From the darkest depths of a neverending Project using tools that were most emphatically not my choice

Microsoft Word, you go to hell.

You go to hell and YOU DIE.

I love lamp

Oh Internets, I love you and your horses and bayonets sofa king much!

EHRMAGERD! WERMERN!

All previous declarations of things having won the Internet are now rendered null and void.

Winner and Champion Forevermore:

Binders Full of Women

And a new silver medalist, strangely apropos:

Jenna Maroney's summer dance jam, "Balls"

A party *I'll* be attending, a party *she'll* be attending ...

So I am about to go to my 20-year high school reunion, and Mr. Gleemonex -- bless his heart -- is taking one for the team, coming with me to stand around nodding politely as me and all the churchy teabagging Republicans I used to go to school with talk about Olden Tymes.

Well -- they didn't used to be teabagging Republicans, that I'm aware of, although ever' last one of us was pretty churchy (irony: I was among the churchiest, and now I've been apostate since August of 1992! yay education!).

In excellent news, my good pal Lab Partner and her husband will be there THANK ALL THE GREAT AND SMALL SHATNERS -- she, too, married someone from the Outside, so our fellas will at least have each other to hang with during this undoubtedly boring-as-fuck exercise. Lab Partner, btw, has this laugh -- this always-vibrating-just-under-the-surface hilarity -- that sets me off into hysterics very very easily; she and I get along like a house afire, and I am very much looking forward to seeing her for that and all the usual friendy reasons. It looks like Berwie is gonna punk out on us (dammit! but srsly, Berwie, I understand your reasons and I hope we get together sometime before the 25th reunion yo), so I will miss seeing her and her fam. I might get to see Lita Fajita, she of the mutual obsessions (we were into: Andre Agassi, Twin Peaks, baseball, etc., to a rather unhealthily intense degree), but if she does decide to show up, we're going to have to avoid politics, because she seems to have gone as far right as I've gone left. Boooo!

According to what I can glean on the Facebooks, the other attendees from the Class of 92 appear to include: 

--At least two grandparents
--At least one person as lefty as I am (with whom I bonded on FB, after 20 years out of contact, re: love of Maddow)
--Several people whose teenage children pursue hobbies requiring the use of firearms to kill wildlife
--At least four people on their third marriage
--At least three other people besides me who have infants under the age of one
--A clutch of teachers and at least one genuine high school principal
--At least five people out of the 101 in our class whom I have nofa king clue who in hell they are

More thoughts on this as the day and hour approacheth, I am sure.

LYLAS,
--Gleemonex

"I ask Jobu to come. I give him cigars, rum. He will come."

Hats. For bats. Keep bats warm. Thank you.

Ichiro, who has lately become my favorite guy in the history of ever. 

--Courtesy of Mr. Gleemonex

But Mommy isn't one of those, I've known her all these years

In Which the Blogger Tries to Work Out Some Issues, Hoping Not to Sound Like a Total Asshole and Probably Failing, Per the Usual

So I have talked in here already about the suburban moms who populate our little slice of the Silicon Valley, and how they kind of creep me out. It's not the Dallas-Royce-type moms who creep me out -- that, I can sort of understand (what with my issues about mani-pedis and such), and I'm still just as intimidated by them as I was by the really put-together girls in my own high school back in the day (the neurosis that keeps on giving!). No -- it's the Mom moms -- the bitchfaced judgmental Fox "News" demographic, the ones I have trouble believing were ever kids, or teenagers, or young single adults, the ones who look like they were born wearing slacks and blouses and talking about how little Reagan and Cheynee are enjoying the fourth grade at Saint Ballsacktious's Academy for Middle-Intellect White Childrens.

I find myself in these ladies' company quite often these days; as my kid takes up activities like dance class and this crazy-fun tumbling thing at the community center, and of course pickup time at preschool, I am, naturally, where the other moms are. And y'all -- I'm not one of them.

I mean -- yes I am. I have to confront and own the fact that I am a suburban mom -- a female parent whose domicile is in a suburb. I'm not purposely trying to Other these women, or -- wait -- it's been awhile since I was in kollege -- maybe it's myself I'm trying to Other?

Anyway. Point: I show up to the dance studio in shorts and a tank* top, same hair I've had for more than 20 years (long, straight, unbothered by any product except really good shampoo & conditioner and some Pureology smoothing serum), with my kid and my baby, and park it on one of the benches with the other gals while our various offspring do their dance classes. I'm flipping through Sullivan and my political tumblrs (Recall All Republicans, STFU Conservatives, Advocating Progress, etc.), playing peek-a-boo with the tiny guy and/or letting him teethe on my free hand, and there's a knot of them over in one corner, wearing actual shoes, and makeup, and shirts that require ironing (even though it's 93 fucking degrees out, thus my shorts and tank and ponytail, it's not a fucking political statement, ladies) talking amongst themselves, and I swear to you that in response to my cordial howdy smiles, they are constantly giving me the side-eye, like Who is this girl and why is she allowed to be here? This scene is for grown-ups, Missy! And it kind of gives me the blerghs.

What I'm saying is, I am a grown-up, goddammit, I just don't look like the local/default image of one. It's not a hipster thing, I'm not trying to hold on to my long-ago youth. I'm seriously, sincerely, not doing it on purpose, this Grownup Look Fail. It's just what I fucking look like. I haven't worn makeup on the reg since August of 1992 -- because I'm lazy and cheap and besides it's really fun to clean up good on the extremely rare occasions when I do paint my face with stuffs. I wear what I wear because it's comfortable -- it would be cool to be stylish and shit, and wear Outfits, but I'd need a person on staff to lay out my clothes every day and an independent income stream to pay for it all or else I'd revert to wearing the same navy BR cargo shorts and Gap Ts again (laaaaazy, cheeeeap).

I don't know. I'm overthinking it (again) -- and now the word "mom" looks weird to me. Mom. Mom. Mom om omom momooo. Heh. Mom.


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*BTW, these really are perfect tanks -- they cover bra straps, skim the cleavage, and hold up through endless wearings -- I LOVE them for everyday. I wear two different-colored ones at once, for a little better coverage and some visual interest. How's a J.Jill shout-out for increasing my hipster/riot-grrrl cred, y'all!