Workin' It

This morning I noticed one of Donny's eyebrows looked very, well, dramatic. It was dark and shiny and cocked at a rather rakish angle. "Oh, that" Mike said, "That's the bananas."

You heard it here first, eco conscious fashionistas: Banana Eyebrow Lacquer. Very Joan Crawford. Very Isabella Blow.

Oddly, His Mother Hates Musicals...

Last night, Mike and I were ganging up on the boy, getting him undressed and ready for his bath in the sink. He was lecturing us with his usual, "Da da DA DA DA! Da." Then he said "Da da TA!" This was the first time either Mike or I had heard the T sound coming from the boy. The rest of the night was us trying to get him to say, "Ta Da!" I personally would consider a firm, "Ta Da!" said with conviction and verve, to be an acceptable first word.

My first word, apparently, was "Duck." I've always liked to think of a sort of WWI Trench Warfare scenario; "So I was shooting my tommy gun into all the jerrys when the baby yelled "Duck!" How did she know that grenade was coming over? That kid saved my life!"

Stress: Not Just A Verb Anymore

Life has been very stressful lately. I hate using the word "stress." Its such a passive 1990s concept, like second hand smoke or caffeine. But I guess I'm allowed to claim stress really exists if it gives me hives and intermittently makes me cry in public. So, tho I'm unwilling to acknowlege the validity of either caffeine or secondhand smoke as theories, I'll suck it up and get in the line of people blaming their hives on "stress."

Having named the problem, I'm now on a campaign to eliminate it. This means alot of things. It means saying "no" to things I don't want to do. It means hunting down friends with lives of their own and forcing them to have fun with me. It means saying a novena even if doing so sort of makes me feel silly even as it calms me down. It also means trying not to let money issues weigh me down or spiral out of control.

That being said, I worry about the number of credit fix commercials Donovan hears. We have the radio on for him alot and those damn commercials--every 3rd commercial on the radio is one of those commercials. A couple of months ago there was a set of them that had me reaching for my non-existant gun. A woman with this ripe yet understanding voice asks you all these questions "Are you scared of the future? Do you feel like your'e drowning in debt? Do you pay your bills but never seem to get ahead?" OK--that's the set up we're all familiar with, but then she says, "Well, its not your fault!" Not my fault? THE HELL ITS NOT! It is most certainly my fault--I may be filled with self loathing but I'm not stupid. Oy. So I worry about the boy--I worry that his room smells like diapers and not like the lavendar and roman chamomile esssential oil I put in the aromatherapy diffuser. I worry that, between the pollution of poop smells and shit commercials he will grow up a stressed out mess like his hivey old mom.

I went to a memorial service for my friend Digby today. I can now tell you that you havent heard a medley of show tunes until you've heard them on the Heinz Chapel Pipe Organ.

Am I From Another Planet?

Yikes.

Not Going to Carnival

Carnegie Mellon has a Carnival every year and every year I get all excited to go. 9 times out of 10 I end up not going. Mike and I went last year and, apart from the poorly made funnelcake served to us by the aggressively disenchanted student, it was fun. This year I was stoked to take Donny.

Mike worked today so it was just me, the boy and the Pittsburgh transit system. My initial thought was to start at the library and then walk the block and a half to the carnival. As I was trying to cram everything for the boy into a reasonably sized bag, however, I realized I needed a backpack. Well, that would work: take the bus downtown, get a backpack at Burlington, choose one of a gazillion buses going back into Oakland.

We had a fine time at the first bus stop, which is the Herron Avenue Station. Donovan was smart enough to bring a block with him and that kept him amused up until the bus came.
No backpacks at Burlington (which means the era of the backpack as purse is officially officially over.) We hopped a 71A back into Oakland, had lunch at the little park outside of the library and then went into the kids library. As far as experiments go, it was a good one. Donny is still too young to really understand what's going on there but he enjoyed the alphabet rug and the wooden box with the wires and beads. He started to get a little shrieky and, having grown up in the Quiet Library era, I decided it was time to make an escape. That left us with 40 minutes before the next 54C home: not enough time for carnival but way too much time to spend at the busstop.

So we went to the Frick Fine Arts Building.

I love this building--its got a great backstory and its such an oldschool didactic space built in the completely wrong era. I don't know the architectural term for it but the center of the main building has this wonderful square gallery that surrounds a little square garden.
The gallery is full of reproductions of famous paintings. I tried to take a photo of Donny in front of Botticelli's Birth of Venus but I couldn't quite get the angle right. He was all wound up so I let him crawl around the polished stone floor--I'm sure Pitt mops that space way more than we ever mop our kitchen.
We also went outside to look at the fountain and the pots of pansies.

By the time we got back on the bus the boy was fussy. He couldn't get comfortable so I finally sat him on my lap facing forward and just held him down. Within about a minute he was snoring.

We didn't go to Carnival but it was still a nice day.

The Hot Dog of Dorian Grey

I’ve been able to get in some babyless socializing and its been very nice. It’s also been sort of a wake up call. Today, Sheryl and I decided to be naughty schoolgirls and get lunch at the hot dog cart here on campus. My naughty schoolgirl sojurn ended when the hotdog lady asked me if Sheryl was my daughter.

I’m 41. Sheryl’s 40.

I am so getting a haircut this weekend.

Deep Ocean, Vast Sea

I've been surprisingly good about not using my credit card. Not as good as I should be, perhaps, but pretty darn good.

I dusted that mofo off tonight and bought 2 tickets to the Peter Murphy show in Cleveland.

This is how I operate: "Peter Murphy show in June? Why, that gives me plenty of time to lose weight! That can be my goal! Yes, yes--the carrot on the end of the stick! Why, I think I'll go brush and floss and wash my face right now! I feel better already!" Phone rings. Husband asks if I want a Baconator before the Wendy's drivethru closes. I go with a Spicy Chicken sandwich instead.

I bet you think its all fun and glamour and hahaha all the time, being a Gemini. No, no--we have our burdens, alas.

Speaking of food, I managed to make the boy what amounted to a honest to god souffle tonight. It was so freakish I actually ran upstairs to get the camera to take a photo of it. In the 30 seconds that took, Donny started CRYING. I mean can't catch your breath tears streaming down your face crying. I had to console him, obviously, but that meant when I finally took the photos the souffle had fallen. The kid continued to cry thru eating his souffle (which he seemed to like, tho it was hard to tell) and also while I tried to give him a bottle. The mystery was solved when he fell dead asleep on my chest while we were on the couch in the front room: "Oh. He's exhausted. That's what was going on." I actually ended up putting him into his crib in full daywear regalia: overalls, stripey shirt, shoes and all. I figured rightly that he would wake up a couple hours later and then it would be pajama time. Considering everything, he went down pretty easy tonight. It was just me and him as Dad went to the New Pornographers show. Last night he went to see John Vanderslice. All this of course means that Mike will be babysitting while me and Peter Murphy spend a romantic postshow evening splitting a bottle of Boones Farm somewhere dark and picturesque in Lakeview Cemetery.

Bad food is seems to be the theme of the night, doesn't it? Maybe I'm homesick.