finslippy

Ah, boys.

So I'm on my way out for a walk the other day, and I stop in to tell Henry and his friend Sam that I am not, as it seems, leaving them all alone, as Scott is upstairs working. Henry replies, "Dad's here? Great, that means we can do whatever we want."
"And what, exactly, would that be?" I ask.
"Poop on the couch," Henry says. Needless to say, this cracks Sam's shit right up, and the two of them roll around on the floor, making jokes about couches and poop and pooping on couches as I locate my iPod and head out the door.

As Charlie the Dog drags me down the sidewalk, I turn on my third-favorite podcast, You Look Nice Today—the first and second being, respectively, The Sound of Young America and Jordan, Jesse Go!, although really, I don't like to rank my favorites, it's so crass—and the first thing I hear is guest John Hodgman saying, "Maybe I should come to your house and poop on your couch."

Couch-pooping jokes ensue. Meanwhile, I think deep thoughts about boys turning into men, men remaining boys, and that no matter what, the couch will always and forever remain the funniest furniture item upon which to imagine one's self pooping.

The End.

Isn't this how everyone spends their Sunday afternoons?

Your typical Sunday afternoon crazy dancing. from Alice Bradley on Vimeo.

He was dancing for a full ten minutes before I realized I should go get the camera.

I guarantee that if you have a small child, they will find this video to be the pinnacle of hilarity. Get yourself a small child, and find out for yourself!

Due date.

Today is (was, would have been) my due date, and I'm pretty sad. I didn't think it would hit me this hard, but here it is, and it has.

Seriously, though, they're cute.

Heather B. came over for a pre-Ikea visit the other day. In honor of her visit, I baked awful pumpkin muffins and made her eat one. I'm usually a good baker, I swear, but these were just weird. I ate two.

I thought for sure that Henry would be all over Heather, but lately he's been shy around the ladies, and since Scott was working from home, he stayed upstairs and convinced Scott to complete some Star Wars Mad Libs with him. ("Then Darth POOP raised his light TOILET and FARTED Obi Wan MOMMY.") So we had the morning to ourselves, and while attempting to digest my alarmingly dense muffins, we had a lovely chat about Heather's career, her hopes and dreams, her travels, her radiant youth, etc.

As for me, I talked about my pets. Heather seemed a bit...concerned.

Heather: I think you might be in this house a little too much.
Me: Look, Charlie thinks he's going to get some muffin. He's looking at me like, "I won't think they're gross! Promise!"
Heather: Have you considered getting an office job?
Me: The problem is, I don't like people, or when I have to do stuff. So that sort of rules out offices.
Heather: You could volunteer! That would get you out!
Me: Heh, the cat's sitting at the table. Like she's people! No, kitty, you're not getting any muffin. Stop looking at me like that. Okay, maybe a little piece.
Heather: This is just sad.
Me: You know, I made up two different voices for my dog, but no voices for the cat. I don't know why that is. I just don't think she'd put up with me making up voices for her.

Weird, right? That that behavior would concern her? Youngsters! What do they know.

It occurred to me after she left that this is another reason why I need to move back to the city. Because right now these two are the only beings I have substantial conversations with throughout the day. If I'm going to devote my day to Writing, only Writing, I need to be able to occasional wander out of the house and see SOMEONE.

Sure, I could do this "office work" Heather suggests, but that always ends in tears and lawsuits, and also this is the only thing I'm any good at.

Meanwhile, you should see the cute thing my dog is doing right now. He's all curled up in the sun, getting warm! Like a furry, adorable reptile!

I am becoming a woman, AGAIN

Hello! So I've been working on a whole mess of essays, which is good. It's good to be actually working instead of, say, clawing my face off. Although I have to tell you, I'm not really seeing the difference between the two activities, right now. Because for some reason, some reason I possessed many months ago, I elected to write about my adolescence, and "torture" does not fully begin to describe the experience of tackling this subject matter.

In order to write about the events surrounding my blossoming into womanhood, I have to try and recall what precisely happened, and that means burrowing around in a subsection of my memory that I locked up a while ago. Not that my adolescence was particularly traumatic, although parts of it come close. It was just awkward. And painful. And I was a half-formed human being, reeling around being spiteful and petty and then retreating to my bedroom to listen to the Smiths and feel sorry for myself. "I was drunk and also an idiot" seems to explain a lot of the insane behavior I exhibited, back then. Actually it pretty much wraps up my life from 14-25, which not coincidentally was the year I stopped drinking. (And then, yes, started again in my thirties, but by then I had morphed into an adult who could walk away after half a glass of wine, an idea that would have been completely foreign to me during the years that one drink turned into twelve turned into waking up and not knowing where I was.)

Many of the events surrounding my pre-teen and teenage years make excellent essay fodder, which is why I'm writing about them, duh, but really it would be better if I could simply lop off that part of my brain and hand it to someone who can sift through the material and get it on paper without needing to call her therapist a few times.

All I can think while I'm writing is, my son is going to have to go through adolescence? With all of our scientific progress, haven't we found some way to help us skip this part of life? Can't I put him into some kind of suspended animation?

Where does the time go?

Okay, so I'm glad Obama's the next president and all, but now I would like the sunlight to return. I don't know if you're experiencing this in your area, but since the election, we are living in a cloudy, rainy, perpetual twilight. Look, sun, we know you think Obama's going to do your work for you, but you know what? You have to keep pulling your weight. Get on that.

Besides this new administration-elect's weather problems, things are fairly status quo, over here. Henry has two days off from school, and we signed him up for two days of an all-day YMCA camp, and WOW, can I get more done in eight hours than I can in 2 hours fifty minutes. Unfortunately all that time stretching before me tends to make me 1) panic and b) doubt my abilities and III) decide that I'm an untalented hack and I should just eat Henry's Halloween candy and indulge in some self-loathing. But then I x) get over myself and 16) get back to work. I went through a few of those cycles yesterday. Because I am writing some crap, over here. Crap you will never see; crap that no one should ever be subjected to. Eventually I'll pretty it up and it will be fit for human eyes. Or I'll eat more fun-sized Snickers while setting my computer on fire.

And hey! Have you seen Momversation yet? Because everyone else has, and they're wondering why you haven’t. Momversation features mom-bloggers momversing in momversational videos on topics of interest—to moms! I'm in it, as well as Heather, Maggie, Asha of Parent Hacks, Mindy from The Mommy Blog, Rebecca from Girl's Gone Child, Daphne from Cool Mom, and Nataly from Work it, Mom. The first episode is up, and a second one will be up today, I believe, at any minute. I think the videos are turning out pretty great, and the first one convinced me that I needed a haircut, which I then went out and got! So it's already helped at least one person, who is me, and I think that's really what matters, here.

Also there's a new Wonderland column up. Ha-chaaaa!

HEAT!

It was indeed the thermocoupler, and the bill was thrillingly small. The repair guy showed up at 8 p.m., so I had plenty of time to run around wearing three sweaters, moaning about how I was dying. Even though our heat is off most of the day, it doesn't seem quite as cold as it did yesterday, when we didn't have that early-morning blast to sustain us. My neighbor was telling me that they never turn on their heat, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around this. They don't like the bills, so they choose to be cold. How does one survive, in such a state? Does the constant shivering end, at some point, or is it like all-day aerobicizing?

You'll notice that today is the last day of October, and it's also the last day of the Donors Choose Blogger's Challenge. I decided to give you all a break and stop harassing you to donate, and accordingly most of you stopped donating, but still, Finslippy came in first among the mommy bloggers! So thank you very kindly for your donations. And since it's the last day, might some of you donate? I'm 21 dollars away from $5000, and it would be nice to round this baby up before the day is through. And no, I'm not doing the Pat Benatar video, I said I would do that if I won the entire challenge--which, okay, I kind of realized was impossible, given Tomato Nation's illustrious history. Readers have asked me to do the video anyway, which I considered, really I did, before we had this crazy idea to sell our house.

Speaking of which, we're moving back to Brooklyn. At some point. It's looking now like circumstances might keep us here until the spring. Which would make Henry very happy, as he's forgotten everything he loved about Brooklyn. That alone is reason enough to go back, but mostly we're going because Brooklyn still feels like home, almost three years later. We don't dislike New Jersey, but it wasn't the right fit for us. Sadly, we lived here just long enough that now we've made all these damn friends we're going to miss. But if we had moved back right away we might always have wondered if we should have given New Jersey a real chance. We'll miss a lot about this place, but we're excited to get back where we belong.

Hey, I've got a Wonderland post up today! And now I am off to costume my child. There is a Halloween parade at school, and Henry is Boba Fett.

So, so cold.

So I'm sitting here waiting for the guy who's going to arrive to fix our furnace, which stopped working at some point in the middle of the night. Nothing like waking up to the sight of your own breath turning to icicles in the air, I'll tell you what.

Anyway, I was panicked all morning and convinced that just as we're heading out we're going to have to fork over our kidneys in order to get a new furnace installed. (The word "furnace" is looking weird to me. That is the right word, right, for the gas heating type thingy in the basement? Furnace furnace furnace. It just looks weird.) But then I spoke to one of the parents at Henry's school, who told me the same thing happened to him yesterday, and it turned out it was just some sediment that had built up in some kind of coil thingy (I know all the technical terms), which of course meant no new furnace and also a very cheap bill.

Needless to say, my relief was enormous (not that it means that this is what's wrong with our heating thingamabob, but I'm choosing to believe it is, so shhhh) and so I proceeded to make out with the poor, surprised parent, who was all "what" and "uh" and "I don't think" and "would you please." Secretly he liked it. Anyway, my point is, Scott, I'm sorry you had to find out this way, it didn't mean anything, and also I'm pretty sure if you had been there you would have joined in.

Mulch madness.

It was the mulch that did it.

Before we moved to the suburbs, I thought gardening was a hobby for well-mannered senior citizens who wore long gloves and big floppy hats and pruned a bit each morning as they hummed their favorite oldies. I thought keeping up a yard meant mowing and watering. The End. I thought picking out lovely plants and keeping them in good shape just meant going to the nursery, saying "I'll take those, those, and those," and then they'd magically show up in our yard, and because I'm a spunky sort who doesn't need things done for me, nossir, I'd plunk them into neat holes that wouldn't be any problem to dig. Maybe I'd make Scott dig them, if the holes were large.

I was wrong on all these counts, of course. Planting and gardening involves science and heavy lifting. It involves endless weeding and finding out that your yard is composed of clay and unexpectedly large rocks. It means pulling muscles you never knew you had. Gardening is not for sissies. Those old people who like to garden? I wouldn't mess with them if you paid me, now. Who knows what they could do with a shovel?

But the mulch, damn it, the mulch was too much. I knew about mulch and its importance, vaguely, so the first time I planted some things I came home with a couple of bags of mulch—which were surprisingly heavy! Huh!—and proceeded to pull every muscle in my body dumping them out all over the garden bed, my feet, and most of my legs. I raked the mulch around, and then saw how little of the ground I had covered. And I wept.

It turns out, and I know you know this and you're shaking your head at what an idiot I am, you need truckfuls of mulch. You need to visit Mulch Planet, and fight the natives until they surrender or die, and then denude their Mulch Mountains and Valleys, and transport all that mulch directly to your backyard, and maybe that would be enough. So much mulch, you need.

And the mulch doesn't stay. It goes. And then you need MORE MULCH.

A sane person would say, well, we could have hired a landscaping company to do the lawn upkeep and the mulching for us. That would have been the sane, sensible thing to do, but it would also be the thing to do if we had any cash with which to do that. Sadly, if we were to keep our yard looking halfway decent, we'd have to perform the upkeep ourselves.

I thought I'd get used to the fertilizing, the pruning, and of course the mulching. But I never did. I'm sorry to say this, yard, but now I dislike you. I see you and you're just a nagging reminder of all that I need to do, all that I haven't done, or the half-assed job that I did do just to make myself feel better. And now that I've mulched everything in the front yard that required mulching and I can't lift my arms without screaming, I am officially over having a yard. I want to move to a magical place where I'm only responsible for the inside of my home. Where if I feel any guilt, it's just because I haven't used the vacuum cleaner in a week.

If you're wondering where I am

I am vacuuming. I am planting mums. I am mulching like the world's supply of mulch is almost gone. I am polishing the faucets. I am organizing the shit out of my house. My closets are spectacular. My kitchen cabinets would bring you to tears. Meanwhile, Scott is replacing the shutters and painting the trim and the radiators and all the scuffed corners of the house. Our house is looking increasingly spectacular by the day. Why didn't we do this before? Because we weren't selling our house before. That would be why.

More later about why and where we're going. Just know that I am thinking of you, as I fluff the towels and bleach the grout. Thinking of you, and wishing you had a tall ladder and a fervent desire to wash my windows.

Another DonorsChoose giveaway!

Because I am a river to my people.

The generous and lovely Joanna of Product Body has offered a holiday-themed gift box of body products to one lucky donor. Until the end of this week, donate any amount to DonorsChoose via my challenge page, email me the donation receipt with the subject line "PRODUCT BODY," and you'll be in the running for FIGGY PUDDING, a box containing:

-a half bar of handmade soap in graham cracker carrot cake
-Crush On You (a body scrub) in apple crisp (5 oz)
-Fizzy Bath Salts in citrus pumpkin mélange (5oz.)
-a brand new cream to be launched during this gift box promo

Even if you don't win, I'll send you a discount code for 20% off all Product Body products.

Thanks, and good luck!

With friends like these, etc.

Henry's constructing a Bionicle in the backseat. "I built you a guy," he announces.
I look behind me. It appears to be some sort of three-pronged weapon. "Where's his head?" I ask.
"He doesn't have one," he explains. "He's an Electro-Stabber."
"Why don't you build something friendly?" Scott asks.
"Yes," I agree, "Can't you build something…non-stabby?"
Usually this response drives Henry insane, and he rails against our lack of understanding in such matters. Bionicles and the like were created as weapons of destruction, not diplomacy; when will we pacifist fools understand that?
But this time he pauses and says, "Okay."
A few minutes later he's done. "I built you an Electro-buddy," he says.
I look behind me again. "It looks exactly the same."
"It's a buddy!" he insists.
"Doesn't seem very huggable," I observe.
"Oh, you can hug him," Henry says. "Only if you do you'll get stabbed."

A brief, bewildering tour of where I spend most of my day.

Why hello! I've had too much coffee, and I've taken pictures of my workspace! Come along with me, won't you?

This is what my office looks like in the morning. Look how sunny! You'll notice there's no computer. That's because I compose my thoughts in a linen-bound journal, which I then read into a recording device, and send the digital voice files to a transcription service in Uruguay.

Actually the computer's just downstairs, and I'm too lazy to get it, so I was writing in my journal instead. I tend to write on whatever's handy. A journal, the side of a building, my son's forehead. Whatever.

Here you see the doodles I doodled at some point, I can't remember when. Doodling is essential to my thought process. I drew, as you can see, a heart, because love is very important to me. Then I drew the symbol for eternity, because I often ponder the big questions. Then there's a star and a star-like shape, and I don't have a reason for those. I like to practice the alphabet, because sometimes I forget what comes after what. The "catapult" note is about this deadly, enormous catapult that I'm designing… but I've said too much. Then there's a space for… for what? Who can say! You see how inspiring that is?

And here are the toys I play with, when I crave inspiration. Sometimes I like to take a break and go on a space mission. Or a "mission dans l'espace." It all depends. On what? Je ne sais quoi.

Here is my exercise ball. I have been known to use this for some forms of exercise. Usually I just leave it in that rattan basket, so I can pretend I am a bird, sitting on an enormous, bouncy egg. This amuses me.

This is my chalkboard easel, upon which I scribble angry notes to my inner critic. Here, as you can see, I have scrawled NONONO. This is because my inner critic told me to write something more worthwhile than this rambling mass of lies. Another day I might write POOP, or just draw a space man. I find this technique quite valuable, until my inner critic mocks my penmanship, and I cry.

Here is my cat. She likes to sit on this chair and stare at my back while I work. This keeps me awake, because if I nod off who knows what she'll do. She really cares about me, that cat.

In the adjoining bedroom is Charlie, who as you can see is lounging across our pillows. He does not care about my Art at all. All he cares about is himself. Himself, and his damned sleep.

Now he is pleading me with his eyes to go away, and leave him in peace. And so I shall.

The tour of my office is now finished. You are very welcome.

More prizes!

If you donate this week to my challenge and email me with the subject line "Javis Davis" (and your donation receipt), you'll be in the running for one of two pillow and blanket sets for babies and kids. Javis Davis has some great stuff, and the sets would be in the fabric of your choice.

Thanks, Javis Davis!