I know it's not July yet, but I thought I would poke my head out from Packing Hell to share with you all that this morning, when I dropped off a prescription at Walgreens and the pharmacist asked me for my birthdate? I could not remember it.COULD NOT REMEMBER MY OWN BIRTHDATE.Said pharmacist was very sympathetic as I frantically rummaged through my purse to consult my driver's license. She kept looking down -- refraining from eye contact, I thought, out of courtesy, but later I realized she was just checking out the impressive display of old dog hair, sweet potato puffs, and half-chewed cheese mixed with baby spit that was hanging off the front of my t-shirt.My husband is at a conference in China, staying at a resort that, according to its roughly translated website, offers its guests such recreational luxuries as an archery course, "The Bumping Car" and something called "Fun World". We move in three days. The baby has come down with The Snots. You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
A blog hiatusThat is what I need right now.Also, a haircut.Moving in two weeks,Travelling for one of them--Somehow, must pack shit.Baby is crawlingand standing and chewing onelectrical cords.Have you ever beenso crazed you forget to pee?See you in July.
You know how sometimes you feel like you should be writing a blog post, but you don't really want to and plus you have nothing to say? Yeah, that's called a meme. Thanks for the tag, Librarian Girl.Eight Random Things About Me That I Am Posting Here For No Good Reason:1. I am filthy when it comes to linens. I am Filthy Linens Girl. Like, I never wash my sheets. Seriously. I mean, I wash our set of guest sheets between uses, but my own? Dirty as hell, and on my bed for half the year. And before the husband and I got married, we owned one bath towel each. Now we have more, but still. I know it's gross, but I've been living this way for so long now that to suddenly start paying attention to linens would be to add a brand new chore to an already overburdened life. I'll just continue to wallow in stench, thanks.2. When I was a little kid I used to watch game shows on television all the time with my babysitter. At the end of each show, the host or announcer or whatever would give a shout-out to the program's sponsors by saying "This show was brought to you by" Best Western Resorts or Sara Lee or what have you. Except that I always thought that they were saying "This show was brot-y-ood by", like there was this one word, brot-y-ood, that essentially meant "sponsored," and it was only as an adult that I learned otherwise.3. Also as an adult, or rather as a mini-adult during my first semester of college, I learned that not everyone is down with the Mennos. I grew up in a largely Mennonite community in northern Indiana; I never knew anything different. I thought every WalMart parking lot in America had parking spaces for buggies. But one night in my college dorm, my roommate and my now-husband and I were having a conversation about common last names. We were listing them off (Smith, Jones, Miller, etc.) and I shouted out with great gusto: "Yoder!!" They were all "jigga-whaa?" and then proceeded to make fun of me about it for the next, oh I don't know, TWELVE YEARS. Apparently not every town's phonebook has a six-page spread of Yoders. Who knew?4. I'm a terrible lier. I provide way too much information. So if you and I are ever supposed to hang out, and I call you and tell you that I can't come because I had this awful day at work today involving a meeting at 2:00 that was supposed to be over by 3:00 but actually went until 3:30 and as a result I got home late and now I have to figure out something to make for dinner but we are totally out of brown rice and plus I'm not feeling well at all and just took three tylenol which were actually expired but I took them anyway and besides, I have to run an errand that I forgot about until right this very second? I probably just don't want to hang out with you.5. I have never seen ET or Goonies. I know, I know. I was busy watching game shows.6. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.7. I have tried really, really hard to like oatmeal. It smells so delicious, and it serves as a vessel for delectable things like maple syrup and brown sugar and raisins. It is such a handy little breakfast and everyone else seems to enjoy it so, especially on camping trips or on cold winter mornings. And I like oatmeal cookies and oatmeal squares! But oatmeal on its own? I just can't do it. The texture, she is both creamy and lumpy -- and for that reason alone she and I can never enter into a serious relationship.8. When I am stating a political view or describing a lifestyle choice and I preface my words with the proclamation: "Well, I'm not saying this is right for everyone else, but FOR ME...", there is a good chance that I actually do think it is right for everyone else. Don't we all secretly think our choices rock the hardest?The rules say that I have to tag four others, and rules are awesome. So I tag:Dori, because I always tag Dori!Julia, because she's barefoot and pregnant and on temporary bedrest with nothing else to worry about but memesSarah, because she never blogs anymoreJen, because she'll just ignore me anyway
Oh man. That was, like, fifty kinds of fun.I'm still recovering from my long weekend in New York City, due in large part to the hellish terror-trip that was my flight home. But we'll get to that later. First, let's hearken back to Thursday, when Laurie met me at the airport and proceeded to spend the rest of the day leading me around on her customized "New York is For Gluttons" tour of the city. Dudes. In the course of about six hours, we managed to consume sushi, brownies, lemonade (pink AND yellow, yo), paper cups of french fries slathered in some kind of two-wrongs-make-a-right blue cheese sauce, pizza, and beer. It was Awe. Some. We met up with Laurie's fee-yan-say and some good friends and sat around in a sausage-peddling German bar, talking and laughing, and it occurred to me as we were walking out the door that there were a million other places we could go -- right then -- if we wanted to. A million bars and a million restaurants and they would all be open, even though it was late. You could live your whole life in that city and never eat at the same place twice. New York is a crazy place.The conference itself was great, overcrowded and overheated and overflowing with self-important crazies, but I'm so regularly understimulated by my crap-of-a-job that I enjoyed it all. Sessions were packed from wall to wall in too-small rooms. I saw talks and panel discussions involving lots of writers I admire. I picked up lots of freebies and catalogs and a free copy of Dianetics from the Scientology booth for Laurie. I fought my way around lines 200-librarians-deep of folks who were waiting for autographed books from James Pattersons and Debbie Macombers. I waited in [significantly shorter] lines for my own version of worthwhile celebrity autographs: Tim Gunn, Digger Phelps, the bass player from Styx. I saw Stephen Colbert from afar. I don't think he realizes yet that we're in love.The highlight of the entire conference for me, honestly, was when Margaret Atwood signed an autograph for me long-distance from Vancouver using a space-age robotic arm. People. It was just as fabulous as it sounds. Atwood invented this machine that uses the Internet to allow authors to do signings and appearances remotely. I was walking along minding my own business, stuffing fistfulls of free pens into one of my twenty free tote bags, and some guy pulled me aside, shoved Atwood's new book of short stories into my hands, and asked me if I wanted to get it autographed. I was like "um?" and before I knew it, I was staring into some web-cam-thingie and Margaret Atwood was chatting me up about the weather and my book was placed on a screen and I was all "Melinda with an 'e'" and she started writing and seconds later this crazytrain black robotic arm reached out and signed my book. It was bad ass. And, apparently, very green.On Friday night, Laurie and I met up with Liz for drinks (hi Liz!) and then went to see Grey Gardens. It was, in short, like no musical I've ever seen before. There was no dancing. There were no jazz hands. There were only about nine people in the cast. The first act went down like a parlour play, all high-brow and manners and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. But then, in the second act? There were psychedelic digital cats and ghost choruses and the creepiest, craziest music you will ever hear on Broadway. It was amazing. I want to see it again and again. Our seats were in the first row of the tippy-top balcony, and if we hung over the railing a bit we could see into the orchestra. An usher came to us at intermission and asked if we'd like to move down a level but we declined. We loved it up there.Laurie and R., the betrothed, spent all day Saturday whipping up a cold-food-for-a-hot-day vegetarian feast, and we ate it up that night with some friends. We also drank all the liquor in their house and went out at midnight in search of something to eat from the cake-and-frosting family. It felt like college. It felt freeing and fun.And then Sunday was my flight home. Friends, it was the worst flying experience of my life. Take a stupid small plane and fly it through a bunch of damn rain and clouds and you get nonstop ups and downs and twists and turns and turbulence so severe that people actually shouted out loud in fear. Cups and magazines were flying around and the women sitting in front of me had their rosaries out. I have never been so happy to have my feet on the ground......or my arms around a baby, who greeted me at the door from her perch on the carpet, smiling a newly-toothy grin my way. Of course, she gives that same smile to the dog, and her own feet, and any particularly interesting clump of trash in her path, but still. This one was just for me. It's fun to travel. It's even more fun to travel when you've got something plump and warm and cute to come home to.
