another reality

As I’ve ranted about before, we’re planning a wedding on a teeny budget, but want something that is us, and kind of seamless. Call me superficial, but I don’t want my wedding to look like it’s in a high school gym. Since decorating a large hall is not my area of expertise, sifting through online galleries & magazines was one of the first things I did. Of course, I’ve come up against this problem: though it’s rare for me to find something that I like, when I have find a dress that makes me crazy with desire it turns out to be $5-20K, which is about $4.5-19.5K out of my price range. Many magazines will say something like “You won’t believe what you can get for under $750!” & it’ll be ONE crappy David’s Bridal dress that probably was made out of something close to shower curtain liner material, just shot with a soft lens. And then, there’s Martha Stewart, whose empire is based on making women feel bad about themselves when not only do they not make their Christmas cards by hand, but can’t get to printing out the impersonal address labels until January 27^th. In spite of this, I must admit that I love ogling the fabulously scrumptious dresses of Vera Wang, Junko Yashioka, Oscar de la Renta, Reem Acra, Anna Maier/Ulla-Maija, Melissa Sweet, Claire Pettibone, Jenny Packham, Lela Rose, and on and on and on, even though it makes me a little wacky & sad all at the same time. I will never have the chance to wear something as immaculate as these:

I have to say though that this kind of lust isn’t limited to wedding related items. As a child, even though we lived in small apartments and then a tiny house with 1 bathroom (which seems crazy to most people), I'd flip through Architectural Digest & the real estate section of the Sunday Times & daydream about living in those houses. In middle school, a friend & I actually called a number of the places to have them send brochures of the estates. We’d try to put on aristocratic British-type sounding voices, so they didn’t know we were little kids with no trust funds. When I was in elementary school I apparently drew pictures of myself riding in limousines because that's just how I thought my life would turn out. As a teenager, I imagined I would eventually live in a massive loft in Soho. That's just how I roll. Come to think of it, even when I was in college, I saw that Dark Island which is home to the Singer Castle was up for sale, furnishings and all for only a few million dollars (which, honestly, was a steal). My friends & I would get baked & talk about what we’d do with all those rooms (whose themes had a very small range that included weed, rainbows and the Beastie Boys).

Okay, so as I said before, I am a materialist. However, because of my mother who made all our clothes when I was growing up, drove a white Toyota from the early 70s with gray AND orange doors and fenders well into the 80s, I have a hard time spending money. And when someone says “Oh, I like that dress!” or “Those shoes are adorable!” I have a really hard time not telling them how little I snagged them for. I also have a really hard time spending $20 on a shirt, after a life of sifting through by the pound thrift shops.

So, I take it back, maybe it's not really possible for me to be an actual materialist, per se, since I rarely get the expensive things I drool over. However, I do carry lust in my heart for many beautiful things in this world ranging from the Panton S chair to Robert Bruno’s Steel House.

Obviously I can’t or won’t have these things in this life, but I with each object I can imagine another life where I do. And so here are portals into my other lives (aka my most coveted things):

Wait, before I start I must say that this may just turn out to be a list of chairs as I love chairs & think of them as works of art. Okay, now we go:

Panton S Chair

Richard Bruno's handmade (by his hands only!) Steel House:

John Fluevogs:

Mango from iittala designed by Nancy Still in 1973:

A conversation pit:

Sofa With Arms by Shiro Kuramata for Cappellini:

More again. Sometime.

back from the world

A certain someone who has google alerts on my name recently informed me that people are reading my blog & also linking to it from their blogs. Which is kind of embarrassing since I've not posted since October. Oh well.

A lot has happened during that time. here's a partial list:

• Mina said "I love you."
• My first boyfriend & his family came to visit us from their organic farm in MN.
• I went to the Exploratorium for the first time.
• I had many boring &/or aggravating meetings.
• I hosted a reading (maybe two?) at the Oakland Art Gallery.
• Brent became obsessed with vampires.
• We changed our venue for the wedding from the Brazilian Room to the Verdi Club in the Mission.
• Mina sadly moved to a toddler bed.
  
• Brent & I went to the movies three times (& saw 1 good movie-Burn After Reading & 2 terrible ones--Rachel Getting Married & Twilight, which was at least so ridiculous it was funny).
  
• I bought 6 pairs of shoes (actually 5 & the best ones were given to me from an angel named Stella--$400 Hollywould shoes).
• I've been sick with the flu, a stomach virus & I had an ovarian cyst burst on me (yay!)
• Mina counted to 10 last week & sang the alphabet song for the first time on her own.
• We got an xmas tree.
• Oh yes, we FINALLY elected a candidate that I support!
  
• We had a dinner party that ended with me lying on the floor (oops).
  
• Halloween & Thanksgiving.
• I've watched Sesame Street more times than I can count.
• Brent turned 40.
  
• I think I've probably written one, maybe two poems.
• I wrote down every job I ever had & everyone I ever slept with.
• I did a lot of christmas shopping.
• And I realized that I'm late for Mina's check up.

More boring stuff soon. I promise.

darndest things

Last night, B & I were putting on Mina's pjs (yes, it take 2 people) and because she wasn't fighting us with the normal eye-gouging screamfest, we clapped our hands & said (in high falsettos) "Oh Mina! Look at you! What a big girl you are!" To which she glowered and said "Big Boy!"

______________________________________________________________________

Around 11:30pm, I heard some crying from Mina's room. I went in & found her all turned around, twisting in her blankets. I said "shhh, it's okay." In a very sad voice, she said one word: "Bubbles."

Either she was dreaming about them or she wanted me to blow them, I don't know. But the last week or so she has been obsessed with bubbles.

"go omama!"

obama endorsement 10.26.08
Originally uploaded by melissa benham

This made me spit out my wine when it happened at the debate & then again on the Daily show.

wow.

Both MN & I said we'd blog about this & it looks like I am going to beat him to the punch.

Last night's MBV show ended with a 20+ minute unending crash of sound that seemed to get louder just when it seemed literally impossible to get any louder.

It felt like the space shuttle was launching next to me, which is about right, as I now know that a space shuttle take-off is one of the loudest recorded events on the planet. Everything, including my organs, vibrated. I had the feeling that they might hit a level that would somehow shut down one of those previously mentioned organs.

I joked to MN that they were massaging us with sound from the inside out. He couldn’t hear me. We just looked at each other with big eyes & shook our heads in amazement that we couldn’t even hear ourselves make a sound.
I kept thinking about the possibility of a sound therapy that decimates all your senses & wipes you clean. I mean, when you can’t hear yourself or communicate with others, it can be an isolating experience. But at the same time, it smashes any remnant of the everyday—something is happening. I felt sorry for anyone who was on acid at the time. I could see someone seriously freaking out during that sound apocalypse(as I was told MBV calls it). It was possibly a more intense, transformative experience than some acid trips I've had. Perhaps on a cellular level. A shift in DNA?

I didn't mention the fact that there was blinding, flashing lights coming from the stage, the ceiling & around the venue, so that at certain points, it was hard to look up. You were forced, ironically, to shoe-gaze. Or, well, close your eyes--which was totally dislocating in a kind of mescaline-drums-in-space way. (that's right, I said it DRUMS IN SPACE....)

as if sarah palin wasn't enough

if I hadn't been questioning the sanity of human beings on this earth already, this would have started me down that road.

granted, this guy wants to inflict his serious control issues on just one person, whereas SP & the GOP want to basically control everyone & everything & send us spiraling into a season of hell. but it's still fairly fucked up.

who are you & what have you done with melissa?

how can I account for the time spent between the last post & today?

the weddingbots have got me.

or actually my computer has become primarily a weddingbot.

let me say first, I have never been someone who "dreamed" about their wedding. have I said this before? if so, it's only because it's true. yes, I "dreamed" that river phoenix would carry me (while I was wearing an emerald green satin evening gown) to the bed before things went "fuzzy." yes, I "dreamed" that I would somehow "inspire" sebastian bach (lead singer from skid row, duh) to take a shower. but there was never a wedding involved (or a white dress).

so now, here I am planning a wedding. it's not for 11 months but I've been researching since June 24, 2007 (the day after b proposed). I am not sure if it's just the wedding or I have become some sort of obsessive planner. I guess I also obsessively planned before m was born--researching every damn product we bought or registered for--amazon reviews, consumer reports, epinions, etc. so now I'm just taking the same approach toward the wedding, I guess.

the funny thing is: I researched FOR MONTHS for a venue for the wedding—made multi-worksheet, multi-colored spreadsheets. in the end, we chose the first one I looked at online & said hey b, we should have it here.

I must have looked at over 2000000 dresses. of course, I chose a variation of the first one I liked.

btw, I'm STILL looking at dresses. I can't help it. I am in love with this one which is from a Spanish designer & only 2 stores in CA sell the line. it probably costs about $4-5K, which is like a little less than half our budget:

of course, the dress I am getting looks nothing like this dress. mine is a 50s style, tea length one with sleeves which is exactly what I've wanted from the beginning.

okay, I've been distracted by fabulous glamazon dress (again).

what I am saying is that for some reason I spend a lot of time searching through pictures of dresses & shoes & rings & centerpieces & flowers & vases & lanterns & lounge furniture some (okay, most) of which we can't even really afford. I've gotten so good at finding things that I have now been helping my friends plan their weddings. part of me obviously loves it. I mean, ebay is basically my best friend. [I am a materialist. I know it's terrible, but I am. however, I don't want to spend a lot of money on materials....]& this kind of event is so multi-faceted, it lends itself to this kind of obsessive research, especially when you don't have $25K to spend on your special DAAAAAAAAAY!!!

but why am I like this? I was never like this before. I mean, in my 20s. I used to be, like so laid back (I think? maybe it’s was just that I was stoned all the time. but now, I'm all anxious about our centerpieces. what?! it literally makes no sense. I think there's two things going on here. one, the obsessive control-y thing--wanting everything to be perfect, which doesn't mean it has to be something out of modern bride magazine, but wait, maybe a little bit--no! no! that's crazy. but doesn't this kind of look cool & wouldn't you really enjoy going to a wedding that looked like this?

or this:

so really, it kind of becomes about throwing the ultimate party that will just happen to be celebrating us. I mean, when else will we have all of our friends & family from all over the world in one room, drinking, eating, dancing? that's special enough in itself, yes, but it's kind of tempting to want to create an atmosphere that transports them to---? another dimension seems a little absurd. but maybe not. maybe people want their weddings to be like a rave. when you emerge after 6 hours squinting in the sunlight, while the businessmen walk by on their way to work & it's like you've just landed on planet of drones. speaking of, I remember the first rave I went to after moving to san francisco in 1995. it was in this space of maybe 3 or 4 rooms, all painted black. no furniture or anything, sheets on the walls for screens. barbarella was being projected on the wall over some psychedelic trancey kaleidoscope film. the hippies from haight street had taken over half the room with blankets & were passing around big glass bongs. it was amazing. that night connie & I met a kid who turned out to be isabelle allende's step-son who drove us over the golden gate bridge, brought us to rodeo beach--which is still my favorite beach ever (b proposed on a cliff overlooking it) and then back to allende's "house of the spirits" in marin which had the most fantastic furniture.

anyway, back to weddings.

some people say they want a "magical" fairytale wedding (gag). they want to be a princess marrying their prince. that seems a more than a little bizarre to me since it's not a place or time that actually ever existed. I mean cinderella's dress was made by mice & birds. weird.

but maybe I'm falling into that trap myself. because honestly, if money were no object, I would have done it at the monterey bay aquarium at night in front of the big aquarium, with low lights, & candles on cocktail tables. something like this:


talk about taking one to another level. of course, we could just do an under the sea theme... like a cheesy 50s prom. (didn't they do that in back to the future or peggy sue got married?). but it would be something that is about me & brent because we both have fascinations with the ocean (though I'm kind of afraid of it) & sea creatures. but alas, it is way out of our budget to have it at any aquarium (trust me, I checked).

but do you see what I mean? there is some pressure to make it perfect, to make it unforgettable, to make it fit us, to represent us in some way. but really, does it matter all that much--I mean, these ideas are just different types of parties. maybe I should just plan other people's parties so I could get all these ideas out of my system. I did look into becoming a wedding planner but it seems like you have get certified by taking these classes on how to drain people of all their money by preying on their hopes & fears & idealizations of "happily ever after." gross. I mean, really, this is ONE day. why spend more than you make in a year on it? it seems slightly irresponsible, doesn't it? even our budget seems high to me (though it's about half the "average" (which is a lie of statistics--there is no way that most people in the US spend $25K on a wedding--it's just who they polled & that included many people who do spend over a $100K which brought the average way up). but back to the original point (I think I had one)--I think the 2nd issue is getting bogged down in the details--having every little thing feel like it needs to be just exactly right. and because of that I have a hard time being able to make up my mind. there are so many ways to go once you decide you don't want the cookie cutter wedding. (just look at all the fun things you can buy on etsy & you'll know what I mean). for example, should I go with a button & felt bouquet:


or with a paper bouquet?


I actually don't know.

& does it need to cohere?

like would it be bad to have our joseph cornellian/victorian cabinet of curiosities theme with pink, orange & yellow daisies? does it matter?

okay, I have to stop going on & on because I sound like a crazy bridezilla person.

this is to remind myself of why we're doing this in the first place (shout out to b):

a minute in the life of suzanne stein

the fanny pak was robbed.

People, make me stuff!

Did you know that on Etsy you can post a request for something (a handmade item, not a baby or a fax machine) & crafty peoples will bid on making it? It is AMAZING!!!

http://www.etsy.com/alchemy

Think of all the things you can dream up to ask people to make for you! It's like being the president of a crafty village. I want a hat that looks like an owl--DONE! I want a paper weight made out of old mix tapes--DONE! I want a clock that tells me it's 1953--DONE!

Exploding deer population causing billions in damage

just imagine how I first read this.

"Who are these horrible people and why hasn't anyone told them to stop?"
--MB

"I would totally be doing all kinds of math if I were super rich."
--BC

welcome to my world

how much do I want this t-shirt & other various things

right?

wow.

it's been a while since I've posted here & so I felt like I needed to do something here.

what is new? let's have a mina update:

mina now says "no no no" while wagging her finger at you.

the other day she shook her head yes, with a very sincere face, to every question you asked her.

now she says no to every question you ask her. including "do you want to say no?"

she also says flower & yellow (her first two 2-syllable words), as well as stuck, up, down (mostly she says "uuuuuuuuuuuuup! dooooooooooooooooooooown!"), shoes, water "wawa," & calls herself "nana."

she's a real person. & kind of ornery sometimes. I wish she was a bit more cuddly. it's like you have to get in your cuddles when she's tired or not paying attention. like someone said the other day, "you don't have a baby, you have a cat!" which is exactly true. she'll come & give kisses when she wants but try & sneak a smooch & you'll get the grubby little hand to the face.

we're at this point where she is getting to be a little tyrant & we're supposed to "break" her or something, lest she become this little terror no one wants to be around. you know, we were so busy reading pregnancy books when I was pregnant that we forgot to read the baby books, then we were busy with the baby books & now I'm finally getting around to the other ones. who knew it would be this difficult? I mean, why the hell did no one say, oh hey, by the way, these first years are crucial to mina's social formation for um, the rest of her life?

I realize I rarely talk about mamahood here (I mean, in comparison with how much time I spend as a mama). and perhaps it's so I have a space where I don't have to be constantly IN it. but it's a lot. really. like it literally brings up every issue one can have in life, which is good, but you're basically practicing a social experiment on a human being. & you know, maybe there should be a license for that? who knows if we're doing a good job? who can tell when you're so close to it? I think that's how families become dysfunctional--you get into this groove of just trying to get through things without having the chance to get a little distance to make changes. like we still rock mina to sleep, though we've been told a million times to put her down while she's still sleepy. sometimes she'll do it, or I should say, she has done it a few times, but mostly we want her to go to sleep, so we'll rock her to sleep & put her down. I mean, it gets the job done faster, but I swore after being a nanny for so long, I'd make sure my child could go to sleep on her own. oh well. it's not the end of the world I suppose. I mean, I'm not going to have to rock her to sleep when she's in college. & of course, it is the only time she lays in my arms peacefully...so perhaps there's a part of me that likes it. which is what all the books say, look at how you contribute to the behavior & if you're actually ready for change.

look at the kind of process I'm making here. before your very eyes. what do I need to pay a shrink for?

machines are only interested in being invented.

-(possibly paraphrasing) alan bernheimer

oh hells yeah revisited

I clearly mixed up Bang Tango up with Mango Tango (which is a delicious fruit juice, not a kick-ass hair band of the 80s).

To make amends I was trying to find a video from their glory days, however they won't allow them to be embedded in a website for whatever reason. Also, I can't seem to find my favorite "Love Injection" (that's my kinda drug!) on YouTube. GAWD! Soooooo Unfair!!!!

You can listen to it here though.

I also should have put L.A. Guns on that list. This is a classic.

Also, I'd like to note that one of Dangerous Toys' most memorable songs was "Sport'n a Woody."

This is the lyrics for it:

Well there' women in the city that make me feel shitty
And there's some that make me pack a wad
But the ones that are fine, oh will never be mine
They won't even give me the time of day
1st Chorus:
I ain't got no money, i ain't got no home
I gotta find me a bim to live with tonight
2nd Chorus:
Sport'n a woody, when you're walkin' by
Sport'n a woody, when you're titties fly
Sport'n a woody, rippin' my fly
Sport'n a woody, till the day i die yeah
Well my woody gets big when you're takin' a swig
And your drink's makin you loosen up
Starts a-talkin' to me, well look down and you'll see
What the hell i been talkin' about
1st Chorus
2nd Chorus
Don't know what i'm gonna do, can't stop lookin' at you
'Cause you're sure lookin' nice to me
Well i wish you were sedated
So i could at least penetrate you
For an hour, maybe three yeah
I can't go downtown much, all the working girl butts
ya know they really make my woody happy
But in the night clubs and such
And all the corner sluts
Might just make my waistband go snappy!
Sport'n a woody
Sport'n a woody
Sport'n a woody
Sport'n a woody
Sport'n a woody, for the rest of my life I'll be...


They had a scary clown that sort of still freaks me out as their mascot:

malls of my youth

this isn't a great photo of the riverside square mall, but this was the "rich" mall. it had the most expensive stores, but it was in the next town over. and they had a gap. I once bought a pair of platform striped lowtop converse from this bloomingdales.

during my senior year I worked at the yogurt delight. I didn't like it at all & of course I never wanted to go, and they wouldn't give me time off for prom weekend or graduation, so I made up some story about having a sister who suddenly got lyme's disease which got progressively worse as time went on. eventually (around prom), she went into a coma. my friend nik would call & pose as my mother, then meet me in the parking lot.

they fired me for stealing money, which I did not do.



















the crappy bergen mall.

my mother used to make us shop there.

I nearly got arrested stealing liquid eyeliner from CVS & was banned from the mall.
afterward, my friends & I threatened to beat up some preppy boys who tried to rat me out to the manager.















this is the paramus park mall. there were (& probably still are) a lot of "big hairs" there.




















this is the carousel at garden state plaza. I loved this carousel as a kid.

this was the mall we hung out the most at as preteens & then teenagers.

in middle school we used to follow older guys thinking that they might think we were hot.

in high school we used to steal tapes from sam goody, make up from cvs & clothes from nordstroms & count out our loot down in the food court. we'd walk around & smoke cigarettes, on the constant look out for someone's mom.

oh hells yeah.

to this I would like to add:

Bango Tango
W.A.S.P
Dangerous Toys
Junkyard
Winger
Bullet Boys
Nelson
Extreme
Warrant
Stryper
Ratt
Danger Danger
Jackyl
Electric Boys
Cinderella

ick.

this evening's headline on yahoo re: celebrity mothers-to-be:

"They've got that glow!
These expecting mom's look chic & fabulous--even with the extra baby weight."

wtf?

are they saying their hot in spite of their state of being all knocked up & shit?

remind me to tell you

about my dream where I went on a date with barack obama & freaked out about what I was going to wear.

3rd poem

this automatic Egypt
shoulders some of the blame

tales of ago take us first to the museum
then to the shuttle launch
in repetitive melodic phrasing

something like this: (you are)
permitted to be a human being

(you are) a many chambered planet
(you are) a limited edition of 512 a bundle
(you move) in separate directions continually

2nd poem

house, sit, straighten and corrode
around the clock is shameful
topless as morning

the final tap-dance was done
prettily and aimlessly

there is a threshold to this
sophistication, I promise
they are but the threshold
plea-bargaining involuntarily
with the gate-crasher

rueful as any teens

1st poem

them in the circuits, the batteries & turrets
I leaf house
a small bowl of flashback
of twenty-first century earth test

it makes my working-ship awkward
fortune-hunting in the A.M.
the sun over my head
there’s something outside the cockpit

then: oh.

how great is this?

these photos are amazing.

it's the summer solstice

& I have to write 3 poems on the backs of postcards.

today starts diane di prima's postcard project. there are 22 of us who will be sending postcard poems to each other for the next year.

I said I'd participate because it's been over a year since I've written anything. I've gone this long before, so I don't worry about it too much. I write very slowly anyway, edit & re-edit obsessively. I've never been very disciplined as a writer though & now that I am a mama, I can't write in the way that I used to. I used to sit at my computer in my room until 2am listening to music with a bottle of wine or whiskey & taking think-breaks by going out & having a cigarette on the porch. now that I am a mama, that is no longer possible. I can't stay up late, I quit smoking & I cannot drink like I once did without feeling like a very bad person. & of course, I don't have that kind of time really, as well as being just a tad exhausted & braindead from running after a toddler as she destroys everything around her.

I have said I should learn to write at work. I mean, I'm writing this at work. but it does take a different brain space. I need to learn how to get into that brain space. how does that work? has anyone done it?

there's more to it than that though. my life has changed in the most dramatic ways, however I'm not going to write mamapoems. or sweet little flowerbaby poems. I mean, I could, but why? it's so googoogaga. I love my baby but I still want to talk about the inability to relate to animate & inanimate objects in the vast expanse of matter & anti-matter. & lost. I still want to write about lost. time travel? moving islands? that's where it's at.

by the way, life IS a rainbow. Miss H. Berry, how right you are.

wtf?

getting to know us

the other day, an old friend dating back to middle school, sent me a questionnaire entitled "getting to know you 2008." at first I was skeptical (not to say I am not still skeptical. if you know me, you'll know that I am nothing if not skeptical). I usually don't read forwards or forward them on. in fact, let me take a moment to say please don't send me some sentimental crap forward about how our lady friends are so special. I will likely think less of you for it. (see, now you're really getting to know me...)

in any case, it was interesting to read my friend's answers to the 50 some-odd questions. & I thought about how long it had been since we'd been day-to-day friends. you know, someone who'll go shopping with you or drop in for coffee. then I realized since miss M came along, I don't really have any day-to-day friends. (sorry, BC, you count differently). most of my old friends live far away & the ones who are here, I usually only see them at readings or larger social events. not much time to talk about what's really happening & as you all probably know--I am not a phone person. I don't know when that happened, but I am just not. in any case, that's not really what I wanted to talk about here. what I wanted to talk about here was how I thought that there were questions the questionnaire missed asking. things that would bring about a much more telling answer than asking what color hair one had or how many keys one has on their keychain. so I added some questions when I sent mine to a few people:

• do you keep a journal or a blog? (thinking about this now, they should have be differentiated as it's very different to write in a journal than to write a blog--or so I hear).
• what is your biggest time-waster? (& maybe I should have said something like "what do you do that seems like a waste of time?")
• what is your biggest quirk?

I have to say, of the responses I've gotten--the last question has resulted in some very interesting & surprising answers. I think some believe a "quirk" to be a negative--something that is wrong with them, whereas I think of it that sets you apart from others--what makes you weird or nicely put: "unique." so some answers were kind of along the lines of "I am this, when I should be this." but even in that, it's a little more vulnerable than we usually are with each other. admittedly, I didn't overshare on mine (not to say that anyone did "overshare"--I didn't get any TMIs--yet). but it is interesting, the way we answer questions, the way we monitor what we project outward & how that can be somewhat nerve-wracking. whether one is "worrying" about it or simply conscious of it. noticing difference can be alienating, though noticing sameness can be well, inwardly alienating. does that make sense? if I see that I am the same as many others in certain respects, it makes me wonder how truly individual I am.

but I am getting off point.

this did make me wonder what things we wish people would ask us. maybe not everyone, maybe just people close to us. you know the experience you can have when someone asks you about something you've never really thought about & how strange it is NOT to have an answer ready, but have to think about it or work it out right there.

I am meandering now, so I will shut up now. in any case, this is mine:

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:35AM
2. Diamonds or pearls? Neither, emerald, sapphire or opal.
3. Last movie you saw? The Savages
4. What is your favorite TV Show? Lost
5.What do you usually have for breakfast? English muffin w/scrambled eggs
6. What is your middle name? Renee
7. What food do you dislike? Lima beans
8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? No CDs but listening to lots of 60s Jamaican reggae & dub the last few days
9. What kind of car do you drive? Toyota Corolla
10. Favorite sandwich? Tuna melt on rye
11. What characteristic do you despise? Arrogance & insensitivity to others
12. Favorite item of clothing? My gray-blue & maroon sweater from the 70s I’ve had for 12 years.
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Paris
14. Favorite brand of clothing? Ones made in the 70s.
15. Where would you retire to? If I had my way, the French countryside or Italy .
16. Favorite birthday? 30th
17. Favorite sport to watch? Baseball
18. Furthest place you are sending this? Germany
19. Person you expect to send it back first? Not sure
22. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night!
23. What is your shoe size? 10
24. Pets? nope
26. What did you want to be when you were little? Ballerina
27. How old are you today? 33
28. What is your favorite candy? Dark chocolate truffles
29. What is your favorite flower? Lotus
30. What day are you looking forward to? Saturday…
33. What are you listening to right now? Desmond Dekker
34. What was the last thing you ate? cherries
35. Do you wish on stars? yup
36. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Midnight blue
37. How is the weather right now? a bit prickly
38. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Mina’s teacher
39. Favorite soft drink? Cream soda
40. Favorite restaurant? I don’t really have one right now.
41. Hair color? Reddish brown
42. What was your favorite toy as a child? Fisher Price people
43. Summer or winter? Summer
44. Hugs or kisses? Both
45. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate!!!
46. Coffee or tea? coffee
47.Do you want your friends to email you back? um, yeah...
48. What is under your bed? A box of old cosmetics, jewelry, lotions I don’t use…
49.What did you do last night? We had Brent’s sister over for dinner, wrote thank you cars, watched Daily Show & Colbert Report.
51. What are you afraid of? Sharks
52. Salty or sweet? Salty then sweet
53. How many keys on your key ring? Which key ring? I have 2—probably 12 in all.
54. How many years at your current job? 1 year 8 months
55. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
56. How many towns have you lived in? 7 (that I can remember)
57. Do you keep a journal or blog? Yes, both.
58. What is your biggest quirk? I can’t help but answer most (or any) questions asked of me, even ones obvious with obvious answers.
59. What is your biggest time-waster? Facebook
60. Do you make friends easily? Good friends, no. Acquaintances, yes.
61. How many people will you send this to? 8
62. How many will respond? Not sure

told you

robots can heart me.

because I am sleepy

the big day

so we're planning a wedding.

wedding planning is like this ridiculously laborious thing, even though it could (?) maybe should be sort of simple. as simple as inviting family & friends over, but no. not really. because you'd still have to make sure all the important people are there. for that you have to make a list & actually contact them. you have to decide on whether a phone call, an invitation or email would be best. then you have to find out whether or not they're actually coming & keep track. then, of course, you have to decide on what to wear. even if it's just jeans & a t-shirt, you still have to put something on. you'd have to get a license & someone authorized to perform such a ceremony. then there's what will be said at the ceremony. and how the ceremony will happen-even if you'll just happen to be standing by the officiant when the ceremony begins, that has to be figured out & staged in some way. even if it's bare bones, you still have to decide that it will be bare bones. what about something to eat? people have to eat. and drink, of course. people must drink! & they need some place to sit when they are eating & drinking. & they'll need something to eat & drink on & out of! & music!!!

& all of that is even before the pressures of cohesion and beauty come into play. before people expect the bride to wear a big white dress & be served a full meal on color-coordinated napkins & table linens & throw stuff at the couple & clink their glasses to get them to kiss & make long boring speeches that make everyone tear up. people want this kind of thing & if they don't get it they are surprised. perhaps dismayed or just disappointed. but really, it's just about doing things the way that others have done them, even if they've only been doing them that way for 50 years. if it looks different, they don't know what to do with themselves. which is like a lot of things. but then again, it could be simple. we could go to city hall & have done with it. but in some ways I'd feel cheated even though I had never thought about what my wedding would actually be like, outside of the conversations I had in college with my friends about how we'd all be doing bonghits in the bathroom together at our weddings...

I will not be doing bonghits in the bathroom at my wedding. it would make me paranoid & then I wouldn't want to talk to you & I'd have to because it's my wedding & that would be a bad scene.

but lest you think I am a person who couldn't care less about all this wedding crap, I'm not. I am a fool for ambiance. for me, it makes socially awkward situations that much more comfortable. when you encounter someone you only know slightly & you've gone through all the proper details about your lives that have taken place since you last saw each other, you can strike up a conversation about the surroundings--like "what a lovely party this is!" "those canapes are to die for." etc. etc. ambiance can transport you to another plane--I'm not talking about having a fairytale wedding or something, but there is something in the social role-playing that is eased when the music, decor, lighting, food, etc. are put together in a pleasing way. I mean, why go to one bar or restaurant over another? it's not really rocket-science, but it is a lot to think about. & of course, it's nice for us, for our families & friends celebrating us & how great we are. wait. is that not what the wedding is about? I mean, how wonderful human love is on a little blue planet spinning in the midst of unfathomable spacious nothingness.

& so how does one throw a party for that? well, you can't really, or you could & it'd be like burning man. so, how do you throw a wedding that is lovely but not insanely expensive, that makes you & others happy (including family members who'd really rather you not have that tim burton themed wedding). of course, it's easiest to go with what is out there, what you've seen at other weddings, tulle & what not. it's actually more complicated & time-consuming to rethink the whole wedding process. I mean for instance, I don't want a big white strapless dress with an enormous train. can anyone really imagine me wearing something like that? (it's kind of hilarious actually.) so I'm likely going to get a dress made because I can't find what I want amongst the $2000 beaded monstrosities that are wedding gowns. & what about flowers? a month ago, I couldn't tell you freesia from a chrysanthemum, but now yes. I sort of have to because I'm not going to have a florist come up with something that I can just say "oh fabulous!" to & have it be done with. I'm not complaining but it is difficult to navigate the territory when you don't want 85% of the crap that's thrown at you. jordan almonds? yuck.

and have you ever looked at those wedding magazines? eeeek. triple eeeek.

that's all I have to say about that for now. I'm sure there will be more. much more...

songs I have had stuck in my head today

This morning it was this:



Then it was this (which is BC's fault):


Now it's this:



why o why?

o you seductive robots you

when will the internets stop creating new & semi-semi-exciting ways for me to waste my time?

I suppose others have rock band, a few have dinosaurs, some have the weather channel, and of course, there's the dungeon masters of the world. I have facebook, indiebride & now this.

the internet purports that you can reach out into the world, but maybe I don't. at least to those I don't know or care to know. bc said that he didn't know if I cared much to make this blog public. & thinking on it, I really don't. what I mean is, I don't know if anyone is reading it, & I don't really care. obviously, if I did not want people to read it then I would not, you know, put it on the internets. I do have a blog somewhere where I started posting diary entries from my teenage journals (I changed the names, as it is embarrassing for everyone, especially me). but after about 5 posts I got bored & have never gone back.

well, now after all that uploading & arranging, sending cyberplants to my friends, & writing on my blog, I am hungry. & well, I should probably get some work done...

today, a year

so today my baby is no longer a baby.

in one year she went from this:



to this:


how did that happen? it doesn't actually make sense. especially because just over a year ago this was the two of us together:


it seems like the quickest year of my life & yet it has lasted a decade. parents sometimes say that they can't imagine their lives without their children & I always took that to mean that they can't remember what it was like before they arrived. I remember & yet I also can't picture what that would look like. I remember getting a lot more sleep & having it start much later & continuing into the late morning. lying in bed & staring at the ceiling for long periods of time. staying up until 3am writing (and smoking!), walking out the front door in under 20 minutes with only a small purse...ah, the list goes on--remembering to put make up on, not having some sort of snot or milk spot on my clothes, not having sand or "little people" underfoot wherever you go. books I read not made of cardboard, talking to other people about things other than sleep. I could go on & on & on. but at the same time, little miss mina is the most intense thing to ever come into my life. it's been a trial by fire, but I think it always is. & actually, given how difficult it is, it's really amazing that the human race has 6 billion people in it. bc has a theory that 1 out of every 25 people (statistically speaking) has a child of 0-1 year old & therefore is insane from lack of sleep, anxiety & stress. maybe it's just us that is this way. feeling our way through the dark. of course, I look at mina & I fall in love with her all over again. which sounds ridiculous because that phrase is so frequently used to talk about superficial relationships. but really it's like my heart is about to burst & I want to squeeze her until the end of time or something.

I still find it very hard to believe that she was made INSIDE of me. it doesn't make sense & clearly is completely inefficient. but now that she is this wild, sweet, delightful person, it's even harder to believe. where did she come from? I don't believe in heaven, so it's even more inexplicable. & even stranger to think that if it had been different month, day, etc. she'd be someone different. harder to believe we got lucky & got the best possible one...