Imagine with me, if you will, that you are on a cross country adventure. You have been assigned night time driving duties, so as you navigate your Winnebago across the flat plains of the midwest you suck down a Big Gulp of Coca Cola, purchased at your most recent stop at the Seven Eleven. As you sing quietly along to the single radio station you can find - a curious blend of Patsy Cline, Vanilla Ice, and Billy Ray Cyrus - your travel companions fall asleep one by one. Half an hour from the neon lights of the Seven Eleven you pass a sign "You are now entering no man's land."
And then it hits you.
The urge.
That's right. Your Coca Cola has made it's way through your body with blinding speed, and now, here you are, entering no man's land, and you need to pee.
At first you decide to ignore it. After all, you've gone DAYS without peeing before. At least, that's what you tell yourself. Surely you can make it to the next rest area. It can't be more then...
FOUR HUNDRED MILES!!!!??!!!
The "next rest area" sign passes in a flash of blue, and suddenly you realize that this is not going to be an urge you can ignore.
Still, you do your best. You think of other things for the duration of "Crazy," "Hey, Romeo," and "Achy Breaky Heart." You manage (despite driving a stick shift) to actually cross your legs suring the midnight airing of "Alice's restaraunt." The station manager has just come on to do a special acapella rendition of "Stand By Your Man" when you can't take it any more, and you start looking for a place to stop. Miles pass, and you see no where. There are no shoulders, no convenient exits, no place where you could leave the giant Winnebago for the two minutes it would take to empty your increasingly painful bladder. As you begin to cross a bridge over what is surely the largest river in the world you start to cry a bit - this must be what hell is like.
And then you see it - a small patch of grass just on the other side of the bridge. You screech to a halt, waking all your companions, but you don't hear their bitter complaints as you bolt out the driver's door and head for the ditch. You don't even have it in you to care that everyone is staring as you finally, blissfully, relieve yourself.
Now. That sensation. That one right there. The one you are remembering, the one you get when you finally get to go to the bathroom after holding it for what seems like years.
That sensation is the closest I can come to how it feels to nurse a baby when you are really, really full of milk.
Bet you didn't think that what where I was headed, did you?
Now, before I tell you this next story I need to share with you a piece of trivia about Elliot. In defiance of all odds and all known rules of baby-dom, Elliot hates to be messy. He hates to be wet, to be dirty, to be sticky, or to be any combination of the three. If you let him play in a bucket of water he will do so happily until he splashes water on himself, and then he will fuss until you take the wet clothes off him, and then he will happily play naked in the water. So, with that bit of back information...
This morning Elliot was feeding himself oatmeal. A bite of oatmeal would go like this. Grasp the Spoon. Scoop up as much oatmeal as humanly possibly in the teeny tiny spoon. Aim for mouth. Bite perhaps 1/3 of the mound of oatmeal off the top of the spoon. Smear some down the cheek. Put the spoon (still full of oatmeal) down on the table so that both hands are free to push the oatmeal from the cheek into the mouth. Notice that there is now oatmeal on the hands. Fuss about that. While fussing, notice that their is oatmeal (from the spoon) on the table. Express your displeasure with your messy hands by slamming them down into the pile of spoon-held oatmeal on the table. REALLY fuss. Wait for Mommy to clean up hands and table. Grasp the spoon. Shake any remaining oatmeal left in the spoon out on the floor. Repeat.
It was so funny, and so exasperating at the same time. The silliest part was when he would push the glob of oatmeal on his face into his mouth, and then stare at his hand and look at me as if to say "How did this oatmeal get on my hand? Did YOU put this here?" I finally just gave him a big towel, and showed him how to wipe his hands when they got dirty.
I know that his dislike of being dirty will make potty training easier, and I'm grateful, but in the meantime it makes things complicated. Yesterday he was having an ice cream cone outside, and that was going really well, until a little bit fell on the picnic table, and he just HAD to investigate its finger paint potential, and then OH THE MISERY!
Today is clean the house day. It's finally stopped raining (for a little while, we're supposed to get thunderstorms later, I think) and I'm going to open up all the windows and try to air some of the mugginess out. Fuzzy and Dante and Waxor and I now have offers in on two houses, but since they're both short sales, and we have no idea if the bank will approve them, I plan on continuing on here as though we aren't going to be moving. Which means the great furniture rearranging/getting useless crap out of our house extravaganzza continues. Cross your fingers for me. Sigh.
Alright, I'm going to go do something productive now. Everyone have a lovely day. :)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
June 17, 2009
Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt makes me cry. I really don't know why. I mean, his story isn't especially moving to me. Young boy makes good, finds the love of his life, has a long and relatively happy life with her. But here's the thing, the end of that story is "outlives her by four months, just enough time to record a cover of the song "Hurt" and then die." And something about that just makes me cry. Like something in him loved her too much to live after she was gone, but there was this one thing he had left to do. I don't know.
Of course, I don't actually believe that you can love someone so much that you can't live without them. If ever anyone loved someone that much my Grandfather loved my Grandmother that much, and he lived almost ten years after she died. So I don't think that you can love someone so much that you die because they're gone.
But still... Cash's cover of Hurt... makes me cry.
Every time.
You'd think I'd get over it.
I'm in a melancholy mood this evening. Dunno why... there's nothing wrong, life is just fine and dandy, but I'm feeling slightly blue anyway. Not a deep violet or anything, just a slight periwinkle, if you will.
As I was putting Elliot to sleep tonight I was talking to him, and I told him:
"I love you, Nugget. I love you more then anything, and I always, always will. Someday, not terribly far from now, you may not love me as much as you do right this minute, that's okay, though. Even then, I will love you more than anything."
I think that's what has put me in this mood. I guess I started thinking about the passage of time. You know, it's funny, I can imagine Elliot at 4, 6, even 8, but after that it gets blurry. I can't imagine him as a teenager, or, god forbid, an adult. But, looking back, everything that happened in my life before about age 10 is blurry. I mean, I remember certain key moments, but the truth is that I couldn't tell you much about my day to day life until around the time Coury was born. Then things get sharper and clearer over the course of several years, until I can remember most of the past twelve or fifteen years as well as I can remember yesterday.
I wonder, sometimes, about turning points in my life. I wonder about those alternate dimension Jessicas, whose life paths went a different way. There's the one that got into NCSA, and probably became bulimic. There's the one that died in a car crash out in Tanglewood. There's the one that went to Duke, instead of Ithaca. There's probably a few that married some guy that came before or after Waxor.
Wow, I started this email a long time ago. I probably ought to just send what's above and start a whole new email, but I'm not gonna, so, THBPT!
Yesterday Fuzzy said something to me that I think may have been the cleverest thing any non-mother has ever said to any mother in the history of the world. Seriously. Ready? We were talking about what day it was, and I go "Yeah, I forgot it was Tuesday" and he goes;
"Yeah, it must be hard keeping the days of the week straight when you work seven days a week."
Brilliant, wasn't it? I mean, he could have said "when you're at home all week" but he had WAY more brains than that.
Take note, folks.
I was online looking up the history of the "ideal female form" the other day, and I found a website with a bunch of pictures and dates, giving a rough idea of what people thought was a beautiful woman at what time period. Now, this was done by an amateur, and she more had a point to make then a desire to give lots of information, but it was still useful. It was on a site that allows commentary, and one of the commentators had said:
"you have no proof on whether the Rubens and Renoir represent “ideal” female form of the time, or if they were merely the only women they were able to get to pose nude."
And oh my GOD did that piss me off. I mean, the guy was right, the site designer didn't offer much in the way of proof of anything, she just presented images and dates and let you draw your own conclusions, but the guy isn't objecting to her lack of supporting evidence, he's objecting to the idea that these heavier women might actually have been the standard of beauty at the time. I mean sure, Rubens was a FRICKEN KNIGHT, who ran in aristocratic circles and was basically a rock star of his day, and Renoir had his work requested for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, but I'm sure the women they painted were "the only ones they could get to sit." After all, artists have always had a hard time getting beautiful women to sit for them... oh, wait,
NO THEY HAVEN'T!
What an ass.
Onward...
I love the word "defenestrate". First of all, I love that there is a word for the act of throwing someone out the window. Like, it happens so frequently there needs to be a word for it. Just like Jaywalking. :) I also love the idea that if you get really irritated with someone, or want to start the 30 years war, you can just pitch someone out the window.
I really love the idea of throwing someone out the window.
But, honestly, I would have a hard time killing someone, so for me it would have to be a ground floor window.
Anyway, back to defenestration... I just love the word. It doesn't come up often in conversation, but when it does, hooooooo-boy, you can be sure I whip that puppy out.
Today I will be buying Elliot suspenders. He is too tall to wear 12 month pants, but he is too skinny to keep 18 month pants on his butt, so... suspenders. Isn't that ridiculous? Fortunately during the summer he can wear things that are really short, so I'm just putting him in his 12 month summer clothes and calling it good. If I try to dress him in 18 month clothes he just swims in them. It's amazing, because he's 60% in height, so you'd think... but no. Because he's 2% in weight.
TWO PERCENT!
Alright, I think I'm done here, and I can tell my coffee is starting to kick in, which means I should probably get up and get something done before the surge of energy wears off.
Of course, I don't actually believe that you can love someone so much that you can't live without them. If ever anyone loved someone that much my Grandfather loved my Grandmother that much, and he lived almost ten years after she died. So I don't think that you can love someone so much that you die because they're gone.
But still... Cash's cover of Hurt... makes me cry.
Every time.
You'd think I'd get over it.
I'm in a melancholy mood this evening. Dunno why... there's nothing wrong, life is just fine and dandy, but I'm feeling slightly blue anyway. Not a deep violet or anything, just a slight periwinkle, if you will.
As I was putting Elliot to sleep tonight I was talking to him, and I told him:
"I love you, Nugget. I love you more then anything, and I always, always will. Someday, not terribly far from now, you may not love me as much as you do right this minute, that's okay, though. Even then, I will love you more than anything."
I think that's what has put me in this mood. I guess I started thinking about the passage of time. You know, it's funny, I can imagine Elliot at 4, 6, even 8, but after that it gets blurry. I can't imagine him as a teenager, or, god forbid, an adult. But, looking back, everything that happened in my life before about age 10 is blurry. I mean, I remember certain key moments, but the truth is that I couldn't tell you much about my day to day life until around the time Coury was born. Then things get sharper and clearer over the course of several years, until I can remember most of the past twelve or fifteen years as well as I can remember yesterday.
I wonder, sometimes, about turning points in my life. I wonder about those alternate dimension Jessicas, whose life paths went a different way. There's the one that got into NCSA, and probably became bulimic. There's the one that died in a car crash out in Tanglewood. There's the one that went to Duke, instead of Ithaca. There's probably a few that married some guy that came before or after Waxor.
Wow, I started this email a long time ago. I probably ought to just send what's above and start a whole new email, but I'm not gonna, so, THBPT!
Yesterday Fuzzy said something to me that I think may have been the cleverest thing any non-mother has ever said to any mother in the history of the world. Seriously. Ready? We were talking about what day it was, and I go "Yeah, I forgot it was Tuesday" and he goes;
"Yeah, it must be hard keeping the days of the week straight when you work seven days a week."
Brilliant, wasn't it? I mean, he could have said "when you're at home all week" but he had WAY more brains than that.
Take note, folks.
I was online looking up the history of the "ideal female form" the other day, and I found a website with a bunch of pictures and dates, giving a rough idea of what people thought was a beautiful woman at what time period. Now, this was done by an amateur, and she more had a point to make then a desire to give lots of information, but it was still useful. It was on a site that allows commentary, and one of the commentators had said:
"you have no proof on whether the Rubens and Renoir represent “ideal” female form of the time, or if they were merely the only women they were able to get to pose nude."
And oh my GOD did that piss me off. I mean, the guy was right, the site designer didn't offer much in the way of proof of anything, she just presented images and dates and let you draw your own conclusions, but the guy isn't objecting to her lack of supporting evidence, he's objecting to the idea that these heavier women might actually have been the standard of beauty at the time. I mean sure, Rubens was a FRICKEN KNIGHT, who ran in aristocratic circles and was basically a rock star of his day, and Renoir had his work requested for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, but I'm sure the women they painted were "the only ones they could get to sit." After all, artists have always had a hard time getting beautiful women to sit for them... oh, wait,
NO THEY HAVEN'T!
What an ass.
Onward...
I love the word "defenestrate". First of all, I love that there is a word for the act of throwing someone out the window. Like, it happens so frequently there needs to be a word for it. Just like Jaywalking. :) I also love the idea that if you get really irritated with someone, or want to start the 30 years war, you can just pitch someone out the window.
I really love the idea of throwing someone out the window.
But, honestly, I would have a hard time killing someone, so for me it would have to be a ground floor window.
Anyway, back to defenestration... I just love the word. It doesn't come up often in conversation, but when it does, hooooooo-boy, you can be sure I whip that puppy out.
Today I will be buying Elliot suspenders. He is too tall to wear 12 month pants, but he is too skinny to keep 18 month pants on his butt, so... suspenders. Isn't that ridiculous? Fortunately during the summer he can wear things that are really short, so I'm just putting him in his 12 month summer clothes and calling it good. If I try to dress him in 18 month clothes he just swims in them. It's amazing, because he's 60% in height, so you'd think... but no. Because he's 2% in weight.
TWO PERCENT!
Alright, I think I'm done here, and I can tell my coffee is starting to kick in, which means I should probably get up and get something done before the surge of energy wears off.
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