Little fish, little fish

The Kid goes swimming every day at school, but by the time I get her home, I have just enough time to stuff some dinner in her, hose her down, and put her to bed.

Tonight I decided we would go swimming.

We were going to go to the beach, but the sky was pretty gray by the time we got there, so I called my mom on my cell and told her we were on our way over.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you love us and would like to see us", I calmly responded. "And we're going in the pool".

"Oh, I just meant, ... I was just wondering if you would want dinner... I just..."

Yeah.

It was raining lightly when we got there, and the sun was going down over the Intracoastal. The Kid, a ball of wiggling energy in her tankini, was so excited to be in the water. I remember never wanting to get out of the pool as a kid. I joined the swim team when I was seven, and I remember doing fund raising marathons, where we collected money per lap. My mother used to follow me down the side of the pool with a towel, yelling "You've been in there for two hours!", and I would just keep swimming, joyful with the knowledge that she was pissed off and I was enjoying myself, and there was no way she was jumping in and pulling me out.

The Kid loves to put her head under water. She loved it when I put my head under water. She would say, "Under water! One - two- (deep breath) - THREE!" and she dives under the water, blowing bubbles and laughing and pulling me with her. I got bored just flailing around in the short end, and I told her to hold on, and I swam to the deep end.

"Go under with me!" she screamed, holding on to my hair. I'd give her a second to take a breath, and then slide under the water with her clinging to my neck. A few feet away, my geriatric parents had repeated heart attacks.

She is absolutely fearless.

She is everything I could ever want.

:)

This week's movie reviews

Hello.

Welcome to "Slit Your Wrists July".

This week, I watched "Kolya", a movie about a little Russian boy whose mother leaves him with a senior citizen Czech cellist that she just married for Czech papers, so she can run off to her boyfriend in Germany. "Water", a beautiful film about a girl in India who is married and widowed at the age of 7 and forced to live in an ashram for widows for the rest of her life, never to marry, go to school, or have a life again. "Lilja 4-Ever", about a young girl in Estonia whose mother abandons her and she chooses to leave a life of horrifically depressing abject poverty where she's forced to sell herself to survive, for a possible future in Sweden. And "Efter Bryllupet", starring my boyfriend, Mads Mikkelsen, a Dane in India trying to save orphans whose puppet strings are pulled by a crazy Swede.

Here's what I've learned:

• The world is a horrible, insanely depressing place. If you ever think your life is bad, rent any one of these movies. I'm not saying you'll feel better afterwards. You'll probably go to bed with a cheap bottle of gin and a stale pack of generic cigarettes and lose all hope. My point still is, the world is a horrible, insanely depressing place.

• I'm not so sure what my Netflix profile says about me, and I'm very tempted to shut down my current account and start an entirely new one. Where I give DVD's like "Ron White - They Call Me Tater Salad" and "The Gilmore Girls - Season Five" five stars. If I look at my Netflix account right now, under "Movies You'll Love!", the page is filled with foreign films where everyone dies at the end after a prolonged suffering. What the hell kind of drugs have I been on?

Thank you.

See you again at the end of "Shoot Yourself in the Face" August.

Jesus.

How did I get to be so lucky?

Today when I went to pick up the Kid from school, the new art teacher stopped me.

The new art teacher is blonde and adorable and looks like she should be playing tennis at a country club, apart from the tattoo of giant blue gorgeous wings on her right arm.

"Are you her mom?" she asked, brightly.

I nodded, and she beamed.

"She's my favorite" she gushed. "She's just so bright! And her personality... I just love her! When they told me I was coming back in the fall, she was the first one I thought of!".



:)

Proud mommy.

Child in Red

Sometimes she walks through the village in her little red dress all absorbed in restraining herself, and yet, despite herself, she seems to move according to the rhythm of her life to come. She runs a bit, hesitates, stops, half-turns around... and, all while dreaming, shakes her head for or against. Then she dances a few steps that she invents and forgets, no doubt finding out that life moves on too fast. It's not so much that she steps out of the small body enclosing her, but that all she carries in herself frolics and ferments. It's this dress that she'll remember later in a sweet surrender; when her whole life is full of risks, the little red dress will always seem right. Rainer Maria Rilke

he's just big boned, is all

Just a little shout-out to Mommy's Angel Boy, who somehow believes it is beneath him to pose with Mommy for a photo... that's ok, Big Boy.

Fat Fatty.

Meatiemeatie.

Mommy loves you, Meatball.

(Yeah, you too, Lily.)






Who's delicious. WHO'S DELICIOUS!?

mumble, mumble... (cough).... (looks at shoes)...

I just tried posting about someone I met recently, but I had to delete it.

I have the hardest time talking about him.

Does it mean something when you blab endlessly about everything else, but there's one subject you have a really difficult time talking about?

Sheesh.

Pregnant friends = sitting target

My life isn't all glamor and excitement.

Sometimes I need to pick on those less fortunate to keep things a little exciting.

A little edgy.

Last week, I was offered a travel blog on the website of the online travel company I work for (and immediately had to hit my travel blog with Windex and a paper towel, desperately trying to tidy up a bit before any of the big wigs took a peek). I called 80 of my closest girlfriends to get opinions, edits, and suggestions.

Somehow, pregnant Mandy let it slip that she had been watching "She's Having a Baby" and crying her eyes out. What a ball of hormones she is. But still, that scene where they wheeled Elizabeth McGovern into the OR, and Kate Bush starts singing, and you just see that drop of blood hit the floor is enough to make anyone cry. And so Mandy and I are talking about this, and her husband is standing behind her and laughing and sniveling his favorite quotes from Sleepless in Seattle in a girly voice:

"Sam Baldwin: Although I cried at the end of "the Dirty Dozen."
Greg: Who didn't?
Sam Baldwin: Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin
[Begins to cry]
Sam Baldwin: were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis...
Greg: [Crying too] Stop, stop!
Sam Baldwin: And Trini Lopez...
Greg: Yes, Trini Lopez!
Sam Baldwin: He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines...
Greg: Stop.
Sam Baldwin: And Richard Jaeckel - at the beginning he had on this shiny helmet...
Greg: [Crying harder] Please no more. Oh God! I loved that movie. "

And I was like, "wow, Mandy, your husband is really mean. Hang on a second, listen to this":


Oh-hooo!

And Mandy's totally crying because it's the song from the blood drop scene.

Wow, that was totally easy.

(Mary leaves the house to search for a three-legged dog).

Love thy neighbor's lumps

It occurred to me today that on the rare occasions I run into my next-door neighbor, he smiles at me with a mixture of "don't come any closer" and "pity".

I wonder if he knew that when he moved in here, he would spend a large amount of time listening to me sing about my lovely lady lumps through a ridiculously thin wall.

HOME!

Looooooong week in Chicago.

The schedule was stressful, and I got sick, quickly.

However, there were two positive takeaways (and I can comfortably say "takeaways" after a week of listening to marketingspeak).

1. I'm going to be doing some writing as a part of my job.

I can't elaborate, as it was all just plans hashed out at a late meeting, but I could have kissed my boss. Which would have made the meeting awkward. But still.

2. I love gay boys.

After a crappy, crappy week, I spent Friday night in Boystown getting shitfaced. There were three of us - me, my favorite team member, and my new best friend from Acapulco (pictured at left). We decided to have a contest to see who could pick up the hottest guy. We sat on bar stools, and I yelled "WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE!", pulled my lipstick out of my purse, and started to apply. Because if anything's going to attract a gay man in a gay bar, it's a girl. In lipstick.

Needless to say, I lost. But I did win the "who can drink the most cosmos" contest. Because halfway through, I changed the contest to "who can drink the most cosmos and have a vagina" contest.

YAAAY!

But holy cow, I had a rockin' hangover this morning.



The good thing about gay bars is that you can (well, I can) at least count on waking up ALONE and hungover...

I bought the new Harry Potter at O'Hare airport. Harry and I are going to go curl up in my bed.

So good to be home!

today's surprise

:)

And just when I start to settle in....

It's back to Chicago for a week.

The agenda was sent out yesterday, and leaves very little time to get to know the city. Or breathe, for that matter.

It'll be cool to get together with the team and get out of south Florida for a few days, but I'm going to miss my kid, and I still feel like I need more time to get into a better routine. My days have been haphazard. I get up early, go through email, get the Kid up, take her to school, come back, start laundry, start a project, think about getting to the gym, put out a few fires, start a new task list, scribble... scribble...

I try to balance out my day by getting up from the computer and going for walks, but because I'm not settled in yet, the structure of my day is shaky at best. Which is why it's midnight on a Friday and I'm about to get into the network again and clean up the remains of the day.

I think I need a better office chair.

I've been using one of the back machines at the gym, but it focuses on lower back, and my upper back is killing me after a few hours in front of the computer. It helps to be able to get up and roll around the living room on a pilates ball, but I'd really prefer to be doing that out of lack of anything better to do, as opposed to back pain.

Ok, network. Cleaning up task list.

Ignoring yawning.

Note to self: start writing down notes to self, instead of just saying "note to self" in my head.

Note to self: Buy coffee. So very, very tired. Keep forgetting to buy coffee...

Ellipticalicious

Until today, the elliptical machine at the gym and I have not been friends. We haven't even been acquaintances. The elliptical was something I just glared at from afar.

Last week, I believe my highest record on the elliptical was a full 6 minutes.

A friend mentioned she had gotten up to a decent rate after working with a personal trainer...

And thus, war was waged.

Because of the new job, I haven't been sleeping much lately. Since I work from home, there's always something to work on, and I love just being ahead for the upcoming day. I've been going to bed at 2-3am and waking up at 6am. Friday, after sleeping 4 hours, I dragged myself to the gym, and did a full 3 minutes and 23 seconds of elliptication before pulling myself off and crawling home to cry. I think it was ... Monday? that I missed a night of sleep completely and was up for a full 48 hours before slithering into bed.. yesterday. I think. And after 10 hours of beautiful, uninterrupted rest, I skipped into the gym today and did ONE HOUR. The elliptical and I were one.

A friend has been helping me develop a training program, and so I've been hitting the gym, for at least an hour, six days a week. It's been very motivational.

Llllaaahhhhllllhhhhhhhh.....

Come on. I know you want to lick that arm.



Wait, here's the other one...









OK, I'm done. :)


I love working from home and getting to the gym every day. It's the existence I always wanted, and never thought possible. I can get up from the desk and go for a walk, or shop, or get a haircut, and come back and work again, or take my laptop downtown and get some sun and use the city wireless.

Happy, happy, happy....

And just for good measure....

Yeah. You just try pulling the Crazy card with me.... and PREPARE TO BE OUT-CRAZIED!!!

Mwah-ha-ha-ha.....

So many crazy men, so little time

I decided to get back in the internet dating scene. Mostly because my "office" is my "living room", and the only other place I get to mingle is "my daughter's daycare" with "my friends' husbands".

Yeah. No.

Some guys are great, and I'm making some really fantastic friends, and travel plans. (Why is it, when you work in the Caribbean, everyone wants to come and visit?!) :)

And then, there are some guys who are JUST PLAIN KOO-KOO.

This morning I had an email, and the subject just said "Oh my god". Oookay...

The guy's profile was in German, and I wrote something back like hey, I don't speak German, but lots of luck out there...

And then the koo-koo bell starts to go off. Although, with all due respect, I am like the taste of dark honey.

(Shit, I almost fell out of the chair, there.)

It's like, 2 o'clock in the morning, and my mailbox is slowly filling up with stuff from this guy. I'm sleeping, and he's still typing away...

His note says "Hey, need to sleep :(" like we've been having a conversation or something.

You remind me of something inside myself. Hi, sweetie, it's me. Your pancreas.

Just sit down and listen to the wind teling you the secrets.

The wind is telling me that you're a card-carrying NUTJOB, buddy.

"Be aware - sharks can see the blood???"

And now we're done.

Thanks, Hannah, for the content! I was going to write back and ask him for money to come and visit, but this fantastic letter from Barrister Zibby Zatak seemed to do the trick.

Oddly, I haven't heard from him.

I miss him so. We could have been beautiful together.

And cra-a-a-a-aaazy.....

Nothing to do now but work, dammit.

The Kid and I have been rained in for most of the weekend, and I managed to finish setting up my home office. I filled the house with fresh flowers, and have been getting a lot of reading done after a big trip to the bookstore, when our park plans were washed out.

Our local bookstore is having a costume party in July to celebrate the release of the next Harry Potter book.

Could you imagine being the only costumed adult to show up at that thing?

I may just have to go down and film it.