Kind of Funny, Kind of Sad

Terry McMillan -- whose celebrated romance and subsequent marriage to a man 23 years her junior became the subject of her fictionalized best-seller "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" -- actually got her groove back with a man who now says he's gay.

Oh, yes. Read the story here.

I feel for her, but come on. How amazing is that? (I won't say ironic, although I am quite sure that phrase is being bandied about.) And you can bet your life her next book is going to be something about the brothas on the Down Low. Mm-hmm.

Getting My Groove Back

As for me, I am still sick and worn out. I am sending Viva back to preschool tomorrow and I'm just going to ignore all the phlegm and act like I'm better. What else can I do? I've been taking medicines, trying to take it easy, and plying Viva with whatever I can get into her (and keep into her -- she has this irritating habit of either spitting medicine out or, even better, throwing it up). It helped that Sweet Willie took Viva Night Duty for a few days so I could get some rest. Ain't he a daisy? Viva is getting better, but I feel like I am in some sort of sickness holding pattern. Thoroughly sick of it.

Ha! No pun intended in that last line! Whee, these are the jokes today, folks. Aren't you scared for me?

Whizzing to Number One!

Despite Viva's sickness, she's been a potty training powerhouse. For most of last week, we were averaging one wet diaper a day. She occasionally poops in her Pull-Up* (maybe once a week), but for the most part, she is really good about telling me she has to get to the bathroom. Ironically, she is better about telling me when we are out in public and she has to pee -- I guess at home she gets too caught up in what she's doing and doesn't want to take a break, thus the accidents. But she is also starting to stay dry all night, which is HUGE. HUGE!

My friend M is grossed out by the idea of potty training, particularly the poop aspect of it. I can't imagine why he would feel that way, when it is the most glamorous part of my job. In truth, it is actually not that pleasant to sit next to someone as they plop one out, and to behave as if what they have just done is the Most Amazing Thing in the History of the World. Indeed, more than once I have lit a stick of incense after one of these sessions and congratulated myself on my superlative acting skills.

* Please note that when I Googled "pull-up pamper" it led me to many links to that Fabolous song, "Not Give a Fuck." How darling! Here's a taste:

When I pull up like the pamper brand,
Those in the lambo slants,
With a madame from france,
With a ass so big,
You couldn’t hide it in hammer pants...

I don't make this stuff up. My talents lie in other areas...like drawing, which I've been doing a lot of lately. More on this in my next post. Toodles!

May cause problems sleeping, headaches, or stomach upset

A sprinkling of miscellany today, as I am still mired in the depths of phlegm and my energy level is -2.

With a Woof Woof Here…

Took Viva to the pet store the other day, where we saw the latest in designer dogs, a Puggle pup. A puggle, in case you are interested, is a pug-beagle cross. Here’s a pic:




They’re kind of cute dogs, albeit controversial. It is kind of ridiculous to pay $1,000 for what is, in essence, a mutt. But then, I’ve always been a big fan of going down to the pound or even, God forbid, picking out a puppy from a neighbor’s litter. I'm not all that picky.

And a Woof Woof There…

Speaking of dogs, the mom of the 12-year-old who got killed by the family pit bulls has been arrested.

And all I can say is: what took them so long?

Good Day, Sunshine

In other news, happy birthday to my dear friend, Coolia! To commemorate your birthday in a special special way, I began menstruating this morning. (The rest of you will think it’s gross, but Coolia will totally love that I said that.)

Bop The Man, Part II

Pursuant to my rant yesterday: turns out that despite having paid into this prescription plan for six months, Sweet William’s employer never included us on the roster, so there was no way for either the prescription company or the pharmacist to know that we were covered. Nice.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "Hey! That Mama Blah Blah hasn't blogged in a while. She must be up to something! Hijinks! Shenanigans! Something crazy!"

What is the matter with you?

Fight the Power, Bop the Man

Dude! What is it about The Man? Why he always tryin' to keep me down? Witness:

We lost the Best Health Insurance Ever when Sweet Willie changed jobs a year-and-a-half ago. In fact, the health insurance was so great that they Cobra'd us without charge for an additional year, meaning we didn't have to pay any health insurance premiums at all for all of 2004. So , okay, we led a pretty charmed life, with one insurance card that covered health, dental, vision, and prescription plans. No co-pays. I'm serious, we did not pay a dime for any expenses incurred relating to my pregnancy and delivery of Viva (and believe me, they would have been hefty, what with my ER visits, extra ultrasounds, and all that other stuff).

It was sweet. Now we are in the muck with everyone else. I can't figure out for the life of me how we are supposed to manage all this crap. I finally figured out the dental stuff and now I am actually trying to fill a prescription from my groinocologist (props to Archie Bunker for that fabulous phrase). I've changed birth control methods, if you must know. So I took the prescription to Sav-On Drugs yesterday and the pharmacist on duty was baffled by my insurance card.

"I don't know what to do with this," she said. "It doesn't say anything on here about your co-pay."

"Hmm," I said, brightly. "Well, let me call them and find out what is going on." And then Viva and I went merrily on our way. Well, perhaps not merrily, since we are both hacking and wheezing to beat the band, but that's another story. It involves phlegm, and I don't want to revisit that at this time.

I called Sweet Willie at work to get to the bottom of this. Now, we did receive a packet of information about all our health insurance options, and I read it and filled everything out and gave stuff back to SW to hand it to Human Resources and I thought at one point we had all that stuff on the no-man's land that is our dresser. And yet, it is nowhere to be found. I didn't file it anywhere (which, if you know me, is very odd indeed, because I am completely insane about clutter). So we are flying blind with a lot of this, and for some reason, the Human Resources person won't give SW another packet.

I have to say, I really think this Human Resources person must be some kind of sadist, because now every time we have a question, SW has to go in and ask about it, which must be kind of annoying for the HR person, unless the HR person has some huge crush on my husband, in which case this might all make some sort of sense. But regardless, I don't want the HR person where my husband works to think that he (or I, or both of us) is (are) an idiot(s). Because we actually are both reasonably intelligent people, even though we both graduated from small liberal arts colleges. And Sweet W even has a law degree. They don't just hand those out to anyone.

So I called him at work to figure all this out, and he sighed and said he would talk to HR. And then he called me later and gave me the 911. And get this: our health insurance and our drug prescriptions are two totally separate entities, handled by two totally separate companies. This is a first for me. So Sweet W said all I need is the name of the company and his Social Security number (which I won't post here, even though I trust you all implicitly).

I called the pharmacy back and gave them this information, and the pharmacist said, "What's the group number?" I started to laugh, and so did she, and I said, "You know I don't know that, right?" And she said, "Don't you have the card?" And I said, "No, because that would be too easy." And then I said, "Okay, you know I have to call my husband again and call you back," and she said fine and I hung up and stuck a fork in my eye.

On to Day Two of this ridiculous saga! Sweet Willie goes to work, gets me the group number, calls and leaves it on the voicemail, and then calls me a little while later to tell me the group number he gave me is wrong, so he's bringing the information home with him. In the meantime, the pharmacist has called and left me a message saying they can't fill my precription until I call her back with more info. So I eventually call back (by the way, Viva and I are both sick, so I am not quite on top of things) and the pharmacist on call says she can't find my prescription, but she'll ask the other pharmacist when she gets back from lunch (this is at 3 o'clock, by the way).

Meanwhile, I go online to get duplicate prescription cards mailed to us, as advised by the HR person where Sweet Willie works. And here, my friends, is where I gave up. Let me just cut and paste here what I sent to Sweet Willie via e-mail:

That Website is the most useless piece of crap I have ever come across. At every stage it asks for your member # (which is supposedly your Soc Sec #),and then it tells me that they can't process it with that #. So I look on the site for a phone # to call and it tells me I can't get the specific customer service # for my area without my member #. I found an automated 1-800 # to call and the first thing it asks is for my member #. My head is about to explode from the sheer idiocy of it all. Even the section of the site where I can request membership cards (so I can find out what my member # is)asks me for my damn member #!!!!!

This is totally ridic.

P.S. I sent them a scathing e-mail telling them how horrible their site was and that they need to send me my damn member #. They sent me a lovely e-mail back saying I can expect a reply within 24 hours. I'm glad I didn't just have surgery or something which would require scads of pain medication. I would probably be eating my own head by now.

I think the healthcare system in this country could stand improvement. It's just a birth control prescription. Jesus!

Gratuitous Viva Conversations, or Much Ado about Cuteness

Viva (muttering sleepily): Something something pee pee and poo poo.

Mama Blah: Did you already go, or you need to go?

Viva: Yup.

The Downside to Being a "Stay-at-Home" Mom, or a Simple Equation

Eating three meals a day at home = doing dishes/cleaning up the kitchen three times a day. This is no good. No good, I say!

Michael Jackson: It’s a Rap!

Since we were away, I am behind on my writing, and I promised myself today I was going to devote a big chunk of time to it. So this blog entry is a real quickie, because I couldn’t resist.

No. 1 on David Letterman's Top 10 list of "Things Overheard During the Michael Jackson Verdict" last night: "Another case of a white guy getting preferential treatment."

Michael Jackson’s Website groups his not guilty verdict with such historic events as "Martin Luther King is born," "The Berlin Wall falls," and "Nelson Mandela is freed." NOTE: the site keeps crashing, no doubt from the sheer insane volume of traffic it’s getting today.

And if you really want to show your support for Michael, click here to buy a T-shirt.

Personally, I have to agree with the juror who said Michael may not be guilty of the crimes he is currently charged with (or at least the prosecution didn't make the case that he was), but I don't think he is altogether innocent.

Whatever. Thank God for the end of this particular media spectacle. Isn't there a war going on somewhere? And what's going on with the economy?

Welcome to My Nightmare

I had a horrible dream which resulted in me waking up this morning at 3:45 in the ayem. I dreamed that I discovered Sweet Willie was cheating on me with a friend of ours, and that this had been going on for some time. In the dream, I was screaming and crying and hitting him and then I told him I wanted to break up. [Note that even in my subconscious, I can't use the "d" word.] He said, "Yeah, I figured as much. God, that's gonna cost us 400 bucks an hour."

Naturally, this made me more pissed off, since he seemed to be most worried about how much it was going to cost, and much less worried about the break-up of our happy little family unit.

I woke up completely cramped up from the tension, and had to roll over gingerly and sit up quite slowly. And I haven't been back to bed since.

Now, in all fairness, I know that Sweet Willie would never do that to me. He is, after all, Sweet Willie -- the same fellow who went out and brought me Haagen Dazs yesterday for no apparent reason. We love each other and are pretty happy together most of the time. He told me that my nightmare was groundless and ridiculous.

Weird way to start the day. But cinnamon toast and Swiss Chocolate coffee make it better.

Worst Parent of the Year Award

...does not go to me. Not this year, anyway. No, this year, I nominate Maureen Faibish, the mother of the 12-year-old kid who was killed in his own home by their family pets. She knew the dogs were acting aggressive, so she locked the kid in the basement to protect him, and went off to run errands. What the fuck??? She should be in jail for child endangerment. Why is she not in jail?

I Think We're Alone Now...

I missed the Los Angeles GLBT Pride Festival (also known as the Gay Pride Parade, featuring Deborah "Not Debbie" Gibson and Tiffany) yesterday, but drove past the Tomkat Theatre this morning in hopes of finding an appropriate movie title. One side of the marquee announced "Lust Counseling" was playing, while the other was blocked by an overgrown tree. Hello? How can I know what gay porn is playing if you don't trim the trees? Dude!

Shake, Rattle and Roll

This morning, we were in a little family restaurant in fiendishly hot Rancho Mirage, California. We had just finished breakfast and were about to get on the road to drive back to L.A. Sweet Willie had gone out to the car to grab some ones to tip the waitress, while Viva and I finished up orange juice and coffee, respectively. All of a sudden, the floor started rumbling. Since I am an East Coast urban gal, my first thought was, "That's weird, there's no subway here," followed immediately by, "Oh, crap, it's an earthquake." I grabbed Viva and looked around to gauge whether I should run to the doorway or under the table.

I could hear things falling and crashing in the kitchen. Most people were pretty calm; one woman had crawled under the table in her booth. The only things I was worried about were (a) Sweet Willie was outside, and I was hoping nothing fell on him; and (b) the ceiling fan was almost directly above our table and we may have been in danger of being beheaded if the quake went on for very long.

Thankfully, we came out of it none the worse for wear. You can read the "news" about it here.

Nice end to our little mini-vacation, no?

Gone Fishin'

It will be quiet here at Chez Blah Blah for a few days. Tomorrow, we are leaving for a three-day junket in Palm Springs. Sweet Willie has a work conference, so since we have a free hotel stay, we are lugging our (rapidly growing, increasingly heavy) Viva along to enjoy the luxury resort and spa. I picture her lying back on a chaise by the pool, drinking a lovely frosty drink with a paper umbrella sticking out of it. And then later, enjoying a seaweed wrap after her facial, followed by a Swedish massage. Oh, wait, that's me.

HA! As if. I will be gamely shepherding Viva from the pool to the zoo to the children's museum and back again, like the selfless, kick-ass momma I am.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns

Oh, where to start? I have not mentioned this most recent family issue because I try to respect the privacy of my family members. However, they provide some of my best material, and there is a situation going on with my grandmother, mother, and sister that has been gnawing at me like a tireless giant rodent for weeks. It has, unfortunately, brought up a lot of stuff that I thought I had buried quite conveniently and deeply in a far corner of my psyche. Apparently, repression is not the happy catch-all solution I have been brought up to believe it is.

At the crux of the issue is this: my family tends to treat me differently than they treat my sister. My theory is that this is it is part of our family culture to do things the hard way. My sister seems to love to choose the hard way, while I have no patience with this and generally say so, despite all the aforementioned repression. One example of this is that my grandmother had the expectation that we would each pack up all our Christmas gifts and come and stay at her house with our kids and husbands on Christmas Eve. This is so we can all wake up together as one big happy family on Christmas Day and share in the joy of the kids opening presents, stockings, etc. To my sister, this is a necessary part of Christmas. To me, it is a huge pain in the ass. I would rather spend Christmas morning in my own home, with my little family, where it takes maybe 30-45 minutes to open our gifts and play with everything in a leisurely fashion, rather than having it be a three-hour extravaganza, at the end of which the kids are exhausted and cranky and are still expected to sit quietly at the grown-up table for an elaborate Christmas brunch.

Oy, I am getting off track. I can't even begin to explain how they push my buttons.

At any rate, I am irate because my grandmother wants to buy a house for her, my mom, and my sister, brother-in-law and their kids to all live in together. By no means do I want the same thing for myself. There is no way that I could live peaceably with my mother and grandmother -- I would be alternately spitting nails and swallowing my tongue, and aside from being a dandy visual, it's not how I want to live my life.

I'm just pissed off that my sister continuously gets help (she gets free childcare from her in-laws and pays them about one-quarter of what we pay in rent, to live in a 2 bedroom house) and no one gives me shit (we have paid for childcare since Viva was 4 months old, and we pay market-value L.A. rent).* There, I said it.

*Also, when my sister had her kids, my mom helped her for the first 3 weeks or so of each kid's life. I was on my own. My mom happened to be in L.A. when Viva was born, so she saw her on the first day of her life. But after that? Despite the fact that she was staying at my sister's, 5 minutes away, for the next several days, she left L.A. and drove home without coming back to the hospital, without coming to my apartment, and damn, I don't even remember getting a phone call. Am I bitter? You better fucking believe it.

I deliberately missed my mom's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and my grandma's birthday is tomorrow. Am I being petty? You tell me. I need a break.

Added to that, Sweet Willie's dad, Not-So-Sweet-Bill, called yesterday to ask to borrow $6,000. It is so outrageous that all I can do is laugh. This is the man who did not attend his daughter's wedding because he did not want to have to contribute financially. He didn't tell her he wasn't coming, either. On the day of, he just did not show up. So Sweet William (who was in high school then) had to give the Diva away. Can you believe that shit?

And there is even more family stuff coming out of Texas (Sweet Willie's mom's side) that I can't get into here. Sweet Jesus, I need a damn vacation.

On a Lighter Note

Must end here, it's almost time to wake Viva up, struggle her into her tutu, and take her to ballet, where she will leap about with enthusiasm and turn my stormclouds into sunshine.

One Hell of a Commute

Hold on to your hats, kiddies, because I have a big announcement to make.

WE ARE IN ESCROW.

Wait, you say, wait! How can this be? Isn't home ownership well out of the range of most first-time, middle-class home-buyers in Los Angeles? In fact, doesn't the current issue of Money state, "In Los Angeles... just 5% of homes sell at prices affordable to a median-income local family"?

Well, yes. We are in escrow on a residence in Arizona, which we plan to rent out. And then sell in a few years. And hopefully make a profit. And eventually, buy our own damn house to live in here in beautiful freak-show Los Angeles.

I still can't believe it. Sweet Willie and the Diva (his sis) and Big Mike (Diva's husbin) and I are indulging in real estate speculation.* Who'd a thunk it?

* "A tongue in cheek definition of speculation is: when I invest in real estate in a rising market, it’s to safeguard my financial well-being and provide for my retirement and my family. When someone else does it, it’s speculation." (Source: "The Role of Speculation in Real Estate Cycles," Stephen Malpezzi and Susan M. Wachter, paper prepared for the July 2002 joint meeting of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association and the Asian Real Estate Society.)

Okay, so I'm all cool with the quotes and citations, so I bet you think I'm gonna be all articulate and have something else to say about all this. Well, I don't. What are you, new?

Blah Blah Los Angeles

Favorite Movie Titles on the Marquee at the Tomkat Theater, West Hollywood:

• How the West Was Hung
• A Rim with a View
• Dawson's Crack
• I Know Who You Blew Last Summer
• Drill Bill

I think it goes without saying, but for those of you who don't know the L.A. area all that well, the Tomkat is a gay porn theater, conveniently located on Santa Monica Blvd., mere blocks from my local Whole Foods. So on my way to pick up all kinds of, well, whole foods, I always make a point of checking out the movie titles because, well, it is damn funny, is all. I share with you out of the goodness of my heart.

Love Notes. And Not.

I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days. - Billy Connolly

Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls. - Ice T

I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack. - Russell Crowe

I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic. - Andy Warhol

Until the Sun Comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard

I was reading this book recently, and parts of it are set in Los Angeles, and at one point, the protagonist is thinking about how much she loves Los Angeles and why. And I realize I'm not going to change anybody's mind about it if they already have a strong opinion, but damn, I love living here. I am a Bostonian by birth and spent the first quarter-century of my life there. Boston has its good points, but you could not pay me enough money to move back there.

Why do I love it here so much?

For one thing, for the endless, and soooo random, parade of freaks I come across in my day-to-day meanderings. I know that non-Angelenos inevitably cite all the Beautiful People running about Los Angeles and how annoying that is; every Starbucks/Target/gas station is filled with model/actress wannabes, etc. Also, everyone, and I mean everyone, is working on a script. Fine, I'll grant you that, but that doesn't really interest me, due to the freak show previously mentioned. The whole Beautiful People thing is just mildly amusing to me, something about which I roll my eyes and say fondly, "Oh, L.A.," as if the city is just a mischievous pet of some sort.

As I say, I love the assortment of freaks:

• The Lampshade Lady of Los Feliz, who generally wears a floor-length green dress in all kinds of weather, with a piece of cloth wrapping a lampshade to her head;
• The Walking Man of Silverlake, with skin like scrapple, who speed-walks several miles each day, in shorts and tennis shoes, reading a newspaper and rarely looking up;
• The Turbaned Homeless Lady of Hollywood, who greeted us affectionately with, "Hello, lovely family!" as we were taking a Sunday morning stroll through the Hollywood Media District (aka The Abandoned-on-Weekends-Post-Production Corridor);
• The guy I've seen more than once at bus stops holding a rubber chicken. 'Nuff said;
• Francine of the long flowing white hair, who has her own public access show, but who also travels the streets of Hollywood in a wheelchair...and sometimes rides her bicycle. Why does she need a wheelchair if she can ride a bicycle? You tell me.
• Also, more pissed-off clowns, in a variety of settings, than one person should see in a lifetime. You don't want to mess with a pissed-off clown.

Then, there's also the weather. I was born in the summer and have never been a cold-weather person. I hate the cold. I hate the snow. I do love big snuggly sweaters and scarves and stuff like that, but I would much rather be slumming along in my flip-flops in January. I love being able to go to the beach when you'd least expect it, like on Valentine's Day, when there's a freak* heatwave and it's 85 degrees.

* There's that word again. I am a freak for the word "freak"! Can't get enough of it. It's like heroin to me.

I also love (here it comes, that horrible buzzword) the diversity of Los Angeles. I love the sheer variety of people you run into here. It is not a homegeneous place by any means. Coming from a place where life was difficult if you could not be pigeonholed ethnically, I love the fact that most people here could really give less than a shit if I am not of the same ethnic or racial background they are. Vive le difference! is what they'd say if they all spoke French. (Of course, I don't speak French, so I'm quite sure that phrase is supposed to have some accent or other. Perdon.)

And I love the friendliness and hopefulness of Los Angeles, the sense that anything could happen here. Maybe other folks don't get that vibe, but those folks can write their own damn blog.

I leave you with a scene from L.A. Story:

Sara: Roland thinks L.A. is a place for the brain-dead. He says, if you turned off the sprinklers, it would turn into a desert. But I think - I don't know, it's not what I expected. It's a place where they've taken a desert and turned it into their dreams. I've seen a lot of L.A. and I think it's also a place of secrets: secret houses, secret lives, secret pleasures. And no one is looking to the outside for verification that what they're doing is all right. So what do you say, Roland?

Roland: I still say it's a place for the brain-dead.

Can it be that it was all so simple then?

I'm having a nostalgic moment. I ordered some stuff for Viva online from Old Navy a few days ago, and via the e-mail confirmation, looked up the current status to see where my stuff is. Well, not only can I see my current orders, but I can see orders that previously shipped. The last online order I made through O.N. was in March of 2003, when I was on bedrest due to preterm labor and panicking because it seemed likely Viva would arrive, very inconveniently for me, at any second. (Of course, she breezed on through and was born on her due date.) My baby shower had been cancelled, I didn't know what I might need, and in my anxiety mixed with cabin fever, shaken and stirred with hormonal overload, I powered up my laptop and ordered a slew of newborn items like socks and onesies and tiny, tiny little slacks.*

And today, Viva is wearing "my first Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt" and Hello Kitty underpants. Underpants! What, are you kidding me? Where the hell did my baby go?

* I love the word slacks. It's so...old-timey to me. Do you not just love it? All right, already.

(Viva Says) Hell, No, I Won't Go

"...unless I am (a) standing on my step stool washing my hands, having just gotten up from the potty without peeing in it; (b) standing on the bath mat in the other bathroom (the one without the potty in it) or (c) standing in the laundry room, helping Mama put clothes in the dryer. And by the way, I want a smoothie."

Damn, this toilet training is frickin' exhausting. You do not realize the myriad mundane steps in your day that you never think about until you have to train someone how to do them for the first time. And you have to tell them over, and over, and over. How much toilet paper to use, how to rip off the toilet paper without pulling all the paper off the roll, how you can't flush the toilet over and over but have to wait until it stops making noise and then flush. Oy vey.

We are making progress, but I want to flush my potty training book down the toilet, because one of the things it says is, "In most parents' minds, potty training is a monumental task to undertake." Well, it is. There's no way around it. And that's all I'm saying.

Follow Your Bliss

So I'm actually going to a yoga class now in a real yoga studio, with a yoga teacher and everything. Prior to this, I had been practicing yoga sporadically with some tapes at home, and had seen improvement, but man alive, going to an actual class is the kicker. The kicker-in-the-ass.

Last night, prior to class, we (Sweet Willie, our friend Kareena, and other classmates) were hanging out in the little garden area outside the studio, drinking tea and waiting for class to start, when a Really Bad Driver tried to back her car around a corner of the building. She scraped the side of the car against a pole, and then just stopped. She got out of the car, looked at the pole, looked at the car, got back in the car and got on her cell phone. She basically refused to move for fear of damaging the car more. Meanwhile, there was someone in a car behind her, waiting for her to get out of the way. Sweet William went over to see what he could do, and it was then that we determined that the car wasn't even hers. Ouch.

There was also no way for her to move the car without scraping it more, whether she went backwards or forwards, and Sweet W told her so. She refused to accept this, screamed something in Armenian, and returned to the phone. We all kept wondering what she was waiting for: a helicopter? A band of weightlifters-for-hire? A time machine, so she could go back 10 minutes and not scrape the hell out someone else's car? The person in the car behind her was patient for several minutes, but finally told her she would have to suck it up and move. At that point, Really Bad Driver exclaimed, "It's your fault this happened, so you're just going to have to wait!"

Eeeee! Cat fight! We all started laughing, I'm sorry to say. Not loudly, but we were not a sympathetic audience anymore. I love when people blame their own incompetence on other people, don't you?

The Driver Behind would not be baited, so the two of them stood there, glowering at each other on and off, until some guy arrived, got in the car, and backed it up s l o o o o w l y around the corner. Entertainment over, time for serenity and all that crap.

Namaste, my peeps.

I have hit a new low

I am so tired today that I can't write. This is bad, because this is my second day in a row of feeling this wiped out. I still have a sore throat, which I've had since recovering from my cold a couple of weeks ago, and I can't tell if I'm getting sick again or what fresh hell this is.

So, since I am completely useless, I ended up actually reading my spam mail on my Yahoo! account. If you read my spam, you would conclude that:

(a) I really need to LOSE WEIGHT FAST!

(b) I have an online gambling problem.

(c) I am in desperate need of Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra.

(d) I am missing out on LOW LOW RATES by not refinancing my nonexistent house.

(e) I need to see Julie and her girlfriends doing things they've never done before...naughty, naughty Julie.

Hmm. What's it all about, Alfie?

To show you how mundane (and completely inane) my life has become: I drove to Target today in search of this. I would like to purchase it, bring it home, put it together and make Viva's room instantly neat as a pin. You will notice that there is no mention of this being a "Web-only" item. I don't particularly want to pay shipping for it, as it is a heavy item. Tax and shipping add almost thirty dollars to the price of this thing. Do I look like a sucka??

However, neither the Target nearest my home nor the Target Greatland (considerably more of a trek) carry this item. This is mighty irritating to me. The trip was thus a big old bust -- except that, as I was driving, I came across a shiny black Honda Accord with the following bumper sticker:

YOU ARE YOUR OWN FORTUNE COOKIE

I felt as if I had been tapped on the shoulder by a giant hand of indeterminate gender and color! I felt as if this message were meant expressly for me! Here, on this day, at this time and place, I was reminded by divine intervention that I am the mistress of my fate!

And if I can ever get off my ass, well, maybe I'll do something about it.

(By the way, for your own virtual fortune cookie fortune, click here.)

I've gotta go lie down. Smell ya later.

Don't Crap Yourself!

...will be the theme of this Memorial Day weekend. Yes, ladies and germs, I have decided to step up the intensity of our toilet learning efforts and begin an all-out, sit-on-the-potty-every-hour-on-the-hour training regimen in an effort to ensure that Viva is pretty much trained for daytime dryness by the beginning of August. This is when she will start preschool full-time, 5 days a week.

Viva woke up at 4 this morning, which I was disappointed about, since I went to sleep around midnight and she was kind of cramping my style. But I staggered into her room, realized I had to go to the toilet, and dragged her out of her crib and into the bathroom with me, where we both sat on our respective thrones. And we both peed! I was not so excited about my pee, because I have been going to the toilet on my own for quite some time now, and the novelty has worn off just a smidge. But I was thrilled that my daughter actually released about a pint of urine into her potty, and that the diaper she was wearing was dry. I wanted to put it on a billboard or something, it was so damn cool (not the diaper itself, just the news of several hours of night dryness). I also realized this is probably why she wakes up a few times a week at this time. Time to limit the fluids partaken before bedtime...especially the beer.

I know, I don't get out much anymore. Stay tuned for the next exciting dispatch when I discuss my toenail clippings! You won't want to miss it!!

Lemme Holla Atcha

Holla holla holla, holla holla. If you've ever seen Chappelle's Show, you know I'm talkin' about the Holla Man. That is one of my favorite things ever in the history of the universe.

Today, I took Viva to the beach. We had a blast, running into the ocean, running back, eating Pirate's Booty and chasing off predatory seagulls. About halfway into our beach visit, as I was sitting on our blanket snuggling a towel-swaddled Viva, a man walked by, a few feet in front of our towel. I noticed he was looking at us intently, so I said hello.

Now, the beach we were at is a public beach in a predominantly white section of Los Angeles (in the South Bay, for those of you familiar with the area). The man walking by was black. Although it is not apparent to an estimated 95% (margin of error +/-3) of the general population, so am I. (I hail from a long line of what we used to call "high yalla/bright, light, and practically white" folks. I believe they call us multiracial now. Who the hell knows, I can't keep track.) Viva, of course, is more noticeably so, since her daddy is black as hell (direct quote from Big Willie himself). In my circle, if you are out and about and run into another black person, particularly if there are mainly non-black people around, you say hello or what's up or how you doin' or whatever. It's just a thing we do.

Well, Mr. Man said hello and kept going. He wasn't dressed for the beach (jeans, blue polo shirt, sneakers), so he kind of stuck out. A little while later he crossed back in front of us, a little further away this time. I was busy feeding Viva, so I didn't feel it was necessary to shout him out again. He must have come by to get a second look, because don't you know, some time later, after we had gone back in the water and come out and I was drying Viva off, here he comes --shirtless, with some sort of mat which he quickly unrolled and lay down on just a few feet away.

People! He came back with his shirt off. To holla at me. Can you believe this?

And he commenced to talking to me. Started asking about my baby, then moved on to the weather. Just talking and smiling as suave as could be.

I am 36 years old. I am not grotesquely hideous, so I have had men hit on me before. But this took me by surprise. Here I was, drying my baby off and thinking about what I was going to feed her for lunch, and I got sideswiped by A Rather Awkward Situation. What Would Jasmine* Do?

I'll tell you what I did. I bounced. Packed up all our stuff, wished him a good day, and shlepped back off to the car. How you like me now?

* As in "multiracial actress" Jasmine Guy, who played Whitley on A Different World. "DaWAYNE!!"

Edited to clarify:

1. The man was (a) out of shape and should have left his shirt on; (b) I would guess in his 40s; and (c) not handsome. Not ugly, but not handsome.

2. I did not flirt with him, I merely said hello. Apparently, I am such a gorgeous knockout of a creature that that's all it takes.

3. I was not wearing my wedding ring. Oh, come on, don't tell me you've ever forgotten to put yours back on.

4. The best time to tell this type of story to your husband is not on a Friday evening, when he's had a bad afternoon at work, is not feeling well, and is waiting for a phone call to tell him if the problem that fucked up his afternoon has been fixed. (The phone call came at 8:00 pm. The problem was not fixed. All was not bueno. Sweet Willie was steamed beyond the beyond.)

5. Sweet Willie's abs would kick this guy's abs' ass.

6. I think Sweet Willie would kick this guy's ass in a heartbeat -- when I first started telling him the story, he got all testosteroney until he heard more of the details -- except that he believes I prompted the mackdown by even acknowledging the guy in the first place. Whatever. I am simultaneously flattered and exasperated by his response to this event.

Let's hope this is the end of all discussion of a matter that I foolishly thought was kind of funny. Gawd!

Gun Control. I'm Friggin' Serious!

I guess I shouldn't be shocked by this, but with my own sweet dumpling in preschool, these kind of stories freak me out to no end. Sometimes I feel like I should send Viva out into the world wearing a full suit of armor, complete with helmet. She could be all fashionable in a Joan of Arc (not Joan of Arcadia, which has been cancelled*) kind of way. You laugh, but just you watch. Old Navy will jump on the bandwagon and you'll be able to get a whole set for just $19.99. And they'll put together some ridiculous ad using a catchy late-'80's tune to market it. And if you don't think so, well, you can just bust a tunic!

* An ironic aside: if you actually click on the Joan of Arcadia link above, you'll notice that the episode which is to air next is titled "No Future." Kind of prescient, don'tcha think? Also, if you read the news item about this, which is easily Google-able (ugh, okay, here it is, you lazy bastards), you'll find that among CBS' plans for next season is a series in which Jennifer Love Hewitt talks to dead people. God, I hate TV sometimes.

P.S. I am not a Joan of Arcadia fan. I have never watched the show. I just happened across the news item while reading other crappy news items. Thank you and good day.

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

Here in Los Angeles, we had our mayoral election yesterday, and Antonio Villaraigosa emerged victorious. I am sort of happy that he won, because for one thing, he is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since hell-and-gone, which is kind of ironic considering the huge Latino population here. Our last Latino mayor left office in 1872, when the population of Los Angeles was about 6,000 people (according to the Los Angeles Times). Things have changed just a teeny bit since then -- I believe the current population is close to 4 million, give or take a few, and the city itself has grown just a tad.

Aside from being Latino -- and I hate that I bought into all the media bullshit and actualy mentioned that first. Hello, I am a lemming -- Mr. Villaraigosa is also alleged to be a progressive Democrat, though I'm not sure what that could possibly mean in Los Angeles, in which even if you are a Republican, you are more liberal than many (most?) Dems elsewhere. If I had to characterize myself (and which you must know, I hate doing -- I reject labels of any kind), I would describe myself as a reform Democrat. That would be as opposed to a same-old-shit Democrat. In the interest of full disclosure, I will also say that I have flirted with the idea of changing parties, since the National Democratic Party is floundering around in a way that I find deeply embarrassing. But I do hope that this is a step in the right direction for my dear adopted city.

The reason I say I am only sort of happy that Mr. Villaraigosa won is that I have developed a deep distruct of politicos of any stripe, and it seems to me to all be bullshit. The hype, the gladhanding, the pandering to special interests -- oh, you know. At any rate, I hope Mr. Villaraigosa can live up to his promises. I don't think this job is going to be a walk in the park. No sir, no how!

Reason #82 why we don't need another kid

I just did four loads of laundry today, and I could easily do three to four loads more. Now that Viva is in preschool, she is soiling her clothes with spaghetti sauce, Los Angeles-area dirt, and God knows what else at an alarming rate. We also seem to be breezing through washcloths like there's no tomorrow.

This morning, as I was loading up the washing machine and feeling a bit like this was a futile exercise, I had the thought, "This could be worse. What if you had two kids?"

Thank God for birth control. Props to my homegirl Margaret Sanger!

Can't Get to It

I am pissed about losing part of my last post, but now I don't have time to reconstruct it and in the wider scheme of things, it's not very important. I am heading down to see my mom and grandma today. My grandma's oncologist has summoned her for a bunch of tests and we are all nervous. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, if you do that kind of thing.

Will try to post more over the weekend.

Catharsis

Ah, the joy of spring cleaning! Yesterday, I went through one drawer of my four-drawer filing cabinet, and removed any files that were either (a) completed projects or (2) work done for clients that I haven't worked with in over a year. I ended up with a towering pile that weighed 11.5 pounds, according to my bathroom scale.

Now, I might be skeptical of this weight, since a few days ago the scale seemed to think I weighed 82.5 pounds, while Viva weighed 0.0. However, the scale seems to have had a change of heart and now registers a much more reasonable weight, which I won't share with you, because that would be totally obnoxious. But I feel confident that this pile of paper can be reasonably represented as weighing nearly twelve pounds.

It's now sitting on my bedroom floor, threatening to topple over the next time one of my neighbors slams their apartment door. I have to shred most of it, and if I take the time to do that, I won't have time to blog or work on my other writing, so there you go. I feel certain that I will add to it next week when I continue the purging process. Maybe I will use it to make some sort of fabulous papier mache project which we can store with all the other ridiculous stuff we can't bear to part with, thus rendering this entire clean-up project completely oxymoronic. Or maybe just moronic. You be the judge.

Starry Eyed...

When I was a teenager living in Boston, I used to listen to WBCN-FM sometimes in the morning. WBCN started out as a progressive rock station which did a lot to break out Boston groups like Aerosmith, the Cars, and the J. Geils Band. Anyhoo, in the mornings, they used to feature The Cosmic Muffin (aka Darryl Martini, now retired), who would give the horoscopes for the day. At the end of this segment, the Cosmic Muffin would intone, "And remember, it's a wise person who rules the stars...it's a fool who's ruled by them." And then I would put on my coat and grab my book bag and haul ass out into the dark Boston morning to catch the first of two busses to get to school by 7:30 AM. Damn, it was cold.

At any rate, I am apparently not ruled by the stars, as during my clean-up, I cam

Oh my God, this has been truncated by some fuck-up with Blogger again. I have to end here but will try and edit this tomorrow. Color me pissed. To No END!

What happens to a rage deferred?

It kind of shrivels up into disgust, that's what.

Yesterday, I composed a most amazing post. It was lengthy! It had links! It had subheadings! I was totally out of control! And then I went to post it and got an error page and a message that Blogger was down for maintenance. I was clinging to some small shred of hope that I would be able to recover my post today -- it's a new! Blogger! feature! -- but upon looking it up, I found this little tidbit:

"You'll need to be logged in to the same blog that lost the post, on the same browser and within 30 minutes of losing your post in order for this to work."

Arrrrrrgggggggggggggggggh. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Still sick. Still!

Yes, it's been almost two weeks since Viva and I got sick, and we are just barely coming out of it. Sickness sucks.

I say this as an explanation for why I haven't posted anything for lo these many days.

Sorry. (As if you care. Cue self-pitying violin music.)

Sunny Day, Sweepin' the Clouds Away

So despite our lingering coughs, we went to see this with friends Nick and Carla and their little munchkin Jolie, who is just a few months younger than Viva. Have I mentioned that Sweet Willie and I are not big fans of the musical? The things we do for our child. Anyway, the girls were thrilled, and it was all heart-warming to see how into it they got. Since there always has to be some drama wherever we go, I am happy to report that this time, the drama did not involve us. But Sweet William pointed out to me in the row in front of us, near the aisle, a little girl had gotten one of the sparkly twizzly lighty things that they were selling at the souvenir booth stuck in her hair. It kind of swirled around in there and got ensnared. Her [presumed-to-be] mom had to remove her from the auditorium to go off somewhere mysterious and extricate it. I laughed because it wasn't happening to me. (Apologies to The Simpsons, and I can't seem to find the original quote.)

Afterward, we got food here, which in my opinion was not all it was cracked up to be. I think they make their greens without pork. How can that be good? I will give them props for their black-eyed peas, but still, when I want fried chicken, I will stick with Roscoe's. And gimme a waffle on the side, dammit.

Anyway, whenever we see them, I always wish Nick and Carla lived closer to us. And then I also wish that Ericka and Aron and their little pookums Isabella lived closer, too. Then we could all hang out and our kids could play together all skippy skippy skippy. Sadly, Nick and Carla live in the Deep Valley (practically in Ventura County, so not exactly a ten-minute drive), and Ericka and Aron live even farther away, in the Bay Area up nawth. It is a damn shame. Sweet Willie, Nick and Ericka all went to law school together, and then our daughters were all born within four months of each other, so it would be a cool little sisterhood.

Since apparently none of us are having a second kid, I'm all for the siblings-by-association thang, but it looks like it's not going to happen. Ericka claims she would move back down here if only I would write a bestseller and build us a compound in Malibu. Okay.

Mother's Day is Among Us...Be Very Afraid.

And I wish I had something more witty to say, but you know something? I hate Mother's Day. It seems to me to have become almost as commercial, crass and weighted with expectations as Christmas.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mother, despite all her zaniness. But in all honesty, I hate the obligation Mother's Day imposes on me. I visit my mother and grandma regularly on non-holiday occasions. Both of them say not to spend any money on Mother's Day. They just want us to spend time together. I will show up with cards and some potted orchids and make them some cake or Sunday brunch. My sister, on the other hand, will buy gifts as well as flowers and agonize over what to cook and call me about it to find out what I am doing and then it turns into an unwieldy, anxiety-spewing thing.

My friends, I hate a thing. I just can't abide it.

Now, my mom's birthday is just a couple of weeks after Mother's Day, and my grandma's birthday is just a couple of weeks after that. So I know I am going to go see them on those occasions. And you know, we really still are sick...

Okay, okay, I know you think I am hateful for wanting to avoid Mother's Day. Every day is Mother's Day for me with Viva, so it's not that I feel I'm missing out on our Special Day if we go visit my family. I just don't want to get dragged into a thing.

Do you know what I'm saying? Do you? Ugh.

Shower the people you love with LOVE. Love, dammit, not all kinds of crap they don't need.

Clearly, Madame Blah Blah is in a foul mood. This transmission will end here, with our apologies for the peevishness of it all.