to learn how to do that correctly. It's a Dad Thing. I haven't known many moms that can pull it off, but almost everyone I know remembers their dad doing it. My dad was a gift giver. He was one of those dudes that would stop and pick up flowers for no reason, and he always remembered birthdays and anniversaries. After he moved out his gifts to me became more grandiose, and I have a sick feeling he was trying to maintain my affection for him by buying it. To his credit, he was a fabulous trash picker, and he would snag me some truly fabulous things that way. His gifts to me, in more ways than one, included a telescope he plucked from the side of the road and a microscope he bought for my 8th birthday. One of his best gifts to me ever, though, was a broken prism. It had a small chunk missing from one corner, and he brought it to me and showed me that you can hold rainbows in your hands. Livvie is absolutely enraptured with rainbows right now, and although her Christmas will be small this year, at least on her parents' part, there will be a prism in her stocking. I can get a bag of them for $8.95. So can you. Go Here. They were local folks in Barrington, NJ for ages, and they gave my uncle his first decent job as a teenager.

I received a bit of magic as an adult to pass on to my kids as well. Coyote, mentioned earlier, and I were outside one night when the moon was low and large. She bounced on her toes once and yelled, "Bunny on the moon!" I turned to her with the eyebrow up and she pointed and asked me if I hadn't heard about the bunny on the moon. I told her I certainly hadn't, and I turned my head this way and that for a few seconds, and then I saw it. The trick is to get past seeing the Man in the Moon. Erase it from your head. Widen your vision a bit and there's the bunny. Do you see it? I squealed like a girl and she told me a version of this story:

(From Wikipedia)

In the Buddhist story "Śaśajâtaka", a monkey, an otter, a jackal, and a rabbit resolved to practice charity on the Uposatha, believing a demonstration of great virtue would earn a great reward.

When an old man begged for food, the monkey gathered fruits from the trees and the otter collected dead fish from the river bank, while the jackal wrongfully pilfered a lizard and a pot of milk-curd. The rabbit, who knew only how to gather grass, instead offered its own body, throwing itself into a fire the man had built. The rabbit, however, was not burnt. The old man revealed himself to be Śakra, and touched by the rabbit's virtue, drew the likeness of the rabbit on the moon for all to see. It is said the lunar image is still draped in the smoke that rose when the rabbit cast itself into the fire.

 I never see the Man in the full moon anymore. I only see the bunny. I think I like that very much.

I'm discovering magic along my journey with these kids as well. I am absolutely not the best mother to walk this planet. Oftentimes I downright suck. I'm trying as hard as I can, though, to be a good Mommy. Livvie cannot sleep without the light in her fish's small tank on to chase the dark. I feel bad for the fish, because I assume he gets no sleep and is about to go berserk at any moment. The other night after I got Livvie tucked in I went to her dresser and pushed the button on the back of the tank. Nothing happened. The last time his bulb burned out she woke up hysterical off and on all night, so I told her I'd be right back and went to look for a new bulb. I thought I had purchased a two pack, but I was mistaken. I was poking around in the cabinet where we store bulbs, and I saw a small box of white Christmas tree lights. I think it's a strand of thirty. I grabbed the box, ripped it open, and tore that annoying little baggie full of spares off of the strand. I went to her room and told her we had no more fish bulbs, and that she'd have to make do with these. I draped them across the windowsill and plugged them in. She sat up and said, "It's beautiful!! It's rainbows and unicorns!!"

Ta Da.

We're going to be installing one of these in Livvie's new bedroom before she moves in. It's a fairy door that a friend of mine sent to her. It's about 12 inches tall, and it's going to go on a wall near a small cypress tree decorated with white "fairy lights" in a corner. When we move her to her new room the fairies will have already moved in ahead of time. Hopefully it will distract her to some extent, as the last time we went to the house she asked to "go home" after awhile.

If nothing else it'll be a little bit more magic in my own world.

Love and Other Indoor Sports...

Remember that little phrase from Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself? I remember when I read that book and the meaning of it dawned on me I blushed as red as a tomato.

But then Judy Blume made me blush regularly.

I am by no means a prude. Really. You can ask my best friend. We've discussed some serious raunch over the past 10 years, and I can come out with some wicked nasty. I do, however, still blush. Easily.

Yesterday I was packing up the closets because I figured that the best course of action was to start with packing the things we don't need over the next couple of weeks and end with the items that are still in use. I was going through the closet in the living room, and that happens to be where we stashed everything from our wedding. The fancy shmancy "marriage certificate" is in there. You know, the one suitable for framing? It's um, sort of crumpled now. And I never filled it out. So I took 2 minutes yesterday to do that. It was in a giant gift bag that was itself inside a large, open cardboard box. Other things had tumbled into the box over the years, so I decided to sort through everything and re-pack the box with only wedding nostalgia.

My hand fell upon a wad of white lace and I pulled it out to find a thong (actually more of a G-String) with a musical crotch that plays the recessional music from weddings when pressure is applied. My face burst into flames.

Now, you have to understand that I never wore it. I really, really can't stand thong underwear in the first place, and the LAST moment I want something wandering up my rear end is when I'm trying to concentrate on being happy. I like being happy. I do not like wedgies.

I am convinced that had I lived in the days when the wedding party would crash the honeymoon suite after the wedding took place, strip the bloody bedding, and parade it around the reception I would have slit my own throat.

I am perfectly comfortable discussing sex as a concept. I REALLY enjoy making jokes about it in general (when I turned 21 my roommates gave me a Very Penis Birthday. Let's just say I had no idea there were that many items of that theme in existence). There is also one particular topic from my past that is between the best friend and myself, and it never fails to inspire hilarity. In general, though, I really, really, honest to God truly do not like anyone knowing about my own particular business. Or even thinking about it (and I know that right now you can't think about anything else, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice of my dignity for this entry).

People who give the kind of gift that plays music in your crotch are thinking about your particular business. I flamed when I first unwrapped it just as badly as I did yesterday. I'm the kind of person who spent all of both pregnancies once I began showing thinking, "Oh my gawd. Everyone knows I got laid." When the kids finally figure out that act had to occur to get them here I might very well run shrieking into the night.

I've had moments over the years when I've had to stuff my mortification and ask people for advice about certain issues, and each and every time I've wanted to crawl into a very dark cave and die.

While I have a thousand and one issues that do bug me, such as the OCD thing and really hating to drive at night, I actually don't mind this personality quirk too much. The primary reason is that it allows my husband to still have the ability to make me blush. There's something fairly delightful about that.

Since the theme of today appears to be shame of one sort or another, I'll go ahead and link you to the essay I wrote for my assignment for Chuck at Terribleminds. It is a far more depressing piece than the above. Enter at your own risk.

EDIT: Odd that I have not tagged this post at all, and yet technorati sent someone here because I supposedly tagged the post as "3 D S e x G a m e s." Sometimes I hate the internet.

There Is No Post Today

One of my very best friends lost her dog of almost 2 decades today. He was awesome. On the day I met him he jumped on my bare legs and gave me a 6 inch gash that left a scar for over 2 years. I used to look at that scar fondly. I sure wish I still had it now.

<------- Please notice on the sidebar I have created a wall for those dogs we have lost in our lives. So many gone this year alone. If you'd like your dog on the list, or even one you've known, simply give me a heads up.

Thank you. Hug your dog. I'll be back tomorrow.

I fibbed the other day

I have more than one treasure chest.

I was going through the kitchen cabinets this afternoon determining what would be moved and what would be tossed. And I reached into the back of one cabinet and pulled out <---this bag.

This bag contains Clancy's last morning.

When I pulled it from the cabinet my face must have changed, because Livvie said, "Ommy's sad." and I choked up and told her that while I was sad, it was an ok kind of sad. I told her to go play in the living room. Only then did I let the waterworks go.

On the morning I fought to save Clancy and had to admit defeat and give up, I drove home from the vet and placed his entire morning in a freezer bag. I took the bag and placed it in the cabinet where I would be able to simply open the door and see it. His entire morning. A single, one gallon sized bag.

The bag contains the puppy pad that I placed on the floor when I was desperately trying to get him to pee as his kidneys shut down. You'll also notice the empty Ringers bag from my last attempt at giving him fluids in order to help that process of peeing along. The small object on the puppy pad is the wrapper from the needle used on the line. 19 gauge. I had some 20s, but I wanted that fluid in him as quickly as possible.

The needle is still attached to the line. Capped, but attached.

I did look at that bag. A lot. Over time though, my pain eased and I didn't pull it out as often, and it got pushed to the back of the cabinet behind baby food and dog supplements and heart worm preventative (I know I'm not the only one who keeps the pet stuff with the baby stuff. And if I am, too bad).

After I pulled the bag from the cabinet today I pushed aside the Interceptor and the Advantix and all of Jonas's new, uneaten baby food and I pulled out The Box. The Box contains the rest of Clancy's last few  months.

An open box of lancets. His glucose meter. The silicone gel I used on his ears to help the blood bead for testing. The last bag of syringes. Cat treats. Rescue Remedy. And his last, open vial of insulin and the unopened insulin that had been on standby.

I could have given away the meter. I could have given away the syringes. At the time of his death we had a cat at the shelter who was diabetic and on the same insulin, and I could have certainly given the unopened vial to them.

I couldn't part with any of it.

I don't know why any of this helps me, but it does. I don't know if I'm completely fucked in the head for caring about one particular cat as much as I did him, and I don't care.

He was my cat of a lifetime.

And every single bit of this is going with me.

I'm still not ready.

I have a growing suspicion...

That I know exactly what's going on here, folks.


If you'll take your mouse and click on your scroll bar and zip yourselves alllllll the way down to the bottom of this page you'll see a little box that says SiteMeter. Go ahead. Click it. Get a good look.


I know exactly where all of you are. Move your mouse over to "Location" and you'll see that I can even see your desktop from here. Close that window full of Furries. Your mom is looking.


Kidding. Only Rich can do that. But are you wigged out yet? I am. Here's why. Along with viewing your location and which OS you're running and how many pistachio shells are currently next to your keyboard I can view exactly what brought you here. Do you love and know me and have me bookmarked? Did you click my link on Facebook? Did someone email to you the link to one of my entries? Or was it a random Google drive by? A few weeks ago I mentioned that the number one googled phrase that lands people here is "What a size _____ looks like." Google leads them to this entry. I updated all of you on the fact that I was unfortunately no longer a size 10 as my stress and lack of opportunity to eat much are whittling me away to a pencil.


So everyday at least once I click on SiteMeter and check out where all of you are coming from. I'm nosy. What the fuck can I say? I love to see the geographical locations of everyone and play guessing games about who is whom. It's fun, and I'm lame and I have no life. Shut it.


Since I opened my blog to the public again my hits have exploded with versions of that search. Sometimes it's simply "Size 10." I'll let you know right now that It's a bit disturbing to me that those mere words will bring you right here. My ass has apparently gone global. Mexico. Hungary. Someone in Australia today wanted to know what "a size 10a breast looks like," and landed right here. When I saw that it clicked, and I remembered this comment someone had been courteous enough to post:

Anonymous said...

I'm feeling a little guilty here.

I actually did a Google search that said " what is a size 10".

This nice girl I met online said she was a size 10 and I had no clue what a size 10 looked like.

After seeing your bum I think I'll propose.

Great post....and great bum.

This is all of you, isn't it. All y'all are ending up here because you've been trolling for chicks online and having met one who gives you her stats you feel the need to check up on what that might look like. I applaud the fact that you all seem to have the presence of mind not to approach your female acquaintances and ask them what size they wear to find an example. I do want to provide an answer, though, to the dude who googled, "What does a size 2 look like." One word. Ghastly.


In an effort to assist you all I'm going to present you with this primer on what certain sizes CAN look like. Your mileage may vary.

Marilyn Monroe - Size 16

Emme Aronson - Size 14

Lizzie Miller - Size 12

Whitney - Size 10

Cindy Crawford - Size 8

Jennifer Lopez - Size 6

I refuse to post sizes 0-4. If you're trying to figure that out, go to the news stand and pick up a chick rag. Or you could, you know, ask the chick you're trying to hook up with for a photo. 

Assclowns.

(Except Mr. Anonymous who took the time to write...)

What. The Hell.

Ever have one of those moments when you wonder just what the fuck you've gotten yourself into?

I've had several in my life, the most famous involving an inflated balloon and a can of spray paint.

Recently, very recently, as in just the other day, I ended up with my head spinning yet again. I had thought I was simply interjecting something into an online conversation. Apparently my contribution kicked some butt. And I won myself an opportunity to write a piece on THIS website (and seriously, I know I keep pimping him, but if you haven't yet toodled over there, do so. You won't be sorry).

As always, my mouth hung agape and my brain screamed, "NO!!" That's gratitude for ya. It was akin to the time in Junior High when my ass won a pair of Flyers tickets because it was sitting on a specific chair during assembly. And being that I was a baseball person my first thought was, "What the fuck am I gonna do with these?" I suddenly acquired a lot of friends for a few days. Back to topic.

I darted off a message to Chuck letting him know that I don't do fiction. I received a reply letting me know that I couldn't weasel my way out of this that easily. Write whatever. 1000-2000 words. No hurry. Kind of. Get cracking, bitch (ok, he didn't call me bitch. but he could have). I've never felt authentic in any attempt to write fiction. I can write the hell out of a research paper. I might have been the only person in school who internally squealed with glee when a research paper was assigned. The whole process delighted me. I loved going to the library and using the microfiche and putting all of my information on index cards so I could lay them out on my bed in the order they would appear in the paper. I loved entering footnotes and sorting my bibliography. And I really, really loved getting my papers back with a big, red A at the tops of them. I became an English major with the primary goal of teaching in university but being expected to publish critical papers or lose my job. I wanted to write. My college teachers loved my work and one of them even submitted to a contest a bullshit analysis I had written of Reynolds Price's A Final Account. It was bullshit because I didn't believe a word I had written, but I knew intuitively what the teacher desperately wanted from his students in regards to an understanding of the story. Personally I think Reynolds Price is an overrated douche. Is that libel? Screw it. I hate him.

As a young adult I wrote trainloads of juvenalia. My first truly manic episode that lasted awhile hit at around age 21, and I would stay up until 4am, hunched over my computer, chain smoking and writing poetry. My favorite poet of all time is Ogden Nash, so there was nothing navel gazing or brooding about any of it. One night I decided to say, "fuck it." I think I even said it aloud. I stuck one of my poems in an envelope with a nicely written letter and mailed it off to The New Yorker. I received a letter back awhile later letting me know that they appreciated my interest, but my style wasn't suitable for their publication. I refrained from writing back that I understood completely, as their usual offerings WERE written by a bunch of navel gazing brooders who used "free verse" as a method of disguising the fact that they were talentless hacks on Xanax.

I hate free verse, because only a very few have the talent to make it lyrical. Everyone else ends up sounding like a wingnut. Here's an example:

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,

pray that the road is long,

full of adventure, full of knowledge.

The Brownings and the Mossbergs,

the angry Colts -- do not fear them:

You will never find such as these on your path,

if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine

emotion touches your spirit and your body.

The StrapGuns and the Uzis,

the fierce Technines you will never encounter,

if you do not carry them within your soul,

if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long....

© 1999 by T Y Alevizos, ty@well.com. All Rights Reserved

Of course, a great deal of the rhyming poetry I've read these days could only be improved by the addition of musicians playing thrash metal behind it. Truly. Google "Bad Rhyming Poetry," and pick any selection. Now imagine it performed by James Hetfield. It works.

Did I digress again? Damn. One day I simply stopped writing. I would say this happened in 1999, if I recollect correctly. Everything I was writing was ending up in the trash icon on my computer, and I was convinced I was shit. I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag. You could lead me to the keyboard but you couldn't make me write. My brain was as useless as tits on a bull. Cliches ad nauseum.

I sucked. I had no degree. And in the back of my head I tucked the mantra, "I can't write." So I stopped pursuing it. I canceled the subscriptions to writing publications. I stopped buying The Writer's Market each year. I took most of my reference books to the library and donated them. I saved a few. I kept Strunk and White. I held onto The Transitive Vampire. On Writing by Stephen King is still on the shelf, because it's actually a fun read. Everything else got gone. I went to work every day and came home every night and wasted my time in front of the TV or devoured other people's work.

Occasionally I felt pangs. I'd read something exceptional and think, "Gosh, I wish I could do this." But I sucked. I had no degree. I was a hack. I couldn't write.

In 2006, because I'm always late to every party, I discovered blogging. I've never been good at keeping a journal. I have at least a dozen boxed up that each has maybe 20 entries completed. A blog seemed like the perfect idea because I could post whenever I felt the itch, and there would be nothing staring me in the face taunting me unless I clicked on my bookmark. I never expected anyone to actually read the damn thing. I began filling it with mundane crap, rants, and commentary. This was my first entry. Mundane AND a rant. Two birds with one stone.

I never really considered blogging writing. I considered it a way to dump my brain, and that was pretty much it. Recently I had occasion to remember that I had received a response from Robert McCammon to a fan letter I had sent him after I read Boy's Life. In it he essentially told me that writing IS hard. He also told me that if we want to succeed we have to keep writing, all of the time, especially when it's hard. He wished me luck and thanked me for taking the time to write to him. I received that letter in the mail on my 21st birthday, and to this day it's my favorite birthday gift ever. Remembering all of this made me decide to no longer ignore my blog when it's inconvenient to write in it. The itch had come back, but this time it was no longer in the back of my brain. It is front and center on a constant basis. Actually, it burns. To paraphrase Madeline Kahn, "...it-it- the f - it -flam - flames. Flames, on the front of my brain..." And then I opened my email one day and discovered that I was "Made of Win," and I was to produce something for someone.

What. The hell.

Fuck.

So my stomach knotted and I fretted and gnashed my teeth. Was there tearing of hair? Oh yes there was. Was there rending of clothing? Not so much. Did I open Facebook on more than one occasion to send a message back saying, "Please bestow this honor on someone else?" Why yes I did. But I never typed the message.

And then yesterday a woman I worked with in the past read my blog entry and commented to me, "I didn't know you were a writer."

I am. I'm a fucking writer y'all. Even when it's shit. Even when it's hack. Language is my plaything and it's more fun than a barrel of Cooties. It's tastier than buffalo wings. I don't think it's better than sex.

I just counted. I've got 1467 words here. But I'm going to call this entry a day and get to work tonight on what has been requested of me.

See you all tomorrow.

I Will Not Go Quietly (anymore)

If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I'd be at the bottom to catch them.
-- Source Unknown



Sometimes, no matter our best intentions, we cannot make the catch. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try anyway. And if we do fail to make that catch, we should still be there to pick up the pieces.

Remember this little nugget?

"If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were"


I call bullshit all over that. That isn't to say that if someone needs time and space we shouldn't give it to them. I've had to do that more than once. But I think too often these days people are subscribing to the notion that people come into our lives and leave whenever they're done being "useful" to us. I'm not talking about useful in the, 'Hey, can you help me move this sofa to the curb' kind of way. I'm talking about this idea that people move into our lives, enrich them, we learn things about the world and ourselves, and when the "teaching moment" is over they leave. Ok, I'm sure that the other person is doing their share of learning as well. And maybe I'm misunderstanding the notion. I'm not speaking of acquaintances here. I'm talking about those folks we've befriended deeply.

There are, granted, people who do move into and out of our lives briefly, and they can make a world of difference. Circumstances can sometimes intervene to make maintaining a relationship difficult. And many times people move in different directions and on different paths. All valid. My concern is over people who take this to the extreme of "out of sight, out of mind." I've grown apart from many friends over the years, and I sure as hell haven't been the best friend a person can be. But I hold them in my hearts and think of them quite often. If any of them needed anything that I have the power to provide, even if it's just an ear to hear them, I'm available. In my 20s I was a self absorbed twat, and I let a lot of people slip away from me because I didn't yet understand how to perform this delicate trick. All I can say is, Thank Goodness for Facebook.

Granted, there are times when people can be toxic to each other, and in those cases yes, you need to separate yourselves post haste. And we've all experienced those folks who are essentially emotional vampires who suck us dry before moving onto the next victim. In the best of friendships though, things will not always be rosy. But petty arguments can happen without destroying a friendship. Disagreements happen. The rule here is to never, ever say something that can't be taken back. Think before you open your mouth and shove your size 10 down your gullet.

If you care, really really care, do everything you can to hold onto those you love. Yes, that's selfish too, if you simply look at that statement. I'll elaborate. Give them what they need from you without enabling bullshit behavior. What they need from you might not be what they actually want. If that means taking them aside when they're being the biggest bonehead on the planet and bricking them upside the head with reason, do it. If the planets have decreed that you will be moving in different directions, give them a holler now and then to find out how that path is working out for them. I do not believe in my heart that the teaching moments ever end. More than once in my life after I've re-established contact with someone they're given me news that I've greeted with essentially, "Holy shit. Really??" and it's been an eye opening experience. I've discovered many times in life that divergent paths often simply detour right back again. Be open to that. Greet each other again with joy and laughter and bone crushing hugs. Show your love for your friends as often as you can. Be kind to each other. Do not expect things they are unable to provide. Get to know them well. Ask them how they're doing as often as possible before telling them how you are. Listen with your whole heart. Minimize distractions when the shit hits the fan and they really need you. Be as honest as Abe. In return, do not ask any questions for which you do not want to hear an honest answer. Do not expect more of them than you expect of yourself.

Never require that they will catch you or pick up the pieces, but if they do, love them and be grateful.